University of Rhode Island alumni and sisters, Abby Rodman ‘84 and Julie Howard ‘86 host the podcast “Sisters Cracking Up,” where they discuss midlife and interview authors and other experts on the topic.
Why did you decide to start the podcast?
Rodman: It started right at the beginning of COVID in 2020 and we were both kind of at a crossroads. I’m a psychotherapist and Julie recently left her long term career as a beauty industry executive. I was trying to figure out how to be a psychotherapist without going to an office anymore, which thankfully I have since figured out, and Julie was figuring out what her next steps were. We always wanted to do something together, so we were like everyone else seems to be doing a podcast. I guess we should do one too.
Howard: Also, with Abby being a psychotherapist and at the time I was training to become a coach, we thought that was a meaningful combination of skills. We were also women of a certain age and we thought there’s really nothing out there speaking to us, so we figured that could be the target audience.
Rodman: Then we started reaching out to really incredible people, like authors and speakers and even celebrities of sorts and people started saying yes, they would come on our show and be interviewed. This was crazy because we had no followers, no audience or nothing at the time. It was pretty unusual, but we really lucked out. They were really generous for coming on our show.
How has this podcast impacted your lives?
Rodman: Julie and I have always been close, but we had never really worked together. We’ve gotten to know each other on an even more intense and deeper level that we ever could have.
Howard: I would say the same. We met each other in a new dimension. We had very different lives. I worked in a corporate environment for almost thirty years and Abby had been an independent practitioner for more than a decade. So working together was a really interesting challenge.
Rodman: We’ve also gotten to talk to some really extraordinary people that we would have never crossed paths with, right Julie?
Howard: And often they’ve written a book, so we had to read the book. So now we’re smart.
Do you have a favorite guest that you’ve interviewed?
Howard: I really liked the author of Group, Christie Tate. She wrote an incredible book all about her group therapy, and it was a bestseller for many, many weeks on the “New York Times” bestsellers list. She was just so sincere and Group was so interesting. I just had a natural affinity for her, and it was a very popular episode.
Rodman: You know, we always get off the episode and say, oh we could be friends with that person. And almost universally people will say to us that they’ll come back on if we ever want to talk more. Somehow the universe has lined up in a way and we have found the right people and the right people have found us. Julie and I also loved Steven Petrow. He’s a very well known and successful writer, and we just immediately felt an affinity for him.
So many of them have been like a dream because in psychotherapy, I’m always recommending books and over the years some of these people have come to life for me by coming on the podcast. It’s just been an extraordinary experience.
Howard: We also interviewed Gary Tinetti. He is one of the original writers and producer of Family Guy, among other incredible television successes, and he also has a really popular instagram page. He is just so witty and funny. We couldn’t believe he came on our show.
What do you hope listeners will take away from this podcast?
Howard: We’ve actually talked about this a lot. We want them to feel welcome and learn something, but we also want them to feel like they’re part of something and that they’re hanging out with their sisters. We want it to be a judgment free, be yourself, connect with someone, frame your mind when they’re listening. We hope that’s the feeling they walk away with.
Rodman: Also that we can laugh and cry within the span of an hour, and we can always find the humor in things and we laugh a lot together. I think what I like most about this podcast is that we can joke around and poke fun at each other and then talk about some really serious subject matter. It’s a nice combination of those two things.
Do you have any advice for college students?
Howard: I work with college students in my coaching, so I give advice all day long. I would say the two pieces of advice that I give most often to my clients that are in college or are just graduating college would be to climb that mountain that most excites you because you can start climbing that other mountain and it’s much harder to come down and cross the valley so you can start climbing the mountain you always wanted to. Start where you really truly want to start. The other piece of advice is about when you’re meeting people and you’re trying to get a job. I think a lot of our lives through school is all about ourselves. “What do I want to do? What am I going to get out of this course or this university or this experience?” And nobody tells you that when you go out into the world you have to flip that conversation around. “What can I do for you? How can I make this business better? What do I bring to the table?” I think that just understanding that there’s a fundamental shift when you leave school in terms of how you interact with the world.
Rodman: Don’t buy what society has sold you that you need to be happy. Don’t do it, because you’re going to waste a lot of time chasing someone else’s dream or someone else’s version of what they think a happy life looks like. When I see the way younger women are approaching life it is so heartening because it’s this generation that’s going to change the lives of women, I think forever. People in our age group have done a lot of work, and hopefully it’s given your generation a foothold to an even better version of womanhood and adulthood. So don’t buy everything that has been sold to you. Achieve what you want. Love will come. If you want children, hopefully they will come. But in the meantime, focus on yourself. Love yourself. And that’s how you’re really going to find happiness.