Moms Without Capes
Your days are a blur of cleaning, chauffeuring, cooking, and managing every detail of family life. You’re juggling everyone’s needs, yet you feel invisible, unappreciated, and completely drained. Somewhere along the way, you’ve disappeared.
Welcome to the Moms Without Capes Podcast. This isn’t just another podcast telling you to “take care of yourself” without showing you how. Here, we dig into the real struggles moms face—emotional exhaustion, invisible labor, and constant guilt—and offer practical, sustainable solutions to help you reclaim your identity and find balance.
We're not about adding more to your plate or achieving an impossible ideal. The time has come to rediscover the you who’s been buried under the weight of motherhood and learn how to prioritize yourself without guilt.
If you’re ready to stop running on empty, feel seen and appreciated, and finally reclaim the life you deserve, this podcast is for you. Listen now to the Moms Without Capes Podcast and let’s take this journey together.
Moms Without Capes
257 | How Moms Can Reclaim Confidence Through Style with Lana Ashby Rowder
If getting dressed has ever felt overwhelming or if your closet feels like a reminder of all the versions of you you've been through, you're definitely not the only mother who feels this. Today, personal stylist, entrepreneur, and mom Lana Ashby Rowder joins me to talk about how style can be a simple, powerful way for moms to reconnect with themselves.
We dive into why clothing feels so emotional after motherhood, how decision fatigue shows up in our closets, and the surprisingly big impact our outfits have on confidence, motivation, and daily mood.
To schedule a 15 minute consultation to see if therapy could help with your journey, go to www.momswithoutcapes.com/start (This is for moms who live in Montana ONLY)
Join my Facebook community, Moms Without Capes to connect with other women reclaiming their sense of identity within motherhood. www.facebook.com/groups/momswithoutcapes
Get your hands on any of the resources mentioned in this episode by visiting www.momswithoutcapes.com/toolbox
Visit my website www.momswithoutcapes.com to learn more!
Thank you so much for tuning in and listening today. I'd love to hear what you thought of this episode and what ideas you may have for future episodes of the Moms Without Capes podcast! Email me at onnie@momswithoutcapes.com
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Or buy me a chai latte at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/onnieM
DISCLAIMER: Just because I’m a therapist, I’m not your therapist nor am I doing therapy in this podcast episode. Just saying. So enjoy Moms Without Capes for what it is- educational, entertaining, and a way to get my message out into the world!
257 Lana
[00:00:00] Hey there, moms. Welcome back to The Moms Without Capes podcast, where we talk all about rediscovering who you are beyond motherhood. If you've ever stood in front of your closet, feeling frustrated, uninspired, or just plain tired of everything you own. You're definitely not alone. Our guest today totally gets it as a personal stylist, entrepreneur, and mom.
Lana knows firsthand how our relationship with clothing can change. Once we become mothers, our body shift, our priorities shift, and sometimes our confidence takes a hit right along with it. In today's conversation, Lana Ashby router shares how style can actually be a form of self care, not about trends or spending money, but about feeling like yourself.
Again, we'll dive into why so many moms feel [00:01:00] lost in their closets. Simple ways to make getting dressed stress-free and how what we wear can affect everything from our mood to our relationships. So if you're ready to reconnect with your sense of self and feel confident in your skin and your clothes, grab your coffee or maybe that pile of laundry and let's jump in.
I.
onnie: Welcome to the show, Lena.
lana: Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.
onnie: Yeah, yeah. We're excited to have you here. So, as I mentioned right before I hit record, it's been a while since I did an interview, so I'm a little rusty, but we're gonna do this anyway. Yes. So let's start by just sharing with the listeners.
Who you are, what's your story and what brought you to where you are today?
lana: Yeah, absolutely. My name is Lana. I am a nurse, personal stylist, and mom and I grew up in Nebraska. I moved to Austin, straight outta [00:02:00] college by myself and my Ford Taurus. I was a nurse, so I got a job at a hospital here.
Never thought I would stay here, but met my husband and now his company's here. My company's here. We have two daughters and, I'm just really a champion for people, uh, but especially,
onnie: Yeah. How long have you been doing what you're doing?
lana: So, I started the idea for looking Glass about five years ago, and it kind of came out of a problem that I myself had.
So I don't know if you can relate, but, um. A lot of my clients can. Now it's, it's that feeling when, you put your life on pause a little bit. You have a child and then you're in postpartum clothes, and then you're like wearing these in-between baggy things and you get pregnant with another kid, so you have some more maternity stuff.
And then for me, it was like one day I just woke up and I went into my closet and I was so overwhelmed. I'm like, I have clothes from the past decade in here. I don't know what fits. I don't know what's in style. I don't even know who I am anymore because I'm not wearing scrubs every day to the hospital.
I'm now, going to parent teacher conferences and, book clubs and things like that. And so I just really kind of [00:03:00] had an identity crisis in my closet and I was so overwhelmed that it, led me to not go to this event altogether. I was like, forget it. I'm just gonna stay home. I'm not gonna go, I, I, because, it was the overwhelm of picking out the clothes.
And as I've dug deeper into this issue and helped others through it, it, there's also so much, insecurity and vulnerability in our clauses. When you're trying to get dressed for maybe a first date or a job interview it seems like all of the insecurities come out through the clothes, there's just a lot of emotion, when we pick things out. For going to specific events.
onnie: Yes. So that is very relatable. And I am just thinking of like, all the way from third grade when I wouldn't go to my uncle's funeral because I didn't wanna wear a dress.
And then I can think of specific times. Throughout the past few years, like especially since becoming a mom mm-hmm. Where those insecurities have showed up where I'm like, I'm not even gonna go to the event because I just don't feel comfortable.
Yeah. In any of the clothes.
lana: Yeah.
onnie: So tell us a little bit about Looking Glass and what that is.
lana: Yeah. So, we are building, we've got a couple [00:04:00] features live now, but our end goal in what we're building is we're a crystal styling platform where we use computer vision, ai, and lifestyles to tell you what to wear every day.
So you scan your closet, we use ai, and we integrate with your calendar so we can say, Hey, it looks like you're in Austin, it's 75 today and you're going on a podcast, wear this. But our magical piece is that we do have that combination. Or the option rather to check a box and say, I wanna talk to a life stylist.
And me or my team, we're on the back end within five minutes and we can text you and say, that looks great, but why don't you swap the shoes? What other belts do you have? Did you think about the weather? Looks like it's raining today. Do you have a trench coat for this, job interview? But really just like a best friend in your back pocket.
You know, I think, a lot of us already do this. The first thing that most people think of, if someone says, Hey, do you wanna go to a concert tomorrow night? Our first thought is, what am I gonna wear? And so a lot of us do have these group chats or what, whatever, where we can go to and say, okay, what's everybody wearing tomorrow?
Where they can get that reassurance. But if you don't have that, or if you're trying to get in [00:05:00] with a new group, or you're going to a new mom event, or you're going to a conference where you may not have a group chat to jump into. We're just that safe space where you can go and get, friendly, personalized, professional advice.
onnie: That's so, that's so great. I think of like, I'm always scrolling the pictures of like, past events of whatever I'm going through. Yeah. Like scanning or scrolling and like zooming in and being like, what kind of outfits are people wearing
lana: Yeah. And especially when you're going somewhere.
You know, you're gonna be coming to Austin soon. Like it's a totally different vibe than, you know, Napa or Aspen or, the Northeast. So yeah, it can be very overwhelming, but yeah, going back to past events and pictures is, is definitely helpful.
onnie: Yeah. So is your, is most of your clientele moms or women or what, what is like the age of the women?
Yeah. are most likely to use the program?
lana: Yeah, so moms are our bread and butter. I love moms and I, again, I started this because I had this problem and I'm thought there's gotta be a better way. Like I just, you know, I just ordered like meaningless scotch tape. [00:06:00] Pam cooking spray on Amazon, it was delivered in 30, 30 minutes.
Why is there not somebody that can help me get dressed like this? This has gotta be an easier way. So I, yes, it's br out of the love for moms. And we, we target moms, but the cool thing that we're finding is that, we're also really seamlessly kind of going into that, that, next phase was the empty nesters.
So maybe their kids are getting married and then now they're going to wedding showers or, we dressed a client recently where her daughter, was rushing at a sorority and she was going to a different state for parents weekend, and she needed all of these. So, really both men and women, I would say mostly right now, mostly moms.
But we are excited about all the men that are hopping on the platform too.
onnie: D so I'm curious, like, yeah. when somebody becomes a client mm-hmm. Do they need to take a picture of each item in their closet? Yeah. to be able to, to shop or like, not to shop, but to like select what would best work for whatever event it is.
lana: Yeah. So right now it does kind of work that way. What we have live now is the membership where you can connect to a live stylist, multiple times a month depending on your tiered [00:07:00] level of membership. There are options in there on your profile to upload. So you can take videos of your clothes, we have clients that will just, upload their shoe sections so you're not taking a picture of each shoe, just your shoe section.
But we can see that on the back end. What we're building, and, what we've proven with all of our testers on the platform is that. The biggest hurdle and the biggest kind of overwhelm is getting all of those clothes into this digital wardrobe.
onnie: That's what I'm thinking. Yeah. That is what I'm thinking.
It seems very daunting, especially if you've got a lot of clothes. Yes.
lana: And so we've brought on, I brought on a technical, two technical guys recently. One was at Meta and the other one, is a AI data scientist. And we've started building the closet scanning software, so almost like Clueless closet, where you can scan your closet.
It just instantly populates. It's categorized. You can see it. I can see it. And then we can do so many cool things once we have that data uploaded.
onnie: Yeah. Oh, that's really cool technology. Yeah. That's
lana: pretty
Yeah, and it's funny too, like we're testing a lot of different client, closets and it's, some peoples have meticulous closets and everything is [00:08:00] organized, and then some are just big piles.
And so, you know, it will take us a little while to fine tune it, but, and. About two, three weeks from now, we will have our first real AI phase where, it'll be like, scan a picture of your shoes. Now show us three dresses you would wear to a wedding, and we'll just kind of slowly prompt you through it so it doesn't have to be as daunting as like, okay, take a front and back of every single.
Top in your closet. I mean, that's, nobody has time for that.
onnie: Right, Especially moms. Especially moms.
lana: Especially moms.
onnie: So let's talk a little bit about those insecurities. And like, what are you finding, prevents moms from like, being able to find their clothes, like find the right outfits, and what are some of those insecurities that you've been finding?
lana: Yeah. I think. I mean, even before the, the insecurities kind of seemed to come out, the, the common theme that I notice is just overwhelm with moms, right? We make so many decisions for our kids, and we make sure they have money in their school lunch accounts, and we make sure they get on the bus on time, and we make sure everybody has everything and then.
They're dressed for, Halloween, right? So they [00:09:00] wore their costume to school today and they got this special thing for their teacher. And we we're just making so many decisions that by the time it even becomes eight o'clock or 8:30 AM and it's time for us to get dressed, we're already like, have decision fatuige.
So that I think the, the amount of decisions that mom makes paired with the amount of choices that are out there. So if you are, you know, shopping for like a blue dress for a wedding this weekend and you go on Amazon or you go to Nordstrom, there are thousands of blue dresses. And you scroll and we scroll and it's like, I don't, I mean there it's so overwhelming.
So I, I think those two things before we even get to our own bodies, like the, the decision fatigue we make as moms and the overwhelm of choices and noise and the influencers telling us we should buy this and then you should buy this and then you should buy this. And all the ads we get, you know, in our emails showing us sales and the newest things.
It's just, you're already kind of like, you know. Overwhelmed. I
onnie: just, I just came from my home and my husband had got in the mail and threw it on our counter. And I was like, Amazon [00:10:00] has a catalog now. I had never seen that. like, what? And there was like a hundred items on every single page.
Yeah. I'm like, what the heck? Like it's bad enough, just like scrolling, but now it's just coming to your inbox, your
lana: email. It's, it's everywhere. Everywhere. And you asked about insecurities. I would say the biggest thing that we're seeing is that women, moms especially, like, we wanna feel polished and put together, but most of us kind of struggle with how to do that.
Like, how do I look polished and put together without trying to look, like I'm an old lady wearing, tweed and pearls and I don't wanna look like my mother-in-law, I don't wanna look like I'm trying to, dress like I'm in college still and what is that in between, and how do I look current and elevated without going on to one extreme or the other.
onnie: I agree with that. I can totally resonate with that.
lana: Yeah. And then with, with bodies, I mean, we all have our own, you know, a lot of women will talk about stretch marks or, we're seeing a lot of women, and men actually, lose weight with, you know. Ozempic these days. And so now they're at a place where, they're ready to kind of get back out there and get dressed and feel more like themselves.
And [00:11:00] so, they'll share some insecurities. We've dressed women before that have been on the platform saying, Hey, I have a job in review. And, I'm, you know. Nine, 10 weeks pregnant with my third or fourth. And so I, I am showing a little bit, but I don't want them to know I'm pregnant and can you help me kind of, you know, Bodies are just so personal and I think, I know this with my own experiences, um, as a mom and woman, but being a hospital nurse and taking care of people in those vulnerable moments and seeing all of the bodies and all of the kinds of, conditions that they can be in, like it's a very vulnerable, probably our most vulnerable asset.
And they're personal. So I think. Having a human on the other end that can say, we got you. I understand that you have one boob bigger than the other. I understand that you, maybe you're still trying to lose the postpartum weight and that's really hard. But you know what? You don't have to wait to feel good about yourself.
We're gonna help you get dressed now. We're not gonna worry about 10 pounds on the road. 'cause you deserve to look good now and you deserve to feel good now.
onnie: Yeah, yeah. And one of the things that I had struggled with is like. Finding the style, which came with mm-hmm. The whole loss of identity thing.
onnie (2): [00:12:00] Yeah.
onnie: Like once I became a mom and like there was years where I, we have six kids, so I was like pregnant. A lot of it, A lot of, My adult life. And so when it comes to actually having a style, I did some style quizzes. Stitch Fix for a while. 'cause I was like, all right, I just need a stylist.
I need somebody to
lana: like,
onnie: Dress me, basically tell me, yeah, tell me
lana: what to wear.
onnie: Trying to buy. Like, am I like bohemian chic or am I, you know? Mm-hmm. As a teenager, I was like, grunge, right? Like all of these different styles and like trying to figure out who am I now and what kind of style do I like?
That's age appropriate where I'm not like. You know, just like you mentioned, like I don't wanna wear like the pearls and, and the wool skirt. Yeah. But I also am not like a teenager, so trying to find out what, what styles I like and I love like going like Pinterest and looking through like what kind of style, like mood boards and that kind of thing, just to figure out what it is that I like.
Like right now I'm jeans and a t-shirt kind of person.
lana: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. And we do, like on our accounts and our social media, we try to do a lot of like [00:13:00] educational things like, Hey, if you find that you like this, you might also like that. Or if you've tried this dress and you don't, you know, you're tugging out all day, it might be because it's not the right shape for you or something like that.
But, I would say style quizzes and just start to pay attention. If there's one shirt that you constantly gravitate towards or you have a tried and true dress, the next time you put that on, go in the mirror and think like, okay, what is it about the dress? Is it the color that just makes me feel brighter?
Is it the way like, you know, is the neckline? Does it hug in all the right places? And just really start to be mindful about what is it about that item that you really love so that you can replicate that. Again, with all the noise out there, what we're seeing is like women, will buy from influencers and they'll get the item in, let's say it's a dress that was being promoted, and then the client's like, man, I spent $300 on this dress, but it looked cute on her and I can't return it.
And now I have another thing in my closet that I don't really love, but I should love it and I don't, and why doesn't it look good on me? Right? And it's just more kind of emotion. And it was like, well, you know, [00:14:00] she is 24 and six foot and you're 40 and you're five three and you have a totally different body shape.
Not better or worse, but different. And so, you know, I think before even putting things in our closet is just starting to go through the, your current closet and identifying like, what do I love? What colors make me feel good? And that will just really kind of start you down, down the path of, finding your, your best style.
onnie: What are your thoughts on like a capsule, wardrobe and like Yeah. Care of like, you know, kind of that same thing, like they find what they like and then they just buy it and just Have a minimal amount of clothes.
lana: I love the capsule wardrobes. I think they take a lot of the overwhelm and stress and anytime you can mix and match, um, we have a, we actually have a, besides the membership, we do one time stylings where we create outfit boards and, we do a lot of this for moms, for family photos.
So they'll say, I, you know, here's my kids. And, and we went dressed for this, backyard, you know, set photo session. And so we have a family stylist that will dress everybody in the family. You get these. Downloadable PDFs and you just click and shop. We do something very similar, with [00:15:00] one of our stylists, Lauren.
Lauren was, early on at Kendra Scott. She was at Stitch Fix. She was at Neiman Marcus. Fabulous stylist on our team. She is a genius at capsule wardrobe. We have a service called customized capsule wardrobes with Lauren, she'll say, okay, invest in this a little bit more 'cause it will last and here's where you can save.
She is super mindful about taking into account what you do every day, what colors your body shape. From start to finish, she takes care of it. It's up to you to click in and shop the items. We don't control any of the clothes, which is kind of my favorite part.
I don't have to worry about inventory. I just get to lend my, expertise with the styling. We found women really love it.
onnie: Yeah.
lana: what's also cool with the capsule wardrobes is, you know, they're all over Pinterest too, and thinking about the holidays that are coming up, if you can do a couple pieces, like a leather skirt and a turtleneck and some boots, with what you probably already have in your wardrobe, you'll find that there's like probably 10 outfits in that, that you can wear to like.
Your book club holiday party and your kids' Christmas party and your daughter's band performance. And, but just really, [00:16:00] I, I guess starting to identify the clothes and styles you like so that when you bring in those new ones, they do mix and match what you already have.
onnie: Yeah. And that's what the program does, right?
Like we'll mix and match and be able to
lana: And we'll show you all the ways to wear it and ways to mix things up or things add like Yeah.
onnie: To Accenture to add accessories and all those.
lana: Yeah, absolutely.
onnie: Yeah. What is your go-to like style ritual? Or what is, what's a like quick outfit formula Yeah.
That you
lana: Um, I would say when I'm in a pinch and I like, say I came home from the day and I have like five seconds to get ready to turn around for the next thing, I tend to go monochrome. So that like, you know, in the winter would be maybe all blacks, like a black turtleneck, black leather pants and heels.
And I could do like a fun fur coat or a leather jacket on top that just is really sleek. In the summer I did a lot of all white outfits or white dresses with white shoes. That's just, it always just looks super elevated and kind of expensive actually. If it was something that was more, casual, like [00:17:00] say we were gonna run to, a brunch or a brewery or something like that for the day.
I love pairing, jean skirts. I have a lot of different ones, different colors, different links, but a jean skirt with a graphic tee maybe that says something fun. That's just always really easy. Um, what other outfit formulas? I, I do like, dresses and then adding one extra layer. So a dress with a, leather jacket on top and some heels or a sneaker and a dress, and then adding a fun jean jacket to kind of pull it in.
onnie: Yeah. Okay. That's good to know. thinking of like, what events do I have going up? Yeah. I can use these tips. There is, in our town, somebody started a shared closet. Concept. And she's actually franchising it at this point. Oh my God. But what it is, she did a TED talk two years ago on environmental waste.
Mm-hmm. That like that fast fashion contributes to like the landfills.
onnie (2): Mm-hmm.
onnie: And this was her idea to combat that. And so I just joined it. It's like a membership. And you join it and you can shop every day or once a month, like it's up to you and you bring your clothes, you get [00:18:00] points, and then you can just, so her thing is like, even if you're just gonna wear it one time, yeah.
Then grab it if you see it and then you wear it. And if you don't like it, you can just bring it back. So it's like this big shared, like it's at a store, so like you just go, it's nothing like the only cash is the membership piece. And then other than that, it's all point systems. And then she does like society events.
anyone who's a member can go and like, they have family swaps and things like that, but it's mostly women and I feel like it would work so good with your program. Yeah. Because helping, women figure out what to wear. Yeah. Which again, like that's just one more decision That we have to make in the day. Right. And so I love how your program simplifies that. Yeah. And brings in some expertise.
lana: Yeah. I love, I love the, the shared closet idea. Austin has been doing some similar things like what they, they called it the clothing swap or something similar where they had a venue and everybody brought their stuff and if you brought five, you got to get five.
Because we are seeing, and that's kind of what our platform's built on too, is is the effects of [00:19:00] all of the fast fashion. And, you know, it kind of, if you buy a fast fashion piece, it kind of gives you a little dopamine hit, but then it gets in your closet and it just creates more overwhelm. 'cause you probably didn't really like it, you just bought it on a whim.
Right. And, yeah, we're seeing a lot of, obviously, effects, to our landfills and it's, if we keep going down this path, it's not gonna be good. So. I think too, Lauren, um, can attest to this. The, the hundreds of closets that we've been in, we were like, people don't need more stuff.
They need help, figuring out what they, like, they need help putting it together. They need help learning about their body and learning about their colors. 'Cause there's always stuff and there's always more stuff. But if we can kind of get back to finding your personal style, then it will just be so much easier to get dressed.
onnie: Yeah. Like that 80 20 rule, we wear 20% of our clothes close 80, 80% of the time. Percent of the time, right? Yeah. Yeah. I know. There's like a whole section of my closet that I just always pass over and I'm like mm-hmm. Someday. Someday. Yep. But that someday never comes. Yeah. Were you, were you really into fashion as a teenager?
lana: Oh my gosh, yes. I can remember, you know, I grew up in Nebraska, so I moved here at 22, [00:20:00] but I grew up in Nebraska and I remember telling my parents, I'm gonna go into fashion. And they're like, we live on a farm. Like, I don't know, there's not a lot of brands that are labels out here. Okay.
You know, but, I'd always really loved nursing too. My mom was a nurse. I started working at a nursing home and so those were, my two loves was style and nursing, but I was the friend that I would help everybody get their prom dresses. And then at the sorority I was the one getting everybody there outfits for theme nights.
And, um, I did, it just sparks a lot of joy for me. When people like the way they look, they tend to be happier and they present themselves better and they're nicer, and they have more fun, and it's just super rewarding for me to help people, achieve that.
onnie: Yeah, look at you like living your, living your dream.
lana: So wild.
onnie: You leaned into your purpose.
lana: I feel like it was this nagging voice, like I was so happy. I, you know, did the nursing thing for several years and then stayed at home to have the kids. And I never was on this path to like, I'm gonna have a startup and we're gonna, you know, do this cool thing.
But it was just this problem that really bothered me that I was like. Gosh, it's gotta be an easier way. Like there's gotta be help for [00:21:00] people that need help. And it doesn't have to be, you know, somebody sending you more clothes all the time, and it shouldn't be a stylist that's gonna charge you $5,000 on a retainer that's gonna come and do a big board makeover.
Like, I don't have time for that. I'm breastfeeding. Like, I don't have a a day to dedicate to this right now. But I do think that there should be a way to, for someone to just, you know, gimme that confidence and be like, yep, you're onto something here that looks great on you or no, let's make a few tweaks so that you feel really confident for your event.
And then I just, now that I got started, you know, I just, now I'm in so deep that I can't stop now. But, I just love it. It, it's a whole different way to help people, and it's just as rewarding as, as being in the hospital.
onnie: Yeah. That's awesome. So is there anything, like one message that you would love for moms who are listening to take away about embracing her style and her identity?
lana: Yeah. I think one thing that's easy to do and easy to implement, that I find helps a lot of people is going up to your room or going into the bedroom maybe five minutes earlier than you would and starting to. Take out the clothes for tomorrow. I know that sounds so simple. But again, by the time your alarm [00:22:00] goes off in the morning and your kids need cereal and all other things, you're already behind the eight ball.
So if you can do that the night before, you know, take your hot cup of tea up there and go to your closet. I, I have the little hook in my closet where I will just take the hangers and put everything I want the next day. And then that way when you wake up in the morning, it's just one less thing that's done for you.
Another little trick that I think is helpful for moms is to wear the bottoms two days in a row. So with jeans, like with jeans, you don't have to wash them every time. So I'll wear jeans, you know, the jeans I'm wearing today, I'll also wear tomorrow. So I'll set them in a special place in my closet. And then again, that's one less thing.
I'm like, there's my bottoms. Now. Find a no one
onnie: ever know.
lana: No one knows. No one cares. We think people are, don't. They're too busy looking at themselves like they don't know.
onnie: I'm always telling my kids that because they have school uniforms at home. Oh yeah. You can wear the same pants. Yeah. Like, it's okay.
Yeah. Today's room nobody's carrying, nobody's noticing.
lana: Yeah. Nobody's gonna know. I think another thing for moms is, you know, we get put last for a while. Like, I remember that [00:23:00] one Christmas I bought matching pajamas for everybody in my family, but I forgot to buy them for myself. And I was like, isn't that just such a through line for moms?
Like, we do all this stuff for everybody. And I'm like, I didn't buy the damn pajamas for myself. Great. Now I'm again taking the photos of my husband and the kids of the clothes that I got, and I'm behind the lens. I think, you know, with style sometimes and or closed. I think it gets a bad rap that it's maybe superficial or not important.
And I, I, to me, there's nothing further from the truth. I wouldn't tell somebody not to go get a haircut if it made them feel good. I wouldn't tell them to not go, um, you know, work out if it made them feel good. And so to me, finding clothes and getting dressed in a way that makes you feel good to perform better at your job or to be a happier mom, is super important.
So even if that means your kids watch an extra hour of TV this weekend, so you can go in your closet and just. Play, dress up for a little bit and make some notes about what you like. It's not superficial and it's not selfish and it will make you probably be a much, happier mom if you're liking the way you look and you feel good about how you're presenting yourself.
onnie: Absolutely. It sounds like it's like very [00:24:00] much ultimate self care.
lana: I found just even for me, the days that I get dressed, like, you know, not the yoga pants, but I actually have like a, a thoughtful outfit on. I'm like, oh, let me run to the bank. Let me see if my friend wants to grab coffee.
Oh, I'm gonna do this extra. Like, I'm more productive and I'm happier and I wanna get more stuff done than the days that I, you know, I'm in yoga pants and my hair's in a bun. I just, it's, yeah. And there they you confidence. It does. Yeah. And there's this whole new study that they're finding, it's called In Cloth Cognition.
So they did this study where they put kids in a lab coat and called it a doctor's coat, and then they put other kids in the same white coat, but they didn't call it a doctor's coat. And the kids that were told they were in a doctor's coat performed better. Hmm. And so they're doing, there's all of these things now coming out about the psychology of getting dressed.
But my nursing heart just sparks the joy when I hear all this stuff because there really is such a connection between the two,
onnie: right? Yeah. We are what we wear. Yeah. So, Lana, what do you do for fun? Besides play in your closet?
lana: Yeah. Most oftentimes I'm sitting in the bleachers with my husband, watching our kids [00:25:00] play sports.
That's kind of the, the, or driving carpool. But for fun, for just me, I love live music. So luckily I'm in Austin. We just wrapped up ACL authenticity limits, uh, music festival and we've, we're always going to shows here, which I just love.
onnie: Awesome. Are like, what is the festival that you just went to or what is the
lana: Yeah, it's called ACL or Austin City Limits, and it's a music festival.
It's a three day festival, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and they do it two weekends in a row. So it's like the town is just, there's so much going on. And then we, last weekend or two weekends ago, we had Formula One, which is the European race cars, but they do concerts every night. So Garth Brooks was a headliner of one night, so I got to go out and get all country up and go out with some girlfriends for that show.
And yeah, I love like music fun.
onnie: That's very cool. What about a book that you can recommend?
lana: A book? I think on the business front, a book that's been helpful for me is zero to one. That really helped me when I was trying to figure out how to start my business and how, to even think about it.
That was a really helpful book. There's another book called Finding the [00:26:00] Exit and it's all about, a woman from Nebraska who had a startup and, seeing her story where, you know, coming from somewhere that's not necessarily a place where. These big founders or these entrepreneurs would come from and how she made it.
onnie: Or like fashion Gus.
lana: yeah, yeah, exactly right. Nebraska not coming from literally a town of 365 people. Three, I mean, tiny farm town, the other, um, I'm sure all your listeners and you have read this one, but, the Let them theory for Mel Robinson. Yeah, yeah. Mel Robbins. Yeah. I just re-listened to that.
I have two daughters and they're in the middle school phases. And so like, I've been talking to them about that and I went back to have another listen and it's, it's so good.
onnie: Yeah,
lana: it just, you know, as mom and women and we're always thinking about everybody else and just, that was a good one for me.
onnie: Okay. All
lana: right. What about you? Do you have a good book that you, that you can pass on?
onnie: Oh, I, I am always reading the book. You are? The book I just read. Yeah. I'm in a book club with my, like best friends from high school. Yeah. Which is really fun. 'cause they're all on the east coast. So about every five weeks we have it this Saturday.
I am like, so we [00:27:00] read A lot of fiction books. Okay. Um, but we just read a book, called The Sun Shine. Okay. And it was a book on a guy who was innocent and went to death row in Alabama for 30 years. And that was a true story. Wow. It's a really good book. Yeah. That was the latest book.
I have so many favorite books, I, I did
lana: a book club too. Before I started this company. I, and I read so many good, fiction stories and now they're like escaping me. There was one I just saw that's gonna be made into a show the last Mrs. Parish. Have you seen that one? Yeah, no,
I think it's gonna be on Netflix. But that was my last, that was my final month at book club before I had to go on pause and it was so good. We really enjoyed it.
onnie: Yeah. All right. I'll write that down. I'll put it on my, to be read and watch. Yeah. Nice. So lastly, where can listeners find you, Lana?
lana: Yeah. So we're on all of the social media. You know, Instagram, TikTok, all of the handles are at Looking Glass Lifestyle. One thing that we started a few months ago that I'm really excited about is Substack. Every Friday an article gets published. It's called The Naked Style [00:28:00] Confessions, and we have, people write in their questions.
So it may be like, Hey, I have one boob bigger than the other. How do I buy a bra? Or, I'm feeling really insecure about. X, Y, and Z. And then we give just like real raw advice. And so that has been really fun. It's, it's great for like my millennial heart. It's very dear Abby, sex in the City kind of writing style and that's been really fun to get questions and get to answer them.
Um, so yeah, check out the Substack. It is a fun read. And then our website's at Looking Glass or Looking glass lifestyle.com. And would love to DM or talk to anybody about, about anything style.
onnie: All right, awesome. All of your info will be in our show notes for today's episode. I wanna thank you so much for joining us today.
lana: Oh, thank you so much, honey. I really appreciate it. It was so fun. Take care.
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Remember, [00:30:00] you are 100% responsible for your own life and for creating the joy that you want to feel. Stop living on autopilot. Slow down. Check in with yourself and please, above all, take care of yourself because you, my friend, are worth it.