🎧 Listen to the episode here → YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify
Happy belated Valentine’s Day, my perfect, fabulous friends!!!! 💌
If you love this holiday, amazing. If you hate it, also valid. Either way, February has a way of turning the volume up on everything: who you’re dating, who you’re not dating, what you’re tolerating, and what you’re pretending doesn’t bother you.
Today’s episode is a dating reset for smart, successful women — with my first returning guest ever, Jodie Taylor. And let me say this clearly: Jodie is an expander in my life. We’re both Northwestern girls (go ’Cats), we both know what it’s like to be the creative one in a room full of Very Serious Professionals™, and watching her scale her career and her platform with confidence has been such a “wait… I can do this too” mirror for me.
Now yes, we talk about dating (because it’s Valentine’s season and I’m not going to pretend we don’t all have thoughts). But — it’s not just all about boys, obviously, ladies. Jodie has so much more to her, and we get into the bigger picture of power, friendships, and building a life that can actually hold you.
Here are the lines that snapped my brain back into place:
You can’t date a man in his loser era. Not because we’re mean — because partnership requires capacity. He should view you as a winner and you should view him as a winner.
Watch out for “resume daters.” Men who love the optics of you (where you went, what you do) but can’t hold space for the actual you — the career, the drive, the schedule, the standards.
Boundaries are a love-bomber repellent. If you can calmly say, “That made me feel ___ — was that your intention? Moving forward I’d prefer ___,” you learn everything you need to know by how they respond.
But we also talked about something just as important: your relationships with women. Specifically, you cannot build a big life while keeping people around you who are quietly rooting against you. We talked about why you can’t be friends with anyone who is jealous of you, how success reveals who actually has the capacity to love you out loud, and how to be discerning without becoming paranoid.
One of the reasons I admire Jodie so much is that she’s built an incredible network of women in her professional life — mentors, sponsors, peers, real friends — and she’s intentional about it. Not in a fake “networking event” way, but in a sophisticated, “I create proximity, I show up with value, I invest in relationships that invest back” way. It’s a masterclass in building a supportive ecosystem instead of trying to do everything alone.
If you’re dating right now, let this episode be your permission slip to raise the bar without getting bitter or closed off.
🎧 Listen to the episode here → YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify
And reply and tell me: what’s your one relationship non-negotiable this year — in dating or in friendship?
If you want to keep up with Jodie, her Substack is a wealth of knowledge, and you can stalk her amazing content on @jodiektayl (IG) & @jodiektay (TikTok).
Hope you are feeling some love this weekend <3
xx
Alexis
P.S. If you’re in NYC and you want to take your life offline for a real reset, tickets for The Alignment Edit are linked here. I can’t wait to meet you!
Alexis Barber is the host of the Too Smart For This podcast, author of Too Smart For This (Tarcher), and a Brooklyn-based lifestyle creator who writes for ambitious material girls who care about business, wellness, culture, and building real personal power. A former YouTube strategist and Wharton MBA, she uses strategic intelligence to help smart women build intentional lives and magnetic, profitable personal brands through content, consulting, and community. Subscribe to support her work, purchase the journal, follow along on socials, or inquire about brand strategy at hello@alexisbarber.com.
