At the Brink with Erica Brinker

Erica's holiday lights are already up. (It's November. She's fine.) Sara covered Black Friday at the outlet malls for the Star Tribune once and gives it zero stars. Neither of us is standing in a line this year, but plenty of shoppers are heading back to stores.Then we played winner or loser with this year's retail headlines. Crumbl closed dozens of stores and bet on dirty soda. Cracker Barrel brought the old guy back and Wall Street noticed. Gucci called Mariah Carey for the holidays while its parent company closed 128 stores. Rhode gave e.l.f. what it calls Sephora's biggest launch ever. Kohl's brought back the jewelry and the coupons. And Ross is having a very good year. (Sara went 4 for 6.)Sara reads Whole Foods' 2027 trend list (terroir, food as skincare and the bean boom) and Erica admits lupini beans run her household. Plus why an experience might beat one more thing in a box.Gossip Girl: a reader's best friend swears her new face is water and sleep. Now she's selling a $189 glow routine and wants to demo it before book club. We both get Botox. We both say no. Then Jennifer Lawrence's The Cut cover and Paris Hilton's Halloween costumes. Our position: it's her face, and London picked Chip.Women Killing It: Keisha Lance Bottoms became the first Black woman elected governor in U.S. history. Dr. Annie Andrews became the first woman South Carolina has elected to the U.S. Senate. And at least 17 women will serve as governors in 2027, a record.Also out this week: Aisha Beau Frisbey on leaving fashion PR after a panic attack in her boss's bathroom and facing postpartum depression years later.Follow At the Brink: Instagram @at.the.brink.media | YouTube @AtTheBrinkPodcast | LinkedIn linkedin.com/company/at-the-brink-media | Erica on Instagram @official.erica.brinkerwww.atthebrinkmedia.com | hello@atthebrinkmedia.com

Every wall was covered in crystals and a crystal chandelier hung overhead. On the floor in the corner of her boss's bathroom, Aisha Beau Frisbey was having the first panic attack of her life.Aisha spent 12 years in fashion PR. She went from unpaid internships hauling Gucci garment bags in four-inch heels to a $28,000 starting salary to the in-house director job she had worked toward the whole time. She tells Erica Brinker what it cost to get there: code switching to seem palatable as one of the few Black women in the office, a designer who dismissed Black celebrities as D-list and a supervisor who reported her beauty blog to HR. When she finally got the title, she felt empty. Then she called home from that bathroom floor, and the most risk-averse man she knows told her to just leave.Years later the lesson came back. After her son was born, the hormone crash hit before she even reached her hospital room. Aisha talks about the fog, the pressure of running a business with no maternity leave, pumping and freezing milk through a retreat in Bali and the one thing she'd tell any new mom who feels like she's failing.In Mixtape, she builds a girl dinner around Toni Morrison, Beyoncé and Cardi B and gives her 25-year-old self some blunt advice: the rules are fake.If you are struggling after having a baby, call or text the Postpartum Support International HelpLine at 1-800-944-4773.Executive Producer: Sara GlassmanFollow At the Brink: Instagram @at.the.brink.media | YouTube @AtTheBrinkPodcast | LinkedIn linkedin.com/company/at-the-brink-media | Erica on Instagram @official.erica.brinkerFollow Aisha: Instagram @aishabeau | YouTube @aishabeau | aishabeau.com | Re-Written Retreat: aishabeau.com/retreatwww.atthebrinkmedia.com | hello@atthebrinkmedia.com

Pockets. That’s all Sara wants from her leggings, and it turns out Lululemon has bigger problems. Founder Chip Wilson started the Vancouver yoga brand in 1998, left the board in 2015 and is still one of its largest shareholders. After a long proxy fight, the company settled in May by seating two of his nominees, and this week it added a third director with his blessing: Tara Poseley, Lululemon’s chief product officer from 2013 to 2015. The stock has lost about half its value this year, former Nike executive Heidi O’Neill took over as CEO in September and Wilson is divorcing Shannon “Summer” Wilson, the brand’s founding lead designer. Erica and Sara debate whether the founder is the fix.Then the celebrity launches. Jennifer Lawrence debuts Mes°, a three-product hair line priced from $34 to $52, along with her first Instagram account. Kate Hudson invests in HealthyCell’s gel supplements, which sends Erica into a cautionary tale about a supplement and a surprise lab result. Martha Stewart is now chief taste officer at Stars + Honey protein bars, Cardi B is taking her Grow-Good hair line to Black-owned beauty supply stores and TikTok’s Mikayla Nogueira just raised $15 million for POV Beauty. Would they try any of it?It’s Halloween week, so the candy rankings are in. Snickers knocked Reese’s out of the top spot for the first time since CandyStore.com started its survey in 2014, and candy corn is back as the worst. Plus a New York Times chili mix-up (they did not make the same recipe), the dentist who handed out toothbrushes, Underoos, plastic pumpkins versus pillowcases and the easiest costume of the year: a black turtleneck.In Gossip Girl, a senior director 14 years into a health insurance job wants to turn her interior design side gig into a business. Erica’s advice starts with the bonus. A Woman Killing It goes to CiCi McMullen, who bought HerScan, a mobile breast ultrasound company, after its founder said she wanted a woman to run it. McMullen was the only woman among 26 bidders.Follow At the Brink: Instagram @at.the.brink.media · YouTube @AtTheBrinkPodcast · LinkedIn linkedin.com/company/at-the-brink-mediaFollow Erica: Instagram @official.erica.brinkerwww.atthebrinkmedia.com · hello@atthebrinkmedia.com

Warning: This episode includes discussion of child sexual abuse, cult abuse and human trafficking.When Dr. Christine Marie told police that a self-declared prophet in Short Creek was calling young girls his wives, they told her it was hearsay. They needed evidence. So she and her husband, filmmaker Tolga Katas, became Samuel Bateman’s unofficial archivists, filming whenever he asked and turning the footage over to law enforcement. One car ride later, she had his confession on tape.Christine knew what she was looking at because she had lived a version of it. A longtime member of the mainstream LDS Church, she was drawn into a fundamentalist situation by a man who exploited her, and it took her a decade to understand what had happened to her brain. When she first shared her story with a documentary company in 2014, the result was so victim-shaming that she went back to school and earned a PhD in media psychology studying that exact harm.She tells Erica Brinker about the 2015 flood that first brought her to Short Creek, the harm-reduction approach that earned the trust of FLDS families who don’t talk to outsiders and the moment in the car when she hit record and had to act normal. “I felt like I was being skinned alive,” she says. That footage helped build Netflix’s Trust Me: The False Prophet.Bateman is serving 50 years in federal prison, and in August an Arizona judge added 24 years on state child abuse charges. Christine still lives in Short Creek, where her nonprofit, Voices for Dignity, helps women earn money of their own. Her advice for anyone in a situation they can’t name yet: find one safe person, and if they don’t believe you, keep trying.If you or someone you know needs help: National Human Trafficking Hotline, 1-888-373-7888 (text 233733). RAINN National Sexual Assault Hotline, 800-656-4673.Executive Producer: Sara GlassmanFollow At the Brink: Instagram @at.the.brink.media · YouTube @AtTheBrinkPodcast · LinkedIn linkedin.com/company/at-the-brink-mediaFollow Erica: Instagram @official.erica.brinkerFollow Dr. Christine Marie: Instagram @dr.christinemarie · christinemarie.com · Voices for Dignity: voicesfordignity.orgwww.atthebrinkmedia.com · hello@atthebrinkmedia.com

Spoiler alert, in the most literal sense: if you haven’t seen You Can See Everything, stop here, go see it and come back. We’ll wait. It’s three hours. Bring snacks.We saw everything. We understood nothing.Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim spent the last 34 days before Elizabeth Holmes went to prison living in her house, and kept filming long after she left. We walked out of the theater with broken brains. (Actual text from Sara, sent in the middle of the night: “Is your brain broken?” Erica’s reply: “Yes, I need answers.”) So we put on our black turtlenecks and opened a support group.We get into the camera work that puts you inches from those unblinking blue eyes, the egg scene, the guest room with no pillows and the moment the title turned out to be very literal. We ask whether Billy Evans is the puppet master or the fall guy, why we both felt bad for Holmes and then felt bad about feeling bad, and what Theranos whistleblowers Tyler Shultz and Erika Cheung are saying now that the film is out. Then Erica runs a round of Believe It or Not on the things Holmes says on camera, from her innocence to her “modest” beach rental.Drinking game: take a sip every time one of us says “I don’t know.” We say it more than two dozen times, so small sips. Think finger prick, not full vial.Drop your theories in the comments. We need answers.Watch the turtlenecks on YouTube: @AtTheBrinkPodcastFollow At the Brink: Instagram @at.the.brink.media · LinkedIn linkedin.com/company/at-the-brink-mediaFollow Erica: Instagram @official.erica.brinkerwww.atthebrinkmedia.com · hello@atthebrinkmedia.com

Eleven. That’s how many Signal Awards At the Brink won this week, and someone on LinkedIn says 11 is a portal number. Erica Brinker and Sara Glassman will take it, and they thank every listener who confirmed an email to vote.Then two founder stories that run in opposite directions. PepsiCo bought Poppi last year for $1.95 billion, with up to $300 million more for the founders if the brand hit its sales targets. Pepsi’s latest filing values that bonus at about $12 million. Erica explains how an earnout works and why the headline price rarely tells the real story. Reese Witherspoon went the other way: she sold Hello Sunshine, the company behind The Morning Show and Big Little Lies, at a $900 million valuation in 2021, and this month she partnered with French media group Mediawan to buy it back. Sara quizzes Erica on the Hello Sunshine catalog, and Erica has seen more of it than she thought. Plus Giggly Squad books Madison Square Garden, and a Taco Tuesday wins over a full table that includes a six-year-old.The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show is back with a $50 million Fantasy Bra on Kylie Jenner, and neither host can figure out who it’s for. A new study of more than 300 million lab tests finds the body changes abruptly around a woman’s final period, and Erica puts Sara through a hype-or-proven round on the perimenopause products filling their feeds. Retinoids and sunscreen pass. The supplements do not. They’re not doctors, and they say so.In Gossip Girl, a 41-year-old mom wants to wear a Catwoman suit to an adult Halloween party, and her 15-year-old says it’s a lot for a mom. The ruling is unanimous. Women Killing It goes to Havi Nguyen, whose company Abby Care just raised $82 million to train and pay family caregivers, and to 24-year-old An Se Young, who won a record 47th international badminton title at the Denmark Open. They close with why this week’s guest episode with Lisa Miller is one of their favorites yet.Follow At the Brink: Instagram @at.the.brink.media · YouTube @AtTheBrinkPodcast · LinkedIn linkedin.com/company/at-the-brink-mediaFollow Erica: Instagram @official.erica.brinkerwww.atthebrinkmedia.com · hello@atthebrinkmedia.com