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At the Brink with Erica Brinker
Unplugged: Amazon Knows, NYC Lines, Bring Back Dinner and Posh Spice Finally Profits
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This week opens on a serious note. The Cornell sexual assault case is unfolding in real time — a former student is suing seven fraternity members and the university, and Cornell's own survey found that 35% of undergraduate women reported non-consensual sexual contact since arriving on campus. In Delhi, thousands of college students are marching over an alleged gang rape by men posing as police. Two countries, same playbook. We talk about what women do every day just to feel safe and why the burden keeps falling on us.
If you or someone you know has been affected by sexual assault, the RAINN hotline is available at 1-800-656-4673 or online at rainn.org.
Then the tone shifts. Sara takes Erica through NYC's line culture explosion — hours-long waits for bagels, frozen yogurt, restaurants that don't take reservations. They debate what's actually worth the wait (Taylor Swift floor seats? A sample sale? Four AM for a Cronut?). The answer: it depends on your hunger level and your relationship with patience.
Erica read Derek Thompson's Atlantic article "You Are No Longer Invited to Dinner" and the stats are wild: the share of Americans who host friends at home monthly fell from 42% in 1975 to 12% in 2026. She's on a mission to bring back the dinner party and made bulgogi beef for friends last weekend to prove it's not that hard.
Sara walks Erica through Amazon's viral "About You" feature that builds a profile from your purchases, searches and Alexa conversations. Sara's says she makes sourdough and her dog likes rain. Erica's says she's "good at hunting." She has never hunted. Alexa has some explaining to do.
The Elizabeth Holmes documentary drops October 16 — she invited cameras into her home 34 days before reporting to federal prison. Nathan Fielder directed. It runs almost three hours. We are not waiting for streaming.
Gossip Girl this week: she's been the host of her friend group for six years. Not once has anyone had her over. One friend has a pizza oven and has posted about it on Instagram 40 times. She's never eaten a single pizza from that oven.
It's Sara's birthday. She's celebrating with a flu shot and ice cream. An investment in health and happiness.
Woman Killing It: Victoria Beckham. Her company just reported its first operating profit in 18 years after she brought in an external CEO and consolidated from two clothing lines to one. She showed her spring/summer 2027 collection at Paris Fashion Week with A-listers in the front row. Not just a Spice Girl.
This week on At the Brink: Merrick Walter on living with chronic illness for ten years and choosing joy when your body won't cooperate. He almost joined the CIA because he knew Russian. Tune in.
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Follow At the Brink: Instagram @at.the.brink.media | YouTube @AtTheBrinkPodcast
www.atthebrinkmedia.com | hello@atthebrinkmedia.com
Here you go:
At the Brink is a premium podcast hosted by Erica Brinker featuring raw, intimate conversations about defining moments — the question at the show's core: was there a moment when your story split into a before and after?
New episodes every Wednesday.
Website: www.atthebrinkmedia.com
Email: hello@atthebrinkmedia.com
Instagram: @at.the.brink.media
Executive producer | Sara Glassman
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Poppi Fizzles, Reese's Hello Sunshine Rises, Perimenopause Ploys, Victoria's Secret Slop and Tacos Fix Everything
37:18|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
2. From Foster Care to New York City | Lisa Miller
47:31||Season 2, Ep. 2Warning: This episode includes discussion of suicidal ideation and a suicide attempt.Lisa Miller was born in Detroit to a mother living with addiction. Before she was 10, she and her two older brothers had been through what she calls the year of hell with their biological father, in rural Appalachian Virginia, then a group home and separate placements. She was eventually adopted, moved out at midnight on her 18th birthday and became a mom at 21.Then the years piled up. Her youngest son, Luke, arrived at 30 weeks and was diagnosed with autism at 2. Her oldest brother, Ryan, moved in with the family and died months later in a motorcycle accident. At 28, Lisa got sick with Sjögren’s, an autoimmune disease that scarred her lungs and kept her on oxygen for a year and a half. Doctors kept telling her she looked fine.At 32, with life finally looking good on paper, she told her husband she needed help. Lisa tells Erica Brinker what that help looked like, including the ketamine infusions and trauma therapy that led to a diagnosis she didn’t expect: complex PTSD and anxiety, not depression.Almost three years ago, she sold the house in Knoxville, signed a lease on a Brooklyn apartment she’d only toured on a screen and moved her husband and three kids to New York City. Now she documents it all, silly and dark, as @LisaMillerInRealLife and is writing a memoir. Her advice to anyone at their own brink: give yourself a yes year.If you or someone you love is struggling or thinking about suicide, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, available 24/7 in the U.S.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 Lisa: Instagram @LisaMillerInRealLife · TikTok @lisamillerinreallifewww.atthebrinkmedia.com · hello@atthebrinkmedia.com
Unplugged: Kelly Gives Brooklyn the Bird, Shane & Pete Make Our Shit List
46:54|Erica came to record straight from a Sombr concert. No sleep. Full energy. She introduces her newest creation: Things on My Shit List. The holiday season is here and she’s not ready. What she is ready for: opinions.First on the list: Shane Gillis, who used his third SNL hosting gig to take aim at women in gym clothes. Ego Nwodim responded with a gym selfie and “whore reporting for duty.” Dan Levy had thoughts, too. And Chelsea Handler once called Shane “the shape of a steamed dumpling.” We tend to agree.Pete Davidson joins the list for going after female influencers in a Variety interview. His question: how do they even make money? Our question: why do you care? Gmail also makes the list for apparently aging without maturing. It’s older than Sombr. We’d expect more.On the lighter end: balloon pants. Erica is ready to commit but needs the shirts to match. Sara needs to confirm we’re not talking about the barrel silhouette. Also, fiber is coming for us. We just got the hang of protein.Then there’s Kelly Clarkson, who walked into The Art of Play in Williamsburg, asked about a $15,000 bird named Molly and was told she couldn’t buy it. Kelly compared the experience to Pretty Woman. The shop owner has since put a $15 million price on Molly. Sara remains Team Kelly.Meanwhile, Gen Z thinks we all dress the same—and now they want our clothes. Secondhand is booming. Vintage band tees can command serious money. Old Levi’s are desirable again. Coach is cool again. So naturally we inventory our closets: no band tees, no 501s, one possible Swatch and a vintage Wilson leather jacket that Erica is absolutely not giving Gen Z.Gossip Girl: She’s 52, works in benefits administration and her real love is baking. There’s a former bakery two blocks from her house, ovens included. Her husband says wait until the kids finish college. By then she’ll be 58. We say: if not now, when?Women Killing It: Natalie Nakase is making history with the Golden State Valkyries. And Donna Jean Wilde, a 61-year-old retired teacher and grandmother of 11, broke a Guinness World Record by planking for five hours. She reads, types and even wrote a book from the plank position. Suddenly our workouts seem inadequate.Plus: Halloween decorating, Erica’s two-meals-one-sauce triumph, Sara plays Unchopped with an avocado and a potato, and an update on our eight Signal Awards nominations. Thank you to everyone who voted.Follow At the Brink: Instagram @at.the.brink.media | YouTube @AtTheBrinkPodcast www.atthebrinkmedia.com | hello@atthebrinkmedia.com
1. Triple Negative and She Never Stopped Working | Stacy Woods
36:09||Season 2, Ep. 1Stacy Woods spent 28 years at Mondelez building brands most of us have in our pantry — Oreo, Chips Ahoy, Ritz, Sour Patch Kids. She led strategy and operations, raised two kids and never stopped moving. When she left, she kept going: VP at McCain Foods, then VP at Leslie’s Pools. She was 60 days into the Leslie’s job when she found a golf ball-sized lump during a workout.The mammogram confirmed breast cancer on the right side. An MRI caught a second primary tumor on the left. One was triple negative — a rare and aggressive form that accounts for 10 to 15 percent of breast cancer diagnoses. The other was hormone positive. What she thought would be a two-month detour became a year-long treatment plan: 16 rounds of chemotherapy, a double mastectomy and 30 rounds of radiation.Her husband Bruce had just marked one year cancer-free when Stacy got diagnosed — to the day. Their family had been through this before. But Stacy had something else too: 12 women led by her friend Janie Reese who called themselves the Stacy Strong Tribe. They showed up for every chemo session, cooked meals and sent cards for a year straight. Her son shaved his head. Her colleagues at Leslie’s — a team she’d known for barely two months — picked up her work without being asked.Stacy never stopped working through treatment. She talks about the faith that carried her, the books that helped, the Thanksgiving she couldn’t cook and the moment she told Bruce to get the clippers. She is now one year cancer-free, retired from corporate America and running marketing for Bruce Woods Realty. Her mammogram came back clear the day before this interview.Executive Producer: Sara GlassmanFollow At the Brink: Instagram @at.the.brink.media | YouTube @AtTheBrinkPodcastFollow Stacy: Instagram @stacyinthe55 | LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/stacyawoodswww.atthebrinkmedia.com | hello@atthebrinkmedia.com
25. Four Diagnoses in Nine Months. He’s Still at the Brink. | Merrick Walter
59:05||Season 1, Ep. 25Merrick Walter grew up surfing and skating in Los Angeles, swam breaststroke in college, studied Russian, got recruited by the CIA (and said no), earned an MBA from Thunderbird and built a career in international education across multiple countries and continents. He was the kind of person who showed up to places, learned the language and found the Georgian restaurant nobody else knew about.In the spring of 2015, everything changed. Within nine months, Merrick was diagnosed with a blood disorder, a bicuspid aortic valve, an aortic aneurysm and neuroendocrine cancer. He has had more than a dozen surgeries since, including three open heart surgeries. He almost bled out on the table. He carries a hospital bag in his backpack because sometimes he goes to the doctor and doesn’t come home.In this conversation, Merrick talks about what chronic illness actually looks like from the inside: the dark nights, the projects he couldn’t finish, the disability system he couldn’t access, the 700-square-foot apartment he sometimes doesn’t leave for weeks, and why “you look great” is the worst thing you can say to someone who is fighting to get out of bed. He also talks about what keeps him going: his partner Mark, his doctors, the tulips from the greenmarket and the decision to take hold of the steering wheel again.His toast: to people living with chronic illness and to the friends, family and medical providers who keep us going.Executive Producer: Sara GlassmanFollow At the Brink: Instagram @at.the.brink.media |YouTube @AtTheBrinkPodcastFollow Merrick Walter: LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/merrick-walter-a036139| Skillingual: skillingual.comwww.atthebrinkmedia.com| hello@atthebrinkmedia.comUnplugged: Watch Out Oprah, Eyepatchgate, Taylor’s $40 Tank and Madonna at 68
25:32|We’re popping champagne because At the Brink is a finalist in eight Signal Award categories. We’re up against Oprah, Anderson Cooper, Monica Lewinsky and Rachel Martin. We are the underdogs and we need your vote. Shamelessly.Also this week: return to office is pushing women out of the workplace (30% of companies now require five days on site and on-site job postings jumped from 65% to 87% this year). Then Glow Recipe dropped a twist-and-cut under eye mask and two days later Huda Beauty had the same one. Two days after that, Fenty had one too. Fenty posted the Spider-Man pointing meme. We respect the move.Gossip Girl this week is a heartbreaker: she built a company, mentored an employee for eight years, taught her everything. The employee left and took their two biggest clients. Now there’s a launch party invitation on her desk with a handwritten note: “None of this would be possible without you.” Do you go?Plus: Taylor Swift’s $40 tank top sold out in 15 minutes, women’s NFL merch has tripled since 2020, Erica has a Cowboys bomber jacket she needs to give away, and Madonna won seven VMAs at 68 including Artist of the Year over Taylor Swift and Sabrina Carpenter. Her manager told her in 1984 that her career was over. We’d like a word.This week’s guest: Caralyn Brace on a miscarriage on her wedding day, a cancer diagnosis on vacation and raising a daughter with Type 1 diabetes.Vote for us: https://atthebrinkmedia.com/voteFollow At the Brink: Instagram @at.the.brink.media | YouTube @AtTheBrinkPodcastwww.atthebrinkmedia.com | hello@atthebrinkmedia.com
24. A Miscarriage on Her Wedding Day. Cancer on Their Vacation. Then She Adopted. | Caralyn Brace
45:55||Season 1, Ep. 24Caralyn Brace never planned to have children. It wasn’t something she actively didn’t want. It just wasn’t something she aspired to. Then she met the right person at the right time and everything changed.They got pregnant fast. On their wedding day — a small backyard ceremony with immediate family — Caralyn was bleeding heavily. She knew what was happening. Any woman who has miscarried knows. She took the medication that was supposed to stop it. It didn’t stop. She finished the ceremony, walked upstairs, and then came back down and cut the cake.Six months later, on vacation, her husband became violently ill. He couldn’t leave the hotel room. At the resort bar, Caralyn met a woman who turned out to be an adoption attorney. Over the next few days, that stranger taught her everything about how adoption in this country actually works. They came home. Within a week, her husband was diagnosed with stage 3B colon cancer.What followed was sperm banking before chemotherapy, adoption paperwork filed during treatment and an open adoption with a birth mother who had Type 1 diabetes. They knew the risk. They chose to walk toward it. Their daughter was diagnosed with Type 1 at age five.In this conversation, Caralyn talks about what it means to keep choosing forward when every chapter comes with a new crisis, what the day-to-day of Type 1 really looks like and the moment on the oncology ward when she decided she could handle it.Executive Producer: Sara GlassmanFollow At the Brink: Instagram @at.the.brink.media |YouTube @AtTheBrinkPodcastwww.atthebrinkmedia.com | hello@atthebrinkmedia.com
Unplugged: Interview Icks, Walmart's Glow Up, Your Prom Date Is Back and Tofu Won
32:54|Erica is in Vegas watching the sunrise over the strip because she lost the will to rage at 8PM. Martha Stewart was on stage at her trade show. Snoop was not.This week: Target launched a comeback campaign and we were bored. Meanwhile three people told Erica their cute outfit was from Walmart. Ann Taylor is also trying and also boring. Donatella Versace is 71 and thriving at Revolve. Then we got into interview icks — the iced coffee debate that hit the Today show (we're fine with it), bringing a parent to an interview (we are not fine with it, and Erica once rescinded an offer over it), the coffee cup test (mind games), and the no-makeup question that opened a real conversation about gender bias in hiring.Gossip Girl this week: a woman in Boston is spiraling about her 30th high school reunion because the guy who dumped her before prom is now divorced and DMing her. She has a trainer and two dresses. We told her to bring the husband.Also: tofu beat every protein on the planet in a Cambridge study (cheddar cheese came in last), and Hannah Berner and Paige DeSorbo of Giggly Squad just signed a $140M deal with Sirius XM. They record in the same studio we do. We're giggling with them.Production notes: Sara wishes she had her haircut before the filming of this episode.Erica knows that the sun sets in the evening and rises in the morning. Whatever you say on a podcast in Vegas, stays in Vegas?This week's guest: Ryan Larson on her IVF journey and the misdiagnoses that almost derailed it.Follow At the Brink: Instagram @at.the.brink.media | YouTube @AtTheBrinkPodcastwww.atthebrinkmedia.com | hello@atthebrinkmedia.com