Podcast Summary: The blondEST

Episode: The Figure It Out Year
Host: Savanna Boda
Date: April 13, 2026

Overview

In "The Figure It Out Year," Savanna Boda (aka The Dallas Aesthetician) and her co-host reflect candidly on personal and professional turmoil, navigating uncertainty, burnout, and the search for fulfillment after significant life changes. The episode is an honest, often humorous exploration of what it means to “figure it out” in a world that rarely feels stable, addressing the realities of entrepreneurship, healing, motherhood, and the pressures of constantly “doing it all.”

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. 2026: Not What Was Imagined

• Optimism Turned Reality: Both hosts humorously admit that 2026, hoped to be a “turnaround year,” feels even more overwhelming than expected.
  • Quote: "I thought 2026 would be like, a better year. It's not. It's almost worse." (Savanna, 00:17)
• Metaphor of the Year: They liken the current year to “the year of the horse,” but instead of riding, they feel “dragged” by it.
  • Quote: "We're not on top of the horse. We're being bucked off the horse. Ran over by the horse." (Savanna, 00:41)
• Shared Struggles: A message that listeners are not alone in feeling overwhelmed and the importance of keeping things real.
  • Quote: "Life is difficult. It's hard. It beats you up." (Savanna, 00:51)

2. Personal Changes and Phases

• Identity After Divorce: Savanna discusses the struggle of rediscovering herself post-divorce, describing phases from clubbing to settling back into routine.
  • Quote: "Just trying to get back to, like, me... I think I've had so many different versions of myself in the past, like, year." (Savanna, 01:26)
• FOMO and Missed Milestones: She reflects on missing out on certain life experiences, like college parties, and making up for lost time.
  • Quote: "I had this sense of like, I needed to go see that." (Savanna, 02:35)
• Building Friendships: The hosts note the benefits of building a social life outside of work, and how that aided Savanna's recent growth.
  • Quote: "You made good friends. Like, you found girlfriends in Dallas... you had more of a life that wasn't just work." (Co-host, 02:51–03:06)

3. Business Ownership: The Highs and Lows

• Growth and Perfectionism: Savanna opens up about her struggles with perfectionism, burnout, and outgrowing old business spaces, often feeling resentment at how expensive and imperfect things feel.
  • Quote: "I'm such a perfectionist and it's so expensive... it felt the same amount of expense because, like, I did not have that." (Savanna, 03:59)
• Burnout & Detachment: She admits to feeling burned out and less involved in industry “drama” or trends than before, recognizing personal growth but also a loss of intense passion.
  • Quote: "I don't really care... the Dallas esthetician was all I had. That was everything to me... now I'm like, 'Oh, there's a new product? When did that happen?'" (Savanna, 04:45)
• Team Expansion and Change: Managing and growing her team has been both rewarding and stressful. Rapid changes, a new house, and doubling the team size have made her feel unsettled.
  • Quote: "My team doubled in size, if not tripleted— not tripleted... tripled." (Savanna & Co-host, 05:58–06:03)
• Loss of Joy: The constant demands have made work feel less fulfilling and more like a burden—the joy has been “taken out” by the pressure to do more.
  • Quote: "It took the joy out of what I did... now you’re managing... it sucks the joy out of it because now you’re managing." (Savanna, 09:52)

4. The Invisible Labor of Womanhood

• Exhaustion from Self-Maintenance: In a sharply funny segment, Savanna vents about the endless (and expensive) routines required to “be a woman”—nails, Botox, hair, grooming, etc.—and how overwhelming it feels.
  • Quote: “At this point, being a woman, it’s not fun anymore. It’s so expensive, so time consuming, and it’s never ending...” (Savanna, 08:56)
• Desire to Let Go: She jokes about wanting to just “be a dirty dog” and stop keeping up appearances, underlining how the pressure to “do it all” is constant and draining.
  • Quote: "I'm just ready to be a dirty dog. I want brutes out to here, fucking crusty ass nails, pale skin. I'm over it." (Savanna, 09:33)

5. Navigating Burnout & Healing

• Admitting Mental Fatigue: Savanna candidly shares her struggle with mental fatigue, anxiety, and overwhelm—especially when pulled between growing her business and her personal life.
  • Quote: "Every time I'm at work, I feel pulled in so many directions and I feel very, very overwhelmed and like, extremely anxious and like I'm just, like, mentally fatigued." (Savanna, 09:52)
• Burnout Realities: She acknowledges how wrong she was to think she couldn't burn out, and connects hyperproductivity to distraction from emotional pain.
  • Quote: "Everyone said I would get burnout and I was like, never, not me... now I get it..." (Savanna, 12:18)
• Therapy Complications: The hosts discuss therapy’s double-edged sword—it’s helped, but also upended her sense of self and disrupted former coping mechanisms.
  • Quote: "Sometimes I do regret therapy... Led to like a whole, like, identity crisis. I stopped working the way I was working. I got a divorce. Like, therapy really just, like, opened wounds that could have totally just stayed wounding." (Savanna, 17:23–17:36)
• Toxic Positivity vs. Real Emotions: Savanna talks about the harm in always trying to “gaslight” herself into positivity, and therapy’s lesson that it’s okay to have genuinely bad days.
  • Quote: "Something therapy allowed me to do is... be like, no, it's okay to have a really bad day and be upset and feel your emotions and not feel good. And I don't like that." (Savanna, 18:52)

6. Balancing Motherhood and Entrepreneurship

• Mom Guilt: The intense responsibility of being a single mom and entrepreneur makes her constantly feel she’s failing one area when she excels in another.
  • Quote: "If I'm winning at work, I'm losing at home. And if I'm winning at home, I feel like I'm losing at work." (Savanna, 15:55)
• Standards and Expectations: She relates this to setting high standards for herself, drawing a parallel with activities like dance or sports, where excelling raises expectations to sometimes unreasonable levels.
  • Quote: "You do it really fucking good... your coach knows you're capable of that, and then they're going to expect that every time, and it's going to kill you." (Savanna, 16:39)

7. Acceptance and Next Steps

• No Easy Answers: The episode refrains from offering neat solutions. Instead, Savanna leans into the “figure it out” mentality—accepting ambiguity, emotional ups and downs, and periods of stagnation.
  • Quote: "I'm just vibing out right now. To be honest, fam, I'm just figuring out... it's a figure out year." (Savanna, 13:41)
• Hope and Self-Compassion: Despite everything, Savanna encourages listeners to give themselves grace, recognizing that life is incredibly hard—especially now—but so are they.
  • Quote: "Being a business owner is hard. Being a working mom is hard. Being a fucking human being on this earth where the way the world is right now, it is hard. Divorce is hard. Everything is hard. But you are harder." (Savanna, 20:29)
• Signature Humor: The show ends on a tongue-in-cheek note:
  • Quote: "So rock out with your cock out, bones up, and fuck life in the ass." (Savanna, 20:50)

Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• "I almost miss the days where I was just so unaware of my own emotions and just worked like a workhorse… If I could go back and never gone through a healing journey, I think I would." (Savanna, 01:26)
• "It’s just, like, a lot of changes, and I don’t do really good with change. Like, I'm a very, like, cautious, stable [person]." (Savanna, 06:02)
• "Your business grows so fast that you have to be in so many different other areas… to where you’re not doing what you actually wanted to do in the first place." (Savanna, 11:30)
• "I just feel like I haven't been, like, happy because I'm just so stressed." (Savanna, 09:52)
• "Some things about me, character traits that make me really successful are, like, really bad for my mental health and, like, long-term stability." (Savanna, 19:39)

Important Segment Timestamps

• [00:17] – 2026 Realness: “I thought 2026 would be a better year. It’s not.”
• [02:35] – Regret over missing typical milestones, "I didn't go to college… needed to go see that."
• [04:45] – Shifting commitment to the industry; maturity after personal upheaval.
• [08:56] – The invisible work and exhaustion of “being a woman.”
• [09:52] – On burnout, overwhelm, and the difference between dreaming and managing.
• [12:16] – Admitting burnout and drawing parallels with therapy-induced changes.
• [15:55] – The impossible balance of work and motherhood.
• [17:23] – The double-edged effects of therapy and healing.
• [18:52] – Rejecting toxic positivity and embracing real emotions.
• [20:29] – Empowerment and words of encouragement to listeners.

Tone, Style, and Takeaways

This episode blends raw honesty and humor, with Savanna’s trademark self-deprecation and resilience. The conversation is unscripted, candid, and deeply relatable for anyone feeling overwhelmed by growth, personal change, and societal expectations. Instead of the usual skincare advice, listeners get a slice-of-life check-in—refreshingly vulnerable, validating, and affirming that “figuring it out” is both a struggle and a process.

Final Words

“Take care of yourself. And, like, know that, like, being a business owner is hard. Being a working mom is hard. Being a fucking human being on this earth where the way the world is right now, it is hard. Divorce is hard. Everything is hard. But you are harder.”
—Savanna Boda (20:29)

End on humor and resilience:
"So rock out with your cock out, bones up, and fuck life in the ass."
—Savanna Boda (20:50)

An episode for anyone feeling lost, tired, or stuck: you’re not alone, and you are tougher than you think.