WELCOMEEE back to campus. This solo episode is a cozy housemate chat on the couch - embracing the slow, strange start to January and the feeling of coming home to yourself after a season of movement, family, fatigue, and creative expansion.

Getting into:

• Post holiday + travel feels and settling back in

• The emotional weirdness of U-turns - exes, old friends, job offers - and how I’ve started approaching them with curiosity, not panic

• Why stepping into a very literal spotlight for the first time broke my brain (in the best way)

• And what it means to trust yourself to show up, even when you’re tired, slow, or scared

PS: I’m doing a listener Q&A episode soon, so DM me your questions @multihyphenateuniversity or drop them in the Spotify comments.

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🎓 Multi-Hyphenate University is the campus for magical creatives building lives and businesses that feel like art. Your fairy god-professor is in. 💫

A truly original experience: teaching a workshop on leveling up your life for creative entrepreneurs, taught in a Bernese Mountain Dog onesie with 3 berners jumping on and off the couch

Follow the podcast: @multihyphenateuniversity | @margaretlefton

After walking away from traditional jobs (and saying no to six-figure offers), I’ve spent the last year going through my own self-led creator MBA. Now I’m sharing the exact tools and habits that helped me build momentum in early '25.

In this episode:

📱 The digital detox

📆 A calendar audit to track what drains vs energizes you - and where to delegate

🪩 Mapping your life to a story

🧦 Spring cleaning (in January)

🧡 Morning rituals, phone hygiene, and the magic of a totem item

🔐 Why building self-trust is the key to any transformation

Perfect for the creative entrepreneur craving a soft place to start the year.

Follow the multi‑hyphenate journey with your creative housemate: @margaretlefton

🌀 This week, I finally tell a story I’ve been meaning to share for a whhiiillleeee: Why I walked away from being a therapist or coach years deep into studying it (and felt like a crazy person for doing so). Yes this involves a guided trip on the 42nd story of an NYC apartment building led by a major CEO, as is on brand for me.

TL; DR: this a story of what happens when "doing the work" actually stops you from having authentic connection anymore

🔮 The psychedelic trip that showed me the shadow of taking like 20+ therapy and coaching trainings

📚 My time at Naropa University (grad school)

🌀 How learning the work made me feel more disconnected and hyper critical of myself

🎓 How I was performing coach/therapist when I wasn't ready, and why I'm returning to a version of coaching now

If you’re in the coaching, therapy, or healing world (or left it), or if you’ve ever felt like someone else’s framework was muting your voice - HOPE YOU CAN RELATE (minus the metaphorically throwing up in the NYC apt thing... whatever you guys get me.).

📬 Leave a comment, review, or share with a friend if you want to support another dreamer living her favorite life (so I can keep making these for you guys) <3

📸 Instagram: @margaretlefton

🎓 Work with me

🎙️ This week we're slowing it waayyy down (getting in that winter/holiday restful spirit) and tapping into the most under utilized tool in the game: the breath.

Stay tuned for several highly specific, tactical breathing techniques you can implement today to navigate high stress creative entrepreneur situations (pitching a VC, public speaking, on-camera hosting, etc.).

So fun fact: I hate breathwork. Then I met Elsa Unenge⁠ (founder of ⁠Breath Curriculum⁠ - working with everyone from Oscar winners to athletes to Fortune 500 leaders) and decided to be open minded and learn more. This week's episode bridges the gap for anyone breath-curious (or, perhaps, as opposed as I was) into a tool that you can start using to shift your relationship with stress - immediately.

We get into:

🧠 The science behind how breath actually affects your nervous system

🫁 Why most of us breathe dysfunctionally - and how to fix it

🌬️ How to use your breath to prep for auditions, pitches, and high-pressure moments

🛑 What not to do (hint: taking deep chest breaths might be making things worse)

✨ Simple practices to reset in under 30 seconds - even on planes, or before... say... the holidays with your family

Try Elsa's work for 30 days free with code: FIRSTFREE

Follow Elsa’s work: @breathcurriculum

🦄 Follow Margaret’s adventures: @margaretlefton

Follow the multi‑hyphenate journey with your creative housemate: @margaretlefton

🧙‍♀️✨ Today's episode is some witchy guidance (whether you're woo or not) for the year ahead. This basically is listening to two soul siblings laugh while reading magic (I promised Hogwarts guys).

One of my fav humans Ashley B. Jones - intuitive guide, “Favorite Self” coach, and three‑time returning guest - joins us for our annual Year Ahead Reading for creatives, entrepreneurs, and anyone building a magical life on their own terms.

We talk about:

🔮 What “Favorite Self” actually means - and why it’s better than “best self” or “higher self”

📅 Why intuitive mapping and tarot are powerful tools for creatives and entrepreneurs (even if you're like wtf is this)

🌙 A month-by-month 2026 energetic reading through June for the collective creative field

📌 Find Ashley:

✨ Instagram: @ashley.b.jones

🔮 2026 Year Ahead Readings: book your own!

🦄 Follow Margaret: @margaretlefton and @multihyphenateuniversity

🎓 Work with me

Follow along with your creative housemate: ⁠@margaretlefton⁠

WELCOME TO THE POST VIRAL ERA or so says today's guest: so what's next?

✨ If you’ve ever thought “I want to build a creative business… but not like that. I hate how all the hooks and visuals look the same - how can I be myself?” - THIS ONE'S FOR YOU (and/or you touch the creator economy in any way bc there are so many pro tips here).

This week, I’m joined by Brazilian ROCKSTAR ⁠Bia Granja. Bia is the founder of YouPix, Latin America's biggest consultancy, accelerator, and conference for the Creator Economy. After selling the company she's become an independent consultant and remains one of the most trusted voices in the industry.

In this episode:

📉 Why virality isn’t a strategy and the post-viral/growth era (also, what to do if you DO go viral)

💭 Bia's 10 tips for creators (from "not everything needs to be a business" to why you shouldn't call yourself just "talent")

🎭 The art vs. content trap - how to make work that actually feels like you and maintain your craft

💖 The definition of success and how making money made Bia unhappy (and what she's been up to since selling YouPix!)

Guys my fav moment that had me howling: we're not looking sugar daddies, we're all looking for sugar brand deals (branddies)😂

🔮 Work with me!

📸 Follow Bia: @biagranja & her Substack with all her hot takes POV: Creator Economy

Welcome back to Multi-Hyphenate University: your campus for magical creative entrepreneurs and artists building their biggest dreams.

This bonus episode is not a how-to, this is a how-it-feels-to [... go viral and hit a mega expansion]

A vlog diary: the live musings of a creative in expansion burnout after being flooded with both visibility and opportunity.

In another episode I'll get more specific and tactical - today we're grabbing some tea together in our dorm room and processing LIFE: aka after several days of euphoria, I naturally contracted into an overstimulated burnout.

This episode:

🌀 What no one tells you about the “after” of being seen (aka the vulnerability hangover)

🎢 How to navigate expansion/contraction

🧠 The disorienting feeling of being met in a new way after being in an energy of trying & proving for so long

If you also oscillate between cycles of euphoria and crying-while-watching-christmas-movies you're in good company

🦄 Follow the journey: @margaretlefton | @multihyphenateuniversity

✨ Join the campus: Multi-Hyphenate University - coming soon

I made a full recovery from chronic depression.

Need to kick off with a couple important notes...

1: I put together a list of all of my resources and notes from my journey (including how to find a therapist): here

2: Nothing here is medical advice, a magic bullet, or a checklist. It is simply sharing pieces of my personal journey - because when I went through it the resources I found told me it was a lifelong disease and I'd never get better. I would rage, cry, and feel defeated all the f***ing time. I wish I'd had someone to prove to me that WASN'T. TRUE. So hi! I'm proof it's possible.

This week's episode was a doozy to record and edit - it's the most vulnerable I've been on the podcast so thanks for being here with me guys <3 Honestly, I have no idea if this is helpful for anyone else, and it felt important for my own art to get out of my system and out into the world.

I spent the first 27 years of my life struggling with chronic depression, emotional swings, sadness, and the inability to believe anything in my inner world was true or of value. The version of myself I am now daily - I only experienced in small spurts and was otherwise masking how low I felt. Around age 19, I started a journey that would take me to places I couldn't imagine and ultimately end up making a 100% recovery from chronic depression and suicidal ideation.

In this episode:

🌫️ Boarding School - masking, loneliness, suicidal ideation, and not being helped (aka the land of : too [fill-in-the-blank]. too sensitive, too dramatic, etc. F*CK THE TOO'S)

🧠 What helped (& didn’t) - school therapists, CBT, trauma therapy, multiple failed meds, and the turning point via an accidental hospitalization off a med

🌿 The shift into spirituality and imagination - energy work, ritual, finding meaning and believing myself for the first time, and very literally rebuilding my inner world through deep astral work with a witch

💖 Confronting why I was scared not to be depressed anymore (this was so hard to admit when I was in it, but I had no idea who I was without it)

🏡 Expression as healing - how creativity, storytelling, and building a life in color brought me home to myself

🌈 Life on the other side of chronic depression - what no one tells you about “after the healing” and learning to build and bond through joy, instead of just survive

In conclusion, IMO: in the head, in the heart, in the hands.

We heal, and find wholeness in our experience of life through: our words (head), through work with our soul (heart), and through expression (hands). When all of those are flowing together, life feels a little more manageable.

This episode was heavy for me to record and washed up a lot of old stories - I realized after even with an hour I left out what feels like hundreds of small micro shifts and moments. ANYWAYS. Love y'all.

❗If you're in immediate crisis or having active suicidal thoughts: Please please call or text 988 (US), or reach out to local crisis support. If phone calls feel scary, I HIGHLY rec the crisis text line as well. You can even use them just to vent! I used this several times. Text HOME to 741741 to reach a live volunteer Crisis Counselor.

Follow me @margaretlefton

Sherpa'ing people to their dreams: work with me