Behind The Scenes With A Fiery New Jersey Gal
Our favourite spicy 'it girl', Meredith Otero, gives us an inside look to what her life actually looks like behind the typical day-to-day.
A Little About The Guest.
Meredith Otero is a marketing and communications leader, mother of two, and truth-teller with a sharp sense of humor and a deep respect for personal growth that isn’t performative.
Her work and writing explore identity, emotional intelligence, leadership, and what it actually looks like to choose yourself while still showing up for real life.
Meredith believes healing doesn’t make you perfect. It makes you honest. She’s passionate about helping women stop shrinking, start regulating themselves, and build lives that feel aligned instead of impressive.
You can connect with her here:
WEBSITE | LINKEDIN | INSTAGRAM
The Guest Deep-Dive.
1. Tell us about your life. What does a normal day look like for you?
My life is a constant blend of structure and chaos, and I’ve learned to stop pretending otherwise. A “normal” day starts early, my kids are up by 6am, when my husband isn’t traveling he’s up with them doing breakfast and packing lunches downstairs while I get a little extra snooze time, but then I’m upstairs picking out the kids clothes and getting myself ready while they’re eating. They are up so early they literally have 3 breakfasts by the time school starts. When they’re off to school… to the babe cave, I go! (My own personal she-shed in the back yard)
Once I’m settled at the cave, the days are split between strategy, creativity, and communication. I work remotely in a leadership and marketing role within a traditionally male-dominated industry, so my day involves a lot of translating ideas into clarity, aligning people, and telling stories that actually mean something. Meetings, content creation, problem-solving, and a lot of “thinking time” that looks quiet from the outside but is very active internally. By late afternoon, I shift back into family mode, then usually circle back to work once the house settles. It’s layered, it’s demanding, and it’s not perfectly balanced, but it’ is what it is.
Weekends vary with sports, kids parties, errands, groceries. In the summer, our weekends are usually spent at our beach house and there’s always baseball on tv (NY Mets!) and in the winter, football is always on in the background while we watch the kids jump from one indoor activity to the next.
It’s their world right now, we’re just living in it. Can’t always say we’re thriving, but we’re surviving!
2. What is a behind-the-scenes story that no one else knows?
Most people see confidence, clarity, and momentum. What they don’t see is how much of that came from learning things the hard way, quietly. There was a long stretch of my career where I was the reliable one, the steady one, the emotional container for everyone else. I built a reputation on being composed, capable, and unshakeable while privately questioning whether I was allowed to want more, or even know what “more” was.
Behind the scenes, there were moments where I stayed longer than I should have, tolerated dynamics that didn’t serve me, or silenced my own instincts because it felt safer to be agreeable than disruptive. The version of me people see now exists because of those seasons, not in spite of them. What no one really sees is that my clarity was earned through discomfort, not confidence.
3. What is a rumor you’ve heard about yourself, and is it true?
Haven’t heard rumors since high school, haha, so we’ll lean in on a “misconception” - that being that I’m intimidating or “a lot.” That I’m intense, hard to please, or emotionally sharp. There’s some truth there, but not in the way people mean it. I am direct. I don’t do surface-level conversations well, and I value honesty over comfort. That can feel intimidating to people who prefer things to stay vague or unchallenged.
The big assumption, I believe, is that intensity equals lack of empathy. Truth is, I care deeply. I just don’t confuse kindness with avoidance, and I don’t dilute myself to make other people more comfortable anymore. I am extremely loyal and take pride in being the “friend you want in your corner” when you need them, for anything, at any time - day or night.
4. What is the most difficult thing you’ve ever apologized for?
The hardest thing I ever have to apologize for is to my kids after I’ve yelled. It’s a gut-punch kind of guilt, not just for the moment itself, but for the fact that it happened at all. Having to look at them and acknowledge that I lost my patience is confronting in a way nothing else is, because it forces me to face the version of myself I never want to be with them.
At the same time, it’s the easiest apology I’ll ever give. They deserve it, every time. No ego, no justification, no explaining. Just ownership. If I’m going to mess up, the least I can do is model what repair looks like and remind them that love doesn’t disappear when we get it wrong.
The Podcast Deets.
We’ve all heard about the importance of ‘choosing yourself’, but what does that actually mean when it comes to real life responsibilities? How do you find space for ‘you’ amongst the chaos, calendar and people in your life?
Meredith Otero has the answer. Today in our Friday’s with Friends guest feature, we are speaking with this fiery New Jersey gal about the moment when she said ‘no’ to stagnancy, and ‘yes’ to change.
The real kicker? She’s just a wild 4 months into this journey- and it has already been life changing for her in so many ways.
Join us as we explore what growing past your identity means, why it’s okay to let certain relationships go, and how you can learn to prioritize yourself in your own life (whether or not you have kids).
Let’s dive in, shall we?