PODCAST
Series 18: For the Love of Powerhouse Women
Power comes in many forms. It goes far beyond the beauty, wealth, and status we’re told we need in order to have it. In fact, power comes when we make sure everyone, especially our fellow sisters, can have a life filled with dignity, purpose, and equality. Anyone born into a female body knows we live with a unique blend of challenges to conquer. In this series, we’ll put the spotlight on women of all stripes — ladder-climbing mavens, firsts-in-their-field pioneers, innovators, trend-setters, and world-changers — who are shattering glass ceilings, lifting us up, and challenging us to live our highest values in order to be dynamic people who shape the world.
Erin Loos Cutraro has a vision some may describe as bold, but actually, it should be our reality: half of the people running for office should be women (and spoiler alert: women who run win at the same rates as men!). But often, starting when we’re little girls, women don’t see themselves as qualified leaders, or feel they don’t have enough experience, connections, or time to jump into the political arena. Erin is passionate about removing those perceived obstacles and clearing the path for more women to run for office—starting at the all-important local level (did you know 99% of elected offices are at the local level?). Erin launched She Should Run, a nonpartisan organization that encourages and equips women from all walks of life to run for office. Erin and Jen…
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If you’ve seen her on the Netflix series Chef’s Table, you know Chef Dominique Crenn is filled with equal parts talent, love, and creative whimsy. Dominique is the chef-proprietor of Atelier Crenn, the San Francisco restaurant she opened nearly a decade ago. And last year Dominique became the first female chef in America to earn three Michelin stars, the highest honor in the food world, all with an eye toward connecting with her guests and ensuring all feel welcome in her space. Raised in the Brittany region of France, Dominique moved to California in her twenties, looking for a sense of purpose, and talked her way into the glitzy kitchen run by acclaimed chef Jeremiah Tower—except Dominique had never cooked in a professional kitchen before. Today she and Jen talk about the ways…
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Our series on Powerhouse Women continues with two strong women who are helping women in Haiti get through the most powerful and vulnerable moments they will ever experience: giving birth. Midwives Tara Livesay and KJ Johnson are best friends who work with Heartline Ministries and, like Melinda Gates, they champion maternal care as a human right. As Enneagram 2s, Tara and KJ became fast friends, and they tell Jen why they decided to become midwives, about the birth story that brought them together (an unexpected twin!), what it’s like to offer maternal care in Haiti (it involves Tara driving a van on the rules-optional streets of Port-au-Prince—not for the faint of heart!). Tara and KJ are facing broken systems that are daunting for people in their line of work, and instead of…
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Nona Jones (Yes Nona, not Norah!) faced a lot of obstacles on her path to becoming a powerhouse woman and now heads up global faith-based partnerships at Facebook. Growing up with a single mom amid trauma and abuse, Nona struggled to see her value or her place in the world. Nona found a community of love and support in her local church, and being accepted and welcomed there began a path toward healing that would change her whole trajectory. She tells Jen how she joined the executive team of a Fortune 500 Company at age 23, and how she learned the difference between healthy and unhealthy ambition. And in her role as social media maven at Facebook, Nona has razor-sharp insight into how we can help our kids cultivate authentic communities online…
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By anyone’s definition, Sarah Robb O’Hagan is a winning force. She’s a brilliant executive, passionate athlete, and bold entrepreneur who’s worked with some of the biggest corporations around: Apple, Virgin Atlantic, Nike, to name a few. And when Sarah was the CEO of Gatorade, she led a huge turnaround that reinvigorated the struggling company. Sarah talks candidly about her winding road to the top, a journey that included more than one time she was let go from a job. She isn’t afraid to admit, “I deserved to get fired,” and reminds us that we need to allow ourselves plenty of of room to try and risk and make mistakes, because our failures have just as much to teach us as our successes. Sarah reiterates a common theme among powerhouse women—we need to…
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We all know knowledge is power. But the power doesn’t just come from what you know—it comes from acting on that knowledge. And for theSkimm’s Carly Zakin and Danielle Weisberg, their mission is to give that power to millennial women and beyond, to arm them with the tools and confidence to take charge of their lives and conquer the world, and they’re doing it all through the media company they founded called theSkimm. When they left their jobs at NBC News in 2012, Carly and Danielle started a daily online newsletter from their couch. Since then, their office has grown from 2 employees to more than 100, and their handful of subscribers has ballooned to a whopping 7 million (!). Why? Because they tell hard news in a way that people can not only…
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We’re starting strong in our new series For the Love of Powerhouse Women, because we’re joined by one of our personal heroes: Melinda Gates. Kind and wise, Melinda leads the world largest philanthropy, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to improve the lives of millions of women and children around the world, and she does it all with a listening ear and an equally fierce and gentle spirit. We’re thrilled to talk with her today about her dynamite new book The Moment of Lift. Melinda lets us in our her early days in Dallas, growing up in a devoted Catholic family and learning about the lives of the marginalized through volunteer work at the country courthouse. After receiving degrees in computer science and business at Duke, Melinda made her way to Microsoft, where she…
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