Introducing Women of Influence & Highlights from Inspiring Guests

Over the past 2 years, the SheSpeaks podcast has shared the stories of amazing women. Recently, we announced a new name, Women of Influence.  We’re excited about this shift as we feel it defines best what we have always done and continue to do, amplify the stories and experiences of amazing women. 

We realized the common thread through our conversations was women using their influence to build, to grow, to share and inspire.  All of these amazing women, be it founders, CEOs, authors, experts, celebrities, and change-makers have done just that. As we head into new episodes, we will continue to have conversations, learn from women, hear their stories, and see how their influence is effecting change and inspiring others. 

Join us as we revisit some standout moments from episodes over the years: 

From Baby Jars to Beauty Bars with Lisa Price

Lisa Price, the founder of Carol's Daughter, shared her inspiring journey of becoming an "accidental entrepreneur." Despite not having a business background, Lisa turned her hobby into a thriving beauty empire. 

Tackling Teenage Mental Health with Lisa Damore

Expert Lisa Damore provided eye-opening insights into teenage mental health - from understanding healthy anxiety to addressing the commercialization of wellness.

Evolving at Any Age with Stacey London

Stacey London of TLC's What Not to Wear fame inspired us by discussing her journey to pivot her career and create a voice for midlife women. She  spoke about the importance of personal agency and the freedom to evolve at any stage in life.

Rethinking Beauty Standards with Jessica Defino

Jessica Defino shined a light on the problematic aspects of the beauty industry. She discussed how the industry has co-opted the concept of beauty and commoditized it, making it a struggle for many to attain the standards.

Transparency in Influencing with Kristen Sellentin

Kristen Sellentin's viral reel revealed her earnings as a content creator, sparking a positive conversation about transparency and success in the influencer world. She emphasized that it's never too late to pivot your career and find success.

Want to listen to all the episodes featured here?

Lisa Price - From Baby Jars to Beauty Bars: The Rise of Carol’s Daughter 

Dr. Lisa Damour - Teenage Mental Health and Social Media 

Stacy London - Evolving at Any Age 

Jessica DeFino - Changing the Conversation Round Beauty 

Kristen Sellentin - Why this Creator Revealed Her 6 Figure Earnings for the Year  

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Transcript

Speaker 1 0:10

Hello and welcome back to the show, to the newly rebranded show. The she Speaks podcast is now, as you may have noticed, called Women of Influence. The reason that we changed the name is because we really wanted to reflect and capture our mission, which is to amplify the stories and experiences of amazing women, been to spotlight women who have not only achieved incredible things, but have inspired us with their resilience and their determination and their success. Through our episodes, we've spoken with entrepreneurs and changemakers and experts who offered insights into topics like mental health, manifesting success, money management, business health and so much more. We've also explored the world of content creators and influencers, learning how they're using their platforms to drive change and to build their own brands and their own independence.

Speaker 1 1:17

In reimagining the podcast, we recognize that a common thread among all of our guests was women using their influence to inspire and innovate and create. So our new name, women of Influence, celebrates that spirit. Over the last 200 episodes, we've featured a variety of voices founders, ceos, authors, experts, celebrities and trailblazers, each sharing a unique story. Today, we're revisiting some standout moments from our journey so far. One of our favorite entrepreneurial stories came from Lisa Price of Carol's Daughter in the episode From Baby Jars to Beauty Bars.

Speaker 2 2:03

Wasn't a person that had a business background. I didn't think, oh, I'm going to become an entrepreneur and I'm gonna build this empire. It was really just me doing a hobby and then realizing that I could turn that hobby into something that could make money. And then it was well, let me see how much money I can make. And I did not know that it was going to grow the way that it did. But it's been a really great journey. I sometimes call myself the accidental entrepreneur. It's not what I knew I was going to do, but then, once I began to do it, I realized that it was my path and that it was for me, and I just had to learn as I went along. I didn't have the luxury of having a plan and having it figured out. As I did it, I did it, I learned and I did, I learned and I did.

Speaker 1 2:57

And I think, in some ways, that might be the better way to go, because what happens is that people get so caught up in the plan, like, what is the plan? Every day, stuff comes at you that you would never have thought about in your plan. It never would have been there. I'm very curious to hear how you think about the failures that come along as you're going.

Speaker 2 3:22

I used to think that when I would mess up, notice. I said, when I would mess up, right that it was my fault. It was because, oh well, you know, if I had gone to business school I probably would have known that and not made that mistake. Or if this was something that I was trained to do, I probably wouldn't have screwed up. And thankfully I've been able to be in business for 27 years, because now I know the smart people screw up, the people that have all the letters after their name and are in business.

Speaker 2 4:01

They screw up because it's just the nature of business and the nature of life, and it isn't personal and it isn't your fault. And the world doesn't end. And if you can, you know, pick yourself up, go back, look at the mistake, see where it happened, how it happened. Could you have avoided it? Maybe not. Is it one of those it is what it is situations. But then what can you learn from it and what can you remember from it so that when you're in that situation again you might say wait, wait, wait, hold on.

Speaker 1 4:38

I've been here before into mental health with expert Lisa DeMore, who provided practical tips to help our community become more informed on teenage mental health and social media.

Speaker 3 4:51

You know the nature of being a teenager. Is you remember being a teenager? Right, you have really big feelings, they're really powerful, they're very upset and very sad.

Speaker 1 5:01

Everything's catastrophic, everything is the end of the world.

Speaker 3 5:04

Adolescent emotion is very powerful, both positive and negative. Anxiety is a normal and healthy function. It's part of being human. Sadness is a normal and healthy function. It's part of being human. And I think there's two forces at work here. One is, I think we're just raising a generation that has, maybe through WebMD and its equivalents, has become very accustomed to diagnostic terminology. And I do hear and I find it very strange actually kids who are using social media to move into whole universes where they're talking about multiple personality disorder. And you know these kids don't have multiple personality disorder, but they're trafficking in this diagnostic language, which was not something that happened before. So there's also, I think the commercialization of wellness has caused a sense that to feel distressed is a kind of pathology, and so I think two forces that combine to leave young people feeling like if I'm distressed, it must be pathological.

Speaker 3 6:11

What's the proper term? The solution here is to actually normalize psychological distress. To normalize like well, of course you're anxious, you haven't studied. Yeah, when you start studying, you will be studying. You don't have an anxiety disorder, you have healthy anxiety. Let's talk about healthy anxiety, healthy anger. The rest back that negative emotions are actually normal, and I'll tell you especially why girls need this, because when there is this hovering idea that good mental health means you feel good, you don't feel uncomfortable, you can get to an easy place and stay there. I now have adolescent girls complaining to me that they feel that they are failing at wellness because they sometimes feel stressed, they sometimes feel upset and they've sort of gotten emotional. So they're not supposed to have those feelings and so now it's like another thing I need to be doing better.

Speaker 1 7:11

Then there was the inspiring chat with Stacey London from TLC's what Not to Wear. In the episode Evolving at Any Age, stacey discusses how it's never too late to pivot and her journey to create a voice for herself and midlife women.

Speaker 6 7:29

Like somebody once said to me oh, you know, you didn't get married because you're married to your career. And I was like shut up Because, honestly, that is not. I'm not married to my career. That is what I am contributing with my life. That was my choice.

Speaker 6 7:43

And the idea that it's one or the other, you can have it all All of these things that we say to women. They're so detrimental. Instead of being who you are, come as you are, contribute what you want and what you feel most passionately about. What I wish somebody would have said was one you're not done at any stage of life until you're in the ground and you are allowed to evolve in whatever way, shape or form you feel works for your life, and whether that's a job pivot or you decide to have children later in life or anything, start your own company, it doesn't matter. It's just the state that we hold ourselves to standards that don't make any sense. We hold ourselves to standards that were set by somebody else, and this idea that you can really you can have agency and you can choose the direction that you want your life to go is always available to you, just the same way that you can stop wearing schlumpy dresses and put on like a dope jumpsuit.

Speaker 1 8:48

Same thing I love that, I love that and you know what? There is a difference, right In terms of when you take that personal agency, when you say to yourself I have a choice here. It's unbelievable what that opens up. We've had dynamic conversations with authors and journalists, including Jessica DeFino. In this episode, jessica shares how the beauty industry creates a fixation with the physical body and what we can do to change the conversation. I am very intrigued by the space you cover the beauty industry. Tell us, start with what's wrong with the beauty industry.

Speaker 4 9:30

Oh my gosh. Let's start with the word industry. I honestly I think the biggest problem with the beauty industry is that it co-opted the term beauty to describe a very flattened, one-dimensionaldimensional, physical ideal of appearance, when beauty is so much more than that and I think that's why so many of us are so pulled in by beauty is because beauty is like this inherent human longing, it's a human urge. I see it up there with like beauty, freedom, truth, love, and I think it has really damaged us emotionally, mentally, psychologically and obviously physically to be answering that like inherent human call with this sort of very narrow, impossible to attain physical ideal. I just like, I just don't think beauty can be industrialized.

Speaker 1 10:23

Beauty can be industrialized. Yeah, I mean, I have not thought of it that way before and I am, so I'm grateful that you you said that, because this idea of beauty you're right, it's one of these words that like kindness and you know these, these words that really should be our words, every person, every human being's words, and the industry the beauty industry has co-opted it and has made it this thing right and this ideal that is very hard for women to live up to. I'm curious if you can share your perspective on this. I do see that we have moved in terms of certainly when I was younger, this ideal of what we all had to do to be women and to look a certain way. That has definitely, I think, evolved. However, I think we are in a situation where social media adds this other layer of complexity in terms of what is considered beautiful. Can you talk about how you think social media is playing into the beauty of it all?

Speaker 4 11:45

Yeah, I think you're right. I think what's happening in terms of beauty standards and, like, the underlying forces that that create the standard of beauty are the same. That hasn't changed. What's changed is our technology, and I mean that in terms of the technology of products and procedures, like, obviously there are a lot more things possible, there are a lot more ways to manipulate the human body, and so that, you know, accelerates kind of the normal baseline standard of beauty stuff that we have been dealing with for literal centuries.

Speaker 4 12:20

And then, of course, you add social media to the mix and it's just again an acceleration of how media has informed beauty standards.

Speaker 4 12:27

You know, since the like, you know the dawn of Hollywood, I always like to say when movies were a thing, you know since the like.

Speaker 4 12:31

You know the dawn of Hollywood, I always like to say when movies were a thing, obviously camera quality was very low in the beginning and it created this sort of ethereal glow on actresses because it was blurred, you couldn't see them in high definition and that kickstarted a lot of beauty standards of what women should look like, and we've seen that sort of evolve throughout the ages and social media is just the latest iteration of that and it's just that we're getting all of our input about what people look like and what they should look like, what we should look like, through a screen. So just the screen aspect of it lends a layer of removal from real life, from real people, from what people look like. And then you add all the technology that we are putting on top of that in terms of filters and Photoshop and Facetune and all of this technology, and, yeah, it's just accelerating standards that have been in place for a really long time.

Speaker 1 13:30

Finally, we've highlighted influential content creators like Kristen Salentin, whose viral reels sparked an inspiring conversation on social media on what creators are being paid.

Speaker 5 13:44

The number one reason I decided to post how Much I Made last year was to show women specifically that you do not have to be stuck in one career or one part of your life. You can do anything. That's the number one thing I try to tell people you can do anything. I did not have this job. I had a whole other career. Then I was raising my babies and I put my mind to something and I did it and I am successful and I want people to see that that, not not just that they have. You know, it's a pathway to becoming an influencer or here's how to make this money being a content creator. It's really a bigger picture than that, which is you can be at the lowest point in your life and pick up and say I'm going to do this and put your mind to something and do it and be successful.

Speaker 1 14:36

Yeah, I love that. I am a big believer in being the master of your own destiny, and there are so many women who decide to take an off ramp, let's say, to their careers and to raise their families, and then you know, because of the way the traditional work works, it can be a huge sidetrack right For women getting back up into the working world. And here you created your own business because, being a creator and influencer, if you are monetizing it, you're you're an entrepreneur. You have created your own business, and quite successfully so. So so what has the reaction been to? I know the video went viral, but what has the what have been? What have people been saying to you?

Speaker 5 15:32

My DMs have not stopped blowing up since that reel was posted. Every day people want to know how did I do it, how can I? You know better my business. I'm getting DMs and emails from creators themselves with big followings asking me what are you doing? You know, looking for advice, but the overall, the overall message has been positive. I mean, on that reel alone, there's over I don't know over a thousand comments or so of just positivity. I don't think there's there might be one negative comment, and so it was taken in a really positive light, which, thank goodness, my message was received loud and clear, that this was not, you know, me tooting my own horn. This was bigger than that and people are really genuinely happy for me. But, you know, happy to see a woman being successful and being transparent, because there's so little transparency in this industry, being a newer industry too.

Speaker 1 16:30

Keep tuning in for each episode of Women of Influence as we celebrate the impact of women's voices.