SheSez with Linda Grasso

You may have wondered at some time in your life: How can I make difference? How can I do something meaningful? If I'm not a born leader, can I still make a mark on the world? In her new book, Purposeful: Are You a Manager or a Movement Starter?, Jennifer Dulski explains how you can turn your mission into a movement that creates change—whether you're at a Fortune 500 company or a local community group; whether you're an intern or a CEO. "Anyone can spark change if they believe in the power of taking action, no matter where, or how small," Jennifer says. Sharing inspiring, eye-opening stories, Jennifer boils down the lessons we can learn from them and she addresses how to overcome things that hold us back, like fear and false beliefs that loop through our heads.

As an accomplished leader and entrepreneur, with more than 18 years of experience in successful startups and big-brand internet companies, Jennifer has had something of a front row seat to watching people create social change. From her job as president of Change.org to her current position, as the head of Groups and Community at Facebook, she has had the opportunity to meet and interact with people from all walks of life who had a strong conviction and acted on it—to remarkable results.

Kimberly Inskeep may have been voted "Best Dressed" by her high school senior class—but she never could have guessed she'd end up spearheading a $250 million dollar fashion business. Kimberly is Co-Founder and President of cabi, a women's clothing line sold through pop-up events at private homes, presided over by nearly 35-hundred saleswomen, known as "stylists," across the country. Hear the story of how Kimberly's desire to be more present in her daughter's life led to her exit from the corporate fast-track and how when she met her partner, designer Carol Anderson nearly 20 years ago at a dinner party, she "immediately saw an opportunity"—and seized it. Listen in as Kimberly shares with Linda how she and Carol puts their heads together to come up with an innovative retail sales concept that eschewed brick and mortar—way before everyone else was doing it.

At 28-years-old, Alex Hanifin is a rock star in the natural foods industry. Just two years ago she and her business partner pooled together $25,000-every cent they owned- to co-found Alpine Start Foods, a premium brand of instant coffee that has been something of an overnight success. The single serving instant coffee can already be found on the shelves of grocery stores including Whole Foods and sporting goods stores like REI. "This isn't your grandma's coffee," the Boulder, Colorado native quips in describing the brand, which uses high quality beans and a special roasting process to produce gourmet flavors like Coconut Creamer and Dirty Chai Latte. Listen in as Alex, who didn't get into a single college she applied to, shares the story of how she built her career simply by asking lots of questions, networking like crazy and, yeah you guessed it: breaking the rules.

After a decade of working for large financial institutions, and living through 911 in New York, Victoria Tsai felt a yearning for simplicity and authenticity. She suffered from the acute skin condition, dermatitis, and nothing her dermatologist provided provided relief. While traveling in Japan she met a group of modern day geisha and was struck by the beauty of their skin. She quit her job and embarked on a three-year research project to investigate the beauty practices and routines of the geisha, ultimately discovering that they're based on purity and the Japanese diet of green tea, rice, seaweed. Listen in as Victoria shares with Linda how she sold her engagement ring and car to finance Tatcha Beauty and basically jumped over anything that got in her way. No one wanted to finance her; she couldn't even get a publicist. But she stuck to what she believed. Today Tatcha Beauty employs 95 people and is sold in Barneys and Sephora.

She may be only in her late thirties, but Elise Loehnen has made more bold pivots that most women make in a lifetime. She grew up in Montana, went to Yale University and then moved to New York City for a career in publishing with Lucky and Condé Nast Traveler. When publishing started to feel stagnant, Elise realized she needed to "get off the bench." She moved to LA and took a job with Shopzilla "mostly to learn about the internet." Listen in as Elise shares with Linda how the experience she got at the comparison shopping website—and a chance meeting with Gwyneth Paltrow—led to a gig at Goop—back in the days when it was just a weekly email newsletter "Gwyneth created mostly for her friends." Now, as Chief Content Officer of a rapidly growing empire, Elise helps craft the Goop voice, overseeing everything from the website to the magazine to the summits. And if you still aren't getting how important Elise is within the brand: she also switches off hosting the Goop podcast with Gwyneth.

She may work behind-the-scenes, but as one of a very small group of female professional sports leaders, LA Sparks President and COO Christine Simmons lives in the spotlight. Learn how she overcomes challenges like how she felt after winning the national championship in 2016—"I felt like I had a target on my back"—and how she is committed to growing the audience for women's basketball—showing sports fans that female athletes are just as talented as their male counterparts. Christine shares with Linda what it is like to run a professional sports team and work for Magic Johnson, and why she thinks working full-time makes her a better mom.

As co-founder of Coolhaus, 34-year-old Natasha Case () is behind one of the biggest ice cream company success stories of the past decade. In 2018, it is estimated that Coolhaus will rack up 13 million dollars in sales. With unique flavors like Buttered French Toast and Street Cart Churro Dough, the brand's ice cream sandwiches and pints are sold in 6000 grocery stores across the country—including Whole Foods and Safeway. Hear the riveting story of how Natasha pivoted from a job as a Disney Imagineer (doing architecture at theme parks) into becoming an entrepreneur; how she and her partner launched their company out of a "beat-up truck that didn't even drive" at Coachella in 2009, and how she literally walked into a Whole Foods and talked them into carrying her product. Also: Natasha's advice for the budding entrepreneur—from stretching boundaries to thinking big to making a vow.

It's been 15 years since the hit show Touched by an Angel shut down production, but Roma Downey still gets approached by fans who remember her as the character Monica, the angel. The Emmy-nominated actress opens up to Linda about how she dealt with "the quiet" when the show was over and how she patiently and slowly recreated her life: marrying the TV producer Mark Burnett and blending their two families. The Irish native also details how and why she came "out of retirement," for The Bible TV series and then went on to found Lightworkers Media, which produced the epic feature film, Ben Hur. The two also discuss Roma's New York Times bestselling book, Box of Butterflies, in which she shares personal stories from her life and how her faith has been a guiding light.

She co-founded a major retail disruptor–the flash-sale website Gilt in 2007. She then moved on to launch Glamsquad, which—with the tap of an app—sends hair and make-up professionals to your home. But Alexandra loves a challenge and, in early 2018, she made a major pivot—from being her own boss, to working at Allergan, the mega-successful pharmaceutical company which makes Botox, among other products. In this episode, Alexandra shares with Linda her key strategies to launching a start-up, why she thinks networking is critical and she offers some fundraising advice—from how to time the pitch to how to handle a blow-off.

Snagging a coveted job at one of the "Big 8" accounting firms straight out of college, Laura Hertz was on the fast-track to financial success. But working in a windowless office sometimes 6 days a week made her feel "miserable"—and she couldn't shake a rewarding experience she'd had volunteering with AmeriCorps. Laura shares how she got the hutzpah to quit her job, go back to school to USC to get her masters in Social Entrepreneurship, pinpoint the perfect partner and then co-found Gifts for Good — the world's first retail site aimed at selling gifts that give back. As CEO, this compelling twenty something is disrupting the world of corporate gifting—urging companies all over the world to stop purchasing meaningless, mass merchandised tokens (that often wind up in the trash or in a drawer) and, instead, to give beautiful, curated items that help charitable causes. And by the way, individual shoppers can buy gifts on the site, too.