The Grit Files

Amy Peterson is a celebrity medical aesthetician, entrepreneur, and the founder of The Skin Savant and Lenox & Sixteenth, a luxury skincare brand bringing clinic-inspired results into everyday routines.Her path into skincare was deeply personal.

After surviving a life-altering accident at just 18 years old that left her with 40 scars, Amy developed an intimate understanding of the connection between skin, confidence, healing, and identity. That experience ultimately helped shape a career dedicated to helping others feel better in their own skin.

Today, Amy has built a thriving aesthetic practice, launched a rapidly growing skincare brand alongside her sister, Janine, and most recently brought Lenox & Sixteenth to New York Fashion Week.

On The Grit Files, Amy shares the real story behind the success — the fear, resilience, self-doubt, ambition, motherhood, marriage, and determination it took to build a life and career that once felt unimaginable.

Katy has spent more than 20 years in the halls of major academic institutions. She builds programs that teach people how to coach. She was the co-designer and co-lead of the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School Executive Leadership Coaching Academy and has made it her mission to bridge the gap between heavy-duty academic rigor and the "get-it-done" reality of global business.

Nick Wooters is a lifelong coach with other 20+ years in swimming and triathlon training, including 15 years as a NCAA Division 1 Coach. Nick spent a decade as a professor in Stanford School of Medicine's Health and Human Performance Department and now consults with D1 athletic programs on building high-performance team environments.

After years of working with elite athletes and studying the world’s longest-living communities, we’ve combined performance and longevity into one powerful system. Coya is all about empowering you to build and sustain high-performance habits for a longer, healthier life. Whether you’re an executive, athlete, or just someone looking to optimize your daily routine, Coya offers the tools and coaching you need to make lasting changes.

www.coya.life for more information!

After a divorce left her with no income, no career, and nowhere to turn, Brooke had to rebuild her life and career from the ground up. Starting over later in life wasn't easy, but the experience gave her a deep understanding of what it takes to navigate change, rediscover your strengths, and create new opportunities, turning her career into a six figure one!

Today, Brooke is the founder of Her Perfect Career, where she helps women confidently navigate career transitions with clarity, strategy, and purpose. Whether they're returning to the workforce, pivoting into a new career, or rebuilding after a major life change, Brooke empowers women to identify their strengths, tell their stories with confidence, and create a career path that aligns with the life they want to build.

Some of you may know him as the voice of the Baltimore Ravens. Some of you may know him as the ports broadcaster for WBAL11. Some of you may know him as an Executive Coach.

Gerry Sandusky is the guest on this week's episode. We are talking adversity, not quitting when times get tough, and lessons that shaped him throughout the years. This is a can't miss episode.

Greg Vetter is a trailblazing entrepreneur who turned a family recipe into Tessemae’s, the #1 organic salad dressing brand in the U.S., and pioneered clean food manufacturing, creating the “fresh condiment” category and Whole30’s first approved bottled dressings.

Today on Grit, we are talking building a business, watching it fall, and the rebuild that come after. Entrepreneurship isn't always pretty. We are pulling back the curtain with Greg Vetter and hearing his story.

his week on The Grit Files, we sit down with Aaron Lutze, a content creator, sports marketer, and storyteller whose career has been built around understanding what drives elite performers. As the founder of Super Rider and co-founder of Second Nature Media, Aaron has dedicated his work to helping athletes, brands, and audiences connect through authentic stories. 

Before launching his own media ventures, Aaron spent more than a decade with Red Bull as an Athlete Marketing Manager, working alongside world-class athletes across multiple disciplines. Rather than simply marketing from the sidelines, he immersed himself in their sports and communities, believing that the best stories come from genuine understanding and firsthand experience. 

In this conversation, Aaron shares how curiosity, community, and a relentless commitment to adding value have shaped his approach to content creation. From athlete development and brand building to the evolving media landscape, he offers a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to create stories that resonate- and why the strongest connections are built through authenticity.

Hillary Livingston Giddings is a community builder, writer, and event strategist passionate about creating connection through storytelling and conversation. She is the co-founder of Sincerely, Divorced, a global support community dedicated to breaking the stigma of divorce and reducing the isolation that often follows the end of a long-term relationship.

With more than 10 years of experience in marketing, communications, and event planning, Hillary has led high-visibility initiatives focused on engagement and meaningful human connection. Prior to founding Sincerely, Divorced, she held numerous communications, event, and project management positions in higher education. She holds both a bachelor’s degree in Psychology and a master’s degree in Human Resource Development from Towson University.

Today on The Grit Files, we sit down with David Callahan, Co-CEO of UltraSignup and one of the people helping shape the future of trail and ultrarunning.But David's story starts long before UltraSignup.A former attorney and endurance athlete, David spent years chasing achievement—including completing 52 triathlons in 52 weeks—before realizing that sometimes the things we're good at aren't the things we're meant to do forever. After leaving law behind, he and his business partner took a leap of faith during the uncertainty of COVID and acquired UltraSignup, a platform that many believed might not survive the pandemic.What followed was a journey of rebuilding, earning trust within a deeply passionate community, and growing a company from one part-time employee to a team serving runners and race directors across the country.In this conversation, we explore entrepreneurship, identity, belonging, fatherhood, the unique magic of trail running culture, and why the running community has become a "third place" for so many people seeking connection, purpose, and challenge.

Today's guest is someone who has spent her life building at the intersection of innovation, creativity, and human connection. She was an early employee at Facebook, helped shape the way billions of people interact online, and has continued redefining herself through entrepreneurship, investing, media, and the arts. She's a Tony Award-winning producer, founder of HUG, an advocate for creators and emerging technology, and perhaps most recently, an endurance athlete who has quietly become deeply immersed in the ultra-running world—recently completing Cocodona 250 and shaving ten hours off her previous finish. But today isn't about titles. It's about the person underneath them all. This is Randi Zuckerberg.