Wantcast: The Women Against Negative Talk Podcast

The end of August/beginning of September always symbolizes a fresh start to me - and this is the perfect episode to hopefully catapult you into whatever newness is in store for you in the season to come. Emily Greener is the CEO and co-founder of I AM THAT GIRL, a global movement inspiring girls to be, love, and express who they are through education, content, and community. She’s been Emily and the IATG crew have taken their movement off-line into communities all over the world, motivating girls from SoCal to South Africa to live the lives they were meant to lead, judgement-free. For even more on Emily, you can check out her WANT Woman spotlight here. In this episode we talk about navigating major turning points in life (like quarter-life crises and your "Saturn Return," which I've got links to read up on in the show notes), how to become a leader in whatever space you're in whether it's in work or in life, the power and scariness of going first, and of course, the chance meeting and turning-point moment th

Today’s guest is the lovely Ashlee Piper. Ashlee Piper is a political strategist turned vegan and eco-lifestyle expert, writer, and TV personality whose work has been featured in/on Refinery29, Apartment Therapy, Women's Health, Reader’s Digest, Mirror Mirror, Mind Body Green, VegNews, Vegetarian Times, AOL, NBC, CBS, ABC, and FOX News, to name a few. Piper is also a brand strategist and influencer for some of the world's most ethical and innovative companies. One of the things I love about Ashlee is her versatility and mad smarts. I’m fascinated by Ashlee’s background as a political strategist and creative consultant, and how that has led to her building a name for herself as an “eco-lifestyle expert” over the years. In this episode, we talk Ashlee’s winding career journey that ultimately led her to where she is today, how to pivot both personally and professionally when what you had or who you were no longer serves you, the importance of listening to your intuition and how to discern whether it’s your gut t

A note on recent events in our country and world... There is a dark cloud over our world right now and for weeks I was trying to decide what to do and how to proceed. And no, that doesn't mean using hashtags and prayers (although those should never be thrown aside because every teensy tinesy step counts). I realized that "doing something" meant talking to EVERYONE, asking questions, and ESPECIALLY informing myself when it comes to perspectives other than my own. This has been my MO for as long as I can remember, but this month has been a huge, grim reminder that I can do more and be better and search harder and dig deeper. Always. However, there is a delicate balance. For me, someone who has been born into skin deemed "white" and therefore has never experienced racism firsthand, I've wanted to gain massive insight on how I can be an ally and work toward change beyond posting an article on FB or a hashtag on Instagram (both of which are still important and will continue to do). But I know that some people aren

So, you’re probably wondering about that title, “your vulva is a snowflake,” and the fact that today’s episode had the word “sex” in the title. You might even be thinking, oh this episode isn’t for me, I’m not in a relationship – or, I AM in a relationship and it’s a healthy relationship – or, I’m not looking for sex advice right now – or whatever might be coming into your brain because this episode has “sex” in the title. I want to make this clear – yes, we talk about the act of sex a little, but this episode is not about intercourse or partnership. Like, at all. This is, I mean, maybe one of the most all-inclusive, body-positive conversations I know I’ve ever had. And probably, you too. Anne Hodder is a Certified sex educator, sex toy expert, and sex-positive PR & marketing pro at Hodder Media. She’s also been a friend of mine for about….5 years now?...I met her at the gym, in a spin class, and since then she has just been such a thoughtful, wise, and supportive presence in my life. I knew that when th

Something I'm realizing now more than EVER is the power of community. So it's only fitting that today's episode is with community builder extraordinaire Audrey Bellis.  Audrey is a FORCE OF NATURE. A first-generation Latina, she's is shaping the future of Los Angeles, and specifically, Downtown LA by fostering the startup and tech communities as a founder of StartupDTLA and as a cofounder ofGRID110. Not only that, she’s linking creative female entrepreneurs as the founder of Worthy Women. Mayor Garcetti's office honored her as 1 of 5 "Inspiring Latinas of LA" and TechOutLA named her "a key player in the Eastside/DTLA tech movement." If there's anyone who knows how to create community and make a collective impact as visionary women in the world, it's this stunner.  In this episode, we dive deep into knowing your body and healing past trauma, why owning your worth is so important in everything from business to friendships, Audrey’s crazy medical complications that gave her a huge wake up call – and her sort o

If you follow me on Instagram or read WANT often, you know I'm a sucker for a good fitness experience. And it's not because I'm super passionate about how to do a lunge or because of any sort of caloric burn: just like anything else worthwhile, fitness, to me, is all about how it makes you feel. Today’s guest is a long time in the making (we may or may not have tried to record this 7xs, nbd), someone whose journey I’ve had the pleasure of witnessing over the last five years: Kirsten Potenza, the co-founder of POUND. POUND is a workout unlike anything else I’ve ever experienced - IF YOUR IDEA of a workout looks more like head-banging at a rock concert than logging miles on a treadmill, then POUND may just be your fitness spirit animal. The concept behind this killer workout is simple yet genius: a full-body cardio jam session using weighted Ripstix to drum to the music for 45 crazy minutes. I live for music, so when I was first introduced to POUND, and Kirsten, I felt like I’d found a workout meant for me. T

Jay Pryor is a life coach, speaker, corporate trainer, and author who inspires people to harness their power to create the lives of their dreams. He works exclusively with women, and among other reasons, has a great reason why: he used to be one.   Jay was born as a female and transitioned to male in 2001 when he was in his 30s. The second I heard Jay's story and mission, I knew I had to get him on the WANTcast. You hopefully know I don't play favorites, but honestly, I've been telling everyone I know that this podcast is coming up, even the people who don't normally listen to podcasts - that's how important I think this episode is.    In this episode we talk in detail about Jay's experience transitioning, his reality show stint, and having a need to do more to help a cause without even knowing what that help looks like. We also talk about why Jay chooses to work specifically with women, being "hijacked" and how to get your brain back on track, the huge things holding women back, and so, so much more. There

I am an emotional sponge. I walk into a room and can instantly feel whether people are relaxed or tense. I can speak two words to you and feel what’s going on. And you can bet yer bottom dollar that I internalize whatever energy is swirling around me. For the longest time, I felt like an outsider – and truly weirded out by the fact that things as small as people laying on their car horns in rush-hour traffic would leave me shaken for a good few minutes. And then I found out that not only was I not alone, but that I could work with what I’ve got – and it was my greatest asset in this world. If you’ve been reading and listening for a while, it *probably* doesn’t come as a surprise to you that I’m into personality tests, personality indicators, and the psychology behind personality types. I find any chance to learn more about the inner workings of others, and myself, absolutely fascinating. About 6 years ago, I stumbled upon the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (here’s one you can take forfree!), took the test, and t

She had me at "hello." And by "hello"...I mean lip balm. Today’s episode is with Adina Grigore, who, if you DON’T know, you’re going to WANT to know after we’re through here. Adina is the founder of S.W. Basics, one of my absolute FAVORITE all natural skincare lines – and the author of Skin Cleanse: The Simple, all-natural Program for Clean, Calm, Happy Skin.So, funny thing about me and Adina – I actually fell in love with her before I even met her, and what’s even weirder is that it wasn’t through social media or a podcast – it was because at my former editorial job, someone sent us a pack of her lip balms. You know how sometimes you’ll see someone from afar and think, I need to be friends with this woman? That’s how I felt when I saw the lip balms. I know. What a weirdo, right? But here's the thing: there was something so special and unique about the S.W. Basics brand that felt so personal, so down to earth, I knew that could only come from this badass woman founder who was steering the ship. This podcast i

Hold the phone. Stop the presses. We are, officially, IN THE DOUBLE DIGITS. When you’re creating one new pod every three weeks, getting to double digits feels like forever – so, to me, this is a huge deal (we’re heading towards the 6-month mark!). Especially because of this one little not-so-secret: I was scared out of my mind to start this podcast. I had a smidge of sound editing experience under my belt, had NO clue how to record with someone over Skype, and forget about even getting the tech stuff up and running. This podcast has taught me to be ballsy and just make things happen – because once you’re ballsy a few times in a row, it starts to get easier and easier.I will say, it’s a lot easier to be ballsy when you’ve got people in your corner. And today’s guest is a super special one, because she has been in WANT’s corner since literally the very first email conversation we had (she was actually the person who told me, “You HAVE TO START A PODCAST” and never let me forget she was waiting for it). She’s no

Episode NINE!Today's guest is Komal Minhas: an Indo-Canadian film producer, writer, and investor. She has been deeply committed to improving the lives of women and girls globally, and champions this work with her continued investments and work in film and storytelling through her company KoMedia Inc. Most recently, Komal's been working as producer and co-founder of Dream, Girl.Dream, Girl tells the inspiring stories of female entrepreneurs and CEOs in order to empower the next generation of girl bosses to dream bigger. The Dream, Girl movement was brought to life by director Erin Bagwell, and close to 2,000 backers on Kickstarter, with $100k pledged. This is the kind of documentary we SO NEED right now.The film is set to release in the spring of 2016, but the amount of momentum behind this film right now is absolutely extraordinary. To some people it might make more sense to run this closer to the film, but I wanted to give you a first look so you can get on the action before it hits big and trust me, IT WILL

Today’s guest is the PERFECT way to ring in 2016. And yes, it’s a dude. Since the beginning, I’ve wanted to include MEN in the WANT gameplan, because I truly believe that if we’re going to make a dent when it comes to negative self talk, men need to be a part of the conversation, too. So, now, once a quarter (which is every 3 months or so), I’m going to be featuring a WANT MAN on the pod; a person I feel truly embodies the message of WANT and has a unique story of moving forward fearlessly to offer up. Our first WANTman is Benjamin Mathes. Ben is the founder of Urban Confessional: A Free Listening Project. Started as a way to challenge conventional actor training, Urban Confessional is a community of artists who believe people should be heard.  They stand on street corners all over the world with signs that say "Free Listening" - and you can imagine what happens next.  Their work has been featured in academic and commercial publications, blogs, on radio and television, and recently in a Kleenex campaign I’ll

This is a !!special!! edition of the WANTcast: The Women Against Negative Talk podcast, episode seven. I’m going to keep this intro short and sweet: You'll notice the timing is off on this one. This is actually an extra episode. Last WANTcast I asked you all if you’d like an extra episode before the new year and the typical three-week mark, and the answer was a resounding YES. So, here you go!What I decided to do is call up a friend of mine, actress and activist Sascha Alexander, who’s actually been on WANT before, and just see where the conversation took us. Which, turns out, always leads to the best conversations.We end up talking about upper limits, success hangups, pole dancing, empowerment, how to define yourself, endings, beginnings, what it’s like to go viral - and I end up revealing some news on here that I wasn’t really planning on. Lots of laughing, lots of deep talk…everything I love most. Endings and beginnings. I hope you all know how much I love you for listening and for joining me on this journ

Today's WANTcast guest is someone who's been on my list for a while now: goal coach Jacki Carr. Jacki’s become a highly sought-after pro in her arena who's helped hundreds of people across the globe not only reach their goals, but actually craft exactly what those goals look like, why they matter, and a path to them that is unique to every single person – personal goals, professional goals, whatever. I've met a lot of fantastic people over the internet through the years (holy jeez, just realized I made my first virtual friend at 12. Almost two decades. How did that happen?! [ps. it was a 14 year old girl who loved RENT as much as I did, natch]). What's interesting about Jacki is that we actually should have met in person. We've got about a zillion mutual friends, from fitness instructors we've both worked with to former Lululemon employees (Jacki used to work for Lulu) to various personalities in the Venice/Santa Monica region (where we both called home for one point in time), even people I've met through wor

The Neshama Project has developed almost a cult following here in LA, and it was born out of her desire to bring her passion for educating others about a culture she loved and wanting to make the world a healthier, brighter place. Rachelle inspires me because she’s not your typical yoga pro or even your typical entrepreneur. She’s seen a LOT, which we’ll get into in this episode, and she always just rode on the feeling that she was meant to do something important with her life, without even knowing exactly what that meant. As you’ll hear, and as you probably already know about me, I’m not just interested in the light easy breezy moments or the dark rough spots, I’m most fascinated by the intersection of the two and how they can, as the tagline says, help you move forward fearlessly onto the path you're meant to follow. Just a heads up, we do discuss some dark topics in this podcast, namely suicide. So if that’s a trigger point for you, you might want to skip through minutes 20-30ish or just skip this one al

This is the time of year we’re the most contemplative about where we are in our own lives - and it’s for that reason I’m so excited to introduce you to today’s guest. Lynn Chen is an actress, activist, and food blogger who’s been seen in countless TV shows and films, serves as an ambassador for the National Eating Disorders Association, and has not one but TWO blogs. The Actor’s Diet, which Lynn started in 2009 as a sort of journal to help her make peace with her food after years of eating disorders, it’s now one of the most influential food blogs on the web, with some of the most longevity at that. AND, she’s got a podcast, the Actor’s Diet Podcast! Her other blog is called Thick Dumpling Skin, a phenomenal body-image blog that’s centered around the Asian American community. We ended up talking for close to two hours – Lynn shared so much of herself with me, and with us, that I really, really wanted to be mindful to do each word and thought and story and lesson justice. She’s in a majorly transitional time i

Today’s guest is Negin Singh, the Founder and Artistic Director of cARTel: Collaborative Arts LA, and currently the Director of Inspiration (real title) for top Augmented Reality developer DAQRI. She’s been featured on the White House Blog, spoken for the big-wigs at places like NASA, and was named one of the top 30 Indian Entrepreneurs under 30 by India Current Magazine. If you’ve ever wanted to create something in your life – whether it’s theater, a business, a product, whatever – you KNOW how many hoops there are to jump through and how often it is that the good stuff never gets out into the world simply because people don’t have the resources or funds to let their extraordinary talent or vision live. As you’ll hear from Negin, cARTel was formed to solve that problem and take away those barriers that usually end up preventing really fantastic art from every even happening. They’ve put on critically acclaimed concerts, film festivals, circus and theater events, live radio shows, spoken word performances, ar

Today's WANTcast guest is Danielle Beinstein, an LA-based Astrologer, meditation coach, spiritual counselor, and co-founder of the New Moon Circle in Venice Beach, CA, which gives women a sacred space to set intentions, form bonds, and heal their lives from the inside out (on the new moon of each month, of course). I first met Danielle Beinstein at a cocktail party a few months ago, and by the end of the night we’d pretty much locked down our first friend date because I could just tell this was a woman I needed to have in my life . It was probably after she told me that she was, like me, an introvert usually confused for an extrovert AND an HSP, or a highly sensitive person. For those of you who are thinking this might be getting a little too hippie dippie groovytime for you, I promise you, you’re in for a surprise. I am, admittedly, a little hippie dippie groovytime myself, but the reason I was drawn to Dani was…she’s got this intellectual, pragmatic, reason-based side of her that is able to boil down more e

Welcome to the WANTcast: the Women Against Negative Talk Podcast - lessons in moving forward fearlessly and spreading the good word. I cant even tell you how stoked I am to be sharing this very first podcast with you. Today’s guest is – she’s more than inspirational, she’s electric. I first met Delia Brown a couple years ago when she became an indoor cycling teacher at Equinox, and was instantly drawn to her down to earth, inclusive, sassy but soulful personality. As I got to know her, these little pieces of information started to surface. Like that she rapped. Or that she swam in the ocean every morning. Or that she was literally a famous artist - like art-history-books-famous. Big time fame. And earlier this year, something else surfaced: that she had been diagnosed with, in her words, a pretty gnarly strain of cancer. So just so you know, she is in remission as of last month – and it’s not the cancer I wanted to talk to her about per se, but her perspective on life that could have only been achieved with

Welcome to the WANTcast: The Women Against Negative Talk Podcast - lessons in moving forward fearlessly and spreading the (good) word.I'm Katie Horwitch, the host of the WANTcast and founder of WANT: Women Against Negative Talk.Each week, I'll be bringing you interviews, stories, and inspiration to help you live the life you're meant to lead and being the YOU you want to be by shifting around your negative talk patterns. We'll discuss body image, self worth, relationships, career, community, and all kinds of pragmatic positivity.The WANTcast launches on Tuesday, September 1st! Hit the "subscribe" button now to get the first episode delivered directly to your phone, iPod, whatever you're using - can't wait to start off with a bang.Dive in. Dig deep. Be the YOU you know you're meant to be. I'll see you in September!