Shows
Let’s Talk Memoir255. The Relief That Comes From Sharing the Toughest Thing featuring Dr. Kara ZivinDr. Kara Zivin joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about maternal mental health and her own her mental health crisis during pregnancy and postpartum, how she became a patient and professor in the same health system, navigating shame and guilt around sharing a personal story, taking risks with our professional life, incorporating medical records and journal entries into a memoir narrative, grounding memoir in our own story, supporting women and families, the relief that comes from sharing the hard thing, increasing awareness and helping women to feel less alone, and her new memoir Persevered: A Maternal Mental He...
2026-08-1842 min
The Creator ClassWhat a Hollywood Actor Had to Unlearn to Reach a Billion Views a MonthHollywood actor and digital creator Adam Rose gets a billion views a month.For someone whose career grew up inside the traditional entertainment system, what he's built online now reaches an audience that eclipses many television shows. The biggest TV programs in the world attract a few million viewers and call it a hit. Adam's videos can clear a million views in a matter of hours.But the part of his story worth sitting with isn't the scale. It's everything that came before it. Decades of creating, posting, auditioning...
2026-08-051h 04The Creator ClassHow Creators Survive After Growth PlateausSean Does Magic grew 1M followers a week for 7 weeks straight. By 21, he had 25M followers across his platforms, billions of views, and a meteoric rise the entire industry was watching. It was also the lowest point of his career.In this episode of The Creator Class, I sit down with Sean for a live strategy workshop on what it actually takes to come back from a stalled career. We unpack the unspoken cost of growing too fast, the difference between viral content and a career that lasts, why most creators are jumping on...
2026-07-2840 minThe Creator ClassThis Former Video Game Addict Built an 8-Figure Creator EmpireKevin Espiritu paid for college with online poker winnings. Then he became addicted to video games. Then he accidentally discovered gardening.Today, he runs one of the largest creator-led businesses in the world—an eight-figure company built around one of the least likely categories imaginable: gardening.What started as a personal attempt to improve his own life grew into Epic Gardening, a business spanning content, commerce, community, publishing, and acquisitions, reaching millions of people around the world.But what makes Kevin's story so fascinating is...
2026-07-211h 02The Creator ClassThe World's Most Influential Beauty Creator Broke Every RuleThe most influential beauty creator in the world built her career by breaking almost every rule she was told to follow.Shima Katouzian has 3.5 million followers. That's a fraction of the platform most top beauty creators have. Yet she's the number 1 creator in the world powering conversation around beauty, number 6 by Earned Media Value globally, and number 3 by impressions. The reason is trust.Shima built that trust through radical honesty. She only promotes what she actually uses. She refuses to soften her opinions for brand partners. She's open with...
2026-07-1452 minThe Creator ClassWhat Really Happens After Creators Go ViralReza Khan has 6 million followers, 100 hundred million monthly views, and brand deals coming in. By every external measure, he's winning. So why does it still feel like none of it is building toward something meaningful?In the first episode of The Creator Class, I sit down with Reza Kahn, one of the internet’s leading family creators, for a live strategy workshop on the future of his business. We dive into audience psychology, community-building, and how creators can move beyond chasing momentum to building something more intentional, mission-driven, and personally fulfilling through the content th...
2026-06-3051 minThe Creator ClassCareer Advice from the Manager Behind YouTube's Biggest CreatorsRonit has dedicated her career to advancing creators. Long before the creator economy had a name, she was breaking down barriers and helping shape an industry that didn't yet exist. For this episode, she flipped the script.Instead of a solo Q&A to camera, she invited 4 creators at completely different stages of their journey, spanning fashion, music, art, and film. While their paths couldn't be more different, the questions they brought are the same ones creators everywhere eventually ask themselves.Ronit answers those questions with the perspective that...
2026-06-241h 18The Creator ClassHow to Pitch Yourself as a Creator (Jessica Kaylee Live Workshop)One of the biggest challenges creators face isn't building something valuable.It's recognizing and articulating the value of what they've already built.Over the last five years, Jessica Kaylee helped pioneer a storytelling format that has since become one of the most-watched content genres in the world. What started as a creative experiment grew into a global audience of more than 20 million followers and billions of views.But what makes this episode unique is that it becomes a live creator positioning exercise.
2026-06-231h 03The Creator ClassThe Editor Behind Billions of Views Says We're Chasing the Wrong MetricHayden Hillier-Smith has edited videos watched over 5 billion times.He worked with Logan Paul and Mr Beast at the peaks of both their careers. He won a Streamy. He's shaped how millions of people watch video. He's also spent the last several years convinced that the creator industry is measuring the wrong thing.Views work as a substitute for connection. The chase for more of them is volatile, shallow, and increasingly dangerous. Hayden has watched the algorithm hijack the careers of almost every creator he knows.
2026-06-1651 minThe Creator ClassWhy TIME's Most Influential Creator Wanted to Quit Social MediaJoy Cho started Oh Joy! 20 years ago. She was named one of TIME's most influential people on the internet twice, holds the Guinness World Record for the most followed account on Pinterest, published 7 books, and built over 50 licensing partnerships with brands like Target, Band-Aid, and Keds.At the peak of all of it, she wasn't happy. She was projecting colorful, happy Oh Joy! to the world while privately wanting to get off the internet entirely.Instead of quitting, she redesigned everything. She scaled her team from 8 people down to...
2026-06-1059 minThe Creator ClassHow to Pitch Yourself as a Creator (Jessica Kaylee Live Workshop)One of the biggest challenges creators face isn't building something valuable.It's recognizing and articulating the value of what they've already built.Over the last five years, Jessica Kaylee helped pioneer a storytelling format that has since become one of the most-watched content genres in the world. What started as a creative experiment grew into a global audience of more than 20 million followers and billions of views.But what makes this episode unique is that it becomes a live creator positioning exercise.
2026-06-031h 03The Creator ClassWhy This Creator Walked Away From Everything Creators ChaseChaz Smith blew up on Vine as a teenager. The watermalone guy. He turned 6 second jokes into hundreds of millions of views across YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram, negotiated his own deals with brands like Doritos while finishing finals at an Ivy League school, and had the biggest brands in the world renewing with him year after year.At the peak of it all, he stopped posting. Right after he made the decision, 2 brands came back with long-term offers, one worth a year's salary. He turned them both down.In...
2026-05-2847 min
Cultivated ConversationsThe Business of Creators, Brands & Community with Ronit CohnFrom the early days of YouTube to today’s creator economy, Ronit Cohn has been shaping the future of digital talent. As CEO and founder of Cohn Talent Group, Ronit brings a fan-first approach to management, guiding creators through brand partnerships, building communities, and turning viral moments into long-term careers.In this conversation, Jen and Ronit dive into what it takes to start your own business while balancing motherhood, why fan engagement is the key to sustainability, and how the rise of shoppable creators is transforming the industry. Ronit also shares the lessons she’s learned from navi...
2025-09-0333 minLet’s Talk Memoir132. Writing Lyrically About the Perceptual Richness of Altered Sight featuring Naomi CohnNaomi Cohn joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about becoming legally blind in mid-life and how that changed her writing process, going from poetry to lyric essay, falling in love with Braille, being sure something is done and also realizing there’s more, reading our work aloud, privacy and what’s ours to tell, the perceptual richness of having altered sight, tapping into our senses, Liz Lerman’s Critical Response Process, nonlinear logic, writing in small chunks, being curious, trusted readers, and her new book The Braille Encyclopedia.
Also in this episode...
2024-11-1252 min