Girl, Why Not You?

Kym Renner had her first baby at 19, her second on her college graduation day, and a plan to go into law enforcement that went right out the window. More than 24 years later, she's an executive in the largest child welfare system in the country AND the President and CEO of the RennerVation Foundation, which she co-founded with her brother Jeremy Renner to serve foster and at-risk youth in Nev...

On May 10, 2020 (Mother's Day), Amber Lee's heart stopped while she was driving with her husband and daughter in the car. No pulse. Her car went across four lanes of traffic and into a brick home. When she woke up in the hospital with every rib broken, she didn't ask for time to heal. She asked for her computer. Three weeks later, she and her longtime colleague Sandra Myers launched...

Perfectionism isn't high standards. It's fear wearing a better outfit — and it's costing you money. Kelli France went from food stamps to seven figures on social media, built a team of 25,000 people, and then watched the income disappear almost overnight when the company changed its comp plan. In this episode she tells Jennie what she learned on the way up, what she learned on the w...

Starting over at 50, career change, clean beauty, and building a business through cancer treatment — Girl, Why Not You? host Jennie Blackwood talks with Lynn Power, founder of clean haircare brand MASAMI and the last CEO of J. Walter Thompson New York. Lynn started as a receptionist in 1989 because she could type. She worked her way up through Ogilvy, BBDO and Grey to run the flagship office of th...

How to start a spray tan business with no loan, no investor, and a full-time job — Stacy Fike built Glow Girl Spray Tanning Boutique in Houston on a $500 start while teaching sixth grade as a single mom. One year after opening her first storefront, a client asked her to do the math, and she found she'd earned eight times what her teaching salary had paid her. On this episode of Girl, Why Not...

Sometimes life hands you something unfair, there's no lesson in it, and no amount of positive thinking makes it make sense. In this solo episode of Girl, Why Not You?, Jennie Blackwood talks about how to stop overthinking something you can't control — and the 5 things that are actually yours. If you're a woman in the middle of something hard — lying awake at 2am replaying it, having...

What do you do when someone tells you you're behind? Nesha Pai walked into her annual performance review at a Charlotte CPA firm ready to ask for a raise — and her boss told her she was "nowhere near her peers" because she'd taken time off to raise her son. She quit on the spot, with no plan and no backup income, at 40, as a single mom. One client followed her. Fifteen years la...

I took my three-and-a-half-year-old to see Moana expecting popcorn, candy, and a cute little mom-son afternoon. Instead I sat in a dark theater and ugly-cried through about 70% of it. Apparently, I was not ok... Ha! Because what I saw on that screen wasn't an island adventure. It was the entire journey of being a female entrepreneur, laid out scene by scene — and nobody warned me it was comin...

What do you do when your child is diagnosed with a condition so rare that only nine other kids in the world have it — and there's no playbook? Today's guest, Kasey Walsh, lived that reality. After her daughter Robbie was diagnosed with a rare form of hereditary spastic paraplegia at just two years old, Kasey refused to sit on the sidelines. She bought Neuroscience for Dummies, taught her...

You're posting. You're showing up. You're doing all the "right" things — so why does it still feel like you're running in place? Here's the truth nobody wants to hear: the thing holding you back probably isn't your strategy. It's you. In this episode, I sit down with Leanna de Bellevue — a single mom who was making $80/hour doing massage, got told her j...

What happens when you stop waiting for someone else and just go? In this episode, Jennie Blackwood sits down with Charlotte Lilly, founder of The Retreat Co, who turned a spontaneous solo yoga retreat in Cuba into a thriving business creating transformative travel experiences for women. Charlotte shares how that one trip gave her a confidence she didn't know she needed, why the scariest part...

She was thriving in corporate — big teams, big projects, 60-hour weeks, addicted to the next promotion. Then her son was born five weeks early, and she almost didn't make it. In that hospital room, everything she thought she wanted stopped mattering. In this episode of Girl, Why Not You?, I sit down with Wendy Jensen — bestselling children's book author and founder of Scandinavian Hearts...

She went from accounting at one of the largest mining companies in the world to growing a financial firm from $500 million to $4.6 billion in four years — as a single mom. Then her body stopped letting her push through. In this episode of Girl, Why Not You?, I sit down with Jackie Yoder — executive consultant, leadership strategist, and growth advisor — for the conversation women in leadership are...

More than 50% of women are unsatisfied with their lives because they gave up on their dream. In this episode of Girl, Why Not You?, bestselling author and women's leadership expert Emily Lampkin reveals exactly why — and gives you the step-by-step playbook to start changing that THIS week. Emily is the founder of the Women Leaders Series, has spent 25+ years training thousands of women across...

You work hard for your money. So why does it still feel like you're behind? Maybe you've been telling yourself you'll "figure it out later." Maybe you've googled "what to do with savings" at midnight and closed the tab more confused than when you opened it. Maybe you just feel like everyone else has it together and you're the only one faking it. You&apo...

Jennifer Blair was a stay-at-home mom of four with no business plan, no investor, and no experience. She just wanted a way to feel like herself again. She took a one-day lash certification class, ran a Groupon expecting maybe 20 sales… and over 300 people showed up. She almost quit before she even started. Instead, she leaned all the way in — practiced on friends' couches, opened a tiny studi...

They told her to sit to the side. Wear all black. Don't take up too much space. So she wore a golden dress to the Emmys — and won. Shannon Malone DeBenedictis is a two-time Emmy Award-winning filmmaker who's worked alongside James Cameron, Sigourney Weaver, Netflix, Disney+, and National Geographic. But for years, she made herself small in an industry that wanted her to disappear. In thi...

She was climbing the corporate ladder in education — doing everything "right" — until she was told she'd be more successful if she wore lipstick and pulled her hair back. That was the moment Stacey Ryan realized she was becoming a leader she didn't even respect. So she quit. No backup plan. No safety net. Just self-trust. What followed was a dog treat company (yes, really), an...

What happens when your “random idea” turns into a viral business… before you even graduate? At 25, Elena DiStefano, the founder of Cozy Clip is running a brand that blew up online—but she started it as a junior in college with zero experience in product design. She just knew one thing: claw clips were uncomfortable. So she fixed it. That one decision turned into a viral product , selling out in mi...

What if all it took to start your business… was $100 and the decision to just go for it? In this episode of Girl, Why Not You? , I sit down with Nellie Akalp, founder and CEO of CorpNet, who built and sold her first company for $20 million —all while raising a family. We talk about what it really looks like to build a business from scratch—no investors, no shortcuts, just consistency, grit, and so...

What if the reason things aren’t working… isn’t because you’re doing it wrong? In this episode of Girl, Why Not You? , Jennie sits down with master coach and facilitator Ebonie Allard to challenge everything you’ve been taught about success—and why forcing yourself into someone else’s blueprint might be the very thing keeping you stuck. Ebonie shares her journey from early independence to working...

What if the life you’re living… isn’t actually the one you want? In this episode of Girl, Why Not You? , Jennie sits down with divorce attorney, speaker, and author Renee Bower to unpack the pressure so many women feel to be the “good girl”—polite, agreeable, and always putting others first. But here’s the truth: that conditioning is keeping you stuck. Renee shares her own journey through two divo...

What if your rock bottom… was actually the beginning of everything? In this episode of Girl, Why Not You? , Jennie sits down with Jamie Maltabes, founder of Infinite Medical Group, to talk about what it really looks like to go from addiction and chaos… to building a 7-figure business and a life you’re proud of. At 25, Jamie hit a breaking point—battling addiction, eating disorders, and living a do...

You don’t need a perfect plan to start a business. In this episode of Girl, Why Not You? , Jennie Blackwood sits down with Nikki Lindgren , founder of a marketing agency, to talk about building a business without a clear roadmap — and why waiting for the “right time” keeps so many people stuck. Nikki’s journey took her from small-town Minnesota to corporate roles at brands like Pottery Barn and Wo...

What happens when the dream you thought would define your life… doesn’t work out? Today’s guest, Jenn, originally moved to Los Angeles with a degree in theater and a dream of becoming an actress. But after several years pursuing that path and realizing it wasn’t going to unfold the way she had hoped, she made the difficult decision to move back home — unsure of what her next chapter would look lik...