The Skill AI Can’t Replace (The Ripple Effect Podcast ft. Sasha Grinshpun: Part One)
The Ripple Effect Podcast with Steve Harper
Release Date: 05/12/2026
The Ripple Effect Podcast with Steve Harper
Be honest. When’s the last time you actually felt calm, not just looked calm? Because those are two very different things, and most of us have gotten so good at faking the second one that we forget what the first one even feels like. You handle the hard conversation. You keep your voice steady in the meeting that’s falling apart. You hold it together for everyone else in the room. And then later, alone in your car or lying awake at night, it all comes flooding back. That gap between performing calm and actually being calm is something my guest today has spent her entire life studying,...
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Most of us have spent years learning how to communicate better. Better words, better models, better frameworks. And yet somehow the same conflicts keep happening, the same conversations keep getting avoided, and the same people keep making the room tense the moment they walk in. Dr. Annie Campanile has a different theory about why, and it starts somewhere most leadership training never goes. Watch to learn what's actually driving workplace conflict beneath the surface, why the protective patterns you developed as a kid are probably still showing up in your leadership today, and what your...
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If you listened to Part 1, you already know Ileana Garcia doesn’t hold back. Part 2 goes somewhere I honestly didn’t expect when we sat down to record it. We start with something that still visibly stings a little: the Wall Street Journal feature that was supposed to be a proud moment for her and instead turned into something else entirely. Ileana walks me through what actually happened behind that headline, and by the end of that story, I understood exactly what her brother meant when he called it “engagement by enragement.” Ileana tells me about the anonymous accounts that stitched...
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Have you ever had that moment where you realize the life you built isn’t actually the one you want anymore? Today’s guest knows that feeling better than almost anyone I’ve talked to on this show. Ileana Garcia (you probably know her as Illy in the Streets on TikTok) has spent the last few years turning her gray divorce and everything that followed into some of the most honest and funniest content out there. If you’ve ever gone through a divorce after 50, or you’re staring down starting over at 50 and wondering if you have it in you, this conversation is going to feel like sitting...
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If you run a business and have ever lost a customer because you didn’t call them back fast enough, this one is going to sting. A lead comes in, life happens, and by the time someone picks up the phone, that customer has already booked with whoever responded first. My guest, Austin Willman, built his entire business around fixing that exact problem. He started in door-to-door solar sales, learned the home services world from the ground up, and turned that experience into an AI voice agent that helps contractors and roofers respond to leads the moment they come in, rather than 2 days later. ...
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You already know the feeling. You put your phone down after an hour of scrolling and somehow feel more drained than before you picked it up. Maybe you’re in a room full of people you love, and everyone’s looking at their screen instead of each other. Maybe you’ve been quietly wondering if the way you’ve been living and connecting is actually working for you anymore. If any of that sounds familiar, this conversation is going to feel like coming up for air. I brought Julie Sands back into The Ripple Effect Podcast, and I’ll be honest with you: time completely disappeared during this...
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Have you ever walked into a room and felt like everyone else already knew how to network, how to pitch themselves, how to sound confident, and how to make the right connections? Here is the much-awaited part two of my conversation with Sasha Grinshpun on The Ripple Effect Podcast. We get into the real stuff that so many professionals, founders, entrepreneurs, and leaders are wrestling with right now. - How do you build meaningful connections without feeling fake? - How do you stop being the world’s best-kept secret? - How do you turn feedback, rejection, and even those frustrating...
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This one felt personal. If you’ve ever walked into a room and felt like everyone else had it figured out, or you’ve ever watched somebody get an opportunity and thought, “Wait, how did that happen for them?” then you’re going to connect with this conversation. It was such an honor to have Sasha Grinshpun on The Ripple Effect Podcast. Sasha is an executive coach, career strategist, and facilitator who has spent more than 15 years helping people get honest about what they actually want and how they’ll get there. She has worked with Fortune 500 executives, founders, and professionals...
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There’s a strange pressure a lot of us feel right now. We’re supposed to be innovative, strategic, emotionally intelligent, creative, calm under pressure, and still have enough left at the end of the day for the people we love. That’s a lot. And that’s why I appreciated this conversation with David Lowe-Rogstad. David has spent more than 25 years at the forefront of creative technology, building teams, companies, and brands through constant change. On paper, he has a history degree. In practice, he’s been helping people and organizations stay relevant since 1997. But what really...
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This episode is something special. Our special guest is none other than Mike O’Krent, founder of LifeStories Alive, a company devoted to helping families preserve the voices, memories, and life lessons of the people they love most. Mike’s journey is incredible: from interviewing Holocaust survivors for Steven Spielberg’s Shoah Foundation to building a business that turns family stories into lasting video heirlooms for future generations. And trust me, once you hear why he does this work, it’s going to hit you right in the heart. You’ll hear why stories matter more than ever, how...
info_outlineThis one felt personal.
If you’ve ever walked into a room and felt like everyone else had it figured out, or you’ve ever watched somebody get an opportunity and thought, “Wait, how did that happen for them?” then you’re going to connect with this conversation.
It was such an honor to have Sasha Grinshpun on The Ripple Effect Podcast.
Sasha is an executive coach, career strategist, and facilitator who has spent more than 15 years helping people get honest about what they actually want and how they’ll get there.
She has worked with Fortune 500 executives, founders, and professionals navigating major career transitions, helping them turn the conversations they’ve been rehearsing in their heads into the ones that open real doors.
Sasha’s background is anything but ordinary. Yale Economics, Harvard Business School MBA, Monitor Deloitte strategy consulting, IDEO design thinking, and now the founder of Catapult Circles and the LinkedIn Accelerator.
She brings a rare mix of strategy, warmth, and straight talk to the questions so many of us are quietly carrying.
A lot of us were taught to keep our heads down, do good work, and trust that people will notice. But if you’ve lived long enough, you know it doesn’t always work that way. Sometimes the missing piece is not talent. It is connection. It is trust. It is learning how to show up, be curious, and build meaningful relationships without feeling fake or salesy.
Sasha has such a great way of talking about relationships, personal branding, LinkedIn networking, AI career advice, and the future of work in a way that feels simple and doable. Especially now, when AI is changing professional visibility, hiring, networking, and how people get found or overlooked, this conversation feels incredibly timely.
There are a few moments in this episode that made me stop and think, and I think they’ll do the same for you.
So grab a cup of coffee, settle in, and watch this one all the way through. You might hear exactly what you need today.
Good news. If you learned a lot from this conversation, part two is coming soon. Stay tuned!
Ripple with Sasha Grinshpun
Website: https://catapultcircles.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sashagrinshpun/
X: https://x.com/catapultcircles
Substack: https://sashagrinshpun.substack.com/
Ripple with Steve Harper
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