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
If Everyone’s Nodding, Something’s Wrong | The Ripple Effect Podcast ft. Hacia Atherton
The Ripple Effect Podcast with Steve Harper
You can have a room full of people nodding along and think everything is fine. That’s actually the problem. When everyone agrees, when nobody pushes back, when the room goes quiet the moment a decision is made, that silence isn’t peace. It’s a warning sign. And most leaders miss it entirely because they’re chasing the next win, the next KPI, the next quarter, and they’ve stopped looking at the people doing the actual work. Hacia Atherton works with leaders to figure out why good teams fall apart, why great people leave, and what most organizations are quietly getting wrong about the...
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What You're Willing to Risk Shapes the Life You Get (The Ripple Effect Podcast ft. Jason Boulette)
The Ripple Effect Podcast with Steve Harper
You can do everything right in your career and still find yourself staring at the ceiling at 2 am, wondering what exactly you’re building. The title sounds impressive, and the salary looks good, but somewhere along the way the thing that was supposed to give you a life started quietly taking it. The years go faster than the days, and it’s easy to look up one morning and realize the schedule you built isn’t the life you meant to have. This episode is about what you’re willing to risk to change that, and how much of your time you’re okay trading for comfort. Work-life balance sounds...
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Proof You Can Start Over Without Walking Away From Everything ft. Michele Trongaard
The Ripple Effect Podcast with Steve Harper
Twenty-three years is a long time to spend earning a reputation. Michele Trongaard has one that precedes her everywhere she goes in this industry, and after sitting across from her for this conversation, I understand exactly why. Michele is stepping away from her role as a district CFO after more than two decades in public school finance, and she's doing it on her own terms, heading into a new chapter rather than just closing the book on the old one. I wanted to talk with her about what actually built that reputation, because it wasn't the budgets or the balance sheets. It was something much...
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What the Best Leaders Can't See About Themselves (The Ripple Effect Podcast ft. Brian Vogel)
The Ripple Effect Podcast with Steve Harper
Picture your ideal Tuesday. You come in with a clear head, a short list of things that actually matter, and a couple of hours of uninterrupted time to think strategically about where you're taking this thing. Now picture your actual Tuesday. Six fires before noon. Three decisions that landed on your desk that someone else should have made. A calendar that left no room for anything except reacting. And somewhere around four in the afternoon, the quiet feeling that you've been incredibly busy and somehow accomplished nothing. If that second picture is more familiar, this episode is for you. My...
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You Were Creative Once. Find Your Way Back. (The Ripple Effect Podcast ft. Maria Gatling)
The Ripple Effect Podcast with Steve Harper
When was the last time you made something? A drawing, a photo, a collage, a doodle in the margin of a notebook. Something you made with your hands because something in you wanted to. Most of us have to think about it. And the longer we think, the further back the answer goes. Somewhere along the way, we handed our creative lives back. Not all at once, and not on purpose. Just gradually, between the jobs and the responsibilities and the screens and the schedules, the things we used to make got quietly set aside. And we told ourselves we’d get back to them. And then we didn’t. And eventually...
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The One Thing Your Competition Can Never Buy or Copy (The Ripple Effect Podcast ft. Joe Fusco)
The Ripple Effect Podcast with Steve Harper
Here's a question I want you to think about before you hit play. When was the last time you felt like the work you were doing actually mattered? Not mattered as in the numbers went up or the boss was happy. Mattered in that way where you finished a day and felt genuinely full rather than just done. Most of us have forgotten what that feels like. Or maybe we never had it to begin with. This conversation goes deep on that. My guest Joe Fusco and I got into what actually makes a company great, why people don't fit in a spreadsheet no matter how hard we try to make them, and what it really...
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Hurricane Katrina at 21: The Story the Media Never Fully Told featuring Sandy Rosenthal
The Ripple Effect Podcast with Steve Harper
Here's a question I want you to think about before you hit play. When was the last time you felt like the work you were doing actually mattered? Not mattered as in the numbers went up or the boss was happy. Mattered in that way where you finished a day and felt genuinely full rather than just done. Most of us have forgotten what that feels like. Or maybe we never had it to begin with. This conversation goes deep on that. My guest Joe Fusco and I got into what actually makes a company great, why people don't fit in a spreadsheet no matter how hard we try to make them, and what it really means...
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Pressure-Proof Leadership with Claire Hayek (The Ripple Effect Podcast)
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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Is Your Survival Brain Leading Your Team? (The Ripple Effect Podcast ft. Dr. Annie Campanile)
The Ripple Effect Podcast with Steve Harper
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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Honest Thoughts on Surviving Online Hate (The Ripple Effect Podcast ft. Ileana Garcia: Part Two)
The Ripple Effect Podcast with Steve Harper
If you caught Part 1, you know Ileana Garcia doesn’t hold anything back. Part 2 goes even further. We start with something that still stings a little: the Wall Street Journal feature that was supposed to be a proud moment, but turned into a pile-on. Ileana walks us through what actually happened behind that headline, why the internet turned on her over it, and how she’s made peace with something her own brother calls “engagement by enragement.” From there, we get into the harder stuff nobody really talks about out loud: the anonymous accounts that stitched her videos together to mock...
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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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