Nicole Harvey didn’t wait for the perfect moment to start. While working full-time in tech and traveling nonstop, she built EmpowHer — a global community where women connect through honest conversations about money, health, leadership, and purpose.

In this episode, we talk about what it really takes to build something meaningful while balancing a career, why she’s chosen to stay self-funded, and how she’s redefining success on her own terms.

If you’ve ever wondered how to grow your dream without giving up your stability — or how to keep showing up for yourself when life is full — this episode is for you.

Kara Brothers, former President of Starface, joins Be Anomalous for an unfiltered conversation about leadership, identity, and the power of finding your place when you don’t quite fit the mold.

Before leading one of the most creative, culture-defining beauty brands of our time, Kara spent years at Google, where self-doubt, misalignment, and corporate politics left her questioning her abilities and her worth. She opens up about what it felt like almost to lose her confidence — and how that experience became the foundation for her next chapter.

Kara shares how she rebuilt herself from the inside out — learning to trust her intuition, create her own lane, and lead with empathy, not ego. She talks about the realities of motherhood and ambition, the pressure to be everything to everyone, and how she finally learned to slow down without losing her edge.

We dive into:

• How self-doubt can be the doorway to self-awareness

• Rebuilding confidence after failure and misalignment

• What modern leadership looks like when you lead with honesty

• Balancing motherhood, ambition, and identity

• Why slowing down can actually move you forward

• The freedom that comes with redefining success on your own terms

Kara’s story is a masterclass in resilience and reinvention, a reminder that sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is keep showing up, even when you’re not sure where it’s all leading.

Because, as Kara says, “Life is one big experiment.”

If you’re chasing an ambition, trying to figure out what makes you happy, or just learning to trust yourself again — this episode will remind you that your difference isn’t your weakness.

It’s your direction.

What does it take to build a venture-backed platform that helps creators and founders launch beauty brands—without losing your values (or your mind)?

In this replay, Blanka co-founder & CEO Kaylee Lieffers gets real about growing up “between worlds,” why entrepreneurship can be incubated, and how she went from consulting decks to zero-to-one product, team, and traction.

We dive into the messy middle—co-founder dynamics (including building with her husband), raising an oversubscribed seed in tough markets, why Blanka chose no MOQs to truly “arm the rebels,” and the leadership shift from player to coach. If you’re building anything in public, this one hits.

What we get into

• The “against-the-grain” upbringing that made entrepreneurship feel inevitable

• Can entrepreneurship be taught—or just incubated?

• From corporate frameworks to startup chaos: translating structured thinking into speed

• Blanka’s origin story: killing a sunscreen idea to chase the bigger problem

• How to choose the right co-founders (green flags, red flags, and testing ground)

• Bootstrapping first, fundraising later: timing your capital so dollars have a job

• Product truths: ship a smaller MVP, build process earlier, fix signals fast

• Why no minimums matter for real access—and how Blanka made it viable

• Beauty’s next era: archaic back-end, tech-forward future, and niche, narrative-led brands

• Leading at scale: letting go, prioritizing what actually moves the needle

From PR intern to Warner Records and now VP of Brand Operations at Global Brand Equities, Kristin Turner has built a career that turns influence into infrastructure. She’s helped shape celebrity-founded brands like Gran Coramino with Kevin Hart, Mercer + Prince with A$AP Rocky, and Maison No. 9 with Post Malone — proving that star power alone doesn’t build lasting businesses.

In this conversation, Kristin gets real about the evolution of her ambition, the lessons she’s learned navigating PR, music, and brand partnerships, and why detaching from outcomes is key in high-stakes industries. We dive into:

• Why some celebrity brands fail — and what separates the ones that scale

• How to reinvent yourself when the path ahead isn’t clear

• Building confidence as a minority voice in boardrooms and negotiations

• The balance between ambition, resilience, and letting go

This is a masterclass in turning uncertainty into opportunity — and building brands (and careers) that last.

n Part 2 of this powerful conversation, Arielle shares what it really took to walk away from Google and step into the unknown world of Hollywood — with no connections, no film school, and no clear roadmap.

We talk about fear, self-trust, and the quiet confidence that comes from knowing who you are — even when the world hasn’t caught up yet. From cold emails and imposter syndrome to ancestral strength and spiritual grounding, Arielle opens up about building a life that aligns from the inside out.

This episode is about letting go of what you’ve outgrown — and choosing the version of yourself that’s been waiting all along.

What happens when you grow up too fast but the dream inside you refuses to die?

In this powerful first part of our conversation, screenwriter Arielle opens up about what it meant to be the responsible one from a young age — the child of teenage parents, the straight-A student, the planner, the fixer. She talks about rejection from the dream school, falling into jobs that didn’t fit, and the quiet voice inside that always whispered: you’re meant to be a writer.

We talk:

• Childhoods shaped by chaos

• What it costs to be the “mature one”

• Learning to play again — as adults

• Getting rejected by the system, and still choosing yourself

• The messy, nonlinear road to purpose

This episode is about what it really means to come home to yourself — even if that journey takes a detour through survival, burnout, and self-doubt.

Trust me, you’ll never hear a better metaphor for becoming who you really are.

“I’m an adult with a briefcase… but there’s a banana inside.”

This week on Be Anomalous, we’re bringing back a conversation that hits deeper than a typical founder story. Alix Peabody didn’t just launch a wine company—she built a brand that challenged the status quo of an entire industry.

She founded Bev to rewrite the rules in a space dominated by bro culture. But the journey started with something way more personal: throwing ticketed parties to fund her egg freezing. From there, Alix turned raw experience into a movement—leveraging storytelling, sisterhood, and pure hustle to carve her own lane.

In this episode, Alix opens up about what most founders won’t: the loneliness, the burnout, the identity unraveling that can come after the exit. We talk intuition, resilience, and what happens when the thing you built… no longer needs you.

If you’ve ever felt like you had to wear a mask to survive, or questioned who you are without your work, this one’s for you.

Topics We Cover:

• Fundraising as a solo female founder

• Breaking into male-dominated industries

• Intuition-led leadership

• Burnout, reinvention, and life after the exit

• Why knowing your “who” matters as much as your “why”

Be bold. Be real. Be anomalous.

What happens when you stop waiting for the perfect moment and start building with what you’ve got?

In this episode, Sai Menon sits down with Luiza Villela, a Brazilian-born food scientist and the founder of UnClassic, a company on a mission to reimagine the center of the plate, one mushroom at a time.

From making vegan ice cream in a scrappy startup kitchen to navigating immigration hurdles with $500 in her account, Luiza shares how she carved her own path in the food industry with relentless purpose, clarity, and obsession. Every decision from her major at Berkeley to walking away from a role at Beyond Meat was rooted in values, not vanity.

This is a raw and honest conversation about purpose, grit, and building something that truly matters. If you’ve ever questioned whether you’re ready, this is your reminder: conviction > credentials.