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What happens when something you care so deeply about—a relationship, a career, a lifelong dream—goes terribly awry and you don’t know who you are anymore?
I know what an identity crisis feels like, as well as what’s required to rebuild yourself. So does today’s guest, Gregg Renfrew.
Gregg is the founder of Beautycounter and now Counter—one of the most tenacious people I know and one of the most influential forces in modern clean beauty. A pioneer who helped define the clean beauty movement, she’s spent over a decade removing toxic chemicals from personal care products while advocating for federal reform.
She’s back for round two, five years after our first conversation (ep. 497). A lot has changed. After selling a controlling interest in her company, Beautycounter pushed her out—and soon thereafter faltered. What followed was an identity crisis of existential proportions that confronted Gregg with a choice: self-destruction or personal transformation. She chose the latter.
This is a story about what to do when your identity collapses and the journey to decouple self-worth from professional success, reimagine the company she lost, and reinvent herself anew. About the tension between ego and humility, leadership under pressure, fortitude, vision, resilience, and what it means to prioritize values over optics—even when the pressure to defer to big money and institutional arrogance is overwhelming.
“There’s no better way to change the world than lighting a fire under the asses of a bunch of women who care.”
- GREGG RENFREW
Today, we discuss:
- Identity, Ego & the Humility Required to Start Again
- Decision-Making Under Pressure: Alignment Beats Optics
- The Key Man Dilemma & Under-Appreciating the Human Factor
- Control vs. Cash: Why Profitability Equals Optionality
- Emotional Maturity in Leadership
- The Reflexive Unconscious Trust & the Fragrance Loophole
- Letting Go: The “Let-It-Die Protocol”
The visually inclined can watch it all go down on YouTube. As always, the audio version streams wild and free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
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Peace + Plants,
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- Connect with Gregg: Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn
- Counter Beauty Products
- Article: Fast Company: Beautycounter CEO Gregg Renfrew’s ‘Season of Learning’
- Article: Elle: Gregg Renfrew Wants to Redefine Clean Beauty–Again
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Thank The Team: I do not do this alone. Send your love to Jason Camiolo for audio engineering, production, show notes and interstitial music; with additional audio engineering by Cale Curtis and additional music by Moby; Blake Curtis & Dan Drake for video, & editing; graphics by Jessica Miranda & Daniel Solis; portraits by Davy Greenberg, Grayson Wilder & Gizelle Peters; copywriting by Ben Pryor; and theme music by Tyler Piatt, Trapper Piatt & Hari Mathis.
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