Build Your Own Boat

What if the thing holding accomplished women back isn't a lack of skills or experience — but the pressure to start from scratch every time they want something new?

In this episode of Build Your Own Boat, host Janine Vanderburg talks with Donna Cravotta — founder of Cravotta Media Group, creator of the Intentional Visibility Project on Substack, and host of the Real 50 Over 50, a weekly livestream series now in its third year featuring nearly 200 women redefining leadership and visibility after 50.

Donna's path includes 25 years in law firms, a first business launched at 42 as a virtual assistant (before that was a real category), and a deliberate pause at 58 to ask — for the first time — what she actually wanted. What emerged from that pause is her methodology: Tried & New, a framework that helps accomplished women stop starting over and start building from what they already have.

This conversation covers all of it: the career pivot that started at a diner at nine o'clock at night, the hand cream client who generated $100,000 in sales in eight months with no budget, what 200 interviews with women over 50 actually revealed (hint: it wasn't "reinvention"), and the wisdom bomb every woman sitting on the edge of something new needs to hear.

Where to find Donna Cravotta

Substack — Intentional Visibility Project: @DonnaCravotta

LinkedIn: Donna Cravotta

Website: Cravotta Media Group