Latest / Success Story with Scott Clary / Rebecca Minkoff - Entrepreneur, Podcaster & Best-selling Author | Unlocking Creativity, Courage, and Success

Transcript

Rebecca Minkoff - Entrepreneur, Podcaster & Best-selling Author | Unlocking Creativity, Courage, and Success · Success Story with Scott Clary

• 0:00
  What does fearless mean for you and how do you turn seer into a strength?
• 0:03
  You turn fear into a strength by…
• 0:06
  What does it take to turn a dream into a globally recognized fashion brand?
• 0:10
  Rebecca Minkoff, along with her brother Uri, built their brand from the ground up,
• 0:15
  starting with a simple t-shirt design that captured national attention.
• 0:19
  A mental fortitude you need to have as an entrepreneur,
• 0:22
  because at the end of the day it's your company, right?
• 0:24
  It's you, and no other employee you ever have is going to care as much as you.
• 0:29
  Now, with stores across the world and a product line ranging from handbags to jewelry,
• 0:34
  Rebecca Minkoff has become a household name in fashion, but the story goes deeper.
• 0:40
  There is a obsession with building without figuring out profitability.
• 0:43
  I'm of the mindset that not every business should or needs funding.
• 0:48
  We believe that women who are in positions who have made it should get paid for their time
• 0:54
  to mentor and advise other women.
• 0:56
  Rebecca isn't just revolutionising fashion, she's on a mission to empower women
• 1:00
  through her RM Superwomen platform, encouraging women to live boldly and fearlessly.
• 1:05
  In this episode, we dive into Rebecca's journey from a bold idea to a worldwide brand,
• 1:10
  and how she's using her influence to create real change.
• 1:13
  And the real question, what drives her to keep breaking barriers,
• 1:17
  both in fashion and in life?
• 1:19
  What does fearless mean for you and how do you turn seer into a strength?
• 1:22
  You turn fear into a strength by doing the thing that scares you,
• 1:26
  doing the thing that holds you back.
• 1:28
  Build your business to be profitable from the beginning.
• 1:31
  You won't want to miss this conversation.
• 1:35
  Welcome to Success Story. I'm your host, Scott Clary.
• 1:37
  The Success Story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast.
• 1:41
  Our HubSpot has been a huge supporter of the show.
• 1:43
  And I'm happy they are because I'm a huge believer in HubSpot.
• 1:45
  I've used it for everything from this show to all the companies that I've ever run in the past.
• 1:49
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• 1:51
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• 1:53
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• 2:00
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• 3:00
  Rebecca, you kicked off your career with the I Love New York T on Jenna Elfman.
• 3:06
  Now you've dove into podcasts.
• 3:09
  You dove into the public eye.
• 3:12
  You've dabbled in the metaverse.
• 3:14
  How is your idea of air quotes making it in a fashion changed since that first big break?
• 3:22
  So I guess what people might not know or assumptions they have about that first big break is
• 3:27
  when you get that break, you're making a lot of money or you're suddenly rich, right?
• 3:32
  But I think the big break there was definitely not that.
• 3:36
  I was definitely delinquent on my rent.
• 3:38
  Having my roommate confront me in the hallways as I kind of like snuck around her hours-wise.
• 3:44
  The big break was momentum and wind behind my sales, right?
• 3:47
  It was that stores would not hang up on me when I called them.
• 3:52
  The second big, I think, milestone was I didn't have to call my bank to check my balance
• 3:58
  to see if I could go out to dinner.
• 3:59
  You know, I remember that being a big milestone of like,
• 4:02
  I still memorized Chase's phone number because I would call every time I had a dinner like,
• 4:07
  is there enough money in my account, right?
• 4:09
  You couldn't log on to the app that exists now.
• 4:11
  And so I think that we all view success from very different places.
• 4:16
  And I think, you know, for the longest time I thought making it was really all about how much
• 4:22
  money you have. Now making it for me is how much time do I get to spend with my family,
• 4:29
  where I'm not thinking about work.
• 4:31
  And it's more of a mental shift because for so long I'd say with my first three children,
• 4:39
  you know, the struggles and challenges of the business were such that even during bath time,
• 4:45
  bedtime vacations in my mind, I'm somewhere else.
• 4:50
  And so to me, the luxury is no.
• 4:52
  In my mind, I'm with you, I leave my phone, we go do whatever we do.
• 4:57
  And I come back to when I come back to and that's okay.
• 5:00
  And so I think that as I've gotten older, those like markers of success has really shifted
• 5:06
  from what you think. Like I just need to make enough money to like go on vacation.
• 5:10
  Like that all it all changes.
• 5:12
  You know, it's interesting because it doesn't matter how much money you make.
• 5:16
  You can always find ways to be distracted and not present.
• 5:19
  And I'm actually curious what it's actually, you know, I don't have kids yet.
• 5:24
  And I thought about this a lot and I can't wait to have kids.
• 5:27
  But I keep telling myself I'm in the season of like building right now.
• 5:31
  And the second I have kids, I'm going to devote attention to them.
• 5:34
  And I'm building right now so that I can devote attention.
• 5:36
  Do you feel like having a family change your perspective or was it like a forced almost?
• 5:42
  Okay. So I'm realizing that there's unlimited levels to this game.
• 5:47
  This is where I want to focus my attention now.
• 5:50
  I think it's not as black and white.
• 5:52
  I think with my first child, I was very cognizant of the fact that I wanted to be a very present mom
• 5:59
  and being in New York and seeing a lot of mothers who farm out their children to full-time child care.
• 6:04
  I didn't want that to be my story, you know.
• 6:07
  So I made sure he was brought to me for lunch time.
• 6:11
  When I was breastfeeding him every day, I made sure I left the office at six.
• 6:16
  I can't tell you that I didn't work after he went to bed
• 6:20
  or I didn't work some time on the weekends.
• 6:22
  But I think, you know, I wanted to test my own boundaries
• 6:26
  and say, what was uncomfortable or comfortable for me
• 6:29
  versus what I'm seeing around me on social media?
• 6:32
  And with each child, I had to do that and the boundaries shifted.
• 6:35
  It got different.
• 6:37
  And I think that when you are in the season of building,
• 6:41
  it's impossible to not have your mind on that.
• 6:43
  I don't, you know, and then when you add a kid to it, it's like both and, right?
• 6:47
  Yeah.
• 6:49
  And I think that the biggest signifier and shift that I was able to achieve is when we sold the
• 6:54
  company two years ago, a lot of the things that normally would keep me up
• 6:59
  and night or someone else's problem.
• 7:01
  And I'm still there and I'm happily paid employee.
• 7:05
  And I'm probably working harder in different ways than I was before.
• 7:08
  But I get to focus on the things that I love, the things that I do best.
• 7:12
  And the stressors that would be like, how do we make payroll?
• 7:15
  Or how are we going to, you know, get the next, you know, the eerie canal?
• 7:19
  It's clogged.
• 7:20
  How are we going to get our things off the boat?
• 7:22
  Whatever it is is not my problem.
• 7:25
  And I just said, you know what?
• 7:26
  I sold that someone else's problem and they have to deal with that.
• 7:29
  And so that's taken a lot of the mental load.
• 7:34
  I spent 20 years building.
• 7:35
  So it's a different, it's a different era for me.
• 7:38
  I'm so curious when you look at, you know, even that like sort of overnight
• 7:43
  success, which is never overnight, how many iterations or how many sort of failures
• 7:48
  did you go through before that break?
• 7:52
  Oh, you're always failing.
• 7:54
  There's the break is like, I would like and I think that I don't know where we get this
• 8:00
  misconception.
• 8:01
  But like entrepreneurship is like, you're dead in the water most of the time.
• 8:06
  And then, you know, then you get this wind at your sales.
• 8:08
  And it's like, how fast can you get that boat to go before you're dead in the water again?
• 8:13
  And I think it's a series of that.
• 8:15
  And so the failures are everything from, you know, no quality control with our first overseas
• 8:22
  factory that put Kate's paid hardware and Rebecca Minkoff bags.
• 8:25
  I didn't have quality control either.
• 8:27
  You know, my customer got to give me a nickname.
• 8:30
  Quebec of a spank off for that one.
• 8:33
  To, you know, a couple of years ago, we had changed over to a new warehouse.
• 8:39
  We didn't do a stress test and went into Q4, you know, Black Friday.
• 8:46
  Someone put in a Chinese character into the zip code.
• 8:49
  It clogged and messed up 10,000 people's orders.
• 8:52
  Like in there.
• 8:54
  Yeah.
• 8:55
  So I sent 10,000 free gifts to angered Black Friday customers who, you know,
• 9:02
  I ruined their Christmas or whatever.
• 9:04
  Um, then I got and then I got shit for apologizing and taking ownership for that.
• 9:10
  Like, and I was like, I, I can't win here.
• 9:12
  So I think, you know, then there was COVID, which we almost went out of business, you know,
• 9:17
  70% of our business overnight evaporated.
• 9:21
  So I think, um, I am never not surprised by holes in the boat now.
• 9:26
  And I think it's just a matter of resilience and do you get back up?
• 9:29
  And some of the people tap out, they're like, can't handle this too much.
• 9:33
  I'm not here for this party.
• 9:34
  And it's like, sometimes I feel like half the rigs.
• 9:37
  And I'm here as I just got, I just showed back up.
• 9:40
  Yeah.
• 9:40
  I know.
• 9:41
  Actually, you know, I'm thinking about it now when, so obviously you are set to do housewives.
• 9:46
  And that's going to be massive exposure.
• 9:48
  But all the things that you've gone through in your career,
• 9:51
  it doesn't matter what happens now with, with housewives with whatever drama on the show.
• 9:55
  Like entrepreneurs, the mental, the mental calluses they build.
• 10:00
  It's just, it's just next level what you've gone through.
• 10:03
  So Bravo fanbase is huge.
• 10:06
  People are going to love you.
• 10:07
  People are going to hate you.
• 10:08
  But the anxiety of screwing up 10,000 bags, I think is slightly more
• 10:15
  than some people talking shit on Instagram.
• 10:18
  So I think you're going to be good.
• 10:19
  Well, it was funny because I can't share too much about what happens.
• 10:23
  But, you know, you can see from the trailer, you know,
• 10:25
  someone's giving me some shit.
• 10:27
  And, you know, I wasn't really bothered by it.
• 10:30
  Like it didn't hurt my feelings.
• 10:32
  I wasn't upset.
• 10:33
  And some of the girls were like, you know, she bullied you.
• 10:36
  Or, you know, what are you going to do about it?
• 10:39
  And I was like, this is nothing.
• 10:41
  Do you know what I've been through?
• 10:42
  Like, I've got 20 years of like really messed up shit,
• 10:47
  like messing up 10,000 orders for people's Christmas and ruining, you know,
• 10:51
  Santa, that's harder to recover from than someone's, you know,
• 10:57
  snarky comment.
• 10:58
  A thousand percent.
• 11:00
  If you were going, you look back at your journey,
• 11:02
  hindsight's always 2020.
• 11:05
  This is a corny question, but you'll get where I'm going with this.
• 11:08
  If you were going to make like an I love blank shirt,
• 11:11
  based on the one thing that has really been central in your journey,
• 11:15
  building everything that you've built,
• 11:16
  all the different seasons of your life,
• 11:18
  what would that shirt say?
• 11:19
  What was that thing that mindset,
• 11:23
  that that hack, that framework that really took you to where you are?
• 11:28
  I think it's the title of my book, Fearless.
• 11:30
  You know, a lot of people see the title and they're like,
• 11:33
  you know, am I going to read this book and not feel fear?
• 11:36
  And I say, no, you're going to feel fear,
• 11:38
  but you do it anyways.
• 11:40
  You know, it's the fact that you acknowledge that it's scary,
• 11:43
  that it's hard, that it's tough,
• 11:44
  that you have to take crazy risks
• 11:47
  and really put yourself on the line,
• 11:48
  but you just, you just try it, right?
• 11:51
  Whether or not you're failing publicly or not,
• 11:53
  you know, like a lot of people,
• 11:55
  especially with going on the show,
• 11:56
  were like, aren't you scared?
• 11:58
  And I was like, yeah, I'm scared.
• 12:00
  I don't know when I'm getting myself into.
• 12:03
  I've heard these fans can be quite terrible,
• 12:06
  but like, I said to my husband the day that I signed,
• 12:10
  you know, the contract, I said,
• 12:11
  I can predict our life if we don't do this.
• 12:14
  But I can't predict our life.
• 12:16
  We do.
• 12:17
  And that's fun.
• 12:18
  And he was like, you're fucking crazy.
• 12:20
  But okay.
• 12:22
  Well, now he's going to be along for the ride
• 12:25
  to some degree as well.
• 12:26
  So he made sure he wasn't at all.
• 12:28
  So really, that's so funny.
• 12:31
  You mentioned, I mean, when you were building,
• 12:33
  you spoken about education and connection.
• 12:37
  And the fact that, I mean,
• 12:38
  you consider yourself an outsider
• 12:39
  when you started in fashion, correct?
• 12:42
  Yeah, yes.
• 12:44
  So talking about the concepts of education,
• 12:47
  connection, being entrenched in an industry,
• 12:51
  why do you think that you were successful
• 12:54
  in spite of these things?
• 12:55
  Or is that actually an advantage?
• 12:58
  You know, I'll never know that other path
• 13:01
  in my sliding door's life.
• 13:02
  But I think that, you know,
• 13:03
  I came to realize, you know, too late in the game,
• 13:06
  oh, if you go to this school and you meet these teachers
• 13:09
  and they have this connection,
• 13:10
  they get you the job there,
• 13:12
  or at the magazine, and then you're the intern,
• 13:14
  and you know, you could kind of
• 13:17
  map out the ladder that a lot of successful designers took.
• 13:22
  And I had been always entrepreneurial.
• 13:24
  I remember when my mom used to sell,
• 13:27
  go with me here, it was the 80s.
• 13:29
  Cast covers, right?
• 13:32
  They were like,
• 13:32
  so that the fabric cast covers
• 13:34
  at the flea market in San Diego.
• 13:36
  And I set up my table next to her.
• 13:38
  I was probably six or seven.
• 13:40
  And I was selling puffy paint and sweatshirts.
• 13:43
  I didn't sell anything.
• 13:44
  But all week, I'd prepare my merch to go sell next to her.
• 13:47
  And it was so exciting for me to be able to like,
• 13:50
  think that I might sell something.
• 13:52
  So I think that mindset had had for a long time.
• 13:55
  And I just couldn't conceive of working any longer
• 13:58
  than I had worked.
• 13:59
  I moved to New York.
• 14:00
  I had an internship.
• 14:01
  It was paid.
• 14:03
  When I say paid, it was minimum wage.
• 14:05
  It was probably three bucks an hour.
• 14:07
  And you know, six months in said,
• 14:11
  you should hire me.
• 14:12
  I'm doing the work of an employee.
• 14:14
  And she said, you're right.
• 14:15
  And she hired me and paid me six bucks now.
• 14:17
  Or so I think after working there for like over three years,
• 14:21
  I just was like, I'm working really hard.
• 14:24
  You know, call an IEVT.
• 14:26
  I wouldn't say I had any ego then.
• 14:28
  But whatever it was that made me go like,
• 14:30
  if I'm going to work this hard,
• 14:31
  I'm going to, I want to be for me, right?
• 14:35
  And I just had that thing in my soul
• 14:38
  that was like, I have to start this.
• 14:40
  Again, and doesn't matter what comes my way,
• 14:43
  I was essentially not homeless like had like no money.
• 14:50
  Like I could have gone home to my parents
• 14:52
  in Florida at any moment.
• 14:53
  But I had, I had many times where I couldn't pay my bill.
• 14:58
  I had nowhere to sleep at night and didn't have a place to stay.
• 15:02
  And I was just like, I'm going to keep going.
• 15:04
  I'm keeping going.
• 15:05
  My mom would call me and be like, it's okay, just come home.
• 15:07
  Please come home.
• 15:08
  And I'd be like, no, I'm going to figure this out.
• 15:10
  I'm sleeping on this person's couch tonight.
• 15:11
  I found a random room on 10th Avenue in 28th Street.
• 15:14
  I'm not allowed to use any room except the bedroom,
• 15:16
  but I'm going to do it.
• 15:18
  You know, I just, I just had to keep going.
• 15:20
  And I think some people have that and some people don't.
• 15:24
  Do you think I've, I wrestle with that particular point a lot
• 15:28
  because I've heard some people say very, very successful investors
• 15:31
  say like entrepreneurship is built into the person.
• 15:35
  So it was actually, it was a very unpopular opinion
• 15:40
  that one investor had.
• 15:41
  It's like, if you, if I'm going to invest in you, show me your lemonade
• 15:45
  stand or show me the, like the cards that you are
• 15:50
  betraged in grade three or grade six.
• 15:53
  Show me all the, or show me the lawn care business.
• 15:56
  And it's actually a really tough pill for me to swallow
• 15:59
  because my parents weren't entrepreneurial.
• 16:02
  And I didn't come from, I worked nine to five.
• 16:04
  And but there was a point where my mind shifted.
• 16:07
  And I think that.
• 16:09
  But I also feel like I went through, like, like, mentally
• 16:12
  was very difficult to get that mind shift.
• 16:15
  But it sounds like you almost were from a young age entrepreneurial.
• 16:20
  And you dabble less in the nine to five w two, which I think
• 16:23
  wrong with that, but less than that.
• 16:25
  And more in the, I need to build my own thing.
• 16:27
  Do you, first of all, do you believe that most?
• 16:30
  Because it's never going to be black and white.
• 16:31
  But most entrepreneurs are born entrepreneurial.
• 16:34
  And then again, two part question would hate doing what it is relevant.
• 16:37
  So our most entrepreneurs born entrepreneurial.
• 16:40
  And secondly, if yes, how do you train yourself to be more entrepreneurial?
• 16:47
  I think that I don't know that it's like born in you.
• 16:50
  But I think that it sprouts at different ages of people's lives.
• 16:54
  Like the some of the women on my podcast I meet.
• 16:58
  It happens later in life, right?
• 17:00
  Where they're just like, okay, I figured this out.
• 17:02
  I've done the Wall Street thing.
• 17:04
  I've got enough money saved.
• 17:05
  I'm going to start my company with all the smarts I learned.
• 17:10
  But I think there's a mental fortitude you need to have as an entrepreneur.
• 17:15
  Because at the end of the day, if it's your company, right?
• 17:19
  It's you and no other employee you ever have is going to care
• 17:23
  as much as you or want to build it as much.
• 17:26
  And I think that it requires a strength that you don't know until you're in it.
• 17:30
  A mental strength that you don't know until you're in it.
• 17:32
  And if you have a partner, that can be awesome.
• 17:35
  It can also complicate things too, right?
• 17:37
  If you have different views on things.
• 17:38
  And so it's like, I'll never forget.
• 17:42
  I had a president who when I went out on my first maternity leave and I came back and
• 17:50
  I was having the baby come into the office during certain times to feed him.
• 17:55
  And by the way, that was if anyone else wanted to do that,
• 17:59
  it was a special treatment.
• 18:00
  I was giving myself like, you can all do that.
• 18:02
  And she was like, you know, it must be so nice to have your maternity leave.
• 18:07
  Like, be a free for all and you can bring your kid in.
• 18:10
  And I was like, excuse me.
• 18:12
  I come on maternity leave and everyone can do this.
• 18:16
  And the employees are the lucky ones.
• 18:18
  They get to go on maternity leave and not worry about a goddamn thing.
• 18:21
  Whereas every maternity leave I had, I'm still fucking working.
• 18:24
  And she was like, oh, sorry, you're right.
• 18:25
  I'm sorry I said that.
• 18:27
  And it was just this like thing that I just remember being like, wow,
• 18:31
  there are perks that you don't know or think that you get as an employee when it's not your business
• 18:37
  that I think when you become an entrepreneur, kind of shocking.
• 18:42
  So the person you mentioned that to you, that was a woman.
• 18:46
  That was a president.
• 18:47
  Why do you think there was such an adverse reaction to you doing that?
• 18:51
  So women in my industry that are, I would say, 10 to 20 years older than me
• 18:59
  were in another animal of an age.
• 19:02
  They were in an era of male domination.
• 19:05
  No, no hope for most women to ascend.
• 19:08
  They were treated horrifically.
• 19:10
  They had to be like men, like the bad, the bad idea of men.
• 19:17
  Like the mad, the mad men version of, yes, understood.
• 19:21
  And bad men, men, too succeed.
• 19:25
  And so she didn't get to have, you know, the space and freedom to enjoy first motherhood.
• 19:32
  She had to come back three months after and not talk about it, you know,
• 19:38
  get her work done.
• 19:39
  Stay as late as she had to stay.
• 19:40
  Could never kind of be like, I gotta go home now.
• 19:42
  I have a newborn at home.
• 19:44
  So I think that was her visceral reaction to seeing it again firsthand.
• 19:49
  But it totally changed when she had her daughter or she watched her daughter have a child.
• 19:55
  And she apologized to me and she was like, I'm so sorry.
• 19:58
  I'm seeing what my daughter is going through without the flexibility that you've given women
• 20:02
  in the workplace.
• 20:04
  And I'm really sorry I gave you a hard time.
• 20:07
  I just want to take a second and thank the HubSpot podcast now for supporting success story.
• 20:11
  Now if you enjoy success story, you're going to love other podcasts and their network
• 20:15
  like Business Made Simple hosted by Donald Miller.
• 20:17
  If you've ever wondered why some businesses take off while many struggle,
• 20:21
  Donald Miller takes the mystery out of growing your business with actionable strategies
• 20:25
  that you can implement today, whether you're trying to build a stronger team,
• 20:29
  craft a clearer message or boost your bottom line.
• 20:31
  Business Made Simple delivers the frameworks that you need to succeed.
• 20:34
  Listen to Business Made Simple wherever you get your podcast.
• 20:38
  It's actually, I think when something like that happens, we forget how recent history is.
• 20:45
  And we forget how shitty circumstances were like not that long ago.
• 20:51
  Like with people that were still working, it's not like these people are retired.
• 20:56
  Like they dealt with a lot of shit in their career and it's just, it's very sad.
• 21:01
  Because I've actually heard this, I've heard this and it's unfortunate.
• 21:05
  I've heard that from women, sometimes they get the least career help and mentorship
• 21:12
  from other women.
• 21:14
  And that seems to just be such a toxic, unfortunate circumstance.
• 21:18
  But I think that you just described it perfectly.
• 21:20
  We have to put ourselves in the shoes of what some of these individuals went through throughout
• 21:26
  their career to really understand why they're so stressed in their work environment
• 21:31
  and why they act or react a certain way.
• 21:33
  But I mean, honestly, the way to counteract that is to just have these conversations
• 21:38
  and to do more of what you're doing and to interview more incredible women leaders
• 21:41
  and talk about how they've created this workspace and the work environment.
• 21:44
  It's just amazing for everybody.
• 21:46
  I think that's really how you win and you modernize and you and you be better.
• 21:50
  And you know what, you're still going to make people on satisfied.
• 21:54
  You know, I remember this was in 20, it was definitely pre-COVID.
• 22:00
  Let's just say it was 2018.
• 22:01
  I sat all the moms in my office down.
• 22:03
  I said, what do you need to succeed?
• 22:05
  And I was aghast at some of the requests because they were like,
• 22:09
  all right, I was like, this is too crazy.
• 22:11
  Like it was like, I want you to pay me when I'm not working from home,
• 22:15
  when I have to stay home and I want you to pay for my kids daycare,
• 22:19
  if my nanny is sick, if you want me to come work.
• 22:22
  And I was like, I love all these ideas.
• 22:25
  But like, I am not the government.
• 22:28
  And I can't pay your nanny or for your daycare.
• 22:32
  If you chose, if you elected to have a child,
• 22:35
  like, you know, I can...
• 22:37
  It's tough, too, because there's a lot of expenses associated.
• 22:40
  Now then, in that case, somebody could go work for like a massive,
• 22:45
  you know, billion dollar publicly traded,
• 22:47
  even trillion dollar publicly traded company that maybe has those benefits.
• 22:51
  But there also has to be a balance between what the company can afford.
• 22:55
  And keep the lights on and how to serve the people that work for you.
• 22:59
  And that's always like, I mean, you want to talk about entrepreneurial headaches and stresses.
• 23:04
  I mean, that's one for sure.
• 23:05
  Oh my god, it's huge.
• 23:06
  I mean, even with my other company female founder collective, you know,
• 23:10
  we're a really tiny team.
• 23:12
  And at first, we wanted to extend a very long maternity leave for our employees.
• 23:18
  And then I looked at my co-opiner and said, I want to do this.
• 23:20
  But we can't afford for one of our seven employees to be out for four months.
• 23:25
  Like, we just can't, you know, so we have to scale it back.
• 23:28
  And when we get bigger, we can look at, you know, making it longer.
• 23:32
  But I think people forget, again, like you said, size of company.
• 23:35
  And the reality of what a company can afford to do at its size and stage.
• 23:40
  I think that that's, you know, something that I've thought of.
• 23:43
  And this is not just for women and maternity leave in particular.
• 23:46
  But having these super candid conversations when you, when you're hiring people
• 23:51
  so that you both know where you want to go.
• 23:53
  And you both know if you can support each other.
• 23:55
  And I think that this extends, definitely extends way beyond women.
• 23:58
  Because now people aren't staying in careers 20 years anymore.
• 24:01
  And my suggestion is make contracts for two years and then help them figure
• 24:06
  where they want to get two years from now.
• 24:07
  And just commit to each other for minimum two years.
• 24:10
  And if they want to go different job title more, you know,
• 24:12
  bigger salary, whatever it is, different company.
• 24:15
  You commit for the two years to each other.
• 24:16
  Then you help as a business leader.
• 24:18
  You help them get to where they want to go.
• 24:19
  So there's no bullshit.
• 24:20
  There's no quiet quitting.
• 24:21
  There's no all this garbage that comes with these lack, lack of candor.
• 24:25
  That's really, I think, the thing.
• 24:27
  Anyway, no, what I was going to say is a counterpoint is, you know,
• 24:30
  when my first employee quit, I felt like it was the same feeling as being broken up with.
• 24:34
  Because I was like, but we're a family.
• 24:36
  We're going to do this forever together.
• 24:39
  And even in the last year, like I had been, you know, saying to my CEO,
• 24:43
  I was like, there's eight key people.
• 24:45
  We have to hold on to the eight.
• 24:46
  They can never leave.
• 24:48
  This is our team.
• 24:49
  And one resigned and one got promoted and moved somewhere.
• 24:53
  And then we started, you know, getting in fresh eyes, fresh talent.
• 24:56
  And now I'm like, when you resign, like, great, it's an opera.
• 25:00
  Now I look at it as an opportunity.
• 25:02
  Like you get to go on.
• 25:03
  We get someone who's excited and enthusiastic.
• 25:06
  And it's made it a lot easier to be that nimble.
• 25:10
  And they're like, great, okay, good.
• 25:11
  Next, let's find an awesome person.
• 25:13
  And, you know, recently we had a ton of new team members join.
• 25:18
  And the energy is intoxicating.
• 25:20
  And it's like, oh, that's all we needed.
• 25:22
  We just needed new blood.
• 25:23
  And so it's not as scary, I think, as it used to be.
• 25:27
  I want to talk just one more.
• 25:29
  I want to talk about all the work you're doing with the podcast.
• 25:33
  Superwoman with the female founder collective.
• 25:35
  But before we go into that, I just want to, I mean,
• 25:38
  you've taken a whole bunch of risks through your career.
• 25:40
  This is like the last point on kind of like the origin story in the come up.
• 25:44
  If you could highlight one risk or one shit,
• 25:48
  almost hit the fan moment when you were building that really stood out.
• 25:51
  Outside of those 10,000 bags, because that definitely is a,
• 25:54
  it's a, but that's not a risk that went well.
• 25:57
  It would be a risk that you took that went well.
• 26:00
  I talk about it often, but we were the first brand to talk to our customer.
• 26:06
  There was no other brand in 2006 talking directly to their customer.
• 26:11
  Everything back then was through a boutique or through a store and magazines.
• 26:15
  And that was it.
• 26:16
  Social media was just beginning.
• 26:18
  Facebook was still closed to college campuses.
• 26:20
  So if you go back to that landscape,
• 26:22
  the fact that I was online talking and DMing on like the purse morham to her
• 26:28
  and taking crowdsourcing, maybe that wasn't a term.
• 26:32
  I'd literally be like, we love that purple leather you use,
• 26:36
  but can we have it with the pink zipper?
• 26:37
  And I'd be like, great.
• 26:39
  I need 60 of you to come into an order and I'll go uptown and I'll buy the leather
• 26:42
  and I'll run your credit cards personally and do it.
• 26:45
  And they were all like, we're all in.
• 26:48
  And so I think that the amount of shit we got for talking to our customer,
• 26:53
  you like our biggest retailers at the time,
• 26:57
  Sacks, Nordstrom, Bloomingdale's, Nimen Marcus,
• 26:59
  were like, you can't talk to your customer.
• 27:01
  Like that's beneath you.
• 27:02
  Like the designer needs to stay above it all in their ivory tower untouchable.
• 27:08
  And you look like desperate talking to her.
• 27:11
  And I was like, I think, you know, my brother and I,
• 27:14
  who is my co-founder, we think we think this is a good thing.
• 27:18
  And like go with us here and they're like, we're not going with you.
• 27:20
  You know, we're even working with influencers.
• 27:24
  Again, we were told like, why are you working with these sea-list people?
• 27:29
  There's a lot of like a leotism and I guess it's fashion design.
• 27:33
  It's a, listen, there's still a layer that shall not be penetrated by the likes of me.
• 27:40
  There was a lot of elitism.
• 27:41
  There was a lot of rules and we just didn't, A, we didn't have a choice.
• 27:46
  And B, we just felt like this was, this was the future.
• 27:49
  Was talking to your customer, engaging with content creators,
• 27:53
  and really building a more democratic community, I guess.
• 28:00
  I love that. I think that's such a smart.
• 28:02
  And it's so funny how you perceive that as a risk.
• 28:04
  Because I look at that as the least risky thing you could possibly do for your business.
• 28:09
  I look at that as almost like the de facto when you're a startup.
• 28:13
  Well, now, yeah, that's kind of like the playbook.
• 28:16
  20 years ago, it wasn't.
• 28:18
  It's very interesting. Okay.
• 28:20
  Female founder collective, you have over, I mean,
• 28:23
  when I did some research, 9,000 members, do you have more than that now?
• 28:26
  It's obviously.
• 28:27
  Yeah, so we've structured the community in two ways.
• 28:30
  We have a free membership for those who can't quite afford yet to pay.
• 28:34
  So that's about 25,000 people to participate in that.
• 28:38
  And then the 9,000, yes, is like our private community that we have where we're going
• 28:45
  real deep on education.
• 28:46
  So my co-founder, Ali and I really felt that the missing link for a lot of founders is all the
• 28:51
  nitty gritty ugly shit of business.
• 28:54
  And can we get women that have done it and succeeded to teach these like modules to other women?
• 29:02
  So whether it's in person, zooms, you know, and then the community itself where you can go ask
• 29:08
  anyone anything, you know, what's the best AI to use or, you know, what's the best CRM platform?
• 29:14
  And you can really go deep with other women who are probably going to give you a much better
• 29:20
  recommendation than, you know, searching for yourself.
• 29:24
  What is the sort of the one universal problem concern repeated post that comes up again and
• 29:34
  again and again and again and it's all women founders.
• 29:37
  So what's happening that you just want to put out to any woman who's building something
• 29:42
  incredible right now that you see repeated?
• 29:45
  I see that due to the last, I'd say maybe five to 10 years of raising money, right?
• 29:53
  Now you see women are also raising money.
• 29:55
  The we all know the percentage is 3% of women get funding.
• 30:00
  But I'm of the mindset that not every business should or needs funding.
• 30:08
  And there's too much this desire to be like, I raised this and therefore I'm a success.
• 30:13
  No, you're not. You just raised money.
• 30:15
  You're now beholden to investors.
• 30:17
  You sold a big chunk of your company way too early.
• 30:21
  And there's this obsession with building without figuring out profitability.
• 30:25
  And trust me, we were there.
• 30:28
  We were in the raise raise raise build doesn't matter.
• 30:32
  And then when sentiment changes and investors are like, are you profitable?
• 30:37
  Oh, we need to be profitable.
• 30:38
  Cool. That's going to take us five, you know, five, 10 years to figure out.
• 30:42
  Like build your business to be profitable from the beginning, you know?
• 30:46
  Like there's nothing wrong with slower instead of your growth or build your business to have
• 30:52
  a balance of like profitability and allow you lifestyle, right? Mobility.
• 30:58
  And instead I'm meeting too many women are like, I'm trying to raise.
• 31:00
  I'm trying to raise and building and I'm just like, I'm frankly, I'm just like, I think I think
• 31:06
  they're all just looking at what they saw the last five, 10 years is that's the only way to build a
• 31:11
  business. Well, I think you could actually fall into a trap. So if you know the numbers of
• 31:16
  how many women actually successfully raised, which are horrible, and those numbers shouldn't be
• 31:20
  the numbers that they are, but they are the numbers that they are. So say it's, I was actually at this
• 31:24
  conversation with with Julia Borstein. And it was again, it's like two, three percent. It was like
• 31:30
  really bad. It's almost like when you hear the number, you're like, no, no, that can't be right.
• 31:34
  But when if I was a woman entrepreneur and I was looking at that number,
• 31:39
  and I also tied into the Silicon Valley, everybody's raising, I would give up before I started,
• 31:46
  because not only do I have, you know, it's not only like a 99% failure rate,
• 31:50
  but I have a two or three percent chance to go raise money and everybody's raising money. So what,
• 31:55
  so you have to like shift the lens, shift the paradigm of entrepreneurship. So you understand,
• 32:00
  okay, it's super fucking shitty that these are the numbers, but there's other ways to build businesses
• 32:05
  that I would actually say not just women should adopt all entrepreneurs should adopt. But I think
• 32:11
  that again, if you go into it and you look at those numbers, I don't want, I don't want great
• 32:15
  women entrepreneurs to give up before they even start just because they're getting in their own head.
• 32:19
  Yeah, I'm not saying you should give up, but I, you know, the amount of women I meet, like I'm making
• 32:24
  clothing for tall women and I'm raising money. I'm like, no one's gonna invest in that. That's not
• 32:28
  a huge hockey stick of scale, you know, open a great boutique, open a great e-commerce site,
• 32:35
  sell on TikTok shops, you know, small batch. And I've had the pleasure and honor of meeting so many
• 32:41
  women who are on, again, on my podcast, but they've done, you know, pink lily, over 100 million
• 32:48
  in sales, never has taken a dime, you know, I think there's some really exceptional Monique Rodriguez,
• 32:54
  one of the largest women of color exits in history, like she didn't, she didn't take money
• 33:00
  or try and raise to scale. And by the time money came to her, she was still valuable and profitable
• 33:06
  that her multiples are like mind-blowing. Have you had Nancy twine on? I got to make an intro.
• 33:12
  Oh, you have had, okay, she lives in Florida now. So I know she's like, she's,
• 33:16
  she's, I accept your girl crush on her. And she's awesome. She's absolutely awesome. No,
• 33:21
  when, when you just started talking through some of the people and you show you a lot of people,
• 33:24
  she was gonna be the third name I threw out there. No, she's great. She's great. You know,
• 33:30
  the podcast is called Superwoman to play on that. What's your personal kryptonite? And how do you deal
• 33:37
  with it? I think that my personal, wait, kryptonite is the thing that we can do, right? Yes, yes,
• 33:45
  yes, you got it. Sometimes I say, and it's like, that's the thing you take that gives you the
• 33:50
  superpower, but I have that. No, no, no, that's like, that's like radioactive something or whatever,
• 33:55
  get bitten by a spy. Yeah, that's not the growth in life. My kryptonite, um, I feel lately that I
• 34:04
  am very, I don't, I feel like we're in this time of like, I have ADD and I have ADD. Look at me,
• 34:12
  I have ADD. I don't necessarily believe in that label, but I definitely find myself
• 34:18
  distracted when I'm, you know, I have a, I have a laundry list of things that are on my calendar,
• 34:24
  and then I have all these things that pop into my head that I like have a big notebook of
• 34:29
  lists that I keep, but I definitely feel like getting a task through to completion in one focused
• 34:36
  amount of time is hard for me right now because I have a lot of things going on and, and that is
• 34:43
  probably my kryptonite right now. So you have, so that's shiny objects syndrome basically.
• 34:49
  Yeah, well, I got literally typing an email and I'm like, oh, I just had an idea and then I'll just
• 34:53
  go hop and do that or, you know, I mean, but that's, so it's interesting. So let's just touch on
• 34:59
  that because that serves you to some degree because you're always creative, you're always thinking,
• 35:03
  but it can also be a detriment if it takes you away from the main thing. And even before we start
• 35:07
  recording, like Scott, like, how did you grow your podcast? I'm like, this is it. This is all,
• 35:11
  this is, I'm all in on this right now at this particular season of my life. So just by virtue of,
• 35:17
  this is how I identify myself as a podcast, which by the way took a long time to get to the point
• 35:22
  where I would say, this is what I do for a living. But I think that, I think that you have to have
• 35:28
  a balance, but I'm curious how you sort of manage doing the main thing very, very well,
• 35:33
  while also being a creative and having all these other ideas that could contribute to the main
• 35:39
  thing that you want to build. But you don't know when it's actually going to help it, hurt it,
• 35:44
  take it to the next level. It could be six months, five years where a creative idea actually helps
• 35:49
  the business. A lot of it is trial and error. And be like, what? I was going to say, like, what's your,
• 35:58
  I'm going to try this for a little bit. And then this, this is what has to happen for me to
• 36:02
  continue to put energy into it or to kill it. That thought process. I mean, it differs. So like,
• 36:09
  we just, we have a collaboration coming out that was so much work with the biggest movie that's
• 36:16
  going to wicked is coming out. It's, it's the most money that NBC has ever spent on a movie
• 36:21
  period. And when you see what the work and effort they put into the film, it's incredible.
• 36:27
  We were chosen as like the bag merch partner for launch. So like, we have two bags.
• 36:33
  Now, when you go, oh, we're launching two bags. It seems like a no brainer. It was so much work
• 36:37
  to get it out there to sort of circumvent our usual production line and make, you know, a limited
• 36:43
  addition. And I at the end of the day, it was like, is anyone who sees the movie going to need
• 36:50
  this bag? I don't know, you know, but, but I wanted to try it. And even though if you add up the
• 36:55
  hours of work and the team involved versus the amount of bags we made, you're not going to get
• 37:01
  your money back just on that, right? On the salaries versus how many limited addition bags we made
• 37:07
  because they had to be special and sell out and whatever. But does that get you in someone's mind
• 37:13
  somewhere further? Whether it's in the media or the customer, that is sort of untangible. So
• 37:19
  sometimes these things to me are in intangible things that I just have to hope are working, right?
• 37:27
  I guess another example is for the longest time I spoke all over anything you asked me to speak
• 37:35
  on women, whatever I didn't charge any money. You know, and I was like, at some point, I'll feel like
• 37:41
  I am worth X. And when that happens, I'm not going back. And I'll say no to a lot of things
• 37:47
  because they're not paying. And I remember that shift. I asked for a number that maybe
• 37:51
  want to throw up and I got it. And I was like, great, we're here now. And so I think it's just,
• 37:56
  you know, and then there have been times where it hasn't worked things I've tried. And so I think
• 38:01
  it's just for me, each area has its own timelines, you know, getting a bag to market takes nine
• 38:06
  months. I spoke for free for three or four years before I ever asked anyone to pay me.
• 38:12
  So I think or or like with our first attempt at TikTok, I tried everything, right? I tried the
• 38:19
  dancing. I tried the funny thing. I tried the college advice. I tried the like, let me show you
• 38:25
  my back. Nothing worked. Scott. And I was like, all right, TikTok. I'm fucking down with you. I'm
• 38:30
  taking a break. But now I have a woman on my team who's like, this is the approach and this is what
• 38:35
  we're going to try. And I'm like, great, let's try it again. So like I'll sometimes come back to
• 38:39
  things just to, you know, I want to take a second and thank Range Rover Sport for supporting
• 38:43
  today's episode. Now let's talk about tools that match your ambition, that match the ambition
• 38:49
  of everybody who's listening today, who has taken risks, who has upleveled their personal
• 38:54
  professional development, who's tried to build their own thing. Everybody listening gets it.
• 38:59
  There is a moment when the thing you're trying to build, the challenge that you're taking on,
• 39:04
  it finally starts to take off. There is like this rush of excitement and possibility
• 39:10
  and that feeling, that feeling that you get when you get behind of the wheel of a Range Rover Sport,
• 39:16
  because we've all had that perfect drive when the road, the car, and you, you're all in perfect
• 39:21
  harmony. But that's not just by chance. The Range Rover Sport is designed to make every drive
• 39:26
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• 39:31
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• 39:36
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• 39:41
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• 39:46
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• 39:51
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• 39:57
  performance. So from daily commutes to weekend getaways, the Range Rover Sport is ready for whatever
• 40:03
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• 40:15
  Sport today. I think that's healthy. I mean, you're not, you don't, you don't kill anything off
• 40:20
  completely. You're open to new ideas. But if it's not working, it's not working. And you don't
• 40:25
  want to let that distract you from again, the main thing. Yeah, we could take NFTs, right? We had
• 40:30
  our first NFT, the first female fashion designer in the States to do an NFT. The first launch sold
• 40:35
  out in nine minutes. Huge success. You know, we went back for it again. Also really successful.
• 40:42
  Third time I was like, this is it, man, we've hit the mother load. Like I watched the day that we
• 40:48
  launched like the industry tank. And I was like, all right, we're going to be done with this.
• 40:52
  But when you saw the numbers, you saw forever 21 made what $2 million on one little hat,
• 40:59
  I was like, we can make a bag. And we can sell $2 million worth of products on Roblox too. And
• 41:05
  we didn't. And that's okay. You know, you've said before that a no is free. So what's the best
• 41:13
  no that you've ever gotten? I think that the best no we've ever gotten was we wanted to do a show
• 41:20
  that was open to the public. This was in 2015, I believe. No one was opening their fashion weeks
• 41:29
  to the public. We wanted to cast influencers, which they had been accepted as content creators,
• 41:35
  but no one would dare put them in a fashion show. And we had to appeal to the not only to the city
• 41:45
  of New York, but the like the Soho district, which was full of people who were like, I'm an actress.
• 41:52
  I have to run my lines. And I can't have the crowds there distracting me. So we literally went
• 41:59
  into a little college classroom. We pitched to these people. We'd hear all the reasons why like I
• 42:04
  need to be able to walk my dog in the morning. And you're going to be setting up to the actress.
• 42:09
  And they were so happy like unanimously. No, you cannot close down this one block of the street
• 42:15
  for a day to do your thing. We had a store on the street, which is why we could even get that meeting.
• 42:21
  And I just remember being like, yeah, we're not done. We know people in the city. And so we were
• 42:26
  able to get, you know, someone above this like group of angry tenants, Soho tenants to like bypass and
• 42:32
  approve. And the hurdles to do that show were obnoxiously overwhelming. But when we did the show,
• 42:41
  just break breaking so many barriers and boundaries, having 5,000 people show up was just this
• 42:46
  feeling I wish you could bottle. That really felt like we pushed through every single hurdle that
• 42:52
  had been thrown at us from government to city to parking to whatever it was and made it happen.
• 42:59
  It was it was really cool. I love that. But on the flip side of that same same same idea of
• 43:05
  no, those were knows that you overcame. And that's such a good feeling. But also as an entrepreneur,
• 43:11
  saying no is sometimes very important to respect your time and your energy and whatnot. So how do
• 43:17
  you decide what's your framework for saying yes, saying no. I mean, you must have one because people
• 43:24
  hit you up all the time, new ideas, new concepts. And I think that this sort of plays back into that
• 43:29
  shiny object syndrome. So it's useful to a point, but then it's not. So how do you think through
• 43:36
  these problems? I think many of my nose are tied up in boundaries, but it's also tied up on how
• 43:42
  much research have you done. If you're going to stand in front of me and meet me and go, how did you
• 43:46
  get your start? Like no, like that's online, right? Like ask me something that I that's actionable
• 43:53
  that I can do for you in an email or an intro or whatever. And I'll tell that to a lot of people.
• 44:00
  And then sometimes I just have to get more information, you know, I'm pitched all the time to invest.
• 44:06
  And my thesis now is if I can and this is no like no shade to any anyone, man or woman asking for
• 44:14
  money, like I am in a season of spending money on my four children right now. And you know, I'm
• 44:21
  really not investing because these people are really expensive humans that I that I brought into
• 44:26
  the world. And so it's kind of like, is that the best use of my funds right now? I need an ROI in
• 44:33
  one year, not 10. And unless it's something wildly, you know, crazy that everyone has to get
• 44:40
  in on. So I just think I run it through my own filters, depending on what the ask is. But you have
• 44:46
  filters. And that's the most important you have filters. And you set these. Yeah.
• 44:51
  Yeah. And one of the things that we started with female founder collective, we call it the
• 44:55
  north is we believe that women who are in positions who have made it should get paid for their
• 45:01
  time to mentor and advise other women. So we've set up a marketplace of women. Incredible
• 45:08
  accomplished women. It's it's find your north.co. But you know, now I'm just like you want time
• 45:14
  with me. Here's my link. You know, like I I'm giving back till I'm blue in the face with our
• 45:20
  nonprofit and and you know, there needs to be a little bit of a like again, a filter or a boundary
• 45:26
  to like, I can't just let you pick my brain. I don't have 15 minutes free to pick my brain as much
• 45:31
  as I would love that come to one of my events, listen to my podcast. You know what I mean? Like,
• 45:35
  it's out there. Yeah. I think that's very important. And I think that that keeps you saying like
• 45:40
  you say yes. And when you're in a season of building, and I'm sure there's like different
• 45:44
  quotes around this, but you know, maybe like 20 to 25, maybe late 20, say yes to everything. But then
• 45:50
  when you start to make it, when you start to have success, it is important to set boundaries
• 45:54
  because also just to sort of inject a different perspective, if you aren't happy with the work
• 46:01
  that you're doing, if you're jumping on a Zoom call to give someone some advice and you're just
• 46:05
  dreading it because you're burnt out because you're saying yes to everything, you're also not
• 46:09
  showing up in your best self and you're also not helping them. So I think it's very important to set
• 46:14
  those those boundaries in as an entrepreneur because you get so much, you get so much thrown at you.
• 46:21
  The last thing I am super curious to understand because you've done this successfully and you will
• 46:26
  have to continue doing this successfully is putting yourself out in the public and having just
• 46:33
  eyes looking at you and what you're building. And you that was sort of like the initial
• 46:38
  like moment that brought you into the public spotlight. So this is not new for you. But then
• 46:43
  even with real housewives, how how do you leverage that? How do you harness it? How do you help it
• 46:51
  with your own goals? And it's not like a perfect process. We don't pretend that it's not going
• 46:55
  to be a little bit chaotic, especially with again, Bravo fans and how crazy they are sometimes. But
• 47:02
  there has to be some thought process you went through when you went on this show and it's like this
• 47:06
  is going to be a net positive in my life for X reason. And that's at the extreme level. But also
• 47:13
  entrepreneurs that speak on stage put themselves out there on a micro level. They can take some
• 47:18
  lessons from this as well. I think depending on what it is you want to accomplish, some founders
• 47:24
  can just be behind the scenes and you never know or hear from them. And I think that's phenomenal.
• 47:30
  In my case, I am here of my customer because of her. She looks to me for
• 47:40
  you know, that personal connection that we started with. And that means showing up visually
• 47:46
  and audio and on TV. And so, you know, I'll never forget. I think it was 2018, maybe 2017,
• 47:56
  where my brother was like, we're turning the camera to you. And I was like, no, I just want to
• 48:01
  be the designer in my like, yeah, I'll talk to everyone. Smile. She'll see me at trunk shows,
• 48:05
  but like, I don't want it to be this. And he was like, it's time. And I was like, oh my god,
• 48:12
  I can't believe what I have to do. And the first many times I had to do the selfie, I was like
• 48:19
  wanted to throw up. But now it's like second nature. And I think the decision to go on Housewives
• 48:24
  was we're about to celebrate 20 years to be able to have my age, demo customer see me in
• 48:33
  their homes once a week, see another side of me. You get a lot of sides of me on our brand,
• 48:39
  on my podcast, from my book, from my speaking. There's another side. And does that forge
• 48:44
  and even deeper connection. And again, I was like, why wouldn't I do this? And I don't have to
• 48:51
  approach it with I'm hungry and starving. And this is my one thing. And if it goes away,
• 48:55
  I don't have it. And I don't feel that most of the women approached being on the show because of
• 49:00
  that either they're all they're all great entrepreneurs and have their own businesses. But I just
• 49:04
  thought, you know what, as long as I know that I was me the whole time and I didn't become someone
• 49:11
  that disappoints someone else or is not who they think of me as, then I know that I that I gave it
• 49:17
  I did it with integrity, I guess. I love that. And then the last thing, you know, you have a book
• 49:23
  called Fearless. Everyone's scared of something. Obviously, what does Fearless mean for you and how
• 49:29
  do you turn fear into a strength? You turn fear into a strength by doing the thing that scares you,
• 49:35
  doing the thing that holds you back. And I think I talk about it as a muscle. You learn to use it
• 49:43
  and get stronger and stronger at it. And again, 75% of the time it might end up in failure.
• 49:51
  But it's, do you get back up? Do you not wallow in it? Does your wallowing time shorten?
• 49:58
  You know, the things that I'm scared of today are very different than the things I was scared
• 50:02
  of 10 years ago in that shift. You know, today I'm I'm a gassed as a mother with all the crazy stuff
• 50:11
  that trafficking of children or, you know, shooting up in schools. Those are my fears. You know,
• 50:18
  I don't have business fears. I don't have risks that we take in the company that scare me anymore
• 50:25
  because I think we've tried so many things that I'm like, what's the worst that can happen?
• 50:29
  You know, my business almost went out of business. I think when you confront that,
• 50:32
  like, what else could possibly go wrong? It's pretty much it. And then you realize like even if
• 50:37
  that happens, well, I'm going to wake up tomorrow. Right. I'm going to wake up and I'll start
• 50:42
  something else or all, you know, do, you know, go get a job. So I think that for me having
• 50:48
  faced the worst case scenario of like, okay, this isn't going to last. Like now the fears are just
• 50:54
  normal, I guess mom fears. I love that. And those are good fears to have. Those are good fears that
• 51:01
  should never, those fears will never, ever go away. They're not like business fears. I know
• 51:06
  with my mom. I still think she stresses out. My mom is still stressing out. She's like, you need
• 51:12
  to build you a fence and you don't have curtains yet. And they're going to be taking the paparazzi
• 51:17
  are coming in your dear into your home. I'm like, well, no, just chill out. No one knows where I live.
• 51:23
  Okay. If you wanted to, we spoke about a lot. What's one lesson or one, you know, words of wisdom
• 51:30
  that you could tell your younger self that we didn't speak about today. We talked a lot about
• 51:36
  fearlessness. And I think that early on I cared a lot about what, what the elite would think of me,
• 51:43
  what the industry would think, you know, would I be a joke to my peers? And that really stopped me
• 51:49
  from going, I would go in and take the risk, but it was with that baggage. And I feel like how much
• 51:58
  more risk would I have taken if I didn't care? Or how much better could I have been if I was like,
• 52:03
  no, this is the future guys, you're coming on board or not. And not like, I'm sorry, we have to
• 52:08
  try this thing called talking to our customer. I know it sounds crazy. You know, or like, it sounds
• 52:13
  ridiculous now, but at my fashion shows, we would have to sit editors didn't want to look at influencers.
• 52:20
  So I had to put celebrities and editors across each other and then influencers in their own
• 52:24
  section because they could not be looked at with the eyes of an editor, you know, and it was
• 52:29
  just like that dumb shit. I should have been like, fuck you. Here's the future. Don't come to my
• 52:33
  show or not, you know? Yeah, just less, like less apologizing for doing what you know is right.
• 52:39
  I think that's a good, very good lesson. Where do you want to send people? I mean, you have a
• 52:43
  podcast, you have a community, you have a book, where can they get everything? Okay, here we go.
• 52:48
  At Rebecca Minkoff, Instagram, at Becky Minkoff from my personal Instagram, my book,
• 52:53
  Fearless, The New Rules for Unlocking Creativity, Encourage, and Success, wherever you go,
• 52:57
  Audible as well. My podcast, Super Women with Rebecca Minkoff, wherever you listen to your
• 53:02
  podcast, it's available. And Female Founder Collective, if you're a woman-owned business,
• 53:06
  and you feel like you need a community and great access to incredible women, femalefoundercollective.com.