Latest / QUESTION EVERYTHING / PRETTY "SELF CARE SUNDAY": How The Wellness Industry + Girlboss Culture Failed Women with Leigh Stein

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PRETTY "SELF CARE SUNDAY": How The Wellness Industry + Girlboss Culture Failed Women with Leigh Stein · QUESTION EVERYTHING

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Speaker 1: The following podcast is a Dear Media production.
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Speaker 2: Hi.
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Speaker 3: I'm Don Roberts, a designer, creative and activist living in
0:08
Speaker 3: Los Angeles. This is Uncomfortable Podcast the show where I
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Speaker 3: speak with new friends, fellow activists and guests, all united
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Speaker 3: and passionate about different injustices, which is generally uncomfortable topics.
0:18
Speaker 3: It's time to dig deep into the human experience. And
0:21
Speaker 3: that's on period. It's all of let's get uncomfortable.
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Speaker 4: Big things happen when you're pretty, pretty bold, pretty clever,
0:40
Speaker 4: pretty strong. I'm Danielle Robe and each week my guests
0:44
Speaker 4: and I have conversations that put a new spin on pretty.
0:49
Speaker 4: This is pretty smart.
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Speaker 5: Do you ever feel like the pursuit of self care
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Speaker 5: is never ending and even at times unachievable? Is it
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Speaker 5: two glasses of wine in a bubble bath? Is it
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Speaker 5: one hundred dollars facecream?
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Speaker 2: Today?
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Speaker 5: We're going to figure it out with Lee Stein, an
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Speaker 5: author and writer obsessed.
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Speaker 2: With the Internet.
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Speaker 5: She takes what she sees happening online and then examines
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Speaker 5: what it's doing to our identities, our relationships, and our politics.
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Speaker 2: She's an author and in a past.
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Speaker 5: Life, she also moderated a secret Facebook community of forty
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Speaker 5: thousand writers, and appropriately I found Lee on the Internet.
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Speaker 5: I read an article titled the End of girl Boss
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Speaker 5: that took my breath away.
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Speaker 1: It was brilliant.
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Speaker 5: I had to know the person who wrote it, so
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Speaker 5: I reached out on Instagram and emailed, hoping she would reply.
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Speaker 1: It.
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Speaker 5: Just so happened she had a book titled Self Care
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Speaker 5: that was about to debut, and so our friendship began.
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Speaker 5: Today we dive into the commercialization of self care, influencer culture,
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Speaker 5: and the lingering effects of the once idealized Girl Boss ideology.
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Speaker 4: So, Lee, do you think it's fair to say that
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Speaker 4: you're an internet anthropologist?
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I am proud to be an internet anthropologist. I've
2:03
Speaker 1: been an online community since I was thirteen years old,
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Speaker 1: so I've come of age online. I've grown up online.
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Speaker 1: I've moved through live journal, Tumbler, or Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.
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Speaker 1: Have not braved TikTok me neither. I've seen a lot.
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Speaker 4: Yes, So I think one of the reasons I'm so
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Speaker 4: drawn to your work is when I moved to LA
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Speaker 4: I was obsessed with pop culture, and not in the
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Speaker 4: way that people kind of expected. I wasn't like obsessed
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Speaker 4: with what Kim Kardashian was wearing. I was more obsessed
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Speaker 4: with the notion that pop culture is a mirror and
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Speaker 4: it like reflects where we are and where we're going.
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Speaker 4: And you say that that's the way you look at
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Speaker 4: the Internet. You examine how and what it's doing to
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Speaker 4: our identities, our relationships, our politics, and your writing blows
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Speaker 4: my mind. Is this just how you thought as a
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Speaker 4: kid growing up? Like, how did you come to this?
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Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago.
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Speaker 1: I was very introverted bookworm. I also liked theater, but
3:02
Speaker 1: I liked words. I really liked words, and I kept,
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Speaker 1: you know, I wanted to be home. And the Internet
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Speaker 1: is where I made a lot of my first friends,
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Speaker 1: and I could talk to about musical theater with them.
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Speaker 1: And so I think the Internet has always been a
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Speaker 1: place of fascination and a place where I've built community.
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Speaker 1: And as I've gotten older and I'm in my thirties,
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Speaker 1: and I ran a Facebook community of forty thousand writers
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Speaker 1: for three years, and that was a learning experience in
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Speaker 1: and of itself, but I started to observe that, like
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Speaker 1: the conversations I was having with people about the Internet
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Speaker 1: were often more interesting than the conversations that were happening
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Speaker 1: on the internet, because I think it's easy to fall
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Speaker 1: into our groups and our labels. Well, I'm a Jewish woman,
3:39
Speaker 1: so I talked to Jewish women about this thing. Or
3:42
Speaker 1: I'm a Democrat, so I talked to other Democrats about
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Speaker 1: this thing, and we get inside these echo chambers where
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Speaker 1: we're just preaching to the choir over and over again
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Speaker 1: and kind of amplifying each other's outrage. I've especially noticed
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Speaker 1: this after the election, and so I'm really curious about
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Speaker 1: how do we get out of these silos that the
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Speaker 1: algorithms put us into. How do we meet people who
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Speaker 1: we might disagree with, but who we might be interested
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Speaker 1: to hear their side.
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Speaker 4: Do you think that's possible at this point, I think
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Speaker 4: we have to try.
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Speaker 1: I just read, since this is a very bookish podcast,
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Speaker 1: I just read Ezra Klein's book Why We're Polarized, where
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Speaker 1: he also talks about how we get sorted into these categories,
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Speaker 1: and one of his recommendations at the end is, you
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Speaker 1: know about local news. How often are we turning to
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Speaker 1: our local news sources and how often are we looking
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Speaker 1: to the big national stories. I mean, we all are
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Speaker 1: up to date with what's happening with the pandemic nationwide,
4:29
Speaker 1: and what's what's happening with the federal government. But what's
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Speaker 1: happening with my local mayor. I'm not sure what he's
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Speaker 1: up to. It can be hard to find that information.
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Speaker 1: But I think that's important too. It's really important.
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Speaker 4: I keep waiting for younger politicians to kind of like
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Speaker 4: rebrand politics in a way.
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Speaker 2: I think we're seeing some people do it.
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Speaker 4: I think Gavin Newsom does a decent job, but how
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Speaker 4: do we get information to people in a different way?
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Speaker 1: That's really interesting, And I think AOC is such a
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Speaker 1: success story. She's on the national level, but everyone you know,
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Speaker 1: she's such a Twitter superstar and she's a millennial, and
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Speaker 1: so she kind of shows how it could be done.
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Speaker 1: But I remember, like, I looked up my I looked
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Speaker 1: up my city. I live in Connecticut. I looked up
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Speaker 1: my mayor on Twitter. I thought I'll follow the mayor
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Speaker 1: and he's not on Twitter.
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Speaker 4: And that's just the problem.
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Speaker 2: Number one.
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Speaker 1: I was like, the mayor's not on Twitter, Like does
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Speaker 1: he exist? That's my own right, that's my own millennial assumption,
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Speaker 1: but it is you know, Twitter can be like a
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Speaker 1: really democratic platform for different ideas to be heard and
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Speaker 1: for people to have their own voices amplified.
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Speaker 4: So people call it the cocktail party. There's just like
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Speaker 4: all the voices, all the voices, and.
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Speaker 1: I think that can be a good thing, and it
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Speaker 1: can also be a detrimental thing when we kind of
5:43
Speaker 1: cling to our group identity so strongly.
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Speaker 4: So I discovered you last month for the first time.
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Speaker 4: Many people have already discovered you, but I was late
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Speaker 4: to the party. I discovered you because my friend Asia
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Speaker 4: posted on Instagram an article you wrote for Medium titled
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Speaker 4: the end of girl Bosses here.
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Speaker 2: And I always think.
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Speaker 4: That great comedians are great because they take something that
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Speaker 4: everybody sees and they're able to just articulate it in
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Speaker 4: a different way. And that's as I was reading your
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Speaker 4: girl Boss article. That's how I felt. There were so
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Speaker 4: many things about girl Boss or the girl boss culture.
6:19
Speaker 4: I should say that I felt in my subconscious and
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Speaker 4: couldn't articulate. And so, first of all, how do you
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Speaker 4: define girl boss culture?
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Speaker 1: Great question. So in this piece, I tagged the rise
6:32
Speaker 1: of the girl boss to the blockbuster success of Sheryl
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Speaker 1: Sandberg's book Lean In, which I think was in twenty thirteen,
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Speaker 1: which was all about this kind of self empowerment feminism. So,
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Speaker 1: if we're going to change corporate culture and get more
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Speaker 1: women in the c suite, it's going to require women
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Speaker 1: to lean in to ask for those raises, not to
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Speaker 1: leave for years to have kids. You have to stay
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Speaker 1: in the game and lean in. And I think this
6:55
Speaker 1: was motivational to a lot of people and inspiring. I
6:58
Speaker 1: read the book, I felt pumped up up. There's like
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Speaker 1: a part in the book where she talks about like
7:03
Speaker 1: get on the rocket ship, and that was really inspiring
7:05
Speaker 1: to me because I was starting my own conference at
7:06
Speaker 1: this time and this idea of like we're building something
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Speaker 1: and like get on board with.
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Speaker 4: Us, that that's right, just get on.
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Speaker 1: But Cheryl Sandberg also faced pushback because some people said
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Speaker 1: correctly that there are some systemic problems, like, for example,
7:22
Speaker 1: in America, we don't have universal childcare. So it's easy
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Speaker 1: for Cheryl Sandberg to say, you know, lean in at work,
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Speaker 1: don't worry about having kids if she can afford childcare.
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Speaker 2: Right.
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Speaker 1: So this idea of self empowerment feminism, I think birthed
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Speaker 1: the girl boss, who is often a millennial, often white,
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Speaker 1: very ambitious driven. A lot of these are really positive
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Speaker 1: qualities that I share. But what we saw was that
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Speaker 1: the rise of the Girl Boss was she scaled her
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Speaker 1: company up really quickly. She played in the boys club.
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Speaker 1: Maybe she didn't think about some of the ethical ramifications
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Speaker 1: of some of her decisions as she was scaling up,
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Speaker 1: but she used feminism as part of her branding, so
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Speaker 1: she said, I'm ambitious, I'm a feminist. I'm a feminist,
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Speaker 1: I care about women. And recently we've seen the fall
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Speaker 1: of many of these women, such as Audrey Gellman at
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Speaker 1: the Wing, who faced criticism because she employed a lot
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Speaker 1: of women of color as low wage workers at the Wing,
8:19
Speaker 1: while more privileged women could afford a couple hundred dollars
8:22
Speaker 1: to be members, and they treated the staff like the help,
8:25
Speaker 1: so that kind of thing. So there's a race element
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Speaker 1: to this, there's a gender element to this, and it
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Speaker 1: all kind of came to a head this summer with
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Speaker 1: the combination of the virus and the Marches for Black Lives.
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Speaker 4: It's interesting that it accelerated the end of the Girl Boss,
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Speaker 4: because I think in general, it accelerated a lot of
8:45
Speaker 4: things that were ultimately going to happen. But we saw
8:49
Speaker 4: that there wasn't a lot of impact. It was more
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Speaker 4: about like the millennial pink and the team, no sleep
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Speaker 4: and the hustle culture, you know, and it's just it's
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Speaker 4: not sustainable.
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Speaker 1: And I think we saw that the aesthetic. It's so
9:03
Speaker 1: good that you brought up the aesthetic. The aesthetic is
9:05
Speaker 1: so important here. It's the pink, it's the font. You
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Speaker 1: recognize the girlbustpont when you see it. It's the hashtag.
9:12
Speaker 1: And it's not an accident that a lot of these
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Speaker 1: women didn't have children when they started their companies because
9:16
Speaker 1: they could afford to work eighty hour weeks, and that
9:20
Speaker 1: I think comes from this very male dominated tech startup
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Speaker 1: culture of the grind and the hustle. It I'm fascinated by,
9:27
Speaker 1: like Jack Dorsey's intermittent fasting regimen, because I think some
9:31
Speaker 1: of the men in Silicon Valley also have these like bizarre,
9:34
Speaker 1: extreme workaholic tendencies, but we always look to the women
9:38
Speaker 1: to see what they're doing. So I think that's another.
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Speaker 4: Thing I think is so interesting about that is we
9:44
Speaker 4: look at the tech startups run by men and we
9:48
Speaker 4: look at them as boy wonders. So if they fail,
9:51
Speaker 4: it's like well, they're a genius, and they go on
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Speaker 4: to create another company and they find billions or millions
9:57
Speaker 4: of dollars in funding, and I see women only having
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Speaker 4: one shot.
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Speaker 1: That's really interesting. Yeah, and their reputation is Yeah, it's
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Speaker 1: not only it's not only that they failed at business.
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Speaker 1: It's like they failed feminism. They failed women. We put
10:13
Speaker 1: so much pressure on women's success, and we send women
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Speaker 1: so many mixed messages. And I think that's a lot
10:19
Speaker 1: of where my novel comes from. It's not that I'm
10:21
Speaker 1: saying one thing is bad and one thing is good.
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Speaker 1: I'm just saying, like, think about all the messages that
10:26
Speaker 1: were given as women that are often conflicting with each other.
10:29
Speaker 1: Be body positive, take care of your health, and don't
10:32
Speaker 1: gain weight. You know, it's very confusing.
10:34
Speaker 4: So you mentioned making feminism a part of your brand,
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Speaker 4: and in some of your articles and also the book
10:40
Speaker 4: which we're going to get to, you talk about fraudulent
10:42
Speaker 4: feminism and what was it performative wokeness also, oh.
10:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, performative wokeness or yeah, or woke capitalism too, I
10:49
Speaker 1: talk about.
10:50
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I think this whole phenomenon of like glossy
10:55
Speaker 4: rising through the ranks of the male dominated world has
10:59
Speaker 4: it is throughed a lot of women trying to actually
11:03
Speaker 4: come up with without some of the privilege that the
11:05
Speaker 4: ones who made it have been afforded.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the other thing that I should mention
11:09
Speaker 1: is I talked about Leanan, and that was kind of
11:11
Speaker 1: the beginning, and then I think the Me Too movement
11:13
Speaker 1: in the fall twenty seventeen really accelerated the girl boss
11:16
Speaker 1: movement too, because I felt at that time that we
11:18
Speaker 1: had decided there was a common enemy and that enemy
11:21
Speaker 1: was men, and so there was a real like raw
11:24
Speaker 1: rass sisterhood, and there was a real anger, and I
11:26
Speaker 1: think anger can be very motivating in a positive way.
11:29
Speaker 1: But it also seemed to me to get corrupted into
11:32
Speaker 1: this idea that if we put women in charge, they'll
11:35
Speaker 1: automatically be amazing bosses and compassionate. And I've worked for
11:39
Speaker 1: some tough women, and I've learned from some tough women,
11:42
Speaker 1: But I think we have to see women as fully
11:45
Speaker 1: three dimensional people, just as we see men. Women aren't
11:48
Speaker 1: any more pure than men. So the girl boss really
11:52
Speaker 1: came up as like a fight against the patriarchy, and
11:54
Speaker 1: I think that's where this kind of feminist brand comes
11:57
Speaker 1: in where you put in your you know, you put
11:59
Speaker 1: it photo on Instagram of drinking from a male tears
12:02
Speaker 1: mug haha. It's like ironic and it's funny. But what
12:05
Speaker 1: does your feminism really mean? What is it beyond your
12:08
Speaker 1: Instagram page? What are your values? And I think we're
12:11
Speaker 1: seeing this now with anti racism and social justice where
12:15
Speaker 1: it's like, Okay, you posted the right hashtag, you posted
12:18
Speaker 1: the black square on your Instagram, what does it mean? Like,
12:20
Speaker 1: what is this translating into it your company?
12:23
Speaker 4: Well, the problem is that people are looking for you
12:25
Speaker 4: to live out those values and now there's transparency. Yes, Like,
12:30
Speaker 4: for instance, you brought up Audrey Gelman, which I think
12:33
Speaker 4: is really interesting. She wrote an article when the Wing
12:36
Speaker 4: was suffering about things she could have done better. Oh yes,
12:39
Speaker 4: And I had never seen a man write an article
12:42
Speaker 4: like that. I just couldn't wrap my brain. Like part
12:44
Speaker 4: of me appreciated that she was being reflective, and part
12:48
Speaker 4: of me thought, I've never seen a guy do this.
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Speaker 1: M h. And that was This was one of my
12:52
Speaker 1: frustrations in the Me too movement where I felt like
12:55
Speaker 1: every lunch I had with my girlfriends we talked about
12:58
Speaker 1: sexual assault and trauma, And I thought, are men having
13:01
Speaker 1: these conversations at their lunches or do they get to
13:04
Speaker 1: talk about whatever they want at lunch? And the burden
13:07
Speaker 1: is somehow on women to solve it. And again it's like,
13:09
Speaker 1: is the burden again on women to solve racism? It's
13:12
Speaker 1: on white women to solve racism. I think we all
13:14
Speaker 1: have to get in this together. But yeah, I think
13:16
Speaker 1: you're right, and I think it's fair to point out
13:18
Speaker 1: this kind of unfair standard. When can men slip under
13:23
Speaker 1: the radar or shirk responsibility and we put the burden
13:26
Speaker 1: on women.
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Speaker 4: We saw it with We Works Adam Newman. I mean, yeah,
13:30
Speaker 4: what a crazy guy. Crazy guy spent so much money
13:34
Speaker 4: on his personal tab we Works money, and.
13:39
Speaker 1: Then he got a huge buyout, right huge.
13:41
Speaker 4: Buyout, and he will probably start another company.
13:44
Speaker 1: That's right.
13:45
Speaker 4: Yeah, So this notion of capitalizing on feminism is kind
13:49
Speaker 4: of what drew me in with your Girl Boss article.
13:53
Speaker 4: And then I was so excited that you told me
13:54
Speaker 4: about your new novel, Self Care, because it totally touches
13:58
Speaker 4: on that and a whole lot more. So I want
14:00
Speaker 4: to get into that. I want to tell you what
14:02
Speaker 4: because I read it in a day. It was so funny.
14:04
Speaker 4: I could give you my log line.
14:06
Speaker 2: I want to know what.
14:06
Speaker 4: Your log line is like it is a whole satire
14:09
Speaker 4: on the wellness industry.
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Speaker 1: Yes, so I describe it as a satire of the
14:14
Speaker 1: wellness industry and girl boss feminism about two female co
14:18
Speaker 1: founders of a wellness startup. It's been interesting to do
14:20
Speaker 1: press for the book because I did an interview on
14:22
Speaker 1: Friday with someone who said, like, I don't think it's
14:24
Speaker 1: a satire, this is just real, this really happened. I
14:27
Speaker 1: was like, well, I made it up. I mean, I
14:29
Speaker 1: thought I was exaggerating and amplifying it. But I think
14:32
Speaker 1: people who are familiar with the world that I'm writing
14:34
Speaker 1: about have told me that it's totally spot on. And
14:37
Speaker 1: I've heard this from people who worked in the wellness industry.
14:40
Speaker 1: I've heard this from people who've worked in tech. And
14:42
Speaker 1: all I really did to write it is I just,
14:44
Speaker 1: like evesdropped on the Internet and just kind of listened
14:46
Speaker 1: to how people talk online and followed kind of the
14:49
Speaker 1: startup culture. I didn't ever work in a startup. I
14:52
Speaker 1: started my own conference, so that was something I had
14:54
Speaker 1: to build from scratch. But we didn't make any money.
14:57
Speaker 1: So I watched Shark Tank, I listened to the podcast
15:01
Speaker 1: How I Built This, which is all about founders. I
15:03
Speaker 1: listened to a lot of that. But yeah, I would
15:05
Speaker 1: say the wellness satire is kind of like the fluffy
15:08
Speaker 1: pink exterior of the book because everyone gets that I'm
15:11
Speaker 1: like making fun of Buyeneth Paltrow. But inside that fluffy
15:14
Speaker 1: pink shell, I'm writing about some darker, darker material and
15:21
Speaker 1: how the internet kind of incentivizes us to be upset
15:25
Speaker 1: and to reveal traumatic things about ourselves.
15:28
Speaker 4: It's like a mocku menory, right. Yeah, yeah, it's so good.
15:32
Speaker 4: So when I was reading it, I looked up on Instagram.
15:36
Speaker 4: There's thirty one point two million posts from the hashtag
15:39
Speaker 4: self care.
15:40
Speaker 2: I couldn't believe it.
15:41
Speaker 4: I first saw the term about a year and a
15:43
Speaker 4: half two years ago.
15:44
Speaker 2: Is that when you first saw it?
15:45
Speaker 1: That's a good question. Yeah. I think it was probably
15:47
Speaker 1: like after the election. It was twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen.
15:51
Speaker 1: But this is funny because it's like a marketing problem, right,
15:54
Speaker 1: because like, if you use hashtag self care, it's not
15:56
Speaker 1: about my book.
15:58
Speaker 2: Well, hopefully it will be.
16:00
Speaker 4: Ye, there will be a timely post I'll be kipping.
16:03
Speaker 1: But earlier you.
16:04
Speaker 4: Mentioned mixed messages, and that's actually I think the largest
16:08
Speaker 4: undertone I.
16:08
Speaker 2: Perceived from your book.
16:10
Speaker 4: And I'm curious as to, like, if you could point
16:12
Speaker 4: out some of the mixed messages that we're receiving, because
16:14
Speaker 4: I think a lot of people don't actually recognize they're
16:16
Speaker 4: receiving them.
16:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally. So self care is such a great example
16:20
Speaker 1: of that. Is self care me having two glasses of
16:23
Speaker 1: wine at night because I deserve it? Or is self
16:25
Speaker 1: care me not drinking because I'm going to take a
16:27
Speaker 1: break and I'm going to get sober? Curious? Is self
16:29
Speaker 1: care me going to an hour boutique fitness class and sweating,
16:33
Speaker 1: or is self care skipping the exercise class and staying
16:36
Speaker 1: home and eating pizza and watching TV? So what is it?
16:40
Speaker 1: And it's the simple thing about self care is that
16:43
Speaker 1: to practice it is free and anyone can do it.
16:46
Speaker 1: You know, it's drinking water, going outside, sleeping eight hours
16:50
Speaker 1: a night, that's self care. But that can't be marketed
16:53
Speaker 1: and sold. And so the things that can be marketed
16:57
Speaker 1: and sold to us are and I see some care
17:00
Speaker 1: in the wellness industry is really just a rebrand of
17:03
Speaker 1: the diet industry that you and I grew up with.
17:05
Speaker 1: You know, reading seventeen, You're right, I need diet culture
17:10
Speaker 1: and you are so right. Right, So it used to
17:13
Speaker 1: be like, you know, eight weeks to get your bikini
17:15
Speaker 1: body in shape, and now it's like, try this program
17:19
Speaker 1: to work on your gut health and eat only these foods.
17:22
Speaker 4: So it's wrapped up in this.
17:24
Speaker 2: It's good for you both.
17:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's good for you, and it's it's part of
17:28
Speaker 1: being a woman is like this constant self improvement. You're
17:31
Speaker 1: never done improving yourself. You know, you might have great hair,
17:34
Speaker 1: but like, how's your waistline? You know, how are your feet?
17:39
Speaker 1: It's just it never ends.
17:41
Speaker 2: Face.
17:42
Speaker 1: Well, this is also interesting, you Like, it used to
17:45
Speaker 1: be the makeup industry. You had to buy makeup. Then
17:48
Speaker 1: it became all about skincare. You have to have the
17:50
Speaker 1: most perfect skin that you don't need makeup. And this
17:52
Speaker 1: is the whole Glossier brand is that they have very
17:56
Speaker 1: sheer makeup that you wear on perfect skin. And to
17:59
Speaker 1: get that perfect skin you to ten step Korean skincare routine.
18:03
Speaker 4: So we exhaust our time, our money, and our resources
18:06
Speaker 4: completely focused on outer beauty. When the idea of self
18:10
Speaker 4: care I think actually comes from the inside. How do
18:13
Speaker 4: we fight against performative self care? Well, performative self care
18:17
Speaker 4: it's daunting. That's a really interesting question.
18:20
Speaker 1: You know. There was a recent column I love reading,
18:23
Speaker 1: the advice column in the New York Times magazine that's
18:25
Speaker 1: by the ethicist Kwame Apia I think his name is.
18:29
Speaker 1: He's at NYU. But someone wrote in about performative virtue signaling.
18:32
Speaker 1: So this is like a social justice thing, right, Like
18:34
Speaker 1: if I'm going through a protest, should I post it
18:36
Speaker 1: on social media? Or am I virtue signaling? And he
18:39
Speaker 1: actually said there can be a positive benefit to posting
18:43
Speaker 1: this kind of stuff if it encourages other people. Okay,
18:46
Speaker 1: so that kind of shifted the way I look at
18:48
Speaker 1: it because if I post, you know what would I post?
18:51
Speaker 1: Sometimes I post myself doing yoga. If I post myself
18:54
Speaker 1: doing yoga and that encourages someone to take a break
18:57
Speaker 1: out of their day and do a yoga pose, I
18:59
Speaker 1: would say that's positive. I would say that it gets
19:02
Speaker 1: extreme when it's influencers talking things, you know what I mean,
19:06
Speaker 1: when they are doing yoga to sell you a juice.
19:10
Speaker 4: I want to read something that you said that had
19:12
Speaker 4: me in stitches. Okay, it sounds like an eighty year
19:16
Speaker 4: old stitches, but it had me laughing really hard. So
19:19
Speaker 4: you said, I spent a lot of time on the internet,
19:21
Speaker 4: so I definitely use Instagram as a place to find
19:23
Speaker 4: inspiration for my characters. There are many yoga influencers I follow.
19:27
Speaker 4: You're watching them do Vinyasa flow and they're hardly wearing
19:29
Speaker 4: any clothes, but the caption will be like in honor
19:32
Speaker 4: of nine to eleven, I'm just thinking about all the light.
19:35
Speaker 2: It's totally surreal.
19:36
Speaker 4: A combination of vulnerable and traumatic content combined with this
19:39
Speaker 4: facade of a luxury lifestyle. I mean, I could not
19:43
Speaker 4: have described that anymore perfectly. It is so confusing when
19:48
Speaker 4: you are so content like.
19:50
Speaker 1: That, because it's well it's wellness mixed with social justice
19:55
Speaker 1: mixed with capitalism. So even when you can't tell what
19:59
Speaker 1: they're selling, they're really selling their yoga program or so
20:02
Speaker 1: there is something. There is a reason they have sixty
20:04
Speaker 1: thousand followers because there's some kind of program that you're
20:07
Speaker 1: supposed to buy and the ideas that you will look
20:10
Speaker 1: like them if you complete the program.
20:12
Speaker 4: And there's this you know when Instagram, when influencers first
20:16
Speaker 4: popped up, it was about perfection and a perfect feed,
20:20
Speaker 4: and then there was a backlash to that, and there
20:22
Speaker 4: was a movement of this is me, the real me, unfiltered,
20:26
Speaker 4: no makeup, acne, so on and so forth, and it
20:29
Speaker 4: was almost like a performative I'm authentic, please believe me.
20:33
Speaker 2: I'm authentic.
20:34
Speaker 4: And that was always so confusing, like I could never
20:37
Speaker 4: figure out where the line was between authenticity and oversharing.
20:41
Speaker 1: Yes, that's fascinating. I'm fascinated by this because it's a
20:45
Speaker 1: performed vulnerability. But of course we don't know everyone's lives.
20:49
Speaker 1: We know this rationally, but we forget it. But like,
20:52
Speaker 1: of course people are going through things that they would
20:54
Speaker 1: never post that I would have no idea that they
20:57
Speaker 1: were going through that, but they choose what to post,
21:00
Speaker 1: and that vulnerability creates intimacy with an audience. So then
21:04
Speaker 1: you know, when when Susannah the Yogi or something tells
21:07
Speaker 1: me that her dog died, I'm like, oh my god,
21:09
Speaker 1: Susanna the Yogi, and I feel something for this person
21:12
Speaker 1: that I've never met, This idea of like a parasocial relationship,
21:15
Speaker 1: like I have a relationship with her in my mind
21:17
Speaker 1: that she doesn't know that I have. We feel close
21:19
Speaker 1: to these people. I have that with podcasters too. I
21:22
Speaker 1: feel like they're my friends in my head for sure.
21:24
Speaker 4: I mean that's how we I think we used to
21:26
Speaker 4: feel with celebrities more so, and now it's become influencers.
21:30
Speaker 4: They're in our homes the way they were on TV
21:32
Speaker 4: every day. Now they're in our homes, in our ears
21:34
Speaker 4: and our minds, and we feel we can talk to them.
21:37
Speaker 1: I can comment on someone's posts and I could say
21:40
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry you're going through that, and she can
21:42
Speaker 1: say thanks and have a heart, and my day is
21:44
Speaker 1: made because I've connected with this famous person.
21:47
Speaker 4: Right, there's this weird gratification. You're right, Okay, wait, I
21:50
Speaker 4: want to go back to self care because as I
21:52
Speaker 4: was researching for our interview, I found something that was
21:56
Speaker 4: mind blowing. So bear with me because you probably know this,
21:58
Speaker 4: but for our listeners, I just want to read this.
22:00
Speaker 4: So there were a lot of racial and socioeconomic undercurrents
22:04
Speaker 4: in your book, and I learned that self care dates
22:07
Speaker 4: back far like some people are saying Socrates, but really
22:12
Speaker 4: it was a medical term from the nineteenth century. People
22:15
Speaker 4: in medical facilities were saying like patients should shower themselves
22:18
Speaker 4: and feed themselves, and that was self care. And then
22:22
Speaker 4: in nineteen eighty eight, Audrey Lord had this rallying cry,
22:26
Speaker 4: and this is a beautiful quote, caring for myself is
22:28
Speaker 4: not self indulgence, it is self preservation, and that is
22:32
Speaker 4: an act of political warfare. So in the eighties and
22:35
Speaker 4: the seventies, people of color and queer communities kind of
22:37
Speaker 4: took this word self care as an act of defiance.
22:41
Speaker 2: And now it's big business.
22:42
Speaker 4: We have completely just like America takes takes things like
22:47
Speaker 4: this and just finds a way to make money, which
22:50
Speaker 4: I guess I don't know. I'll ask you about the
22:51
Speaker 4: money aspect after. But it just seems like it's namely
22:54
Speaker 4: geared towards women.
22:55
Speaker 1: Oh for sure. And I think we could even say that.
22:59
Speaker 1: I think the phrase came up in communities of women
23:02
Speaker 1: of color because they have been neglected by the traditional
23:05
Speaker 1: medical establishment. So it became even more important for them
23:08
Speaker 1: to practice self care because they weren't necessarily getting the
23:11
Speaker 1: standard of health care that white women were getting. And
23:13
Speaker 1: that Audrey Lord quote comes from her cancer diaries, So
23:16
Speaker 1: she wrote this as she was going through cancer treatment.
23:19
Speaker 1: And then I noticed after the election, I noticed that
23:24
Speaker 1: quote you just read popping up all over on social media,
23:27
Speaker 1: and I noticed how it was kind of distorted in
23:29
Speaker 1: a way as a kind of permission slip to influencers
23:33
Speaker 1: that anything you did to take care of yourself, from
23:35
Speaker 1: buying a glossier product, going to a spa, that was
23:38
Speaker 1: somehow your political resistance because you were taking care of
23:41
Speaker 1: yourself and that meant you could fight Donald Trump. And
23:44
Speaker 1: so I kind of watched this phrase get distorted and
23:47
Speaker 1: that was really interesting to me. And so that was
23:48
Speaker 1: like a big seed of the book to see what
23:50
Speaker 1: happened with that sentence from it got totally separated from
23:53
Speaker 1: its source.
23:54
Speaker 4: Also intertwined with the confusion of influencing in social justice,
23:58
Speaker 4: because if I buy a glossy product, I'm now supporting
24:02
Speaker 4: Emily Weiss who is a girl Boss and she's a
24:04
Speaker 4: feminist founder and I want to support that, right, So
24:08
Speaker 4: it's like really convoluted.
24:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. I just in June I saw an Instagram
24:13
Speaker 1: ad for a lip gloss that would help LGBTQ people,
24:17
Speaker 1: and I just like, how is the lip clause? Like
24:19
Speaker 1: they're going to donate the money, but like, how is
24:21
Speaker 1: it right? But Millennials eat this stuff up. Like Millennials
24:25
Speaker 1: are the audience for this. Millennials we do care about
24:28
Speaker 1: social justice and we want our money to be spent wisely.
24:31
Speaker 1: And when you tell us something that part of our
24:34
Speaker 1: purchase will go to a good cause, we're more likely
24:36
Speaker 1: to spend.
24:37
Speaker 4: There are seeds of benevolence in there, right, Like, I
24:41
Speaker 4: think we inherited a society that felt greedy and felt
24:46
Speaker 4: like wasteful, and we're maybe pushing up against that, but
24:50
Speaker 4: I'm not sure.
24:50
Speaker 2: We're doing it in an impactful way.
24:52
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, I think there are so many big structural
24:55
Speaker 1: problems that are so daunting to solve, such as racism
24:59
Speaker 1: in America. That is the major problem that we should
25:02
Speaker 1: all work together to end. How do we do that?
25:05
Speaker 1: You know? Is it by posting something on Instagram? Is
25:07
Speaker 1: it by buying something from a certain place. So I
25:10
Speaker 1: think when we see easy steps we can take, we're
25:15
Speaker 1: grateful to take them because someone has shown us away.
25:18
Speaker 1: But I question whether we're really chipping away at the
25:21
Speaker 1: bigger issue.
25:22
Speaker 4: I think so too. I think about that a lot.
25:24
Speaker 4: I was also thinking as I was reading your book,
25:26
Speaker 4: like how do we make self care? Because the idea
25:29
Speaker 4: of it. I like, like, I love therapy and like
25:33
Speaker 4: that is I can't even use the word self care,
25:37
Speaker 4: but that is how I feel my best right during
25:41
Speaker 4: the week. But how do we make this not an
25:44
Speaker 4: act of like not an act of consumerism or avoidance
25:47
Speaker 4: because I think, like, you know, to be fair, therapy
25:50
Speaker 4: costs one hundred, one hundred and fifty two hundred dollars
25:52
Speaker 4: an hour, and a new face cream costs twenty five.
25:55
Speaker 1: Bucks, right, go with the face cream. No, what's funny
25:58
Speaker 1: is like about a year ago I started with an
26:00
Speaker 1: therapist and on our first session I talked to her
26:02
Speaker 1: and she was like at the end, she was like, yeah,
26:04
Speaker 1: it sounds like we need to work on self care
26:06
Speaker 1: with you, and I burst out laughing. I was like,
26:08
Speaker 1: I just wrote a book about self care. I think
26:10
Speaker 1: it's bullshit, like because I was ray that word right. So,
26:15
Speaker 1: but what she met and what I learned from her
26:17
Speaker 1: is like I hardly ever remember that I live in
26:20
Speaker 1: a body. I'm so cerebral and being on the internet
26:23
Speaker 1: is being in my head all day that I don't
26:25
Speaker 1: even remember that my brain is carried around by my
26:28
Speaker 1: physical form. So there's so much of self care that's
26:31
Speaker 1: literally just asking myself, Oh am I holding tightness in
26:35
Speaker 1: my chest? Oh? When's the last time I went outside?
26:38
Speaker 1: And it's actually really hard for me to learn this lesson.
26:40
Speaker 1: This sounds very simple, and for me, it's extremely difficult.
26:44
Speaker 1: This is like a practice that I'm still working on
26:46
Speaker 1: is realizing that I have a body and asking myself
26:49
Speaker 1: what do I need right now? That's self care.
26:52
Speaker 4: See, I think that's so cool. My whole podcast, this
26:55
Speaker 4: whole interview series was predicated on two things. One is
27:00
Speaker 4: the idea of the kind of pretty that matters, and
27:04
Speaker 4: the other one was that when you ask yourself questions,
27:07
Speaker 4: the right questions, any kind of questions, you can like
27:11
Speaker 4: drastically alter your life. And I didn't do that. I
27:13
Speaker 4: didn't even have the vocabulary. I didn't know the questions
27:16
Speaker 4: to ask, you know, And so I think starting with
27:20
Speaker 4: questions is just the coolest idea.
27:22
Speaker 1: That's so interesting. And the response to this girl Boss
27:25
Speaker 1: essay I wrote has been like, so overwhelming, and I've
27:27
Speaker 1: heard from so many people who have DMed me that
27:29
Speaker 1: are like I wouldn't have been able to put this
27:31
Speaker 1: in words, but you put it in words, and now
27:33
Speaker 1: I'm thinking differently, or now I you know, someone said,
27:36
Speaker 1: I read Sophia A. Morosa's book and I really liked it,
27:38
Speaker 1: and now I'm looking at it differently, and I think
27:40
Speaker 1: that's awesome. Like, I don't think you should throw it
27:42
Speaker 1: in the trash, right, I think just asking questions and
27:45
Speaker 1: getting curious is super exciting.
27:49
Speaker 4: You just touched on something that I think is really
27:51
Speaker 4: unique about you and your writing is your ability to
27:54
Speaker 4: move through nuance. And particularly in the last few years,
27:58
Speaker 4: we have become so A or Z, black or white.
28:03
Speaker 4: There's no room to kind of live in the gray,
28:05
Speaker 4: and most of the social movements happening, I think actually
28:08
Speaker 4: live in the gray. Like you can like some of
28:10
Speaker 4: what Sophia had to say in her book and also
28:12
Speaker 4: think that some of it is garbage, right, Like.
28:15
Speaker 2: You get to decide.
28:16
Speaker 4: As I was reading your book, there were so many
28:19
Speaker 4: of those mixed messages of living in the gray. And
28:21
Speaker 4: I'm curious as to the most difficult one for you
28:24
Speaker 4: to find the vocabulary for.
28:26
Speaker 1: Ooh, such a good question. I mean, I think I
28:30
Speaker 1: really worked on the Devn Evan relationship. So for people
28:34
Speaker 1: who haven't read the book, Devn is like the beautiful, skinny,
28:37
Speaker 1: blonde eating disorder face of the company and Evan is
28:42
Speaker 1: their main investor. So I made their main investor a man,
28:46
Speaker 1: because frequently it's hard for women to raise funding, and
28:49
Speaker 1: typically their investors are men and they are in a relationship.
28:54
Speaker 1: And when I wrote the book, I didn't know there
28:57
Speaker 1: wud be a pandemic. I thought women would read this
29:00
Speaker 1: book clubs, and I wanted to give them something to
29:01
Speaker 1: argue about. So in the plot of the novel, Evan
29:06
Speaker 1: is accused of sexual misconduct, but Devin is in a
29:09
Speaker 1: relationship with him, And so this was inspired by the
29:11
Speaker 1: me Too movement and my frustration again with why do
29:14
Speaker 1: women have to clean up these messes? Why is the
29:16
Speaker 1: burden on women to solve this? And so I didn't
29:20
Speaker 1: want to write a quote unquote me too book. It's
29:22
Speaker 1: not all about what Evan has done to various people.
29:25
Speaker 1: It's really about how it impacts the women and how
29:29
Speaker 1: we decide who gets to decide whether someone is a victim.
29:33
Speaker 1: Is it up to Devin to say that she's a
29:34
Speaker 1: victim or can someone else decide that she's a victim.
29:37
Speaker 1: So that's kind of the nuance in the gray area
29:39
Speaker 1: that I tried to set up in a way that
29:41
Speaker 1: the reader wouldn't think I was coming down one way
29:44
Speaker 1: or the other. And this has upset some readers who say, like,
29:47
Speaker 1: I didn't know what to think at the end. She
29:48
Speaker 1: didn't tell me what to think. But that's exciting to me.
29:52
Speaker 4: It's incredibly exciting and I think incredibly realistic. A lot
29:55
Speaker 4: of the things that happened in the Me Too that
29:58
Speaker 4: situation reminded me of lot about a lot of the
30:01
Speaker 4: Lena Dunham situation that happened.
30:04
Speaker 1: That's what inspired it, That's where it came from.
30:06
Speaker 2: Oh wow, I.
30:07
Speaker 4: Mean, there were so many parallels for anybody who wasn't familiar.
30:11
Speaker 4: Lena Dunham had a writer on the show Girls that
30:14
Speaker 4: was accused of misconduct and she and her I think
30:18
Speaker 4: it was her writing partner or co creator Jenny Yeah,
30:20
Speaker 4: wrote an article or a letter kind of standing up
30:23
Speaker 4: for him.
30:23
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah. So the writer was a man and he
30:25
Speaker 1: was accused of sexual assault and Lena Dunham and Jenny
30:28
Speaker 1: Conner said they stood up in his defense. And then
30:31
Speaker 1: the backlash was, Lena Dunham, you built a whole brand
30:35
Speaker 1: around believe women. That's like in your brand. So she
30:37
Speaker 1: had built this feminist brand and how could she say
30:41
Speaker 1: and so then she had to apologize and turn around.
30:43
Speaker 1: And I don't know these people. I don't know that
30:47
Speaker 1: I have an opinion about what was the right thing
30:49
Speaker 1: to do, what was the wrong thing to do. I
30:50
Speaker 1: just think it's a fascinating case of when do you
30:54
Speaker 1: put your feminism into play? If not, then right?
30:57
Speaker 4: I mean, I saw many times there were people celebrities
31:01
Speaker 4: accused and there was like, you know, maybe they had
31:03
Speaker 4: a sister in law who was also a celebrity who
31:05
Speaker 4: had been very vocal and now had to walk this line.
31:08
Speaker 4: And it's and it sucks that it's the burden is
31:11
Speaker 4: always on this woman.
31:12
Speaker 2: What is she going to say?
31:13
Speaker 4: We're waiting for her SoundBite instead of focusing on the guy.
31:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I'm also I'm sure you, I mean, I'm
31:19
Speaker 1: sure you have like a hundred of these stories because
31:21
Speaker 1: you're probably you're an entertainment journalist during this time. But
31:24
Speaker 1: like I'm also remembering Pamela Adlon having to make a
31:27
Speaker 1: statement about Louis c k because they had a close
31:30
Speaker 1: working relationship. Right that she that she's being put on
31:33
Speaker 1: the spot. What does she think about it? It's just
31:36
Speaker 1: a tough position to be in.
31:39
Speaker 4: It is you talk about surveillance a lot. You ran
31:42
Speaker 4: a secret Facebook group with forty thousand women, and I'm
31:46
Speaker 4: wondering if you can kind of expand on that, because
31:48
Speaker 4: it's something I'd never thought of.
31:51
Speaker 1: Who Well, in my novel I kind of talked about
31:54
Speaker 1: this idea of the panopticon, which is kind of like
31:55
Speaker 1: a circular prison, so everyone can see everyone else. And
31:59
Speaker 1: I kind of know not this on the internet, with
32:01
Speaker 1: the way we sometimes some of us look for a fence,
32:06
Speaker 1: so we're looking for someone to do or say something
32:08
Speaker 1: offensive so we can catch them in the act. I
32:10
Speaker 1: think that's really negative. I don't think that's helping society
32:14
Speaker 1: at large. It's one thing if it's like someone in power.
32:17
Speaker 1: It's another thing if it's just some random white woman
32:20
Speaker 1: at Walmart, you know what I mean. Like we have
32:22
Speaker 1: our phones now and so we can survey each other
32:25
Speaker 1: at any time in public or on the Internet. I
32:27
Speaker 1: think that's creepy and invasive, the private Facebook group. So
32:31
Speaker 1: the other thing is like there's a sense online that
32:34
Speaker 1: like who are the grownups? Who's in charge here? We
32:36
Speaker 1: all become kind of the cops because there are no
32:39
Speaker 1: higher authorities. So one example was when I was running
32:42
Speaker 1: this Facebook group. Someone leaked screenshots of our group to
32:46
Speaker 1: a New York magazine journalist and he wrote a story
32:48
Speaker 1: about it that was not very flattering, and the pushback
32:51
Speaker 1: I got from the members of the group it was
32:53
Speaker 1: huge drama. I broke out in hives all over my face,
32:57
Speaker 1: and the group was clamoring for me to hold the
33:00
Speaker 1: person responsible who had leaked the screenshots, But of course
33:03
Speaker 1: I had no idea it could be any one of
33:07
Speaker 1: forty thousand people who had leaked the screenshots. There was
33:10
Speaker 1: no way to find out, and so that was really
33:13
Speaker 1: a lesson to me in there's just no there's no
33:16
Speaker 1: one in charge. The idea of the Internet community is
33:20
Speaker 1: that we're all in the community together for better or
33:23
Speaker 1: for worse, and so we have to police and monitor
33:26
Speaker 1: and moderate our own communities. And that ultimately was so
33:31
Speaker 1: stressful that I that I ended up resigning from the
33:33
Speaker 1: Facebook group, from my leadership role and leaving Facebook forever.
33:37
Speaker 4: So you're no longer on Facebook. No audios Facebook. Okay, Well,
33:41
Speaker 4: I think it's interesting that there's like a sense of
33:44
Speaker 4: morality that I see us searching for online, Like I
33:49
Speaker 4: think that more than ever, we're looking to celebrities and
33:52
Speaker 4: influencers as activists. Is that fair to say? Like I
33:56
Speaker 4: saw this play out so much in the recent Black
33:58
Speaker 4: Lives Matter movement. We have as fans and followers given
34:03
Speaker 4: people who have gone on The Bachelor six hundred thousand
34:06
Speaker 4: a million followers, and a lot of them are like
34:09
Speaker 4: twenty three year old people that just sign up for
34:11
Speaker 4: this reality show and now we're requiring We're not even asking,
34:14
Speaker 4: we're requiring them to make a statement about something that
34:18
Speaker 4: I think many of them have no knowledge.
34:22
Speaker 1: And it's a fascinating moment. So people are losing religion.
34:27
Speaker 1: Millennials and younger people are less and less religious than
34:29
Speaker 1: they've ever been. So we've lost that tradition, and people
34:33
Speaker 1: on the left and people on the right have lost
34:35
Speaker 1: faith in their political leaders. We don't trust the government.
34:39
Speaker 1: Whether you're left wing or right wing, you probably don't
34:41
Speaker 1: trust the government. And so now we're like, well, who
34:44
Speaker 1: do we trust and who do we look up to
34:46
Speaker 1: for As you said, I think morality is a great work.
34:48
Speaker 1: Who do we look up to for moral leadership? The Bachelor?
34:51
Speaker 1: I mean that's kind of funny, but it's true. I mean,
34:53
Speaker 1: we look at these influencers to guide us and I
34:57
Speaker 1: think it's what you and I were talking about earlier,
34:59
Speaker 1: that we to them, but we feel like we know
35:01
Speaker 1: them too, so it's almost like a personal disappointment if
35:04
Speaker 1: they aren't a leader. And you can look at Taylor
35:06
Speaker 1: Swift's awakening too. I mean she got political under pressure
35:10
Speaker 1: from her fans, I believe.
35:11
Speaker 4: And I think you like what you just touched on
35:14
Speaker 4: is my confusion because part of me feels like this
35:18
Speaker 4: is awesome, that we are holding people to a higher standard,
35:21
Speaker 4: and Taylor Swift is an example of someone who rose
35:24
Speaker 4: to the occasion, and then other people who maybe aren't
35:28
Speaker 4: ready to rise to the occasion or meet the moment,
35:31
Speaker 4: as everybody's saying, are just falling flat on their face,
35:34
Speaker 4: and then we just.
35:35
Speaker 1: Go at them. Yeah. Yeah, that is a tough thing.
35:38
Speaker 1: So one thing I've been thinking about recently is like,
35:40
Speaker 1: when I started my feminist conference in twenty fourteen, I
35:43
Speaker 1: was part of this Facebook group that someone else started,
35:46
Speaker 1: Supercharged Up Inspired. I was like, let's put on a show.
35:49
Speaker 1: We raised fifty thousand dollars on Kickstarter in three months.
35:51
Speaker 1: We put on the show in New York. I didn't
35:53
Speaker 1: know what intersectional meant when I started my conference, there
35:56
Speaker 1: were all kinds of terms, theory, feminists theory, all kind
36:00
Speaker 1: of stuff I didn't know that I learned on the job.
36:02
Speaker 1: And I think today, just three six years later, if
36:07
Speaker 1: I started that, I think I would be publicly ridiculed
36:10
Speaker 1: for what I don't know. And I don't know if
36:12
Speaker 1: that's fair, because I think I did great work. I
36:14
Speaker 1: organized six conferences for two thousand women and gender nonconforming
36:18
Speaker 1: writers in New York City, in LA we had Lisa
36:21
Speaker 1: Kudro speaking, we had Claudia Rankin. We got these really
36:23
Speaker 1: big names, and I think I helped a lot of people.
36:26
Speaker 1: And so the fact that I wasn't perfect at the beginning,
36:30
Speaker 1: I don't think that should be a barrier to entry.
36:32
Speaker 1: I think if we're going to solve these big societal problems,
36:34
Speaker 1: I think we actually have to invite people in. And
36:36
Speaker 1: this again is about surveillance. It's judging people for making
36:40
Speaker 1: mistakes instead of recognizing that making mistakes is part of learning.
36:45
Speaker 4: I also think we need to consider context that falls
36:49
Speaker 4: by the wayside a lot of times. And you know,
36:52
Speaker 4: intention is hard because it's it's sometimes like, well, your
36:55
Speaker 4: intention doesn't matter if you hurt someone, but it kind
36:58
Speaker 4: of matters.
36:59
Speaker 1: Lite, right, it does matter. Contention matters, yeah, I think.
37:02
Speaker 4: So, Okay, we're going to do our ps Q. Pretty
37:06
Speaker 4: smart cards.
37:07
Speaker 1: Oh my god, you have like a whole.
37:08
Speaker 4: Deck fifty two cards, fifty two questions. Okay, so tell
37:13
Speaker 4: me when to stop.
37:14
Speaker 1: Okay, stop, Okay.
37:17
Speaker 4: What's the one song that, without fail gets you out
37:20
Speaker 4: of your chair?
37:21
Speaker 1: I really love Wait for It from Hamilton.
37:24
Speaker 2: Oh, it's such a lee answer. I love that. That's awesome.
37:28
Speaker 4: And then what is a book that you've read that
37:32
Speaker 4: has changed your life or shifted your perspective?
37:35
Speaker 1: Okay, this is a really nerdy answer, but it's a
37:38
Speaker 1: book called Deep Work by Cal Newport. It's all about
37:42
Speaker 1: how we work and how to best organize your day
37:46
Speaker 1: so that you can do deep work, which is for me,
37:49
Speaker 1: writing or editing. It's not answering email, let's not doing
37:53
Speaker 1: podcast interviews. It's it's deep, focused, concentrated work. Because we
37:57
Speaker 1: fritter away so much of our energy that we rarely
38:01
Speaker 1: have the time to do deep work. So it kind
38:03
Speaker 1: of reshifted how I think about my workdays.
38:06
Speaker 2: What's the biggest shift that you made.
38:07
Speaker 1: Well, if I'm going to write, it has to be
38:09
Speaker 1: in the morning, so I know that I'm a morning person.
38:12
Speaker 1: When I'm being very good, I don't even look at
38:15
Speaker 1: my email until I've written that day because once I
38:17
Speaker 1: open the email, it's every what everyone else wants me
38:20
Speaker 1: to do instead of what I want to do.
38:21
Speaker 4: You had somebody else's to do list, right, That's good.
38:24
Speaker 1: I like that was a very like Marie folio response.
38:28
Speaker 4: I actually heard ashing could you're saying that perfect perfect
38:33
Speaker 4: in an effort.
38:34
Speaker 2: To be transparent.
38:37
Speaker 4: So I'm curious as to what your consumption habits are.
38:40
Speaker 4: You are a master of the Internet. What does that
38:43
Speaker 4: look like for you?
38:44
Speaker 1: I mean, it's been hard in the pandemic. I would
38:46
Speaker 1: say I'm on my phone checking the news more than
38:49
Speaker 1: I was before because it feels like you're inside. It
38:54
Speaker 1: feels like you're living a soap opera, Like there's so
38:56
Speaker 1: many twists and turns around every corner. What's it going
38:58
Speaker 1: to do today?
39:00
Speaker 2: How many hours do you think you spend on Instagram today?
39:02
Speaker 1: Twitter is worse? Oh really? Oh yeah?
39:05
Speaker 4: Twitter for me is much worse on Instagram, So cumulatively,
39:08
Speaker 4: how many hours do you think?
39:10
Speaker 1: Maybe two hours a day?
39:11
Speaker 2: That's not bad.
39:12
Speaker 1: Instagram has become my happy place, though Twitter it has
39:15
Speaker 1: become very fraught for me, and I get very emotional
39:17
Speaker 1: on Twitter, but Instagram is all like yoga people. I
39:22
Speaker 1: got a message from a woman and like she read
39:24
Speaker 1: my book and she owns goats. I was delighted by this,
39:28
Speaker 1: you know, like there are no goats on Twitter, you know,
39:30
Speaker 1: so you.
39:31
Speaker 4: Put me on to a great account that I'm hoping
39:34
Speaker 4: you can share with everybody else. There's a woman and
39:37
Speaker 4: she's like kind of lesser known, but she is funny.
39:40
Speaker 1: Lindsay Rush. She's so funny, So Lindsay Rush. She's like
39:43
Speaker 1: a marketing copy I think she runs a copywriting company.
39:47
Speaker 1: She's hilarious, and she has an Instagram account called lil
39:50
Speaker 1: Wellness Bitch. That's l l wellness Bitch.
39:53
Speaker 4: I think she's from Chicago too, right, that's right, which.
39:56
Speaker 2: I love so good.
39:58
Speaker 4: Not that we're biased, Yeah, I okay. Last question, what
40:02
Speaker 4: is the smartest decision you've ever made?
40:04
Speaker 1: I think I would say starting my conference, And that
40:09
Speaker 1: was one of a few things I've done in my
40:11
Speaker 1: life where I took the leap before I felt ready.
40:14
Speaker 1: And so there have been a few moments where I
40:16
Speaker 1: wasn't ready to do something, but I left anyway, and
40:19
Speaker 1: I think this is a good lesson for women in particular,
40:21
Speaker 1: because I think we're so we want to get it
40:23
Speaker 1: right and we want to be perfect that sometimes that
40:26
Speaker 1: holds us back from trying something, and so I say
40:30
Speaker 1: leap first and like figure it out later.
40:32
Speaker 4: Lee, you are one of the funniest and smartest people
40:36
Speaker 4: I have spoken to in a while. I feel there's
40:38
Speaker 4: certain people that I connect with because of my job
40:41
Speaker 4: that I just feel so grateful for, and you are
40:44
Speaker 4: one of those people. So thank you for your time
40:46
Speaker 4: and thank thank you. You are so pretty smart.
40:50
Speaker 1: Thank you.
41:09
Speaker 2: All right, Today is a good day. To have a
41:10
Speaker 2: good day.
41:11
Speaker 4: I'll see you next week. Yeah,