Latest / QUESTION EVERYTHING / Learn the Skill of Failure: with Rachel Simmons, Bestselling Author + Executive Coach

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Learn the Skill of Failure: with Rachel Simmons, Bestselling Author + Executive Coach · QUESTION EVERYTHING

0:04
Speaker 1: Big things happen when you're pretty, pretty bold, pretty clever,
0:08
Speaker 1: pretty strong. I'm Danielle Robe and each week my guests
0:12
Speaker 1: and I have conversations that put a new spin on pretty.
0:17
Speaker 1: This is pretty smart. What does success look like to you?
0:21
Speaker 1: If you're anything like me, that's a question you think about,
0:25
Speaker 1: maybe one you've been asking yourself since you were a kid,
0:29
Speaker 1: and maybe the answer has changed. It's obvious why our
0:32
Speaker 1: relationship with success is pivotal, but what about our relationship
0:37
Speaker 1: with failure. Failing isn't something we're conditioned to accept lightly.
0:42
Speaker 1: Most of us fear it, especially young girls and women.
0:45
Speaker 1: In an age when we're taught to become anything, A
0:48
Speaker 1: lot of us took that to mean we have to
0:50
Speaker 1: become everything, and that belief is making women and girls anxious, depressed,
0:58
Speaker 1: and overwhelmed. Rachel Simmons knows all about this. She's been
1:05
Speaker 1: studying girls for more than two decades. She's a best
1:08
Speaker 1: selling author, educator, and now executive coach, and her goal
1:12
Speaker 1: is to help girls and women amplify their voices, communicate
1:17
Speaker 1: with confidence, and build their resilience. And it all begins,
1:21
Speaker 1: she says, with a terrifying prospect of failing up, Rachel.
1:28
Speaker 1: I know you've told your story a million times, but
1:31
Speaker 1: you went from being obsessed with what it means to
1:35
Speaker 1: be a girl and a woman to focusing a lot
1:38
Speaker 1: of your work on the corporate structure. And I'm wondering
1:41
Speaker 1: if you can take me back how you began working
1:44
Speaker 1: in the field of what it means to be a woman.
1:47
Speaker 2: It hasn't been that long. And to be honest, I
1:51
Speaker 2: was first contacted by someone at Google to do some
1:54
Speaker 2: work with adult women there, and honestly, I thought, like,
1:59
Speaker 2: is for real?
2:01
Speaker 3: Maybe you got the wrong person, because that's not what
2:03
Speaker 3: I do.
2:04
Speaker 2: And at the time, I was working with college students
2:07
Speaker 2: and of course with youth because I had spent my
2:09
Speaker 2: whole career working with girls, and I was really freaked out.
2:15
Speaker 2: But I thought, you got to just try this, and
2:18
Speaker 2: so I did, and I fell in love with working
2:22
Speaker 2: with women. I was like, oh, wait a second. I
2:24
Speaker 2: have been spending all these years helping girls before they
2:27
Speaker 2: become leaders, like right, preparing girls for the trenches. But
2:31
Speaker 2: this would be the trenches. Like Wow, what a different
2:34
Speaker 2: vantage point from which to work with females and from
2:38
Speaker 2: which to think about like the culture's expectations and the
2:42
Speaker 2: pressure on women. And can I tell you the biggest
2:44
Speaker 2: thing that I learned. I had been spending way too
2:47
Speaker 2: much time trying to fix women and way not enough
2:49
Speaker 2: time trying to fix the culture. Big mistake. Like, and
2:53
Speaker 2: I'm just a probably you're catching me, Danielle at a
2:55
Speaker 2: moment where I'm like kind of spazzy about this, So
2:58
Speaker 2: I'm going to probably talk more than you would have thought.
3:01
Speaker 2: But here's my beef. My beef is that I think
3:05
Speaker 2: a lot of girls and women have been sold this lie,
3:09
Speaker 2: which is you can do anything, and that's bullshit. You
3:14
Speaker 2: cannot do anything if you're experiencing bias at the hands
3:17
Speaker 2: of a system that has not decided how much power
3:20
Speaker 2: it wants women to have and isnunt.
3:21
Speaker 3: Comfortable with female power.
3:23
Speaker 2: But like, if you grew up like I did in
3:25
Speaker 2: the shadow of Title nine and everybody's like you can
3:28
Speaker 2: you know, girl power of the nineties and whatever it is,
3:32
Speaker 2: and then you get to a place where actually you
3:34
Speaker 2: are experiencing discrimination, it's a terrible recipe because you were
3:38
Speaker 2: told you could do anything, and so what happens when
3:40
Speaker 2: you can't You blame yourself, And then people like me
3:43
Speaker 2: come in and tell you oh, let me help you
3:45
Speaker 2: with your imposter syndrome. And the big reveal is that, like,
3:48
Speaker 2: actually women don't need to be fixed. So that's been
3:51
Speaker 2: a pretty rad side effect of this whole transition, and
3:57
Speaker 2: it's really made me understand that I need to change
3:59
Speaker 2: my lens and I'm pretty happy I'm doing that. So
4:03
Speaker 2: that's all the time you have for today. It's a
4:05
Speaker 2: long podcast answer.
4:07
Speaker 1: I was going to ask more about your background, but
4:09
Speaker 1: I feel like we kind of jumped in, so I'm
4:11
Speaker 1: gonna go there if that's cool. No, I think we
4:13
Speaker 1: should just let it rip, okay. So I often oscillate
4:18
Speaker 1: between what you just spoke about because I believe in
4:22
Speaker 1: self determination, right, Like the idea of even getting lucky
4:26
Speaker 1: is like to me, as luck is like a bus
4:28
Speaker 1: you got to be at the bus station for the
4:30
Speaker 1: bus to come. And at the same time, I've fully
4:33
Speaker 1: experienced discrimination in the corporate environment, and I know that
4:38
Speaker 1: I've had a small piece of it. People have it
4:40
Speaker 1: a lot worse. Where do you land between being a
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Speaker 1: self starter and making things happen for yourself, not being
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Speaker 1: a victim, and also recognizing that there are other factors
4:52
Speaker 1: at play?
4:54
Speaker 3: Such a good question.
4:56
Speaker 2: Well, I think a big part of it is focusing
4:58
Speaker 2: on what you can control and making sure you don't
5:02
Speaker 2: take responsibility for the stuff you can't control. That's a
5:06
Speaker 2: lot of my work with women as an executive coach
5:08
Speaker 2: and as an advisor to companies on gender equity. It's like,
5:13
Speaker 2: we start to blame yourself for stuff that isn't about you.
5:17
Speaker 2: I think that's where you see women standing in place
5:22
Speaker 2: or experiencing imposter syndrome, blaming themselves essentially for stuff that
5:28
Speaker 2: is more systemic. So I do think that that's the
5:32
Speaker 2: kind of barometer that you use, is like how much
5:35
Speaker 2: of this is on me? I also think this you
5:38
Speaker 2: know what I said about fixing women and not fixing
5:42
Speaker 2: women notwithstanding, like, if you're going to work in the
5:46
Speaker 2: corporate space, then you have to accept, not buy into,
5:50
Speaker 2: but you have to accept the fact that this is
5:52
Speaker 2: a male dominated, male defined space and norms of male
5:56
Speaker 2: behavior are what get attention, visibility, elevation. So you're gonna
6:03
Speaker 2: have to deal with that. And if you want to
6:06
Speaker 2: keep your head down and sort of never speak and
6:08
Speaker 2: hope to get noticed, like yeah, there will be a
6:10
Speaker 2: low ceiling on your head, not because there's anything wrong
6:13
Speaker 2: with you. But because you're working in a male space,
6:16
Speaker 2: so that I think is another piece. It's just like,
6:20
Speaker 2: if you're gonna be there, you're gonna have to kind.
6:22
Speaker 3: Of do it their way.
6:23
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, the norm's piece is particularly interesting to me because
6:28
Speaker 1: I remember a piece of Lean in Cheryl Sandberg talks
6:31
Speaker 1: about how even our dress code in the corporate atmosphere
6:36
Speaker 1: is like completely male dominated. So a suit is powerful.
6:41
Speaker 1: Female attorneys are still like I have a good friend
6:44
Speaker 1: in New York. She has to wear a skirt suit
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Speaker 1: to work.
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Speaker 2: That's dark, man, that's dark.
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Speaker 1: It's insane. Yeah, as opposed to sort of opening things
6:54
Speaker 1: up at all. So I think it's almost like the
6:56
Speaker 1: I guess they're called microaggressions, but the little norms.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And like I talk to my daughter about
7:01
Speaker 2: this all the time. And by the way, naturally, I've
7:04
Speaker 2: given birth to a child who is like hyperfeminine and
7:08
Speaker 2: like doesn't literally has since the age of four not
7:10
Speaker 2: left the house without a purse containing lip gloss. Like
7:13
Speaker 2: I'm like, I don't understand where you're from, But I
7:15
Speaker 2: say to my daughter all the time, like women are
7:18
Speaker 2: forced to spend so much time and money on things
7:23
Speaker 2: that men aren't and because of that, women have less
7:27
Speaker 2: money and often make less money. I'll say, look at
7:30
Speaker 2: all the time mama has to spend putting on makeup
7:33
Speaker 2: for whatever meeting or you know, good Morning America or
7:36
Speaker 2: something like. I could be making money right now. Instead
7:39
Speaker 2: I'm sitting here, you know, with my gajillion dollar bottle
7:42
Speaker 2: of foundation, hoping that it takes away my age lines
7:45
Speaker 2: so that I seem more acceptable and likable, you know,
7:47
Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera. So the point is, like, and
7:50
Speaker 2: the older I get, the more annoying I find this,
7:54
Speaker 2: and the harder it is for me to spend that
7:56
Speaker 2: time and money because it's so obvious, it's so glaring
7:58
Speaker 2: when you're younger. When I was younger, especially because I'm gay,
8:01
Speaker 2: and I like also really wanted to pass and I
8:04
Speaker 2: didn't want it. I was desperate not to be seen
8:06
Speaker 2: as gay, so of course I was way more motivated
8:09
Speaker 2: to like adhere to femininity. But now I'm just like,
8:12
Speaker 2: I'm becoming I think I'm becoming b Arthur from The
8:14
Speaker 2: Golden Girls. You're probably too young to make to get
8:16
Speaker 2: that reference.
8:17
Speaker 1: No, I love the Golden Girls.
8:18
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm like Dorothy Spoornak, a little bit right now.
8:21
Speaker 1: I mean I think she had the most backbone.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, dude, she was not she was not down with
8:27
Speaker 3: the makeup.
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Speaker 2: And I want my shoulder pads, you know, I want
8:30
Speaker 2: my long blazer.
8:32
Speaker 3: That's what I want.
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Speaker 1: I've been thinking a lot about failure.
8:36
Speaker 2: I don't know anything about that.
8:37
Speaker 1: So nice, So we should hang up. Yeah. I interviewed
8:41
Speaker 1: Rachemus Sue Johnny, who wrote a book Brave Not Perfect.
8:45
Speaker 2: Yes, I'm familiar with it.
8:46
Speaker 1: I can imagine, and in my head now, every time
8:49
Speaker 1: I feel something bubbling up where I want to do
8:53
Speaker 1: something perfect, I just think, Danielle, Brave not Perfect, because
8:58
Speaker 1: it's like a short little thing. You've written so much
9:02
Speaker 1: about the importance of learning how to fail. What I
9:05
Speaker 1: find so interesting about your work is that you define
9:07
Speaker 1: it as a skill that women can learn, like a
9:11
Speaker 1: skill to fail. Can you talk about that?
9:14
Speaker 2: Yeah? I can. I mean, I think, like any skill,
9:17
Speaker 2: most skills are not learned in a lecture setting.
9:21
Speaker 3: It's they're learned by doing.
9:24
Speaker 2: And most skills are refined and built up, kind of
9:30
Speaker 2: like muscles. So the more you flex your muscle and
9:32
Speaker 2: the more you tax that muscle, the bigger it gets.
9:35
Speaker 2: And I think, yeah, you have to go through the
9:39
Speaker 2: experience of failure to understand that it won't kill you,
9:44
Speaker 2: because for most of us, it is the anticipation of
9:47
Speaker 2: failure that is three quarters of the issue. And not
9:53
Speaker 2: to say that the actual failure isn't hard, or that
9:55
Speaker 2: we don't rock back and forth in the corner for
9:58
Speaker 2: ten days afterwards, but I will a lot more about
10:01
Speaker 2: how the specter of failure keeps us from taking risks,
10:06
Speaker 2: facing our fears, right, like walking into uncertainty and doing
10:11
Speaker 2: the stuff that we care most about. Because the more
10:13
Speaker 2: you care about it, usually the more the bigger the
10:16
Speaker 2: stakes are for failure. So it is something that you
10:19
Speaker 2: get better at through practice, and it is the anticipation
10:23
Speaker 2: that is often the hardest.
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Speaker 1: How do you define failure?
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Speaker 2: That's a really good question. I don't know anyone has
10:30
Speaker 2: ever asked me that. I mean, I guess I would
10:31
Speaker 2: define failure as not making whatever mark you've designated in
10:35
Speaker 2: your head, because sometimes you may think you've failed, but
10:37
Speaker 2: the world doesn't. Right, Like you walk out of a
10:39
Speaker 2: presentation and you're like, god, I totally just blew that
10:43
Speaker 2: and someone's like, no.
10:43
Speaker 3: You were great.
10:45
Speaker 2: So I think we have particular benchmarks for success, and
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Speaker 2: I think failure is about a personal failure.
10:54
Speaker 3: To meet that mark, I guess, is what I would say.
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Speaker 1: You wrote this quote, I really liked when girls may mistakes,
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Speaker 1: they're more likely to interpret the setback as a sign
11:03
Speaker 1: they lackability. Boys, on the other hand, tend to attribute
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Speaker 1: failure to more controllable circumstances. So when did you realize
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Speaker 1: that girls approach failure differently than boys do.
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Speaker 2: Well, I'm sure I didn't work a lot with boys,
11:17
Speaker 2: you know, in my earlier career.
11:19
Speaker 3: I know, I work with grown up boys in the
11:21
Speaker 3: corporate space.
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Speaker 2: I mean, I think what I saw I saw two things.
11:25
Speaker 2: One the really intense, often disproportionate response to failure that
11:31
Speaker 2: so many girls have, Like, you know, I miss a
11:35
Speaker 2: shot at soccer and I'm a terrible soccer player who
11:38
Speaker 2: should never play soccer again. And for a while I
11:40
Speaker 2: was like, okay, you know, because some girls would say
11:44
Speaker 2: to me, well, I act that way because I care,
11:46
Speaker 2: you know, I get really upset because this.
11:47
Speaker 3: Matters to me.
11:49
Speaker 2: It's like, all right, but I don't think this is
11:52
Speaker 2: making you better at what you do. Then I got
11:54
Speaker 2: into the research and started to see some of the
11:59
Speaker 2: studies that were on how girls and boys, men and
12:02
Speaker 2: women tend.
12:02
Speaker 3: To interpret failure.
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Speaker 2: And it's not down the middle. It's not like all
12:05
Speaker 2: men look at their circumstances and all women look at
12:08
Speaker 2: their ability.
12:09
Speaker 3: But there have been some observable differences.
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Speaker 2: And I think it's so damaging to resilience if we
12:19
Speaker 2: decide that. It's like the difference between guilt and shame. Right,
12:23
Speaker 2: So the difference between guilt and shame. If I feel guilty,
12:25
Speaker 2: it's because I feel like I did a bad thing.
12:27
Speaker 2: If I feel shame, I feel like I'm a bad, undeserving,
12:30
Speaker 2: defective person. A lot of girls go to that shameplace.
12:34
Speaker 3: A lot of women go to that shame place.
12:35
Speaker 2: You don't bounce back from whatever you have quote unquote
12:39
Speaker 2: failed at. When you have a shame response, you're like
12:41
Speaker 2: in bed with like a family sized you know, container
12:44
Speaker 2: of ice cream. You're not right like back at it.
12:48
Speaker 2: So that has also been very salient for me lately,
12:51
Speaker 2: because we want everybody to be able to do and
12:55
Speaker 2: be better, and you just can't if you're just deciding
12:58
Speaker 2: that you suck because you made a mistake.
13:01
Speaker 1: So one of the things I've recognized personally about failure
13:05
Speaker 1: from interviewing people is that there are a lot of
13:09
Speaker 1: glossy stories of failure in the media, even on my
13:14
Speaker 1: podcast Stories where failure is highlighted and then kind of
13:18
Speaker 1: presented to us alongside stories of success. So it's like
13:21
Speaker 1: a pull yourself up by your bootstraps type of a story.
13:25
Speaker 1: But it's very different perceiving failure in your own life
13:28
Speaker 1: when it's actually happening to you. When you talk to
13:31
Speaker 1: your daughter about failure, what's your advice for dealing with
13:34
Speaker 1: it during downtimes? Like how do you flex that skill
13:37
Speaker 1: of moving through failure?
13:39
Speaker 2: You know what I say to her, I'm like, if
13:41
Speaker 2: you're not failing, you're not learning, Like it is how
13:45
Speaker 2: we learn. I know I said that a little a
13:47
Speaker 2: little while ago, but like there is no learning. We
13:50
Speaker 2: don't get to grow without feeling uncomfortable, without pushing up
13:55
Speaker 2: against those ceilings, those ceilings, Like that's how you push
14:02
Speaker 2: through is like you've got to You've got to face
14:04
Speaker 2: that ceiling before you break through it. And anything that
14:08
Speaker 2: comes easily there is not that exciting or exhilarating probably
14:12
Speaker 2: doesn't mean that much to you if it comes that
14:14
Speaker 2: easily to you, Like anything that really matters to you,
14:17
Speaker 2: is going to involve some failing, like and I try
14:20
Speaker 2: to so. I mean, you know, to your question about
14:21
Speaker 2: what do I tell my daughter, I tell her all
14:23
Speaker 2: of that she's only six months old. No, I'm kidding.
14:25
Speaker 2: I am joking. I know I said she was older.
14:28
Speaker 1: But viam no, that's not true.
14:30
Speaker 3: But you can imagine what it's like to be my
14:32
Speaker 3: poor child. He's like, thanks, mom. She's like, let me
14:34
Speaker 3: just go refill my purse.
14:37
Speaker 2: We cook and bake, and I'm like when I have
14:40
Speaker 2: her bake, I'm just like, dude, baking and cooking. It's
14:42
Speaker 2: all about failing, like you just you have to learn
14:46
Speaker 2: by messing up, like you forgot to add the flour
14:49
Speaker 2: at this one time to the cookies.
14:51
Speaker 3: You'll never do that again.
14:52
Speaker 2: Like it's so yeah, that's how I try to do it.
14:56
Speaker 2: But obviously we all have our own action. That's just
15:01
Speaker 2: what I try to do as a mom.
15:04
Speaker 1: How about when you talk about failure at large corporations now,
15:07
Speaker 1: because I think there's such an interesting relationship between failure
15:10
Speaker 1: and leadership.
15:12
Speaker 3: Say more, what do you mean?
15:14
Speaker 1: Part of in my opinion, part of great leadership is
15:18
Speaker 1: being able to be vulnerable and admit your failings to
15:22
Speaker 1: your team. And I've been in a lot of corporate
15:25
Speaker 1: environments where there's like this a culture of not like
15:31
Speaker 1: almost like blaming and pointing fingers so that the blame
15:34
Speaker 1: isn't on you. So quite the opposite of failing. And
15:37
Speaker 1: it seems to me like you have to in order
15:39
Speaker 1: to be a great leader, you have to be good
15:42
Speaker 1: at setbacks.
15:44
Speaker 2: Yes, I could not agree more. And I think you
15:46
Speaker 2: also have to ask a question that a colleague of mine,
15:49
Speaker 2: Jennifer Garby Berger, has kind of put out there, which is,
15:53
Speaker 2: how might I be wrong so you're not? Actually, it's
15:57
Speaker 2: not only about what happens during in a que failure,
16:00
Speaker 2: it's before it happens. It's being willing to invite others
16:04
Speaker 2: to challenge you, to tell you that you're wrong, to
16:07
Speaker 2: give you the tough feedback, to have difficult conversations. I mean,
16:11
Speaker 2: failure is a single point on a continuum of like
16:14
Speaker 2: difficult moments where things maybe.
16:16
Speaker 3: Aren't going the way you want them to.
16:17
Speaker 2: Maybe that's a better definition of failure, Right, something didn't
16:20
Speaker 2: turn out the way you wanted it to, the way
16:23
Speaker 2: you hoped it would, the way you expected it would,
16:25
Speaker 2: the way you worked for it to be, and I
16:28
Speaker 2: think good leadership has to travel that continuum so that
16:33
Speaker 2: it's not exclusively focused on the good and the optimism
16:39
Speaker 2: and the like intrepid you know, we're going to kill
16:43
Speaker 2: and slay everything. So yeah, I think I think failure
16:47
Speaker 2: and leadership are deeply intertwined, and I can't really work
16:49
Speaker 2: with people who aren't vulnerable on that level and who
16:53
Speaker 2: aren't willing to be challenged. My second job was working
16:55
Speaker 2: for Chuck Schumer, who is now the Senate Majority Leader,
16:59
Speaker 2: and I worked for him when he was running for
17:01
Speaker 2: the Senate in nineteen ninety eight, fifty five thousand years ago.
17:05
Speaker 2: So the thing about Chuck Schumer which I loved and
17:08
Speaker 2: which was so formative for twenty three, twenty four year
17:11
Speaker 2: old me, was it he didn't really trust you if
17:14
Speaker 2: you didn't argue with him. He just didn't. He wanted
17:17
Speaker 2: people around him who challenged him, who stood up to him,
17:20
Speaker 2: because I think that's how he took you seriously, and
17:23
Speaker 2: he knew that you had his best interest in mind
17:24
Speaker 2: was if you told the truth to him.
17:26
Speaker 3: That to me was like pretty rad leadership.
17:30
Speaker 1: A great example early on.
17:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely.
17:33
Speaker 1: So you wrote a book that's on my shelf to
17:36
Speaker 1: this day. It was the first book of years I read,
17:38
Speaker 1: called A Curse of the Good Girl. And you say
17:41
Speaker 1: that the good girl paradigm is so narrowly defined that
17:44
Speaker 1: it's unachievable. Where did your obsession with the good girl begin?
17:48
Speaker 2: I would say that I became obsessed with that when
17:51
Speaker 2: I was writing my first book, Odd Girl Out, which
17:54
Speaker 2: Crazy Enough came out twenty years ago this month. In
17:57
Speaker 2: that book, I did a lot of research with girls,
18:00
Speaker 2: these hundreds of girls, asking them the questions about like
18:03
Speaker 2: why are you going behind each other's backs? Like why
18:07
Speaker 2: are you giving each other the silent treatment? Like why
18:10
Speaker 2: aren't you telling your friend? Why are upset with her?
18:13
Speaker 2: And what I eventually arrived at was that they were
18:17
Speaker 2: afraid to be exposed. They felt that if they were
18:22
Speaker 2: to be honest with their friends, their friends wouldn't like
18:24
Speaker 2: them anymore. And then I dug deeper and discovered the
18:27
Speaker 2: research of Carol Gilligan and Lynn Michael Brown.
18:30
Speaker 3: And kind of the.
18:32
Speaker 2: Earliest work that was done in girls' psychology in the
18:35
Speaker 2: late eighties and early nineties at Harvard, where this group
18:39
Speaker 2: of graduate students and their professor, Carol Gilligan discovered that
18:42
Speaker 2: girls were under such tremendous pressure to put their relationships
18:47
Speaker 2: above all. So, in other words, I have to be liked,
18:51
Speaker 2: and in order to be liked, I need to hide
18:53
Speaker 2: my thoughts and feelings from you. Well, of course, what
18:55
Speaker 2: happens if I hide my thoughts and feelings from you, Danielle,
18:57
Speaker 2: I'm going to, like, for sure, go behind your back
18:59
Speaker 2: and tell me my feelings to someone else, because I'm
19:01
Speaker 2: not going to erase my feelings.
19:03
Speaker 3: I'm just going to put them in different form.
19:05
Speaker 2: So all of this is to say that the pressure
19:08
Speaker 2: that girls are under to take care of everyone at
19:11
Speaker 2: the expense of themselves, to be these good girls, selfless, right, polite, kind, nice,
19:17
Speaker 2: liked above all, that was a root cause of their bullying.
19:22
Speaker 2: And that's what I really wanted to understand first and foremost,
19:24
Speaker 2: and that's what led me to write that second book. Right. So, okay,
19:27
Speaker 2: so now we know that girls are bullying each other
19:29
Speaker 2: in part for this reason.
19:31
Speaker 3: Okay, how do we deal with that.
19:32
Speaker 2: Let's let's actually talk about this root cause.
19:36
Speaker 1: And then, now that it's been how many years ago
19:39
Speaker 1: was that book published.
19:40
Speaker 2: In two thousand and two, two thousand and two.
19:43
Speaker 1: Do you see a generational difference. Do you think that
19:46
Speaker 1: girls are still expected to be good girls they're growing up?
19:50
Speaker 2: I do. I mean, you know what, I think. I
19:52
Speaker 2: think we've given girls maybe certain more given them access
19:56
Speaker 2: and to certain other new experiences, maybe in certain permissions. Yes,
20:02
Speaker 2: but I kind of feel like we've just added on
20:04
Speaker 2: to the old stuff, Like we didn't really revise the expectations.
20:07
Speaker 2: We're not like, you know, sure, do you want to
20:10
Speaker 2: like fly a fighter jet and become an engineer and
20:14
Speaker 2: do all these things? Like fine, now you don't have
20:17
Speaker 2: to worry about having a bikini body, and now you
20:19
Speaker 2: don't have to worry about being nice and polite. We
20:20
Speaker 2: didn't do that. We're like, you're going to be nice
20:22
Speaker 2: and polite and have a bikini body and like a
20:24
Speaker 2: lot of likes on your social media and you can
20:27
Speaker 2: be an engineer. Congratulations.
20:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you can still do all the household chores.
20:32
Speaker 2: Right, And that's why, I mean, that's why the pandemic
20:35
Speaker 2: really uncovered, that festering sore, right, like the fact that
20:39
Speaker 2: things haven't really changed, and I think until one of
20:44
Speaker 2: the concerns that I have is that we are really
20:47
Speaker 2: not talking enough about gender bias. We are not teaching
20:52
Speaker 2: girls to expect gender bias when they go to work.
20:56
Speaker 2: We're still telling them like you can be anything and everything.
21:00
Speaker 1: Is so important.
21:02
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, but like look at African American families. So
21:06
Speaker 2: traditional African American family is raising its children to prepare
21:12
Speaker 2: for racism and if they're girls, to prepare for racism
21:15
Speaker 2: and sexism. And they're saying to you, they're saying to
21:17
Speaker 2: their boys, if you get pulled over by a police officer,
21:20
Speaker 2: put your hands on the wheel, because you know, police
21:23
Speaker 2: officers are much more likely to shoot black young men.
21:27
Speaker 2: And there is a strong tradition of preparing those kids
21:31
Speaker 2: to go into a world that systemically oppresses them. We
21:35
Speaker 2: do not have something comparable for gender bias in families.
21:40
Speaker 2: The most family's going to probably do is do like
21:43
Speaker 2: media literacy right, teaching their girls about unfair inappropriate images
21:47
Speaker 2: of women. But it's very rare for a family to
21:50
Speaker 2: raise its daughters to be like, hey, listen, you might
21:52
Speaker 2: not get a raise, you might not get promoted, you
21:55
Speaker 2: might be layered over in a company reorganization because you're
22:00
Speaker 2: you might get dinged for being too self promoting. Like,
22:03
Speaker 2: there just isn't as much of a tradition of that,
22:06
Speaker 2: and I think as a result, when women do experience
22:09
Speaker 2: that bias, they think, oh, it must be my fault.
22:11
Speaker 3: Let me go to another workshop on imposter syndrome.
22:15
Speaker 1: It's such a hard balance though, between acknowledging that it
22:19
Speaker 1: exists and not It seems to me, I don't have
22:24
Speaker 1: a child yet, but like not giving your kid an
22:27
Speaker 1: excuse to opt out, I don't.
22:29
Speaker 2: Think it's that. I mean, you don't see kids. I
22:32
Speaker 2: think it's giving kids a realistic dashboard like.
22:38
Speaker 4: Right to look at as they start to navigate the world.
22:41
Speaker 4: And it just doesn't serve girls to say you can
22:46
Speaker 4: do anything you want if you put your mind to it,
22:48
Speaker 4: because there are certain things she won't be able to control.
22:51
Speaker 4: You could do most things that you put your mind to,
22:54
Speaker 4: but you can't control the world.
22:55
Speaker 2: And I worry about the high achieving girls and women
22:59
Speaker 2: and some of them, and I have studied some of
23:02
Speaker 2: them who become so filled with shame when something does
23:08
Speaker 2: interfere with their ability to do it all because they thought, oh,
23:12
Speaker 2: I should be able to do it right.
23:13
Speaker 3: It's like I should if.
23:15
Speaker 2: I can do anything I put my mind to, and
23:18
Speaker 2: I suddenly can't. Well, what's wrong with me? I must
23:20
Speaker 2: be defective. So it's just it's just not a healthy mindset.
23:23
Speaker 2: It's we're not telling girls or people to opt out.
23:26
Speaker 2: We're just like, dude, it's hard out there, like right,
23:30
Speaker 2: and you should expect that it's going to be hard.
23:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's but you're right. It's better to go in
23:36
Speaker 1: knowing with your eyes wide open. Maybe I'm speaking from
23:40
Speaker 1: some internalized misogyny that I haven't gotten over yet.
23:44
Speaker 2: Well, I mean not to sound like I'm fifty five
23:47
Speaker 2: thousand years old, but when I was younger. I mean,
23:51
Speaker 2: I don't mean to be like Brack and my Day.
23:52
Speaker 2: Yeah y'all, No, no, I know you're with Now I've
23:55
Speaker 2: become an old person who gives my wisdom, but like
23:58
Speaker 2: back and my day saying like when I was younger.
24:02
Speaker 2: Of course you think that because you just haven't had
24:05
Speaker 2: as much life experience, and you just haven't and I
24:09
Speaker 2: think that's part. But I think also what research will
24:12
Speaker 2: confirm is that if you are a more junior female,
24:16
Speaker 2: you're just less likely to experience this at than when
24:19
Speaker 2: you ascend the rank. So if you look at, for example,
24:21
Speaker 2: the Mackenzie Women in the Workplace Report, which is a
24:24
Speaker 2: partnership with lean In, and I think the twenty twenty
24:26
Speaker 2: report focused on this in particular, which is what's called
24:29
Speaker 2: the broken wrung problem, and that is that around the
24:33
Speaker 2: director level in a corporate environment, you start to see
24:36
Speaker 2: a huge fall off of women, and as you go
24:40
Speaker 2: beyond the director level up to VP, et cetera, the
24:43
Speaker 2: numbers of women become smaller and smaller. And of course,
24:45
Speaker 2: we had a lovely explanation for that for a long time. Oh,
24:49
Speaker 2: women are leaving to raise their children.
24:50
Speaker 3: No they're not.
24:51
Speaker 2: Oh women are not ambitious, No they're not.
24:54
Speaker 3: Both these things disproven.
24:55
Speaker 2: What they both have in common, by the way, these explanations,
24:59
Speaker 2: which we co on for so long as a culture,
25:02
Speaker 2: is that they blame the women. They conveniently absolve the
25:06
Speaker 2: institutions from responsibility for the lack of leadership of women
25:11
Speaker 2: those senior levels. So long winded old person's story here,
25:15
Speaker 2: meant to just say that it makes sense that if
25:18
Speaker 2: you are younger, you might not feel this way, and
25:22
Speaker 2: it makes sense that when you're older, you'd be more
25:24
Speaker 2: likely to.
25:26
Speaker 1: So women are not leaving the workforce and they're just
25:28
Speaker 1: not getting promoted.
25:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, dude, And it's not that women aren't like confident. Right.
25:34
Speaker 2: It's not that women don't speak up. I mean, sure
25:37
Speaker 2: some of them are not speaking up, but a lot
25:39
Speaker 2: of them aren't speaking up because they know what happens
25:41
Speaker 2: when they do, right, That's what research shows. What's her name,
25:44
Speaker 2: Tory Brescall I believe, I think she's at Harvard, has
25:48
Speaker 2: done a whole bunch of studies on this, and what
25:50
Speaker 2: she essentially finds is that women have become hyper vigilant
25:54
Speaker 2: about the consequences of speaking up, so they have learned
25:57
Speaker 2: to moderate themselves. She actually studied the speech patterns I believe,
26:01
Speaker 2: of members of the US Congress and found that women,
26:05
Speaker 2: I don't want to bungle this, but essentially, like very
26:08
Speaker 2: powerful female senators, we're talking less than much less powerful
26:13
Speaker 2: men because they just knew, right, if they talk too much,
26:16
Speaker 2: they're going to get labeled in ways that cost them
26:19
Speaker 2: their political influence or impact.
26:25
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Speaker 1: better help is a great place. I think we've all
28:45
Speaker 1: heard the arguments against social media. You've said that you
28:49
Speaker 1: don't think social media is as bad as we make
28:51
Speaker 1: it out to be. Do you think there are ways
28:55
Speaker 1: we could be using it more effectively? Sure, we could
28:58
Speaker 1: all be using it more effectively.
29:00
Speaker 2: Like I think the why of our use of it
29:05
Speaker 2: is where we could probably achieve some real change. So,
29:09
Speaker 2: like why do we turn to a screen? Is it
29:12
Speaker 2: because of because we're bored? Is it because we feel
29:15
Speaker 2: left out? Is it because we're trying to confirm or
29:19
Speaker 2: challenge some insecurity we have, Like I think that's where
29:24
Speaker 2: we all could probably make some changes. I Mean, the
29:28
Speaker 2: reason why I think it's not as bad as we
29:30
Speaker 2: say it is is because, again sort of similar to
29:33
Speaker 2: how we've always blamed the individual rather than the culture,
29:37
Speaker 2: in this instance, we blame the social media instead of
29:40
Speaker 2: the parents or the people who are using it. And
29:44
Speaker 2: I think it's really convenient to be like that Internet
29:47
Speaker 2: is so bad as opposed to like I need to
29:49
Speaker 2: do a better job teaching my child how to use it.
29:52
Speaker 2: And I'm not saying I'm so great at it either,
29:54
Speaker 2: but it's just more complex than that.
29:57
Speaker 1: Do you think there's an argument that girls are seeing
30:01
Speaker 1: more bodies different bodies online or do you think the
30:07
Speaker 1: influx of sort of the Instagram girl type of a
30:10
Speaker 1: thing is that much more damaging.
30:13
Speaker 3: That's a good question.
30:14
Speaker 2: I do think that girls are seeing many more different bodies.
30:18
Speaker 2: I mean, I was just on I was just looking
30:21
Speaker 2: at Lululemon for something, and I was like, I saw
30:25
Speaker 2: all these models with you know, different kinds of bodies,
30:28
Speaker 2: and I was like, oh my god, Like I never
30:30
Speaker 2: said I'd lived to see the day that Lululemon, which
30:32
Speaker 2: I believe back in my day, like wasn't going above
30:35
Speaker 2: a size ten. I like showed like size twenty and
30:39
Speaker 2: I was like, God, times have changed, right, So there's
30:42
Speaker 2: a lot that's different. Do I actually think that girls
30:45
Speaker 2: are now posting pictures of like, you know, realistic Like
30:49
Speaker 2: do girls feel as comfortable posting a picture of their
30:52
Speaker 2: own bodies in a bikini, for example, or in a
30:54
Speaker 2: bathing suit if that body doesn't conform?
30:57
Speaker 3: Maybe some do, sure most girls.
30:59
Speaker 2: No, Like I think girls, you know what, they understand
31:03
Speaker 2: the assignment as the phrase goes, and so I'm not
31:06
Speaker 2: sure how much that message is actually reaching girls in
31:11
Speaker 2: terms of their own practices.
31:13
Speaker 3: That's what I would.
31:14
Speaker 2: Say, if anything.
31:15
Speaker 3: You know, now boys are.
31:16
Speaker 2: Reporting major body image issues, so.
31:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, everybody's just catching up to the same insecurity.
31:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's like I'm trying to think of
31:27
Speaker 2: how to put it. But there's like a performative piece
31:31
Speaker 2: around this where you know that companies are have now
31:35
Speaker 2: figured out how to appeal to consumers certain kinds of consumers,
31:42
Speaker 2: certainly younger ones, who demand to see a diverse range
31:46
Speaker 2: of bodies represented. And I'm not sure that that is
31:52
Speaker 2: reflected in the general population. I think it's aspirational. I
31:57
Speaker 2: think it's performative, but I don't know that it's lived
32:00
Speaker 2: by people.
32:02
Speaker 1: That is really well said. I got a lot of
32:06
Speaker 1: different conversations about this, and I think you sort of
32:09
Speaker 1: hit it on the head.
32:11
Speaker 3: Oh my god. Thanks, I'll take that for the day.
32:14
Speaker 3: Thank you.
32:15
Speaker 2: Well, it's been great talking to you. Now.
32:16
Speaker 3: I'm just kidding.
32:17
Speaker 1: I'm wrapping up soon, but I have to ask you
32:19
Speaker 1: about Billie Eilish because I know that you loved Billie Eilish.
32:23
Speaker 2: I had like a mental break and spent so much
32:26
Speaker 2: money on concert tickets and then it ended up selling
32:28
Speaker 2: them because I knew that my daughter couldn't stay up
32:30
Speaker 2: that late, and also was just ashamed of myself for
32:33
Speaker 2: spending that much money. Yes, what would you like to
32:36
Speaker 2: know about my Billie Eilish fascination?
32:38
Speaker 1: Well, I saw you write that you think she's such
32:40
Speaker 1: a great role model for young girls, so I wanted
32:42
Speaker 1: to understand what you meant.
32:44
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I think, look, she is just building
32:50
Speaker 2: on what we just talked about. She refuses to submit
32:54
Speaker 2: to cultural expectations of girls in so many ways, and
32:59
Speaker 2: I think that's why she opened this flood of girls
33:04
Speaker 2: who were desperate to see their own wishes and dreams
33:10
Speaker 2: reflected in someone. And by wishes and dreams, I mean,
33:14
Speaker 2: you know, Billie Eilish is willing to write about a
33:17
Speaker 2: whole range of dark emotions that girls have always felt,
33:21
Speaker 2: but that you very rarely see girls showing. You know,
33:24
Speaker 2: It's like if you grew up in the world of
33:27
Speaker 2: like Hannah Montana, like you know, obviously Miley Cyrus currently
33:32
Speaker 2: notwithstanding like that was not who she was then. So
33:35
Speaker 2: girls would like to see celebrities who can talk about
33:40
Speaker 2: their shadow as a way. You know, she also refuses
33:44
Speaker 2: to submit to these expectations around what she wears around
33:47
Speaker 2: her body. She's authentic, She's not trying to be perfect
33:51
Speaker 2: in front of people. She's kind of uncurated in many ways.
33:56
Speaker 2: I mean, I have found her to be a little
33:58
Speaker 2: too commercial lately, but whatever, it's not perfect and yeah,
34:03
Speaker 2: and I think that that's really really special and important.
34:06
Speaker 1: So I want to know what the biggest lesson that
34:09
Speaker 1: you've learned about yourself is by raising a next generation girl.
34:14
Speaker 2: If you don't make peace with the parts of yourself
34:17
Speaker 2: that you don't like, you will revisit some form of that.
34:22
Speaker 3: On your child full stop. That's the lesson.
34:26
Speaker 2: Like, and I'm not saying I've figured it out, but
34:30
Speaker 2: you have to learn self compassion. You cannot hide from
34:34
Speaker 2: your children the things that you hate about yourself.
34:37
Speaker 3: They pick up on it.
34:39
Speaker 2: And it's not that they pick up on it because
34:40
Speaker 2: they can secretly read your mind. They pick up on
34:42
Speaker 2: it because once your child starts to react or have
34:45
Speaker 2: the show signs of this thing, they see that you're
34:48
Speaker 2: reacting in a way that isn't proportional or that isn't compassionate.
34:53
Speaker 2: Because if you can't be compassionate to yourself, how are
34:56
Speaker 2: you going to tolerate it in your kid? Like, oh,
35:00
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, it's the hardest thing.
35:02
Speaker 1: That is really big.
35:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like literally, the best preparation you can do for parenting.
35:07
Speaker 2: You heard it here first is like, do an inventory
35:10
Speaker 2: of all the things that make you feel a shame
35:12
Speaker 2: and go take care of that or at least start
35:16
Speaker 2: to mm hmm.
35:18
Speaker 1: Okay, that was an amazing answer. So I'm going to
35:21
Speaker 1: do a quick rapid fire with you. One thing you've
35:23
Speaker 1: learned from the generation of women above you and below you.
35:27
Speaker 2: Above me, Like there's nothing better than women helping other women,
35:34
Speaker 2: and like when we do that. We can do absolutely
35:37
Speaker 2: anything below me. Wellness and mental health really matter and
35:45
Speaker 2: we shouldn't have to sacrifice our wellness for work.
35:48
Speaker 1: One book that you think everybody should read?
35:51
Speaker 2: You know what book? I Love Tiny Beautiful Things by
35:54
Speaker 2: Cheryl Strade. That is a book I think everybody should read.
35:59
Speaker 1: Question everything. Because we're not in person, I'm just going
36:01
Speaker 1: to tell you or ask you to tell me when
36:03
Speaker 1: to stop.
36:05
Speaker 3: Stop.
36:07
Speaker 1: Okay, what is the most challenging part of what you
36:10
Speaker 1: do for a living?
36:12
Speaker 3: Asking for enough money?
36:14
Speaker 2: No, I don't know if that's totally true, but it's
36:17
Speaker 2: really hard to value myself, to price what I do
36:19
Speaker 2: constantly and to know is this enough? Is this too much?
36:24
Speaker 2: Am I asking? Am I asking in this way because
36:28
Speaker 2: I don't think highly enough of myself and I'm undervaluing
36:31
Speaker 2: myself in the market. That's my first thing that comes
36:34
Speaker 2: to my mind. I'm sure there are other things.
36:37
Speaker 1: That's a really hard one.
36:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, dude, it's good to ask other women about it too.
36:41
Speaker 2: Like I really welcome when people are like, hey, how
36:43
Speaker 2: much would you charge for X? Or how much did
36:45
Speaker 2: you charge for why? I just had that email with
36:48
Speaker 2: somebody today. It's like I would do anything to help
36:51
Speaker 2: somebody with that question, and I hope the same would
36:53
Speaker 2: be true. We have to help each other because women
36:55
Speaker 2: do have a tendency to sort of perennially undervalue ourselves,
36:58
Speaker 2: and we do have to help each other.
37:00
Speaker 1: A lot of the people I've spoken to on the
37:02
Speaker 1: podcast also talk about sort of free work, which is
37:06
Speaker 1: interesting because sometimes I do feel like working for free
37:10
Speaker 1: is helpful for like certain experiences, but in a lot
37:13
Speaker 1: of ways it's a very female thing.
37:19
Speaker 2: Anybody who's entering a new space and feels vulnerable is
37:24
Speaker 2: going to be vulnerable to being asked for to do
37:29
Speaker 2: free work. And I think it's a really tricky, tricky thing. Yeah,
37:35
Speaker 2: it's hard because when you're trying to make it, you're.
37:39
Speaker 3: More open and more willing.
37:41
Speaker 2: And that's I think why it's important to talk to
37:43
Speaker 2: your kind of colleagues and peers and say, do you
37:46
Speaker 2: think that I'm kind of going too far? Because a
37:49
Speaker 2: lot of times we worry if I say no, no
37:51
Speaker 2: one will ever ask me again. But if you're really
37:54
Speaker 2: great at what you do, they will ask you again.
37:56
Speaker 2: But it does take a lot of years to figure
37:58
Speaker 2: that out.
37:58
Speaker 3: So easy for me to say.
38:00
Speaker 1: Well, I think it takes a lot of years to
38:02
Speaker 1: be great at what you do.
38:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, it does, it does, and to be confident that
38:09
Speaker 2: more will come. It took me a long time to
38:11
Speaker 2: know that, like I would have work to do as
38:14
Speaker 2: a self employed person, that there would always be work there.
38:18
Speaker 1: I ask everybody this question, what is the smartest decision
38:22
Speaker 1: you've ever made?
38:23
Speaker 2: I want to say having a baby on my own,
38:25
Speaker 2: But it was never really a decision.
38:27
Speaker 3: I mean, I always knew I was going to become.
38:28
Speaker 2: A parent, I just didn't know it would be by myself,
38:34
Speaker 2: So I would say that, and dropping out of the
38:38
Speaker 2: Rhodes Scholarship and not going to law school and going
38:41
Speaker 2: into therapy and figuring out what I really wanted to do,
38:44
Speaker 2: so big one. Yeah, I mean, but I've made a
38:48
Speaker 2: lot of really good decisions. When you asked that question,
38:51
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, I've made I've made a lot of
38:52
Speaker 2: really good ones, and those are two of the tops
38:56
Speaker 2: for me.
39:24
Speaker 1: All Right, today is a good day. To have a
39:26
Speaker 1: good day. I'll see you next week.