Speaker 1: Welcome to Sheep Pivots, the podcast where we talk with
Speaker 1: women who dared to pivot out of one career and
Speaker 1: into something new and explore how their personal lives impacted
Speaker 1: these decisions. I'm your host, Emily Tish Sussman. We originally
Speaker 1: planned to air my conversation with a good friend of
Speaker 1: mine who's a writer and an actor, but she's currently
Speaker 1: on the picket line advocating for fair wages for her
Speaker 1: and her fellow actors. So in honor of the WGA
Speaker 1: and SAG afterstrike, we're sharing some resources to support all
Speaker 1: the actors and writers striking for better contracts. You can
Speaker 1: head over to our Causes page on the Sheep Pivots
Speaker 1: website to find out how you can support our friends.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, we're re releasing one of our favorite
Speaker 1: episodes from season one that more than deserves another listen,
Speaker 1: So tune into hear about Reshmas and Johnny's incredible journey
Speaker 1: that recounts her time running for Congress, starting Girls Who Code,
Speaker 1: and the deeply personal moment that led her to reevaluate
Speaker 1: at all, leading her to eventually launch Moms First.
Speaker 2: Hope You enjoy.
Speaker 1: You may have heard of Reshmas and Johnny from her
Speaker 1: incredibly successful organization Girls Who Code, or her books Brave,
Speaker 1: Not Perfect and Pay Up.
Speaker 2: Or maybe you heard her talk about.
Speaker 1: Her Marshall Plan for Moms, or perhaps you even caught
Speaker 1: her commencement speech for Yale this year. I've known Reshma
Speaker 1: for over a decade, and her drive and passion for
Speaker 1: change never seems to waiver. She's a fierce advocate for
Speaker 1: women and girls and has never been one to shy
Speaker 1: away from the issue. She's an inspiration for me and
Speaker 1: for so many others, and her ambition has led to
Speaker 1: her incredible success. So how did Reshma go from what
Speaker 1: looked like the top of her career to dismantling the
Speaker 1: idea of success for women and realizing that the ideas
Speaker 1: of corporate feminism that she was peddling in her many
Speaker 1: speeches was exactly what harmed women and mothers like her.
Speaker 1: Layered on top of her struggles with fertility, Rashma's journey
Speaker 1: to success is not what you might expect.
Speaker 3: Rashma Sa Johnny, I am a mom, the CEO of
Speaker 3: Marshal MP for Moms, and the founder of Girls Who Code.
Speaker 1: You have had an incredibly successful career by any definition.
Speaker 2: Were you always so ambitious?
Speaker 3: Oh my god, Yes, I was always so ambitious, you know,
Speaker 3: as my parents' careers refugees. So I was like an
Speaker 3: Indian girl whose parents were like, you can be a doctor,
Speaker 3: a lawyer, or an engineer. So, you know, education was
Speaker 3: really stressed in our family. I also think we're a
Speaker 3: very young age. I just wanted to get out of
Speaker 3: my working class neighborhood, get out of you know, Schambre, Illinois,
Speaker 3: and really always had my sights on like making a
Speaker 3: difference in the world.
Speaker 2: So yes, what did you think getting out looked like? Like?
Speaker 2: What did success look like?
Speaker 3: Well, I would say I think success looked like we
Speaker 3: going to Yale Law School.
Speaker 4: Returning to Yale for our keynote address, first, Meshie Johnny
Speaker 4: comes to share her journey and the wisdom collected along
Speaker 4: the way with the class of twenty twenty two. So
Speaker 4: without further ado, please join me in welcoming back to Yale.
Speaker 2: This Ross Meshio Johnny, Ver.
Speaker 3: It is an honor to be here. I want to
Speaker 3: thank you, know, like basically finding the most elite institution
Speaker 3: to accept you and validate you and getting there as
Speaker 3: fast as you could. I was going through my middle
Speaker 3: school yearbook and the reason why I was I was
Speaker 3: in a very serious fight when I was in eighth grade.
Speaker 3: I got beat up because I was a brown girl,
Speaker 3: and my sister and I were bullied in school. And
Speaker 3: she was telling me when I had seen her about
Speaker 3: a few months ago, that the girl who had bullied
Speaker 3: her at school had actually facebooked her and she was
Speaker 3: like a mom of three, and she had apologied. And
Speaker 3: as my sister was telling me kind of her story,
Speaker 3: I was thinking of my own and trying to remember
Speaker 3: this my you know, one of my friends, you know, Fudo,
Speaker 3: who had take walked me home after I had been
Speaker 3: beaten up with a baseball bat in the tennis racket.
Speaker 2: And so I was asking my dad do you remember her?
Speaker 2: Do you remember where she lives?
Speaker 3: And so my dad had pulled out because you know,
Speaker 3: I was coming home all of the yearbooks. So I
Speaker 3: and it was like I kind of just relived that experience.
Speaker 3: So maybe it was part of being in a community
Speaker 3: that I didn't feel accepted, you know, maybe it was
Speaker 3: part of again just this I just always I just
Speaker 3: remember laying down on the grass looking at the clouds,
Speaker 3: just waiting for quote life to begin and for me
Speaker 3: to you know, I just never felt like I belonged
Speaker 3: where I grew up. I will say that when my
Speaker 3: sister told me that she got that apology, I was like,
Speaker 3: you know, I had blocked so much of it out
Speaker 3: that I was like, gosh, I did kind of relive
Speaker 3: it all, you know. So that's a little bit of
Speaker 3: that's where kind of ambition comes from. I think if
Speaker 3: you are you know, especially I think a woman of color,
Speaker 3: or you know, even if there's something about you that's different,
Speaker 3: and you're in a community or a school or a
Speaker 3: group where you just don't feel like you belong, you're
Speaker 3: always kind of dreaming of getting out. And I think
Speaker 3: in many ways that's where my ambition began.
Speaker 1: I think for a lot of people it drives them
Speaker 1: maybe inward, like not to be quite as successful as
Speaker 1: you had been. You know, you said you thought about
Speaker 1: success being going to Yell law school. Did you think
Speaker 1: about success beyond that, Like, did you envision what a
Speaker 1: life would look like?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Oh gosh see, I think so. You know, some of
Speaker 3: the greatest athletes in the world always had this moment
Speaker 3: where it should have happened for them.
Speaker 2: They should have made that shot.
Speaker 3: They should have gotten on that team, They should have
Speaker 3: been the first NBA draft pick, and they didn't. And
Speaker 3: some of the greatest athletes always carry that chip on
Speaker 3: the shoulder. So I excel from having the chip by
Speaker 3: my shoulder, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: So I always felt like, you.
Speaker 3: Know, for college, I had to go to the University
Speaker 3: of Illinois because my parents couldn't afford University of Michigan,
Speaker 3: which is where I really wanted to go. You know,
Speaker 3: I never got into I finally got into Yell at
Speaker 3: law school after three times after trying, never won my
Speaker 3: congressional race or my public advocate race. So I have
Speaker 3: a lot of things right, and I wasn't gonna let
Speaker 3: motherhood be one of those things right where it was
Speaker 3: like I wanted to be a mom and I didn't
Speaker 3: have an easy pathway there. And so I am definitely
Speaker 3: the girl who has her back up against the wall.
Speaker 3: The thing that I feel like I've earned or I
Speaker 3: deserve or I have worked really hard for doesn't happen
Speaker 3: for me. You know.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people don't.
Speaker 3: Realize that, you know, as they're like reading my resume,
Speaker 3: But it's very true for me and I think for
Speaker 3: me that creates it's okay, I'm going to show you
Speaker 3: all right cool, like don't let me in like a
Speaker 3: drive one hundred percent, one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: So you graduated Yale Law School and suddenly found yourself
Speaker 1: on Wall Street.
Speaker 2: Yeah, New York City.
Speaker 3: I had three hundred thousand dollars in student loan debt
Speaker 3: bush quote quote, I'm putting quotes. One.
Speaker 2: We all thought and yeah, we're all going to the DOJ.
Speaker 3: That didn't happen. So I guess it was Davis Polk,
Speaker 3: you know. And I'm now a corporate lawyer, you know,
Speaker 3: working in New York City. I was, I was naive.
Speaker 3: I knew I love my first martch when I was thirteen.
Speaker 3: I knew that I wanted to be a public servant.
Speaker 3: I always thought I would run for office, and I
Speaker 3: thought that maybe I would go back to Chicago and
Speaker 3: do that. But I found myself in and I loved
Speaker 3: New York City. So I found myself in the city
Speaker 3: that I loved with a hell of a lot of debt,
Speaker 3: a really big paycheck, and I never really did the math,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean of, like, well, actually, you know,
Speaker 3: it looks like you can make some dent, but you're
Speaker 3: just me paying off your interest. And so I naively
Speaker 3: just thought that I would like live New York fun
Speaker 3: life and make a little bit of money and pay
Speaker 3: off my debt and then maybe in a couple of
Speaker 3: years and I'll just I'll go then run for office
Speaker 3: and be a part public servant.
Speaker 2: And it just didn't play out that way.
Speaker 1: After her life in the fast lane, she finally decided
Speaker 1: it was time to run for office.
Speaker 5: I'm happy to welcome Reshma Sojohnny to the program today.
Speaker 5: Her name may sound familiar to you. In twenty ten,
Speaker 5: she ran for Congress in New York City.
Speaker 3: In twenty twelve, I became an upstart in a New
Speaker 3: York City congressional race. I swore I was going to win.
Speaker 3: I had the endorsement from the New York Daily News,
Speaker 3: the Wall Street Journals snapped pictures of me on election day,
Speaker 3: and CNBC called it one of the hottest races in
Speaker 3: the country. I mean, luck with a lot of us, right,
Speaker 3: we were actively involved in politics, like Emily's List, the DNC,
Speaker 3: we were organizing already. So you know, I'm thirty three
Speaker 3: years old. You know, Congress Maloney is talking about retiring.
Speaker 3: She was going to run against Jill brand Christen Joelbsenter
Speaker 3: for the Senate. There might be this open house seat.
Speaker 3: I'm in a job I hated. I've reached my final
Speaker 3: for me, I don't, but I often make decisions by
Speaker 3: hitting rock bottom. So I'm really in this job that
Speaker 3: I hate. I haven't made all that progress on my debt.
Speaker 3: I'm literally just, you know, a little piece of me
Speaker 3: is just dying a little bit every day. And somebody
Speaker 3: probably was like, oh, there's this congressional seat and you
Speaker 3: should run, not really thinking that I would actually do it.
Speaker 3: And I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, And you know,
Speaker 3: I kind of work myself up into doing that, and
Speaker 3: I just kind of very quit, and I'm like, I'm in,
Speaker 3: and you know, I have a lot of people around me.
Speaker 3: I'm fair very blessed about this, who like support my
Speaker 3: crazy ideas and who are like, yes, run like and
Speaker 3: I'm you know, And so I decided I was going
Speaker 3: to run. And now she decides she's not retiring and
Speaker 3: she's not running for senate. But now I've already made
Speaker 3: this decision. And you know, Emily back then in two
Speaker 3: thous and ten, no one challenged Democratic primaries in the
Speaker 3: entire country. There was not one Democratic challenger. Now there's
Speaker 3: this woman Rushmasa. Johnny's thirty three years old, and she's
Speaker 3: doing what And I think because I didn't know any better,
Speaker 3: and I wasn't part of the system. And as you know,
Speaker 3: we had this little whole crew of people that were
Speaker 3: kind of you know again like progressive politics, wanted to
Speaker 3: change the world. We just thought we could meet every
Speaker 3: voter and shake every hand. In many ways, it's what
Speaker 3: Okazio did, you know ten years later, But my recent
Speaker 3: turnout the way that hers did.
Speaker 1: When Reshma decided to run for office, it was twenty ten,
Speaker 1: right on the heels of the two thousand and eight
Speaker 1: election of President Barack Obama and the passage of the
Speaker 1: Affordable Care Act, the country as a whole felt uneasy
Speaker 1: with change.
Speaker 3: I mean, I remember Geraldine Ferraro called my finance director
Speaker 3: and was like, she can't run. I mean, I had
Speaker 3: all these women who I admired, who were just like
Speaker 3: not happy about it. I mean, I remember I went
Speaker 3: up to Glorious Tetum and she's like, why are you
Speaker 3: doing that?
Speaker 2: And that's where I read a book after that.
Speaker 3: You know, women don't wait line, because it was I
Speaker 3: was constantly told it's not your turn, weight in line,
Speaker 3: it's not your turn.
Speaker 2: And here I was again this brown girl, you know.
Speaker 3: It's daughter of refugees, who supposed to represent everything that
Speaker 3: we were talking about doing in this country, and I
Speaker 3: was constantly silenced. But then we had this group of
Speaker 3: like young up and comers who were like, go, go go.
Speaker 3: I mean, John Legend did a concert for me, you know,
Speaker 3: Jack Dorsey hosted an event for me, And at that time,
Speaker 3: both of them were just kind of building in their career,
Speaker 3: and I think we all saw the same thing in
Speaker 3: one another. So it was it was just again so
Speaker 3: much courage of so many yourself included right, of so
Speaker 3: many people who were going against the system in this
Speaker 3: really powerful way.
Speaker 2: So we've alluded to it. You did not win the
Speaker 2: national not even closed crushed housed.
Speaker 5: In twenty ten, she ran for cons in New York
Speaker 5: City but didn't win. In twenty thirteen, she ran in
Speaker 5: the Democratic primary for Public Advocate but lost in the
Speaker 5: crowded field that included Letitia James and Daniel Squadron.
Speaker 3: Really bad.
Speaker 2: I was broke, I was humiliated. I felt ashamed.
Speaker 3: People felt sorry for me, and I'm one of those
Speaker 3: people I hate when people feel sorry for me. But
Speaker 3: on election day, the polls were right and I only
Speaker 3: got nineteen percent of the vote, and the same papers
Speaker 3: that said I was a rising political star now said
Speaker 3: I wasted one point three million dollars on six thousand,
Speaker 3: three hundred and twenty one votes.
Speaker 2: Don't do the math. It was humiliating.
Speaker 3: It was not even closed, it was and it was
Speaker 3: really sad because I really thought I was going to win.
Speaker 2: You know, really, I really did, because this is what happens.
Speaker 3: It's like you're on in the subway stop and people
Speaker 3: like I've thought it for you, and finally it feels
Speaker 3: like everyone, Wow, everyone's voting for me, like this is happening.
Speaker 3: And I just thought I could meet every hand and
Speaker 3: shake every voter, and I just didn't realize.
Speaker 2: And We've got a lot of attention, a lot of press.
Speaker 3: I'd raised more than enough money, but you just can't
Speaker 3: beat the machine, especially in New York City. It's really hard.
Speaker 3: But I also made a lot of mistakes. I was
Speaker 3: so not comfortable being a candidate. It was just the
Speaker 3: way I dressed, like the what I said, and I
Speaker 3: just wasn't. It wasn't the same. I wasn't the same
Speaker 3: person I am today, And so that was a very
Speaker 3: it was a really amazing experience because I learned so much.
Speaker 1: I feel like, listening to you talk about it now,
Speaker 1: people will be surprised to find out the next thing
Speaker 1: you did was run for off is again.
Speaker 3: Yes, because that's what happens, right when you're like because
Speaker 3: I you know, afterwards, I'm crushed, but I'm not crush crushed,
Speaker 3: like I'm like, okay, like I did that wrong. I
Speaker 3: did that wrong. I wouldn't have hired that person. I
Speaker 3: would have done this. I can do it again. Now
Speaker 3: I know how to win and run again. I lose
Speaker 3: again that they did in I run.
Speaker 2: Again, I list again.
Speaker 3: And let me tell you the first time I ran,
Speaker 3: I didn't cry on election day, and I would argue
Speaker 3: that in many ways, I got over it pretty quickly
Speaker 3: because I was ready for the next race. I had
Speaker 3: like like an ambitious type a woman. I was like, okay,
Speaker 3: I know what I did wrong, and now I know
Speaker 3: what to write.
Speaker 2: And then on my second.
Speaker 3: Race, I was like, oh gosh, they just don't want me.
Speaker 3: They just don't want to vote for me. Because I
Speaker 3: had run a perfect campaign. I had no regrets. I
Speaker 3: was me just like I am now. I you know,
Speaker 3: had understood, you know, I knew who to hire, who
Speaker 3: not to hire. I knew who was lying to me,
Speaker 3: who wasn't lying to me, and they just didn't vote
Speaker 3: for me. And that was just crushing because it was literally,
Speaker 3: since I was thirteen, all I've wanted to do is
Speaker 3: serve in public office. And it was this realization then
Speaker 3: at thirty six or you know whatever, that oh this is,
Speaker 3: this might not have happen in my lifetime. How did
Speaker 3: that feel? It felt really rough.
Speaker 2: Also, I had a lot of you know, I had
Speaker 2: a miscarriage right in the beginning of it. So there
Speaker 2: was just a lot.
Speaker 3: There's a lot that happened in a lot of heart
Speaker 3: that I had put into it. And so I think
Speaker 3: it was just I think, yeah, I was devastating. It
Speaker 3: was really devastating. It's still very devastating in some ways.
Speaker 3: The second one was much harder, much harder. Maybe I
Speaker 3: got more votes. I got more votes, you know, I
Speaker 3: was again, had no regrets. It didn't one would argue
Speaker 3: in many ways it helped my career afterwards.
Speaker 2: I didn't have a lot of enemies.
Speaker 3: I had people who kind of supported me afterwards, but
Speaker 3: it was a little bit like, oh, this might not
Speaker 3: happen for me in this lifetime.
Speaker 1: So you mentioned that you had been pregnant and then
Speaker 1: lost that pregnancy on that race, was running for office
Speaker 1: lining up with you thinking about beginning of family, Yeah, because.
Speaker 3: I mean I writ about this, I thought it was
Speaker 3: going to be like the you know, Rose the Rivet
Speaker 3: are pregnant on the campaign trail, and the vision of
Speaker 3: it was just so perfect, and so it just yeah,
Speaker 3: it was never again. I had also lined everything up
Speaker 3: that I thought the baby, if I had a baby,
Speaker 3: you know, in this moment, it would just be, you
Speaker 3: know again part of the story, not not getting in
Speaker 3: the way of it.
Speaker 1: She'd always seen herself as a mom, but she was
Speaker 1: also socialized to believe that being a mom needed to
Speaker 1: be done in secret.
Speaker 3: I always wanted to be a mom. I like lived
Speaker 3: with stuffed animals all surrounded around me. I was obsessed
Speaker 3: with my cabbage patch kid doll. I loved babies, always, always, always,
Speaker 3: always desperately wanted to.
Speaker 2: Be a mom.
Speaker 3: I got pregnant while I'm like, you know again, about
Speaker 3: to launch my campaign and I'm and get married.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, and I'm like this is great.
Speaker 3: I'm not like, oh shit, you know, this is not good,
Speaker 3: this is not good timing. I was not I was
Speaker 3: not worried about it. I was actually excited about it.
Speaker 1: You know, being a candidate is physically very grueling, very grueling.
Speaker 1: Was it something that you took into consideration once you
Speaker 1: found out you were pregnant?
Speaker 3: No, I was just like naive and you know, listen,
Speaker 3: you know, and then I, you know, miscarried within twelve
Speaker 3: or thirteen weeks, So the dream was very small, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean.
Speaker 2: It didn't it didn't last long enough.
Speaker 3: But I think that I yeah, no, I think I
Speaker 3: think I thought we could all handle it.
Speaker 2: But also it's because like listen.
Speaker 3: I think, I think I've learned so much about the
Speaker 3: way people's bodies have to be built in order to
Speaker 3: carry pregnancies and carrie, you know, whatever they're doing physically,
Speaker 3: Like my curguit, Amber is just physically like meant, her
Speaker 3: body is just so she can be you know, an
Speaker 3: ear nurse and be on her feet as she was
Speaker 3: when she carried Si all night long and with the baby.
Speaker 3: And she's good, right, I never could do that, even
Speaker 3: when I was pretty much on bed rest by the
Speaker 3: time I headshot.
Speaker 1: You know, did it change your vision of yourself as
Speaker 1: the candidate? Did you think that you could still run?
Speaker 1: I mean, you clearly kept running, But did you mean
Speaker 1: after I miscarried? Yeah, did it change your vision of
Speaker 1: yourself in the role?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: I think it did.
Speaker 3: I think in many ways it started what became a
Speaker 3: bad habit of being able to compartmentalize pregnancy loss with
Speaker 3: what was happening in my life, and so it became
Speaker 3: the beginning of many miscarriages that happened alongside many professional moments.
Speaker 1: The irony of the situation could not be more stark.
Speaker 1: Reshma did her TED talk titled Teach Girl's Bravery not Perfection.
Speaker 1: It's a powerful speech, but in contrast to her personal story,
Speaker 1: it's heartbreaking. The image of the girl boss Reshma had
Speaker 1: carefully constructed in her head slowly began to fracture.
Speaker 3: No one talked about it, so I didn't really have
Speaker 3: anyone to talk to about it. No one said to me, hey,
Speaker 3: you probably shouldn't go make that speech after you just
Speaker 3: walked out of the die's office, and I didn't have
Speaker 3: a heartbeat, because I think there's so much.
Speaker 2: Shame and silence around.
Speaker 3: It's so amazing today that we even talk about getting
Speaker 3: days off to grieve once you have a miscarriage. That
Speaker 3: was not at all part of even the conversation or
Speaker 3: of what people did. So in many ways, one I
Speaker 3: think I thought that that was just the price of motherhood,
Speaker 3: of wanting to be a mom, of wanting of being
Speaker 3: a boss, a girl boss, that like, shit happens and
Speaker 3: it sucks, but you got to keep on moving, and
Speaker 3: how unhealthy and it ironically, it wasn't until after I
Speaker 3: had my kid that I looked back at that period
Speaker 3: of my life and I was like, oh, I was depressed.
Speaker 3: It's why I didn't go out, It's why I was
Speaker 3: up and down in terms of my weight, It's why
Speaker 3: I was sad, you know, It's why I was just
Speaker 3: performing in many ways. And it wasn't until the same
Speaker 3: things were happening with before my second then I started
Speaker 3: crying all the time.
Speaker 2: And then I was like, okay, but I didn't.
Speaker 3: You know, it took me a while to for it
Speaker 3: emotionally to break me in the way that it should
Speaker 3: have very early on. And you know, look I don't
Speaker 3: think I had someone. It's my fault because I never
Speaker 3: really I never really told anybody that I was. In
Speaker 3: my closest friends, I wasn't like I'm going through all this,
Speaker 3: it would just make it didn't.
Speaker 1: Work out, and okay, what do we having for dinner?
Speaker 1: But you kept driving professionally, I mean even through this time.
Speaker 1: After you lost that public advocate race, you went on
Speaker 1: to build this incredible nonprofit, Girls Who Code.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, I mean I lose the race, and I'm like, okay,
Speaker 3: then I'm going to show you. You're not going to
Speaker 3: lect me to be public advocate to teach you know,
Speaker 3: hundreds of thousands of millions of New York City pulic
Speaker 3: school kids to code. Then I'm going to make Girls
Speaker 3: who Could. At that time, we were really small, you know,
Speaker 3: we taught like a handful of girls. I'm going to
Speaker 3: make Girls who Code the largest nonprofit.
Speaker 2: In the world, teaches millions of girls. And I put
Speaker 2: my head down and I didn't.
Speaker 1: Girls who Code went on to serve over five hundred
Speaker 1: thousand girls, women and non binary students, creating one of
Speaker 1: the largest pipelines for future females and engineering. What many
Speaker 1: don't know is that before she hit the ground running
Speaker 1: with Girls Who Code, she had the opportunity to move
Speaker 1: into a senior position in the New York City Mayor's office.
Speaker 1: This was finally her opportunity to fulfill her lifetime goal
Speaker 1: of working in public service that she had dreamed of.
Speaker 1: But she said no, and she pivoted into something new,
Speaker 1: leaving behind her work in politics.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: No, I didn't want to do that. I wanted to build,
Speaker 3: you know, I really was. I really wanted to build
Speaker 3: the organization. And I put my head down, you know,
Speaker 3: for years and just learned how to be a CEO,
Speaker 3: worked and having a baby, you know, and just just
Speaker 3: grinded every single day.
Speaker 6: Twenty twelve started it, thirty thousand plus graduates in the program.
Speaker 2: Is it true that you didn't know how to code
Speaker 2: when you started it? Now I'm like the weirdest person
Speaker 2: to start Girls Who Code.
Speaker 7: Girls Who Code has proven time and time again that
Speaker 7: we're about more than just teaching girls and non binary
Speaker 7: students how to code. We are growing a movement of
Speaker 7: over four hundred and fifty thousand students served now and counting.
Speaker 7: Founder of CEO of Girls Who Code, Thank you, thank you,
Speaker 7: thank you for.
Speaker 1: But through it all, Reshmus still continued to struggle with
Speaker 1: her fertility.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I would I would go, I'd have a
Speaker 3: miscarriage and then that I'd be on stage with introducing Obama, Smile, Small, Spell.
Speaker 3: You know, I would have another risk caarriage and then
Speaker 3: I would be there. I was in Utah with six
Speaker 3: of our girls Smile, Spell, Spell, and so I don't
Speaker 3: think that the closest my even my team, you know,
Speaker 3: never really knew kind of the again, my private hell
Speaker 3: that was happening behind the scenes. So it was very,
Speaker 3: very very I remember one time I was doing I
Speaker 3: hadn't miscarried yet, but I knew I was going to,
Speaker 3: and I was taping something in Washington, one of the
Speaker 3: big morning shows, and I was in the green room
Speaker 3: with I think again I don't want to out her,
Speaker 3: but a very prominent young lawyer of a very prominent
Speaker 3: case that it ignited the Black Lives Matter movement, And
Speaker 3: somehow we started talking and she too had just had
Speaker 3: a miscarriage, and we were saying, like, how sick it
Speaker 3: was in many ways that we were both sitting there,
Speaker 3: me not having miscarried yet, but about you in any
Speaker 3: second getting our hair and makeup done because in many
Speaker 3: ways we were both social activist, and I think it's
Speaker 3: doubly worse. You're a woman who you think you have
Speaker 3: to just show up when trauma happens to you, and
Speaker 3: then you're fighting for justice, so you think that you
Speaker 3: also the fight never ends, so you just have to
Speaker 3: you know, for me, it was for the girls. For
Speaker 3: her it was young black boys were being killed, and
Speaker 3: so you know that like wow, and what did that
Speaker 3: really say about who we were? Because in some ways
Speaker 3: you would turn around and be like, what's wrong with me?
Speaker 3: You know, like this is not normal? But again again
Speaker 3: now going by with the work that I'm doing now,
Speaker 3: I tribute all of that to girl bloss culture. It's
Speaker 3: like we have been told over and over and over
Speaker 3: again by the senior, by women in our life that
Speaker 3: are that this is the price you have to pay,
Speaker 3: that this is what the cost is, and that I
Speaker 3: did it, you do it.
Speaker 2: And that no one ever said no, that's not right.
Speaker 1: Did you when you were envisioning being successful and getting
Speaker 1: out and establishing yourself, was it part of the vision, Like.
Speaker 2: How did you envision?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 3: No, I feel like I had built everything around motherhood,
Speaker 3: not getting my way of my ambition of the thing
Speaker 3: that I wanted to achieve, and I never really loved
Speaker 3: the identity.
Speaker 2: Like I remember, you know you can appreciate this, like
Speaker 2: you know, girls of Code.
Speaker 3: After become mom my team's like, great, you should be
Speaker 3: like one of those cool mode bloggers.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, no fucking way, no, right. I wouldn't
Speaker 2: even put on a pair of mom jeans.
Speaker 3: I was like, I am not, that's not my identity,
Speaker 3: because I think that there was a lot of like
Speaker 3: being a mom is not sexy, not cool, was not respected. Right,
Speaker 3: It's the way many people, like many people have always
Speaker 3: hid that piece of their identy, at least we've been
Speaker 3: taught that as young women, right to hide that piece
Speaker 3: of your identity. And so I think it was something
Speaker 3: I desperately wanted, but I also kind of wanted to hide.
Speaker 1: So did your vision of yourself and your professional self
Speaker 1: and your professional ambition. Do you think that your vision
Speaker 1: of yourself and where you were growing changed once you
Speaker 1: did have your first son?
Speaker 3: Yes, well, because then I realized, oh my god, like
Speaker 3: you know, because I was just I was just angry,
Speaker 3: and for most of that time, you know, it's like
Speaker 3: why is this happening to me, Angry that seemed like
Speaker 3: it was so much easier for other women, you know,
Speaker 3: Angry that like like this wasn't supposed to be my story,
Speaker 3: Angry that I never got to really enjoy pregnancy in
Speaker 3: the entire journey, and.
Speaker 2: Just angry that I just I couldn't ever really share.
Speaker 3: And there were times too that I would try to
Speaker 3: share it when a reporter was interviewing me about, like,
Speaker 3: you know whatever, writing a profile, and they'd never write.
Speaker 2: About it, never write about your anger.
Speaker 3: They'd never write about when they say, what's your biggest
Speaker 3: struggle that you've ever had? And I was like, well,
Speaker 3: it's been really hard having you know, a baby, and
Speaker 3: I've had a miscaracter too. Never write about that. They
Speaker 3: never probed about that. Now that's shifted, but I tried,
Speaker 3: you know, to kind of put it out there a
Speaker 3: little bit.
Speaker 1: Still, despite the countless mommy blogs, influencers, and podcasts, the
Speaker 1: conversations around getting pregnant, miscarriages, and surrogacy are seen as
Speaker 1: uncomfortable to talk about.
Speaker 3: It's like you rather tell somebody you have cancer than
Speaker 3: say that you had a miscarriage. People don't know how
Speaker 3: to react, especially back then, when someone tells you that
Speaker 3: and it's really it makes them feel really, really uncomfortable.
Speaker 3: And I think it goes back to the fact that
Speaker 3: we have this archetype that it's so easy to get
Speaker 3: to get pregnant and to keep a baby, and so
Speaker 3: it's almost like, way, oh, what's wrong.
Speaker 2: With you that you couldn't do that?
Speaker 3: So I think after I had Sean, I think I
Speaker 3: was able to look back and be like, oh, whoa,
Speaker 3: there was a lot and to start to unravel that
Speaker 3: with my therapist, you know, with family, with friends, you know,
Speaker 3: and say, you know, I was not dealing with my
Speaker 3: mental health issues. You know that I was facing from
Speaker 3: the trauma of all the pregnancy losses. And then when
Speaker 3: I tried to do my second, I wasn't much better,
Speaker 3: went back to the all the old bad habits until
Speaker 3: I had this one loss, maybe my second, my second
Speaker 3: loss would sigh before I had my baby or second
Speaker 3: or third loss, second loss where you know, I was
Speaker 3: in California and you know, we think the embryo takes
Speaker 3: I'm sure everyone who knows who's gone through this HGG
Speaker 3: level is going up before it's going down, you know,
Speaker 3: get the call it. What was then four in the
Speaker 3: morning because it was seven am in New York, being like,
Speaker 3: you know, there's no there's no heartbea, it's not going up.
Speaker 3: And then I have to hop on a flight at
Speaker 3: eleven o'clock or ten o'clock to go to u Utah
Speaker 3: because we were announcing the US partnership with the Governor
Speaker 3: of Utah with a room full of seven hundred girls.
Speaker 3: Now mind you, I have been desperate to help a
Speaker 3: little girl, you know, and this was supposed to be it.
Speaker 3: And you know, I remember my husband saying, you don't
Speaker 3: have to go, and I was like, no, no, no, I
Speaker 3: have to go. And I go, you know, and I
Speaker 3: look back at those pictures and it's just like I
Speaker 3: have to do the whole thing with the governor, do
Speaker 3: the green room, do the photos and d and then
Speaker 3: you know, I just got back and I was just
Speaker 3: off and everybody I was just being I was just
Speaker 3: not you know, I was angry. You know, I was
Speaker 3: angry with my team and you know, now my new
Speaker 3: CEO member Treek of being like, what's wrong. And then
Speaker 3: I just convened everybody and I was just cried. I
Speaker 3: and I said, guys, I just can't do this. Anymore.
Speaker 3: I need a break, I need to heal, I need
Speaker 3: to focus on what I need to do to have
Speaker 3: my next baby.
Speaker 1: After years of fertility treatments, IVF and more, she decided
Speaker 1: she wanted to try one last time.
Speaker 3: At this time now I'm forty three. I'm forty three.
Speaker 3: I'm forty three, and it's my last shot, you know,
Speaker 3: to get those embryos right. And my doctor is amazing.
Speaker 3: And so I said to my husband, I was I
Speaker 3: was going to be done. And then we meet this
Speaker 3: couple and this woman says, essentially like my one regret
Speaker 3: is that I just didn't try one more time. And
Speaker 3: I basically, you know, come back and I, you know,
Speaker 3: say to my husband and my doctor, I want to
Speaker 3: try again. And they're like, you just can't because at
Speaker 3: this point it's just physically I have autoimmune issues. It's
Speaker 3: just you know, blood clots blah blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 3: It's just not and I'm not in forty three, right,
Speaker 3: And so they were basically, Okay, we'll let you try,
Speaker 3: but you can't carry the baby.
Speaker 2: Had that been something you'd ever considered before?
Speaker 3: No, Because superpower Raschma wanted to basically show everybody that
Speaker 3: I could do it, you know, myself more than anybody.
Speaker 3: But then I was like, okay, I will not try
Speaker 3: to put my body through this anymore and sacrifice my life.
Speaker 3: And I will and of course do my IVF cycle
Speaker 3: and at forty three I get these four beautiful, healthy embryos,
Speaker 3: of which one is now my son. But it was
Speaker 3: this really you know, incredible lesson of just letting go,
Speaker 3: you know, first letting go of having to have this
Speaker 3: trauma and holding it on my own, letting go of
Speaker 3: the fact that maybe my body is not built to
Speaker 3: carry a baby, and that is okay. But I think
Speaker 3: it's also for me a story of like I never
Speaker 3: give up, and I tell people all this time because
Speaker 3: now it's so beautiful. And I think part of why
Speaker 3: I share this too is like literally I probably coach
Speaker 3: for five six families women a week who just DM
Speaker 3: me on Instagram who are going through their fertility struggles
Speaker 3: and because you know, I didn't have that, and so
Speaker 3: I want people to have someone that even if it's
Speaker 3: a stranger, you know that they DM on LinkedIn or Instagram,
Speaker 3: that can be there. But I I always say to
Speaker 3: people like, if you want to become a mother. You
Speaker 3: will become one. It may not be in the way
Speaker 3: that you think it's going to be, but you know
Speaker 3: you can. And I think this goes to probably the end,
Speaker 3: which is why it's so I think COVID was such
Speaker 3: an eye opener for me, and just again the fact
Speaker 3: that I had been building and grinding and building and
Speaker 3: grinding and never really seeing my kids that I had
Speaker 3: worked so hard to actually see because I had again
Speaker 3: bought into this culture that like, that's a sacrifice that
Speaker 3: you pay to be a working mom.
Speaker 1: So your new book pay Up, Yeah, really gets to
Speaker 1: the heart of this. It's not we can't grind our
Speaker 1: way out of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we can't grind our way out of it. And
Speaker 3: the fact that, like, we don't have to hide from
Speaker 3: our death. I mean, I wanted so desperately to be
Speaker 3: a mother, and then when I was a mother, I
Speaker 3: let culture take that away from me. I let workplaces
Speaker 3: take that away from me. I let the government basically
Speaker 3: say you've got no support for doing that.
Speaker 1: I want to pause here because I think it's important
Speaker 1: to highlight this pivot. I think it's a moment that
Speaker 1: many of us have been slowly realizing that we just
Speaker 1: can't have it all, And even for someone like Reshma,
Speaker 1: who's such a fierce advocate for women, it took years
Speaker 1: for her to fully understand this, and despite the gut
Speaker 1: wrenching loss of each pregnancy, she still felt it necessary
Speaker 1: to push further and harder in her career until she broke.
Speaker 3: And I think the whole point is where it's being
Speaker 3: given a false choice and that we all think it's
Speaker 3: just like I thought it was my personal problem that
Speaker 3: I had to basically fix and solve and I didn't
Speaker 3: need any support or help from anybody. I was wrong here.
Speaker 3: I think so many moms think, well, it's my problem.
Speaker 3: If I'm not able to balance my job and my
Speaker 3: care taking responsibilities, it's my problem. If my husband is
Speaker 3: not doing his part, it's my problem, right if my
Speaker 3: employer doesn't you know, No, it's not it's not you.
Speaker 3: There's nothing wrong with you. There's something wrong with the system.
Speaker 3: And the whole idea of trying to fix the system
Speaker 3: and not fix the woman. I mean everything, Emily, everything
Speaker 3: we read, and again these are from women I admire
Speaker 3: and I was one of them, Like you know, from
Speaker 3: Confidence Code to Lean Into, like every single women's leadership
Speaker 3: book is about fixing you. And that's why women come
Speaker 3: to us and say, I have imposter syndrome?
Speaker 2: What do I do?
Speaker 3: I don't have confidence? What should I do? And it's like, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: there's nothing wrong with you. There's something wrong with the system,
Speaker 3: with the structure. And so it's kind of wild because
Speaker 3: we need to have a radically different We need to
Speaker 3: have a radically different conversation than we are having, you know,
Speaker 3: in workplaces in government, which is all about the fact
Speaker 3: of why do we make it so damn hard for
Speaker 3: working women and parents?
Speaker 1: We really haven't reconciled those two personalities that you were saying,
Speaker 1: the two archetypes.
Speaker 2: Of the working woman and the mom. We don't know
Speaker 2: how to do it.
Speaker 1: And one of the mentors that I know that you
Speaker 1: have among the people that you mentioned is Secretary Hillary Clinton,
Speaker 1: who in many ways ended up embodying or taking on
Speaker 1: the anger that a lot of women who didn't feel
Speaker 1: like they had choices, they projected it on to her. Yeap,
Speaker 1: what are some of the conversations you have with her
Speaker 1: around the changing.
Speaker 2: The culture that you've written about in Pay Up?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think in many ways it's like
Speaker 3: they she struggled with that, and I think she the
Speaker 3: way she led as a mother and a leader is
Speaker 3: still the example for us. She never tried. She never
Speaker 3: hid Chelsea. She really not, you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: if you really think about it, she never hit Chelsea,
Speaker 3: and she never hid being a mom. If you look
Speaker 3: at her Twitter profile or her Instagram profile, the first
Speaker 3: word on the top is mother, grandmother. So you know,
Speaker 3: Sexuaryclain has always been ahead of her times, and this
Speaker 3: is another example of that. But I think she's always
Speaker 3: also recognized how hard it is society makes it for
Speaker 3: women and that we do have this once in a lifetime.
Speaker 3: She said to me, She's like, don't say you know,
Speaker 3: please and thank you. Fight fight, fight, fight, Like, this
Speaker 3: is the moment with a great resignation. This is the
Speaker 3: moment with all of you know, the seller's market, in
Speaker 3: the tight labor market for women to say enough enough,
Speaker 3: We're not breastfeeding in closets. You know, don't freeze my eggs,
Speaker 3: but pay for me to free my eggs, but don't
Speaker 3: pay for my childcare. You know, don't stop pushing back
Speaker 3: on flexibility and remote working when I've already proven that
Speaker 3: I can be productive. You know, with caretaking responsibilities. So
Speaker 3: I feel like she's always been at the forefront of
Speaker 3: this fight. You know, there's some women I won't need names,
Speaker 3: you know, who have never used their platform to elevate
Speaker 3: this issue, and in fact, you have done quite the opposite.
Speaker 3: Whereas you know, Sexuary clans always used her platform to
Speaker 3: elevate this issue. Always, She's always led with her motherhood
Speaker 3: before it was cool.
Speaker 1: Like so many other women, Reshma was crushed by the pandemic.
Speaker 1: After her long struggle with infertility, she finally had the
Speaker 1: baby through surrogacy, and then COVID hit like a ton
Speaker 1: of bricks.
Speaker 8: The tame pandemic has created a significant shift in the workforce.
Speaker 8: We've talked about it a lot, the great resignation, differing
Speaker 8: childcare needs, work from home flexibility. Wow. A new survey
Speaker 8: reported here first by NBC News this morning, is showing
Speaker 8: the specific impact on women and the fact that working
Speaker 8: women are experiencing a burnout epidemics.
Speaker 3: I mean, COVID crushed me like COVID crushed me. I
Speaker 3: you know, started the pandemic with girls credits, you know,
Speaker 3: Super Bowl ad. I was having my newborn baby, you know,
Speaker 3: and then COVID came around and now here I am
Speaker 3: locked in the house my partner. I'm doing all the
Speaker 3: dishes and the laundry. I'm taking care of a newborn.
Speaker 3: I'm homeschooling, you know, a seven year old. I'm running
Speaker 3: the largest women and girls nonprofit in the world, and
Speaker 3: that's almost on the brink of potentially being shut down.
Speaker 3: And I'm I'm freaking I got nothing. It's just it's
Speaker 3: breaking me and my entire leadership team are working moms
Speaker 3: and we're all just drowning. And you know, I just
Speaker 3: I saw clearly the issue that I didn't see, Like,
Speaker 3: how could I have not have seen this, this kind
Speaker 3: of again, this fact that we have been doing two
Speaker 3: and a half job the whole time, and that I
Speaker 3: had bought into this thing, that we were even had
Speaker 3: a shot at equality if we just got a mentor
Speaker 3: if we just color coded our calendar, if we just
Speaker 3: raised our hands more without thinking what we wanted to say,
Speaker 3: if we were just braver, and none of all of
Speaker 3: that was like this what I called the big lie
Speaker 3: of corporate feminism. And I had been selling it like
Speaker 3: I had been selling it, dishing it out, And.
Speaker 6: This has really been your mission. You have for so long,
Speaker 6: said young women and girls. You should be brave, you
Speaker 6: should lean in, you should work harder. You wrote a
Speaker 6: best selling book about this. Brave not perfect, of course,
Speaker 6: your ted talk. We've all watched it. But now you're
Speaker 6: saying pandemic major rethink this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, for the past decade, I told girls
Speaker 3: to barnstorm the corner office, lean in, real hard, girl,
Speaker 3: boss your way to the top.
Speaker 2: And I was wrong.
Speaker 1: It was so easy for many of us to fall
Speaker 1: into this big lie, and even easier to feel guilt
Speaker 1: when things didn't pan out as we were promised. Rushma
Speaker 1: saw the problem and the guilt being play based on
Speaker 1: women individually, and she now argues that the problem is systemic.
Speaker 1: Her work now centers around this fight for culture change
Speaker 1: with the Marshall Plan for moms. The ultimate pivot is
Speaker 1: not just changing your career, but it's changing your mindset,
Speaker 1: confronting the movement and choosing to live your life guilt free.
Speaker 3: I live life, and I don't feel I used to
Speaker 3: feel guilty about living life.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm talking about it.
Speaker 3: I know you're shaking your eyes, yes, yes, yes, And
Speaker 3: it's like and it's funny because I used to always
Speaker 3: look at my husband, who is equally ambitious, equally successful,
Speaker 3: and he never did, and a lot of men don't,
Speaker 3: but we do as women, and so I don't want
Speaker 3: to live like that anymore.
Speaker 1: I'm not living like that anymore, Reshma. Unfortunately were out
Speaker 1: of time. I could stay here literally all day and
Speaker 1: talk to you. This has been inspiring, informative, fun, maybe
Speaker 1: even dare I say thank you so much for joining
Speaker 1: us all.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Reshma is still working on advocating for mothers through her organization,
Speaker 1: The Marshall Plan for Moms and with her book Pay Up.
Speaker 1: The Marshall Plan for Moms advocates for women's unpaid labor
Speaker 1: in the home and aims to transform our workplaces, government,
Speaker 1: and our culture to enable moms to thrive. Thank you
Speaker 1: for listening to this episode of she Pivots, where I
Speaker 1: talk with women about how their experiences and significant personal
Speaker 1: events led to their pivot and eventually their success. To
Speaker 1: learn more about Reshma and her latest book, follow us
Speaker 1: on Instagram at she Pivots the podcast. Leave a rating
Speaker 1: and comment if you enjoyed this episode to help others
Speaker 1: learn about it. A special thank you to our partner
Speaker 1: Marie Clair and the team that made this episode possible.
Speaker 1: Talk to you next week.