Speaker 1: I'm Sam Edis and I'm Amy Nelson. Welcome to What's
Speaker 1: Her Story with Sam and Amy. This is a show
Speaker 1: about the world's most remarkable women, their professional and personal journeys. Together,
Speaker 1: we'll hear from gold medalists, best selling authors, and leaders
Speaker 1: of the world's most iconic brands. Listen every Thursday or
Speaker 1: join the conversation anytime on Instagram at What's Her Story Podcast.
Speaker 1: The Palapoo is the CEO of Roshan Pharmaceuticals and an
Speaker 1: author of two books, including Worth Speaking The Life Lessons
Speaker 1: of Kamala Harris. Use such a rich family history, and
Speaker 1: I'd love for you to share it with our listeners.
Speaker 1: I am a daughter of Indian immigrants, I am a
Speaker 1: mother raising who I hope to be feminist sons, and
Speaker 1: I am the wife of a true partner. And I said,
Speaker 1: in every sense of the word, and truly it starts
Speaker 1: with not just my parents, but certainly more progressively minded
Speaker 1: grandparents who raised each of my parents with a different
Speaker 1: perspective than traditional Indian values were at that time. My
Speaker 1: mom rejected several men before she said yes to my dad,
Speaker 1: So even though it was an arranged marriage, it was
Speaker 1: very much a marriage based on her terms and her
Speaker 1: acceptance of it, and the reason she said yes to
Speaker 1: my dad, I find to be so interesting because he
Speaker 1: was not the wealthiest, He was not the most financially secure.
Speaker 1: He was just working in the United States, finally gotten
Speaker 1: a job in the pharma industry, someone who had lost
Speaker 1: his hearing as a child and had to so he
Speaker 1: struggled a lot to get to where he was at
Speaker 1: that time, and told my mom the truth about what
Speaker 1: life in the United States was. He said, it's very
Speaker 1: lonely and it is hard. You do have these conveniences
Speaker 1: like dish washers and washing machines, but you're living in
Speaker 1: a world where people will rename you because they can't
Speaker 1: take the patients to understand your name. You're going to
Speaker 1: have this culture imposed on you versus being in the
Speaker 1: culture you yourself had been raised in for years. If
Speaker 1: that sounds like a life you can handle, you know,
Speaker 1: I would be delighted to build a life with you.
Speaker 1: But I want to tell you what you're in for.
Speaker 1: And it was that honesty that had my mom saying yes.
Speaker 1: They had met on her birthday in nineteen seventy seven
Speaker 1: and were married two and a half weeks later, his
Speaker 1: older brother was one of only a hundred Indians in
Speaker 1: one year that was allowed to immigrate to the United States.
Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit about that and the
Speaker 1: impact it had on your family. Absolutely. So. My uncle
Speaker 1: earned a Fulbright scholarship that allowed him to travel from
Speaker 1: India to the States to continue studying chemistry. And that
Speaker 1: was at the time that was in the late fifties,
Speaker 1: before the National Immigration Act had been passed, where the
Speaker 1: cap was a hundred visas issue to Indians to come
Speaker 1: to the United States, and so he was one of
Speaker 1: very few and there was no Indian community really at
Speaker 1: that time. My aunt followed a few years later with
Speaker 1: her husband and they in turn were able to sponsor
Speaker 1: my father to come to the States as well. And
Speaker 1: once he got here, that was the first time he
Speaker 1: got a hearing gage, which meant that was the first
Speaker 1: time he could hear. Your latest book is called Worth
Speaker 1: Speaking in the Life Lessons of Kamala Harris, and Kamala
Speaker 1: also has a very strong immigrant mother. What drew you
Speaker 1: to Kamala's story and wanting to write about it? I
Speaker 1: write in the book about how this is a book
Speaker 1: that I had actually been writing for a very long
Speaker 1: time since I knew who Kamala Harris was, and how
Speaker 1: you know, she had been mentoring me from AFAR for
Speaker 1: many years. So she first came on my radar, you know,
Speaker 1: during the mortgage foreclosure crisis and the follow up and
Speaker 1: the legal follow up of settlements for homeowners all over
Speaker 1: the country. So I had a very nerdy obsession with
Speaker 1: the recession and was like, how did this happen? Why
Speaker 1: did this happen? What are we going to do to
Speaker 1: make sure something like this hasn't happened again and citizens
Speaker 1: are protected? And so this one name kept popping up
Speaker 1: in the news about it, Kamala Harris, Kamala Harris, and
Speaker 1: I I never took the time to google her at
Speaker 1: the time, which I find really funny because I'm the
Speaker 1: type of person who google's everything when it comes to
Speaker 1: my mind. But it wasn't until you know, she had
Speaker 1: negotiated the settlement for California homeowners that exceeded what was
Speaker 1: already what was on the table for the full federal
Speaker 1: and state responses. She had walked away from the negotiate,
Speaker 1: the joint negotiating table, and brought together allies to fight
Speaker 1: for a better settlement and I was. I was on
Speaker 1: some business trip, had CNNA on the background and saw
Speaker 1: this woman and I'm like, she could be related to me.
Speaker 1: Drug to the podium with such confidence, and then the
Speaker 1: chiron said Attorney General Kamala Harris, and I was like,
Speaker 1: that's Kamala Harris, because in my mind I was picturing
Speaker 1: someone much older, like with the quote unquote experience that
Speaker 1: had always been attributed to impactful politicians, and I had
Speaker 1: no idea she was this relatively young attorney general of
Speaker 1: the largest state in the Union who made a major,
Speaker 1: major thing happened on behalf of California homeowners, so that
Speaker 1: the obsession with the recession focused onto his obsession with
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris. And really it wasn't studying how she spoke,
Speaker 1: what she wore, the way she carried herself, because at
Speaker 1: the time, and I was working with my dad on
Speaker 1: in a separate company, I was in a lot of
Speaker 1: rooms where I was the only woman. I certainly was
Speaker 1: always the youngest, and I was one of the few
Speaker 1: people of color, and being mothered was something that happened
Speaker 1: to me quite often. And not having the ability to
Speaker 1: speak up or contribute the way I wanted to and
Speaker 1: there weren't a whole a lot of women in leadership
Speaker 1: and life sciences at the time that I could look
Speaker 1: to for mentorship or guidance. She became that mentor from afar.
Speaker 1: So it's not as if I started donning pants suits
Speaker 1: and had like a perfectly curled blowout, but she gave
Speaker 1: me kind of the confidence to where what I felt
Speaker 1: good in and own that. In reading your book, I
Speaker 1: felt like you must have felt like you had discovered her,
Speaker 1: and then suddenly the whole world had discovered her. With
Speaker 1: it a little bit like that, where you like, she's
Speaker 1: been my obsession well before any of you knew her.
Speaker 1: It definitely was. It's like when you know the first
Speaker 1: know of a band or a certain author. Felt very
Speaker 1: much like that. But I also is I take it
Speaker 1: personally when I see like just bullshit reporting with like
Speaker 1: the inflammatory headline making mountains out of mole hills, because
Speaker 1: it's part of a really troubling trend I observed when
Speaker 1: the press were parts on powerful women. There is like
Speaker 1: the build up of hyping her up, the flattering profiles
Speaker 1: and features. They're sort of the anointment with the cover cover.
Speaker 1: Some magazines awards all of that and then comes to
Speaker 1: tear down what was your entry into pharmaceuticals like and
Speaker 1: what that trajectory been like for you. Well, it's started
Speaker 1: with nepotism and let's just um call out the elephant
Speaker 1: in the room. I have my job because my father
Speaker 1: was co founder of our last company side us. That said,
Speaker 1: we did have a pretty clear division of church and
Speaker 1: state in terms of I reported to his business partner
Speaker 1: who was the CEO. Joe took me under his wing,
Speaker 1: taught me everything I needed to know when it came
Speaker 1: to negotiation and managing partnerships, financial accounting. Our general counsel
Speaker 1: Paul Feyerman walk me through kind of the mechanics of
Speaker 1: term sheets and licensing agreement and getting comfortable enough with
Speaker 1: the legalise to know what I can tackle on my
Speaker 1: own and confident enough to know when to call excellent
Speaker 1: outside council and how to hire great lawyers as well,
Speaker 1: which very grateful for Paul for that. Our CEO CFO
Speaker 1: Mike Boolio taught me like how to build a model
Speaker 1: and the mechanics of this I have and I want
Speaker 1: to just say this, I have had wonderful men who
Speaker 1: have championed me in industry and given me what I
Speaker 1: needed to succeed. That said, I was one of the
Speaker 1: only and I had to say, why can't our head
Speaker 1: of manufacturing be a woman? Like there have to be
Speaker 1: women candidates out there? Why can't our head of regulatory
Speaker 1: be a woman? There have to be women candidates out there,
Speaker 1: At which point they realize, oh, yeah, we absolutely can
Speaker 1: and we should. So I am grateful that they were,
Speaker 1: and once we had those team members join us, they
Speaker 1: helped show me the ropes of how to navigate the
Speaker 1: gender politics of being in some of these rooms. It
Speaker 1: would be awful if you get explained to us what
Speaker 1: happens when you're running pharmaceutical company. I think for so
Speaker 1: for most of us who are not in science, it's like,
Speaker 1: what does that even mean? And what are you doing
Speaker 1: every day? And what are you building and bringing to market.
Speaker 1: So we're working currently at Rissian Pharmaceuticals and injectable aspirin
Speaker 1: which will be administered by your e M T or
Speaker 1: by a nurse in the emergency room. The significance of
Speaker 1: delivering aspirin in this way is for suspected heart attack
Speaker 1: or stroke, where getting preventing the clot from getting bigger
Speaker 1: within the first hour of claw onset, it could be
Speaker 1: life or death. They call this the golden hour. So
Speaker 1: two safe ours works and under a minute versus oral
Speaker 1: erectal aspirin taking a minimum of about twenty minutes to
Speaker 1: hit the bloodstream. Additionally, with ours, acent of drug enter
Speaker 1: us a bloodstream versus thet because of the gastric effect.
Speaker 1: So when you think about the urgency of these conditions
Speaker 1: and then to deliver this extremely safe therapeutic as effectively
Speaker 1: as possible and consistently as possible, the need is there.
Speaker 1: The pricing you can't price aspirint exorbitantly high, which is
Speaker 1: why we really struggle to raise venture or get large
Speaker 1: biopharmas excited about this, but it was a long slog,
Speaker 1: so to talk a little bit about the history of
Speaker 1: the company. This is actually something that has been my
Speaker 1: dad has been thinking about and working on since the
Speaker 1: late seventies. When he was getting his PhD. His adviser
Speaker 1: said the GESH who ever develops injectable aspirint, deserves a
Speaker 1: Nobel prize because from a chemistry perspective, it is exorbitantly difficult,
Speaker 1: but all but impossible to have a scalable manufacturing process
Speaker 1: and for a formulation to stay in a crystal inform
Speaker 1: He also then said, also it would save a lot
Speaker 1: of lives. So my dad had been thinking about this
Speaker 1: for years. This was a product that we did. He
Speaker 1: did start working on at SIDOS, and then once we
Speaker 1: had out licensed the active portfolio from Sidos, he spun
Speaker 1: this product out and said, I'm going to keep tinkering
Speaker 1: with it. We're not where we need to be, but
Speaker 1: I wanna this might be my final one, so let
Speaker 1: me keep thinking about it and working on it on
Speaker 1: my own without the pressure of working on it with
Speaker 1: a partner. He successfully got to the lead formulation by
Speaker 1: the end of I want to say sixteen, worked with
Speaker 1: our i P lawyers to file the patents so we
Speaker 1: confirmed we had freedom to operate. His patents were novel,
Speaker 1: non obvious, and not infringing any other of the aspert
Speaker 1: i P that was on the market at the time,
Speaker 1: and filed those patents that have now since been granted.
Speaker 1: And then in March seventeen, we met with the FDA
Speaker 1: for the first time to talk about the development plan
Speaker 1: and specifically the clinical study required for approval. F d
Speaker 1: A agreed with our approach and gave us a very
Speaker 1: reasonable clinical study design that allowed us to you know,
Speaker 1: get approval in a pretty modest study, which that study
Speaker 1: is is just wrapping up. And then we brought on
Speaker 1: a head of manufacturing at that time who has been
Speaker 1: wonderful and a wonderful partner to me, and I will
Speaker 1: say we are still given all this time, and even
Speaker 1: though we got to skip a lot of steps and
Speaker 1: that we were formulating something that already existed in terms
Speaker 1: of the active drug, we still won't file with f
Speaker 1: d A for a couple of year and a half.
Speaker 1: What did the day in the life of a pharmaceutical
Speaker 1: CEO look like? It looks different every day, much like
Speaker 1: any CEO, and it really depends on what we have
Speaker 1: going on at any specific time. But also, as I've
Speaker 1: been able to hire a bigger team, what I do
Speaker 1: is significantly less than what I used to do. So
Speaker 1: for instance, right now, we're wrapping up a clinical study,
Speaker 1: so it's about scheduling calls with our partners to get
Speaker 1: them the full update on how the final dosing and
Speaker 1: the final subjects have gone. For manufacturing, it's making sure
Speaker 1: my head of manufacturing and our technical team of what
Speaker 1: they need to work with the new partners and then
Speaker 1: for me right now, it's managing the licensing, the partnership
Speaker 1: with the team that licensed our products. So I speak
Speaker 1: with their senior team members every single week. We have
Speaker 1: overall catch up joint steering meeting, committee meeting every few weeks,
Speaker 1: and it's making sure the partner is informed of everything
Speaker 1: that's happening and it's happy with everything is happening. So
Speaker 1: relationship management is my job. But before that, it was
Speaker 1: securing funding, so a lot of investor pitches, a lot
Speaker 1: of nose and a lot of retooling the pitch, refining
Speaker 1: my list and getting back out there with When we
Speaker 1: were negotiating the licensing deal, it was a lot of
Speaker 1: time with my lawyers to understand the redlines and want
Speaker 1: to get that legalise education and to think really thoughtfully
Speaker 1: what is non negotiable for us and what can we
Speaker 1: accept with maybe some caveats or edits, you know. So
Speaker 1: right now I am thrilled that my team is really
Speaker 1: taking the lead on development and on building relationships with
Speaker 1: their technical team, and my job is really too. It's
Speaker 1: much more focused and the stress of managing cash flow
Speaker 1: or understanding like when is our next tronch of capital
Speaker 1: coming in, how am I going to afford to pay
Speaker 1: my team is significantly decreased today than it was a
Speaker 1: year ago. What's it like working with your father? It
Speaker 1: is the best. However, I will say that I think
Speaker 1: family businesses it's like very binary. It's either phenomenal and
Speaker 1: a perfect fit or it is the worst idea ever,
Speaker 1: and I don't see there being much of an in between.
Speaker 1: It is truly an honor and a privilege to work
Speaker 1: with someone who I view as one of the most
Speaker 1: brilliant scientific minds of our time, and especially in life sciences.
Speaker 1: You know, you could have a brilliant formulator who none
Speaker 1: of his formulations or her formulations could get scaled up
Speaker 1: to be a commercial product. You can have someone who
Speaker 1: is so smart about scaling up manufacturing, but then you're
Speaker 1: giving up some of the elements of the formulation that
Speaker 1: made it you know, soluble, stabilizeable, or you know, diminishing
Speaker 1: the quality of the product. And then on top of it,
Speaker 1: you need to be able to develop a formulation that
Speaker 1: can get a patent granted on it. And right now
Speaker 1: my father is adding a thousand when it comes to
Speaker 1: defending his patents against infringement or in validation ass so
Speaker 1: he really is a triple threat in drug development. But
Speaker 1: he's also just one of the best people I know.
Speaker 1: We've had a remote culture since the beginning of Side Us.
Speaker 1: We've never been the type of company to require people
Speaker 1: to be in an office, but we did prioritize getting
Speaker 1: together on a regular basis to not let things go
Speaker 1: too far without gathering live and building relationships with with people.
Speaker 1: He is someone who has such humility about what he
Speaker 1: is doing, like he understands that I'm doing this to
Speaker 1: help save lives, and it has been just one of
Speaker 1: the great honors of my life to get to work
Speaker 1: and build companies with him that have hopefully impacted humanity
Speaker 1: for the better. And now a quick break. Are you
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Speaker 1: learn more at join the w marketplace dot com. You've
Speaker 1: let your hair go gray and it looks so youthful
Speaker 1: and beautiful. I bet you've influenced so many women to
Speaker 1: do the same. Can you talk about that decision and
Speaker 1: what that's like. I decided to go gray right around
Speaker 1: the time I had I delivered Rocky, and so my
Speaker 1: groots were already starting to grow out. And that was
Speaker 1: the first time I was like, uh, I kind of
Speaker 1: like these little sparkles of silver versus the dread of
Speaker 1: oh my god, I need to get back in this salad.
Speaker 1: I went back to my roots, literally did a lot
Speaker 1: of like Indian oil scalp massage to recondition the grays
Speaker 1: that were coming in, to soften them from that wiry
Speaker 1: texture they usually are to like a really softer like
Speaker 1: my my usual hair texture. Was very diligent about that,
Speaker 1: was very diligent about getting glosses so that the hair
Speaker 1: the gray didn't become overly brassy, and have just maintained
Speaker 1: it too. Now three about three years later, like there
Speaker 1: is no more highlight left of that. It is just
Speaker 1: my hair and it feels so me. It feels so good.
Speaker 1: And it's the first time in my life I actually
Speaker 1: really like my hair, and I like that part of
Speaker 1: me versus, you know, having more frizzy, thick, unruly Indian
Speaker 1: hair that I would beat into submission with straightening irons
Speaker 1: and like straightening treatments and all of that. I've kind
Speaker 1: of learned to really like this part about myself, and
Speaker 1: I think it helps helped me like other parts of
Speaker 1: myself more from embracing my very distinguished nose and liking
Speaker 1: just all the parts of me that normally I would
Speaker 1: beat myself up about. What was your relationship with your
Speaker 1: name growing up and that part of you. I mean,
Speaker 1: when you're growing up a brown kid and one of
Speaker 1: the only brown kids in your class in school and
Speaker 1: your name ends with Pooh, You're gonna get some really
Speaker 1: creative insults hurled your way. I think someone called me
Speaker 1: hit the pile of Pooh, and I came home wanting
Speaker 1: to change my name, and again my mother, in her
Speaker 1: infinite wisdom and confidence, said, this is why we chose
Speaker 1: your name. And your name is beautiful, your name is strong.
Speaker 1: These people are deeply unkind, and obviously something is bothering
Speaker 1: them that they feel the need to take this out
Speaker 1: on you, and really, my mom needs to write a
Speaker 1: book because she really is a genius. But also that
Speaker 1: has also influenced kind of thinking about where do I
Speaker 1: want to raise my family, what do I name my kids?
Speaker 1: And you know, it was one of those sort of
Speaker 1: it builds character experiences that while I endured it and
Speaker 1: I grew from it, it was something that I wouldn't
Speaker 1: choose for my own children. So, you know, living in
Speaker 1: New York City, where of my older son's class is
Speaker 1: South Asian, which is something a critical mass I certainly
Speaker 1: never had, is something that I find it is so
Speaker 1: different from what I grew up with. But it's also
Speaker 1: exactly how what I what i'd like to give my
Speaker 1: kids that I didn't have. And you know that they
Speaker 1: had their Indian full names, but these westernized nicknames that
Speaker 1: one makes it easy to pronounce, but to have their
Speaker 1: own meaning for our own family is special to us.
Speaker 1: And you know, your names are a gift from your family,
Speaker 1: from your parents. It's the first gift any of us
Speaker 1: ever received. So we are very reverent about names and
Speaker 1: with the kids too, it's teaching them to always ask
Speaker 1: what someone's name is and take the time to learn
Speaker 1: how to pronounce it properly, because that is the first
Speaker 1: form of respect you ever show anyone. So tell us
Speaker 1: how you met your incredible husband. We met at an
Speaker 1: Indian networking conference in Canada, and even though it was
Speaker 1: in Canada, neither of us are Canadian. We're living in
Speaker 1: Canada at the time. Just we were both members of
Speaker 1: this organization, him from the national chapter leadership perspective, me
Speaker 1: as the chapter liaison from Philadelphia. I was late to
Speaker 1: the board meeting. He um came up to me after
Speaker 1: the board meeting and said, I haven't met you yet,
Speaker 1: and I said, no, you haven't. I'm hit the We
Speaker 1: talked for a bit, go our separate ways. The next
Speaker 1: day he comes back around, comes up to me and
Speaker 1: I'm very excited because I'm like, keep away from yesterday. Yes,
Speaker 1: And He's like, Hi, I haven't met you yet And
Speaker 1: I was like, excuse me three and arism and I
Speaker 1: met you yesterday. Did you go through all four hundred
Speaker 1: women at this conference in a single night that you're
Speaker 1: now recycling lines? Well done you and stormed off And
Speaker 1: so for the rest of the conference, he just like
Speaker 1: was kind of chasing me down to apologize. But when
Speaker 1: any time we got into a really great conversation, like
Speaker 1: a woman would come up to him and be like
Speaker 1: three and I was like, what is going on here?
Speaker 1: Like is he into me? But all these women are
Speaker 1: chasing him? Apparently he was like the bachelor to get
Speaker 1: at this conference. But anyway, it was one of those
Speaker 1: There was this moment. It was the Saturday night of
Speaker 1: the conference. We were talking. It was at a club Silarium.
Speaker 1: If it's still there in Toronto, I feel like I
Speaker 1: need to go back and pay my respects to this,
Speaker 1: to this very important venue in our relationship. And there
Speaker 1: was something about how I mentioned like my vision is
Speaker 1: so bad. It's like too bad. If we lived in Gattica,
Speaker 1: like this would be resolved, or I mentioned something it's
Speaker 1: like you know my way, poor kids are going to
Speaker 1: be totally blind. He's like, well not if we live
Speaker 1: in Gattica. And I was just like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: you're my soul mate. You were a nerd who was
Speaker 1: also partially blind and gets me and didn't shy away
Speaker 1: when I like dropped kids in the conversation very early on.
Speaker 1: Instead made this really funny. It's completely spot on reference.
Speaker 1: So you know, we were engaged five months after we met.
Speaker 1: We got married ten months after that, and it's been
Speaker 1: eleven years in marriage. And now a quick break. All right,
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to go to our speed around now,
Speaker 1: and do you want to kick us off? What book
Speaker 1: are you reading? A couple, because I'm a promiscuous reader
Speaker 1: and I'm always juggling multiple books at the same time.
Speaker 1: So I am listening to Tenday from Peloton's new memoir,
Speaker 1: which is excellent right so far, I'm loving it. I
Speaker 1: am rereading the Court of Thorns and Roses series because
Speaker 1: it brought me great joy at the beginning of the
Speaker 1: year and we were all locked down for the Auboicron
Speaker 1: variant and I just need to bring back some familiar
Speaker 1: joy into my life. And then Row and I are
Speaker 1: reading a series called Wings of Fire, So there's a
Speaker 1: graphic novel version that he has the first five books
Speaker 1: for it, but I really want him to also get
Speaker 1: used to reading or reading with me, the full novel version.
Speaker 1: So we're making our way through that and that's it's
Speaker 1: actually excellent, and that's been really fun. So juggling those
Speaker 1: three books right now. You're such a positive person, how
Speaker 1: do you get out of a bad mood. I have
Speaker 1: to give myself some time to wallow so I don't
Speaker 1: try to push out of it too fast. But I
Speaker 1: do put a limit two said wallowing, where I will
Speaker 1: listen to the music I need to listen to and
Speaker 1: I will like lie in bed or on my couch
Speaker 1: like a lump and just stare at the wall for
Speaker 1: a bit, and I'll cry if I need to. I think,
Speaker 1: I think a good cry can be very cathartic. And
Speaker 1: I once that timer goes off or that limit is done,
Speaker 1: it is tackling one really small tactical project that makes
Speaker 1: me feel like I have that wind, which lately has
Speaker 1: been going through all like the drawers in my room
Speaker 1: and organizing it so like I did that with my
Speaker 1: undergarments drawer last week, I felt like a new person.
Speaker 1: I'm going to tackle my socks like next, because I
Speaker 1: have a lot of socks that just need to be
Speaker 1: get like tossed with holes and are worn out. That helps.
Speaker 1: I will also do I call it like a tea meditation,
Speaker 1: where you make a cup of tea, but rather scrolling
Speaker 1: on your phone or listening to a podcast while you're
Speaker 1: doing it, you actually engage all five of your senses
Speaker 1: while you're making the tea. So you listen to the
Speaker 1: kettle hitting up boil, you smell the tea as the
Speaker 1: hot water hits it and the aroma it gives off.
Speaker 1: You feel the heat of the mug and so I
Speaker 1: kind of call that active or pass like a meditation
Speaker 1: and like in living. So I'm not someone who does
Speaker 1: great with just sitting on a cushion in silence for
Speaker 1: twenty minutes. This is a way I'm able to kind
Speaker 1: of just come back to myself and give myself the
Speaker 1: grounding and centering I need. And then I'll try to
Speaker 1: get outside, even if it's for a quick walk around
Speaker 1: the block or even going into the park a little
Speaker 1: bit and sitting on a bench for some time. I
Speaker 1: think getting outside and actually changing your environment can really
Speaker 1: help shift your mood when you're ready to move on
Speaker 1: from it. And I think like something Tanks an influencer
Speaker 1: on TikTok, who does is she grows like a funeral
Speaker 1: for you know, dates that didn't go anywhere and they
Speaker 1: never followed up or excess. I like to think of
Speaker 1: throwing a funeral for a moment of disappointment, particularly if
Speaker 1: it was something I was really hoping for, like an
Speaker 1: investor who had to be in conversations with for months
Speaker 1: coming with the no or a no from a potential partner.
Speaker 1: I think creating a small ritual of just saying, here
Speaker 1: lies so and so, may they rest in peace, giving
Speaker 1: you that closure and letting you put the final nail
Speaker 1: on that coffin versus it feeling like it had been
Speaker 1: done to you, is a way to reframe and kind
Speaker 1: of take control back of those disappointing moments. Who leaves
Speaker 1: you starstruck? I mean, besides the Vice President herself, Speaker
Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi. I think she was my first political crush,
Speaker 1: um Secretary Hillary Clinton. Of course, women politicians, clearly Democratic
Speaker 1: women politicians leave me quite star struck. And then I
Speaker 1: would say Stacy Abrams, to which I who I got
Speaker 1: to meet at the Riveters Summit, and I met Vice
Speaker 1: President then Senator Harris later that night. So really, I
Speaker 1: viewed November seven is one of the greatest days of
Speaker 1: my life. Lu Burns has been listening to this interview
Speaker 1: and he's going to join us with the final question
Speaker 1: from the male perspective. I want to know like when
Speaker 1: you were like in your fourteen fifteen sixteen and maybe
Speaker 1: in high school years? What was that like for you?
Speaker 1: Were you like a student athlete, really like in politics?
Speaker 1: How were you as a kid? So I had a
Speaker 1: really rough eighth grade. We had just moved to the UK.
Speaker 1: I was in a new school in England, um and
Speaker 1: it was I had always been aware of privilege and
Speaker 1: how much I had, but this was the first time
Speaker 1: being around extremely wealthy people that made me feel less
Speaker 1: than and was pretty badly bullied. It was a really, really,
Speaker 1: really hard year. Mercifully, it was also a school with
Speaker 1: a lot of turnover, so my ninth grade beginning of
Speaker 1: ninth grade was a much different experience with new friends
Speaker 1: and new people who joined the school that saw me
Speaker 1: for who I am and liked me for me, so
Speaker 1: that helped. And then I had two more schools my
Speaker 1: freshman year of high school, so by the time I
Speaker 1: got to tenth grade, I was tired of one moving
Speaker 1: and two having to make friends that I found these
Speaker 1: two incredible women in my high school, Stacy Eadie and
Speaker 1: Rachel Mendel Rice, who were equally nerdy as I was
Speaker 1: about politics, like we would sit on long lunch days
Speaker 1: on Wednesdays, order a pizza from dominoes and sit around
Speaker 1: on pontificate about like the state of the world and politics,
Speaker 1: like we couldn't vote, there was very little we could
Speaker 1: actually do. But I felt finally like I had found
Speaker 1: my groove, and with that came joining the debate team,
Speaker 1: joining theater um, joining the school newspaper. I literally, I
Speaker 1: don't know if my parents nudged this or if I
Speaker 1: found my way here, but finding community and things I
Speaker 1: cared about really really helped. And I didn't care so
Speaker 1: much about what other people think thought or of me,
Speaker 1: or of what was quote unquote cool, because I had
Speaker 1: a very clear sense of what these people find to
Speaker 1: be cool is not at all aligned with what I
Speaker 1: care about, and so I'm just going to release myself
Speaker 1: of that burden or expectation. You know, Sam, It's really funny.
Speaker 1: When we invited Hither onto the show, I was trying
Speaker 1: to remember when I met her, and I couldn't because
Speaker 1: Hit is one of those people that once you meet her,
Speaker 1: you feel like you've always known her, because she's so
Speaker 1: willing to share every piece of herself, the hard parts,
Speaker 1: the good parts, the ugly parts, the beautiful parts. And
Speaker 1: there aren't many people like that in the world. And
Speaker 1: by the way, you know how my background is in
Speaker 1: personal branding. I think she is so smart about how
Speaker 1: she's managed her career and her brand. And you know,
Speaker 1: I did ask her about her gray hair, because it's true,
Speaker 1: she is so youthful looking with gray hair. She just
Speaker 1: pulls it off in a way I've never seen anyone
Speaker 1: pull it off. But on top of that, I think
Speaker 1: it's so adorable and sort of disarming that she talks
Speaker 1: about her love of Taco Bell and romance novels, because
Speaker 1: it makes it so that anyone can find something in
Speaker 1: common with her, and it's something I encourage everyone to
Speaker 1: do on their Twitter, Instagram bio is saying something that
Speaker 1: just makes you a little more approachable. She actually got
Speaker 1: me to read my first romance novel, and whenever I
Speaker 1: do eat Taco Bell because my kids love it, I
Speaker 1: think of her. Thanks for listening to What's Her Story
Speaker 1: with Sam and Amy. We would appreciate it if you
Speaker 1: leave her review wherever you get your podcasts, and of course,
Speaker 1: connect with us on social media at What's Her Story podcast.
Speaker 1: What's Her Story with Sam and Amy is powered by
Speaker 1: my company, The Riveter at the Riveter dot Co and
Speaker 1: Sam's company, park Place Payments, at park place payments dot com.
Speaker 1: Thanks to our producer Stacy Para and our male perspective,
Speaker 1: Blue Burns