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: Jess Weiner is a cultural thought leader who has worked
Speaker 1: with thousands of individuals and advised companies like Uni, Lever, Mattel,
Speaker 1: Warner Brothers, and Nike. She's been behind culture changing moments
Speaker 1: from Dove's campaign for Real Beauty to the evolution of Barbie.
Speaker 1: What is the part of your career that you're most
Speaker 1: proud of. That's a hard one because all the things
Speaker 1: that I've gotten to be a part of Amy have
Speaker 1: come at very different parts of my life, so they're
Speaker 1: connected to certain kinds of memories or moments for me. Right,
Speaker 1: So maybe there's two I think that really stand out
Speaker 1: because I've seen the impact largely in culture. Right, So,
Speaker 1: when I started talking about beauty and stereotypes in the
Speaker 1: media and the impact of that on the confidence and
Speaker 1: self esteem of girls and women. I think one of
Speaker 1: the programs I'm obviously most proud of is helping to
Speaker 1: build the Dove Self Esteem Project and the curriculum work
Speaker 1: that we've done now to over eighty two million girls
Speaker 1: around the world, like Doves become the largest distributor of
Speaker 1: free self esteem content in the world. And so that
Speaker 1: changed me and shaped me because I got to see
Speaker 1: the power of the scale of the work, right and
Speaker 1: you know, I was one person as a playwright and
Speaker 1: as an educator doing this work well before I ever
Speaker 1: fell into the brand space, and then with a partnership
Speaker 1: with the brand, and it's been on now for seventeen years,
Speaker 1: so it's not was not a one and done relationship.
Speaker 1: I'm still working with them this many years later, longer
Speaker 1: than my marriage. And so I think the other thing
Speaker 1: I'm most proud of is, you know, changing Barbie's body
Speaker 1: and working with you know, companies like Mattell or Disney
Speaker 1: on changing the way we see Princess and the way
Speaker 1: we see Barbie, because they were such lightning rods for
Speaker 1: conversation and culture and rightfully so, there was a lot
Speaker 1: of not great representation in those brands for young people
Speaker 1: and That was a harder relationship for me to enter
Speaker 1: into because I was questioning how much impact I could
Speaker 1: really have. And then I've seen some tremendous growth come
Speaker 1: from that, you know, in changing the doll and changing
Speaker 1: the conversation, but most importantly maybe changing the way kids
Speaker 1: see themselves in the work, which is always my goal.
Speaker 1: I work on behalf of the you know, people consuming
Speaker 1: the messages. The partners that are brands are just that
Speaker 1: for me, their partners, but my real my real client,
Speaker 1: um are other people talk to us about how you
Speaker 1: sigh yourself as a kid. Well, I think that's a
Speaker 1: big impetus as to why I do this work, Sam,
Speaker 1: because I loved media as a kid. I grew up
Speaker 1: in Miami, Florida in the A, so everything for me was,
Speaker 1: you know, just a frame that the moment was Miami
Speaker 1: Vice and blonde, bouncy beach babes. And you know, it
Speaker 1: was the eighties so waterfall bangs were really in and
Speaker 1: I had like this crazy jew frow that didn't do
Speaker 1: much and I was like really struggling with my ethnic
Speaker 1: ambiguity and like how I you know, how I showed
Speaker 1: up in culture. So as a little kid, I loved TV.
Speaker 1: I even loved commercials. I was obsessed with who got
Speaker 1: to be on TV and who made those decisions, like
Speaker 1: who got to tell those stories, because I've always been
Speaker 1: a storyteller as a kid. But I had a real
Speaker 1: rough intersection of loving the medium and then also being
Speaker 1: very well aware that like girls like me didn't show
Speaker 1: up in that medium, not in the magazines they read,
Speaker 1: not in the TV that I consumed, you know. And
Speaker 1: I grew up at home with a mom who also
Speaker 1: very eighties, was on every diet known to humankind, and
Speaker 1: was had been also indoctrinated with her own you know,
Speaker 1: body image messaging. So I got that passed down to
Speaker 1: me as far as like an emphasis on thinness and
Speaker 1: beauty and a similating to kind of popular culture views
Speaker 1: of beauty. And so I struggled quite a bit as
Speaker 1: a kid with reconciling this insane creativity and curiosity I
Speaker 1: had and then trying to figure out how I could
Speaker 1: put it out in the world. And so much of
Speaker 1: being a girl in the world still is about being
Speaker 1: validated on your attractiveness and your appearance, and so, you know,
Speaker 1: then it was just a lot harder because I didn't
Speaker 1: have any framework to know what was going on. You
Speaker 1: wrote about this time in your book A Very Hungry Girl.
Speaker 1: It was a very dark time for you a lot
Speaker 1: of that era. Can you share with us what it
Speaker 1: was really like, because I'm sure also a lot of
Speaker 1: our listeners have children that are going through challenges. Now.
Speaker 1: I really had a very close relationship with my mom
Speaker 1: growing up, but I think within that closeness there was
Speaker 1: a lot of amishment around the things that she had
Speaker 1: struggled with as a young person and then as an
Speaker 1: adult and hadn't done a lot of work on herself before,
Speaker 1: you know, and as she was raising kids. Just wasn't
Speaker 1: that generation that went to therapy that really looked inwards.
Speaker 1: So I absorbed a lot of that messaging. Like I
Speaker 1: grew up in a family where we did group diets,
Speaker 1: you know. My dad was on a diet, my mom
Speaker 1: was on a diet. We had a little chart, you know,
Speaker 1: in our bathroom where people logged their weight publicly. But
Speaker 1: it was so normalized for me. It was just what
Speaker 1: I thought you did, and I thought when you got
Speaker 1: into puberty, because this was the big message for me. Right,
Speaker 1: I wasn't a kid who grew up with a weight problem.
Speaker 1: That's the irony of this, and that's maybe why I
Speaker 1: would say sam I wrote that book first was to
Speaker 1: kind of talk to both parents and kids and say,
Speaker 1: what you maybe innocently thinking is good advice for your daughters,
Speaker 1: if it's not examined on its own merit of health
Speaker 1: and wellness, like, can be very damaging. Because my mother
Speaker 1: didn't want me. She was overweight as a kid. I
Speaker 1: was not, but she didn't want me to go through
Speaker 1: what she did. So it was this preventative measure right
Speaker 1: from her to say, we're going to start you on
Speaker 1: a diet. When I started to develop hips and breasts
Speaker 1: and like started to put on a little bit of weight.
Speaker 1: But I look back at those pictures and I think,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I was just going through puberty. I
Speaker 1: wasn't like you know, and and even if you do
Speaker 1: have an obese kid, or you've got a kid who
Speaker 1: carries extra weight on their frame, like, the manner of
Speaker 1: the conversation was never an affirming one about my body
Speaker 1: image and navigating my hunger and my puberty and my growth.
Speaker 1: It was all this very intense shame around being heavy,
Speaker 1: taking up space, wanting to be accepted and approved of
Speaker 1: on the outside world. So I think for me, UM,
Speaker 1: I started you know, developing and eating disorder late middle school,
Speaker 1: high school for sure. That lasted you know, well into
Speaker 1: my twenties, and um, you know, was a result of
Speaker 1: a lot of this messaging both at home and I
Speaker 1: think obviously out out in the world. UM. And it
Speaker 1: wasn't until college that I went into like recovery for
Speaker 1: it or treatment for it, that I actually really had
Speaker 1: a framework of understanding how much I had absorbed from
Speaker 1: my mother's unmet needs and unmet pain around this shoe.
Speaker 1: And it's really hard because for many years I wanted
Speaker 1: to just you know, blame and I think we all
Speaker 1: go through this period where you have an awareness and
Speaker 1: you want to keep it on our parents. And I,
Speaker 1: you know, I've been in therapy for quite some time.
Speaker 1: I've done a lot of healing around it. Still have
Speaker 1: a lot more to do, but I get it more
Speaker 1: now that she was coming from a place that she
Speaker 1: could only come from, and that was you know, her
Speaker 1: own misinformation and pain as a kid in doing that.
Speaker 1: So I think that fueled for me why I want
Speaker 1: to work on the systemic change, not just broadly out
Speaker 1: in culture, but in how we engage in our families too.
Speaker 1: What is your relationship to your body today? We've gone
Speaker 1: on such a journey together, me and this beautiful body
Speaker 1: that is now in full blown perimenopause, y'all. So here's
Speaker 1: the beautiful part of it. Is, like I'm talking to
Speaker 1: you all about like my puberty days, which now are
Speaker 1: like so far in my rear view mirror, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: holy crap, nobody prepared me for like late forties perimenopause
Speaker 1: and all of the shifts that are happening there. But
Speaker 1: I will say that I'm the healthiest I've been both physically, emotionally,
Speaker 1: mentally spiritually that I've ever experienced in my journey in
Speaker 1: this earth so far. And that's come from a long
Speaker 1: fought battle with like both the mental unwellness of an
Speaker 1: eating disorder and the long lasting effects of diet culture
Speaker 1: in this country, and also new things that get to
Speaker 1: pop up when you unpack something like inn eating disorder.
Speaker 1: You know, it's not just about what you're eating or
Speaker 1: not eating, or obsessing about weight. It's a it's a metaphor,
Speaker 1: it's a euphemism for so much more. And I it's
Speaker 1: like women, it's we're not allowed to take up space.
Speaker 1: That's very still very scary, still very damaging. And even
Speaker 1: though we've got lots of raw, raw confidence messaging, which
Speaker 1: I'm highly aware of, at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: the world doesn't reward confident women. They just don't. Still
Speaker 1: it's still a liability to be a confident woman. Even
Speaker 1: though we tell our girls that's what we want them
Speaker 1: to be, the world is still not set up, I
Speaker 1: think to fully accept and embrace the complexity of a
Speaker 1: woman who loves herself and who takes up space. And
Speaker 1: I think those are the things I now grapple with
Speaker 1: as I have age and wisdom under my belt. Is
Speaker 1: you know, reassigning my values like learning to heal and
Speaker 1: let go, but also learning more what's really important to
Speaker 1: me and taking up space and being seen is really
Speaker 1: important to me. But I had to do that for
Speaker 1: me first. When I was a kid. I did that
Speaker 1: with regard to like a physical facade, like if you
Speaker 1: complimented me, then I felt seen on these very surface
Speaker 1: kind of symptoms. And now I'm I'm interested in a
Speaker 1: different kind of relational piece and all of that, I
Speaker 1: guess goes back to the question about my body. Because
Speaker 1: this is the suit of which I walk through the
Speaker 1: world in. And you know, and now I have a
Speaker 1: different relationship and caring for me and as such, caring
Speaker 1: for my for my body in different ways and for
Speaker 1: different reasons. How do you start from a very early
Speaker 1: age instilling a love of your body at an says,
Speaker 1: I think that comes from being living your own healing
Speaker 1: at any stage of which you're at as a parent.
Speaker 1: It's if you haven't started looking at it yet, then
Speaker 1: let this conversation be the wake up call for thinking
Speaker 1: about that. It doesn't mean you have to parent from
Speaker 1: a place of perfection. We know that that's impossible and
Speaker 1: and unnecessary even in this conversation. But what I wished
Speaker 1: I would have had from my mother was transparency in
Speaker 1: her real journey about where she was at. My mother
Speaker 1: just wasn't hadn't done any exploration about the diet messaging
Speaker 1: and the abuse that she had put her body through,
Speaker 1: and was parenting from that place. And so I would
Speaker 1: say the biggest advice is, you know, get conscious of
Speaker 1: your body beliefs and your body biases. You know, if
Speaker 1: you proposed to have at home this like body free
Speaker 1: talk where you know you're not talking about weight with
Speaker 1: your kids, but you're in the car with them and
Speaker 1: you're talking about wait on the phone with your friend
Speaker 1: that they're overhearing, or you're commenting on a stranger passing by.
Speaker 1: Like they pick up on all of it, not just
Speaker 1: the direct messaging. And so I would say it requires
Speaker 1: a real sense of awareness and grace because I do
Speaker 1: talk to tons of moms every day who are like,
Speaker 1: you know, want to be better for their kids, and
Speaker 1: I'm always like, be better for you. Your kids will
Speaker 1: pick up on what that means to do that right,
Speaker 1: and I think that's most important. So for me, it's
Speaker 1: about starting conversations, not having the perfect conversation about body image.
Speaker 1: Is it possible to go from insecure two super confident?
Speaker 1: Do you think that's something we can do? Yeah, but
Speaker 1: I I do. But I also think those are not
Speaker 1: like stations for arrival their manners of traveling. I think
Speaker 1: everybody has moments of insecurity and moments of confidence, So
Speaker 1: I would I would encourage us to not think about
Speaker 1: them as stationary elements of being, Like, right now, you
Speaker 1: might be in an insecure faces in your life, whether
Speaker 1: you're you know you're twelve or your forty two, Like
Speaker 1: insecurity is a natural human experience and doesn't have to stay.
Speaker 1: And I think and confidence can also be a natural
Speaker 1: human experience but doesn't always stay. So I love to
Speaker 1: talk about emotions as energy in motion. They move through
Speaker 1: your body, they move through your life. It's like they're
Speaker 1: not stationary, they're fluid and flexible. And I think if
Speaker 1: we could develop a emotional literacy around that, amy it
Speaker 1: would be helpful for us to recognize that these moments
Speaker 1: they happen, they're real, we can feel them, we can
Speaker 1: experience them, and then we can move on from them,
Speaker 1: so we don't stay stuck in that label. So when
Speaker 1: you ask can you move from insecurity confidence, I mean
Speaker 1: I could do that in one day. I could do
Speaker 1: that in one morning, like depending on the circumstance, you know.
Speaker 1: So I think it's important to know it's all within us.
Speaker 1: All of it is within us, and none of it
Speaker 1: is based on external things. We might think it is right,
Speaker 1: We might think, well, I'll be confident when I have
Speaker 1: this or reach at or have this goal met. But
Speaker 1: you we all know this, We know incredibly successful people.
Speaker 1: That does not guarantee their happiness or confidence. So it's
Speaker 1: really an inside job and now a quick break. Are
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Speaker 1: learn more at Join the W Marketplace dot com. Jess,
Speaker 1: you have basically been an entrepreneur throughout your entire career,
Speaker 1: starting in your twenties, and you've reinvented yourself and your
Speaker 1: direction many times. What have you learned about entrepreneurship and
Speaker 1: and what are your sort of thoughts on entrepreneurship today?
Speaker 1: You know, I wish I had a community like the
Speaker 1: both of you. When I was twenty one and deciding
Speaker 1: to start a business. Without even knowing the term entrepreneur,
Speaker 1: I just knew I was a highly I was a
Speaker 1: highly educated person who didn't like any of her job
Speaker 1: prospects like I was a creator who had three degrees
Speaker 1: from university that guaranteed me literally to make no money
Speaker 1: because they were all liberal arts degrees that I loved,
Speaker 1: and there wasn't a career path forge that was like
Speaker 1: combining theater and women's studies and social issues. So I
Speaker 1: was like, how does one make this? And what I
Speaker 1: will say is the solo entrepreneur journey for me, which
Speaker 1: started at twenty one and I'm now forty eight, so
Speaker 1: I've been doing this my entire career. I've never worked
Speaker 1: for anybody else, um, except for a retail company I
Speaker 1: worked with for four days selling clothes and then I
Speaker 1: had to I had to leave that job. But that
Speaker 1: was my only experience like four days. And here's the
Speaker 1: story I don't often tell. That was at a company
Speaker 1: called u ner and you know, which was then owned
Speaker 1: by the Limited, and I was selling clothes. But I
Speaker 1: was a terrible like floor person because I was in
Speaker 1: the dressing rooms talking to women who were having breakdowns
Speaker 1: about their bodies more than I was out on the floor.
Speaker 1: And while I was in a dressing room with a
Speaker 1: young girl and her mom during back to school shopping,
Speaker 1: somebody stole four leather coats off the floor. What I
Speaker 1: wasn't looking, and so I think my career in retail
Speaker 1: was going to be limited no matter what, because my
Speaker 1: heart was in helping in a different way than selling.
Speaker 1: I mean, turns out they actually bought a lot of
Speaker 1: clothes after our confidence pet Hawk in the dressing room.
Speaker 1: But I was not destined to be a store manager
Speaker 1: in that way. But I you know, what I learned
Speaker 1: about entrepreneurship is that it's really lonely if you don't
Speaker 1: tap into community. And I know, for me obviously, because
Speaker 1: I was doing this in the you know, early nineties
Speaker 1: and two you know, and and didn't have like we
Speaker 1: didn't have the Internet. I didn't have the connection to community.
Speaker 1: I didn't have a framework of entrepreneurship. And what I
Speaker 1: was actually doing was quite brave and awesome. I did
Speaker 1: it as a survival technique. I mean, I I've always
Speaker 1: figured out how to make money doing what I love.
Speaker 1: I will find. I understood the relationship as like finding
Speaker 1: my audience, figuring out how to you know, that transactional
Speaker 1: experience of like what's the need? And so when I started,
Speaker 1: I started as a nonprofit theater director and I made
Speaker 1: up that company by getting a grant for five thousand
Speaker 1: dollars from a pharmaceutical company who had like issued an
Speaker 1: arts grants program, and I I applied, I got it,
Speaker 1: and then I started a company on five thousand dollars
Speaker 1: and had no idea like how do I that you
Speaker 1: should match it, that I needed to raise more money.
Speaker 1: I just started doing it and figuring out as I went.
Speaker 1: So I think three big things would be it can
Speaker 1: be really lonely, and sometimes it still is really lonely.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, I'm captain of my own ship here.
Speaker 1: I have a really wonderful team. But as you said,
Speaker 1: I reinvent all the time, and that can feel so
Speaker 1: scary and inconsistent, and and I'm always questioning, am I
Speaker 1: you know? A good leader? Am I supposed to be
Speaker 1: this way or that way? So there's a lot of
Speaker 1: lonely and is there? But the other two things I'll
Speaker 1: say is there's incredible I love the excitement of the
Speaker 1: hunt of being an entrepreneur and onto innovating and creating
Speaker 1: and the freedom and flexibility to do that. And then
Speaker 1: the third piece I'll say is I'm a problem solver,
Speaker 1: and entrepreneurship lets me experience that. Like I like to
Speaker 1: continue to explore ways to be part of the solution
Speaker 1: when I see something that's there. So it's a it's
Speaker 1: a mixed bag, you know for me unfortunately, like I
Speaker 1: don't think there's anything else I'm really designed to do.
Speaker 1: But um, you know, even knowing that it's it's still
Speaker 1: you know, it's an up and down journey, as you
Speaker 1: both well know, how do you build your life independent
Speaker 1: of expectations or the way other people do it? Or
Speaker 1: you know, how do you avoid falling into that trap
Speaker 1: over and over again? Whether or not it's it's about
Speaker 1: falling into thinking I need to do it in a
Speaker 1: certain way that people do it. For me, it's more
Speaker 1: about what level of success and what kind of success
Speaker 1: am I really like looking to create? Eight? What does
Speaker 1: success look like for me? Um? Because I can tell
Speaker 1: you at a time in which my company was the
Speaker 1: most profitable, I was the most miserable personally and having
Speaker 1: the deepest health crisis mentally, because I was building a
Speaker 1: business that looked great on the outside to other people
Speaker 1: and was shiny and had all the attributes that got
Speaker 1: the accolades, But it was not born from where this
Speaker 1: work is born from for me, which is relationships and
Speaker 1: problem solving and being creative. I had lost that and
Speaker 1: so no amount of money I've now discovered is worth
Speaker 1: that kind of feeling. And now I've redesigned the company
Speaker 1: and I'm out of space again where I am incredibly
Speaker 1: aligned and profitable and growing. And it's different because I
Speaker 1: grounded it in values that were important to me, and
Speaker 1: I did things that the old entrepreneur and boss and
Speaker 1: me would have never done, Like permanent half day fridays
Speaker 1: for us is just one example that happened, especially during
Speaker 1: the pandemic, where we were just like we all needed
Speaker 1: two and a half day weekends. It's minor, but it's major.
Speaker 1: When you're a small gamen, you're at the beck and
Speaker 1: call of big clients, like choosing that was important, or
Speaker 1: putting mental health and wellness first and designing my business
Speaker 1: around what that meant for me and then there for
Speaker 1: my employees. So those things now are my guide posts,
Speaker 1: and I think that's what helps me amy stay more
Speaker 1: centered on my definition of success versus blindly sort of
Speaker 1: going out there and trying to emulate a model that's
Speaker 1: not mine. I have an I P business. I'm not
Speaker 1: selling gidgets and gadgets like that's not my my main
Speaker 1: UM connective point, and so in order to protect that
Speaker 1: i P, I had to protect the body, the life,
Speaker 1: and the world at that i P lives in. Talk
Speaker 1: to us about your journey to romantic success. Well, Sam
Speaker 1: knows my amazing partner in life that I didn't marry
Speaker 1: until I was forty years old. My husband's name is
Speaker 1: Philippe and UM. I met him in my late thirties,
Speaker 1: and so my journey to UM, to the romantic partnership
Speaker 1: of my life is UM. It's such a great journey
Speaker 1: because ultimately, I would say to anybody listening, UM, partner
Speaker 1: did not come in the package that I had thought.
Speaker 1: You know, my partnership would come in as we hear
Speaker 1: all the time, and in some ways, I feel quite
Speaker 1: like a cliche. I had been in love with other people,
Speaker 1: I'd been in long term relationships, and I would always
Speaker 1: hear people's health stories about the moment they knew they
Speaker 1: were in love and like boo, like you know, and
Speaker 1: I was like, well, I've loved people and I've been
Speaker 1: in love, and then I had that moment with my husband.
Speaker 1: We we knew each other casually. I was actually engaged
Speaker 1: to somebody else for a very short period of time
Speaker 1: on the path to becoming a step mom, and really
Speaker 1: discovered that I loved the kid more than I loved
Speaker 1: the guy, and so had to extricate myself from that
Speaker 1: because that's not a fair scenario for anybody, And was
Speaker 1: of course heartbroken more for the girl than the person,
Speaker 1: and was in this space of real um reclamation of myself.
Speaker 1: So I took a year off from dating and took
Speaker 1: a year to do all kinds of things. I took
Speaker 1: pole dancing classes and writing classes, and I was in
Speaker 1: a ladies rock band for a minute, Like I did
Speaker 1: all the things that were like, you know, my new
Speaker 1: renaissance of being. And I had known Felipe casually for
Speaker 1: a couple of years and um, and then we came
Speaker 1: back into contact together and never thought about him in
Speaker 1: that capacity. My husband is a beautiful woodworker and artist,
Speaker 1: and we went he came over and made dinner, and
Speaker 1: I remember sitting at the table with him and I
Speaker 1: had that loves moment. I had that moment where he
Speaker 1: was talking and I had all these feelings that were
Speaker 1: very unfamiliar to me, even as a thirty seven year
Speaker 1: old woman who had been in relationships before I was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: my god, is this it is this what people are saying?
Speaker 1: And then fast forward we eloped six months later and
Speaker 1: uh and indeed was a Now we're we're going on
Speaker 1: nine years of marriage and and it's incredible. And my
Speaker 1: you know, the thing I'll say to my husband's from Mexico.
Speaker 1: English is his second language, and he married a professional
Speaker 1: communicator in this language. And there is nobody better who
Speaker 1: can speak to me with me uh and connect h
Speaker 1: than my husband. Even with the language differences that we have.
Speaker 1: He is so supportive and your relationship is so strong,
Speaker 1: and I've seen you to in action. I think one
Speaker 1: of the things that when you just said he didn't
Speaker 1: come in the package expected or he wasn't the package,
Speaker 1: I was, can you elaborate on that, because I think
Speaker 1: that so many of us get caught up in the package. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean he, first of all, you know, we have
Speaker 1: wildly different you know background, So he, you know, grew
Speaker 1: up in Mexico, had been in this country for about
Speaker 1: almost eighteen nineteen years by the time we met, you know,
Speaker 1: worked at a completely different industry, had just had different
Speaker 1: life experiences like he. I think, you know, if if
Speaker 1: my if my socialized way of thinking about relationships would
Speaker 1: have had it, I wouldn't have been looking for somebody
Speaker 1: who we weren't in the same industry together, Like I
Speaker 1: would have imagined that we would have had nothing in common, Sam,
Speaker 1: Like what would we pass able get to connect on?
Speaker 1: And then what's interesting is because I love people and
Speaker 1: I love talking to people. We've always maintained this. The
Speaker 1: first time I ever met him, we had this beautiful
Speaker 1: spiritual conversation about sage and energy and saging a room,
Speaker 1: you know, and I'm definitely into all that, you know,
Speaker 1: great wu wou stuff, and and he asked me questions
Speaker 1: about it. We had this beautiful conversation, and I remembered
Speaker 1: that when we got reconnected again, that there was something
Speaker 1: that was just delightful to be curious about with him,
Speaker 1: Like he just kept surprising me. And I remember, like,
Speaker 1: you know, I will say one thing about my husband,
Speaker 1: although now the situation is different. I was, you know,
Speaker 1: I was already pretty successful in my business and he
Speaker 1: was starting a new one and we were financially not
Speaker 1: on the same level. And I remember calling, you know
Speaker 1: and talking to my dad about how I wanted to
Speaker 1: marry and like, you know, I was just so crazy
Speaker 1: about him. But you know, I think I was feeling like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, should like he have more money? Should
Speaker 1: I be like, you know, is that a concern for me?
Speaker 1: And I remember my dad saying, you know, this is
Speaker 1: like life changing, So shout out to Michael Weener. But
Speaker 1: what he said was a man's bank account is mutable
Speaker 1: and changeable, but his character is not. And he said,
Speaker 1: you know, if he's a good person and a kind
Speaker 1: person and you love him and he's your partner, his
Speaker 1: bank account can change over time, but those other qualities
Speaker 1: are much harder to change or shift in a person.
Speaker 1: And what it did was give me perspective, and I think,
Speaker 1: in some ways permission. And I don't mean that in
Speaker 1: like super patriarchical sense, but I do mean it in
Speaker 1: a sense of like social expectations to kind of say, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're gonna we're gonna enter this life together. And we're
Speaker 1: on so many levels compatible, but we're not compatible financially.
Speaker 1: And now we're much closer to that piece together and
Speaker 1: his business has grown wildly. But it was, you know,
Speaker 1: I felt like, oh my gosh. You know, it's always
Speaker 1: been so forced down our throats that we need men
Speaker 1: to save us, save us financially, provide for us in
Speaker 1: all of these ways. And my husband and I have
Speaker 1: very flipped under rolls at home, like he is the maker,
Speaker 1: the baker, the cook, the cleaner, the you know, I
Speaker 1: am the finances and the negotiating of home stuff and
Speaker 1: like other things. And we work incredibly well like that.
Speaker 1: Nobody wants to see me cook and I don't want
Speaker 1: to see him do our bills like that. It's like,
Speaker 1: you know, and but like and that is also why
Speaker 1: I knew he was my partner, because we could design
Speaker 1: a life based on our strengths as people and not
Speaker 1: fall into those gender roles. And now a quick break,
Speaker 1: talk to us about your decision not to have children.
Speaker 1: I've known for quite some time. I think that being
Speaker 1: a mom was not on my to do list. There
Speaker 1: were lots of things that I dreamed and aspired to be.
Speaker 1: But and I love kids. Obviously built a whole career
Speaker 1: talking about youth issues and caring about kids. And I think,
Speaker 1: you know, for me, I got clear on that when
Speaker 1: I didn't marry the guy, I thought I would make
Speaker 1: a great step mom because I want to, like, I
Speaker 1: want to get in there and co help and coach
Speaker 1: and love and support, but having that be a predominant
Speaker 1: identity for me was not of interest. And there's not
Speaker 1: a lot of places that you can talk about that
Speaker 1: without getting either a lot of judgment or a lot
Speaker 1: of grief for a lot of pressure, and so I
Speaker 1: think I just have avoided having that conversation. And when
Speaker 1: I met Philippe, Philip based five years younger than I am,
Speaker 1: and I knew and you know, he came from a
Speaker 1: culture and a family that has a very big emphasis
Speaker 1: on children. And I remember saying to him on our
Speaker 1: first date that night where all the love bells went
Speaker 1: off for me, like part of those love bells was
Speaker 1: I said to him, I just want to tell you upfront,
Speaker 1: like I'm interested in being a global parent. I want
Speaker 1: to have access of wealth and resource and love and
Speaker 1: energy to give to lots of kids. I don't want
Speaker 1: to raise my own. And I don't know how that
Speaker 1: sits for you. And I remember he said like he
Speaker 1: kind of looked at me and was silent for a minute,
Speaker 1: and I was really scared that that was a deal
Speaker 1: breaker for him, And he said, I never thought I
Speaker 1: would meet somebody who said that in the way you did.
Speaker 1: I feel the same way. I love my nieces and nephews,
Speaker 1: but I don't want to be a parent. I want
Speaker 1: to be giving back up, but I want to live
Speaker 1: my life in a certain way. There's some healing I
Speaker 1: want to do, There's some things that I want to do,
Speaker 1: and so we've really anchored our relationship around that global
Speaker 1: parenting philosophy. We have a girls school in Guatemala that
Speaker 1: we're deeply engaged with for indigenous youth, and we give
Speaker 1: a lot of time and resource and energy there. We
Speaker 1: have ten nieces and nephews who get to be doated
Speaker 1: on and spoiled like crazy. I get to show up
Speaker 1: and buy cupcakes and bake goods from your kids and
Speaker 1: love to support all these kids like that energy and
Speaker 1: resource for me has been such a beautiful part of
Speaker 1: my life, but has also had the shadow side of, Uh,
Speaker 1: you know your credibility as a woman, you know your
Speaker 1: place in this culture. And I think now we have
Speaker 1: more conversations around child free and auntie supremes and all
Speaker 1: these sorts of phrases, you know, But early days I
Speaker 1: remember being like, oh, I definitely want to be more
Speaker 1: like Oprah than I do any of my you know, parents, friends,
Speaker 1: with regards to her ability to have resource, and I
Speaker 1: remember Oprah very candidly saying there's no way she would
Speaker 1: be the Oprah we know if she had children of
Speaker 1: her own, and some of those gender roles around marriage
Speaker 1: and raising kids like that sort of issue can be prohibitive.
Speaker 1: And so I love where I'm at now. It's been
Speaker 1: a huge journey to get there and to feel comfortable
Speaker 1: saying it without apologizing for it as a person. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think I even did that a little bit when
Speaker 1: I was like, and I love kids like somehow, I've
Speaker 1: got to make sure people know that my choice and
Speaker 1: not have kids doesn't mean I don't like them. It
Speaker 1: just means I know, for me, I am better suited
Speaker 1: to be a support system to kids broadly than I
Speaker 1: am to individually raising humans. Oprah always it's kind of
Speaker 1: like the world Mother, right, Like it's it's very similar
Speaker 1: ethos to yours death. But that upset a memory for me,
Speaker 1: which is that you almost became the next Oprah. I
Speaker 1: still every time I'm around you, I still think you
Speaker 1: still could be well. I love that Sam has definitely
Speaker 1: been my one of my earliest and most fervent champions,
Speaker 1: and for that I will ever be ever be grateful.
Speaker 1: I mean, Sam and I got together in my mid
Speaker 1: to late twenties when I wrote my first book and
Speaker 1: and and got to be on Oprah, which was obviously
Speaker 1: a dream come true. And you know, and I did.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be the love child of Oprah and
Speaker 1: Donna Hue, and in many ways I still do. I
Speaker 1: like being a provocateur of conversation and dialogue. I think
Speaker 1: a lot of things have happened over the course of
Speaker 1: my career. Technology and media has changed quite a bit
Speaker 1: from the days that I grew up watching Oprah and
Speaker 1: Donna Hue. Certainly the talk format has changed, so you're right,
Speaker 1: podcasting is bringing me back to the closest like degree
Speaker 1: that I can of of of a talk show, of
Speaker 1: of a community of conversation. I would say, outside of
Speaker 1: just having a podcast, one of the spaces I'm really
Speaker 1: excited about right now is combining all of my brand
Speaker 1: strategy work with podcasting. So I've been able to launch
Speaker 1: a couple of branded podcasts, one of them with Shonda
Speaker 1: Rhymes and Shonda Land that was connected to Dove and
Speaker 1: the work that we do on self esteem there. We
Speaker 1: just launched the American Girl Podcast Network, which will be
Speaker 1: the first time a kids content company has their own network,
Speaker 1: you know, and and be able to bring that I
Speaker 1: p to life for girls. As part of my work
Speaker 1: as a strategist, I review people's campaigns and scripts and
Speaker 1: movies and TV shows all the time, and I would
Speaker 1: be lying to say, I don't still have the itch
Speaker 1: of how do I put my own work out there?
Speaker 1: How do I get back to developing my own voice.
Speaker 1: I've been behind the scenes for quite some time in
Speaker 1: some of the biggest campaigns, but I miss I miss
Speaker 1: being in front of them. And it's scary because it's
Speaker 1: very easy to critique somebody else's work and helps drive
Speaker 1: something strategically, then to risk and put things out in
Speaker 1: the world on their own. But I'm at that intersection
Speaker 1: of taking that risk right now. So we developed a
Speaker 1: production company. We're producing you know, branded podcasts and shows
Speaker 1: that I think will be hopefully um opening up conversations
Speaker 1: in the way that I first intended when I was
Speaker 1: at Playwright trying to sell close at the mall and
Speaker 1: not you know, not not finding that hit there. I
Speaker 1: think talking to people and using the technology that's available
Speaker 1: now is is what I'm really excited about exploring. Sam.
Speaker 1: Should we go to the speed Round? Sure? Go ahead.
Speaker 1: What book are you reading? I just finished Molly Shannon's
Speaker 1: Hello Molly Autobiography and it was bab I didn't know
Speaker 1: anything about her personally, love her obviously as a performer,
Speaker 1: But what I loved about Molly in that book was,
Speaker 1: and I hope I'm not giving I don't think I'm
Speaker 1: giving anything material away, but she just talked about an
Speaker 1: attitude and a philosophy of raising her kids and teaching
Speaker 1: them about how you respond to a situation is really everything.
Speaker 1: And she tells this great story of responding to something
Speaker 1: that could have gone one way very differently, and in
Speaker 1: turn kind of taught her kids about the adventure when
Speaker 1: things don't go your way and how that's actually more
Speaker 1: of an adventure than like a downturn. And I swear
Speaker 1: to you that has stuck with me. I think about
Speaker 1: it because I think it's not just a great herating attribute,
Speaker 1: but for me, it was just a great reminder of
Speaker 1: like the things that you don't think, you know, the
Speaker 1: disappointments that you have, don't have to be disappointments. They
Speaker 1: could be Adventures onto the Next So I love that book.
Speaker 1: Who is the client that you haven't worked with but
Speaker 1: you're dying to? I like the challenge of like a
Speaker 1: really historically male dominated space. So I'm going to say
Speaker 1: auto maybe like the car space I think is really
Speaker 1: interesting because cars are not typically designed for women or
Speaker 1: women's bodies. So I would love I probably that's a
Speaker 1: that's a space to to explore. Who leaves you starstruck?
Speaker 1: I would say maybe the closest has been Barack Obama,
Speaker 1: Like I think that kind of energy. Maybe I've been
Speaker 1: in a room where he is and like I think
Speaker 1: that maybe was the time I was like a little
Speaker 1: bit of a gawker. What's your morning routine? So a
Speaker 1: big part of my mental health journey has been this
Speaker 1: health transformation that I've had in my life. I've gotten
Speaker 1: really more fit and connected to exercise as a way
Speaker 1: of of self preservation and and well being. So I
Speaker 1: work out almost every day doing a couple of different things.
Speaker 1: But I'm a boxer and I love boxing. I've done kickboxing,
Speaker 1: but I'm really training and boxing and I'm I don't
Speaker 1: know if that I'll ever do, Like I don't know
Speaker 1: that I'll ever go into a ring actively, but I
Speaker 1: do boxing a couple of days a week, and that's incredible.
Speaker 1: So I do that at like really early in the morning.
Speaker 1: I wake up very early, probably like four or five AM.
Speaker 1: That's when I get a little bit of my own
Speaker 1: meditation and regrouping time. I've got animals, so I take
Speaker 1: care of them. I love a good morning cup of
Speaker 1: coffee at five and then I'm working out and then
Speaker 1: I go jump into the day. Well, Lou Burns has
Speaker 1: been listening to our conversation and he comes in at
Speaker 1: the end of every episode with the male perspective. So
Speaker 1: my own person at journey, my my daughter recently admitted
Speaker 1: that she struggles with her own confidence past her beauty. Right,
Speaker 1: um and uh. And I was literally left flabbergastic because
Speaker 1: if one, I'm a male, and I don't I don't
Speaker 1: struggle with those things anymore. But I know that sometimes
Speaker 1: the application for a male is not always trans transferable
Speaker 1: to a female. So how would I how should I
Speaker 1: navigate that? How old is your daughter? She should be
Speaker 1: fourteen in a few days. So one thing we might
Speaker 1: want to talk about is better understanding her relationship to
Speaker 1: the compare and despair that kids at that age have,
Speaker 1: especially from social media. Um, I don't know if taking
Speaker 1: it away completely might solve that because she's gonna get
Speaker 1: There's also then the reverse kind of fomo of it all,
Speaker 1: where that's a lifeline for community for kids right now,
Speaker 1: whether we understand it or not as adults like that
Speaker 1: is their currency of connection, especially during COVID. So just
Speaker 1: something to park and think about for a second is
Speaker 1: just like how might you be able to integrate it
Speaker 1: in a healthier way. But the thing that I would
Speaker 1: say is regardless of social media, because that's only an
Speaker 1: effect of a bigger symptom, right The bigger symptom is
Speaker 1: there's something inside of her that feels like she's not
Speaker 1: enough or not good enough or is And I think
Speaker 1: what could be interesting is to explore for her, if
Speaker 1: you have not already, like what she thinks beautiful? Is
Speaker 1: what are the attributes of people that she finds beautiful?
Speaker 1: You know? And don't be afraid to get curious about that.
Speaker 1: You know, if she says, well, I don't know so
Speaker 1: and so at school is beautiful, okay, tell me more
Speaker 1: about why? What is it? Tell me is it? You know?
Speaker 1: And then let it be less about you solving her
Speaker 1: problem and more about you exploring with her where her
Speaker 1: point of view is coming from, where her view of
Speaker 1: herself is stemming from. I just find sometimes girls talking
Speaker 1: code at this age right there, emulating things that they've heard.
Speaker 1: They're repeating to you things that they feel, but they
Speaker 1: might not fully understand them themselves. So instead of reacting,
Speaker 1: which I know parents want to do because we want
Speaker 1: to fix and solve and heal and stop that, let
Speaker 1: the door open for the feeling to be there for
Speaker 1: her and don't try to fix her, but try to
Speaker 1: understand that. And I know kids don't love to be
Speaker 1: asked a lot of questions. And I don't know your daughter,
Speaker 1: so it might need to take a couple of ways
Speaker 1: to get in there with her. But I think one
Speaker 1: thing I would say is um is get curious about
Speaker 1: why she might feel this way versus taking it at
Speaker 1: face value. I think there might be more learning you
Speaker 1: could have about her by hearing why she's feeling and
Speaker 1: struggling with her appearance. That was a refreshing talk. I
Speaker 1: love talking with Jess. You know amy fun fact, when
Speaker 1: I had my personal branding firm a bazillion years ago,
Speaker 1: Jeff Weiner was one of my first clients, so I've literally, yes,
Speaker 1: I have known Jeff forever and her family forever. And
Speaker 1: I will say the first time I ever met her,
Speaker 1: she walked into the room and just give everyone a hug,
Speaker 1: and no matter who you were, you fell in love
Speaker 1: with her. And I think she just has that gravitational pull,
Speaker 1: that it factor that is so rare. I could see
Speaker 1: that I would love to meet her in person. Her
Speaker 1: energy is kind of infectious. And I loved hearing her
Speaker 1: story about love because I think, you know, we don't
Speaker 1: often get to hear those unconventional, unexpected moments happening to
Speaker 1: women post that like traditional, oh you're twenty eight or
Speaker 1: thirty and met your husband and had three kids, right Like,
Speaker 1: it's there's so many variations of a story, and hers
Speaker 1: was beautiful. Yeah. I loved hearing what her father said,
Speaker 1: the advice he gave her, and I love the fact
Speaker 1: that she said he didn't arrive in the package she expected.
Speaker 1: And I think so many people, especially women, cling to
Speaker 1: that package of what they think it should look like
Speaker 1: when love hits them, and it's a lot more messy
Speaker 1: and unexpected than that. And I think the more you
Speaker 1: leave yourself open to that, the more likely you are
Speaker 1: to find that love. Thanks for listening to What's Her
Speaker 1: Story with Sam and Amy. We would appreciate it if
Speaker 1: you leave her review wherever you get your podcasts, and
Speaker 1: of course, connect with us on social media at What's
Speaker 1: Her Story podcast. What's Her Story with Sam and Amy
Speaker 1: is powered by my company, The Riveter at the Riveter
Speaker 1: dot c O and Sam's company, park Place Payments at
Speaker 1: park place Payments dot com. Thanks to our producer Stacy
Speaker 1: Parra and our male perspective Blue Burns