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Speaker 6: You know, I got also caught up with the validation

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Speaker 6: that I got externally on social media.

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Speaker 4: So being the.

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Speaker 6: Starting all these awards Top forty, this, Top thirty, this,

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Speaker 6: Top Black Women, and da da da, it just became

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Speaker 6: this like this cycle I couldn't get out of.

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Speaker 4: I was trapped.

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Speaker 7: Welcome to she pivots the podcast where we talk with

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Speaker 7: women who dared to pivot out of one career and

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Speaker 7: into something new and explore how their personal lives impacted

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Speaker 7: these decisions. I'm your host, Emily Tish Sussman, so I

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Speaker 7: have to tell you this story of how this interview

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Speaker 7: came to be. I met Isa Watson at Marie Claire's

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Speaker 7: annual Power Trip. After the amazing weekend spending time with

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Speaker 7: the Powerhouse women, Iso wrote me an email asking to

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Speaker 7: catch up on the phone and pitched herself as a

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Speaker 7: guest for the show.

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Speaker 4: And boy did she pitch.

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Speaker 7: We get so many pitches, which we love, but I've

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Speaker 7: never been more convinced or persuaded to have guest on

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Speaker 7: than Isa. Isa is the former vice president of Strategy

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Speaker 7: at JP Morgan Chase in New York and Hong Kong,

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Speaker 7: who left behind the glitz of her C suite career

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Speaker 7: after feeling burnt out and unfulfilled.

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Speaker 5: Her solution founding her.

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Speaker 7: Company Squad, which is emerging as the app of choice

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Speaker 7: for gen z to talk to their close friends every day.

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Speaker 5: But this pivot is far from her first. From thinking she.

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Speaker 7: Was destined to become a doctor to pivoting to pursue

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Speaker 7: her MBA at mit to her successful career on Wall Street,

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Speaker 7: all while waiting through the emotions of losing her father

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Speaker 7: while taking care of her mother after a tragic accident.

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Speaker 7: Now she is hoping to inspire others in their lives

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Speaker 7: and careers with her debut book, Life Beyond Likes. She

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Speaker 7: truly does it all and I'm excited to share this

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Speaker 7: conversation with you. And did I mention that she's a

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Speaker 7: professional skydiver?

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Speaker 4: Enjoy.

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Speaker 6: My name is Isa Watson. I'm the founder and CEO

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Speaker 6: of Squad, I'm the author of Life Beyond Likes, and

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Speaker 6: I'm a competitive skydiver.

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Speaker 5: So we're gonna go back to the beginning.

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Speaker 4: Where are you from?

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Speaker 6: I was born in DC my family's Caribbean, but I

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Speaker 6: spent middle in high school in Chapel Hill in North Carolina.

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Speaker 4: Chappa Hill is a very interesting place.

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Speaker 6: It's very well educated, very liberal, like something like eighty

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Speaker 6: five percent or residents when I lived there had college degrees.

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Speaker 6: In My high school was actually ranked top ten high

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Speaker 6: schools public high schools in the country by while she

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Speaker 6: Jonne when I was there, and so what you had

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Speaker 6: was a lot of kind of progressive, open minded people

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Speaker 6: where being black wasn't like a big deal.

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Speaker 4: It wasn't it was actually probably a little cool.

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Speaker 6: You know, in some regards and so but you know, regardless,

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Speaker 6: I always felt accepted for the most part, and I

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Speaker 6: think that, you know, leaving Chapel Hill going to honestly,

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Speaker 6: even different cities in in North Carolina, there was a

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Speaker 6: lack of acceptance oftentimes that I felt was very jarring,

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Speaker 6: And I was like, am I accepted here for a reason?

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Speaker 6: Am I different? Like I don't know versus there? And

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Speaker 6: I just think that as a kid trying to figure

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Speaker 6: out who you are in this world, there's just a

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Speaker 6: lot of noise you have to sort through.

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Speaker 7: So in your book, you say, quote, this whole insecurity

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Speaker 7: of being dark skin that I had developed as an

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Speaker 7: elementary and middle school student in North Carolina was even

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Speaker 7: further amplified when I got to high school.

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Speaker 5: Can you tell me more about that?

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Speaker 6: My high school, I would say it was like ninety

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Speaker 6: percent white, ten percent black, and then like point zero

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Speaker 6: five percent other So definitely didn't necessarily fit into the

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Speaker 6: homogeneity of the school. But on the flip side, I

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Speaker 6: would say growing up a Chapel Hill affording me opportunities

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Speaker 6: like I was a research commiss at fourteen in the

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Speaker 6: labs at UNC Chapel Hill doing organic chemistry research for

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Speaker 6: a faculty member.

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Speaker 4: You know, things like that you don't come buy in

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Speaker 4: other markets.

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Speaker 7: I mean, to even think that you would be in

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Speaker 7: a real research lab at fourteen, you must have been

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Speaker 7: a huge science prodigy.

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Speaker 6: I never called myself a prodigy, but I will say

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Speaker 6: I've always been a builder.

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Speaker 8: You know.

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Speaker 6: My dad, he was an old school engineer, immigrant engineer.

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Speaker 6: His philosophy was if you can't build it, then you

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Speaker 6: should have been using it. And so from the time

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Speaker 6: I was seven, back in the CompUSA Circus City days,

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Speaker 6: he would buy me the parts of a computer and

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Speaker 6: I would build my own computers.

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Speaker 4: And that just kind of.

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Speaker 6: Morphed into me like building and you know, robotics, building

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Speaker 6: and mechanical engineering, and then I kind of fell into

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Speaker 6: chemistry and I was like, oh.

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Speaker 4: This is cool.

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Speaker 6: So I was part of this program called Project Seat

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Speaker 6: and was sponsored by the American Chemical Society and they

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Speaker 6: basically took scientifically gift to students from all the local

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Speaker 6: high schools in Raleig Durham Chapel Hill and we would

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Speaker 6: be placed into labs at UNC Duke and NC State,

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Speaker 6: and UNC was my home base. And it was interesting

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Speaker 6: because I had just taken high school chemistry and I

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Speaker 6: was put in an organic chemistry lab. So during the

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Speaker 6: summer I had to teach myself organic chemistry while working

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Speaker 6: with my post doc.

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Speaker 4: And you know, quite frankly, I thought it was I

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Speaker 4: loved it.

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Speaker 6: I love the concept of building something from nothing, and

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Speaker 6: chemistry is that, you know, essentially, we were doing a

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Speaker 6: lot of really important research that had a lot of

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Speaker 6: big implications in cancer, and so I would say it

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Speaker 6: was definitely hard. But being a self starter and just

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Speaker 6: kind of pushing forward and being self teaching essentially, you know.

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Speaker 6: And I think back and I say, hey, I have

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Speaker 6: to kind of learn organic chemistry at fourteen years old.

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Speaker 4: It sounds a little bit crazy, but yeah, I kind

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Speaker 4: of I just made it work.

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Speaker 7: Were you thinking about your future and your sense of

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Speaker 7: self as like I am a scientist, like I have

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Speaker 7: a path to follow, I will be a scientist.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, And especially being a child of immigrants, I had

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Speaker 6: to commit to getting all the ds, so the PhD,

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Speaker 6: the MD.

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Speaker 4: So they were like, Okay, what mdpah program do you want?

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Speaker 6: To go to. I was never asked, by the way,

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Speaker 6: what college I want to go to or anything like that.

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Speaker 6: They were like, so for your PhD or for your mdphd.

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Speaker 4: What are we doing?

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Speaker 6: I mean, from the time I was five, I always

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Speaker 6: told my parents told people.

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Speaker 4: Are in church.

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Speaker 6: They were like, I just going to Harvard ORT and

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Speaker 6: so I didn't know what I was talking about. I

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Speaker 6: didn't know what Harvard was at like five six years old.

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Speaker 6: So I started telling people, Yeah, I'm going to Harvard

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Speaker 6: in myt for grad school.

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Speaker 7: When it came time to make her decision on where

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Speaker 7: to go to college, she was bouncing between the expectations

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Speaker 7: of her parents and wanting to connect to her experience

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Speaker 7: as a black woman.

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Speaker 6: So I actually went to Hampton University for college, which

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Speaker 6: is in the HBCU, and I did my master's in

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Speaker 6: chemistry at Cornell after that. But you know, kind of

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Speaker 6: growing up in a very white environment, there was just

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Speaker 6: more comfort and confidence I needed to build being a

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Speaker 6: black woman and what that meant and going to one

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Speaker 6: of the top you know, HBCUs was very empowering in

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Speaker 6: that way. And Hampton always talks about you know, the

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Speaker 6: education there being like education for life, right and I

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Speaker 6: think that I was uncomfortable as a tall, dark woman.

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Speaker 6: I just didn't know what that meant. I got a

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Speaker 6: lot of feedback from people in Chappah Hill. I would

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Speaker 6: leave Chapa Hill and get different feedback, and I was like,

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Speaker 6: I'm confused about who I'm supposed to be. That allowed

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Speaker 6: me to kind of find myself a little bit and

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Speaker 6: find my confidence and find my voice. That then allowed

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Speaker 6: me to go out and kind of navigate the world appropriately.

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Speaker 7: She graduated from Hampton with a Bachelor of Science and

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Speaker 7: Chemistry and Mathematics. I was quickly accepted to Cornell.

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Speaker 6: I had told myself I was getting a PhD for

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Speaker 6: so long at that point. I keep in mind, it

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Speaker 6: wasn't that old, like I was maybe twenty years old,

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Speaker 6: but for like fifteen years seventy five percent of my life.

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Speaker 6: But I think that it was also I was always

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Speaker 6: so a two percent of phs and chemistry are black.

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Speaker 6: You are a phenomenal researcher. I was mentored by Nobel Laureates.

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Speaker 6: I had a lot of like the top scientists investing

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Speaker 6: in me. I was being flown to Mit, flown to

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Speaker 6: Yell to like visit with professors and being recruited by them,

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Speaker 6: but I hated it.

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Speaker 4: I hated it, Like I.

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Speaker 6: Was so depressed during that time, so much so that

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Speaker 6: like for a period of time, I like abandoned my friends,

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Speaker 6: Like all I had energy to do outside of lab

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Speaker 6: was sleep, And people are like, where's Isa, Where's Isa?

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Speaker 6: Like she's not at the brunch, she's not at the

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Speaker 6: family reunions.

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Speaker 4: And I was just like, I'm sorry, I'm just like

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Speaker 4: too depressed.

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Speaker 6: It was just because I didn't love it and I

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Speaker 6: didn't like it enough to want to pursue it like that.

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Speaker 6: And I think that it was it was the first

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Speaker 6: time in my life really that I made a decision

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Speaker 6: to part ways with something that my parents had expected

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Speaker 6: of me. And I was good at it, but it

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Speaker 6: wasn't feeding my soul.

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Speaker 7: That must have been a heavy moment.

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Speaker 6: I think that the decision to leave was really hard because,

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Speaker 6: you know, with my parents, it was the struggles with

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Speaker 6: my parents and their perspective and being okay with the

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Speaker 6: fact that we disagreed. They said to me, they were like,

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Speaker 6: if you leave now, you're a quitter and you're always

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Speaker 6: going to be have that like quitter air about you.

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Speaker 4: Is that what you want for your life.

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Speaker 6: And I was like, well, I'm not a quitter if

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Speaker 6: I leave with my masters, because I've already gotten my

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Speaker 6: master's on the PhD route, right, And so that was

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Speaker 6: one thing, and the second thing was just a lot

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Speaker 6: of shame around leaving a PhD program, because you know,

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Speaker 6: we live in a society where you have like people

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Speaker 6: like Sergey they can leave their PhD program at Stanford

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Speaker 6: and start Google and it's like okay, And white men

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Speaker 6: drop out of school all the time and it's okay.

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Speaker 6: But as a black woman, I'm not even quote unquote

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Speaker 6: supposed to be there. It's very rare for me to

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Speaker 6: be there, and for me to decide to leave, it's like, oh,

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Speaker 6: you couldn't handle it.

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Speaker 4: No, that's so Siue.

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Speaker 6: My grades were pretty popping, but there was a lot

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Speaker 6: of shame around what would people think. They'll label me

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Speaker 6: as someone who was incapable and not try to understand

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Speaker 6: the story behind why I left my PhD, and I'll

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Speaker 6: just get the assumptions thrown my way that are not

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Speaker 6: fair to me. So I think I had to come

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Speaker 6: to terms with, you know what, I have to do

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Speaker 6: this for me, and regardless of whatever people may think

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Speaker 6: about it, I have to do it for me.

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Speaker 7: That's a pretty big feeling at such a young age,

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Speaker 7: with such a big decision. Where did that confidence and

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Speaker 7: strength come from.

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Speaker 6: I think that it was deciding that I was too

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Speaker 6: tired of being sad. It was a decision I was

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Speaker 6: tired of being sad. I was tired of living the

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Speaker 6: life that was for somebody else. I just made a

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Speaker 6: decision that I have to live my life in the

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Speaker 6: best way possible.

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Speaker 8: You know.

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Speaker 6: And another thing I know about parents, even though I'm

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Speaker 6: not a parent, I know this about parents. They may

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Speaker 6: have their prescriptive views on what you do, but at

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Speaker 6: the end of the day, all they really want is

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Speaker 6: to look their child in the eye and see happiness.

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Speaker 6: And so I knew that we would have a period

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Speaker 6: of disagreement, but I knew on the other side when

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Speaker 6: I came out and I was just kind of more thriving,

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Speaker 6: that they would then.

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Speaker 4: Be like, Okay, you know what. I didn't agree, but

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Speaker 4: I see that you're happy, and that makes me happy.

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Speaker 7: Something that I always find fascinating is the mental shift

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Speaker 7: that must happen inside ourselves as we pivot from one

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Speaker 7: thing to another. As I share each of these stories,

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Speaker 7: I always want to be clear that big pivots don't

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Speaker 7: happen in the blink of an eye. It takes time

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Speaker 7: and often a stepping stone to help you get to

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Speaker 7: the next place.

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Speaker 4: No, I transitioned.

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Speaker 6: I did some time at Pfizer on the clinical side,

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Speaker 6: and then I actually quickly went into business school at MIT,

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Speaker 6: and so I actually thought that I would be on

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Speaker 6: the business development.

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Speaker 4: Side of science.

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Speaker 6: Right. I was like, oh, I actually really do love science.

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Speaker 6: I love the commercialization of science. I love innovation. But

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Speaker 6: I was like, Okay, well, if I go to the

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Speaker 6: business side, I can actually impact a lot more change.

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Speaker 6: I felt like the NBA was a path to get

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Speaker 6: me there are more so than investing in the PHG firm,

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Speaker 6: because I never actually wanted to be a full time researcher.

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Speaker 6: I always wanted to hop over to the business side.

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Speaker 7: So you saw this as just a different path to

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Speaker 7: get to the same vision. How was that experience?

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Speaker 6: You know, it was one that was unique and interesting

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Speaker 6: to navigate because going to business school, especially at a

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Speaker 6: top school like MIT, you're in class with people who

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Speaker 6: were like, oh, I did my two years Agoldman, I

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Speaker 6: did my three years at McKenzie. You know, I did

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Speaker 6: teach for America three years, you know, whatever the case is.

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Speaker 6: And I was like, well, I have no business experience.

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Speaker 6: I can talk to you about like you know, a

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Speaker 6: Dylan Cyclace one four seven ten touch. I was psychico decade,

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Speaker 6: but I didn't even have the language to like talk

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Speaker 6: to them, right. And so I remember going to business

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Speaker 6: school and being very broadly recruited by like the top

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Speaker 6: Wall Street firms, the top consulting firms, and I would

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Speaker 6: say to them, I was like, you know, I'm just

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Speaker 6: a chemists.

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Speaker 4: And one recruiter pulled me aside and she was like,

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Speaker 4: don't ever to say that shoud to anybody.

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Speaker 6: Else, because you are diminishing your value your chemist. Sure,

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Speaker 6: but you're how the analytical, You're a good problem solver,

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Speaker 6: you're good communicator. These are all transferable skills that make

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Speaker 6: you unique.

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Speaker 4: And so going to.

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Speaker 6: Business school was interesting because it was the first time

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Speaker 6: I really learned to package my uniqueness as an advantage.

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Speaker 5: And she did.

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Speaker 7: During her time at MIT, she was thriving and people

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Speaker 7: could see the talent and skills she brought to the table.

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Speaker 6: So during my time at MIT, I again I initially

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Speaker 6: thought I was going to go into business development and

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Speaker 6: pharma accidentally fell like trickled into Wall Street, where I

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Speaker 6: was the right hand to a lot of the c

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Speaker 6: speed executives at JP Morgan Chase. So Hey, Isaac moved

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Speaker 6: out to Hong Kong to build retirement products from Hong

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Speaker 6: kongoent I want singing poor Hey as I moved back

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Speaker 6: to build a two billion dollar digital strategy for our

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Speaker 6: five million American small businesses, the clients, and I had

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Speaker 6: gotten so caught up in the validation I was getting

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Speaker 6: from not just the fact that I was twenty six,

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Speaker 6: like overseeing like six billion dollars worth of different initiatives,

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Speaker 6: right that was pretty much unheard of. And I was

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Speaker 6: always getting more because I was always delivering and producing,

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Speaker 6: and you know, I got also caught up with the

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Speaker 6: validation that I got externally on social media. So being

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Speaker 6: just starting to get all these awards Top forty, this,

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Speaker 6: Top thirty, this Top Black Women and Da da da,

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Speaker 6: and I would put that out there and people were like,

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Speaker 6: oh my god, you're so dope, You're like this amazing,

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Speaker 6: you know, you're a badass, dadada, And.

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Speaker 4: Then I just it just became this like this cycle.

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Speaker 6: I couldn't get out of I was trapped and then

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Speaker 6: I became like a horse in Central Park with the

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Speaker 6: blinders on.

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Speaker 4: That was all I could say that.

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Speaker 6: I really neglected my real life in a big way.

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Speaker 6: I was focused on the positioning of my life and

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Speaker 6: the next achievement unlocked, as opposed.

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Speaker 7: To, you know, living my life stuck in an endless

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Speaker 7: race to a goalpost that constantly keeps moving. She was

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Speaker 7: forced to take a hard look at her life after

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Speaker 7: receiving a call about her parents that no one wants

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Speaker 7: to receive.

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Speaker 6: So during my time at JP Morgan Chase, my parents

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Speaker 6: do what they do every year, which is a sponsored

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Speaker 6: a bus trip for kids to visit Hampton University. And

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Speaker 6: it was something that was really special to my parents.

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Speaker 6: They did it together, they loved it, and it was

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Speaker 6: really about being able to take kids whose parents maybe

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Speaker 6: couldn't take off right and just kind of doing that

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Speaker 6: for the community each year. And this particular year, the

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Speaker 6: bus ran off a straight road, flipped over and ejected

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Speaker 6: both my parents out the front window, and my dad

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Speaker 6: didn't survive that and my mom barely survived it.

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Speaker 9: D Is what I call him, lived his life to

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Speaker 9: the fullest, whether it be for his family, for his

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Speaker 9: job or for Hampton University. Just last year he was

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Speaker 9: running a basis like he was twenty five years old.

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Speaker 7: Watson was known throughout university circles as a man who

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Speaker 7: loved his alm mom. He was also known as a

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Speaker 7: man who'd rather be with his family than anywhere else.

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Speaker 6: And I think it was it was, first of all

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Speaker 6: a moment that it was too much to process in

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Speaker 6: the moment. And I think I walked around like a

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Speaker 6: zombie for months after that because I just couldn't quite

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Speaker 6: grasp what had happened. And with a lot of therapy

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Speaker 6: and with a lot of just you know, I will

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Speaker 6: call my Godma be like, can you pray for me today?

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Speaker 6: I mean, like the good prayer that you go on

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Speaker 6: your knees for, not like the prayer you say in the.

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Speaker 4: Cab, like because I need all the prayer I can get.

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Speaker 6: I realized that this whole notion of loneliness I was

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Speaker 6: feeling had been exacerbated by the fact that I had

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Speaker 6: neglected my real life in lieu of this like positioning life.

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Speaker 4: And that sucked. It sucked bad.

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Speaker 6: I mean I remember my advisor in my tea sending

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Speaker 6: me food because I wouldn't eat for like six months.

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Speaker 6: I ate like a couple of blue berries every day

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Speaker 6: for six months. And so from a just a pivot perspective,

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Speaker 6: up until that point in my life, everything was gunning

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Speaker 6: for achievement, that next achievement. Let me check that box,

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Speaker 6: check that box. And as a black woman, you like,

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Speaker 6: I'm trying to check all the box possible. I go

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Speaker 6: check that box, check that box, and that box over there, Oh,

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Speaker 6: that one over there too. And this was the first

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Speaker 6: time I decided I need to actually figure out.

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Speaker 4: Purposes and live that life.

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Speaker 6: And my dad always said to me, he said, Isa,

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Speaker 6: he said, you're such a blessed girl, and they share

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Speaker 6: a job to share your blessings with as many people

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Speaker 6: as you can, he said, because your time is limited.

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Speaker 6: And when I'm twelve, I'm thirteen, I'm like, you know whatever,

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Speaker 6: I just want to play my video games, like you

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Speaker 6: know what I'm saying. And unfortunately it took that type

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Speaker 6: of tragedy for me to realize that, you know what,

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Speaker 6: I think my calling is bigger than this. And this

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Speaker 6: whole notion of what social media was doing to our

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Speaker 6: real life relationships and our behavior as excessive validation seekers

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Speaker 6: was something that I saw. It was a shift that

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Speaker 6: I saw happening, and you know, I said, I don't

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Speaker 6: want to saluse our humanity.

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Speaker 4: That's too important. Like Maslow's hierarchy of these.

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Speaker 6: Belonging is one of the fundamental needs of the human experience,

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Speaker 6: belonging in connection. And so that's when I decided to

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Speaker 6: leave JP Morgan to start a Squad and build a

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Speaker 6: solution for true connection.

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Speaker 10: As a result, however, one audio based social app is

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Speaker 10: now aiming to help millions of people who deepen their

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Speaker 10: relationships and their friendships the healthy way, all on social media.

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Speaker 10: So helping us break this all down is Isa Watson,

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Speaker 10: the founder and CEO of Squad. Congratulations, Isa, thank you

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Speaker 10: so much for joining us on this amazing sort of

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Speaker 10: moment you've had. You basically now are the highest fundraising

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Speaker 10: black woman in America. You just raised over seven million

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Speaker 10: dollars from investors for this platform. Congratulations.

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Speaker 4: Thank you.

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Speaker 8: Our next guest mission is to get people off social

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Speaker 8: media and back to real connections with others. So here

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Speaker 8: to share more, we welcome social scientists. Isa Watson is

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Speaker 8: with us today. Isa, thank you for being here.

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Speaker 4: Eric, thanks for having me and not.

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Speaker 8: Just on social media where I can see you and

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Speaker 8: we can have a conversation that way, having a conversation

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Speaker 8: this way. I'm much much better. But you talk about

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Speaker 8: this the toxic side of social media.

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Speaker 7: That leaving that wasn't an immediate right. That took like

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Speaker 7: a period of time.

444
00:21:20,200 --> 00:21:23,320
Speaker 6: It took a period of time in part because again,

445
00:21:23,560 --> 00:21:26,639
Speaker 6: so the other part of my parents' accident is that

446
00:21:26,680 --> 00:21:29,359
Speaker 6: my mom lost so much of her memory during an accident.

447
00:21:29,400 --> 00:21:31,720
Speaker 6: I mean I had to go back home to piece

448
00:21:31,760 --> 00:21:34,280
Speaker 6: her life together because she didn't know where her bank

449
00:21:34,320 --> 00:21:37,480
Speaker 6: accounts were, or where her who had her power bill,

450
00:21:37,520 --> 00:21:39,920
Speaker 6: who was she at Duke or was she at Piedmont.

451
00:21:40,240 --> 00:21:42,879
Speaker 6: And that took all the energy that I had to

452
00:21:43,040 --> 00:21:45,520
Speaker 6: just help to nurse my mom back to health.

453
00:21:45,920 --> 00:21:46,800
Speaker 4: So I didn't even.

454
00:21:46,680 --> 00:21:49,679
Speaker 6: Really start the grieving and processing process until like a

455
00:21:49,720 --> 00:21:53,440
Speaker 6: year later, because I was just trying to honestly survive,

456
00:21:54,080 --> 00:21:56,919
Speaker 6: just make sure my mom was good, and to just

457
00:21:57,520 --> 00:22:00,840
Speaker 6: do enough at work to do my job. And so

458
00:22:02,040 --> 00:22:05,600
Speaker 6: that's when the kind of retrospection came in at least

459
00:22:05,640 --> 00:22:08,639
Speaker 6: a year after that, and it was just again a

460
00:22:08,680 --> 00:22:12,720
Speaker 6: lot to process because there's, hey, this happened, and I'm

461
00:22:12,760 --> 00:22:14,520
Speaker 6: finally at the acceptance phase.

462
00:22:14,880 --> 00:22:18,880
Speaker 4: But also what am I doing with my life? Who

463
00:22:18,960 --> 00:22:21,280
Speaker 4: am I do? I know who I am?

464
00:22:21,480 --> 00:22:24,320
Speaker 6: And when I looked in the mirror and I was

465
00:22:24,400 --> 00:22:27,360
Speaker 6: confused on who I was, I was like, I have

466
00:22:27,440 --> 00:22:31,199
Speaker 6: to do the work to get to a better understanding

467
00:22:32,040 --> 00:22:34,440
Speaker 6: of what I'm supposed to be doing. So I did

468
00:22:34,480 --> 00:22:36,679
Speaker 6: that in the background while I was still working at

469
00:22:36,720 --> 00:22:37,359
Speaker 6: JP Morgan.

470
00:22:42,600 --> 00:22:45,200
Speaker 7: It feels like to me like there's two pieces, Like

471
00:22:45,240 --> 00:22:48,920
Speaker 7: there was the internal piece of you figuring out who

472
00:22:48,960 --> 00:22:51,080
Speaker 7: you are, how you want to be spending your life,

473
00:22:51,640 --> 00:22:56,040
Speaker 7: and then there was the external work product like what

474
00:22:56,080 --> 00:22:58,320
Speaker 7: you wanted to be putting out into the world, like

475
00:22:58,400 --> 00:23:00,879
Speaker 7: how you wanted the world to be to be connecting.

476
00:23:01,400 --> 00:23:04,080
Speaker 7: Did they kind of develop simultaneously for you?

477
00:23:04,880 --> 00:23:08,199
Speaker 6: There was some parallel pathing, But I would say the

478
00:23:08,200 --> 00:23:11,960
Speaker 6: internal work I started that first. And I think it's

479
00:23:12,040 --> 00:23:15,199
Speaker 6: actually I tell people all the time, like working on

480
00:23:15,240 --> 00:23:18,399
Speaker 6: yourself is is so much harder than like the hardest

481
00:23:18,440 --> 00:23:22,760
Speaker 6: crosslit class. It's really hard because you're actually like putting.

482
00:23:22,480 --> 00:23:24,400
Speaker 4: Up a mirror and saying this is the good, bad and.

483
00:23:24,440 --> 00:23:28,879
Speaker 6: Ugly, these are the mistakes, this is what I am delivering,

484
00:23:28,960 --> 00:23:30,880
Speaker 6: and this is where I want to be, And that's

485
00:23:30,960 --> 00:23:31,440
Speaker 6: really hard.

486
00:23:31,680 --> 00:23:33,240
Speaker 4: When you're looking at it for yourself.

487
00:23:33,240 --> 00:23:36,160
Speaker 6: And so I think there was that, and then where

488
00:23:36,200 --> 00:23:39,040
Speaker 6: the parallel pathing came in of like this is what

489
00:23:39,119 --> 00:23:42,439
Speaker 6: I want to do was once I was able to

490
00:23:42,520 --> 00:23:46,000
Speaker 6: talk about my experience without like breaking down and crying, right,

491
00:23:46,560 --> 00:23:50,600
Speaker 6: I found that in conversation with so many different people

492
00:23:51,280 --> 00:23:56,280
Speaker 6: that this whole notion of loneliness and getting lost in

493
00:23:56,320 --> 00:24:00,160
Speaker 6: the Internet was something that a lot of people related too,

494
00:24:00,840 --> 00:24:04,280
Speaker 6: and a lot of people experienced. It wasn't at that

495
00:24:04,400 --> 00:24:07,000
Speaker 6: time as big of an issue as it is today,

496
00:24:07,359 --> 00:24:11,880
Speaker 6: but it was enough and trending up in a way

497
00:24:11,880 --> 00:24:14,760
Speaker 6: that I was like, there's going to be something here

498
00:24:15,600 --> 00:24:17,160
Speaker 6: where I can make a big difference.

499
00:24:18,119 --> 00:24:18,439
Speaker 5: Again.

500
00:24:18,600 --> 00:24:21,080
Speaker 7: She had to do the emotional work to shift her

501
00:24:21,119 --> 00:24:24,600
Speaker 7: mindset around what she thought she wanted to do, but

502
00:24:24,760 --> 00:24:27,200
Speaker 7: letting go of that old self that she had worked

503
00:24:27,200 --> 00:24:29,719
Speaker 7: so hard on was no easy task.

504
00:24:30,560 --> 00:24:32,760
Speaker 6: I definitely wanted to keep my work ethic, and my

505
00:24:32,880 --> 00:24:35,520
Speaker 6: nickname it JP Morgan. So I worked for the CFO

506
00:24:35,520 --> 00:24:37,879
Speaker 6: of the firm, the CEO Chase. They all used to

507
00:24:37,960 --> 00:24:40,720
Speaker 6: call me misketshit done. They were like, yo, miss GSD

508
00:24:40,880 --> 00:24:43,320
Speaker 6: walked in the room. She about to get it done,

509
00:24:43,680 --> 00:24:46,359
Speaker 6: and so that was my claim to fame, actually, like, hey,

510
00:24:46,480 --> 00:24:48,680
Speaker 6: you need to build this billion dollar product. Don't worry,

511
00:24:48,720 --> 00:24:50,760
Speaker 6: I will get it done. And so I think that

512
00:24:51,240 --> 00:24:53,879
Speaker 6: I wanted to keep those skills and the ability to

513
00:24:53,960 --> 00:24:57,119
Speaker 6: navigate a quarter million person firm to get really hard

514
00:24:57,160 --> 00:24:59,760
Speaker 6: stuff done. That was really big, because navigating the world

515
00:25:00,200 --> 00:25:03,520
Speaker 6: as an entrepreneur is really hard. But what I wanted

516
00:25:03,560 --> 00:25:09,600
Speaker 6: to shift was my fulfillment and my contribution to this world.

517
00:25:10,480 --> 00:25:12,840
Speaker 6: When I left JP Morgan, they were like.

518
00:25:12,960 --> 00:25:15,440
Speaker 4: You can't leave. We love you, and I.

519
00:25:15,400 --> 00:25:17,639
Speaker 6: Was like, you know, I get that, and I respect that.

520
00:25:18,080 --> 00:25:21,800
Speaker 6: And the reality though, is that you will wake up

521
00:25:21,800 --> 00:25:25,800
Speaker 6: tomorrow and still have one hundred billion dollar revenue company

522
00:25:26,480 --> 00:25:30,359
Speaker 6: every year. You want me, you don't need me, though

523
00:25:31,040 --> 00:25:34,640
Speaker 6: the world needs me. But you know, I never really

524
00:25:34,640 --> 00:25:36,800
Speaker 6: thought about that before. I was like, I'm here to

525
00:25:36,880 --> 00:25:39,040
Speaker 6: just check the boxes and do what my like, you know, make.

526
00:25:39,320 --> 00:25:41,359
Speaker 4: Hay I want the goal star.

527
00:25:41,800 --> 00:25:44,640
Speaker 6: But I never thought about the fact that I'm one

528
00:25:44,680 --> 00:25:47,120
Speaker 6: of eight billion people, so I know I'm a very

529
00:25:47,160 --> 00:25:52,080
Speaker 6: small part. But my dad believed in me so much

530
00:25:52,920 --> 00:25:56,240
Speaker 6: and instilled in me the belief that I could always

531
00:25:56,240 --> 00:25:59,399
Speaker 6: create outsized impact, and I did that very well at

532
00:25:59,440 --> 00:26:02,320
Speaker 6: JP Morgan did that very well Afizer, but now I

533
00:26:02,359 --> 00:26:04,920
Speaker 6: wanted to do it for the world because I felt

534
00:26:04,960 --> 00:26:08,159
Speaker 6: like I owed it to the world to make this

535
00:26:08,200 --> 00:26:09,040
Speaker 6: world a better place.

536
00:26:09,080 --> 00:26:11,000
Speaker 4: If I can leave the world just.

537
00:26:10,920 --> 00:26:14,520
Speaker 6: A little bit better then where I found it, that

538
00:26:14,560 --> 00:26:17,719
Speaker 6: would make me feel fulfilled, that would make me feel happy.

539
00:26:18,359 --> 00:26:22,000
Speaker 6: So I quit JP Morgan on a Friday and my

540
00:26:22,240 --> 00:26:25,320
Speaker 6: office for a Squad started on a Monday. And that

541
00:26:25,480 --> 00:26:27,960
Speaker 6: was like the worst decision of my life. That was reckless,

542
00:26:28,000 --> 00:26:31,399
Speaker 6: that was mentally reckless. And with that, I knew I

543
00:26:31,440 --> 00:26:34,560
Speaker 6: wanted to do something that was helping people build better connection,

544
00:26:34,800 --> 00:26:38,679
Speaker 6: build better community. And it took me a while to

545
00:26:38,760 --> 00:26:41,920
Speaker 6: even figure out what that product looked like. And there's

546
00:26:41,960 --> 00:26:43,480
Speaker 6: a chicken and an egg thing when it comes to

547
00:26:43,560 --> 00:26:46,480
Speaker 6: building a new tech company. Do you get the funding first,

548
00:26:46,520 --> 00:26:48,119
Speaker 6: you get the product first? Do you get the product?

549
00:26:48,119 --> 00:26:50,480
Speaker 6: How much traction do you have on the product? And

550
00:26:50,720 --> 00:26:52,560
Speaker 6: I played with that chicken in that egg, but I

551
00:26:52,640 --> 00:26:55,320
Speaker 6: mostly spent two to three years getting four hundred doors

552
00:26:55,320 --> 00:26:56,119
Speaker 6: slammed in my face.

553
00:26:56,840 --> 00:26:59,840
Speaker 7: Squad was founded off I to search for connection in

554
00:27:00,119 --> 00:27:03,159
Speaker 7: every part of her life. She noticed that most social

555
00:27:03,200 --> 00:27:07,760
Speaker 7: connection takes place over text, which, while easy texting lacks

556
00:27:07,800 --> 00:27:11,960
Speaker 7: the intimacy and vulnerability that grows and deepens friendships.

557
00:27:12,600 --> 00:27:17,280
Speaker 6: Our big kind of dabut product was a platform for

558
00:27:17,400 --> 00:27:21,680
Speaker 6: people to get together in person in their relative companies.

559
00:27:21,720 --> 00:27:24,680
Speaker 6: Because this was kind of at the same time where

560
00:27:24,720 --> 00:27:27,679
Speaker 6: a lot of workplace conversations with millennials were happening and

561
00:27:27,720 --> 00:27:30,360
Speaker 6: millennials were staying their jobs and hrs like they're too expensive,

562
00:27:30,480 --> 00:27:31,919
Speaker 6: Like how do we get them to say? And we

563
00:27:31,920 --> 00:27:34,920
Speaker 6: were like, create community, Like community and connection are very

564
00:27:35,000 --> 00:27:39,560
Speaker 6: much needed. And we actually had dozens of enterprise clients

565
00:27:39,600 --> 00:27:42,480
Speaker 6: in that in that software product. But the one thing

566
00:27:42,520 --> 00:27:45,960
Speaker 6: that we learned over the course of that was a

567
00:27:46,119 --> 00:27:51,600
Speaker 6: people wanted the extension of the community they built at work.

568
00:27:52,160 --> 00:27:56,560
Speaker 6: They wanted it to extend their personal lives too. We

569
00:27:56,560 --> 00:27:58,800
Speaker 6: were also at a point where you know, people were like, oh,

570
00:27:59,200 --> 00:28:02,240
Speaker 6: the scrolling thing is easier, the scrolling is easier, I

571
00:28:02,280 --> 00:28:04,800
Speaker 6: have no friends. Oh okay, let me just scroll scroll, scroll,

572
00:28:04,920 --> 00:28:07,080
Speaker 6: no friends, okay, cool, And so that was a cycle

573
00:28:07,080 --> 00:28:08,840
Speaker 6: that people were trying to get out of, and we

574
00:28:08,920 --> 00:28:12,360
Speaker 6: launched that and then the pandemic hit has identified the

575
00:28:12,400 --> 00:28:16,959
Speaker 6: cause of the mysterious new virus coronavirus coronavirus.

576
00:28:16,359 --> 00:28:19,560
Speaker 4: Theraphe is a rapidly spreading virus has reached Australia. This

577
00:28:19,640 --> 00:28:23,160
Speaker 4: is a rapidly emerging situation where there is not a

578
00:28:23,160 --> 00:28:26,280
Speaker 4: cause for LAM. The first US case has been detected.

579
00:28:26,320 --> 00:28:29,520
Speaker 7: This confirmation the coronavirus has reached Australia.

580
00:28:29,920 --> 00:28:33,560
Speaker 3: The US now has more reported cases of the coronavirus

581
00:28:33,600 --> 00:28:35,919
Speaker 3: in any other country in the world.

582
00:28:36,320 --> 00:28:39,320
Speaker 6: What we did on the product side was really interesting

583
00:28:39,360 --> 00:28:41,840
Speaker 6: and it gave us unique insights, and I would say

584
00:28:41,840 --> 00:28:45,360
Speaker 6: that covid didn't shift the need for our business, it

585
00:28:45,440 --> 00:28:48,120
Speaker 6: amplified it in a sustainable way. And so what we

586
00:28:48,280 --> 00:28:51,520
Speaker 6: found was that instead of getting together in person, we

587
00:28:51,640 --> 00:28:54,720
Speaker 6: turned the events into virtual events.

588
00:28:55,160 --> 00:28:56,960
Speaker 4: And what we found was that.

589
00:28:57,480 --> 00:29:01,680
Speaker 6: Users, instead of going to find new events with new people,

590
00:29:02,080 --> 00:29:04,240
Speaker 6: they were going to events with the same people. The

591
00:29:04,280 --> 00:29:08,200
Speaker 6: whole concept of deepening was way more of an appeal

592
00:29:08,240 --> 00:29:11,719
Speaker 6: to users than the concept of meeting yet another new person.

593
00:29:13,000 --> 00:29:15,000
Speaker 7: So I just saw the need in the market and

594
00:29:15,080 --> 00:29:18,240
Speaker 7: shifted to an app that focuses on an audio product

595
00:29:18,640 --> 00:29:23,800
Speaker 7: that includes just twelve squad friends. Squad uses audio technology

596
00:29:23,840 --> 00:29:27,800
Speaker 7: and habit creation to mimic real life social conversations with

597
00:29:27,840 --> 00:29:30,680
Speaker 7: your closest friends every day.

598
00:29:31,200 --> 00:29:34,160
Speaker 6: Audio is just kind of a medium, but friendship and

599
00:29:34,240 --> 00:29:37,160
Speaker 6: Connection is the product. We make it easy in front

600
00:29:37,200 --> 00:29:38,800
Speaker 6: of for you to talk to your close friends every day.

601
00:29:39,120 --> 00:29:43,000
Speaker 6: And also we've gotten feedback from our users that squad

602
00:29:43,080 --> 00:29:44,520
Speaker 6: is the place where I can go on my phone

603
00:29:44,520 --> 00:29:46,719
Speaker 6: and just completely disarmed. They're like, too much gone out

604
00:29:46,720 --> 00:29:48,920
Speaker 6: of my text messages, I got my gardener, my boyfriend,

605
00:29:49,200 --> 00:29:52,360
Speaker 6: my grandma, my toxic cousins. Too much gone on on

606
00:29:52,360 --> 00:29:54,360
Speaker 6: my phone in general, too much gone on social media.

607
00:29:54,680 --> 00:29:56,800
Speaker 4: Where can I just have my intimate place?

608
00:29:57,320 --> 00:30:00,680
Speaker 6: And there was a psychology that we were learning around

609
00:30:00,760 --> 00:30:04,440
Speaker 6: kind of safety and privacy that people wanted and wanted

610
00:30:04,440 --> 00:30:08,440
Speaker 6: to value, and so we shifted the product actually kind

611
00:30:08,480 --> 00:30:12,000
Speaker 6: of behind the scenes a little bit, and now we're

612
00:30:12,040 --> 00:30:15,120
Speaker 6: at a place where our retention is three times higher

613
00:30:15,120 --> 00:30:19,120
Speaker 6: than it's ever been. Our product is used widely among

614
00:30:19,360 --> 00:30:21,640
Speaker 6: public school students in New York City. We did some

615
00:30:21,680 --> 00:30:23,800
Speaker 6: activations here and that took off in a big way.

616
00:30:24,120 --> 00:30:26,600
Speaker 6: It's one of those things where you shake the tree,

617
00:30:27,040 --> 00:30:29,640
Speaker 6: you build a product, and then you're like, wow, Okay,

618
00:30:29,760 --> 00:30:32,760
Speaker 6: this one has the momentum. It's the right place, it's

619
00:30:32,760 --> 00:30:34,120
Speaker 6: the right products, the right time.

620
00:30:34,840 --> 00:30:36,200
Speaker 4: You've said that quote.

621
00:30:36,520 --> 00:30:38,600
Speaker 7: When I was on Wall Street, I felt like I

622
00:30:38,680 --> 00:30:40,320
Speaker 7: was more black than I was a woman.

623
00:30:41,160 --> 00:30:42,280
Speaker 5: Can you elaborate on that.

624
00:30:43,120 --> 00:30:48,160
Speaker 6: Yeah, So there's so few black people in the research field.

625
00:30:48,440 --> 00:30:52,680
Speaker 6: In fact, my best friend doctor Kismikia Corbett, who created

626
00:30:52,720 --> 00:30:54,680
Speaker 6: them a dirnovaccity and she's a professor at Harvard. Now,

627
00:30:54,840 --> 00:30:56,600
Speaker 6: she was my first lab protunt at fourteen. She was

628
00:30:56,600 --> 00:30:59,480
Speaker 6: in the same program and we used to talk about

629
00:30:59,520 --> 00:31:02,840
Speaker 6: the fact that we didn't really have people that looked

630
00:31:02,880 --> 00:31:06,200
Speaker 6: like us that we could really look up to. And

631
00:31:06,240 --> 00:31:09,719
Speaker 6: now she's that person for so many young scientists. And

632
00:31:09,760 --> 00:31:13,640
Speaker 6: so there were a lot of times in science where

633
00:31:13,640 --> 00:31:17,080
Speaker 6: I would walk around, for example, and I would get

634
00:31:17,120 --> 00:31:20,600
Speaker 6: mistaken as like the janitor sometimes and it wasn't because

635
00:31:20,640 --> 00:31:24,920
Speaker 6: I had on the blue suit that they wore, but

636
00:31:25,160 --> 00:31:29,640
Speaker 6: it was just as deeply held unconscious bias that I

637
00:31:29,640 --> 00:31:34,360
Speaker 6: couldn't be there. So I think that that was where.

638
00:31:34,680 --> 00:31:37,680
Speaker 4: A lot of the wow, I'm black first to them.

639
00:31:38,160 --> 00:31:41,000
Speaker 6: And then when I shifted to Wall Street. One of

640
00:31:41,040 --> 00:31:44,760
Speaker 6: my mentors, she was one of the earliest women in

641
00:31:44,840 --> 00:31:47,960
Speaker 6: Hedgehunes back in like the seventies. I mean, she's legit

642
00:31:48,520 --> 00:31:51,920
Speaker 6: and she would tell me about like the different entrances

643
00:31:52,280 --> 00:31:54,920
Speaker 6: that she had to go through in some of the buildings, right,

644
00:31:55,400 --> 00:31:58,760
Speaker 6: and just how deeply sexist Wall Shereet was. And I

645
00:31:58,760 --> 00:32:01,600
Speaker 6: didn't really quite understand, and that I knew about sexism,

646
00:32:01,880 --> 00:32:04,880
Speaker 6: but up until that point, like the discrimination I mostly faced,

647
00:32:04,920 --> 00:32:08,160
Speaker 6: felt like racism and intersectionality is a whole thing, right,

648
00:32:09,400 --> 00:32:12,320
Speaker 6: But I think that when I went to Wall Street,

649
00:32:12,480 --> 00:32:16,640
Speaker 6: my experience was a little bit more and actually at Tech,

650
00:32:16,800 --> 00:32:19,720
Speaker 6: my experience was a little bit closer to the white

651
00:32:19,760 --> 00:32:22,600
Speaker 6: woman than it was the black man. And I think

652
00:32:22,680 --> 00:32:24,560
Speaker 6: that and I'm not saying that black men don't have,

653
00:32:24,720 --> 00:32:28,640
Speaker 6: you know, their own issues of navigating Wall Street, but

654
00:32:28,720 --> 00:32:31,640
Speaker 6: it was something about being able to broker the relationship

655
00:32:31,640 --> 00:32:33,840
Speaker 6: well with that white man who was the CEO of

656
00:32:33,880 --> 00:32:36,240
Speaker 6: that white man who was the client, and being able

657
00:32:36,280 --> 00:32:38,840
Speaker 6: to go out and have drinks and I'm going to

658
00:32:38,920 --> 00:32:40,920
Speaker 6: go to golf and you know, we'll lead the wives

659
00:32:40,960 --> 00:32:41,320
Speaker 6: at home.

660
00:32:41,400 --> 00:32:43,600
Speaker 4: There's so much of a relationship.

661
00:32:43,000 --> 00:32:46,760
Speaker 6: Component to navigating the Wall Street and tech world that

662
00:32:46,800 --> 00:32:52,240
Speaker 6: the man to man relationship is easier to develop, essentially,

663
00:32:52,800 --> 00:32:54,880
Speaker 6: and then these white men look at me as black women,

664
00:32:54,920 --> 00:32:56,840
Speaker 6: They're like, I don't have anything comedy.

665
00:32:58,200 --> 00:32:59,440
Speaker 4: And so I think.

666
00:32:59,280 --> 00:33:01,600
Speaker 6: That, you know, that was where I was like, Okay,

667
00:33:02,440 --> 00:33:05,680
Speaker 6: I feel a lot more similarities to the white women

668
00:33:05,680 --> 00:33:09,120
Speaker 6: in this regard because I mean even very inappropriate comments

669
00:33:09,240 --> 00:33:12,160
Speaker 6: around like when women would have babies or do you

670
00:33:12,200 --> 00:33:14,720
Speaker 6: plan on getting pregnant? And you know, there is just

671
00:33:14,800 --> 00:33:18,320
Speaker 6: a lot of just deep rooted sexism, and I think

672
00:33:18,360 --> 00:33:21,760
Speaker 6: in the finance and tech world, and so my experience

673
00:33:21,840 --> 00:33:22,840
Speaker 6: kind of shifted a little.

674
00:33:22,640 --> 00:33:26,720
Speaker 7: Bit given all of that. Would you recommend that young

675
00:33:27,000 --> 00:33:29,480
Speaker 7: black women go into either medicine or Wall Street at

676
00:33:29,480 --> 00:33:29,800
Speaker 7: this point?

677
00:33:31,040 --> 00:33:32,160
Speaker 4: Honestly if they want to?

678
00:33:32,920 --> 00:33:36,800
Speaker 6: But when you are black or minority, and the more

679
00:33:36,840 --> 00:33:40,880
Speaker 6: boxes you check as a minority, the more that traditional

680
00:33:40,920 --> 00:33:45,200
Speaker 6: experience helps you launch to the next thing. Right, So

681
00:33:45,240 --> 00:33:47,840
Speaker 6: people a lot of you know, this is a big

682
00:33:47,960 --> 00:33:50,440
Speaker 6: fight in Silicon Valley right now, Like a lot of

683
00:33:50,480 --> 00:33:51,840
Speaker 6: white men will say college.

684
00:33:51,600 --> 00:33:53,160
Speaker 4: Is so unnecessary and stuff like that.

685
00:33:53,360 --> 00:33:54,640
Speaker 6: But then we're like, tell us when need back to

686
00:33:54,640 --> 00:33:56,520
Speaker 6: blackfound or who didn't go to college, and not just that,

687
00:33:56,640 --> 00:33:58,040
Speaker 6: tell me when you back to blackfound or who didn't

688
00:33:58,040 --> 00:34:01,080
Speaker 6: go to Harvard, Mit or Stanford. And then they can't,

689
00:34:01,760 --> 00:34:05,720
Speaker 6: you know, And so I would say, if they want to.

690
00:34:05,880 --> 00:34:09,800
Speaker 5: Sure, isa is yet another one of our guests who's

691
00:34:09,840 --> 00:34:14,759
Speaker 5: normalizing the conversation around not having kids, something I love

692
00:34:14,840 --> 00:34:16,719
Speaker 5: hearing about and bringing into the conversation.

693
00:34:17,640 --> 00:34:19,719
Speaker 6: You know, I think that is totally a choice that

694
00:34:19,840 --> 00:34:24,080
Speaker 6: people are fine to make. For me personally, my lifestyle

695
00:34:24,200 --> 00:34:26,560
Speaker 6: is one where I'm happy with a lot more freedom

696
00:34:27,080 --> 00:34:27,440
Speaker 6: than what.

697
00:34:27,480 --> 00:34:29,080
Speaker 4: Kids would give me.

698
00:34:29,760 --> 00:34:33,960
Speaker 6: And you know, having children I started to feel like

699
00:34:35,000 --> 00:34:38,480
Speaker 6: was an intentional decision that a lot of people weren't

700
00:34:38,480 --> 00:34:41,759
Speaker 6: intentional about. I froze my eggs, like four years ago.

701
00:34:42,080 --> 00:34:46,560
Speaker 6: I froze my eggs because I would from definitely wanting

702
00:34:46,640 --> 00:34:49,680
Speaker 6: children to not knowing if I wanted children or not,

703
00:34:50,239 --> 00:34:52,760
Speaker 6: to not wanting children, and that took about ten years.

704
00:34:53,160 --> 00:34:55,960
Speaker 6: The wanting children, I think for me, was the fact

705
00:34:56,000 --> 00:34:58,400
Speaker 6: that I came from a family of six kids, and

706
00:34:58,480 --> 00:35:01,080
Speaker 6: my parents were just like they were like, oh, at

707
00:35:01,080 --> 00:35:02,359
Speaker 6: five years old, they were like, you know, you got

708
00:35:02,360 --> 00:35:04,160
Speaker 6: to get your PhD from Harvard and my tea because

709
00:35:04,160 --> 00:35:06,319
Speaker 6: when you have kids. Growing up in North Carolina, it's

710
00:35:06,320 --> 00:35:08,120
Speaker 6: like you're expected to have kids. And you know, I

711
00:35:08,200 --> 00:35:09,680
Speaker 6: was told I was old to not have kids at

712
00:35:09,680 --> 00:35:12,239
Speaker 6: twenty seven by my aunts, and so I think it

713
00:35:12,280 --> 00:35:16,640
Speaker 6: was I had absorbed the expectation, not really thinking intentionally

714
00:35:17,640 --> 00:35:20,160
Speaker 6: was having children what I wanted. And then I got

715
00:35:20,160 --> 00:35:23,560
Speaker 6: to the point where, kind of in my late twenties,

716
00:35:24,200 --> 00:35:26,000
Speaker 6: I was like, you know, I could have.

717
00:35:26,000 --> 00:35:28,480
Speaker 4: Kids, but I'm also okay if I don't have kids.

718
00:35:28,920 --> 00:35:31,319
Speaker 6: The other thing I'll say, though, Emily, is that the

719
00:35:31,400 --> 00:35:34,799
Speaker 6: shift from maybe I want kids to I don't want kids.

720
00:35:34,840 --> 00:35:37,080
Speaker 6: I was afraid of this stigma. I think there's a

721
00:35:37,080 --> 00:35:40,640
Speaker 6: little bit of a stigma around women who don't have kids.

722
00:35:40,640 --> 00:35:43,120
Speaker 6: And Chelsea Handler's talked about this a lot recently, you know,

723
00:35:43,200 --> 00:35:45,600
Speaker 6: being childless and in her choice in doing that, and

724
00:35:45,960 --> 00:35:48,759
Speaker 6: there are negative thoughts and comments abound that, and I

725
00:35:48,800 --> 00:35:51,560
Speaker 6: think being okay with that that took a while too.

726
00:35:52,640 --> 00:35:55,719
Speaker 7: I read interviews with you where you say that journalists

727
00:35:55,719 --> 00:35:58,239
Speaker 7: wanted to profile you and they wanted to profile this

728
00:35:58,640 --> 00:36:01,440
Speaker 7: black female entrepreneurs or they wanted you to have like

729
00:36:01,480 --> 00:36:02,720
Speaker 7: a rags to riches story.

730
00:36:02,800 --> 00:36:04,120
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that.

731
00:36:04,320 --> 00:36:08,279
Speaker 6: You know, my experience with the media oftentimes has been

732
00:36:08,440 --> 00:36:11,600
Speaker 6: that they love to you know, there's a confirmation bias

733
00:36:11,920 --> 00:36:14,160
Speaker 6: that they like to tap into oftentimes, and a lot

734
00:36:14,200 --> 00:36:16,000
Speaker 6: of black entrepreneurs experience.

735
00:36:15,680 --> 00:36:17,600
Speaker 4: As we talk about it a lot. They called it

736
00:36:17,640 --> 00:36:18,439
Speaker 4: a poverty.

737
00:36:18,080 --> 00:36:20,759
Speaker 6: Form because you know what they what they wanted was

738
00:36:21,320 --> 00:36:26,640
Speaker 6: single parent, household, homeless. Those are the stories that you

739
00:36:26,719 --> 00:36:29,480
Speaker 6: see that are amplified a lot, right, And so it

740
00:36:29,520 --> 00:36:31,560
Speaker 6: was weird because when I would talk about squad, they

741
00:36:31,560 --> 00:36:33,680
Speaker 6: were like, let's go to your upbringing and I'm like, okay, cool,

742
00:36:33,719 --> 00:36:35,399
Speaker 6: let's go to it. And they're like, so tell us,

743
00:36:35,440 --> 00:36:38,400
Speaker 6: like what were like, what were the it's hard for

744
00:36:38,440 --> 00:36:41,680
Speaker 6: them to get it out. Were there difficulties in your childhood?

745
00:36:41,960 --> 00:36:43,759
Speaker 6: And I'm like, yeah, being a thirteen year old was

746
00:36:43,760 --> 00:36:46,400
Speaker 6: pretty difficult. But they were like, well, tell us about

747
00:36:46,480 --> 00:36:48,960
Speaker 6: you know, did you have one parent?

748
00:36:49,000 --> 00:36:49,640
Speaker 4: Two parents?

749
00:36:49,680 --> 00:36:51,640
Speaker 6: And so when I got those types of questions all

750
00:36:51,680 --> 00:36:54,320
Speaker 6: the time, I knew they were looking for a background

751
00:36:54,320 --> 00:36:57,840
Speaker 6: that I just didn't have. So there are a few

752
00:36:57,880 --> 00:37:01,080
Speaker 6: times where my story just wasn't interesting enough from a

753
00:37:01,080 --> 00:37:03,600
Speaker 6: background perspective because it didn't fit that.

754
00:37:04,320 --> 00:37:06,880
Speaker 7: Was there a moment that you realized that was what

755
00:37:06,920 --> 00:37:08,560
Speaker 7: they were looking for, like as you started to go

756
00:37:08,640 --> 00:37:10,080
Speaker 7: through these interviews.

757
00:37:09,840 --> 00:37:13,359
Speaker 6: Yeah, definitely, especially when I engaged with some writers and

758
00:37:13,400 --> 00:37:17,239
Speaker 6: then I would see down the road stories that they

759
00:37:17,239 --> 00:37:19,960
Speaker 6: did write about and I'm not like saying that if

760
00:37:19,960 --> 00:37:23,160
Speaker 6: you that's your background that there's anything wrong with that,

761
00:37:23,239 --> 00:37:25,839
Speaker 6: And I think it's a beautiful thing to be able to,

762
00:37:26,440 --> 00:37:28,200
Speaker 6: you know, have a trajectory that's up.

763
00:37:28,480 --> 00:37:29,680
Speaker 4: But it just wasn't true to me.

764
00:37:30,080 --> 00:37:33,040
Speaker 6: And so what I found myself doing to try to

765
00:37:33,120 --> 00:37:35,120
Speaker 6: like kind of fit that a little bit was telling

766
00:37:35,160 --> 00:37:37,560
Speaker 6: my parents' stories, right, And I would be like, well,

767
00:37:37,600 --> 00:37:39,399
Speaker 6: you know, my dad grew up poor, my mom grew

768
00:37:39,440 --> 00:37:40,720
Speaker 6: up poor in a tobacco farm.

769
00:37:41,040 --> 00:37:42,480
Speaker 4: And they were like, but how'd you grow up?

770
00:37:43,560 --> 00:37:46,360
Speaker 6: I was like, not poor. I had a pretty decent

771
00:37:46,400 --> 00:37:48,520
Speaker 6: sized house. You know, I had two parents. I don't

772
00:37:48,560 --> 00:37:51,120
Speaker 6: know what you want from me. You know, my upbringing

773
00:37:51,280 --> 00:37:54,359
Speaker 6: was one that was you know, I had two very

774
00:37:54,400 --> 00:37:55,240
Speaker 6: present parents.

775
00:37:55,719 --> 00:37:57,920
Speaker 4: It was you know, your typical.

776
00:37:57,800 --> 00:38:02,080
Speaker 6: Hard social life of your elementary, middle, high school. But

777
00:38:02,120 --> 00:38:03,839
Speaker 6: it was one that you know, there was a lot

778
00:38:03,880 --> 00:38:05,720
Speaker 6: of love, There was a lot of intentionality.

779
00:38:06,160 --> 00:38:07,240
Speaker 4: The bar was high.

780
00:38:07,640 --> 00:38:09,960
Speaker 6: You know. I was the type of kid where I

781
00:38:10,000 --> 00:38:11,840
Speaker 6: would bring home at ninety eight on an exam and

782
00:38:11,880 --> 00:38:14,680
Speaker 6: they were like, okay, cool, but where are the two points.

783
00:38:14,480 --> 00:38:15,680
Speaker 4: That I still deal with?

784
00:38:15,800 --> 00:38:18,000
Speaker 6: Right, Because when I do something, I'm like, wait, what

785
00:38:18,080 --> 00:38:18,680
Speaker 6: did I miss?

786
00:38:19,080 --> 00:38:21,279
Speaker 4: Not what did I do? My parents at a high bar.

787
00:38:21,400 --> 00:38:24,279
Speaker 6: But I will say that, you know, quite frankly, it's

788
00:38:24,320 --> 00:38:26,879
Speaker 6: one that's got me where I am today. I will

789
00:38:26,920 --> 00:38:28,359
Speaker 6: say that I got to a point where I started

790
00:38:28,360 --> 00:38:29,680
Speaker 6: to cary a little bit of shame about that.

791
00:38:30,000 --> 00:38:31,799
Speaker 4: I was like, am I privileged? Wait?

792
00:38:31,880 --> 00:38:33,600
Speaker 6: No, I'm not like what. I was like, what is

793
00:38:33,680 --> 00:38:37,160
Speaker 6: what you know? And so I internalized this a lot

794
00:38:37,440 --> 00:38:39,480
Speaker 6: and then I was like, you know what, my background

795
00:38:39,560 --> 00:38:41,839
Speaker 6: is my background, My upbringing is my upbringing, and it

796
00:38:41,880 --> 00:38:42,399
Speaker 6: is what it.

797
00:38:42,320 --> 00:38:44,000
Speaker 4: Is right totally.

798
00:38:44,719 --> 00:38:47,560
Speaker 7: So talk to me about the sky diving.

799
00:38:48,640 --> 00:38:50,879
Speaker 6: Being a founder's hard. Being a founder is so hard,

800
00:38:50,920 --> 00:38:53,400
Speaker 6: is so lonely, is so mentally draining all the things.

801
00:38:53,680 --> 00:38:57,960
Speaker 6: And throughout my founder journey, I have invested in different

802
00:38:58,080 --> 00:39:01,080
Speaker 6: things to reset my mental health, do guided meditation.

803
00:39:01,840 --> 00:39:03,160
Speaker 4: But I always wanted.

804
00:39:02,960 --> 00:39:05,680
Speaker 6: To skydivee so I tried it and it was crazy

805
00:39:05,760 --> 00:39:10,000
Speaker 6: because you're not supposed to skydive through clouds, Like there's regulations,

806
00:39:10,280 --> 00:39:13,239
Speaker 6: we shouldn't have this skydiving. But they took me. Like

807
00:39:13,320 --> 00:39:15,399
Speaker 6: the plane was so small you can just roll out

808
00:39:15,400 --> 00:39:17,360
Speaker 6: of it. You couldn't even like step in the door.

809
00:39:17,600 --> 00:39:20,080
Speaker 6: But it was the most amazing experience of my life.

810
00:39:20,520 --> 00:39:24,160
Speaker 6: I will say that skydiving is thirteen percent women in

811
00:39:24,200 --> 00:39:27,279
Speaker 6: the US forty thousand sky divers and it's like, I mean,

812
00:39:27,320 --> 00:39:31,480
Speaker 6: point some zeros or percent black. But I love to

813
00:39:31,520 --> 00:39:34,000
Speaker 6: get women in the sport and we're black people in

814
00:39:34,000 --> 00:39:36,719
Speaker 6: the sport. So I'm trading right now to compete in

815
00:39:36,760 --> 00:39:40,200
Speaker 6: the twenty twenty four US Nationals for skydiving in Scott

816
00:39:40,239 --> 00:39:40,760
Speaker 6: of Chicago.

817
00:39:40,880 --> 00:39:42,880
Speaker 4: So if you're a skydiver, reach out to me.

818
00:39:43,920 --> 00:39:46,719
Speaker 7: What is one thing that at the time you thought

819
00:39:46,800 --> 00:39:49,160
Speaker 7: was like a real low for you? And now would

820
00:39:49,160 --> 00:39:51,240
Speaker 7: you look back and actually set you on the paths

821
00:39:51,280 --> 00:39:51,920
Speaker 7: that you're on now?

822
00:39:51,960 --> 00:39:52,799
Speaker 4: The successful path?

823
00:39:53,640 --> 00:39:56,480
Speaker 6: I guess two parts, Like losing my dad was a

824
00:39:56,520 --> 00:40:00,680
Speaker 6: real low, but the way that it shifted my perspective

825
00:40:00,680 --> 00:40:04,760
Speaker 6: in life and my priorities is something that I'll be forever grateful.

826
00:40:04,400 --> 00:40:05,960
Speaker 4: For and I think about it every day.

827
00:40:06,480 --> 00:40:09,000
Speaker 6: I have so much validation for my dad and even

828
00:40:09,040 --> 00:40:11,319
Speaker 6: not having that today, so avoid that I deal with.

829
00:40:11,880 --> 00:40:14,760
Speaker 6: And then I think a low was having a company

830
00:40:14,800 --> 00:40:17,799
Speaker 6: that wasn't suited to survive a pandemic and figuring out

831
00:40:17,800 --> 00:40:20,799
Speaker 6: how to pivot that and how to extend runway and

832
00:40:21,200 --> 00:40:23,239
Speaker 6: get to the other side of that. There were times

833
00:40:23,239 --> 00:40:26,359
Speaker 6: where you know people you talk about PHG programs. Every

834
00:40:26,360 --> 00:40:28,319
Speaker 6: pH student will tell you at some point they were like,

835
00:40:28,520 --> 00:40:31,680
Speaker 6: what am I doing here? That was kind of March

836
00:40:31,760 --> 00:40:35,279
Speaker 6: April May of twenty twenty for me. I was so

837
00:40:35,760 --> 00:40:39,840
Speaker 6: depressed about the pandemics of impact on the business, so

838
00:40:39,920 --> 00:40:42,120
Speaker 6: much so that I had gotten on antidepressants. My doctor

839
00:40:42,160 --> 00:40:44,239
Speaker 6: put me on and just pulling myself out of that

840
00:40:44,640 --> 00:40:46,600
Speaker 6: so I could pull my team out of that and

841
00:40:46,800 --> 00:40:49,160
Speaker 6: charting on the path that we're on today. I mean,

842
00:40:49,360 --> 00:40:52,399
Speaker 6: it's seriously the most fulfilling thing. Thank you so much

843
00:40:52,440 --> 00:40:53,880
Speaker 6: for joining us, Thanks for having me.

844
00:40:57,320 --> 00:40:59,840
Speaker 7: I used to lives in Brooklyn and it's continuing to

845
00:41:00,000 --> 00:41:04,600
Speaker 7: develop and grow squad. Her book, Life Beyond Likes is

846
00:41:04,680 --> 00:41:08,399
Speaker 7: out now go read it. It's a necessary investigation into

847
00:41:08,400 --> 00:41:11,200
Speaker 7: how social media plays a role into our own happiness,

848
00:41:11,520 --> 00:41:15,440
Speaker 7: fulfillment and our pivots. To find out more about Isa,

849
00:41:15,719 --> 00:41:19,280
Speaker 7: you can follow her on Instagram at Isa d Watson.

850
00:41:21,040 --> 00:41:24,839
Speaker 5: She Pivots is an amazing community of women who understand

851
00:41:24,840 --> 00:41:27,520
Speaker 5: that personal is the professional.

852
00:41:28,280 --> 00:41:32,640
Speaker 7: Join the community on Instagram at she pivots. The podcast

853
00:41:33,560 --> 00:41:36,279
Speaker 7: a special thank you to our partner Marie Clair and

854
00:41:36,360 --> 00:41:38,360
Speaker 7: the team that made this episode possible.

855
00:41:39,040 --> 00:41:40,040
Speaker 4: Talk to you next week.

856
00:41:42,800 --> 00:41:46,880
Speaker 7: She Pivots is hosted by me Emily Tish Sussman, produced

857
00:41:46,920 --> 00:41:50,759
Speaker 7: by Emily Eda Voloshik, with sound editing and mixing from

858
00:41:50,880 --> 00:41:54,560
Speaker 7: Nina Pollock and research and planning from Christine Dickinson and

859
00:41:54,640 --> 00:41:55,440
Speaker 7: Hannah Cousins.

860
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883
00:43:10,840 --> 00:43:13,240
Speaker 3: were or weren't made, and answer the million dollar question

884
00:43:13,520 --> 00:43:14,560
Speaker 3: are they still a company?

885
00:43:14,880 --> 00:43:17,080
Speaker 5: Whether you're an entrepreneur looking for tips or a Shark

886
00:43:17,120 --> 00:43:19,320
Speaker 5: Tank fan that just wants to relive the drama, Another

887
00:43:19,320 --> 00:43:21,239
Speaker 5: bites your deep dive into the world of Shark Tank.

888
00:43:21,520 --> 00:43:23,600
Speaker 3: Just search for Another Bite in your favorite podcast app,

889
00:43:23,680 --> 00:43:25,319
Speaker 3: like the one you're listening to right now.