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