Hilary Hoffman: Goldman Sachs to Fitness Empire

Hilary Hoffman had achieved what so many strive for in the finance world: a high-powered job at one of the most elite institutions, Goldman Sachs. But, like so many women I talk to on this show, Hilary felt called to take a leap of faith and make a big pivot, leaving finance behind and launching SotoMethod - the latest in-demand workout class both in New York City and online. On this episode, Hilary opens up about the tough and pragmatic choices she had to make in leaving behind a secure job and jumping into the world of entrepreneurship; her motivation for creating a fitness brand that focuses on sculpting and efficiency (for those of us with packed calendars!); and her challenging pregnancy journey.  

 

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She Pivots was created by host Emily Tisch Sussman to highlight women, their stories, and how their pivot became their success. To learn more about Hilary, follow us on Instagram @ShePivotsThePodcast or visit shepivotsthepodcast.com. 

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Episode Transcript

Hilary Hoffman (00:00):
Welcome back to she Pivots. I'm Hilary Hoffman.

Emily Tisch Sussman (00:12):
Welcome back to she Pivots, the podcast where we talk
with women who dare to pivot out of one career
and into something new and explore how their personal lives
impacts these decisions. I'm your host Emily Tish Sussman. Today,

(00:33):
I'm delighted to have Hillary Hoffman, founder and CEO of
Sodo Method, the latest in demand workout class both in
New York City and online. Hillary started her career at
one of the most elite institutions in finance, Goldman Sachs.
From the outside, it looked like she'd made it, But
like so many of the women we feature on this show,

(00:54):
hillariot something else pulling at her, something more aligned with
who she was becoming. That pull eventually led her to
create Sodo Method, a wellness and fitness brand that's just
as much about mental strength as it is about physical movement.
When we sat down with Hillary, she was very pregnant

(01:17):
with twins, like weeks away from giving birth, but totally
clear eyed about the journey she'd been on. She opened
up about how tough it was to make the leap
from a steady high powered job into the unknown of
entrepreneurship and the tough and pragmatic choices she had to
make to make it happen. She talked about what it

(01:38):
really takes to stick it out when you're always waiting
for that right moment to jump. For her, it wasn't
always about protecting her peace by walking away. It was
about finding a way to stay grounded and save enough
money to make that pivot possible. Soda wasn't just the
next chapter. It was the thing that gave her the

(01:59):
clarity and strength to get there now. Sodo Method is
the hottest workout class in the city and has thousands
of subscribers online. Her efficient method mixes cardio and sculpting
movements designed to maximize burn and time for us busybodies.
Hillary's story is a reminder that great timing and trusting

(02:21):
yourself can open doors you didn't even know. We're there.
Let's get into it.

Hilary Hoffman (02:29):
My name is Hillary Hoffman and I'm the founder and
CEO of the Sodo Method. The Sodo Method is an
omni channel business where we offer fitness classes both in
person and digitally. You can find us on the app
store on the web, but you can also find us
at our first flagship, which is located in Tribeca at.

Emily Tisch Sussman (02:46):
Six D Thomas Street. Congratulations, thank you so much. Okay,
so give us baby Hillary.
What was she like? What did she want to be
when she grew up?

Hilary Hoffman (02:54):
It's such a pertinent question because I think, so I'm
currently carrying twins, and when you go through your first pregnant, see,
your parents are telling you all the ways you behaved
when you were a child or an infant. And I
think that one of the most telling personality traits of
mine from a very young age was this really gregarious
personality type where nothing really fazed me when it came

(03:15):
to crowds. So as a baby, I didn't really cry.
I just made a lot of sound and I wanted
to be a part of the conversation. It wasn't even
in attention things my parents said. It was just participating.
And then as I got older, I was very lucky
that my mom and dad were so supportive of my
personality because I think a lot of times and it's

(03:37):
the way I want to treat my boy my girl
is sometimes when you're a loud child, you can be
told to be quiet. My parents were really good at
redirecting that energy. And so when I was three or
four learning the abcs, we were in Newport, and funny enough,
I got lost. And when I got lost, my parents
just followed the sound of the ABC's and I had
corralled a group of like thirty people to sing it,

(03:58):
and they just knew I was not going to have
a problem making friends. But even crazier is so when
I turned five or six, my parents just learned that
at a really debilitating lisp, it was really profound, it
was something that it was inescapable, and my mom had
a choice. She brought me to a speech pathologist and
when they met me, she did a one on one

(04:20):
with me. That's what they typically work, and then they
take your parent and they discuss how you behave during
that one on one session with the doctor. And this
woman is an angel because I really do think that
she changed my life because instead of telling my mom,
your daughter should see me three times a week, she
actually actually said, your daughter is such an unusual sense
of confidence, I would advise you not to bring her

(04:41):
here because a lot of times kids will be will
think that it's not that you have a lisp, but
that we're trying to work on or fix. It's that
we need to work on you. And so instead, my
mom took it into her own hands and very gently
wove in ways to work on the lisp. So I
still do it to this day. Seven slithering snakes. You

(05:02):
say it seven times before you're gonna say anything out loud,
and you can really work on it. So she is
the reason why I don't have a lisp. It comes
back every now and again if I'm not being mindful
of it. But it's just crazy how those small little
choices can really affect how someone used themselves and speaks.

Emily Tisch Sussman (05:21):
It's no surprise that Hillary was drawn to sports. It
was the perfect environment for her to lean into her
confidence and love for competition.

Hilary Hoffman (05:30):
Sports is where I definitely went and who you make
friends with at a young age does determine what you
end up doing. My best friend, her dad, was a
very accomplished swimmer. He won gold at the Macabean Races,
which was like an Olympic equivalent that was happening Israel
at the time, and so I actually joined this one
team when I was six, which was a very young age,
and so from six until about thirteen, I was competing

(05:53):
competitively with swimming. So swimming and running were my two
best sports. I loved soccer because all my best friends
played it, and I made the team not based on
merit nor talent, but strictly because my best friend was
the captain. God bless her. I love her so much
and we're still best friends to to stay. But I
think that when I think about my personality, it's really

(06:14):
bifurcated in the sense where, yes, I love public speaking,
I love being around people, but I'm also a really
insular person. And I'm lucky that. The way that I
think about competition is it's always really been me versus me,
and endurance sports are great because it's all time based,
so there's this constant ability to get better, to achieve progress,

(06:36):
and was swimming I was able to do that. The
only issue with swimming is it becomes incredibly uncomfortable when
you're like thirteen, going through puberty, going to chlorine every
single day. It was not cute. I had green hair.
It just was not it. And so my mom and
dad made a proposition, you just spent all this time
building up an incredible skill, which is endurance. It'd be

(06:59):
a shame to let that go. Why don't you try running?
And so I ended up trying running and I really
liked it, and so during my high school years really
leaned on that ended up being a good runner. I
think that if I had my mindset today, then oh
my god, I would love to see what times I
could have put up. But again, hindsight's twenty twenty. I'm

(07:19):
lucky in the sense where a lot of the skill
set that I learned from that competitiveness with myself has
carried through into entrepreneurship.

Emily Tisch Sussman (07:28):
What did you want to be when you grew up?
Did you have any thoughts about it?

Hilary Hoffman (07:30):
When I was young, I didn't really. I never had
a job that I necessarily wanted. I think that what
I wanted was intensity, and I always was unapologetic about that.
I had a lot of passions that I enjoyed, whether
it was reading about it, participating in it. But I
think a lot of little girls, or however little you are.

(07:52):
My dad was such an influential person in my life.
He worked in finance. I thought, I mean, he is
the greatest man on earth, and at the time I
wanted to be like him, So finance for me felt
like a natural path. At some point in my life
and when whatever you talk about at the dinner table
is going to be what your most conversational in So
we always did talk about work, and we talked about

(08:12):
what he did. And I think what's interesting about your
son in that moment in perspective is so my dad
worked at bear Stearns for many years, and when the
financial crisis happened, it was a very unique week. That week,
I was a junior. I was taking the SATs on
a Saturday. I bear Stearns went under on a Tuesday.
Because of the way the world was at the time,

(08:34):
my cell phone was an LG flip phone. There was
no news I was getting on it. You really had
to proactively seek out news on the computer. And I
commuted to a private high school where I did wake
up early, and I did read the paper when I
did wake up, But for that week, my mom made
the decision to hide the newspapers wake me up a
little bit later, so my attention wasn't swayed because I

(08:56):
would have been deeply affected by this news leading into
a test that at the time was the most important
test I was ever going to take. What was crazy
is that Friday before the test, my dad had been
in his most stressed out state. I don't think there's
ever been a moment in his professional life that will
ever be comparable to that of the financial crisis and
going under so quickly. But I called him that Friday.

(09:19):
End of the day, I had gotten eight plus on
a paper, I had done something else, I got a
great test score for the SATs And I called him
and I said, Dad, this Friday, this is the best
Friday I've ever had in my life. And I think
for him he found it to be such an inspiring
moment about perspective that for him it was the worst

(09:41):
Friday he's ever had. But here his daughter's calling him
saying it's the best. So I think for him it
did show that there is going to be late, there
is going to be great things ahead, even if it
felt really dark in that moment. But I remember, even
despite knowing everything about the financial crisis, I still chose
to go into finance when I graduated from college. And

(10:03):
it's just interesting. I don't think there would have been
another choice for me, just because at a young age
I wanted to be my dad and that was kind
of set in stone.

Emily Tisch Sussman (10:11):
So you went straight out of college.
I mean, it's pretty competitive to get into these finance
jobs right out of college, right they are.

Hilary Hoffman (10:17):
And what's interesting is I think as it relates to
that job. So I was a rising junior when I
knew I wanted to do this. I also there's a
lot of luck in life, and I was going abroad
to Dijon. So when I had submitted my application to
Goldman for the internship program, I definitely stood out. I
was a French major, art history minor, and one thing

(10:40):
that Goldman is very mindful of is they want a
lot of diversity of background. So there are different piles
that your resume is going to get put in. So
there's a ton clearly in the economics pile. I definitely
fell into a different situation. And I'm also one to
always credit how I got somewhere. The door was halfway
open for me. I was very lucky that since I

(11:01):
had taken an interest in finance at a young age,
I had gone and shadowed people at a young age,
and I only had that door halfway open because of
my dad and I own that and so for me,
my name wasn't unfamiliar. So putting in that one hundred
percent with a door halfway open. Shame on me if
I didn't get the job, that really was on me

(11:22):
to lose. So I prepared like crazy. I remember that
the reason why I got lucky is the super days
were happening right as I was going abroad, so I
did not have to do my super day in person.
What is a super day, So a super day in
finance is this marathon of interviews, So it can be
anywhere from four to ten people who you're meeting with,

(11:44):
and they're going to ask you a series of questions
that are going to look to uncover how you think,
why you want this job, what are your larger aspirations,
And you have to come prepared to answer as eloquently
as you can while also standing out. And not to
say that I would have not done well in person,
but when you are behind a computer and you're doing it,

(12:06):
it's a little less intense. And so for me, I
remember I rented a study room at school, had about
one billion post its around the room because I was
a posted person, had an idea, had everything organized. So
I also had this room filled with all my notes
just around me and ended up going well enough where
the craziest part was got the job. Pardon me with

(12:28):
twins in my stomach, all I do is burp all day.
I'm so sorry. We fast forward. I go to Dijon
for abroad. I have to expedite my last test because
Goldman's internship started. Call it on. I don't know July first,
or like June first, I forget which one it was.
But my last day of the program was supposed to
be two days after it, so I took all of

(12:50):
my exams, flew home early, landed, went right to I
think it was like the Hilton. My mom was waiting
there with a Brooks brother. Suit went to bed that night,
woke up the next morning. I thought that the internship
greeting day was going to be at two hundred West,
which is where Goldman's offices are. Turns out there in
Jersey City, as a young human, not knowing that Jersey

(13:13):
City is right across the water. I check in at
the office thirty minutes early. They tell me it's in
New Jersey. I'm about to have a mental breakdown because
in my mind, I'm like, there's no way I'm getting
to Jersey in time for this first day. There's incredibly
far away Jersey totally and so I just like I'm done,
Like this is it like the story for me at Goldman.
It lasted fifteen minutes, but by god, I tried. I

(13:34):
took the flight home early. I'm wearing the fucking Brooks
Brothers suit. We're good to go. And the one was
like no, no, no no, there's a ferry and it will
get you there in three minutes. You'll probably still be
the first one there. So walked over there. Crazy things happen.
So I get to the ferry, and the woman that
runs the entire program, not just for rising seniors in college,

(13:56):
but everyone who was participating in internship program that summer
was on my ferry. I got to know her. So
when I went to this opening day where it was
effectively registration and get to know everyone, the room was
filled with a thousand people. What's the first thing she
says on the mic? Hi, guys, welcome to your first
aunt Goldman. I was lucky enough to sit next to

(14:17):
a girl who just landed from Dijon. She's wearing a
Brooks Brothers suits, her first suit. It's like, give her
a round of applause. So I like got like the
first standing ovation. I was like, okay, like slightly embarrassed,
but also this is great, like everyone knows, like I'm
a hard ass, like I just flew in from Dijon,
Like that's got to be a point for me. But
of course, though I went to Colgate loved the school

(14:37):
was great, I don't really know much about Ivy League schools.
And I was sat next to a guy who was
at a different point in his life and so when
I asked him where did you go to school to
get you here? And he answered HBS? And I was like,
what is that? And I swear I've never humbled a
man more in my life. But I really had no
idea because.

Emily Tisch Sussman (14:56):
Anyone who went to Harvard Business School is like, I
don't even need to tell you the initials.

Hilary Hoffman (15:00):
It's HBS. And I literally said what's that? And the
answers and he goes, oh, I heard that's a good one,
and that guy knew that, Like I just gave zero
fox about where you went. Needless to say, that was
the start of mind.

Emily Tisch Sussman (15:11):
Probably went to HBS to get this Goldman internship, oh.

Hilary Hoffman (15:14):
Totally, and also to use it as a line on
women to make them believe that he was fabulous. Did
not work on me. Whatsoever. But then that was the
start of my finance journey. And so from there I
did the nine week rotational program. So three weeks, three
separate desks. It's yours to do with it what you want.
Like it's one of those very open ended internships where

(15:36):
you could truly do nothing for nine weeks, get paid,
not get hired, but still have it on your resume,
or you could attack it and figure out what you
want to do in that short period of time. And
I think for me, I just realized this is such
a unique opportunity, shame on me if I don't capitalize
on it. And so I ended up knowing that my

(15:58):
superpower was listening, leveraging others. When we would do group projects,
I would be the one that really was project managing it,
not necessarily being the genius behind the trade pitch, but
making sure that we had the right team in place
to make sure that we could create a compelling argument.
And I ended the summer with the job, my first
real job, real moment of finding out my strengths and weaknesses,

(16:21):
and then also learning what a Shobs was.

Emily Tisch Sussman (16:24):
Yeah, already a leader and clearly ready for any challenge
she could take on it was at that internship where
Hillary learned some of her most valuable lessons.

Hilary Hoffman (16:35):
And my biggest piece of feedback throughout that summer and
the first call it four and a half weeks, was
that my personality, my energy was a lot for some people,
and my advice was actually tone it down. And it
taught me one of the most important lessons, which is,
I think a lot of times young people think that
when you deliver feedback like that, they're trying to change
who you are. It's actually not the case. No one's

(16:57):
trying to change who you are. But if you don't
deliver information in a way that someone wants to receive it,
they're not going to hear you. So it's doing a
discredit to yourself. If you're unable to shape shift and
be a chameleon. You maintain your identity, your voice, your perspective,
the words you want to use, but you're able to
show up and be a messenger that stands a chance
of really affecting change because you're going to stay in

(17:20):
a way that that end person will really listen. And
when I made that switch where I learned that this
one trader likes a softer disposition, this other guy actually
really likes my high energy. This woman prefers it when
we don't talk about our weekend plans. This guy only
wants to talk about our weekend plans. I all of

(17:40):
a sudden started to experience great success because I didn't
take it personally that this person didn't want to do
something in a certain way. It was up to me
to really meet them where they were at. And that
piece of advice has actually changed the course of my
life because jobs after Gold been in my current job
as a CEO and entrepreneur, I can't expect people to

(18:01):
read my mind, and if I'm trying to get the
best out of somebody, it's really my responsibility to meet
them where they are. So that was a huge takeaway
from my time there, and then from there you basically
get hired to a team again offer. I got my
offer to the last job I was at, and then
that was that that started off my next seven years
of my life.

Emily Tisch Sussman (18:22):
That's incredible perspective to have it, and I think for
a lot of people it would be hard to hear that.
I think, not just it's a young person, but at
any point in their life, they would take it incredibly pally.
Do you remember what that mental switch was for you,
Like was like, did you hear it for a little while,
take it hard, and then think, Okay, let me zoom out.
Let me give this perspective.

Hilary Hoffman (18:41):
The feedback came from two separate people, one in which
it was delivered horribly and the other that was delivered brilliantly.
So the first person that delivered it to me, and
it's a real shame, it was a female partner who
I had a lot of respect for, and you could
tell she did not have respect for me and the
way that she delivered this feedback. This is true story.

(19:03):
I walked into her office, she sat down, She's like, Hillary,
you are on fucking crack cocaine. She goes stop. She's like,
everyone thinks strong crack and as someone who and again
I passed no judgment. I've never done crack or cocaine
a day in my life. That's just the last thing
I need is something to energize me. I just remember

(19:24):
being like that felt like an attack, and it really
felt like that part of my personality was a negative,
when in fact it's not a negative. It was just
a personality trait. Then there was another gentleman obsessed with
this guy. I'm so lucky I met him. He actually
I was shadowing him and I was asking him a

(19:44):
ton of questions that were really technical and ever he looked.

Emily Tisch Sussman (19:47):
At me in the eye.

Hilary Hoffman (19:48):
He said, Hillary, I know why you're asking this. I
know you want to be taken seriously, and I deeply,
deeply respect that. But I need you to remember that
a part of getting this job is are you someone
that I want to sit next to you for twelve
hours today? He goes, I highly doubt that you want
to talk about interest rates like this, And I said,
you're right, I don't want to talk about interest rates

(20:08):
like this. He goes, well, then let's just talk. Let's
just talk and see where the conversation goes. And I
remembered so quickly in the way that he delivered that
which I have since come to understand deeply is you
just want to enjoy who you're working with. You hope
they have aptitude, You hope that they have ambitions. You
hope that they're malleable during difficult times, whether that's a

(20:31):
financial switch in the markets or honestly, something that's going
to go on personally for your life. Because you get
to really know these people and they just want to
know that you're going to be a rock and a
person that they want to see every single morning at
six am. And so his delivery really shifted my approach
and I didn't take it personally anymore. But I think
that again, message received two very different ways. I wasn't

(20:54):
upset over the takeaway from the way that the female
partner delivered it, but I just remember thinking to myself,
this is extremely rude, and spite is also a very
powerful motivator, so I knew that she didn't think I
was going to get the job, so I kind of said, like,
fuck you, I am going to get it, and which
is good. And I've done that my whole life, and
I'm sure you've done it as well, most successful not

(21:16):
successful people. But I think a lot of people who
find energy reserves when they're tired, they're not just pulling
from people that believe in them. They're pulling from people
they want to prove wrong. And I think it's a
powerful resource to use at your disposal.

Emily Tisch Sussman (21:30):
After the break, Hillary talks about the start of her
pivoting journey, her decision to leave finance, and the interim
period that helped propel her into starting SODO method.
So how long did you stay in that job at Goldman?

Hilary Hoffman (21:53):
I was in the sales and trading division for about
six years. And the truth is I really liked my job.
I didn't have My only issues with it were the
sustainability of the hours. They were really really taxing. The
lifestyle itself. We hadn't really come into this world of
health and wellness quite so much early mornings, late nights,

(22:14):
fueled with alcohol. It was a lot. Granted I was young,
so it was fun and being in New York at
such a young age, getting to experience it at the
best restaurants, best everything, so much fun. But that has
a time limit and eventually you actually would prefer to
be home at seven pm as opposed to being at
the newest restaurant. And so I just knew that I

(22:34):
was never going to be able to live my fullest
life with this type of lifestyle. And I think that
I started to realize my real skills and where I
was adding value and I was smart enough to make
it work. And I think that I used my background
not being in finance to my advantage so that I
would always ask the dumb questions, but no one wanted
to and when people say there's no such thing as

(22:56):
a dumb question, there are. There are dumb questions, but
dumb questions only happen when you're not listening. And I
think that what I learned is a lot of times
when you think it's a dumb question, it's actually not.
What you're actually asking for is further clarification. And so
I think for me, a lot of people would present
an idea with the understanding that I had the backstory.

(23:17):
But what's crazy is I would just ask for the backstory,
so what they were saying made sense. Seventy five percent
of the room didn't understand the backstory either, So people
really started to lean on me to ask those questions,
and I was actually able to parlay that into the
way that I wrote, and so I started writing these
marketing pieces. Funny enough, during the Trump Clinton election, I

(23:38):
did something called custom basket. So an ETF is imagine
trading the whole tech portfolio that trades on the SMP
in one single share. So instead of having to decide,
like am I going to buy Microsoft and Apple and
Zinga and all these other crazy stocks. I just want
exposure to the tech space, So I'm going to buy
an ETF. We were able to create these instruments where

(23:58):
you could actually design your per So if I wanted
exposure to these five names that traded on the public markets,
I wanted them to be weighted a certain way, I
could create that for you. You could use it as
a directional trade, you could use it as a hedge.
But what it allowed us to do during like big
moments in whether it was a politics or something happening abroad,

(24:19):
is we could create these instruments that showed market exposure
to these names. So I remember, I create these custom baskets,
a basket of names that would perform well if Trump won,
and a basket of names that would perform well if
Hillary Clinton won. And what was fun about that project
is like that trading idea went out to thousands of people,
and as someone who was a lower core tile analyst

(24:43):
who brought their way up to a top core tile,
I used my weakness has my strength, and so here
I am talking about all the things that no one
wanted to ask about. Created these instruments that traders across
New York were able to use to see how things moved,
and it ended up being a really powerful tool and
like that was probably my first real win as a trader,
was like that marketing piece, creating those baskets and having

(25:06):
a real win. But what tended to happen for most
young people is you would have all these wins, you
work really hard for an end number, your bonus would
come and you either felt fulfilled by that figure or
you felt like something was missing. And I felt very
accomplished with the number I was given for the first
five years. In my sixth year, I knew what I

(25:29):
had done in that seat, and I think what's really
tough about working at a big company is your performance
is not the only thing that's going into that end number.
It's the performance of the firm, your group, the people
to your left, to your right, that's going to influence
the outcome of your bonus number. And I just started
to realize I wanted more control over the outcome. There's

(25:50):
a lot more risk that goes with it, a lot
more ownership. But I got my number, I knew it
was time to leave the security division. I ended up
seeing at Goldman for a little bit longer. I went
into the private wealth management sector, where I basically was
something called BDP, a business development professional and during that
time I assisted private wealth advisors in finding new business,

(26:11):
so finding high net worth individuals to pitch on Goldman Services.
Loved my job. Then again it was another crash course
and learning how to work with people, and I did
that for about seven eight months and then that closed
out my time at Goldman.

Emily Tisch Sussman (26:24):
What about It wasn't fulfilling? What were you missing?

Hilary Hoffman (26:28):
I knew I could never be the best at this
because I didn't love it. I didn't love it the
way that people loved it, the way that people woke
up so fucking excited to read what the job's report
was or what the FED was going to do. Are
we tapering? Are we hawkish? Or are we dubbish? I
was like, I don't care, and there was a moment
in time where I really owned that and let me pause.

(26:50):
Though it's important to care enough, because I don't think
enough people understand what's happening with our economy. And you
should always have an unders standing of why things are
doing what they're doing because it affects everything from the
cost of your home to the cost of your sweater.
I mean, lord knows what's going to happen with tariffs
starting next year. Like, that's a pretty terrifying thing. And

(27:12):
as someone that just started a merchandising line to their business,
who knows it costs twenty five percent more to produce
the same sweatshirt. So I'm glad that I have the
understanding of the in the baseline knowledge needed to know
how the economy works. But there's knowing how something works
and there's wanting to throw your whole self into it.
And I did not want to do that, and I

(27:33):
felt the friction. But did that feel like a hard realization.

Emily Tisch Sussman (27:36):
To you given that you had you know, you were
following in your father's footsteps. Yeah, we're loving It didnt
feel like a hard realization. It was terrifying. It was
terrifying to think that I put all this time and
all this energy into one sector and to make the
pivot out of it felt at times impossible. And I'm
sure you've heard the story a million times, but one
of the greatest people you can read when you're going

(27:58):
through a moment of change is Glennin duyts Entamed And
I mean that struck a nerve that was so deep,
And I really do think that anyone that does read
that book, no matter when you read it, there's something
that's happening in your life that becomes clearer because of
the way that she was able to articulate her life.
And I remember this was later on. I wasn't Goldman anymore.

(28:18):
I was now working at the job that pushed me
into creating Sodo. And I'll be careful how I speak
about it, because it was definitely not a good experience.
But yeah, I was working in real estate after Goldman
and I'm reading Glennon and the one thing she kept
saying that felt so true was that the enemy of
true enough is good enough. And I was like, you
know what, I just have to accept that the last

(28:39):
seven and a half eight years they were good enough,
but they were not true enough. And she's all about
imagery of fire and friction and leaning into that sensation
of letting it burn. And don't be afraid of fire
being something negative. Instead think of it as an ability
to clear space for what's really supposed to blossom and
flourish and grow. Oh. If there was one thing I

(29:01):
could say about Hillary, it's that she seems like an
extremely grounded and nobs type person. But I love it
when a guest surprises me because she finally got the
kick she needed to take the leap and start Sodo
method from a tarot card reading.

Hilary Hoffman (29:19):
And what was crazy? Just as a side note to
all of this, I was reading that I was working
in real estate. Soto had started to become a side
hustle of mind that I was leaning more into. And
I was at my friend's wedding. The woman doing my
makeup she was a psychic or a medium of some sort,
and she was telling me about her job and she said,

(29:39):
I'd love to give you a free reading. I was like, sure,
why not? So we wrapped up the makeup session. A
few weeks later, I got on a zoom with her.
She again to zoom medium reading. I'm all for believing
in others, and I wanted to be along for the ride,
but in my brain, I'm like, there's no way this
is going to amount to anything. But I went into
a pan openma. So she started her sessions with you

(30:02):
posing a question, and her question was, or my question
that I wanted to ask for the session was am
I on the right path? And we went through this
whole journey together where she was really pulling on what
she calls popcorns of elements of my life and they
all really rang true. And towards the end of the session,
she kept saying, I see all these images of fire,
like I see you sitting in a house. It's on fire,

(30:26):
but you're okay. And of course all of a sudden
you're like, oh shit, I believe so I'm believing it.
I'm like, okay, but don't get carried away. She keeps
going on this rhetoric of belief and fire and all
of this. End of the session, she pulls out tearret
cards and there's probably two hundred and fifty in this deck,
shuffles them, puts them out again, zoom. She goes tell

(30:47):
me when to stop. Her finger starts to go across
the cards and I say stop. Pulls up a card
and on it it's a burning house, kid, you not
I could like cry actually thinking about it. Are so
she's reading all the things about this card, and every
card has an associated It's not a phrase, it's a

(31:09):
guiding sentence to take with you. And the guiding sentence
of my card was I rised from the rubble of
old identities to become who I was.

Emily Tisch Sussman (31:16):
Meant to be.

Hilary Hoffman (31:17):
And it hit me so sincerely in that moment, And
I think not that I needed that to give me permission,
but I think we oftentimes look at a ten year
career and write it off for being something that allowed
us to be great with subject matter expertise. I think
you can always take it a step further sure of

(31:37):
their subject matter expertise that I spent ten years doing.
But there's also all these soft skills that I've accumulated
along the way that are actually going to set me
apart in this next journey, in this next identity that
I would otherwise not have if it wasn't for that experience.
So what I initially cast off as being something almost
impossible to pivot out of, I actually felt even more

(31:59):
inspired to make the pivot because I was going to
be entering a space with new perspective that others didn't have.

Emily Tisch Sussman (32:05):
So let's get into the founding. Yeah, but give us
a little background here to where your headspace was when
you got into even just the beginning of what became
the seedlings of soda.

Hilary Hoffman (32:16):
Totally, I think that where I was at is I
was turning thirty. So I had turned thirty, I was
wrapping up my time at this real estate fund. Husband
got a job in Los Angeles, his dream job. He's
my favorite person, and we've always been very supportive as
partners in letting the other person chase their dream. So
this was like the first opportunity where he got to

(32:37):
chase and I didn't want to stand in the way
of that, and I actually really supported it. I was
also lucky I could pivot internally at Goldman like it
was easy. So I ended up just moving to Goldman's
same exact job. I left Goldman on the best of terms.
It just wasn't a fit anymore, No ill will whatsoever.
I really do love Goldman. It's an amazing place. I

(32:58):
also important I wanted to leverage my seven years for
one last job in finance. Ended up finding a real
estate fund that I thought was going to be a
good fit title pay. Got what I wanted from it.
Started with that job. COVID happened during it. I always say,
crisis accelerates the inevitable. A lot of the yellow flags
that I'd seen turned to red flax, and I knew

(33:22):
it wasn't the place for me anymore. During that time,
I was exploring every job, not just SODO, and I
made a commitment to myself that every month I'd have
a conversation with five or seven people who were in
my network, completely unaffiliated with finance, who from a naked
eyed looked like they loved their job. And I'm lucky

(33:42):
enough that I had friends in my network who are
willing to be honest with me. And what I realized
was half the people who I thought loved their job
didn't and they told me why. And then the other
half was honest and said, I love my job. And
what I realized in everyone that loved their job, the
underlying thread was they had a ton to me. They
felt autonomous, they felt like they had choice, and they

(34:03):
felt like their choice mattered.

Emily Tisch Sussman (34:06):
After all of her conversations, Hillary was finally ready to
make her pivot more after the break. After a few
months of networking, Hillary started to hone in on her
pivot and began to develop a brand new workout method

(34:30):
based on her own personal fitness experiences.

Hilary Hoffman (34:34):
So for me, what I realized in my own workout
is I hated the downtime between different muscle blocks so
or rather different muscle groups. And if you were at
a hit cardio class, there was so much demoing. If
you were at a spin class, it was just all
focused on cardio, and so how could I get muscle
specific movements coupled with cardio in a way that delivered

(34:56):
efficiency and not just efficiency, but real result. So I
created the Sodo roadmap, which is this predictable roadmap that
I lean on. And then also this idea of isometrics
I learned at a very young age planking, squatting, all
of that we did to build muscle mass when we
were training for track, and I was a long distance athlete.

(35:17):
So the idea between working fast twitch muscles and then
also like really learning how to increase your endurance, isometrics
were a great tool and I just loved it. And
I loved how in the thirty minute workout, I was
actively working for twenty six minutes, And I loved how
I could stack my way up to a really intense class.
I could also stack my way down to something really approachable.

(35:39):
And so it started to happen. Was consistency, and it
wasn't just consistency, it was consistency with intention, and so
I wanted to do it every day, and so for
three months I committed to my own program, slowly started
socializing it with friends. So it naturally gained traction and
I started sending out a weekly email here my zoom clouds,

(36:00):
if you want to join me and my own workout
would love to have you. Then those translated into in
person workouts in Los Angeles, and so it just was
this like natural lily pad effect where people would try it,
they would love it, they would share it, and that's
how everything kept growing organically.

Emily Tisch Sussman (36:18):
One of the things that we talk about when people
are thinking about how to pivot is being realistic about
how much bandwidth you have, yes financially what you need
to do, and so you know, sometimes you need to
start slowly. And started as a side hustle over time,
and you did that for a long time.

Hilary Hoffman (36:32):
I did. And I think that this concept of a
side hustle, it's not because you're treating it as a
lesser job. It's just that you're not reliant on that
job for your sole source of income. And I think
that's the biggest difference. And I think a lot of
people the misconception is that a side hustle doesn't require
one hundred percent of your energy. It does. A side

(36:53):
hustle and your full time job require one hundred percent
of your energy, and it's up to you to figure
out how you're going to make that work. And what's
great about a side hustle is it quickly tests how
much you love doing something and how much it's worth it.
So I actually think it's really important to do it
because if you're meant to do it as your full
time job, it will naturally happen because you want to

(37:15):
spend your time there instead of using that time for
something else. And I think from a financial standpoint, there's
a reason why I stayed at Goldman for seven years.
One was the fact that I was learning a lot
and I was enjoying my time there. But there was
also a big piece of me which said, I'm making
a lot of money, I can save money, and I

(37:36):
want to have that reserve when the day comes where
I really know what I want to do. And that's
a sacrifice. And you're not going to love every day
and you're not going to necessarily love your job. But
I loved the savings that I was able to accumulate
during that time for something in the future, and I
think investing in yourself takes disciplinary moments like that. Additionally,

(37:56):
I was fortunate enough to have an incredible partner who
could also support us, and I think that Weirdly enough,
my husband and I went out at the exact same time.
He's also a CEO and founder, so very very different
business than mine. So we coupled each other nicely, but
we had each other, which I think is a really
really important thing to have when you're doing anything by yourself.

(38:16):
And I also had timelines so as it related to
my job in finance, I had to make it to
the day that my bonus was paid. Then I could
reevaluate what I wanted to do. One of the toughest
parts about the job that I had before starting SODO. Sorry,
my story gets a little complicated. Goldman Goldman to real estate.

(38:37):
During that real estate job, I was determined to make
it to the day they paid me my bonus. I
got really lucky, though, so my bonus was eventually paid
after it was withheld for a ridiculous long period of time.
So a lot of SODO is about this idea of
sustaining mentally, and this concept of like holding on for

(38:57):
one more second, and how do you make it for
that one extra second. And I had to put that
to the test with this bonus, and what allowed me
to sustain my energy in that is that I think
a lot of times people say, protect your mental health,
get out. Your mental health is more important than money.

Emily Tisch Sussman (39:13):
It's not.

Hilary Hoffman (39:14):
Sometimes it's not. Sometimes the money is actually more important.
And I needed that money to be able to do
SODA full time. So I had to reverse engineer how
can I keep my mental health while waiting this out,
And Soda was what allowed me to do that.

Emily Tisch Sussman (39:29):
Hillary had to do her proverbial quote one extra second
before she could fully leap and start SODO, so she
held off a little longer and took a three month
consulting gig to really build up her savings.

Hilary Hoffman (39:45):
I owed it to myself to try one more thing
before diving into SODO, because I think a lot of
times people can feel like they're running away from something
that was terrible as opposed to running towards an opportunity,
and so I wanted to test that theory. Three months
at oak Tree. Loved it. I worked with ridiculously brilliant
people who also cared about their employees' humanity, and so

(40:07):
at the end of those three months, I had actually
saved an additional three months of money to put towards Sodo,
and I left Finance from a real place of empowerment.
Left the door open at oak Tree if I ever
wanted to go back. Discovered that you know what I do,
have what it takes if I ever do want to
come back into this world to be perfectly honest, So
like all of my registration tests have expired, so the

(40:30):
door is shut at this point because I refuse to
take those exams again. Those were horrific. That was the
worst part about Finance for me. And then I was
able to go full time at the end of all
that was Sodo. But I was conflicted with this choice,
which is I can start Sodo or I can do
one last really hard push and do this consulting gig,

(40:50):
save a little bit more money, learn a little bit
more and I'm so glad I did that.
Hello, and welcome to your first Soto. For today's class,
we're going to be doing an express like series. No
equipment is required, you just need yourself and some space.
And as we do this class together, I'm going to
explain to you what is Sodo and what you can
expect to find on the app. Today we're going to

(41:11):
be activating the groups via a bridge, so that is
going to allow your hands to be free. So if
you need to work while working out, this is the
perfect soda for equipment.

Emily Tisch Sussman (41:21):
And at this point talk to me about your strategy
for growth and for marketing. Yes, you thought about training
people one on one for a little while, even though
it's very time intention.

Hilary Hoffman (41:30):
Totally so I think for me as it related to
growing the business, and I talked to my husband about this.
My business plan for the first year was to prove
product market fit clearly on a smaller scale, no budget
for marketing. I only put five thousand dollars into the business.
Still to this day of my own money and everything
has again been reinvesting, reinvesting, reinvesting. But what I learned

(41:55):
was I when I by the time I was going
out full time, I had already been doing it for
eight months. So the iterative process of asking for feedback
and incorporating and it already started. So talk about that
muscle of not taking feedback personally. The method is as
good as it is because I was willing to acknowledge
that parts of it were not great in the beginning

(42:15):
and make those changes. So what I did in that
first year was find a really scrappy way to build
my digital product, just to get it out there, host
these in person classes from my garage in Santa Monica,
and then take on personal business to the best of
my ability. I did all three and I was able
to make money in my first year. The other thing

(42:36):
I did in that first year, and it's probably the
biggest risk that I took personally ever in the course
of the business, because it was just a team of one,
but I did a three month pop up in the Hamptons.
I rented the patio of Calissa, which is a restaurant
in watermil where I was going to teach five days
a week. I was going to hire two interns t
help me clean, and I was going to see if

(42:57):
in a course of three months could I build demand.
Guerrilla marketing only terrifying to do this because again, who
the hell am I? I had two thousand Instagram followers
at the time, no one knew who I was. It
was still there was still a lot of self consciousness
with expressing to the world this is what I was doing.
And it was a large investment. So I basically took

(43:17):
all of my savings and I put it into the
rent for Calissa. For these three months. June was all
about building demand. July was about executing. August was about
selling out. That was my hope, and it actually worked.
June I had about two to three people in every
class July fifteen to twenty August selling out at thirty

(43:39):
every single class, every single day. So now I'm doing
thirty people paying forty dollars a spot every single day
in class. My personal business grew in tandem with it.
So now I have my personal business, I have in
person classes, and my scrappy digital product had finally taken off.
And we're not talking thousands of subscribers. We're talking about

(44:00):
out three hundred, four hundred subscribers at the time. The
four hundred times thirty nine dollars, it's enough capital to
kind of see you keep pushing through it. What was
great was that summer ended, I made the next biggest investment,
which was switching platform providers into the krem de la

(44:20):
Creme of app building white label services, which is Vimeo.
Loved them so much, and I launched my real app
after that summer. So that's twenty twenty two, and so
the big goal for twenty twenty two into twenty twenty
three was can I grow this thing again, no marketing budget,
all word of mouth. Can my clients be my biggest champions?

Emily Tisch Sussman (44:41):
It worked.

Hilary Hoffman (44:42):
A year later, we hit the numbers we wanted to build,
and then what's crazy is now now we're a year
if we're if we're where that part of the story
ends would be a year ago today. So a year
ago today, I made my first full time hire, my
chief of staff, Samantha, who has been the most critical
component to SODA's growth hands down, and we were presented

(45:05):
with a really unique opportunity to do a pop up
in New York for January, February, and March. I was
living in Miami at the time. I should have mentioned that.
After the summer and Callissa, my husband and I agreed
to move to Miami because he had sold part of
his business and we've never let where we live inhibit
our dreams. We will move, we will make the sacrifices.

(45:26):
We moved again. So we were there for a year
and a half. Fast forward, it's now December of last year,
so December of twenty twenty three, just.

Emily Tisch Sussman (45:34):
The time that everyone wants to move from Miami to
New York.

Hilary Hoffman (45:37):
Truly, my husband's like this is fucking terrible, Hillary, Why
are you doing this to us? I'm like, I know,
I know, it's terrible timing, but it's January and people
want to work out, so there's no better time to
do a pop up that's fitness focused. So now we
are in December. I had told my chief of staff
originally that her job was going to be remote. We
would work on Zoom all day. We would focus on

(45:58):
the digital product, and at this time where we're currently
at in today's day, which is December sixteenth or seventeen,
twenty twenty four, this is when we were actually going
to start exploring brick and mortar. She agreed to that.
We had a very unique opportunity. I had to ask Grover, Zoom,
you're about to commit to some of probably the most
work you'll ever going to do in your life. You

(46:19):
didn't sign up for this. You're allowed to say no.
But if you say yes, I promise you I think
we can do this together.

Emily Tisch Sussman (46:25):
She said yes.

Hilary Hoffman (46:27):
We legitimately signed our lease probably on this day last year.
We had we got keys to it. Call it like
December twentieth. December twentieth to January ninth is the time
that we had to convert a second floor, really rough
looking box of a place into our home.

Emily Tisch Sussman (46:47):
We did it.

Hilary Hoffman (46:48):
We covered three months of rent in our first week.
We covered all of our expenses within ten days, and
we were selling out of our classes in January. So
January Febuery in March of this year started to really
reaffirm the second path for Soda, which is an omnichannel business,

(47:08):
being both digital and in person. So we had really
proven out this in person concept in a really low
risk way. And that's the way that I like to
do everything with this business is whatever investment I'm making,
I always ask myself, like, if I set this money
on fire with the companies still live? The answer was yes.
We kept extending that pop up month to month to

(47:28):
month in tandem with it, the trainer base is growing.
We went from having three trainers to six trainers. Then
the pop up naturally stopped because the summer was happening.
We pivoted our efforts to the Hamptons. During that time,
I am getting my lois out there for real brick
and mortar properties in New York. We found our dream home.

(47:52):
We're in negotiations with the lease. As anyone will tell
you with real estate. The paperwork is the hardest part.
We get that paperwork. Going back from the summer, we
want to do another pop up. We end up doing
a pop up on the Upper east Side, without question,
the most challenging pop up I'll ever do. It's a
lesson to anyone be super careful about who you do

(48:14):
business with, and if there are yellow flags to start,
they will turn to red flags. And I think that
there are moments in life where you're willing to sacrifice
ease of business for the sake of the bigger idea,
which for me was I really wanted to prove that
Upper east Side could be another location for us. So

(48:35):
I'm glad that I weathered the difficulty which was this
pop up because what happened again, We've covered all of
our rent in the first week, we sold out of classes.
Yet again a different community Soda resonated with it. So
what was great is while that pop up was happening,
our Tribeca flatship was being built, so we never lost momentum.

(48:55):
But I would say that like those puzzle pieces and
fitting them together, you're never going to know how to
do it. It happens in the moment and It takes
a lot of persistence, and there's going to be a
lot of moments where you're gonna add you're not gonna
know what you're doing, but you know that you have
to do it. And so for me, like learning as
much as I could about signing leases, learning as much

(49:15):
as I could about sub lease agreements, making sure that
we were protected. Same thing goes if I lost all
this money, does the business still live? Yes? So Upper
east Side allowed our trainers to have a job to
perfect and hone their craft, and it was perfectly the
way it tied out. Upper east Side pop Up ends,
Tribeca doors open, and now where we are here, sixty

(49:38):
eight Thomas, our first flagship location. It's open and I
couldn't have dreamed of a better opening if I tried,
and I think unlike a lot of companies, they would
have just raised capital and opened up their first permanent.
It took me three years to get here, but I
always say, our investors are our clients. We've taken no
outside capital. We built a studio from app recurring revenue

(50:02):
and the money we made from pop ups. I am
so proud of that because I think what's interesting is
a lot of people want to hear the story of
who you raised from. And I know it's flashy, and
I know it's cool, and trust me, I'm sure that
when we open up three studios at once, we're going
to need outside funding, but that makes sense during that stage.
I'm happy to take on outside capital. But I'm really

(50:23):
proud to say that our demand has matched, or rather
we have let demand dictate our growth.

Emily Tisch Sussman (50:30):
As she's grown professionally, she's also grown personally. This year,
she and her husband welcome twins, but her pregnancy journey,
like so many women, was complicated. Shortly before we recorded
this interview, she shared an extremely vulnerable Instagram post, admitting
that it took her a while to ask for help

(50:52):
and use IVF.

Hilary Hoffman (50:54):
So then I did ask for help, and so from
my fertility journey, it was crazy. It tied up right
when I was making a program for spring fertility, and
that's why I used to get pregnant. And we created
a fertility program for those going through IVF or egg
retrieval where you could still so too while doing it.
This has become a really popular trend. It's a beautiful thing,
and I'm so happy that every platform is offering their

(51:16):
version of this to their community, because movement is so
such a large component of maintaining a positive and healthy
mindset during something that could be otherwise really detrimental to
your health mentally. And so ended up getting pregnant when
I asked for help, and it now it makes me
want to ask for help for everything. But they told
me there was a chance twins. I went, I knew that,

(51:39):
and so I found out that I was having twins.
I think it was beginning of May, and so I
joke that the gestational period for an in person studio
is actually that of twins. So they literally they grew
with the business and they grew with the studio, and
I wouldn't have changed it for the world. It gave

(51:59):
me deep whether it was a doctor's appointment that would
close out a day where all this minution would be
happening and you would be kind of thinking that the
most important thing in the world was X, Y, and Z,
and then you're thrown into a doctor's appointment where you're
getting your nipt tests and you're like, you know, what
health of my children that deserves me to be stressed

(52:22):
over this. It's not that it's not important, but let
me just like reset the scales for what really needs
my time and attention today, And it gave me a
reason to push because I also know that they're coming.
And I've always talked about with Soto, there's a really
big difference between feeling tired and feeling exhausted. It's up
to you to determine how you're feeling in that moment.

(52:43):
I think a lot of us pretend we're exhausted when
we're actually just tired. And the unfortunate news is you
have to work out. You have to work when you're tired,
otherwise nothing would get done. And so with my own pregnancy,
I gave myself a lot of grace on the days
where I was exhausted, and I really held myself accountable
all the days where I was just tired. And I

(53:04):
think flexing that muscle not only for myself but for
the person that I want to be for them was
a powerful motivator. And I also was able to put
really firm deadlines in with everyone. I wanted to be
there for the studio opening. So when we were deciding
when the doors were going to open, I told the team, like,
we're opening on this day. And one of the things
that I love. That's coming into common rhetoric. Is this

(53:27):
concept call like the non negotiable mentality. It's happening, So
how do we make sure it happens. It could be
something that we've talked about alrighty, or maybe something different.
But what is something that at the time you saw
as a real low point for you and now in
retrospect you see it as having really positioned you into
where you are now. That's such a great question. I

(53:48):
would say two of the lowest. Two of the lowest
points for me would have been early on in my
career when I failed truly all of my exams for Goldman.
Sanurdized testing has never been my bread and butter, it
never will be. But failing those so publicly because Goldman

(54:09):
requires you to take the exams during the workday, and
so you have to come back to the office after
it and tell people if you passed or if you failed,
and you're telling like three hundred people because people's hands
are up looking for a high five, and you have
to shake your head and say no, I just I
think that for me in that moment, it just taught
me that failure is not final, but it also what

(54:29):
you do with it is very impactful. So are you
going to let it break you or are you going
to work a little bit harder? And it could have
broken me because it was so public and it was
it was really it was a moment that I hope
no one else ever has to go through. But I
looked within and I just worked harder. And I always
think about that any single time something feels like a failure,

(54:50):
I just I redirect it into Okay, how can I
work The difference now is like not necessarily harder, but smarter.
And so that felt like a massive failure in that moment.
And then I would say in recent memory, from like
the last year, there are certain choices that I've made
out of this commitment to maintaining momentum with the company,

(55:14):
and I think at times wanting to maintain that momentum
has put me in precarious business positions where I'm not
dealing necessarily with the best partners, and I have to
work harder to make sure that everything goes smoothly, and
that means taking on roles that I don't have any

(55:36):
expertise in. And at the time I would sit there
and regret the choice that I made, like why did
I agree to do this? This has just created more
work for myself, my stress levels crazier, and of course
being pregnant. Everyone tells you that stress is the worst
thing that you can be and so here I am
being like, fuck, now, I'm like hurting my kids because
I made a choice that is making me more stress

(55:57):
and now it's not just affecting me, it's affecting them,
and that I could have really wallowed in that, but instead,
once you make a choice, you got to live with it.
And first and foremost, it's like getting to the other
end of it. So what is it going to take
to get to the other side of that choice that
you've already made? But then what are you going to
learn from it? And so for me getting to the
other end, it showed me that you will make it

(56:18):
to the other end. It's there. It's going to happen,
but you really have to have a moment of introspection
after it and make really firm rules for yourself and
set really firm boundaries where if I see this habit
or this personality trait or this happen, I have to
know it's a no and be really good at saying no.

Emily Tisch Sussman (56:37):
Right it gives you a whole different sense of how
to protect your time completely.
Do you think you'll pivot again.

Hilary Hoffman (56:43):
Yes, I do. I actually think that for me, the
way that I think about Soto is I know what
I want to build, and it's actually it's not about
me being at the epicenter and being the star of
this company. I find the most fulfillment supporting others be
the star. And so I'm so lucky and fortunate that

(57:05):
now we have nine trainers that work for us at Sodo,
and that number will hopefully keep growing. And I always
joke that the best compliment you can ever give me
is that I'm not your favorite trainer, that so and
so is you tell me that I've done my job.
And so I think I want to take Sodo as
far as I can, and I think I want to
learn as much as I can from it. But I

(57:26):
would say the other pivot that I see at some
point in my life is I said I love writing,
but I think that writing is something that becomes a
little bit more powerful when you have experience to speak from.
So one day would love to go back to kind
of like the ultimate dream, which was to write more.
And I'm grateful for so too, because it's giving me

(57:47):
a lot of material to pull from when that happens.
But I think we should always keep pivoting. And that's
why I love your podcast so much, because I think
that if you start to believe that your options are limited,
you're not going to feel inspired to listen to new
interests as you get older. Because I'm a much different

(58:07):
person at thirty three going on thirty four than I
wasn't twenty three at twenty four, and as a predictable
human being that wants to plan for everything, you can't
plan for what you're going to like in ten years.
So giving yourself space to be willing to kind of
go where the tide moves at that point in time,
it keeps you also wanting to learn and be curious,
because how painful would curiosity be if there was a

(58:31):
blockade at the end of it. Instead, if you constantly
think there's another opportunity, you're going to follow that curiosity
all the way through.

Emily Tisch Sussman (58:38):
Oh I love that so much. Thank you so much,
of course, thank you, Hillary. Pleasure is great.
Hillary is continuing to grow Sodo method and its plans
to open more brick and mortars. Be sure to check
out one of her classes either in New York City
or online at Soda method dot com. You can also

(58:58):
follow her on Instagram at hoff Hill or at Sodo Method.
Talk to you next week. Thanks for listening to this
episode of she Pivots. I hope you enjoyed it, and
if you did, leave us a rating and tell your
friends about us. To learn more about our guests, follow
us on Instagram at she pivots the Podcast, or sign

(59:20):
up for our newsletter, where you can get exclusive behind
the scenes content on our website at she pivots Thepodcast
dot com. Special thanks to the she pivots team, Executive
producer Emily eda Velosik, Associate producer and social media connoisseur
Hannah Cousins, Research director Christine Dickinson, Events and logistics coordinator

(59:44):
Madeline Snovak, and audio editor and mixer Nina Pollock.

Hilary Hoffman (59:49):
I endorse she Pivots