June 22, 2022 • 27 mins
Welcoming Bobbi Brown and Anjali Kumar to The Pod Club! Each week on their show, The Important Things, Bobbi and Anjali hop on the mic to have candid conversations with guests about how to discover the ever elusive path to a happy and fulfilled life. Achieving fulfillment may seem like a tall task, but there is no one more qualified than these two. Bobbi Brown is a makeup artist, founder, four-time podcast host, and serial entrepreneur. Anjali Kumar is an incredible multi-hyphenate lawyer, author, and speaker. Together, they bring a wealth of experience that anyone can benefit from. This week, they are joining host Jo Piazza to share the important things to listen to. Whether it’s an elaborate catfish scheme, an in-depth interview with a successful entrepreneur, or poop talk, these three cover it all. Because at the end of the day, who doesn't want someone to tell them how to get a little closer to absolute happiness?
Show:
The Important Things
Shows Mentioned:
How I Built This
Sweet Bobby
Just Enough Family
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I love that you're putting a blanket. That's a good tip.
You put a blanket over your head and you're go
in a closet, and that is how the magic happens.
The way you're so funny in this blanket. I kind
of want to picture you under the blanket. This is me.
But you know what, just doing it all, it all.
It's a podcast, podcast podcast, Hello, Hello, Hello, Welcome to
(00:26):
the bod Club. My guests today know that whatever the circumstances,
no matter how crazy the world gets around you, you've
just got to make things work. When a toddler breaks
your recorder, you put a blanket over your head and
you just keep podcasting. Bobby Brown and Angelie Kumar know
this better than anyone, because the two of them are
(00:49):
both expert entrepreneurs who know exactly how to pivot when
the world changes right around you. You probably recognize Bobby's
name from her very success will make up brand. Angelie
is a writer, a lawyer, and a business advisor, plus
a ton of other cool titles that make her a
complete badass multi hyphen it. These two women have teamed
(01:12):
up for their next big project, a podcast, and it
is called The Important Things In it, Bobby and Angelia
talk to people they admire to figure out what the
hell is the key to living a happy and fulfilling life.
No easy task, my friends, No easy task. We brought
(01:33):
Bobby and Angelia on the pod Club today to soak
up some of their wisdom about work, life and of
course podcasts. So talk to me a little bit about
why did you name the podcast the important Things? What
(01:55):
things were missing from the podcast world that you thought
you had to share. Well, first of all, the first
name that that we wanted someone else had and I
forgot what it is? Do you remember? And Julie, well,
I think it was stuff that matter has stuff that matters,
and I guess my heart has you know, similar So
we're like, all, I can't call it that, And honestly,
it's for me personally. I've always been someone that has
(02:19):
been driven, hard working, you know, laser focus. But I've
also managed to have the important things in my life
my husband, my children, my dogs, my house, my friends,
and I just realized that, you know, the pandemic was
a real turning point for a lot of people that
didn't realize there is some ways to have both and
(02:43):
that most of the important things are like they're already there,
You're just not paying attention to them. Yeah, totally, And
I can attest to that. I saw you when we
were working together at Yahoo. You do so many things
at once. You are just the ultimate hustler. But I
so to think that you do keep in mind what
is really important, what are the things that actually bring
(03:05):
joy to our life. When we were at Yahoo, I
you know, was interviewing these big celebrities, Kate Blanchet, Jennifer Anderson,
John Legend. So I remember doing Kate Blanchet. It was
like ten o'clock at night. I had just gotten back
from dinner with my husband. She was just waking up
in the morning and I was laying in my bed.
(03:26):
I had had a cocktail at dinner, and I was,
you know, starting to kind of be very relaxed, and
she was just waking up with a cold. And we
talked for an hour about her kids, like not about
her career, her movie, her kids, and what does she
do when she's so exhausted when she travels. Does she
ever have issues, you know, where she doesn't really feel
like being all fabulous on the red carpet, And what
(03:47):
does she do and who are the you know, all
those things that you just ask And one of the
things I'm really good at doing a lot of projects
and putting it a team together to support me and
to do things that I don't have time to do
or I'm not able to do. I've written nine books.
I don't know how to type. When I did Yahoo Beauty,
I only was in the office on Mondays because I was,
(04:10):
you know, juggling Bobby Brown Cosmetics and this other gig.
But the team I hired figured it out how to
work with me, So you know, it was important for
me to do this gig at Yahoo, and I wanted
to do it, so you know, I made sure the
important things were working first. And you make it work.
You make it work, which I think is just the
mantra of women everywhere. We figured it out, we make
(04:31):
it work. How did the two of you team up
together to do this podcast? Well, Anjeley, I'm gonna let
you talk because I I've been working on not talking
over my home. No. I love it. Well, I had
to tell you it's so hard for me to jump in,
mostly because I could listen to Bobby all day and
so whenever she's talking on the interviews. I always have
to remind myself that I'm like, oh right, I'm supposed
(04:52):
to be interviewing this person too, and I have to
jump in because I could just listen to the conversation.
And you know, so Bobby and I have been friends
for a long time. We met when she spoke at
Google and I was working there as a lawyer, and
this is probably eight nine years ago at this point,
and she was doing a talk at Google. We used
to bring in authors and presidents and actors and all
sorts of folks to come in to speak to our team,
(05:16):
and Bobby was one of those folks who came in.
And I remember, you know, being a fan of her
brand growing up, and you know, I'm Indian American. Um. Certainly,
she was the o G of inclusive beauty back in
the day. You know, her cosmetics were the only thing
that from the get go actually worked for all colors
of skin, and that was really unusual back then. And
so you know, I went out of curiosity to just
(05:38):
hear her speak. And she really did talk about her family,
about how she juggled it all, about all these things,
like she was such a real person. In addition to
being this incredible, inspirational, you know, business person that I
was really moved just to like approach her and like,
I would love to stay in touch. I would love
for you to mentor me, which was such an embarrassing
question that Mykeston can't believe I asked her, but but
(06:00):
I did, and she was like, yeah, sure, let's do it.
And so we stayed in touch with became friends over
the years, and as Bobby was sort of rethinking what
does season three look like, she asked me last year,
you know, would you do this with me? And I
was like, yeah, sign me up. And then we started
thinking about, like, well, what do we want to talk about?
And it was all the same stuff that we talk
about just with each other, you know, like when Bobby's
(06:20):
going her walk and gives me a call, and this
is the kind of stuff we talk about. We talk
about our families, we talk about how we're feeling through
the pandemic, we talk about our health, we talk about
our parents and our work we're you know, it's really
nice to be able to talk about your projects with
other like minded people that have projects and understand what
it's about. It's kind of such a new concept to
(06:45):
people during the pandemic because people didn't realize there was
options to work remotely, to work from wherever you are.
I've kind of always managed somehow to do it, but
you know, now with Zoom, it's become its own thing.
And I think you guys bring that to your interviews too,
because you interview people about their careers and their projects,
(07:08):
but you also talk about the important things, about their passions,
about their families, about their dogs. And I don't think
we hear that enough when we're interviewing people that are
quote unquote very important people. Yeah, I think you're right.
I remember early on I listened to Ariana Huffington's speak
(07:28):
at something and someone asked her. I was probably on
a panel with her, and someone asked her how she
did it raising her kid, you know, during building Huffington posts,
and she said it was a mess. The whole thing
was a mess. But I I lived it and I
got through it, and I realized I don't have to
pretend to everyone that it looks as seamless as people
(07:49):
think it does. The thing is, I want more content
in the world that talks about the beautiful mess that
all of our lives are, because I think that helps
us just grow as women and as anyone as men too,
to hear about other people not being able to do
it all perfectly. I'm sick of people talking about being perfect.
(08:09):
None of us are perfect. Life is hard. I totally
agree we're you know, we just talked to Charlemagne the
other day and he was talking about, you know how
Instagram is like the highlights real, right. We've heard that
so many times. And what Bobby and are both commenting
on it's not just the highlights real, it's the filtered
highlights real like. It's a special effected highlights real like.
It's it's so not what's happening so and we've all
(08:31):
just created this norm around that. And I think what's
missing out there from the conversation is people who are
really successful, like Charlemagne, like Gloria stein um Um, like
Bobby herself, who can tell us you know, hey, I
also struggle with these other things, you know, like I'm
I have anxiety, or I struggle with how to eat
right and how to keep it all together. Sometimes my
(08:52):
kids are acting up and I don't really know how
to deal with that, and it just makes it so
it's such a different conversation and It's so generous of them,
I think, to be so vulnerable ball with all of
us to tell us those things and to be able
to really give us some tips and tricks of like
how they deal with that. And I'm someone that always
thinks you could do things better, you know, So I'm
not someone that's like, Okay, I've already done that. I'm
(09:12):
always trying to figure out different ways and you know,
to make things simpler or just things that work in
a I like sharing that information with people. Totally true.
And if if I didn't admit it right now, our
listeners would be listening and think, oh my gosh, they're
doing this this great sounding podcast. But nobody knows that
my toddler broke my microphone. And so I am recording
(09:33):
with the band. It's been there, done that. I mean.
I started my career, by the way, with you know,
Bobby Brown Cosmetics, with the baby in my arms that
I was. You know, luckily there was no zoom. I
was on the phone talking to you know, surely Lord
who was the scary beauty editor of Vogue, explaining to
(09:53):
her about this new concept, while my son is puking
on me. And I'm not even kidding, and I just remember,
like I didn't have a selfie. We didn't have you know,
iPhones back then, and you know, I only have my
memory because I never would have taken a picture of
me covered in puke. But you know, it was real
and these things happen, and you know what, I'm really
happy that I get to share these things with other
(10:15):
new moms because you know what, it's all okay, yeah,
it's all okay. It is. So your first interview this
season was Glorious Stein NBD. We came out of the
gate strong. Seriously, my gosh, you guys are such underachievers.
It was Women's History Month, and honestly, we don't have
(10:39):
anyone booking our talent right now, so it's us using
our you know, contacts, and you know, really trying to
be a little discerning on you know, who we have
on because this is my fourth podcast, I think one
to my fourth podcast, and different topics and it's got
(10:59):
to really be someone for me that is not just
pushing a brand or pushing their career or talking about
you know, how they did this, but really talking about
the important thing. Was there anything that surprised you about
your interview with Gloria Steinham. You know, I know her
a little personally. I was invited, talk about terrifying to
(11:23):
introduce her at the glorious Steinhum Rutger's school that was founded,
and so I got to spend a couple of days
with her, both in New Jersey then in New York.
We went to lunch together, We did all these things.
So I got to know her, which was insane awesome,
And so I reached out and asked her if she
would be on this podcast and she said yes. Yeah.
(11:46):
I was surprised by how real and vulnerable she is
and just like how open and approachable, you know, because
I I don't know her the way Bobby does. I've
met her a couple of times, but at big events
and that sort of thing where I just you know,
bum rushed the stage or whatever, and like dollar how
much she meant to me. Um. But in that kind
of intimacy of a conversation like this. You know which
(12:06):
podcasts I think are so special in that way that
they can really, you know, bring It's like having a
really nice phone conversation or chat with your girlfriends, but
when of your girlfriends happens to be Gloria Steinem It's like,
that's pretty cool. But she was just so open and
easy to talk to in a way that I felt
like I could chat to her all day and not
just about policy in the state of the world. It
(12:26):
was like actually just chatting with someone. It was really nice.
So if I could actually one final thing, which is
someone that's listening to this interview, if you could tell
them one thing that, according to you, that would change
the course of their life for the better, what would
it be? Mm hmm. That's so difficult. But if I
(12:50):
if I try to think of something that is within
their control rather than having to do with living and
food and you know, outside support, I would just say
that there's a kind of instant democracy in listening as
much as you talk, and talking as much as you listen.
(13:11):
Women often are taught to be good listeners, but not
necessarily to express themselves. Men may be taught the reverse,
uh stereotypically, So all of us can gain from equalizing
those two human functions. Yes, it's so true. You know,
(13:35):
my first career, which was being a makeup artist. You know,
I've been in everyone's bathroom or I've been in you know,
photo studios where people are in their underwear changing and
talking about, you know, makeup. So a makeup artist really
gets this comfort level with people and kind of disarms
people and makes them feel safe to talk about things.
So I think that's kind of how I look at
(13:57):
the world, and even you know, in I've been lucky
enough to be around some pretty powerful, incredible human beings,
and I just always treat everyone the same, whether it's
you know, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, or you know someone
that works in my deli that I see all the time.
You know, people are people, guys. And you know what,
(14:18):
maybe my next podcast will be called Everyone Poops, because honestly,
people are people. We are the same guys. I think
that's a wonderful idea. We should do a podcast called
everyone Poops. I think we should. I think that three
of us would have a blast us. All right, guys,
let's put that on the back burner next project. I'm
also I'm totally here for that. But Bobby, I think
(14:40):
you just nailed it. That is one of the many
reasons you're such a good interviewer because when you started
out as a makeup artist, you were in such intimate
spaces with people. You were in their homes and their bathrooms,
they were in their underwear and when they're at their
most vulnerable. I think that's when you really learn how
to talk to people like people, like actual people. And
you know what, I think I'm a terrible interviewer, and
(15:02):
that's one of the reasons I thought I didn't want
to do this by myself, and I wanted to ask
someone to be my co host. And honestly, my first
idea was on Julie because we're so different. Like I
don't read any of the information on people beforehand. I
don't study and google things they've done. I just kind
(15:22):
of ask a lot of questions. And you know, I
had Charlemagne introduced himself because I was like, I can't
intro this guy. He's done too many things. And on
Julie is the opposite, like she literally is self studied
and goes in and does the research and you know,
so it's a really kind of good partnership because we
(15:43):
do different things. Well, so that's the lawyer in me.
I can't help myself. I have to read stuff and
be prepared. I do love that. But I think you
know that the chemistry between you and Bobby is really
genuine and you know, I just think the world of her.
So it's it's really fun to be part of this
with her, and it's it's such an honor to be
able to step into her space and talk to these folks.
(16:04):
But I think what's great about Bobby Elso' is that
she's really um disarming with people, right because she is
so approachable, she's so relatable. She's so accomplished, but she's
so relatable that that's what makes these conversations so fun
because she just says an unexpected thing, like everybody poops, right,
Like she'll just say things like that. You're like, I mean,
she's the most treatable person ever, So that's also fun.
(17:00):
I want to hear a little bit about what's in
your ears? What podcast do you guys love? What are
you listening to? What do you recommend to people? I
love how I built this romin dr How I built
this show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists and the stories behind
the movements they built. You know, I'm someone that has
(17:23):
built a couple of different companies. I'm the way I
live my life is entrepreneurial. So I love listening and
it's really fun when you get to know the people.
I learned about Don Katz, who's a friend of mine
that founded Audible. He's my friend. I spent every you know,
birthday and kids, bar Mitzva's weddings with him. But I
learned so much because guy Roz is a phenomenal interviewer,
(17:46):
and I was lucky early on to have a How
I Built This? You know his style By the way,
it's four hours of an interview, maybe five, maybe six,
and you have to slow down, which there's nothing slow
about me, but he gets every little thing. Let me
take you back to that, and I'm like, oh my god.
So he does a phenomenal job. I feel like a
(18:09):
lot of people don't know that about How I Built This,
that he interviews you for so long. We only hear
an hour of it, but it's actually a four I've
heard of someone who did a seven hour interview. It's
like an interrogation. I had no idea. Do you have
a favorite episode of How I Built This? Well, my
(18:29):
favorite is Don Kats Yeah, oh yeah. I want to
play just a little bit of that episode because it's
really it's good and it really does show off the
interviewing style of the show. So we're just gonna play
a little tiny bit of that. So so it's a
terrestrial radio. You could get it delivered through the Internet
(18:50):
instead of an audio book on tape or a book
or a speech on tape or some kind of you know,
inspiring I don't know, inspirational thing. You just basically say
this business is going to deliver this stuff to you
through your phone line. To do. The Internet didn't play
up the book part of it because the business itself
was so infantesimal and small. What I did was I realized,
(19:14):
through just basic journalistic research that nine three million Americans
drove to work alone every morning at that point, only
a department transportation number, which you could extrapolate two hundreds
of millions of hours of time people sit in traffic.
I then matched the sociological data to show that the
most frustrating time of people's days, at least valuable time,
(19:37):
is sitting in traffic. And I basically just we said,
if we only penetrate nine percent of them at ten
dollars a month for a service that enriched their lives,
here's how big the business would be. And that's how
we were able to get you know what's now very
small amounts of money, but was then to us a
(19:58):
lot of money to to to make audible, all right,
and Julie going to you, what are your favorite podcasts? Okay, Joe,
You're gonna think I'm sucking up to you. But I
loved the first season of Under the Influence. I think
I emailed you in Glenne's when You when I was
like going in it, and it was super informative and interesting.
And those women in Utah, all the Mormon women like
(20:20):
I had no idea about this whole world of mom influencers,
and I thought it was super fascinating. And I am
deep in Sweet Bobby. Have you guys listened to that? What?
Oh my god? What is this? I am obsessed with
Sweet Bobby. It is six episodes out of the uk
Um and it is this investigative journalist who does a
(20:42):
deep dive about a cat fishing scheme that goes on.
And I don't want to ruin it for your listeners
or for you guys if you haven't listened to it,
but it's about this woman, Kirat, who gets cat fished
for over the course of ten years by a mound
that she falls in love with called Bobby. And then
over the course of the episodes they do the reveal
of who it is and try to figure out the
(21:02):
motivation and the consequences. It is riveting and so crazy,
and I'm so deeply obsessed with what happened to these
people now that, like I was definitely googling it earlier
today trying to figure out where these folks are now
on what's happening. I'm very concerned about this woman and
her getting justice. She needs justice. Bobby. It's so good.
(21:24):
Trusting Bobby back then was understandable, normal, unremarkable. He was
just a friend of a friend on Facebook. But for
Kirat it turned out to be a life changing mistake.
You may have guessed already, but Bobby isn't who he
says he is. Bobby was a character one at the
(21:49):
center of a sophisticated cat fishing operation, which means someone
was pretending to be Bobby online, stealing his identity and
deliberately drawing Kira into a web of lies. And every
expert lawyer and criminologist I've shown this case to, well,
it's blown their minds. Oh my god, where to start,
(22:12):
what the hell it's been going on? It's extremely remarkable.
I'm going to tell you the whole story of how
and why this happened. That sounds exactly what I need
to do a three mile run this afternoon. Yeah, it's great.
(22:33):
It's honestly, it's so well done. It's really well reported.
It's really interesting. It's just baffling because you just are,
you know, halfway for part of it thinking like, how
could this woman what this happened to her? Which then
I realized is, oh, that's a victim blaming, that's victim shaming.
It's it's super messed up that it happened. And then
when they do the reveal of who it is, you're like,
what take him down? You know? How is this person
(22:55):
still functioning member of society? Like it's just a crazy story.
It's super interesting. Yeah, I really enjoyed it. All right, great,
you sold it, You totally sold it an Yeah, fantastic.
I have another one. It's the only podcast I was
able to listen to with my husband. It was Liz
Lang and her podcast about the Steinberg's. That's really good too.
(23:17):
It was hilacious because I don't know anything about this podcast.
Tell me everything about it. It's very great gardens, it's
the just enough family. It's really good Liz Lang who
that was her father, and her uncle his family and um,
you know Gayfrid Steinberg. I mean just all the names
that you know I heard growing up. And it's a
(23:38):
crazy story like the rise and the fall and really
what happened behind the scenes. It was very controversial and
like totally totally like engaging, okay, but just enough family. Um,
I'm going to read a little bit about it. Staggering success,
unexpected loss, over the top parties, shocking betrayals, are open
(24:00):
together into a high profile family therapy session, right, don't
you want to know more? If I were to say
to my mother, are we rich, she'd say, we're comfortable.
But our private plan was a seven seven. We had
a very large helicopter that when we would take to
the plane, both my parents had their own car and driver.
(24:22):
We had a very large apartment. We had a house
days tamp and we had a different country house in Bedford.
We had a ski house and aspen. It was just
very like it was unusual. All this wealth was thanks
to Liz's uncle, Saul Steinberg, who made a fortune in
the sixties, seventies, and eighties as a corporate raider. With
help from his little brother Bob Lizz his father, Saul
(24:44):
spotted a hole in the market for leasing office equipment
and turned it into his first successful company, lease COO.
It doesn't sound like much, but it was the beginning
of an amazing run that created the Steinberg family fortune.
He was the richest self made person in the United
States under the age of thirty by the time he
was seven, and he was supporting the entire family, my grandfather,
(25:07):
my grandfather's brother, all his cousins, all his siblings, and
everybody kind of worked for him, or you could say
that he worked for all of them. All the Steinberg's
had lavish lifestyles because of what Saul accomplished, and they
all lived on top of each other in a kind
of opulent stettle, but Saul lived the biggest. Oh gosh, guys,
(25:33):
you gave me so many good podcast recommendations like this,
these right here, what we're doing, these are the important things.
They are that is it for today's pod club. These
(25:54):
ladies have some great recommendations, and they didn't mind that
I had a get over my face for this entire interview.
Love them. Here is a quick recap about what they
told us to put in our ears this week, How
I built this a legend obviously, sweet Bobby, a podcast
(26:16):
that is completely new to me. The just Enough family
very excited for this one, and of course you want
to go listen to all of the great interviews that
Bobby and a Juley have over on the important things.
That's it. That's all we got today. Happy listening, enjoy
your life, Talk to you soon. The pod club is
(26:46):
hosted by me Joe Piazza. Our executive producers are Me
Again and Emily Marinoff. Our producers are Mary Do and
Darby Masters. Our associate producer is Lauren Philip all Right.
Meme and additional music was composed by Aaron Kaufman. Aaron
Kaufman is also our consulting producer and special thanks to
(27:08):
Nikki Etur he was just a wonderful human being who
I like to think at the end of episodes,
I love that you're putting a blanket. That's a good tip.
You put a blanket over your head and you're go
in a closet, and that is how the magic happens.
The way you're so funny in this blanket. I kind
of want to picture you under the blanket. This is me.
But you know what, just doing it all, it all.
It's a podcast, podcast podcast, Hello, Hello, Hello, Welcome to
(00:26):
the bod Club. My guests today know that whatever the circumstances,
no matter how crazy the world gets around you, you've
just got to make things work. When a toddler breaks
your recorder, you put a blanket over your head and
you just keep podcasting. Bobby Brown and Angelie Kumar know
this better than anyone, because the two of them are
(00:49):
both expert entrepreneurs who know exactly how to pivot when
the world changes right around you. You probably recognize Bobby's
name from her very success will make up brand. Angelie
is a writer, a lawyer, and a business advisor, plus
a ton of other cool titles that make her a
complete badass multi hyphen it. These two women have teamed
(01:12):
up for their next big project, a podcast, and it
is called The Important Things In it, Bobby and Angelia
talk to people they admire to figure out what the
hell is the key to living a happy and fulfilling life.
No easy task, my friends, No easy task. We brought
(01:33):
Bobby and Angelia on the pod Club today to soak
up some of their wisdom about work, life and of
course podcasts. So talk to me a little bit about
why did you name the podcast the important Things? What
(01:55):
things were missing from the podcast world that you thought
you had to share. Well, first of all, the first
name that that we wanted someone else had and I
forgot what it is? Do you remember? And Julie, well,
I think it was stuff that matter has stuff that matters,
and I guess my heart has you know, similar So
we're like, all, I can't call it that, And honestly,
it's for me personally. I've always been someone that has
(02:19):
been driven, hard working, you know, laser focus. But I've
also managed to have the important things in my life
my husband, my children, my dogs, my house, my friends,
and I just realized that, you know, the pandemic was
a real turning point for a lot of people that
didn't realize there is some ways to have both and
(02:43):
that most of the important things are like they're already there,
You're just not paying attention to them. Yeah, totally, And
I can attest to that. I saw you when we
were working together at Yahoo. You do so many things
at once. You are just the ultimate hustler. But I
so to think that you do keep in mind what
is really important, what are the things that actually bring
(03:05):
joy to our life. When we were at Yahoo, I
you know, was interviewing these big celebrities, Kate Blanchet, Jennifer Anderson,
John Legend. So I remember doing Kate Blanchet. It was
like ten o'clock at night. I had just gotten back
from dinner with my husband. She was just waking up
in the morning and I was laying in my bed.
(03:26):
I had had a cocktail at dinner, and I was,
you know, starting to kind of be very relaxed, and
she was just waking up with a cold. And we
talked for an hour about her kids, like not about
her career, her movie, her kids, and what does she
do when she's so exhausted when she travels. Does she
ever have issues, you know, where she doesn't really feel
like being all fabulous on the red carpet, And what
(03:47):
does she do and who are the you know, all
those things that you just ask And one of the
things I'm really good at doing a lot of projects
and putting it a team together to support me and
to do things that I don't have time to do
or I'm not able to do. I've written nine books.
I don't know how to type. When I did Yahoo Beauty,
I only was in the office on Mondays because I was,
(04:10):
you know, juggling Bobby Brown Cosmetics and this other gig.
But the team I hired figured it out how to
work with me, So you know, it was important for
me to do this gig at Yahoo, and I wanted
to do it, so you know, I made sure the
important things were working first. And you make it work.
You make it work, which I think is just the
mantra of women everywhere. We figured it out, we make
(04:31):
it work. How did the two of you team up
together to do this podcast? Well, Anjeley, I'm gonna let
you talk because I I've been working on not talking
over my home. No. I love it. Well, I had
to tell you it's so hard for me to jump in,
mostly because I could listen to Bobby all day and
so whenever she's talking on the interviews. I always have
to remind myself that I'm like, oh right, I'm supposed
(04:52):
to be interviewing this person too, and I have to
jump in because I could just listen to the conversation.
And you know, so Bobby and I have been friends
for a long time. We met when she spoke at
Google and I was working there as a lawyer, and
this is probably eight nine years ago at this point,
and she was doing a talk at Google. We used
to bring in authors and presidents and actors and all
sorts of folks to come in to speak to our team,
(05:16):
and Bobby was one of those folks who came in.
And I remember, you know, being a fan of her
brand growing up, and you know, I'm Indian American. Um. Certainly,
she was the o G of inclusive beauty back in
the day. You know, her cosmetics were the only thing
that from the get go actually worked for all colors
of skin, and that was really unusual back then. And
so you know, I went out of curiosity to just
(05:38):
hear her speak. And she really did talk about her family,
about how she juggled it all, about all these things,
like she was such a real person. In addition to
being this incredible, inspirational, you know, business person that I
was really moved just to like approach her and like,
I would love to stay in touch. I would love
for you to mentor me, which was such an embarrassing
question that Mykeston can't believe I asked her, but but
(06:00):
I did, and she was like, yeah, sure, let's do it.
And so we stayed in touch with became friends over
the years, and as Bobby was sort of rethinking what
does season three look like, she asked me last year,
you know, would you do this with me? And I
was like, yeah, sign me up. And then we started
thinking about, like, well, what do we want to talk about?
And it was all the same stuff that we talk
about just with each other, you know, like when Bobby's
(06:20):
going her walk and gives me a call, and this
is the kind of stuff we talk about. We talk
about our families, we talk about how we're feeling through
the pandemic, we talk about our health, we talk about
our parents and our work we're you know, it's really
nice to be able to talk about your projects with
other like minded people that have projects and understand what
it's about. It's kind of such a new concept to
(06:45):
people during the pandemic because people didn't realize there was
options to work remotely, to work from wherever you are.
I've kind of always managed somehow to do it, but
you know, now with Zoom, it's become its own thing.
And I think you guys bring that to your interviews too,
because you interview people about their careers and their projects,
(07:08):
but you also talk about the important things, about their passions,
about their families, about their dogs. And I don't think
we hear that enough when we're interviewing people that are
quote unquote very important people. Yeah, I think you're right.
I remember early on I listened to Ariana Huffington's speak
(07:28):
at something and someone asked her. I was probably on
a panel with her, and someone asked her how she
did it raising her kid, you know, during building Huffington posts,
and she said it was a mess. The whole thing
was a mess. But I I lived it and I
got through it, and I realized I don't have to
pretend to everyone that it looks as seamless as people
(07:49):
think it does. The thing is, I want more content
in the world that talks about the beautiful mess that
all of our lives are, because I think that helps
us just grow as women and as anyone as men too,
to hear about other people not being able to do
it all perfectly. I'm sick of people talking about being perfect.
(08:09):
None of us are perfect. Life is hard. I totally
agree we're you know, we just talked to Charlemagne the
other day and he was talking about, you know how
Instagram is like the highlights real, right. We've heard that
so many times. And what Bobby and are both commenting
on it's not just the highlights real, it's the filtered
highlights real like. It's a special effected highlights real like.
It's it's so not what's happening so and we've all
(08:31):
just created this norm around that. And I think what's
missing out there from the conversation is people who are
really successful, like Charlemagne, like Gloria stein um Um, like
Bobby herself, who can tell us you know, hey, I
also struggle with these other things, you know, like I'm
I have anxiety, or I struggle with how to eat
right and how to keep it all together. Sometimes my
(08:52):
kids are acting up and I don't really know how
to deal with that, and it just makes it so
it's such a different conversation and It's so generous of them,
I think, to be so vulnerable ball with all of
us to tell us those things and to be able
to really give us some tips and tricks of like
how they deal with that. And I'm someone that always
thinks you could do things better, you know, So I'm
not someone that's like, Okay, I've already done that. I'm
(09:12):
always trying to figure out different ways and you know,
to make things simpler or just things that work in
a I like sharing that information with people. Totally true.
And if if I didn't admit it right now, our
listeners would be listening and think, oh my gosh, they're
doing this this great sounding podcast. But nobody knows that
my toddler broke my microphone. And so I am recording
(09:33):
with the band. It's been there, done that. I mean.
I started my career, by the way, with you know,
Bobby Brown Cosmetics, with the baby in my arms that
I was. You know, luckily there was no zoom. I
was on the phone talking to you know, surely Lord
who was the scary beauty editor of Vogue, explaining to
(09:53):
her about this new concept, while my son is puking
on me. And I'm not even kidding, and I just remember,
like I didn't have a selfie. We didn't have you know,
iPhones back then, and you know, I only have my
memory because I never would have taken a picture of
me covered in puke. But you know, it was real
and these things happen, and you know what, I'm really
happy that I get to share these things with other
(10:15):
new moms because you know what, it's all okay, yeah,
it's all okay. It is. So your first interview this
season was Glorious Stein NBD. We came out of the
gate strong. Seriously, my gosh, you guys are such underachievers.
It was Women's History Month, and honestly, we don't have
(10:39):
anyone booking our talent right now, so it's us using
our you know, contacts, and you know, really trying to
be a little discerning on you know, who we have
on because this is my fourth podcast, I think one
to my fourth podcast, and different topics and it's got
(10:59):
to really be someone for me that is not just
pushing a brand or pushing their career or talking about
you know, how they did this, but really talking about
the important thing. Was there anything that surprised you about
your interview with Gloria Steinham. You know, I know her
a little personally. I was invited, talk about terrifying to
(11:23):
introduce her at the glorious Steinhum Rutger's school that was founded,
and so I got to spend a couple of days
with her, both in New Jersey then in New York.
We went to lunch together, We did all these things.
So I got to know her, which was insane awesome,
And so I reached out and asked her if she
would be on this podcast and she said yes. Yeah.
(11:46):
I was surprised by how real and vulnerable she is
and just like how open and approachable, you know, because
I I don't know her the way Bobby does. I've
met her a couple of times, but at big events
and that sort of thing where I just you know,
bum rushed the stage or whatever, and like dollar how
much she meant to me. Um. But in that kind
of intimacy of a conversation like this. You know which
(12:06):
podcasts I think are so special in that way that
they can really, you know, bring It's like having a
really nice phone conversation or chat with your girlfriends, but
when of your girlfriends happens to be Gloria Steinem It's like,
that's pretty cool. But she was just so open and
easy to talk to in a way that I felt
like I could chat to her all day and not
just about policy in the state of the world. It
(12:26):
was like actually just chatting with someone. It was really nice.
So if I could actually one final thing, which is
someone that's listening to this interview, if you could tell
them one thing that, according to you, that would change
the course of their life for the better, what would
it be? Mm hmm. That's so difficult. But if I
(12:50):
if I try to think of something that is within
their control rather than having to do with living and
food and you know, outside support, I would just say
that there's a kind of instant democracy in listening as
much as you talk, and talking as much as you listen.
(13:11):
Women often are taught to be good listeners, but not
necessarily to express themselves. Men may be taught the reverse,
uh stereotypically, So all of us can gain from equalizing
those two human functions. Yes, it's so true. You know,
(13:35):
my first career, which was being a makeup artist. You know,
I've been in everyone's bathroom or I've been in you know,
photo studios where people are in their underwear changing and
talking about, you know, makeup. So a makeup artist really
gets this comfort level with people and kind of disarms
people and makes them feel safe to talk about things.
So I think that's kind of how I look at
(13:57):
the world, and even you know, in I've been lucky
enough to be around some pretty powerful, incredible human beings,
and I just always treat everyone the same, whether it's
you know, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, or you know someone
that works in my deli that I see all the time.
You know, people are people, guys. And you know what,
(14:18):
maybe my next podcast will be called Everyone Poops, because honestly,
people are people. We are the same guys. I think
that's a wonderful idea. We should do a podcast called
everyone Poops. I think we should. I think that three
of us would have a blast us. All right, guys,
let's put that on the back burner next project. I'm
also I'm totally here for that. But Bobby, I think
(14:40):
you just nailed it. That is one of the many
reasons you're such a good interviewer because when you started
out as a makeup artist, you were in such intimate
spaces with people. You were in their homes and their bathrooms,
they were in their underwear and when they're at their
most vulnerable. I think that's when you really learn how
to talk to people like people, like actual people. And
you know what, I think I'm a terrible interviewer, and
(15:02):
that's one of the reasons I thought I didn't want
to do this by myself, and I wanted to ask
someone to be my co host. And honestly, my first
idea was on Julie because we're so different. Like I
don't read any of the information on people beforehand. I
don't study and google things they've done. I just kind
(15:22):
of ask a lot of questions. And you know, I
had Charlemagne introduced himself because I was like, I can't
intro this guy. He's done too many things. And on
Julie is the opposite, like she literally is self studied
and goes in and does the research and you know,
so it's a really kind of good partnership because we
(15:43):
do different things. Well, so that's the lawyer in me.
I can't help myself. I have to read stuff and
be prepared. I do love that. But I think you
know that the chemistry between you and Bobby is really
genuine and you know, I just think the world of her.
So it's it's really fun to be part of this
with her, and it's it's such an honor to be
able to step into her space and talk to these folks.
(16:04):
But I think what's great about Bobby Elso' is that
she's really um disarming with people, right because she is
so approachable, she's so relatable. She's so accomplished, but she's
so relatable that that's what makes these conversations so fun
because she just says an unexpected thing, like everybody poops, right,
Like she'll just say things like that. You're like, I mean,
she's the most treatable person ever, So that's also fun.
(17:00):
I want to hear a little bit about what's in
your ears? What podcast do you guys love? What are
you listening to? What do you recommend to people? I
love how I built this romin dr How I built
this show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists and the stories behind
the movements they built. You know, I'm someone that has
(17:23):
built a couple of different companies. I'm the way I
live my life is entrepreneurial. So I love listening and
it's really fun when you get to know the people.
I learned about Don Katz, who's a friend of mine
that founded Audible. He's my friend. I spent every you know,
birthday and kids, bar Mitzva's weddings with him. But I
learned so much because guy Roz is a phenomenal interviewer,
(17:46):
and I was lucky early on to have a How
I Built This? You know his style By the way,
it's four hours of an interview, maybe five, maybe six,
and you have to slow down, which there's nothing slow
about me, but he gets every little thing. Let me
take you back to that, and I'm like, oh my god.
So he does a phenomenal job. I feel like a
(18:09):
lot of people don't know that about How I Built This,
that he interviews you for so long. We only hear
an hour of it, but it's actually a four I've
heard of someone who did a seven hour interview. It's
like an interrogation. I had no idea. Do you have
a favorite episode of How I Built This? Well, my
(18:29):
favorite is Don Kats Yeah, oh yeah. I want to
play just a little bit of that episode because it's
really it's good and it really does show off the
interviewing style of the show. So we're just gonna play
a little tiny bit of that. So so it's a
terrestrial radio. You could get it delivered through the Internet
(18:50):
instead of an audio book on tape or a book
or a speech on tape or some kind of you know,
inspiring I don't know, inspirational thing. You just basically say
this business is going to deliver this stuff to you
through your phone line. To do. The Internet didn't play
up the book part of it because the business itself
was so infantesimal and small. What I did was I realized,
(19:14):
through just basic journalistic research that nine three million Americans
drove to work alone every morning at that point, only
a department transportation number, which you could extrapolate two hundreds
of millions of hours of time people sit in traffic.
I then matched the sociological data to show that the
most frustrating time of people's days, at least valuable time,
(19:37):
is sitting in traffic. And I basically just we said,
if we only penetrate nine percent of them at ten
dollars a month for a service that enriched their lives,
here's how big the business would be. And that's how
we were able to get you know what's now very
small amounts of money, but was then to us a
(19:58):
lot of money to to to make audible, all right,
and Julie going to you, what are your favorite podcasts? Okay, Joe,
You're gonna think I'm sucking up to you. But I
loved the first season of Under the Influence. I think
I emailed you in Glenne's when You when I was
like going in it, and it was super informative and interesting.
And those women in Utah, all the Mormon women like
(20:20):
I had no idea about this whole world of mom influencers,
and I thought it was super fascinating. And I am
deep in Sweet Bobby. Have you guys listened to that? What?
Oh my god? What is this? I am obsessed with
Sweet Bobby. It is six episodes out of the uk
Um and it is this investigative journalist who does a
(20:42):
deep dive about a cat fishing scheme that goes on.
And I don't want to ruin it for your listeners
or for you guys if you haven't listened to it,
but it's about this woman, Kirat, who gets cat fished
for over the course of ten years by a mound
that she falls in love with called Bobby. And then
over the course of the episodes they do the reveal
of who it is and try to figure out the
(21:02):
motivation and the consequences. It is riveting and so crazy,
and I'm so deeply obsessed with what happened to these
people now that, like I was definitely googling it earlier
today trying to figure out where these folks are now
on what's happening. I'm very concerned about this woman and
her getting justice. She needs justice. Bobby. It's so good.
(21:24):
Trusting Bobby back then was understandable, normal, unremarkable. He was
just a friend of a friend on Facebook. But for
Kirat it turned out to be a life changing mistake.
You may have guessed already, but Bobby isn't who he
says he is. Bobby was a character one at the
(21:49):
center of a sophisticated cat fishing operation, which means someone
was pretending to be Bobby online, stealing his identity and
deliberately drawing Kira into a web of lies. And every
expert lawyer and criminologist I've shown this case to, well,
it's blown their minds. Oh my god, where to start,
(22:12):
what the hell it's been going on? It's extremely remarkable.
I'm going to tell you the whole story of how
and why this happened. That sounds exactly what I need
to do a three mile run this afternoon. Yeah, it's great.
(22:33):
It's honestly, it's so well done. It's really well reported.
It's really interesting. It's just baffling because you just are,
you know, halfway for part of it thinking like, how
could this woman what this happened to her? Which then
I realized is, oh, that's a victim blaming, that's victim shaming.
It's it's super messed up that it happened. And then
when they do the reveal of who it is, you're like,
what take him down? You know? How is this person
(22:55):
still functioning member of society? Like it's just a crazy story.
It's super interesting. Yeah, I really enjoyed it. All right, great,
you sold it, You totally sold it an Yeah, fantastic.
I have another one. It's the only podcast I was
able to listen to with my husband. It was Liz
Lang and her podcast about the Steinberg's. That's really good too.
(23:17):
It was hilacious because I don't know anything about this podcast.
Tell me everything about it. It's very great gardens, it's
the just enough family. It's really good Liz Lang who
that was her father, and her uncle his family and um,
you know Gayfrid Steinberg. I mean just all the names
that you know I heard growing up. And it's a
(23:38):
crazy story like the rise and the fall and really
what happened behind the scenes. It was very controversial and
like totally totally like engaging, okay, but just enough family. Um,
I'm going to read a little bit about it. Staggering success,
unexpected loss, over the top parties, shocking betrayals, are open
(24:00):
together into a high profile family therapy session, right, don't
you want to know more? If I were to say
to my mother, are we rich, she'd say, we're comfortable.
But our private plan was a seven seven. We had
a very large helicopter that when we would take to
the plane, both my parents had their own car and driver.
(24:22):
We had a very large apartment. We had a house
days tamp and we had a different country house in Bedford.
We had a ski house and aspen. It was just
very like it was unusual. All this wealth was thanks
to Liz's uncle, Saul Steinberg, who made a fortune in
the sixties, seventies, and eighties as a corporate raider. With
help from his little brother Bob Lizz his father, Saul
(24:44):
spotted a hole in the market for leasing office equipment
and turned it into his first successful company, lease COO.
It doesn't sound like much, but it was the beginning
of an amazing run that created the Steinberg family fortune.
He was the richest self made person in the United
States under the age of thirty by the time he
was seven, and he was supporting the entire family, my grandfather,
(25:07):
my grandfather's brother, all his cousins, all his siblings, and
everybody kind of worked for him, or you could say
that he worked for all of them. All the Steinberg's
had lavish lifestyles because of what Saul accomplished, and they
all lived on top of each other in a kind
of opulent stettle, but Saul lived the biggest. Oh gosh, guys,
(25:33):
you gave me so many good podcast recommendations like this,
these right here, what we're doing, these are the important things.
They are that is it for today's pod club. These
(25:54):
ladies have some great recommendations, and they didn't mind that
I had a get over my face for this entire interview.
Love them. Here is a quick recap about what they
told us to put in our ears this week, How
I built this a legend obviously, sweet Bobby, a podcast
(26:16):
that is completely new to me. The just Enough family
very excited for this one, and of course you want
to go listen to all of the great interviews that
Bobby and a Juley have over on the important things.
That's it. That's all we got today. Happy listening, enjoy
your life, Talk to you soon. The pod club is
(26:46):
hosted by me Joe Piazza. Our executive producers are Me
Again and Emily Marinoff. Our producers are Mary Do and
Darby Masters. Our associate producer is Lauren Philip all Right.
Meme and additional music was composed by Aaron Kaufman. Aaron
Kaufman is also our consulting producer and special thanks to
(27:08):
Nikki Etur he was just a wonderful human being who
I like to think at the end of episodes,
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