April 18, 2023 • 44 mins
When producer and author Nely Galán became Telemundo's President of Entertainment, she became the first Latina to head an American television network. A child of the post-Revolution Cuban diaspora, Nely's path to the top of her field involved grit, resourcefulness, and a dash of humility. In this episode, Nely takes us through her life's marker moments, from a Cuban kid growing up in New Jersey to becoming a force in American media.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. There's this tension a lot of us struggle with
as we're coming of age and even sometimes into adulthood,
and that's what do I owe myself versus what do
I owe my family? I've learned it can be especially
tough for children of immigrants, people who grew up having
to translate for the parents helping them figure out life
(00:37):
in a new country, which was the case for Nelli Galan.
She was born in Cuba and her parents fled to
America when she was just five years old. But when
she was still a teenager, she got the job opportunity
of a lifetime. Her parents begged her not to take
the job, to stay close to home to take care
of them. It was a tough decision, but Nelly took
(00:59):
the job and it set her on a career course
that included building one of the biggest Spanish language TV
networks in America and eventually becoming that company president. This
is started from the bottom, hard earned success stories from
people like us. A conversation with Nelly starts way back
(01:21):
when her family first came to the US.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
When we landed here the United States, in order to
allow an immigrant to come to this country, you had
to be sponsored by another family, and in our case,
the Catholic Church and the Presbyterian Church took on the
mission because of the Cold War of taking in Cubans,
and so we got taken in by a Presbyterian family
(01:49):
in southern New Jersey. The wife was redheaded like I
love Lucy. And so the trauma my parents experienced from
one day to the next. They came to this country
late thirties, early forties, right, and to have to you know,
college degrees, and your college degree is worth nothing, to
(02:10):
have no money, to have lost everything, like literally not
a dollar in their pocket, and they come here and
the shame that you feel having to live in an
American family's house and they have to pay for everything
for you, and then you ask them to give you
a running tab of what you're spending so you can
pay them back. So, yes, that is what my experience.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Is as a child. So you came here with nothing, nothing,
And how did you feel being with this American family?
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Well, I felt like from the time I got here
and I was five, I felt like I became a
grown up. I felt like I was the parent and
my parents were the children. Because they didn't speak English.
I picked up English in two minutes. I was the
one that had to communicate with the family. My parents
(02:58):
were afraid of if somebody knocked on the door. It
was like a major thing. And I think their personality changes,
and I think they're depressed. And I think that you
also hear them and like, when you're with them by themselves,
they sound smart because these are college educated people, but
then when they're around Americans, they sound really stupid. They
can't speak English, right. You know your mother when your
(03:20):
mother says, oh, I need to change the shits, and
I go, mom, sheets, sheets, sheets, it's seats, and she
sounds like an idiot, And all your friends look at
her like she's an idiot, you know, So you do
feel a lot of shame about your family. And I
think you immediately feel like I got to like grow
up quick and listen. I've had the most unbelievable ride,
(03:42):
because you know, one of the things that I talk
about is life is a lot about being at the
right place at the right time. And I was at
the right place at the right time, being Latina at
the dawn of Latino television. So if you know, I
tell a lot of young people, if you're first to
market in anything. You could be the stupidest person in
the world. You're going to hit. You're gonna hit it,
hit because timing is everything in life. So I hit it,
(04:05):
you know, and I've hit it a couple of times
in my life, and that's all the people remember. But
the fact of the matter is I gave a lot
for that hitting it because some of the things that
you realize later in life is that life is relational
and that it isn't about transactional things. It is And
especially if you're ethnic, where your life is all about
(04:26):
family and your cousins and you're this, and you're that,
it's hard to break out of that and go be
very goal oriented type a all the time without having
repercussions to that.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Well, how did you break out of that? How did
you break I mean a lot of immigrant communities are
very close knit Latino communities. If you've been fortunate enough
to grow up around large Latino communities that I have
here in Los Angeles, you realize Latino families are very
tight knit oftentimes too A lot of times, and especially
(05:02):
kind of an area you grew up, there's a lot
of traditional thoughts about the roles of women versus men.
Oh yeah, you've seen to have really broken that mold.
You broke out of just sort of this type you
sort of this family, tight knit family mentality to succeed
in business. How did you so? How did you do that?
Speaker 2 (05:22):
I think, listen, I think that some people are born
with a self motivation. Not everybody has that. But I
also think self motivation comes often from trauma, right. I
think that I've had marker moments where I had to
make a decision, and sometimes I made great decisions, and
sometimes I made bad decisions. And I am the sum
(05:44):
of all those decisions.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
So go back to some Marc moment. Let's start at
the beginning, Okay.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
I think my marker moment happened sophomore year of high school.
My parents had sent me to all girl Catholic school
because at the time we lived in Teaneck, New Jersey,
and it was kind of a treacherous time in Teaneck.
There were issues in the public schools, and so they
sent me to this Catholic school, but they really couldn't
afford it. I was writing. I decided I thought I
(06:09):
really wanted to be a writer, and I was writing
stories for English class and this nun who is my
favorite teacher. I walk into school one day and the
nun says to me, I don't I'm sorry, but I
don't believe you wrote the story. I think this is
an Ernest Hemingway short story. And I have to suspend
you for three days. And she sends me home and
(06:33):
I am crying because I'm such a goodie two shoes.
I mean, kids of immigrants don't cheat because we get
told you better not screw this up again. Remember, let's
remember the mentality. They just came from a revolution. If
you speak up, you go to jai at political prison,
or you disappear and you're called this up. I see you, though, right,
and nobody sees you ever again. So you come to
(06:55):
this country and the first thing your parents tell you
is don't speak up, be under the radar, don't make waves,
shut the hell up, and just be good. Everybody in power.
You just do whatever they tell you to do. So
I come home and I tell my parent, I'm so distraught.
There's not things I didn't write this. And my mother
and father take the side of the nun and they said,
(07:16):
it doesn't matter. You go apologize to the nun. She's right,
you are wrong. I go, I didn't do anything wrong,
and they're like, well, maybe you by mistake you read
Ernest Hemingway, you know, like they kept finding me wrong.
And I was so angry at my parents. I locked
(07:36):
myself in my room and I didn't know how to
deal with my anger. So I did what I knew
how to do, which is right, and I wrote an
article about why you should never send your daughter to
all girl Catholic school, and I sent it into the
only publication I read at the time, which was seventeen magazine,
and I just mailed it and at least it got
(07:58):
off my chest. And a few days later I went
back to school and the first thing the nun says
to me, she goes, I'm so sorry. In fact, you
should be complimented because your story was so good that
I was convinced it was an Ernest Hemingway story. But
in fact no, and I almost like yours better and
you got an A plus. Wow, So the whole thing
blew over.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Why did you think Ernest Hemingway because you're Cuban. No?
Speaker 2 (08:22):
No, because a story took place in a fishing village
in Quba, it did have some Ernest Hemingway elements, but
very few, and it was about an old lady, not
an old man, so like, but she thought I had
just taken the idea, gotcha, and tweaked it. So anyway,
it passed. Three months pass and I get a letter
(08:43):
in the mail from seventeen magazine with one hundred dollars
check and it says, we loved your article and it's
coming out in the next issue.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
And I'm shitting a brick pardon the French. I'm like,
oh my god, oh my god, what did I write?
Oh my god? And I'm like, how can I buy
every single issue? So no one sees it? Like it
was insanity what I was thinking. And every girl in
America read seventeen, I mean, think about today's you know,
the internet, social media there was I mean, it was like,
(09:17):
so I went to school and every girl in the
school was like talking about like, oh my god, it's
going to be in big trouble because I like because
by the way, the article was very funny. It was
actually very good. It was very It was more like
tongue in cheek, like like these are the horrible things
about being in all girls. It was very funny, but
it was brutal, right. I get called to the principal's
(09:39):
office and the head nun says to me, and this
nun was kind of like treacherous, right, and she's like,
we don't like your kind here. And I get expelled.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
What wait, we don't like your kind here?
Speaker 2 (09:50):
She says that to me, like almost like I can't
believe we took you in and this is how you
repay us kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
And I go home and I tell my parents that
I've been expelled, and it's like World War three. My
mother starts calling me, why did you why do you
who do you think you are? Shage Ada? Why do
you have to be revolutionary? Why do you have to
craz problems for us? Blah blah blah blah. This is
a shame on the family. I mean, it was like horrible.
(10:18):
And then I got really I got really mad because
I thought to myself, wait a minute, you guys told
me that one of the reasons that you turned on
the regime of Cuba is that there was no freedom
of speech. And I said, so, now you're not giving
me freedom of speech and you're not backing me that.
I mean, how could they even expel me? For writing
whatever the hell I want. And my parents like, you
(10:41):
are wrong, and you are going to go on your
hands and knees and you are going to beg because
you're not bringing shame on this family. And I was
so upset and hurt at my parents more than the none. Yeah,
And I did something really insane. I went to the library,
which was half a block from my house. I looked
(11:01):
up the board of Education. That's another thing. Back then,
we didn't have the internet. You guys are all spoiled.
I had to look up who was the head of
the board of education. I called the Board of ed
of the State of New Jersey. He did not answer,
but an African American man answered. And I say, I
bless that man the rest of my life, because he
picked up the phone. And I was hysterical and I go,
(11:23):
this nuts.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Eh, that expelled me.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
That's a fair and he goes, young lady, you're right,
it's not fair, he said. Unfortunately, they can do that
because it's a private school, and they can fire you. Basically,
it's like being an outwill employee. They can get rid
of you for any reason. However, you don't have to
take it, and you do have rights and you do
(11:46):
have a voice, and I defend that voice. And I'm
going to call a local reporter and a local newspaper
and you're going to tell your story. And I didn't
even give it a second thought, which I probably should have,
and I was scared, but I did it anyway, and
I gave my interview and the very next day, driving
(12:09):
like ridiculous. But it comes out in the paper Cuban girl,
Cuban immigrant gets expelled for first Amendment. And it was
a scandal, full blown scandal. Everyone in the town read
the newspaper. My parents got a million calls. My parents
are like literally thank god my parents weren't into hitting
me or I would have been dead. They were literally
(12:32):
like hitting the furniture, freaking out. I mean, it was
full blown chaos. The nun from the school calls and says,
come into the school immediately with your parents. My parents
are screaming at me the entire way of my mother,
why are you making me do this? I now I
have to speak Kinglish.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
It's bad. I don't speak Kinglish.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
And my father's like this is a shame on the family.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
In it.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
We get there and the nun is like nice because
we forget bad press is a beautiful thing. And the
nun's like I never said that. I never said that
I didn't like your kind. I said, well you she goes,
and she goes. I said that I didn't like what
you did. But you know, the truth is I looked
(13:14):
up all your records and you're the number three student
in the school, and you have done all ap classes
and you've gotten straight a's. In fact, you have so
many credits that we can graduate you a year and
a half for early And my mother and father called, oh,
this is an honor. I go, yes, it's a big honor.
And it went right over my parents' head that she
(13:34):
was getting rid of me, but in a nice way.
I get home and there is a voice message from
the editor in chief of seventeen magazine, who happens to
be a former nun, Midge Richardson, and she calls me
and says, please call us back, and she says, we
are so proud of you. We are just beside ourself
(13:59):
that you did that article and that you went and
spoke up for yourself, and that you got expelled on
our behalf. We have decided to make you the youngest
guest editor in the history of the seventeen magazine.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
What yes, what?
Speaker 2 (14:16):
And so I think when something like that happens to you,
I mean, I can't just tell you that my life
changed dramatically, completely immediately in the most magical way.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Nelly Golan really knows how to get people's attention. You'll
hear more from her after the break, we're back with
Nelly Galan, who's fresh out of Catholic school and now
the youngest ever editor at seventeen magazine.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
They loved me at seventeen Magazine when the editor in
chief used to be a nun and she left the
nunhood and now she's got a protege that was like
rebelled against the nuns and made them look good. How
good does that?
Speaker 1 (15:09):
There's also this thing of like when you're fifteen and
if you're able to go in the city, like you're
in the suburbs and you go into the city. You're
an editor at a magazine, you're graduated high school early,
and now the most fashionable people on the planet are
telling you and they're making you us. In a way,
it's kind of like but in another way, it's like, Wow,
I got the key, I got the key. To life.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Here. This is it, I really did. I mean, it's
like winning the Teenager.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Like sweet Steaks forget about it.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Yeah, okay, here's what happens. I go there, I work
with the model editor and it's the whitest girl from
Connecticut and she's casting all blonde blue Remember that was
the era of Cheryl Tigus. Sure, and girls are coming
in to be the models for the cover and this
and that. It was all blonde, blue eyed girls. And
one day walks in Phoebe Kate's.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Wow from Fast Times.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Well, she wasn't an actress, and she was just like
like a little school girl that was like half Asian
and half Jewish. And then walks in like Bill Cosby's
dog her and in walks in these people that are
different girls of color, and she was never picking them.
And one day and again they loved me so much
that I felt like I could do anything. I felt
(16:20):
like I was the ship there. And I said to her,
you know, you really need to put some ethnic people
in this magazine. And she goes, well, nobody's ever said that,
nobody's ever done that. And I said, yeah, well I
think we should do that. And I put Phoebe Kates
on the cover.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
To this day, Phoebe Kates tells everybody she got me
on the cover wow, because I fought for her and
then I fought.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
For her career. Just something made her to a certain degree.
Help it did. Yeah, my son.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
I always told my son that I put Phebe Kates
on the cover. He didn't believe me. And then one
day we're literally walking to New York and she's married
to Kevin Klein and she goes, no, hey, in the
middle of the street. She goes, Kevin, this is the
girl that made my career. And my son goes, mom,
you weren't lying. I go you think I lie? You
think so? Anyway, and then I started putting black girls
(17:11):
on the cover and like Latina on the cover, and
like then the lady goes, okay, we need another white
girl again. But here's what happened that the Girls of
Colors issues started selling, and then I get a call
from Elite Models and they said to me, we want
to we want to get all those girls and bring
(17:31):
them to Elite and it's Elite like it was John Casablanca's.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Okay, so one of the top biggest agencies.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
And then they're like we want to hire you as
our consultant. Like if you see people that you think
are going to be cool that come to because they
all would come into seventeen, not to them that you
tell us about them, because we'd love to be their
booking agents. So I become a On top of that,
I become a consultant to Elite and John Casablanca's who is,
(17:59):
by the way, a dog to models, And John cas
blanc is like, I want to invest in your career
because you're going to go places. And I said, well,
you can help me pay for car and so he's like, okay,
well if you do, if you consult for us on
like these, you know, because I think you have a
real eye, we're going to pay for it. So I
got into Barnard Early Admissions with a complete between the
(18:22):
scholarship and John casablancaz any lead paying for me, I
didn't have to pay for shit. And I was working
at seventeen and they, after the my internship was over
there like we want we're going to hire you, so
in between school or whatever, you work here. Because I
was a real teenager, they realized what people now realize,
which is like we need somebody in here who's a
real teenager. So anyway, all that was going on and
(18:45):
then the most unbelievable thing happened.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
No, no, this is unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
No, it gets better, It gets better. This lady who
is the first Latina executive producer in news, this lady
gets this job producing the teenage version of sixty minutes.
Remember Lisa Ling when she started out, she was a
teen order for this thing called I forget what it
(19:11):
was called, but it was a news show that was
in schools, yes, many moons ago. Yes, Well before that,
there was this teenage version of sixty minutes licensed sixty
minutes to PBS for a Saturday morning show. Wow, And
it was going to be people that were older than teenagers,
like twenty somethings, but they kind of could pass for
(19:32):
teenagers that were telling stories that were important to young
people in America. And the lady calls me at seventeen
magazine and she goes, I love all the articles you've written.
She says, I want to meet you. And so she
comes to New York. She's living in Texas. She's in Austin, Texas.
So I meet her and she goes, Okay, I want
(19:52):
to hire you. I want you to be one of
our three correspondents of the show. She goes, but you
have to move to Austin, Texas in two weeks.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
I tell my parents. I'm now sixteen and a half.
At this point, I met Barnard in my first semester
and I'm working at seventeen. I'm working for Elite and
all this shit. And I say to my parents, I
am leaving and I'm going to Austin, Texas. Oh Ostano
say you do not leave here till you are married
Latino culture and I said, you guys don't get this
(20:25):
because you don't understand what sixty minutes is. But that's
like a big deal. And I'm doing this and my
parents are like, oh no, you're not You're not going right.
I go back and tell seventeen. I go back and
tell Elee. I even go tell the school. I go
I need to put this Barnard thing on freeze. I'll
come back. And everybody was like congratulating me, throwing me parties.
(20:49):
Oh my god, you're going to be on TV. You're
going to be a correspondent sixty minutes. Amazing. And two
weeks later, I wake up at three in the morning,
I had a Chevy Chavette, which I don't even know
what that is, but it's like the smallest, shittiest car
on the planet. And I pack up my car and
my parents wake up and I go, what are you doing?
I go, I'm leaving.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
You were trying to leave them the middle.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Of the Yeah, I'm leaving. And they first they like, go, well,
you're not going anywhere. I go, I'm sorry, but I'm
going to go. And you guys, unfortunately, you don't know
what's best for me because you're not American. You don't
really get it, Like you didn't get the whole thing
with the school, and I can't go by your judgment.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
This is a tough thing. I think a lot of
immigrant kids do.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
This is a story that when I tell it to
minority girls, they all cry hysterically. How many girls in
America have given up a Harvard scholarship to stay home
with their parents a lot? How many girls get expelled
from school and it breaks them for the rest of
their life. How many girls get an opportunity and the
parents guilt trip them or they have to support their parents,
(21:58):
and they stay. And I knew that I had to
choose myself first, because my parents had let me down,
and my mother called me every name in the book.
And now that she's ninety years old and she has
dementia once again, she has thrown it in my face.
She goes, you left me when you were sixteen, and
I will go to my grave and never forgive you
(22:20):
because I was her therapist. I was her I was
her everything.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Do you how do you process that?
Speaker 2 (22:27):
When she said something, I will tell you because I left,
I left. I got in the car and drove cross
country by myself at sixteen and a half to Texas.
I stopped the car a blot from the house, and
I cried for two hours because I felt so guilty
that I was leaving my children. But I knew that
I had my parents. Oh boy, But I knew I
(22:49):
had to go because I knew that that was going
to change my life. And when I got to Texas,
that lady took me under her wing and she goes,
and you know, she figured out when I got there
that I was really underage. She didn't really know that.
And then she said, if I had known you were
leaving college, I would have never even asked you to come,
because I believe so much at college, and she said, so,
(23:12):
I'm not going to let you get behind. And she's
the one that brought me. And so imagine that I
am less than eighteen. I am in a bus with
a crew. Every couple of weeks, I switched crews, and
I'm doing stories with Heraldo Rivera. I mean, I'm doing
like the same kind of story sixteen Minutes is doing,
but told from the point of view of a young person.
(23:34):
And I learned everything you could possibly learn from like
the most brilliant people that were thinkers and like people
analyzing the greatest problems in America. Back then we were
having you know, all the farm worker problems and you know,
problems with immigration and the same shit that's going on now,
but you know, the gangs and the racism and this
(23:55):
and that. And I was going so deep with all
these people that were deep. And by the time I
was nineteen, I was recruited at CBS in Boston to
be in the Network Correspondent Training program WOW. And I
was what they call a stringer, So I was the
one doing all the stories for like Diane Sawyer at
(24:18):
the time, I would do seven stories a day, send
them in and Diane Sawyer would be the anchor, and
I was just and sometimes I wasn't even on camera.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
It was like.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Sometimes I just shot footage that they put in and
she'd do a voiceover. So I like, I'm running around
the country. I now look at these people sometimes and
I go into I have PTSD too, because I know
what it's like to get on the plane in the
morning and you put your makeup on and you do
a story and then you get on another.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
It is a grind.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
It's a grind. It is it's for young people. And
I look at these older correspondents like, I don't know
how the hell they do it. And one day they're
in London and the next day there and so I
get asked to do this John F. Kennedy special, in
other words, to go do all the interviews for this
John F. Kennedy specials. I'm off the grind of the
daily thing for a minute, and I'm working on this
(25:11):
big two hour special for Diane Sawyer. And they sent
me to Hollywood and I have to do like twenty
interviews of twenty people, right, and one of the people
I have to interview is Norman Lear. Oh wow, And
Norman Lear had been very good friends with John F.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Kennedy, who knew I did not know that, So I
have to introduce, should you say, for the people that
might not know. Norman Lear one of the absolute geniuses
of scripted television. All in the family. He's an incredible talent.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
Super lovely guy. And he basically said to me, what
are you? Are you Jewish? What are you? And I
go because I kind of, you know, I grew up
Tina in New York accent right, little Joan Rivers thrown
it right. I said, no, I'm Latina, you know, I'm Cuban.
And he goes my partner and I just brought the
first license for the first Spanish Tivy station. I go, oh,
(26:04):
that's nice. I'm like, not, you know, And he says,
I think you should meet with him because he would
like you, and you know, you might want to come
and work for us. And I'm like, all right, whatever.
I go back to Boston. I'm still doing my thing,
and like a couple of weeks later, I get a
call from this guy, Jerry Perencio, billionaire passed away. Just
so everybody knows, he used to be an agent many many,
(26:26):
many moons ago. Then he went and ran Norman Lear's company,
and he eventually, many many many years later brought Univision.
And he is one of the in Hollywood, the behind
the scenes, like you know, big deals and honestly the
person I've learned the most from him my whole life. Tough, tough, tough, tough, tough.
(26:46):
But you'll see how big he becomes in my life.
I go to meet with him. He calls me and
he's like, Norman thinks I should meet with you. I
fly to New York to meet with him. By this point,
I'm twenty one and I've been working at CBS for
two years, okay, And he says to me, so we're
going to launch the Spanish TV network station in New York.
(27:07):
He goes, you should come and work for us. And
I go, well, what am I going to do? And
he goes, you're just going to learn how to do
everything you got to like start it up. And I go,
no offense, sir, But like Spanish TV is not for
somebody like me. That's like for my parents. It's kind
of like, eugh, everything about it is not for me.
I mean, I don't think you understand. I work at
(27:29):
CBS and I'm going to be a network correspondent. And
he's like, that sounds like a factory worker to me.
And I go what And he goes, how many segments
do you do a day? I go seven? How many
times a week do you fly every day? And he goes, Okay,
I'm going to tell you something a little harsh. And I,
(27:50):
you know, I think to myself, would somebody like him
have the balls to tell me something like that today
when everything's so politically correct. He goes, you're Latina, right,
you're bilingual, right, he goes, you know your culture right.
He's like, do you not know that the Latino market
is going to be a multi billion dollar market that
you're people are growing at these rates? You're going to
(28:10):
be the biggest minority by the year such and such.
And he's like, let me get this right. Norman's a
multi millionaire. I'm a billionaire. You're gonna go work for
a network where you're a factory worker or you're gonna
be employee one, no offense. But even if you're an idiot,
you're going to be rich. And I thought to myself,
(28:33):
oh my god, he's right. And I ask you the question,
and I ask you the question, and I ask everyone
listening the question. In today's world, if you had the
choice of your ego and being on TV or being
employee one of a startup that you think is pretty
boring and stupid and kind of taggy, what would you choose?
(28:55):
And the only reason I made the greatest and best
decision of my life is because, deep in my soul,
even though I was really I felt like I was
I felt like I was chosen because I had had
this beautiful trajet.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Brought into the prestige of CBS.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
To be correct, even though I felt that I was chosen,
and it's almost like you feel anointed in that way,
I felt like, let's be real, let's be grounded. And
that's when my parents, in my heart and in my
soul ground me. It's like, no, these guys are a
better choice. Normanly Or and Jerry Parentia are a better
(29:32):
way to go.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
And you must have believed in them too, because I did.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
But I felt like he was right. You know what
it is, And I think this is important to hear
because nobody says this to young people, especially a lot.
No job is more important than the people that you
work for. You can choose a career, or you can
choose people.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
Interesting.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
You choose people because people are going to take you
to the promised Land, not a job. So I chose well,
and I went and became employee number one of what
is today Telemundo.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
When we come back, you'll more about Nelly's rise at
Channel forty seven, a small Spanish language station that went
on to become Telemundo. Before it became the giant that
it is now, Telemundo was just Channel forty seven, a
(30:30):
local New Jersey TV station that promised to deliver Latino content,
and Nellie Glan was employee one.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
I had this little rinky dinky station. It was an
independent station. Literally, I had no business, no money, no nothing,
no content, no nothing. Okay, I had nothing. I had
to get on a plane and go to Latin America
and going to meet all of these Latin American networks
and saying, can I buy a show from you for
fifty dollars an episode? I don't know whatever. I got
(31:01):
a fill in.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Wait wait wait wait, you said, so hold on, this
is interesting. How did you know what your charge was?
How did you like? You have to get some savvy,
you have to know the business to some degree to
know that. Let me go get some programs on the
cheap that we could just fill time with, or did you?
Speaker 2 (31:17):
I mean no, I figured it out. I'm like, okay,
what does another network look like? Okay, they have programming. Okay,
I don't have money to produce programming. What do I do? Okay?
Where can I find Spanish language programming? I gotta go
to Spanish language country, right, Okay? How do I do that?
I mean I figured it yeah out? Wow, And every
(31:38):
day I made a hundred mistakes on oh PM, which
is the best thing to do in life, you know,
work for somebody else, that's right now. I literally would
open the mail, and I would open the mail and
it would say somebody would send me out and go,
we have infomercials we want to air from midnight to
three in the morning. We'll pay you a million dollars
a year. And I'd call up an engineer that we
(32:00):
you know, I find out, where does it cost me
to stay open from midnight to three in the morning.
We were only on eight hours a day in the beginning.
It's like, oh it, it'll cost you about fifty thousand
dollars a year. I go, that sounds perfect to me.
We're doing that and I would make a million dollars.
I answered the mail. I mean you also forget that.
When you have something, build it and they will come. Okay,
(32:22):
let me tell you what else came. I'm sitting there literally,
you know, like a startup with like four employees, and
I get a call from this guy, Puerto Rican guy
who's managing Manudo, Manudo the boy Man, and he goes, listen,
I need to see you. I need we just got
booked to do Radio City Music Hall. I need airtime.
(32:44):
I need to promote this. I go, okay. All I
have is airtime. I go, okay, can we make a
little commercial whatever, let's do whatever. It's some crappy little commercial.
He goes, I have no money for you until the
show's on and I sell the tickets. I have no money.
I go, okay, I'll take a shot at you. I go,
I'll give you a commercial every fifteen minutes, but you're
going to give me half your box fifty to fifty
(33:06):
box office.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Really you've said that I did fifty to fifty.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
That was my start. I mean I could negotiate right.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
That's where she starts it.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
I love it and he goes, he goes okay. By
the way, it doesn't work anymore. He goes okay, and
I go okay. So we sold out five nights five
nights because I put so many commercials on this. And
by the way, we started mating, like we started making
a Latino revolution, because every artist would call me and go, go,
can you give me as many commercials as I go? Yeah,
(33:37):
all I got is commercial time, and I started doing
fifty to fifty deals. Now, by the way, that didn't
last very long because then people were like, come on,
you know, and also I started getting other commercials. I
didn't have as much commercial time. So I mean, it
was like a year where I hit the jobs.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
The wild West for a bit of wild West.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
So but all I'm saying is like I didn't even
think I could figure this out, And in like a year,
I made eight million dollars profit. So I went to
work for them. At almost twenty to twenty five, I
ran the station. We were making eight to ten million
dollars a year. So one day I walk into work
(34:19):
and his lawyer comes in and says, I have great
news for you. We sold the company. I go what
we sold the company to? Saul Steinberg, who is an
insurance company in New York, and he speaks Spanish and
he wants to build a network. I go to see
Jerry and I do the one thing you're never supposed
to do in business. I start to cry and I go, Jerry,
(34:43):
this is my baby your I'm your burger king manager.
This doesn't mean anything to you. How could you solve
this as my baby? And he goes, young lady, stop
the tears. He goes, young lady, these are my chips.
If you think you have what it takes, and I
think you have what it takes, he goes, stop crying
(35:04):
and go get your own chips.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Wow, he goes.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
When I it was your age. I started a business.
I made no money for ten years, and then I
became a millionaire. Go do it. I'm giving you three
hundred thousand dollars in a Mercedes Benz and I was like.
I went home and I cried, and I like, really
I was so I thought he was the devil.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
And he gave you a pens.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
By the way, I cashed in because I didn't even
know how to drive, and so I had but I did.
I had like three hundred and seventy five thousand dollars
at that point, and I lived in the East Village
and a fourth floor walk up, and I decided to
start a business, and I started a business. And so
when he sold the company, I went and saw everyone
(35:54):
in Hollywood with this idea that I had for a business,
and every single person, and I could tell you very famous, famous,
famous execs turned me down. So what I wanted to
do is I realized there was a whole the market
that I was going to visit all these networks in
Latin America and buying shows from them, and they had
(36:15):
no American shows, none. And I was like, why isn't
there HBO in Latin America? Why are these channels not
going abroad? I could sell this in a minute. So
I was pitching people about my business. But for four
years nothing happened, and I was really feeling very distraught,
and I was embarrassed to go back to Jerry with
my tail between my legs because he would have given
(36:37):
me a job or you know. And I thought I
have to prove myself. And in the fourth year the
whole thing changed. The president of HBO at the time
says to me, Nellie, remember you came to me like
three years ago, and I said, no, we're ready to
do that. We've sent three MBAs to Latin America and
they can't figure it out. I go, well, do they
speak Spanish and he goes no. I go, well duh,
(36:59):
So he goes, but we can only do it with
you as a consultant. See. I wanted to like own
a piece of the channel right because I was thinking
like Jerry Parentio. So I said, okay, I'll do it
because if I got to do one, just to show
I can do it. And I had the channel up
and running in Venezuela in three months. And then I
get a call and another great call from this African
(37:21):
American guy name is Bernard Stewart. He was the one
in charge of globalizing ESPN. And he calls me and
he goes, Nelly, come and see me. I heard from
Michael Fuchs at HBO that you helped launch HBO. And
I go over there to see him and he says, listen,
we're going to do We're going to launch three channels
in Latin America. We're going to do one in Portuguese,
(37:44):
two in Spanish, one in Argentina, one in Mexico. We
have to hire like forty on camera people, but we
want to outsource it to you because if it doesn't
work out, then we don't have all the bodies, you
know how you can't hire people. And then he goes
and then if it works, you sell it back to
us in five years. And then, in a weird way,
I was the best person to do this channel because
(38:04):
there were all these different languages for different things in sports,
Argentinians using mix and I had to just pick one
and make a new language that would be the same
in the entire continent. And they could yell at me
because I'm another Latina. I go listen. I picked the
word that I thought was the best free and that's
what we're going with. And now it's become the language
(38:26):
of sports in Latin America. So anyway, I launched those channels,
and I went from nothing and nothing was working to
exactly what Jerry Purna said, if you hang in there.
But I went from zero to I launched ten channels
in four years.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
That's incredible.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
And then Rupert Murdoch and Sony decided, okay, so the
original guy that bought my station, Channel forty seven bought
fifteen stations around the country for a fortune. It was
when stations were one hundred million, two hundred million each
Overspent tried to start a Latino network. Wasn't working. There
wasn't enough money to justify that the cost of those channels.
(39:07):
He died of a brain and yours his family got
the company. It went into bankruptcy court and it was
between Sony and Fox to buy it, and Sony won
the blind doction in bankruptcy court. And when Sony bought it,
they came after me because I was the only Latina
(39:28):
that had experienced running channels and really being fiscally responsible,
and I get the job to basically be the president
of Telemundo. They buy my little business. And by the way,
I forgot to say that when I was doing the
channel business, all of the networks that I ended up launching,
(39:50):
everyone gave me production deals because they're like with your company,
with my company, because again, not because I came into
it as a creative. Because I came into it as
a fiscally responsible Latina from the business side, and all
the Latinos in Hollywood kind of trash me. Who is she?
We've been at this for years? How did you give
the deals to her. And I was smart because I thought,
(40:14):
don't worry you guys, I'm going to give you guys
all deals, right. But they didn't realize. And this is
another thing that I don't think people say to young people,
is that everybody wants to have an ego and be creative,
including me, everybody. But in fact, if you learn the
fiscal stuff first, if you want to be the queen
of content, first be the queen of distribution and understand
(40:37):
distribution and the finances of distribution, and you're on your way.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
Wow, Wow, all your success I almost have success fatigue
with you.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
I mean no, no, let me just tell you so. Let
me be not humble but honest. You could have failure
fatigue if I talk to you about my failures. I
have way more failures than successes. But that's the other
thing people should know. You only need a couple of
successes and that's all people care about. And remember, you
remember the failures, but other people don't. So it's taken
(41:12):
hundreds of thousands of failures to have two or three successes.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Nelly, I hope you will come back. I feel like
there's so much more to talk to you about. We
didn't even go there's a whole other half of your career.
I want to talk to you, just more specifically about
the dawn of Spanish language television here in the States.
I want to talk to you about your successes in
reality TV and really also what your next well I.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
Think, I think what's a good thing to leave with
for for your listeners is how do you find your
north star? And I would say the one thing that
that I think people are not looking at carefully is
don't pick the sexiest thing. Don't pick the thing that
everyone else is doing. Try to really do your homework.
(42:00):
Like I'm a very mathematical person. Like I tell I
tell everybody Google what's an emerging business, what's an emerging city,
what's an emerge market? And here's the beauty of it.
You don't have to have millions and millions and millions
of customers. You can survive on very few customers in
a niche business. Niches, by the way, are better than
(42:22):
mass things. Niches are things that you can fully own.
And also niches tend to come from your pain. You know,
I did a niche in Latino TV and did very
well telling stories that I lived through of immigration of pain. Okay,
so you make money on your pain. You come up
(42:42):
with something from your pain, not from what everybody else
is out here doing. Don't have fomo like where you
are right now, bored in your house is where you
need to be to invent the greatest thing of your life,
not at the party with everybody else.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
Absolutely, Oh my gosh, we're having you back. You're coming back, Nellie.
Thank you so much. This has been so lovely. I
can't thank you enough.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
Yoh.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
Nellie Galan is definitely coming back on the show. We're
only part way through her career and there's still a
whole other reality TV and Psario chapter we didn't get
to that I'm dying to talk to her about. But
before we let Nellie completely go, I want to play
you a part of our conversation that didn't make the episode.
It's a really important point I think she makes about jealousy.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
The other technique that I use to decide what do
I want to do is what am I jealous of?
Speaker 1 (43:38):
And I think that's a really great Okay, who were
you jealous of in that moment?
Speaker 2 (43:43):
Susie Orman? So what Susie Ormand did for white women,
it's like she put the light bulb on, Like, where's
your financial empowerment? You guys are all like really sitting
around waiting for some guy to save you.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
Now, when Nelly Golan tells you she's jealous of someone,
you got to figure out how to talk to that person.
So next week I'll bring you personal finance guru, best
selling author multiple times. I'm guests on the Oprah Show
Susie or Started from the Bottom is produced by David Jaw,
(44:18):
edited by keyshow Williams, engineered by Ben Holliday, booked by
Laura Morgan with production help from Lea Rose. The show
is executive produced by Jacob Goldstein, who's not all up
in the videos for Pushkin Industries. Our theme music's by
Bent Holliday and David Jaw featuring Anthony Eggs and Savannah
Joe Lack. Listen to Started from the Bottom. Wherever you
(44:40):
get your podcasts and if you want ad free episodes
available one week early sign up for Pushkin Plus. Check
out Pushkin dot fm or the Apple show page for
more information. If you like your show, please remember to share, rate,
and review us on your podcast app. I'm justin Richmond.
Pushkin. There's this tension a lot of us struggle with
as we're coming of age and even sometimes into adulthood,
and that's what do I owe myself versus what do
I owe my family? I've learned it can be especially
tough for children of immigrants, people who grew up having
to translate for the parents helping them figure out life
(00:37):
in a new country, which was the case for Nelli Galan.
She was born in Cuba and her parents fled to
America when she was just five years old. But when
she was still a teenager, she got the job opportunity
of a lifetime. Her parents begged her not to take
the job, to stay close to home to take care
of them. It was a tough decision, but Nelly took
(00:59):
the job and it set her on a career course
that included building one of the biggest Spanish language TV
networks in America and eventually becoming that company president. This
is started from the bottom, hard earned success stories from
people like us. A conversation with Nelly starts way back
(01:21):
when her family first came to the US.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
When we landed here the United States, in order to
allow an immigrant to come to this country, you had
to be sponsored by another family, and in our case,
the Catholic Church and the Presbyterian Church took on the
mission because of the Cold War of taking in Cubans,
and so we got taken in by a Presbyterian family
(01:49):
in southern New Jersey. The wife was redheaded like I
love Lucy. And so the trauma my parents experienced from
one day to the next. They came to this country
late thirties, early forties, right, and to have to you know,
college degrees, and your college degree is worth nothing, to
(02:10):
have no money, to have lost everything, like literally not
a dollar in their pocket, and they come here and
the shame that you feel having to live in an
American family's house and they have to pay for everything
for you, and then you ask them to give you
a running tab of what you're spending so you can
pay them back. So, yes, that is what my experience.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Is as a child. So you came here with nothing, nothing,
And how did you feel being with this American family?
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Well, I felt like from the time I got here
and I was five, I felt like I became a
grown up. I felt like I was the parent and
my parents were the children. Because they didn't speak English.
I picked up English in two minutes. I was the
one that had to communicate with the family. My parents
(02:58):
were afraid of if somebody knocked on the door. It
was like a major thing. And I think their personality changes,
and I think they're depressed. And I think that you
also hear them and like, when you're with them by themselves,
they sound smart because these are college educated people, but
then when they're around Americans, they sound really stupid. They
can't speak English, right. You know your mother when your
(03:20):
mother says, oh, I need to change the shits, and
I go, mom, sheets, sheets, sheets, it's seats, and she
sounds like an idiot, And all your friends look at
her like she's an idiot, you know, So you do
feel a lot of shame about your family. And I
think you immediately feel like I got to like grow
up quick and listen. I've had the most unbelievable ride,
(03:42):
because you know, one of the things that I talk
about is life is a lot about being at the
right place at the right time. And I was at
the right place at the right time, being Latina at
the dawn of Latino television. So if you know, I
tell a lot of young people, if you're first to
market in anything. You could be the stupidest person in
the world. You're going to hit. You're gonna hit it,
hit because timing is everything in life. So I hit it,
(04:05):
you know, and I've hit it a couple of times
in my life, and that's all the people remember. But
the fact of the matter is I gave a lot
for that hitting it because some of the things that
you realize later in life is that life is relational
and that it isn't about transactional things. It is And
especially if you're ethnic, where your life is all about
(04:26):
family and your cousins and you're this, and you're that,
it's hard to break out of that and go be
very goal oriented type a all the time without having
repercussions to that.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Well, how did you break out of that? How did
you break I mean a lot of immigrant communities are
very close knit Latino communities. If you've been fortunate enough
to grow up around large Latino communities that I have
here in Los Angeles, you realize Latino families are very
tight knit oftentimes too A lot of times, and especially
(05:02):
kind of an area you grew up, there's a lot
of traditional thoughts about the roles of women versus men.
Oh yeah, you've seen to have really broken that mold.
You broke out of just sort of this type you
sort of this family, tight knit family mentality to succeed
in business. How did you so? How did you do that?
Speaker 2 (05:22):
I think, listen, I think that some people are born
with a self motivation. Not everybody has that. But I
also think self motivation comes often from trauma, right. I
think that I've had marker moments where I had to
make a decision, and sometimes I made great decisions, and
sometimes I made bad decisions. And I am the sum
(05:44):
of all those decisions.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
So go back to some Marc moment. Let's start at
the beginning, Okay.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
I think my marker moment happened sophomore year of high school.
My parents had sent me to all girl Catholic school
because at the time we lived in Teaneck, New Jersey,
and it was kind of a treacherous time in Teaneck.
There were issues in the public schools, and so they
sent me to this Catholic school, but they really couldn't
afford it. I was writing. I decided I thought I
(06:09):
really wanted to be a writer, and I was writing
stories for English class and this nun who is my
favorite teacher. I walk into school one day and the
nun says to me, I don't I'm sorry, but I
don't believe you wrote the story. I think this is
an Ernest Hemingway short story. And I have to suspend
you for three days. And she sends me home and
(06:33):
I am crying because I'm such a goodie two shoes.
I mean, kids of immigrants don't cheat because we get
told you better not screw this up again. Remember, let's
remember the mentality. They just came from a revolution. If
you speak up, you go to jai at political prison,
or you disappear and you're called this up. I see you, though, right,
and nobody sees you ever again. So you come to
(06:55):
this country and the first thing your parents tell you
is don't speak up, be under the radar, don't make waves,
shut the hell up, and just be good. Everybody in power.
You just do whatever they tell you to do. So
I come home and I tell my parent, I'm so distraught.
There's not things I didn't write this. And my mother
and father take the side of the nun and they said,
(07:16):
it doesn't matter. You go apologize to the nun. She's right,
you are wrong. I go, I didn't do anything wrong,
and they're like, well, maybe you by mistake you read
Ernest Hemingway, you know, like they kept finding me wrong.
And I was so angry at my parents. I locked
(07:36):
myself in my room and I didn't know how to
deal with my anger. So I did what I knew
how to do, which is right, and I wrote an
article about why you should never send your daughter to
all girl Catholic school, and I sent it into the
only publication I read at the time, which was seventeen magazine,
and I just mailed it and at least it got
(07:58):
off my chest. And a few days later I went
back to school and the first thing the nun says
to me, she goes, I'm so sorry. In fact, you
should be complimented because your story was so good that
I was convinced it was an Ernest Hemingway story. But
in fact no, and I almost like yours better and
you got an A plus. Wow, So the whole thing
blew over.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Why did you think Ernest Hemingway because you're Cuban. No?
Speaker 2 (08:22):
No, because a story took place in a fishing village
in Quba, it did have some Ernest Hemingway elements, but
very few, and it was about an old lady, not
an old man, so like, but she thought I had
just taken the idea, gotcha, and tweaked it. So anyway,
it passed. Three months pass and I get a letter
(08:43):
in the mail from seventeen magazine with one hundred dollars
check and it says, we loved your article and it's
coming out in the next issue.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
And I'm shitting a brick pardon the French. I'm like,
oh my god, oh my god, what did I write?
Oh my god? And I'm like, how can I buy
every single issue? So no one sees it? Like it
was insanity what I was thinking. And every girl in
America read seventeen, I mean, think about today's you know,
the internet, social media there was I mean, it was like,
(09:17):
so I went to school and every girl in the
school was like talking about like, oh my god, it's
going to be in big trouble because I like because
by the way, the article was very funny. It was
actually very good. It was very It was more like
tongue in cheek, like like these are the horrible things
about being in all girls. It was very funny, but
it was brutal, right. I get called to the principal's
(09:39):
office and the head nun says to me, and this
nun was kind of like treacherous, right, and she's like,
we don't like your kind here. And I get expelled.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
What wait, we don't like your kind here?
Speaker 2 (09:50):
She says that to me, like almost like I can't
believe we took you in and this is how you
repay us kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
And I go home and I tell my parents that
I've been expelled, and it's like World War three. My
mother starts calling me, why did you why do you
who do you think you are? Shage Ada? Why do
you have to be revolutionary? Why do you have to
craz problems for us? Blah blah blah blah. This is
a shame on the family. I mean, it was like horrible.
(10:18):
And then I got really I got really mad because
I thought to myself, wait a minute, you guys told
me that one of the reasons that you turned on
the regime of Cuba is that there was no freedom
of speech. And I said, so, now you're not giving
me freedom of speech and you're not backing me that.
I mean, how could they even expel me? For writing
whatever the hell I want. And my parents like, you
(10:41):
are wrong, and you are going to go on your
hands and knees and you are going to beg because
you're not bringing shame on this family. And I was
so upset and hurt at my parents more than the none. Yeah,
And I did something really insane. I went to the library,
which was half a block from my house. I looked
(11:01):
up the board of Education. That's another thing. Back then,
we didn't have the internet. You guys are all spoiled.
I had to look up who was the head of
the board of education. I called the Board of ed
of the State of New Jersey. He did not answer,
but an African American man answered. And I say, I
bless that man the rest of my life, because he
picked up the phone. And I was hysterical and I go,
(11:23):
this nuts.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Eh, that expelled me.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
That's a fair and he goes, young lady, you're right,
it's not fair, he said. Unfortunately, they can do that
because it's a private school, and they can fire you. Basically,
it's like being an outwill employee. They can get rid
of you for any reason. However, you don't have to
take it, and you do have rights and you do
(11:46):
have a voice, and I defend that voice. And I'm
going to call a local reporter and a local newspaper
and you're going to tell your story. And I didn't
even give it a second thought, which I probably should have,
and I was scared, but I did it anyway, and
I gave my interview and the very next day, driving
(12:09):
like ridiculous. But it comes out in the paper Cuban girl,
Cuban immigrant gets expelled for first Amendment. And it was
a scandal, full blown scandal. Everyone in the town read
the newspaper. My parents got a million calls. My parents
are like literally thank god my parents weren't into hitting
me or I would have been dead. They were literally
(12:32):
like hitting the furniture, freaking out. I mean, it was
full blown chaos. The nun from the school calls and says,
come into the school immediately with your parents. My parents
are screaming at me the entire way of my mother,
why are you making me do this? I now I
have to speak Kinglish.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
It's bad. I don't speak Kinglish.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
And my father's like this is a shame on the family.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
In it.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
We get there and the nun is like nice because
we forget bad press is a beautiful thing. And the
nun's like I never said that. I never said that
I didn't like your kind. I said, well you she goes,
and she goes. I said that I didn't like what
you did. But you know, the truth is I looked
(13:14):
up all your records and you're the number three student
in the school, and you have done all ap classes
and you've gotten straight a's. In fact, you have so
many credits that we can graduate you a year and
a half for early And my mother and father called, oh,
this is an honor. I go, yes, it's a big honor.
And it went right over my parents' head that she
(13:34):
was getting rid of me, but in a nice way.
I get home and there is a voice message from
the editor in chief of seventeen magazine, who happens to
be a former nun, Midge Richardson, and she calls me
and says, please call us back, and she says, we
are so proud of you. We are just beside ourself
(13:59):
that you did that article and that you went and
spoke up for yourself, and that you got expelled on
our behalf. We have decided to make you the youngest
guest editor in the history of the seventeen magazine.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
What yes, what?
Speaker 2 (14:16):
And so I think when something like that happens to you,
I mean, I can't just tell you that my life
changed dramatically, completely immediately in the most magical way.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Nelly Golan really knows how to get people's attention. You'll
hear more from her after the break, we're back with
Nelly Galan, who's fresh out of Catholic school and now
the youngest ever editor at seventeen magazine.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
They loved me at seventeen Magazine when the editor in
chief used to be a nun and she left the
nunhood and now she's got a protege that was like
rebelled against the nuns and made them look good. How
good does that?
Speaker 1 (15:09):
There's also this thing of like when you're fifteen and
if you're able to go in the city, like you're
in the suburbs and you go into the city. You're
an editor at a magazine, you're graduated high school early,
and now the most fashionable people on the planet are
telling you and they're making you us. In a way,
it's kind of like but in another way, it's like, Wow,
I got the key, I got the key. To life.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Here. This is it, I really did. I mean, it's
like winning the Teenager.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Like sweet Steaks forget about it.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Yeah, okay, here's what happens. I go there, I work
with the model editor and it's the whitest girl from
Connecticut and she's casting all blonde blue Remember that was
the era of Cheryl Tigus. Sure, and girls are coming
in to be the models for the cover and this
and that. It was all blonde, blue eyed girls. And
one day walks in Phoebe Kate's.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Wow from Fast Times.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Well, she wasn't an actress, and she was just like
like a little school girl that was like half Asian
and half Jewish. And then walks in like Bill Cosby's
dog her and in walks in these people that are
different girls of color, and she was never picking them.
And one day and again they loved me so much
that I felt like I could do anything. I felt
(16:20):
like I was the ship there. And I said to her,
you know, you really need to put some ethnic people
in this magazine. And she goes, well, nobody's ever said that,
nobody's ever done that. And I said, yeah, well I
think we should do that. And I put Phoebe Kates
on the cover.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
To this day, Phoebe Kates tells everybody she got me
on the cover wow, because I fought for her and
then I fought.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
For her career. Just something made her to a certain degree.
Help it did. Yeah, my son.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
I always told my son that I put Phebe Kates
on the cover. He didn't believe me. And then one
day we're literally walking to New York and she's married
to Kevin Klein and she goes, no, hey, in the
middle of the street. She goes, Kevin, this is the
girl that made my career. And my son goes, mom,
you weren't lying. I go you think I lie? You
think so? Anyway, and then I started putting black girls
(17:11):
on the cover and like Latina on the cover, and
like then the lady goes, okay, we need another white
girl again. But here's what happened that the Girls of
Colors issues started selling, and then I get a call
from Elite Models and they said to me, we want
to we want to get all those girls and bring
(17:31):
them to Elite and it's Elite like it was John Casablanca's.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Okay, so one of the top biggest agencies.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
And then they're like we want to hire you as
our consultant. Like if you see people that you think
are going to be cool that come to because they
all would come into seventeen, not to them that you
tell us about them, because we'd love to be their
booking agents. So I become a On top of that,
I become a consultant to Elite and John Casablanca's who is,
(17:59):
by the way, a dog to models, And John cas
blanc is like, I want to invest in your career
because you're going to go places. And I said, well,
you can help me pay for car and so he's like, okay,
well if you do, if you consult for us on
like these, you know, because I think you have a
real eye, we're going to pay for it. So I
got into Barnard Early Admissions with a complete between the
(18:22):
scholarship and John casablancaz any lead paying for me, I
didn't have to pay for shit. And I was working
at seventeen and they, after the my internship was over
there like we want we're going to hire you, so
in between school or whatever, you work here. Because I
was a real teenager, they realized what people now realize,
which is like we need somebody in here who's a
real teenager. So anyway, all that was going on and
(18:45):
then the most unbelievable thing happened.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
No, no, this is unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
No, it gets better, It gets better. This lady who
is the first Latina executive producer in news, this lady
gets this job producing the teenage version of sixty minutes.
Remember Lisa Ling when she started out, she was a
teen order for this thing called I forget what it
(19:11):
was called, but it was a news show that was
in schools, yes, many moons ago. Yes, Well before that,
there was this teenage version of sixty minutes licensed sixty
minutes to PBS for a Saturday morning show. Wow, And
it was going to be people that were older than teenagers,
like twenty somethings, but they kind of could pass for
(19:32):
teenagers that were telling stories that were important to young
people in America. And the lady calls me at seventeen
magazine and she goes, I love all the articles you've written.
She says, I want to meet you. And so she
comes to New York. She's living in Texas. She's in Austin, Texas.
So I meet her and she goes, Okay, I want
(19:52):
to hire you. I want you to be one of
our three correspondents of the show. She goes, but you
have to move to Austin, Texas in two weeks.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
I tell my parents. I'm now sixteen and a half.
At this point, I met Barnard in my first semester
and I'm working at seventeen. I'm working for Elite and
all this shit. And I say to my parents, I
am leaving and I'm going to Austin, Texas. Oh Ostano
say you do not leave here till you are married
Latino culture and I said, you guys don't get this
(20:25):
because you don't understand what sixty minutes is. But that's
like a big deal. And I'm doing this and my
parents are like, oh no, you're not You're not going right.
I go back and tell seventeen. I go back and
tell Elee. I even go tell the school. I go
I need to put this Barnard thing on freeze. I'll
come back. And everybody was like congratulating me, throwing me parties.
(20:49):
Oh my god, you're going to be on TV. You're
going to be a correspondent sixty minutes. Amazing. And two
weeks later, I wake up at three in the morning,
I had a Chevy Chavette, which I don't even know
what that is, but it's like the smallest, shittiest car
on the planet. And I pack up my car and
my parents wake up and I go, what are you doing?
I go, I'm leaving.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
You were trying to leave them the middle.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Of the Yeah, I'm leaving. And they first they like, go, well,
you're not going anywhere. I go, I'm sorry, but I'm
going to go. And you guys, unfortunately, you don't know
what's best for me because you're not American. You don't
really get it, Like you didn't get the whole thing
with the school, and I can't go by your judgment.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
This is a tough thing. I think a lot of
immigrant kids do.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
This is a story that when I tell it to
minority girls, they all cry hysterically. How many girls in
America have given up a Harvard scholarship to stay home
with their parents a lot? How many girls get expelled
from school and it breaks them for the rest of
their life. How many girls get an opportunity and the
parents guilt trip them or they have to support their parents,
(21:58):
and they stay. And I knew that I had to
choose myself first, because my parents had let me down,
and my mother called me every name in the book.
And now that she's ninety years old and she has
dementia once again, she has thrown it in my face.
She goes, you left me when you were sixteen, and
I will go to my grave and never forgive you
(22:20):
because I was her therapist. I was her I was
her everything.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Do you how do you process that?
Speaker 2 (22:27):
When she said something, I will tell you because I left,
I left. I got in the car and drove cross
country by myself at sixteen and a half to Texas.
I stopped the car a blot from the house, and
I cried for two hours because I felt so guilty
that I was leaving my children. But I knew that
I had my parents. Oh boy, But I knew I
(22:49):
had to go because I knew that that was going
to change my life. And when I got to Texas,
that lady took me under her wing and she goes,
and you know, she figured out when I got there
that I was really underage. She didn't really know that.
And then she said, if I had known you were
leaving college, I would have never even asked you to come,
because I believe so much at college, and she said, so,
(23:12):
I'm not going to let you get behind. And she's
the one that brought me. And so imagine that I
am less than eighteen. I am in a bus with
a crew. Every couple of weeks, I switched crews, and
I'm doing stories with Heraldo Rivera. I mean, I'm doing
like the same kind of story sixteen Minutes is doing,
but told from the point of view of a young person.
(23:34):
And I learned everything you could possibly learn from like
the most brilliant people that were thinkers and like people
analyzing the greatest problems in America. Back then we were
having you know, all the farm worker problems and you know,
problems with immigration and the same shit that's going on now,
but you know, the gangs and the racism and this
(23:55):
and that. And I was going so deep with all
these people that were deep. And by the time I
was nineteen, I was recruited at CBS in Boston to
be in the Network Correspondent Training program WOW. And I
was what they call a stringer, So I was the
one doing all the stories for like Diane Sawyer at
(24:18):
the time, I would do seven stories a day, send
them in and Diane Sawyer would be the anchor, and
I was just and sometimes I wasn't even on camera.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
It was like.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Sometimes I just shot footage that they put in and
she'd do a voiceover. So I like, I'm running around
the country. I now look at these people sometimes and
I go into I have PTSD too, because I know
what it's like to get on the plane in the
morning and you put your makeup on and you do
a story and then you get on another.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
It is a grind.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
It's a grind. It is it's for young people. And
I look at these older correspondents like, I don't know
how the hell they do it. And one day they're
in London and the next day there and so I
get asked to do this John F. Kennedy special, in
other words, to go do all the interviews for this
John F. Kennedy specials. I'm off the grind of the
daily thing for a minute, and I'm working on this
(25:11):
big two hour special for Diane Sawyer. And they sent
me to Hollywood and I have to do like twenty
interviews of twenty people, right, and one of the people
I have to interview is Norman Lear. Oh wow, And
Norman Lear had been very good friends with John F.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Kennedy, who knew I did not know that, So I
have to introduce, should you say, for the people that
might not know. Norman Lear one of the absolute geniuses
of scripted television. All in the family. He's an incredible talent.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
Super lovely guy. And he basically said to me, what
are you? Are you Jewish? What are you? And I
go because I kind of, you know, I grew up
Tina in New York accent right, little Joan Rivers thrown
it right. I said, no, I'm Latina, you know, I'm Cuban.
And he goes my partner and I just brought the
first license for the first Spanish Tivy station. I go, oh,
(26:04):
that's nice. I'm like, not, you know, And he says,
I think you should meet with him because he would
like you, and you know, you might want to come
and work for us. And I'm like, all right, whatever.
I go back to Boston. I'm still doing my thing,
and like a couple of weeks later, I get a
call from this guy, Jerry Perencio, billionaire passed away. Just
so everybody knows, he used to be an agent many many,
(26:26):
many moons ago. Then he went and ran Norman Lear's company,
and he eventually, many many many years later brought Univision.
And he is one of the in Hollywood, the behind
the scenes, like you know, big deals and honestly the
person I've learned the most from him my whole life. Tough, tough, tough, tough, tough.
(26:46):
But you'll see how big he becomes in my life.
I go to meet with him. He calls me and
he's like, Norman thinks I should meet with you. I
fly to New York to meet with him. By this point,
I'm twenty one and I've been working at CBS for
two years, okay, And he says to me, so we're
going to launch the Spanish TV network station in New York.
(27:07):
He goes, you should come and work for us. And
I go, well, what am I going to do? And
he goes, you're just going to learn how to do
everything you got to like start it up. And I go,
no offense, sir, But like Spanish TV is not for
somebody like me. That's like for my parents. It's kind
of like, eugh, everything about it is not for me.
I mean, I don't think you understand. I work at
(27:29):
CBS and I'm going to be a network correspondent. And
he's like, that sounds like a factory worker to me.
And I go what And he goes, how many segments
do you do a day? I go seven? How many
times a week do you fly every day? And he goes, Okay,
I'm going to tell you something a little harsh. And I,
(27:50):
you know, I think to myself, would somebody like him
have the balls to tell me something like that today
when everything's so politically correct. He goes, you're Latina, right,
you're bilingual, right, he goes, you know your culture right.
He's like, do you not know that the Latino market
is going to be a multi billion dollar market that
you're people are growing at these rates? You're going to
(28:10):
be the biggest minority by the year such and such.
And he's like, let me get this right. Norman's a
multi millionaire. I'm a billionaire. You're gonna go work for
a network where you're a factory worker or you're gonna
be employee one, no offense. But even if you're an idiot,
you're going to be rich. And I thought to myself,
(28:33):
oh my god, he's right. And I ask you the question,
and I ask you the question, and I ask everyone
listening the question. In today's world, if you had the
choice of your ego and being on TV or being
employee one of a startup that you think is pretty
boring and stupid and kind of taggy, what would you choose?
(28:55):
And the only reason I made the greatest and best
decision of my life is because, deep in my soul,
even though I was really I felt like I was
I felt like I was chosen because I had had
this beautiful trajet.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Brought into the prestige of CBS.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
To be correct, even though I felt that I was chosen,
and it's almost like you feel anointed in that way,
I felt like, let's be real, let's be grounded. And
that's when my parents, in my heart and in my
soul ground me. It's like, no, these guys are a
better choice. Normanly Or and Jerry Parentia are a better
(29:32):
way to go.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
And you must have believed in them too, because I did.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
But I felt like he was right. You know what
it is, And I think this is important to hear
because nobody says this to young people, especially a lot.
No job is more important than the people that you
work for. You can choose a career, or you can
choose people.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
Interesting.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
You choose people because people are going to take you
to the promised Land, not a job. So I chose well,
and I went and became employee number one of what
is today Telemundo.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
When we come back, you'll more about Nelly's rise at
Channel forty seven, a small Spanish language station that went
on to become Telemundo. Before it became the giant that
it is now, Telemundo was just Channel forty seven, a
(30:30):
local New Jersey TV station that promised to deliver Latino content,
and Nellie Glan was employee one.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
I had this little rinky dinky station. It was an
independent station. Literally, I had no business, no money, no nothing,
no content, no nothing. Okay, I had nothing. I had
to get on a plane and go to Latin America
and going to meet all of these Latin American networks
and saying, can I buy a show from you for
fifty dollars an episode? I don't know whatever. I got
(31:01):
a fill in.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Wait wait wait wait, you said, so hold on, this
is interesting. How did you know what your charge was?
How did you like? You have to get some savvy,
you have to know the business to some degree to
know that. Let me go get some programs on the
cheap that we could just fill time with, or did you?
Speaker 2 (31:17):
I mean no, I figured it out. I'm like, okay,
what does another network look like? Okay, they have programming. Okay,
I don't have money to produce programming. What do I do? Okay?
Where can I find Spanish language programming? I gotta go
to Spanish language country, right, Okay? How do I do that?
I mean I figured it yeah out? Wow, And every
(31:38):
day I made a hundred mistakes on oh PM, which
is the best thing to do in life, you know,
work for somebody else, that's right now. I literally would
open the mail, and I would open the mail and
it would say somebody would send me out and go,
we have infomercials we want to air from midnight to
three in the morning. We'll pay you a million dollars
a year. And I'd call up an engineer that we
(32:00):
you know, I find out, where does it cost me
to stay open from midnight to three in the morning.
We were only on eight hours a day in the beginning.
It's like, oh it, it'll cost you about fifty thousand
dollars a year. I go, that sounds perfect to me.
We're doing that and I would make a million dollars.
I answered the mail. I mean you also forget that.
When you have something, build it and they will come. Okay,
(32:22):
let me tell you what else came. I'm sitting there literally,
you know, like a startup with like four employees, and
I get a call from this guy, Puerto Rican guy
who's managing Manudo, Manudo the boy Man, and he goes, listen,
I need to see you. I need we just got
booked to do Radio City Music Hall. I need airtime.
(32:44):
I need to promote this. I go, okay. All I
have is airtime. I go, okay, can we make a
little commercial whatever, let's do whatever. It's some crappy little commercial.
He goes, I have no money for you until the
show's on and I sell the tickets. I have no money.
I go, okay, I'll take a shot at you. I go,
I'll give you a commercial every fifteen minutes, but you're
going to give me half your box fifty to fifty
(33:06):
box office.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Really you've said that I did fifty to fifty.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
That was my start. I mean I could negotiate right.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
That's where she starts it.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
I love it and he goes, he goes okay. By
the way, it doesn't work anymore. He goes okay, and
I go okay. So we sold out five nights five
nights because I put so many commercials on this. And
by the way, we started mating, like we started making
a Latino revolution, because every artist would call me and go, go,
can you give me as many commercials as I go? Yeah,
(33:37):
all I got is commercial time, and I started doing
fifty to fifty deals. Now, by the way, that didn't
last very long because then people were like, come on,
you know, and also I started getting other commercials. I
didn't have as much commercial time. So I mean, it
was like a year where I hit the jobs.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
The wild West for a bit of wild West.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
So but all I'm saying is like I didn't even
think I could figure this out, And in like a year,
I made eight million dollars profit. So I went to
work for them. At almost twenty to twenty five, I
ran the station. We were making eight to ten million
dollars a year. So one day I walk into work
(34:19):
and his lawyer comes in and says, I have great
news for you. We sold the company. I go what
we sold the company to? Saul Steinberg, who is an
insurance company in New York, and he speaks Spanish and
he wants to build a network. I go to see
Jerry and I do the one thing you're never supposed
to do in business. I start to cry and I go, Jerry,
(34:43):
this is my baby your I'm your burger king manager.
This doesn't mean anything to you. How could you solve
this as my baby? And he goes, young lady, stop
the tears. He goes, young lady, these are my chips.
If you think you have what it takes, and I
think you have what it takes, he goes, stop crying
(35:04):
and go get your own chips.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Wow, he goes.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
When I it was your age. I started a business.
I made no money for ten years, and then I
became a millionaire. Go do it. I'm giving you three
hundred thousand dollars in a Mercedes Benz and I was like.
I went home and I cried, and I like, really
I was so I thought he was the devil.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
And he gave you a pens.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
By the way, I cashed in because I didn't even
know how to drive, and so I had but I did.
I had like three hundred and seventy five thousand dollars
at that point, and I lived in the East Village
and a fourth floor walk up, and I decided to
start a business, and I started a business. And so
when he sold the company, I went and saw everyone
(35:54):
in Hollywood with this idea that I had for a business,
and every single person, and I could tell you very famous, famous,
famous execs turned me down. So what I wanted to
do is I realized there was a whole the market
that I was going to visit all these networks in
Latin America and buying shows from them, and they had
(36:15):
no American shows, none. And I was like, why isn't
there HBO in Latin America? Why are these channels not
going abroad? I could sell this in a minute. So
I was pitching people about my business. But for four
years nothing happened, and I was really feeling very distraught,
and I was embarrassed to go back to Jerry with
my tail between my legs because he would have given
(36:37):
me a job or you know. And I thought I
have to prove myself. And in the fourth year the
whole thing changed. The president of HBO at the time
says to me, Nellie, remember you came to me like
three years ago, and I said, no, we're ready to
do that. We've sent three MBAs to Latin America and
they can't figure it out. I go, well, do they
speak Spanish and he goes no. I go, well duh,
(36:59):
So he goes, but we can only do it with
you as a consultant. See. I wanted to like own
a piece of the channel right because I was thinking
like Jerry Parentio. So I said, okay, I'll do it
because if I got to do one, just to show
I can do it. And I had the channel up
and running in Venezuela in three months. And then I
get a call and another great call from this African
(37:21):
American guy name is Bernard Stewart. He was the one
in charge of globalizing ESPN. And he calls me and
he goes, Nelly, come and see me. I heard from
Michael Fuchs at HBO that you helped launch HBO. And
I go over there to see him and he says, listen,
we're going to do We're going to launch three channels
in Latin America. We're going to do one in Portuguese,
(37:44):
two in Spanish, one in Argentina, one in Mexico. We
have to hire like forty on camera people, but we
want to outsource it to you because if it doesn't
work out, then we don't have all the bodies, you
know how you can't hire people. And then he goes
and then if it works, you sell it back to
us in five years. And then, in a weird way,
I was the best person to do this channel because
(38:04):
there were all these different languages for different things in sports,
Argentinians using mix and I had to just pick one
and make a new language that would be the same
in the entire continent. And they could yell at me
because I'm another Latina. I go listen. I picked the
word that I thought was the best free and that's
what we're going with. And now it's become the language
(38:26):
of sports in Latin America. So anyway, I launched those channels,
and I went from nothing and nothing was working to
exactly what Jerry Purna said, if you hang in there.
But I went from zero to I launched ten channels
in four years.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
That's incredible.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
And then Rupert Murdoch and Sony decided, okay, so the
original guy that bought my station, Channel forty seven bought
fifteen stations around the country for a fortune. It was
when stations were one hundred million, two hundred million each
Overspent tried to start a Latino network. Wasn't working. There
wasn't enough money to justify that the cost of those channels.
(39:07):
He died of a brain and yours his family got
the company. It went into bankruptcy court and it was
between Sony and Fox to buy it, and Sony won
the blind doction in bankruptcy court. And when Sony bought it,
they came after me because I was the only Latina
(39:28):
that had experienced running channels and really being fiscally responsible,
and I get the job to basically be the president
of Telemundo. They buy my little business. And by the way,
I forgot to say that when I was doing the
channel business, all of the networks that I ended up launching,
(39:50):
everyone gave me production deals because they're like with your company,
with my company, because again, not because I came into
it as a creative. Because I came into it as
a fiscally responsible Latina from the business side, and all
the Latinos in Hollywood kind of trash me. Who is she?
We've been at this for years? How did you give
the deals to her. And I was smart because I thought,
(40:14):
don't worry you guys, I'm going to give you guys
all deals, right. But they didn't realize. And this is
another thing that I don't think people say to young people,
is that everybody wants to have an ego and be creative,
including me, everybody. But in fact, if you learn the
fiscal stuff first, if you want to be the queen
of content, first be the queen of distribution and understand
(40:37):
distribution and the finances of distribution, and you're on your way.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
Wow, Wow, all your success I almost have success fatigue
with you.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
I mean no, no, let me just tell you so. Let
me be not humble but honest. You could have failure
fatigue if I talk to you about my failures. I
have way more failures than successes. But that's the other
thing people should know. You only need a couple of
successes and that's all people care about. And remember, you
remember the failures, but other people don't. So it's taken
(41:12):
hundreds of thousands of failures to have two or three successes.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Nelly, I hope you will come back. I feel like
there's so much more to talk to you about. We
didn't even go there's a whole other half of your career.
I want to talk to you, just more specifically about
the dawn of Spanish language television here in the States.
I want to talk to you about your successes in
reality TV and really also what your next well I.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
Think, I think what's a good thing to leave with
for for your listeners is how do you find your
north star? And I would say the one thing that
that I think people are not looking at carefully is
don't pick the sexiest thing. Don't pick the thing that
everyone else is doing. Try to really do your homework.
(42:00):
Like I'm a very mathematical person. Like I tell I
tell everybody Google what's an emerging business, what's an emerging city,
what's an emerge market? And here's the beauty of it.
You don't have to have millions and millions and millions
of customers. You can survive on very few customers in
a niche business. Niches, by the way, are better than
(42:22):
mass things. Niches are things that you can fully own.
And also niches tend to come from your pain. You know,
I did a niche in Latino TV and did very
well telling stories that I lived through of immigration of pain. Okay,
so you make money on your pain. You come up
(42:42):
with something from your pain, not from what everybody else
is out here doing. Don't have fomo like where you
are right now, bored in your house is where you
need to be to invent the greatest thing of your life,
not at the party with everybody else.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
Absolutely, Oh my gosh, we're having you back. You're coming back, Nellie.
Thank you so much. This has been so lovely. I
can't thank you enough.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
Yoh.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
Nellie Galan is definitely coming back on the show. We're
only part way through her career and there's still a
whole other reality TV and Psario chapter we didn't get
to that I'm dying to talk to her about. But
before we let Nellie completely go, I want to play
you a part of our conversation that didn't make the episode.
It's a really important point I think she makes about jealousy.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
The other technique that I use to decide what do
I want to do is what am I jealous of?
Speaker 1 (43:38):
And I think that's a really great Okay, who were
you jealous of in that moment?
Speaker 2 (43:43):
Susie Orman? So what Susie Ormand did for white women,
it's like she put the light bulb on, Like, where's
your financial empowerment? You guys are all like really sitting
around waiting for some guy to save you.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
Now, when Nelly Golan tells you she's jealous of someone,
you got to figure out how to talk to that person.
So next week I'll bring you personal finance guru, best
selling author multiple times. I'm guests on the Oprah Show
Susie or Started from the Bottom is produced by David Jaw,
(44:18):
edited by keyshow Williams, engineered by Ben Holliday, booked by
Laura Morgan with production help from Lea Rose. The show
is executive produced by Jacob Goldstein, who's not all up
in the videos for Pushkin Industries. Our theme music's by
Bent Holliday and David Jaw featuring Anthony Eggs and Savannah
Joe Lack. Listen to Started from the Bottom. Wherever you
(44:40):
get your podcasts and if you want ad free episodes
available one week early sign up for Pushkin Plus. Check
out Pushkin dot fm or the Apple show page for
more information. If you like your show, please remember to share, rate,
and review us on your podcast app. I'm justin Richmond.
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