March 8, 2024 • 24 mins
In this episode of Inspired, we commemorate Women's History Month, discussing the impact, challenges, accomplishments, and pivotal influence of women worldwide. We delve into celebrations, spotlight significant female figures in various fields, and share exciting recollections from the California Conference for Women. Our insightful and empowering discussions are intended to inspire and motivate listeners.
Remarkable highlights from the show include a thought-provoking AI session exposing bias against women and women of color in face recognition software, as well as discussions about renowned personalities- Kristin Kish and Jacinda Ardern, whose exceptional stories of overcoming challenges and achieving success serve as inspirations.
Our exploration extends to societal bias against women, reflections on the journey to motherhood, and recognizing the unending strength of women globally. We also applaud the event organizers for their quick response when speaker, Brene Brown, was unavailable and was replaced by esteemed actress, Viola Davis.
Throughout the episode, we explore personal stories, societal expectations versus self-embracement, challenges faced by women, especially women of color, and the importance of shifting focus from superficial beauty standards to embracing the process of aging and natural beauty.
Finally, we end the episode by sharing our admiration for the resilience of the upcoming generation's enthusiasm and potential, as witnessed in a teen girl's conference. Our parting advice to women emphasizes self-love, positive self-talk, wellbeing, saying 'yes' more to opportunities, and showing kindness towards oneself as critical steps towards transforming their lives and achieving success.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hello and welcome to Inspired, your grown-up girl talk. Happy Women's History Month, everybody.
A whole month. No, that happened, happened, happy, happy.
Happy Women's History Month. This is hard to say.
I know. But it's March and it is the month to celebrate women and all things that we do.
(00:22):
Can I just say... Because we support everybody and everything.
We do. And can I just say how bullshit it is that we only get one month dedicated
to ourselves, gals, because every day in my mind, it should be a day to celebrate women.
And that's what we do here at Inspired.
I feel like I feel like we should have the whole year for sure.
(00:42):
Maybe maybe we can give November, December to like Thanksgiving,
Christmas, and we'll take the other 10.
And well, as we have found over 170 episodes of Inspired, women are doing big
time things across the board internationally.
And it's it's something that more and more people should be talking about on a daily basis.
(01:04):
So with that, welcome to our Women's Month episode.
Yeah. And we actually have I know we're only what we're not even a weekend to
March yet, But we actually have already done quite a bit of celebrating,
as we should, as we earned the right to do for this month.
And one of the things that we did that we've talked about doing for years, we never did.
(01:27):
We finally did this year was we went to the California Conference for Women
last week in Santa Clara.
It was insane. It was almost I think it was 4,600 women.
I was completely aghast. It was like 45, 80 women and like 20 men.
Yeah, there was a couple men.
We found them when we were using their bathroom, actually, which is a funny story.
(01:50):
But I'd never been to anything at that magnitude in my life to see that many people in a room.
It was somewhat overwhelming, but it was also very invigorating because you
could just feel the vibe of like everybody was in there for the right reasons.
The speakers which we're going to get into were so good
and just the overall like i don't know
(02:10):
like i left there going like yes this is there
was a lot of energy just across the board of support but you
knew you didn't know 46 hundred women but you knew that any one of those women
would have had your back in one second and to be in a room full of that kind
of energy was a pretty unique experience it was really cool it was definitely
(02:31):
worth the two-hour drive in and the a two hour drive home.
So the first speaker they had was a woman that did the AI.
She had a whole like PhD program that she had written about the AI and how they
don't acknowledge women of color. Or they don't recognize.
They don't. They don't recognize. They it was face face recognition.
(02:54):
Recognition and the the software the
system would have a hard time recognizing women
of color as women which was
really interesting that they they would assume male
and then when they put on a white mask it would recognize them as women which
is insane i don't even i don't even think it was dr joy i'm gonna murder her
(03:19):
last name but it's balami she
writing that code her headline was was the artificial intelligence expert,
artist, founder, and algorithmic justice league.
Incredible speaker, but it was very interesting when you saw how a computer
really is discriminatory towards women and women of color.
It was saying, you know, like it had Oprah Winfrey's face and it said she was
(03:41):
a 52 year old man, you know? I don't, yeah.
So AI, once again, not perfect, although
you know imperfect in an imperfect world
it's probably perfectly imperfect for the
world we live in today yes indeed indeed then
they had kristin kish who is a top chef a bravo bravo liberty if you will she
(04:04):
has arlo gray her restaurant in austin and she was someone i had never heard
of before but what like she got up there and she goes this is my worst nightmare
speaking in front of all these people.
And she said that TV was actually easier because there's only 50 people in the room.
And her story was about coming out as a 28-year-old.
(04:26):
She was born in Seoul, Korea and adopted and raised in the Midwest.
And definitely being a lesbian was probably not on the- The bingo card?
It wasn't on the bingo card, but it wasn't also really supported as she was growing up.
So it it was her journey of what it took to become the woman she is today.
And just like super incredible.
Yeah, pretty amazing messaging from her, just not only sort of what she went
(04:50):
through to really start living in her own truth, but also to be a woman who won Top Chef,
which is a pretty unique position as it is, and then to come back and host Top
Chef and be asked to do that, which she's like, this is not anything I ever,
like in a million years, thought I'd be doing.
And so we talk a lot about the meandering journey and being open to the possibilities
(05:13):
of a journey that takes you off the path that you think you're supposed to be on.
And I think she embodies that.
Then we heard from the ex-Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand.
Now, let's underline and bold print this woman.
She was incredible. incredible to have
(05:34):
her talk about how she became the prime minister was not
like a it was not the job that she signed up
for she was kind of just put in the role when the current her
boss stepped down and then she had you know
these major life events you know fires and mass shootings
and then of course covid and if you recall new zealand was quite in the news
because they took a completely different stance and were like we're shutting
(05:57):
it down you're not coming in you're not going out And they were one of the countries
that I think fared pretty well as a result of her leadership and also just shutting it down.
I was going to say, geographically, you can do that in New Zealand.
It's an island and you can close the entire thing.
No problem. So I'm not, but I'm not trying to discount for leadership and the
(06:18):
balls it took to do what you had to do, because there were a lot of people that
were disagreeing with that approach in every way, shape or form.
But they really limited the spread. read.
Interestingly, she did a lot of what we did here in terms of limiting travel
and limiting the number of people that could get together in any event and sort
(06:39):
of increasing that slowly. But.
One of the things she did is when they did allow gatherings,
it had to be less than 100, right?
And as did we here, but she came out with that, I think it was like a week before her wedding.
And so she had to cancel her wedding because they couldn't, they had obviously
(07:00):
more than 100 people coming, I guess.
So she and Anne, she did not get married until like a month ago.
So the wedding was delayed for three years.
Curse yeah but you know she it you know my my whole thing in leadership i will
never ask you to do anything i'm not willing to do myself thank you and she
she obviously lives that as well that she she knew when she was putting those
(07:26):
stipulations on she knew what that meant to her and her wedding.
I'm just going to say gavin newsom went out to dinner at the french laundry
with a group when nobody was supposed to be going out to dinner with a group
that size right just i'm just saying and And this is a woman who canceled her wedding.
Yeah. So, and she had, you know, she was one of the, I'm assuming probably one
(07:46):
of the only, one of the first one, the only world leaders who gave birth while in office. Yes, yes.
And so there was that whole, but you know, it was really interesting because
when her quote unquote boss stepped out, who was the leader of her party.
If you're not familiar with the way elections work in New Zealand,
it's not like here where it's an exhaustive process where you listen to a bunch
of lunatics for months and commercials bashing each other.
(08:09):
That's not how it works. It is six weeks. It is get in, get out, get somebody elected.
And so he stepped down sort of right at the beginning of this six-week.
Election period and so she you
know she was asked to step in and it was
six weeks and she was all of a sudden the prime minister of new zealand not
(08:30):
that she wasn't pregnant but it wasn't
when she said it wasn't really in her you know on
her bingo card it wasn't he was supposed to be the de facto candidate and then
he stepped down and she had to step in so but i i really you know we we talked
She talked a lot about elections and leadership and what it means to be a leader
(08:53):
and how she tried to approach her leadership.
And one of the things that she said was she always tried to make decisions using
her true North compass, right?
Like you had to kind of dig deep and go, what is my compass?
What's the right thing to do? And then she extrapolated that even further and
(09:16):
said, when you elect officials, you have to elect somebody who will lead and
guide by their true compass.
So as we are, you know, also have Super Tuesday in March,
and there's maybe some candidates that we all potentially struggle with their
(09:38):
ability to lead based on a true compass.
This you know i think we all need to sort of look within and say is that the
person that's making the decisions that i would make if i was in that position
are they are they being led.
With that same compass that I want them to be. Yeah. And that's as political
(10:01):
as I'm going to get right there.
Very, very well, very politically correct, I might add.
Another thing that she brought up, which was interesting, is one of the interviews,
because she said that she would just get asked the most craziest shit on these
interviews, was if it was okay for an employer to ask if someone was going to have a baby.
If they were planning on having a baby and that would be a way that they would
(10:25):
decide if they were going to hire you or not, you know, because if you were
trying to get pregnant or wanted to start a family, then that may make an employer
not want to. And I was like, that is the worst.
I mean, I would think that anybody would would think that a woman,
of course, she's going to want to have a family. I mean, that's what we do.
Everybody wants to have a family and they don't only consider that we're women.
(10:47):
Yeah, I'm a family. men have kids i don't like
well and then they can take paternity leave now and
i was just like i like i had to sit back and think about that
like i'd never even thought that that would be i mean i don't think that you
can ask that here i'm sure that that's absolutely not allowed it actually is
not allowed yeah i was like that is illegal yeah i was i was thinking as a an
(11:08):
epli moment for insurance that's probably not going to be you know something
that we want to we want to pierce the envelope there with.
But I mean, just, you know, going back again to the struggles of women in leadership
and in work roles, you know, it's just another layer that we get to add because
you do when you have children.
I mean, you and I both had kids and we're working and we were those weird gals
(11:29):
that went right back at it because that's what we did.
But it's, you know, we in America do not embrace the motherhood journey very well.
Many other countries do a much better job of it. But again, that's probably
a conversation for a different day.
Wait, then we moved into so we so Brene Brown was supposed to be the major headliner.
(11:51):
And when we got there, the first thing out of the emcee's mouth was good news,
bad news, bad news being that Brene had COVID and wasn't there.
But the good news was that L.A. was only an hour flight and Viola Davis was
going to be taking the stage.
And can we just give props to the organizers because they found out Brene tested
positive for COVID 24 hours before she was supposed to be standing on that stage.
(12:15):
So in 24 hours, God love this team.
They scrambled and got, they did just get somebody, they got somebody great.
They got somebody that, I mean, you could hear kind of the air come out of the
balloon in the room when they said, Renee tested COVID for positive for COVID
yesterday and wasn't going to be here.
And then as soon as they busted out with who the replacement was, everybody went crazy.
(12:39):
Unbelievable. I got to give props where props are due.
No, it was something to see. If you've ever had a chance to listen to her speak,
I mean, as an actress, she's phenomenal.
But to see her speak, share her story, the way she speaks is like no one I've
ever seen where she'll have the moment, get the thought out,
and then there's a pause.
And it's not an awkward pause, like she's trying to figure out where she was.
(13:02):
She knows where she is. She wants you to think about what what she just said.
And now she's going to give you some more.
One of the things I loved was her moment about, you know, we as women are told
that we are not to bring our stories and our experiences and our,
you know, quote unquote bullshit to the table when we, you know,
enter the workplace or enter into a room.
(13:24):
And that's not true because all of the stories and the experiences and the bullshit
is what makes us who we are.
And so bring all of that with you you wherever you go, because that's,
you know, the leaves to your tree.
And it's that more of us need to embrace that about ourselves.
Because I think so many of us try to shove that, you know, nobody wants to hear
(13:45):
our hardships. And it's not even that you need to share your hardships.
It's just like, it's in you. And that's what makes you do better and try harder.
Well, sometimes I feel like we feel the experiences and the emotions of all
our experiences experiences deeper than I think men do.
And I'm generalizing and I realized that and I'm going to generalize. So here we go.
I just think we, you know, we, we have that DNA where we feel it all far deeper
(14:11):
and far more emotionally.
And yet we are often told or often taught to not bring that through the door,
which maybe then makes us more like the men that we are competing with,
with working with reporting to, I don't know.
So I did think her take on that was really interesting that it was like,
(14:31):
no, no, because that's that is who you are and that makes up who you are.
And it's all OK to to have that in your back.
Yeah. I mean, you got to have it. It's it's what builds it's your it's your
stripes. We talk about our tiger stripes all the time.
The other thing I loved about her was she goes, if your goal at age 50 is to be in a bikini.
(14:53):
She goes like, that's not a goal. That's not a goal. Right. Right.
I mean, it's embracing age and embracing these next stages of our lives as we
go and get older and become wiser and these incredible beings.
And so being able to embrace it. And she spoke about what it's like to be a
woman of color and a woman who's 58 in Hollywood.
And it wasn't always, I mean, now she knows, people know who she is,
(15:17):
but for her entire career, she would walk in a room and nobody knew who she was.
And she was not paid attention to because she was an older woman and she was a woman of color.
And, you know, as we get older, we go through that phenomenon where we are no longer seen.
You know, we don't command the room in the way we used to. And nothing's changed
about us, except we have more experience, more life experience,
(15:40):
more worldliness to us, more, you know, we're more intelligent about things.
We're smarter about the way we're doing life.
All these things are good things, yet we walk into a room and we're not seen.
Yeah now maybe maybe in 2044
we'll be having this conversation and
we will be way seen but i don't know i mean
i feel like we're more seen than we used to be but we're still not we got a
(16:03):
long way to go yeah we're still not all the way so then you know i got one more
my my favorite part of biola was when she talked about you know life is going
to be full of valleys and peaks and you're not living in the valley,
you're going through the valley to get to the peaks and there's going to be ups and downs.
(16:23):
But she said, success is not when you get to the top of the mountain.
She said, I've been there. I'm still on the top of the mountain.
I've looked at the landscape. It's amazing. That's not success.
Success is when you achieve significance. And I think that means whatever significance
you need in your life, that's when when you've achieved success,
(16:44):
which, you know, I, that I can, I can live with that.
Yeah. That gives me the chills again, hearing it for the second time.
So thank you for reminding me.
So flipping the script. So after we did that, we decided we weren't done with
our busy women's week this last week.
We went to the Marin.
County girls, teen, it was teen girls conference.
(17:06):
And it was a room of eighth grade to 12th grade young ladies doing kind of what
we did at the California big girl conference, but for young ladies.
And I'd never seen anything like it. They've been doing it here in Marin County
for a couple of years now.
And I got to tell you, like I walked in that room and I saw all those,
I mean, there was 250 girls there.
(17:27):
And my heart was so full with just like the vibrance of this this is the next generation, right?
These are the next girls that are going to get out there and be somebody.
So enthusiastic about the opportunities they have in front of them because,
people like Viola Davis and Jacinda and, and their neighbors like you and me
(17:48):
have paved the way and we've opened doors and we're, we're cutting through the weeds to make the path.
Right. And they see that and they know that and they, They have this different
attitude of like, you know, we talk about, well, you can be anything when you
want to grow up, you know, when you grow up, but they actually believe it.
Oh, they fully believe it. Yeah. It's all available to them.
(18:13):
And so the level of enthusiasm was pretty high. When we were growing up,
we didn't have things like that.
And, you know, there was always, you know, you could do anything and you could
be anything. But in the reality was, I mean, could you really?
I don't know. I mean, it was one of those things that we knew we had to work
a little harder as we got older to really make the marks that we wanted to make.
Well, you can't be what you can't see, right?
(18:34):
As they say. So there wasn't a lot that we could see.
We said, oh, I might want to do that. But if you didn't see it,
you weren't even sure how you were going to get there.
So I think, you know, that's changed a lot over the last 20,
30 years that we see a lot more that we can then identify with.
(18:56):
And they had the girls ambassadors. So they had a whole group of girls that
I was actually sitting at the table with that put on the event.
They really got the content, the speakers.
They really reached out to their peers to see, what do you want to know about?
Is it sexual awareness and violence?
Is it money? Is it fitness? Is it beauty?
(19:17):
I mean, they really covered so many different areas that, you know,
we're all talking about on a higher level at this age,
but to bring it down to a level that they can understand and relate and,
you know, even take a couple key things away and go, wow.
I mean, I felt so good after I left there. I was just like, I just felt full.
(19:39):
Well, I think that's the trick with these things. Like the goal is to go in
and if you can leave with a handful of nuggets, you're not going to incorporate everything.
You're not going to take away every, because that can be overwhelming.
But if you can go and take away a few nuggets that you can implement in your
life to make it better, stronger, faster, whatever that feels like to you,
then that's a successful event.
(20:00):
And I think both of these really provided that platform for everybody to take away a nugget or two.
And I'm a huge fan of saying yes. It's kind of my theme for the year.
And so these events and these things that come up, ladies, you get these emails all the time. Say yes.
Go take the lunch. Take the afternoon. Go listen to the webinar if you're not
(20:22):
in a position to get to go and take off for the afternoon.
I promise you, you will find something that makes you feel good.
I'm going to give a little rapid fireplace to you because it is Women's Month
and you are a very established woman.
What is your, like, if you could just say one thing to the women out there,
like what would be one piece of womanly advice that you would give our listeners?
(20:48):
Actually, I saw something this morning that kind of resonated with me. So here it is.
The next time you're mean to your reflection, remember that legend says the
face you have now is the face of the person you loved most in a past life.
Ooh, that's good. So I'm going to just go with, we need to be kinder to ourselves.
(21:09):
We need to be kinder to ourselves. I think that's good.
Like the self-talk, and I'm 100% guilty of this. As anyone who knows me,
I have very limited self-confidence and self-esteem.
And there's a lot of negative talk that goes in through my brain on a regular basis every day.
So I think that's one I'll work on that, you know, that just be kinder to ourselves.
(21:34):
Yeah. Yeah, I think so. And it's hard. It's hard because when you step in a
cow pie and your day is just like, you know, like it comes at you so hard and
there's so many different variables.
I mean, we talk about all the time and it's like, you know, some days are absolutely
better than others. It's hard to be positive and think positive thoughts about yourself.
But I do really truly believe that, you know, self-love and loving yourself
(21:57):
is the first step to, you know, being able to.
Get out there and show up the best way. My words of advice come from none other
than Lauren Hill, okay, from the Fugees.
And she has a saying, how are you going to win when you ain't right within?
And so it's finding the rightness inside of you, which is kind of going along
(22:19):
with what you're saying, to be able to get out there and be,
you know, the old saying that you can't be good to anybody else if you're not good to yourself.
And we as women, you know, we've heard the storyline storyline time and time
again, we're the last two to take care of ourselves.
And so really finding that, you know, little piece of whatever it is that helps
you move a little smoother, I think is great.
(22:41):
Whether that's working out, whether it's going for a walk, whether it's just
sitting in your room and shutting the door, going in the closet.
We talked to somebody else last, what was it last week? Yeah.
Meditating in the closet. We also found out that I don't have a walking closet
in this house I'm in now. Yeah. You're going to struggle with that one.
I'm unable to to go into the closets. Right. And it's also like,
(23:02):
I'll, I'll, I'll share a little personal story.
I had a little bit of a, you know, every now and again, you have a meltdown.
I had one a couple of weeks ago at the pediatrician's office for no other reason
than I was just having one of those really overwhelmed days.
And like the girls were out of the visit and I was just sitting there with the
doctor and I just kind of burst into tears.
And, you know, I told her like, even the strongest bitches we're going to have
(23:22):
these days. And she goes, you know what?
She, she actually she said you're damn right and then she said it's okay
to not have it all figured out you know it's okay to
feel a little lost or a little like misguided sometimes
because that's you know gonna help you get on track and find
the way but you gotta go through it 100 and we gotta remember that but we don't
(23:43):
have to go through it alone ever this is very true and this is why i love you
because we go through all the things all the time we often say where one of
us is the other one is very close by.
And rightfully so, we are a package deal.
And the podcast and the life work that we do together, the sisterhood that we
(24:06):
have, it's unbelievable.
I couldn't imagine doing anything else. It's good stuff.
And the good news is we still have three plus weeks left, Women's History Month.
And we get to celebrate amazing women in our lives and amazing women and that we meet along the way.
So I'm excited for what the rest of the month is going to bring.
(24:26):
Same. We've got some great events this week and next and the following.
So we will be checking back in, but we wanted to give you a little S&S update.
Tell everybody to remember to love themselves, love each other,
and get out there this week and be inspired.
Hello and welcome to Inspired, your grown-up girl talk. Happy Women's History Month, everybody.
A whole month. No, that happened, happened, happy, happy.
Happy Women's History Month. This is hard to say.
I know. But it's March and it is the month to celebrate women and all things that we do.
(00:22):
Can I just say... Because we support everybody and everything.
We do. And can I just say how bullshit it is that we only get one month dedicated
to ourselves, gals, because every day in my mind, it should be a day to celebrate women.
And that's what we do here at Inspired.
I feel like I feel like we should have the whole year for sure.
(00:42):
Maybe maybe we can give November, December to like Thanksgiving,
Christmas, and we'll take the other 10.
And well, as we have found over 170 episodes of Inspired, women are doing big
time things across the board internationally.
And it's it's something that more and more people should be talking about on a daily basis.
(01:04):
So with that, welcome to our Women's Month episode.
Yeah. And we actually have I know we're only what we're not even a weekend to
March yet, But we actually have already done quite a bit of celebrating,
as we should, as we earned the right to do for this month.
And one of the things that we did that we've talked about doing for years, we never did.
(01:27):
We finally did this year was we went to the California Conference for Women
last week in Santa Clara.
It was insane. It was almost I think it was 4,600 women.
I was completely aghast. It was like 45, 80 women and like 20 men.
Yeah, there was a couple men.
We found them when we were using their bathroom, actually, which is a funny story.
(01:50):
But I'd never been to anything at that magnitude in my life to see that many people in a room.
It was somewhat overwhelming, but it was also very invigorating because you
could just feel the vibe of like everybody was in there for the right reasons.
The speakers which we're going to get into were so good
and just the overall like i don't know
(02:10):
like i left there going like yes this is there
was a lot of energy just across the board of support but you
knew you didn't know 46 hundred women but you knew that any one of those women
would have had your back in one second and to be in a room full of that kind
of energy was a pretty unique experience it was really cool it was definitely
(02:31):
worth the two-hour drive in and the a two hour drive home.
So the first speaker they had was a woman that did the AI.
She had a whole like PhD program that she had written about the AI and how they
don't acknowledge women of color. Or they don't recognize.
They don't. They don't recognize. They it was face face recognition.
(02:54):
Recognition and the the software the
system would have a hard time recognizing women
of color as women which was
really interesting that they they would assume male
and then when they put on a white mask it would recognize them as women which
is insane i don't even i don't even think it was dr joy i'm gonna murder her
(03:19):
last name but it's balami she
writing that code her headline was was the artificial intelligence expert,
artist, founder, and algorithmic justice league.
Incredible speaker, but it was very interesting when you saw how a computer
really is discriminatory towards women and women of color.
It was saying, you know, like it had Oprah Winfrey's face and it said she was
(03:41):
a 52 year old man, you know? I don't, yeah.
So AI, once again, not perfect, although
you know imperfect in an imperfect world
it's probably perfectly imperfect for the
world we live in today yes indeed indeed then
they had kristin kish who is a top chef a bravo bravo liberty if you will she
(04:04):
has arlo gray her restaurant in austin and she was someone i had never heard
of before but what like she got up there and she goes this is my worst nightmare
speaking in front of all these people.
And she said that TV was actually easier because there's only 50 people in the room.
And her story was about coming out as a 28-year-old.
(04:26):
She was born in Seoul, Korea and adopted and raised in the Midwest.
And definitely being a lesbian was probably not on the- The bingo card?
It wasn't on the bingo card, but it wasn't also really supported as she was growing up.
So it it was her journey of what it took to become the woman she is today.
And just like super incredible.
Yeah, pretty amazing messaging from her, just not only sort of what she went
(04:50):
through to really start living in her own truth, but also to be a woman who won Top Chef,
which is a pretty unique position as it is, and then to come back and host Top
Chef and be asked to do that, which she's like, this is not anything I ever,
like in a million years, thought I'd be doing.
And so we talk a lot about the meandering journey and being open to the possibilities
(05:13):
of a journey that takes you off the path that you think you're supposed to be on.
And I think she embodies that.
Then we heard from the ex-Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand.
Now, let's underline and bold print this woman.
She was incredible. incredible to have
(05:34):
her talk about how she became the prime minister was not
like a it was not the job that she signed up
for she was kind of just put in the role when the current her
boss stepped down and then she had you know
these major life events you know fires and mass shootings
and then of course covid and if you recall new zealand was quite in the news
because they took a completely different stance and were like we're shutting
(05:57):
it down you're not coming in you're not going out And they were one of the countries
that I think fared pretty well as a result of her leadership and also just shutting it down.
I was going to say, geographically, you can do that in New Zealand.
It's an island and you can close the entire thing.
No problem. So I'm not, but I'm not trying to discount for leadership and the
(06:18):
balls it took to do what you had to do, because there were a lot of people that
were disagreeing with that approach in every way, shape or form.
But they really limited the spread. read.
Interestingly, she did a lot of what we did here in terms of limiting travel
and limiting the number of people that could get together in any event and sort
(06:39):
of increasing that slowly. But.
One of the things she did is when they did allow gatherings,
it had to be less than 100, right?
And as did we here, but she came out with that, I think it was like a week before her wedding.
And so she had to cancel her wedding because they couldn't, they had obviously
(07:00):
more than 100 people coming, I guess.
So she and Anne, she did not get married until like a month ago.
So the wedding was delayed for three years.
Curse yeah but you know she it you know my my whole thing in leadership i will
never ask you to do anything i'm not willing to do myself thank you and she
she obviously lives that as well that she she knew when she was putting those
(07:26):
stipulations on she knew what that meant to her and her wedding.
I'm just going to say gavin newsom went out to dinner at the french laundry
with a group when nobody was supposed to be going out to dinner with a group
that size right just i'm just saying and And this is a woman who canceled her wedding.
Yeah. So, and she had, you know, she was one of the, I'm assuming probably one
(07:46):
of the only, one of the first one, the only world leaders who gave birth while in office. Yes, yes.
And so there was that whole, but you know, it was really interesting because
when her quote unquote boss stepped out, who was the leader of her party.
If you're not familiar with the way elections work in New Zealand,
it's not like here where it's an exhaustive process where you listen to a bunch
of lunatics for months and commercials bashing each other.
(08:09):
That's not how it works. It is six weeks. It is get in, get out, get somebody elected.
And so he stepped down sort of right at the beginning of this six-week.
Election period and so she you
know she was asked to step in and it was
six weeks and she was all of a sudden the prime minister of new zealand not
(08:30):
that she wasn't pregnant but it wasn't
when she said it wasn't really in her you know on
her bingo card it wasn't he was supposed to be the de facto candidate and then
he stepped down and she had to step in so but i i really you know we we talked
She talked a lot about elections and leadership and what it means to be a leader
(08:53):
and how she tried to approach her leadership.
And one of the things that she said was she always tried to make decisions using
her true North compass, right?
Like you had to kind of dig deep and go, what is my compass?
What's the right thing to do? And then she extrapolated that even further and
(09:16):
said, when you elect officials, you have to elect somebody who will lead and
guide by their true compass.
So as we are, you know, also have Super Tuesday in March,
and there's maybe some candidates that we all potentially struggle with their
(09:38):
ability to lead based on a true compass.
This you know i think we all need to sort of look within and say is that the
person that's making the decisions that i would make if i was in that position
are they are they being led.
With that same compass that I want them to be. Yeah. And that's as political
(10:01):
as I'm going to get right there.
Very, very well, very politically correct, I might add.
Another thing that she brought up, which was interesting, is one of the interviews,
because she said that she would just get asked the most craziest shit on these
interviews, was if it was okay for an employer to ask if someone was going to have a baby.
If they were planning on having a baby and that would be a way that they would
(10:25):
decide if they were going to hire you or not, you know, because if you were
trying to get pregnant or wanted to start a family, then that may make an employer
not want to. And I was like, that is the worst.
I mean, I would think that anybody would would think that a woman,
of course, she's going to want to have a family. I mean, that's what we do.
Everybody wants to have a family and they don't only consider that we're women.
(10:47):
Yeah, I'm a family. men have kids i don't like
well and then they can take paternity leave now and
i was just like i like i had to sit back and think about that
like i'd never even thought that that would be i mean i don't think that you
can ask that here i'm sure that that's absolutely not allowed it actually is
not allowed yeah i was like that is illegal yeah i was i was thinking as a an
(11:08):
epli moment for insurance that's probably not going to be you know something
that we want to we want to pierce the envelope there with.
But I mean, just, you know, going back again to the struggles of women in leadership
and in work roles, you know, it's just another layer that we get to add because
you do when you have children.
I mean, you and I both had kids and we're working and we were those weird gals
(11:29):
that went right back at it because that's what we did.
But it's, you know, we in America do not embrace the motherhood journey very well.
Many other countries do a much better job of it. But again, that's probably
a conversation for a different day.
Wait, then we moved into so we so Brene Brown was supposed to be the major headliner.
(11:51):
And when we got there, the first thing out of the emcee's mouth was good news,
bad news, bad news being that Brene had COVID and wasn't there.
But the good news was that L.A. was only an hour flight and Viola Davis was
going to be taking the stage.
And can we just give props to the organizers because they found out Brene tested
positive for COVID 24 hours before she was supposed to be standing on that stage.
(12:15):
So in 24 hours, God love this team.
They scrambled and got, they did just get somebody, they got somebody great.
They got somebody that, I mean, you could hear kind of the air come out of the
balloon in the room when they said, Renee tested COVID for positive for COVID
yesterday and wasn't going to be here.
And then as soon as they busted out with who the replacement was, everybody went crazy.
(12:39):
Unbelievable. I got to give props where props are due.
No, it was something to see. If you've ever had a chance to listen to her speak,
I mean, as an actress, she's phenomenal.
But to see her speak, share her story, the way she speaks is like no one I've
ever seen where she'll have the moment, get the thought out,
and then there's a pause.
And it's not an awkward pause, like she's trying to figure out where she was.
(13:02):
She knows where she is. She wants you to think about what what she just said.
And now she's going to give you some more.
One of the things I loved was her moment about, you know, we as women are told
that we are not to bring our stories and our experiences and our,
you know, quote unquote bullshit to the table when we, you know,
enter the workplace or enter into a room.
(13:24):
And that's not true because all of the stories and the experiences and the bullshit
is what makes us who we are.
And so bring all of that with you you wherever you go, because that's,
you know, the leaves to your tree.
And it's that more of us need to embrace that about ourselves.
Because I think so many of us try to shove that, you know, nobody wants to hear
(13:45):
our hardships. And it's not even that you need to share your hardships.
It's just like, it's in you. And that's what makes you do better and try harder.
Well, sometimes I feel like we feel the experiences and the emotions of all
our experiences experiences deeper than I think men do.
And I'm generalizing and I realized that and I'm going to generalize. So here we go.
I just think we, you know, we, we have that DNA where we feel it all far deeper
(14:11):
and far more emotionally.
And yet we are often told or often taught to not bring that through the door,
which maybe then makes us more like the men that we are competing with,
with working with reporting to, I don't know.
So I did think her take on that was really interesting that it was like,
(14:31):
no, no, because that's that is who you are and that makes up who you are.
And it's all OK to to have that in your back.
Yeah. I mean, you got to have it. It's it's what builds it's your it's your
stripes. We talk about our tiger stripes all the time.
The other thing I loved about her was she goes, if your goal at age 50 is to be in a bikini.
(14:53):
She goes like, that's not a goal. That's not a goal. Right. Right.
I mean, it's embracing age and embracing these next stages of our lives as we
go and get older and become wiser and these incredible beings.
And so being able to embrace it. And she spoke about what it's like to be a
woman of color and a woman who's 58 in Hollywood.
And it wasn't always, I mean, now she knows, people know who she is,
(15:17):
but for her entire career, she would walk in a room and nobody knew who she was.
And she was not paid attention to because she was an older woman and she was a woman of color.
And, you know, as we get older, we go through that phenomenon where we are no longer seen.
You know, we don't command the room in the way we used to. And nothing's changed
about us, except we have more experience, more life experience,
(15:40):
more worldliness to us, more, you know, we're more intelligent about things.
We're smarter about the way we're doing life.
All these things are good things, yet we walk into a room and we're not seen.
Yeah now maybe maybe in 2044
we'll be having this conversation and
we will be way seen but i don't know i mean
i feel like we're more seen than we used to be but we're still not we got a
(16:03):
long way to go yeah we're still not all the way so then you know i got one more
my my favorite part of biola was when she talked about you know life is going
to be full of valleys and peaks and you're not living in the valley,
you're going through the valley to get to the peaks and there's going to be ups and downs.
(16:23):
But she said, success is not when you get to the top of the mountain.
She said, I've been there. I'm still on the top of the mountain.
I've looked at the landscape. It's amazing. That's not success.
Success is when you achieve significance. And I think that means whatever significance
you need in your life, that's when when you've achieved success,
(16:44):
which, you know, I, that I can, I can live with that.
Yeah. That gives me the chills again, hearing it for the second time.
So thank you for reminding me.
So flipping the script. So after we did that, we decided we weren't done with
our busy women's week this last week.
We went to the Marin.
County girls, teen, it was teen girls conference.
(17:06):
And it was a room of eighth grade to 12th grade young ladies doing kind of what
we did at the California big girl conference, but for young ladies.
And I'd never seen anything like it. They've been doing it here in Marin County
for a couple of years now.
And I got to tell you, like I walked in that room and I saw all those,
I mean, there was 250 girls there.
(17:27):
And my heart was so full with just like the vibrance of this this is the next generation, right?
These are the next girls that are going to get out there and be somebody.
So enthusiastic about the opportunities they have in front of them because,
people like Viola Davis and Jacinda and, and their neighbors like you and me
(17:48):
have paved the way and we've opened doors and we're, we're cutting through the weeds to make the path.
Right. And they see that and they know that and they, They have this different
attitude of like, you know, we talk about, well, you can be anything when you
want to grow up, you know, when you grow up, but they actually believe it.
Oh, they fully believe it. Yeah. It's all available to them.
(18:13):
And so the level of enthusiasm was pretty high. When we were growing up,
we didn't have things like that.
And, you know, there was always, you know, you could do anything and you could
be anything. But in the reality was, I mean, could you really?
I don't know. I mean, it was one of those things that we knew we had to work
a little harder as we got older to really make the marks that we wanted to make.
Well, you can't be what you can't see, right?
(18:34):
As they say. So there wasn't a lot that we could see.
We said, oh, I might want to do that. But if you didn't see it,
you weren't even sure how you were going to get there.
So I think, you know, that's changed a lot over the last 20,
30 years that we see a lot more that we can then identify with.
(18:56):
And they had the girls ambassadors. So they had a whole group of girls that
I was actually sitting at the table with that put on the event.
They really got the content, the speakers.
They really reached out to their peers to see, what do you want to know about?
Is it sexual awareness and violence?
Is it money? Is it fitness? Is it beauty?
(19:17):
I mean, they really covered so many different areas that, you know,
we're all talking about on a higher level at this age,
but to bring it down to a level that they can understand and relate and,
you know, even take a couple key things away and go, wow.
I mean, I felt so good after I left there. I was just like, I just felt full.
(19:39):
Well, I think that's the trick with these things. Like the goal is to go in
and if you can leave with a handful of nuggets, you're not going to incorporate everything.
You're not going to take away every, because that can be overwhelming.
But if you can go and take away a few nuggets that you can implement in your
life to make it better, stronger, faster, whatever that feels like to you,
then that's a successful event.
(20:00):
And I think both of these really provided that platform for everybody to take away a nugget or two.
And I'm a huge fan of saying yes. It's kind of my theme for the year.
And so these events and these things that come up, ladies, you get these emails all the time. Say yes.
Go take the lunch. Take the afternoon. Go listen to the webinar if you're not
(20:22):
in a position to get to go and take off for the afternoon.
I promise you, you will find something that makes you feel good.
I'm going to give a little rapid fireplace to you because it is Women's Month
and you are a very established woman.
What is your, like, if you could just say one thing to the women out there,
like what would be one piece of womanly advice that you would give our listeners?
(20:48):
Actually, I saw something this morning that kind of resonated with me. So here it is.
The next time you're mean to your reflection, remember that legend says the
face you have now is the face of the person you loved most in a past life.
Ooh, that's good. So I'm going to just go with, we need to be kinder to ourselves.
(21:09):
We need to be kinder to ourselves. I think that's good.
Like the self-talk, and I'm 100% guilty of this. As anyone who knows me,
I have very limited self-confidence and self-esteem.
And there's a lot of negative talk that goes in through my brain on a regular basis every day.
So I think that's one I'll work on that, you know, that just be kinder to ourselves.
(21:34):
Yeah. Yeah, I think so. And it's hard. It's hard because when you step in a
cow pie and your day is just like, you know, like it comes at you so hard and
there's so many different variables.
I mean, we talk about all the time and it's like, you know, some days are absolutely
better than others. It's hard to be positive and think positive thoughts about yourself.
But I do really truly believe that, you know, self-love and loving yourself
(21:57):
is the first step to, you know, being able to.
Get out there and show up the best way. My words of advice come from none other
than Lauren Hill, okay, from the Fugees.
And she has a saying, how are you going to win when you ain't right within?
And so it's finding the rightness inside of you, which is kind of going along
(22:19):
with what you're saying, to be able to get out there and be,
you know, the old saying that you can't be good to anybody else if you're not good to yourself.
And we as women, you know, we've heard the storyline storyline time and time
again, we're the last two to take care of ourselves.
And so really finding that, you know, little piece of whatever it is that helps
you move a little smoother, I think is great.
(22:41):
Whether that's working out, whether it's going for a walk, whether it's just
sitting in your room and shutting the door, going in the closet.
We talked to somebody else last, what was it last week? Yeah.
Meditating in the closet. We also found out that I don't have a walking closet
in this house I'm in now. Yeah. You're going to struggle with that one.
I'm unable to to go into the closets. Right. And it's also like,
(23:02):
I'll, I'll, I'll share a little personal story.
I had a little bit of a, you know, every now and again, you have a meltdown.
I had one a couple of weeks ago at the pediatrician's office for no other reason
than I was just having one of those really overwhelmed days.
And like the girls were out of the visit and I was just sitting there with the
doctor and I just kind of burst into tears.
And, you know, I told her like, even the strongest bitches we're going to have
(23:22):
these days. And she goes, you know what?
She, she actually she said you're damn right and then she said it's okay
to not have it all figured out you know it's okay to
feel a little lost or a little like misguided sometimes
because that's you know gonna help you get on track and find
the way but you gotta go through it 100 and we gotta remember that but we don't
(23:43):
have to go through it alone ever this is very true and this is why i love you
because we go through all the things all the time we often say where one of
us is the other one is very close by.
And rightfully so, we are a package deal.
And the podcast and the life work that we do together, the sisterhood that we
(24:06):
have, it's unbelievable.
I couldn't imagine doing anything else. It's good stuff.
And the good news is we still have three plus weeks left, Women's History Month.
And we get to celebrate amazing women in our lives and amazing women and that we meet along the way.
So I'm excited for what the rest of the month is going to bring.
(24:26):
Same. We've got some great events this week and next and the following.
So we will be checking back in, but we wanted to give you a little S&S update.
Tell everybody to remember to love themselves, love each other,
and get out there this week and be inspired.
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