How To Stay Hopeful in a World on Fire: Mandana Dayani

When the world feels like it's burning, some people retreat. Mandana Dayani builds. In this episode, Danielle sits down with the powerhouse behind I Am A Voter and Archewell, attorney, entrepreneur, and activist Mandana Dayani—a woman whose story spans war zones, boardrooms, and the front lines of cultural change. From escaping post-revolution Iran to advising the White House, launching viral civic movements, and leading Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's media and philanthropic company Archwell, Mandana shares the moments that shaped her and the values that keep her grounded, outspoken, and unshakably hopeful. Mandana shares:

• The childhood escape from Iran that shaped everything

• The guilt that became her fuel

• Why she left a "perfect" persona behind to tell the truth

• What it really took to launch I Am A Voter + why she'll never stop

• The heartbreak of October 7th and what it revealed about her community

• How she built Our Campus United and The OCU Chronicle in response to rising antisemitism

• Why integrity is her personal compass and the question she asks herself every night

• Her experience working with Meghan & Harry—and what storytelling means at scale

• The power of reinvention, especially when you're already at the top

• And why she believes optimism isn't naive—it's necessary

Follow Mandana on Instagram @mandanadayaniBook Recommendation: The Way of Integrity by Martha Beck.

Learn more about her work at www.mandanadayani.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
No one has all the answers, but when we ask
the right questions, we get a little closer, closer to truths,
closer to each other, even closer to ourselves. I'm journalist
Danielle Robe and each week, my guests and I come
together to challenge the status quo and our own ways
of thinking by daring to ask what if, why not?

(00:28):
And who says? So? Come curious, dig deep, and join
the conversation. It's time to question everything. We are mid summer,
you know what. No, we are way further than midsummer.
How did that happen? It's almost Labor Day. That's wild.

(00:48):
I'm trying to think of highlights from my summer, but
I keep thinking about yours because I am zooming with
you guys. Usually one a week, but this summer it's
been like two or three a week because I have
a little more time, and honestly, it's so fun to
talk to you. You're all so smart and interesting and cool.
So if there's anybody new listening, I do this thing
where I zoom with one listener a week. The way

(01:11):
to enter is super easy. You email Hello at Danielle
Robay dot com and you can either email a screenshot
of you writing a review for the pod, or you
can email a screenshot, texting or emailing to friends, family members,
whoever an episode and the link to the episode and
just sharing it with people you love. And it helps

(01:32):
me because the reviews help, and obviously I want you
to share the episodes with people you love, but also
the goal of the zooms are to help you. So
it's been so fun to connect with all of you.
I actually connected with a listener named Andrea this past week,
and we were supposed to talk for fifteen minutes and

(01:53):
it went so much longer because she was so wonderful.
So it's really special. You guys are also smart. I
wish you could all meet each other. Today's episode is
about a topic that has been on my mind a
lot the past few years, but particularly this year because
I read a Gallup poll that said fifty three percent
of Americans say that they're pessimistic about the future. That's

(02:17):
really wild. Over half of us are pessimistic about the future,
and only nineteen percent of us feel satisfied with the
direction of the country. And that stat probably doesn't surprise you.
It didn't surprise me because it's the kind of thing
that comes up in group chats and around dinner tables
and across news scrolls. I've really found myself asking people lately,

(02:40):
are we living through the decline of America? And I
asked Linda Ang, who's a culture predictor, when she came
on this podcast two months ago. If you're interested, you
can go back and check out that episode and hear
her answer. But the short answer is she said that
we are. And that hit me because I've always believed
in optimism, and I believe that optimism is the only

(03:03):
spirit worth having, because that's where change begins. Sure, we
could all be like, well it's broken, and just bow
out and say there's not much we can do. But
I don't want to sit back and pretend that there's
nothing we can do, because there's always something. We can
stay in it and we can care. So here comes

(03:23):
our guest this week, Mandana Diani. She cares and she
knows how to build. She's been doing it her whole life.
She fled Iran as a child during the nineteen seventy
nine Iranian Revolution, and then she eventually landed in a
tiny apartment in New York and watched her parents rebuild
from nothing and that seed of resilience and responsibility shaped

(03:48):
everything that followed in her life. She's gone on to
lead some of the most powerful brands and movements of
our time. Her resume is insane Reddy. She's been a
corporate attorney, a talent agent, and eventually the president of
Rachel Zoe, Inc. Overseeing fashion brands, media properties, producing the
Rachel Zoe Project for television, and then she later ran Archwell,
the media and philanthropic company founded by Prince Harry and

(04:10):
Megan Markle, where she helped launch the number one podcast
on Spotify, the number one doc on Netflix, the number
one memoir at Penguin Random House. And in twenty eighteen
is when I became acquainted with her. That's when our
country felt politically disengaged, and she created I Am a Voter,
which made civic engagement not just accessible but aspirational. And

(04:31):
when the world got louder and messier and more divided,
she didn't back away. She built. More recently, she built
one Mitzvah a Day, Our Campus United, and the OCU Chronicle,
each one a response to not just injustice, but to
the question how do we come together?

Speaker 2 (04:50):
Now?

Speaker 3 (04:51):
There's one thing that like that I would think about
so much, which is the idea that you have as
much power in our government as Beyonce.

Speaker 2 (04:59):
Is Lee is so cool.

Speaker 3 (05:02):
Like you can't buy a VIFP table in our government
in a way, right, Like you get one vote, she
gets one vote.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
Right, It's the greatest equalizer of power.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
So in this episode, we talk about what it really
takes to stay in your integrity when the cost is high,
why purpose isn't found, it's forged, what it feels like
to be underestimated, and why she never let that stop
her the moment she stopped performing and started showing up
fully in her work and what that did for her career,

(05:32):
and she shares what she thinks no one tells you
about reinventing yourself at the top and the power of
choosing to build again and again. And then we talk
about raising the next generation to believe in both action
and joy. Here's one more thing before we begin. When
I hosted the World Happiness Summit this year, there was
a renowned psychologist, doctor Dan Thomas Sulo, and he opened

(05:55):
the day. It was one of my favorite talks, and
he shared something that I wrote down in my notes. Yes,
he said, hope is the only positive emotion that requires
uncertainty or negativity to be activated. People think hope is naive,
but it's not. It's not saying everything's fine, it's all fine.
It's not pretending not to see what's hard. Hope is

(06:18):
about recognizing the heart and saying, you know what, I
see the light at the end of the tunnel, and
I'm going to be better and stronger for going through
this journey to get to the end of the tunnel.
But I see the light there, and that's the kind
of hope Mandanna lives by, the kind that doesn't require
everything to be okay. So the question we're circling today

(06:41):
is how do we keep showing up with optimism and
hope and joy even when it's hard. It's time to
question everything with Mandana Diani, I have all these like
very fancy questions for you, but one just popped into
my I need to know the story of your name.

(07:02):
It is so unique.

Speaker 3 (07:03):
I think she was the mother of Cyrus the Great,
who was the king of Persia, so I was technically
the queen I've rush for sure.

Speaker 2 (07:10):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (07:11):
Which makes sense now I get it. I think your
story moving from Iran to America is so powerful. We
hear so many immigrants stories. I moved by all of them.
It takes so much fortitude to move to another country.
Will you share that story?

Speaker 2 (07:32):
Yeah? So I was born in Iran.

Speaker 3 (07:34):
It was after the revolution, so it was during the
Iran Rock War, and so many people had fled already, right.

Speaker 2 (07:41):
During seventy nine.

Speaker 3 (07:43):
I don't have a lot of memories, and they're starting
to come back more and more as time goes on.
But like so much of my memory is, you know,
the fear in everyone's eyes, like the morality police seeing
it was such a weird time.

Speaker 1 (07:56):
How old were you?

Speaker 3 (07:57):
I was almost six when we left, and you know,
there were bombings almost daily with the rock when the
assirens would go off and the lights would go out,
and have to hide for hours on end just until
we were allowed to go back up for safety. And
one day, my dad there was an explosion and the
impact from the bomb we went blind in one eye,
and like the doctors and so many people that could
have treated him were gone, and so it took my

(08:19):
mom forever to get us an opportunity to leave for
his surgery. First they were like leave your kids at
home and then you can take him, and she's like,
it's a war. I'm not leaving my kids. And then
they said you can take him and the kids for
one day, but you have to sign your bank account,
your home it's collateral, which we did, and then we
just went back and then they seized all of our
assets and we went to Italy. My dad went to

(08:40):
France to have his surgery. He ended up having a
retinal detachment, which they treated, and my brother's now a
retinal surgeon. So it's like a very cute, full circle story.

Speaker 2 (08:48):
But yeah, we went to Italy and.

Speaker 3 (08:49):
Then Highest, which is this amazing organization, helped us resettle,
and so we came to New York.

Speaker 2 (08:54):
They helped us find the studio.

Speaker 3 (08:56):
We're all slept on a bed on the floor, and
my dad got a job as a shoe sale.

Speaker 2 (09:00):
I made four dollars and ten cents an hour, and.

Speaker 3 (09:03):
We all learned how to speak English, and that was
kind of the beginning of it all.

Speaker 1 (09:07):
I've heard you say that you kind of alluded to
it that you don't have a lot of childhood memories.
Have you been able to understand why.

Speaker 3 (09:15):
I think it was my trauma response, as always freeze
or just to suppress memory. But after we left around
I just had no emotional connection to it because I
didn't belong there and it wasn't my home anymore. And
I so much gratitude for this country that I always
felt like this was my place. And I never looked
at photos of Iron. I had no curiosity about it.

(09:35):
When the Woman Life Freedom movement started, my video feed
on my phone was just like little girls and women
that looked like me and my daughters, and I'd never
seen Iranian women in my feed, and like songs, and
all of a sudden, like so much started coming back
to me, like so much memory.

Speaker 2 (09:52):
And then I just.

Speaker 3 (09:53):
Went down the drab hole of just wanting to see
all the places I'd been as a child, and.

Speaker 2 (09:57):
That really brought a lot more aback.

Speaker 1 (10:00):
What did you feel? Was it anxiety? Excitement? What came
flooding back? There was like a lot of heartbreak and nostalgia.
There was just this like deep sadness.

Speaker 3 (10:11):
I think that I will never be there again, although
now I have a lum or how that may be
possible one day. But also like I think part of
what always drove some of my activism is this, I
think guilt that I felt about, like why am I lucky?

Speaker 2 (10:24):
Why did I get to leave? How do I make
it worth it?

Speaker 3 (10:27):
Like God or whatever you believe in, gave me this chance,
And so I always felt this huge responsibility to make.

Speaker 2 (10:33):
It work or make it worth it, or to have
like the universe.

Speaker 3 (10:37):
And my parents feel like whatever sacrifice was made for
me to have.

Speaker 2 (10:40):
This chance, that they were going to be like we
picked the right one. They're like, we're happy with this decision.

Speaker 1 (10:45):
Do you remember feeling that at a young age, Yeah,
all the time.

Speaker 2 (10:49):
I always felt this responsibility.

Speaker 3 (10:51):
I think also because I could see my parents struggling
so much, you know, like financially it was so unstable.
My mom, you know, learning how to speak English so
she could teach us and helping us navigate this culture
that was so foreign to us. I used to want
full house all day to learn how to speak English
and mimic their behavior. And I could see how much

(11:11):
they were struggling, and I think I felt like, oh,
that was for me, And so I think there's a
lot of guilt.

Speaker 2 (11:19):
That comes with something like that. And then also I
always took that on as responsibility too.

Speaker 1 (11:24):
I feel it in a different way. My grandmother was
a Holocaust survivor or is, and from like five or
six years old, had this idea that I better make
an impact because I could have so easily not been here.
It was like, by such luck, but I understand that
feeling really deeply. Do you think that your story leaving

(11:45):
Iran has impacted the rest of your life everything?

Speaker 2 (11:49):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (11:50):
How so?

Speaker 3 (11:50):
I mean I think the drive, like the ability to
work harder than everyone else. I also think sometimes like
my fear of not having a safety net also pushed
me to work really really hard. This desire to prove it,
I think also drove me sometimes too much. But I
also like thinking ahead to times like and we'll talk

(12:11):
about this later, but starting I'm a voter. Right when
I saw the migrant children being separated from their families,
it was like the most visceral.

Speaker 2 (12:19):
Response I had.

Speaker 3 (12:20):
Was remembering when we came to America and we got
to New York. Was the scariest thing I'd ever seen
in my life.

Speaker 2 (12:26):
Right, Like, it's the sounds, the cars, like all of it.
It's so foreign.

Speaker 3 (12:29):
And I held my mom's hand and I was like, Okay,
we're gonna be fine.

Speaker 2 (12:32):
I have my mom and the idea that.

Speaker 3 (12:34):
Whatever these families went through, leaving your home, going through
the most horrible circumstances humanly possible to come here, because
by the way, our Statue of liberty literally told them
to come here. And then you take their children out
of their hands.

Speaker 2 (12:48):
And then we lost some of these kids. We orphaned them.

Speaker 3 (12:51):
I mean, the only thing that these people had left
away from them. Every part of my insides imploded. And
so I don't know. I think that like those moments
are so forgn and I see it. It happened after
October seventh too, where you just you go back to
that moment, like one of my earliest memories, and I
spoke about this at the United Nations. Was like remembering
the morality police in Iran holding a gun to my head.

(13:12):
And when I saw themas videos very early in the
morning of October seventh, it was just this, like you remember.

Speaker 1 (13:22):
The fear for anybody who doesn't know what the morality
police are you share.

Speaker 3 (13:27):
So in Iran there are a lot of laws, and
many of them which really suppress women. So women aren't
allowed to dance or saying they're not allowed to have
bank accounts.

Speaker 2 (13:37):
They're supposed to ask for permission to get married.

Speaker 3 (13:39):
There's so much that holds women back, and obviously they're
required to cover and so there are police they're called
the morality police, that essentially enforce those laws. They just
take you from the streets if they want to. They're
allowed to intimidate you. They can do essentially what if
they want to you, and people being in prison all
the time for protesting, for dancing, for showing their hair,
for wearing a skirt, for anything, And it's just that

(14:02):
sort of constant fear around you that these lunatic, insane
men are going to come at you.

Speaker 2 (14:09):
It's so wild that people live that way.

Speaker 1 (14:11):
In a twenty fifteen interview with CNN, you were asked
what keeps you up at night, and you said, current
events they're unbearably depressing. So twenty fifteen, ten years later,
and a lot of people still feel like the news
is unbearably depressing, maybe even worse than before. Are you
coping differently now?

Speaker 3 (14:31):
Yes, I think that I shifted to doing you know, like,
I think I had so many different careers and I
built so many different things, and so I realize for
me in the way that my brain works and I
process grief, so much better when I do something. So
just getting up, joining a movement, anything helped me so much.

Speaker 2 (14:52):
And so I think it's not that I'm less sad.

Speaker 3 (14:54):
About the state of the world, because lord knows, it
is scary out there.

Speaker 2 (14:59):
But I do think think the idea that I.

Speaker 3 (15:01):
Have worked so hard on the issues that I care
about makes me at least feel like I can maintain
my integrity, which is the literally only thing I ever
care about. Like I realized throughout my career that like
that is the only thing I will take with me,
And so when I go to bed at night, that
is the only question I ask myself is like, did
I abandon my integrity? And I don't care what the
consequence or cost of that is.

Speaker 1 (15:24):
Why integrity because some people are driven by other.

Speaker 3 (15:27):
Words, Because I have to live with myself and I
have to look my children in the eyes, and I
have to know that I did right by them. And
I think even as an activist, like I have seen
people I thought or leaders behave like such cowards because
they were afraid of their Instagram comments, Like there are
moments where I'm like, is this real? Even in a company,

(15:49):
just like I've been asked to do layoffs in ways
that were not okay, Like, no, I'm not going to
leave this world with regrets about how I behaved in
it in the ways that I could control. And I
always believe there's a way to do things with integrity
and to treat people with integrity. Everything about the way
that I was raised was always written in just how
you treat people, and so it's the one thing that

(16:12):
I feel like I would regret forever.

Speaker 2 (16:15):
And I want.

Speaker 3 (16:17):
To know that I can look at myself in the
mirror and I don't know, be proud of myself or
also live with myself.

Speaker 1 (16:24):
I'm having sort of a weird experience listening to because
when I was very young, this girl is being mean
to me at school. She was bullying me like I
wanted to be mean back, and my mom said to me, Danielle,
there's going to be a lot of moments like this
in your life, and you have to be proud of
the person staring back at you in the mirror. Those
words have permeated my entire life, and so my word

(16:46):
is also integrity, and I'm sure a lot of people's
word is integrity, But I've never actually interviewed anybody who
said that, so I'm just so curious connected.

Speaker 3 (16:55):
Yeah, I think it was always so important to me that,
like you could go to anyone that ever worked with
me and asked them what they thought of me, and
almost always they would lead with like she's so kind,
or like she's a good person. And I'm good at
my job and I'm good at what I do, and
that's also really important to me. But the way that
I show up matters so much to me, and the
example I set for my daughters, and I really thought

(17:16):
I'm a voter was a test of my commitment to
my voice.

Speaker 2 (17:21):
I think part of the.

Speaker 3 (17:22):
Way that your raise as an immigrant, at least for me,
was I almost like created a persona of what I
thought an American was right, and so I would be
what I needed to be to advance in my career
or in rooms or whatever. And I was so malieable,
not in a way that I felt like made me
a bad person, but I could pretend to be like
good at something or like whatever was on the resume.

(17:42):
I was like, sure, I can do that. I speak
every language, I can write verses, I can do whatever.
Like it's fine, I'll learn it after the interview, you know,
and so I sort of created this projection of what
perfect was, and I would behave that way all the time.
I was always perfect, and it was like so stressful
at the same time, and I was trying so hard
not to disappoint my parents and my family and all

(18:02):
the people that mattered to me.

Speaker 2 (18:04):
And I'm a voter.

Speaker 3 (18:05):
Was the first time where I just was like, fuck it,
this is who I am, this is what I think.

Speaker 2 (18:10):
I know there's a lot of people that.

Speaker 3 (18:11):
Don't agree with me on my politics, and I really
didn't care, and I never not cared what sort of
my community or people thought of me.

Speaker 2 (18:19):
And the more I spoke, the liberating.

Speaker 3 (18:22):
Feeling of just being one hundred percent myself in my
own body is like probably what I think people feel
when they go skydiving. Like it was the most exhilarating
experience I'd ever had. It was just like, oh my god,
I'm free and i can just be whatever it is
that I am and I'm going to be.

Speaker 2 (18:38):
Fine and people still love me.

Speaker 3 (18:39):
And that was like so powerful because I think that
totally changed how I showed up in the world in
every facet of my life. And I think October seventh
challenged that even more because it wasn't just am I
going to stand up right now and speak up again
about something that's important to me. The most beautiful part
of I'm a voter, I always said, was like the
people it brought into my life. Community, and October seventh,

(19:02):
I think put me at odds with so many people
that I looked as like my leaders and like community. Yeah,
and it was an intentional community, right. It wasn't like, oh,
my town. It was just the people that I was like, oh,
these are my people. We're fully in it. We're a
line where we're like soldiers, were here to serve our
country and protect you know, the marginalized communities together.

Speaker 1 (19:26):
There's major grief around that. I can imagine.

Speaker 2 (19:28):
It's weird. I'm one of those people like I try
not to have like emotion at work.

Speaker 1 (19:31):
I'm always like, I'm fine, you don't ever cry at work?

Speaker 3 (19:34):
Never, Oh my god, No, I'm just like, get shit
done is my only mode of operation. It took me
a really long time to process that. I was just heartbroken,
like it really hurt my feelings. It's like so weird
for me to say that, because I'm terrible at saying
that sometimes.

Speaker 2 (19:48):
But really was so angry. I was so upset. I'm
so frustrated.

Speaker 3 (19:52):
I felt like I was screaming at the top of
my lungs and no one could hear me every day,
But it took me a long time to process, like,
oh wow, I feel really let down and sat.

Speaker 1 (20:01):
I think I also felt a little abandoned.

Speaker 2 (20:03):
Totally, like really alone.

Speaker 1 (20:06):
What happened in your life or what shifted before I
am a voter that you just threw it all away
and threw caution into the wind.

Speaker 3 (20:14):
Giving back had always been a big part of my life,
Like I started my first charity in like fourth grade.
It's my school like charity thing. And then I would
do all these donation drives and I worked as a
project leader at ELI Work, so I would run these
ELI Works day events. But it was like weirdly things
I would do that nobody knew about. It just felt good.
I loved that so much. And then we started this
charity I honestly when I was like twenty five.

Speaker 2 (20:37):
It was a group of us.

Speaker 3 (20:37):
It was called World Child Project, and we would go
down and try to help these orphanages in Mexico become
self sustaining. And that was an incredible experience as we
take these busses down and like sit with a community
and build greenhouses or computer labs. And I'd always loved politics,
like I really thought I was going to be a
Senator since I was six years old. It was like
the first memory I have of me in the US

(20:59):
was seeing the White House and saying, I'm going.

Speaker 2 (21:01):
To work there.

Speaker 3 (21:02):
And I never understood what these things meant, but I
stayed so close to politics and it mattered so much
to me. And I think I worked so hard on
the election and obviously did not want the results that
happened in twenty sixteen, but again I think I was
able to compartmentalize it and go to work, even though
I was so sad. So when I saw the video
of the Chats Operation Whilsey, I was un print to

(21:23):
leave and there was that like, what on earth did
we just.

Speaker 2 (21:28):
Do to these families.

Speaker 3 (21:29):
I just got on a plane and I went to Torneo, Texas,
which is where the first camp was, and I saw
the kids, and I love this country. You know it's
not perfect, but I know what life is if you're
not here. Like I've always been raised with the most
gratitude for this country and this like deep patriotism, an
obligation to like make this country better, and so to

(21:51):
go there and to see you're just like something is
broken politics aside, Like if we as a society can't
agree that, forcibly, removing children away from their parents is
the worst possible thing you can do as a government
and as a country, something is wrong, like algorithms in societies,
social media. There's something severely wrong with us. And so

(22:12):
I came back and I didn't know what I was
gonna do. Like I literally had a newborn and I
started taking meetings with senators in congressation.

Speaker 2 (22:19):
I really thought that I could just help.

Speaker 3 (22:21):
I was like, okay, let's talk about your audience segmentation strategy,
Like what are you doing?

Speaker 2 (22:24):
Tell me about your videos?

Speaker 1 (22:26):
Can we like up your brand you were using like
your tools.

Speaker 2 (22:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (22:29):
It was like okay, like I'm gonna just help you guys,
and then we're going to like make this better or
communicate this issue better, or help you win more seats
or something.

Speaker 2 (22:37):
I don't know what I thought.

Speaker 3 (22:38):
And then everyone every meeting just kept saying, sure, help us,
but if you really want long term systemic change, we
need to hire voter turn out and when you work
on the world that we come from, where like you
launch a mass scara and sell ten million units and
you're like, I don't understand.

Speaker 2 (22:57):
This is not hard, Like how many Marvel movies have
we launched?

Speaker 3 (22:59):
Like we have to be able to figure out how
to get people to show up for something that is
actually so cool and so important and so impactful and
such like a powerful form of self expression for people
that value art. And so anytime I like have an idea,
I just call smart women. And so I called twenty

(23:20):
five of the smartest woman I've known and worked with,
and I was like, hey, guys, can we meet on Sunday?

Speaker 2 (23:25):
And I don't think I thought anyone would.

Speaker 3 (23:27):
Come, And everyone came, which was really cool, and we
like sat on the floor and like just talked. And
I think I remember saying, we have a new client.

Speaker 2 (23:34):
It's voting. Their product drops in November. How do we
get people to wait in line? What if we just
became publicists for voting? What would happen?

Speaker 3 (23:40):
And Ca joined as our co founders And I didn't
go into it like I want to start an organization.
Let me apply for five oh one C three status,
Like I just was all in on, like, if this
is the way that we're going to have change. I'm
really good at this thing that I'm good at. I'm
going to do it this way. And there's a million
people that do a million other things in this space,
but we're going to do our version our way. And

(24:02):
we all did probono as volunteers, and it became.

Speaker 2 (24:06):
So big so fast.

Speaker 3 (24:07):
Like you just never know, right, Like I always live
in this fear of like no one's coming to my
birthday party.

Speaker 2 (24:12):
Every time you launch something, you're like, there's anyone going
to come. But it was wild to see the community response.

Speaker 1 (24:20):
What was the most exciting part about it?

Speaker 2 (24:23):
I think I had this like.

Speaker 3 (24:24):
Dorky hypothesis that like no one asks you to help, right,
Like why aren't people asking you for help? You're so smart?
Like I don't understand. Like I was like, no one
is showing up at these women who have been the
brains behind the biggest companies.

Speaker 2 (24:39):
Films, influencers in the world.

Speaker 3 (24:40):
Right, what if we just made this big pot together
and like went to everyone that we knew and asked
them to throw something in And so if we made
the brand that was cool and we made it a
non partisan, and we made it safe and all of
the things. And my best friend Tiffany Bensley, who's like
the chich is coolest woman in the entire world, helps
start the row and Violet Gray and she's just amazing.
And so everyone went out to their relationships in tech

(25:02):
and finance and entertainment and fashion and beauty and was like, hey,
you have windows, can we use them? You're sending boxes,
can we throw something in them? Like you have a
fashion show?

Speaker 2 (25:10):
Can we put stuff on your runway? And everyone said yes.

Speaker 3 (25:13):
And that was what blew my mind that like all
these people were just waiting to be asked, and so
like Disney was like, sure, we have all this unused
ad space, would you like it?

Speaker 2 (25:21):
And We're like, huh, yes, thank you, that would be awesome.

Speaker 3 (25:25):
And so it was just so cool that it was
like this is what sounds so dorky, but it was
a community project, right. It felt like we built this
like little garden together. That was what was so awesome
was that like no one owned it, and I don't
think I ever anticipated that happening. And then there was
like the friends moment because I love friends, so i'man Jennifers.

Speaker 1 (25:43):
Wait what do you mean the friend's moment?

Speaker 3 (25:45):
So I read the statistic ones that said a reminder
from a friend makes you up to two times more
likely to vote, And so I created this campaign called
Register Friend Day, which were like totally made up, and
so we train worked the slogan friends don't let friends
gep elections, and we changed our text code to you know,
text friends whatever, and so if the three women from
Friends posted to launch the campaign, and then Gwenda Paltrow

(26:06):
and Robert Downey Junior did this video that was amazing,
and we had one hundred thousand people that day confirm
their registrations, which was wild.

Speaker 1 (26:14):
What's something that I am a voter? And the movement
taught you about our political system? That inspired you something
that you think more people should know?

Speaker 2 (26:23):
I think it's two things.

Speaker 3 (26:24):
When is that these people work for us and we
have so much more power than we understand, and so
our job is to hold elected's accountable. But also just
how much the system needs us, Like I think that
we don't really understand. People are like I do X
for a living, what can I do? And I'm like
everyone needs you and so many different capacities. I think

(26:45):
it took a while to really understand how much power
we had, how much it meant to everyone when we
showed up, how cool it was to build community and
find people.

Speaker 2 (26:55):
That you love, and how much of a difference you
could make.

Speaker 1 (26:58):
I don't think I really under You hit on something
that I hear so often nowadays, and it's I don't
even want to call it apathy, because it's disappointment. People
feel counted out of the system. Smart interested people are like,
I'm one person. When did you really know that your

(27:21):
voice actually made a difference.

Speaker 3 (27:23):
There's one thing that I thought was always weird that
I would think about so much, which is like, sounds
so strange to say out out, but the idea that,
like you have as much power in our government as
Beyonce is really so cool. Like you can't buy a
VIFP table in our government in a way, right, Like
you get one vote, she gets one vote.

Speaker 2 (27:44):
Right, It's the greatest equalizer of power. It's so cool.
And the idea that like, if you don't show up,
guess who is you know what I mean?

Speaker 3 (27:52):
And so like you actually matter the exact same as
everyone else, no matter who they are, and so that
means so much.

Speaker 2 (28:00):
I think I also like came.

Speaker 3 (28:01):
From a place where no one had that power or privilege,
and so it blows my mind that people could just
sit out something that is what hundreds of millions of
people would literally kill themselves for.

Speaker 1 (28:13):
And do trying to come here. People lose their lives
trying to get to America.

Speaker 3 (28:18):
Yeah, I think people like in the world of Amazon Prime,
like everyone wants whatever it is that they.

Speaker 2 (28:24):
Want in twenty four hours. But like that's not how
change works.

Speaker 3 (28:28):
Like our government wasn't created in a way that it
would change and show up at your doorstep in two days.
It's just going to take a really long time and
you're gonna have to show up and over and over
and over again.

Speaker 2 (28:39):
But change happens.

Speaker 3 (28:40):
Like we talk about my best friend, she Hannon Watts,
but like when she started Moms to me in Action
and look at the progress they've made in ten years.
That is wild, right, But they show up every single day.
And so if you care about something, you can't be
discouraged because it hasn't happened.

Speaker 2 (28:56):
It's not that it's not going to happen, it just
doesn't happen yet.

Speaker 1 (28:58):
I'm a huge patriot. I live by the quote that
former President Bill Clinton said that everything that's wrong with
America can be fixed by everything that's right. And I
deeply believe that. And still I sometimes I am like,
I don't have time to go protest.

Speaker 2 (29:12):
I have to go to work.

Speaker 1 (29:14):
I need to sleep, Like, how do you think about
that aspect? Because I do feel like a lot of
young people think about that. Again, I think your work,
for example, is creating change. Right, We're having this conversation
so that other people can hear it.

Speaker 3 (29:27):
So like, work shows up in so many different ways,
and it doesn't mean you have to protest, like pick
up the phone and call your uncle who said the
racist thing and just have a conversation with him, right, Like,
you can do the work in so many ways, And
so I think part of it is reframing the way
that you think about showing up for your community and
your country.

Speaker 2 (29:45):
I think that makes a big difference. I'm like a.

Speaker 3 (29:46):
Giant labbordoodle, Like I just wake up and I'm this
like super dorky, really positive human. I'm just like a
hopeful idiot, And I could not be an activist if
I wasn't. I have to wake up and believe that
things can be better. And I'm committed to how long
they take. It doesn't mean that I don't have real
anger about things, which I do find incredibly motivating, and

(30:08):
the ancher is important and it is very present in
me a lot of the times. And then I just
watch some tragic television and go to bed and I
wake up, and then we try to gain.

Speaker 1 (30:21):
There is some criticism on social media about activism that
it can be performative. They say performative not productive. I've
heard kids call it slacktivism, like they say it's easy
to post. Can it be both? And should it be?

Speaker 2 (30:34):
I always think about it in like buckets, so like
anything is better than nothing.

Speaker 3 (30:38):
If you were sitting there and like judging other people's
way of showing up and you're literally not doing shit,
I'd rather take like something.

Speaker 2 (30:45):
The point for me that is lost sometimes is consistency.

Speaker 3 (30:48):
I had this issue a lot with the seasfire, right, like,
which is like, it's not like beetlejuice.

Speaker 2 (30:52):
You can just like say it right, it's not even
wear your pin. And then what do you think happens?

Speaker 3 (30:56):
Like you think no one thought of a seasfire, No
camp David and all history was able to solve the
most complex geopolitical conflict. You're going to wear a seaesfire
pin to the Grammys and now everything's going to be
fine in the Middle East?

Speaker 2 (31:07):
Right, Like, what is the point of that?

Speaker 3 (31:10):
And so sometimes the issue is like I don't know
what you're doing, because it's not like everyone there doesn't
want the ceasefire and everyone here doesn't want to see
the fires.

Speaker 2 (31:17):
So like you absolve yourself.

Speaker 3 (31:18):
Of any moral responsibility just because you say those words,
and we're here doing everything we can to try to
solve this.

Speaker 2 (31:25):
That shit makes me crazy?

Speaker 1 (31:27):
Is that what people say is virtue signaling? I think so.

Speaker 3 (31:30):
I think it's like you're going to post a black square,
but you're never going to do anything to hire people
of color.

Speaker 2 (31:35):
So I think that also is performative activism.

Speaker 3 (31:39):
When it's being referenced. I'm so emotionally invested in times UP.
I was one of the first people to sign We
posted the things, we talked about it, and we all
did trainings, and it was such an important moment in
our collective consciousness. Like I do think that the way
people show up to work will forever be different because
of that movement. It was so important, right, I remember
testifying at the United Nations about the sexual assault of

(32:01):
women in Israel. And it wasn't like something we just thought.
I mean, there were first hand accounts the rapists go
prode it. They had manuals. So the Hamas had manuals
for October seventh that taught them how to say take
off your pants and Hebrew because that was a premeditated
act of war. And so we hold this United Nations
session and it wasn't with like a bunch of fascists.

Speaker 2 (32:25):
It was like Cheryl.

Speaker 3 (32:26):
Sandberg and Hillary Clinton and Kristen Jellibrand and I sent
it to my feminist pioneers.

Speaker 2 (32:33):
Not a word. And that's the stuff that like I
don't understand. That's the integrity part. It's like you're so
scared of your.

Speaker 3 (32:39):
Instagram trolls spots, Like what is this that we can't
hold this boundary together?

Speaker 4 (32:46):
Right?

Speaker 1 (32:46):
Something that feels so blatantly wrong.

Speaker 2 (32:49):
Yeah. When I talk to people that in like a
corporate setting, I think the most important thing to think
about is consistency. And I don't think people have to
show up on every issue. It's like I say this, when.

Speaker 3 (32:58):
We talk about influencers and activism, it's like You don't
have to say something about everything. If you want to
talk about environment, that's amazing and that's beautiful, and mean it.
Show up like do the work, learn about it, ask questions,
bring on experts, like do the work throughout your products,
through your content.

Speaker 2 (33:14):
And like that's it.

Speaker 3 (33:15):
You don't just show up or be an activist about
every single issue, because then it doesn't feel genuine. I
think it's one hundred percent okay for people to sort
of pick their lane, but if you are going to
speak up.

Speaker 2 (33:29):
On ninety nine issues, then hold the line on the
one hundred.

Speaker 1 (33:34):
Do you ever struggle feeling hopeless?

Speaker 2 (33:36):
Sometimes I struggle like I don't know that anything is changing.
I know that it is because I.

Speaker 3 (33:41):
Know it takes a long time, but I think there
are days where I'm like, did that make a difference?
You know, because it's so much work, some of these
campaigns and some of these movements, and I think you
just have to believe in the change and how long
it takes.

Speaker 2 (33:52):
But there are days where it's just like, can we
be done?

Speaker 1 (33:56):
Do you just sleep it off?

Speaker 3 (33:57):
I love to cook, so you like cook, and that's
my biggest stress reliever. And I have a lot of
dance parties with my girls, so like we just put
on really loud music and just dance for a long time.

Speaker 1 (34:09):
Elive Azelle once said, we must always take sides. Neutrality
helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor
never the tormented. For anybody who is scared to speak up,
doesn't know how what would you say?

Speaker 2 (34:24):
You will never regret honoring your integrity.

Speaker 3 (34:28):
I was appointed recently by President Biden to the Holocaust
Memorial Council, which was the greatest honor of my life.

Speaker 2 (34:34):
And I was in DC three weeks ago and we
had our first board meeting. We went to the museum.

Speaker 3 (34:37):
We had all these conversations, and we met with survivors
and their families, and you know, you sort of sit
in these moments and you're like, Holocausts didn't just happen, right,
There were millions of decisions that everyday humans made that
enabled Holocaust. And some of those decisions were silence. They
were abusing somebody next to you, and you didn't say anything,
or you look the other way. Right, it was the

(34:59):
first time where they sort of infringed on someone's rights
and you didn't say anything. And the first time they
started removing people from their homes, and you just were like, I'm.

Speaker 2 (35:07):
Sure it'll go away. This is temporary. Right.

Speaker 4 (35:09):
All of the people and all of the decisions that
they made and all of the people that enabled these
leaders to get to this place, are how you commit
the greatest genocide in history, right, And so I think
silence is really powerful.

Speaker 2 (35:23):
It actually is a decision.

Speaker 3 (35:25):
And I think that was the most important sentence from
one of the Holocaust survivors who spoke. He said, silence
is a choice. You're not being passive. You are actually
actively making a.

Speaker 2 (35:37):
Choice to be silent, and that is a choice that
you live with. You're not sitting it out. You're making
a choice to be silent.

Speaker 1 (35:45):
I feel that when I watch these videos of people
being deported right now, I'm like, oh, this is how
it started. And you just feel like there's nothing you
can do. So you've launched a new endeavor called one
Mitzvah day. Can you explain the meaning of amizvah?

Speaker 3 (36:01):
So after October seventh, I started an organization called Calun Foundation,
and we have like a bunch of different projects that
we've incubated and launched since then, and all of them
are sort of meant to address a.

Speaker 2 (36:13):
Very specific concern or issue.

Speaker 3 (36:15):
I always look at it as like an opportunity to
bring people together or change perspectives and amidst that, I
guess technically means commandment, but it's kind of used.

Speaker 2 (36:26):
In culture to mean a good deed.

Speaker 3 (36:28):
So there's such an organized movement to weycott Jewish own brands,
Jewish authors, which is wild. And so I realized that
the penalty that people were paying for standing up against
anti Semitism was almost too high because every time they

(36:48):
would be docksed, they would have people calling, and you
have people protesting outside their house, and they're like doing
the right thing. I wanted to create almost a counter
love movement, right, like what if we just organized community.

Speaker 2 (37:00):
People that said thank you?

Speaker 3 (37:01):
And so that really is how it started, which was
every day you get a message and it's like today
we're going to thank these people, members of Congress, Trader
does Netflix. It could be anyone, any cultural leader, you know,
Apple for partying ways with Kanye, anyone who just sort
of takes the decision to do the right thing and
making sure that they hear from our community as well.

Speaker 1 (37:23):
How much we appreciate it. Because we do obviously, and.

Speaker 3 (37:26):
Now we're starting to do more localized work, which is
also what's really cool about the platform and being able
to know where people are. We launch MIT's of a
Maker Day actually last month, and that was just a
day of service and we had people in like twenty
five cities organizing community service projects, and we had like
really cool dorky swag and merch and like.

Speaker 2 (37:47):
Taco trucks and ice cream trucks.

Speaker 3 (37:48):
It was just awesome and it was like a beautiful
day out in your community. And that's like who Jewish
people have been for thousands of years, right, Like our
entire culture is rooted in tikunalam, right, which is this
idea of a repairing world and doing good. And so
to see the whole community just like out and like
singing and eating and doing good was just like what

(38:09):
I think fuels me to keep going.

Speaker 1 (38:12):
Your career has spanned law, media, fashion, tech, activism. You
started as a corporate attorney, then you became a talent agent.
Then you served as VP at Rachel Zoe, Inc. Then
you were a chief brand officer at Everything but the House.
You served as president of Archwell, which is the media
and philanthropic company founded by Prince Harry and Megan Markele
Of everything on your resume, I'm sure there's things I

(38:33):
didn't even mention. What position or job has taught you
the most about yourself?

Speaker 3 (38:39):
I think everything taught me something pivotal, Like being a
lawyer was learning that I can say no because that
was my parents' dream.

Speaker 2 (38:47):
I just did not want to do that.

Speaker 3 (38:48):
And working with Rachel like that was the most entrepreneurial
environment you could ever be in if you're an entrepreneur.
We just kept starting businesses and like, there's so much
trust in me to build and launch and lead. It
was just like a playground. Never learn more, right, and
I'm a voter. Taught me so much about the power
of shaping culture and brand and what badass group of
women can accomplish, you know, Archwel really solidified like the

(39:12):
importance of storytelling and impact and how beautifully like those
can work together. And just seeing like both principles that
I worked for, just how much they cared about both
of those things and being able to weave them in
through all the different facets of the company, in them
and what they wanted to focus on was really cool
and I think most recently, I've just understood my own

(39:34):
power and just being able to keep going to say no,
to not be intimidated, to know that like Louder isn't correct.
I think like the world and algorithms are so hard
for so many people, and it's so hard to decipher
like what is true, And you're a journalist, so you
deal with this all the time, right.

Speaker 2 (39:54):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (39:54):
I think the power of believing in kind of your
own knowing I didn't really ever have before. Really throughout
my whole career, I always felt fraudulent a little bit
because I was like I don't belong here, like they
don't even know that I don't know anything.

Speaker 2 (40:08):
Or like they don't know that I'm like some little
kid who was like no money, barely speaks to English, right, Like.

Speaker 3 (40:12):
It always felt like a little bit of imposter syndrome.
And I was advancing so quickly in careers that everyone
else had done for twenty years before. But then the
more you sort of advance, you realize like everyone's kind
of just figuring it out, and everyone's full of shit
to some extent, and so you just learn to trust yourself.

(40:33):
I always thought there was like a right answer, and
that someone knew what the right answer was, that everything
always equaled something or there was like a multiple choice
and one of.

Speaker 2 (40:40):
The answers was correct. And so I think over it
took me a very long time to understand that sometimes.

Speaker 3 (40:44):
Like it really is just gut or it is your
ability to sort of pick a path and believe in it,
and like, even if it's not right, you make it right.

Speaker 1 (40:52):
Did you have a specific pivot that taught you that?

Speaker 3 (40:57):
So I think that concept of like failing fast is
really important, right, like being able to look at any
relationship like a spouse, a cousin, a friendship, a boyfriend,
a company, a job, a campaign, and being able to say,
like this isn't working, and very quickly be able to pivot.

Speaker 2 (41:12):
And I've done that a million times, Like I'm a voter.

Speaker 3 (41:14):
Was it called I'm a voter? Initially and it wasn't
clicking in my head? It just wasn't landing, and you're
just like it's not right, and I know it's not right,
and then it.

Speaker 2 (41:23):
Just becomes right.

Speaker 3 (41:24):
There were so many things in my life that were
like that, and then more quickly, I think you can
just respond to that knowing the faster you will get
to where you want to get.

Speaker 2 (41:33):
That is like a skill.

Speaker 3 (41:34):
I think that takes a lot of confidence to be
able to say, like, it's not landing.

Speaker 1 (41:39):
What's something about working with powerful people that nobody prepares
you for.

Speaker 2 (41:44):
There's so much I.

Speaker 3 (41:44):
Think, the speed at which everything moves, Like everything is
so fast and there's so much that comes at you,
and the ability to sort of be able to make
decisions you don't have like time, the way that I
think you necessarily always want time. There's so many opportunities
and so many things, and so many requests and news
and whatever that just comes at you, and you have

(42:05):
to very quickly be able to say, like that one's
right when these are wrong right, and really believe. And
then I think the ability to achieve so much right
is so cool to me thinking about all the people
that I've worked with, you know, the obvious ones and
then the ones I've worked with as advisors, and like
just I think I gravitate towards people that think so expansively,

(42:27):
and that has taught me so much about being able
to just do so many things at the same time.

Speaker 1 (42:34):
It feels contagious, like expansive thinking begets more expansive thinking.

Speaker 3 (42:39):
Yeah, my like, most allergic I am to people are
the ones that feel scarcity minded or who like fixate
on things that are wrong all the time. Because I'm
just like, why there's like so much even people used
to come to me all the time. It's like, why
did you start Helena Foundation? There's so many organizations that
exist that combat into Semitism. I'm like, oh, I'm sorry,

(43:01):
it is anti sim fixed, Like do you know what
I mean? Like, is there no room for other people
to come in? Like I can't think that way, Like
there's always space for new ideas and innovation and people
to come and partner, and like, I can't understand like
people that are like jealous or scarcity minded, especially when
it's like women on women and shit, it makes me crazy.

Speaker 1 (43:23):
You are an expert of the pivot. Honestly, in my DMS,
the women that listen and watch are usually really career
focus and purpose driven, and there's a lot of questions
about pivoting when it's the right time. I'm curious if
you have one or two signs to know that you're
in the right place, in the right job.

Speaker 3 (43:44):
There are moments in my career where I felt like
I was dead inside and I was not learning. And
when I feel like I'm not learning and I'm not growing,
it really shuts me down. So that was always when
I felt like, Okay, it's time.

Speaker 1 (43:57):
But a lot of my.

Speaker 3 (43:58):
Pivots were led by my curiosity. It was more me
chasing something I really wanted to understand or learn. I
don't think it's ever too late. I think everyone is
more than qualified to do anything. I genuinely believe that
if you have common sense and if you will do
the work, there's nothing you can't do.

Speaker 2 (44:18):
Truly.

Speaker 3 (44:19):
I think as far as like what is the right time,
I think when there is that like deep curiosity, when
you're just like get me out of here, like put
me in coach, put me in coach, that feeling of
like I just want to try this thing is the
moment you should leap.

Speaker 1 (44:32):
And when you feel that curiosity, what are the things
that you do to walk towards it? Are you a researcher?
Do you call friends? Like how do you navigate that?

Speaker 2 (44:41):
So like when you grow up in an immigrant family,
like everyone does the same thing.

Speaker 3 (44:46):
I don't know if that was your experience, right, there's
like three jobs that everyone has, so I didn't even
know what other people did. I was like, how am
I supposed to go out and figure out like what
I want to do? I don't even know what is
an architect? Like what does an editor do? Like? Actually,
if you work at a magazine, what do you do
on a Tuesday afternoon? I never met anyone that had
these jobs, never talked to them. So my husband, who's

(45:07):
my boyfriend at the time, was like, just take meetings
with people. If you're not asking me for a job,
especially they're totally happy to talk about themselves.

Speaker 1 (45:15):
I was like great.

Speaker 3 (45:16):
So I took meetings with everyone I thought had an
interesting job, and I was like, can I take you
to coffee?

Speaker 2 (45:22):
And I did, I'm just go to coffee. I'm like
what do you do? Like what does it mean? What
makes you good at what you do?

Speaker 3 (45:25):
And I would be able to listen and say like,
oh lord, I'm not gonna do that, or I would
be terrible at that, or that does not sound interesting
to me at all, And then there would be something
somebody would say where I was like, oh my god,
I want to do that right now. And I met
with this guy who was a talent agent. I loved brands,
like I was always obsessed with brands. I'd done licensing
as an attorney on our hospitality team, and he was

(45:47):
explaining what he did, and I was like, can I
come to your office on Monday and work for you?

Speaker 2 (45:53):
And he's like, I'm not hiring anybody, and oh cool.
I'll just show up and then you can decide if
you want a surpay me. But I think you sort
of know you feel it.

Speaker 1 (46:04):
Wait, tell me about the scrappy things you've done. I
love those stories.

Speaker 3 (46:08):
I mean, even like as a kid, like I remember
growing up in Beverly Hills with no money and this
immigrant family. Then I got this cool job in college
and then I looked at these rooms and I was like,
oh my god, everyone dresses so well. And I like
went to the flea market and bought a sewing machine
and I started making my own clothes and then everyone
was like, oh my god, you have the best on.

(46:29):
Everything was sort of something to hack in my brain.
It was like, oh, okay, this is an obstacle in
my path to whatever I deemed a success. And so
it was just a matter of how I was going
to hack that system.

Speaker 1 (46:42):
Now that I'm hearing more of your story. I'm wondering
what it meant to you when you were able to
purchase your own clothes and your own like nice pair
of slacks or any of that. Did you care?

Speaker 2 (46:53):
There are moments still to this day where I'm like,
is this real life? You know?

Speaker 3 (46:58):
I just can't even process where I am. And then
I'm just so headstone working that I don't process it
at all, which is the worst. I'm really, I would say,
more than anything, trying to learn how to be more
like present.

Speaker 1 (47:11):
This idea of reinvention came up for me a lot
when I was searching and prepping, and I'm wondering if
you think there's something that people misunderstand about starting over,
especially once you're at the top of your game, because
like you're constantly pushing forward. I think there are people
who have careers and it's like, you know, you're at
the same place for thirty years. That's not been your experience.

(47:33):
Do you think people misunderstand things about starting over?

Speaker 2 (47:37):
I don't think that you're starting over.

Speaker 3 (47:39):
I'm really good at building brands, so like, whether I'm
doing it in fashion, in tech, for democracy, on anti semitism,
for mascara, like it's sort of the same. I'm just
applying something I'm good at to a bunch of different situations,
and the learning curve in those situations is a lot.
So I don't think that you are someone who is

(48:00):
a very skilled accountant who's worked at a firm for
ten years and is starting over by taking a new job,
Like you are clearly really organized, really meticulous. You understand
the structure of working that you will apply to anything
else that you do. I don't know why you do
that job, and then you can't go work in merchandising
for a fashion brand, like, yes, you may not know

(48:23):
everything about that, but there are plenty of people around
you that can help you for what will be a
three month hard learning curve. I don't think that it
just like evaporates all this experience.

Speaker 1 (48:35):
You have two daughters. What about the way you are
raising them are you most proud of?

Speaker 3 (48:40):
I mean, I try to include them in everything, So
we go everywhere together and bring them on trips because
I always feel like the best way to learn is
through experience, and if I get to go somewhere cool,
I want them to be able to experience it. And
I think that makes a really big difference for them
once do they understand what I'm doing and like why
I'm away or why I'm traveling or what I'm spending
my time on, but also because they get to meet

(49:03):
incredible people.

Speaker 1 (49:04):
How did you go about raising a confident girl?

Speaker 3 (49:07):
I think part of it was just growing up in
a family that there's just so much love, right, Like
everyone in my family just constantly hugging and loving on
these girls so much. If there's anything I felt like
I lacked as a child, it was I never felt
like I was sort of understood by my family. I
was very different than everyone else that was Persian and

(49:30):
Jewish or everyone in my family, so different than my brother,
who's like the male surgeon figure. And I think given
how much they had to figure out in their lives, right,
they never really had the capacity to be able to
say like, oh, you're really good at this or you
like this thing.

Speaker 2 (49:46):
And like let's go deeper on whatever that is.

Speaker 3 (49:49):
And so I felt like I was sort of on
my own a lot to figure out myself and who
I was in my interests. And I think I tried
so hard with our goals, and my husband tried so
hard with our goals to really see their magic, like
really from every moment that they were born, like being
able to pull out like what their magic is and
hone in on it and share that with them and

(50:10):
figure out, like, is that something you want to do
more of? Like should we take a class on that together?
And make space for them to keep nurturing it? And
I think they have a lot of confidence in their
own skills and not like what I want their skills
to be.

Speaker 1 (50:24):
What do you want your daughter to understand about her worth?

Speaker 3 (50:28):
That took you decades to learn that it's not defined
by other people, and she gets to define what that is.
I think I spent too much of my life like
wanting approval from other people.

Speaker 1 (50:40):
So you just launched our Campus United. Can you tell
me what prompted that?

Speaker 2 (50:45):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (50:45):
So when we started seeing the huge outwursts of anti
Semitism on campuses, I started traveling to the different campuses
speaking with student leaders.

Speaker 2 (50:54):
We hired a publicist for some of them.

Speaker 3 (50:55):
We try to figure out how to get them on camera,
how to tell their stories because it was so hard
to break through what they were experiencing. And then we
convened a summit here in la and had a bunch
of these student leaders that were testifying before Congress come
out here and really had like a two day session
where we asked them to lead with what they want,
What are you not getting on campus?

Speaker 2 (51:14):
What's the support that you don't have?

Speaker 3 (51:15):
And these students altogether, really under the leadership of this
incredible woman as Meino Hepsian, became our campus United, and
so they're all sort of the founding team, very similar
in parallel to sort of how I Am a Voter
got created, and it started with being able to create
a way for them all to convene a community events,
bringing back joy, creating resource guides so they wouldn't have

(51:37):
to figure out how to navigate anti Semitism by themselves.

Speaker 2 (51:39):
And it was all of this amazing stuff.

Speaker 3 (51:40):
But one of the things we kept hearing from them
over and over is that they were being like docs
or silenced or excluded from their student newspapers if they
were Jewish or if they had any pros rual points
of view, which was just crazy to me that they
were prevented from those spaces, or that their own student
newspapers were writing terrible things about them and not giving

(52:03):
them a platform to respond.

Speaker 2 (52:04):
Like multiple students had their newspapers write things about them.
So we went out and started talking to a lot of.

Speaker 3 (52:11):
My friends who work in that space, and we thought
about the importance of creating again one space where all
of these students would not be silent and they could
celebrate the joy in their culture and their opinions and
interview people. And so the OC Chronicle on sub staff
and we have over forty different students contributing, sharing their stories,

(52:31):
interviewing big cultural leaders, and then we have like shopping
lists and Jewish founded products, and then you have like
Samantha Ronson's like summer playlist and you know, Jessica Seinfeld's cookies.
It's just like it's great to sort of see community
and culture celebrated and seeing these students share their voices.

Speaker 2 (52:49):
This is kid who went to the encampment every.

Speaker 3 (52:52):
Day and invited someone that was protesting against him out
to coffee and would have these amazing conversations with these kids,
and they have one to one conversations and heart to
hearts about their challenges, and you know, he writes about
what that journey was and what he learned and building
those bridges with people that you know he never thought
he could agree with.

Speaker 2 (53:13):
These stories are so.

Speaker 3 (53:14):
Important and so being able to just like celebrate these
students and give them a platform is pretty cool.

Speaker 1 (53:20):
Rapid fire a common theme in your life, never stopping.
What makes you feel most alive?

Speaker 2 (53:30):
Dancing and shabot dinner fill in the blank.

Speaker 1 (53:33):
The older I get, the more I realize.

Speaker 2 (53:35):
How important rituals are to me.

Speaker 1 (53:38):
What's your advice for somebody who's finding their voice and learning.

Speaker 2 (53:41):
To use it? Just use it already?

Speaker 1 (53:44):
A book that changed your life? Something you think everybody
should read?

Speaker 2 (53:47):
The Way of Integrity by Martha Beck.

Speaker 1 (53:49):
One thing every woman should try once.

Speaker 3 (53:51):
Two things come to mind. One is travel by yourself,
and two is eyelash extensions.

Speaker 1 (53:58):
Honestly, that's the breath of womanhood. There. Okay, grab a
question everything card please and pick whicheveryone speaks to you.

Speaker 3 (54:06):
What's something you wish people could see about you that
they don't see at first glance.

Speaker 1 (54:12):
That is my favorite card in the deck.

Speaker 3 (54:14):
I would say, a lot of people when they meet
me tell me that they find me intimidating or they
feel like I'm this like harsh, tough person and this
as I said, giant labbordoodle in my own mind and
in my heart. So I feel like that is probably
the thing that's most misunderstood about me.

Speaker 1 (54:36):
Thanks for sharing that. Okay, you know what time it is.
Today's a good day. To have a good day. I'll
see you next week.