The Culture War Against Women (Reshma Saujani)

Today, I'm having a conversation with Reshma Sajjani, the founder of Girls Who Code and Mums First and the filmmaker behind the new documentary, No Country for Mothers. I wanted to have Reshma on because her work sits inside a tension I think about all the time. How much of our lives can we change through agency and how much has to change around us? I believe deeply in personal responsibility. I believe women have to own their ambition, their money, and the way they show up in the world. But Reshma is asking us to hold another truth at the same time. Too many women are being asked to solve structural problems privately, in their homes, in their workplaces, and inside their own bodies. What I found so important about this conversation is that we didn't agree on everything. We really got into it. Work-life balance, ambition, flexibility, money, care, the future of work, and why women are so often pushed into judging each other instead of asking what would actually make our lives more supported. This is a conversation about choice, power, responsibility, and what it would take for women to build lives that actually work. This is Reshma Sujani. If you've ever worked in sales or run a team that does, this stat will hit a nerve. Sales teams spend about 50% of their time on admin work, entering data, chasing updates, logging activity, instead of selling, building relationships and closing deals. If the tool you're using is creating more work than it removes, something has gone fundamentally wrong. That is where today's sponsor, Pipedrive, comes in. A simple, intelligent CRM tool loved by growing sales teams. 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For a limited time, our listeners get $20 off to unlock their new health intelligence. Head over to superpower.com and use code ASPIRE for $20 off your $199 Superpower membership. And after you sign up, they'll ask you how you heard about Superpower. Tell them, ASPIRE with Emma Greed sent you to support our show. Reshma Shajani, welcome to Aspire. Thank you for having me. I have been watching you, I think, and following you for the longest time. And so I'm really excited about the conversation that we have today. You've done so much incredible work. But for anyone who's not that familiar with you, I'd love you to give a little brief history of your career and really to talk about why you've wanted to spend your life really talking about and defending women's rights. So I feel like you can relate to this because I read your book and I so related to your story. I think there's something about like, when you come from nothing, you want to build something. And like my parents were refugees. They came here from Uganda in 1973, even though they were trained engineers, my mother sold cosmetics, my father worked as a machinist in a plant. And so I, from the youngest of possible ages, just wanted to give back. Like I fell in love with this country that had saved my parents' life. And so for me, I think when I was young, that came out as, I'm going to be a lawyer. You know what I mean? I'm going to be a civil rights lawyer. I'm going to make the world better by conquering racism and sexism. And then that then led into me running for office, failing in that race, which I'm sure we'll talk about, and then building Girls Who Code and really becoming a social entrepreneur to solve big problems that women and girls in particular are facing. It's incredible the breadth and the scope of the problems that you've taken on. And I wanted to have you on because I always felt like your work has been so much bigger than one single issue. And I always think about this kind of overlap between personal responsibility and structural change. And so it's just something that I think about a lot. And I wanted to get into your new documentary, which I think every woman, actually every person on the planet needs to see it. It's called No Country for Mothers, but there's such a big mission underneath it. Will you speak a little bit about that? Yeah. So No Country for Mothers is an investigation into kind of the lies that we tell that distract and divide American moms from like getting the shit that we need, which is paid leave and childcare, right? Period and all. Period and all. And I'm sure like, it's fascinating in America, right? Like 75% of high school valedictorians are girls. You have a daughter. She's probably going to be one, right? The vast majority of those getting their bachelor's degrees are women. And, you know, so, but then something happens when you get into the workplace and in particular, when you become a mother and that's where you really see this decline, decline in ambition, decline in pay, decline in opportunity. And like, that is all about motherhood. If I was going to take women to the promised land, if I was going to get to equality, I knew that the thing that I had to fix that is distinctly broken in America was motherhood. Facts. And yet we've made it so unbelievably complicated. The film has a really powerful claim in it that you talk about this idea that women, particularly mothers, they're not broken. The system is broken. And I wonder what about this particular moment has made you feel like it was urgent to make this film now. There's something about being a mother in COVID that like changes everything. So for me, I found myself in 2020, Girls Who Code was on top of the world, had a Super Bowl ad, right? Like we were crushing it, like taught over half a million girls to code at that time. And then the pandemic hit, I was having my second child and the world shifted. You know, people forget in America, right before the pandemic, it was the first time that women made a majority of the workforce. But when the pandemic happened and schools shut down, right? and daycare centers closed, you saw that women couldn't hide their motherhood anymore. They had to be the ones that were logging on their kids on the Zoom screen. And so you saw millions and millions and millions leave the workforce. And the reason why that happened is because structurally we've never made it possible for women in this country to both work and have a child. Why is the school day start at 8.30? You know what I mean? And the work day ended at six and school pickups at 3.30. Like I'm set up to fill before I've had my first cup of coffee. And that became clear to me that like, oh shoot, like this is the thing that I need to fix. Like if I'm going to get to gender equality, if we're going to actually solve this, you have to fix American motherhood. I stepped down from Girls Who Code, the largest nonprofit for women and girls in the world to go build a nonprofit on motherhood. People thought I was nuts. Why would you do that? Like that's a big issue, tech and women to like to motherhood. And when I first started going into rooms and talking about this, people looked at me like I was crazy, right? Like that I was talking about something that didn't exist. What do you mean that we were going to actually offer women paid leave or childcare? How do we actually change work? I mean, listen, speaking to an English person about this, it's a little bit crazy, you know, and I just want to, for the audience, the US is the only industrialized country without guaranteed paid leave, right? Just to soak that in for a moment. I'm married to a Swedish man in Sweden where a couple gets 18 months fully 100% paid leave. in England. Well, yeah, I mean, and it also works out in many other ways in England, where we take it for granted that paid leave to the tune of six to nine months is absolutely the norm. And then, and so much of what you talk about, which is like ambition, you can't even realize your ambition. If you're in a diaper at work two weeks after having a baby, right? Like we could build, like women could fully reach, I think their fullest potential. If we gave women the time, I think it's a year, you know what I mean, minimum six months to actually fully recover, get your logistics together, you know what I mean? Figure out what it's going to look like. And also figure out what you want. What you want. That's right. Because it's so individual. It's so different for every woman. And my experience is that, you know, I've always wanted to come back into the workplace. But for so many of my friends, they've said, you know, I don't want to go back or I want to go back, but I want to go back differently. And so it takes you a while to get your head around, oh my goodness me, this live human being just emerged from my body. And now I've got to figure out who am I, what am I doing? And so I don't know. I just always find it unfathomable that it isn't a bigger problem for more people. Well, I think the thing is, is that we in this country make it seem like it's your problem. You got to go figure it out. And I think culturally, like you can walk down the street in New York and see a baby that's three weeks old being strolled by someone who's not their mother. And we don't even think there's something wrong with that. Like that's kind of unconscionable, right? Like, and when other, my friends come from Sweden or Norway, they're like, this is nuts. Like, how can, how can the society allow this to happen? Because quite frankly, all mothers, all parents should be able to take care of their babies when they're born. Yes. And also be given the choice because the way that it is in Scandinavia actually, is that from, you know, I think a month old, you have Dargis, which are places that actually will look after your baby should you choose to go back to work, which is fully state funded. And I'm not saying one way is the better or not, but the choice is left up to the mother and the social security net is in place for you to be able to do so. So can I just ask you, like, why do you think that America specifically won't do this or can't do this? Like what, what is in your experience just stopping us from, because I think we all understand that They say it's bigger economic implications. And so what's stopping it? So I think the biggest thing is American women are divided. Every time women make progress, we hand them a culture war. This kind of, you know, trad wife, girl boss, that has been around since the beginning of time. You know, Phyllis Schlafly, which, you know, you saw the film, was like the OG trad wife. And so we, as women, I think are conditioned to judge each other. And now with the advent of technology and the fact that so much of these companies build their ad revenue on rage baiting, right? We spend more time, you know, in the Instagram comment section, taking somebody down than actually spending time marching for the policies that we need to get it together. Because I think that we love to have a bad mother to judge. And we've had one of them to be a wine mom, ma-ha mom, vaccinate, don't vaccinate, breastfeed, don't breastfeed. It's just, it's nonstop. And I think social media has made it worse. For politicians, it works for them to have a binary, right? To say, this is what you should do if you're a good mom and this is what you shouldn't. For some people, you know, for some people who make money off of it, tech companies absolutely do. I do think though, where I want to get to, and this is what this film's about, is like, how do we like get women to stop participating in the culture wars? But also how do we, you know what I mean, as entrepreneurs, imagine what the world could look like, right? Because now that you've built a company, you are a mom, right? Like you see that it's fucked up, that we actually don't make it possible for women to have choice. And for me, like, I'm like, how do we actually talk about the structural changes to work that would make it possible for women to have what they want, which is actually this freedom over their schedule, their time and their choices. Yeah. And I also think, listen, because there's places in that that I fundamentally agree with. Yeah. And I do think that it's a little bit like sometimes don't shoot the messenger because what I kind of come into things with is like a level of this has been my truth. This is how I did it. Listen, I'm a star. I even made it into your document. The team was just like, you know, you know, there's a fantastic clip of me, my finest moment where I'm talking about Oh, it's teamwork. Work-life balance, right? On the Diary of a CEO podcast. And I say, work-life balance is your problem. Yeah. And it's in your documentary. And, you know, and again, I think there's so many places we agree and there's other places where we're disconnected. This is the place where we disagree. This is the place. And I think that we should get into it because that clip for me was so, it was such a moment. Like even seeing myself and saying that, I was like, I said what I said. And I meant what I said. Yeah. I'm not going to back away from it. I'm not going to back away from it. And you know, one of the things that killed me is like, I kind of really had to go and look at the data because I look at everything from my own viewpoint, my own vantage to say, I have hundreds and hundreds of women. And what am I doing? Who am I promoting? Who's getting the pay increases here? And there is an element for me when I talk about proximity and visibility, I'm like, out of sight, you're out of mind. Not to say that you're not going to be remembered in an annual cycle, but the squeaky wheel gets the grease. There's a reality to that. Then I kind of did a little bit more digging. And this is the part that I wanted to talk to you about. Harvard Business Review found that women working remotely were less likely to get promoted. They're less likely to receive pay increases. 50% less likely than their male counterparts, which kills me because we're talking about male counterparts that are equally working from home. And I, like I said, I know it to be true from my own experience, but I am curious to hear your views on that issue and why it made it to your documentary, but also why you specifically you think it's such a hot button topic. See, because I think there are three things that would fundamentally change women's participation in the labor force, right? Because we lose a lot of really qualified women because they don't, one, they have to, they go back to work too early. Two, child care for most women costs more than they're making, right? Which is like 55% of parents are in debt because it costs child care. So, right, you might lose women who are like, okay, it's going to cost me this much to do daycare. I'm making this much at SKIMS. The math ain't mathin'. And they leave. Not because they're not talented, but so like that's. And the third thing is, is this lack of flexibility. You know, for a lot of women, in particular, the first five years, right? It's like you need, you just need some grace and you need some time. And you talk about you offer that. Not everybody does. Which is unbelievable to me. So when we talk about like return to work and the lack of workplace flexibility, it is damning for so many mothers. because the thing is, is like, I shouldn't have to hide my identity. How many women do you know wait till eight months till they tell their employer that they're pregnant? I mean, not here, but that happens. Yes, but there's a reason for that because there's something called the motherhood penalty where they know that the minute we think you're a mom, we no longer think that you are engaged and invested. And I want to make sure we go back on that because I want you to make the distinction between the motherhood penalty and pay inequality because I think there are two really distinct buckets. But, you know, I do think it's worth making the distinction because when we talk about, I think there's a big difference between flexibility in the workplace and how you show up in the workplace and this conversation around work-life balance. Because to me, what I believe in is agency, right? I am the person that believes that you have to take responsibility for your own, the way you come into the workplace, for what is given to you. And while I totally, totally understand and actually have created the conditions for flexibility, I think it's on the individual. So listen, I think the question is those two things get confused. Like I'll give you an example. My, my executive comms person, Katie, is like a rockstar. When I hired her, she said, listen, I got to pick up my daughter at four o'clock every day. Now for, I'm kind of like you. I work, nobody works harder than Rashma Sajan. I am always fucking, I'm in. Yeah. So CEO Rashma Girls Who Code would have been like, it's not gonna work. You know what I mean? Rashman now recognizing, I think how important it is to have these, to have these structural things in place was like, yes, I can make that work and gave it a chance. And so like, and at a hundred thousand percent, I wish I could clone her into like 20 people. And the thing is, is like, she's back on after she does pick up, right? Because again, because of the cost of childcare, sometimes that little thing makes a huge difference in her being able to stay in the workplace. So what I worry about is that when we say, don't ask me about your work, don't bring your workplace flexibility question to the interview, we're implicitly saying to women, don't talk about your motherhood here. Don't bring it up. Wait till you eight months till you tell us you pregnant Don you know put you know going to have lunch instead of picking up your kid and taking him to a doctor appointment It asks women to hide their motherhood And I think the more that we have to hide our motherhood, the more we are going to discriminate against moms. And listen, I hear you on that one. And I think that it's so, and this is the problem when we start talking about government and workplaces, right? Because in most countries, it's something that's mandated by the government. Here, it's down to organization to organization. And I've created organizations. Yeah. where anyone can leave at five o'clock every single day, where you can go because the boss, the CEO of the company, the person that is running the place is out the door. And so when you model that type of behavior and you model that for the culture, it actually creates the conditions for people not to hide their pregnancies until they're age. But you are an exception. You are an exception. And this I realize, and this I realize in this country, because of course, whenever you have those conversations with, you know, perhaps male counterparts in the company or board members or whoever it might be, they're all in shock. But I think that what I'm talking about is there is this idea that we are and should be able to bring our whole selves to work and that we should really be thinking about everything being your employer's problem. And I think, and I want to get onto this idea of what's happened to parenting, that some of it is ours to figure out because the type of parent that you want to be, And I think what's happening largely in social media is the thing that is also compounding with these issues that we have more systematically. Because the idea of what parenting is has gone crazy. Yeah. You know, when I was a kid, it's so intense. Like my mother would never have thought that my entire week's schedule and every single thing that I ingest and every friendship that I had was her problem to arrange. My parents did not even know where I was applying to college. Of course they didn't. They didn't review my thing. they certainly didn't get you a consultant and figure it all out. Correct. And I think it's a lot of why both you and I are, I think intensive parenting is mongers. If you've followed me for any amount of time, you know that I believe one of the most important investments you can make is in yourself, your body, your foundation, your long game. That's the lens I bring to anything I put into my routine. That's why Armour Colostrum has stayed in mind. It's a bioactive whole food with over 400 bioactive nutrients that work at the cellular level. It fortifies gut health, strengthens immune health, and supports the way your body naturally renews itself. It's pure, potent, natural, and clean. 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Pull up a daybed and join us every Wednesday for all the Love Island USA drama. Find Reality Gaze wherever you get your podcasts. I think the fact that like mothers today are asked to spend more time with their kids than stay-at-home moms did in the 1960s is crazy. Look, I mean, the other day- Isn't that, that's a huge part of the book then. It's a huge, right, because combined with the fact that you don't have the structural support. Yes. And then you're supposed to parent this way. And listen, and you are shamed for it when you're not like my son. I'm a parent teacher conference the other day. You know, my the teacher was like, so Cy told me that you don't open up his backpack to look at his. You know, so I'm going to let you know that this is going on. And I was like, true, true. My nanny saw in the last few weeks of the homework. Like, I'm not going to lie. Like, that's true. And to be honest, for me, my boys are independent as hell because they know they have to tell me, Mom, I have swim today. We got to pack my soap. And that's what I mean when I talk about agency. I think that what we have to hold here is that two things can be true at once. It's a yes and. It's a yes and. It's not an either or. It's like, yes, we need the system to change. And yes, we need to advocate for that change and take responsibility for it. But I also believe that there's an element of this that when we, as women, decide to fight with each other in the comments and judge each other's style of mothering, we're actually setting ourselves back so far. Can I tell you just, I think what happened though, as you were out there, is the only thing that rose to the top were the things that were going to get clicks. And what didn't get talked enough, and I think you should continue to do this, is like what you've built here and how women are thriving here because you've done it, yes, and. Because we do need more leaders talking about that because what's going to happen, and I know you feel so passionate about this as I do, is we're in a moment of an intense amount of rollback of women's progress because of the backlash against DE&I. That's why you built 15%. Like all these things, right? We'll talk about that a little bit more because I think that when we think about DE&I, we only think about it as it relates to race issues when actually all over this country, it means that if you have a girls after school club or you have a single sex course or whatever it is, that is also affected by these rollbacks. Absolutely. I mean, so many of our girls who code clubs, are now at risk because many states have passed laws that you can't have a same-sex club. I mean, we're rolling back girls learning to be engineers, to be coders, to be scientists. I mean, you have NASA basically taking off, you know, female role models that are that because we're in this culture now where we're anti-everything that is about, you know, opportunity. The fact that like companies don't have women ERGs. I mean, think about like how many times you go in front of an audience, share your story and your journey and a woman comes up to you and says, oh my God, Emma, now me too. I know this is possible. We have taken that away from women. And you can't be what you don't see. Exactly. I mean, we need that. I want to rewind a little bit because I feel like what you do is you take a private frustration and you turn it into something collective. And for somebody that's thinking about advocacy and getting into that kind of, you know, role and that way of working. How do you actually take an idea and something that you feel deeply and change it into policy? I think that one of the gifts that God has given me is the ability to communicate something. You know, we've made a huge amount of impact on passing child care policy. We did it. We just passed universal child care in New York, Vermont, New Mexico. Part of the problem is we were often talking about child care in this country as a personal problem that you got to go figure out. Don't tell me about your issues. when in fact it was an economic issue. If the people here in your office do not have childcare, you don't get the best workers. That had a messaging and a marketing problem that I was able to solve. It was the same thing with girls and coding. Coding just wasn't cool for girls. And as you know, teen girls decide, is it cool, is it not cool? And if you don't actually speak to them in a way that's going to move them into culture, if you don't change culture, because culture eats policy for breakfast every day, you can't solve anything. So give me some examples. Like what does that actually look like in practice? When you talk about changing the culture of the way girls would look at coding, how do you take the culture and shift it through advocacy and policy work? It meant like, you know, doing an album with Lizzo. It meant like coding a game with Doja Cat. It meant, you know, creating a line of books. There were never books that taught people how girls can code. It was like relentlessly making sure that Netflix had protagonists that were cool girl coders. Like it was about thinking about what the social media campaigns were on TikTok. talk. It was about like, again, making coding cool. And so it's, it's never about in Harvard Business School that is a case study on this. It wasn't about how many girls you taught. It was about how fast we were able to move by showing girls that like, hey, you want to change the world. Do you want to solve COVID climate or cancer? Like the way you do that is by being a programmer, by being an engineer, like you are in charge of your own destiny. It's also why, like, again, going back to this conversation about DE&I, it's so like, you are not going to have the next generation of emigrates because until your stories are constantly told, you're not going to have fresh misogynies out there being social entrepreneurs. It is important for what you put into the culture, what you see on television, what you see in magazines, what you hear on the radio, what you listen to on your podcast, like culture matters. And we have got to actually show that like, there's another way. You spent a decade building Girls Who Code. Yeah. And now I'm just interested to understand like what that experience taught you and what you're taking in to your newest venture. Yeah, I mean, what it's telling me is like failure is such a gift. You know, I built girls who could, I was not a coder. I had majored in commuter science. I had just colossally lost a congressional run. I was the first Indian American woman to run for Congress. I got my ass whooped. Wasn't even close. But it freed me into thinking like, no, failure doesn't break me. It also taught me that like, Like, you know, it's kind of like you see quite weird time with the Knicks. What you see happening in sports oftentimes, like I had that chip on my back. Like, I'll show you. Fine, you don't want to elect me? I'll teach millions of girls to code. I'll teach your daughter to code. And I did. And I think that really fueled me. But like I often around eight years get an itch. Like to me, when I've saw, when I feel like I've made like real progress and with girls to code, it's like I built it and then I had to build it again after because of COVID. And talk to me about the progress because you really did make tremendous progress. I mean, when we started Girls Who Code, like less than 18% of those graduating with a computer science degree were women. And now you go to MIT, you go to Carnegie Mellon, you go to Harvard, like it's like 40, 50%. It was why I'm so like dogged. It was a monstrous success. Monstrous success, which is also why in this moment right now, I will not let it get rolled back. For me, COVID showed me that like, this isn't just about teaching women skill sets. It's not just about being more brave or being more confident or power posing the moment. It is about structural change. And oftentimes, like, structural change is less sexy. So in your book, Pay Up, you call out corporate feminism. Yeah. And I love you for that, by the way. I really, really do. But if you're building a company or you're leading a team, what do you think real support for women actually looks like? I mean, I think it looks like... As opposed to, like, performative benefits. Because you and I sat on a panel together. Do you remember the New York Times deal book? And I spoke about egg freezing being like a total corporate bullshit benefit. Yeah, yeah. I think it's a con, isn't it? It's a total fucking con. It's a total con. I love that one too. Yeah. I didn't say don't freeze your eggs, by the way. What I said is that it was a bullshit benefit. Well, you know, you can't have nuanced conversations online. No, there's no nuance. No, sorry. What a 30 second clip. Apparently not. Right. So, I mean, look, with egg freezing, it is basically like, prolong your pregnancy, but then when you become pregnant and you have a child, after you become pregnant and you have a child, we don't give a shit about you. And that's the problem. And so I think, but I don't feel that way about childcare. I think childcare and paid leave, these are good benefits. Like it pisses me off that companies are rolling those back. So I think the question is, what are the thing, what's the supports that women really need? And listen to them. Listen to, like, it's not a one size fits all. There may be something that women need here that's different than what women need over there. I hope the one thing we get out of this conversation is like, I do think that we have to encourage women to bring their full self to the conversation. Now, and that means like, like, listen, when I was building Girls Who Code and someone said, Mr. Johnny, Mr. Johnny, you know, how do you balance being a mom and, you know, being a CEO? And I may have just come from like breastfeeding my son. I'd be like, don't worry about it. Just keep working hard. And I, and Emma, I was wrong. It wasn't just about the hustle. It wasn't just about the confidence. It wasn't, it was a yes and. And I think that that is largely what has sent everybody wild, right? That it's like you seemingly have to belong to one side or the other. Yes. And because of the way messages are communicated in social media in these like 30 second, one minute clips, you never get the nuance. You never understand, well, what is somebody actually doing? What are their underlying values and what do they really stand for. Right. And listen, I think the thing is, is that, and we have to want more nuance. Like if people walk out of this film and literally take a pledge and say, I will stop shaming women for their choices. I will not participate in the culture wars. I will not rage bait. I will not post nasty messages under Emma Green's comments. And instead I will use that time or that I made for making that clip to like signing a pledge for child care and paid leave. I actually think we will make a difference. And I think our job though is just commit to saying, I want to build another system. I want to build a better system. I recognize, because listen, we could say like, we have to accept the world as it is. And this is what you got to do to make it. But to me, then you strengthen a broken system. Listen, I totally hear you on that. I am a big one for saying we have to work with the world as we find it. Because my point is that when we tell women that the system is broken and that we have to go and fix the system, well, what are we telling you to do today? What are you supposed to do with where you are and where it's at right now? And so that's why I feel like I've tried to be just super straightforward and super honest to say, guess what? If you opt out, if you self-opt out, then these are the, this is what's going to happen. You will end up with lower pay. You will end up left out of the promotion conversation. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't equally be advocating for what is right. I understand what you're saying. And I think the question is, is when does that happen? And when do you say, I'm not going to participate and I'm going to break down the system instead? I really feel this way, for example, in the DE&I conversation, I talked to a lot of women who were like, listen, Rashma, I can't, I got, when my company says we're shutting down the ERG or you can't identify this, I got to just play it for what it is and I'll change it from within. And I'm like, bullshit. Right? Like in that particular fight, I feel like you have to break down the system. But what do you want women to do? I think nothing changes until we, until we walk out, until we shut it down. I really do. But then talk me through that, because what do you do? You walk out of your job? I know. And I think the question we have to ask ourselves is which of us are privileged to be able to do that and which of us are not. And this is why to me, the collective is really important. The collective is important. Because some women don't have, you know, they're just trying to pay their bills. They're trying to put food on a table. They can't afford diapers today. They shouldn't walk out. We who have the privilege to be able to need to tear down the system. I think when it comes to- But isn't that the same? Like, so for example, someone like me, right? I think that working with what I control, working with the, you know, the systems that I create and I have the ability to be able to change, i.e. my own organizations, that is my way of creating change, right? So it's like, there's no way I'm walking out of my job. There's no way I'm expecting the senior leaders that paid hundreds of thousands of dollars here to, you know, walk out because they're able to and because we need the system changed. But we work with the system that we find ourselves with in this country and we make it work in our immediate, like, do you know what I mean, you make it work in your immediate surroundings. Here's what I think, though, is happening. And I just did a commencement speech about this. I think we are in the most dangerous time we've ever been in as American women. And I think oftentimes things are a test. I'm going to see how much I can take from you and how much you're going to eat until there's no more left. And I think we are in that critical moment because, like, dumb shit's happening. Like, legislation that's rolling back our ability to vote if we changed our name. Like, the abortion pill And so like, to me, we're at this real moment of moral courage. And I think part of the problem, Emma, is like, we haven't taught people that like bravery doesn't feel good. Right? You know, like when you stand up and say the thing. It feels like shit. It feels like shit. It feels like rejection. And we're so used to feeling good. We haven't taught people that doesn't feel that way. So I think we're at this inflection point where, yeah, you're going to, you might have to lose some stuff. some friends, some clout, some money, maybe even a job. Not all of us, but those of us who have the power to risk it, got to do it. I do it every week. Oftentimes. And I swear to God, I'm like, you know, I did a speech. I got my mic pulled out in front of me and for the 40,000 people, that didn't feel good. So like I'm on board. Because you were saying something deeply unpopular. Tell me why. I want to know. I want to know. What were you saying, Rushman? Don't make me pull your mic away from there. No, it wasn't even like, again, I was talking about like my experience as an immigrant. I think we're living in a moment where people are so afraid, right? So afraid to say and do anything. It's why, quite frankly, we are releasing this documentary. The only way you can watch a documentary is if you sign up to do a watch party, because I want you to watch it in community, because I have a feeling if I had released it to a streamer, it would simply be buried The amount of people yeah because the amount of people in this tour who said I love this film but I can put it up because it political and I got to watch out for the FCC I can even tell you We in dangerous times The fact that you're on this podcast, girl, talking about no country for mothers is a risk. I'm telling you that a lot of people sitting in the same place as you have been like, I don't want any of my audience to get upset that this could be about politics. Well, to me, this is about, it's not even just about women. This is about who are we? What do we want for ourselves? What do we want for our children? What kind of society do we want to live in? And to your point earlier, before we started, we're in a real time where we don't feel very hopeful. We don't know what's around the corner. And so I think being really clear about what you stand for in the same way that I talk about having a vision for yourself and you have to have a vision for what type of world you want to live in. Like who do you want to be? How do we want to live? One thing I keep coming back to is this idea of motherhood and ambition, being totally at odds with one another. And almost like we're still treating it like the two things are in conflict somehow. What do you think actually needs to change for us to almost be like, for the idea of like ambition and being a good mother to just be like, okay, the norm? So motherhood made me, hell, I was already ambitious. It made me even more ambitious. and that's why I think and I think a lot of moms feel that way like I love hiring a mother because I'm like she's going to be efficient totally she's going to get it done couldn't agree with you more do you know what I mean and so I think that so if we can supercharge them by getting rid of these obstacles right these structural things that are in their way of I think unleashing their ambition everything changes so what do you think happens to women when they're told they can have it all but only if they pick up the cost themselves Yeah, so this is where I think we mess with women's ambition by judging them, by making them feel guilty, by not being able to be like, yeah, you don't have to open up your kid's backpack if you don't want to. You can spend three hours a day. That's what works for you and your family, right? There is no one way. We have to stop guilting people and making them feel guilty about like, this is the way that you have to do it. This is what it means to be a good mom. Yeah, because what the fuck is a good mom? There is no definition for a good mom. There's not. but people will make you believe that there is. And that's what we need to dismantle. That's what we need to dismantle. And it starts with us. If weight management is something you've been thinking about, one thing worth knowing is how the options have changed recently. Weight Loss by HERS now offers access to an affordable range of FDA-approved GLP-1 medications, including the Wegovi pill and the Wegovi pen. The pill is the first GLP-1 medication of its kind, which means you can pursue the same treatment category without needing injections. Everything is 100% online. You connect with a licensed provider who determines if treatment is right for you. And if prescribed, the medication is delivered right to your door. The support side is also worth noting. With hers, you get a treatment plan personalized to you. 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Like, are you shaming? Stop. And I was like, you're almost signing a pledge. It's like, you have to, I feel like it's like built in women's DNA, in our biology, in our culture, that like, it's so hard for us that like, we think that the way we make ourselves feel better about our choices by judging someone else's. Yeah. It just is. But at the end of it- And it's a tactic. and everything around us encourages that. The politicians, the policymakers, the ad sellers, the people who sell us shit, it's all built in. It's like I was saying in Instagram, when they beta tested that, they literally knew that if they put a like button in, they would addict teen girls and moms. So true. And this is what it is. It's like the like button. No, a million percent. And I think that's exactly what happened to me. What I said made people think about themselves and in that way, they weren't able to just make it about me. It was like, it wasn't about the hours that I spent. No, it made them- It was a reflection on what they were doing. It made them feel better to judge you. No doubt, no doubt. So what do you say to a woman who is sitting at home, who's just thinking about what they're trying to do to make their life better than for themselves, to show up for their family? What do you actually want to say to her? I want to say to her, do what is right for you. Make the choice that is right for you and feel good about that choice. And join our movement to fight for the structural changes that we collectively need to make every woman be able to do that. You and I are privileged enough to make the choices that are able to work for us because we have the support we need and we can pay for it. Vast majority of women don't, I mean, 55% of Americans can't afford to buy the essentials. So to me, like when you actually make childcare affordable in this country, when you give people paid leave so that they can mentally and physically recover, you enable them to be able to make the choices. I think that that diminishes the angst, the regret, and like the things that like enable us to be those rage baiters online. It's all the same because it's a distraction. And like literally, Emma, like as I worked in this documentary for three years, we've been doing this since the 1900s. this ain't new because it works it keeps us oppressed and suppressed and it keeps us hating one another and in fact there's no need for it we all want the same thing we all literally I don't care if you voted for Donald Trump you know what I mean it's not a political thing no it's not political at all we want the same exact thing but we're too distracted and divided to realize it like we can have this tomorrow and do you really believe that? Do you really think that in this country, you know, because again, so many times when I've had this conversation with friends of mine, they're like, yeah, Emma, you know, you can talk about, you know, the UK, you can talk about Sweden, but these are tiny little countries. It quite literally isn't possible in America. And every single one of those women who lead these movements across the country, they look at me and they smile. And I say, well, why do you think it's like this here? And they look at me and they smile and they say, because you're so divided. and if you weren't, it's not like that. It's not like that in the UK. You know that. It's not like that in India. We don't engage in these kinds of things. No. It's a manufactured divide that exists that is deeply American and it's deeply about American women. We stand in many ways in the way, we stand in our own way of our own emancipation. Oh shit. You really believe that? I really believe that. All right. So this is Aspire. So we have to talk about money and you love talking about money because we're always talking about what women, you know, why they're not, you know, paid and supported for the actual work they do. What is the connection between power and care, freedom and money? Like how is that all so inextricably linked? Yeah. So one of the things that drives me bonkers is we love to talk about how much women, how much money women are about to get, right? The infusion of capital into women. This is like the time, but if you're not spending that money, I don't care. So many of like, so many of the issues that I work on, the reason why we don't have paid leave of childcare in America is because we don't invest in it. There's not enough women philanthropists that are putting money into these issues and causes to get us there quicker. You may buy five Birkin bags this week, but you can't write a thousand dollar check. I mean, I'm sure you've experienced this in the work that you're doing all the time. We have a funny relationship with money. No shit. We're not able to like say it again louder for the people in the back. Yes. We're too attached to it in some ways. Yes. Way too attached to it. Way too attached to it. And yet in the same way, way too attached to it and yet hiding from it constantly. Right. But it's the one thing again that will help us get to the things that we actually want. If we're able to talk about that, we like, again, like we, you should get paid for what you deserve and what you earn, right? Like you shouldn't be afraid to ask for that promotion, to ask for that raise. Like you don't need to be a martyr, right? Secondly, for example, in my business, right? In my speaking business and the things I do, we're always like, how much you make for doing that thing? Always. Always. No one wants to tell you. Nobody wants to tell you. I'll tell you all the things. I'll tell you all of them. Right. Because if you make more, I make more. Right. And if we share with, because I see men do this all the time. My husband's a venture capitalist. I see them do this all the time. Let me tell you, it is game changing when you share. I'm on an amazing chat with all women that are podcasters. And the other day someone was like, can you believe that I've been asked to do this thing? And they say they don't pay any speakers and they wanted me to come here and da, da, da. I said, I'm doing the keynote on that event and I've been paid. And they were like, it just blew up this whole chat because it was full of women that have done this thing for years and years. And they were like, wait a minute, I only got paid travel. I didn't get paid a thing. I just got a book by. I said, no, book by cash, cash, cash. What are you talking about? But it's so interesting because it would be so hard to have that conversation unless like we made that chat for that. I was like, this is where we're having a conversation. And it was, I mean, I didn't put it together. It was put together by two incredible other women who shall remain nameless. Cause I think it's a bit of a secret society. Having said that, if you want to join, you can join. But it's, um, but it's so interesting to me that, that, that, that we had to create a forum for that to happen because it isn't happening because we're not sharing that information because we're not honest about the fact that actually we want to make money. Well, I think we were taught from the time we're little to be, to like, to not, you know, to be small, to be meek, to like- Yeah, it's social conditions. We're socially conditioned to not have that relationship with money. I also think it's a way to control women. And so this is a new muscle. And we've seen the power of men being able to share that in terms of what their salaries look like and what, you know, how much they're to raise for their companies or what they make as podcasters. But I don't think people have really particularly understood how much talking about it and sharing it is linked to getting it. Yeah. Like we think that there's some like secret code and that somehow men have figured it all out. I'm like, I'm pretty sure 80% of it is that they talk about it and they share the information. And they understand what the market is. Like I know my market rate. Yeah. If you know what your friend got over there or what he paid for over there, you've got a starting point. You have some leverage. If we never talk about it and we hide from it, where do you even begin? Yeah, I think this is a place where there are not enough places and spaces for women to be able to do that. And it goes back to the fact that we are so taught to compete with one another. And we are so taught to think that there's like limited scarce resources. I don't know, maybe it's being a Hindu, maybe it's like my spiritual background. Like to me, I'm like, you can take my whole Rolodex. When I stepped down as CEO, I made sure that the woman that was gonna sit in my seat was a woman of color. I was like, this is it. once you get power, you have to pass it on and pass it on and pass it on and pass it on. And a lot of that does mean sharing about money and wealth and resources. It 100% does. You, it's something that you talk about, the Marshall Plan for Moms. Yeah. Can you talk about, will you explain that? Yeah. I mean, when I started Moms First, it was called the Marshall Plan for Moms. I'm a nerd, right? People are like, what's that? What are you talking about? It was like, it felt like when COVID happened, like that the world was decimated, that we needed someone to come in with a big, bold plan of how we were going to actually fix the system to make it work for moms. And so it was called the Marshall Plan for Moms. But when people hear pay mothers, they immediately like, you know, pull back from that because they're like, well, motherhood is a choice. Yeah. No, mothers should be paid. What do you say to that? I think mothers should be paid. And when we started this, we said mothers should be paid $2,400. We did the math based on like, you know, some other programs. But I think that idea made people feel so uncomfortable because they assume that you should be doing it for free. But what mothers are actually doing is like, there's a dollar figure to it. We decided way back a long time ago to not actually quantify that labor in our GDP. That was a mistake. Was there an actual decision not to do that? Yeah, there was actually a decision not to do that. And a lot of friends like my friend Eve Rodsky are actually trying to shift that and put it back into the GDP. Because if you ask a lot of women, they would say, I would love to stay home. And there's a cause. There's a reason why we have a declining birth rate. Right, because it is too damn expensive to have a child and people are opting out. And every country that has a declining birth rate, I mean, our replacement rate is now at 1.6. That's bad for our economy. That's really bad for our economy. Yeah, and other nations, you'd incentivize people. You'd be throwing money at people to have kids. Well, because there's plenty of conversation about the declining birth rate. The manos feel want to chat about it. Oh, they love it. They want to talk about it, but they don't have any solutions for it, which is kind of unusual. Yeah, and my solution- Maybe if you paid mothers, you'd figure it the fuck out. Exactly. And they would choose to do that. And that is not a bad thing. You've spent so much of your life trying to fix these really big and really complex problems. And I wonder what it's cost you. To be honest, I think it has given me more than it's cost. I feel so grateful that the gifts that God has given me are commensurate to the things that I actually love. And that I've come to terms with the fact that I may die with less rights than I was born with. Do you think that that is where we are right now? My whole body is dying, as you said. Like you think that as women, we are going to die with less, like our generation is going to die with less rights than we were born with. We might. We might. Isn't that just like a fucking wake up call of life? It should be. It should be. But like. Why are alarm bells not going off everywhere? If that's really true, because I think any woman listening to this would find that entirely shocking. We're immune to it. And I think we've also like people like I'm tired. I'm like, would you rather be tired or dead? we've become complacent in this. And so I spend my days trying to wake people the fuck up and try to say like, this is it. Because think about it. Like when we lost our reproductive rights in this country, you would have thought that women would have been in the streets. If men's rights were determined on whether they had crossed state lines, they would not put up with that. Our rights change depending on what state I'm standing in here. That's unacceptable. It's bonkers. And the fact is like, we got daughters. Like, fine, don't fight for yourself. But what about all these little girls that are literally depending upon us? And I also believe what makes me so upset about this is I actually believe that if we decided that we had had enough, it would be enough. That it's not about them. It's easy to blame men, but it's really about us. I think this goes back to why I'm so focused on this issue. I think the reason why this happens is because we're so busy fighting each other. This is the one place where I do believe it's on us. It is on us. We can change this, but once we have to stop fighting with each other, we have to stop getting distracted and divided and come together and say, this is a change that we want to see. 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Macy's is the kind of store that meets you wherever you are in the season. what do we do like what is the answer the biggest way that this changes is to we got to win some fights that we can win because you know like when you win stuff again i'm coming back from the knicks it's like when you it feels so damn good like we kind of need some wins and i think child care and paid leave are two big wins i think the third thing is is like we gotta and aside from like when you mentioned like New York, for example, which is extremely important, but is there momentum? Like, are you seeing momentum? And do you feel, I mean, because again, with this current administration, it is not on their agenda. And it should be. Like if you want people to be having more babies, you know what I mean? If you're all about families, you would think that you would be the first. You might have to switch it up. Yeah, you would think he'd be running the past. I mean, and we know, again, it's not a partisan issue that like, it is the linchpin of affordability. So you would think that this administration would get it done. and you know what, if they do, great. But in the meantime- Two such big different things, right? Talk to me about paid leave. Like, where are we? Are we getting any closer? So I think that we are much further on childcare. And the reason is, is because people are seeing childcare as an affordability issue. And so in this moment right now, that's getting a lot more traction. But I think that where the opportunity is for paid leave is great, we want universal childcare. So what about zero to two? shouldn't, isn't the cheapest way actually to offer childcare. It's because it's very expensive as someone who builds businesses and manufacturing. And it's expensive to put babies in childcare centers. That's expensive. Really expensive. Because you can only have a certain amount of people. You need certain facilities. It might be cheaper to actually supplement people's income. And it's better. But that's not how they're looking at it, right? They're not looking at it. It's this or this. They're just saying, well, right now we're doing nothing. I am not dying until this country passes paid leave because I think it is critical, not just for the children, but so many of us are taking care of our elderly parents. You know, like the way a country treats its children and its elderly parents is to me a symbol and a sign of their humanity and their integrity. Where do you look globally and say like, they've got it right? The Swedes. The Swedes killed it, didn't they? The Swedes killed it. And you know, it's so funny because you see it in Sweden. You sit when you go there. No, no, no. You literally, you know, of course, I'm married to a Swede, and so I've been to Sweden hundreds of times. And when I first met my husband, he'd be out in the street, you know, in the morning and go and get a coffee, and there'd just be all these dads, like, with their strollers. And, you know, I'd be like, what's this? Some kind of dad's club? And he's like, no, that's just Sweden. Like, you know, you get to choose which partner is going to take the maternity leave. You get to actually have that choice. and it's fully paid and fully funded. And should you choose to go back to work, there is just childcare for your kids. And I was like, wow. Yeah. Fully state funded. And I think the thing is, is that, and people are happy. And here's the thing. I think American hustle culture, and you see this with the advent of AI, I think it's like having a slow death. I'm sure you see this. And like people don't want to do what we had to do to get to where we got to. They want a different kind of life. And I actually think that that's a good thing. And so we're going to have to, as we start thinking about the future of work, we're going to have to start thinking about what are people's preferences? The reason why women and people of color are not excited about AI because work has never worked for them. I mean, there's two things, right? Like five billionaires are deciding everything. And like the truth of the matter is, I don't trust their morality. I think that it's not going in the right direction because the people that are making decisions don't have people's interests at heart. If my Girls Who Code students who are building the next AI companies, I'd be like, this could be good, you know? Or if we were fixing, like you can't be excited about the future of work if you don't actually fix work. So like, let's fix work and then be talking about the opportunities for AI. And listen, like to me, I'm not enough time. How are you, the guy who works at 7-Eleven, how is AI going to make his life better? Answer me that question first. Answer me that question first. But you're not anti-AI. You actually believe deeply that women and people of color need. I don't think you can be. Here's the thing. It's here. The train is on the station. This is why I'm getting really upset about, you know, when we're seeing, including myself, but many, many women being called out for encouraging women and people of color to learn about AI and to use AI and to utilize AI in their businesses. Because what is our choice at this point? You might not like what it stands for. I think you know this by now. It's always a yes stands, right? I think what people want to hear is like, I think what people want to hear first is like, don't ask me to get excited about the future of work when work has never worked for me. Acknowledge that. Acknowledge that the systems have never been actually set up in order to have women succeed. We don't have flexibility. We don't have childcare. We don't have paid leave. So I can't get excited about this over here when this sucks. And I think what people want to hear, People want to hear before you tell me to sign up for that Claude class, just acknowledge this. I get it. And I, by the way, I 100% agree with you. I'm saying what, what causes such offense is a little bit like your argument. You know, it's like, instead of hitting everybody against each other, should we just like move forward and do the thing and like make the change and have the conversation? And do you know what I mean? It's like, why do we all need to be in this like constant battle with one another because it's not going anywhere. And all we're doing is allowing systems to be created around us where we have no say in how they're actually being made. Well, listen, I think a lot, I mean, I remember like 40% of low-income Americans still don't have broadband because the same thing happened, right? And every technical revolution, there was a subset of people who understood- Is it really that high? 40%? Yeah, yeah. Of low-income Americans because we never laid the broadband lines down there because they were the communities that were the most distrustful, understandably so. So I think the thing is like, we got to learn from the past, but we also in this moment, I think need to be really, really, really clear and understanding why is there skepticism? Why are people distrustful? Because listen, 74% of like young people are like, yeah, no AI. And we, as we've been building Girls Who Code have to be really thoughtful in how we're taught. I couldn't start Girls Who AI today. And I wish and I want the girls in my program to be leading the future of these companies because when they do, right, it will be built right. Exactly what I believe. Because right now they're not being built right. No, they are not. They're not. And we're going to have exactly the same problems all over. You know what doesn't help? Like not getting involved. Pretending it's not happening. Yeah. Screwing you about everybody that is. I don't think that's what's happening, Emma. I don't think that people are like, if I think about like what my students are doing, it's not that they're not learning or on there or talking about it. I think that they're like calling up the concerns because we are in a moment right now where there's like a flagrant disregard. And so like, there's like, fuck, we don't need any regulation. Let them just build. And that's bullshit too. And that is entire bullshit because what we're seeing around the world in perhaps, you know, more advanced cultures, shall we say? Right. It's very different in Europe. It's very different because they've legislated all over the place. And they have done in Australia and New Zealand. And they've done that to protect children from social media, as well as put rules and regulations and guardrails around AI. Yeah, because they don't engage in these same cultural conversations as we are. And maybe they have leaders that are a little more trustworthy. Perhaps. I want to ask you about your own kids because they feature quite prominently in the documentary. What do they understand about the work that you do? Oh my God. You know, my older one, Sean, I always call him like, he's a little Gandhi. He's like a Buddha, right? And we were, and listen, when I had two boys, I was like, God, what is up? You know, like I was, all I wanted, Emma, was a little girl. Really? All I wanted was one, I'll borrow yours. So I wasn't fully prepared to be a boy mom, but God gives you exactly what you deserve. And so Sean, when I, you know, I'd taken all my speeches and all my things and he would take me aside and be like, mommy, mommy, mommy, you're like, but what about the boys? I'm like, you're too young. You'll understand later. And then we'd be walking down, you know, 8th Avenue. He'd be like, look, he's homeless and he's a man. See, why don't you go help him too? And after a while, I realized, you know what? You're right. It's not either or. Boys are suffering. Men are suffering. And we are in this place of so much disconnection between men and women because we keep talking about our divisions rather than the things that actually bring us together. And so it's so funny how our children can be our biggest teachers because I really resisted Emma speaking about that. And when I talk about my comment section, every time I did, I would get slammed. Yeah. Right? I bet. Every single time. And I would say to folks, God, no, I'm going to keep talking about this. I'm going to keep talking about the importance of our connection. I'm going to keep talking about the fact that we do have to have empathy for men that are also going through it. And that we do have to actually spend time building male allyship in this because I just want to win. I don't need to be right. Same. And it feels to me like you're going to need men. We're going to need men. We're going to need men. If this is going to actually happen. And we're going to need to make sure that our men are oftentimes not co-opted by the same lies that they keep feeding them, that they need to hate women. Yeah. that women are the problem, that they're the reason. That's it, right? That women are the problem. Yeah. They're the problem that they're not getting ahead, that they feel sad and lonely, that they're not getting what they need. We did it. And so like, and I don't know if you do, like I watch the things that Sean watches on YouTube and I see the subtle messages. Oh, of course. Yes, yes, yes. I am constantly in conversation with my kids about, you know, as soon as I hear it and I hear it so frequently. Yeah. You know, in the most innocent way, but I'm like, Did you hear that? Right. Did you pick up on that? Right. And they're not living in our household, so they're not, I mean, they're living in our household, so they're attuned to it. Right. But think about so many other young men. No, they don't know the difference. Right. And they take it as gospel. What do you still aspire to do or to become? I aspire to finish the work that I'm on right now. I aspire to make sure that like the progress that I've fought for Girls Who Code is not rolled back. And I'm sure there will be something else. like another societal problem, probably still about women. The thing that I feel like I really resolved the past few years, I had this epiphany. I was like, oh wait, like it may be like an unsung hero. Like what is all this for if I don't win? And all the sacrifices, all the things I missed, all the sleepless nights, all the appointments with my cardiologist, right? You can't think like that. Yeah. No, because you would have inspired so many people and somebody will take the mantle and at some point it gets done. And that was where I came to. It's not about like, I am just like we stand on so many people's shoulders. I am just one point in this journey. Yes. And that felt freeing. Yeah, it has to. It has to. Thank you. For all of us. All right, I'm going to take you to some rapid fire. Okay, so my line is start with yourself. Yours used to be brave, not perfect. What is it today? I think it's still like be brave. Why is it so hard for women to be brave? That's not in my- Because we haven't been taught how to. We haven't, we've never practiced it. Right. It's like, oftentimes when we feel the smallest bit of like fear, insecurity, we're coddled and we're taken out of it. Like we can't do a cartwheel gymnastics. It's okay, honey. You don't have to go back. Move on. Move on. And so we haven't been able to sit with the discomfort. I think the biggest thing that you can teach your daughters right now is to do hard shit and not succeed at it. Yeah. Yeah. Constantly. I feel like I'm teaching people in the workplace to do that all the time. Yeah. I'm like, you didn't fail. Yeah. You're just not good at it. Yeah. And I'm not going to tell you that it's, or you did fail. It's okay. Yeah. It's all right. Yeah. That's how you become great. You're going to get better. That's how you get great. Yeah. It's like none of us wake up great. No. Ever. When was the last time you felt brave? I asked Trump a question about childcare and that shit was pretty scary. Can I just tell you, I was about to go off script and ask if you met President Trump, what would you ask? What did you ask? So I was part of the Economic Club in New York. They picked like four people to ask him a question. Like, you want to ask him a question? I'm like, yeah, I want to ask him a question. I asked him a question about child care. And I didn't do a gotcha. I was a straight, like, if you become president, what would you do about child care? And he gave a little bit of a nonsensical answer that went viral. And so child care is child care. Got to do something about it. Now he's changed his mind since then. But it was such a, it was really incredible because it then opened up this conversation about child care. How do you fix it? Then it was asked in the VP debate. And so- So it was bright. is an incredibly brave thing to do. What's the advice that you give that you're kind of not so good at taking yourself? Telling people to take a vacation. I'm horrible at taking a vacation. I am. I just actually, for the first time, went on vacation and put my phone in a drawer for eight days and didn't look at it. I've never done that before. How did that feel? It felt incredible. What's the hardest part about making this documentary film? Doing something I'd never done before and not having control in the process. You know, like I'm a builder. So it's like fast. I got an idea. I'm going to raise the money. It's going to be done. This whole like creative back and forth takes a couple of years, a moment change. I couldn't deal with it. You know what I mean? At all. So it's here. I didn't walk out of the experience being like, I want to make 20 other films. Fair. You know, but I'm proud. I'm really proud of this one. I think it's going to make the impact that, and I mean, I'm really proud of our team. What is a book that's changed your life? The Bhagavad Gita. You know, a couple of years ago, I decided that I am a Hindu, but I had never, like a typical Hindu, had nothing about understanding our religion, you know, because it was the thing like you went to temple in the morning, you did the thing and then it was done. You didn't really know. And so I really wanted to go deep on something that like, I didn't have to go deep on, but my soul wanted to. And so I would say it's Akita. Reshma, thank you so much. Thank you. You're amazing. if you're loving this podcast be sure to click follow on your favorite listening platform while you're there give us a review and a five-star rating and share an episode you love with a friend we'll be so grateful aspire with emma greed is presented by audycy i'm your host emma greed our executive producers are ashley mcshan derrick brown and me executive producers from Odyssey are Asha Saluja and Leah Reese-Dennis producer KK Sublime Stephen Key is our senior producer sound design and engineering by Bill Shultz Angela Peluso is our booker original music by Charles Black video production by Phil Sweetek and Carlos Delgado social media by Olivia Homan Catherine Bale special thanks to Brittany Smith Sydney Ford my teams at The Lead Company and WME Josefina Francis Hilary Schuff, Eric Donnelly, Kate Hutchinson-Rose, Tim Meikle, Evan Cox, Kurt Courtney, Andrew Steele, Sean Cherry, and Lauren Vieira. If you have questions for me, you can DM me at Aspire with Emma Greed. Greed is spelled G-R-E-D-E. That's Aspire, A-S-P-I-R-E, with Emma Greed. Or you can submit a question to me on my website, emmagreed.me.