EXPERTS ON EXPERT: Reshma Saujani

[0] Hello, everybody, and welcome to Experts on Expert.

[1] We have a very fun guest today.

[2] Yeah.

[3] Reshma Sojani.

[4] She was wonderful.

[5] She was really wonderful and was very, very intriguing to see two gals in a very similar situation take drastically different routes.

[6] Yes, we talk about a little bit on here.

[7] You mean because she's Indian and I'm Indian.

[8] Yeah, that's right.

[9] And I was really excited to have someone else that had similar.

[10] childhood dynamics is you in here.

[11] Right.

[12] We get a lot of white guys in here that I bond with, you know?

[13] Yeah.

[14] And she's a fascinating woman.

[15] She has a great book that's out right now called Fearless, Fail More, and Live Boulder.

[16] Brave, not perfect.

[17] And you may recognize her as the founder of Girls Who Code, which was a New York Times bestseller.

[18] And just a generally fascinating person.

[19] So please enjoy Reshma Sujani.

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[22] Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts.

[23] He's an armchair expert.

[24] We're so afraid to pronounce your last name.

[25] Sojani.

[26] Sajani.

[27] Sajani.

[28] Suh.

[29] I don't know how to spell.

[30] I'm dyslexic.

[31] How did you tell him to say my first name?

[32] Reshma or Rishma?

[33] I said Rishma, yeah.

[34] And I do that too.

[35] Wait, wait, it's not Rishma?

[36] Well, see.

[37] You say Rishma?

[38] If I'm kind of Indian people, I say Rishma, but it's really Rishma.

[39] I say Rishma most of the time.

[40] Rishma is from Rishams, which means silk.

[41] Ah.

[42] We have a good friend name Rishma.

[43] Yeah.

[44] So I was like, oh, she must be Rishma.

[45] It's super common.

[46] It's like Jennifer.

[47] Yeah, yeah.

[48] But it's supposed to be pronounced Rishma.

[49] And really.

[50] You can say it.

[51] Yeah, you know, I've noticed that a lot of Indian names that have a T are pronounced just like, you know, like Amrida.

[52] Yeah.

[53] But in India, it's Amritha.

[54] Oh, you get that nice T -H with just a T. Yeah.

[55] How convenient.

[56] I know.

[57] It should be like math.

[58] As close as we can get it to math should be the goal.

[59] Right.

[60] Do you agree with that, Rushma?

[61] You don't have a take on this.

[62] Yeah, no, no. On this hot button topic?

[63] I just love math.

[64] You want everything to be mad.

[65] I do.

[66] I want the world to be predictable and I want it to be able to be controlled and I don't want to feel ever.

[67] You don't want a TH where there's only a T. That's right.

[68] So does that mean you like astrologers and psychics are not really?

[69] No, I can't stand them.

[70] I mean, God bless everyone who enjoys that.

[71] I think that's great entertainment.

[72] But no, astrology is a very unique experience in college where in an astronomy class, the astronomy teacher invited an astrologer.

[73] astrologist in, and we all wrote down our birthdays, and then this man handed out pieces of paper.

[74] Long story short, we all got the piece of paper, and we read them.

[75] And then the person next to him said, yeah, this is exactly.

[76] And then he looked this piece of paper.

[77] He's like, no, no, you're supposed to.

[78] It turned out they were all one off.

[79] We all had our neighbors piece of paper, and then we got our piece of paper, and we're like, oh, yeah, this is me to a tea.

[80] But we had just said that about the wrong.

[81] Oh, don't try so disappointing.

[82] I'm obsessed with psychics and stronger.

[83] Oh, you are.

[84] How fun.

[85] Now, listen, I'm supportive of it for you.

[86] I'm supportive of people who believe in God for them.

[87] Just personally, it's not for me. I don't believe in it.

[88] But if someone gets joy out of it and meaning in their life, then Godspeed.

[89] Is that what we say?

[90] I think so.

[91] Okay, well, Reshma, welcome to the attic.

[92] I'm really excited for numerous reasons that you're here.

[93] Oh, cool.

[94] first and foremost is that you and you and monica the my soulmate monica have uh you know a shared experience to some degree as growing up indian uh in this this land of ours and but right away i i asked you which is probably uncouth of me but i said your parents maybe were north indian because i know she's you're a little darker wow he did and then i thought oh well will these two experiences be as compatible or paralleled as i was hoping for.

[95] But let's find out.

[96] I want you to have a sister to bond with.

[97] I know.

[98] You're dying for me to have a companion in my experience.

[99] But so, Reschma, you, your parents left India at some point and they ended up in Uganda, yeah?

[100] Yeah, two generations of my family way back when.

[101] So your parents were born in Uganda?

[102] My father was born in Uganda, and I think one set of my grandparents were born there.

[103] So they were brought over by the British to build railroads from Kampala to Mombasa.

[104] Oh, okay.

[105] British imperialism always starts there.

[106] Yeah.

[107] So there's tons, if you go to Africa, there's tons and tons and tons of Indians there.

[108] I mean, Mahath -Bakandhi had this powerful, like, transformative experience in South Africa.

[109] So there's a lot of us there.

[110] And when Idi Amin came into power, he kicked all the Indians out?

[111] Yes.

[112] What was the rationale for that?

[113] Nationalism.

[114] Ah.

[115] basically felt like the Indians were taking away jobs from, you know, from folks that have been in Uganda and just kind of woke up one day and said, you have 90 days to leave the country or you'd be shot on spot.

[116] Now, he was a little crazy and known to be a little crazy.

[117] Sure.

[118] Yeah.

[119] If anyone who wants an entertaining course on Idiot, I mean, watch Last King of Scotland.

[120] Phenomenal movie.

[121] Great movie.

[122] Yeah.

[123] And our man, Forrest Whitaker's.

[124] that's the problem when you get someone as charismatic as Forrest Whitaker playing like an evil historical figure.

[125] I kind of like, I kind of dug him, you know?

[126] Yeah.

[127] In like rhythm, I was like, oh, I kind of dig, I mean.

[128] Like, he seems to know how to party.

[129] Yeah, I think my parents might disagree with you, yes.

[130] So at what age were you when they left?

[131] You were not born yet or you were born?

[132] No, I wasn't born yet.

[133] So my parents had a pretty huge family, right?

[134] I think, you know, my mother had nine brothers and sisters.

[135] My dad had six.

[136] And so everybody was scrambling to get refugee status.

[137] And my parents were the only ones out of the family that ended up getting essentially status to come to the United States.

[138] And it was like the 1970s and people here were like desperately seeking engineers.

[139] My parents were fortunate to be two engineers.

[140] And so my mother was pregnant with my sister.

[141] And so they literally got out a map of the United States.

[142] My father took out a dart.

[143] He threw it and it landed in Chicago, Illinois.

[144] and that's where they went.

[145] The entire...

[146] The lucky throw for him.

[147] Good throw.

[148] Not a ton of engineering jobs in, say, Saskatchewan.

[149] Yeah, bad throw because of the weather, because they showed up in, like, January and, like, shorts.

[150] That's true.

[151] Which was not a good move.

[152] Yeah.

[153] But the rest of my family ended up in basically refugee camps all across Europe.

[154] And did they find gainful employment as engineers in Chicago?

[155] I mean, my father worked as a machinist in a plant.

[156] My mother sold cosmetics for a while.

[157] My dad always tells a story of, like, he would, like, send his resume out over and over and over, and he would get a rejection.

[158] And my father's name is Mukund.

[159] And I remember this recruiter told him, you know, why don't you change your name to Mike?

[160] Uh -huh.

[161] And have your mom change her name from Madhu to Mina.

[162] And that might make it easier for you.

[163] And sure enough.

[164] And it did.

[165] It did.

[166] He got a job.

[167] And so now this, let's get right into this, because I think this is a very fascinating thing.

[168] I, I, do you like Yuval Harari, have you read any of his books?

[169] Sapiens or Homo Deus, the new ones.

[170] The new one.

[171] Yep.

[172] Yeah, 21 lessons for the 21st century.

[173] He has a breakdown of the immigration issue that I found very enlightening.

[174] He put it in a way that I felt like did a good job of not vilifying either side, but just really thoughtfully explaining how both sides of this issue feel.

[175] When he said in essence was the people that are anti -immigration, they want the immigrants to, assimilate, and if they assimilate, then they'll grant them first -class status as citizens.

[176] And the people are very pro -immigration are like, come here, we'll grant you first -class status, and then you assimilate.

[177] It's not that they really disagree on the two components of immigration.

[178] It's the order of which.

[179] Yeah.

[180] And I just found that really fascinating.

[181] Yeah, and I definitely think my parents were on the assimilation front, changing their name.

[182] My father would go to Toastmasters because he was.

[183] really wanted to get rid of his accent.

[184] What's Toastmasters?

[185] Toastmasters.

[186] Yeah, that's sad.

[187] You're getting sad.

[188] Yeah.

[189] I know.

[190] It's really sad.

[191] But, you know, he felt like if Toastmasters is like almost like a public speaking club.

[192] Oh, like a workshop or.

[193] So he would go every week and essentially practice speaking more American.

[194] I think this is cute.

[195] You hate it?

[196] Well, I thought it's sad because I think assimilation is necessary.

[197] But to what extent.

[198] where you have to change your name and your voice and all, like, you have to change your whole person to belong somewhere.

[199] That's sad to me. And no one's asking Americans who live here to change into something specific to exist.

[200] Well, but they've not gone anywhere.

[201] If they go to France and they want to get along and co -mingle with French people, they're going to have to learn French.

[202] That's expected of them.

[203] If I go to some other country, I go with the expectation that I'm going to have to, follow their customs, their culture, all that stuff.

[204] Or I can choose not to, and then I won't reap many of the rewards that I would had I assimilated.

[205] So it's all kind of, to me, it's dispassionate, not personal math.

[206] Like, if he had changed his name at home, your father, yeah, that's sad.

[207] If he got rid of his core values, that's sad, all these things that are your real identity.

[208] But if on applications, he's going by Mike and at his job for eight hours a day, Mike, I don't see that as a huge thing if that's your goal.

[209] Well, my father still signs my birthday cards, happy birthday Mike.

[210] Oh, he does?

[211] He really, I mean, because I think for him to be American meant to be Mike and to be accepted, and I mean, you have to understand, my parents came to this country late 70s.

[212] You know, when in our neighborhood there were very few Indians.

[213] You know, my father didn't want us to speak Gujarati at home, you know, because they wanted us to not get bullied at school.

[214] So my mother wouldn't wear her sari.

[215] When she wore her sorry at Kmart, she would get harassed.

[216] So there was, it was not about, it was about protection and wanting to be safe and make sure your children are safe.

[217] And so a lot of that, you had to deny who you were.

[218] And I don't know how, Monica, you grew up, but I definitely, you know, up until 12 kind of went through the same thing.

[219] You know, I wanted to be white.

[220] I was mad that like I would go, you know, I remember distinctly going into Kmart and wanting desperately one of those keychains that had my name on.

[221] Oh my God.

[222] I had that exact same.

[223] And I'm like, round and round and round.

[224] And I'm like, God, why didn't you just name me Rachel?

[225] You know, so I could have one of these key chains.

[226] And it was really, I mean, really traumatic, right?

[227] As a child to not feel like you belonged and to kind of be embarrassed when your friends came over or maybe your mom made Indian food and it smelled something.

[228] Or, you know, I would say I write about this in my book.

[229] It's like, or, you know, in our culture, you like what we call you bug -a -log someone's feet.

[230] So you touch an elder's feet out of respect and praying that, like, my parents wouldn't ask me to do that when I had, like, friends over.

[231] Oh, sure.

[232] You know, the whole thing was shaming, like, you know, and being invited to, like, a Christianing and, like, pretending like, I knew, like, you know, knew how to read the Bible and, you know, denying that I was a Hindu.

[233] And so a lot of it was about shame and denial.

[234] And I think that that's really, really hard middle schooler.

[235] A thousand percent.

[236] And I become intimately aware with this story because Monica's is the exact same.

[237] It's like...

[238] Yeah, except mine is, it's a little less fair to my parents because my parents are you.

[239] Like my grandparents came and...

[240] Well, not your father, right?

[241] Your father came.

[242] My dad, but he's like...

[243] He's his own thing.

[244] He's his own thing.

[245] But my mom's parents came when.

[246] she was six.

[247] So she grew up in Savannah.

[248] So she sort of had your experience, I would say.

[249] But I still took all of that on kind of for no reason.

[250] Like I had the keychain thing, but sometimes my name was on there.

[251] Like my name's Monica.

[252] It's a totally American name.

[253] But I would still, like, I still was burdened by all those things.

[254] And maybe it wasn't as fair.

[255] Now I'm seeing.

[256] Now as an adult.

[257] Because it's worse for her?

[258] because maybe some of it, like, wasn't real.

[259] Well, and it's just, it's, it's hurtful to be embarrassed or shamed by your parents who love you so much.

[260] So you're at one point, how could you not want to be included?

[261] No one wants to be excluded or excommunicated.

[262] You want to be on the in -group, but you have this obvious thing about your skin color is different.

[263] And then now when you go to your house, yes, it might smell different because of the food.

[264] Your parents have accents.

[265] Maybe they dress different.

[266] All that stuff is just piling on your talking.

[267] total fear of being excluded.

[268] And then, though, and this is where your mind gets tricky, and then it becomes confirmation bias.

[269] So you're already, you're now looking for all the many ways that you're excluded out of pattern.

[270] So, yeah, you're not finding Monica, although Monica's an American name, but it falls into this just general feeling of being excluded.

[271] Yeah.

[272] And it gets really hard to unravel our thoughts and our feelings and what is our stuff and what is culture.

[273] So let me just, I just want to back up and make it very clear.

[274] clear.

[275] It's important to parse out these different things.

[276] So there's assimilation.

[277] Then there's people that are being racist, bigoted, all those things, which is horrendous.

[278] No one should be making fun of anyone at Kmart because they're wearing a certain thing.

[279] So patently wrong, right?

[280] So there's many facets to the whole thing.

[281] And one is if I go, in my opinion, if I go to, you know, Mexico and I want to move there and no one can pronounce Dax.

[282] And I, and I want to get a job, that's not a personal issue.

[283] Now, if I'm at a store and everyone's pointing at my ugly white skin, now that's something that's on them.

[284] And, you know, it's just, there's so much there to unpack.

[285] There's no blanket statement that'll work for this thing.

[286] I think, though, there's a narrative about America and that America is, you know, a bunch of different cultures with lots of different funny names and lots of smelling food and lots of different accents.

[287] And so there's not one definition of what it means to be American.

[288] And I think one of the things for me is I went through, you know, in the 70s and 80s, I was bullied at school.

[289] I did get beat up because of my skin color.

[290] My house was tepeeed and spray painted.

[291] And I went through what you said, which is like, they're just not going to accept me. Yeah.

[292] So I'm going to find people like me. And so so much of my social circle became Indian.

[293] So much of who I hung out with was that.

[294] And so, But then when I got older, I remember the very time, I remember reading about a girl that was, I think, South Asian, and she was homecoming queen of her school.

[295] It was like, wow.

[296] It's changing.

[297] Yeah.

[298] And you saw this really huge change, I think, happened in the 90s, in 2000s, where you saw people who look like us on covers of magazines and in television shows and you saw interracial relationships and you saw acceptance.

[299] And now again, right?

[300] When we watch, you know, the video of those boys at the school, you know what I mean, and the Native American man, you feel like, again, we have this kind of movement towards nationalism.

[301] And I think it's scary for someone like me who lived through that period, came out of it, and now see us regressing.

[302] People are looking for the group they belong to and then defining themselves by the group that they don't belong to.

[303] And that's just bad hardware that we have, you know.

[304] Yeah, it's like the eyes of the, you know, the eyes of the oppressed becomes the.

[305] oppressor.

[306] Mm -hmm.

[307] Mm -hmm.

[308] Okay, so what's interesting, though, is that Monica crushed being a white girl.

[309] So she had posters of friends in her room.

[310] She was on the cheer squad.

[311] They went to states and she won.

[312] So it's interesting that you eventually had to find your way back to your community out of last resort, it sounds like.

[313] Thousand percent.

[314] I dated only South Asian men in high school and college.

[315] My definition of cheer group was doing Garba, which is an Indian dance.

[316] You know what I mean?

[317] Competitions.

[318] All of, you know, all of my friends, you know, Junku, Julie Reshma, we're all South Asian.

[319] We didn't go to the homecoming dances.

[320] We had our own homecoming dances.

[321] Wow.

[322] It was a whole like South Asian mafia.

[323] And did you feel a lot of camaraderie?

[324] Like I had imagined.

[325] Yeah.

[326] I would imagine that you almost are bonding to those people on a deeper level than even I am in my white in group in my high school.

[327] because there's this shared experience you guys are all going through.

[328] Yeah, and we all kind of started wanting to assimilate, right?

[329] Wanting to be white.

[330] And then all of us failed in that, whether through some traumatic experience that I had or, you know, liked a boy who didn't like them back.

[331] And then ended up.

[332] Oh, that's the defining moment for Monica.

[333] Yeah, but it didn't stop me. And then ended up finding community with each other.

[334] Yeah.

[335] That's sweet.

[336] And then that carried on too.

[337] Well, you're married currently.

[338] to a brown man to an is he indian so you you fell into the expected pattern the kind of stereotype i would apply to the first generation indian daughter is you became an overachiever yeah total overachiever you know salictorian in my high school like essentially valedictorian of my college you know street days perfect grades perfect indian daughter you know went to all the right schools had all the right jobs you know i remember when i got an internship when i was working working at a law firm over the summer, you know, I took my first paycheck home and my father framed it, you know, because they had never seen so much money before.

[339] I mean, I was the quintessential good Indian daughter living the great American dream.

[340] And I was supposed to be happy.

[341] Now, this is so anecdotal because I only have about four Indian friends, but one little pattern I seem that seems to emerge.

[342] And again, this very well may just be a general immigrant pattern.

[343] But it feels specific to y 'all is the parents' obsession with security.

[344] and safety.

[345] Well, I think it was like first, you know, personal safety.

[346] So I don't know about you, but I wasn't allowed to be in a car with a boy until I was like 17.

[347] You know, I wasn't able to date.

[348] I wasn't able to go to sleepovers.

[349] Were you allowed to go to sleepovers?

[350] Oh, yeah.

[351] Oh, see, I was not allowed to go to sleepovers, like, in fear that someone, like, would molest me. Oh, right.

[352] Yeah, the caution.

[353] There's a lot of caution and coddling and protection.

[354] I mean, like, I never learned how to ski or, like, do anything that was mildly dangerous.

[355] And then there's the financial security.

[356] So I think what's different in a lot of ways how we raise young women here in America is my father wanted me to get a great job and make a lot of money and have financial security.

[357] Because in many ways, that would make me more appealing to a man who would then marry me. And then I wouldn't have to work, right, if I didn't, if I didn't want to.

[358] Yeah, I'm kind of impressed, again, I know far too few people to be making these assertions.

[359] but I would just say that there seems to be at least comparatively between different groups a kind of a lack of misogyny or at least this, you know, encouragement for women to find real employment and real careers.

[360] That at least seems to differ from some of the groups that come here.

[361] Do you think that's specific to?

[362] But not if it's for the purpose of being an attractive mate.

[363] That's still misogynistic.

[364] Sure.

[365] But is that the reason?

[366] Yes.

[367] I have not experienced that.

[368] But it's common, I think.

[369] That's really common.

[370] Let's put it this way.

[371] There's an expectation that your daughter is still going to be a professional.

[372] It's not like some other cultures where your expectations your daughter's going to find a good husband that will provide for them.

[373] I think your daughter's going to become a professional so she's more appealing to the husband who's going to take care of her.

[374] So for example, what's wild is, you know, when you think about, obviously, my work is in the gender gap in technology.

[375] But in India, for example, you don't have a problem of women entering the time.

[376] technology workforce, you have a problem of keeping them there because when they get married, they're supposed to leave and be a good wife.

[377] And so a lot of the intervention is actually happening with mother -in -laws to basically, you know, essentially sell them, right, on their daughter -in -law staying in the workforce.

[378] Being a mentor and saying, absolutely, don't give that up.

[379] Yeah.

[380] Uh -huh.

[381] Yeah.

[382] Okay, so you find, you find your way to Harvard where you get a master's degree in public policy.

[383] So you did polysci as a BA.

[384] Yeah.

[385] And then you went to Yale Law School.

[386] This is the first time I've ever read this.

[387] What is a jurist doctor?

[388] A JD.

[389] Okay, what's a JD?

[390] It's just like your degree you go.

[391] Law degree.

[392] Yeah.

[393] It's a law degree.

[394] Yeah.

[395] But it's a doctorate degree.

[396] I think it's just called that.

[397] It's called that.

[398] Yeah.

[399] Okay.

[400] So I don't have to call you Dr. Okay.

[401] But you want to.

[402] I would have liked to.

[403] I'm happy for you too.

[404] So I go to Sean Burke High School in the Midwest.

[405] I know you're from the Midwest do, right?

[406] Nobody there really goes to Yale or Harvard, but I'm the overachiever, and I also want to get out of Dodge.

[407] I am like the ambitious young woman trying to like make it in the big city.

[408] And I think, you know, if I go to one of those Ivy League schools I hear about, like I'll get a shot of being accepted, of being seen as smart in, you know, I can go be president of United States.

[409] So I have it from the time that I'm like 13 years old that I want to go to Yale law school.

[410] And I get into the University of Illinois.

[411] You know, my parents couldn't afford to send me anywhere other than that.

[412] I had, like, a full scholarship.

[413] I'm pissed, you know, because I think that, you know, I should be that.

[414] Sure.

[415] And so, you know.

[416] It's a huge failure to have gotten that full ride to the university in Illinois.

[417] Study my butt off.

[418] Do nothing really that much fun.

[419] But end up at the top of my class, graduate in three years, and I am going to Yale School.

[420] I take the test first time, don't do so well.

[421] Not a good test taker.

[422] Take it again.

[423] I mean, keep taking it, keep not doing well enough to get in.

[424] Finally, I settle on Harvard, you know, go get my master's, right?

[425] A little minute.

[426] Yeah.

[427] And, yeah, and finally, I get on to the wait list of you.

[428] Now, everybody in my life thinks I'm like literally losing my mind, right?

[429] Because I have this massive obsession to get this credential that I think is going to open up every door for me. Yeah.

[430] Well, it's going to make you worthy of love and acceptance.

[431] Who wouldn't love and accept someone?

[432] with a Yale degree.

[433] My mentor at that time is this incredible man, Judge Leon Higginbotham, Jr. He was one of the first black federal jurists.

[434] He becomes my mentor, and he says, don't worry, Reshma, I got you.

[435] I'm going to write you a recommendation letter and you are going to Yale Law School.

[436] Right before he does that, he dies.

[437] Oh, no. That's like not a movie.

[438] I'm devastated by his death, but I'm also devastated that.

[439] Sure, yeah.

[440] I've got this recommendation letter, right?

[441] Yeah, you've got multiple feelings about it.

[442] Selfishness, yeah.

[443] So I remember going to the funeral and kind of like hunting for, you know, the head of Yale because he's supposed to be there, right?

[444] So, hey, the dead guy, he was, he was like, he'd already drafted, I believe, a letter.

[445] Did he get anything to your desk?

[446] Yeah, did you see anything pass over your desk?

[447] This is how pathetic perfection is.

[448] And finally, I get an appointment to meet the dean of Yale.

[449] And, you know, I walk in, like, clutching that 10 -year -old U .S. News and World Report that showed that Yale was, like, number one.

[450] And basically try to convince this guy to let me in.

[451] You know, he doesn't call security.

[452] He, like, you know, here's my case.

[453] And he basically is like, look, I can't let you in.

[454] But go to any of the amazing schools you've got into Georgetown.

[455] You know what I mean?

[456] Penn, UVA.

[457] And if you get into the top 10%, I'll let you in.

[458] So sure enough, I'm disappointed.

[459] But I go to Georgetown, you know, failure.

[460] and I am getting in the top 10 % and then transferring to Yale Law School.

[461] So now my dream is like happened.

[462] It's a very scary place, right, to accomplish whatever weird thing you decided was going to make you whole.

[463] Totally.

[464] Because it doesn't really work that way, doesn't it?

[465] Nope.

[466] Got there and proceeded to party my ass off for two years.

[467] Oh, good for you.

[468] You were overdue, it sounds like.

[469] Thank you.

[470] I was totally overdue.

[471] But yeah, it wasn't the magical ticket, right?

[472] And in many ways, I had to meet new friends, and I was a year late, and, like, you know, I had to make new relationships with teachers.

[473] But I was just, again, so, like, thought that this was going to credentialize me. And everything would change.

[474] And that certainly wasn't the case.

[475] Fill that big hole in you, that only astrology can fill.

[476] Yes.

[477] Okay, so you graduate.

[478] I graduate with a shitload of debt.

[479] Okay, great.

[480] Thank you.

[481] I'm like $300 ,000 in student loan debt.

[482] Right?

[483] Right, because I'm, like, racking up these credentials to get to the credential.

[484] I always like to put that in the context.

[485] Just to have a $300 ,000 debt, $300 ,000 debt, you have to now go generate $600 ,000 so that after tax you can pay this up.

[486] So it's really these debts are really, you've got to go out and make $600 ,000 in a hurry.

[487] Right.

[488] And my family, you know, was, you know, working class, middle class, like my father didn't pay for my student loan debt.

[489] I was taking out those loans.

[490] And so now, and the reason why I wanted to go to Yale was because I wanted to change the world.

[491] I wanted to be a public interest lawyer.

[492] But now I got to go work for the man. Sure.

[493] Because I got to go make money to pay off my debt.

[494] Well, hold on, though.

[495] I want you to own, because this is a very safe place to do it.

[496] You also wanted that money, right?

[497] It's not like you were an fucking altruistic angel by design.

[498] Who doesn't want money at 27 years old?

[499] Well, especially coming from a family where a night out was Taco Bell.

[500] Sure.

[501] Right.

[502] Or any family, mine too, where we.

[503] You were broke, so you fetishize money.

[504] There's no way you're going to transcend that just magically.

[505] Totally.

[506] And those internship programs at those fancy law firms certainly help that happen, right?

[507] Because now you're eating in restaurants that you, your parents certainly weren't going to.

[508] You're staying in hotels.

[509] So, yeah, yes.

[510] Okay, thank you.

[511] And so.

[512] That's my version of the Bill O 'Reilly, no spin zone, whatever his thing was.

[513] But mine's all about emotions.

[514] Right.

[515] And then you also think, well, oh.

[516] okay, I can pay that off.

[517] I can work for the man, have a little fun.

[518] Yeah.

[519] You have some freedom, have some money.

[520] Nest egg, maybe.

[521] Make a little nest egg, and then go do what I want to do.

[522] Right.

[523] And that didn't happen.

[524] And the timeline, I wanted it to happen.

[525] Here's the big trap, right?

[526] Is we have all these, like, little barriers we're going to cross.

[527] And then we can do the thing we want, right?

[528] And it's all arbitrary and totally made up in our head.

[529] But the nest egg, right?

[530] Well, let's get the nest egg.

[531] Then we can go do good.

[532] And then the nest egg, whatever you decided that was a safe nest egg, That evolves every time you reach the goal of the nest egg, right?

[533] There's no end to any of these fears, except for actually treating what's causing the fear.

[534] Right.

[535] Okay.

[536] Anyways, I'm getting excited about your story.

[537] And it's like that whole study about how, like, there's like a marginal rate of happiness increased by how much more money you have.

[538] Yeah, like plateaus after 200 grand.

[539] Yeah.

[540] And then it diminishes after like three million a year or something like that.

[541] Yeah.

[542] Right.

[543] Totally.

[544] Some Malcolm Gladwell books stated that eloquently.

[545] Yeah.

[546] So I'm working at these like, you know, securities law firms.

[547] And you're defending people who have been.

[548] in charge with securities fraud.

[549] Horrible people.

[550] But I'm also doing for bono work, right?

[551] So I'm keeping my conscience in my mind.

[552] You're doing asylum seeking?

[553] Doing asylum seeking work.

[554] I'm doing, you know, I had started right when it was, you know, after 9 -11.

[555] And so there were a lot of South Asian immigrants, Pakistani immigrants, who basically because of the Patriot had to show up to the federal building and like basically prove that they were citizens.

[556] And so many of them were terrified.

[557] And so instead of showing up, they were just packing their.

[558] stuff up and leaving.

[559] But some people needed to be defended in state.

[560] And so, you know, I was doing that work with the South Asian community.

[561] I was always into politics.

[562] You know, I worked on campaigns since I was 18.

[563] So I was organizing.

[564] I had started this group, South Asians for Carrie, and like mobilizing the community to like get involved in politics.

[565] And so that night job becomes like really what I'm focused on.

[566] And I'm like a subpar attorney.

[567] You know what I mean?

[568] My day.

[569] Stay tuned for more armchair expert If you dare What's up guys This your girl Kiki And my podcast is back with a new season And let me tell you it's too good And I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest Okay, every episode I bring on a friend And I have a real conversation And I don't mean just friends I mean the likes of Amy Polar Kel Mitchell, Vivica Fox The list goes on So follow, watch and listen to Baby This is Kiki Palmer on The Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast.

[570] We've all been there.

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[579] Okay, so let's just because, or we won't dodge any of it because it ends up playing a role in why maybe some people are suspicious of you when you ran for, yeah, for public office.

[580] And I think the best way to do this is to kind of evaluate both sides.

[581] So let me just state my position on it so you know where I'm coming from.

[582] I think Bernie Sanders, as lovely as he is, and I am a Democrat and I am a liberal, as lovely as he is, I think he is incredibly naive about his notion of eviscerating Wall and that they're the bad guys and the boogeyman.

[583] I think he's underestimating what percentage of our GDP is Wall Street.

[584] And I think it's naive, to say the least.

[585] And I don't think that Democrats or liberals should be anti -money generation or wealth creation or any of these things that that service is, you know, Wall Street, ultimately the end result is people get money to start businesses and they get capital.

[586] That's what the whole thing's feeding, right?

[587] So I am not anti any of that.

[588] Now, I am anti their persuasion over our lawmakers.

[589] That's very troubling to me. There's way too much money in politics.

[590] Yeah.

[591] So at one time, I think it's naive to just be against Wall Street.

[592] And yet at the same time, I do think they are incredibly powerful and they spend a ton on lobbying.

[593] And I also think that they are completely irresponsible and reckless.

[594] And they are what took me away from the Libertarian Party, which is in the 2008 crash.

[595] I was, when I started learning really what happened and recognizing that there were maybe some total of 60 billion toxic subprime loans that they had piled on a $1 .9 trillion of derivative market on top of this.

[596] And that's what collapsed our economy.

[597] I was like, oh, no, they need to be regulated at all times.

[598] If you're expecting people who are the singular goal of making money are going to make ethical decisions, that's just that too is crazy.

[599] crazy naive.

[600] Yeah.

[601] And look, I mean, and we're seeing that in tech right now.

[602] Right?

[603] You're seeing the same kind of, you know, you, when I started working for a law firm or working, you know, you know, for in financial services, it was during a time where it wasn't, Wall Street wasn't seen as a bunch of crooks.

[604] Okay.

[605] And I think for me, you know, in my, in my late 20s, I was seeing it as like a place to work and a job to pay off my loans.

[606] And I wasn't until I remember sitting there when the financial crash happened, standing in the trading room, watching people's homes being foreclosed on having my father on the line talking about what's happening, you know, with our home.

[607] And I'm like, where the fuck am I?

[608] Like, what, what am I doing?

[609] Yeah.

[610] And you're at the wrong group.

[611] I was at the wrong group.

[612] And I don't think if I was honest with myself, I don't even think I really understood what the hell a derivative was.

[613] Yeah.

[614] And so this is like, and this is something that I, I was.

[615] I, I tell young people all the time, it's like I wasn't operating with my heart and what I needed to do.

[616] I was operating because I wanted to pay off my loans.

[617] I was like making money is a good thing.

[618] Like, you know what I mean?

[619] I'm able to do something for my family.

[620] And, you know, yeah.

[621] Yeah.

[622] You can do that, but then you're, it's not really an esteem builder, right?

[623] It's not like it makes you.

[624] It doesn't make you happy.

[625] But I also think it's hard, right?

[626] Like so many young people I talk to right now.

[627] It's like they have a shitload of debt.

[628] They don't get to go take the public interest job or, you know, take them, you know, take the, take the route that they want to take because they have some real bills that they have to pay.

[629] Yeah.

[630] Or maybe they should just not pay them and default on it.

[631] Then there'll be a big crash and we'll have to redesign the whole thing.

[632] Okay.

[633] So you first ran for public office in 2010?

[634] Yep.

[635] you ran for a seat in the House of Representatives against an incumbent Democrat.

[636] There was some miscommunication.

[637] You believe they were going to give up their seat to try to run for the Senate.

[638] And then she decided not to do that.

[639] So I basically, so I kind of, I'm working, you know, as a lawyer in the financial services sector.

[640] I'm like depressed, right?

[641] I remember it was like I watched and I was active on Hillary's campaign.

[642] She had this line in her concession speech where she said, you know, just because I failed, doesn't mean you shouldn't try to.

[643] I'm this young woman working in politics, and I'm like, I got to get out.

[644] And I remember having this conversation with the best friend, and she was like, my friend Deepa was like, just quit.

[645] I'm like, I can do that.

[646] Right.

[647] And so I did.

[648] And I, at that time, Carolyn Maloney's, who I ran against, was considering primary and Kirsten Gillibrand for Senate.

[649] And it was the word on the street that her seat was going to be open.

[650] And I was like, oh, like, I can run for Congress.

[651] And for so long, I was so active in politics.

[652] I just remember all these women telling me, you should run, you should run, you should run, you should run.

[653] I'm like, here it is.

[654] Yeah.

[655] Here's the opportunity.

[656] And so I talked to, you know, pollsters, campaign managers, all this stuff.

[657] And everyone's like, you would be a great candidate.

[658] And then, you know, basically quit my job.

[659] You know what I mean?

[660] Get ready.

[661] And then she decides not to challenge her.

[662] So now I find myself with the choice of running against an incumbent.

[663] Now, obviously, in this past election cycle, that's been very done and celebrated.

[664] But when I was thinking about doing in 2010, it was crazy.

[665] It was a crazy, crazy, crazy thing to do to run a Democratic primary in New York City against a woman.

[666] But I didn't think it was all that crazy.

[667] And I decided to do it.

[668] And you were the first Indian American woman to ever run for Congress.

[669] I know, which is nuts.

[670] Whoa.

[671] That's crazy.

[672] Yeah.

[673] It's kind of cool, right?

[674] So now, okay, let's get into, now this is something I feel like I can relate to you on.

[675] So when you make a movie, when me in my case, write and direct a movie, it's two years of my life.

[676] It's two years of my life.

[677] And then there's a campaign to let the whole world know that I've done this, right?

[678] And there's commercials and I go on talk shows and I do interviews.

[679] And then ultimately, that thing comes out on a Friday and it either fucking crashes or it's a big success.

[680] In my case, it's crashed three times.

[681] And it is a unique brand of embarrassment to have been so publicly out in front of something and to have it fail publicly.

[682] It feels so unique.

[683] And I often think during elections, like the only people that could probably really relate to this is people who run for office.

[684] It'll be so joyful for me to hear your, because you lost by a lot, right?

[685] A lot.

[686] Yeah.

[687] A lot.

[688] Like 81 % to 19.

[689] Thank you for reminding me. Yeah.

[690] Well, you owned it in your own book.

[691] So I would have not had you not own it right in the beginning.

[692] Yeah, it was horrible.

[693] And I didn't think it was going to happen.

[694] That's the crazy part, right?

[695] Yeah.

[696] I mean, first of all, it was the best 10 months of my life.

[697] And I had no idea what I was doing.

[698] You know, I remember my first interview was on Chris Matthews and he was so mean to me. And I didn't even know where to look in the screen.

[699] Like, my friends and I, like, the only thing we knew how to do was build a website.

[700] and we raised like $50 ,000 from like Indian aunties that were just so happy, like an Indian girl was running.

[701] But I convinced everybody I was going to run.

[702] Like John Legend did a fundraiser for me, like Jack Dorsey, like, Whoopi Goldberg.

[703] I mean, like, it was like, you know, front pages.

[704] Yeah, these people believe in me. I have to, too.

[705] I was like the first tech candidate.

[706] We were using like Square for the first time and group texting.

[707] And it was, it was awesome.

[708] It was also bad because I didn't, you know, like I, I, I have.

[709] I got hit a lot because I was running against the establishment.

[710] And, you know, I had, I didn't.

[711] Also, a woman, there's something about it that maybe intrinsically feels anti -feminist or something.

[712] Like, why would you be trying to dethrone the successful woman we're all celebrating?

[713] Was that an element of it?

[714] Oh, my God.

[715] I mean, I remember Geraldine Ferraro was ferociously calling people to get me to drop out.

[716] Yeah.

[717] It was so gut -wrenching.

[718] But for me, in my feminist mind, I feel like all elections should be women running against.

[719] each other.

[720] Like, wouldn't that be an amazing world?

[721] Sure.

[722] Yeah.

[723] But for that generation, they fought so hard to get there.

[724] It's like, how dare you challenge me?

[725] And I think that that's a point of contention, quite frankly, we're going to see in more elections where I think women of a certain generation, we've been competing against women our whole lives.

[726] Like, that's actually a good thing.

[727] Yeah.

[728] That's a celebration of how far we've come.

[729] But people were not, the establishment was not happy.

[730] They didn't think it was cute.

[731] No. And people, and people were really, really, really, really, wanting to see, you know, me fall on my face.

[732] Young people, people of color, were like right on, you know, because they, you know, here I was, this young daughter of refugees, you know what I mean, running on a campaign about innovation and excitement.

[733] And like, people were like, great.

[734] Like, this is what we need to really rock up, you know, change the system.

[735] Yeah.

[736] So, you know, it's funny when you run for politics, you know, I'd be standing on a street corner at the subway stop.

[737] People like, I vote for you, I vote for you.

[738] I vote for you.

[739] So, like, people who are voting for you or telling you're voting for your, or they're just telling you to make you happy, right?

[740] Who knows?

[741] Who knows?

[742] I deal with this, too.

[743] Do they really like parenthood or do they just don't know what else to say?

[744] Right.

[745] So on election day...

[746] It can be misleading, though, right?

[747] Oh, my God.

[748] It was totally misleading.

[749] Yeah.

[750] You know, I'm telling people like, it's going to be really close.

[751] You know, we need every vote out there.

[752] We'd even gotten this, like, victory part.

[753] You know, this hotel room, my organizers had decorated the entire room in these, like, post -igs.

[754] because we had all these kids volunteering for my campaign.

[755] And you just feel like you're letting everyone down that donated.

[756] Everybody.

[757] Everybody.

[758] How, okay, so what's the first week after that like?

[759] Well.

[760] Is it the most unique week of your life?

[761] Yeah.

[762] I mean, that day was brutal because, like, I didn't have a concession speech.

[763] And I had to call her.

[764] And I had to get in front of all my organizers that night who were crying.

[765] Y. The thing was.

[766] because this is a unique brand of torture that we sign up for it's on us i had this young woman who was with me the whole time rebecca and she was standing there in the hotel room and i wanted to cry so bad and she's staring at me just watching what i'm going to do and i just like held it in i didn't cry i had to call up caroline maloney who was you know and you know congratulate her i had to get up on this like podium and like talk to my you know hundreds and hundreds of supporters while they're all crying and just keep it together yeah you know come back to my hotel room and just and like you have a nice cry there right nice cry there the next morning do you do some drinking uh i didn't drink then okay the next day okay um the next day have to get it in a cab it's bright out right it's like you feel like you're like worst hangover of your life you don't want to open your phone or read the newspaper because you know like everybody is well you're also convinced everyone that sees you as aware of your failure right you're convinced everyone feels bad for you everybody and i don't like people feeling sorry for me me either at all hate it me too and i remember i go to like my apartment like close and my my my husband was my boyfriend at that time he's so sweet he was just i remember he was like buying my next campaign website oh we like And I was just devastated.

[767] And so, yeah, the next week's horrible.

[768] I have to call people and think them.

[769] I have to answer my emails.

[770] I have to read every article that talks about how I was slaughtered.

[771] Well, you didn't have to read those.

[772] You chose to read those.

[773] I chose to read them.

[774] Those articles don't do us any good.

[775] And I just didn't want to get out of bed.

[776] And my husband bought me a dog.

[777] Okay.

[778] To, like, make me get up and take care.

[779] Exactly.

[780] Stanley, who also saved me. But, you know, it was crazy was that I cried a lot.

[781] I drank a lot of margaritas.

[782] I kept asking the same questions.

[783] What happened?

[784] What happened?

[785] What happened?

[786] What happened?

[787] My father was like a good immigrant Indian dad sent me an email of, like, the 10 things I should have done better.

[788] Oh, no. Thank you, dad.

[789] Oh, no. But you know what?

[790] Then I was like, when's the next race?

[791] Okay.

[792] Holy shit, I did not die.

[793] Yeah, how long before?

[794] And I learned their bravery was a muscle.

[795] Honestly, I really think, like, I had a month of spinning and asking questions and boozing.

[796] Yeah.

[797] And then I was like, I'm ready.

[798] Curious if you did what I did during those periods, which is you start building the future for yourself.

[799] And you're now, you're creating identity, as we all are at all times, right?

[800] We're writing the story of our life and our head.

[801] So I have to imagine for 10 months, you were going to be a congresswoman.

[802] Oh, yeah.

[803] And then when you were a congresswoman, you're like, well, I'll be living in D .C. And then you start thinking about where you live.

[804] And then you just build this entire future for yourself based on this.

[805] And then when it goes away, you have this panic of like, oh, fuck, my identity that I've created that was going to last minimally for the next four years.

[806] That's out the window.

[807] Yeah.

[808] Now I need to figure out who Rushma is again.

[809] Well, the thing that I have, I want this gift for every woman, is before that congressional run, I had a life, the perfect life that I hated, that I was miserable in, that I was like drinking a bottle of wine.

[810] I feel like every, you know, night to live from.

[811] And then I had this beautiful experience where I lived my biggest dream.

[812] And I lived my best version of like my life.

[813] And it was so joyful that when I lost, yeah, it sucked that it didn't work.

[814] work out for me, but I knew what it felt like to chase something I really wanted.

[815] And I was not going back.

[816] Yeah, did you find yourself saying, because I'll have these pep talks with myself where it's like, I refuse to let a shitty weekend define what my experience for the two years leading up to that weekend was.

[817] Because the two years leading up to that weekend is the highlight of my life.

[818] It's the most fun I can have on planet Earth.

[819] And I feel irresponsible to define or color that whole experience by the outcome.

[820] Yeah.

[821] So you find yourself going like, no, no, you know what fuck that?

[822] That 10 months was like some of the best time on planet Earth.

[823] Totally.

[824] And I don't want to dishonor that.

[825] Totally.

[826] Because for so long I live my life, like if it's not going to work out, why bother to even try?

[827] Mm -hmm.

[828] Right?

[829] Yeah.

[830] So for me, I learned how to like, I, the anticipation that it could happen was so exciting.

[831] And I found my truth.

[832] I found my happy place.

[833] I found the thing that I was meant to do in my life.

[834] and I was so grateful for that.

[835] I was like, I'll win the next election.

[836] Like, I learned.

[837] I experienced this.

[838] Now I know what to do for the next one.

[839] Oh, not me. I don't think I'll ever direct a movie that'll open big, which is not to say I won't ever direct a movie again.

[840] Oh, no, maybe I'll never win an election.

[841] You might not.

[842] But if you love the process of running, then fucking, who cares?

[843] That's the bulk of the experience.

[844] The bulk of the experience isn't the 12 hours of celebration.

[845] That's like the most minuscule part of the whole thing, right?

[846] It's a powerful lesson, but like, but this is like a, you know, it's like the different.

[847] between like excellence perfection right in excellence it's like you love the experience of getting there i think that the more that the needles pointed towards process the more fulfilling your life will be right because we and i don't have control over outcomes but we have control over the process we have control over how hard we work you know how kind we are all these things all the elements all the all the ingredients in it we do control but the outcomes that's not up to us some ways that's such a difference between men and women right so for for us it's like as little girls we're like a plotted for getting the A, right?

[848] And so we get used to that affirmation.

[849] And so we start thinking about the outcome and not the process.

[850] Yeah.

[851] Right?

[852] Because we're validated by winning, by succeeding, by working out, by getting the A plus.

[853] And I think that for a lot of young men, for them, it's like their whole lives, they've been primed to love the process and to not worry about the outcome.

[854] And it's that switch.

[855] I wonder, though, because I don't know a lot of, I don't think it's a human condition to not.

[856] enjoy the process and just be aiming towards the outcome.

[857] I don't know many men that enjoy process.

[858] I think it's like it's what all humans are trying.

[859] But I agree with you 100 % that women are praised and expected to be perfect in angels and all these things.

[860] So I 100 % agree with you about that.

[861] I think we're thinking about a lot of male entrepreneurs who are starting companies.

[862] It's like so many of them love that startup process phase of like ideation and like getting their thing out there in the world.

[863] And many of them one set things out there in the world, whether it's successful or not, right?

[864] They're right back into process.

[865] It's that creation element.

[866] And look, I think there's women who, too, are better than that.

[867] Well, also the things that you, the conventional or traditional ways that females will succeed or excel in K through 12 is great, right?

[868] Which is a singular solitary experience, whereas sports is a whole avenue that is a team experience.

[869] It's a shared experience.

[870] So, yes, that I will acknowledge in a heartbeat.

[871] There's a more group process mentality to, say, sports and different team things that women don't seem to be encouraged.

[872] Like, you know, a dad's generally not going to be bragging that his daughter won some soccer game as much as her grades.

[873] Right.

[874] And we've changed up.

[875] Yeah, we got to.

[876] Yeah.

[877] I'm all about how good if she rides a bicycle or a dirt bike.

[878] Okay.

[879] So when do you start writing books?

[880] So I start writing my first book as therapy.

[881] Women who don't wait in line.

[882] Yeah, that's like my post -election.

[883] Because, you know, this whole idea of, like, how angry I had made women by running for another woman because I hadn't waited my turn.

[884] That's what pissed people off.

[885] How dare you just run out of the gate?

[886] You didn't work for this city council person and put this time on your community board.

[887] Like, who do you think you are?

[888] And I think, again, that is very particularly something that we do to women.

[889] So I wanted to write a book.

[890] And the other thing was is that when I kept making those phone calls, right?

[891] Thank you for your contribution.

[892] You know, I lost.

[893] People were like, well, no, no, no, no. It was the most successful campaign ever lost.

[894] I'm like, no, no, no, I failed.

[895] I lost.

[896] And it's okay to acknowledge that I lost.

[897] But it made me realize how uncomfortable oftentimes we are as women about failure and rejection.

[898] So I started writing a book about this, like, idea of failure and rejection, this idea of community, this idea of sisterhood.

[899] And this idea of like my journey, right?

[900] And all the doubts and all the things I had.

[901] And it was very much therapy.

[902] Yeah.

[903] So I put that.

[904] That's my first book that I wrote.

[905] Yeah.

[906] Now I disagree with your dad sending a list of 10 things you did wrong.

[907] But I also am a little concerned about your conclusion being that the system's broken.

[908] So to me, I'm wondering what internal lesson did you learn?

[909] What self -reflection did you go, oh, I could have done X, Y, or Z better?

[910] Because if the conclusion is the system's wrong, the system's certainly.

[911] an issue, but there's also got to be some personal lesson.

[912] Well, I think it's both the system and ourselves as women.

[913] So I think oftentimes we think that we have to wait until we're the perfect leader to lead.

[914] Uh -huh.

[915] And so oftentimes when you think about women who are running for office, they'll say, well, I've never raised money before.

[916] I've never won a local office.

[917] I don't know how to write a speech.

[918] I don't know that position on, you know, Syria.

[919] like, and all, we'll think of all the reasons, all the things we're not, quote, ready for, and then we don't run.

[920] Whereas men are like, ah, like, you know.

[921] Oh, yeah, we're inherently entitled.

[922] Right.

[923] Oh, we deserve to be.

[924] Right.

[925] I'm raised $100 for grandpa's birthday.

[926] Like, I'm ready to be a congressman.

[927] So for me, it was a second year.

[928] I was born to lead this thing.

[929] Yeah.

[930] For me, it was like this lesson of, like, you don't have to be perfect to lead.

[931] If you have it in you, if there's something you want to say, there's some change you want to make, run.

[932] Don't wait in line.

[933] And that's what I mean, I think about, quote, the system being broken.

[934] I do think, Dax, we are harsher on female candidates, you know, and it is tougher for us to, like, fake it until you make it, right?

[935] I 100 % agree.

[936] And so how are we kind of acknowledging that and making structural changes, too?

[937] So to me, it's about what's a change that we can do in ourselves?

[938] And this is why I'm like in the throves of building a bravery revolution.

[939] right, igniting that within ourselves to just try.

[940] So, but I guess what I'm asking is, is it your opinion that if we were to completely rid this whole country of the systemic, you know, institutionalized sexism, that in that environment you would have won the election?

[941] No. Okay.

[942] That's where, okay.

[943] That's what I just wanted to see if there was any, I can just tell you for myself.

[944] So it's a bummer my movies don't work.

[945] What I have to acknowledge about myself is I don't, I still think I made great movies.

[946] But I can acknowledge what I find appealing, the kind of movie I want to see, I don't have a broadly appealing sense of what most people want to see.

[947] I can admit that to myself.

[948] I've now learned that three times that I want to see a love story in a car chase movie.

[949] Well, most people don't want to do that.

[950] Girls don't want to see a car chase movie and guys don't want to see a love story.

[951] So I found the tiniest little sector to aim at.

[952] And that's not me. Yeah.

[953] Ooh, I love this.

[954] So my 2010 takeaway was that I didn't run as myself.

[955] Oh, there we go.

[956] So I, I, I, you know, I would wear the perfect little J -Crew suit.

[957] You know what I mean?

[958] Like I wouldn't wear my hair.

[959] And I'd try to look, you know, look smart and put my glasses on in my hair back in a ponytail.

[960] I practiced and memorized my speech over.

[961] I wasn't connecting with anybody.

[962] When people questioned, you know, why did you work on Wall Street?

[963] I just, I didn't fight back.

[964] Right?

[965] I didn't tell my authentic truth.

[966] And I lost.

[967] I may have lost also because it's damn hard to win a Democratic New York primary.

[968] But for me, that race was all about like I needed to be me. But I like that because there is something unique that happens in politics, right?

[969] Which is we're not all of us.

[970] Some of us are on this perfection trajectory.

[971] And the ironic thing is that we believe that through perfection people now love us and accept.

[972] accept us.

[973] We don't realize that being perfect, appearing perfect, is actually kind of alienating to all of us who don't feel perfect.

[974] And so often, people vote for someone who's kind of a dumbass, but it seems like someone they could drink beer with that won't make them feel shitty about themselves.

[975] So.

[976] A thousand percent.

[977] Yeah.

[978] So it's really ironic.

[979] But that's a huge lesson for us as women, because that's not what we're told, right?

[980] If you study and you practice.

[981] I mean, so much of, like, I think people just want authenticity.

[982] Like, tell it to me, You know, I'm like, because I feel shitty.

[983] And if you feel shitty, like, that makes me feel like I can relate and like I don't feel bad about myself.

[984] Yeah, there's comfort.

[985] There's so much comfort.

[986] I didn't know that at 33 when I ran.

[987] Yeah.

[988] And I was trying to be the Congress lady.

[989] Uh -huh.

[990] You know?

[991] Yeah.

[992] And, and.

[993] Very earnest mistake to make.

[994] You're told you need to.

[995] It's not just that you, I assume, it's not just that you just decided to do that.

[996] Like, that's the roadmap.

[997] Yeah.

[998] I mean, I'm just saying to take it off you a little bit.

[999] Like, we as a society, have decided this is what it looks like for women to do this.

[1000] So it's hard to be like, I'm going to scrap all that and do my own thing.

[1001] I'm going to look like Roseanne Season 2.

[1002] Yeah.

[1003] Yeah.

[1004] That would be a huge leap of faith.

[1005] And you're already doing this thing that's hard enough.

[1006] 1 ,000%.

[1007] Yeah.

[1008] 1 ,000%.

[1009] Okay.

[1010] So your next book, which now this becomes a big part of your life going onward, is girls who code.

[1011] Mm -hmm.

[1012] Right?

[1013] Right?

[1014] Learn to code and change the world.

[1015] And then you also, there, uh, downstream from that is a nonprofit that you have, which is girls who code.

[1016] Yeah.

[1017] Yeah.

[1018] Okay.

[1019] So tell us about that book.

[1020] Because I think there's going to be a, you and I can have a juicy little debate, like five minute debate about this.

[1021] Yeah.

[1022] I'm scared.

[1023] You or scare you?

[1024] I'm a lawyer.

[1025] I'd love to fight.

[1026] Oh, good, good, good, good.

[1027] So, okay, so let me do, so I lose the race and I say, okay, I'm not going back to the private sector.

[1028] My father gives me permission not to do that.

[1029] I get myself permission and I'm like, okay, of all the things that I saw, what's the thing that I feel like I can make a different son?

[1030] So I feel like you might be saying.

[1031] So ever since I was 13, I worked at Baskin Robbins, the limited, retail, telemarketing, you know, I always had a job.

[1032] And when I looked at, I saw so many kids on the campaign trail, so many boys that were studying computer science and robotics, and they clearly were gunning for all these, quote, tech jobs that were coming down the pipeline.

[1033] But there were no girls.

[1034] So I thought, you know, if the, if I really want to create opportunity for girls and women, this is the issue where I want, I think there could be some leadership on.

[1035] So I did my little lawyerly thing and looked at all the organizations that were out there that were teaching girls.

[1036] to code and there wasn't anything.

[1037] Okay.

[1038] And so I came up with an idea, this idea called Girls Who Code, where I would pick 20 girls and we teach them how to code in a technology company.

[1039] And, you know, and then we would see what it would happen.

[1040] So I borrow a friend's conference room, like a handpicked 20 girls, I make sure half of them are under the poverty line.

[1041] I recruit someone to design the curriculum because, you know, I'm not a coder, so I know what the hell I'm talking about.

[1042] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1043] But you see that the future is computers.

[1044] Yeah.

[1045] The future is this.

[1046] Yeah.

[1047] And we have a just remarkable experience where not only do these 20 girls learn how to code, the things that they want to build are about making the world better.

[1048] So like Cora builds an algorithm to help find, you know, whether, you know, find a cure for cancer because her daddy has cancer.

[1049] Yeah.

[1050] Leslie's building websites for Latinas, you know, after Sandy because so many of them don't have Facebook pages and then their businesses have been decimated.

[1051] So these girls are thinking about using cursory.

[1052] coding in technology is the way to like make the world better.

[1053] And that's that that in itself is so why we need really qualified women to guide technologies because they're just going to innately guide it in different directions than guys will.

[1054] And we'll need all the things.

[1055] We need those things.

[1056] I totally agree with that.

[1057] Stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare.

[1058] So I see it and I'm like, this is it.

[1059] Like, and then I start building, building, building that organization.

[1060] Now, I also have a failed election in the middle of this again.

[1061] Right.

[1062] I didn't want to make you walk through it twice.

[1063] But yeah, we can acknowledge that.

[1064] We can acknowledge that.

[1065] We can acknowledge that.

[1066] Right.

[1067] And yes, I've spent the six, six, and this thing that's maybe different about this second election is I run as Rushma.

[1068] I still don't get elected.

[1069] And it emboldens me to say, you know what, if you're not going to elect me on a platform to get kids in New York City, computer science education.

[1070] I'm going to do it anyway.

[1071] Yeah, I dig that.

[1072] In six years that are, I have taught more kids to code than the DOE has.

[1073] You know, and also like, you always say like, you never know where failure takes you.

[1074] Well, thank you.

[1075] That's exactly what I was just going to say.

[1076] Having a very flexible identity is very useful in my experience in my life, which is you can aim at one thing and then that doesn't work out, but then along the way, this other little rivulet opened up and then you can explore that.

[1077] And as long as you're willing to, if you're not so locked into your identity and what you're supposed to be, you may discover something that you're brilliant at.

[1078] Right.

[1079] And you may end up somewhere that you're grateful to have ended up.

[1080] And that, to me, seems to be the case with you.

[1081] So grateful.

[1082] Yeah.

[1083] So grateful.

[1084] Because, you know, I've made more change as the CEO of Girls Who Code than I would have if I was elected in either one of those positions.

[1085] But, like, I didn't see that when I was in it.

[1086] And so, so, you know, the second book basically is I would often go speak at places like in the deep part of our country where they didn't have Wi -Fi at home or in the schools, right?

[1087] Communities that are like decimated by the heroin epidemic.

[1088] And they, in parents whose jobs have been, you know what I mean, taken away because of computers.

[1089] And for many of them, they know that like, they want their kids to have opportunity to.

[1090] And as crazy as it is, sometimes like a book, as analog as it is, is the way to actually share knowledge.

[1091] So you can learn about why you're framing an issue, you know, through a book.

[1092] And that's what inspired me to write.

[1093] My second book, Girls Who Code, you know, changed the world.

[1094] Because I felt like this was a way of getting this knowledge in the hands of so many people.

[1095] And the lack of computers, the lack of Wi -Fi was not going to prevent them from being part.

[1096] of the 21st century.

[1097] And then the nonprofit is, has the express goal of ending the gender gap and employment rate in tech.

[1098] Yep.

[1099] Okay.

[1100] So here's where we can get juicy.

[1101] Okay.

[1102] Now I am 100 % on board with equality of opportunity.

[1103] I'm very nervous about equality of outcome.

[1104] Establishing standards of equality of outcome, trying to regulate equality of outcome.

[1105] again, I think everyone should have the exact same access to everything.

[1106] But I think if we are going to at some point look at the amount of structural engineers in America and find that 70 % male, and then our conclusion is that there's systemic sexism, I don't think that's necessarily the case.

[1107] Ooh, we're going to have a nice thing right now.

[1108] So how open are you to the notion that genders are going to populate different fields and that they may be drawn to that?

[1109] and they may not be drawn to that.

[1110] And that if we insist that the outcome is 50 -50, that we might be ignoring some biological component that some people are drawn to different fields.

[1111] Oh, great.

[1112] Okay.

[1113] So what we forget in this topic is that basically in the 80s, 37 % of computer scientists were women.

[1114] The world's first programmer was a woman.

[1115] I was just reading this awesome book on Hetty Lamar, right?

[1116] and how she was just like, badass scientist.

[1117] Then when the personal computer came out in the 80s and you had people like, you know, Steve Jobs, and it was very much targeted as a toy for boys.

[1118] And all of a sudden, the world society was like, oh, like you could like start a tech company and be a billionaire.

[1119] That's a boy's thing.

[1120] And we started pushing girls out.

[1121] And this happened culturally.

[1122] Well, how did we push girls out?

[1123] I just want to be clear about that.

[1124] So remember weird science?

[1125] Revenge of the Nerves.

[1126] Yeah, yeah.

[1127] We basically birth the programmer, which is like a dude and a hoodie somewhere.

[1128] And all of a sudden, we start sending these messages to our girls through culture, through magazines, through movies, through school.

[1129] Yeah.

[1130] That math and science is for boys.

[1131] Computers are for boys.

[1132] And slowly the numbers basically go from parity and start dropping, dropping, dropping, dropping, dropping, dropping, dropping, dropping, to they're at now 18%.

[1133] Okay.

[1134] This happens at universities.

[1135] This happens in Atari's coding camps.

[1136] right this happens everywhere and we don't notice it i'm putting my air quotes up and and so i think so when you talk to any girl in the country and you say describe to me what a computer scientist looks like she describes a dude in a hoodie sitting in a basement somewhere right drinking a red bull i love that a i love that a hoodie is the essential component of this yeah and and you know listen Listen, teenage girls decide what's cool and what's not cool.

[1137] And culture has helped them basically say, this is not for me. And we've pushed them out.

[1138] So to me, our goal is essentially to reverse that trend, to make coding interesting and cool.

[1139] Because most girls want to be change makers, right?

[1140] So when you say to your little middle school, what do you want to do, she wants to, like, help animals or, like, fight bullying or, like, do something good.

[1141] Yeah.

[1142] So when you show them, like, hey, actually, you can.

[1143] code, you know, an anti -bullying website, you can, you know, I mean, build a microchip that can be the tool by which you execute.

[1144] Yeah, they're like, oh, teach me that.

[1145] So for us, our girls of code, you know, we're going to reach 185 ,000 girls that we've taught in less than six years because now girls are flooding the gates and saying, I want to learn.

[1146] So we're increasing the pipeline.

[1147] So to me, it wasn't about our brains or why you're different.

[1148] It wasn't that girls weren't interested, we were simply turning them off.

[1149] And now I am turning them on.

[1150] And you're seeing a difference.

[1151] I also know computer programmers are hugely populated by people on the spectrum.

[1152] This is also...

[1153] I don't know if that's like a, I don't know if that's like a real.

[1154] Because you don't want to have a drink with them at a part.

[1155] You know what I'm saying?

[1156] Like, I don't know if they're socially awkward.

[1157] Now, that I may, that I might agree with you.

[1158] So when we think about what's happening in tech companies and like, dude, how do you not know not to ask someone on a date when you're in middle of an interview, right?

[1159] It's like...

[1160] It's the first girl they've talked to in 10 years.

[1161] They're like, oh, my God, I got to do it now.

[1162] I might not see another one for a decade.

[1163] But this is kind of real, right?

[1164] No, I know.

[1165] I'm like sympathetic to people on all the sides.

[1166] And I don't want my daughter to get asked out on date in an interview.

[1167] So, yeah.

[1168] But the reality may be that Google needs to essentially train, you know, these dudes.

[1169] But that to me is not about genetics.

[1170] that again to me is cultural and something you can actually change and in something we need to acknowledge that that that should be part of your HR training possibly I couldn't agree with you more and again I believe that access should be universal and I believe culturally they should that women should be just as encouraged as guys are now Monica and I thought about this the other day and you can join in I don't believe there is a barrier to access to chess there's not there's a chess board in many, many people's homes.

[1171] There's never been a barrier.

[1172] I don't know why, but men are chess champions.

[1173] I don't know what goes on in their brain.

[1174] I don't know about the spatial intelligence.

[1175] I don't know why that the grandmasters are men.

[1176] It certainly is accessible to women.

[1177] And is it okay that we might live in a world where men are better at something and women are much better at something?

[1178] Is that okay?

[1179] 1 ,000%.

[1180] What I don't like or what I will feel.

[1181] against is the fact if culture pushes girls to like certain things because that's what girls are supposed to like.

[1182] And that's, you know, and I did a lot of research for my new book, Brave Not Not Perfect.

[1183] And so much of this stuff starts at 30 months old, you know, and it's culture.

[1184] And so like I, you know, if just, if naturally girls are more inclined to do this and we've presented both options fairly without judgment.

[1185] Yeah.

[1186] Then I'm okay with that.

[1187] I mean, I still have teachers, you know, or parents who tell their daughters, I mean, are you sure you want to join a coding camp?

[1188] I mean, aren't you worried about being popular?

[1189] Uh -huh.

[1190] That's the kind of stuff.

[1191] And it's so.

[1192] Prevalent.

[1193] And I know your daughters are young, but like, watch a couple of years from now, you're going to be like pulling your, you know, you both can be pulling your hair up because you're just like, I didn't teach you that.

[1194] I know that's not happening in my home, but everywhere you look.

[1195] I got to tell you, we watch this amazing documentary, the masks we live in.

[1196] I don't know if you've seen it, super relevant for you having a four -year -old boy to watch because even as someone who studied anthropology and recognizes that culture is the most powerful element in our life, even with that background, I'm watching this documentary about how we train boys to be masculine, how we basically beat empathy out of them.

[1197] And we do all these things in, and they show these, they do this, these two graphs of 10 ,000 psychological exams on boys.

[1198] and girls and we think of us as being so different psychologically and what you find really is it's 91 % overlap and there's these little shoulders of 4 .5 % on this side and 4 .5 % on this side and we hang everything on that and that's the full focus of what we we look at you know and so I'm watching and going well I guess I wouldn't have thought that we are 91 % similar psychologically I wouldn't I guess I wouldn't have thought that I've succumbed to this ad campaign you know that I was born into So I'm super aware of it.

[1199] And I also may be proven wrong, which I'm totally open to.

[1200] But I also am just, I get nervous about, you know, trying to regulate through policy law something, that the outcome has to be 50 -50 and all these things.

[1201] That makes me nervous.

[1202] I don't have a problem with that.

[1203] I love quotas.

[1204] I do.

[1205] No, I'm serious.

[1206] I don't think things change unless you.

[1207] actually mandate people to do things differently.

[1208] And here's why people don't give up power.

[1209] And so when you think about having a job in technology, that's powerful.

[1210] That's a new, new, right?

[1211] That's where the money is.

[1212] That's where the power is.

[1213] That's where the fame is.

[1214] So if you agree with me that girls and boys' brains are not wired differently, and remember, girls outperform boys and math and science up until...

[1215] Up until college.

[1216] Yes.

[1217] Okay.

[1218] That's another weird thing.

[1219] There's been no barrier of access to mathematics in colleges.

[1220] They women have been going to college for the last 50 years with a very high rate and they're not drawn to mathematics.

[1221] Right.

[1222] Well, I think the thing is, is there's a lot happening in those college classes.

[1223] So let me ask you.

[1224] I mean, like, if you are the only one, right?

[1225] And you're the only one with a bunch of boys, which we may have established are not that great about behaving around women.

[1226] No, no. Right.

[1227] That's not a great experience for you.

[1228] Secondly, if the teacher is making, oh, you're really good for her.

[1229] a girl like and and you and then third and the teacher has lower expectations of you which trickles into them yeah and third and we and i will own this and i'm on a mission to reteach women this is you have that voice that all of us women have in our head that tells us we're not good enough we're not smart enough and we're re you know mirrored imposter syndrome those things are going to lead you to drop out so half of women will drop out of their stem degree so you don't we don't even know how many of them start but don't finish because of these things, right?

[1230] And so, again, if you go back to saying, not an aptitude problem.

[1231] But just really quick, women enter college in some significant number in the 50s, right?

[1232] Yeah.

[1233] And so all those departments at that time, literature, writing, polysci, all the departments, the cultural sciences, they all are equally at that moment in time.

[1234] Don't think women should have any business in any academics, period.

[1235] Any intellectual process, any professional, outcome.

[1236] The expectations unilaterally they shouldn't be there is my assumption.

[1237] I don't think the math department in 1950 was uniquely thinking women shouldn't be here, more than the policy, more than the law, more than anything.

[1238] And yet, they all enter in this group and you see just very obvious numbers of what women are drawn to in those, what departments they funnel into.

[1239] Are we allowed to acknowledge at all, though, that there could be some genetic biological gender component.

[1240] Is that okay?

[1241] I mean, I think it's okay to ask a question.

[1242] I just don't think it's true.

[1243] Okay.

[1244] So, like, I'm sitting there with Isabel and her mother, and, you know, Isabel says to her mommy, well, Mommy, I'm not bad.

[1245] I'm not, I'm so bad at math.

[1246] And her mom says, what are you talking about, honey?

[1247] You know, you're getting an A in math.

[1248] And she says, well, mom, you know, we were in class the other day.

[1249] And, you know, the teacher asked me to answer the question.

[1250] And, you know, and I didn't know the answer right away.

[1251] So instead, I just raised my head and said I had to go to the bathroom.

[1252] Uh -huh.

[1253] You know, this idea that we think we're either good at something or bad at something.

[1254] So if it doesn't come to us right away, you know what I mean?

[1255] we'll say, so for a lot of girls, a lot of people, math doesn't come to them right away.

[1256] Yeah.

[1257] For boys, they're invigorated by the challenge.

[1258] They stick with it.

[1259] For girls, they say, you know what, I'm really good at reading or I'm really good at anthropology.

[1260] Let me just pursue that instead of math.

[1261] And it's a perfectionism problem.

[1262] Well, and I would accept the explanation that certain fields in academia require arrogance.

[1263] Now, that I could accept.

[1264] You go like, oh, for whatever reason, to be a sociologist doesn't require that.

[1265] this level of arrogance and entitlement, because you believe you should be the leader of these 150 people, or someone who wants to be president.

[1266] There is a unique recipe of arrogance and entitlement there.

[1267] And I very much would believe, oh, if we identified that math was one of those things, and we also know that we're applauding women for being cooperative and flexible, and we are our heroes in society are men who bucked the system and we're mavericks, right?

[1268] then that all starts to make sense.

[1269] But I definitely need the component where you demonstrate to me that math is one of these fields that would require an essential ingredient that we're not bestowing on to females.

[1270] I think that math, for those people that are good at math, they have to basically stick with it.

[1271] And it's one of those things that just don't come naturally that take a little bit of more time and grit.

[1272] And I will say that for a lot of girls, because we have been coddled and protected and given the trophy, we're not number one, challenge isn't something that naturally appeals to us.

[1273] So it's like, I've seen this with coding.

[1274] Like I always tell a story of with coding, when girls are learning how to code that first week, they'll literally say their teacher, I don't know what code to write.

[1275] And the teacher will go to the computer and she'll see a blank text editor.

[1276] But when the teacher presses undo on the computer, she saw that the student wrote code and then deleted it.

[1277] Instead of her showing this, hey, I did this.

[1278] It's not right.

[1279] Show me what to do better.

[1280] She'd rather show nothing at all.

[1281] It's the same thing when you're learning a skill.

[1282] So for girls of math, if it's, if they're getting a couple Bs and maybe a C and maybe an A minus, they're like, I'm not good at it.

[1283] I'm just not going to pursue it anymore.

[1284] Boys are not like that.

[1285] Also, it has to be cultural because there are cultures.

[1286] There are countries of, like in India, there are tons of girls.

[1287] My mom's a computer programmer.

[1288] She did that.

[1289] She did that because that's where the jobs are.

[1290] They're just trained more like, where's the opportunity.

[1291] we're going to seek that.

[1292] And there's no shortage of women there doing coding and doing computer stuff and doing math stuff at all.

[1293] It's just a matter of they don't.

[1294] I have no data on New Delhi University.

[1295] I don't know who's in the math department there.

[1296] But that would, I would love that.

[1297] That would be a great thing to know that.

[1298] Well, no, because we can see in other countries.

[1299] Yeah, the women are doing that.

[1300] Yeah.

[1301] The point you just made, which I love is, and this is being advised now to parents like us who have young kids now is stop saying, you're so smart say you be impressed by how hard they worked on something that the actual the thing to be applauded and admired is hard work not that it came easy to you because they have these tests where they tell the kids they get it right you're so smart then they up the the challenge of the problem and the kids that were told you're smart bail out because they don't want to not they don't want to disprove this thing they loved hearing about themselves that they were smart but if you've been saying the whole time oh my gosh you worked so hard on that that's so great the hard work can still exist even if they get the problem wrong.

[1302] Yeah.

[1303] And it's challenging.

[1304] I mean, one of my, this guy, Brad is a teacher in computer science, was saying, you know, when they're making like network cables, if it's wrong with the boys, he'll just take out of scissors.

[1305] Nope.

[1306] Do it again.

[1307] And with girls, you have to be like, that was good.

[1308] You got this part right now.

[1309] Try a little here.

[1310] And so I'm of the mind that I think that we got to take the gloves out.

[1311] Stop concooning them right in the bubble wrap and just make them more resilient.

[1312] You know, we, we got to change the way we're raising our girls because we're getting it wrong.

[1313] Boys and girls.

[1314] We need a change that we're raising everyone.

[1315] No, you're right.

[1316] You're right.

[1317] Listen, I find out having a boy, I cried because it was like so off -brand, but I'm open.

[1318] God gives you what you deserve.

[1319] But yes, I mean, my husband, I mean, he's going to hate me, but anyway, I'll tell you anyway.

[1320] You know, my husband's a feminist.

[1321] And when Sean started getting scared of the dark, right?

[1322] And so I went and went to buy my baby, bought him a nightlight.

[1323] I'd take him upstairs.

[1324] plug in the nightlight.

[1325] I go into my room.

[1326] You know, 20 minutes later, I hear my husband coming up the stairs, unplugs the nightlight, Sean screams.

[1327] And we would just do this dance.

[1328] Yeah, yeah.

[1329] And I was like, dude, what is your problem, Nahal?

[1330] Like, you know, he needs a nightlife.

[1331] And he's like, no, he's got to be tough.

[1332] We got to make him strong.

[1333] And I said, no, if Sean was a girl, would you let him have the nightlight.

[1334] And he paused.

[1335] And he was like, yeah, I would.

[1336] Yeah.

[1337] Oh, yeah.

[1338] Yeah.

[1339] I think my stars daily that I don't have boys because I'm so hardwired from Detroit that, no, if a dude says something, you got to punch him in the nose or it'll happen for the rest of your life.

[1340] You got to punch, you know, like I have all these things ingrained to me that would be so challenging for me to overcome.

[1341] Because what you're weighing, what your husband's weighing in his mind is, sure, I'd love for my son to be a beautiful flower.

[1342] If he could go to a school with all beautiful flowers, I'd do it.

[1343] And then if he entered the workforce with all beautiful flowers, I'm in.

[1344] But other guys aren't raising their boys this way.

[1345] Is he going to be a victim to how the other people are raising their kids?

[1346] That's what you're weighing in your head.

[1347] It's like, I might do something wrong.

[1348] I know is wrong.

[1349] But he may suffer less.

[1350] So it's very complicated.

[1351] These aren't easy decisions.

[1352] Well, listen, I love the Gillette ad about, you know, toxic masculinity.

[1353] Do you guys see that?

[1354] No. Okay, you guys got to see it.

[1355] Because I think the other question, you know, especially kind of post Me Too, right, is that what is the work that we have to do on our boys and our young men?

[1356] And I think, for example, you know, like a lot of, you know, Toronto Burke talks about this.

[1357] Like, you've seen so much courage amongst women and me too.

[1358] And I think the question is we need to also incite and still the courage amongst men.

[1359] I know men who like will be in a party and hear rape joke and they won't say anything.

[1360] And they'll come home and they'll be like, dude, I can't believe he said that.

[1361] How do you teach them that it is okay to be a man and be like, dude, that's not cool?

[1362] Uh -huh.

[1363] Yeah, they have a cute term for it at my daughter's school called an upstander.

[1364] so it's all about people who witness something and then they get involved and like people get upstander stars and stuff and I'm like oh this is awesome like yeah the cool thing to be now is an upstander I'm like this is awesome this is like part of the solution I love that yeah it's really neat so you've you've been very successful with girls who code and that's fantastic and then now but you have a new book that you're here to promote so tell me about brave not perfect I mean I mean, we've touched on many of the elements of it.

[1365] Yeah.

[1366] So I gave a TED talk a couple years ago.

[1367] And, you know, I only had a couple months to prepare for it.

[1368] So, like, you know, my knee jerk was like, oh, let me just say the same shit I say all the time.

[1369] I'm like, no, I'm going to go deep and dig deep.

[1370] And so it was a brutal, but wonderful process of writing the talk.

[1371] And then I thought I was just given a talk.

[1372] And I gave this talk.

[1373] And it just, you know, it went viral.

[1374] And I got so many emails from like, dads and moms and people like, I do that.

[1375] Like, I'm affected by it.

[1376] like I, you know, I, you know, and so it spoke to a lot of people.

[1377] And so I decided to think about writing a book.

[1378] And so I spent years kind of researching like, is this, is, is there really this idea that like, you know, we raise our girls to be perfect and we raise our boys to be brave?

[1379] And can you learn bravery?

[1380] And I realized that it's so true that like, you know, from the time that we're young, we teach our girls to like smile pretty and play it safe and get all I, you know, get all and we coddle them and we protect them.

[1381] And by the time they face their first rejection, they don't even know what to do.

[1382] And by the time we reached that point when I was 33, like I had done everything so perfectly, so right, but I wasn't happy.

[1383] And I thought if I had all those notches on my belt that I would be joyful.

[1384] And so, you know, I want to unlearn that.

[1385] And I think that bravery is like a muscle, right?

[1386] It's like if you keep practicing it over and over over again.

[1387] You can unlearn perfection.

[1388] You can learn to be brave and you can live a better life.

[1389] So that's my mission.

[1390] Well, what's really interesting, and this kind of goes back to the documentary Monica and I love the mask we live in is.

[1391] You live in.

[1392] Is it you living?

[1393] Yeah.

[1394] Oh, thank you.

[1395] You know, when someone's searching.

[1396] Maybe it was, they were trying to do some play on masculinity.

[1397] Oh, okay.

[1398] But I don't know.

[1399] Oh, the mask you live in.

[1400] Okay.

[1401] But what's interesting is, so it is a yin and a yang problem.

[1402] The problem with boys is we define boys in opposition to girls.

[1403] So the worst thing a boy can be is a girl, to run like a girl, to throw like a girl, to be a sissy like a girl, to cry like a girl, right?

[1404] Those are the shaming techniques we use for boys.

[1405] And then what cannot be avoided is if you've heard the worst thing you can be as a girl for 18 years and now you go away to a college campus you must feel superior to girls because the worst thing to be is like a girl and you've dedicated your whole life to being the opposite of a girl so you must be better than a girl there's like an ingrained superiority which is very bizarre but likewise we're also raising girls to be as you say not brave perfectionist be acquiescent so they are something to avoid so there's there's truth in some of it right so if we start raising the girls to be brave and the guys to be more empathetic like there's movement on both sides yeah totally it's like we we need to be raising them to be like each other yeah weirdly and to just have your voice i mean like look bravery isn't like dragon slaying and like saving somebody from a fire like i'm i'm talking about like you know everyday bravery of like how many times have someone said something to you and you just let it go or you stayed in a toxic relationship because you didn't hurt somebody's feelings or you really had that business idea and you just didn't do it because you didn't think you were a coder right like so much of this to me everyday bravery is what we need and i think that it's something that can be taught but it means that we have to unteach some things that we've either been taught or that we're currently teaching our young girls and so for me it's like i'm really comfortable with rejection you know i recently got rejected from like my community board so like it's like you know i mean come on dude like i can't get on anything.

[1406] And it was painful, right?

[1407] I'm like education community, something, maybe I know something about.

[1408] Nope.

[1409] And I took that letter and I put it on my refrigerator and every time I'm about to go get out my mouth, I look at it.

[1410] So I like surround myself with rejection.

[1411] It's like my armor.

[1412] But for a lot of people like it's like rejection or failure, they're afraid it's going to break them.

[1413] So again, like why bother to even try if it's not going to work out?

[1414] And so part of inoculating yourself from rejection or being comfortable with rejection will allow you, I think, to take more risks.

[1415] Yeah.

[1416] And what's really interesting about fear, it is the most powerful mechanism, right?

[1417] So I live in fear of all these things.

[1418] As I try to go to bed at night, I'm like forecasting into the future, all this doom that's going to happen.

[1419] And my evaluation of how uncomfortable I'm going to be in these failing moments is a 10, right?

[1420] But then when I take stock in my life, I've been in all the moments.

[1421] I've been in multiple car accidents and motorcycle accidents.

[1422] I've buried parents.

[1423] I've pulled the plug on people.

[1424] I've done all these.

[1425] I've done the, I've ended a nine -year relationship.

[1426] And if I'm honest with myself, those things were always a six.

[1427] I got through them.

[1428] And so much of it to me is like getting a handle on your fear and recognizing we walk through shit all the time and we wake up the next morning.

[1429] And sometimes like fear feels good.

[1430] Like it makes you feel alive.

[1431] And I think sometimes in this like success driven culture when like stuff works out for you, it's almost like it just passes through you.

[1432] Where's when stuff doesn't work out, you're like, oh, you sit with it.

[1433] Yeah.

[1434] To me, like, I practice doing things that I suck at.

[1435] So, like, I can't swim.

[1436] Are you, you're Indian, too.

[1437] Yeah, I hate swimming.

[1438] Yeah, we don't know.

[1439] I can't swim.

[1440] I don't like cold water.

[1441] I knew that was a black person thing, but I didn't know it was an Indian thing.

[1442] I didn't either until just now.

[1443] Most of us can't swim.

[1444] I think that's, that's also cultural.

[1445] Maybe.

[1446] Like, I don't know.

[1447] You guys are on a fucking subcontinent, surrounded by water on three sides.

[1448] You should begin to swimming.

[1449] Yeah, my grandmother loved swimming, but in, yeah, when she lived there, but they're not, like, taking me to pools.

[1450] I think that's part of it.

[1451] You all don't like pools?

[1452] Like, we don't go to the beach.

[1453] No one took a Disney World.

[1454] Right.

[1455] And waters.

[1456] Well, maybe it's the whole, again, fair skin thing.

[1457] Like, you don't want to get dark.

[1458] That's part of it.

[1459] That's probably worse.

[1460] Yep.

[1461] Yeah, that really is part of it.

[1462] I think there's something about, like, practicing something you suck at, not to get better, but to know what it feels like to suck, right?

[1463] So, like, for me, it's like surfing.

[1464] I'm never going to be good at surfing.

[1465] I'm not elegant, like, whatever, right?

[1466] But I keep doing it because I like that feeling of doing something that I suck at.

[1467] Because I realize, in my old -ass age, like, I don't do new things anymore, right?

[1468] I don't try things for, and it's harder to pick something up.

[1469] You mean, when you're, you know, in your 40s than it was when you were, you know, 12.

[1470] So, again, I think, again, getting comfortable with doing something you suck at.

[1471] is like something I tell women all the time.

[1472] Like, try that.

[1473] Yeah.

[1474] That's good advice.

[1475] Yeah.

[1476] It's uncomfortable.

[1477] I only do things I'm good at.

[1478] Me too.

[1479] Yeah.

[1480] If I try something, I'm not immediately a six at it.

[1481] I'm like, I'll try something else.

[1482] Yeah.

[1483] You too?

[1484] Oh, yeah.

[1485] Yeah.

[1486] I want to be the best at the thing I'm doing.

[1487] But think about how, but what if you're just better than one person, right?

[1488] So like think about all the things that you're missing out on life.

[1489] I'm serious.

[1490] I know.

[1491] No. You're right.

[1492] You're absolutely right.

[1493] So much of love.

[1494] Because you're not going to be better.

[1495] You're not going to be amazing at every.

[1496] You're not getting an A plus at everything.

[1497] Well, again, it comes back to result and process.

[1498] It's like you could do something that's just innately more fun to do that you do at a three than the thing you do at a 10.

[1499] Or like a Beyonce dance class.

[1500] You know what I'm saying?

[1501] Yeah.

[1502] So I'm more than a three to Beyonce dance.

[1503] I believe that.

[1504] Thanks.

[1505] I believe that big time.

[1506] All right.

[1507] The last thing I want to ask you before you leave because I just, I try to ask Monica about it.

[1508] And she doesn't have the knowledge I want her to have on it is you're a practicing Hindu.

[1509] Yes.

[1510] What does that look like?

[1511] You know, Hinduism is very spiritual.

[1512] So, like, I feel God in my everyday life.

[1513] Most of it, I have a...

[1514] Is it one God or are there multiple gods?

[1515] Well, like, every...

[1516] So in my family, we always essentially, like, our number one God.

[1517] Top dog.

[1518] Our top dog was Baby Krishna.

[1519] We called Kanurul.

[1520] And that's who we have kind of at the center of our temple.

[1521] So most Hindus, I have a temple in my home.

[1522] normally class it.

[1523] Okay.

[1524] And so, you know, and then you have, you know, you have your God, so.

[1525] And I just ask that, though, is there flexibility?

[1526] Do you get to pick?

[1527] Like, your family pick, baby.

[1528] I think your family kind of picks for you.

[1529] And the part about being a Hindu is no one really tells you exactly what it is.

[1530] They kind of just drag you to temple.

[1531] You know what I mean?

[1532] They have you, like, do your prayer.

[1533] And then they give you, like, your God idols to put in your home.

[1534] Just kind of what happened to me. So I feel like I've learned more by Hinduism, the older I've gotten.

[1535] My family, we just got in like a big argument about this over Christmas.

[1536] Do you celebrate Christmas?

[1537] Of course.

[1538] Oh, you do.

[1539] I got stockings.

[1540] I got star on my tree.

[1541] Whole thing.

[1542] She celebrates Kreshmas.

[1543] I really, and I wonder what you think since you're so female forward.

[1544] You can't go into the temple or into the closet if you're on your pier.

[1545] Right?

[1546] Yep.

[1547] That was enough for me to be like, what is this?

[1548] I'm out.

[1549] Yeah.

[1550] Like, how can you not let a human woman in whose body is doing something that God created, yet you can't go into the place where God, I just was like, I think it's because they don't want to attract bears.

[1551] Well, my dad said, my dad said, he said that he thought it was.

[1552] originally for cleanliness it's what does it even mean what does that mean it's not like you bleed all over the place I've been around a lot of women on their men's and I've yet to step in a puddle of blood you know way back when and I guess when women had to use rags and stuff still it was manageable oh my god okay so I mean listen I don't think any religion is perfect right I mean I agree like I don't think any religion is perfect I've also just me I don't know I love God I mean I really love God I've always had this sense of spirituality I you know My son, I, you know, I have this little book about Ganesha for him and he loves, you know, calls God J .J. Like, you know, he's got like his, you know, his pictures in his room.

[1553] And I also.

[1554] Is there a text?

[1555] I mean, Bagwat Gita.

[1556] Right.

[1557] Okay.

[1558] So that's kind of our religious text.

[1559] And like I have a little mantra that you basically say when you're saying your prayer.

[1560] But it's, I feel like it's a really open -ended religion.

[1561] I also just feel like Hinduism, like, I love being in church.

[1562] I love being in synagogue.

[1563] Like, I love being in it.

[1564] You know what?

[1565] Because of the The community?

[1566] Well, just because I feel like, to me, I love the teachings.

[1567] Like, I think, like, honestly, right now, when you think about what's happening in our country and in our world, the fact that, like, it's feeling like we've lost so much of our humanity and our empathy, and we're ripping babies from their mothers at the border.

[1568] And, like, we're not all outraged.

[1569] To me, makes me feel, like, in my home and in my life, like, I need more of that soulfulness.

[1570] I need more spirituality.

[1571] I need more of that in this moment.

[1572] Are there, like, commandments?

[1573] Is there a list of do's and don'ts in Hindu?

[1574] I think it's very...

[1575] Lucy, Lucy.

[1576] I like that.

[1577] I hate rules.

[1578] Yeah, because I hate rules.

[1579] Yeah, there's no rules, really.

[1580] No, there's no rule.

[1581] My dad always says ad nauseum, because he repeats himself like crazy.

[1582] I'm so in love with her dad, by the way.

[1583] He's the greatest guy on planet Earth.

[1584] He always says, if we get in these conversations, that Hindu is, is not really a religion.

[1585] It's more of just a way of life.

[1586] I love that.

[1587] More akin in some ways, I would say, like, to Judaism.

[1588] Or there's some tradition, it's traditions.

[1589] It's like a general spirituality, but not, like, there's no, like, real tenets or real anything.

[1590] And so, yeah, during this argument, I was like, how can any of you call yourself Hindu?

[1591] Like, you don't know what it is.

[1592] Like, if somebody said, what do you believe as a Hindu?

[1593] they don't have an answer.

[1594] Which is awesome.

[1595] Because I don't have an answer either.

[1596] Right.

[1597] That's the point.

[1598] I think I'm becoming Hindu.

[1599] I'm turning to be Indian.

[1600] I clearly see that.

[1601] That's how I got on, right?

[1602] Two goals in life is that Monica, by the end of this whole, however many year run, we do this, that she will be in traditional Indian garb.

[1603] She will have gotten rid of all of her whiteness and she will be full -blown.

[1604] right off the boat from India.

[1605] And I too.

[1606] Yeah, and he will be too.

[1607] Yeah, I'll be the Bhagwan and you'll be Ma Na and Sheila.

[1608] No, no, that was an amazing.

[1609] Loved.

[1610] Amazing.

[1611] We were obsessed.

[1612] So good.

[1613] So good.

[1614] I'm so hot for Maana and Sheila.

[1615] I mean, what a gal.

[1616] What a powerhouse.

[1617] She's still alive.

[1618] When I get it.

[1619] Can you imagine if we could get her on here?

[1620] If you could get her on that would be amazing.

[1621] When I get a time traveling device, which will happen in my lifetime, first two stops, Monica's grandma.

[1622] going there first.

[1623] Most beautiful woman I've ever seen in my life.

[1624] Oh my God.

[1625] And we posted a picture of her and there was a consensus.

[1626] She is as hot as they've ever gotten.

[1627] I'm sure she really appreciate that.

[1628] She likes it.

[1629] She's taking it on as a compliment.

[1630] Oh, God.

[1631] And then I'm going to swing by Ma Na.

[1632] Just see if I can't get the mix.

[1633] I know I'll be second fiddle to the Bogwam, but I can live with that.

[1634] Side note.

[1635] I was going to say goodbye gracefully.

[1636] We were at a high note.

[1637] But just side note, What was interesting about that is the baguwan eventually became addicted to benzos.

[1638] So he was on volume and stuff.

[1639] The whole time he was living up in Oregon and he had his Hollywood friends and the doctor who was prescribing him all this stuff.

[1640] I was thinking there's just something, there's something very interesting about the fact that we totally respect someone that would dedicate an hour of their energy and concentration into entering a sedated state through meditation.

[1641] but if someone takes a pill to be in that exact same state, we're like, nope, that's bad.

[1642] It's just very interesting.

[1643] There's something there.

[1644] I don't know exactly what it is, but we are very judgmental of the means by which you would enter a state.

[1645] Even if the states are objectively the same state, one we're like, that's terrible.

[1646] And the other one's like aspirational.

[1647] It's very curious.

[1648] I think one could kill you eventually because you get addicted and it's a whole thing.

[1649] I think that's, I think the one's dangerous and one's not.

[1650] yeah yeah i don't have a retort for that other than those guys getting in that deep meditation they light themselves on fire to protest that's pretty powerful that's dangerous too sure okay well we'll leave that completely yeah that'll be for another episode uh but rushma thank you so much for coming i hope people check out your book thank you so much and we'll talk to you again when you write another book which i'm sure we'll be soon thank you and now my favorite part of the show the fact check with my soulmate Monica Padman.

[1651] When we were at the house a second ago, I had a little fact check jingle and I've lost it.

[1652] Oh, I don't know.

[1653] Remember you and I were at a house a moment ago.

[1654] Mere moments ago, we were at the house.

[1655] Yeah.

[1656] And I was singing you a fact check song on the patio.

[1657] I'm on a Mexican.

[1658] Whoa.

[1659] A patio.

[1660] Do you know that song?

[1661] It actually is I'm on a Mexican radio.

[1662] You and I were on a Mexican.

[1663] Mexican, whoa, a patio, eating Friday, guana.

[1664] That was a lyric from the song, too.

[1665] Cool.

[1666] Cool.

[1667] I don't remember what you were singing.

[1668] How could you keep track?

[1669] I don't remember that at all.

[1670] Could have been the ZipRecruiter theme song too.

[1671] Probably was.

[1672] Let's just be honest with everyone.

[1673] We just tried to do an ad for the better part of 12 minutes, and we just got a case of the gigglies.

[1674] Yeah.

[1675] And we couldn't.

[1676] Kind of get there.

[1677] Having nothing to do with the ad.

[1678] Great product.

[1679] We love the product.

[1680] Great.

[1681] It was just something about the way you started saying the vegetables in it that got us both giggling.

[1682] Yeah, it was hard.

[1683] It was very hard to return.

[1684] It's fun to get the giggles, though.

[1685] It sure is.

[1686] A few things are more fun.

[1687] Yeah.

[1688] And you know what's funny is context is everything.

[1689] We couldn't get the giggles like that on the couch at home, you and I. No. There has to be some element that we're fucking up and we need to get to write some.

[1690] the ship.

[1691] That's true.

[1692] That's what makes the giggles actually work, is that you're not supposed to be doing it.

[1693] Yes, the giggles only comes in an inopportune environment.

[1694] Well, did you see John Oliver a couple weeks ago, and it was like, and now this, and they showed newscasters with the totally wrong tone.

[1695] Like, maybe they were just telling some funny story, and then they go into a car accident report.

[1696] Yes.

[1697] And that woman was talking about an airplane that, like, got hit by something, the passenger got sucked out and she's uncontrollably laughing.

[1698] Yes, I did see that.

[1699] It's kind of appalling and great.

[1700] I find it so funny.

[1701] I don't even have a moral dilemma.

[1702] I'm just like, oh, this is a person who lost it.

[1703] Sometimes when bad things are happening or if bad news is revealed, some people's response is to be so uncomfortable that they laugh.

[1704] Oh, uh -huh, sure.

[1705] That's happened to me and it's horrible.

[1706] It has.

[1707] Yeah, it's really bad.

[1708] And I doubt you want to repeat what?

[1709] piece of bad news.

[1710] I will.

[1711] When I was in middle school, I think it was.

[1712] I was at my friend's house and her little brother came in and he was, this must have been high school actually, her little brother came in and looked really, really, really sad.

[1713] But yeah, I think we were in the middle of something super fun and super high energy.

[1714] And then he came in.

[1715] He looked really sad.

[1716] Then he told us that his teacher died.

[1717] Oh, boy.

[1718] Okay.

[1719] And you lost it.

[1720] I was.

[1721] I just was, and I was trying very hard to repress.

[1722] Yeah.

[1723] It was horrible.

[1724] I felt horrible.

[1725] Yeah.

[1726] But I couldn't, I could not help it.

[1727] Right, right.

[1728] Well, that's like the craziest story I have.

[1729] You know, you've heard my funeral story.

[1730] What is it?

[1731] Best friend Aaron Winkley and I go to a funeral of a classmates in high school.

[1732] Yeah.

[1733] And we hadn't seen the classmate for a couple years.

[1734] Right.

[1735] And when we walked into the, it was Lynch and Sons funeral parlor in Milford, and there were, there's a couple, I guess, parlors in there.

[1736] There's a couple of different rooms, right?

[1737] Sure.

[1738] That's not the only funeral happening.

[1739] Yeah.

[1740] So we walked by the first room and I swear to God, there was a man sitting at a 90 degree angle in his coffin.

[1741] Like they clearly didn't wait him down enough and he popped back up.

[1742] Well, I didn't, we didn't see him pop.

[1743] But what we did see is a man basically sitting up in his coffin.

[1744] Yeah.

[1745] And everyone there was acting like he wasn't sitting up in his coffin.

[1746] And Aaron and I, we had to run right out of the funeral home.

[1747] We were tucked behind some bushes laughing uncontrollably.

[1748] It was the craziest thing we ever saw.

[1749] We go back in, in the couple years we hadn't seen this friend of ours, who I love dearly.

[1750] He was one of my very best friends in eighth grade.

[1751] apparently he had expressed some interest in being a police officer, but we didn't know that, okay?

[1752] Also, he had a white mustache all throughout his life.

[1753] Right.

[1754] And when we got up to the casket, and we'd already had that bad bout of laughing.

[1755] Of course.

[1756] And we get up to the casket, and there's all these police shields and patches decorating the casket.

[1757] Yeah.

[1758] And then we look inside, and he has a big black mustache.

[1759] Okay.

[1760] Someone had died that.

[1761] They died it wrong.

[1762] Yeah.

[1763] They probably thought, well, there's no way he has a white mustache.

[1764] I think it was an error.

[1765] Are you sure?

[1766] Yeah.

[1767] This is not just talk disparagingly about Lynch and son's funeral parlor.

[1768] I bet they're the best game in town.

[1769] But what I am saying is here's a guy we knew with a white mustache our whole life.

[1770] And now he had this thick, dark, black mustache and all these police badges.

[1771] And Aaron goes, oh, my God, he was undercover.

[1772] And then that really.

[1773] then we had to broke the second seal second seal and then we were pretending we were crying because we were laughing so hard we were so embarrassed we were laughing and then we tried to cover up with fake crying which probably was even more offensive yeah we couldn't get out of there fast enough we just you know what we should never even gone in once that thing happened where we saw a man sitting erect in his casket we should have been like that's a rap we there's no way we'll come back from this sure but you wanted to support your friends I had to yeah I love his parents and the whole thing is Absolutely heartbreaking.

[1774] But again, no intention ever be disrespectful in that scenario.

[1775] But it just, things were out of our control.

[1776] There was a man erect in his casket.

[1777] Of course.

[1778] And people acting like he wasn't.

[1779] I know.

[1780] It was too much for us.

[1781] Can you imagine being in the funeral and seeing him pop up?

[1782] He popped up at some point.

[1783] Well, well, you walked in at least post pop up.

[1784] Can you imagine sitting there and it's so sad?

[1785] And then all of a sudden that.

[1786] He rises The deceased He joins the party Yeah Now my question Would be Do you think he It was an immediate pop -up Or do you think he was Slowly just inching up And people were like What are we gonna Get in there And push him back down?

[1787] I don't know No I imagine It was a harsh pop -up But there were some like stones Maybe some straps That broke Yeah straps that broke Or stones On his shoulders That then like fell off.

[1788] So then it was just like, pop.

[1789] Well, in truth, they probably, I doubt they use tones, but they probably do use like a 45 pound weight on the chest, like a plate that you'd use in weightlifting.

[1790] All this makes me think of, have you seen the photographs of the funerals in Haiti?

[1791] No. Oh my gosh.

[1792] They have this thing where they pose people, basically taxidermy.

[1793] So like the really famous photo is this guy who loved motorcycle riding.

[1794] They fucking put his corpse on his motorcycle in the funeral parlor and everyone just gathered around and here's this taxidermy dead human on a motorcycle dead doing what they love the most is kind of lovely sure but could you imagine like mourning next to a dude fucking riding a wheelie on a motorcycle who's passed oh wow if any of if any of the arm cherries are family members of that motorcycle enthusiast I apologize but me too I'm sure it's a cultural blind spot of mine but it just seems bonkers.

[1795] I wonder what people would make me be doing?

[1796] You add a computer with a headphones in.

[1797] What?

[1798] That?

[1799] Really?

[1800] No, that's just what I see mostly.

[1801] When I see you, 60 % of the time I see you, you have headphones in on your computer.

[1802] Yeah.

[1803] Yeah.

[1804] I guess you'd be on a motorcycle, too, probably.

[1805] 69ing someone, hopefully.

[1806] Oh, my.

[1807] Another dead person?

[1808] Oh, my God.

[1809] Even worse, what if Kristen had to, like, comply.

[1810] He's alive.

[1811] I'm dead.

[1812] No, I would never allow that.

[1813] I don't think we're going to.

[1814] But we're just talking, yes, if we're combining all things, it would be like, you know, some sexual act on a motorcycle while eating Emily burger.

[1815] Oh, Emily's burger would be in my scene as well.

[1816] Yeah, and then like listening to my favorite music.

[1817] Like, where do you stop?

[1818] It's kind of a bummer that I don't have anything.

[1819] What do you mean?

[1820] No, you be.

[1821] High flying.

[1822] We'd have to get wires and shit and it'd be you high flying in a fucking cheerleading outfit holding the statutes.

[1823] The fucking prize.

[1824] Emily's Burger?

[1825] No. Trophy.

[1826] Holding your state trophy.

[1827] High flying in the splits and your cheerleading outfit hung from the ceiling by cables.

[1828] Dead splits.

[1829] No one wants to see that.

[1830] As long as your Grundies are covering your grundle, your banana.

[1831] You know, that's not, that's not what I do anymore.

[1832] I know you love, I know you have me frozen in time there.

[1833] Well, you peaked too early.

[1834] That's the problem.

[1835] You were a state champion at 18.

[1836] It's where are you going to go from there?

[1837] Yeah, that's true.

[1838] I always think that.

[1839] I was 17 and 16, but thank you.

[1840] I do.

[1841] Oh, right.

[1842] I forgot.

[1843] You were in eighth grade when you were six years old.

[1844] Right.

[1845] I do, I may as a pessimist in me, uh, I do have that thought when I the Olympics.

[1846] I'm like, I'm excited for them and I'm sad for them.

[1847] That they're peaking.

[1848] Yeah.

[1849] I'm like, God, they're 20.

[1850] Yeah.

[1851] And the highlight of their life is happening at 20.

[1852] Okay.

[1853] 60 more years.

[1854] But that's like the highlight of their public life.

[1855] Like, that doesn't mean that the highlight of their life isn't later when they have kids and do other stuff.

[1856] We just don't know about that.

[1857] You're right.

[1858] But let me be way more specific.

[1859] So they have to completely go back to the drawing board on their identity because they've spent 20 years practicing for this sport.

[1860] And then they do the event and then they age out of it.

[1861] And now they need a whole new thing.

[1862] And the other thing had taken up 90 % of their waking hours.

[1863] So, I mean, they are really back to the drawing board at like 25 years old.

[1864] I know.

[1865] I agree.

[1866] But I think they normally go back into some form of that thing.

[1867] Like coaching.

[1868] Yeah.

[1869] Yeah.

[1870] That's it.

[1871] Or Cirque de Soleil.

[1872] Endorsements.

[1873] A lot of those Circta soul A folks are former Olympians.

[1874] Are you sure?

[1875] you're not positive.

[1876] You're not positive at all.

[1877] Yeah, they're gymnasts and stuff.

[1878] Yeah, but that doesn't mean they were Olympians.

[1879] Yeah, they are all.

[1880] Everyone, every, 100 % of the members of the Circus Soleil troop are gold medal winners.

[1881] They don't even take silver metal.

[1882] Oh, goodness.

[1883] Oh, Reshma.

[1884] Oh, Reshma.

[1885] Well, I was glad we had her on.

[1886] She was lovely.

[1887] I want Reshma.

[1888] Lots of Reshma.

[1889] I interrupted you, but man, it was coming out before you started talking.

[1890] Is that your defense?

[1891] Let me just give you a straight apology.

[1892] I'm sorry for interrupting you.

[1893] You're well.

[1894] Thank you.

[1895] Thank you.

[1896] And it's fine.

[1897] And I'm glad she came on.

[1898] Me too.

[1899] Good night.

[1900] Bye.

[1901] Okay.

[1902] So we talk a little bit about how Indian words take the letter.

[1903] T and they make it into a T .H. Interesting.

[1904] So, like, talk to me would be T -H -A -L -K.

[1905] Talk to me. Uh, yeah.

[1906] There was a girl in my high school named Amrida.

[1907] Uh -huh.

[1908] But it was T -H.

[1909] It's spelled with a T. So that's why, so Americans read it as Amrita.

[1910] Like, if you're reading off the roll, it looks like Amrita.

[1911] So that's how Americans would say it, but it's, but it's actually pronounced in India, Amritha.

[1912] Oh, Ritha.

[1913] Okay, so they're adding an eight.

[1914] There's a phantom H. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1915] Okay.

[1916] So my example was bad.

[1917] Do you know the rice, Basmadi?

[1918] Yeah.

[1919] In India, they pronounce it Basmuthi.

[1920] Bessmuthy.

[1921] Uh -huh.

[1922] Maybe I'll start doing that.

[1923] You should.

[1924] Get some busmuthy rice with my chicken.

[1925] That's how my parents and my grandparents always pronounced it.

[1926] And then one day my mom started calling it basmati.

[1927] And I thought, what are you doing?

[1928] Yeah, who are you?

[1929] Who even are you?

[1930] Well, I had a friend who was Egyptian.

[1931] Mm -hmm.

[1932] Kareem.

[1933] Yeah.

[1934] And they pronounced Baclava, Bacalava.

[1935] Yes.

[1936] Actually, Charlie Curtis Perfect 10 pronounced it like that the other day.

[1937] It's disturbing.

[1938] Well, especially he shouldn't be calling it that.

[1939] I mean, he's as white as it gets.

[1940] Yeah, but he's pronouncing it correctly.

[1941] I thought you would be all totally for that.

[1942] You're always saying words in the way that the original place pronounces them.

[1943] Well, no, my defense, was I grew up in Detroit.

[1944] We have a really big Greek population.

[1945] We have Greek town downtown Detroit.

[1946] That's where I would always get Baclava.

[1947] And the Greeks are calling it Baclava.

[1948] So when I heard Buc Lava, I'm like, oh, the Egyptians have messed this up.

[1949] Well, people will tweet, and we'll hear.

[1950] We'll hear both sides of it.

[1951] We'll hear.

[1952] Maybe the Buck Lava commission will file a lawsuit against us.

[1953] I think Amy Hansen also pronounced it like that.

[1954] But Buck Lava, it sounds like lava coming out of a male deer.

[1955] Buck lava, you know?

[1956] It does.

[1957] Like he shot his buck lava.

[1958] But bachlava doesn't sound...

[1959] It sounds like nothing.

[1960] It sounds like only that food, right?

[1961] Sometimes words, yeah, yeah.

[1962] Yeah, yeah, sure.

[1963] Buck lava.

[1964] Oh, man, I was out in the pasture and I fucking stepped in a big pile of buck lava.

[1965] Like, what would you think that meant?

[1966] Okay, well, you're right.

[1967] If you're in a pasture, context clues, I probably would have thought it had some animal droppings.

[1968] Or even though.

[1969] Ajaculate even.

[1970] Lava.

[1971] I would never assume that.

[1972] I would never assume that someone was walking through a pasture and stepped in some deer.

[1973] Yeah.

[1974] Deer semen.

[1975] The whole pile of it.

[1976] So much that you noticed it got stuck on your foot.

[1977] What's the least gross word for that?

[1978] So you said semen.

[1979] That's dicey.

[1980] Why?

[1981] I don't know.

[1982] It sounds gross to me. Semen is the most clinical.

[1983] Yeah, but what about ejaculate?

[1984] You think that's worse?

[1985] Yeah.

[1986] Okay.

[1987] Because that is, like, to me, feels like an automata peel.

[1988] Like, it's like, it makes that noise when it kind, like, it's too visceral.

[1989] It's like shooting.

[1990] It feels like shooting out.

[1991] Okay.

[1992] All right.

[1993] That's what I think.

[1994] Jizz is not great.

[1995] That's rank.

[1996] Yeah.

[1997] It's low rent.

[1998] Uh -huh.

[1999] I don't even want to say the other one.

[2000] Yeah, sperm's fine, right?

[2001] Sperm.

[2002] Sperm and semen are the clinical ones.

[2003] Spunk.

[2004] Spunk.

[2005] I don't mind that.

[2006] Spunky?

[2007] Spunky Brewster?

[2008] Yeah, it's one of those ones.

[2009] It doesn't have a good name.

[2010] Just like vomit or vagina.

[2011] None of the words for any of those things are great.

[2012] So vomit, I agree with you.

[2013] I guess it's really just a comment on what it's describing.

[2014] I mean, it just, you can't transcend it.

[2015] But that's why I don't think vagina is gross.

[2016] It's interesting to me that you think the word vagina sounds gross.

[2017] Well, I just mean.

[2018] I'm pumped on that word.

[2019] There's no word for vagina that's like great.

[2020] Oh, I think pussy is.

[2021] I know.

[2022] You like that.

[2023] Yeah.

[2024] A lot of people don't like it.

[2025] I'm on the, I like it sometimes.

[2026] I appreciate you saying a lot and not most.

[2027] Because you were on the verge of saying most.

[2028] I was.

[2029] I was.

[2030] And I don't know.

[2031] But I do know a lot of people don't.

[2032] I know a lot of females don't.

[2033] Right.

[2034] Like it.

[2035] I wonder what those females want it to be referred to.

[2036] That's what I'm saying.

[2037] I don't think there's a good universal name for it that people agree on is good.

[2038] Right.

[2039] What are they all?

[2040] Bagina.

[2041] Kitty.

[2042] Oh, you could go on for hours about this because there's some really gross ones, right?

[2043] Yeah.

[2044] Boc.

[2045] Taco?

[2046] I've never heard.

[2047] Well, pink taco, the restaurant.

[2048] That's a reference to pink taco.

[2049] So, yeah.

[2050] Am I out of?

[2051] No, not all.

[2052] No, no. No way.

[2053] Pappoose?

[2054] Forget it.

[2055] Let's go.

[2056] There's just going to be some people in the church parking lot panicking right now.

[2057] Okay.

[2058] Like they were in a super nice, great podcast, learning a lot about Rushma.

[2059] And all of a sudden they're hearing about Coochicu and cha, cha, cha.

[2060] Or Coochic.

[2061] Span spasm.

[2062] That's, um, Chach.

[2063] We can't do it again.

[2064] Chachi.

[2065] That's Chachi.

[2066] Cucci, coo.

[2067] No, not Chachi.

[2068] I know.

[2069] What the hell is her name?

[2070] Why can we never remember it?

[2071] Charo.

[2072] Charo.

[2073] Charo.

[2074] Charo.

[2075] Charo.

[2076] Anywho.

[2077] How the hell did that?

[2078] I don't know.

[2079] We were talking about words.

[2080] Oh, we were talking about Indian words.

[2081] Oh, with the T. Yeah, with the T and the T. It also, the double.

[2082] use sound is often used in replace of the V sound.

[2083] And sometimes the V sound is dropped completely, especially at the end of the word.

[2084] So they just don't like V, the sound, the V sound.

[2085] Yeah.

[2086] Another word for vagina.

[2087] Would they just say, agina?

[2088] No, only if it's at the end.

[2089] No, they'd say wadgina.

[2090] Oh, no. Wagina.

[2091] That's pretty cute, vagina.

[2092] Although I don't like it.

[2093] It sounds like a little kid saying.

[2094] It sounds baby, yeah.

[2095] Yeah.

[2096] I don't like the idea of baby talk about your genitals.

[2097] Your vagina.

[2098] That's very dissettling.

[2099] Gross.

[2100] Yeah, if I was ever hooking up with a gal who was like, I can't do it.

[2101] I can't do it.

[2102] My vagina's cold.

[2103] Oh, my God.

[2104] You got, all right.

[2105] Cut, cut, cut.

[2106] We'll see you tomorrow.

[2107] See if we can shake this off.

[2108] Let me give you some notes.

[2109] My hunch is I can't shake this off, but let's definitely regroup tomorrow.

[2110] Also, she shouldn't be telling you that it's cold.

[2111] Well, no, that was her going to be her cute way of saying warm it up.

[2112] Oh.

[2113] Yeah.

[2114] I don't.

[2115] Do you think that's cute?

[2116] No, I'm just, but I'm already, I'm already, I've already taken on the persona of a person who would say vagina.

[2117] I know.

[2118] I'm just curious if that's a cute line.

[2119] My vagina is cute.

[2120] Ew.

[2121] Ew.

[2122] Ew.

[2123] Ew.

[2124] Okay.

[2125] Okay.

[2126] We should label this episode, Taking Out the Trash.

[2127] I know.

[2128] It's pretty dirty.

[2129] We sprayed buck lava all over this thing.

[2130] Anyway.

[2131] So, Reshma loves astrology.

[2132] Mm -hmm.

[2133] So I decided to look up our daily horoscope.

[2134] Oh, fine.

[2135] Yeah.

[2136] Can you're a Capricorn, as we know.

[2137] March 1st, according to astrology.

[2138] Capricorn.

[2139] The good news for today is that you have a totally accurate idea of what you're dealing with and what you'll have to start dealing with.

[2140] That's true.

[2141] Oh, wow.

[2142] There is no need to doubt the thoughts that are flying around in your head right now, even if other people are telling you that you're being dramatic or paranoid.

[2143] Oh, my God.

[2144] This literally happened on the patio a half hour ago.

[2145] That's not true at all.

[2146] You are right on targets and are right about your suspicions.

[2147] Oh, boy.

[2148] what you want to accomplish.

[2149] Holy smokes.

[2150] I probably shouldn't heed that advice.

[2151] Wait, what happened on the patio?

[2152] On the Mexican patio?

[2153] Well, you said, let me guess you're in a bad mood because of what starts next week.

[2154] And I said, yes.

[2155] And you said, it's not going to be bad.

[2156] And I said, well, we'll say.

[2157] Oh, I didn't say it's not going to be bad.

[2158] I just said, I hope you feel better.

[2159] No, you said it's not going to be bad.

[2160] Hi, welcome to CBS.

[2161] You have a question?

[2162] Yes, where are your waginal product?

[2163] I need a tampon.

[2164] And a couple.

[2165] Oh, there's another reason to be ashamed.

[2166] Waginal?

[2167] I just wanted to say wadginal.

[2168] I know, but it's like.

[2169] Vagina sounds like kid talk, but wadginal sounds kind of funny.

[2170] Like, why can't they?

[2171] Well, because they speak another language.

[2172] I know.

[2173] Yeah, and it's okay.

[2174] Who are we?

[2175] We were finally laughing at a white person's silly language last night and I was so relieved.

[2176] No, but it was Frenchmen.

[2177] Yeah.

[2178] But who cares?

[2179] Yeah.

[2180] We were having a riot.

[2181] Well, we were.

[2182] watching this Frenchman speak with his hands.

[2183] That's really what it was.

[2184] He was using his hands in such a gregarious.

[2185] Orchestrating an orchestra.

[2186] That's not what you say.

[2187] Yeah.

[2188] Conducting an orchestra.

[2189] Conducting an orchestra.

[2190] Yeah.

[2191] And also he sounded funny on top of all that.

[2192] Mm -hmm.

[2193] Yeah.

[2194] It was a, we had a good, good time.

[2195] We had a good, like, five -minute laugh about that.

[2196] I thought about this today.

[2197] Oh, you did.

[2198] I don't know why it came up in my brain, but.

[2199] I thought about when we got in the debate about watching Sye on David Blaine's special and Eight Spade or whatever it was.

[2200] Because I said, you know, when that triggers me because it reminds me of my dad, not being able to say something.

[2201] And you said that it's funny because it's not what you expect.

[2202] It breaks an expectation.

[2203] So.

[2204] No, but hold on one second because I do, I want to draw one distinction.

[2205] Okay.

[2206] So if I saw someone who was mentally challenged say some things wrong, I actually wouldn't laugh because my expectation isn't that they're going to say it correctly.

[2207] You know what I'm saying?

[2208] But Sai is a very smart, very talented, super successful human being.

[2209] I know, but he's Asian.

[2210] So your expectation shouldn't be that the words out of his mouth are going to sound like an American person.

[2211] Well, what's interesting is that he does speak English and then this one little peculiarity.

[2212] is that clearly in Korea, they must say it the other way.

[2213] Like, when they play cards, I presume they played cards in Korea.

[2214] Like, I actually don't think there was a language barrier.

[2215] I bet that the order that they say it in, in Korea is probably the order he said it.

[2216] Well, the words different in Korea.

[2217] It's not spayed and it's not eight.

[2218] It's whatever that language.

[2219] But it is a number in a suit.

[2220] Yeah, but maybe.

[2221] I bet he was saying it correct for Korea.

[2222] Maybe.

[2223] But, I mean, it wasn't like every word sound.

[2224] It wasn't like me saying it with a totally amazing.

[2225] American accent and then switching it.

[2226] Uh -huh.

[2227] He had an accent the whole time.

[2228] Yeah.

[2229] And then that happened.

[2230] Anyway, I'm just saying, like, if, like, your friend from home or something was here in L .A. Yeah.

[2231] And said something wrong.

[2232] Yeah.

[2233] And everyone laughed.

[2234] Uh -huh.

[2235] I do not think you would like it.

[2236] I think you would feel like they think they're better than this person.

[2237] because they know how to say this correctly.

[2238] I don't know that I'd ever be mad at people who are laughing.

[2239] If Aaron came.

[2240] Yeah, Aaron Weekly.

[2241] Yeah, if Aaron came.

[2242] I think laughing's involuntary.

[2243] I don't think someone makes a decision in the moment to laugh.

[2244] I think something's funnier or it's not funny.

[2245] So what I would feel is very sad that Aaron might be embarrassed.

[2246] For sure.

[2247] Yeah.

[2248] But I would have no judgment of the person that laughed.

[2249] If it's funny to them, they just, it's not.

[2250] not a decision.

[2251] I don't think someone can feel all that guilty about what they laugh about.

[2252] It's just, they just start laughing.

[2253] Well, yeah, we just talked about this with the funeral.

[2254] Yeah, the teacher that died.

[2255] Yes, I didn't want to laugh.

[2256] But you know what I didn't do is laugh and then 10 minutes later say, oh my God, remember when his teacher died and then laugh again and then do it again 10 minutes after that.

[2257] Like, I didn't like that I thought that was funny.

[2258] And you'd want the rest of the people, your L .A. friends to, if they laugh, okay, but if they brought it up again, you would freak out.

[2259] I know that about you.

[2260] Okay.

[2261] But now again, but now the debate has shifted to another topic, in my opinion.

[2262] Okay.

[2263] Which is I often act in a way that I would not say as correct.

[2264] and I would not say as moral and I wouldn't say as evolved.

[2265] Again, it's what I say when people go, oh, you don't believe in the death penalty.

[2266] What if someone killed your daughter?

[2267] And I'm like, yes, I would kill someone who kills my daughter.

[2268] I would.

[2269] But I don't think that should be the policy in the country.

[2270] And I think the collective is better than the individual.

[2271] And I should never be in a position to make policy if I'm the victim of my daughter being killed.

[2272] I should be excluded from the decision -making process because I'm now very emotional and I'm not operating, not of what I know is intellectually best.

[2273] So, yes, would I be angry and defensive of Aaron and maybe even be mean to the people that are laughing?

[2274] I 100 % would.

[2275] You're right.

[2276] I would.

[2277] But I do stand by the fact that if someone laughs, I think it's innocent and I think it's involuntary.

[2278] And I don't think they decided, ooh, that person's other and they're stupid and I'm superior.

[2279] And now I'm laughing.

[2280] I don't think that's happening.

[2281] Mm -hmm.

[2282] But I'm saying that there's emotions tied to these things.

[2283] Yeah, for sure.

[2284] And so when we're sitting there...

[2285] Well, I don't not understand where you're coming from.

[2286] But then I guess my question is, if that's true, like, why'd you keep saying it?

[2287] If you knew that that did, if that was making me...

[2288] Because I'm not with Sye.

[2289] But it had nothing to do with Sye had something to do with me. You knew that I didn't like it when you did that.

[2290] So, but then so doing it again.

[2291] again is not is insensitive to your yes yeah i think that one yeah that's interesting because yeah does our friendship require that if you don't find something funny and i do i should have an obligation to not find it funny in front of you as part of our relationship that's a compelling question maybe you're right now if it's you if you're like hey don't don't do a don't do abu's voice that hurts my feelings i don't like it that's about you so i i would never do it if you told me something's going to hurt your feelings i wouldn't do it but if i saw a guy crash a car through a house uh because he lost control of his vehicle that makes me laugh really hard and you go hey man my my buddy's mom was killed by her dad driving through the garage and in uh in killing him you know do i have to take that on your like association with that event is it is that my obligation as your friend to now take that on no it didn't even happen to you it happened to someone else but it triggers you i don't know it's complicated the quick answer is i won't make i won't ever bring up sigh again that's not the point of this conversation.

[2292] No, I'm saying if it makes you sad when I left at eight spades, spade eight, I won't do it again.

[2293] Okay.

[2294] I'm not asking you to not do it.

[2295] I'm just, I'm trying to create some empathy here about what's happening with some people when, when they experience that.

[2296] And it's not just an expectation is broken and that's why it's funny.

[2297] There's more to all of this.

[2298] And if we make it applicable to you.

[2299] I just am trying to have other people understand what it is like when yeah.

[2300] But also, Monica, I think what you're, you want it to be objectively offensive and I disagree because in your analogy, it's not even an analogy.

[2301] My dad said every other word run because he had dyslexia and I thought it was funny the whole time.

[2302] So I'm, I, it's not hypothetical.

[2303] It happened.

[2304] So in my household in my childhood.

[2305] That was funny.

[2306] We all laughed at it.

[2307] My mom was saying shit wrong last night and I was smiling when she did it.

[2308] And we'll continually think it's funny when my mom makes an error like that.

[2309] Mm -hmm.

[2310] So we're just fundamentally different in that way, which is fine.

[2311] Everyone makes errors.

[2312] It's not making an error.

[2313] It's making an error due to something you don't have control over.

[2314] You don't have control over dyslexia.

[2315] Okay.

[2316] So how come Aaron Weekly is different than your dad?

[2317] You are admitted.

[2318] that if Aaron is here in Los Angeles where everyone speaks a certain way and knows a certain amount of whatever.

[2319] What I'm admitting is I would hate to see Aaron embarrassed.

[2320] I think people have a total right to laugh at him saying something incorrectly.

[2321] But not to keep laughing.

[2322] That you don't think is fair.

[2323] If they had it on tape and they watched it several times because it was making them laugh every time, I wouldn't object to that.

[2324] If Aaron Weekly was feeling embarrassed, I'd be mad about that he was suffering, and I wouldn't like that.

[2325] But I don't have a problem with what's actually happening.

[2326] I think it's funny when people make mistakes.

[2327] It's funny when people fall down.

[2328] It's funny when people lose control of cars.

[2329] It's funny when they fuck up language.

[2330] All that's funny to me. Human error is funny.

[2331] I think there is a, I think there is a racial component to your point of view that doesn't exist in my point of view.

[2332] And I think that's the basis of this.

[2333] Because if an Indian person crashed a car on television, and I laughed at that, it wouldn't trigger it because there's no otherness about it.

[2334] It would be funny to watch an Indian person crash through their garage door.

[2335] Sure.

[2336] But if I laughed at how they turned a phrase backwards, that has the other implication.

[2337] Mm -hmm.

[2338] You know what I'm saying?

[2339] Yeah.

[2340] But that's what I'm, that's what was, that's the comparison with Aaron.

[2341] There is an otherness.

[2342] There is.

[2343] There's Aaron who has grown up in a completely different scenario than that.

[2344] all of these privileged other people.

[2345] Yeah.

[2346] And he has no control over that.

[2347] Okay, no. Okay.

[2348] So, all right.

[2349] So, yeah.

[2350] Let's, now we can get really specific.

[2351] If it was a class thing, if it was that he used the word good instead of well.

[2352] And they were like, oh, my God, he may, he used well instead of good.

[2353] Yeah, I think that that is not a unilateral way of talking.

[2354] It's the upper crust way of talking.

[2355] I can see why they think.

[2356] it's funny.

[2357] If that's all they've ever heard is I'm doing well instead of I'm doing good, I, you know, I don't know what to say about it, but, but that one, yeah, does seem a little predicated on the, the, uh, them feeling superior.

[2358] Right.

[2359] I don't feel superior to sigh.

[2360] In any way, in fact, most ways I feel inferior to sigh.

[2361] Yeah.

[2362] Yeah.

[2363] Oh, I'm Gagnum style.

[2364] Was that a song?

[2365] Uh -huh.

[2366] That was a song.

[2367] Um, okay.

[2368] So my horoscope is, the forces around you are extremely active and they are keeping you quite busy with tasks you probably haven't chosen for yourself nevertheless you shouldn't feel like you don't have any power over your life right now you always have the power to accept and you should use it except the fact that for right now you can't call all the shots but soon enough that will all change this is a day for biting your time and planning your next move this feels very accurate to you as well it does these are pretty good these are suspiciously accurate But when I just imagined you were reading that one about me, I found a way to make it make sense about me too.

[2369] I know.

[2370] I know.

[2371] They all do.

[2372] They all really do.

[2373] They're really cleverly worded in that they.

[2374] Yeah, they make sense to everybody.

[2375] Yeah.

[2376] Yeah.

[2377] But it's kind of fun.

[2378] That feels very accurate to you.

[2379] It's fun to, I like people who are into it.

[2380] Yeah.

[2381] It'd be fun to believe in it.

[2382] Mm -hmm.

[2383] Because it's generally positive.

[2384] Yeah, yeah.

[2385] You don't read too many of them there like, you know, you're fucked, your health is fucked.

[2386] Right.

[2387] You know, you need to get to a doctor immediately is spreading fast.

[2388] Stop reading this and go now.

[2389] That's true.

[2390] No, I think it's like little affirmations kind of, which are nice.

[2391] That's nice.

[2392] Oh, I looked into the percentage of programmers in other countries.

[2393] Uh -huh.

[2394] Female.

[2395] Sorry, female programmers in other countries.

[2396] And the highest percentage is India and it's 22 .9.

[2397] So it's not that high.

[2398] Yeah.

[2399] Yeah.

[2400] So I was sort of wrong about that.

[2401] Oh, I'm proud of you for admitting that.

[2402] You could have glossed right over that.

[2403] Just said like, oh, I didn't even look that up.

[2404] Well, no, I wouldn't do that.

[2405] You have a lot of integrity.

[2406] I wouldn't do that.

[2407] I find you to be someone with very high integrity.

[2408] Thanks.

[2409] Truthfully.

[2410] Thank you.

[2411] The most fun someone can have is listening to Jess and Monica debate a certain topic and what should be done next.

[2412] That's true.

[2413] He has integrity too, but it's a different kind.

[2414] Different standards.

[2415] Yeah, that is true.

[2416] Bill O 'Reilly, no spin zone.

[2417] It is no spin zone.

[2418] And a lot of people wouldn't expect this from you, but you have a Bill O 'Reilly poster in your home.

[2419] You love Bill O 'Reilly.

[2420] Love, love, love.

[2421] grew up on him.

[2422] When you walk into Monica's house, there's a big flag that says no spin zone.

[2423] She wants you know right away.

[2424] Guys, that's not true.

[2425] I don't want anyone to think that.

[2426] I get really nervous.

[2427] I don't want anyone to think that.

[2428] I want to say one thing about Bill O 'Reilly.

[2429] I don't dislike him because of his politics.

[2430] That's not it.

[2431] I could care less.

[2432] He was such a fucking bully.

[2433] Oh, my God.

[2434] He had that guy on the son of a 9 -11.

[2435] victim in the World Trade Center.

[2436] He looked at him and said, your father would be so disappointed in you.

[2437] Because he didn't want to go to Iraq.

[2438] He's like, this is not the response.

[2439] And I was like, I would fucking love to get interviewed by him and then the middle of, just knock him the fuck out right off his chair.

[2440] Fuck it.

[2441] We'll do it live!

[2442] I mean, you think that was an accident that he acted like that?

[2443] No, it's nasty.

[2444] Oh, he was a bully.

[2445] That's my issue with him.

[2446] So I don't care about his politics.

[2447] That's not.

[2448] the issue for me. It's just a real bully.

[2449] Yeah, I don't like him.

[2450] And I challenge you, Bill O 'Reilly.

[2451] You can even come with a couple of those KKK guys.

[2452] No, I'll go all for you.

[2453] No, thanks.

[2454] No, thank you.

[2455] Nope.

[2456] I got to let my finger heal before I make any of these challenges.

[2457] You want to tell everybody about your finger?

[2458] No. You can.

[2459] No. You smash your finger in a door at work.

[2460] A car door at work.

[2461] A pickup truck door, yeah.

[2462] Yeah, and it's really rough.

[2463] It's a little.

[2464] It's banged up.

[2465] Yeah, there's blood on both sides.

[2466] Yeah.

[2467] It's a little big right now.

[2468] It's a sad finger.

[2469] So I just got to, I got to probably let that heal before this cage match with O 'Reilly.

[2470] I think that would be wise, yes.

[2471] Oh, speaking of my house and my parents.

[2472] Reshma said that her parents wouldn't let her go to sleepovers and wouldn't let her ride in cars with boys.

[2473] and stuff because they were afraid that she was going to get like, you know, abducted or something.

[2474] Yeah.

[2475] And that really made me think because my parents didn't do that at all.

[2476] I was always at sleepovers and always, they didn't really pay much attention or care.

[2477] I wonder if her, Reshma's mother worked.

[2478] Did that come up?

[2479] Because I bet that would be the that's a good question.

[2480] Differenti.

[2481] Well, that is, well, I think I said that on there, but Rashma is my mom.

[2482] Right.

[2483] She's more my mom, not me because she's more first generation.

[2484] So you're like 1 .5 generation.

[2485] I know.

[2486] It's a complicated.

[2487] Because you're both first generation from your dad, but your second generation from your mom.

[2488] My dad just like doesn't count.

[2489] He's not the average person that came over.

[2490] Yeah.

[2491] And I think that's probably from my mom, for marrying my mom.

[2492] Right.

[2493] It wasn't as insular for him.

[2494] And I also, my dad always says like, his mom was very progressive and so I think he also grew up a little bit differently in general and then the combination just made a very whitewashed situation but anyway so but I was realizing that you know I really had it quite good in that way and I we've talked about here about my fear and how I get that from them and how they are they're very fearful and cautious and I've escaped a lot of that and it made me feel like oh my mom escaped a lot of it too for sure so yeah it's all progress it's all progress and so I um if we're assuming being fearless is the goal which exactly I do yeah yeah um so I had to I just applaud you know she's doing good too yeah yeah that was yeah you gave you a moment of gratitude yeah yeah definitely your parents are so goddamn cute it's Oh, we just talked about the statistic on last week's fact check about $75 ,000 being the amount of happiness.

[2495] Where it plateaus.

[2496] Exactly, yeah.

[2497] So that came up again.

[2498] Let's see.

[2499] What percentage of our GDP is Wall Street?

[2500] Modern economies depend on a thriving financial sector and the U .S. finance, insurance, and real estate fire sector accounts for 20 % of the GDP.

[2501] but that's multiple things, but I couldn't find just finance.

[2502] That's still a fucking substantial chunk, and that's not even including probably the derivative market and other markets built on top of those markets.

[2503] Yeah, exactly.

[2504] Okay, so swimming.

[2505] Oh, great.

[2506] Yeah.

[2507] I didn't find anything about Indian people swimming, but other than the world record holder.

[2508] Right, for treading water, yeah.

[2509] Yeah, that for sure is.

[2510] I don't think that's real or I don't think just because I don't like swimming and she doesn't doesn't mean that Indian people don't that's not enough data no oh someone pointed out by the way when we're talking about data being plural yes so I guess someone pointed out that datum is the singular of data exactly yeah even though no one says well their point was there's no one goes after datum because the whole point of data is to get a bunch of data and see what a What pattern emerges.

[2511] So there's no pattern with one datum.

[2512] One piece of...

[2513] No one's like, let's go ask one person.

[2514] That's right.

[2515] Interesting.

[2516] What's funny is when they said that, I was like, oh, duh, right.

[2517] And then I do remember, I think of it more as datum point.

[2518] They'll go like, you know, one datum point is this.

[2519] Yeah.

[2520] Yeah.

[2521] And then somebody else said moose.

[2522] Moose was an example of a word that's also pluralizes the same.

[2523] And then I said a few minutes after fish.

[2524] Yeah, I still think I'm right about fish.

[2525] It could be.

[2526] Anyway, so according to the BBC .com, just under 70 % of African American children surveyed said they had no or low ability to swim.

[2527] Low ability merely meant they were able to splash around in the shallow end.

[2528] A further 12 % said they could swim but had taught themselves.

[2529] Parents who don't know how to swim are very likely to pass on, not.

[2530] not knowing how to swim.

[2531] So that's a big factor.

[2532] There's no physiological component.

[2533] It's because there are so many factors to it that it's hard to say that one's conclusive or one is like the reason.

[2534] So I don't, I think there is some biological component.

[2535] But, but I think a lot of these articles say that like the majority of it has to do with not being close to pools and pools are.

[2536] And their parents don't swim.

[2537] to pass it on.

[2538] Yeah.

[2539] That makes a lot of sense.

[2540] Oh, and then also in this BBC article, black respondents far more than white or Hispanic respondents who are sometimes concerned about the effect chlorinated water would have on their hair.

[2541] Oh, that makes sense.

[2542] So that's also a factor.

[2543] But yeah, there are so many factors, you know?

[2544] Yeah.

[2545] Anyway, that's...

[2546] You know, what's interesting is I actually...

[2547] You know, like, the part of 23ME that I like is that I feel so guilty that I sleep like, because I end up blaming me. myself like oh I had caffeine too late or I didn't relax good enough or whatever you know it's just I end up feeling so guilty but my failure to sleep well yeah so I found it comforting to see that I have a genetic marker for being a bad sleeper it just for me took the guilt off so weirdly if I was black and I didn't pick up swimming as easily as my white friend did I'd actually be comforted by the fact that oh hey you have a more muscle density or something it's harder for you yeah I would find that comforting.

[2548] I know.

[2549] But then it's also just like it just can become self -fulfilling prophecy.

[2550] It can, you know, I don't know.

[2551] You could be defeatist.

[2552] Like, I'm not even going to try to say.

[2553] Yeah, like, why?

[2554] I'm not going to be good at it.

[2555] And even, yeah.

[2556] Well, it harkens back to anthropometry, which was, you know, that was dicey.

[2557] Yeah.

[2558] And Charles Murray.

[2559] Like, it's a little bit too close to that.

[2560] Yeah.

[2561] Yeah.

[2562] I guess it does.

[2563] Because you can never avoid the broader.

[2564] question, which is like, why even ask these questions?

[2565] Exactly.

[2566] Exactly.

[2567] And I guess really, I, well, I do feel like my instincts are pure and altruistic, which is if, if black kids are having a harder time swimming, I would want them to not feel bad about it and have a reason.

[2568] Yeah.

[2569] I don't know.

[2570] Maybe no one's feeling bad about not swimming.

[2571] I'm not.

[2572] Yeah.

[2573] I'm definitely not.

[2574] Yeah.

[2575] You're doing just fine.

[2576] Anyway.

[2577] All right.

[2578] I love you.

[2579] Love you.

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