Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard - We are supported by... Sheryl Sandberg

Episode Date: September 1, 2021

We Are Supported By, hosted by Kristen Bell and Monica Padman is a 10 episode limited series podcast. Each episode deep dives with a woman who has put a crack in the glass ceiling. Episode 10: Sheryl Sandberg Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's episode 10. It's episode 10. We did it. Yeah. I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you. Thank you. It was so fun.

We're not done, guys. We're not done. Don't worry. Yeah. We're going to brainstorm and do more because people seem to like it. But I think we got a pretty spectacular 10 because what we're trying to represent all sorts of fields, right? Exactly.

Whether it's activism or an economist or a talk show host. Or an influencer. Or an influencer or an athlete. And then the business world, we were like, who? Who's number one? Who, like, maybe even prior to getting into business, served as chief of staff for, like, a U.S. secretary of treasury or… Well, I don't know.

It's tricky because there's so many. So many women with this title. Who is like a current COO, like a founder of a major foundation that's helping women? And we were like, oof, I guess we call Sheryl Sandberg. I guess we do.

And I guess she said yes. There are so many things I respect about this woman and how candidly she talks about what it means to be a woman and her rise up. And we talk about a lot of it in the episode, but one thing we did not mention that I definitely want to mention is that she has created so many amazing standards and practices where she works. Not only did she help with like paternity leave and maternity leave because those things were really, really important, but she was one of the leaders that decided not to have their regular half-yearly reviews because she thought it was

hypocritical to tell employees to focus on their personal life during COVID, which they were sincere about, and then also expect them to perform at 110%. She also led the creation of domestic violence leave. I know. We didn't talk about that in this, which is a bit of a bummer, but it's huge. I mean, domestic violence leave, nobody talks about that, but she made it so that you can have paid time off if you become a victim of domestic violence or if they have to help take care of a family member who's a victim of domestic violence. It's so important. Like the workload at home, she is acknowledging and making massive strides for people to be more nurturing at home and also succeed in the workplace. Oh, we love her.

She was perfect. And we're really grateful to all of our guests this season. We do have one more episode for you after this next week that's a little bit of a surprise, a little different and really fun. So we are supported by Sheryl Sandberg. There you are. Hi. Hi, Kristen. Hi, Monica. Thank you for joining us.

Glad we squeezed it in. And also, Kristen, I'm like an actual fan. I watched Veronica Mars. I've watched every episode of The Good Place with my kids. That makes me so happy. Did we meet at that reading of your book? When there was a movie script written about your book, I did the reading with Bradley Whitford and a bunch of other great people, but I couldn't remember if you were there. I think I vaguely knew that was happening, but like, I don't think anyone invited me. That's hilarious. They were just like, give us the rights to your book. We're going to do a

bunch of stuff with it. And you're on a need to know basis. Well, they knew you were too busy, most likely. No, I mean, I'm not sure I'd given them the rights to my book. I think they were trying to get the rights. I was part of a scheme and I didn't even know it. Kristen. Well, it was a great script. Well, thank you. It was the woman, Nell Scovell, who wrote Lean In With Me, really wanted to do something. And I wanted it done only if it was the woman, Nell Scovell, who wrote Lean In With Me, really wanted to do something. And I wanted it done only if it was done correctly. And that's really hard to do. So thank you for being part of that. That is awesome. Oh my God, of course. I love your story. It's really nice to meet you.

Really nice to meet you too. Thank you. We are so pleased to have you. So Lean In, what we just spoke about, Kristen stealing the rights to your book. Yeah. Putting on a whole production without you. What was the impetus for that book? I saw, Kristen, one of the things you wrote where you said you weren't going to be silent anymore about depression. I think that was my, I'm not going to be silent anymore that I'm a woman. So I turned 52 this weekend. Happy birthday. Happy birthday. When I came into the workforce, I thought gender wasn't an issue. I kind of looked around me. It was all men, but I figured we hadn't had time for our generation to get there. And then the longer I

stayed in the workforce, the more I realized it was an issue. In every job I had, whether it was the government or Silicon Valley, you felt like you really needed to fit in. And needed to fit in meant you did not talk about getting pregnant. Ew. Having a child, having other responsibilities. The fact that men interrupted you and they didn't interrupt other men. The fact that your ideas kind of got getting taken. And so I gave this TED Talk on women and I took a stage and I just said, there are too few women leaders and here's some of the reasons why. And then Lean In was the continuation of that journey for me where I believed we needed

to actually talk about this and acknowledge that it just wasn't going that well. And it's still not by a lot. It's funny, right? Because a lot of people agree on it. Even men that I know and love are like, yeah, of course, like we want to uplift women too. And then in my head, I'm going, then why are you interrupting everyone? Like it's almost like a habitual practice. Yeah. I mean, I think everyone wants to make it better, but they don't realize that they're often, all of us, part of the issue. The deep cultural stereotypes we have on women and men are very different. Walk onto any playground this weekend in LA or wherever you are, go up to some little girl who's been called bossy. And you can say, that little girl's not bossy. That little girl has executive

leadership skills. And that's funny because humor goes against type, right? Say it as a male, that little boy has executive leadership skills. There's no humor. Yeah. You just take it at face value. Because to this day, it is still funny that a little girl has executive leadership skills. I mean, think about your industry. If you are a woman and you are working a job and you have kids, there's like drama in your life in Hollywood about that. There's never like a guy character who has like a job and kids and that's the drama. That's not drama.

That's normal. Right. Or if it is, it's like a sitcom where it's like the big goofy thing of a dad with a baby Bjorn on his chest. Yeah. Because like the mom died. Right, right, right. Like not just because he's taking on the responsibility, but because he had to take on the responsibility. He was forced into it. Right. That is the typical way that it would be written. I've literally had so many men say to me, I was babysitting this weekend. Their own children. No, Cheryl. Monica's so close with our family. Like we do everything together and she's my husband and I's best friend and she's

the aunt to our little girls. And it's so funny because anytime any of the moms are like, well, can you babysit the kids? Like I'll hear Monica under her breath go, it's not babysitting if they're your own children. Like I can't. I've become accustomed to accepting that. But by having a girlfriend with, I will say it, and it's not laughable, strong leadership skills sitting here next to me, she repeats a lot of mantras in my ear that I'm like, oh yeah, that is my standard.

And somehow I've just become accustomed to treating it. And so now I will say it out loud. And thankfully the husbands in our pod have trained themselves out of it. But now we just laugh about the fact that anytime we want to have a girls night, we know for a fact the dads are texting about which grandma is going to drive up from San Diego to watch the kids because they feel like they should deserve a man's night, too. And it's like, well, you do, but on a different night. It's so funny. The cultural stereotypes run really deep and here's what they are. Women are supposed to be nurturing, take care of other people. Men are supposed to be leaders. Men are supposed to be assertive. So when anyone crosses those gender stereotypes, it's not well accepted. We don't tell boys not to cry. We say man up. We tell girls they're bossy. We don't tell boys not to cry. We say, man up. We tell girls they're bossy. We don't call boys bossy. They're leaders.

And those are those cultural expectations going against type. I'm very big into framing. And like you just said that, my instinct was going, yeah, but don't you want a leadership role in the home? And don't you want someone to care for the employees and nurture the environment around them? They're actually both skill sets are incredibly important in workplaces and in home life. So why can't we switch them that easily? Because Amy Poehler has been pointing this out for years that on a red

carpet when she was married to Will Arnett, she was getting all these questions like, wow, how do you balance it having two kids? And she is so sassy and wonderful. She'd go, you know what's so funny? Have you ever asked my husband that question? Right. Because it's just not our instinct to do it. We put out this subconscious expectation that guys don't have to be as involved simply based on the fact that we don't even ask them how they're involved or how they balance it. No, that's exactly right. When I've been interviewed over the years, I'm asked that question all the time. How do you do it all? And I've always said the same thing. I said, I'm not answering that unless you've asked the last male business executive you've interviewed. And they're like, oh no, I have. I'm

like, great. Show me. Yes. Send me the article where you asked that question and he answered it and then I'll answer it. But you're exactly right that what we want is both of those traits in both places. We want to expect kindness and loving and nurturing from men. And we want to expect leadership from women, just like we do the opposite gender. We just had Reese Witherspoon on this podcast as our last guest. And I never, ever, ever do this,

but I did look at the comments. And there was one, so at the very, very beginning of the episode, for like 45 seconds, Dax is on it. He steps in and he's like, hey, Reese, like he was so excited. He was so excited because we haven't had her on armchair and he's like jealous. And he was like, oh, my gosh, you know, I'm such a huge fan. And then he started to like go into legit question. And I was like, OK, OK, stepping on our toes a little bit, buddy. whatever we wrap that up and then there was

this comment that's like monica why do you always tear dax down and i was like no no we're we're used to giving men the microphone so when a woman asks for it back that's not mean that's just her asking for it back and by the way this is your show you have every right i was probably a little more like look at my husband how cute he is he He like loves Reese Witherspoon. He stepped in. But again, as the voice of reason and an executive leader girl in my life, like you were a hundred percent in the right. I wasn't like, hey, you need to stop. You're crossing the line. I was just like, okay, like time's up. Time's up on your time. And it was a woman who said it. Right. And flip the gender. If he had interrupted you.

If? That's all he does. No, I'm just kidding. Everyone expects it's not interrupting when it's a man. And look, what your point you're making about women doing it is just as important. I hear people say this all the time. It's not sexist if it's said by a woman.

Well, it turns out these gender stereotypes run deep in women and men. So just because a woman does it, doesn't mean it's not sexist. It's those same gender stereotypes. Female teachers call their kindergarten girls bossy. Most kindergarten teachers are women. Let's cancel that right now. We just decided it's canceled.

I tried. We ran a fan bossy campaign a long time ago to try to literally tell people not to use that word for girls until they use that word for boys. Yeah, because it's funny. It's not the word, right? It's how we're using it. We're putting it into a pejorative. Technically, that's great. Being bossy means you're a boss. And there's also like context to the word. It means you should check yourself because you are in a leadership role right now and don't overstep. There's a lot of responsibility, but good things could come out of bossiness. Bad things could come out of bossiness.

But it needs to be used for both genders. That documentary by Jennifer Newsom called The Mask We Live In, it's incredible. And it's all about boys, how we tell them not to cry. And like, I had seen it right around the time that a lot of this cultural conversation was happening. And I was dropping my kids off at preschool. And I was thinking about all the things that I was being fed about men and women. And then I looked at my daughter's three-year-old preschool class and I was like, men aren't necessarily, quote, the problem. Like Billy

and Jonah, who are sitting next to my three-year-old daughter, who are also three, Billy and Jonah aren't the problem. The way we are conditioning Billy and Jonah are the problem. Like we are the problem. And it gave me this huge breath of responsibility. We have to make a huge cultural shift in the way that we train everybody because it's not boys are just the problem. No. And the expectations we have. So Adam Grant, who I know is a friend of yours and a friend of mine and introduced us, we wrote a series for the New York Times. And one of the articles we wrote was about office housework. So it's not just that women do the housework at home. Women do the office housework too. So if you ask the average group of employees, you're in a meeting, who do you think's taking the notes? The women.

It's someone's birthday. Who's bringing the cupcakes? Yeah. Now what's the problem with that? Well, if you're the one taking notes, you can't actively participate enough. And here's what's amazing. So when a woman is asked to do a favor in the workplace, if she does it, fine, expected, nothing good happens. But if she doesn't do it, it actually hits her ratings and performance. If a man is asked to do a favor in the workplace and he doesn't do it, he's busy. It's fine. But if he does do it, he actually gets better ratings, more promotions, more success.

And so these expectations we have of who's going to do the housework in the office are hurting women as well, where women are expected to do much more than men. And they do it and they do it systematically. And it's part of why women have 7% of the Fortune 500 CEO jobs. That's so interesting that you point out the reason it's a problem is because then they can't fully participate in the ways that will make them grow or be seen or have their thoughts heard. And like sometimes people are like, well, that's just the way it is. They are quiet. And it's like, well, no, there's this inherent structure set in place that those are the bricks that have to be removed. That's right.

Not just for their own growth, but all the data we have tells us that the company grows. When women grow in leadership positions, the company's better off. The bottom line is better. The shareholders are happier. Customers are happier. I don't think telling men to support women in the workplace because it's the right thing to do is going to work. It hasn't worked so far. I think it's better to tell them it's the smart thing to do.

So if you're the CEO and you can work better with half the population, obviously your company is going to do better. And you're exactly right, Kristen, that's what all the data shows. But what if you're the entry-level guy and you can work better with half the population, that's gender, add race in there where there's all of this additional bias, both for men of color, but particularly women of color where you've got gender and race and all the intersectionality, now you're working better with more than half the population. You're going to outperform from the beginning. So the thing I think we need to explain is your companies can be more successful, your teams can be more successful, your production companies can be more successful,

and you're going to be more successful. But in order to do that, you need to understand the biases and be willing to say them. Ready? Here's the biases. We think men are smarter. Here are the biases on race. You take two identical resumes and you put a white sounding name and a black sounding name on them of the same gender. That's worth 50% more callbacks for that first interview, which is equal to eight years of experience. That's the bias on race. So when women, we promote men based on their potential. We promote women based on what they've already proven. So my foundation, Lean In, every year does the biggest survey of women in the workplace. And what we found several

years ago, and we're really trying to talk about is what we call the broken rung on the ladder. And it's the first promotion to manager. Women are falling behind in that getting to the C-suite, getting to be the lead director, the lead producer. It's not at the end. We're very focused on getting women to the C-suite, getting women to lead the production of films. We're falling off earlier. It's that first promotion to manager, your first shot at being the leader. That's because if men get promoted and given opportunities based on potential, they don't have to have done it before. But if women have to prove it, you can't be a manager until you're a manager. Someone has to let you take that chance. And so we need to go back to those expectations we have and the ways in which those biases are

so deeply rooted in all of us, in women, in men, in men of color, in women of color, in white women, in black women, so that we can figure that out and start it much earlier on the process. And it's not just the workplace. It's everywhere. Men or anyone who thinks they're supporting women, like, well, you explain to us what the double-double shift is and why it's important for that to start like at the base level of family, that support system? Yeah. And look, I think you've been wonderful, Kristen. You've been pretty open and honest about how hard it was to be a mother during COVID. And I think a lot of people have felt that. So women work a double shift. Women do more housework and childcare in every country in the world, including the United

States. It's much worse in other countries, but it's pretty bad here too. That's before COVID. Now you've COVID. Now women are working a double, double shift. The average woman who's married to a man or a partnership, domestic partnership with kids and a man is doing an extra 21 hours a week of childcare and housework over a man. 21 hours a week is half a full-time job.

And we're in a health crisis. We're in an economic crisis, but we're also in a gender crisis. After a year of COVID, women have lost 5.3 million jobs. 54% of the jobs that have lost in the US economy have been lost by women. And that's because women are dropping out because they could barely do the double shift before and now they have the double, double shift. So all of these inequalities on who does what, and it's not just taking care of children, by the way, it's taking care of elderly parents. Elderly parents are taken care of not just by daughters, but by daughters-in-law. We bear the majority of the work of taking care of our in-laws as well.

And in COVID, I mean, it also highlights the pay gap because in a relationship, if they have to make the decision who's going to stay home and homeschool the kids or who's going to be here, I guess it just makes more sense because dad makes the most money. So we don't really have a choice. That's exactly right. The pay gap makes it worse. And the assumptions we have, we were talking before about people asking men, how do you do it all? Think about people coming into the workforce. People will say to women, they're going to med school, you don't really want to be a surgeon, don't you want kids? Yeah. Like you couldn't possibly have both. because they want kids. So they're holding back for children they don't have. I realized this when

I was a young manager. I was working at Google at the time and a woman came to see me and we were talking about whether or not she should be on the management track. And I was like, yes, you'd be great. And she was talking about children, but she looked really young. And I just looked at her. I said, do you mind my asking? How old are your kids? She was like, what kids? I said, well, are you married? She was like, oh, no, no, I'm not married. She didn't even have a boyfriend. But she was asking all these questions in anticipation of children she didn't have. And then what happens?

The man puts his foot on the gas pedal. The woman takes her foot off. Five years later, when they're married, that man's making more than she is. And he's more senior. So he actually has more flexibility, not less. So counterintuitively, by keeping your foot on the basketball, by not leaving before you leave, you get yourself into a position where you can afford childcare, not in every industry, but for a lot more men than women, you get yourself in a position where you actually have more flexibility because you're the boss. And that's meeting is getting scheduled based on your timeframe, not someone else's.

Did you tell her that in that meeting? Yeah. And then that was part of my giving my original TED talk with that meeting is getting scheduled based on your time frame, not someone else's. Did you tell her that in that meeting? Yeah. And then that was part of my giving my original TED Talk was that meeting. That's awesome. Oh, my God. Amazing. And do you think that paternity leave is just as important? Because I feel like maternity leave, we talk about some women get it.

I certainly wish it was more. I delivered 11 days after I wrapped House of Lies. It is very much possible to work when you're pregnant. You can do it. I mean, sure, you look funny and you waddle towards the end, but like you can do your job. But if you're the only one given maternity leave and then you're just sort of stuck and your husband can't take any, you almost have no choice but to leave the baby at home or take your foot off the gas. No, that's right. And it becomes uneven right then. So paternity leave is really important. At Facebook, we offer equal maternity and paternity leave. We give really generous

benefits on both, but we also really encourage men to take it. So Mark Zuckerberg took paternity leave. It was very public about it. Our CTO, Mike Shepford, took paternity leave. Not all companies do that. And our laws are unequal. In a lot of states, companies get reimbursed for maternity leave or at least some portion and not for paternity leave. Even our laws are unequal. In a lot of states, companies get reimbursed for maternity leave or at least some portion and not for paternity leave. Even our laws at the federal and state level make it easier for companies to give maternity leave and paternity leave. And then right from the beginning, we're setting expectations that taking care of that child

is the woman's job. Oh, it's so deep. You just know it on the surface of like, oh, it's unequal. But then when you start picking apart the little pieces, like literally legislation that leads to this point, you just see how deep the well runs. We are supported by is supported by better help. We love it. We love it. Can't say enough good things about it. If you're feeling how about just leave it at that? I was going to say depressed or if you're struggling. If you're feeling, if you have a feeling about anything, it's cool to talk to someone. The coolest people I know go to therapy. I agree. It's a cool kids club. And I got to be honest,

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immunity, and gut health each day easy, tasty, efficient. And right now, Athletic Greens has got you for year-round immune support by offering our audience a free one-year supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first purchase if you visit our link today. Simply visit athleticgreens.com slash supported and join health experts, athletes, and health-conscious go-getters around the world who make daily commitment to their health every single day. Again, simply visit athleticgreens.com slash supported and get your free year supply of vitamin D and five free travel packets today. I wanted to go back real quick to what you said about leadership positions and how it starts at the beginning. I don't want to discount that because of the way we've gone, lots of men are currently in leadership positions and they have to mentor women. And I do think it's a little bit of a tricky time for men to

mentor women because of Me Too, because they're scared. They would rather just like attach to a man. How do we get over that? Okay. This is such an important question. Thank you for asking it. So before Me Too, one of the things that was just true, and it was one of the most common reactions I got to lean in was a senior man reading my book and saying, you're right. When a woman needs help, I call her on the phone. When a man needs help, I meet him for a drink because I don't want to look improper. And then Me Too happened. And I want to be clear, Me Too is critically important for women because we've been harassed for long enough, but not harassing us is not good enough. Yeah, seriously. You can't ignore us either. So my foundation, and again, we did a survey on this and we found that more than 50%

of male managers in the United States were afraid to do a common workplace activity with a woman after Me Too, like having a meeting. Just anyone who's listening, please ask yourself, have you ever been promoted by or promoted anyone you've never met with alone? The answer is no. It's a little bit less relevant right now with COVID, but it won't be. Men are afraid to have meetings with women, but we need access to be equal. It turns out work travel does not mean your hotel room.

Work travel is public airports. Dinners don't mean your apartment. If you are willing to have dinners with men, if you are willing to travel with men, you have to do that with women as well, because who do you think's getting the promotion? The guy who went on the work trip with you, you've seen his work, you've seen him interact with the client, he's getting the promotion. And we really need to make sure that we are making access equal. Whatever you're willing to do with women, do with men and nothing

else. And if you're a guy that's genuinely worried, like, oh, I don't want to mess up, then you can go to dinner with someone at a public restaurant. Like the rules you just outlined, if you don't want to get in trouble for anything and you don't want to do anything bad, just no funny business. It's very easy. Yeah, just don't touch her. No funny business at the restaurant. Don't invite her to your apartment. Be chill, cool. Go to a public restaurant. And like, yeah, like it seems so simple,

but there is this, we have to acknowledge there is this fear in guys because cancel culture has gotten so severe and it's just like the guillotine is waiting for its next victim. And that a lot is in part by, I mean, it is contributed to like the public conversation and headlines about who's bad, who's good, and all this like polarization of like, we have to be able to talk about some of these things with nuance because the Me Too movement isn't about asking men not to interact with women ever again. It's like, just be cool. Just don't ignore us. If you are really uncomfortable in lean in. So this is 15 years ago, there was a partner at Goldman who actually didn't feel comfortable having dinners with women,

but you know what he did? He just said, I'm not having dinners with men anyway, either. He was like, I'm a breakfast and lunch guy. And he had no dinners with anyone. I think that's okay to just make it even whatever you're willing to do, do it with everyone. But I do think it's worth remembering that we like to mentor people who look like us, act like us, have our interests. So if you're a white golf playing male, you are more likely to mentor a white golf playing male. And that means we really need to be focused. We need to ask men to do their part to mentor women, and especially women of color. Black women are more ambitious

than white women. They are more likely to say they want to be CEO, but they face more discrimination. And that means that it's doubly important that we invest not just in white women, but in women of color, because that's where a lot of the potential leadership will come. And women, when you're in those positions, it's very much incumbent on you to do the same. Yes, that's exactly right. To always be looking behind you and see like, how can I help here? And it's really just comes back to the old treat others as you would like to be treated. If you've ever felt like you wanted someone who was in front of you to look behind you and say, how can I help here? How can I give you a leg up? All these things are so simple. Why do we as humans have so much trouble applying them?

Because society makes us feel like everyone's in competition with one another, and it's this or it's that, and it's this tribe or this tribe, and it's all this visceral stuff. Tribalism, woof. Woof. Well, there's some historical basis for this. If you look back to like the 1950s, 60s, 70s, and one woman was going to get into the boardroom,

it was going to be one woman. She knew it. She was competing with the other women. But I don't think that's true anymore. And I think one of the great myths we also need to break down is that women are mean to other women. It may have been true before, but I don't think that's true now. We started lean in circles. We have 58,000 lean in circles now in countries all over the world, including amazingly right now, Afghanistan. And this is all about women helping other women. And so whether it's formally through a circle, what you said, Kristen, about looking back and behind you, it's also looking to the side. It turns out that since men aren't going to mentor us as much as we deserve, we mentor each other incredibly well. We get great

advice from our peers. And so circles of women, whether it's through Lean In or just on your own, any way you do it, but small groups of women who are really explicitly there to help you be more assertive, help you reach for the promotion, help you lean in, those are really powerful and they've been proven over and over again to work. You met Mark at a party. You guys just had a chat and he was like, that's someone I need. What was it about you that he was gravitated towards? He didn't say, oh, she's bossy. He said, oh, she has leadership skills.

Well, we went to a party, but neither one of us are big partiers. So we wound up like in the corner for an hour and a half talking about how you scale organizations. And what he said was he liked how I talked about how I hired people and how I tried to manage people and how I had grown my teams at Google. And Facebook was much smaller. Google was about 20,000 at the time and Facebook was about 550 people. So they were at kind of different stages. And I also think I was pretty open about things I had gotten wrong and the things I thought I needed pretty open about things I had gotten wrong and the things I thought I needed to do better. I'll share a funny one with you.

One of the things I said to him was, you have to see around the corner to when you're gonna be bigger and not put things in practice that you're not gonna be able to do later. And here was my example, celebrating birthdays. I started with a team of four people at Google and then my team grew.

By the time I left, it was 4,000. And we celebrated everyone's birthday on the day. But fast forward five years later and we had like a sheet cake celebrating quarterly birthdays. It's 15 birthdays a day. Right. Well, we were celebrating birthdays every day and then no one felt special. But the thing that's so interesting is that actually if you had been on the team early and we had celebrated your birthday, you kind of didn't like being on the team when like your birthday. So it was like trying to think in advance of what am I not going to be able to do later, even if it's a really fun, nice thing like birthdays, and set processes up so that they can scale and you have the runway you need. That's great advice. counterintuitive too because you'd think like, oh, as a leader, I should be celebrating my

employees and celebrating their birthdays. But you don't even consider what if I'm the leader of a lot of people and I'm getting 15 sheet cakes a day? That's absurd. That's a beautiful piece of advice I never would have thought about. And like you said, it's a woman who's going to the grocery Ralph's to pick up the sheet cake every day. Yeah. Correct. And it's also, as you grow organizations, being really open where you're the problem. So my other early Google story is I was growing my team really quickly. And I thought it was like super important that if you're on my team, I interviewed you. And pretty soon when we were about 100 people, those interviews were like five minutes. But still, no one joined my team.

I hadn't spoken to myself. And so in a meeting of just my little direct reports, like five or six people one day when we're about a hundred people, I said, maybe I should stop interviewing because it took like a week or two to get on my calendar. I fully expected everyone to be like, oh no, it's your team. You have to interview. They applauded. They broke out into applause. And I was like, oh my God, I'm the bottleneck. I'm the bottleneck. But the more serious thing I realized is I said, why didn't you guys tell me? Why did I have to suggest it? And I think every time you figure something out where you're the

problem and doing something wrong, finding a way to say, wait a second, why did I have to figure that out? Like, why did you not feel comfortable telling me was really important. One way I rectify that, and this is not for everyone, but it works for me. Everyone who works for or with me, the vast majority of them are genuine friends like that we started out socially. I find for me in those relationships, the person is much more likely to call me out on something, which I, as a prerequisite, I'm like, if you're going to take this position, I need you to be brutally honest when you think I'm doing something wrong. I explicitly state that. And I find that my friends are much easier to be like, you're ruining it. They're meaner. They're

meaner than other people. I include myself in that. I like it. That's really important. And you're finding ways to get that honesty out of them. And that's to your credit. Oh, totally to her credit. I mean, she makes it so easy. She hears it when you come at her with, hey, I think this needs to change or I think this is an issue. I'm coachable. You're very, very coachable. People learn. They learn once you have one experience with a boss, you know how to interact with that boss from then on out. It's really incumbent on the boss to be open, I think. And you do a very, very good job of that. Thanks, Bonnie.

You do a great job. Good job. Okay. So the world of tech, which you dominate, is incredibly male driven. You're the only woman amongst a lot of men a lot of times. How do you feel heard in that grouping? Because sometimes I'm in a group of people and I've said something and I've said it like four times and then a guy will say it and then everyone will hear it. That's the worst feeling in the world. I said that. And you feel like you're going crazy. Yes. Yeah. It's like subconscious gaslighting. Yeah. I'm like, oh my God, does my voice box not work? Why don't they hear me? I mean, yeah, tech is a very male-dominated field, but so are so many others. And then even fields that aren't male-dominated are dominated by men at the top. So look at teaching. One of the

most important jobs in the world, we trust our kids to be educated. The majority of teachers now are women. The further you get up the ladder, principals, superintendents, school board, the more male it gets. And that's true in so many fields. And so I think the most important part is not just finding ways to get women to enter those fields, but then finding ways for women to make their voices heard in those fields. And that wasn't easy for me. Even when I joined Facebook, they did paintball offsites.

And it was really interesting because I was like very senior. I was hired to be the COO, but it took me a few years to say, wait a second. I really don't think all the women like paintball. And they would say, oh, no, no. I asked them and they loved it. And when I was at a consulting firm, my boss took me deep sea fishing and there was nothing I like less. I get nauseous.

I'm not gender stereotyping here. I personally hated fishing more than anything. But you know what my boss said when he invited me with all the guys on my team, I was the only woman. I was like, I can't wait. I said, so they're not telling you the truth on paintball. Even when I was hired as COO of Facebook for me to find my voice, there are other women in tech. There are some great women out there. There's Susan Rogeski at YouTube. There's Stacey Brown Philpott. There are great women out there and there are women who are increasingly using their voices, but we need a lot more. Wait, so is like paintball optional now?

The offsite's changed and they became some paintball and some let's all cook together. They became some art stuff. They became some art stuff. They became some wine tastings. They changed from an assumption of let's go play paintball. Like in electives, you can sign up for whichever offsite you want. It doesn't have to be paintball. Or flipping, like some paintball, some wine tasting. And we got much better feedback. There you go. This is hard because like what we were just talking about earlier, we have to ask the men to do it equally. If you're asking men to go fishing, also never, never, never going deep sea fishing. But if they're asking the men, you know, he might have been like, yeah, that's I should definitely ask Cheryl. Like I want to be equal. He was doing it right. There's so much nuance. There is. But that's why we have to talk about it. Yes. Much like where we started in this conversation, what Kristen said about talking about depression, talking about anxiety, talking about challenges.

We had to start talking about gender in the workplace because pretending it was working, pretending it was all even, pretending that women weren't getting interrupted more and promoted less than men wasn't working for us. Yeah. Well, speaking of naming it, you've said that it's funny when you do interviews and stuff, people don't ask you about your husband who sadly passed away. And it's interesting that no one will talk to you about that or people avoid it. And it's a huge part of your story and your life. And I just wanted to check in on that. Yeah. I mean, so my husband died very suddenly, God, seven and a half years ago. And before that, people would talk to me. I dropped my kids off at school. People said, hello. I walked

into a room at work. People would talk. Monica, I could silence any room by walking in. Literally just showing up and all conversation would stop or I'd drop my kids off at school and you could see each other. And it was really hard. And so 30 days later at the end of the Jewish period of mourning, which is called Shaloshim, I wrote a public post. I wrote how it felt to basically feel almost invisible. The questions people ask after a real tragedy that are normal questions, but are really insensitive. Ready? How are you? Well, my husband died two weeks ago, so I'm not that great. And replacing that with questions that acknowledge, how are you today?

What I learned when I lost Dave, my husband was just how much I got wrong before. So before Dave died, if someone lost someone or someone was facing something terrible like cancer, I would bring it up one time because I wanted to say I'm sorry or acknowledge. But after that, I never brought it up again because I thought I was going to remind them. Can't remind me. Seven and a half years later, you walk up to me and say, I'm sorry for your loss. I'm not like, oops, I forgot Dave died. You're sitting all day next to someone who's undergoing treatment for cancer. If you say three months in, how's your treatment going? I'm thinking of you or how's her health? She's not like, oops, I forgot I had cancer. And you reminded me,

the silence is only protecting you. It's not protecting them. And that doesn't mean everyone wants to talk about everything all the time. You can say, I don't know if you want to talk about this, but if you do, I'm here. And not force it on someone else to be the person who brings it up. Because when you have the loss, when you have the cancer, when you're facing that huge challenge, you don't want to walk in a room and silence it. And you don't want to walk in a room and be like, actually, I'm really sad my husband's still not alive, even though it's been three months. It's very hard to bring it up. It's so much nicer to give that opening to the other person. We Are Supported By is supported by Grove. They're taking the guesswork out of trying to go green. Exactly. Because, okay, this always happens with my mom. She's like, I'm using this product. Like, she's bragging like it's some organic product. And then it's just not. It just like has a green

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off your first purchase. That's 3rdlove.com slash supported for 20% off today. off today. People are so paralyzed by grief. I'm desperate to take the word taboo like out of the dictionary. We talk really openly about sobriety in our household. I remember my three and a half year old when my Dax was going to an AA meeting was like, Daddy, I want to go to AA. And he kissed her on the head as he was walking out of the house. And he made a joke about it. He said, don't worry, honey, one day you will. We know about it. We know that Daddy lost his privilege with alcohol and you'll see other people drink or someone will pour a glass of wine, but Daddy can't do that. And shame is the same way. And even adultery is the same way and even adultery is the same way and grief falls under that category of like humans their motherboard goes offline and you completely don't know what to do so you pause

but sometimes pausing is the worst thing for the person that it's happening to and my instinct would be like I'd rather say the wrong thing and then go was that insensitive or yeah you don't have to share if you don't want to, but to make at least that person feel like alive and noticed. Because I imagine a lot of these taboo topics are what make you feel so isolated. Then to silence a room on top of it just because the other monkeys in the room don't know what to say, it's got to be awful. I really agree with that and being willing to address it as you just said. And then being willing to show up. I think the other thing that happens is my sister's whose child's teacher, the teacher's child had cancer and was in the hospital. And you know, this is the teacher's

child. She texts with her so often, but she doesn't know her well. So she figured she wouldn't show up. But then she read one of our stories in Option B. So she brought a big stuffed animal to the hospital and she texted from the lobby and said, I'm in the lobby of the hospital. I have a stuffed animal for your daughter, but I can just leave it down here unless you want me to come up. Right away, the teacher said, please come up. She gave the child the stuffed animal. The teacher behind the child, tears pouring down her face.

Can't tell the story without crying myself because it turns out that just showing up, you do not have to be childhood best friends with someone to bring dinner after someone dies or to bring a stuffed animal to the lobby of the hotel. Another great story I love is a friend of mine, when his daughter had cancer as well in the hospital, a friend texted and said, what do you not want on your burger because I'm coming over? I love a strong text like that. I respond really, really well to a strong text like that, an aggressive text, big time. Dax's first text to me was, hi, my name is Dax. I stole your number from Shauna. How do you feel about that? And I was like, get over here.

Pretty good. Yeah, pretty good. Yeah, like sometimes it is being willing to just blurt something out to make the other person feel seen and being willing to make a mistake. One of my childhood friends, I'm not in touch with her very much anymore, and she just lost her husband extremely tragically. He was murdered. I fell into all of these same tropes. You know, I was like, shoot, what do I do? Do I reach out? It's weird to reach out if I haven't reached out to her in years. I did all this whole thing in my head, like made it about me, essentially. How uncomfortable am I going to feel if this goes poorly? And then eventually I was like, you know what? No, I'll just reach out and say, hey, no need to respond to this, but I just want you to know

that I'm thinking about you. And if you need anything, like I'm always here. And then she responded immediately and was like, I'm so grateful you sent this. And then, you know, she started opening up about what was going on. And then I checked back in with her and I like, I'm so grateful you sent this. And then she started opening up about what was going on. And then I checked back in with her and I'm making that a priority because also I think when big tragic events happen, there's an immediate outpouring of so much quote love and checking in and it's a lot.

It's probably overwhelming at first. And then there's like a two week period and it cuts off and then everyone's done asking you or checking in or doing anything. And it's like, no, this is for life. This is for life that she is holding this. I really agree. And it's remembering that I never did this before Dave died. If someone passes away who's close to someone I love, I mark their birthday and the day they died in my calendar and I call them on those two days because that is the marking of time. Every year on October 2nd, my kids and I know what birthday, how old Dave would have been. And he isn't. And every year on May 1st, we know that someone dies. Today's actually the anniversary of Dave's father's death. I spoke to his brother,

Rob, who's my brother now. Then some of the obvious days, Father's Day, Mother's Day. If you've just lost a child, if you've lost a mother, Mother's Day is brutal. Father's Day to this day, it's getting easier now that I have a fiance and my kids have a stepfather, but Father's Day is still really hard. And then just those average days. And you're so right that everyone shows up at the beginning and then it gets harder and harder for people to really be there. Or they feel like they checked off a box. It's like, I did it. I checked in. Yeah, we make it all about ourselves because we're nervous. So let's say someone close to me dies. You mark that day in your calendar. The next year, how do you start that conversation?

I just say, I know today is a year or I know today is two years or I'm thinking of you. That's really what we need to get comfortable with, letting someone else take the reins. Because I feel like if we just set a standard where if something happens to someone, whether it's tragic or awful or uncomfortable, rather than completely shutting down around them, if you just said, hey, I don't know if I'm going to handle this correctly, but I want you to know that I care. And then insert a question there or just say, that's all I wanted you to know. Yeah, or if you're not as close, you can text and say, hey, there's zero chance

they don't know that day is happening. Hey, I know tomorrow is the anniversary of John's death. In case you want a friend tomorrow, that frozen yogurt with your name on it, come into your house at three o'clock or in case you want to take a walk tomorrow, I'd love to. Offer and let them leave, but offer.

And my friends have done an amazing job remembering, but for other friends I have who have lost, who hadn't, like it's been five years and no one remembered today. It just, I think probably compounds the loneliness. I mean, you already feel this deep void. I'm sure it just feels like another layer of abandonment in some way. I think that's right.

We got to think about each other, guys. We really do. That's what we're getting to the root of. We got to think about each other. What I like, though, is you are really open about telling the story about after his death and resilience and loving again, which I think is really hopeful. I wrote an open love letter to Tom earlier this year, and I put it in Good Housekeeping, which is a magazine a lot of women read. And I got all these letters and notes and comments and stuff on social media and email and stuff from people who are widows as well. I got all these notes from someone who like, you gave me hope that I could find love again. You want a taboo subject, Kristen, you just listed all those taboo subjects, dating after death. And this won't shock you, puts our two topics together. Guess who we're harsher on about this, men or women?

Ooh, I think I know, women. Great guess. Thank you. It was just a guess. Dating after someone dies. People deserve to find love again, deserve it. And when you're open to it, I'm sure not everyone, but most people can. And that is a taboo subject. It's something my brother was the first person to address with me. And my brother said a couple months after Dave died, if you were a man, you'd be dating by now. There was an email thread with my whole family, my brother and my sister and their husband

and wife and my parents. And I think they forgot I was on it. And someone wrote to each other, someone needs to talk to Cheryl about starting to date. I was on the thread and I was like, well, I don't know who's going to do that. But be the person who tells someone you're going to date again as soon as you're ready. And I'm going to support you in doing that because you feel like you're disloyal to the person who died. And that's absurd. It is.

Right, because you can still honor everything that that person was and gave to you, whether it's children or just a wonderful life. But also there's a separate issue, which is your soul and your heart that still needs someone there that's not just a memory. You can still not just honor, you can still love someone after they've died, but they're not there to go to bed with you at night. but they're not there to go to bed with you at night. Yeah. Oh, man. I like this conversation. I didn't even think about the fact that there is even a gender imbalance in that, in dating after death.

Why don't men have as much of a problem, do you think, coming back? Well, it's, again, society's expectations. And it goes deep, deep into culture. I mean, there's cultural practices all over the world in history and history and today where women used to get married to the brother. Right. Oh my God. Some widows were burned as part of the funeral of the man. We never did that with men. And we do men date more quickly and women are judged more harshly. It happened to me. It's happened to lots of people. Another way to show up for someone who's just lost is you're allowed to find love again. Yeah. Giving them permission. Yeah. And maybe that's where all of this comes together, right? Permission to be ourselves, permission to be women at work, to say sentences

like I have a child I need to go home to and make that okay. Permission to speak openly about the challenges we have, giving other people permission to share those challenges too. we have, giving other people permission to share those challenges too. And permission to say, you know, actually, I'm not a huge fan of deep sea fishing. Can we do this instead? Can we go get wine instead? Or whatever it is, probably maybe not that, but yeah, like just owning yourself, not having to bend. Or being vulnerable and go, you know, I am not, full disclosure, the biggest fan of deep sea fishing, but I don't want to be a left out of this trip. And I do want to continue on my road up here in the company. Up the ladder. Are there any other options? Being vulnerable enough to say that.

That's right. And strong enough. Assertive enough. Not bossy. Not bossy. That's right. Assertive. Not bossy. That's right. Assertive. I'm raising two very assertive young women, I'll tell you that. And we don't use the word bossy. We might have used it a couple times, but I do say lean in to them a lot. You really leaning in today, aren't you, girl? Which we love. You only use bossy if what they're doing is actually putting people down. If they're taking charge, you're never, ever calling them bossy. It's if they're like, you can't do this today. Right. I guess that means I'm still using it as a pejorative though. Well, true. Well. I do feel like if I had boys, I would use it in the exact

same way though. One of the things about raising kids that are really exploring their boundaries and self-sufficiency and ability to sort of clap back at you is that like, I don't want to edit that out of their personality. Cause I'm like, I would rather have them be hell on wheels for 18 years and release them into the world as assertive young people. I would rather have that than anything. Yeah. And I think that's great. It's so easy though. Even as a mom, like, again, we're talking about that like crazy amount of of nuance. I have one daughter who, if you were to, from a very young age, I'm talking two years old, lean over and brush her hair out of her eyes, she'll slap your damn hand off. I mean, she will literally go, don't touch me. And it's like, wow, the aggression that came from that two or three-year-old in that moment when it first started happening.

We all kind of paused and we were like, okay, that's her. She doesn't like that. And I got to read the signal because I've seen the grandparents do it sometimes and they've been like, oh, come on, I'm allowed to pat your head. And I think it's awesome. I think that she has the moxie to be able to tell someone she doesn't like when an adult pushes her hair out of her eyes. I'm like, yeah, every single time someone touches you in a way you do not appreciate, I would like you to vocalize that. It's such a great thing to teach a daughter early, early, early on.

So great. Yeah, because I think the instinct is to be like, well, that's rude. Don't be rude. Uh-huh, that's it. We can't tell them that their boundaries are rude. Exactly, it's just not rude. She's just saying you can't touch me

when I don't want to be touched. And that's exactly what she should do. Yes. I really agree with that. This is fun. This is really fun. By the way, can I just say, I really like these twists and turns that this conversation has had because we've not discussed a lot of these topics. And obviously, your resume took Monica and I the last two and a half months to read.

And you have so many credentials and accolades and things we wanted to talk to you about. But I am so pleasantly surprised we talked about these topics. Yeah. Because everyone can read your Wikipedia. Yeah. I mean, I do think when we bring our whole selves to whatever we do, whether they bring the parts of us that are assertive, the part where your daughter is like, don't touch me, my forehead. Five kids now, so I have two boys and two girls. The parts of us where I want my 16-year-old son to still be able to cry if he wants to. Not just my elementary school son.

I just think that makes us better. And all of these topics come together because who we are as people and how we experience loss and how we experience the challenges and how we talk to other people and how we think about gender and race, these things are all completely intertwinedined and they're creating the world we live in with all of its challenges, but also all of its opportunities. I'm grateful to both of you.

I feel like you are giving these topics air in a place where more people are going to find them and more people are going to listen. And I'm really grateful for that. Thank you. You're our last guest for this season. I'm honored. Of We Are Supported By, but we're going to keep doing it. I agree with you. I think it's good to continue these types of conversations. Thank you so much for making time for us.

Thank you for making time for me. Bye. The rest will be shattered glass.