The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - #124: Michele Promaulayko, Editor-in-Chief of Cosmopolitan - #MeToo, Sex Ed, Wellness Routines, Meditation, & How To Break Into Content & Publishing in The Digital Age

Episode Date: July 17, 2018

On this episode we sit down with Michele Promaulayko who is the Editor-in-Chief of Cosmopolitan as well as the editorial director of Seventeen. The conversation is a wide spanning conversation covering the #MeToo movement and men and women in the work place. We also discuss sex education, wellness routines and obsession and what it takes to break into publishing and content creation in the digital age. To connect with Michele Promaulayko click HERE To connect with Lauryn Evarts click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by WOO FOR PLAY  Even Better Sex. Imagine That. WOO FOR PLAY is the all natural and organic coconut love oil that is changing the way we have sex. With only 4 all natural ingredients WOO is the perfect personal lubricant to spice up your sex life.  All Him & Her Listeners will receive 20% off your entire order plus free shipping when when visiting www.wooforplay.com & using promo code HIMANDHER at checkout. This episode is brought to you by THRIVE MARKET. We use Thrive for our online grocery delivery on a weekly basis. They provide the highest quality products and ingredients delivered straight to our door with unbeatable prices.  Be sure to grab our deal by going to to https://thrivemarket.com/skinny to receive $60 of FREE organic groceries from Thrive Market + free shipping and a 30 day trial!" Keep in mind that Thrive Market's  prices are already 25- 50% below retail because they cut out the middleman. And now they are offering $60 off free organic groceries!   This episode is brought to you by Skillshare. Skillshare is an online learning space offering more than 20,000 courses. Join the millions of students already learning on Skillshare today with a special offer just for our listeners: Get two months of Skillshare for just 99 cents. That’s right, Skillshare is offering The Skinny Confidential listeners two months of unlimited access to over 20,000 classes for just 99 cents. To sign up, go to www.skillshare.com/skinny.     

The following podcast is a Dear Media production. This episode is brought to you by Skillshare. Skillshare is an online learning space offering more than 20,000 courses. We're currently using the platform to learn After Effects. We told you guys about this one. It basically creates all of our Instagram story motion graphics. This is a tool for brands and individuals like influencers to acquire new skills or take novice skills to an expert level. So think of it as like the Netflix for learning skills. Join the millions of students already learning on Skillshare today with a special offer for just TSC listeners. You get two months of Skillshare for just 99 cents. That's right guys, 99 cents. To sign up, go to skillshare.com slash skinny. Again, that's skillshare.com

slash skinny to start your two months of learning now. That's Skillshare.com slash skinny. All right, plot twist. Let's talk about sex, specifically even better sex. That's sex with woo. You guys know we're absolutely obsessed with woo. We love it so much that we talk about it as much as we can and we use it. Every guest that comes on the show gets a bottle. They also get a TSC book. How fun. When we went into Cosmo to interview Michelle, we brought her a bottle of woo. Woo for play is all organic, all natural coconut based lube that makes sex even better. If you don't think you need woo, I beg to differ. Okay guys. When Michael sees me get out the woo, he literally drops everything he's doing and listens to my every word. It works like a charm. I personally love woo because I just feel like it enhances our sex life And i'm prone to utis and the coconut oil is a real lifesaver to try woofer play go to wooferplay.com

And enter promo code him and her for 20 off again. That's wooferplay.com w-o-o-f-o-r-p-l-a-y Dot com and enter promo code him and her for 20 off enjoy and I promise you guys will thank me later She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire promo code HIMANDHER for 20% off. Enjoy, and I promise you guys will thank me later. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the Skinny Confidential, him and her. We were talking a little bit before the show about Me Too and we can get more into it

because what we were hearing from women is that they were experiencing all these different reactions from the guys in their lives. Like some guys felt really defensive, like I wasn't there to protect you if they were together at the time. Some guys were dismissive and that was hurtful. And so there were all these sort of emotions and questions cropping up around having that conversation with a significant other. And this is reversed now where men are feeling like, okay, what's appropriate, what's not? How do I not cross the line here?

Because you don't want to end up in a situation where someone's looking like, hey, this guy's a creep, right? I could not agree with you more. And there's a lot of conversation around that here. What up, guys? Happy Tuesday. Welcome back to the Skinny Confidential Him and Her Show. If you're new, what's up? Thanks for joining. That clip was from our guest of the show today, so excited, Michelle Promoleko. This episode is a very wide-spanning conversation covering sex and the Me Too movement. We also discuss what it takes to break into publishing in the digital age, and we dive into personal wellness routines and obsessions. For those of you who are new to the show, thanks for joining. I'm Lauren Everts. I'm the creator of The Skinny Confidential,

which is a blog, a brand, a book, and a podcast. I'm typically joined by my co-host and my entrepreneurial hot husband, Michael Bostic. Michael is currently the CEO of Dear Media, a podcast network focused on female voices and audiences, as well as a serial entrepreneur. So Michael's sick, okay? He's been fake coughing his way around the world, he's currently in bed reading, relaxing, and resting because I put him there, he was trying to go 100 miles a minute and I made him relax, so it's just me, if you came to our live event last week, thank you guys so much, we had the best time, Emily and Jeffrey Fuller of Cupcakes and Cashmere were insane and we'll put the episode up live soon.

We did some giveaways. We did goodie bags. Huge thank you to Kopari, Tavi Noir, Catherine Cosmetics, so many amazing sponsors. So before we get into this episode, I want to remind you guys that there were two full episodes last week, okay? So we're doing six episodes a month. So every other Thursday now, we're gonna be releasing two episodes.

So we have episode 122 on Tuesday, which went live, and that's all about hormones, and I highly recommend you should listen to it in front of your husband. Just be casual about it. The other episode went live on Thursday, and that's 123. That's with Jack. He's this hot PR agent in Hollywood,

and he spills some Hollywood secrets. So definitely listen to both those episodes. I also want to let you guys know that we have a very, very cool organized podcast site just for the show now. So it's sort of its own hub. If you go to the Skinny Confidential and then you click podcast, it'll take you straight there there or you can just find it at www.tsdpodcast.com um don't mean to brag but i spent a while designing it with blog do there's lots of pops of black marble so on the site you can find all the latest show notes recaps and episodes and then it has an email list that keeps you updated with all the latest show happenings and of course there's a resource page that gives you guys access to all of our exclusive offers. So it's all in one place,

super streamlined. So if you're looking for specific things we talked about in this specific episode, look no further, okay? The site has them all. It also has a section for new listeners who are trying to get caught up and don't know where to start. So make sure you guys check out tscpodcast.com and you can definitely give a big shout out to blog do for the site. So like I said, Michael's sick this week. His voice is shot. He's in bed. He might be watching Southern charm, but he wanted me to tell you guys that this is one of his best interviews. I actually said that I gave him a little credit for this one. When we were in the elevator, I winked at him and gave him a little kiss and told him I loved it. Not sure why that was important for him to have me say that's that's

in the notes. So thank you, Michael, for that. Michelle Pramaleco is a successful brand builder with experience as both a digital media and print magazine editor. She's currently the editor in chief of Cosmopolitan. Sure you guys have heard of it. and the editorial director of Seventeen. Previously, she served as an editor-in-chief of Yahoo Health and vice president slash editor-in-chief of Women's Health. She's also an author of multiple books, including Look Better Naked and her most recent 20 Pounds Younger. With that, please enjoy this wide-spanning conversation with Michelle Promolenko. Before we get into the interview, I want to tell you guys about Skillshare. Okay. Let's talk about skills. Who wants to learn some new skills? Who needs to step their skill game up? I do. Okay. I have a really, really awesome platform

for you guys. And that platform is called Skillshare. This is one of my favorite platforms for figuring out how to use new skills. It's so easy. Okay. They're basically the Netflix of learning with over 20,000 online courses taught by people like you and me, Michael and Taylor learned how to use Adobe after effects, which is how I create those fun Instagram motion graphics and the motion graphics on my YouTube video. Really awesome for any bloggers or content creators out there. The class they took is introduction to Adobe after effects, getting started with motion graphics by Evan Abrams. So check that one out. for any bloggers or content creators out there. The class they took is Introduction to Adobe After Effects, Getting Started with Motion Graphics by Evan Abrams.

So check that one out. There is also this new class that I'm personally obsessed with by one of my favorites, Gary Vaynerchuk. You guys know that, aka Gary V. You guys know I love him. He's been on the show. We've been on his.

And I was recently in his latest book, Crushing It. He has this course called Context is Key, Social Media Strategy in a Noisy Online World. It's all about developing a results-driven social media strategy perfectly adapted to each major social media platform. Okay, that's gonna guarantee your brand is telling the right story in the right context

on the right platform. They also have tons of other courses on design. So think Photoshop, photography, flat lays, Instagram, and creatives. They have business courses on marketing and how to build personal brands using new technology and much more. I personally love Skillshare because it's really for anyone that's trying to better themselves, get better at their job or their own professional skillset. Taylor, who everyone knows from the show, actually learned how to become an expert at After Effects after taking courses from Skillshare. You want to start a side hustle

or just explore a new passion like photography or video editing, Skillshare has the courses for you. So guys, join the millions of students already learning on Skillshare today with a special offer just for TSC listeners. Get two months of Skillshare for just 99 cents. That's 99 cents. So affordable. Skillshare is offering TSC listeners two months of unlimited access to over 20,000 classes for just 99 cents. To sign up, go to skillshare.com slash skinny. Again, go to skillshare.com slash skinny to start your two months of learning now. That's skillshare.com slash skinny. This is the months of learning now. That's Skillshare.com slash skinny. This is the skinny confidential him and her.

Okay, Michelle, let's start from the beginning childhood. Where are you from? Where'd you grow up? Wow, we're going way back. I grew up in that exotic place called New Jersey across the Hudson in a town called Bridgewater. And I spent basically my whole life there until I moved to New York after college. And I've been here ever since. So where'd you go to college between them? So it's funny because a few interns were just cruising the halls before and they go to school in North Carolina. And I was like, oh my God, I went to East Carolina University for one year. And then I transferred to Rutgers God, I went to East Carolina University for one year.

And then I transferred to Rutgers, both because it was in-state tuition and because ECU was way too much of a party school and way too much of a distraction. So I'm like, I better get back to New Jersey and focus. And plus, going to Rutgers was great because it was a train ride away from New York City. And I sort of knew that I wanted to be in magazines. I was always a voracious magazine reader. I was obsessed with living in the city. I loved the sort of vibrancy and stimulation that you feel like the second you get off the train. So going to Rutgers was great because I could do internships at magazines. Okay. So from college, what's the next step? How do you make that transition to a magazine? So through those internships, so while I was in college, I interned at some now defunct magazines, right? McCall's. I also was at Sassy, which was a teen magazine. I don't know if you remember that, Jane Pratt Sassy. It was super cool. I love that magazine. Lawrence is very excited about this. Yes. It was such an innovative, edgy, cool teen magazine that

gave teens a very different voice. I also interned in the fashion department of Harper's Bazaar, which is a Hearthstone publication, which was super fun, but taught me that that wasn't the part of the magazine I really wanted to go into. But through an editor at Sassy, I heard about an editorial assistant opening at YM, another now defunct teen magazine. This is sad. And so I applied for that and ended up getting it. So that was my first job being editorial assistant at YM. And what were some of the experiences at YM and Sassy that you look back on that were maybe unique or different?

Well, what's so funny is back then, I mean, we didn't have access to all the information that we have now, right? This wasn't like the Stone Age, but you still had to do some manual research where you couldn't just access it all from your fingertips. So I remember like literally going to like the library and having to like find articles and things that, you know, you couldn't just Google. And is it a catty environment? Is it, what kind of environment? Competitive. Yeah. I mean, magazines in general are fairly competitive.

When I was an intern, I don't think I felt that as much. When I interned at Harper's Bazaar, it certainly had that sort of fashion-y insider. But even as an intern, I remember going to lunch with the editors. We used to go to this place called Manja, which is still here. And I thought that was pretty awesome that they invited the intern along to like go to lunch. So I felt super cool. I like how you started as an intern. You sort of worked your way up the ladder. Yeah. And I think that happens for a lot of people

because in magazines, right, there's only a certain number of masthead placements. So only a certain number of jobs. And often, you know, they don't, they don't really, you know, get at, they get advertised, but they are filled before they're even advertised because it's all word of mouth and interns. And you sort of have your, you know, your farm team of, of people coming up and learning through internships. And that's one of the greatest ways to get your first job. When you started, I mean, now you're the editor-in-chief of Cosmo. What is it? The director of women's health.

Right. So I'm the editor. I'm the editor-in-chief of Cosmo and the editorial director of the young women's group, which includes Cosmo 17 and women's health. Wow. And I was previously the editor-in-chief of women's health. So there's this boomerang that keeps happening because I also had history at Cosmo. I was the executive editor of Cosmo, which is the number two spot

for eight years from 2000 to 2008, and then went and became editor-in-chief of Women's Health. So Cosmo is my second tour of duty and in a different capacity, so is Women's Health. So it's sort of two brands I have so much affection for and also have history with have come back into my world. So I'm really grateful about that. So when you started and you were doing your internship, did you envision the career path would go this far? Were you like, I'm going to be that internship

or did it just kind of unfold as you work within the organization? That's a great question because I think a lot of young women go into it with their eyes on that prize, right? The top of the masthead, they want the corner office, even though those are fewer and farther between now. It's a lot more open floor plan. But I didn't so much. kind of just loved being in the business, had such a voracious curiosity, which I think is a critical kind of trait to have as an editor, because you're always learning and you always are,

you know, hunting down new ideas and new things. And so I just sort of wanted to be in New York, be in a fast paced environment, be surrounded by really smart people, but I wasn't necessarily focused on becoming an editor-in-chief. But as I started moving up, you know, that became, that sort of came into focus. And being the executive editor of Cosmo for eight years was an amazing training ground for that because it's such a big brand. And I had a great editor-in-chief at the time, Kate White, who was the editor-in-chief for 14 or 15 years of Cosmo during an incredibly successful time in magazines. And so I got a lot of opportunity, a lot of responsibility, and I called it Editor-in-Chief Boot Camp. And that really set me up for Women's Health. So what's a day in the life of an editor?

And I'm sure it's different every day, but just walk us through a typical day. Yeah, it's different every day but just walk us through a typical day yeah it's different every day exactly so one day might be being here in the office and having meetings with the staff to plan issues meeting with the art department about how they're arting things and visuals going down and meeting with the fashion editors and seeing the clothes which is called a run-through so it might be clothes for a cover shoot that's coming up or clothes for a fashion shoot that's coming up. It might be at my desk editing copy, looking at proofs, slogging through emails, all of that. Or it might be getting up and doing the Today Show to promote some of the work that we do or, you know, meeting with people outside the office. I mean, it really is different. And then, of course, there are those days that are like budget meetings and presentations and all the sorts

of things that you have to do when you're part of, you know, a corporation and you're one of the corporate citizens. Selfishly, I want to know what you do when you get overwhelmed, because that's a lot. What's your, do you have any tactics that you do? I mean, I do. I have many tactics. I don't always employ them, you know, at the right times like I should. I'm trained in transcendental meditation. I've been trained for many years. I believe in it wholeheartedly. Can you tell us what that is? Yes. So transcendental meditation is just one form of meditation. And the prescription for it is 20 minutes in the beginning of the day and 20 minutes at the end of the day. And it's a mantra based form of meditation. So you're given, typically you're trained to,

in TM. So you have a teacher who trains you. I was trained at the David Lynch Foundation here in New York. And you're given a mantra by your teacher and you go through just, you know, a couple of hours of training. It's not hard, but there's just, you have questions and it's great to have somebody guide you and you need to be given the mantra. And you can't tell that mantra to anyone, right? You can't tell that mantra to anyone, which is like I'm so curious about this because I'm like, does everybody have the same mantra? That's what I want. And it's never changing.

Well, you know, what's funny is that I was trained also by a woman in L.A. So I was trained twice. And the only reason I was trained twice is I was trained by this great woman in LA. So I was trained twice. And the only reason I was trained twice is that I was trained by this great woman in LA. And I was like, I wonder if that was like the real training. And so I ended up redoing it at David Lynch, just because I wanted to make sure I had the foundational practice down. And it was the exact same training. And they both gave me the same mantra. So I didn't know if that had something to do with my birthday and certain things about me, or if it was like, everybody has the same mantra. I still don't know.

Like, what if we're all running around with the same mantra? We just never know. They're like, listen, don't tell anybody. So when you're feeling overwhelmed, you do that. So, so that is, that is not even something that you're supposed to employ in an acute, you know, situation. Like I'm feeling overwhelmed, let me go meditate. Of course, you can do that because it just brings your blood pressure down, makes you feel more calm. But if you institute it as a part of your lifestyle and practice, you'll be less reactive. It's like a maintenance thing. General. Exactly. So that's one thing I like to work out. I find that to be incredibly de-stressing. Again, that can be in the moment or just as part

of a lifestyle. And honestly, like the best medicine is spending time with friends. I always find when I can just, you know, especially friends who are not in the industry, because when you get together with people in the industry and you're all sort of facing the same challenges and the same, you know, sort of stressors, then you tend to kind of, I think, amplify each other's anxiety around those things. I mean, it can be helpful when you're, you know, troubleshooting to have people who understand your business, but I find it really relieving to spend time with people outside of the business because it makes you realize immediately that your, your world, your industry, your position isn't

the center of the universe. Like you think, oh, everybody knows what's going on with me, or everybody knows what's going on with my industry or my brand. And actually, they're concerned with their industry and their things. And so when you have that perspective, you can feel, I guess, less, I guess, less egocentric about it all. My grandma used to say when I would call her and I was stressed about something, she'd say, get outside yourself. Yeah. Get outside yourself. Yeah. Grandma was a tough woman. You, so you mentioned you like to work out with someone like you had such a full plate. You know, we get a lot of feedback. Hey, you guys always talk about working out and being healthy, but I'm so busy. Obviously, you're one of the busiest people in the world.

I don't know about that. So how do you find the time? Or what would you say to someone that says they're too busy to work out? Right. Well, first of all, I do it first thing in the morning. And I just have always done that because if I don't get it done in the beginning of the day, there's a greater chance it won't happen. That's number one. Number two, I just don't like to work out at night of the day, there's a greater chance it won't happen. That's number one. Number two, I just don't like to work out at night.

It's like at night I'm tired. I'd rather have a glass of wine or a meal or after I've had a bunch of meals. I just don't feel motivated. And there's always that chance that something's going to interfere with the schedule. Like you get invited to something you want to go to or you have to work late. So getting it done in the morning is key for me. And it's just, it's a non-negotiable. you know, I've made it a non-negotiable. I'm also, you know, lucky in that I have the ability to have a trainer and to have somebody sort of,

you know, keep me accountable in that way. And it is part of, you know, my work world as well. So it's like, I feel like I need to walk my talk. I'm the editorial director of a health brand, and it's a passion of mine. So for me, it's necessary, and it's a non-negotiable. I know there are people who are, quote, unquote, too busy. My sister's got a full-time job, three kids. And to be honest, she doesn't make that time for herself. I feel like she'd be better

off if she did but it really is just hard to find that extra hour in the day for her and what time are we talking in the morning i'd love to know like not the not super early like seven okay seven that's about me sometimes eight but okay we're all kind of on the same page i like to work i like to work late yeah i can't do the 5 a.m. thing. No, no. Getting up when it's still dark out doesn't work for me. Have you ever heard of Jocko Willink? No.

He's a Marine, ex-Marine SEAL. And he trains people in Pendleton in California. But his Instagram, if you see this, it's absurd. It's a picture of his watch every day at 4.30 in black and white. And like hands, like he gets up and just works. I'm like, I can't do that. I want to get up early. Maybe 6, 7.

But 4.30 in the morning. What time does he go to bed? Because that's the other thing. New York is sort of a late town, right? You can eat dinner. You can probably get a dinner reservation. Not that I want one at 11 p.m., but you probably can get an actual reservation at 11 p.m. You can definitely get a 10 p.m. one. Whereas in L.A., you know, things shut down earlier.

And I think people are generally, I'm not going to say living, maybe they're living a healthier lifestyle because there's just more time to be outdoors and be active. But in New York, it is sort of a social evening environment. So getting up at 3.30 or 4.30 is just not going to happen. No, when we're in California, we're at dinner at like 7 o'clock here, 10 o'clock. Totally. It's crazy. It's a different crazy. Yeah. If you were to give our audience your top three wellness tips and we want like

specifics, like give us brands, give us all like the juicy details. What would those be? Before we get into that, I want to tell you about my favorite thrive market. I don't know if you guys have heard about this hot tip, but if you haven't, you need to. Okay. So this tip was from my friend, Jackie Schimmel of the bitch Bible. Jackie is a huge, huge fan of rose hip spray. Okay. It's this magical spray that balances your skin. It improves texture. It really helps with brown spots and tone. You know that I personally love everything skincare. so it's not a surprise that I'm obsessed with this, okay? Rosehip spray is loaded with essential fatty

acids, antioxidants, and vitamins to hydrate, condition, and soothe. I want all that. Michael wants that. Michael doesn't even know he wants that. So you can use this as an all-over body moisturizer, an after skincare soother, or even an anti-aging body treatment. I personally like to use it when I'm traveling, but you know, I'm throwing that stuff on my face every single day. I just feel like everyone needs a mist. I don't care who you are. I actually just did a post on the skinny confidential too about this. I'm just ride or die for rose mist. Okay. So you guys can get this for free. Thrive is extending this to you guys for free. All you have to do is go to thrivemarket.com slash skinny, and you will get freaking free $60 in groceries,

plus free shipping. Make sure you add the rose mist to your cart. So not only will you get yourself your own organic rose mist spray, you'll also get $60 in free groceries with free shipping. Thrive is so efficient because it delivers the groceries straight to your door, which we love. And all the stuff on there is 25 to 50% below retail. So you're saving money. Okay. It's all organic too. They take the middleman out of the situation. If you're looking for other items to add to your cart, thrown a few of their insane masks, some Rao's spicy sauce, the Arbiata is next level, and organic Epic bars. And when you get your groceries, make sure you use your rose hip spray

in the shower, okay? It's going to feel like you're in the sauna. You just do a hot, cold shower with rose mist, turn it to cold. We like a hot, cold always, and it's going to wake you up. Another thing I love about Thrive is that they break down all the sections. So they have a vegan section, a gluten-free section, and a paleo section. So it's basically, like I said, efficient. I'm serious, you guys. I give this link to everyone, all my friends, all my family. The link that Thrive is extending to you guys is thrivemarket.com slash skinny. Again, that's thrivemarket.com slash skinny.

And it's free at $60 in groceries plus free shipping. Happy shopping. Brands. Just in terms of like things that I like supplements. It could be skin. It could be beauty. Oh my God. There's just so many.

It's like I'm overwhelmed just even thinking about it. What are the ones you keep going back to? So just looking like right here. Yeah. What's that? So this is water with an NAC tablet in it. So do you know about NAC? No. Um, so, oh, I don't think I have the actual box here. So it's like, I'd have to get back to you with the brand because I don't, maybe you can put it in the show notes or something,

but NAC is a supplement that basically assists your body in promoting glutathione and glutathione is, you know, your body's most powerful antioxidant. It's liver protectant. It obviously, you know, it's like antioxidants are just anti-inflammatory, do all good things. So it's just, for me, one of my biggest health tips is like the little, just the little things. It doesn't always have to be this big, enormous undertaking, right? It's literally just putting this NAC tablet, this effervescent tablet in my water. It actually makes it taste better.

And drinking it is good systemically for my body. That's number one. Number two, I'm a huge advocate of strength training. And of course, women strength train now. But I still run into, I say women because mostly women who are on still on the cardio track and don't like aren't into strength training or weightlifting, whatever you want to call it, because they just, they think they're going to bulk up or they think, or they don't know how to do it, which is one of the

things that we do at Women's Health is, you know, give women the skills and, and the techniques to be able to feel confident in the weight room. To me, that's one of the single most important things about working out because obviously, it's good for bone density, it's good for tone, you know, lean muscle burns more fat. And I just think we've been indoctrinated into thinking like we have to do all of this cardio. Can I say something that's maybe like screwed up? Yeah. I think, I might get flack for this, that running makes your skin sag. Well, it's funny that you say that because when I was the editor-in-chief of Women's Health,

we did a whole story on, there was a French actress, Catherine Deneuve, who famously said many years ago at a certain point in life you have to choose between your fanny and your face have you ever heard that that's amazing okay so she said this many years ago and base and what she was saying was as you get older you kind of lose volume and elasticity and so if you have a few more pounds on you your face will look better but maybe your butt's not going to be exactly the size you want it. Do you want my fanny or my face? He's like, do I need to choose?

Don't answer. I don't think there's any right answer for me. I feel like you shouldn't answer. You know how many times on this show I get asked things that there's no win for me? There's no win. I'm just telling you right now, don't answer. Half of my life is avoiding questions. Totally.

Smart man. So we took that famous quote and we sort of dove in with the science. Like, do you have to choose? Like, can you be lean and be a runner, for instance, because you're pounding the pavement and does that, you know, sort of cause sag? And the fact is there wasn't like a definitive result. But yes, there is, you know, there is stress on your skin when you're running and on your joints and on the rest of your body. But if that's your passion and that's what's going to keep you active, then, you know, maybe vanity isn't the reason not to do it as long as you feel good doing it. I am so not a runner.

I hate running. It's boring for me. I'm the person who posts those, you know, Instagram textiles that says, if you see me running, run too, because that means something's chasing me. That's me. I just posted one the other day that was something like, it was a regram from Bethany Myers. And I think it was never run with scissors. Like the end of that sentence wasn't necessary. It was basically like never run or I never run with scissors. And it was like, those last two words were unnecessary. I never run. So I hate running. I do. I think some

people are just built to do it. And some people aren't for me. I don't know if it's body type or lung capacity. I don't know what the factors are or just where my head goes. I find it such a struggle. Whereas my friend Carol Radziwill just ran the New York Marathon at age 54 for the first time. And had never been a runner or really a workout person. I saw you on Housewives. Yes. She's on Housewives.

I saw when she did that run because, you know, I see it. These guys try to pretend they don't see it. You're a real housewife. Michelle was on Housewives. Yes. She's on Housewives. I saw when she did that run because, you know, I see it. These guys try to pretend they don't see it. You're a real housewife in New York. Michelle was on Housewives with Carol. We talk about this

because I'll be in the bedroom and listen, I'm not going to watch this show. I'm going to read a book, do something, and she'll have it on and it's too, I can't turn away from it

when it's on. It actually pisses me off because I can't get, it's too entertaining. It's best. It's my show. It's very entertaining. Especially in New York.

I love the New York one best for obvious reasons. And so Carol's a friend. So she wrote something for Cosmo. And they filmed her, you know, talking to me about the piece. And what did she write? She wrote an on my mind, which is one of our one pagers. And she wrote it. The name of the one that she wrote was called when confident women Made, Not Born. And so what she was talking about, which I think is a very valuable lesson, is sort of the daily or weekly or monthly or yearly things that you do to cultivate confidence in yourself. And one of those things was her running the marathon. And she was sort of issued a challenge by people who said, like, you're 54 and you've never really worked out and you've never run. There's no way you can do that. And she just thought, watch me.

And she did it. And it was, I mean, I think really painful. But she did it. But I think the fact that she was able to do that, there's something, and she says she really took to running. There was something about her body or her composition or maybe it was her mental tenacity that really facilitate facilitated her being able to do that like pick up and do that i don't have that thing when it comes to running but i love being active and i love working out and i love sports and i'm fairly agile and all that it just it just isn't about pounding the pavement so you gotta do you yeah exactly and i think that's

i went off on a total detour from your three tips that you asked me for. No, you gave us two. No, we have to get the last one. We have to hear the last one. Okay. The last one, I'll do a beauty one, which is sunscreen because I like everyone else, love the sun, get your 15 minutes of you know unprotected you know exposure for your vitamin d but by and large protecting your skin from the sun is just the best thing you could do and it's hard because it's a 365 day proposition and it's um you know not always the most fun but when you see people who are super sun damaged and they're trying to undo that years later, it's, it's an uphill battle and it's dangerous. Favorite sunscreen.

Oh God. I've been really into Kula lately. Love Kula. And Supergoop. Love Supergoop. I'd still do the, um, oh my God, I'm going to forget, you know, the Anthelios, you know, that one that you see it's like though I can see the packaging right now you know how you like don't even know the name you can send it to us and we'll put it in the show notes totally yeah there's a bunch there's a lot of great ones now okay I have to tell you that um Carol's book my favorite book of all time she is what remains oh yeah it's so good that's how I first came to know of her she is such a good writer I know she's tremendous I mean she's next level she's she's such a great person she's really fun and

smart and humble and you know in so many ways the least likely person to be on the housewives yeah that's kind of like another thing that I think is cool about her is just she does kind of things that are surprising she's made it work. Yeah. When you're looking for stories now, because I imagine it's changed with social media and the flow of information we were talking, you know, you had to go research and really search. Now I imagine so many stories come across your desk. How do you vet that and how do you pick something to run? That's a great question. Because we have this unlimited capacity to publish digitally, right? We can't react to news. It's not like we can say, oh, you know, this thing happened today and we're going to publish

it three or four months later, which is our lead time in a monthly magazine. So what we try to do is take something that's current because we don't want everything to be evergreen. You don't want it to be possible for every article to be in 2018 or it could have been in 2008. You want it to have a timeliness, but that timeliness isn't sort of like the news peg. It's taking something that people are talking about and then doing a deeper dive on it or expanding part of that conversation. So it might be, you know, we were talking a little bit before the show about Me Too and we can get more into it, but we couldn't react to kind of chronicling all this digital, Cosmo.com can, but in the print side of the brand, we couldn't react to chronicling like the women who were

coming out and quick enough to make any sense, right? Because that information was everywhere the second it was unfolding. So what we did is cover it in a bunch of different ways. And one of the ways that we covered it was how to talk to your mate about your me too experience or your me too moment, because what we were hearing from women is that they were experiencing all these different reactions from the guys in their lives. Like some guys felt really defensive, like I wasn't, I wasn't there to protect you if they were together at the time. Um, some guys were dismissive and that was hurtful. And so there were all these, you know, sort of emotions and questions cropping up around having that conversation with a significant other. And I

felt that was a place where we could really, you know, lend assistance, do a service piece, talk to women who've experienced this, talk to experts, and really get into a part of the conversation that wasn't being talked about digitally or in the news. So that's an example of something that's current and relevant to our readers, and certainly not evergreen. It's not something we would have published a year ago even. But that, you know, felt timely and also kind of a deep dive and appropriate for print. Well, let's, you know, we haven't, it's a him and her perspective show. And one thing that we haven't touched on, because we're careful, one, about evergreen and two, having relevant conversations. We have not talked about Me Too. And I thought, who better to talk to about it than

you? Because there's an interesting dynamic. I work with primarily women, right? And I'm a man. And I think that I was with a... You're a man? Yes. I've just... Yes, I am.

And I was with a coworker yesterday. For the record. So everyone knows. But I was with one of my coworkers yesterday and we were talking about it. And, you know, she's very... Like, I think there's an interesting space where you have the monsters of the world like the Harvey Weinstein's who should probably be prosecuted and thrown in jail right like that's the extreme example but then you have other situations where me as a man

I worry like okay am I gonna say something wrong am I gonna do something inappropriate I have no intention but I think that we're maybe getting into some type of dangerous space where and this is the reverse now where men are feeling like like, okay, what's appropriate, what's not, like, how do I not cross the line here? Because you don't want to end up in a situation where someone's looking like, hey, this guy's a creep, right? I could not agree with you more. And there's a lot of conversation around that here. And I was probably, you know, one of the early adopters of that perspective of that there's a danger in creating false equivalencies in behavior. There's the Harvey Weinsteins and the really egregious acts. And then there are the unintentional acts that may not be cool, but if they don't, you know, cross the line of abuse of power or, you know, really damaging somebody's reputation, career, if it's truly unintentional,

I don't think that those two things are on an even playing field. And I do think that there is a lot of fear in terms of doing, just like you're saying, in terms of saying the wrong thing, doing the wrong thing, or even guys searching their minds to, like, try to remember if they ever unintentionally did that in the past when the climate was different. It doesn't mean it was okay to do it ever, but the climate was different. I have found not a lot of receptivity to having empathy for guys because- Which I can understand to a certain point. Women are pissed and they have a right to be and i i wrote an editor's letter about this in an issue

where we did a piece that was aimed at guys so obviously it's in a magazine read mostly by women but our instructions were to take this out like rip this out and give it to a well-intentioned guy in your life or a guy that you think could step on, you know, step in the sort of minefield or that, you know, just needs this advice. And it was called How Not to Be a Sexual Harasser Even If You Think You Could Never Be That Guy. And it was everything from like phrases to banish from your vocabulary. Can you give us an example of a phrase um yeah it would be

something like um you know what is it that time of the month that kind of stuff which is you know highly irritating and super that guy's just an asshole right right but like you'd be surprised how reflexive some of this stuff is in our society even even from quote-unquote good guys whatever that means um because they've just been it depends on their socialization process like the kind of dad they had the kind of guys they hung out with the kind of work environment they've always been in yeah you'd think you'd know better but some guys don't and they think it's just funny so um things like that or alluding to you know if you had a date the night before like did the guy get lucky or any any innuendo like that so we had a bunch of phrases we had a bunch of scenarios we had a whole bunch of information aimed at basically giving guys a roadmap and there was a lot of

discussion here especially with the younger editors who are like, why is it up to us to tell them how to behave? They should know. And so again, there wasn't a lot of empathy. You know, I think I don't have a lot of sympathy for these, for men like that, but I do, what I do worry about is getting into a space as a society where like, you know, we're already so divided as a country right now. And now there's men and women. It's like, now you're going to divide men and women. Have you been in my brain? Maybe. Have you been poking around in my brain? But I think that's a huge issue. And so, you know, when I took on, I took on the role recently for CEO of the network,

I told you, and one of the conversations was, how will that look as a man being the head of this female focused network? And it was a big conversation with my partner and I, because I wanted to make sure that the messaging was right. Like, I'm somebody that's definitely pushing, not just females, but anybody that wants to do something forward. And so absolutely, it's like, what's the messaging there. And I think that we're in a time where it's so sensitive. And I don't know if that's okay or not. So one of so one of Cosmos and my personal platforms, you know, this year and going forward, is to really champion the guys who champion us, right? And to kind of bridge the

divide because it is such a divisive time and, you know, to move the conversation forward and to, you know, cure some of these societal ills, it's going to take all of us. Definitely holding people accountable for their behavior, but also educating guys from a much younger age, because men are still socialized in a way that promotes some of this behavior. So it starts really early. Um, but yeah, we have to do it together. And you know, Cosmo has always been a magazine, loves men, celebrates men. We want to continue to do that, but obviously the guy, you know, the woke guys, um, the guys who celebrate us. So that's something you'll something you'll be hearing more of from Cosmo.

Trying to facilitate that conversation. I just don't want to get into a situation where the arc's leaving and it's like, you're not allowed on the arc. Is this what you wake up in the middle of the night in a sweat? You said it's a women read your magazine all the time, but I feel like men also sneak Cosmo. I think there is like a 10 to 15% male readership because it's like the playbook of the, you know, the opposite team. And that's historically been the case. Um, but yeah, obviously we're aimed at women, but sure. Like guys are welcome to read Cosmo. What's been one of your most popular articles?

You know, it's sort of, we don't really have a device to measure that necessarily because, you know, that just isn't something that we do. But obviously the core content is sex and relationship content. Of course, we're a fashion and beauty magazine. We talk about career very seriously. We won a national magazine award this past year for a 12-page feature on how to run for office. That's not typical, quote-unquote, Cosmo Fair in most people's eyes. It is in our eyes. All that said, sex and relationship content is the cornerstone of what we do and why people come to us, and it's where we have the deepest authority.

So I think those articles, so not any one specific one, but ones that really help women navigate an increasingly complicated dating landscape. I mean, there's more choice with dating apps and things like that. There's more isolation as we all sort of go into our digital worlds and, you know, aren't out there and, you know, meeting face to face as much, it's gotten really tricky. So I think we're needed and the advice that we provide and the illumination is needed more than ever. How do you guys sort of evolve? Because with social media, things obviously are changing rapidly. How do you really keep that relevant and mix the digital with the print yeah so I mean Cosmo's on every platform and is huge on every platform so

we just we exist in all these spaces um in fact we have on Instagram we have these gifs that are Cosmo gifs now love it so they're super cute I'll show you how to access them you just like you go into like the gif function on Instagram and just in the search type and at Cosmopolitan and all these like fun GIFs come up. So that's not even like our platform. It's not on our Instagram, but it's like expressing our brand in that way, which is so iconic. So we're on, we're everywhere. And, but the expression of a story or an idea is different in different places. But in terms of staying relevant, I mean, we have young editors, we obviously talk to readers, we're out there in the world, just experiencing things and exposing

ourselves to things. So there is an evolution, right? It's like the way that men and women relate to each other, the way that people date. Fluidity has been, sexual fluidity has been a huge topic of conversation at Cosmo over the last few years and not something that we ever would have talked about or written about or even had to think about during my first tour of duty it just it just wasn't a thing it doesn't mean that people weren't curious it doesn't mean that they weren't you know frustrated it just we weren't conscious of it the way that we are now. And now that we are, we try to address those issues in an appropriate way.

I mean, it can't be like the majority of the magazine because we know the demographics and we know who's reading our magazine, but we definitely try to be inclusive. I think we're in a really interesting time right now where it feels like at least nothing's off limits to talk about. And for a while, there's certain things you just didn't share or didn't talk about. Now, everybody can talk about everything. I think that's with the spread of information. And now, you know, you see some of these, I don't want to call them,

like you see some of these populations that you may not have known about before, the certain type of demographics that you wouldn't have thought about. Now that it's visual, you're like, oh, you know, maybe it's not so uncommon. Yeah. And I think that's the beauty of social, right? Is that it like creates community and it obviously, you know, exposes us to people who are outside of our immediate purview and our immediate, you know, friend group or work group or, you know, city, because it's obviously it's global and you just have access to so much more information. But while I feel like there's more open communication and expression, there's also just weird level of conservatism in the world too, right?

It's like these two sort of juxtaposed feelings in our country. So I don't know where it all shakes out. We were talking about the sex brain that we were showing you. And it's so interesting to me because for, I think some of the people where we're from, it's such a, you know, people are so open about it,

but there's still this weird thing. And I come from the social world where, you know, I watch engagement, I watch content and people, you can see people are engaging with the content and they're consuming and looking at it, but they're not sharing that they're doing it right.

They're not commenting. They're not liking because they're still maybe scared of what that says about them as humans. And I think it's so interesting because sex is a huge part of everyone's life. You just have to keep talking about it and talking about it to make it less telly. I completely agree. And I see the same things. And it is sort of still baffling to me that sex is that sort of polarizing or, know scary or controversial when everyone's having it almost everyone's having it or wishing they were almost everyone there are people who choose to be celibate but um but yeah it's how it's how most of us got here so yeah i don't i don't know if it just stems back to the to the puritans who you know founded the country i don't i don't know i don't know if it just stems back to the Puritans who founded the country. I don't know.

I don't understand it. And I really hope. Damn Puritans. And I wish, I do hope at some point it changes because the dissemination of healthy, responsible information about sex, including pleasure, is a really important one. And, you know, as sex ed, sex ed is obviously abysmal, and it's poised to maybe get worse in this country. And every, there's all the evidence points to, you know, not having sex ed is like the worst possible thing, right? So the people who advocate for abstinence only education, what they say they don't want to happen, they are ensuring happens. And I don't understand that when it's a data, database decision. And, you know, Cosmo is going to be talking about these

topics going forward, as we always have. And as they become sort of more front of mind for other people, we're even going to get into how there's research that indicates that teaching about pleasure, which I know is a whole other thing and depends on the demographic of the person you're talking to, but let's just talk about Cosmo, actually wards against things like sexual assault, because the more a woman's informed about her own body, about how to seek pleasure, about how to use her voice, all those things actually helps prevent being taken advantage of in a lot of different ways. So the pleasure conversation is as important as the, you know, the functionality, you know, sex ed conversations. I think especially in relationships,

like if you're with somebody and you're scared to voice, you know, how you feel about something or you probably shouldn't be having sex with them if you can't talk about it. But a lot of people are like, you know, a lot of women and men are scared to say, Hey, like this is something I want to do. And then all of a sudden the relationship implodes and it would maybe avoidable if you just had a conversation. Yeah, for sure. If there's any listeners listening right now, do you have any advice for people who are breaking out into the industry and who want to get into publishing content, how would they sort of go about that? Yeah. I mean, it's, it's tough to get that first foot in the door, right? So depending on their age, if they're young, I do, I still think internships

are the best way to kind of break in because you then access brands and HR departments and editors. And if they think highly of you, they're going to either try to hire you at some point or turn you on, you know, to one of their friends who's in the industry wanting to hire. But there's so many ways to self-publish now, right? So if you're a great writer, great editor, content creator, which is, you know, multi-platform now, it's like finding ways to just publish your own things. So that way, when you're applying for a job, you have something to show. And that's, that's really important. Because for us, it's like, I can have somebody come in, and I can fall in love with them in an interview thinking like, oh, they're so bright. They're so charismatic. They're so they have so many good ideas. But if the skill set isn't there, and they

can't kind of pull it all together, they're probably not going to get the job. So a lot of times what we'll do is we'll vet candidates and then we'll actually send them an edit test before we bring them in for that face-to-face. And it's both to save their time and to save our time. It's a great idea. Because it really is, the work is really important and the proof is in the pudding. So it's like we send out the edit test, which might be, you know, editing something or writing something, depending on the level of position, generating ideas, maybe doing a critique of something to see where their thinking is about the brand. And then we take those and I mean, they're all qualified candidates on paper to begin with. And then from those tests, we sort of narrow it down and then meet people.

What I think is an interesting conversation, you know, Cosmo has such a huge footprint, all the publications. So when you guys put something out, so many people see it and there's such a great chance for it to go viral or whatever. Say you're a killer content creator, you're young, starting out and you've written a lot of great stuff or filmed a lot of great stuff. What would you say the best steps are for somebody to get that content seen? Because there's one thing creating it, but then you have to obviously get eyes on it. Yeah, you have to, you have to find out who the right editor is for whatever bucket, you know, you're trying to get into. So if it's, um, you know, if it's fashion or beauty, you're going to identify the person.

And it just, I mean, really just calling, it's like calling and finding the kind of lowest level person in that department and mastheads exist and you can, you know, and corporations have, you know, people who, who can direct you. So finding the lowest level person in the department to then ask them, Hey, who would I send this to? And obviously HR departments too, which seemed very removed, but they really are the ones, they know who the right contacts are. So even if it's just, you know, I know you want me to send you your resume, but can you tell me who the right person is at such and such brand to send something to? So it's really just that.

I mean, I don't want to encourage this, but I do have people like slide into my DMs asking me about jobs too. That's very hard. Now you're in trouble. No, no, no. But that's, it's very hard for me to keep up with that. I have answered them before, but if I'm not following them, I may not see it for an extended period of time until I go, oh yeah, there's all those messages that I didn't know I had because they're in this other area.

Your DMs are going to explode. Better than sliding into my DMs for that than something else. Or maybe not. I don't know. I've gotten some creepy DMs lately. I bet. Really creepy ones. What's a book, a resource, a podcast that you would recommend to our audience?

Oh, God. I mean, there's just, I mean, it depends on the subject. Maybe give us your top three. Or something you just refer to. What are you listening to? What are you reading? Well, right now I'm reading, I mostly read fiction when I'm not at work because, you know, everything that I do here is obviously it's like researched and service driven. So a former Cosmo editor, her name is Jessica Knowles, just published her second book,

which became a bestseller almost instantly. And it's called The Favorite Sister. And it's based on a reality show, which is kind of funny because I like gave it to Carol and Andy Cohen's talked about it. So I'm reading Jessica Knowles,les the favorite sister right now her first book was called luckiest girl alive which i hope is going to be made into a movie um podcasts i mean god there's so many good ones um i really love my friend lewis howe's podcast which is called the school of greatness we just had him on oh my god i love lewis um i love lew love Lewis as a human. And I love the people that he has on because they're all inspirational. And so, and they're from, you know, different walks of life.

And so when you listen to his podcast, inevitably you learn something, which is the point. But you also, you know, just hear about, hear from a fascinating person. So I listen to his podcast pretty regularly. And he's been doing it for forever. Yeah 600 something episodes he's really great and then what else did you want to know i want to know too about your two books that you wrote oh god um okay so i actually wrote a book when i was at cosmo but it was from the editors of cosmo okay i wrote it which was called cosmo's guide to red hot sex Oh, like scrounge up a copy for you guys. And then that was years ago. And then I wrote Look Better Naked when I was at Women's Health. And then I actually started a book, another book at Women's Health. And then I went to Yahoo and they still wanted me to do it. And that was called 20

Pounds Younger. Okay. We got to check those out on Amazon. Yeah. Pimp yourself out, pimp Cosmo out. Tell us where we can find you on social media. Oh, you can, you can find us easily everywhere. You know, Instagram, Snapchat, digitally. Obviously I want people to still pick up the magazine at newsstands. We work really hard on the print content and I think it's a completely different experience than obviously the way that we're expressed digitally and socially. Um, but yeah, we're super strong and in all those ways. And, you know, occasionally we do events too. So if you follow us on all those platforms, you'll, you won't miss a thing. Okay. And we got to do, we got to do your, I say it wrong. Apparently gifts. I say gifts.

What is it? Well, you know, there's, what is it? It's, it's, I think it's gifs, but it's spelled with a G so it's confusing. But when I was at Yahoo, I was constantly asking this question. And I would say the most popular response from the tech people was GIF. Okay. Who knows? And get the Cosmo GIFs. Yes, get the Cosmo GIFs.

They're so fun. Thank you for coming on, Michelle. Thanks for having me. Thank you. Hey, guys. Thanks for having me. Thank you. Hey guys, just wait. Don't forget to check out the new podcast site over at tscpodcast.com. All of the show notes from this episode

can be found there. It's a really awesome resource that highlights the amazing people we talk to. So all the different books and the different resources they have recommended as well as the ones we've recommended in one spot, okay? It also has a section for new listeners

trying to get caught up to speed. So check it out, t in one spot. Okay. It also has a section for new listeners trying to get caught up to speed. So check it out. TSC podcast.com. Also, we're going to do a quick giveaway. Like always to win five of my favorite beauty products. Simply tell me your favorite part of this episode on my latest Instagram. I'll pick one of you and alert you through DM. If you guys rate and review the podcast, please screenshot it, email it to asklauren at the skinnyconfidential.com and we will send you a five of my secret beauty hacks straight to your inbox. Thank you guys so much for listening. We appreciate your time and we'll see you next Tuesday.

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