Season 3, Episode 9: Transcript
By SOLTECH
Veanne Smith: Hello and welcome to Atlanta Business Impact Radio. We’re your hosts, Veanne Smith and Sarah Lodato. We’re excited to have our listeners join us for another episode of season three, where our theme is ‘Focusing on Innovation’.
Today, we’re thrilled to be talking to Emily Schwarz and Alexa Crisa of Lean In Atlanta, an organization with an innovative vision for encouraging women to take the lead in their professional careers. LeanIn.Org is a non-profit, non-partisan empowerment organization inspired by Sheryl Sandberg’s book, ‘Lean In’.
The organization is aimed at creating a global community that encourages women to continue to be active and ambitious in their careers, providing resources in its local communities through the regional leaders program, of which Lean In Atlanta is a part.
Sarah Lodato: This philanthropic pair is guiding Lean In Atlanta to their goal of being an all-inclusive chapter of support, empowerment and education for women in the Metro Atlanta area. This year, they are celebrating becoming an official regional partner within LeanIn.Org’s purview. [Music stops].
Welcome to the show ladies. Before we get started, we need to recognize a special guest we have in the studio with us today, Ann Mooney, who is one of our client leads. She’s encouraged several folks around the Soltech office to read ‘Lean In’, including myself and Veanne. When we told her we were trying to have you both on, she was eager to talk to you both. She’ll be joining us today. Welcome Ann.
Ann Mooney: Thanks for letting me join so much. This is great.
Sarah: Emily and Alexa, we’re so excited to sit down with you both. Thank you so much for coming in. Right out the gate, can you tell us everything we need to know about Lean In, from the regional level down to the local level?
Emily Schwarz: Definitely. As you said, LeanIn.Org is an organization of empowerment for women that was inspired by Sheryl Sandberg’s book, ‘Lean In: Women and the Will to Lead’. Lean In Atlanta got started about two years ago. It was a chapter of about six people when it first started. We have grown to 600 in two years.
Veanne: Wow, that’s awesome.
Emily: It’s really exciting and it shows how much we need something like this in our community. We really need support for women in order for them to succeed in their careers. Anyway, I digress. Lean In Atlanta is an official regional chapter of LeanIn.Org. What that means is, at the chapter level Alexa and I provide resources and education opportunities for women in our community.
For instance, on August 10th we have a salary negotiation workshop coming up at General Assembly. We also work with LeanIn.Org directly on their national and global marketing campaign. On April 4th, there was a campaign around equal pay day, of which we took part and ran the regional marketing efforts for the campaign.
There are a lot of opportunities when you join LeanIn.Org for leadership for your own self. That’s really what it’s all about at the circle level. As I said, we are a chapter at the circle level. We have eight small circles within Lean In Atlanta that are basically small groups that meet on a monthly basis to discuss a focus topic.
For instance, we have circles all over the metro. We have Gwinnett, Alpharetta, Sandy Springs, Midtown. The reason we did that is because we started to grow so fast that we really couldn’t find a time for 600 people to meet every month and really get a good amount of value out of the meeting.
At the chapter level, we plan these large-scale community events. We have some community partners that we partnered with. At the circle level, those circles meet and discuss, each month, topics that matter to them, empower them, encourage them to take the lead in their own careers.
Veanne: How many regional groups are there? Just curious.
Emily: Gosh, there are hundreds in the regional circle leaders program, which I forgot to mention. That is a development program within LeanIn.Org to train and help groom the most active chapter leaders in the world. It’s a pretty cool program. There are women in it. There’s Lean In Malaysia. There’s Lean In Canada. There’s Lean In India. There’s Lean In China, Lean In Pakistan, Italy, Spain.
It’s very interesting to learn from these different women to see the different struggles that they face in their markets and how we can all work together to help each other overcome them.
Veanne: That’s really cool. I was doing a little bit of research. Did you two work together before? How did you come together to get involved in Lean In?
Alexa Crisa: Emily didn’t really give me much of a choice in terms of leaning in. She leaned over her cubicle and was like, “You’re going to do this with me”. We met at work and I was familiar with all of the issues that women face. I read the book, having heard of it through Emily, and started going to meetings and then leaned in a little further and she was like “You’re going to help me run this” and I was like “Okay”.
Veanne: You’re so glad, right? Look at this incredible opportunity you have because of her.
Alexa: Yes. We’ve become so close. It’s been really great and it’s been amazing to watch it grow. I think that the one thing that I love about it is it really gives people an opportunity to find each other. If two people are really passionate about the same thing, they can take it and run with it. It doesn’t have to be.
If you care about your career but maybe you’re really passionate about education, you can find those people and those resources. Our goal is to wholly facilitate it and support it and give you the legs you need to succeed. I’m hopeful that in the future we’ll be able to touch all facets of equality and things that will benefit all gender identities. It’s very exciting.
Veanne: Well, I’m really impressed and so glad you all came together. You guys look like sisters, actually.
Emily: We hear that a lot.
Veanne: Do you?
Emily: We hear that a lot.
Veanne: Ann and I hear that as well.
Ann: We hear that too as well.
Emily: That’s funny.
Veanne: We’ve got cool pairs of sisters sitting around the room here so that’s cool. Tell me, I’d love to hear your perspective. What do you think, now that you’ve been doing this? What do you think makes these small groups, getting these small groups small enough, what makes that so valuable? Talk to us about that, what you’ve seen so far.
Emily: You want me to take this one or…
Alexa: Sure. Go ahead.
Emily: We see that there’s a huge need. I think women have been so underrepresented in the workforce as a whole for so long. I think a lot of people tend to forget that. I know you all don’t forget that.
Veanne: I don’t forget that.
[Laughter]
Emily: I’m sure you never forget that. I feel like sometimes we leave a lot out of the conversation when we talk about what it takes for underrepresented and traditionally, I don’t want to say oppressed but traditionally groups that don’t have the amount of opportunities that maybe some other groups have had, specifically men, as they have created the business environment we’re in. They run the show still.
A lot of major companies in Atlanta, and we’ve been really impressed by this. A lot of major companies in Atlanta and really all over the globe have started to have Lean In circles and organizations within their companies. IHG, Delta, Coca Cola, they all have these employee resource groups that really haven’t been available to women for a very long time.
It’s really important we know that, as women, of course women and men are different. Women, we need support. We need validation. We’ve been socially conditioned for a long time not to take the lead, to be polite, to give up your seat. These employee resource groups help women find each other and create personal touch points to say, “Okay, I’m not alone. Wow, I’m not crazy. Okay, that happened to me at work. How did you deal with it?”
It’s really important for women to come together and have a safe space where they can discuss and then really grow and eventually take the lead in their careers. Maybe they haven’t had the confidence for it before. Now that they’ve joined a group, they’ve found it.
Veanne: That’s some—
Ann: Sorry, I didn’t mean it. I apologize.
Veanne: Go ahead Ann.
Ann: That actually goes off to my next question. You answered it somewhat. Do you see any other opportunities for folks to organize that would help them to boost their confidence and encourage each other and to validate for their professional growth?
Emily: Totally, totally. I think we do see a lot of that at the professional companies. As part of the regional leaders program, every year I go to San Francisco. I’m actually going at the end of this week. We have a big summit of all the leaders, both globally, so from all those chapters I mentioned before, and at the professional level.
It’s really interesting to hear. It’s really interesting to hear the people that come from the different companies and some of the exercises that they do and some of the success that they’ve achieved with their members just by being in the circle.
There are people that didn’t have the confidence to ask for a raise. They didn’t have the confidence even to raise their hand for a promotion. Since joining the circle, 85 percent of circle members say they’ve seen a change in their personal or professional lives since joining a circle. For us, that means everything. Lex, anything else on that?
Alexa: I think you nailed it.
[Laughter]
Emily: I didn’t want to control the convo.
Alexa: No, you’re great.
Veanne: I just want to add. I think it’s important that we as women come together in an optimistic approach as opposed to, it’s really up to us. We can’t be moaning and complaining. We have to be empowered and positive about it. Are you seeing that? Do you feel that the women are viewing it from the right perspective? I think we do have all the opportunities that everybody else has. It’s just what we do with them and how we behave and how we act, right?
Alexa: You’re hitting the nail on the head for us as far as the way we approach even the not-so-positive stuff like the opportunity gap and the pay gap. We approach everything with positivity. To your point, opportunity. We have all the opportunity. It’s what we do with it and it’s how we advance the mission and advance each other and empower each other. We do not take to the things that might seem gloomy and when you read a statistic that isn’t so exciting. We, I don’t want to say spin but we—
Ann: Turn it into the opportunity.
Alexa: We turn it into the opportunity, not what’s missing.
Emily: That’s what Lean In’s all about. It’s leaning into your professional ambitions, to your career, even your personal ambitions. I’m glad that you said that because that’s a huge conversation that Lex and I have all the time, keeping the positivity and keeping the message to a point where people feel like they’re in control and that they’re positive about their future and they feel like they’re in control of their destiny because we know the reality.
We don’t have to dwell on the statistics. On top of that, we don’t want to just be talking to each other and people like us and like-minded people. That’s not where change happens.
Alexa: That’s right.
Emily: We need to reach across, I don’t want to say the aisle because we’re a non-political organization but, in a sense, reach across the aisle.
Veanne: Well, I think we’re blessed. We’re living in Atlanta, which I think is really a charitable and a kind city. It’s the South, right? I think that helps, all these wonderful women of the south coming together. What a great group.
I’d love to explore outside of Lean In. There must be other organizations in the area that you feel are doing things particularly well as well. I’d love to hear if you know of those, any of those organizations that maybe you have even teamed up with to help empower people in their professional endeavors. Is there anything outside the walls of Lean In that you guys are aware of or doing anything with other organizations?
Alexa: Yes. We’re definitely planning to ramp up what we can do. We’re working toward. There are certain logistical and even legal things we have to button up that we are ramping up to so that we can partner more, have a more integrated relationship, I guess.
There’s everything from non-profits to comedy groups. There’s a group called ‘Talk Like a Lady’. They do an amazing stand-up show. Actually, it’s more of an improv show. They’re doing great things to address a lot of the issues that women are facing. There’s ChickTech. They have an Atlanta chapter to help women in technology and in STEM.
Veanne: I didn’t know there was ChickTech. That’s a new one for me.
Alexa: They’re really cool.
Sarah: There’s also, I know StartupChicks that do morning sessions to just talk about what the women, essentially women in tech and in startup space, are doing to empower each other and help each other.
Emily: Then there’s Women in Tech in Atlanta.
Veanne: Right, of course. Women in Tech, right?
Alexa: There are so many. I love that personally because I think, two years ago, if you told me I would get really involved in something like a professional women’s empowerment, I’ve always been so passionate about it but I think, from the standpoint of focusing on, I don’t want to say focusing on but an emphasis on career development, I’d be like, “No. That’s not me”.
To have found a home within Lean In where everyone can find their flavor and there are so many groups out there in Atlanta, from comedy groups to industry-relevant groups. I think it’s really showing that anyone can find a home that is relevant to them and their goals and their interests. It’s really exciting and I’m personally very excited to get us out there with more of these groups.
Emily: Lean In’s been really great about. We are so focused on the community of Atlanta. Obviously, we partner with LeanIn.Org on their global and their national campaigns, equal pay day. Each year they come out with a really great study sponsored by McKinsey called ‘Women in The Workforce’. Obviously, we want to continue to push these global and national things out but the purpose of Lean In Atlanta is our community.
Like Lex said, we’ve worked with a lot of companies and non-profits in the community. We want to continue to do more. We’ve worked with General Assembly. Like I said, we’re working with them again coming up. King of Pops partnered with us on our equal pay day campaign. They’re absolutely amazing.
Olde Blind Dog Pub down the road, they’re amazing as well. We’ve been really pleasantly surprised when it comes to the community outreach that we’ve felt and the assistance that we’ve got from the community. We’re looking forward to continuing to build on that.
Sarah: That’s awesome. As a regional chapter, you all are now in charge of organizing your own events that fall within the greater mission of Lean In. You mentioned some of those big events that you’re participating in. What are some of the types of events in this area in particular that you’re organizing? Who’s attending? What benefit are you getting from that participation?
Emily: As I said, the August 10th salary negotiation workshop, that’s the type of stuff that we’re trying to do, stuff that’s a free resource for people and something that’s really needed. We know that although women do negotiate as often as men, they often feel pushback and they often aren’t as successful negotiating. Obviously, there’s a lot of implicit bias there.
We want, again, like with leaning in, we want to be able to teach women as much as they can in order to take control as much as they can of their own careers. Learn how to negotiate. Here’s the best way that you can do it. We’re going to try to set you up to succeed the best we can. We’re really looking to plan other events like that. Anything else Lex?
Alexa: One thing I would add, I think that down the line we want to. Again, this is super positive and exciting stuff. A negotiation workshop, we’re not going to be like, “Okay, get your notebooks out. There’s going to be a quiz at the end”. We want this to be fun and social. We are looking forward to working with a non-profit in town and planning some meet-ups and happy hours. We want there to be a full breadth of opportunity for people to come out and meet each other and network.
Emily: As women, we’re communicators naturally. We like to help naturally. We’re nurturers naturally or socially conditioned. We see that in Lean In in the most positive and beautiful way. There are people sharing job opportunities. There are people, “Hey, I’m dealing with this really stressful thing at work. I don’t know if it’s just me. Am I crazy?”
We have a Facebook group of 600 members that people are constantly posting on, sharing articles, sharing inspiration, sharing things that they’ve been through and reaching out for support. Through those, we believe in personal touch points to really facilitate change.
Sarah: I think that’s great. That’s the importance of that sort of accountability you keep coaching people through. Is it all women? Who’s part of this group? Are men involved? I would love it if they were.
Emily: Yes, definitely, yes. Yes, men are involved and yes, we need more. Please join Lean In Atlanta.
Sarah: That’s awesome.
Emily: We have a few men in our chapter who are actually pretty involved. They’re there to learn. They’re there to listen and they’re there to help. We’ve been really blessed on that front but we’re always looking for different ways to engage our male members and increase our male members. That’s a huge priority for us as we finish out 2017 and into 2018. You might see a panel coming down the pipe soon with men involved.
Alexa: My boyfriend is Lean In cheerleader. He listens to my soapbox speeches. He’s been great. I think I use him as my in-house case study. I think that we need to get men involved and we need to invite them to the conversation but ultimately there’s only so much.
I think that, with men, there can be a little bit of, “Oh, can I talk about this? This isn’t my world. I agree with you and I see you going through it but how can I help?” I think that that can be a little challenging. We’ve been kicking back and forth ideas on the right way. If anyone has any ideas…
Emily: Honestly, honestly, when it comes to male members I also want to add when we talked about, before, about reaching across the aisle. Lex and I are both so on-brand with the fact that we’re open to being offended. We’re open to conversation. We want to hear.
If you don’t understand why the wage gap happens or if you don’t believe in the pay gap or what have you, we want to hear why. We don’t want to argue but we want to have a real conversation so that we can actually effect change because when you’re yelling at someone it doesn’t, catch more flies with honey.
Ann: You mentioned that your boyfriend listens to your soapbox. I truly believe that your husband, your brother, your father, your boyfriend should be supportive. If you’re not supported at home just like you’re supported in the workplace leaning in or choosing to lean out, whatever you decide to do is not going to be as effective. Having the male counterpart in your life or your child, it’s very important to have that be a part of it.
Alexa: Right.
Emily: Right. This isn’t only our fight, right? I think it’s really important to keep in mind that this is something that affects our economy in a positive way too. When women are paid equally to men for equal work, we all win. We all succeed. It helps grow our economy. We get stronger. We should all be proud to foster equality because at the end of the day it’s going to help us financially.
Sarah: I agree.
Alexa: To your point, at some point I think it’s important to acknowledge. Emily and I kick this around all the time. We’ve arrived. We’re here. I’m sitting in a room full of women right now. We all know the good, the bad and the ugly and the importance. I think we can’t perpetuate screaming into a void. We have to include men.
Emily: Opposing views.
Veanne: I agree.
Sarah: I think that’s great. Our work here at Soltech is in the tech space. It’s common knowledge that this industry has traditionally seen fewer women than men, although I do feel like Soltech is pushing that boundary.
Veanne: Trying to do our part.
Sarah: We’ve got a lot of women in leadership here. From what you’re hearing and seeing from your members because you all do have such a diverse group, do you think that that’s changing? Are you seeing specifically the tech industry starting to push back on that quota?
[Laughter]
Emily: We have a lot of women in Lean In Atlanta, a lot of young women in Lean In Atlanta that are pursuing careers in STEM, very passionate, engineers. We have some really, really smart people. We have a really major doctor at the Shepherd Center. We have a NASA engineer in our group. We definitely see it.
I still think there are so many barriers to women to getting into tech. We see it in the statistics. Sheryl Sandberg just made a Facebook post this morning about in 1985, 35 percent of computer science students were women. Now it’s only 16 percent. In some ways, we’ve gotten worse. Then I think in some ways we’ve gotten better because women have never really had, well, they have with the sexual revolution and the women’s movements of the past, of course, that we’re utterly grateful for.
I don’t think women have had so much of a public outlet to air, not our grievances but really tell the story of what’s going on. More than ever, we have that today because everybody is a journalist. Everybody has a phone. Everybody has multiple audiences within their phone to reach. I think there’s a lot of good that comes from that, a lot of inspiration that women and girls are more exposed to now than they’ve ever been. We’re optimistic.
Ann: That’s great. If you were talking to a woman who’s wanting to get into the tech industry or any other industry for that matter but was feeling discouraged or unsupported, outside of finding your nearest Lean In circle, where else would you suggest them to go?
Alexa: Within themselves. A little bit. I think, for any person, you have to believe in yourself. I think that no matter what you see out there, to maybe not see a version of, not a version of yourself but somebody you can relate to directly being represented, I think you have to say to yourself.
You have to lean into your own goals and say like, “I don’t see someone that looks like me out there as a scientist or a CS major or a coder but I’m going to be that person and I’m going to lead that charge”. That’s scary but, not to sound cheesy, it’s almost like the first step of leaning in, I think. If you don’t believe in yourself, you’re cutting off your nose to spite your face a little bit. That’s just my view.
Emily: I’d also say, outside of a Lean In circle, just finding a tribe in general, finding an encouraging tribe and reading some of the statistics, reading Lean In, reading Feminist Fight Club, which is a great book if you all haven’t heard of it. It’s really funny but it contains the facts and figures. I think once you’re armed with that education you make better decisions. Once you know better you do better.
For instance, there’s a statistic in Lean In, in the book, where Sheryl talks about this study that women only feel like they can apply to a job if they meet 100 percent of the criteria whereas men apply when they have 60 percent.
Just think about that stat. Think about how much we have held ourselves back in certain instances. I think once you’re aimed with those statistics and you realize the unconscious bias that you even have about your own self, I think that’s incredibly important to really making a change.
Ann: We need to stop being our worst enemies.
Emily: Yes, yes. I think that Sheryl talks so much about that. She talks so much about being confident, wearing your success with pride, not apologizing for things you shouldn’t be sorry for.
Veanne: We do that all the time. Have you ever watched young girls play tennis? I don’t know if you have or not. They’re always like, “I’m sorry”.
Alexa: We do that work too.
Veanne: I know. We’re always apologizing. I always see that, especially with women.
Alexa: Exactly.
Ann: That’s when I say, “No, that was just a good shot”.
[Laughter]
Sarah: Right. I would say. I think it is important to think about. Even if you feel like you don’t need it to be that high-five person in your workplace or whatever it is, you can find that little tribe.
Emily: Huge
Sarah: I will say I feel like there are a ton of high fives given in this office, which feels really good. Be that person even if you feel like you’re not the one that needs it, I think. Just be aware of it, giving high fives for the little things or small accomplishments or encouragement or explaining the why behind certain things to help educate people.
Emily: We know that through different research studies that women championing other women in the workforce just contributes to overall success so much. Just having someone to be, and they talk about this. In the Obama White House, a lot of the staffers did this where a woman would propose something and an idea and then another woman would echo what she said to strengthen the message because a lot of times, sometimes it will get lost.
I think it’s really important to have, like you said, a tribe of people. We know that when women are supported they do better and then we all do better when women do better.
Veanne: I don’t know if you all are aware. We’ve had another guest here in the past on another series but of Pathbuilders in Atlanta. It’s an organization that mentors women, so another group that you all should be aware of. They do a really good job and they’ve been doing that for a number of years, probably I’d say about 20 years in Atlanta, I think.
Alexa: Wow, that’s amazing. That’s great.
Veanne: I can introduce you to some folks there if that makes sense.
Alexa: We’d love that.
Emily: That would be fantastic.
Veanne: Well, we appreciate you mentioning. I think you mentioned August 10th, did you not? General Assembly, you have the next event that you all have coming up. If anybody that’s listening to us wants to get involved in Lean In, you also mentioned you have a Facebook page. Where would they come to become a member? How would they register to go the General Assembly event in August? Tell us, where do you go?
Emily: We’re on a few different platforms in the social sphere. If you go to leanincircles.org and you type in ‘Atlanta’, we’ll be the first chapter that pops up. We encourage you to join. We also have eight circles, the smaller circles that we talked about earlier. Also feel free to join one of those or any of those.
We can also be found on Facebook. We have a Lean In Atlanta group page. Then we also have a Lean In Atlanta Facebook page that you can like and follow us. On Instagram, we’re @LeanInAtlanta. What else Lex? Do we have anything else? Oh, and General Assembly. General Assembly.
Alexa: Oh, right. Probably the easiest way to find the General Assembly event would be on our Facebook page. I know that’s confusing, the group and the page. It is posted there. Then I think you can go to the General Assembly website and look it up. That is on August 10th with Jacqueline Twillie. We’re very, very excited about that.
Emily: It’s for free.
Veanne: That was going to be my next question. Free. Okay. Awesome.
Emily: We’re a non-profit and we don’t make any money. We don’t want to require anybody to pay money to be in Lean In Atlanta. We’re continuing on our big, ambitious goals for trying to do that. We’re actually this close to filing our own separate 501(c)(3) so that we can raise funds and stuff like that.
Veanne: I’m just going to note, you two are doing this on your own time. You have full-time careers, right?
Emily: Yes.
Alexa: Yes.
Emily: This is fun for us. We were at my apartment last night getting ready for this and leaning in. We do this for fun. We hope that it makes a difference. We hope that it makes an impact. We don’t want to waste our time on stuff that isn’t valuable for women.
Alexa: Sleep’s for suckers.
[Laughter]
Emily: Sleep is for the dead.
Veanne: That’s good. I love it.
Sarah: Veanne always says if she had a superpower it would be to extend the hours in the day.
Veanne: Just a few more days would be nice.
Emily: Add a day between Saturday and Sunday.
Alexa: Sure.
Emily: Can we do that?
Alexa: That’d be a great time.
Veanne: I saw J-Lo was on TV last night. I got home in time for the news and they were saying, “What is the secret to your success?” How old is she? Like 48 or something.
Sarah: Really? Wow.
Veanne: There were a number of things. No alcohol, no caffeine but one was seven to eight hours of sleep a night. I don’t know. I just never can get that. I know I need to but I can’t. I’m going to have to work on that one.
Alexa: With no, that’s why she doesn’t need caffeine. My goodness.
Emily: Alright. Before we let you ladies go, we’d like to play a little game. I feel like I need a xylophone to intro with a ding-ding-ding. This season of our podcast, we’re focusing on innovation and creative ideas, which completely is encompassed in what you all are doing. Today we want to share some out-there ideas we’ve come across lately. Here’s the catch. One of them is made up. We want to find out if either of you can spot the fake, okay? Two are real and one is fake. Ready?
Emily: Okay.
Alexa: So excited.
Sarah: Alright, number one. In the U.S., the youngest you can be to sit behind the wheel of a BMW is 16 but that will soon change. The luxury automaker has debuted plans to create a baby stroller. BMW realizes that even babies need a little opulence and have added features like air conditioning, heated leather seats and 12-inch alloy wheels.
Emily: Oh my God. That’s insane.
Alexa: Get to kill.
Sarah: Alright, number two. The worst part about—
Veanne: Insane, but is it real? That’s the question.
Sarah: It’s true, dun-dun-dun. The worst part about eating pizza is waiting for it to cool enough to take a bite. Well, thanks to a group of scientists in New Mexico, those darn scientists in New Mexico, that’s a problem of the past. They have created a dissolving strip that, when placed on your tongue, will release an anesthetic to numb the pain, followed by a cooling gel to help quickly heal the burn.
Emily: Ann’s laughing over there. America.
Veanne: Ann’s thinking that’s the face.
Sarah: America. Hashtag America right there.
[Laughter]
Sarah: Alright, number three. Remember, only one of these is fake. If you find yourself in Danyang, China, beware of the fruity shrapnel coming from a local watermelon farm. A Chinese man invented an exploding watermelon when he added excessive amounts of high-powered growth accelerator to his soil. Local agricultural experts say the watermelons, described by the farmer as edible landmines, pose little to no health threats when eaten. What do you think ladies? Which one’s fake?
Emily: I’m going to go with the first one.
Veanne: The stroller?
Emily: Yes.
Sarah: I don’t know. Alexa’s not sure.
Alexa: I don’t know, the watermelon. I don’t know. I’m so indecisive. You shouldn’t have invited me to play this game.
[Laughter]
Alexa: I might go with the pizza one.
Sarah: Okay. Wow, I’m amazed. Number one was the fake. Congratulations Emily, you win. You’re the best.
Veanne: You win the bragging rights for today.
Alexa: I’m leaning out.
Sarah: That is literally the only one I would have thought was real. I’m baffled. I don’t understand this dissolving strip.
Ann: Who would put that on their mouth? Think about that? I just don’t believe they’re doing that. Patience is not a virtue for that person.
Veanne: It’s instant gratification Ann, that’s why.
Emily: That’s crazy.
Alexa: Pizza really is like magic. You have just this small window of opportunity because then the cheese gets…
Emily: It’s true.
Alexa: Gelatinous a little bit. Do I eat too much pizza? Do I have a problem?
Sarah: Tell us more about pizza.
Alexa: I just feel like there’s an optimum moment. It might be when it’s still too hot.
Veanne: That’s true, although there are a lot of people [Crosstalk] [34:21] that like cold pizza.
Alexa: I eat a lot of pizza.
Emily: We’ve also worked with a pizza shop.
Alexa: Oh yes. That is where I got this.
Emily: Baby Tommy’s Pizza. Go there. They support women.
Veanne: Baby Tommy’s.
Emily: Then they make really, really cool pizzas.
Veanne: Where is it?
Emily: West Midtown.
Alexa: On 14th street.
Veanne: Oh really? That’s my side of the neighborhood.
Emily: They make [Crosstalk] [34:38] really nuts pizzas too.
Sarah: That’s an amazing name.
Alexa: Escargot pizza, Croque Monsieur pizza. They do fun stuff. Maybe I eat there too much.
Sarah: Maybe we need to find a salad bar.
[Laughter]
Veanne: That’s awesome. You guys have been great. Thank you so [Crosstalk] [34:55] much for giggling around the microphone, talking about innovating as it relates to women and empowering women and for all of us on the journey to make an impact and leave a legacy behind.
Emily: Well, thanks for having us.
Veanne: Hopefully this is our generation. Thanks for joining us. It’s been fun. We’ll look forward to seeing you at the next event.
Emily: Awesome. Thanks so much.
Alexa: Thank you.
Emily: Happy leaning in.
[Music plays]
