Aline Brosh McKenna

And it was so bracing.

She didn't baby me at all.

She didn't even acknowledge that it was an anything.

She said, you sound like you're, you know, it sounded like, and this is a thing people often do.

I wasn't really expressing a fear.

I was expressing a wish and I wasn't giving myself permission.

And she said, so if you want to complain about it, then don't do it.

But just if you want to do it, go do it.

And it was really, it's the only time I ever met her.

She passed away maybe a year after that.

And yeah, sometimes you need someone to say, just go and do it.

And honestly, anything that I thought was...

an impediment or an issue just wasn't.

And I do wish, you know, I often say to young women, I wish I had entitlement pills and I would love to hand them out to young women because just to circle back to our conversation about smallification, I do think we do still a very thorough job of telling women

to apologize to the furniture and I see boys come in to meet with me and they do occupy the whole, the entire piece of furniture and they tell me their hopes and dreams and they say, when can I be the boss?

And, you know, it's a gross generalization, but it is really true that we just don't give women the language to do that.

So I try to do that, you know, go raise your hand and ask for what you want and you may not get it,

But learning to withstand, learning to be amused by failure, which I'm highly amused by failure, learning to walk into walls, learning to withstand a no or any kind of rejection is so key and so critical.

And I wish we would teach that more, especially to young women.

Thank you.