TRUST ME I KNOW WHAT I'm DOING

Whether it’s small or big, all of us at some point in our lives hopefully feel the drive to achieve something. And speaking of achievement, thank you all once again for listening and watching TRUST ME I KNOW WHAT I’m DOING and for sharing this with your friends and family. Your support reminds everyone that conversation is the antidote to apathy, and if you’re enjoying these , please share a kind rating and review and follow along on social media and subscribe as I’m really quite grateful.
Ok - so for all of us ambition and the shiny plateaus that we look at as goals along a professional journey have been curated and informed in an ongoing fashion by so many different factors. But how do those plateaus actually make us feel, and what if those feelings are unexpected and in fact confusing? What are the institutional and cultural forces have shaped what these achievement vistas look like? And why does this journey feel particularly so different for women. I have been thinking about this a lot, as my own daughter has entered the workforce as a young professional and what this may feel like in 2024 and beyond, and so it was truly wonderful to share a conversation with Samhita Mukhopadhyay, author of the new book “The Myth of Making It: A Workplace Reckoning”. Samhita grew up in New York and after getting her Masters in Womens and Gender Studies, began her professional career as a writer, blogger, and soon was authoring books like Outdated:Why Dating is Ruining Your Love Life, and co-editing the anthology Nasty Women: Feminism, Resistance and Revolution in Trump's America. She has written about her own very personal explorations around mental health and her weight journey, and her work has been featured in New York magazine, The Cut, Vanity Fair, Vogue, The Atlantic, and The Nation. Samhita served as the executive editor of the popular blog Feministing and then for Teen Vogue and in reflecting on her journey, found herself squarely in the messy middle of it all in being a girl boss, questioning the notion that happiness and fulfillment stem from overwork and professional achievement. In “The Myth of Making It”, Samhita questions “hustle culture” and the neo-liberal feminist mantras of leaning in and persevering as seductive and often destructive definitions and methods. Through a blend of personal anecdotes, expert analysis, and the varied experiences of workers, she tackles this paradox of why working success for women can feel deeply important and so unsatisfying at the same time. Now, I've read the book and it's a lot more than myth busting and both personally touching and methodically academic with true resonance for everyone in the workforce and really a call to action for a collective introspection on real support, redefining success, and community building. We caught up to chat and while we talked about a range of things from “trickle down feminism” to being the daughter of two Bengali immigrants, to mentoring and leadership, as a true optimist, I first asked her if at her core she had “fun” in writing this book?