There's a reason there's no one like me on earth that does my kind of comedy. What it takes to live that whole life and then to find the humor out of it, and then to build something with it. You building a comedy business to a stage where the world even has any awareness that you exist is a whole process that you have to learn how to create. That is one of the bigger regrets of my life.
My only consolation is this that had I started sooner, I would have been a voice like every other voice, complaining about the same things, because I wouldn't have had the perspective that I have today.
I can't believe I got to talk to today's guest. To be honest, I don't think I've been this nervous to interview a guest since Stacy Abrams, and that was a couple of years ago, and I'll never forget leading up to that interview, I had stress nightmares. But with Zarna, this has been completely different. So Zarna has written this incredible memoir and I'm not even gonna lie. I was more of a fan of Zarna after I read this memoir than I was before. I loved her comedy. I
think her comedy is very particular. It is smart, it is witty, it's of course hilarious. As a mom myself, I really appreciate a woman who is building a career based on making fun of her kids, and I just feel like that's my love language and the fact that
she's monetized it like that is the dream. But getting to know her personal story, I mean, when you set across from someone and you know their entire life story because they have poured it out onto the page and you get to see them and they're speaking to you when so much was up against them from the moment they were born. It is such a unique privilege, an opportunity like Zarna exists the way that she exists, and she put herself on this global stage in her forties, y'all,
her mid forties. Now she's in her fifth decade of life, and her curve is soaring. She's developing a sitcom with Mindy Kaling Kevin Hart. Like you know you're a big deal when you got Mindy Kayling and Kevin Hart on speed Dial. Okay, she has her own Amazon Prime special, One in a Billion. She's got another one coming on on Hulu. Zarnagarg Is that girl. All right, I embarrassed the hell out of myself on the internet. After I finished her memoir, I was listening to it, laughing my
ass off. When I was doing the dishes. My husband would be like, what are you doing over there? What are you listening to? And I'm like, I can't stop. I didn't want to stop to explain to him what I was listening to because it was that good and I was so in the story with Zarna. So her memoir tells her life story from growing up the daughter, the oopsie, the oopsie daughter in her blended family in
Mumbai in India. She really was left to her own devices, but in the meantime she flourished, like she turned into the most extraordinary, resilient intelligence and hilarious, warm hearted, good hearted human being. And you'll hear about her journey to America, what brought her here, and how she's built her family here. I'm just gonna stop talking now so you can listen to Zarna and I and I just hope that you
check out her memoir. I hope that it touches you the way that it touched me, and that you honestly leave this conversation feeling inspired ba fam the way that I was to not let age or life circumstance or any vision of well I should have done this by now, So it's too late for me. Throw that out the damn window. Because Zarna gives each of us permission to put ourselves out there and try something new, fail fast, try hard, keep going, embrace the failure because one day
you will fly. And it's all down to Zarna and the insight, the wisdom, the passion, the levity, the heart. She brings to this conversation, to this book, to her work. Enjoying my interview with Zarnagard, how do you feel New York Times bestseller?
You know, I have a real resistance to calling myself a writer or an author. I just am not able to do it.
I heard.
I feel good that somebody's enjoying the book.
So what do you consider? I guess labels don't matter, but.
I don't know. In my head, I'm running a tech company. In my head, I'm a software engineer.
You've talked about that. I mean that was like the resistance your whole life. As we talk about your family chastising you, calling you like, oh, who do you think you are? An American woman and being even like hearing from your English teacher that you were a great writer and almost being ashamed of that.
Yeah, oh frightened. It was beyond shape. I was like, if my parents find out, I'm gonna be in so much trouble.
Do you know I went to Burns and Noble and got this today.
Oh yeah.
I listened to the audiobook because I knew it was gonna be good. I listened to the whole thing. And that is how I caught myself crying in the day care parking lot when I mean, I couldn't have like planned it more perfectly or imperfectly. Is that I literally was listening to the final chapter where you're thanking your brother and the loop is being the circle is being completed. You're bringing us back to that like sibling connection, and I am just ugly crying, Oh.
My god, thank you. And that's the kind of comic I am.
It's so but it's so it hurts so good. It's the pay. It's like why you want. I mean, I girl, you're a writer. I don't care what you say. That's why I read books. I mean, that's why I love stories so much. And I'm just so grateful, and I was like, oh, I'll get a couple of copies. I'll give it to a friend. But I don't think so, because the book has pictures, the actual physical book. So now I have this is like, you need the audio book,
you need the physical book. You need them both because they each have a little something different.
We did. We tried to create two different and unique experiences, so the book had photos all along and just trying to give god text to the story. Actually it wasn't about like, look at me, I'm famous, because I don't even think I'm famous. But I felt like if I'm telling the story and if I have some sort of photo to give context to it, it would be more fun for the for the reader. But then when we did the audio, I realized that the book people got
something that the audio people won't. So we decided to do the family essays and that extra because it didn't feel right and I want it. I wanted each person to have their full experience of the Zara story.
I did. I enjoyed. I had to wait for the family essays. It's a bit of a letdown. No offense to your beautiful husband, your son, Fridge. I just wanted to sit in my zarna love and so I did eventually get to them. I thought it was wonderful. So there's no getting around it. You are brilliant in your First of all, you are law school educated. You're educated out the wazoo, because of course you are an immigrant, Like that's just coming.
That's what you know. You don't know anything else. So you're like, go to school.
You've been raised, you know, an entrepreneurial family and used to read what was at the Indian Times, the.
Times of India, the Times of India. I still do every single But how old were.
You when you started? You were like five or something.
I don't know. I feel like the moment I opened my eyes, I started reading books and newspaper. I'm much more a current events girl. I'm not as much a literature girl. Like I haven't read every great literary class. I've read many of them, but that's not my obsession. My obsession is more every day of what's happening in the world. Who said, what, where's the war happening? Why is it happening? That type of stuff.
It's like your feet are so grounded in reality and have been from such a young age. And I think, I mean, I just I wish, I honestly like as much as I am happy to know you now, I've never wanted to meet a five year old kid more than like five year old Zarni and I actually have
a five year old. And I think part of the reason why I was so emotionally just impacted by your work is because I am in so many ways like living a similar I mean, that's obviously so different in a lot of ways, but raising young kids, but I completely I resonate with, like the financial challenges of raising children, and I'm not even trying to put my kids in private school.
Don't do it a forty k year spoiler alert for those who want to read the book. That whole chapter I wrote for my fellow Tristate area moms because shed moms to know the truth of what I went through, what I felt, and how you actually didn't. I didn't need to put myself through any of them. I just did it to myself, yeah, you know, and I really wrote it because that is something I deal with every day.
Every day. I have a mom talk to me about how she's dying under the burden of this price tag, and it's insane and every day I'm trying to help somebody like navigate what's the better option around wherever she lives.
Well, listen, like you said, four, I know, since so you put your kids through this, you know, private school on the Upper East Side? Was it in Manhattan? You have three children? But not all three of them went? It was your first two, right?
All three?
Oh, all three went?
Okay? And I have to take all three out.
Damn it. And and I I love the scrappiness of that story of you getting your kids into the New York public school system because I know how challenging it is. And I too was so confused because I'm from Georgia, which which is similar to I mean, it's like every other state, like where do you live? This is your school? Congratulations,
not New York, not in New York. And so once you're in that system, how like how toxic it is and how they just they know they have you by the you know what's and that like mister potato head, which is what you've you know, for legal reasons, I'm sure call the what the director of admissions or whatever thinks he's the king of everything of this this private school. But forty k a year for kindergarten. I know it's like double.
That now seventy yeah, Jesus, so I pay.
I don't even want to think. But daycare, you have to understand. So did you ever pay for your kids.
Daycare were little? So that's too expensive, that's true. But at least there's no other alternative to daycare. There's just not there's no place to put a six month old or ten month old. And I get it, and there actually I know what they're doing, like there's a human being taking care of two, three, four five babies at a time. The private school thing, I just don't get, Like algebra has not changed in one hundred years. Why it has become so prohibitive. It's become a status symbol.
It's like buying a Gucci bag, Dacre. I've paid two and it's very, very very expensive for sure, and luckily it's a limited time and then you transition to school and then that's where it needs to be. You don't write that kind of check for anything else. You do it for your kids.
You can't fathom you breaking out into the comedy scene. You were forty something, forty forty four, forty four and you doing it not just I mean, I know you started a little bit before the pandemic, and then your husband lost his job, and then it became less about you exploring this new path and being like, oh, I now I'm going to save the family with this career.
You felt called to do it, but the level of courage to break out and try something different at that stage in life when you talk about feeling as if you were a stay at home mom for all those year sixteen something years that you talk about, feeling like the rest of the world had moved on, and how you were kind of left behind, I mean, it resonated so much. Do you still look back at those years when you were a stay at home mom with all this talent and all this untapped intelligence in your mind?
You look back and wonder what if I had started sooner? Or are you all peace.
All the time? I have so many regrets, even though you shouldn't have regrets and you shouldn't look back. And everybody says that, and I say it to other people. No one wins against age, so it's like a thing. My only consolation is that I really wouldn't have the stories that I have today. There's a reason there's no one like me on earth that does my kind of comedy. It's not just here, it's no one in India, there's
no one in all of Asia. Because what it takes to live that whole life and then to find the humor out of it and then to build something with it, those are all individual, huge, humongous steps that you have to take. If building a comedy business to a stage where the world even has any awareness that you exist is a whole process that you have to learn how to create. So I have a lot of regrets, but I really do work on not dwelling on them. It's a constant battle though. That is one of the bigger
regrets of my life. My only consolation is this that had I started sooner, I would have been a voice like every other voice, complaining about the same things, because I wouldn't have had the perspective that I have today as the mother of these grown kids, having gone through this whole cycle, and that that was the gift that Destiny decided to give me, and I have to accept it in grace and not be a brat about it.
Okay, ba fam, I don't want to, but we got to take a break. We got to pay some bills. Zarna would not be happy with me if she knew that I wasn't going to monetize this episode, because she is all about that money. Honey. I'll be right back with more of my chat with the ZARNI you're making
me like want to own my momminess. I struggle with this a little bit, so I and also so many things I want to say, But I want to first of all, I want to let you know that from the other side, looking at your journey, I'm like, maybe that's the way to do it. I should have married a rich wall streeter. I should have like had the kids and been the stay at home mom because I'm a dummy. I feel like a dummy. I'm like trying to do it all at the same times. Arna, I am God.
Yeah, let's get into it.
Oh my god, my husband's texted me, now what time? I don't listen. My husband literally just texted me, what time are you gonna pick the kids up? Don't know, don't care. I'm talking to Arna. I don't know. But it's so hard, it's so bad, and I don't have a village. My mommy doesn't live here, you know.
Thank God, I have one village who came up with that. I was always looking, I was where is the village?
Well, everywhere but America. That's like you know, you've you've talked about wanting to have I listened to your Your Family podcast, which is so cute. What a great memory for your kids. Eventually, one day they'll probably well hopefully.
They not don't get canceled out of the job market, but.
Okay, well they'll probably be business entrepreneurs anymore. Uh. But like you talk about wanting to wage war on American motherhood, Yeah, can we wage that work? Do you need recruits?
Yeah? I mean, don't you think it's it's insane that this way to fulfill all the obligations to everybody's satisfaction. I'm constantly even today letting some teachers down in my kids' school because I didn't show up for this that or the other thing, or you know, forgetting something work wise because something at my kids school took over and like completely consume me. There's no way. And I have so
much empathy for where you are, Mandy. I've been there, and it's it just feels like it's it's going to drown you. It feels like it's gonna drown you. And the one big gift of my career right now that has been unexpected because I didn't see it until somebody mentioned it to me, is that a lot of young moms like yourself with young kids are actually taking up and saying, you know what, maybe we should take a break or go slow these years because I can come
back and have a real career. And this is something they are learning from me that it is possible. It's not easy. Nothing in life is easy, but it is possible to be that mom when you need to be that mom if you can afford to be that mom, or whatever version of it you can afford to be. And then say that once these kids are out of this certain stage, I'm gonna go all in because it's very, very hard. But it's a hard thing. It was very
hard for me, it still is. I travel. The only way to make a living really as a comic is to be on the road. So it's a concept. I still have a thirteen year old son at home, which everywhere, no matter what time zone I'm in, I'm like, did you eat? Did you feel this paper? Your teacher when they called they don't know where I am I'll get a call at two am in Hawaii because I'm there for a work I'm not there to hang out, and
my phone will ring. And you know when your kids school calls, you just jump up.
Yes, it's stressful, and you don't know what time it is. You're trying to think backwards, like wait, is this is he in school? Is this thing?
Like immediately i'mause, okay, okay, are you okay? Did everything you know? And it's like that's all our lives. So you the thing you have to do is give yourself grace. And also, no one else will if you don't give yourself grace and take care of yourself. However that self care is no one will do it for you. No one in this country is going to ask the mother, what do you need? That is gone. Even the politicians say, oh lie, you know that, Oh we're gonna do this for the moms. They're doing nothing.
You and I are in the same page when I heard you say, no one gets a shot moms, No one gets a shop moms or kids in this country, like full stop.
Unfortunately women neither. So it's like a triple web.
And you're and you know, you're like it's the biggest let down. But it's also there's this part in the book. You have all these great quotes. I love that you quote yourself too. You're like, yes, this is my wisdom. It's pain. You say, pain is my destiny and my company and my affinity. Embracing pain and not wasting time wondering why me will put you on the fast track to success. And I think, as a mom, I've stopped expecting anyone else to make it easier, and.
You may as well, because it's not going to happen. In my experience, it's not going to happen.
Now, Well, talk to me about you're raising your kids on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and you are putting them in these fancy schools and all of that. How did you connect with the other moms? Like were there other moms like you so.
In the fancy, expensive schools. I knew I was a misfit on day one, Like I just knew that this, Like I really thought, Oh, for my kid's future, this is what I have to do. I don't relate to any of these people, but this is where good education is. So we're going to do this. And as time wre on, what I learned is that what they consider education and
what I consider education but just two different things. To me, that felt like a country club and everything was the axis was revolving around, like we need to have these many days off, extra days off because we need to be able to travel to all these exotic locations, Like that would never factor in the life that I live. The life that I live, I work every single day, even now every holiday, every every day I'm working. It never occurs to me that I should take extra time
off to fly to the other side of earth. Like if I really really want to take a vacation, I fly to Florida three hours. Like my math is already doing all the calculation and how much time this is gonna take. So what I learned very early is that this type of schooling is not only not giving the education that I value, which is very basic, hardcore math, science reading, Like I don't need the fluff. I don't want the class in Japanese that two kids are gonna
take and the school is very proud to offer. I just want you to teach my kids the basics. And so what I found is that they don't actually care about the basics. They spend a lot of money on all these exotic things and additions that I don't care about. And mostly I felt like the one thing that made New York New York I was losing in private school,
I was losing the entire grittiness of it. The whole school is constantly working to remove every weed off the road for the kids, and to me, the education is in the weeds. The education is in the everyday, daily frustrations of how do you do thick For example, the experience that you just shared right now, where you don't have a village, you're running to your mother in law dropping a kid. Then the school is closed. As painful as it is in the moment, and I know it's
very painful, I've lived it. Believe me, when you come out from the other side of it, having lived through this is going to make you a better not only a better human being, because who cares about that, it's going to make you a better business person.
Going to say, we'll make me some money. By the way, I were green for you.
I love it. I was like, I've been so admiring im. She looks good.
Oh my god, for you, I will put on a lip.
I feel so honored.
I've already been to Barnes and Noble. This morning, I put on a red lip. I was like skipping through lambs buying.
The book at Barnes and Noble. I was so frustrated because the week we hit the New York Times Bestseller list, they put all the other books out on the best seller table and not ours.
I don't want to make you upset because I fixed it, But do you know where I found your book? I looked at all you know, they had that big display, and I live in a really diverse area. I'm like, oh, you know, I expect to see a diverse selection, and they have one. But I wasn't seeing your book anywhere. I'm like, I can't be missing this. This is a This cover is extraordinary. And the kind woman at the front desk, she was or at the cashier, she was like, oh, yeah,
it's back. There's like a pillar in the humor section. While the humor section is like the skinniest column on the back of a thing, it wasn't facing out. I was like, this is a New York Times bestseller. So I took the copies that were there and I move them to the new and Noteworthy table.
Oh my god, you're so sweet. But this is this is a thing. The system is not designed to help us. And I hit the metric just like every other book, because in the past they would be like, well, you know, no one's buying it, but we're out selling almost every book. Like if you look on Amazon, it's a best seller. Now three four weeks later, we're hitting every metric. But the system is not designed to help us. Like they get a list from their you know, superiors or whoever,
and the list is usually names that they recognize. They don't recognize the names Arena, so they're like, oh, just stick her in the back somewhere. And this is something also I deal with all the time, and I just choose to see the humor in it because there is no point yelling and screaming about all this. There's just no point. It's not going to resolve the issue. I choose to come with love, even though it does infuriate me. It does infuriate me that like, why aren't you just
giving me equal treatment? I'm not asking for anything better.
But let's cover. Yeah, how do you how do you make a cover like that? Did I just have someone in a green hoodie?
I was a big guy and a cat stainted green, and he had to like lift me so we could get I was so scary. I was, guy's gonna break his back? What are we doing? And the photographer was like, just we're gonna get it. We're gonna get it. And then I had to like kick my leg up in the air. And I don't do this stuff, you know. I just stand like a goofball and smile with my mouth open, my teeth showing. So I I but he
was the photographer whose vision it was. C. J. Burton, this digital photographer in la is such a nice guy. He was like, you, I was very intent on having a fun cover. What I didn't want is like, you know, a lot of biographies and memoirs will have the close up of the author's face and it's very deep in thought, black and white. It's like, look at me, I'm so serious, and I wanted to have fun with it. I was like, I'm not so serious. If you meet me in real life,
I will make a joke about anything. So he came up. We came up with a few concepts, but this one was what felt like the most ambitious version. But when I saw the guy who had to lift me. Is a big guy, and he was poor guy. His whole forearm, everything was painted guilty and the poor guy was stuck the whole day in not being able to use his arms because they didn't want to mess up the painting. Oh okay, so I've had so much empathy. I was like, oh my god, I'm so sorry. He's like, no, no,
I'm done. I haven't had water since exam.
We got to hold up the national treasure that is arnegarg. I bet he was stoked. Plus you're so petite.
Oh my god, I am not so purtite. It was not easy. I'm really heavy and I felt it that day. I was like, oh my god, I was just of all the times I wish I had lost weight, today is the most important day, man.
So you know a mutual friend of ours is for a news to Robbie.
Oh yeah, I love her, so.
I've you know, we're in the same kind of like financial podcasting space and yeah, yeah, so she's wonderful. She hosted an event for you in Jersey. Was it during your book launch? And I was listening to your interview with her and I was like, come on, zarn, I don't tell me that you don't love your body. I'm like, that's the that's what I thought was supposed to happen when you're in your like forties, fifties, sixties, like you just love it.
No, because the reality of being overweight hits you, hits you. It's not the vanity. Honestly, it's not the vanity. I don't really care. I'm not out there looking for a guy. It's not that. It's the real statistics of what being overweight means in terms of health, you know, and you want to live like now, I want to live to torture my daughter in law.
Right, and they don't get they don't get married so young. No, No, she got to live really long.
You got it. Yeah, So it's that. But you know, ever since I've found how to dress for my work, I feel like I'm more at peace. For a long time, I was just not at peace with my body. I don't get into that with the book, but because it's not really part of the story in that way. But to be on and to be making jokes for as long as I do hour hour and a half straight in front of huge audiences. I just did five thousand people recently in Vegas, to be able to do that.
You're very comfortable in your skin and in your body and in how the world is looking at you. And until I learned to dress for myself and figure out an outfit uniform that works for me, I just wasn't there. It was very hard for me to make my peace with Oh my god, people are gonna see me. They'll take photographs from this side and this side, and like,
what am I going to look like? I figured out an outfit that felt simple but representative of me, and now I don't really care take a photo from any anger. I don't care because I feel like I'm covered and I look decent and elegant, and I'm good with that.
You were trying to find your look, and I did think that that was highly relevant, just for anyone who's not even about being on a stage, but just like going through life and maybe your body is, you know, not the body that it was twenty years ago, pre kids or whatever, and just I thought it was a great testament to the power of making clothes for the body you have now, and like getting a look that makes you feel comfortable and a thousand percent there is
something that happens when you're wearing something that just makes you feel good. Yeah, that gives you the confidence to do a scary thing.
One hundred and ten percent. And I'm telling you that I appreciate that I had the good sense to stick with it because people in India, especially fashionable people, make fun of me all the time. Even right now. They think, Oh, you wear the same thing in four different colors. What is that belt? Because the belt is not an Indian thing. We in Indian clothes usually are not belted the way I built them. Here, I added that, and I get
my tailor to make the belt for me. It was a process to learn how to do it, and you know, but I wanted it because I felt like in America it needed to look a certain way. Whatever it is. It was my decision and my process. But people make fun of me constantly. They are fashion blogs that feel free to pick on me, and you know, it's like, oh, here comes the American Indian because they think that I've
created this crazy outfit. But I don't care because I feel good in it and I feel like my audience sees me for what I'm trying to show them that I am Indian, that I am a certain type of you know, person, I believe in dressing modestly. I don't need to show any more than you can see. So it was a process, and really I started doing it more and more because it affects the business. It's again not a vanity thing. The better you look, the more confident you are, the more confident you feel, the more
money you will make. It translates into real dollars and cents. And that's actually pretty undeniable at this point because there's even data out there to support it. But I never till forty four, never wore a lick of makeup. Never. I used to go to weddings with like a little touch of vasiline on my lips. That's it. I can show you wedding photos Bathleene.
Yeah, well you can't have ashy lips at least you put that on.
Oh yeah, it's that simple. Because as a consumer of pop culture, I used to always think, how crazy is this woman? Or why is this man getting another like whatever, liposuction? What why would you do that? I would never And now I know why they're doing it. They're doing it for their business.
Well can we talk about business? Because you are a business guru like I don't almost. I'm a little afraid that a bunch of people are going to try to have, like you know, these creative careers in their mid forty late forties, inspired by your story, if they don't understand that you didn't just try it out like you went full tilt, like I am going to be the Zuckerberger of comedians, I'm going to be the Serena Williams of comedy. And really think of it from a business standpoint, and
you made some choices. You chose to keep your comedy clean, which I'm not sure that just means no curse.
Words basically pretty much.
Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I heard a joke where you called your your mother in law the sea word.
So there's a few handful of jokes where I have cursed words that I use in the clubs all the time and depending on the book. But I have replacements for all those words for my corporate shows. So I do shows that have the same jokes but with the replacement, which is also as funny because the money is in clean comedy. If you see all the big comics and how they translate to bigger, big gigs, it's all clean comedy unless you're that niche comic one in a billion
who becomes known for their dirty humor. And I wouldn't even know what to say, honestly, Like I'm not sex stuff like that, Like I have nothing to say in that space. What you mean?
I mean, I know what jokes were you were, you were Dragon shell Ub around, you know, making out in the in the cab when you first met him. If you guys, I don't want to. I can talk about everything I want to keep about, you know, the fun money stuff, but the story of you and Shellubs like courtship and oh I loved it so much. It was so cute. I can see how y'all fell in love through letters. You're both so funny and both so steeped in reality that you're like calling each other out on
you know, your bs and ah, what a sweet. Well. Actually, I am going to give shell up some shine because there's this part in the book, multiple parts where just it's like that Grinch, the moment in the Grinch, you know, the Grinch, the green guy, and his heart just grows take a yeah, and then his heart just grows like three times bigger. And there's moments in your book that do that for me, and one of them is your
beautiful husband of twenty five years. Yeah, when y'all are at a dinner with like some of his hoity toity Wall Street friends and their wives, and at this point, you are determined to figure out what this stage of your life's going to be. At your you're feeling like something is missing, so you're trying to start all these businesses, like a toothbrush business, a chill a vegan chili business, all these things, and they're kind of like they're kind of ribbing you about it in a way that's not
so kind, and your husban and like, don't worry. They're just afraid that when you actually find your thing, you're going to become unstoppable. And he just says it so nonchalantly and just continues eating his dinner.
That's his special talent.
Sweet, so romantic forget roses, like defend my greatness in front of all your friends and also make them feel in the process.
For me, it's true, he is particularly adept at that type of dialogue. And that's in real life who he is. He's not one to make grand statements. He barely speaks. I mean, if he says five words in a day that's a lot. So he just engages when he feels like he absolutely must, and otherwise he's kind of like he's a little flighty in his everyday life. A lot of people would be like, he just saw right through me. I saw him on the street. He didn't say hello.
But it's not him being disrespectful. He really lives in his own world of numbers and like he's thinking about what trade he made and what he wants to make and how is that math gonna work out? And like he's like a happy, flighty math guy.
Intellect cerebral, Yeah, yeah, I mean I.
Don't even I find it hard to call him an intellect because he's not that smart. He does ridiculously stupid things everything. I remember when I was newly married to him, I was like, how are these people paying you? You can't figure anything out?
Well, there's number smart, I guess.
Yeah, No, he is. He's like, but he doesn't wear his intellect. You know. Some successful people like to talk like their fonts of wisdom, Like they will release tweets like like God has spoken. There will be LinkedIn articles from them, like you know, the state of the affair that is not my husband at all, never was even in his most successful he was like, can I just go to bed? Please don't invite me, Please, God, don't invite me to all these events, Like I don't want
to be there. I want to be home. I want to be like taking a nap. So he was always that simple guy, and he still is, like he barely communicates, and when he's he's definitely him. And I have a friendship that is above everything else. So if he finds that people are making fun of me, which happens all the time, I mean it happens even now. But back during the transition phase before I found comedy, it was peak.
I mean I was ripe for jokes for everybody because I also, in defense of all of them, I didn't just start businesses. I started businesses.
I don't do anything.
Here's my website, here's my card, here's you know, my entire vision. I didn't just start a business. I saw a billion dollar vision instantly. In every failed business, you know, some people would be like work in silence. No, No, that was not me. So people had a lot to pick on. I gave them a lot to pick on. So my husband, when he would step in, would be like you know, they're just all nervous because none of them are even trying anything.
M hmm. They don't know what to do with you.
Yeah, they don't know, and they didn't come from the world where all you did. I didn't think of myself as somebody whose life's goal was to support her husband. It was a part of my job as a wife, a mother, and a homemaker, but I didn't see it as the be all and end all of my identity. Like I never was that woman who wanted to go places and be like I am missus so and so, no matter who the husband was, no matter if he
was a billionaire or whatever. Like I was always inside my body fighting for my own like what is my journey in this life? Like? What is my thing? And how am I gonna find it?
I mean, can we just go back in time a little bit, because as you're talking about that sort of not seeing yourself as fulfilling the life goal for your husband and finding your own purpose, I mean that was so innate in you from a young age. I mean you were a teenager when your husband you write about this in the book, not your husband, sorry, your your father. After your mother passed away, was pretty much ready to throw you away and say I'm going to marry you off.
You're a teenager. You're thirteen fourteen, yeah at this age, which is not uncommon right in India even today, And you, as a teenager, said I would rather live on the streets, bouncing from home to home, friends homes, friends of friends' homes, and to sign up for security, to sign up for this arranged marriage. And I mean, oh, I just as a mom, I'm just like protect the babies. And you were just a baby. But you did that. That's so I don't know what to even say about that, just.
To be completely fair and honest, like I didn't know I was signing up for that. I did when you were a teenager, and you were like, are defying your parents? And you're like, all right, if you don't want me to live your live with my friends. In your innocence, you really believe that's an option, you know what I mean? Like, because you've done sleepovers that went for a weekend and no one sent you home, So you've traveled. Maybe I at that point had traveled with my friend's families to
like nearby vacation spots. I was like, yeah, well, you know what, you don't want me here? So nice, they feed me, they let me do all these things you don't let me do, Like I'll just go there. When I walked out of my house, I really didn't think it would become what it became. And I really thought that my dad was consumed by grief and that in a matter of a day or two or three he will come around and then we will find a new
happy medium. He was not playing, and I learned that the hard way that and that is true of many, many, many, many men of color. I think they like stake their pride and dignity on everything, especially back home, and and my dad was not having it. And also like women were throwing themselves on him, left, right and center. So he had so much tempt. I know that now in hindsight, Like he had young women, like women twenty years younger than him, being like, do you need anything? Do you
need it? It was a lot of like.
What can we do to help you with the Indian version of making a cast role and bringing it.
Over, making samosas, making you know, like it was wild. And that's another thing that I've learned, you know, because I saw it firsthand in my life. That men will go on. I've seen it enough to know that their lives will go on. It's the women. I read a statistic somewhere a long time ago, and I don't even know where I read it because and if I'm wrong, somebody can feel free to correct me. But I read a statistic somewhere that said that the face of poverty
in America is motherhood. That women who are single moms, who are moms in general, become a much more prone to living in poverty than any other demographic. That's the step statistic that scared me. That is another reason why I was like, I've got to figure something out, something anything. I was like, I will become the world's best dental hygienis. If somebody good gives me a job, I will take such good care of them if they can like give me some financial security. This was during the days when
nothing entrepreneurial was working. I was like, what else can I do? Like, can I become a receptionist somewhere where they will like pay me and you know all these things. So but knowing that that the outcome for women and I have three kids, like you know, they're gonna need stuff. My daughter's graduate in college. She still needs stuff. It doesn't end, you know.
And also in New York, the money will dry up.
Oh my god. When my husband lost his job, he had been a cio for ten years, we had savings. People will ask me, did you not have savings. We had savings. We thought we were set, and it went like a day. It felt like with the decision, it felt like we found out on Monday that he doesn't have a job, and two Mondays from then it was all gone. It felt like that, like my god, we had it. Oh my god. And then when things are not gonna work, nothing works, Like we couldn't sell the
apartment because the market crashed. Every turn that we tried to consider was like, this can't work. That can't work, that can't work, this won't work. So you really have to prepare. That's another reason why I work as much as I do now. I feel like I have to catch up for all the years that I couldn't do the things that I didn't work for whatever reason. And I don't have time to waste, you know. And I
advise a lot of women on thinking big. Once you're playing the game, you got to think big because women are trained to think savings. We think, oh, if I save money, you know, if I don't spend it. I don't think there's any glory in saving. You cannot save yourself out of financial mess.
You have to think, yes, Sarna, you have to. You're a medical financial genius. What are you talking about? Yes?
Continue, At least I'm closer to math than I was as a writer.
I'm sorry, drop the gem. People need to hear the gem.
Tell them. Tell us then what I'm saying. We are told, oh, don't buy the coffee, don't get the manicure, Like that is not going to save you in the end. If you never buy the coffee and you never have the manicure, you're not going to be financially secure. It's it's nonsense. And some guy came up with it just because he's irritated that women are trying to be happy. You know. But if you think big from you, that's how you're
going to build equity in a business. That's how you're going to make enough money that will be like a sizable, a meaningful amount that you can actually invest and build other things for yourself and for your family, even for my own kids, like my own daughter I teach her every day I go. You have to like, live the life you want. Live the life you want to do that yoga class every few days. Do the yoga class, but figure out how you're going to earn them money.
Contracting yourself and trying to live within this tiny bubble that you think is all you can earn is not the answer to your growth. Not for me anyway. I'm all about I spend a lot of money now, I spend a crazy amount of money, but it's all investment. To me, it's all investment because I buy back time. For example, I don't drive. I haven't driven a car in years because I sit in the back seat of a taxi or an uber and I work throughout. I
don't waste a minute. You will never see me wasting time in the back seat of any car because to me, that's my office. It's like a mobile office. I like to say work, don't work from home, work from uber because I go places I would not you know, I go places, I meet people. I'm constantly on the road. You know, if you're in or around the New York area, there's so many interesting people to meet on the daily.
Don't restrict yourself to the geography of where you are, because the whole point of living in this neighborhood is in this area as you meet everybody who's here to do all the things that they're here to do. This is the world capital of ambition, you know.
You know, I think that's been the hardest thing for me, if I'm really honest, is when my husband grew up in the city of New York. I'm from the suburbs. I came here for the city life. I'm a writer. I don't have anything. I was trained as a journalist, like writing is what I do. And when we move to the suburbs because you really wanted to. This was twenty eighteen. We had our kids, and now I own my own business. I'm like entrepreneur and I'm mom, and I don't get to go to the city unless I
make something happen. So I've been trying to just like make plans. I just relate to you so much the way that you shamelessly, maybe even you have a little shame, but you do it anyway. Pursue opportunities and networking. There's a story you tell in the book about and I also do career coachings on and You're gonna love this. Like,
I really don't think I'm a career coach. I'm like, I'm like a get out there and talk to people coach, because too many people, especially women, are too afraid to actually get out and physically put themselves in a room where they could potentially have something happen. You know, meet someone hears something in passing, and you tell the story of where did you go to this Beverly Hills like networking event for diversity in Hollywood? Yeah, and you straight
up stock this dude, what was he just happened? You just had emailed and you did the thing that I always talk about, which is look up the list of attendees, yes and email them before you go. And you did the thing that everyone that I work with a lot of them are afraid of, which is, well, what if they think it's awkward or too pushy and like, well, and they won't.
Respond do it? Everybody's an adult, right, Yeah? But I just want to tell you I have been in your shoes of not being able to go anywhere for a long time, and now, thankfully in the digital space, there are a lot of options. Like, for example, I'll give you an example of how it worked out, and I really took a shot in the dark. The CEO of Heartbeat, Kevin Hart's company, which at the time I was so new as a comic, barely doing open Minds, but he was in a LinkedIn chat. I was just reading articles
about the comedy business blah blah. And because I was reading about things in that space, LinkedIn feed was like sending me all these articles about comedy business, comedy and entertainment, comedy blah blah whatever, right, And one of the things was like, Oh, the CEO of Heartbeat is like having on some sort of LinkedIn zoom or something like he was going to talk about the business of comedy and you could attend for free just watch what he was saying.
And I remember thinking, oh, I should watch what are they talking about? But then in the LinkedIn in the zoom chat, there was an option to drop a question. So I dropped a question and I saw that his team was engaging with it, and I literally took that and I ran with it. I kept dropping questions. I kept dropping questions because I was like, Oh, somebody is on the other side actually reading these, and I was like, I'm a mom, I'm a there's there's no one else
like me. I just kept it, kept at it, and then literally within a week I had a phone call with him.
Is that how you got on the show?
No? No, he had nothing to do so the week. Kevan's business is so big that the comedy is one side, the movie and TV is one side. It's like all different things. I thought that that's how I got it. Actually, the people who were casting the show found me performing in the subway and noticed me from a distance and took my name down. Didn't say anything to me in real life because I think they didn't want to engage with me and be like, just in case she doesn't
get picked. But that's how they found me, and I know that now. But besides, I didn't even know this competition existed, so I didn't know what to even ask for when I was connecting with the CEO. But at the time, I remember getting a fifteen minute zoom with him because I kept dming his team digitally and saying, hey, I would love to talk to him. You know, there's no one else. I thought I was throwing anything, and they're like, all right, all right, all right, we'll see
what we can do. And I got a few minutes zoom with him, and I remember saying to him, I don't know what to even look At the time, I was like doing literally like had just one step above open mics. And all he said to me was he said, look, I can't tell you what your journey needs to be because I have no idea what you want to do and what you can do. But the world needs more voices like yours. So all I can tell you is that you have to keep fighting until you figure out
your door. And even with that one statement from him gave me so much encouragement, and knowing that I could be face to face with somebody like him through a LinkedIn platform, which is nothing like you know, we all scroll and waste time on social media constantly. Now I'm much more tooorical about it. I take shots all the time. Most don't workout. Most famous people or powerful people are not going to respond, and that's okay. I don't take
it personally. And that's another thing women have to learn. They'll be like, oh, I did this, and then no one wrote back to me and they all hate me, and like, you got to stop saying all that. Everybody's got their own going on. And that's okay, fail fast.
It's one of the things that you talk about and I love about you and what I try to also emulate, even though it's a bit harder to do at least where I'm at right now, is like getting like failing so quickly that you don't even like dwell on it. You're just you're already on to the next attempt, you know what I mean, like the next email, the next guest, I mean booking this, you know, booking guests on this podcast.
I've been doing it for years and years, and still I'm just like, sometimes I feel like I need to low key stock to get although I didn't have to low key stock you. I just had to find your book publisher, Thank the Lord, and that it can be. It can feel as It's just funny because you know, American women, we have this perception, I think on the outside world that we're go getters and we're loud, and we burn our bras and we just like get what
we want all the time. But there are a lot of us who have this like internalized patriarchy and misogyny and the self doubt that stops us from using our voice. And maybe we're in that LinkedIn chat or zoom chat, but we're not actually saying anything or thinking we have something worth asking.
Yep, that can hold us back. That's all valid self doubt, right, we all have it, but you have to push through it. And the thing that I learned is that even like very fancy looking successful people, like people who look like they have it all figured out, they all have self doubt. I know that now because I hang out in green rooms with them sometimes, and they all have to push through it. Like you know, I've beat myself up for years. For years I've said to myself, woe is me? I'm short,
I like eating carbs. You know, all these other people are tall and thin naturally, and they naturally like eating whatever the protein mumbo jumbo is. And I have now hung out with movie stars who like literally are struggling. They're clenching their teeth. You look at them and you're like, you're struggling with this, really, like you want that piece of pizza and you're resisting it. Because I thought I was the only one. I was like everybody else just
naturally wants the Greek yogurt. It's me and it's not like everybody's or their own struggle, Like I've hung out with movie stars where they're like, I haven't eaten a carb in twenty years, for real, because I just can't. If I eat one, I'm gonna want the whole thing all over again. And you learn that everybody is struggling
their own struggles. It's real, and that helps you not take everything so seriously, you know, and so personally you take a shot and if it doesn't work out, you move on, you know, maybe discipline yourself like I there was a period of time where I used to be like, for forty five minutes of the day, I'm going to reach out to people somehow, whether it will be INSTEADM
or LinkedIn. I'm gonna read other people's things and actively engage in their world because like a lot of people on social media will have their accounts, they will have their tweets in their posts, but they wait for people to come to them. But the way to actually build is to go out there and engage in other people's
like in your case, I'll give you an example. I'm doing so many podcasts, but you posting install stories about what you liked in my world, you know, you are showing me that you're actually doing your homework, You're finding things relevant that I work so hard to build for readers that that puts you on the fast track to like, yes, I want to talk to this lady. I want to do our podcast immediately. You know what I mean. But we all have to do some version of that in
our life. Is deliver value to other people so that they are inspired to engage with us, that they feel like, yes, this is a person who's done a little bit of homework, cares to know about me, and how can I help them? And then we build this cycle of help.
Well, you also told me crying on the internet would go viral, but it didn't. So I just wonder when you got to.
Keep doing it, do more. I'm there are unlimited tears in there.
Not every book is like yours. Can I just say for my audience, you may not think, I mean, I'm an African American woman, what are our stories have in common? But there was an anecdote in your book where for your wedding you were almost tricked into getting your whole body bleached and like being slathered in some kind of chemical cream. Oh, and also in that anecdote you're trying to figure out why am I not leaving? Why am I enduring this?
Because it was.
Hours, right hours? And I just wanted you to know how seen I felt. Because black women in America we straight, we get we're grown up, often getting the chemical relaxers on our head, and I, as a kid, I would be burned alive like and I would be bloody and have my hair stuck to my scalp afterward, and it went on until my twenties, and you just you just go through it and you're like, is this normal to be in so so much pain and bleeding? And like
it must be because they're charging me for it. And I just I felt really seen by that, and I can there is something psychologically that happens when people are inflicting pain on you for like a beauty standard that just we just freeze.
We all did it. We still it's crazy. Oh my god. When I was reliving that moment and writing that chapter, I was like, did it not occur to me that I could just be like stop this, I'm out? But instead I was like, yeah, bleach every corner.
I don't know about that, but that was I was like, even on my own scalps, I don't know how you endure that, Sara, and I want to be respectful of your time. I know you're so busy. Thank you a million times over for saying yes and for letting me. It's really rare. I don't take it for granted that I get to look someone in the eyes and say, your work really impacted me, and I'll carry it with me.
And as someone who doesn't like fully yet call themselves an author, you wrote every word of this book, and I myself, I am writing my own book right now. I just submitted the manuscript.
Thank you. Yeah, that's a big journey. That is such a hard job.
People kept telling me to get a ghost writer, and I you tried, right, Yeah.
It was so bad. I mean I wasn't able to do it. Maybe somebody else can show a better way. But it didn't work.
It was just it became for me. I thought I was going to write a personal finance career book. It became stories, it became personal and I'm like, there's just no way that's what I want.
I want to read that book, Like, I don't want somebody's ghost written version. I want your words. And you know, like now I know how you speak, I know who your Cadence. I know how your mind is working. I want more of this, So I hope that you just write the story like I wrote my book, as if I'm talking to a friend, and hope that it's being received that way, because I don't think anybody needs like a book from me that sounds like some deep thinking
philosopher wrote it, and it wouldn't be right. You know, I'm a TikToker, So I think I really applaud you that you've submitted a manuscript that's so hard.
Two years, baby, much work and pages and page and and oh my god.
When you think you're done, you're never done.
Oh I know I'm not done either.
Round of cedits and another polish and another Oh my god. So congrats to you, and really congrats to you for using the time that you have at home where you're restricted by so many things because you have little kids. You're an example of how to make the best of what you have and to put yourself in a position that once the kids get out, you can really take off from that landing point. It's just great. I love it.
Thank you so much for that encouragement, not that I mean I feel like you've given us so much. You don't owe me anything, but everything is in the book and I just yeah, I just appreciate all that you stand for. Everybody, please go buy a copy of Zarna's incredible book. You got to get the audible because there's bonus essays. Your daughter's essay. Oh damn, we didn't even get into your kids. They're incredible. They're incredible. And check
out your podcast, Zarnagarg's Family Podcast. Yeah, I love it. It's very you know, a unique name. You really like, went outside the box with that.
Yeah, we're really deep thinking involved.
Yeah, but I hope this won't be our last chat. I hope that we'll get to chat again soon, so I won't try to get everything in there. Bazarrena guard appreciate you. You embody, brown ambition, and we're just so proud to have you here.
Thank you so much for having me. I'm so honored. I love being on this podcast. I wish every listener and viewer of yours great success. And for those who are feeling stuck, I hope they feel unstuck when they read IF and when they read my book. A big reason I decided to write the book when I did prioritize it over everything else is precisely for that reason. So I get asked all the time, what can I do?
I feel so stuck, and I try to give them the most honest, authentic solutions that I used in my own life, and I really hope that one of them works for them and helps them get unstuck. But thank you for having me. You're so wonderful and I have so much love for everybody in this universe. Thank you.
And I'll leave you, guys with one of my favorite quotes from your book. Okay, well two of them, but this one in particular is if you want to be an entrepreneurs, start saying to yourself, I'm going to do this no matter what every day. I Am going to do this no matter what every day. Because there are so many challenges, we've got to keep that mantra going. Thank you, thank you all right, b I fam Until next time, Bye bye