Episode 46: Sophia Amoruso

An interview with Sophia Amoruso about how her mental health issues affected her childhood, how she recovered from the lowest point in her career, why we need to promote our personalities, how women can break the glass ceiling and her best career advice.

Welcome to the 46th episode of 5 Questions with Dan Schawbel. As your host, my goal is to curate the best advice from the world’s smartest and most interesting people by asking them just 5 questions.

This episodes guest:

My guest today is the Founder of Girlboss Media and author of #GIRLBOSS, Sophia Amoruso. Born in San Diego, California, Sophia was raised in the Greek Orthodox church and later dropped out of school and began homeschooling after being diagnosed with ADHD and depression. Her first few jobs were working at a Subway restaurant, a bookstore and a record shop. After she graduated from high school her parents got divorced, which led to her living a nomadic lifestyle, including hitchhiking, dumpster diving and stealing. At age 22, she opened an eBay store called Nasty Gal Vintage, which then led to launching a Nasty Gal retail store of her own. Nasty Gal grew to a $23 million dollar company in just three years. She then wrote the bestseller, #GIRLBOSS, which was later adapted into a Netflix series. Then, between 2015 and 2016 she stepped down as CEO of Nasty Gal, filed chapter 11, until the company was bought in 2017. Then, she launched Girlboss Media, with content geared to a female audience, which recently turned into a networking platform. Our last interview was four years ago so it was great to catch up with Sophia to better understand what she’s been through and how she’s overcome obstacles to push forward in her life.

The 5 questions questions I ask in this episode:

1. Mental health is one of the most important yet misunderstood topics in our culture. How did being diagnosed with depression and ADHD in your childhood affect you?
2. You’ve had ups and downs as an entrepreneur. What was your lowest point and how did you recover from it?
3. Why do you believe that we need to promote our personalities, not just our resumes, when searching for a job? How can we do this?
4. Part of my commitment with this podcast is to interview women. Women have always been underrepresented in leadership roles. How can women break the glass ceiling and what can men do to help?
5. What is your best piece of career advice?

Follow Sophia’s journey:

• Company
• Netflix Series
• Books
• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Instagram