Susan Herman: Building a career on your core beliefs and putting yourself in the way of luck

Explicit content warning

06/01/21 • 49 min

3 Listeners

She built her career on her core beliefs, fighting for fairness and civil liberties, leading to her pivotal role as the President of the ACLU through both the Trump and Obama Administrations.
Meet Susan Herman, inaugural Ruth Bader Ginsburg Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School.
Susan has always been a fighter, battling a sexist American education system as early as third grade. She opens up about how she was perceived as a woman pursuing a law education in the 1960s when university doors were just opening for women students. Susan shares tips on dealing with controversy on both a personal and national level, diving into how she led a national organization during such a tumultuous time. Listen in to hear how you can harness the power of your purpose and discover the tips ceiling breakers have used to find success.
Follow Susan on Twitter: @Susan_N_Herman
Quotes We Keep In Mind
“I put myself in the way of that luck.”
"I just really felt for people who were being treated as if they didn't matter. They can't do that to you. They can't tell you who to be and that you're not important."
"You don't become a successful woman by trying to imitate being a man. You figure out, you know, there are a lot of women who are soft-spoken, but they're going to get their words in."
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SHOWNOTES: http://mindtheceiling.com

INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/mindtheceilingMIND THE CEILING
SHOWNOTES: http://mindtheceiling.com

Previous Episode

Debra Pickett: the power of authentic self-advocacy and going from journalist to entrepreneur

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Not only the first woman to have her own opinion column in the Chicago Sun-Times, one of America's top newspapers, but Debra Pickett also managed to snag the role a few years after her undergrad. But Debra's early success came from an important realization: Doing “good work” is not enough-- there is a crucial aspect of self-promotion, says award-winning television and print journalist. Debra explains how to authentically self-promote through recognizing your self-worth, something many of us forget to do all too often. In the rooms where decisions happen, her sense of self-worth represents not just her but all the people who look like her and don't have a spot in the room. Listen in to hear how you can harness the power of your purpose and discover the tips ceiling breakers have used to find success.

Quotes We Keep In Mind
"I've been lucky enough to do that [break ceilings] a couple of times in my career."
"You have that added responsibility for being at the top of your game and delivering excellence because it's not just coming from me, but it's coming from me, as a representative of someone who's different from them."
"You know that's the life lesson: You're not going to be number one at everything. But you can find something, and you can find that track if you just dig into it."
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Next Episode

Deepa Iyer: The art of career course corrections and leading a national organization at a young age

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How do you build movements that elevate immigrant and racial justice? Award-Winning Writer, Lawyer, Activist, and Trainer, Deepa's personal life and career have always been about groundbreaking work, especially surrounding South Asian American communities. But Deepa’s path to purpose wasn’t simple-- after jumping into the nonprofit space, pivoting to law, and then back to the nonprofit sector, on top of starting her own activist organization, Deepa has tons of life lessons about how to create lasting, impactful social change in a variety of different ways. She reflects on her drive behind her work as a response to her own struggles with race growing up, and she shares tips for other women who find themselves in a similar position on how she shifted her mindset to overcome those challenges and how she relied on her existing communities. Listen in to hear how you can harness the power of your purpose and discover the tips ceiling breakers have used to find success.
Follow Deepa on Twitter: @dviyer
Instagram: @deepaviyer
Quotes We Keep In Mind
“Having that core community that you can trust, that you can go to when you're feeling lonely, overwhelmed, or unsure of yourself, and that can reaffirm who you are is so important.”
“I learned what it meant to have a goal and stick with it, even when a lot of times, things were going wrong or things were crumbling or would crumble and to pick myself back up.”
“I could rise above this, and that you know it did not have to define me.”
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SHOWNOTES: http://mindtheceiling.com