Julia Haart’s unbelievable journey from communist Russia, to strict Orthodox community, to jet-setting fashion designer

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Speaker 1: Hi, everyone, I'm Katie Kuric, and this his next question. If you've binged much TV this pandemic, you might have happened upon a new reality TV show on Netflix called My Unorthodox Life. It centered on Julia Hart, high powered CEO and fashion designer with a pension for short skirts and sky high heels. Okay, guys, hollow executive decision. Here we are throwing out all the shoes. What what I want? Like sixty pairs of those? Where? In between design meetings and runway shows, Julia is also the cool, straight talk and supportive mob to her for growing and grown up kids. No, seriously, there's a reason I bought you a vibrator. There's no way you can have someone pleasure you if you don't know how to pleasure yourself. This glitzie, champagne filled modern Manhattan lifestyle, as depicted in the series is a far cry from the world Julia left in team. It's really hard to imagine that just a few years ago I was living in an extreme ultra Orthodox Jewish community they've called the Yeshivasha hi misha for my entire align until the time I was born. If you've ever watched the show, and wondered, how did this happen? Well, Julia is ready to share her full story and her new memoir called Brazen. The show is just a snippet. It's a int of what my past was. The book is the whole, messy, convoluted, complex, disastrous story. The book covers it all, from her childhood and communist Russia to the strict ultra Orthodox community to the cutthroat New York fashion industry. Honestly, it's an unbelievable story. Julia Hart, let's talk about you. You're a woman of many names. Tell us about your your previous names and how they represent very different parts of your life. Good questions, so you know. Funnily enough, I was supposed to be named Bernika, I who wanted to start at the very beginning. But my parents came to the clerk in Russia at the time to give you that name because it was the name of a Russian Jewish princess, and refused it because he said it's too Jewish sounding. You're going to destroy your child's chances at the future. People shouldn't know she's Jewish. So that's how I was supposed to be named. And then when I was a baby, and I still didn't have a name my parents. Uh, and I used to dance around, we literally spin on my tush and so there was a spinning top called Julia in Russia, and so I became Julia. And when we moved to America, Julia became Julia. And then in twelfth grade, in my very ultra orthodox fundamentalist world, because I wanted a good sha, a good match, Julia became Talia. Uh So Talia was started in twelfth grade because the matchmakers told my parents, Ton's gonna marry a Julia. Why because it's not a Jewish name. And there's a whole big thing about Jewish names. So like, um, when it talks about the Jews in Egypt, it says that one of the reasons that God saved them is because they kept their Jewish names. So it's a very big deal not to have a secular name. So like, for example, if you look at my children, but Cheva, Shalomo, miriam Are, they're all very biblical names, right, people, Like the only person in my class who had a secular name was yours. Truly, they only one. So you know, I stood out in that way, and so you know, to up my chances of a good match. I know it sounds like the eighteenth c. And right, because it was. We changed my name from Julia to Talia, which is a human name. It means the d of God. Uh. And then when I left my community, I went back to being Julia. So that's my name. History in a nut saw, Well, let's talk about so many things in between, starting at the very beginning. And your parents, Uh, they were brilliant by all accounts. They become IBM engineers, but in Russia and are part of the Communist Party. So how and why did they escape communist Russia and land in, of all places, Austin, Texas. So my parents are genuinely extraordinarily brilliant. I mean, I think my mother is the most brilliant person I've ever met in my life, hands down, still to this day. Um. They were brought up on the concept of a living for is m Uh. You know this book by val Noel Harari called Homo Sapiens, and it talks about how communism is a religion like anything else, Right, a religion is when you have a certain set of rules and there's that divisive feeling of if you don't believe in this set of rules. You're a bad person, you're evil, you're the devil. That's religious, right, a set of rules and reward and punishment. Battle. So they were brought up on the concept of communism. Now, my mother wasn't really a devout Communists to begin with because she had experienced a lot of anti Semitism in her life, so she was not a believer, but she wanted to be a belief right. And my father, now his family was very high up in the Communist Party. His father was a general in World War Two, and my father was the head of the Consuma, which is the youth arm of the Communist Party. Um. And they were this very young, handsome couple. My mother I think was twenty, My father was a nineteen. My mother's a year older than my dad. And the Communist Party, this is your going back in the early seventies, right, There was actually the late sixties, because I was born in nineteen seventy one, so you're going back to the late sixties, early seventies. And you weren't allowed to travel. This is pre Gorbal people weren't allowed to travel in Russia. They stayed because you know, Communism didn't want you to see what a disaster communism was. But because they thought my parents were so committed, they thought that, you know, they could go around this young, gorgeous couple and like spread the word of communism. But what ended up happening when my parents traveled around Russia is they realized the Communism is a disaster and it doesn't work, and they saw so much misery and unhappiness, and so they totally became disillusioned with Communism, and so, like too very idealistic college students who had been brought up on living foreign is um, they went and searched for another ism, and what they chose was Judaism. And so now here was a new cause to live and die for, to put yourself in danger for. And it was exciting, right because think about it, when my parents lived in Russia, being religious, praying, going to synagogue, following any religious edict was illegal. It could land you in the Gulag. And my father was actually arrested for practicing Judaism. And so at the same time, so my father gets arrested, it's a whole big job, and my mother just had me and they got arrested because they were practicing Judaism and then there is this bill passed by the United States UH called the Verick Bill, which basically traded Jews for great because there was so much anti Semitism in Communist Russia and there were so many thousands of Jews that were suffering in Russia, and they Russia also had a hunger, right, there was a massive hunger. So basically the United States said, okay, we're gonna embargo Grade and we're not gonna give you any grain unless you give some Jews. So my parents I were traded for grain and from there we took There was an organization called Pius which basically took Jews out of Russia. First we were put into I don't want to say the word interment camp because that sounds pretty negative, a holding camp I don't know, in Austria for six months before they figured out what to do with us. Then we moved to Italy and we're in a holding camp in Italy that was run by the Vacuum. Actually, the Vatican helped me get out of Russia and into the United States UH, and we lived there for six months. And the way that it worked is someone had to adopt your family and sure that someone we pay for your apartment, for your housing until you got on your own feet and were able to support yourself. So the Jewish community of Austin, Texas basically adopted my family. And how old were you at the time, Julia, when you got to Austin three and a half years old. By the time I got to Austin, I was five. You get to Austin and you live a pretty normal life. I mean, you go to a private school, you have lots of non Jewish friends, you wear shorts, and then suddenly things change. What happened. So it's interesting because you know, those are the only happy memories I have in my childhood at this time in Austin, and my life was you know, and I and as you said, I had friends, I was learning about the world outside. I had all the possibility in front of me. Um. And then my parents went again searching for an is m to suffer forth. And it was the conservative and reformed communities that adopted my family. But it was the ultra orthodox community that my parents felt the most drawn to because it was the most difficult. It required sacrifice, and I told you all the rules, you didn't have to wonder about anything. It removed free choice completely if it wasn't in the Torah, no worries, you can and ask your eye. You don't have to make any decisions by yourself, and think about it. My mother is the most brilliant person I know, and she chose a way of life for women are not allowed to be educated. She literally martyred herself on the cross of another. You say they were drawn to the Orthodox Church, and I'm curious why psychologically is it because they were so ingrained with sort of this notion of following that communism encourages that that was sort of it was almost in their DNA exactly. That's what I genuinely believe. Freedom is frightening. With choice comes fear the unknown mistakes. Right. Many people love to be told what to do. And I think that my parents were brought up with the idea that there has to be a cause greater than you, that there is a set of rules that someone greater than you has written that defines your life, and the more difficult that set of rules, the better. Because they were brought up with that idea of suffering for a cause to they just switched causes. Having said that they were considered lost Jews because they came to this Orthodox Jewish faith from being less that and that really affected their place in society in a way explained that for us, Julia, I think the easiest way to do it is if you've ever seen any movies like Um Down to Nabbey or what's the latest Bridgerton, or any where there is a guilded age, the guilded age. Did you want to understand my child like that community? Just go back a hundred years. It's exactly that mine is the really fabulous stresses and parties. But other than that, the whole concept of the fact that your biology defines your destiny. Women have certain roles and their intellect is x. Men have certain roles and their intellect is why. And within society there's that class structure. So in my society there are the nobles, just like there were nobles in England. Those nobles instead of being born to lords or dukes or duchesses, they're born to great rabbis, and that's nobility. Those people, and especially if you are family stayed religious through World War Two, stayed religious through you know, coming to the United States, you were like coming from the Mayflower. It's exactly the same as the guilded age, right, you were blue bloods, and so to marry into those families, either you have to be a noble or a blue blood too write either you have to have great lineage in your background or what was the one thing that bought you lineage in those days. You may not have noble blood, but you've got enough money, then you can buy yourself a noble husband with a lot of lineage. And that's how your family grows in stature. And by the way, even though when I was getting married by parents didn't have enough money to buy us a lineage, by the time my younger brothers getting married, they did. And so my brothers all married into very rabbinic famous families. Who would have you know, so many rabbis and their past in the whole nine yards. So in the end, my parents did succeed in marrying into the Jewish nobility. But for me, when I was growing up, you know, my parents, my father was just slowly starting to build his fortune. Uh you know, even though we had what the outside world would stir fantastical life, you know, a nice middle class upbringing, in my world, we were poor dirt bol right, because to be wealthy in that world, you've got to be crazy wealthy. We're talking. It's not enough to even be a millionaire. You've got to have tens of millions of dollars because you have to support your eleven children or your thirteen children and their children, and you have to pay for their education. So the amount, like I think my father once told me at a certain point he was spending close to a million dollars a month supporting all my siblings and all of their children. Most of my siblings have between five, six, seven, eight nine children. The map, you have eight kids and they each have ten kids. You've had eighty grandchildren you have to support. You've got to be very wealthy. So when I was growing up, we didn't have that kind of wealth, right. And so because I was not born religious, because I was not brought up religious, because I was Russian, I was a second class citizen. Act that being a second class citizen because you're a woman not so fun. In shot, I was a second class citizen because I was a Jew, and then the Jews community, I was a second class citizen because I was born in Russia. Go figure. So then your mom gets pregnant when you're ten years old Julia, and that seems to push her over the edge, driving her further and further into Orthodox ideology and practices. Tell us about that, Well, my mother was unable to have children. Um, I was her miracle baby. She was told she could never have children. I was her miracle baby. And then she had multiple miscarriages after me, between myself and my my sister who's after me, who's ten years younger than I. So in that ten year period, she had miscarriage after miscarriage after miscarriage. By the way, I've had six miscarriages. I've been pregnant ten dies, unruly or not. She had all these miscarriages and then she becomes co shirt and religious and immediately becomes pregnant. So in her mind, that's God saying, you know you're doing the right thing. Now you're following my laws. I'm going to give you children. And so it was one after the other. It was mere a bunch of Hannah. And then not eleven months later, my brother yisclock was born. There not even a year apart their eleven months. Ele months later, my brother ysclock was born, and then the other seventh the wounds. What did it look like for her to reward the blessing of motherhood with deeper and deeper religious practices. How did life in your house change? I mean, I became the mother because and nothing, not in any way shave or form to denigrate her. But she had terrible pregnancieds and no help, and so she gave birth to Hanna, and then two months later became pregnant again, and so she couldn't take care of her first baby because she was pregnant with her second, and she had placenta, previa and all sorts of crazy things. So it fell upon me to watch my daughter, my sister, and and I say my daughter because genuinely, when I got engaged and moved out of the house, my siblings packed their bags. They didn't realize they weren't coming with me, because the entire time that they were growing up, they called me mommy. They thought most families have two mothers and a dapt because that's you know. I was the one who put them to bed every night. I was the one who did homework with them. I was the one who, you know, wiped their little bottoms and changed their diapers, and I it felt to me to set um. And again, nothing against my mother. She was constantly pregnant or having miscarriages or pregnant again or you know, and it's very, very overus on a woman's body to be constantly in that state. So I understand why she needed my help. Um, but of course it was a tremendous load on a very young person. She ended up having seven more kids. So did you resent the fact that you were responsible for them and taking care of them? Yes, I absolutely did. I had no childhood. I you know, on the weekends, you know, my friends would go and hang out with each other on choppers because you're not allowed to drive. You're not allowed to you know, you can't use electricity, right. Um, I was stuck at home every day watching my siblings. You know. I would come home from school, do my homework and do homework with my siblings, put them to bed, feed them, clean, you know, do the laundry. It was you know, I mean, it prepared me for my life. But you know, I was NonStop, you know, and it was I think the part of it that was the most difficult, other in fact that I didn't really have a childhood, is that that responsibility weighed very heavily on me and being left alone to babysit children. When you're eleven years old and there are three newborns in the house, it's really scary. And were there other ways the religion kind of manifested itself. I mean, what about the deadly religious practices that sort of took hold in your household? So it was not only just all these babies being born and you having to care for them, but what else was happening in your home? So on the other side, was you know, the destruction of everything. I would say in the sense that you know, as we became more and more religious, my life shrunk smaller and smaller. So first it was okay, you can't go anywhere in childhood because you can't dry. Then it was you can't bet that your friend's house because they're not coucia. So then that immediately created this massive separation between me and my friends. People don't realize if you can't have a meal with someone, go to someone's house for lunch, it really divides you. I went from being intellectually stimulated thing that the world was my oyster that and I could accomplish anything, to being told that all those things are bad and that I shouldn't be interested in learning, that I should never do anything forward facing, that my purpose in life is to be in the background. And I would say that the one word that made my life so small as to be unendurable was the word modesty. This idea that I am responsible for men's thoughts, that men aren't capable of controlling their own desires, and that my purpose in life is to help a man be the great tour scholar. That's the only way to goodness in my world, and therefore the only way to being evil in my world was to distract a man from his tower learning. How does one distract a man from his tour line? While you may sing, and therefore he may get attracted, you could dance, and he'd see a dance and get attracted. So when you have this concept that your purse in life is only in relation to a man, to be a good woman, you have to be behind the scenes, don't cause any trouble, be his help, maybe the school that he stands on, so that he can be a great scholar. And the flip side, if you distract him, you're an evil person, and it's on you. Instance on that concept that a woman has to shrink herself and make herself almost invisible so that a man would never come to sin. It was the most unendurable part of my life because I'm not quiet, and I'm not shy, and I'm not a background person, and I love to learn and I'm curious about everything, and I was constantly told that my intellect was an inferior to a man's. And you know, you get told something enough times, you start believing it. When we come back, how Julia found the courage to escape. Fast forward to nineteen Julia, you're married off and living in this conservative community in Monsey. Can you describe what Monsey was light and if somebody dropped down from Mars, what they would see in that community? You see women in shad pushing baby carriages with lots of children all around. Uh. You see men in black hats walking in pacts with white shirts from one yeshiva twush different yeshiva. There are synagogues in every corner. And why do women always wear wigs? It has to do with the fact that your hair is very attractive, and so when you get married, the only person that you should be attracting is your husband. Therefore, no other man should ever see your hair. Um and when I remember saying, I remember asking and said, but the wigs look as beautiful as real hair does. And I was answered by a rabbi, when you see a fake apple at a table, do you want to bite into it? And so it was all about if it's your real hair moves and it's sexy, and so a man will bite into it, so to speak, but not if it's fake. Right. So not only that, but there are humbers, there are laws that are what what can I say? That are like additions to the actual law that people follow because they want to have righteous children or they're want to righteous husband. And I was though I did righteous children. Not only could I not wear my hair uncovered outside of the house, I had to sleep with my hair covered because the walls of my house should not see my nakedness. And you started to question who am I? I am I here? And what happens? Do you have an epiphany about your faith and your life? Yes, so my entire life. From the moment I moved into that community, I really struggled being who I am as a person and who I was supposed to be to please God. The easiest way to explain it is like you feel like you don't belong your own skin. I spent my life is she? I don't know how else to say, because who you are and who you're supposed to be, don't you no matter how hard you trying. And so I wanted to know, why can't I study? Why can't I learn good? Why can't I study the talment? Why are men smarter than women? I don't think men are smarter than women. Why do I have to be subservient and obedient to my husband? But I thought that that made me a bad person. And then my daughter, Miriam, is black, and this kid is literally on from day one, a rebel. A rebel doesn't care about anything or what people say. If it's not logical, she's not going to do it. And she started questioning at five years of age, and she would go to my husband and she would say, Alva, I want to play sucker, I want to ride a bike in jeans, I want to play basketball, I want to sing at the passover table. And she was told no, no, no, And she would say why and her teachers and my husband would say, because it might make a man attracted to you. And she would say, but why is that? My problem? Is he responsible for my sins. And I was like, yeah, that's exactly right. She was fine five years old, literally, this little five year old, And they had convinced me that I was bad for thinking these things, but I had never voiced it out publicly, and to have my five year old day. They could not convince me that she was equal. So she gave me permission to question. She is the reason I set herself. It's not that something's wrong with me. Miriam started making you question your own faith, Miriam, your second daughter. But it was a slow boil for you. You didn't have this aha moment, I'm out of here, like, you're right, Mariam, let's hit the road. This took a tremendous amount of thought and courage. What was it like when you severed yourself from this way of life that your parents believed in so deeply, and that was really almost all you had ever known, at least from a young age. It you know, I think the easiest way to describe what it felt like. Did you ever see that movie Caden the Gold? Yes? I did. Yes, wasn't it with Hugh Jackman? Yes? Remember he's like an inventor. He drops in in this wormhole time into the twenty first century, and he's just like so disoriented and discombobulated. That was me. That's what it felt like. You were walking into a world. I didn't know a single person. I've never been on a date. I'd never gone to a bar, I've never been to a club. I didn't know what an invoice was. I didn't know what a contract was. I didn't know anything about anything. And not only that, nobody knew me. It is a it's a kind of, I guess, an existential question. Do you exist? If no one knows of your existence. It's a very disorienting feeling to be dropped in a world where nobody at all, no one, not a single human being, knows you. It's really frightening and terrifying. I was terrified, terrified, completely terrified, stress out of my mind, looking at around myself and like what how am I going to? Like? How am I going to do this? I don't know anything? And how did you? How did you navigate this new world and this path to becoming you know, a career in fashion and a designer, and suddenly you have to adjust how did you do that? A lot of it, I guess was luck and meeting the right people. But it must have been something deep inside you as well. I think a lot of it if I would bring it down. You know, I think that I do believe in God. I do believe that God helps those who help themselves. You know, I've I've seen I see a lot of miracles in my story. Um But there were so many moments where I could have given up, and I think many people would have and I just couldn't because it was successful. Those were my That's how it felt. Either I was dying or I was winning one of the two. And so when the you know, the stakes are that high. Um, So, I think that's number one. That I was so determined and so stubborn and so focused, and I'm a planner by nature. It took me eleven years to eleven years, and you know, I educated myself. I read literature, I read philosophers and history and everything that I could get my hands on to at least get some grasp of the outside world. I mean, to me, books saved my life. You go back to Monsey, or you did for six years after you left, and what was it like navigating those two worlds? Was it like stepping back in time? Once again, I really felt like really like a time traveler, you know, like you see all these TV shows now where they pop into one century and public. That's what it was like. I kept my schatel in my glove compartment so I would wink to people who might not be familiar what a shadel is. A shade is a wig. And by the way, you know, right before I left my community, right after Hurricane Sandy, there were posters put all of Muncy stating Hurricane Sandy occurred because women's wigs were too long, and so it was our fault that hurricane Hurricane Sandy happened because women's wigs were too long. I'm sure you didn't know that, now you do after the break the price Julius had to pay for leaving her Hasidic community, I'm curious about your relationship with your children, but also with the rest of your family, your seven siblings, et cetera. What is that like today? It's atle sad uh. You know, my extended family, my siblings, my parents don't speak to me. Um. And again this should not make anyone think badly of them, because it's not them. It's what they think God wants. It's the laws. It's the rules themselves that prevent my family from speaking to me, because what they're taught is that the way that I live my life is the embodiment of evil. I married ann Ju, I keep Kosha, I dressed like I dressed. I'm extremely vowered basing, I talk about sexuality publicly. I support my daughter who is a bisexual. I am just evil through and through, and so I understand why they don't speak to me because in their minds, I'm a terrible influence in one of their children could become irreligious or God did start asking questions uncomfortable questions, and that's dangerous because I'm even more dangerous than most people are worth the community. Because I succeeded. I didn't fail. I didn't become a drug addict that incommits suicide. You know, I'm I succeeded. And the story back there is that if you leave, you won't succeed, you will become a drug addict, or you will kill yourself. Because the really the reality is you're not You're not equipped to handle the outside world. You are thrown into the twenty one century and there are a lot of mental and emotional and psychological and just you know, practical difficulties that occur with such a fast and sharp shift in the way that you live your life. And so most people do have a difficult time surviving it. They just can't. Uh So, you know, it's it's an extraordinarily almost impossible thing to do. Um And I understand why. To my family, I'm dangerous. I'm just dangerous. I'm dangerous. And you know, my children, I'm so lucky because most women like me who leave lose their children. I'm one of the few people I know who not only did I not lose my children, my children came with me. That's a big big deal because you were sort of between two worlds and raised a certain way, Julia, did that take a toll on the children because as you were adjusting to this new life, Um, that must have been a bit confusing for them, And I know your eldest daughter did struggle. I think it was not just confusing. I think it was the most disorienting, frightening thing for them. Think about it. Here's a woman who taught them their whole lives to do X that this is the path to goodness, that this is the only life I remember giving my daughter by such a hard time because she was wearing her shade all in a way where you could see a little bit of her hair long, and I gave her a hard time because that's not to see it. How old were your kids when you left? So was the eldest. She was nineteen at the time. She's the one that struggled the most because she was brought up to be the most religious. Shlomo didn't understand what I was doing, but he didn't really care in the sense that he was like, if it makes my mother, I'm happy. And he wasn't happy either. He got a lot of grief because he was brought up in Atlanta and that wasn't totally enough, and so he kind of was questioning himself. So he didn't really have such a big issue that Miriam was just jumping up and down, and she was just like, let's get at it. When are we leaving? So it was really much Shova that struggled, especially that first year. I kind of really killed our relationship. But now, I mean, you know, she has a great life. She thanks me literally at least once a week and says thank you Eva for taking us out, So you know, slowly but surely with a lot of patients. Um, and a lot of stuff are is you know, we made it. We made it. And your husband ex husband still lives in the community. And what is your relief? Know? Does not he moved? Well? Tell me about her ex husband. He's awesome. First of all, he's such a good man. That's why I just see in my book in all, in the television show, I always say that he was as much a victor in his eye was he was told that that was his role as my husband, to you know, control me and to enforce the laws, because why is his children suffer? His family would suffer, the community would suffer. He's a good person and I never had an issue with him. And Um, what's really beautiful is that you know, through all the difficulty that I'm facing now, he and his wife, his new wife, who is the loveliest human being, they called me almost every day to check in me, to ask me how I'm doing, to just give me support. You know, life has such a strange way of showing you who you know, how people are in their true essence, And you know, I am so grateful to both of them. He has left Muncie. He now lives in te neck, New Jersey with his non shape of wearing college graduate wife who has an amazing profession, who has a very successful business. He told a list, but it's not even remotely fundamentalists. He's not then remotely black hats, a modern Orthodox Jew. He's got TVs in his house, he goes to Broadway shows. He wants my kids to go to college. He accepts my daughter's sexuality. He is literally it took me eight years, but he's out too. Are other Hasidic women. Julia is so cloistered and shut off from the real world. They can't see your life now and wouldn't be inspired by you because they don't really know. They're kept in the dark. Look, you know as well as I do, unfortunately, that there's two groups of women. There are the women who want more, who struggle for more, who fight for more. I think the suffragettes. Think about the women who marched for equal rights. Think about why in this country the equal rights men was never passed. Who was the person who prevented that? I think you know it was philoslostly lastly right, it was a woman. So unfortunately, you have the women who march, who demand change, who want better for their daughters. And then you have the women who defend the very system that imprisons them. And it isn't because they're bad or evil or wrong. It's because they truly believe in their innermost hearts that that's what God wants. That's what's genius about any of these philosophies or religions. And it's nothing to do with Judaism. You see it in fundamentalist Christianity, fundamentalist Islam, and fundamentalist Hinduism. Wherever there is rules. Uh, you know, I read the other day that in Russia they they passed a law that a husband can beat his wife and it's totally illegal as long as it doesn't leave marks on her body. And when asked why that law was okay, Oh, because it's the tradition of the Greek Orthodox trich So the club harness of all of these isms is that they convince a woman herself that this is what God wants, and so she defends the very system that imprisons her because she thinks it's the truth and the right way to live it. You have faced so many challenges and persevere, Julia from the get go, and and obviously you've had to work very hard to get where you are in the fashion industry, and here you now hit another bump in the road, another obstacle, being fired as CEO and co founder of Elite World Group. So how are you dealing with kind of this setback um and moving forward? And what do you think is the message you hope people take away from your book? I love those questions. Those are too great questions. To the first one, what I would say is, I've tried to eradicate all of the inferiority uh complex feelings that I have when it comes to me right. And I thought, you know, after I became creative director of Laperle and then co owner of CEO of Elite World Group and all of this stuff, that it would be I make right, like I am no longer afraid of men, I am no longer controlled by men, I can no longer be abused by men. And then when all of this happened, I realized I'm not there yet. I still have that inferiority complex. I still have somewhere in my head where a man knows best. I still have a ways to go before I eradicate those feelings of male superiority. And I think what I learned. Is that going to be a work in progress for the rest of my life. I'm going to have to every day remind myself that a man is not better than me. Every day remind myself that you have to fight for your freedom. Um, I don't know what you know. The future will bring, and I'm sure there will be Once I overcome this obstacle, I'm sure it won't be the last one. You know. The other problem is that I'm I always. I walk into industries and I create change, and arbiters have change are not very popular people because they're knocking down the status quo and you know, taking power away from those people who had it. So I kind of make enemies wherever I go, and you know, and I attacked fundamentalism, and fundamentalism attacks back, like I literally constantly put myself. Sometimes I say to myself, just stop, Like you could live such a comfortable, easy life. Why why are you torturing yourself? Because I want to change the world, because I want there to be a o the world, because I believe in the goodness of mankind, because I think women are extraordinary and that we're capable of anything we set our minds to, and That is the purpose of my book. If I could do it uneducated, knowing no one coming from the eighteenth century to now in the eight years, at forty two years of age, anyone can do it. Anyone can do it at any age. And most of the impediments we have are in our minds. And the minute we give ourselves permission to question, permission to say this is not okay, this is not the life I want, this is not who I am. I'm going to fight for what I want. The minute we give ourselves permission to do that is the minute that we start on the path to success. You know, when my book came out, I had letters, well, I had tens of thousands of messages from people from my community, from the Muslim community, from communities all over the world, uh telling their stories and how the show had changed their life. I had two women tell me that they were planning on committing suicide, one of them on the day that You'll launched, and chose to live life because they've seen the show. And the show is just a snippet, it's a hint of what my past was. The book is the whole, messy, convoluted, complex, disastrous story, and I think if people see that the mistakes are part of the journey. The trauma is part of the journey. Not knowing something is good for you. Learning new things and becoming unafraid of the unknown is the strongest tool you could put in your hands, because that's the only way you're going to grow and change. And so that's what I hope occurs when people read this book. I want them to get up and start their stories. A big thank you, did you your heart who chatted with me in between filming the second season of My Unorthodox Life. Her new book is called Brazen, and it's out now. Next Question with Katie Kurik is a production of I Heart Media and Katie Couric Media. The executive producers Army, Katie Couric, and Courtney Litz. The supervising producer is Lauren Hansen. Associate producers Derek Clements and Adriana Fasio. The show is edited and mixed by Derrick Clements. For more information about today's episode, or to sign up for my morning newsletter, wake Up Call, go to Katie Currek dot com. You can also find me at Katie Curic on Instagram and all my social media channels. For more podcasts, from I heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.