Untitled episode

sopia Chang welcome to the show I am so excited to be here thank you thank you thank you you manage Old Dirty Bastard without any experience as a manager you ran riz's record label without any experience running a record label I think you say in the book that risk is in My DNA did I you do I wonder if I plagiarized that from somebody that's really

clever risk taking was in my DNA Sophia what why is that I would say certainly my parents stories have a lot to do with that my mother tongsuk Chang born in 1932 she escaped North Korea when she was 14 she was one of 10 siblings that was a huge risk it was a very risky boat ride my father he was God Rest his soul he was

I made they encourag me after I moved to New York I didn't have a job I didn't have a place their their peers would say your daughter what's she doing well they had they would have had a good answer because when you moved to New York I think one of the first jobs you had was working for Paul Simon Simon yeah Paul Simon had a personal

assistant who I think was a korean-american woman that's right and I think she taught you almost explicitly that it was important for you to take up space in a room how is you know not just confidence but something like Unapologetic confidence how how is that a risk I think when you take an intersectional view of this right when you think about the fact that I am

a woman and I am Asian and I mostly navigated Max very male dominated Mila and yes I remember her name is Sonia Chay God Rest her soul and I remember watching her move and I thought wow and she would just and she was smaller than me she would just burst into a room and you could just feel here she didn't have to yell she didn't have

to do any of that but her energy just emanated off of her and I really took that lesson from her but you know it occurs to me that you talk about losing the fear of embarrassing yourself I think when you're at like Atlantic Records an early job yeah people have a fear of embarrassing themselves for a reason because it's it's it's self-protective it's a it's a

kind of Shield yeah so it occurs to me to ask you know maybe maybe the question I really want to know is why why is it so risky to to be yourself I think that in general we as humans operate out of fear just in general so if we're in a meeting and there are 10 people sitting around the table and maybe I'm Junior and I

have an idea my fear and even if I think it's so smart my fear is I open my mouth and everybody goes and it's like the record scratch rewind and then everybody looks I think we all live with a real fear of humiliation embarrassment excommunication reprisal right so I have gotten to the point where I just don't care I mean it's so incredibly liberating not to

care what other people think it doesn't mean that I don't get my feelings hurt for me to be out here speaking as openly and fearlessly as I do I know from people who come up to me that I'm setting an example one way of thinking about risk is that it's like it's a kind of bet on the unknown yes of course it's a way of endorsing

one kind of future over another what are the risks or maybe a single risk that you still want to take I feel like I take risks all the time I feel like my life is full of risk and that does feel Reckless but you know I'm I just turned 58 and I want to fall in love again and that's really scary for a woman over sh

that's scary for a woman over 35 never mind a woman over 40 over 50 close to 60 and what does that mean for a woman of a certain age to want to fall in love again well that means you've got to put yourself out there that's a risk because of patriarchy because of agism because of all of those things well I wish you love and I

wish you many happy rest Sophia Chang seriously I've loved having you here and I love being here thank you so so much thank you watch the business show Thursday nights 10:30 Eastern on Bloomberg television or 8:30 on bloomberg.com or the Bloomberg gap on connected TVs