Ivanka Trump: My Dad Told Me Two Weeks Before He Ran For President!

Um, my mother taught me a lot about just, like, bringing intention to what you do, bringing, sort of. And being the child of the accomplished parents, most people thought that I would lack the ambition, the preparedness. But my mother taught me that being underestimated is not about them.

It's a very powerful thing, actually.

And it almost always worked to the detriment of the person who underestimated me.

From real estate to our own multi-million dollar fashion line, Ivanka Trump continues to carve her own path into the business world, succeeding at every turn. And then you learn two weeks before he announces, your father decides he wants to be president of the United States.

“Did you have any sense that this was at all on the horizon?”

Not really. And then when he pulled the trigger, it was full steam. Most people wouldn't give up on 800 million dollar and your business

to go into government. Why did you?

He asked us for help and he's like, "But I have to warn you. They're going to come at you hard. They're probably going to hate you." But one of the things I've learned in moments of tremendous pressure and scrutiny where any slip-up is completely weaponized against you is to find the signal in the noise. I just don't get distracted by the outside noise.

That's probably the thing that has been most helpful to me in terms of performance and success because you have a choice only and how you respond. You've said politics is a pretty dark world. This is a quite a difficult question to ask,

but when you had the news that there was an assassination attempt on your father's life,

“do you remember where you were and what's that like as a daughter?”

Guys, I've got a favorite to ask before this episode begins. The algorithm, if you follow a show, deliver you the best episodes from that show very prominently in your feed. So when we have our best episodes on this show, the most shared episodes, the most rated episodes, I would love you to know. And the simple way for you to know that is to hit that follow button. But also, it's the simple, easy, free thing that you can do to help us make this show better.

And I would be hugely grateful if you could take a minute on the app you're listening to this one right now and hit that follow button. Thank you so, so, so, so much. La Volca, you don't do many interviews to you. Not really now. Why don't you do much media stuff or podcast and what interviews?

I actually don't know. I think I'm, I get sort of really locked in and heads down on what I'm working on, that I tend to kind of put on blinders and just go. But I like to have conversations in longer form with people that I admire.

“I think the reason why I, I do this is because I see, I naturally see everybody's like a jixel puzzle.”

And you've lived an extraordinary life. You've lived an extraordinary, a typical life that, I mean, it's safe to say, almost nobody on planet earth has ever experienced. And so, I think I asked that question just to be familiar with at the top because the life you've lived that will get into is, is one that would have shaped you in a number of ways. And one of them is, I think, from what I read things that you had said in different experiences you had as a child.

It's just, like, trusting people. You know, it's interesting. I grew up the child of wealthy and accomplished parents. And so I do think there's like a natural barrier that goes up. You're worried about people, especially when you're a kid. Liking me for the wrong reasons. I see this now with my son. You know, he wants to be loved by his friends.

And I appreciate that. That's good for who he is, not for who we are and certainly not for what we have. So I do think being the child of a famous parents and living such a privileged life. I had this guard and that guard served me really well for a long time. Like, I didn't have any friends despite the really tumultuous life that I've had ups and downs who really disappointed me. I mean, in close close friends who who didn't show up for me or who changed because of my circumstances or what was happening around me.

And I've learned for me, I mean, you are saying the purpose of life for me. It's, you know, the expansion and not contraction of the heart. And that's hard as you get older. You know, how do you live a life of service and rooted in love and connection? And I've learned more and more that those walls, they don't serve you. And the only way to have connection which is so fundamental to the human experiences to is to build it and that requires trust.

I think I'm a very good read of people and I think it's one of my strengths and I think it's why I haven't been surprised by a lot of people. So I read pretty quickly, but I also have had to teach myself rather than grow sort of cynical as one tends to as they get older. I've really actually taught myself to be more trusting. And to the extent that means periodically I'll be burned.

“Like, that's, I'm okay with that trade off because I think it will lead to more meaningful connections in my life.”

Probably that's out better right in the middle. I have this photo here of a very small of uncle. So funny, I look at this and I see my daughter. Really? That was like the first thing when I saw that photo. And what age did you realize that life for you was slightly different from the average person?

Like, when does a child realize that? Hmm.

I think there was always a lot of media attention and scrutiny.

You see it, you experienced it very early on. I think my parents did a really good job trying to shelter us from it. And it was different than without social media. You know, not everyone, I think the experience our children have or anywhere they go. People have a recording device in their hands. They're iPhone. And can take pictures of them. And, you know, it's so, you're so exposed during your formative years.

And thankfully, I did not have that growing up. There were times I felt it. I remember, I wanted to be a dancer. A ballet dancer. And, you know, my mom was an incredible skier. She skied on the national team for then Czechoslovakia and now Czech Republic. And so she really believed in the importance of sport, for cultivating discipline.

And so she really encouraged this. And I was dancing at Julia, the School of American Ballet here in New York. I was in the Nutcracker. And I remember I was probably eight. And I was, you know, like some small role in the Nutcracker. I was a party girl and an angel. Those were like the entry roles where you like dance at the party,

where the, the man with the Nutcracker arrives and then you're in that angel scene.

And I remember being so excited and was my first Nutcracker.

And Michael Jackson had just moved into Trump Tower. And was literally our neighbor in Trump Tower. And my father sees him one day, you know, passing in the lobby on with him.

“I said, you know, my daughters in the Nutcracker, you should come.”

You should come see your performance. So he comes to the Nutcracker with my father at the height of his fame to watch me dance. And now this in retrospect could be like, wow, what a cool experience. But I was horrified. I was like, this is, I was so embarrassed.

I thought we had ruined the Nutcracker. Everyone was dancing with one glove. People who produced the show were, you know, hysterical that everyone was dancing with one glove. But I thought it was all my fault. And this was like, just a wild childhood experience.

So I had things like that happen that were so far from normal that it's actually like comical and retrospect. But I think the, the day to day was like really grounded. My grandmother and, and grandfather before he passed on my mother side really raised us. My grandmother cooked every meal we ate for, you know, most of my childhood. And, Bobby.

Bobby. Yeah. So she taught me a type of unconditional love and tenderness.

“And I think more than anything she was just this un, that's her.”

She's unbelievably nurturing. I'd come home from school and, you know, before I'd be out of the shower. She would have laundered my clothes and folded them and put them back on my bed.

She was always feeding me and food for her was very much like an expression of love.

I remember when I became a teenager and I sleep later and later. She'd wake me up for lunch. Just, like, God forbid I wasn't being fed at all hours. But I can, she, she means the well to you. She does.

She's 98 years old and, you know, her health has suffered. And, you know, it's, it's been a little bit of a difficult time for her. But I, I feel so strongly for, for me and my children to have the experience to be there for her in just, like, a small fraction of the way that she was there for me is such an extraordinary privilege. And for them to grow up with her at our table every single meal.

Each night and her telling her stories and stories of my mother who they sadly didn't get to know. Are you okay? Yes, I can see you. No, I'm, yes, I'm great. I have a lot of, um, not a lot of love for this woman.

That just doesn't happen to me often.

“What is that, um, mixture of emotions that you're experiencing?”

Um, she taught me so much. She just about love and we were talking before about connection. Um, and, you know, it's, it's been hard to see her now as she, as she struggles. But, um, but she's, uh, to blessing, to have her in her home and living with us. And very special person.

Maybe I'll have a tissue. Thank you. It's a real credit to her. Yeah. It's often a testament to the person and the value that they've added to your life and how they were there for you, that you would feel,

feel the way you do about her. And that's so, like, visible in your face. She must have been quite formative. Oh, for sure. Um, for sure.

“So, she's been, she's an amazing person.”

You said that she, she was really taking care of you. And, and sort of the age of 10. Mother and father, I'm shooting very, very busy. Yeah. Explain that to me.

You know, my mother was an incredible trailblazer.

Um, an amazing example for me of strength and resilience and glamour and determination and ambition. And she was a great mother, too. But she would also say, like, she couldn't do it alone. And she wasn't pretending she could. So, she surrounded us with people who loved us.

We had, um, to an amazing nenys. One of them worked for my mother until the day she died. Um, the other, um, is worked for my mother until the day my mother died. Um, and still works with us today. She worked as after we grew up.

“She worked as my mother's personal assistant.”

So, they were very much part of our lives and, and part of our extended family. And of course, my grandmother, who she trusted completely with us. So, so she showed me a lot at a time when, you know, not many women were doing what my mother was doing. Um, inside the boardroom and on the construction sites. All the time, by the way, with five inch heels and, like, perfectly caught tear.

Or so, she made it look incredibly easy. But it was, and continues to be very challenging to balance work in life like that, especially at a time where what she was doing was so singular. So, she, she really, my mother served as an unbelievable role model for me for what is possible.

How to be an amazing mother who is loving and nurturing and fun and provides for children.

And, and also to be unabashedly, um, and doggyly pursuing once goals in a professional capacity. So, she did that when she was married to my father. She did that, um, following their divorce and, um, and really was just an amazing, an amazing mentor. And amazing mentor for me. You're growing up in a context where your family are privileged.

They have, um, they have no charity and the both parents are quite absent by way of being so busy. And they're also kind of... I'm pretty absent, but, you know, my mother wasn't home cooking us meals. My grandmother was. But my mother was home when we ate them.

And then she'd go out again. You know, her and my father were actively building their life and pursuing their passion. And for my mom, much like me today, you know, one of her creative expressions came in the form of design and architecture. She wasn't absent. And, you know, neither was my father.

So, he was filled with more typical of that generation male role where he was less like present.

But there was never a doubt in my mind that I was his top priority and that he was available to me.

So, I used to call him from the payphone at a shape and it was in a broom closet. And never once did he not pick up. And sometimes his office would be filled with people of, um, you know, he'd been in the middle of a deal or a negotiation or some politician or whatever it was. And it always put me on speakerphone and then start the conversation by telling everyone how I got great grades.

And I started to blush. But he always picked up. Did you learn? Did you learn? Did you learn?

Did I? What? Miss him. No, because I didn't feel like they... I didn't feel like he was absent.

It was just different. Like he wasn't attending all of our sports games.

There's a lot more sort of active participation.

Like the way I am in my kids' life, the way my husband is.

“I think it is, you know, a little different, especially, um, for fathers today,”

than 30 years ago. If I sent a volunteer, you mother here next to us, um, the same age you are now. What would be the fundamental differences in those individuals? You know, it's funny. I think back now, and, um, my mother and I are both incredibly similar and very different.

So she had, like, over the top-style and glamour. You know, and I think in some ways, it was a reaction to the austerity and the control of growing up in a communist country and, and then Czechoslovakia, it like nobody was going to tell her what to do. Nobody was going to tell her what to say. So she actually would make my father look PC.

And with hysterical, I mean, I spent much of my childhood being like, "Oh, mom, please." You know, it was really interesting. Um, I feel like today, because my mother passed away, um, unexpectedly, um, from a fall a few years ago, there were just, like, I had a lot of questions. And, um, and I really dug into her story and her history and, um,

and really studied her almost in a way that I wish I had done when she was living, and I could speak to her directly.

“And I think I understand her, because I'm at a level of maturity,”

and I have some of the same issues, you know, having young children, and I think I understand her though better today than I did in some ways in her life, like I see her more fully. And what did you understand more about her that you didn't understand while she was here after she passed? She wrote a book in the final years of her life that talked a lot more about her childhood,

and I think not uncommon for people who have experienced, you know, a lot of hardship. Sometimes they compartmentalize, and I it's like, forward only.

And this whole part of our life she never talked about.

And I think when you're younger, you ask a lot less questions. Like now I would tell everyone who's listening, like, really ask the questions, especially if people are a bit of a vault and are less inclined to, to look back in the past, because I, you know, all of her life experience very much shaped her. This was a beautiful photo that I found in the view, you know?

That was in Marlaga on my childhood bed. There you go. Or Nate. Um, yeah. She was really, I mean, she was impossibly glamorous.

Yeah, because I find a photo where she didn't make it incredible. No, no. Nine years old, your mother and father split up. The most, as quite well publicized, um, the father had an affair with somebody. And this is actually where the quote that I referenced earlier about trust comes in,

because quite remarkably, reporters were waiting outside of your school to take photos of you and ask questions about your, your father's affair. And the quote that I read in GQ said, this is a quote from you, if I didn't have that lesson, I don't know that I'd be tough. It taught me not to trust anybody.

You can never let your guard down.

And I never really have since that time. Hmm. So that's probably the 25-year-old version of me. As, you know, there's a lot of truth in it.

“And I think certain defense mechanisms we create for ourselves are actually healthy.”

Yeah. Because it was healthy for me not to be trusting before I had honed my own instincts and had learned to understand people and read people. So I think there was nothing wrong with a 25 or 27-year-old with my lived experience answering that way.

But, um, but I do like to understand that. Like every part of me completely understands that reaction to that event at like nine years old. Yeah. I mean, reporters being at your school or just generally, you know,

how that must have been as a kid. Well, there was a level of aggression that like, even today, one exists with the paparazzi that like to be shouting things and like reading quotes from tabloids to me as I'm leaving school. To put this in context, this divorce apparently garnered more headlines

than the OJ Simpson Trail. So that was a lot. The difference is that once I stepped into my home, it was a safe place. You know, unless the tech TVs were blurring, which obviously they weren't

during that period of time.

is you just can't protect them in the same way. Like social media amplifies everything. So while that experience with those reporters was extremely combative and aggressive and like totally unacceptable in a way that I don't think society would allow today,

today it's very much more in children's faces. You know, they can acquire the information they need and obviously when you're young, you're curious. Again, I'm trying to like world-building my head

“because I think understanding the early context helps us understand everybody”

and if that was my early context, I think you'd see the fingerprints on me today. You know? Well, I think we're all, you know, I think about it with my own children. Like I grew up with a lot of privilege and I've lived an extraordinary life.

And, you know, I never worried where my next meal came from.

I never worried about being able to pay for the best school that I was able to get into. And so by so many metrics my life was extremely comfortable and easy. And I do think back, like some of the challenges, the moments that were disgusting or uncomfortable or, you know, even just the fact of my parents' marriage being torn apart.

I think those create the pressure that turns you into who you become. Did you know what it meant at nine years old? Because I get nervous. No, I changed my mind. You know, I probably then you can look things up as easily.

Yeah, you say. So, you know, I don't know what I thought. I think I was probably more scared than anything of, like, the mob and the lights and the surprise of it all. Did you know what them separating them?

Like, did they have a conversation with you and say, "You know, we're spitting up, or was it?" They did.

“And I think the experience I had, I'll be it.”

I was televised.

But it was very much like any other child who's dying,

whose parents are separating. You start to wonder, you know, will I be loved? Will I be forgotten? What does this mean? You want them to get back together?

You're hoping you're trying to create peace between them, rekindle the love. You're all the things that I think are, like, deeply normal and human. And you found out about the divorce by seeing a newspaper

on your way to school one day? Yes. That wasn't the blame. They used to have the big news boxes with the newspapers. So what did it say?

My parents had tapped me down that afternoon. That's when they had attended to, but it had come out in the morning. What did the newspaper say? I don't remember. I remember the photo.

There was a picture of them with a rip down the middle. It was not an easy situation for a child, but that experience.

“I always look for, like, what is the positive in any situation?”

And, you know, the positive for me and my siblings where we really, like, bonded in a different type of light because we were going through it together. It must be so interesting being in your shoes, because, like, mean you're both aware that people

they want to drive a wedge between you and your father. They want to headline. They want you to say something. I can see it within you that you have a real desire to be, like, open and transparent.

But if I was in your shoes, I'd be thinking, like, everyone's trying to trip me out. Everyone's trying to make a headline on me in my life. They want to drive a wedge between me and my father. It's difficult.

It must be difficult. Like, even I think about it as a podcast, a podcast, a podcast gets big. And if I say the wrong line, do you know?

You know, I think one of the things I've learned under moments in my life of tremendous sort of pressure and scrutiny is to, like, find a signal in the noise. And that's probably the thing that has been most helpful to me. It can become quite turbulent.

I find myself sometimes, literally, like, dancing in the eye of the hurricane. I've been many years of my life. But there's a lot of, like, peace within me. So I just don't get distracted by the outside noise.

And I think, if you know what you stand for, then it really is just noise. When did you have to learn this? Because am I right in thinking?

This is the first time that I saw the Trump family.

Don't dream the apprentice. So obviously, you know, growing up is a kid. Big fan of business. We had the UK apprentice, but the US one was much more interesting in my opinion.

So this is when I first understand who your father is. And who you are. What was the sentiment around you as a family at this point? Because again, people can't remember. Hmm.

Pre-vortex. It was the biggest show in the world at one point. It was this massive phenomenon. You know, he had been very famous in sort of New York and in real estate and in business circles.

But this kind of like it expanded awareness of him

So there was a lot of attention and a lot of excitement.

You know, he was very similar to how he is now. He said exactly what he was thinking, which could be polarizing a time. But it's part of what people loved about him.

“I think the thing about my father and my mother is,”

like, deeply authentic. So you can disagree, but there's a certain amount of respect for the candor of it. And the lack of fear to say what you're thinking because so many people are sort of afraid

to be their true selves. You more delicate with your words. Yeah, but I know exactly who I am. That's why the noise doesn't affect me. I'm really proud of the fact that, you know,

I've lived through some incredibly intense times where people are taking cheap shots and swinging and I don't punch back because I don't believe in sort of spending my time and focus, like being combative, like jumping into that particular arena

and the nasty swirl of social media. It's just not for me. And I've been consistent in that my whole life.

And I feel like that sets an amazing example to my children.

Why did you learn that? What is it that you've read? What are the sort of choices? You just have to be yourself. And you have to be true to yourself.

And it's like, I don't allow that noise to distract me. We were talking earlier about stoicism.

“I think Mark is so really as his meditations.”

So informative on so many levels. I mean, here you have somebody who was literally an emperor. And he's writing this journal in a tent in a battlefield. So his perspective is amazing. And he once wrote that the soul becomes died

the color of its thoughts. And I think about that all the time. And the cost to me of living in a way that's inconsistent and not aligned with what feels right, what models the right thing for my children

would feel inherently true to me. It's too expensive. It's too expensive for my soul. So I won't do it. So, you know, there have been times when the incoming

and I say, well, but that isn't right or this isn't right or I want to correct it. And then I say, like, what's the cost of doing it? Throw has another great quote. It's something paraphrasing to the effect of,

you know, the cost of anything as the amount of your life you're willing to exchange for it. I focus on those things that, like, elevate my soul. My joy, my happiness, my connection to the people I love and care about.

Have you always been there?

Because you seem more stoic now. But, you know, I have, like, I'm much more naturally like this. Like, I feel things, like, a lot of things. You've been in a path, right? Oh, for sure.

Okay, yeah, makes sense. So, I have not always been like this. Like, I had to work to be like this. And I had to, I think, mature. And I had to gain confidence.

And it took me a while to really let people in. And I think it was after my children were born that I really experienced a different type of love. Like, cracks you open. And you're never the same.

You know, and you want more of that feeling. Like, I'm very intentional about everything. But I do. Even sitting here today, like, I have zero interest in spending two hours having a conversation with somebody.

I think it's like a bully. Because they get good podcasts. You know, like, I like having conversations with people. I think are interesting and curious. But in business as well.

Like, I'm, you know, I do less things. And I do them with a lot more focus and intention. You've lived an extraordinary life and it's a very anomalous one. But actually, the lesson there about being intentional in every sense of the word, not just with what you do every day.

But also what you let occupy your mind is one that I think everybody listening might drive a lot of value from. Because we live everybody lives on a spectrum of the world cloring at them to deviate from who they are. Some, you know, one end of the spectrum if I take myself back

when I was I next 16 years old. The world, you know, other than my mother telling me she wanted me to be a doctor lawyer or whatever, the world wasn't really pulling me away from myself. But then on the other end of the spectrum, you know,

133 now, you know, every time I have a podcast guest on someone's mad at me and everything I say can be spun and whatever.

“So you also, on this side of the spectrum, you have to get really, really”

clear as you said, I'm like, who you are and what my taste is? Well, I think that's key. Like, if, if you don't know who you are, the mob ones. Oh, 100%. Because they tell you who you are.

Yeah. And then you start to believe it. Once you know who you are, you feel sorry for the people who are like screaming at each other on social media. It takes like a beat to get there.

Like, I think it takes a lot of work to really understand yourself. And I think sometimes modern society, it praises sort of speed and fast pace and, you know, accessibility and being available

themselves? Like, why aren't they connected to something bigger? And they're not taking the time. I take time to shut down and, like, really go inward and ask myself every time I have a big decision, like, what feels right?

And even if it's hard to make a decision, like, whether it's a no or a yes, if it feels aligned with your values and who you are,

like, it never is a mistake ever.

You grew up in the family and a father that are very prominent.

“At some point, do you have to make the decision to become your own person?”

Like, because I was wondering if in that context you, there's a pressure to kind of like be the same person in every regard to believe all the same things, to live the same life, to go the same path is there's some point in your journey where you go, do you know what? I've actually got to figure out, I can see a little smack in the corner of your mouth.

Well, no, I think about it with my own children because as a parent, it's very easy to see them as, you know, a lot of parents, they view their children as extensions of themselves. And I really try not to do that. Like, they are their own people, just like I'm my own person.

Sometimes, in the context of a broader public narrative, everything's sort of co-mingled and related, but we're all our own people. We obviously have conditioning. We have learned behaviors. We have some of which are great,

some of which we spend part of our adulthood unwinding, but we're all fundamentally unique and special. And I work really hard to make sure my kids see themselves, each of them individually, that they know how much I love them, as like perfect, complete human beings.

I love you because of this accomplishment or because of this sort of external validation that you've received because you're sort of perfect as you are and, like, in your essence. So, my parents taught me a lot. A lot. I love them so much. I'm like them in some ways. I'm very dissimilar to them in other ways.

But even though I was like the peacemaker in our house, I was also like very, like true to myself. And they created, and I gave them credit for this. They created an environment where like descent was okay. And so I could agree or disagree and share it with each of them

and do so respectfully and privately. And that was our home. You started off in real estate. You worked in a, sounded like to me you were basically an intern at a different real estate company before moving into the family business.

You know, heavily mill dominated space. Or how did you talk about how actually being a woman in that context proved to be in your mind and advantage of sorts? What is the context that, again, I'm in 2026 right now. So I don't have the perspective of what it was like to be a young woman in the real estate industry

but presuming in New York some sort of 20 years ago.

“Well, I think I was like underestimated twice.”

First being the child of accomplished parents. There was an expectation that I, on one hand, some people thought I was like a savant because I was their child. But most people thought they would be that I would phone it in that I would lack sort of the thought process, the ambition, the preparedness.

So I always worked like twice as hard as everyone else to sort of prove my worth

and prove my ability to to be in these rooms where truthfully, oftentimes I was in them before I was prepared to be in them. So that was, you know, on my mind. But I think being underestimated is not a bad thing. I think it's like a very powerful thing actually.

And it almost always worked to the detriment of the person who underestimated me. So I think if you're somebody who's prepared and somebody underestimate you, we'll guess what they're not. So when you're dealing with people who are extremely accomplished like do the work. No, what you're doing means probably they haven't done the work when they know they're dealing with you.

“And I think as a young woman in real estate, especially, you know,”

there were, there were women in sales and there were women in marketing, but there were very few women in development and construction and finance and acquisitions. And I think I harnessed both in the belief, some of it may be stemming from my own insecurity, but the belief that the people would underestimate me. I harnessed that sort of fear that sentiment and I used it to sort of propel me.

And I used it to give me motivation and drive.

And then I also would use it against the people who underestimate me just because I was always prepared.

I was over-prepared. I always did the work. I heard you described as from people that worked with you at the time,

And in this kind of overlays with what you're saying there, that you're someone who underestimates you. They're actually setting themselves up to be surprised or... Well, I'd prefer to be underestimated than over-estimated and I'd hate to have the week. It can be specifics on what environment that creates for you to then win in a deal.

“I think in negotiation, it's incredibly important to know what the other person wants.”

Sometimes you can learn that through research very frequently though, like you have to listen.

Like you're probably a great negotiator, because you're an incredible listener.

Silence can also be a weapon. People get very uncomfortable in moments of silence and then they start talking. And I think the more you can get a person to share with you what they consider to be a win. The more you can potentially accomplish something where you give... Where you really have a mutual win-win.

I've seen negotiations where you give up very little, but the person feels incredibly happy because it's what they want. Right? Now, when you're dealing with a negotiation that's purely price, that's kind of different. That's a very simple transaction. But very few negotiations are purely that.

You know, one of first and foremost, and a negotiation, like make sure you understand what the other person wants,

because you may be able to give it to them at very little cost and then everyone's happy. And I also think there's a lot of value in like authentically building relationships. So, you know, some of the best deals I ever did were derivatives of really getting to know someone, like authentically and genuinely. And they want you to win, you want them to win. And those are really beautiful types of transactions.

“And, you know, I believe in a lot of the projects I'm working on now are about creating things.”

Like, I like building tangible things. I like creating things that uplift and like solving challenging problems. And you don't do that alone. You do that through partnership. You do that through coalitions of people who share your passion and interest. And that's very rewarding. When you hire people, what are you looking for for your businesses?

Are there? I mean, everyone's got their own hiring bias and it often stems from their past experiences who's bound them in the past. When you're looking to hire someone for one of your organizations or for some of the projects we'll talk about in a second. What are the like the key characteristics? I think, first and foremost, you want someone with a strong sense of self and a strong orientation towards like agency. Like somebody who has agency. It's very hard to teach people, you know, you can have a brilliant person.

But if they don't have like good judgment or if they're not like a self starter, it's very hard to give them that. It's very hard to sort of give them good judgment. And some of it's like street sports, right? We talked before about, you know, how can you both be trustworthy and not be disappointed or burned too often? You have an instinct about a person and you can read a room and that's like EQ skills.

And those are those are a little bit harder to teach. So I look for that. I look for good people at the end of the day. Like, I don't want to do a deal with, I don't want to work with people. I don't enjoy that I don't think are like good people. Because I don't want to spend my time with somebody who I don't trust or who I don't respect.

So that's like really core and fundamental for me. You know, for somebody who's working with me. I actually tell my kids this all the time because I think so much of the outside world is like, impressed me by what you do, like impressed me by what you accomplish. The grades, the trophies, the badges of like external validation and success.

“Our whole life is oriented towards that, the validation that comes from the outside world.”

So like, I always want my kids to know, like, how I'm going to validate them is like, be a good person.

Like, you want to impress me? Like be a good person. Was that the case for you? Because when I look at you? Or when I look at you? Probably not. I look at a Trump family. It should be as next outside. I look like a competition between siblings and even when I think about that. Yeah, I think because we're so competitive and hard.

Yeah, no, I think I think it all like worked out. And we're all, I like to think, you know, my siblings and I grew up with, like, good values. But no, like, we were in a more like, I was like very competitive with my siblings. Like, you know, my mom was, like a disciplinary and there was like a high expectation of, like, performance and success. And when you're in that, when you're calling collect your father, he's residing your great grades to the room of people.

Yeah, no, no, no, that was, that mattered. And it matters to a lot of parents. And by the way, it's not bad, like, having an incredibly high standard.

They're, like, high standard. And, and she didn't, like, humor fools, right? One of the things I'm most proud of, I look at my daughter. And there's no bar I could set for her that the bar she sets for herself is in higher. So, like, I actually view my job as a parent with her is to, like, give her permission to not, like,

to not, like, strive for perfection. You go on to build a business in the jewelry industry and fashion industry. And there was, uh, it was reading about, there was a point in your career where you, uh, but, you know, we're off for the job by Anna win tool. Yeah.

“I've heard. And you, I think your father did kind of want you to go in that direction.”

But you wanted to go in the real estate business direction. She called me actually on the day. I graduated from university. I went to an Oregon School of Business at University of Pennsylvania and she offered me a job at Vogue. And I was, like, incredibly honored and flattered and groggy. Because she called me at eight o'clock in the morning, which calling a college student at eight o'clock in the morning.

You might as well call them at 430 in the morning. You know, like that was. But I was, like, deeply aware from when I was a young girl that, like, I wanted to go into real estate. Life has taken me in different directions. And, and interestingly now,

I'm returning some amazing projects back to my real estate roots.

But I love architecture. I love design. I love it. As an expression of self, you look at a city skyline. And it's an expression of, like, a vision for, um, of hope and optimism. And the amount of courage that took to build each of those buildings. And it's, it's extraordinary.

But you did go into the fine, jewellery at 26 years old, and then in 33, you launched Ivanka Trump.com. And you were in a huge amount of major retailers, including Nordstrom, and even Marcus.

“And that's really also, that's what I knew you first for.”

I knew you for running a fashion business, which was doing exceptionally well. I think from what I read, it was making hundreds of millions of dollars. And then you shut it down. Yeah. Yeah.

It was kind of like lightning in a, a bottle. I caught a moment. So it's still sort of leading the charge at our family real estate business. I'd young children at home, or was just starting to have children when, when I first saw, I just find jewellery ultimately. We ended up having 11 different categories of payroll, footwear, sunglasses, fragrance.

But we created an excessively priced line that was feminine and beautiful. But for like a multidimensional woman, like, at the time when I was coming up, the outfits that women were buying for work were so far from aspirational. And they couldn't transition with the woman to the date night. They would have that evening, or after we're drinks with their girlfriends,

“it was, like, nobody was posting on Instagram, like, what they were wearing to work.”

And so we thought, like, let's bridge the gap and create something for a modern woman. And it caught fire. And it was, how big did it go? An amazing success. We were doing, um, close to 800 million dollars in sales annually.

Um, when I shut it down, when I went into government, it was great. But you were doing 800 million in sales annually when you shut it down. Yeah. What did you shut it down? I went into government.

And you always have to sort of be moving forward.

And I'd built a team of women who were oriented towards forward momentum. And I had to put it on ice. And this was all just part of the rules of complying with the Office of Government and Ethics. So they basically look at everything you have. And they say, sell this, put this into a trust, do this, do that to us.

So you do that. And for my own business, they weren't allowed to use my image. They weren't allowed to grow the business in terms of new accounts or internationally. And that was fine for our enrollment. But at the end of the day, you need, like, growth.

And so I thought it would be easier to end on a high note than to allow the business to sort of stagnate. And I also felt like, for myself, I'm always looking forward. Like, I don't like to look back. And I feel the experience of this new experience. I mean, serving was so expanding.

Most people wouldn't give up an $800 million annual business to go into government.

Why did you? And it's your baby as well, you know, it's like, Yeah, I, you know, I thought about the version of me in 40 years that when asked the question to serve by my father with the time new no one in Washington D.C. At all, said no and just proceeded with life as usual.

And that didn't like sit right with me. So I have no intention of serving. And a few weeks after he won, he asked Jared and me to go with him and sort of help him navigate this new environment.

They're going to come at you hard.

They're probably going to hate you. You're too young. You're too, and he like, "Oh my God." Oh my God. That was like the anti-sale, but, you know, he asked us for help.

And I feel incredibly privileged that he gave us the opportunity to serve a country. We love so much. We hadn't been expecting it. We hadn't set up our lives for it. We were loving the path we were on and the work we were doing.

But you also, you know, can't put your head in the sand. I'd like life had changed as much as I'd like to say. Oh, he wins business as usual. There's no business as usual. Your life has changed.

You didn't choose this though. In fact, you didn't choose most of these things. I look at your life and I go, from a very young age, you've not chosen the context which you've been thrust into, because of your father's ambitions.

And I mean, I can see it in your face that it kind of rings true.

“But I think that's true for all of us, right?”

Some degree, like, our path is determined by our circumstance. I'm not really in the same way. This is a little bit different. I don't know what it is in the presidency. But even from nine years old, you're not choosing to leave school

and have reporters treat you like that. And you're not choosing these other things along the way. And then your father decides he wants to be president of the United States. It's not like he had a political career where he built up slowly. So he woke up one day.

He was drinking water from a fire hose. It was a lot. He cut your teeth on some local election as a family. Have the experience.

The first time he ever ran for office was president anyone.

So it was a radical adjustment period for all of us. Did you think you'd-- Boy, did it. Oh, yeah. I did.

I mean, it was hard to believe myself because everyone was saying that he wouldn't. And I'd say, well, these people probably know what they're talking about, but it felt like he would. And you know, so for me, that time was extraordinary because I really believed, you know, I lived in New York City.

I thought I was surrounded by diverse minds and opinions and perspectives and viewpoints. And I really thought I had sort of a lot of exposure to ideas and his campaign, like ripped it open for me and that I realized like the bubble that I was in. I got out into the country and I heard from people who had very divergent views on a number of issues. Some of it reinforced my existing beliefs.

Other times it completely changed my perspective and orientation. So it was extremely mind-expanding.

“So when you asked, like, oh, why didn't I go back to what I was doing?”

I think like, you know, you get thrown into something and you learn and you grow and you change. And I felt as challenging it was as that moment in my life to, to say, yes, when my father asked us to go help him, I felt like it was an amazing privilege to be able to serve. So.

New York always has a strange energy to it because people start talking about their goals,

fresh starts and new habits, but the reality is that most people carry the same ideas. They had last year into the new year, I'm guilty of that too. And they still don't end up doing anything with them. And I get why starting something new, especially if it's a business or a project is overwhelming. Before you start, you're looking for the perfect moment and to be the perfect version of yourself

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That's pipedrive.com/ceo. I'll see you over there. I watched interviews going back to the 1980s where it sounded like your father was playing with the idea.

“I remember that Oprah interview that subsequently gone viral of him saying that if it got so bad in the US, he would never rule it out totally.”

He thought he would win because he's never gone into anything to lose as I think you said.

And even 1980, in an interview with Rhona Buray, he said maybe I'd run for president, I don't know. Did you have any sense that this was at all on the horizon? Not really. That's interesting. No, it was actually where we discussed things that weren't sort of the normal, how was your day at school?

It was we spoke a lot about real estate and about building and we were going to go into the family business. And I do think he sort of toyed with it in his mind for a while. I do remember once thinking it was real. I was 16 and I was at boarding school and I called him up. I go, oh my God, I read that you're going to run for president.

This is going to ruin my life.

“I think I was like hysterical and he's like, don't worry about it not happening.”

You know, I think he was thinking about the options he was given as a voter and he was dissatisfied. And I think he was beginning to formulate his perspective on what he would do differently. But it was not my childhood that was not an ambition of his that was at least articulated to us. You know, some of the ideas you mentioned that Oprah interview he was talking about trade policy being deeply unfair to American workers. You know, his viewpoint remained consistent over time and remains consistent to this day.

On exactly that about trade policy and many of the things he articulated then are very true from to this day. And then in 2015 when you're 33, my age, you learn two weeks before he announces that he's going to announce that he wants to run for president. I get how do you receive that? Is it like an existential panic? He was together as a family and bed minister and he shared with us his intention and he asked me to introduce him. I said, well, are you really doing this?

Sorry. Are you really going to do this? He was coming down the escalator and I'm trying to introduce him and give this speech.

“I'm like, is he going to get up here and actually it was so quick? But I think, you know, I think he had debated it in his mind for a long time and then when he pulled the trigger, it was full steam.”

Life hasn't been the same since in many respects. No, it hasn't, but it's been, I mean, it's been extraordinary ride. There's been highs and there've been lows, but we've done a lot of living. A lot of living. Of which he's been four years working the White House. Some of your sort of key headline achievements.

I doubling the child tax credit from $1,000 to $2,000 benefiting 40 million Americans with an average of 2.2,000 dollars per year.

Helping secure paid family leave for federal workers, helping pass the great American Outdoors Act, which is one of the largest conservative bills since the National Park System was created. Leading efforts to modernize career and technical education, providing 1.3 billion annually to over 13 million students, and helping to pass my pieces of legislation, combating human trafficking and child exploitation. And then it ended. Hmm. Were you happy at ended?

Because I say it with Michelle Obama, she seemed happy. I left it all in the field. You know, I don't look back and say, Okay, I don't have regrets. Like I worked as hard as I could, and I'm incredibly proud of what I was able to accomplish in those four years, and like I don't regret it in any way. But it's, you know, it's sacrifice to my children, and it's, and it's, it's hard work, you know, so I feel both incredibly privileged for the opportunity.

But also, I don't have what they refer to as Potomac fever. You know, there's some people that once they have the experience of being in those rooms and close to that type of power, they just like hang around the hoop constantly, like cycling back in. I feel like I wasn't expecting to serve in this capacity, at least not at this stage of my life. My father asked me to help him.

We uprooted our lives and went and did just that and scored a lot of wins. I mean, you think about something like the trial tax credit, 40 million American families benefited from that policy.

An average of two thousand four hundred dollars in their pockets.

Nine pieces of human trafficking legislation, the work that I did around vocational education and skills training, which is all the more relevant as we sort of surf the oncoming tsunami that is AI.

You know, the fact that we were able to get the private sector to commit to skilling a reskilling 16 million American workers.

The fact that we were able to facilitate the creation of a million apprenticeship opportunities in the United States. These are deeply meaningful. I'm so proud of my service. I feel deeply honored that he trusted me to pursue these different verticals and to work alongside of him. And I also know that it's really hard and for my children, you know, my first responsibility is to be their mom.

It was true then, as well, of course, and I did the best I could every single day to be everywhere I needed to be.

But my kids are a different age now, and there's a finite period of time before they leave our home.

“I think, you know, I look at my teenage daughter, she's 14, and even if, like, a quarter of my interactions with her through her closed bedroom door, like I need to be present and I need to be there.”

It's not theoretical for me because now I know the sacrifice that they would have to bear the cost to them of if I went back into service. And I'm not willing to let them pay that price. So for me, it's like actually a rather easy decision. I made it immediately, you know, that in this moment I'm where I need to be, it's also a different time. You know, now my father has a deep bench of people raising their hand, who want to help and participate. That wasn't true before.

He's really refined his policies, his beliefs, and has a lot of conviction in terms of what he wants to do.

So I feel like for him, it's amazing. He's got the team he needs.

And for me, I think, you know, my priorities are my family, and that just feels really good and right for me. What weren't you prepared for? I asked the same question to Michelle when she was here about, you know, you get that phone call from me dad and he says, come help. One has a vision of what that might look like, but there's surprises. Michelle talked to me about so many of the things she had no idea would be the case. I wasn't prepared for, you're not prepared for any of that. There's nothing that changed you for the experience.

“And I think one of the things she really is pretty quickly is like, power just like money makes people more of what they already are.”

And you see that very much in playing out in politics and in life, right? I also think you realize people are just people. Like you look at, and I, you know, I had exposure to some of the great leaders of business, and now I was being exposed to leaders on a global stage of countries. Sometimes they were monarchies, other times they were elected democracies, and then all sorts of variants of that, you know, were. And you realize at the end of the day, like, people are people, you know, some of them.

They're, their kids don't speak to them, they got it a fight with their wife that morning. They're, you know, they're just people. And now some of them feel extraordinarily historic. You made a person and say, this person feels consequential.

“Others know of them, you leave and say, I wonder how this person ever got elected to this, you know, high office, but, but I think it, it removes the veil and the mystery and I think it removed from me a lot of.”

Any of like intimidation I may have and like interacting with another human being. Your security situation must have changed quite considerably. I did, yeah. You know, because politics is a dangerous game. I think I've heard something that's being president is the most dangerous job in the world when you look at the fatality rate.

And obviously we've seen political assassinations in this country, even in recent times, but your father was also shot out hitting the ear when he was on the campaign trail more recently. What's that been like? And what does it actually, can you give me any specifics on what that actually means? When you become involved in politics, how does life change from a security perspective? Yeah. I think, well, it changes radically.

Now we're protected by U.S. Secret Service. And I'm so grateful to the men and women who take care of my family, to care of my father, protected him, and risking their own lives to do so. And now do so for me and my children, so very grateful to all of them. But it's scary. We live in very troubling times.

So, you know, I have to acknowledge that reality and to send my family as best I can and make sure they're protected and I'm very fortunate.

The secret service are the best in the world doing that. Well, were you in 2024 in July when you had the news that your father had been shot in the ear? There was an assassination attempt on his life.

“Do you remember where you were? What's that like as a daughter? What are all the feelings and thoughts?”

I was in Bedminster, New Jersey, and there was a lot of commotion and the televisions were on. So I saw it almost immediately, not in my house. I actually don't love watching television. But out by the pool and the bistro, and it was almost real time. It was before he had stood back up that I had seen what was transpiring and two of my children were there.

So, you know, my first reaction was to turn them away.

But it was incredibly difficult. Interestingly, I knew real time in that moment that he was fine. Like I had, I just knew that, like it wasn't his time. So, I was horrified and I was scared and I was protective of my children. But I also, I didn't believe the worst possible outcome had transpired.

I think God. And then God, it hadn't. And then I saw him that night when he came home from the hospital, because he was also staying. That morning he had left from Bedminster. And that evening he returned after he left the hospital.

And just like one, two o'clock in the morning. And Jared and I stayed up and we met his cars. He was pulling in. And I just feel, I feel like just incredibly lucky that he was protected on that day. But, you know, when you can't take things for granted in life. And I've learned that in numerous ways, that being one of them.

When my mom passed prematurely, when my husband had a scare with cancer. You know, all of these challenges that remind you how finite and how precious every moment of this life we live are. Make you realize you just can't take anything for granted. And I think as you move through them and, you know, God willing you're able to.

And we were so fortunate that that day that. But this was a failed attempt to take his life. I'm not a realized one. But you just, I think you, you recommit to sort of love and connection.

“And to a recognition of how short our time here on Earth is and how you have to value it.”

Someone's shooting you dad and trying to kill you dad. This is a quite a difficult question to ask.

But it's like, if most of us will never be able to relate to the fact that.

Members of the public, one are parents to be deceased. And that's the reality of the situation for your father. Someone shot at him was trying to execute him publicly. And I wonder how that, again, doesn't make you negative to the world. Because I don't allow it to.

What is that accomplished? Being negative towards the world. I think that brings more negativity into the world. Even for the person that shot at your father. There's a lot of sickness there.

And I, you know, I think that. Forgiveness is a difficult thing in this regard.

“But I think you have to, um, his living was a blessing.”

So I could look at what happened and be rightfully traumatized by the experience. And nobody could really argue with that. But you have to, you have to move through it.

That he didn't die, that my father's alive.

And that is an extraordinary blessing for me as his daughter. In life you have a choice only and how you respond. And I choose to see the positive outcome that that transpired. And well there. The mind plays out scenarios, right?

The mind plays out the scenario that way he didn't make it. Whether he turned his head in the other direction, the bullet hit him. And you, presumably you've played out that scenario of what, how different life would have been. Well, seeing it on repeat for months on television on the news was certainly like not the easiest thing. And, you know, that's part of why I just, even before it.

And I never loved watching the news.

I'll read the news. But no, I mean, he's here, you know, really felt like a miracle and a blessing. And that's what I focus on. I can see the emotion again in you, which is, again, it's fascinating to me because I've, you know, I've heard, you know, people around you speak about it.

But the emotional toll seems to be more source sort of present in you about that incident than it does about other people that I've heard speak about this. Well, it's my father. He's my father and he almost lost his life that day. But he didn't. And I feel truly grateful for that.

And in this second season of his presidential career, you decide that you want to pursue.

And many other things, many other business developments and real estate developments.

“You step away from politics in 2022, I believe, you're announced that you would not be returning for the third election campaign.”

You said this time around, I'm choosing to prioritize my young children and the private life we're creating as a family. I do not plan to be involved in politics. I do say that on Lexus podcast, politics is a pretty dark world. There's a lot of darkness, a lot of negativity. And it's just really at odds with what feels good to me as a human being. I was thinking this earlier on about 30 minutes ago, thinking your nature, as I've known you, seems to be the antithesis of this type of world, like fame.

Totally true. There's this, like, gladiatorial aspect of it that's just like not for me. I care deeply about policy, about helping people, and I think there's all sorts of ways to do that. And I'm doing that now in the private sector, but I don't like politics, but I do care about policy quite deeply. And I've tried to focus on that element of service.

“And do you feel the need to express, you never do because you don't punch back at the world publicly, which is I think something to be admired.”

And I've learned actually quite a lot from everything you said there about not feeling the need to punch back at the world. It takes training. It like takes real training. I was actually reading recently about the crow. And I thought it was like a great metaphor for life. So crow is like a highly intelligent animal, extraordinarily so in some cases. But it can get aggressive and territorial, and it's one of the only animals that will actually attack an eagle.

Like a crow will go, and just sometimes because it's being territorial, and other times are fun. And the crow will actually like mob the eagle, and it will land on its back, and it will start pecking it. And the eagles response to this, which naturally the eagles, many times over larger than the crow, isn't to like twist and turn, and knock the crow off or defend itself, and then go on the offense. It's just a fly up. And it flies up while the crow continues to like just peck at its back, it flies up and up.

And the crow is not built for high altitude flight. So at a certain point, as the eagle flies up, not expanding any energy in the counter attack, the crow just falls off. It can't sustain the altitude. And I kind of love that analogy for life because you have a choice. You know, you can turn around, you can fight back, probably the eagle would win, or you can just play the game on your own terms.

“And I think about that sometimes, and I thought it was like a brilliant metaphor for dealing with the noise.”

And you trained that muscle? For sure. Because there was a time when I was just confused, I'm like, well, but I didn't even do that. Like, what are you talking about? Like, I don't even know what you're, and then there's a sense of, well, that's unfair. Like, that's an unfair attack, and then you realize, like, a lot of it's unfair, especially in politics.

Like, it's just like a team sport and people attack and, you know, and people also, you know, put you up on a pedestal and you just can't get distracted by either.

Do any of you remember a conversation I had on this podcast with anthropologist Dr. Daniel Lieberman?

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You are very different from your father. Now listen, I know you love your father deeply, and I've watched you in every interview I've ever done to talk to that love.

And I have zero, exactly zero desire to ask you any questions or ask anything that's going to try and drive a wedge or get you to say something that I think is not fair. But the thing I find interesting is that how you make your way in the world, and become your own person, when you do have this derivative noise, that's trying to define you. Through things that you have never even actually done. And I just find that fascinating like how, and life is clearly made to a stoic for this very reason, because you have to deal with, I guess, to some degree, being characterized in a certain way, for actions that you yourself haven't taken.

So one has to become a stoic or else how can one possibly survive? Like, we all deal, I think, on microscopic levels with, like, red in just the eye of the hurricane. Yeah, yeah. I think that, like, I sometimes like feel a lot of gratitude for it, because I think sometimes you keep being taught a lesson until you learn it. And I think as somebody who always wanted peace and harmony, and I think I needed to, like, maybe it took this level of intensity to be like, okay, you know, like, peace and harmony within the context that I can help facilitate, you know,

like, I can't control something so much bigger than that. So sometimes like, maybe that was my medicine, you know, did you get a therapy? Not in my childhood. In actually as an adult, I, I have a lot of friends who are unbelievable, either teachers, professors, therapists, and, and I have, like, a very growth oriented mindset, as you could probably tell, like, I'm always looking to learn about myself and about the world. And so they've provided unbelievable perspective for me over the years. I also think, as I mentioned, there's lots of people watching now who contended with their own struggles, similar to that dealing with the outside world or

“I think therapy can be amazing. I think you have to have the right therapist.”

And somebody who helps you sort of process and move through, I don't think it's like, healthy to linger too long. Like, I think you have to move forward. Did you decide to start seeing a therapist? Um, in my adulthood, like, as an adult. And it was more just as, like, another tool for me in the same way that I meditate. You know, I view it as an opportunity to, like, to do an internal inventory.

Was there a catalyst? There's often a catalyst when I interview people. Something happened. They realized that they needed more tools. You know, I, I think, um, some of the challenges around Jared's health.

And, and then my mother passed. And I wanted to make sure I'm, I'm really good at, like, being tough. And I'm really good at kind of compartmentalizing. So it was more just, like, a check with myself that I was also taking time to, like, you know, sort of, like, look and word and, and, like, nurture myself. So it was not, it was not particularly, like, formal.

“But it was more, you know, and I think when you can speak to people, you trust who are knowledgeable and just make sure you're, like, taking time to, like, really heal and not just move forward.”

You start me as someone that's been a lot of time being tough on the outside.

I'm like tough and super soft. But I've kind of, but that's like where, you know, I have to, like, watch myself from, because my life has always had such intensity.

Like, I can, like, move through things. Like, as sometimes I have to pull myself back and say, like, process. Because I don't believe that you ever put something in a box. I think that thing that you're hiding from yourself is with you every time you make a bad decision. And like, driving the bus, you know, like, it's, you may not be, like, fully conscious of it, but it's, it's like there. So you better unpack it. And as close to real time as possible, I think the better.

You know, in your context, I imagine as well, you can't just offload, like, the average person does in every context. Because there's consequences to that, whether it's trusting people, whether it's the media, trying to get something on you, whatever it might be. And then, you know, you're in a family where, you know, it's important to keep a straight face, especially in public a lot. And I was watching the footage from, you know, people think I'm, like, have, like, a sort of, like, a stoic look and public, I'm very, yeah.

Yeah. But I, but I, but I have to start with you behind the scenes, you do, you have this sort of, but if it's, I caught me in the sense that you're, there's a real, like pure, um, soft, empathetic soul.

“And then it appears to me that life is demanded for the survival in the context you've been in, that you pop a mask on in front of that to keep a straight face and a tough,”

demeanor and to not punch back and to, to suppress that in certain contexts because, frankly, you kind of have to, if you're in the shoes that you've had to fill. And I guess one can keep that, that mask, that tough exterior on too long. Yeah. Well, I think you actually see it with a lot of politicians.

They feel an authentic because they are, you know, they've experienced so much that they, they never allow the mask to slip.

Yeah. I think one of the things that makes my father so unique is how is he so authentic in a world where so few people are, like, in that profession, that realm. And they're like, almost like, you look at, they're, they're, they're robots. The way they speak, the way they interact, the way they engage. Sometimes you see that when you're with them one on one as, as you do, as it comes across, like, an edit bait on a television set.

“So I think there's a balance, like, I don't think you need to be, like, your most vulnerable self in the public, like, why?”

Like, what is, I think you want to be authentic, but I think, like, you should, like, you have to guard things about yourself, about your family. And I think that's, like, healthy and good.

And I do think there is a part of me that's, like, there's never been, like, there's no room for error.

You know, like, even as a child, like, growing up in the public eye, I was always nervous about doing something and embarrassing my parents. And then politics and you have to be perfect. And any slip-up is completely weaponized against you. So you become very careful publicly. I think the mistake, though, is people get confused, and they lose a sense of themselves.

And they bring that into their relationships, like, off the public stage. And I think that's really unfortunate. You mentioned one of the countless moments for you seeking out some sort of more professional support was the death of your mother, 2020, too. Another beautiful photo of her wonderful hair, as well. I'm trying out your cry again.

That's okay. She's extraordinary. She was extraordinary.

You know, I tell myself with my mom, she, like, really lived.

She had fun.

“So she taught me a lot about, just, like, you know, the presence I talk about, about just, like,”

bringing intention to what you do, bringing, sorry. Oh, she, uh, she was very herself, and she was very joyful. And she loved a dance, and she loved a play. And so she lived a good life. It's a really, it's an unbelievably tragic way to lose a parent is suddenly unexpected when they are strong.

I mean, it says a lot that your grandmother, which is her mother, still alive, almost 100 years old, and she lost her life at 70 to falling down the stairs in her room. By the way, I said, my grandmother was 98, she's 99. Wow. Crazy.

It's amazing. Yeah. No, it's very challenging, and, you know, grief is just losing a parent. It's, like, hits different, you know, especially unexpectedly, especially sort of post-COVID, which, like, kind of robbed so many of us of so many years. You know, some, for some people, they sort of sheltered together.

And it actually created connection between generations. And, you know, unfortunately, I was, she was in New York, and I was in Washington. So, there was the, there was distance there, just geographically. But, you know, I really, like, we really, I was telling you before we really keep her memory alive. I really took the time to think about her, not through the eyes of the child,

to idolize her fully, but through the eyes of an adult who saw her clearly. Her strengths, her challenges, and, like, I think about, like, my role as a parent to my own children, is to sort of stand guard against, like, to, to make sure they're exposed to all the elements.

Of her that were amazing, and, and share the stories and remind them.

And also, to, like, kind of, like, a lion, a stand guard against the passing on of, of, you know, challenges she had, and struggles. And, and so I tried to do that with my own family. Have you got grieved properly? Yeah. I think it's no, I think it's super important.

And that's part of the reason I really got introspective.

“I think wherever there's discomfort, that's where you have to go.”

And, you know, I would talk about her and start to cry. Just, like, I'm still doing, but in a different kind of way. You know, like, I was avoiding for a moment, a very short moment, because I recognized it in myself, like, the discomfort. Like, you have to, like, unlock that, and you have to really make the time to think about

and talk about and, and process. On the business side of things, you have started in 2023 throughout, believe it, 41 years old. You could have found a planet harvest with one of your friends, Melissa. Hey, come on.

Inspired by your experiences, creating the US DA's, Farmers to Family's Food Box program during COVID-19. When I look at all that you do, you know,

there's, you're doing this incredible project in Albania

to develop the land there. You are investing in technology companies. You've got this planet harvest project with, which is incredible. And then you've got, you know, a family, which, you know, talk about standing in garden front of them and so on and so forth.

How do you balance all of this stuff? How does one balance it? You don't, like, balance is elusive.

“Like, I think of balance. It's like a scale.”

It's going to tip. You're one child's flu away from, like, complete imbalance, right? Where you get the call from the school nurse and your son has to come home and expect it to be.

Or there's, like, a roadblock and a project you're working on. Or, you know, you can't, striving for balance is not, like, a practical pursuit. I think what I strive for is to live a life that aligns with my priorities.

And I think if you get that right most of the time you're doing pretty well, because balance doesn't work. It's just, like, our lives are too hectic. And there's too much outside of our control to maintain that equilibrium. I'm so curious as to where you've, you know,

I know you've read a lot of stoicism and you read a lot of books. And you've, you've been to therapy, but, you know, you've, you've, you've contended with a lot of businesses and fasting, the real estate projects, all the family stuff, the broader noise. Yeah.

And you've really, much of what I've learned about you is that you've really managed to send to yourself on yourself. You've managed to sort of pull yourself in with the world that pulls all of us out of the world. And it is, is there a particular book you might advise people to read about this or

is that, or does it have life hit them?

“Well, I think, you know, religion for many people provides a beautiful framework.”

Whether it's the Bible, the Torah, the, you know, of, like, be a good person. Like, really, um, live a purpose driven, meaningful life. Uh, so I, I think there's so much wisdom there and I, I think, you know, we talked about the stoics. I think there are some of the great guides.

I also love some of the Eastern philosophies.

Like, I love Latzu and the Tauté Qing is an amazing kind of reminds me of like the,

it's like the similar to the philosophy of Judith Sue around just sort of presence and and not sort of fighting what is, you know, so much of suffering. You know, so much of suffering comes from a rejection of like what is, um, like fighting something that it just disfacked, um, as opposed to sort of, that which is within our control. So I, I'm actually very drawn to sort of Buddhism and Taoism.

And, um, I personally feel, um, like, very alive.

“Like, I think, you look at, if you, if you think back over the last week,”

maybe even the last month or the last day, like, when you were in like a flow state, when you felt, felt most alive, like, that's your medicine. Like, that's, like, you in your essence. But so I try to also, like, put myself in those situations as much as possible. And, um, and make sure to, like, bring that into my life.

I'm fascinated by Planet Harvest, because you could have done so much with the leverage and experience that you have. And you chose to build a business called Planet Harvest, which you can find at PlanetHeifinHarvest.com. That is helping to reduce food waste and creating change for farmers across the country. Why have all the things that you could have aimed at? And I know you're aiming at many at once, but why is Planet Harvest so central to your mission at the moment?

Thank you. I mean, this is truly, like, a mission driven, um, passion and pursuit of mine.

“And I think I told you before that, like, there's nothing better than being obvious by being contrarian.”

And, and that sort of how Planet Harvest was worn, I saw through the COVID pandemic. I got really close to the farmers, because I created this farmer to family food box program that created grants that would enable farmers to sell their perishable produce.

Um, two-third parties, distributors, NGOs, churches, who would then get it to the last mile of needs, ensuring that when people needed food,

the food in the fields wasn't going to waste by being tailed under as we saw in the early days of the pandemic. You know, the supply chain shut down. So the restaurants were closed, the airlines, the hotels. Um, so the farmers had no place to send their food and couldn't afford to take it out of the fields, so we created a grant program to enable that connection. But it really got me, um, very close at a, at a farm level to the farmer and, and their experience, and obviously that was a catastrophic time when there was just zero demands.

But, but I started seeing even an normalized situation, the amount of waste that happens on a food on a, on a, on a field level on the amount of food, beautiful nutritious birthday to food. That's left to rod in the fields while so many communities want for, for that form of nutrition. And, um, and I, I met a woman, um, who's, uh, CEO of the company and we decided to co-found an effort together to utilize this access and create demand for it and, and get it into the ecosystem, supporting the environment, supporting, um, these great American farmers. Like, I'll just give you one example.

I mean, strawberries.

400 million pounds of strawberries every year get left in the field. It's not even taken out and, and given, not because they're in perfect.

It's just a great way to solve a problem, provide incremental revenue for farmers, which is so needed in such a tough business. So, we're really proud of, of the work we're doing there. Beautiful, beautiful cause and the links link below if anyone wants to learn more, um, as many details as they can about the project and ways others can get involved, whether they're retailers or farmers or anyone that's interested in getting involved. A longer we have a closing tradition where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest not knowing who they're leaving it for. And the question that has been left for you. It assumes you are a parent, so thankfully you are.

Um, is if your oldest child came to you and said they wanted to follow in your footsteps, what are the three pieces of advice you would give them that would increase their probability of happiness and success?

Oh, that's a great question, um, I think first and foremost.

That's your oldest? Yes, Aribalah. Aribalah. So what would you say to Aribalah? She says she wants to be an entrepreneur and an investor and... I think first, you have to love it.

“I think especially if you want to be an entrepreneur, like the amount of work and dedication and grind the challenges,”

the responsibility as you build a business for other people's livelihoods, it's enormous and it's... you know this.

I mean, it's... it can be very heavy to carry and I have never seen someone at the peak of their game who doesn't absolutely love what they do.

And I've seen a lot of brilliant people I went to school with many of them who were way smarter than anyone else in the class who... flamed out by going in a direction that they were capable and proficient in without passionate about. So it has to... you have to want it because if you don't somebody who's less... perhaps less capable, perhaps less smart, the work twice as hard and like you can't compete with that. So that's number one. I think number two is...

you can't imitate anyone who have to be yourself. And we've talked a lot about knowing by yourself. But actually, Naval, who's a friend of mine, who's great, he talks about, like us an entrepreneur, the importance of authenticity. And how... it's like... it's the key. Like when you're copying, you're losing. Like you have to be yourself and then nobody can compete with you.

“And so I think you... you have to sort of find yourself be yourself. You can't be derivative of anything else, of course you can learn from others.”

But would you have to blaze your own course and as an entrepreneur building something new? You have to have also, like, a tremendous amount of resilience through that process. And, you know, it's... that's nuanced in and of itself. Because that doesn't mean, like you have to wear blinders and go when you know it's right. But you have to also... I mean, they talk about the famous pivot, right? Like, in dealing with you also have to pivot sometimes, right? So it's not... not to, like, a fault. You have to still be receptive to sort of incoming information.

But for the most part, like, you have to go. And... and I think for a young person, I would tell my daughter, you know, you're going to have to believe in yourself before the world believes in you.

Like, you can't wait for the world to believe in you. Because if you haven't believed in yourself, you'll never get there.

“So you have to start and that's why, like, I love talking. Like, one of the things I've... I've been doing a lot of is investing in technology businesses.”

AI robotics, incredible founders and entrepreneurs doing building generationally defining products. And... and developing these amazing ideas. And I love seeing the belief and the conviction they have in themselves. And sometimes, like, it's, like, their experience doesn't match. Like, their confidence. But, like, you have to start somewhere. And if you don't, like, believe in yourself, you'll never get out of the gate. So, so believe in yourself.

Charge forward. And then when you start putting up some W's and getting some wins, like the rest of the world, may or may not start to believe in you as well. Everyone, good. Thank you. Thank you. [Music]