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Zarna Garg needed a change. After 16 years as a stay-at-home mom, Zarna had lost her own ambitions and knew it wasn’t sustainable. She attempted – and failed at – a long list of businesses before she found her calling as a stand-up comic. She cracks Reshma up with stories about how soccer socks drove her to the brink of madness and shares advice for midlifers looking to make a change in their own lives.

Follow Zarna @zarnagarg on Instagram.

You can follow our host Reshma Saujani @reshmasaujani on Instagram.

Let us know how you’re doing in midlife! You can submit your story to be included in this show at speakpipe.com/midlife

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Transcript

SPEAKERS

Reshma Saujani, Zarna Garg

Reshma Saujani  00:26

Welcome to My So Called Midlife, a podcast where we figure out how to stop just getting through it and start actually living it. I’m Reshma Saujani. If you’ve been listening to the show, you know I talk a lot about being brave, about betting on yourself, even when it feels scary, but let’s be real. We don’t talk enough about how many times you have to fail before that bet actually pays off. Today’s guest, Zarna Garg, she is living proof of that before she even picked up a mic, Zarna had a long list of dreams. She chased and gigs she tried. She went to law school. She ran a matchmaking service, a vegan chili business. Invented a travel toothbrush, and one after the other, they flopped. Every single idea she had, it failed. That’s a lot of closed doors. And here’s the thing, the older we get, it’s scarier to keep trying to break new ones open. It’s easier to just do the safe thing. But Zarna, she didn’t give up. Instead, she made the boldest, most beautiful bet of her life. She bet on herself at 43, years old, after 16 years as a stay at home mom, she signed up for an open mic in the basement of a Mexican restaurant. She only went there because her kids dared her to. She thought she’d bomb prove them wrong, and then they just leave her alone about it. But here’s the thing, to her shock, she crushed that open mic. Today, she’s a professional comedian with over a million Instagram followers, a hit comedy special on Prime Video, and now a brand new book called this American woman, a one in a billion memoir. Folks, buckle up. Get ready to be inspired and get ready to laugh. Here’s the thing. I’m gonna share her with you, because Zarna Garg, she’s my happy place. Anytime I’m feeling a little sad or I’m having a bad day, I just pull her up on Instagram and I just belly laugh like I haven’t laughed before. She is fucking hilarious. You’re welcome.

 

Reshma Saujani  04:26

One of the first things we I like to ask in the beginning is about your midlife mindset. So some people are like, this is the fucking worst part of my life. Like, I want to be 20 again. And some people are like, I’m crushing it. So like, where are you?

 

Zarna Garg  04:40

Crushing it. It’s the best part of my life. There’s no question about it. My kids are older, which Thank you God, because they the baby. Years are hard.

 

Reshma Saujani  04:50

I’m in it. So yes.

 

Zarna Garg  04:51

I know you have young kids, you know, and especially in New York City, it’s not making things easier, let’s just say, and I think your kids are. Also in New York City, right?

 

Reshma Saujani  05:01

Yeah, we’re in New York and they’re five and 10, literally today, like we got into a fight in the morning, and I had a bad mom moment, and I literally took the five year old’s favorite toy and threw it in the diaper pail, like it was a bad fail mom.

 

Zarna Garg  05:15

So we all have them. We all have he’s gonna be fine. That’s the good news. He or she is gonna be fine.

 

Reshma Saujani  05:22

Yeah, he’s gonna.

 

Zarna Garg  05:23

You might have to get over it. You might have as.

 

Reshma Saujani  05:25

I’m like, as soon as we’re finished, I’m gonna, like, run to a school and be like, Mahara, like, I’m so sorry. So, yes, so, right, okay, so your kids are older, so you’re crushing it, and you’re like, this is awesome.

 

Zarna Garg  05:38

Yeah? I mean, I honestly didn’t know that mid life or late life, or any of it was a thing. I’ve just been busy living my life. You know what? I mean, lot of people look at me now and they’re like, Wow, you started late in life. I had no awareness. I was late at anything. The first time I got made aware of it was actually on a CBS Morning News Network when Gayle King said to me, you started your career late in life, and I remember looking at her and thinking I did because I was so busy. I was just living I had my kids, and I was doing my thing for a long time, just being a mom, many, many happy years being a mom and just trying to figure out next steps. It took the time it took, and that’s life.

 

Reshma Saujani  06:20

I want to talk about that because I find what you just said super fascinating. Right? So first of all, like, you’ve had this amazing, really fascinating journey. And I want to, like, talk a little bit about what your life looked like before comedy. And first, I also want to say thank you, because when I’m just in a shit fucking mood, I just go to your Instagram page and, like, laugh my face off and feel better. So everyone who’s listening do the same. Trust me, it will, like, change your life. So you were a stay at home mom for 16 years, yeah, and you worked in law before that. And so first of all, walk me through your journey a little bit.

 

Zarna Garg  06:57

So I, I am a lawyer. I’m licensed to practice in New York City. I’m very bad at it. I like, you don’t know how bad you are at something sometimes, until you start doing like, I was great at law school. I was great at, like, taking the bar and doing all of that. But the actual practice, there was a time when all my clients were in jail. I took that to be a sign. I was in God is throwing a sign? Girl, take it. Take the sign before you end up in jail. I was just generally not good at it. I’ll tell you that it’s in a special Indian mindset where we think there’s only two or three jobs out there, and you follow the path that you think you’ve and no one made me, just to be clear, I’m not a victim of anybody. I kind of thought that was my path, but I didn’t realize until the end of the path, until I started practicing law, that it’s just not my thing.

 

Reshma Saujani  07:51

So it wasn’t the situation where your dad, like, my dad’s like, doctor, lawyer and engineer go. You were like, decide to be a lawyer on your own.

 

Zarna Garg  07:58

Well, I mean, it’s my journey is a little bit different. I actually had a dad who was trying to get me married at 15.

 

Reshma Saujani  08:05

Wow.

 

Zarna Garg  08:06

So he was like, don’t even read. Please don’t read. Women who read get themselves in trouble, get everybody else in trouble. It’s so much easier when the women don’t read don’t have opinions. And in some way, he might not have been wrong, because ignorance is bliss. The more you know, the more infuriated you are with life and with everything around you. So I actually left India because it was either get arranged or find another place to live, because I couldn’t live at home.

 

Reshma Saujani  08:34

So Zarna, you just like, took off and got on a plane and was like.

 

Zarna Garg  08:38

Well, it’s not ever that easy to come to America. You know, even just as a visitor, it’s not that easy as an Indian. But, and it wasn’t like my my mom passed suddenly at when I was 14, and the day after her death, my dad is like, I’m done parenting. I was the youngest of four, and now that I have three kids, believe me, I understand like I really do. Like I never held it against him, because he he was just tired, let’s just say, and he was very much like, you need to get married, and he didn’t see anything wrong with it. Three of my siblings had been arranged early in life and are happily married, so there was nothing wrong in what he was proposing, except I was that person who wanted to learn and wanted to go to school, and actually loved reading and all of it. So I was.

 

Reshma Saujani  09:25

I wanted more.

 

Zarna Garg  09:26

I wanted more. And I was like, I don’t want to get married. And I was heavily influenced by American culture. My sister was living in America at the time, was settled here already, so I used to spend a lot of summers here. So my whole childhood was like coming to America for the summer and being very influenced by American pop culture when no one was, like obsessed with getting married and no one was getting arranged.

 

Reshma Saujani  09:49

Any comedy then, or you were not writing jokes or do nothing.

 

Zarna Garg  09:53

Comedy is five years old in my life.

 

Reshma Saujani  09:55

Okay.

 

Zarna Garg  09:56

The whole journey to comedy is five years old back then, I. Just like, I just want to freaking Read and be left alone to have a millions and I was very politically active in India back in the day. I had, like, this whole idea of, like, you know, Socialist Equality, all the things that kids have, that I had. And he was like, no, no. If you don’t want to get married, you can’t live with me. And I was like, oh, I want to live with you. Anyway, I have so many friends, and I just took off on a whim, thinking that my life would be one big slumber party. When you’re 14. You really think you can, like, just live with your friends, right? And do anything and do just do that. And then after two days of being with my best friend, her mom was like, I think you need to go home.

 

Reshma Saujani  10:47

You’re not living here, no.

 

Zarna Garg  10:49

And then that’s when reality hit. And it was like, wow, what do I do now? But my sister, who lived lives even now in Ohio, was very wanting and willing to take me in to live with her. She knew what I wanted. But like, you know, coming to America, not so easy. No, it took me.

 

Reshma Saujani  11:08

Wow, not easy that either?

 

Zarna Garg  11:09

No, it was never easy. I mean, every immigrant who’s come here, you know, has had to add a journey of how to get here. So it took me about two years of like, couch surfing and figuring out how to make it happen.

 

Reshma Saujani  11:22

So then you go to law, you go to this law firm, law, and you’re like, you’re a shitty lawyer. And you’re like, you don’t like it.

 

Zarna Garg  11:29

Yeah, and also, at that time, then I had, by then, met my husband, and I was like, you know, I’m not good at this. And again, we’re both immigrants. My husband and I with no family really, in New York City. I was like, All right, maybe my best, the best thing I can do to add value is to support him, have the family that I lost, you know, during this whole crazy transition in my life. And, you know, we had kids. And for a long time, I was very happy doing that, but at some point, it started hitting me that, what am I doing? Like, why do you think that point was, Oh, my God, kids travel sports. I remember clearly. I don’t know if your kids play sports, but travel sports is a whole another industrial complex that’s designed to destroy the sanity of mothers. The whole thing,  is a burden placed on women, because if it was just up to men, it would be dead by now. There is no way the fathers are gonna get up every single Saturday and Sunday at 5am and, like, load up their car and drive four hours. But we do it because we want to be perfect. So I remember, and all three of my kids are athletes, because, like, you know, that’s the kind of mom I was. I was gonna crush the mothering thing. And they didn’t just play one sport. They played it all like my daughter was like, she was swimming competitively, she was ice skating, she was a track athlete, she was on the golf team, she was on the flag football team. And I remember, yeah, no, I was crazy. I had nuclear energy, and I was putting it all in the kids. And my son had a soccer game, and in Poughkeepsie, like, two hours north of New York, it was at five, 6am we had to go whatever I took him actually also happened to be the day of Karachi, which, for those who don’t know, it’s a fasting day. So it’s a day when the women are not even drinking water all day. So on my day of karacha, I lower up. Look, I take him to Poughkeepsie, and we show up there and he can’t play because he got the wrong socks. I didn’t get the right green socks. And the coach is like, no, he can’t get on. And I’m begging, I’m like, pleading.

 

Reshma Saujani  13:40

And you’re like, starving and have had no water.

 

Zarna Garg  13:43

Forget that I might die. But like, who cares about that? I’m like, please don’t do this to my son like I’m already an embarrassment, like I was voted the worst snack mom in my son’s soccer team because I brought clementines and almonds and, like, cheese sticks. And people were like, we just wanted donuts. Yeah. Like, we’re the Cheetos of the Dunkin Donuts, exactly. And I thought I was like, I was sitting there peeling one orange at a time as so stupid. Because I thought I was like, gonna one up other so stupid, like, stupid things I’ve done, but the sock tobacco. Then we came back were both crying in the car, because we can’t believe this has happened to us. And I came back, and I started yelling at everybody, like nobody is touching any socks, until it goes through me bag of socks every I thought that was easier than trying to figure out which sock belonged to which sport. So I was like, I will carry the bag with me all day, every day, and they will be in and out. And I said yelling at everybody. My husband took me in my room, like, literally, physically pulled me in, and not in a sexy way at all. And he’s like, what is wrong with you? Like, what is actually wrong with you? You, you enter. This beast mode, and you scare everybody, and like you have all this energy and you’re wasting it on socks. How did this become your life? And I remember thinking, you’re not there. I’m the one who has to deal with it. He’s like, I don’t fucking care. Let him not play any sport. Why did this become our life? And I really had a moment like he was very serious. He’s like, I don’t know if I can live with you, like this.

 

Reshma Saujani  15:27

Wow.

 

Zarna Garg  15:27

You know, and I think he knew that all that we had done to build our life to that point like we were both ambitious people, it wasn’t just him. I had my own ambitions, and somewhere along the way, I became, like, fixated on my kids’ ambitions, and I needed that moment of sitting down and thinking, this is not sustainable, and we can’t get divorced yet because the insurance is not vested. So hang in there, Zarna.

 

Reshma Saujani  15:52

So you’re like, I gotta make a change.

 

Reshma Saujani  21:45

So what’s the first thing you do when you have that realization?

 

Zarna Garg  21:46

I tried, oh, my God, I tried and failed at almost 17 businesses.

 

Reshma Saujani  21:52

Wow.

 

Zarna Garg  21:52

I was like, I don’t want to work for somebody else. It didn’t make financial sense. I’ll be honest with you, we were already bleeding, hemorrhaging money as w2 employees for my husband. You know how it is, everything you make goes to taxes. I was like, great. I add another salary job. What is that going to do for us?

 

Reshma Saujani  22:10

I won’t even pay no more travel, sports, basically, exactly.

 

Zarna Garg  22:13

I won’t even earn enough to pay the help that I need to replace me. Right? So I was like, I’m going to be an entrepreneur. I tried it all. Failed at every.

 

Reshma Saujani  22:23

What was your favorite failed business that you tried to start?

 

Zarna Garg  22:26

Oh my god, I’m gonna tell you, and I might get canceled for it. I was, I’ll tell you the things that were like, kind of benign. I had a travel toothbrush idea based on all my travel sports that flopped on day one. I had a vegan chili. I’m an amazing cook, but I don’t like cooking so. But I had a vegan chili, which I was convinced the world would love. Nobody wanted it. Nobody not one person. And then I was a matchmaker for five minutes.  I can kind of see that nobody talk about a horrible business to be in, because it’s literally the whole business is telling women it’s not too late when it’s actually too late. Oh, like, see, I’m telling you I’m gonna get canceled.

 

Reshma Saujani  23:07

I don’t know well, you, I promise you won’t get canceled. What do you mean by that?

 

Zarna Garg  23:10

But it’s like the whole matchmaking game is that the women don’t like the men who like them, the men don’t like the women who like them. So your whole job is to be the intermediary therapist, but then, because they’re chewing at your brain all day long, then you need a therapist to get through your day. So everything you earn matchmaking, you’re now gonna pass on to your own therapist, because you can’t get through your life with all the destruction that you’ve seen during the day. So I tried, like I was trying everything, and I had a moment of like, I should do something, you know, that I want in this world. And I thought, you know, why isn’t there a big Indian rom com? I love watching movies. We all do. I was like, how hard can it be to write a big Indian rom com? And I taught myself how to write a screenplay straight out of YouTube. I learned everything on YouTube, by the way, for free, because after spending money on two degrees, not one two, I was I’m not, I’m not getting I’m not spending $1 on another degree. God help me. So I did. You know I learned how to write a screenplay, that screenplay that’s the story of my life, ended up winning the top comedy prize in America at Austin Film Festival, which is considered the Writers Festival. It beat out 1000 scripts, and nobody wanted to talk to me, not one agent, because they didn’t know it wasn’t like discrimination, and it wasn’t all that. I was just too much of an unknown entity I would walk into.

 

Reshma Saujani  24:47

You weren’t in the game, and people were like, who the hell are you?

 

Zarna Garg  24:49

Who was she? Because every other writer who even made any cut, like semi final or whatever, they were people who had been doing it for years that others were familiar with.

 

Reshma Saujani  24:59

God, they must. Hated you, like, you just go in there, learn on YouTube and just win the biggest like, win the top comedy God,feature screenplay award in the 2019 Austin film. But like, what the fuck.

 

Zarna Garg  25:10

I know? You know what’s crazy is that the world has always been rooting for me. It’s crazy. I’ve been I’ve been very blessed. I remember when the winner was announced, it was the last award of the night at Austin. And I was like, not at all thinking I will ever win. I was just happy to be in the room, and I didn’t even I was like, zoned out and whatever. I was talking to other people on the table, and the winner got announced, and I still wasn’t focused. But I heard somebody in my earshot say, oh my god, the Indian woman won, and still not knowing I turned around was there’s another Indian woman in here. It didn’t even hit me that it could be me.

 

Reshma Saujani  25:52

Wow.

 

Zarna Garg  25:53

I was so removed from the whole thing, but the world has always been rooting for me. They just didn’t know what to do with me. Yeah. They were like, all right, she’s a sweet Indian auntie. She wrote a story, and I didn’t know how the business worked. I really thought you emailed somebody the script and they make a movie.

 

Reshma Saujani  26:10

So how did you so you win this big thing? Yeah, nobody’s the phone is not ringing afterwards to you. But then, so what are you thinking and what do you do next?

 

Zarna Garg  26:18

So I came home my kids knew I was doing this, and a big part of my life is hanging out with my kids and their friends coming home after school, dinner, you know, the sports, pickup, drop off. And my daughter was like, Mom, all these products and things that you’re trying this is all your thing. Is your stories, because all our friends love hanging out with you. Because no matter where I am, I’m always yelling at kids. I’m not trying to be funny. What has become my comedy act is actually meant to be serious. And you know, if you have an Indian Mom, I’m sure every Indian mom has looked at a non Indian kid and be like, why are you getting a degree in history? What job are you gonna get you know? And I would be ranting constantly. I would be like, I don’t understand, how are you not eating a vegetable? Like we used to have all these non Indian kids come to our house and be like, I don’t eat veggies. And I was like, no, we’re gonna fix this right now.

 

Reshma Saujani  27:16

So when you’re telling your stories, are people laugh. Did you know that you’re like, I’m funny.

 

Zarna Garg  27:21

No. I mean, they were laughing, but I was like, no, no, be scared. I’m trying to be scary. I’m yelling at you. What are you what are we missing here? And they always thought it was funny, and I never thought it was but my daughter was like, Mom, I really think you need to start you need to try stand up comedy. You need to put your voice out there, because no one’s gonna read these pages. And I have learned no one reads anything. Even people who are paid to read don’t actually read. So that kind of and I didn’t think comedy. Who thinks comedy is a job? Not me, right? Ever. Not me. No, right? I’d never even step foot in a comedy club until that’s before that point. No, never, no way. But what had happened is that I had made my kids do so many things they didn’t want to do. At that point. Every kid of mine had to do a sport they hated, had to eat a food. They hated that I couldn’t be the I mean, I am a I’m quite hypocritical. I’m open to admitting that. I mean, I do eat the cake at night when my kids are not watching, even though I don’t let them do it. But even for me, I was like, they’re making me do this. I can’t just be like, I’m not gonna do it. So just to appease them, I showed up at a car, at a at an open mic.

 

Reshma Saujani  28:41

So you all go, so it’s your first open mic experience.

 

Zarna Garg  28:44

I go by myself, a friend of mine. I told my friends that my kids were like, You should do and they were like, you know, we have a friend who runs an open mic on the Upper West Side, and she’s another mom. So it felt like, okay, she’s another mom. Maybe I can do this.

 

Reshma Saujani  29:01

Feel like, if this feels safe, you can do this.

 

Zarna Garg  29:03

So I was like, You know what? I’ll go, I’ll take a selfie, so that my kids know I went, and I’ll come back and I’ll tell them that this was a stupid idea. And let’s move on to the next thing.

 

Reshma Saujani  29:14

The next business. What you know?

 

Zarna Garg  29:17

And I went, not knowing what to expect. You know, basement of a Mexican restaurant, which is where I still work, my favorite club in New York City. And I couldn’t believe what was happening. Like all these people, they opened mic. It was like, why are so many people having fun in the middle of a day working there? I wanted to yell at each one of them. Do you guys not have jobs? And but this was their job. It was like an awakening for me that this is their job, like they’re working and I was already there. So the mom said to me, she said, The woman who was running the club, Felicia, she said, you’re already here. Why don’t you do five minutes on the stage? And I was like, but do what? Because I didn’t have any material. Yeah, and she’s like, just talk about whatever you think is funny. So I got on stage, and I started trashing my mother.

 

Reshma Saujani  30:06

And wait, Zarna, what year is this?

 

Zarna Garg  30:09

2018 for 2018

 

Reshma Saujani  30:12

Yeah, trash your mother with love, right?

 

Zarna Garg  30:13

My thing that’s funny, right? I was like, and people were dying, like, I couldn’t understand what was happening. I do remember thinking like, white people do this, like, this is a paid job, like, what is and I really remember thinking that, am I hearing a click from the universe in my brain? Like, what is going on? And I went home that day thinking, maybe this like still not believing I went home thinking I’ve been so buried under the mom life that maybe there’s 1000s of Indian mom comics, and I just don’t know them, right, it’s possible that they all exist. I don’t know them. So I started doing research, and there’s no one doing this. Not nobody. One person were the first. And I couldn’t believe it. I was like, How is it possible that nobody else is doing this? And then my wheel started setting in motion, that this is a white space, and there is a business to be built here. And I’ve always been obsessed with entrepreneurship. I love reading about other entrepreneurs who’s doing what. And then that night, I started thinking, if this were to be a business, how would I set it up?

 

Reshma Saujani  31:34

This is so fascinating. So it’s not like this is your gift from childhood, your dream from childhood. You want to be a comedian, and you get your lucky shot. This is like, you’re, you know, a stay at home mom. It’s time to pursue something. You’re passionate about entrepreneurship, and you’re like, oh my god, there’s a market here. Like, there is an opportunity here for someone like me, who, clearly, people want to hear my stories, to do something.

 

Zarna Garg  31:59

Yeah. I mean, artists are very hesitant to call themselves business people.

 

Reshma Saujani  32:05

Yeah.

 

Zarna Garg  32:06

But I tell everybody I’m an entrepreneur who became an artist. It’s not the other way around. And because I’m really passionate about women knowing their worth, I talk about money openly and quite frequently, because women and women of a certain age have been taught that you should be ashamed, as if you don’t need money to live like you cannot take your kids kisses to the bank to pay off their mortgage.

 

Reshma Saujani  32:31

Yeah, so you, you kind of get you love the business, so, but I want to take it back so you’re when you do your first open mic and everyone’s laughing, it must have felt pretty damn good.

 

Zarna Garg  32:44

I was angry.

 

Reshma Saujani  32:45

You were angry, why?

 

Zarna Garg  32:48

I have left millions of dollars worth of material on the table. What is happening people you want to buy this? Do you know how many years I’ve been doing this?

 

Reshma Saujani  33:00

Wow, yeah, that’s your first thought. Like, yeah, oh, my God, I should. I should have been doing this sooner.

 

Zarna Garg  33:06

I was like, I can’t. Like, every comic has a very sad base and as just like, maybe all broken misfits. And there was a immediate sadness in my heart that, like, Why did I come to this so late, not not late in life, but like, why did I have to fail at so many things to find it at that point, I wasn’t even thinking about my age. I was just more thinking of all the things that I had tried and failed, like this seat should, in hindsight, should have been the most obvious thing, yeah, but it wasn’t at all.

 

Reshma Saujani  33:41

So putting aside the Indian Auntie piece, but you’re now, you’re an older woman in comedy when there isn’t a lot of older women in midlife or, you know, in comedy at all. How do you navigate that? And why do you think that is because here’s the thing, like our shit is funny, like the things that happen to me on a daily basis is funny, yeah, and it’s also, like, relatable to a lot of people, but there’s no space for us. Like, what do you what do you think that’s about?

 

Zarna Garg  34:06

I think it’s look, it’s it’s many things. It’s one thing to have funny stuff. It’s another to turn it into a skill, and then that skill into a business. Those are big steps I have now helped any number of comics get started, old, young immigrants, non immigrants, with an X you. Anybody reaches out to me? I help them get started. I give them space, stage time, because I feel like I have to pay it forward. They don’t realize how how much hard work is involved. They just think that, because they’re funny, it should just naturally come to them. It’s still a job, it’s still a business. Part of why you don’t see too many older people in general, and not women, women with kids, is because it’s a very difficult weekend and nighttime intensive job. I work till 2am every night.

 

Reshma Saujani  34:58

And you’re out right […]

 

Zarna Garg  35:00

I haven’t taken a vacation in five years, every for five years, every holiday, every long weekend, my kids work with me wherever I am. That’s the only way we can be together. And that’s the price that we have to pay to build this business. That’s the reality of it. So yes, you can be funny, but are you willing to pay all these other prices. Are you willing to do all of this? You know, I remember I got another auntie, like this woman started, and she’s like, it’s a lot of headache involved in comedy. You have to wait, and then you don’t go on till midnight. I was like, Dude, I don’t know a headache free way of making money. Like, I’m I’m in for the grind of it all, and that’s one reason why you won’t see so many moms, so many women in comedy.

 

Reshma Saujani  35:48

Well, that’s like, that’s what I ask you, like, how did you bridge the kind of the world of like, also stand up in motherhood? Because I’ve seen a lot of people now talk about like, pregnancy, right? Like, and make because that’s now, like, a millennial experience that people are are facing. But like, mother, you’ve transcended motherhood, which I think is incredible. Like, I actually can’t think of another comp, right? Like, that’s similar to you, South Asian, not South Asian, right? That is that is doing that in this, in this really kind of funny, relatable way. And I have a lot of like, non moms who watch your content, non Indians who watch your content, right?

 

Zarna Garg  36:24

Yeah, I mean, I enlisted my kids. First of all, I’m all for child labor hashtag, put them to work. I had a moment of like, why am I the only one working? My family has been very supportive, like my husband understands that I put in many, many years supporting his dream, building his I mean, I was like the marketing person for his hedge fund for 10 years. Why I wasn’t even paid. They just love rolling me around at all the meetings. They were like, people love meeting you come with us. They know that I’ve done. I helped my daughter get into college. I helped my son get into college, they know that I’ve really with a lot of integrity, done every job that I signed on for, and now this is where my heart is. So they all kind of came together to help me. So now that I do it, I tell everybody that my kids are not in my business. We are a family business. They’ve been in it with me since day one, and I leveraged everything I could get from them, because, as you know, and you’re such a big champion of women and moms being supported, there’s no real support for moms now in this country, there’s just not. I don’t know if this will ever fix itself. I don’t feel particularly hopeful, but I do feel that one thing, one aspect, of Indian life, is that the children who are the biggest beneficiaries of our sacrifices, can feel a sense of responsibility towards their mother.

 

Reshma Saujani  37:53

I love this.

 

Zarna Garg  37:55

Yes, they should step in without any hesitation. And I’ve taught my kids I’ve made my kids because I don’t think that that’s a big ask. I would not ask them to change their life.

 

Reshma Saujani  38:08

Zarna, how did you do that, though, can you teach me how to do that? Like, how did you teach that value? Like, what was anything practical that you did?

 

Zarna Garg  38:16

Yeah, you have to make the journey fun for them to the extent as possible as they are involved in your life. So let’s say, let’s say, in your case, you’re running this beautiful podcast, highly successful podcast, I would have my son be like, You know what? It’s a long weekend. You’re gonna help me with my podcast. You’re gonna help me do research on this guest, make it fun, and while he’s doing that order in his favorite food or maybe if you do these three things, we go do this event that that otherwise we can’t do it’s always a compromise. Like my kids work with me every long weekend, but then at the end of the long weekend, we do one fun thing as a family, yeah. And it helps that we also like working all of us are workaholics, all five of us, but then we work together, you know? So I try.

 

Reshma Saujani  39:04

And you don’t miss them, because I miss my kids. Yeah, I’m a workaholic. I love, you know, I also love to work, right and then, but then I have this push and pull because I love, I love to be with them. I love being a mom, and so that’s, that’s a good dream for me, you know.

 

Zarna Garg  39:18

You gotta just keep roping them in to little projects that will become bigger projects. Find things that they like to do, you know that you can incorporate as a unit in your business. You’ll see, once you intentionally decide that my kids are going to be a part of this, synergies will keep popping up where you’re like, you know what? Why can’t my son do that? Why can’t my daughter do that?

 

Reshma Saujani  46:46

As we’re talking about this, it feels so easy and seamless. And listen, there are a lot of mid lifers who listen to this and who are terrified of that reinvention. Our stay at home moms can’t even get a part time job, right? So, like, what you’re saying is like, Holy fuck, like, is that? Are you a unicorn? Or is that possible for me?

 

Zarna Garg  47:06

So it’s possible for everybody. If I can do it, anybody can. I like to say that the most extraordinary thing about me is that I’m completely ordinary. I’m not your I’m not your Ivy League educator. I went to University of Akron. It’s a humble college. I went to Case Western Reserve for law school. I was not a top student. I just like to learn. And I get what you’re saying. I get a lot of women in particular, like, I want to do something. I don’t know what to do. And I tell everybody that the answer isn’t reflecting back, what do you already like to do? Because whatever it is that you like to do can probably become a business.

 

Reshma Saujani  47:48

That’s right, you are already telling these stories.

 

Zarna Garg  47:50

Yeah, I went through this long journey of trying to find new things when the answer was already in my backyard.

 

Reshma Saujani  47:57

Powerful.

 

Zarna Garg  47:57

And I tell everybody, if you’re like, obsessive about organizing closets. That’s a job now, that’s something that social media has created so many new opportunities for women.

 

Reshma Saujani  48:09

What do you feel like? What was the major lesson you learned starting your career in your mid life? Like, you know you were saying when you’re on that stage, you’re like, Damn Why didn’t I do this earlier? But is there now a piece of you that’s like, I’m actually grateful at the way everything has worked out, the way it’s worked out timeline wise.

 

Zarna Garg  48:26

I think if you look back at whatever you spent your years doing as experience that built towards it, it’s empowering. Like, I’ll give you an example. I got cast in Kevin Hart’s comedy competition called Lyft comics. This was during the height of the pandemic. I got cast in this thing, and the job was that all of us comics had to drive Lyft cars, you know, Uber Lyft, Lyft, yeah, and pick up passengers and make them laugh. They didn’t know we were comics, but at the end of each journey, they would be asked to rate us, and whoever got rated the highest would win. I remember showing up for this thing and thinking, I am going to wipe the floor with these comics because I’m a mom who’s been driving kids for 15 years. If you can hold the attention of your kids soccer team like one passenger who’s like sitting and actually listening to you should not be hard to do. But what that experience taught me is that I learned to value my experiences as a mother. I don’t need the world to tell me that all those years were of driving around and picking and dropping each kid off safely with all their socks intact, and everything that I did had value. So we have to understand and truly believe that everything that we’re doing is valuable and is leading up to something. And now, every project that I get like I do huge speaking engagements, 15, 20,000 people. They’re all people, they’re all people. And if you’re Indian, you’ve been to a huge, massive wedding where you’re trying to commend their attention from, like, people in five different directions. It’s all the same thing. Like, everything that I’ve done, I try to leverage into what I’m doing.

 

Reshma Saujani  50:15

What do you the world’s kind of fucked up right now. There’s a lot happening, and most people I watch your Instagram are kind of sitting in this moment of, like, perpetual fear that some massive shoes gonna drop and the world’s gonna end, and it often feels like more we’ve needed comedy and to laugh and levity more than ever before. Like, how do you think about that?

 

Zarna Garg  50:39

I think that that’s the aspect that gives me a sense of purpose, because I get recruited for very complex jobs now, like you can’t even believe. In fact, during COVID, I did zoom funerals. There were funerals that they would hire me for because they didn’t want to be sad. They’re like this person would never want us to be crying, and I would have to write, like, a very dark 15 minute set about, like, why it’s a good thing he’s gone and not dealing with this shit show of a universe that we’re left with.

 

Reshma Saujani  51:11

Wow.

 

Zarna Garg  51:11

You know, I get recruited to go visit with people that are, like, in very, very difficult health situations at MSK, these people can’t even leave their rooms, so I get recruited to come in and bring some joy into their lives. Those moments have given me a sense of purpose, like when I sit and think, like, am I really a comic? Like, what am I doing? Those moments remind me, because not only do I get recruited for them, they’re very hard jobs to execute. I can’t think of two people on Earth who can execute those jobs. It has to be a mother. It has to be a mother who has had to have the empathy of mothering for all these years, who has been through the ups and downs of being in a hospital and being through all of it, has to come together with a joke and a punchline to make that moment happen.

 

Reshma Saujani  52:05

Damn, sorry. You make big amount cool and cool and like a badass boss bitch thing.

 

Zarna Garg  52:11

800% it’s like, once we start thinking of all the things we’ve done as mothers, you know, I go into meetings in Hollywood, and you know, Hollywood will be like, don’t send us email now, because we’re entering Oscar weekend. So like now, like, from tomorrow, everybody’s off because they’re all getting their lymphatic drainage massages, because they all look good for Oscar. Think of the mothers we never off.

 

Reshma Saujani  52:35

No, never, no vacation days.

 

Zarna Garg  52:37

In fact, the weekends and holidays are like, double work, because everybody’s home, now I’m like, I’m very aggressive to point out to people. Oh, okay, this is your holiday, not mine.

 

Reshma Saujani  52:49

Yes.

 

Zarna Garg  52:50

I love I’m gonna be working.

 

Reshma Saujani  52:52

Because we always fucking work. All right. So last question, what advice do you have for women who are looking to either pivot their lives with a new career or explore life outside the home in midlife. And I don’t want to just talk about this in the sense of career, because I think for a lot of women, they’re looking for experiences, yeah. Like, I always say, like, as an Indian, right? I’m like, so,  fucking frigid, yeah. I mean, like, and I have so much freaking fear, and there’s so much shit I’ve just have never done, or just are terrified to do like, and I think this is like the moment in life like to do it.

 

Zarna Garg  53:27

Our culture definitely like glamorizes fear. Everything is like, this is bad, this is the thing that liberated me. And I can tell you that it liberated me. Hopefully it liberates your listeners and viewers. Whatever we are afraid of is the least likely to happen. Bad shit is going to happen, but it’s usually the unpredictable stuff. So that’s why we get caught off guard, even today, in 2025 when a tsunami happens, and we’re like but we have all the tools to predict, but yet it’s the one you don’t see coming. So sitting in fear is like not actually helping you, because A, you can’t prevent it, and B, I guarantee you, whatever you’re afraid of is not the crisis you will deal with. You’re going to deal with a different crisis, and you have to have faith that the answer is not in whether you have a solution, the answer is that you are the solution. You will figure it out. Have that faith and free yourself to take chances. Use the fact that everybody is so social media obsessed that they’re looking at themselves. So when you’re rising and falling and failing and all, nobody actually cares. Nobody’s looking nobody cares. So use that.

 

Reshma Saujani  54:43

Well, I can’t wait to read your book, and I can’t wait. So thank you. This was great. Then I was gonna be like, I want to know where your secret shows are, because clearly I’m not on the fucking invite list, and I.

 

Zarna Garg  54:52

No, you gotta come. I’m gonna send you. Will you promise? You promise, absolutely promise.

 

Reshma Saujani  54:57

I’m gonna come find you. Because I’m die. I’m like, little dying to see you live.

 

Zarna Garg  55:01

You will come. You’ll have a blast. I will invite you. Bring all your friends, bring him.

 

Reshma Saujani  55:05

I will.

 

Zarna Garg  55:08

All right, amazing. Thank you so much.

 

Reshma Saujani  55:10

Thank you.

 

Reshma Saujani  55:25

I can’t wait to watch one of Zarna shows live. Be sure to grab her new book, This American Woman, a one in a billion memoir. One last thing, thank you so much for listening to my so called midlife if you haven’t yet, now is a great time to subscribe to Lemonada Premium. You’ll get bonus content like me and Dr Becky talking about making sure we’re taking care of ourselves and not just taking care of others. Just hit the subscribe button on Apple podcast or for all the other podcast apps, head to lemonadapremium.com to subscribe, that’s lemonadapremium.com Thanks, and we’ll be back next week.

 

CREDITS  56:08

I’m your host, Reshma Saujani. Our associate producer is Isaura Aceves, and our senior producer is Kryssy Pease.   This series is Sound Design by Ivan Kuraev. Ivan also composed our theme music and performed it with Ryan Jewell and Karen Waltuck.   Our VP of new content is Rachel Neel.   Special thanks to our development team, Hoja Lopez, Jamela Zarha Williams and Alex McOwen. Executive Producers include me, Reshma Saujani, Stephanie Whittle Wachs and Jessica Cordova Kramer. Series consulting and production support from Katie Cordova. Help others find our show by leaving a rating and writing a review and let us know how you’re doing in midlife. You can submit your story to be included in this show at speakpipe.com/midlife. Follow My So Called Midlife, wherever you get your podcast, or listen ad free on Amazon music with your Prime membership, thanks so much for listening. See you next week, bye.