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John: Welcome to another edition of the Impact Podcast. I’m John Shegerian. This is a super special edition as we’ve got with us today, Sara Jane Ho. She’s an etiquette expert and host of Mind Your Manners, How to Be Your Best Self in Any Situation, which is a Netflix show. It’s now a podcast and also this wonderful book that I’ve read myself. Welcome, Sara Jane, to the Impact Podcast.

Sara Jane Ho: Thank you, John. It’s a pleasure to be here.

John: You know, your self-described miss [inaudible] were the touch of Machiavelli. I mean, I was 14 when I read The Prince, but I still remember The Prince. What does that really mean? Unpack that for us, please.

Sara: I love that you led with that. Not many people do. I’m a playful person and I like to have fun. And I feel there is such a great misconception of etiquette. People think it should be a middle-aged lady wearing a suit with her hair in a bun who’s very strict and unforgiving and rigid and flexible. But actually, to me, etiquette, well, first of always say etiquette is about putting people around you at ease. That’s really the main point of etiquette. And it’s also something to have fun with and it’s a way to get what you want. It’s just about how you go about getting what you want. And I’m no like perfect Miss Goody Two Shoes. I just like everybody else wants to get what they want. And etiquette is a tool.

John: Before we get talking about all your success stories, your book, your Netflix special, your etiquette school in Beijing. Please give us a little bit of your background. Where did you grow up and how did you get on this unbelievably fascinating journey?

Sara: Yeah, I grew up in Hong Kong. I guess you could say I’m third generation Hong Kong. My parents were born there. Actually my grandparents fled from southern China because well, one side fled because of the Japanese, the other side fled because of the communists, fled to Hong Kong. So I grew up in Hong Kong, when I grew up in Hong Kong, it was actually a British colony. Right.

John: [inaudible] in 1997.

Sara: Yeah, and in 1997, it was handed over to China. And so I’ve always seen myself as sort of quite Western, but also very Chinese. And I kind of play to both sides, depending on which works in my favor, depending on who I’m with. And a lot of people who grew up in Hong Kong feel that, too. It’s sort of a blessing and a curse to be between two very different cultures. When I was 14 years old, I came over to the States I went to Exeter, New Hampshire, and I went to boarding school, Phillips Exeter Academy, where I was a year behind Mark Zuckerberg. And then I went off to Georgetown, worked in New York for a little bit, and then went to Harvard Business School. And when I graduated from HBS in 2012, I had my first real sort of entrepreneurial business idea, which was to bring the concept of a Swiss finishing school to China. And so I moved to Beijing, I opened up an etiquette school. Not for kids. It was for adult ladies. I felt like China had, I often say no other country has gone through so much change in such a short amount of time as China. When you think about sort of the industrial revolution, right? That took like a hundred, 150 years to play out. And then, you know, and then in the West you had like the services and technological, all that happened in China in 30, years. So it placed a huge amount of pressure, not just on governments in terms of pollution, overpopulation, all these things, but also on the individual human psyche. And you had people in China who grew up with not very much at all and came into a lot of wealth. But they wanted to know how to navigate the world a little bit more gracefully.

John: Interesting. Now, also after Harvard, you then went to finishing school in Switzerland, right?

Sara: I did. I went to a charming little school called IVP, Institut Villa Pierrefeu. And I think CNN or BBC called it the finishing school that refuses to be finished. Because it’s a dying breed. I mean, back in the day, women couldn’t go to college, right? It wasn’t that long ago that women could not go to university. And so to complete their education, to finish their education, they would go to a finishing school. where they’d learn how to be a hostess, how to throw a dinner party, how to sew Iron Man’s shirt, right? All these sorts of things, which a lot are very outdated, but some I think apply to anybody and everybody, no matter where they’re from or what age you are or what gender you are. And it’s really, again, how to put people around you at ease.

John: So you and I know that we can sit at the kitchen table and write a business plan, in this case, your HBS, your vision and you open up the finishing school in Beijing as an entrepreneur, as a businesswoman. How that go, how the journey go and how is it going now?

Sara: You know, what’s funny is that I actually didn’t write a business plan. I did all the things you probably shouldn’t do. I mean, I had a to do list. I didn’t have a business plan. Also, I had no comparables, no comps, no references before me. I was trying to Google who had etiquette schools in China, which actually was very myopic of me because in China, you don’t even use Google, you use Baidu. Baidu is the Chinese version of Google. So you can see how Western my mindset was. the other thing is that I grew up in Hong Kong and I went to international school. So I grew up in English speaking schools, much more fluent in English. I had a manner in tutor, but you know how it is, you’re not. that great in the language. And I completely forgot that I wanted to start a business in a country where I sucked at that language. Likely, my clients would not speak a word of English. And so I’d have to teach them in a foreign language and run a team in a foreign language. So that didn’t quite hit me until I got to Beijing and I was like, it’s harder than I thought. And my dad who was a little concerned. And he was worried that I was going into paralysis. He was like, you need to get out there and start teaching workshops. By the way, my father was extremely supportive of my decision, my idea. I remember when I told him, I was like, dad, I think I want to move to China and start an open and etiquette school for ladies. Without hesitation, my father said, “China needs it. If there’s anybody who can do it, it’s you. And what is the worst case scenario? In six months, you’ll know if it works out or not. And if it doesn’t, you can go back to doing non-profit.” Which is what I was doing before Harvard Business School. And so he was right. And I was young, I was 24 and I was 26 when I graduated Harvard Business School. And so I thought, okay, well, I’ll go over there. And when I was over there, my dad, you know, he was like, what are you doing? What are you waiting for? Get out there, teach workshop. And I was like, no, like I still haven’t got it right yet. My dad said, you know, your strategy, and actually there’s something that I learned at Harvard Business School. He said, it’s not a defined strategy. Your strategy is an emergent strategy. It will emerge as you go. So there’s some businesses where you kind of wait till the strategy is perfect before you launch. But then there are other businesses like tech businesses where you have version 1.0 and 2.0. And he came over to check up on me because he was a little concerned when he came over with my stepmom. And every time my father’s in town, we would look up an old Mandarin teacher of mine who used to be a professor at Tsinghua University, a very prestigious university in Beijing. And so we were having dinner and she looked at me, she’s like, what are you, why are you in Beijing? And I was trying to tell her my very broken Mandarin, what I was trying to do. I didn’t even know how to say the word etiquette in Mandarin. And she looked at me and she said, your Chinese is not where it needs to be for you to do whatever you’re trying to do. How about this? I’m going to send students from Tsinghua University to your house. You give them free etiquette lessons and they can help you edit your PowerPoint and your teaching notes.

John: Sounds like a good trade to me.

Sara: So for weeks. That’s what, you I had kids, students, you know, these are top students at the top university in Beijing, traipsing over from Hai Dien district down to Sanli Twin, which is where I lived. And I had a white wall and I would project up, you know, how to have British afternoon tea. And that when you eat a scone, you should first spread the strawberry jam followed by the clotted cream. You can imagine the looks I was getting from these kids. They’d never had a scone before in their lives. And so I was like, oh, I was like, am I totally, I mean, am I like off like a whole wrong path here? But you know what? They edited my teaching notes, edit my PowerPoints. And then I did the thing that is the best way to learn the language, rote memorization. So then I spent the next couple of months just memorizing all of my 30 modules of my hostessing course. And you could say British afternoon slide 15. And I just jump in there like a tape recorder.

John: Was that always your superpower of yours, your memory? I wouldn’t say, you it just comes from rote memorization and I always over prepare. Like for Harvard Business School, before that interview, I went online, I found the 30 most asked questions in Harvard Business School interviews. I wrote out, I had like a 10-page board doc with all my answers and I memorized them. And when it came to the actual interview, out of the 10 questions they asked in a half hour interview, there were only two questions that I didn’t already memorize. So I just applied the same thing. to my etiquette school. And then I opened my doors in March of 2013. I remember I was very lucky actually because, so I moved over there in October of 2012. It took me a couple of months to get set up. But sometime in late November, I’d sent out an email to everybody I knew saying, I’m planning on opening an etiquette school and I’m looking for associate partners. So if we can partner in any way, doesn’t matter what you are, what brand, what this, what service you have, I’m looking for work associates. And somehow this got forwarded around. And one day at the end of November, I got a random phone call on my cell phone and it was a young woman speaking Chinese very quickly. And she said, we’re such and such a media outlet, newspaper, I heard you’re teaching etiquette, we want to come and observe your class. And I remember I was in a taxi. I was in a Beijing taxi and it was very rough and noisy. I was like, oh, what’s good? And she said, oh, we’re coming out with an etiquette piece for Christmas. So we want to come in the next two weeks to observe her class. I mean, I’d just done a workshop, but I didn’t quite have another one planned yet. And I was like, sorry, can you say what newspaper outlet you are again? And she said, Zirong Shi Bao. And I was like, sorry, can you say it again? And I was like, I said, could you send text me your email address? And then I can email you, follow up with you by email. Cause I knew the email would have. And it was blah, blah, blah at FT.com. Financial times.

John: Oh, I know what FT is.

Sara: And when I saw that I was like, all right, I’m going to create a workshop. I’m going to like announce a new workshop just for them. And so it was a little bit of kind of, you know, fake it till you make it. But I then announced a workshop. told them, I remember was it was December 4th was the workshop in Beijing. She was like, I’m going to fly down with our chief bureau editor who is Patti Waldmeir. And she was based in Shanghai and the girl calling me was her assistant. And so they flew over and Patti Waldmeir was, she was American, I think. And so they observed the class on December 4th and they spent three hours interviewing me on December 5th, which incidentally was my birthday. And then the piece came out, it was a Christmas weekend piece and it was front page. And when you opened up, it was A3. I think I was, and I hadn’t even officially opened doors yet.

John: And you were off to the races.

Sara: It was a lot of, was a mix of luck and a mix of hustle.

John: Listen, what is it to any entrepreneur that doesn’t give luck its due is not being honest with themselves. Luck has a big place in every success story. You know, right time, right place. So that was one point. Oh, we’re for 12 years out now or so. What is it? What are you on now? Two point oh three point oh and how’s it doing?

Sara: So then I so I opened the Beijing school and then I opened a second school in 2015. So three years afterwards. So I had to Shanghai school and it was it was a villain. The French Concession. And so I was flying back and forth and it was crazy. I mean, it was so busy. I didn’t even have time. I mean. I just lived out of a suitcase permanently because I was also getting requests to travel around mainland China to different cities. And I love it. I love experiencing new cities through my work. So it was a lot of business trips. And then in 2018, 2018, a Singapore based production company called Beach House Productions found me. They just emailed me my info at whatever email and they also have a call and they said, we know we think what you’re doing is kind of interesting. Do you mind if we pitch you as an idea to some streaming platforms? And I said, sure. And lo and behold, they pitched Netflix. Netflix is like, we like it. We want to Americanize it. We want to make it a makeover reality show, kind of like Queer Eye or Meets Marie Kondo. And then COVID hit. We were actually supposed to shoot. January of 2020, but COVID hit China. And then so we were in kind of everything was in limbo. You my business was in limbo because China had these very intense lockdowns and people couldn’t even traveling across provinces was like a 14-day hotel quarantine, which nobody wanted to do. So everybody’s very afraid. My business really, it was tough doing business during that time. And then we ended up shooting the show in Sydney, the Netflix show in Sydney in end of 2021. They managed to get me to Sydney and it was incredible. It was such an amazing experience. It was an incredible crew. It was really amazing. And then it came out 2022. And what I’m most grateful to for the Netflix show is that it allowed me, it gave me the opportunity to pivot back to the US. And I love China. I was in China in the most exciting times, 2012 to, you know, basically for over a decade. But I do feel that for people, it’s like, I wanted to go onto the version 2.0 of myself. And for me, I needed some personal growth. And whether that was a change of scene or a change of something, I don’t know. But what the Netflix show gave me was US opportunities. And so as of a year ago, I then moved to LA and I’m doing more teaching in LA now. Well, not LA, but the whole of the States. But I also launched a feminine care brand made with traditional Chinese medicine. And that’s also, I mean, in my Netflix show, you saw as part of the makeup of my students, I would take them to do traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture, I’d Feng Shui their homes, because I grew up in Hong Kong on herbal remedies. And with Feng Shui masters running around my house since I was like four years old. So it was very natural for me then to, a good friend of mine, my friend Annie, she’s Taiwanese and her family businesses traditional Chinese medicine. She went into early menopause at the age of 35, which led to major vaginal dryness and then vaginal itch. And she tried everything, injections, lasers, this, that, nothing worked until one day she had a vaginal massage with a traditional Chinese medicine cream, a TCM cream. And when she shared this with me, I said, you know what? You’re probably not the only woman going through this. I convinced her to quit her job. At that time, she was president of Diesel Jeans for Asia Pacific. Prior to that, she was CEO of Stella McCartney Asia Pacific. So I convinced her to quit her job, start Antevorta, which is our feminine care brand together. Because for us as international Chinese women, she studied in New Chicago, so she’s a similar background to me. We felt that as international Chinese women, we want to take what makes us healthy and happy from our culture and share it with women around the world. And to create the first global Chinese beauty brand, because you actually can’t think of one. We want to make a Chinese beauty brand and wellness brand that is desirable to women in New York, London and Paris. That is our dream. And so we spent two years formulating this, launched a year ago. And that’s also why I now spend a lot of time in LA pushing the brand forwards. We got greenlit for QVC. So you’re going to see me on air this month.

John: Wow, congratulations.

Sara: Thank you.

John: So where’s Annie now? Where does Annie live or work from? And you work from LA. Where she works from where?

Sara: She’s in Taiwan, because that’s where all our factories and formulations are.

John: Right. There’s a couple of things I want to go back to. First of all, when you launched Antevorta, did you write a business plan for that?

Sara: Yeah. And by the way, in between Antevorta and that, I also launched like launching three or four other businesses, which I also wrote business plans for. And some I maybe just ran for a year, some never took off. But between the successes, there are lots of failures.

John: But that’s a great entrepreneur that doesn’t let the failures get in the way. When you talk to the greatest coaches in all of NFL or NBA history, you ask what happened about that bad play or the bad game you just played. And all they just say is next play, next game. That’s all they’re thinking about. They’re not looking back. They’re looking forward. So we’re to have all these links, by the way, in our show notes, besides Sara Jane Ho’s only www.sarahwithoutanhjaneho.com. But Antevorta, the Netflix special, and of course, this great book, which we’re going to get to in a second. All right, before we get talking about Antevorta, which I want to talk a little bit about more, because that makes so much sense. Because if you think about the greatest beauty products coming from Japan and South Korea, why would it now China follow? Why would it China follow?

Sara: Yeah, you know, it’s interesting. Western medicine is about fixing symptoms, but there’s always some side effect.

John: Right.

Sara: And Chinese medicine is about prevention. And for us Chinese, the way we live, like food, we see food as medicine. So even actually right now, what I’m drinking, you can see it kind of looks like a tea, but I make this every morning and I put it in my rice cooker. I have ginger, sliced ginger, red dates and goji berries. and I boil it for half an hour and I drink it every single morning. And it’s good for my feminine health. It’s just good for my overall health. It’s good for my energy because of ginger. [crosstalk]. That’s why I drink this Soho Grand Hotel mug.

John: Let’s go back to etiquette. So you’re now doing some of your consulting and etiquette practice here in the United States. while you’re also partnered with Antevorta. Let’s go back to etiquette. You know, it seems as though there’s been an erosion of etiquette in so many ways nowadays. So if I was to ask you, what’s your biggest etiquette crime or no-no? Because I have a couple, you know, and I want to hear yours first.

Sara: Oh, yeah. Clipping nails in public.

John: Oh, my gosh. That’s so bad.

Sara: The pet peeve.

John: On every level. There’s only two places that nails should be clipped, either in your own bathroom or in a nail salon.

Sara: Yeah, exactly. Not even in your living room. if somebody is- No, it’s terrible.

John: Because then the nails end up all over the place and you don’t know where.

Sara: Yep.

John: How about public restroom stall, someone brings a phone in and is talking at full level in a public restroom stall.

Sara: And it’s also incredibly unhygienic and disgusting. You know, for me, whenever I go into pub, before I go into public restrooms, I actually put my face mask on.

John: That’s so smart.

Sara: And even on the airplane, like on when I go into a restroom on the airplane, fish out my mask, put it on, and then I go in.

John: There’s actually science behind that. There’s huge science behind that.

Sara: And especially after COVID, when everybody realized flushing the toilet. So now, I always flush with the lid closed.

John: Those are two social situations, business situation. How about people who ask for a Zoom or Teams call and then are off camera? What is that? Why are we doing this?

Sara: You’d be surprised, a lot of journalists that I give interviews to do that. They send me the thing, but have camera off. I always make sure I’m camera ready. Unless it’s really early, I do a lot of 5 a.m. calls because I have to work with Asia.

John: Got it.

Sara: But I always say, so, you know, it’s quite early over here, so I’m going to be camera off.

John: I got it.

Sara: But no, I have worse pet peeves than that. I over apologizing. I really do not like it when somebody over apologizes. When they’re like, oh, I’m so sorry. It’s like, stop. Gain some self-confidence. Like, stop putting yourself down by over apologizing.

John: Flip flops on a plane.

Sara: Yeah.

John: [inaudible] sleep. Come on. So anyway. Talk a little, give us a couple of great greatest hits, actionable items. One of the biggest things now is cell phones. I tell everyone who works with me, colleagues, no cell phone on the table, whether you’re at a meal or whether you’re in a business meeting, it just shows you care less about the people you’re with. Is that true? Is that the way to go now?

Sara: Well, so I always say etiquette is contextual. And John, you did tell me you’re 62, which means you’re a boomer. And boomers generally have more respect and manners for other people than like, millennials or Gen Z or the younger kids. So I always say, if I’m with older people and I see no phones on the table, my phone is tucked away. But if I’m with young kids and everybody’s phone is on the table, I don’t mind. I’ll put my phone on the table too, because I know that they won’t be offended.

John: Got it. Tipping. Tipping has become this big controversy. How much, how often, and to whom? Again, I know etiquette is contextual. Give us some of the greater best advice on tipping right now. State of the art.

Sara: Yeah, you know, it’s funny. actually recently about a month ago, changed my mind about tipping. So I always, you know, at restaurants, I grew up in Asia and Asia, we don’t tip. And in China, if you tip, it’s actually offensive. It’s offensive to the waiter if you tip because they’re like, are you saying, you know. It’s like disrespectful. And so it’s very different from the states. And by the way, in the states, tipping came out of slavery. Let’s not forget that.

John: Really.

Sara: Yes, because I recently looked into it because I’d done an Instagram real on tipping and got a lot of engagement. And then somebody had left that as a comment. So I looked into it. And it was a way to underpay black people who were recently emancipated.

John: Wait a second. I thought tipping stood for to ensure promptness. Am I incorrect on that?

Sara: That’s like your 21st century. So it originated from out of, you really like abusing recently freed slaves. You know, in America, I remember when I first came over here when I was 14 and I took a cab ride, I think it was like Boston to my school or something and it was expensive. And I was like, I have to be 20% on top of this. I was like 14 and I did it. And I got yelled at by the cab driver and I was shocked because I didn’t know about tipping culture. It was my first time living in America. And now of course I know, and I always give like the 20% at a restaurant, whatever the minimum is and your cabbies, cetera. But then the recent controversy is around tipping for takeout. And that’s got a lot of people very peeved. They’re like, I’m getting a coffee. How come there’s an option for me to give 20%, 25%, 30% tip on top of my take out of my, you $5 coffee. So that gets people really riled up. You know what, so for me, if it’s someplace that I’m familiar with, where I know the people, it’s my neighborhood joint, they say, you know, they say good morning to me every day. Like I give them a tip, but if it’s, you know, somewhere I’m passing through, if I’m at the airport, whatever, then I don’t necessarily, it really depends on my mood too. But recently I actually, even for the takeout ones, I always tip and I tip generously and because I feel that it’s actually a mindset thing. Like if you get into a mindset of like abundance and there’s enough abundance in the world to go around.

John: That’s right. It’s not a zero-sum game. Yeah, it’s not a zero-sum game. Even if the service is a little bit wonky, still go with the 20%. If it’s super good, go with more. But is that is that correct?

Sara: I kind of just do a flat. Unless it’s, you know, again, like some place that I really love going to, like a friend’s restaurant, then always. If I know the owner and they gift, you know, they gave me a dessert or whatever, then I’ll maybe go over, but I just stick to 20%.

John: Etiquette equals social fluency. Explain.

Sara: Yeah. There’s something called reading the air that I talk about in my etiquette book. It’s a Japanese, from a Japanese phrase. I guess you could call it a vibe check in America.

John: But actually, we just say reading the room in America.

Sara: Yeah, reading the room. Reading the room. it’s when you go into a situation and you see, you can feel the energy, you can feel the vibes. And it’s takes a sense of self-awareness and sensitive sensitivity to be able to read other people’s energy. And so to me, social fluency, it’s really about being able to move between cultures and move between social groups with great ease.

John: So you’re a global citizen, obviously, you’ve lived all around the world and still live all around the world, but you like to talk about living locally and living like a native, even though you’re a global citizen?

Sara: Yeah. When I grew up, my mother’s biggest motto was live like a local. And it didn’t matter where we were, if we were on vacation or had a question or this. My mother would say, what would a local do? Live like a local. And so I always just, because actually I lived in Papua New Guinea in the UK and Hong Kong and extra New Hampshire all before the age of 14. And so I think because of that, like my parents were very unusual Hong Kong parents. so, you know, my parents would say, oh, you want to love Mandarin? Okay, we’re going to send you to Beijing. So that at least even if your vocab sucks, your accent is very on point. Same thing when I studied French and German. My dad was like, oh, we’re about to send you to German Swiss International School in Hong Kong. We’re going to spend the summer in Germany. So I was 10 years old and they sent me off on German camp on my own to Germany.

John: I mean, but your parents sort of set the set the how do we say this the right way. They set the table for the large life that you’re living because they really did a boss move before you were born. They flew over to the United States and little-known secret. You are American born.

Sara: Yeah, I am. I yeah, and I’m very comfortable in in the US and in China.

John: You’re comfortable wherever you go, it seems like I think the UK too. Right?

Sara: Absolutely. And Europe and you know, my husband doesn’t speak a word of English. So in China, I’ve gone native. My favorite course in Georgetown was anthropology. I wish I majored in anthropology. I waited until senior year. before I took an anthropology course. And I realized like it was my whole life.

John: But you’re a cultural, you are a cultural anthropologist anyway.

Sara: Yes, I guess you could say that.

John: But it’s so funny, your husband doesn’t speak a word of English, but I’ve heard you speak before on podcasts or other places that you’re actually learning or have learned the dialect of Chinese that where he’s from.

Sara: Yeah. So, you know, I moved to China in 2012 and, I didn’t have a tutor. I mean, I just kind of threw myself in because I had rote memorization. I was doing immersion every day, right? My team didn’t speak English. My clients didn’t speak English. And even my girlfriends there, even if they studied in London or studied in the States, they don’t speak English when they’re back home. Everything’s a Mandarin. And because I was very open-minded and I love speaking with different people, I was learning very quickly. So people who would see me every three to four months, their first reaction would be like, oh my gosh, your Mandarin has improved so much. Like they could see that improvement. And obviously dating, know, what better way to experience like local culture than to date local people? And I was always being set up by even my etiquette students would like set me up with their brother-in-laws or whatever. And they didn’t speak English either. So it’s just quite funny. And my accent, very quickly, I’d say maybe four or five years in. If I met new people in mainland China, they wouldn’t believe that I didn’t grow up in mainland China because they would say your Mandarin is too good. And usually Hong Kong people, when they speak Mandarin, they have a terrible accent. It’s like, I mean, it just sounds awful. Like you can tell somebody’s from Hong Kong when they speak Mandarin. And they’d be like, there’s no way that your Mandarin is this good. But once they met my parents, they’d be like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. She’s from Hong Kong because her parents Mandarin is so bad.

John: Oh, my gosh. So wait a second. Okay, so now let’s go back to. Antevorta, you launch Antevorta. You already have the Netflix show. You already have there it is. And what does the Antevorta mean, by the way?

Sara: It means goddess of the future in Roman mythology. We wanted a name that would transcend borders and show women of a brighter future to come that the future is in your own hands, really.

John: How’s it going? When you wrote the business plan numerous times with Amy, is it going to plan or where did it make twists and turns? Is it doing better a year into it than you thought it would be? Or where are you in the journey? Let’s just say that.

Sara: John, nothing ever goes as planned.

John: Back to my license code, right?

Sara: And your plan is only as good as the flexibility built into it.

John: That’s really so true. You know, one thing, when they talk, know, of course, know, Malcolm Gladwell, the 10,000 hour rule. But when you really study the great ones, I’ll use sports as an analogy, because I’m a sports guy. So if you look at Brady, Jordan, any of the great ones in any sport, when they talk about what makes them great, it comes down to two words, pattern recognition. So when I think about you and everything you’ve done, you know, in a very young life. You’ve exhibited a lot of bravery and courage in what you’ve done. And you’ve put yourself in the position where you’ve done things over and over again in terms of social fluency, in terms of meeting people, being in strange lands that you make them native to your own is part of great social fluency, pattern recognition. So reading the room comes from forcing yourself to be in the room to start with. And therefore, you just get better at it as you do it and as you actually practice it.

Sara: Absolutely. You want to put yourself in uncomfortable situations, not like that are in your danger, but where you’re meeting people who are really different from you. Whether it’s people from different countries or different industries, right? You feel like, I know nothing about this industry. I maybe shouldn’t go to that event because I won’t have anything to talk about. No, actually, you should go because then you have something to learn about. You know, my husband’s a bit older than me, and so I meet his friends who are much older. And then I also am friends with my husband’s friends’ kids as well. So it’s really funny. And they see me as kind of like, they see me as one of them as well. I remember when I shot my Netflix show in Sydney, and I actually think I had this as an anecdote in my etiquette book. I was 35 when I was shooting my Netflix show in Sydney. And after we wrapped, one of my Chinese girlfriends, she was like, oh, look at my brother. He’s throwing a party in Sydney, their beautiful home. And so I went and it was like his graduation party for college. They were all like 21 year old boys and some of their girlfriends. And I was literally just there shooting the shit with them. And then I was also like hanging out with the girlfriends. And then I think it was only like near the end of the party where they were talking about age. And they asked me, you know, and then I kind of let on that I was 35 and they were all in disbelief. They were like, oh my God, we thought, we don’t feel that you’re like, you know, that much older.

John: I stumbled into it. I didn’t do it as part of a plan or anything like this, but you seem to have mastered the art of up and down. I call it the art of up and down in that you have friends and relationships from teenagers to people in their 70s and 80s and every decade in between. Doesn’t that make for a richer career and a richer life as a whole and also keep you better informed and more relevant to start with?

Sara: Yeah, absolutely. And I’m a curious person by nature. I’m a Sagittarius. So I’m also very social by nature. And the way my parents raised me was that you have something to learn from everybody.

John: That’s right.

Sara: Yeah, it doesn’t matter who they are. you have something to learn from everybody because you haven’t had their life experience.

John: And also you can learn what to do. And sometimes from people, you learn what not to do.

Sara: Exactly.

John: So if you and Annie are on the phone today, talk about what you’re talking about. Like where is the Antevorta right now in terms of its scaling? Because one year is still very young. It’s a startup still.

Sara: We’re a young brand, yeah. And we were on the phone right before I was on the phone with you.

John: Awesome.

Sara: So I was the phone every day. Well, tariffs and how we should speed up production. Because right now there’s a grace period for tariffs. Our products are made in Taiwan, which is actually considered the Taiwan has maintained a lot of the most traditional Chinese medicine formulations. But, you know, it’s very friendly with America, but even friends were not exempt from, you know, being like given extra tariffs. So now there’s a grace period. We were talking about going into production immediately to create more so that we can import more. Before who knows what happens. So we were balancing the budget and trying to figure out production and supply chain and all of this and how to, you know, sort of streamline our logistics. She runs operations. I’m more like media and marketing.

John: Right. Where’s the sales? Where’s the heat coming from? US? Is it coming from China? It’s coming from-

Sara: We’re selling in the US.

John: US, got it.

Sara: We also ship to about seven or eight other countries. But our focus is the US because I’m also here in the US.

John: Are we allowed to talk about the announcement that we talked about here about the next round of sales?

Sara: Yeah. When are you airing?

John: We’ll air when you want us to air. We’ll get it out whenever you want. You know, we’re here to support.

Sara: Yeah, I think I will be on air on May 30th for QVC.

John: How exciting.

Sara: Thank you. The QVC audience is a 55-year-old female. So she’s a menopause, right? And what’s interesting with our product is that menopause is having a huge moment right now. And vaginal dryness and vaginal odor are two of the 34 or more symptoms of menopause. I’m a millennial, I’m a mature millennial, so is Annie. We initially thought it would just be for other girls kind of our age, but then when the customer data came in, we saw, wow, 70% of our customers are over the age of 45. 55% are over the age of 55. And at the same time, As all this menopause, you know, Oprah doing her menopause show, all these Naomi wants saying how she went into menopause at the age of 37, Halle Berry talking about her vaginal atrophy on Trevor Noah’s podcast and how it was vaginal atrophy from menopause and how it misdiagnosed as herpes. Okay, so literally this flooded information is coming and I’m actually, I feel very lucky and grateful that I’m being educated on all this as we’re doing the brand. And we’re realizing that, our customer is really a menopausal customer. And she’s been massively underserved and silenced and stigmatized. Menopause is two chapters in medical school. So a lot of even OBGYNs, they don’t know enough about menopause.

John: Isn’t menopause, it seems like, I have a daughter that’s your age and I have a granddaughter. It seems as though menopause, young ladies are starting their period earlier and actually starting menopause earlier than ever before.

Sara: Absolutely. And it’s kind of scary. I mean, my generation, we all got our periods at 13 or 14. Now the girls are getting their periods at 11, 10, 11. And then there’s, our lifestyles are very unhealthy now, right? There are all these stresses that are bringing on early menopause. And even a lot of my girlfriends who are my age, like in our late 30s, one of my girlfriends just the other day was like, you know what? I woke up just sweating like crazy the other night. And I was like, was it a week before your period? Because if it’s a week before your period, that’s a night’s sweat.

John: Right. Acupuncture. I know you’re a big fan. My daughter couldn’t get pregnant, started doing acupuncture, has two children now. TCM has a rooted history in women’s health and reproductive and everything else, correct?

Sara: Yeah. And that’s why when you asked me, do I drink my drinks hot or cold, right? Only hot. And that’s also for feminine health. It’s very important. Your uterus is very important. In fact, in TCM, we say that a woman’s health begins in her feminine health. Like your period is a report card of your health. Are you regular? Have your light flow? Do you have cramps? Are there blood clots? All these things point to your feminine health and your uterus, you want your uterus to stay warm. That’s why you want to drink cooked, drink hot foods, cooked drinks. The last thing you want to do is bear your belly, like, especially if you’re pregnant, you know, like Rihanna, she bears her pregnant bell. Like in TCM, we’re like, oh my God, that’s the worst thing you can do for your uterus and for your feminine health. So we always like keep that warm. And in fact, a lot of Chinese women, it comes around to their period, they have a hot water bottle and they put it on their abdomen to keep the uterus warm. And that’s why I recently did a couple Instagram reels that went viral, like why Chinese people don’t eat raw salads. We don’t drink cold drinks. And, you know, listen, like it’s not all or nothing, right? I like to follow the 80-20 rule. Like I like to have an ice cream maybe like every couple of months. But I always make sure that I follow it by drinking hot water.

John: Wow. That is interesting. And for men as well, drinking cold drinks is not good. It’s very bad for the pancreas and liver. Thank you for speaking.

Sara: Yeah, actually for your digestion. You know what? The three reasons that Americans do acupuncture, the three biggest reasons, fertility, digestion and mental health. And so fertility, you know, your daughter, I mean, almost everybody I know somebody who did acupuncture work for their fertility. For digestion, if you’re feeling like you can’t poop, you place the needles in like a couple of needles in the stomach in specific points. As soon as you get off the acupuncture table, you’re running to bathroom to poop, like if it’s a good acupuncturist. But why even do that when all you need to do, just drink, if you’re clogged up, drink hot water for three days.

John: That’s so true. I mean, and that’s, that seems to be more of a woman problem than a man problem being constipated. So I would assume that that really helps.

Sara: It’s both.

John: You’re right. It’s both.

Sara: And then mental health is where you put needles. If you can’t sleep, you have insomnia or anxiety, you put needles in the head.

John: I have my acupuncturist do that. Needles in the head are like a must on every visit. Let’s just hope, common sense is going to prevail with tariffs. China and US are meeting this week. Let’s get beyond that. And you’re going to be on QVC. What’s you and Annie’s hope and dream? Where is this one? When I have you back on the show three years from now, where’s Antevorta?

Sara: My dream is that every woman has Antevorta on her bathroom cabinet.

John: Okay, that’s great.

Sara: Whether it’s our wash, our wipes or our sprays. Because our products don’t have to be just used for the vulva. Our customers love to use a body wash or even a face wash. And we are so clean. There’s an app called Yuka, where you scan the barcodes and check the safety ingredients. We’re 93% on Yuka. We’re one of the cleanest feminine care brands out there. By the way, like for 60% on Yuka, it’s considered good. We’re 93%.

John: I eat most of the time plant based 80 percent, 85 percent of the time. I know your Antevorta is also vegan, too, right?

Sara: Yeah, we’re vegan. And a lot of people with very sensitive skin, if they have psoriasis or eczema or reactions to this and that, they end up using. Antevorta over their whole body because it just works for them.

John: What was the aha moment to writing this wonderful book here? Mind your matters, everyone should buy this book. We’ll give a link. Obviously on your website, these links, sarajaneho.com, Sara without an H, but this book is just an amazing book. I learned so much from it. I grew up reading Judith Martin and Emily Post. Where was your aha moment? Were you happy with the finished product? This is just, I figure, an amazing book.

Sara: Well, you know, in 2022, 25 million people, the whole city of Shanghai, were put into lockdown. I don’t know if you read about that. It made a lot of headlines.

John: Of course.

Sara: It was supposed to be a four-day lockdown, ended up being a 60-day lockdown. And I already knew in the very beginning, I was like, this doesn’t feel right. I was in my apartment, very bored, very frustrated and kind of emotional. But then I thought, you know what? I’m going to turn lemons into lemonade. What is it I can do right now? So in 60 days, I wrote a 60-page book proposal. found myself a literary agent in New York City. Jill Grinberg, she’s amazing. I found myself a ghostwriter, Dorn Dursley, she’s amazing. And we put together 60 pages. And by the end of that, I had a advanced book deal.

John: I already told you before we went on air how much I love this book and how much I learned that I’m buying. I want at least 24 of these to give away as gifts, not only to our listeners and viewers, but to friends and family, because everyone can learn to have better social fluency. This book’s just amazing and wonderful. You’ve recently launched a podcast, Mind Your Matters. It was launched about April 8th. I think you’ve had five episodes. I think I’m your number one fan. I’ve listened to four of them already, actually four and a half. Talk about that. Do you enjoy being on the other side of the microphone?

Sara: Thank you. Thank you, John. I actually really do. You know, podcasting is something that I’d thought about for a while. And it’s also partly why I moved to LA, because I wanted to push the podcast project forward. I’ve always just loved conversing with people and learning about their worlds and being able to do it in a podcast format and to share it with my audience is really powerful. I think also what I didn’t anticipate was how transformative doing a podcast has been for me in terms of my personal growth. We have some really interesting guests coming up. We have an expert on grief. She lost his son to suicide. And I lost my late mother to cancer. And even just prepping that outline and, you know, thinking about it like it’s actually very healing for me. So, you know, we’ll see where the podcast goes. So far, it’s been pretty well received and I absolutely love doing it.

John: It deserves to be well received. It’s a great podcast. I’m 62. I don’t think I was your demographic when you launched the podcast. I will be listening to the podcast. There’ll be we’ll have a link in our show notes to the podcast as well. I think it’s amazing because I think you’re a great interviewer, but you’re covering topics that aren’t typically covered. I loved your episode on gray hair. I mean, who doesn’t worry about gray hair? You know, and I loved your episode with Jefferson Fisher. They’re all great episodes. Those are two of my favorite out of your five so far.

Sara: Well, make sure you check out the new one, which is staying true to you in the age of cancel culture. That just dropped yesterday and with a TikTok star who was canceled multiple times.

John: I was in the hyperbaric tank this morning and I listened to half of it. So when I said I’ve listened to four and a half, that’s quite an episode. I’ll tell you that. That’s quite an episode. I know you are a big believer because it’s part of your culture and you love to discuss Feng Shui. Talk a little bit what Feng Shui is and then let’s give top two or three tips on Feng Shui etiquette to our listeners and viewers.

Sara: Yeah. So Feng shui means wind, shui means water. So Feng shui literally translated is wind, water. If you think about the philosophy of Feng shui, it’s really about harmony and balance. And we look a lot at the five elements, is Jin, Wu, Shui, Huo, Tu. So metal, wood, water, fire, and earth. And so these things have to be in balance. It’s really about energy and Feng Shui is about maximizing your upside and minimizing your downside. Because when you’re born, your destiny is kind of set. But you can change it within like the realm of the destiny. And actually, Kabbalah says the same thing. So it’s like, okay, if you know this year’s going to be a bad year, you can see it from your fortune. How do you minimize that downside? Or if you know like, okay, there are going to be some good things, how do I maximize, really boost like the good things? And practically speaking, Feng Shui can be seen in arranging furniture. That’s kind of the most accessible part, especially for Westerners. But Feng Shui is actually way more than that, but it’s kind of what’s visible and doable immediately. So, when you look at the entryway or the bedroom and sort of room by room and how you do your Feng Shui. There are some do’s and don’ts. For example, in your bedroom, the worst thing you can have is a mirror that’s facing your bed. And Americans love this. Americans love to have closets that are mirrored and reflecting on the bed. Well, guess what? When you have a mirror facing the bed, it means that you’re inviting a third party to interfere in your relationship. What does that mean? Affairs. Cheating.

John: Wow. That’s a-

John: Yeah, you can’t unhear it right after you hear it, you can’t unhear it. So they’re probably wondering like, what can I do? Well, just put like some pretty stick on wallpaper to cover it. And also like people like, about a mirror that’s above the dressing table? As long as it’s reflecting directly on the bed, it’s bad. Even if let’s say you have a lighting fixture above your bed, which also is bad function because it puts pressure on you. Technically, if there’s a lighting fixture that also has some kind of mirror elements reflecting on the bed, that’s also bad.

John: How about an urn in the house?

Sara: That’s terrible. Americans love that, too. They love to put their dead parents ashes in the urn and keep it in their bedroom. It is bad for you and it’s bad for your dead parent because in Feng Shui we talk about yin and yang. So yang can be interpreted as the masculine, the sun, the strong, the bold. Yin is the feminine, the moon, the mysterious, the spirit world. And you want to have a balance of yin and yang. But generally speaking, as humans, because we’re alive, we have more yang. And if you bring in anything from the spirit world, like ashes or bones or even dead artifacts, that’s yin. Now, if you have too much yin in your home, it means there’s stagnation, there’s illness, there’s misfortune.

John: No urns in the houses. Let’s just say that.

Sara: And it’s not good for the relative that’s passed away because they should be in a yin resting place. They should be in a place that’s, you know, like in a cemetery under a tree or whatever it is. If they’re in a yang place where your dog’s running around, you’re yelling, your kids, like they cannot rest.

John: The spirit will never rest.

Sara: That’s right.

John: Before we get to the lightning round, you are a very successful author. Your Netflix series was nominated for an Emmy. You’re on Drew Barrymore’s show on the regular. You now have the podcast. Obviously, you and Annie have a growing business Antevorta. I mean, where do you find the time and how do you balance all of being a super entrepreneur and [inaudible] with also self-care? How do you find the time?

Sara: Yeah. And don’t forget, I also have a stepson who I’m taking to look at colleges and I have a husband who’s basically like a second child.

John: Oh my gosh. So you’re a stepmom too, I didn’t know that.

Sara: I am, yeah, I’m very lucky. My stepson has expanded my heart in more ways than I imagine possible. You know, I think about everything I have to do. And I think in my younger days, would feel, gosh, I feel so overwhelmed, I feel stressed.

John: Yeah.

Sara: Now I think I have all these things to do and I’m going to do them with joy and ease.

John: That’s great, that’s wonderful. I have a saying about anxiety. Action absorbs anxiety. I just feel that that’s the way it works. Lightning round. Let’s go through the little bit. I’m going to let you go. I want to be respectful of your time and just can’t even tell you how generous you’ve already been. Best piece of advice you’ve ever received and from whom?

Sara: There are so many. But I would say so my first job out of college was in New York City doing banking and one of the partners at our firm, is Perella Weinberg, one of the partners, guy called Terry McGee, he used to be global head of IBD for Morgan Stanley. And he said a reputation takes a lifetime to build in a second to lose.

John: No true words were said. I love that last piece of media that really moved you.

Sara: Oh, I’ve never been asked this one before. Well, I mean, you recently, a lot of it is around the Israel-Palestine conflict. And every time I see innocent people on either side being hurt, it is very sad.

John: If you could go back in time and ask someone, anyone who’s passed the question, who would that person be and what question would you ask them?

Sara: You know, something I don’t actually have an answer to that question because I have no regrets in life. And I never think like, oh, I wish I could have asked somebody or I wish I could have found out that.

John: What’s your purpose, Sara Jane?

Sara: My purpose is to become the highest version of myself.

John: The book is mine in your manners. She has a podcast now named the same. Download it, like it, follow it, write a great comment about it. Once you listen to some of her great episodes, her Netflix show is Emmy quality and just amazing. I would binge-watch it if I were you. It’s just so great. Sara Jane, you’ve been more than generous with your time. Our listeners and viewers can find you at sarajaneho.com. Thank you for not only giving us an hour of your time today, but thank you for all you do for making us the best version of ourselves.

Sara: Thank you, John. It’s a pleasure. I’m very grateful to be on your podcast.

John: This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by Engage. Engage is a digital booking platform revolutionizing the talent booking industry. With thousands of athletes, celebrities, entrepreneurs, and business leaders, Engage is the go-to spot for booking talent, for speeches, custom experiences, live streams, and much more. For more information on Engage, or to book talent today, visit letsengage.com. This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by ERI. ERI has a mission to protect people, the planet, and your privacy, and is the largest fully integrated IT and electronics asset disposition provider and cybersecurity-focused hardware destruction company in the United States and maybe even the world. For more information on how ERI can help your business properly dispose of outdated electronic hardware devices, please visit ERIdirect.com.