This is an IHeart podcast.

Conversations on life, style, beauty, and relationships.

It's the Velvet's Edge podcast with Kelly Henderson.

Bonnie Hammer is the former vice chair of NBC Universal, where she spent decades running the most high pressure,

male-dominated rooms and entertainment. Now she's stepping forward with a new book,

15 lies women are told at work and the truth we need to succeed, where she calls out the

advice that sounds empowering like just work hard, know your worth, your work speaks for itself, that can

actually keep women small, silent, and stuck. Hi, Vani. I'm so happy to meet you. Thank you so much

for being here. That's my pleasure, and I'm looking forward to chatting. Me too. I feel like you

are a wealth of knowledge for the women out there. I mean, we just mentioned

the male dominated rooms that you've worked in in the entertainment industry. And I know you've just

had this unbelievable career, starting from the assistant position up into what was called the

queen of cable at one point. But when you look back, I want to know, what do you think actually set

you apart to have such success in such a male-dominated world? I think there were a couple of things.

If I really go back, I think it starts with my dad. And my dad, as I was growing up, because he was

a Russian immigrant, his only thing to me and to my brother were there's no such word as can't.

If you can't do something, you're simply not trying hard enough.

So I started with that, and that as a young kid, I went to summer camp.

And I went when I was really, really young,

so my mom had a heart attack and my father didn't know what to do with me.

So he was friends with some owners of the camp up in the Catskills,

what was known as the Borsh Belt at the time.

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