Dive into a captivating conversation where Dr. Tim Jordan and the unstoppable serial entrepreneur Melissa Saleh dissect the very DNA of female leadership. They delve into how to artfully blend masculine drive with feminine intuition, turning obstacles into stepping stones. Melissa’s raw, real-world experience illuminates how adapting isn’t about conforming. It’s about strategically reshaping the landscape, and most importantly, how we’re raising the next generation of powerhouse women to lead authentically, not apologetically, in a world that’s finally catching up.
Resources:
- Check out Melissa Saleh’s website.
- Dr Tim’s resource on this topic is his book She Leads, which you can find here.
- Watch for Dr. Jordan’s new book: Keeping Your Family Grounded When You’re Flying By the Seat of Your Pants, revised and updated edition to be published late March 2025.
Send suggestions for future show topics and feedback on these episodes to: anne@drtimjordan.com
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Watch the episode here
Listen to the podcast here
How To Raise A Female Leader With Melissa Saleh
I appreciate you all stopping by as we talk about girls, what’s going on for them, raising daughters, maybe some awareness, and some tools you can learn to help raise your daughters in the way that you would like. I have guests on periodically. March 8th is International Women’s Day. I thought it’d be important to talk about that a bit, but instead of me just talking about it, I have a guest. She has done a lot of interesting things. We’re going to talk about women’s roles in leadership, amongst other things. Her name is Melissa Saleh. Welcome, Melissa, to the show.
Thank you for having me.
She’s a serial entrepreneur. That’s the best way I could describe her. She’s spent her career intersecting technology and storytelling. In 2020, she co-founded FairPlay AI, the world’s first Fairness-As-A-Service company, which I want to ask you about. She also created and executed narrative strategies for huge companies like Facebook, Google, Citibank, and GE. She’s on all kinds of stuff with Fortune 500 companies. She’s also a Journalist and Editor for outlets like the New York Times and The Huffington Post. She’s been playing at a high level for a long time. Thank you so much again for joining the show.
It is my pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Is there anything important I missed other than the fact that you’re the mother of two daughters, which is the most important thing?
I’m the mother of two daughters. All of the things I do in my life, particularly since I had my daughters, are framed by, is this making the world better for my daughters? That’s my motivating question every morning and evening. That’s my benchmark.
You’ve done a lot of things. Where’s most of your focus?
My focus is on winding down my role with FairPlay. My husband and I, a week before lockdown, learned that we were expecting our older daughter. During that year, we were alone together in our apartment. We worked with our technical cofounder to launch FairPlay, this AI company. It is the culmination of my husband’s lifelong work to find ways to bring technology into greater financial and societal inclusion for all people, not just people of a particular race, creed, or demographic, but for all Americans and all people whose lives are impacted by algorithmic decision-making, which is becoming everybody.
We have been working together, having two children, one after the other, and have also been launching and building this company since October 2020. The company is in great shape. My husband and the team are performing miracles and doing great work. I’m getting ready to step down from my day-to-day role at the company and move back into storytelling, writing, and more focus on my career.
The Changing Role Of Women In Leadership
Since we’re at the time of International Women’s Day, I thought we would talk about women and their role in change, especially in this culture where, with the presidential administration, there are all kinds of messages out there about inclusion and exclusion. It seems like we’ve become a more male-dominated society once again, even though it never completely went away. There are a lot of messages out there that are confusing for people. I wanted to start with, if it’s okay, we’ve been doing a better job “allowing women” to have places of leadership, places at the table in the last few years. It seems like there are new challenges. There are still struggles. Would you agree with that?
I would agree with that. I see it in a number of different ways. I have always looked at this world as, what are the systems in place, who created those systems, who run those systems, and do those systems work for me or do they not? I’ll give an example of how this has been a lifelong interest for me. I was an English major. English literature has always been my passion. I made my living as a writer in New York for decades.
When I went to take the AP English exam in school, I said, “I think I understand the system for this higher education testing. I think I understand the formula and the thinking behind the creation of this formula. I’m going to experiment with this English AP. I’m going to test and see if I do in fact, understand the system and if I am able to master the system.”
The English AP has a five-paragraph essay as a requirement. That’s a big part of your final grade. I said, “I believe I understand exactly what they’re looking for in this five-paragraph essay. I understand the grading. I’ve done a little research on who grades these and how they grade them. I’m going to see if I can beat this system.” I took a book I had not read. I knew a bit about the book, but I hadn’t read it.
I wrote the formulaic five-paragraph essay that I believed the graders would want. I got a perfect score. That let me know there’s a system operating here. It was created long before I even entered this system, but it’s affecting me because this is my grade. This affects my college admissions. I’m not saying don’t study and don’t read. I read copiously. I did eventually go read the book. You have to understand the system you’re operating in.
We, all people, are operating in a system that was built by one specific group of people and has been run by one specific group of people. I’m not here to make judgments about right or wrong, good people or bad people. I’m simply saying I’m working in a system that wasn’t built for me. How do I win in this system? That’s a key question for women.
Playing the game by the rules has not necessarily yielded the results that we want. Women’s income is still in the range of $0.75 to $0.80 on the dollar for every dollar men earn. Women’s representation on boards at the top of corporate life and these echelons of power is waning. It’s not increasing. Where can we work within this system to create change and new vectors of winning for women?
You could say that the people in the White House have a similar view. Their view is to slash and burn the existing system, throw out enormous government agencies, and assume that they have no value. What is that? That’s the dismantling of a system. It’s not dissimilar from what I do when I approach a problem like this, but I don’t believe in raising the system to the ground and building again.
Women have a bit of a difficulty. Do you fight men for power? Do you stay powerless? Do you look for an option C? I’m looking for option C. Entrepreneurialism provides that option. The beauty of entrepreneurialism is that you create your kingdom or queendom. If you can be a woman and truly carve out a place in American business, create something, and build a product people want, it’s undeniable. No man can argue with that.
The beauty of entrepreneurialism is you create your own kingdom or queendom. Share on XYou’ve built a product many people want to buy. You are cashflow positive. You have figured out the systems and processes of your business. You have an empire. Nobody can take that away from you unless our government does turn dictatorial and starts taking businesses away from people, which has happened in the past. I don’t want to pretend that couldn’t happen again, but I believe in the American spirit, America will prevail, and capitalism will remain free.
What am I saying here? Women, go start companies because no one can take that away from you. You are not necessarily going to get the CEO role of a company that has been around for 20 or 30 years. Maybe it will happen, but as we’re finding, women who are smashing through that corporate ceiling and getting to CEO aren’t always set up to succeed. In fact, they rarely are set up to succeed. They’re going to face a culture and a system that wasn’t built for them to lead. It just wasn’t.
You could sit there and say, “Is that a good or bad thing?” You can analyze it. I don’t like to do that. I just want results. I want more women billionaires and entrepreneurs. I want more LPs focused on funding women founders. I want more VC firms that are truly focused on founders beyond that. That looks slightly different than the typical view of what a venture-backed founder looks like. That’s how I see it. Let’s not battle men. Let’s not fight over power. There is enough to go around. Let’s go create our empires.
We are talking with Melissa Saleh. She is a serial entrepreneur and also the Founder of a company called FairPlay AI.
I’m a Cofounder. My husband is the Founder and CEO. His Technical Cofounder is John Merrill. I should note here that I work with men. I love working with men. Men are brilliant. I do think it’s getting a little dangerous to polarize this view of women’s need to be in power. Therefore, they can’t work with men. That’s a dangerous view. Working with men where you want to be an equal and have a clear leadership role can be a challenge, particularly in tech.
The biggest thing I tell women and focus on in raising my daughters is strength above all. You are going to have to be tough. When somebody says something that takes away your power or implies you have less power, or if someone sends an email or has an important meeting and doesn’t include you or any of these things, you’re going to have to advocate for yourself. You’re going to have to be relentless.
You’re going to have to always be saying, “I should be at that meeting,” without bringing a lot of personal story into it. “Maybe not good enough to be there. Maybe I shouldn’t speak up or feel frustration and anger. These idiots. I can’t believe that I have to speak up constantly.” I’m sorry, but yes, you do. This is the reality. You do have to get up and tell them one more time.
It’s frustrating. Women are frustrated. It can feel demoralizing. It can feel like we’re not getting anywhere. Too bad. Keep going. I raised my daughters to be very aware of that. “Did something happen that made you feel less than? Did something happen where you were attempting to lead a group or have your voice heard, and you were cut off? Stand up and advocate for yourself every single time.”
It may be tiring, but once you develop the habit, it becomes habitual. It doesn’t involve such an emotional heft anymore, and the story, “Men are never going to let me in.” That story is exhausting us and the cause. We simply have to accept. We haven’t made the progress we want yet. There is still a way to go. Get up every day and do it. I’m not saying it’s easy, but I am saying that if you want the results, you have to do the work. This is the work that women are being called to do. I want to make sure that my daughters develop this habit so that it’s not so hard for them when they get into the workforce and whatever they choose to do.
Global Leadership Qualities: Embracing Intuition And Collaboration
One of the challenges I see for girls and young women that I work with, and it’s also for women, is that I want them to do what you’re saying, but I don’t want them to feel like they have to do it the male way. I read a book called The Athena Doctrine. Have you ever read that book?
I know of the book.
The authors went around the world. I don’t remember how many countries it was. They were surveying. People were asked what kind of qualities of leadership they most admire, are most necessary, and what they want most in their leaders. Everywhere they went, the qualities of leadership they said oftentimes did not match that more traditional male quality of leadership, which is power, control, and that sort of thing. People wanted leaders who were intuitive and collaborative. I don’t want your daughters and every girl I work with to feel like they have to do it the traditional male way. They can do it with some of the more feminine qualities of leadership, if I can say that.
That’s a very astute comment. It’s a reality that I have had to face in my career and my life. I am not a man. I do not operate like a man. This is a physiological reality. I do not have the level of testosterone that a man has. I do not have the physiology. As a result, testosterone is a focusing superpower. It makes you laser-focused.
Louann Brizendine, who wrote The Male Brain and The Female Brain, gave an analogy that I love. What is the difference between the male brain and the female brain? When I say male and female, I’m referring more to physiology. I’m referring to estrogen and testosterone hormones, the body makeup. I don’t necessarily believe in the rigidity of maleness and femaleness.
If you want the results, you have to do the work. This is the work that women are being called to do. Share on XThere is science.
We have different physiologies. My body, my mind, and everything works very differently from my husband’s. That’s a reality. Does that mean it’s less than? No, it does not. I burn out if I try to operate like a man. It is not how I work. There’s a term in startup culture, which is grind. I am the opposite of grind. I have to go out, take nature walks, and look at the sky. That’s when all the solutions, ideas, and next steps come to me. I then go and implement them. It’s a very different way of working.
Not all women and men work that way, but there are major differences. How do I harness these abilities that are unique to me in some ways? I have learned that a lot of times when I go into these meetings, I am able to offer something that the men were not necessarily able to because I have gone off in my feminine way of working. I have thought of creative solutions that came to me because I was not at my desk grinding in a very traditional way.
As Hemingway would say, “Show. Don’t tell.” How do you have to show the men, “Yes, I’m feminine. I’m a woman?” I’m not going to try and be a man. I’m not a man. It would be foolish. I am equally as effective as a woman being a woman in this team, in this environment, and as a leader. I always go back to, how did Steve Jobs know to build an iPhone? How did Henry Ford know to build a car?
No consumer in market testing would have said, “I want to give up the horse and carriage for an automobile.” They had never seen one before. Nobody was saying, “I want to give up my Blackberry for this whole new invention, the iPhone.” They had never seen it. They didn’t know what they wanted because it had never been shown to them. There’s an element of that with female leadership.
When asked, people want more intuitive, collaborative, and empathetic leaders. That’s not all women, of course, but that’s women. They’ve never seen it, not in this country. Here’s where sales, marketing, and packaging come in. We’ve got a package, market, and sell our female leaders so that the American public and the Western world can get comfortable with the fact that, “We said we wanted more empathetic, collaborative, and intuitive leaders that’s women. We have a woman. We have what we want.” There is a disconnect.
Redefining Leadership And Assertiveness In Today’s World
We’re going to need to redefine all that. I had this vision in my head back when George Bush, the son, was president. It was at some point in the war. He was on an aircraft carrier. He had on the military uniform, even though he’d never been in the military. He was like, “Mission accomplished,” like this macho kind of thing. We need to redefine things like leadership, courage, and assertiveness. Our model is the male model. It’s not wrong, but it’s a different approach from what females can bring. We don’t value it enough.
We’re missing the real courage in this country. I’m going to say something. Real courage is going into the hospital, having had your body taken over by growing another human being and facing Western medicine, which is a system that was not created for women and the healthiest births. We are seeing the results of that. I, better than the vast majority, know how badly that can go for women. It’s going into that hospital. It’s creating a life. It’s leveraging your body, going through horrific pain, going through incredible risk to yourself and others, and birthing a healthy human being into this world.
That’s courage. I’ve done it. I’m sorry, but you’re missing where the real heroes are in this country. We are missing the women who bring their babies home, and then their partners are not available, or their partners abandon them. Those women get up every day and do right by their children in a world that is not set up to support them and that does not respect them or honor them. This society does not in any way honor mothers. Give me a break.
In one of my summer camps with girls, I asked them, “Who are the heroes in our country?” I’ve never heard anybody say a woman giving birth to a child. Right here are first responders, police officers, firemen, soldiers, and professional athletes. None of these girls are ever going to fit that profile. They don’t see themselves as heroes or even leaders.
I want to change that. I went through a horrific tragedy with my first child. I arrived at Mount Sinai Hospital in August of 2014, nine months pregnant and in labor with my first child. When I arrived, my doctors, all male, informed me with zero empathy or kindness that my daughter’s heart had inexplicably stopped. She had died. I had to give birth to her, or my life could be in danger too. I went through that essentially alone. I came out of it. My life was destroyed by that loss and everything that happened on that day.
I had to go through an unbelievable process of gradual destruction and then building back up to make it out to California. I went through a divorce after that loss. I met my now husband, fell in love, created a new relationship, and then went through two more pregnancies and brought healthy children into the world with zero guarantees that they would survive or that I would survive. I was in my early 40s. It was pretty much the highest-risk scenario imaginable.
I had to use a lot of the tools documented by professional athletes, Navy SEALs, high-performing heroes, and first responders. Also, the tools of mental toughness, high performance, and resilience. It’s how to get up every day in conditions of incredible uncertainty and danger and still function at a high level. I pulled from Phil Jackson’s book, The Last Dance. I read all about Mike Tyson’s techniques. These heroes are not different than women. These tactics apply to women, too. We are simply not placing what women are doing in the same category. That is a mistake.
The real heroes in this country are the women who bring their babies home without their partners and get up every day, doing right by their children despite a world that does not support them. Share on XChallenging Gender Labels On Young Girls
Your daughters are young. I’m a pediatrician by my original background, but my subspecialty is developmental and behavioral pediatrics. I haven’t done medicine for many years. I counsel girls, run camps and retreats and do a lot of things. One of the things that I’ve seen a lot is that even as young as your daughters’ ages, girls start getting labeled. The girls who are fiery, strong-minded, and independent-minded, even at that age, start getting labeled as being bossy or too much. Even though it’s the year 2025, we still don’t allow girls to have that kind of spirit. Sometimes, they need to smooth out some of the rough edges, as we all do.
I’m smoothing mine out every day.
That’s different than stifling or labeling, judging, and making them feel bad for being the way they are. That starts when they’re young.
As a mother, I am vigilant. “Girls, be loud. Speak up. Those people are looking at us. Let them look.” I made a promise to myself because I had to go quite to hell and back to bring these healthy children into the world. When I did it, I made a promise to myself that I’m going to raise them the way I want to because I’ve earned it. The way I want to raise them, I raise little champions. I don’t mean forcing them into competition. If they want to compete, they can compete.
What I mean is when they walk into a room, they know who they are. They are unafraid to speak their truth and offer whatever they have to offer. If anyone says anything to them, they know their mom is behind them. I also make sure that they know I’ve got their back. I’m not going to fight their battles for them or step in and make the world perfect. They are responsible for that on their own. If they need me, Mommy’s there with a bazooka if needed.
I would never want to cross you in a good way.
Thank you. There’s the analogy of the anaconda in the chandelier. Have you heard this analogy?
No.
There’s a big group of people, you’re in a ballroom, and there’s a big chandelier. If people look up and see that there’s an anaconda coiled in the chandelier, it might be asleep or dead, but the fact that there is an anaconda in that chandelier is going to make everybody at that party act very differently. I’m an anaconda in the chandelier for my children.
Good for you.
I never want to wake up or have to get involved. I want them to be able to handle it themselves, but there’s an anaconda in the chandelier. If they need it, it’s there.
You’re their safe base. If they need to touch a safe base, you get a little courage in a certain moment or some affirmation. Everybody needs that. Good for you. They have a mom who’s there in case they need you. You’re out there leading the way but also saying, “If you need me, I’m here,” which is what all girls and boys need.
Also, modeling with my husband. It is very important. Everyone’s marriage is their own. I would never deign to tell anybody how to conduct a marriage. Another thing that I promised myself after I got divorced for the first time is that I want to get married again, but I want it to be a marriage that works for me. That’s not going to be a traditional marriage. I can tell you.
You are not helpless in the lack of a mentor. Share on XThe way our marriage operates is I deeply respect him and his masculine abilities and all of his abilities. I expect the same respect. My work is as important. Even if it’s unpaid work of setting up our household and taking care of babies, it’s always equally important. I’m pretty vigilant about that standard because I want our daughters to see that they’re not the least important thing going on in this household. They are arguably the most important thing.
The healthiest young women I see are the ones who have a nice blend. You don’t diss the masculine qualities and just have feminine. There’s a nice blend. There’s lots of value in all those qualities. It’s just that we need to educate our girls about what those feminine qualities of leadership are and make sure we affirm those when they show those. They see themselves as being a leader.
Advice For Daughters Navigating Traditional Leadership Models
Fast forward, your daughters are in their teen years. Maybe they’re in college or those kinds of years. I’m wondering. Based upon what you have faced in the world of business, education, writing, and out in the world, any advice you would have for them as far as keeping true to themselves so they don’t end up having to change themselves to fit the mold of that traditional masculine style of leadership?
I’m a big believer in building a strong foundation. If you build the foundation strong, it’s going to have a lot less trouble down the line. I used to run a website called Infrastructurist because I believe that everything has a foundational infrastructure, be it a person, a human being, a family, a building, a society, or a government.
I put a ton of effort into those first three core years for my daughter. As you know, as an expert and physician, 85% of your foundational brain mapping happens in your first three years of life. I wanted to give them as strong a foundation as possible during those first three years. I made a lot of career sacrifices during the first three years so I could be as available as possible to ensure that they would get whatever they need for their healthy and strongest possible development.
It’s a matter of reinforcing as they go out into the world. When they bring me an issue, I have a set of rules that I follow. The first thing I say is, “What do you think we should do?” It takes away their agency if I simply say, “Here’s what we or you should do.” My goal is not to have children who are dependent on me. My goal is to raise children who have deep faith and confidence in their decision-making ability and their ability to handle situations in a way that is true to them.
It only comes through experience.
Going back to your point about the masculine versus feminine way of doing things, women are struggling to find a pathway through this maze that works. I have, through trial and error over the years, found my way of working with men based on who I am. I’m not saying it’s perfect. It’s a work in progress. It’s not a one-size-fits-all for all women because all women are different. It’s based on what I have available to me,
1) Get men to listen to me. 2) Find a way to win their respect and work with them. I’m not saying I’m perfect at it or that it’s an easy task. If girls and women can at least have some sense of that skillset for themselves, like the way I partner best with men or boys to do X and Y, accomplish a goal, build a sandcastle, or do a school project. I have this set of qualities. Many boys have that set of qualities or even another person. It doesn’t have to be focused on gender.
If they know who they are, what they’re good at, what they love, and what they’re best at, then in any situation they go into, they’re going to be able to say, “Here’s what I provide. Here’s the role I want to play in this team or project.” They’ll have a sense of the pathway through as opposed to fumbling around in the dark, trying to find a way to work with people and then butting up against traditional gender roles, customs, and biases, which always exist. We’re humans. Everybody has them.
Finding ways, as a woman, to sit down with men in as equal a way as possible and win their game can be a really beautiful experience. Share on XThe number one superpower is that deep knowledge of self. Competence breeds confidence. The more competence they can have, the more confidence they will have in their ability to do this thing and other things. The other big thing is confidence in your ability to figure it out and learn it. “I don’t know how to do that yet.” I learned that from Instagram. You always say yet. “Mommy, I don’t know how to do that.” “Yet, but you can learn.” If you want to learn, you can learn. There is no inhibition. Being male or female has nothing to do with your ability to learn, discover, explore, create, or innovate.
The Value Of Mentorship For Girls In Career Development
I would think for you and anybody, male or female, but I’m especially thinking about girls because of our conversation that having mentors along the way might be valuable. I interviewed an author maybe a couple of years ago. Her name was Gabrielle Salazar. She co-wrote a book through National Geographic. It’s called No Boundaries.
It’s when your daughters get a little older. She wrote it for girls in middle school and high school. She was saying that a lot of times, girls don’t have role models for women who are doing these interesting things. If a girl likes animals, they say, “I guess you could be a vet.” That’s it. In this book, she has short 2 or 3-page biographies of mostly young women doing interesting things all over the world.
It’s a way of saying there are all kinds of things you could do with your interests and talents. A lot of times, those women didn’t have role models doing that, but it’s getting better. I wonder if, along the way, you had any good female role models who gave you hope and affirmation that said, “You’re on the right track. It’s okay. It’s tough. Keep going.”
If we’re being honest, no.
It’s so sad.
I don’t want to make that into, “It’s so sad.” I agree with you. It would have been great, but it also completely opened up the playing field. I don’t have a playbook. I’ve had three careers. I’m just getting started. I’m a Jewish woman married to an Arab Muslim man. I don’t do things the way they’re supposed to be done. I never have. It doesn’t work for me. For whatever reason, it’s made my life harder. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying it’s been the easier path, but for whatever reason, I’m not capable of walking the traditional path.
One thing I do want to say is that women, you could be your own mentor. You could go to ChatGPT and say, “Mentor me,” as if you are a self-made billionaire woman, or whatever your goal is. You can use the tools available to you. You are not helpless in the lack of a mentor. You can find a mentor. Many women do, and many women have had mentors. I don’t even understand my path. I just walk it.
Another thing I want to say to your point, it’s so true for boys, too. I do not have boys, so I’m in no way criticizing the mothers of boys, but as a society, I don’t think we’re doing right by boys, either. Boys have so many different career options. They don’t have to be pigeonholed into one thing or another thing. Boys have a wide array of talents and abilities that are not being recognized.
We are not valuing them. I don’t think we’re doing right by young boys, either. If we were adjusting how we communicate with both sets of children, we would find very different adults. We would have a very different society once they grew up. I know that careers and what we do as humans every day is going to change dramatically over the next years.
AI is already showing incredible aptitude in fields like law, medicine, and law enforcement. We are going to see a huge change in the workforce and what humans wake up and do every day with their time. This is the perfect time to start thinking about what makes up a good life. What makes up an empowering, productive life?
How can we help children identify the unique skills and talents that they might build a career around? How can we change the conversation for all genders and any child? That’s going to be necessary for our coming society. Certainly for girls, because so much of the work that women tend to thrive in, like caregiving, tends to be work that is not currently valued in our society. Guess what? That’s work that AI can’t do.
We’ve been talking to Melissa Saleh. She’s a serial entrepreneur. We’re talking because March 8th is International Women’s Day. I thought it’d be good to honor a woman who’s been out in the world playing at a high level. She’s worked with companies creating strategies for companies like Facebook, Google, Citibank, and GE. She’s written and been an editor for The New York Times and The Huffington Post. She’s done many interesting things.
Essential Advice For Young Women Starting Their Careers
I want to ask you one more quick question because I’ve been keeping you a long time. I also want you to give information on how people can find your work and stuff. My last question is, if you had to give a piece of advice to a young woman who is maybe in high school and college, starting to embark on the next leg of their life and career path, what would you say to them, looking back? Knowing what you know now, what would you say to your 22-year-old self? You were probably finishing your education, maybe along the way.
I was in law school. To my 22-year-old self, I’d say, “Buckle up, honey. It’s going to be a bumpy and wild ride, but keep going. Don’t give up. Always bet on yourself.” Something I do as a woman is seek to find things I love to do that most men love to do. What are some ways I can relate to men in an authentic way? I learned everything about football. I like and respect football, but honestly, I don’t love football, especially as a mother watching these young men get concussions for money. It doesn’t sit with me as well as it used to.
I learned how to play poker with my husband during the pandemic. I love poker. I cannot tell you how much joy it brings me to sit down at a table full of men and smile like, “I’m just here to play some poker,” and then win a monster hand, watch their faces, and clean them out. It brings me incredible joy. I only get away with it once because as soon as they know I can play, men are smart.
This is a ringer.
I have to up my game. I’m still getting better. You’re never perfect at poker. The best in the world lose more hands than they win. If you can, as a woman, find ways where you can sit down with men in as equal a way as possible and win their game as a woman, it can be a beautiful experience. It can also be a great way to build relationships with men because it tells you very quickly.
If a man hates that you beat him, then he’s not a man who is in a place to collaborate with you or see you as who you are. If you sit down with some men, poker shows you who people are. You bluff or win a monster hand that they didn’t think that you would be able to win. Even if you display smarts and aptitude at the game, the men whose respect you win are going to be men that you are going to want to partner with, meet, or have in your circle.
These kinds of tools are fun for me. I’d love it. It happens to be this arena that is very masculine. If you can find those kinds of things for yourself as a woman, it can be a superpower. Maybe it’s working out at the gym. Maybe it’s something that you genuinely love that puts you in a very masculine environment where you can show, not tell. You can display your unique feminine traits that make you good at this.
There’s an actress, Jennifer Tilly. She was pretty famous in the ‘80s and ‘90s. She’s become an incredible poker player. She’s on all the pro tournaments. She’s in the World Series of Poker. She’s at the table. She’s at the Aria in Vegas with the best in the world, with Phil Hellmuth and all of these incredible poker players. She is a woman. She does not attempt.
She does not dress in any kind of masculine way, just the opposite. She is full-on displaying her womaness. She also has a stack of chips this high. If you mess with her, she will stare you down. I don’t know her personally, but I look up to her because she shows up at that poker table and starts grabbing their chips and running to another table.
There’s a mentor, even though you don’t know her. All girls need examples of women who are being themselves and retaining their femininity but showing leadership in a different way than perhaps the traditional patriarchal male model. How can people find you and learn about you? How can they get a hold of you if that’s what you are looking for?
People are welcome to get a hold of me. I am working on a book. It is not yet slotted, so I don’t have a publication date. You can certainly find me on social media and through my website MelissaSaleh.com. If you’re interested in FairPlay, check out FairPlay.ai. Algorithmically led decisions about our lives impact us all, so I highly recommend everyone learn more about how your life on a day-to-day basis is being impacted by algorithms because it is. It’s important for all of us to understand how these systems are impacting our lives and our families’ futures.
Thank you so much for giving us your time and expertise. I appreciate your viewpoint. You’re out there doing it. You have been for a while. It’s not easy, but you’ve found your way, which is the important thing.
I’m learning more every day. Every day is an opportunity to get up, learn more, and do a little better. That’s what’s called for in this time. It’s time for all of us to rise up and be our best selves because the Lord knows that if we don’t, other people will rise up to be their worst selves.
That was fascinating. A very powerful woman, Melissa Saleh. I’m looking forward to her book. She didn’t tell me when her book’s coming out, but I’ll be looking for that. I hope this was valuable for you and gave you some food for thought when you’re raising daughters and wanting them to grow up to be powerful women in wherever that looks like for them.
It doesn’t have to be being a CEO of a company. It can look like being in charge of their life. Too often, our daughters get the message that they need to lean into the top and be the CEO of a Fortune 50 company. That may be their path, but just being the CEO of your life, being in charge of your life, making choices based upon what’s right for you, that to me is being powerful. It’s being a leader and having courage. I appreciate Melissa’s experience and her giving our time.
I’ll be back here, as always, with a brand-new episode. Look out for my new book. It’s coming out. Keeping Your Family Grounded When You’re Flying By the Seat of Your Pants. It’s a revised edition. It should be coming out anytime now. I hope you can find that on my website. It’ll be out online, like Amazon and all those kinds of things. Thanks so much, as always, for reading.
Important Links
- Melissa Saleh
- FairPlay AI
- The Athena Doctrine
- The Male Brain
- The Female Brain
- No Boundaries
- Keeping Your Family Grounded When You’re Flying By the Seat of Your Pants
- She Leads
About Melissa Saleh
Melissa Saleh is a force of nature—former lawyer and journalist turned serial entrepreneur, masterful storyteller, and advocate for survivors of trauma. With a career spanning technology, media, and brand strategy, she has shaped the narratives of Fortune 500 giants and startups alike, helping them carve out their place in a fast-moving world.
As the co-founder of FairPlayAI, she works to promote equity and reduce bias in automated decision-making.
Her new book is coming soon entitled, A Story of Transcendence Over Unspeakable Trauma.