Welcome to Foundations with Larissa Hovindisian, an unfiltered podcast where I explore the foundational principles of creators, entrepreneurs, scientists, public figures, and all around awesome people who make things happen. Welcome to Foundations podcast. This is a podcast through which I get to connect with creators, entrepreneurs, and people who just built stuff from scratch.
We get to learn from them and really understand their foundational principles and why they are where they are and why they're successful. Join me today for a conversation with my good friend, Sarah Andjargolian, who has had a very diverse career in social impact, government, and law, and who's done incredible work for Armenia and beyond. Hi, Sarah. Hi, Larissa.
Well, thanks so much for joining me. This is one of my first episodes. And really, I just want to create a space where I can connect with my friends and people I really admire, who work in different sectors, have had really interesting life journeys, and just have a really authentic, raw conversation about who they are and how they got to where they are and what they learned along the way.
Thanks for the invitation. Thanks so much for... For being here, you've got quite the resume.
You were a lawyer, an entrepreneur, a public servant, government consultant, activist. Did you always know that you're going to have this kind of career that sort of takes you from one sector to another, or was your original plan different to what it is now? No, I don't think anyone who is curious about different, you know, seeing sort of the boundaries of themselves and trying new things ever plans anything. I think for me, it's always been just an interest in expanding. And I'm going to say as a human being and like less as a professional, the professional part, I frankly find a little boring.
Totally. I find. I'm just interested in how far I could expand, you know, emotionally, first and foremost, how much more wisdom I can gather along the way.
And then also intellectually, you know, and also just, I'm attracted to good people in all kinds of different, you know, ways of defining that. So no, there's no, there was no like plan. It was much more of like, Following a gut feeling, following good people, you know, feeling that this may be the right time for this move or that move. It seems like there is a common denominator, though. There's a desire to make people's lives better, ultimately, whether it's your career in law.
I think it was a lot oriented right towards. Yeah, definitely. So, yeah, I. That resonates with me because I was originally going to do a career in marketing and join the corporate world.
Oh, wow. I didn't know that. Yeah, it totally freaked me out.
And I just decided to go into something more social impact related. It was weird because I was getting my degree in international business. And really, there wasn't this notion of even like social entrepreneur.
entrepreneurship social impact. It was super new at that time. And as part of my coursework, I had to do a class that essentially enabled students to run a nonprofit store on campus.
So we'd have to source really interesting trinkets from all over the world and sell them for profit. And then whatever we made, we donate to a charity of our choice as a class. So I got really interested in that.
And I kind of realized that there is this inner interesting intersection between business and social good. And so, you know, as I was, again, reflecting on your career before, you know, this interview, it just struck me that whatever you did, which might seem different to each other, there was this interesting common denominator. And I think it was social good, social impact, and just making the world suck a little bit less.
You know, I have to give the credit for that to my, and it's going to sound good. funny, but it really, all of that came out in law school. Because until law school, I was a, you know, kind of a sheltered immigrant kid, you know, moved to the US when I was six years old to Los Angeles. My parents attempted to keep us very insulated in the Armenian community, although, you know, we had a pretty, we went to pretty good high schools.
And it wasn't until after college that I moved away and went to Berkeley. for law school. And I met all of these people who were frankly, just super interesting. And B, I think just Berkeley kind of attracts those kinds of people who are there for the degree, but they're really there for the degree to do something bigger than themselves. And when I met all these people, I felt so much less interesting in comparison to, you know, people who had worked on political campaigns, people who were saving the whales, people who, everybody was saving something, you know.
And I think that's when it kind of like, subconsciously started to take root in me, that I was interested in something bigger than myself, whatever that was going to be later on. You know, it turned out to be, you know, very much rooted here in Armenia. But if I wasn't an ethnic Armenian, if I was a different, you know, somebody else, it could have taken root in a different country.
It was the larger purpose that was interesting to me. And then second was the Armenian part of it. Got it. All of those jobs that, you know, all of the roles that you've had, I mean, they're pretty high stress. So how have you dealt with all of that?
Is it yoga and green juice or is that bullshit? I've been doing yoga for over 20 years. A different, you know, sometimes pretty, you know, religiously and sometimes not at all, depending. How have I dealt with it?
You know, sometimes not so well. sometimes just retreating into my home closing the door and just sitting there and frankly looking at the walls and not is that how you regain your energy is when you don't see people yeah actually actually I need big chunks of time uh when I'm in when I'm alone and I'm just in my home I don't have to talk to anybody but then on the other hand I also get a lot of energy from people but I find that it's a it's a double-edged sword right because When I'm with people, I also find that I naturally want to give a lot. And so that does kind of, you know, make my, it kind of like decreases the amount of juice in my cup.
But yeah, I need chunks of time alone. And definitely movement, moving my body, exercising and all of that stuff. But I also, I'm trying more and more to be, to really listen to my, when I need to stop something.
you know, when I need to move on, when I need to put an end. I'm really not super interested in projects or initiatives, whatever you want to call it, at the like, like when they're working. I'm so much more interested in them when they're just starting or when they're not working. Like what is it ultimately that attracts you into these kinds of difficult?
I mean, these are roles that people don't really want to do because, you know, they they're not necessarily going to bring about, you know, a guaranteed success track record. You know, you worked in a really difficult position at a very difficult time at the at the government. So these are these are things that a lot of people find to be daunting and scary because the likelihood of something. being successful when it's that complicated, especially when it doesn't exist or you have to start it from scratch is really terrifying. You know, ideas in general are not that interesting to me.
I find people have ideas all the time, you know. In fact, the emails and the messages that I get that I like least, frankly, are when someone will say, can we have a cup of coffee or can we meet? I have an idea, you know. Okay, so I will not do that with you then. I'd rather have an idea.
I'm already implementing it or attempting to implement it, but it's gone awry or I don't know what to do at this point. I find the implementation of things much more interesting. And it's just the nuts and bolts. I find the nuts and bolts of making an idea into an actual thing.
way more interesting. And then ultimately, the actual impact of that idea is even, you know, even more exciting to me. So it's that road that it just gets my brain working. And, and I think that what I'm running away from most is boredom. I see, you know, and all of these different things.
Now, when I look back, you know, at the last, I don't know, 12 years in Armenia, and before that, I think it was mostly running away from being bored. And... You know, some of those difficult things, you mentioned the government, that was certainly by far the most difficult time period in my professional life.
But also, I think when I look back, the most important, I would never not do it again, even though it was the most difficult. I mean, I grew as a human being because it was so difficult. What was so difficult?
Um, without like, you know, going into like an essay on public sector reform, you know, we can, we have the time for it. You know, going from well, first, I should say I've spent most of my career in the United States in government, my whole career in the United States in government. I mean, when I was in law school, I was interning at DA offices and US attorney offices.
My first job at a law school U.S. Department of Justice. I spent eight years at the city attorney's office.
I've always been attracted to and interested in government because I always found that through government, you could not only implement ideas, but scale them. And you were in a position of actually changing people's lives if you put yourself in the right place. So when the opportunity came post-Velvet Revolution to actually serve in Armenia's post-revolution government, I just had to do it. It was just such an... important time in the history of our country that I really felt like I wanted to be part of it, but I didn't know exactly what I was going to be part of.
And it turns out that I never in my wildest dreams understood the depth of the brokenness of our public sector systems. Brokenness in terms not just of the lack of institutions or institutions that were working based on unhealthy kind of systems, but also a complete lack of culture that would set us up for success. And so you just don't know that until you're in it.
You know, I mean, I'll just give a very simple but very maybe demonstrative example. You know, in most of the jobs I've been in, particularly in the U.S., You show up on the first day and there's someone there setting you up at your computer, giving you your email address. Like an onboarding plan.
An onboarding plan. Or at least just a... Person who can help you around.
Or who can kind of, you know, show me, you know, but there wasn't, you know, really none of that, which is fine, right? Post-revolution government, we can set it up ourselves, etc. But, you know, we inherited a system where people didn't even have professional email addresses. Several weeks.
for me, maybe even a month, to get everybody a professional email address. Like it was actually a struggle because I had to convince other parts, you know, of the government that this, it was inappropriate to have an email address that was even a Gmail, much less, you know, one of these other, it just didn't make sense. So it was these kinds of things. So I showed up with these...
big ideas about how we were going to change Armenia diaspora relations, how we were going to, you know, completely redefine, you know, homeland diaspora relationships. But for a month, I was dealing with email addresses, you know, and it's like, and then you can't talk about that when you're in it, because frankly, it's embarrassing. You know, you want to show a good face, you want to show that, hey, you know what, guys, we're here, we're leading, we're going to make a difference. But really, every day you're dealing with nonsense like email addresses. And so that's just an example of what it was that we inherited.
Yeah, it's interesting. Like, I completely understand because when I was starting Teach for Armenia, a lot of the stuff that I felt like I had to, for some reason, spend a lot of my time on were sort of things like that. And now we've built an incredibly effective organization.
It's taken me a decade to do that. And I think we've set a new standard, but the amount of time that it takes to increase that standard, I think, is a lot. And the struggle between... Being able to openly talk about Armenia's problems, the challenges, the gaps, the needs, versus, you know, positioning ourselves to look, you know, a little bit better.
I've always struggled with that. You know, how do you solve a problem without being able to talk about it openly? Absolutely.
I remember when I started, again, Teach for Armenia, you know, we really studied the sector and the system. And first of all, there was such a lack of data. Everything was, you know, kind of like myths and legends about the state of our education and what our capacity is as a people. And it really took me many years of just like personal travel across Armenia and our schools to really understand that we have very low literacy rates.
We have very low numeracy rates. We don't have that recorded anywhere. We're still telling the world that we're, you know, a 98.9 percent. literacy rate.
And I remember when I would talk about these problems to various people, to different groups, either in Armenia or in the Armenian diaspora, I would often be called the traitor because I wouldn't talk. I would talk about the problems that Armenia has. And how dare you sort of show the dirty laundry of your country.
Whereas I thought that it was criminal not to talk about it. because our kids are suffering so much generation after generation. And the potential of our country is just being diminished every single time we choose not to say something.
So I think as I reflect on your work at the government during those years, I think you were able to do something that many government agencies were not able to do. which is really completely reform the way people worked there. And I, you know, after all these years, you're not working at that office anymore.
But I continue to have interactions with the team and it just feels like a very different place. So I think you can be very proud of that. Thank you for saying that.
Like, are you the most proud of that work? Because you've also started some other pretty incredible organizations. I am most proud. I really am most proud of the time I spent in the government.
Yeah, I really am. And, you know, when you say that it feels different, you know, that's a huge compliment for me, because it certainly didn't feel different on the first day, you know. When I think about the different issues regarding our public sector and our government, I think culture, I think I would put as, like, the top. If you think of, like, a pyramid of issues in the government, I would put culture at the top, right? Yeah, we have systems issues.
We have major competence issues. But culture is the one that I was attempting to hack and that one will hack forever because moving the needle on culture is so incredibly difficult. For example, people would keep their doors closed.
I mean, this is another thing. There was this culture of inaccessibility. as the source of one's power, right? Where the more inaccessible you were, the more difficult you made things, the more power you derived. And this made absolutely no sense to me.
A, it just didn't come naturally to me. And B, it seemed totally ineffective and totally slowed things down. And so it was really important to me to break that culture at the high commissioner's office. And thankfully, you know, I just did things that were naturally to me. Just for example, staff meetings, right?
Staff meetings, not just with the head honchos, the top deputies, but every single person from, you know, the most junior person all the way up the chain that people were so, so sort of beholden to, right? And having every single person in that room. And having everybody actually listen to each other, that was really hard, right? Because we have this culture in Armenia of giving these grand speeches.
People were loving to give these grand speeches about how things should be, but a lack of listening to each other. These closed doors that would really get on my nerves. So I would leave the door, my door, open. And that was also weird. It's like, whoa.
Or the plaques on the walls. Or the plaques. Why is the chief of staff's door open all the time, you know?
I can actually walk in and talk to her, you know? Where does this all come from? I mean, I guess our Soviet past, I'm guessing it's a mix of the worst of the Soviet past, if we can, you know, hook it on that.
But also just maybe since independence, the layers and layers of power and corruption that were meant to sort of be for a certain group of people, you know, and if it was too transparent, then everybody would know, you know, who you were working with. whose palms you were greasing, et cetera, et cetera. So there had to be this secrecy. Got it.
But post Velvet Revolution, the whole purpose was to be open and free and, you know, all of these values that we all, you know, fought for on the streets. And so I wasn't going to talk about it on the streets and not bring it into our office. Yeah. And so that's how it started. Got it.
Can I ask you a really hard question? Yeah. Do you feel like We have succeeded or like, do you feel like you've succeeded ultimately? Or do you feel like there were things that you should have still done and you wish you did while you were in government?
Oh, my goodness. I could list all the things that I wish I could have done, that I wish I could have done differently, that I, you know, I wish I would have institutionalized this better. Oh, I mean, I could make a list of all the things.
I mean, these things that I'm talking about that are slight culture shifts. You know, I'm proud of those things, but there's many things that I could have done differently, you know? And how do you assess our situation now? As a country?
Which part? Which part should we talk about? Maybe just like public administration reform. Like how, you know, because as you said, like these are things that you really believed in during the Velvet Revolution. You fought for it.
You worked for it really hard. you achieved a lot of things, you didn't have enough time to achieve some other things. Now that you're kind of out of it, and you're looking back and you're looking at where we are right now, do you feel like we're still on track? Or are we off track at this point? Look, I mean, we have to also not forget that all of these things were done from one crisis to the other, right?
2019 is when I took the position. Six months later, we were in COVID. you know, six months after COVID, we were in a war, you know, then we were in this, the whole time that I was in the government, we were going from one crisis to the other, there was Lebanon, we flew to Lebanon during after the bomb blast to try to be next to our diaspora community.
So, so it was, it kind of when I look back, it was these like peaks and valleys, peaks and valleys, I got to have some peaks whenever we were in less crises, for example. The IGORDS program came out of our office, which is now in its fourth year, which was the first time that the Republic of Armenia said to its diaspora, hey, we don't want you to be an arm's length transactor anymore. We're going to invite you into the dark, you know, areas of the public sector, and we want you to be here and see all the warts and help us work on it, right? That was a big thing.
That was a big culture shift that we had to fight for to make happen. So those were the peaks, right? And then there was all of those crises and valleys where I had to like, put on the shelf, the grand ideas of public sector reform, and then just deal with the crisis we were dealing with, you know, and try to communicate with the diaspora.
So I think when I kind of look back at where we have, how far we've come since the Velvet Revolution, I think in a lot of ways, we have a very different country. And I would... I would think about those things as positive transitions, but obviously so much of it has been overshadowed by the security issues, the loss of our talk, the loss of lives, and the feeling of insecurity that people also feel. So it feels like we're all in this, you know, those of us who are living and working here and people who are engaging, positively engaging from diaspora. It feels like we're in this trench together.
We're attempting to fight the good fight in areas where we can, but that there's also these areas in which that really feel out of our control and feeling comfortable in that trench with those two realities. Got it. That's how I personally feel right now and how I think many of us who continue to try to engage and try to build things here perhaps feel. How do you deal with the hate? Like, how do you deal with the hate that you see on social media?
I'm also targeted quite often. I don't feel like it bothers you, though. Like, you know, you have a sense of humor about it, which I really think is the only way to handle it.
I there was a time it bothered me. I tell you when it bothered me the most. It bothered me.
It doesn't bother me anymore for a couple of reasons, which I can get into. But it bothered me post-war. And that was the time where I felt like. Those of us in those really difficult positions needed the most support, right?
And there were some wonderful people who would privately write to me and say, you stay where you are. We need you there right now. Don't listen to the haters, right?
But of course, those people would do it privately. Yeah, because it wasn't cool anymore to do it openly. It wasn't cool anymore to do it openly and be supportive in a time of extreme rocky waters, right?
And then there were all these people, you know. most of the time, not even in Armenia, I mean, almost always sitting in communities outside of Armenia, you know, spewing all kinds of not just, you know, inaccurate facts, but also hatred towards those of us who are attempting to keep, you know, sailing the ship in really rocky waters. It bothered me at that time, because that was the time that I thought that we really needed the most support. And that I felt that these kinds of things were actively destabilizing and making the state weaker.
And, you know, it just was absolutely the wrong time. But of course, you know, these things happen in those times. But now, you know, frankly, if anybody puts nonsense about me or on my page, I just get rid of those people.
I have no time for that. And also, I think it's a distraction. I'd rather...
surround myself with people who understand the nuance of how difficult things are and who are neither going to speak super positive nor super negative, but are actually going to be implementing and learning with me. Everything else is just noise and nonsense. Yeah, I agree.
You know, I love talking to people who don't agree with me or some of the views that I have, as long as it's constructive and as long as they are also doing something. Absolutely. You know, I think it was Renee Brown who said, if you're not in the arena getting your ass kicked, I'm not interested in your feedback. And I think that that resonates for me on a professional level, but also just on a personal level.
Because if you have a different way of making Armenia better, like, I respect you, even if we don't see eye to eye on, you know, a lot of things. It's the people who don't do anything. and have so much to say.
And in such a not constructive way is really what I think. It's very sad, because often, it's just such a reflection of who we are sometimes. And I just want to continue believing that we're a bit better than that.
You know, it's funny that you bring up Brene Brown, and you bring up that quote, because actually, it's Brene Brown quoting Theodore Roosevelt. That's right. Thanks, Teddy. Yes. And it's funny because as I was coming to this podcast, I had her dare to lead a book on Audible.
I was listening to it as I was walking over. And I put on my phone that quote on my way here. Oh, really?
No way. I really did. And I was even going to suggest that we maybe, you know, end with it because that's absolutely the message that I would want to give over and over again, you know. that I am super interested in having conversations with people who think differently, have a different idea, disagree, right? But I also really want to know what is it they're doing and where is their wisdom coming from?
Is it coming from, you know, sitting somewhere in front of their laptop? Or is their wisdom coming from actually, you know, getting their butt kicked in various arenas? Because the more...
people learn from getting their butt kicked in arenas, the more wisdom I seem to see in those people. Absolutely. Yeah. You know, you've also always struck me as someone who's able to work across different groups, different political groups, really different people. And I've seen people on different sides of the spectrum really admire and respect you just because you're such a grounded leader who actually get stuff done.
Do you feel like, do you feel like people ultimately understand? what it takes to shift a country forward. Do they understand that, you know, we have a state, we have things to do, and there's a difference between supporting the statehood of Armenia versus supporting one or the other administration.
Is that an understanding you think we have as a nation, or is it? fragmented? You know, I think that that understanding is slowly taking root.
First of all, let's not forget that even people who live in Armenia are just now gaining an understanding that we have to manage a state. And I'm using the word manage because I feel like in a lot of ways, we haven't spent the last few decades actually managing states and building institutions that are, you know, that will last one generation after the other. And on top of it, our diaspora, which is, you know, quite disconnected, right, with the homeland, just by physically not being here and not having the day-to-day life kind of affect, you know, they don't feel it on their skin.
I think our diaspora is also coming slowly to the understanding that this is a state. And at the end of the day, the statehood is the most... important as opposed to one political party or the other. So I think slowly it's taking root. I think that perhaps the war and the loss of Artsakh was a very fast lesson in that, and that when we don't do institution building and system building, and in an honest way, not with all of these myths we told ourselves, and I'm as guilty as anybody else in believing those myths.
of what it is, who we are as a people. I think that those were really, really painful lessons for us. And what we do with those lessons, ultimately, I think is going to be the success or failure of the state.
Do you think we reflect as a people? Do we learn our lessons? Or do we just point the finger to someone else? I think the people pointing the finger are making a lot of noise and not allowing the people who are... would like to reflect to speak up.
But I think that at the same time, there's a little bit of fatigue around the pointing of the fingers. I think people are just tired of people pointing fingers. And slowly, I'm seeing more and more reflection, more and more sort of people interested in actually hearing the nuance of what's going on here.
Do you think we'll ever be able to have something like a truth commission? in Armenia kind of audit our last 30 years and whatever has happened also in Artsakh and sort of openly talk about this or is this not something we're willing to do? Gosh, maybe.
I think the situation right now with the demarcation of the borders makes it really hard to have that kind of a thing, even though I think it's extremely important for us to, you know, have books written on what actually happened here. I can get, I mean, I'm not in the security sector, I'm not in defense, but based on what I saw in the two years in the government, I can guess, I think pretty accurately, why we ended up where we did in terms of the catastrophe of the war and how it ended and the loss of Artsakh. Well, maybe one day we can talk about it because I personally think it's the only way we can actually.
move forward as a country unless we just want to keep losing land and just dealing with that loss maybe opening up a few new stores and restaurants and bakeries naming it after the land that we've lost and kind of just like living life for another hundred years potentially with that kind of mentality I think we need to have like a come to Jesus conversation as a people and really just say no to many things and decide that this is who we are from now on. These are the values we have. These are the beliefs we have.
These are the diverse perspectives we have. But, you know, Armenia first. I remember when I first started Teach for Armenia, I grew up outside of the Armenian community.
My dad is Irish American, as you know, and my mom is Armenian. She grew up in Yerevan, but her father is from Artsakh. And I grew up mostly in Russia, actually, my formative years, but I wasn't part of, I mean, in Russia, you don't really have a lot of... Armenian, I mean you don't have any Armenian schools because it's illegal. Sure.
Um, not a lot of Armenian clubs, etc. So I kind of grew up outside of that whole thing and I didn't know that we had multiple churches and we had multiple political groups for many years until I started TFA actually. And I remember I created my one of my first presentations and I went to Los Angeles to meet with a group and on the first slide it was like, you know, Let's build our homeland together. We need to develop better leadership for our country. And one of the ways that Teach for Armenia can do that is by having this teacher fellowship program for public schools, especially in rural communities.
And so I'm this young, passionate person, and I'm trying to galvanize interest in Teach for Armenia. And the first question after I was done with my presentation was, when you say homeland, What do you mean? And I was like, the Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Artsakh.
And they said, that's not our homeland. We've lost our homeland. It's gone. Like, we don't have a homeland.
And I remember just not knowing how to respond to that because it was new. It was unknown. To me, it was like a given that all of us see Armenia as.
our state. That's so interesting. And Artsakh is our state.
I remember I walked out of that presentation, I sat in the car, my husband picked me up. And he was like, and I was like, so what's the deal with this? He's like, Oh, yes, let me tell you.
And so it was like a two hour conversation about the different groups, the different beliefs, the different traumas. And that was really when I started to understand, like what we were dealing with. and how hard it was going to be for us, even harder than like I originally anticipated.
Just like that mental layer that I was so unaware of the dynamics between Armenia and the diaspora and, you know, internally too, like the disconnect, just like not even being able to agree on this one thing that we have, Armenia as a homeland, as a state, was really interesting. So I do feel like we've, come a long way, but there's still a lot to do. And I think ultimately, my hope is that there could be some sort of assessment and a desire across all political spectrums, across all diasporas and Armenia to really understand what has happened.
accept it as our own responsibility. I accept it as my own responsibility. I mean, I've worked with very different people. I started TFA, you know, with the former government.
I'm working with the current government. I like to say that I'll work with every government that Armenia will ever have. And, you know, I ultimately think that the biggest barrier for us is this continued lying to ourselves.
Mm-hmm. Everyone is complicit. Not just lying, but creating these big myths that then we believe also. We believe and we also create about others.
Sure. And then, you know, we see that it's all an illusion. I actually think a lot of what's happening and what I'm seeing, I mean, I'm not a psychologist, I can't assess from that perspective, but it just feels like, you know, an existential crisis.
Mm-hmm. Because a lot of the mental models that we've created about ourselves as a nation have just completely collapsed. Absolutely.
It's scary, but also it's such an incredible opportunity to build something new. Like I have a three-year-old son and I want to be able to tell him something new about what we've been through. I mean, tell him the truth about what we've been through and tell him something new about who we actually are. you know, as a people and what kind of like nation he's part of.
What do you think is like the critical thing that we not necessarily politically need to do, but just like as a people need to do to get to hopefully a better phase of our development? Not to sound boring, but I think we need to prioritize and be practical. I find that we, especially when I meet with people in the diaspora, I find that sometimes we're just not very practical with the way that we approach the country.
And I also don't think we prioritize and gather around the priorities, right? It kind of feels like there are all these different groups, everybody's doing something, and some people are dealing, you know, building clinics, other people are building schools, other people are, you know, attempting to raise money. It's kind of every time I open up my social media, someone's raising money for something, you know.
So it just kind of it feels a little bit like everybody's running in 10,000 different directions. And maybe that's our those of us who actually live and work here. Maybe it's our fault that we are not giving better direction, you know, where we're not saying, OK, guys, you know what? It's great that you're passionate about X, but we actually don't need that here in Armenia.
And maybe we can talk about the health care example, right? For the last 18 months, after I left the position with the high commissioner's office, I joined the minister of health care as an advisor. And I noticed, I'd like to give this as an example, I noticed we had a lot of diaspora Armenian physicians and health care people who would come to the Ministry of Health and who would propose these grand interventions, right?
Whether, you know, that were in some ways like the cutting edge of healthcare in other countries. And, but they simply didn't, not only didn't they, were sometimes not interested in understand what the actual priorities of healthcare are here in Armenia and try to mirror or, you know. help increase the impact of that. But it kind of felt like this, oftentimes an imposition where it like took our focus off the main priorities, right? Primary health care, universal health care, getting people out in the rural areas, just regular sort of interventions for diabetes, for, for, you know, hypertension, for, you know, all of these issues, right?
And it was just, it was kind of annoying, you know? Why do you think that is? Like, why are they doing this? Like, do they, do they still think that?
they know better or like we're just not people in Armenia are like not capable of like figuring out I'm gonna put the put the blame if I can use that on both sides right all right we hear from Armenia diplomatic yes of course um no it is because we here from Armenia are not are not um communicating well enough our priorities but even when we are communicating them and we get these kinds of proposals we're not we kind of want to please we don't want to say no you know our culture particularly sometimes in our ministries we don't want to like hurt the feelings of the diaspora here they are they want to do something good you know let's not you know and it's this you know and then so we kind of like give lip service you know and then these folks will come and then they'll do these things and you know often times it'll go nowhere or it will you know We'll have these like big donations of equipment nobody knows how to use. Like we have to stop this. So what do we really need to do in health care? Oh, gosh.
Well, I don't want to be like the spokesman of health care in Armenia. Just Sarah as a citizen of Armenia. Like I said, we need to get all the people who can make a difference in the room. And we need to get all those people on the same page regarding the priority areas.
Right. In the area of health care, I happen to know what they are. It's primary reform of the primary health care system.
Actual family medicine doctors who are educated, who are leaders, who know what they're doing, actually interacting with the population. We need universal health care because we have one of the highest, if not the highest, out-of-pocket spending when people get sick. In the world, right?
In the world, right? I mean... Let that sink in for a minute, right? In the world, Armenia has the highest out-of-pocket spending for when people get sick. That's crazy.
Indeed. And, you know, and then governance issues, obviously. And so, you know, we all have to get on the same page.
And we all have to, you know, strip away a little bit of the egos of what we think the country needs. And actually, again, I'm going to use the same, you know, metaphor. Sit in the trench together.
You know, you mentioned earlier, Larissa, that when you started Teach for Armenia, you had to create like things from bare bones, right? You know, we're talking about email addresses. I think oftentimes, particularly our diaspora professionals, because they've reached such high levels in other places, it feels a little beneath them, you know, to build these very basic things that we need. Yeah, totally.
And... I would like to invite folks to try to strip away all of their accolades from whatever it is they, wherever they reached in the diaspora and come sit in the trench and help us. Roll up their sleeves. Roll up their sleeves and help us deal with the equivalent of email addresses. Because if you don't want to do that, if that's kind of like below you, then you're not really understanding the root causes of the problems in this country.
Yeah. I remember when this last thing. This tragedy happened with Artsoft in September 23. I saw a lot of diaper drives in Los Angeles. And I just, I mean, one after the other, just raising, not raising money, but just like literally having people drop off boxes of diapers in Los Angeles to be shipped on a plane to Armenia. And it just made me realize, like, we still don't understand as a diaspora, like that Armenia...
has stores that have diapers that are, diapers are expensive in general, but you know, they're accessible to people. And like, why not just send something else that we potentially don't have here, which I think is, I think we have pretty much everything, or just send the money so that we can support the local economy here. This like, and...
I think this also applies to many other diasporas. Like when, you know, the attack happened in Israel on October 7th, there was this TikTok I saw of this comedian, and he dressed up as a woman. And he was, you know, he's like this Jewish, Israeli diasporan living in New Jersey, and he was making fun of, like, all the Tantiks, all the, you know, the Jewish.
housewives who all of a sudden saw that something happened in Israel and like started like buying hummus from the Walmart there and like sending it to Israel etc and I think we all sort of have this thing and I still don't understand where it comes from I sometimes think that maybe it's because most of our charity most of our philanthropy is usually reactive totally and originally was created in response to the genocide, the earthquake and other tragedies that have happened. And so I think we're very good at the reactive part. And but we just have stayed there.
Like there aren't many organizations that are creating, you know, or programs that are developing things ahead of time or have a long term strategy or prior. prioritize human development instead of just building things constantly. New hospitals, new clinics, new schools, etc.
Yep. It's important. Like, I think that is an important part of what the Armenian diaspora is especially trying to do in Armenia.
But it's not the only thing Armenia needs. And, you know, we constantly talk about the fact that the best resource Armenia has is the people, are the people who live here. So what are we doing to develop? that human potential. I feel like we really struggle with that.
It's a global problem in philanthropy, I think. There are projects that are simply sexy on paper or sexy in videos and in social media. And that's what donors oftentimes like to give to. And then there are projects that do a lot of the work in terms of building human capital.
And you simply can't show that. in a flashy way, you know, on social media. And so I think that that's also something that we deal with here, right?
It's just more, I don't know, feeding of one's purpose when they, you know, can cut the ribbon, you know, et cetera, et cetera. And it's less of a, I don't know, sexy thing is really the only thing I can think of when you're doing the thing. really hard day-to-day work of building human capital.
And you don't see the impact of that, you know, for generations. And so donors get tired, right? It's really, recently, I've been reading actually more and more, not this is not about Armenia, but generally that philanthropy is shifting where...
Rather than put these kind of, you know, very, very rigid rules on grant giving, more and more people are giving grants, you know, family foundations and large foundations are giving grants for just core operations. That's great. Because more and more grant givers are realizing actually they just need to give for core operations for these nonprofit organizations to do what they do.
Right. And I'm seeing more and more of that online, actually. Yeah.
So organizations like Teach for Armenia, you know, different organizations just need to receive core funding so that they can do what they're doing. Because we're not going to see the impact of Teach for Armenia. We see the impact now, but we're not going to see like the super deep impact of changing lives for until those kids grow up. Right. Until those kids are the next, you know.
Prime Minister. Prime Minister of Armenia. Right?
Because that's what we're looking, that's what we're hoping you guys are, you guys are. It's going to happen. I mean, did you see that last video I did with this kid?
I do these little interviews with our students. Yeah, I love those. Yeah, it's a series called Dasa Michots, which in Armenian means recess. And I asked him about, you know, the rights of girls and boys.
And he gave a really interesting answer. And I think it gives just a lot of hope to all. all of us that our generation is great.
And I wouldn't be surprised if he was the next prime minister of Armenia. Yeah, this really resonates with me. You know, Teach for Armenia has worked in the regions for 10 years now.
We don't build schools. We don't have shiny objects to show for work. Everything that we raise is invested into people.
And I remember We heard a rumor that Teach for Armenia is very expensive and it has very high overhead costs. And that really the way you should run a nonprofit is by having one or two employees that are severely underpaid and maybe have the board do other things for free. I categorically disagree.
I think. The best thing that we can be doing, especially as social impact organizations, is investing into people, whether they're your staff members or they're your direct beneficiaries, and find ways to raise enough money to get your country's best people to work on solving a very difficult and complex problem. If you strip...
Everything away from TFA, like at the end of the day, all we are are just people. So yeah, maybe we're 100% overhead then, if that's how you think about it. I think that's another thing that I've also seen instilled a lot by the diaspora. They've created these organizations in Armenia that are doing really good and important work.
But what would the impact be if they could just think about this a little different? Totally. If they said, you know, this is our long-term strategy, this is how many people we want to impact, and we need a core group of 10 people, 15 people, 20 people who are paid at these levels that are competitive to be able to get us to where we are. And it's an investment. It's not an expense.
What would happen if our government thought that way? Oh my goodness, I was just about to say. That it's not expenditure on education, but it's an investment in education. Absolutely. You know, I think, well, I have a couple of thoughts about that.
We have grown up thinking that when you work for Armenia, you are volunteering and therefore, you know, any highly paid people working for Armenia are in some way taking advantage of the country, which is absolute nonsense. You see it on social media all the time, where those of us who have built organizations here that rely on large grants are constantly criticized for taking those grants, which I just find, like, what are you talking about, right? We have to pay people, we have to keep people working in this country.
And these, you know, these are ways in which we build organizations. So that's just absolute nonsense. The other thing I wanted to mention on that is, I think that that also gets to the crux about why our public sector isn't working.
working as well in this country. There's a major, like there's a siloed mentality, it seems, in Armenia, where there are certain people who go into the government, right, and are paid, you know, one third, one fourth of everybody else, you know, and then there are other people who go into like the tech sector, right, the banking sector, these sectors that pay thousands of dollars per month here in Armenia. I was at a cafe recently, and I was working in Yerevan, working, and these young people, three young women were sitting close by, and they said, hey, aren't you Sarah who started the Impact Hub? And I said, yeah, I am actually, and we started talking, and these young women were all in the tech sector.
And I said, they said, well, they said, so what are you doing now? And I said, well, you know, I left Impact Hub, and I joined the government, and so I was talking about that. And their face changed. It was so confusing to them that somebody would have left Impact Hub, which is totally part of their sort of understanding of their world in Armenia and would have joined the government. And then I asked, I said, do any of your friends in the government, do you guys know anybody who's working in the public sector?
They could not name one friend who was working in the public sector. And I had this light bulb moment where I realized that we're... totally siloed. There's sort of like these people who go into the private sector in Armenia, and then there's people who go into the public sector in Armenia.
And they never talk to each other. And they don't talk to each other. They don't flow in and out of each other. And I also thought to myself, gosh, I want to put it on my to-do list to start another program, which is the local version of Igort, where we're saying, hey, guys, it's awesome that you are running the next big tech. company, or it's awesome that you're running XY.
But you know what, we need two years of your service, you know, so we create a system, an institution where these highly capable people serve within the government for two years. That's all I want, you know. Funny you say that, because I've actually also been thinking along those lines. So, you know, we have Teach for Armenia. I know we're working together on Health for Armenia, which is inspired by the Teach for Armenia model, but concentrates on health care and physicians also serving one to two years in schools, sorry, in clinics.
I think what we need is a mandatory national service program. Exactly what you're saying. Not for the diasporans, we have something for them already. But when you graduate university, you have to spend a year or two.
working in the public sector field, you know, agency, whatever it might be, that connects back to your profession, you know. So maybe you studied architecture or urban planning, you work for the cadastro or you work for the mayor's office or something like that. I think, obviously, for us, given our geopolitical situation, it's very important for us to have...
a professional and strong army. So I think we need to think about how to do both military, mandatory military service and also mandatory national service. But I really do think it's the only way to build allegiance and patriotism, like within our youth, not towards a political party, which I think has been the case, by the way, for the last 30 years. Sure. Are you a Nikola-kan?
Are you a Serge-kan? Are you a Levon-kan? Are you a Koch-kan?
Like everything is like personal. Yep. Personal, like individual people based. Yep. How do we cultivate a new generation of people who are so patriotic of their state and their statehood that they want to commit two years to serving it?
And afterwards, they don't have to stay if they don't want to, but... I guarantee that many of them will, especially if we have continued reform. We begin paying these people better.
We have OKRs, KPIs, whatever you want to call them, performance-based metrics, promotions, et cetera, and really professionalize and reform our public sector. I think it's going to take time, obviously, but I think having a service program like that and running the public reform program could really land us in a very different place. place 10 to 15 years from now.
And you know, I would even add to that, Lurie said that maybe I don't want those people right out of school. Maybe I want them to actually go out and work in the private sector. And then I want to work with those corporations and those either whether, and I keep saying tech and banking, because those are the big ones where we have a lot of capable people. I'd like for the tech and the banking sector to fund part of these programs, right?
As part of their... What do you call it when a large company does a... Like, you know, the externship, you know, part of their because this is what's happening also, right in the US, people are sort of donating in a way their employees time.
And there's, so I would like to create a program like that. That's funded not just from our private sector, but also from, you know, our donor community. We have something, let's work on it.
We have something similar, actually. So one of the biggest issues we see in our schools. is a lack of STEM teachers, obviously, because most people who graduate from any kind of STEM subject go into the tech sector, into the banking sector, etc.
And so for many years now, many saying like two to three years, our team has been pushing this idea with the tech sector to say, we want you to tell us who your best people are. We want them to enroll in our program as teachers. We want you to keep them as your employees. We want you to pay them the same salary.
We want you to decrease their load by like 30, 40, 50 percent so that the other 50 percent they can spend teaching a STEM subject in one of our partner schools. I love that. It's like a win-win.
Yes. You would think it's a win-win because one of the biggest issues that our tech sector faces is constrained talent pools. Right. That's why most of them have created their own academies. And a lot of times these academies aren't working because they don't understand the rural context, not even rural.
Like they don't understand like where these kids are, how to access them and how to build a pipeline of new talent into the sector. We work with 30,000 kids, for example, across the entire country. So our pitch has been, send us one person, and that person could then run a club, a coding club, whatever other club related to STEM, and help you pick kids who are interested in that field to work in your company. Sarah, to me, it was such a win-win pitch. Okay.
It is nuts. like understood. It's not getting legs. Why?
It's not getting legs. There are several companies who get it. And I'm so thankful that they exist.
And it's not surprising that the companies who get it are also the companies who have strategically decided to regionalize. Interesting. To set up offices in different regions of Armenia because they see a lot of potential there. Okay.
The countries who are Yerevan focused and are working on. To build products, you know, for abroad, they don't feel any responsibility towards the future of Armenia at all. It's like, I'm focusing on today. If I don't have enough people, I'll just poach someone else from a different company.
And that entire other, like, narrative around nation building, pipeline building for their own, like, success is... Not understood. Well, that sounds like what may be happening in the environment, right? There are some companies that have a very much a scorched earth policy, right?
Where they will, they're just going to use the environment and its resources for today. And then there are those who are doing, who are reinvesting in the soil, right? That's the way I, that's what I was thinking when you were saying that, you know, who is actually investing in the roots of this country and what's going to grow later, you know? And who is kind of just having more of a scorched earth policy, you know?
And well, look, I mean, the fact that a few companies are jumping on board, it just means that, you know, that those are the early adopters. And then the wave will, you know, at some point, it'll be cool to be part of that team. I'm sure it always happens. I just keep telling the team that that's going to happen one day. So we just need to keep chugging along.
We actually have about... I think I was in a step back with my team recently. I think it was like, we have about 10 to 15 people in the pipeline right now.
I mean, we started with one person just a few years ago. So it's growing. I don't think all 15 will end up joining the program, but I think it's the first step. And I'm really excited for that. But yeah, I get often when I talk to CEOs or, you know, business folks, they sort of think that.
You know, I'm just like this idealistic person who doesn't understand business. You know, I understand business and, you know, I think... business actually fuels a lot of the social impact that we do in for-profit companies. Obviously, we're a foundation that operates off of people's and companies'donations.
So I like for companies and people to do well financially. But I just hope that one day we can develop a for-profit sector that really thinks about the future of the state and of the country that they are working in. I don't think this needs to be like a completely altruistic sort of endeavor.
I think the government also has to incentivize companies to want to support social impact organizations, charities, etc. So I think we have a long way to go, but I'm starting to see more and more companies, as you said, it's like early adopters who are understanding like the bigger picture and like what we all need to do. from our various angles and viewpoints.
I was just doing this diaspora tour with an organization called Repat Armenia that I know you know very well. And I joined the Brussels, Paris and Lyon part of the tour. And often, there's this question of like, well, what can Armenia offer me?
I think that's a fair question because, you know, if you have a family, if you're not entrepreneurial, you just need a job and an income to live life and to live it comfortably. You mean in terms of people moving? Moving, yeah, repatriating to Armenia. I think we still, I mean, we have opportunity here, obviously. It's like when I think back 10 years, it's grown so much.
But I still think that what Armenia needs now are people who want to build things from scratch. Sure. And maybe 10 years down the line, we can say, listen, we've built like five industries and there's all this opportunity for you to come and have a comfortable life because we can provide a job, we can provide a good education, we can provide good accessible health care, you know, we can provide security. We're not there yet.
And so, you know, I really think that now at this sort of juncture. Armenia needs entrepreneurial people who are willing to sit in the trenches, you know, literally and not literally in other sectors, and roll up their sleeves and get to work. Absolutely.
Or be willing to join other entrepreneurial initiatives and make them stronger and not and be and understand that, you know, There's a lot of excitement in things not being figured out yet, you know? I think that if you're someone who really needs, you know, all these different things kind of figured out for you and you're going to kind of be slotted into it, then I agree that Armenia could be a little bit rocky and rough for you. But I think that if you're somebody that is comfortable in the, you know... things not being figured out and you kind of leaning in to figure those things out together with other people, then this is a very purposeful place. I derive a lot of purpose from my day-to-day life here, you know, not just in work, in like little interactions, you know, with neighbors, little interactions with, you know, whoever might be making, you know, my coffee to go, you know, I mean, there's really a lot of purpose.
And I've been coming and going this past year. I've been traveling back and forth between Los Angeles and here. And I cannot tell you how significant it is when I show up at my Yerevan apartment and I go downstairs and the number of people who are not my friends, but they are the neighborhood people who will say, bari galust.
Right? The lady at the bakery, the guy at the car wash, you know. Um, it's, it's, we're just, we don't, we're not like in each other's lives, but we are in each other's lives, right?
We're this, we're this familial, familial, you know, little group of people in this neighborhood, you know? And I just love it. I really love it.
I feel like, um, I'm in my place, you know? When I, when I'm in my home in Yerevan, I feel like I'm in my place. And anyway, that's kind of an aside to what you were saying, but...
It's a special feeling. It's a special feeling. And people gain that here if they give, I think, if they give that here.
Totally. I have a, as I mentioned, I have a toddler. I don't know if he's a toddler anymore. He's three and a half. He's three and a half.
Yeah. So he's a maturing. Yes.
A young man. I remember I was walking the street and Leo was napping in the stroller. And it was a little chilly. It wasn't like super chilly.
I mean, it was like mid-fall. And he didn't have pantyhose. Which is very much expected of children in Armenia. And his pant rolled up a little bit. And it exposed his bare skin.
And this woman. I can see where this is going. Stopped me. And she was like, what are you doing to your child?
And I was like, what am I doing to my child? He's going to get sick. Look at him.
He's freezing. I'm like, I think he's fine. He's just sleeping.
She's like, no, I'm very worried. You need to. take better care of him. And I love that. She's parenting with you.
She's parenting with me. And I feel like many, many, many people would find that to be tremendously annoying. I love it. But I absolutely love it because I think it takes for you to not experience that.
And, you know, because I'm also from Russia or I'm from the U.S., like I've seen a lot of different dynamics. Yeah. And I just appreciate it so much.
Absolutely. I mean, when people come here with their kids on vacation or otherwise, I'm always like, listen, your child cannot get lost in the Republic of Armenia. Okay.
Someone will find him and bring him. Someone will find him or her and find you. I mean, I really feel confident about that.
Yeah. And, you know, it's funny, that same kind of mothering happens to me even now, you know, like I'll, I'll be rushing somewhere and I'll like leave my house with my hair like slightly wet. Oh, yeah.
That's a no-no. That's a no-no. You will get pneumonia.
Yes. So if I'm grabbing my, you know, gata from the lady downstairs or grabbing my coffee, they will always comment. They'll be like, why is your hair wet?
You know, you're going to get sick. And so there's this total mothering that's happening in the country. Community mothering. It never stops, you know.
Total takes a village. It's right there, you know. Yeah, we're still lucky to have that village in Armenia.
And I'm just, you know, I'm so happy that I can give that to Leo. I feel like it's just missing in many, many places around the world right now. So how do we hang on to that, to that, and to the human thing that we still somehow have been able to preserve here in Armenia?
I kind of want to shift a little bit and ask you more questions about how you keep sane. You know, given your work and all the things that you're doing, how do you just keep healthy and positive? I mean, you've seen some really dark things, too, along the way. What keeps you going?
What keeps you grounded? What are, like, some things that you do maybe every day that sort of refills your tank a bit? You did say you have to spend time with yourself. I completely.
agree with that. I don't even know if that's like introvert, extrovert. People are constantly trying to put each other into different groups.
But that it's very similar for me when I'm constantly interacting and I don't have enough time just where it's just me and myself. It can get really taxing and draining. So I have these little things that I do, even if it's like 15, 30 minutes every day.
What are they? Well, for me, it's definitely meditation. Okay. Like you actually will.
Sit on a mat, close your eyes and meditate. So I'll do it in bed. Okay.
I just want to like picture it. I'll wake up and then I'll sit up in my bed and I do transcendental meditation, which is about 20 minutes per day. You're supposed to do it twice a day.
I do it more so once a day, but I'll try to do something in the evening too before I sleep. I have to work out. I didn't used to be a big workout person.
Same with me. Yeah, I just, I think as I've gotten older and after like pregnancy and weight gain and weight loss, etc., that whole thing has just become really instrumental for me because I think it affects my brain more than it affects anything else. Oh, yeah. And then I try to just have like some time during the week where I have like less human interaction.
One thing I cannot seem to kick is my iPhone addiction. Reading things, scrolling Twitter X. Yeah, that's, it's a big, it's a big challenge and something that my husband really wants me to get rid of. Do you have a book next to your bed?
Do you read a book? I have many books. Next to your bed, right.
I'm reading like three or four books at the same time. I've also noticed that like I've just, my attention span, like I have to juggle a multitask so much that like I can't even like seemingly read a book without needing to go to the next one. Totally, I know, I know.
So I'm noticing some things I think I really need to work on. Yeah. You know, it's the same for me.
My phone usage is like ebbs and flows, you know. It also depends on where I am. For some reason, well, it just depends. If I'm here in Armenia, it's a certain kind of phone usage because we communicate a lot here, as you know, in voice messages, you know, which is like...
Really kind of foreign when I go to LA. Like I'll leave people voice messages and they'll be so confused. You know, who else does it?
Who does that? So we're part of this global organization called Teach for All. We're like in their network.
And when we have conferences, the only other region that I've seen do that is South America. Really? They love their voice notes.
Okay. I love voice notes. I do too. Because I feel like you can communicate nuance, you know, better than in text messaging. So.
In Armenia, I feel like I'm constantly on WhatsApp, like back and forth, voice messages back and forth, back and forth. So my phone is like attached at my hip. But when I'm in the U.S., I feel like I'm always behind because Armenia is, you know, 11 or 12 hours ahead. So I'll get up and I'll be like on Azatutun or like I just need to know, right?
What has happened? Right. Like is the shit hitting the fan today in Armenia or not? Oh, gosh.
I know. And so what is that? Am I still PTSD traumatized from the war days? Because.
There was a certain point at which I would open my eyes and I'd be like, do I grab the phone to see if anybody has attacked or done anything or do I not? And that's, you know, probably not OK. Do you think we're living in like fight or flight response mode constantly now? It's less for me now, but it's only a matter of time that if something happens, I'm going to go back right into that mode. Right.
And people in my life notice it. You know, like they'll say. Like somebody will call and be like, hey, you know what? I needed to talk to you. And I'll be like, what?
About what? Because all of a sudden, I think it's going to be, you know, so. My team knows not to do that now.
Oh, really? Yeah. They'll say, Larissa, I need to talk to you. It's a good thing.
Yeah. I need that. I need that extra sentence because of the years that. you know, we spent and still are living that something is going to happen when I least like I'm going to just be shocked, right? The feeling of that I'm going to be shocked, and something bad is going to happen.
It's constantly there, right? So I'm sure a psychologist listening to this can tell me exact can diagnose exactly what that what that is. Any psychologist looking? Yeah, any psychologist looking or listening to this?
Please let us know. Please let us know. But But in terms of managing all of that, I think, so I do do a lot of yoga and not just, I need a class, frankly.
I'm not good about doing it by myself. I need to go be with a bunch of other people in a yoga class. I don't want to talk to those people, but I just want to be on my mat next to other people on their mats.
It motivates me. There are certain yoga teachers who I love, and I actually have been following this one particular yoga teacher around the world. She leads these yoga journeys, and so we go to these awesome places.
I've gone to Iceland, I was just in Bali with her, and I discovered her at one of my favorite retreat places called Esalen, which is in Big Sur. And that's where I went after the war and after leaving my position in the government to just think by myself and to kind of just take a breath and look back and figure out what just happened. Right. Right.
And anyway, so that's a long way of saying that I love doing yoga and I do try to exercise as much as I can. But like you said, Larissa, it's so much less about the body and so much more about the brain and the energy, you know, and I didn't nobody ever told me that, you know, I had to understand that the high of moving your body is not just about being thin, looking good and all that nonsense that we've been. fed. It's actually really about feeling, you know, your best self or whatever, you know, for, sorry to use those buzzwords, but that's, you know, what it is. I also really dislike small talk.
I've realized that I get I want to escape if I'm put in a situation where I have to have small talk. And that happens. Well, good thing this is not a small talk conversation. Like, for example, cocktail parties or any party where I have to be standing, you know, and seeing people I haven't seen in a long time. And I have to start with small talk.
It's like, it gives me anxiety. I don't want to do it. I don't want to go, you know. I would much rather have a one-on-one coffee with somebody where we can, for one hour or an hour and a half, like actually get deep about what's happening in each other's lives than do like a networking cocktail party. Got it.
Have there been people, you've mentioned your yoga teacher. I'm assuming that's in a sense a mentor, someone who's a mentor to you. There are other people who have sort of guided you through life? Ooh, other people who have guided me through life.
I'm really drawn. to people who have like a quiet wisdom, you know? I'm realizing more and more that confident people are a lot less loud, right? It's the people who are really not confident and who don't have their like internal wisdom or internal whatever you want to call it, navigation system that are the loudest.
So I'm always looking for like, I'm always looking for those wise people who are who are quietly wise. I don't know how else to describe that, you know? Do you think they're perceived to be wise in like Armenia, for example?
Because I mean, there is research that shows that people who speak louder are usually perceived to have more gravitas and power. When you say speak louder, you mean like... They're like the loudest person in the room. They're the extrovert.
They're the... It's possible that that's perceived. those people are perceived that way in Armenia.
I don't perceive that anymore. You know, I'm oftentimes more interested in the quiet people, you know, the people who listen deeply, who lean, you can see their body language, they're leaning in, they're interested, you know. And I'm also really, really interested in people who, going back to our Brene Brown slash Theodore Roosevelt quote, people who have really failed and keep, like, keep at it. They're failing and keeping at it, failing and keeping at it.
I love talking to those people, you know, who are willing to share. And not just in work, by the way, in personal life, in their personal lives. I find that it's oftentimes much harder to get up and keep going and recreate yourself after a personal life failure, you know, not even failure, just trauma, death, people's, you know, family members dying, you know, or people going through divorces.
People whose children, you know, are not turning out the way they'd like, and those people who continue to show up and continue to live joyful lives. Those people I'm really interested in talking to and surrounding myself with. My dad always told me, I mean, he comes from like a, you know, working class farming Irish family. He said, Larissa, the success to life is just showing up. it's true he's like if you don't want to be in class just show up like if you're half not there still just show up so true um just showing up whether it's hard whether it's not hard the peaks and the valleys of your life like if you can show up that's part of a big part of why I think someone is ultimately successful or not I think often people are like how did you you know how did you get to where you are with TFA there's still a lot that we need to do and I think we've only you know reached our first peak of 10 years honestly it's just showing up like it's just keeping at it keep harping on the same points continuously believing in like what you're doing and being like the last man standing sometimes when you know shit gets rough absolutely absolutely I mean I was talking to a friend about something and they were like, should I go?
Should I not go? Should I go? Should I not go? And I was just like, you know what? Usually the answer should be yes.
I don't know why, but something always comes out of it, you know? Except for the cocktail parties where I have to do small talk. Got it.
Those I want to run away. I know. They're like my least favorite thing to do. That's why I like it. Oh, you too?
Really? Oh my God, I hate those events. But I perceive that you are...
uh at least you have more capacity i think than i do to to network you know i'm just i get bored with networking you know i can network online i can look at the people's linkedin you know on your own time my own time without anybody around and then invite them to a coffee you know one-on-one but yeah but working a room is uh boring for me these days but i feel like i have to do it yeah yeah i don't i truly don't enjoy it Like you, I'd rather just grab a bottle of wine or some coffee and just like get to know someone on a deeper level. Because it's like always the same thing. How are you doing? How's the kid?
Okay. Next person to talk to. You know, I think I'd like to wrap up soon. Sounds good. You know, I've taken quite a bit of your time and you're a very busy person.
But I just would like to have a piece of advice. It doesn't need to be sappy or anything else. For our listeners, I believe many of them are young folks who are thinking of, you know, their life, their purpose, the foundational principles that they sort of need to follow to be able to really unlock their own potential and really lead a life of impact.
So what's some advice maybe that you can give these folks who are listening to us as we wrap up? Um, God, am I at the point where I'm giving advice? Oh, yeah. I really... Not because of your age or anything else, but because you've earned it.
I think, I feel like I'm still seeking and thirsty for advice, you know, but I guess, you know, if I look back, why don't I give myself some advice? Let's do it. If that's okay.
Yeah. Um, because I really, I do believe in learning like... together.
And I really believe in learning through a process. And so if I were to be sitting across from somebody, you know, who was asking for advice, I'd probably, you know, want to like connect with them first and try to kind of really understand them deeply before. But I guess I would say the things that have ultimately led me to places that were interesting was that I was really curious about.
whatever it was that was in front of me first, like just curious, asking a lot of questions, you know, thinking about things, you know, not speaking first, listening a lot more, you know, and then also truly being interested in connecting with people on a human deeper level outside of all their professional stuff, right? And then the other thing is I'm actually pretty shy you know I'm actually pretty yeah I'm kind of a shy person I'm pretty shy about like reaching out first you know and really yeah that's crazy and so overcoming a little bit of shyness well you you know definitely have overcome it like I'm I oftentimes will be like I literally will have to talk myself out of the following sentence no that person's not gonna have time for me interesting you know or that person's way too You know, whatever. And I have to remember what we talked about in the beginning, which is they're just people who have all the same crap issues, life problems as you do, you know? Is that a woman thing also?
I don't know. You know, we also sometimes grew up in these Armenian families where you're, you know, and this is not necessarily my parents, but in general, like, you know, taught not to make too much noise, not to rock the boat too much. And, you know, and so I've had to overcome.
that, you know, and remember that actually, I have value to be sitting at this this table, there isn't somebody else at this table who has more value than me. But that's a conscious thing. That's not a natural thing for me. But that's so interesting to me, because in essence, you're a disruptor, like you disrupt systems, and you build them from scratch, and you change them.
And like, that takes, you know, so much in terms of like, believing in who you are, believing in your own intelligence, believing in your own talents. So if you're shy and if you still have those doubts about yourselves, it just goes to show how much work you've done like on your own self to be able to. When I think about you, I think about Sarah, who just bulldozes and trailblazes and creates things from scratch. Like it's very interesting that that was a barrier for you.
Oh, yeah. Doubts. So you course every day. Interesting. Until even now?
Of course. Every day. Really?
Why should I do this? I'm sure there's someone else out there who could do this better. But you know, I'm so curious.
Let me check this out. Okay, let me just put my toe in and see what that's like. Okay, but this person's really interesting.
I really just want to feel who they are, right? Yeah, that's my internal, I think, dialogue, you know, or monologue, whatever. But I mean, I think that's really cool to hear also.
Just as maybe someone who's starting out or is rethinking like where they are right now and what they want to do, that, you know, people who've reached many different heights and have built successful organizations are still asking themselves these very same questions. Do you think that that's what makes you like the humility? Like, because that's just sounds very humble to me. Like you sort of approach it with like a sense of humility. Constantly thinking, are you the right person?
Is there someone better who could be leading this organization, this initiative? You know, I don't know if it's humility, but modesty, you know, etc. I just am very, I'm keenly aware of when it's time for me to be a soldier and when it's time for me to step up and be, you know, in a leadership position. I'm very aware of that. And I truly...
for some reason don't have that much of an ego about shifting between being a soldier and following the lead of someone else and shifting quickly into a position of leading something, you know? I think we all need a little bit of that, you know? There are certain times where we simply have to be a soldier in the trench and there's certain times where we should step up and be a leader, right?
And trying to put aside any... hurt feelings around all of that, you know? I'm okay with that.
I'm okay with both of those roles. Unless I'm in a situation where the leading person is taking us in the wrong direction, right? That's hard. That's hard.
Yeah. And then knowing when to rock the boat in those situations or walk away, you know? those are hard moments.
Sarah, thank you so much. It's such a pleasure to know you, to love you, to work with you. And I'm just so grateful that we have people like you in Armenia, working for the betterment of our country. Thank you so much, my friend. You're awesome.
Thank you for starting this fun, awesome podcast series. Thank you for making it accessible and casual. And it was awesome for me as well. thank you I hope to have you back again soon I look forward all right bye my friend