Hi everyone. It's Rebecca. You're listening to Superwoman. Today's guest is Jessica Pals the editor-in-chief of Cosmo. We talk about all things the land the fashion what inspired her to want to be in fashion and move here and that she's not The Devil Wears Prada. I'll put it that way. Today's guest is Jessica pels the editor-in-chief of Cosmo and Cosmo.com. Hey, I think we're good. I should insert the that cheering like yeah, I remember Cosmo from my youth and obviously it's been it's a historical maggots been around for a long time. You've been there about a year and a half and you took over last September October as editor-in-chief of both but before Start with the journey you're on now. I'd love to hear about your story. Why you loved media? What you love about your job. I was born in a log cabin on a no, I'm kidding. I never really thought I would end up in magazines actually to be honest because my focus was always on storytelling when I was younger. I was obsessed with reading and writing and I got really into movies when I was in I guess it was middle school and I did this nerdy thing where I would would watch a movie and then immediately I would watch it again with the directors commentary on do you remember back when DVDs existed? Yes, and I loved the storytelling first, but then the insight into how the story got made and so I as sort of a writer first was obsessive about stories and then I was a very serious ballet dancer for a long time and that's what brought me to New York. I when I was 14 I came here. Or to study with American Ballet Theater for the summer. No big deal. It was just the summer program. Although I did take a class next Baryshnikov which made my life, but the only way my conservative parents would let me stay here on my own was if I lived in a nunnery, so I did there was plastic on all of the furniture and the nuns cooked all the food. So all I ate was Bodega mango the entire summer was the food. Land uh-huh. Okay. Yeah, I can't imagine like nuns indulging in like flavors. Yeah indulge is not a word I think in their vocabulary there were no boys allowed. I totally snuck a boy into the building. But so I was serious about ballet for a long time and ballet is about storytelling and it's about performance and it's about evoking emotion. I got to a point when I was nearing the end of my high school time and thinking about Jen I realized that I was a good dancer, but I wasn't the best dancer same I didn't know you'd and yeah, I was in modern I was like you and I'm not going to be Baryshnikov or like any of the Great's scare. Why bother? Yes, it's such a brutally competitive world. Yeah, and if you're going to be in the corps de ballet of some tiny company, no one's ever heard of that. Just I knew I was too ambitious for that. And I also knew that serious ballet dancers didn't go to college because those are critical years in your career. Here and I wanted to go to college and I wanted to I was a total nerd and so I went to NYU and initially I was an English major again focused on storytelling. I wanted to be a writer and editor and I got really attracted to the the stage. I directed A play When I was a freshman, which was a bizarre thing. I had never done before but decided to just why not, you know, just try it. I directed A play all by myself and and I loved that as a new kind of Storytelling and through that I met one of my dearest friends Matt patches who was like, you know, what you should you should try to film program at NYU. He was a film student and he knew what a geek I was for movies and I looked into it and I transferred to Tisch which is the film program at NYU. And so that was the kind of Storytelling I did for a long time. I wanted to be a director and I thought that I would be B and I realized unfortunately what a sexist industry that is damn about it, huh. Did you did you not even bother entering it because you saw the landscape of like male directors versus female or there were basically there was no Kathryn Bigelow when I was in school there just wasn't that kind of a role model but it's also I'm a very practical person and I started to think about this thing that no one teaches you in college that I wish everyone taught in college, which is The lifestyle that comes with the career that you're choosing right? It's just when you're in college, it's all about like this is what I want to be. This is what I want to do. You're not thinking about the fact that in film you're working 18-hour days on a project-by-project basis, which means you don't know where your next paycheck is coming from you're not getting health insurance and I am a very detailed oriented Virgo who needs structure in my life. And so I knew that film while a great love of mine. Always and it's come full circle. Now. I work on video at Cosmo which is really cool. But I knew that the film lifestyle wasn't right for me and so in college, I started interning I started at the New Yorker and then I went to Vogue right after that and I just fell in love. It was like the perfect combination of all of the kinds of Storytelling that I loved. I also really loved ones. I got to Vogue. I loved focusing on women as an audience because I Like women were underserved but there is also this really immensely attractive thing that was sort of the opposite of what I saw in film where in women's media young women had a seat at the table and higher level corporate Executives men would listen to them and look at them. Like well, she's the expert she knows what she's talking about and I thought that was really inspiring and unfortunately rare and I think that more than anything is why I stuck with magazines Above All Else It's So speaking as someone who at the same time as a feminist but also loved Barbie and never felt like Barbie made me like I was never one of those people that like played with Barbies and then thought oh, I need to look like Barbie like that didn't enter and it was a doll I know a lot of people feel like Barbie they needed to look like her and it messed up their head but how do you feel with what you're doing at Cosmo like it used to be like a magazine that was all about sex tips and that's what I would read it for when I was 16 like all the great. Missions and I'm not gonna lie the tantric sex article really shaped my sixteen-year-old sex life. How do you sort of bounds that right and what it was known for and its Legacy and like bringing it into a modern day where women might want to know about sex, but they also need to know about money or all these other topics that are so key to us. It's really interesting in looking back at I did a deep deep deep study of Kosmos history before I took over the magazine in October and what really struck me about Out it is that it was really broad. It was known for its sex tips because I think that's what people went to it for that was so that's what was so unique about it and it's sort of Soul, you know spot in the market that no one else was in but it covered food and it covered it did talk about career and I read a lot about Helen Gurley Brown the founding editor of the Kosmos. We know it now and she her big goal was to To help young women get out there and chase their dreams. What's interesting to me? Is that now on this side of things? I feel like the woman I'm speaking to has done that and the magazine that we're making is about what happens when you get there, which is really interesting. But you know, my audience is 17 percent more diverse than the national average. So we focus a ton on diversity. That's a huge thing for me. Making sure that the magazine looks and feels as nuanced as the audience does I think also, you know Millennials and gen Z hold their media far more accountable for representation than any other generation has so I've been working hard with my fantastic team to make the magazine look a lot more diverse and a lot more like the people who are reading it because I do think that matters. I'm the same way you were I did I did play with Yeah, I left my Barbie dream house, but I never thought I had to look like her right granted neither of us. Look that far afield from Barbie. You know what I mean? I'm not saying that we're blond and had this bizarre proportions, but we're you know sort of in that world. And so I never felt like I was playing with something that was so far removed from my world. But I do I do recognize the influence that media has I think there's been a long narrative in the last 10 15 years of readers and consumers calling out women's media for not being representative enough for diverse enough and not showing up body types and to your earlier question not focusing on the serious issues that women really care about I guess what I'm saying is I think women were frustrated for a long time with the perception that women's magazines made them seem fluffier and flakier than they really were right the media that we all can Now does focus on politics and it does focus on substantive issues. It's not that women now are more serious than they were then it's just that media has caught up right but serious reporting is in my background. I was a features editor at Teen Vogue and that's sort of what's in my heart when it comes to journalism. And I think that's something Cosmo has a long history of doing really well and I want to lean really hard into that space as we go forward. So most people All who have seen Devil Wears Prada, imagine an editor and Chief's job as that. Can you define for me like as an Editor in Chief? How is that different from being a features writer or different from being a market editor so that people can understand like what your day-to-day actually looks like in your your role versus what the movie say? Yes, and I had the funny thing is I have sort of been on both sides of that equation because I started as the assistant to the editor-in-chief of Glamour Cindy Levy who was such Great champion of mine and was nothing like Miranda Priestly except that she was very smart and very driven. So it's funny that movie has sort of I've lived that whole movie right now. I think once you get to be an Editor in Chief, you've kind of done a lot of the other roles that work underneath you. So you have decent understanding of what it does take to be a market editor features editor or a copy editor research director, but what's different about what I do is that I am responsible for the Entire output of this brand and what's changed so much about being an editor and Chief from Helens day to mine is that Helen had a magazine. She had a very big very very big magazine. I have a magazine and a website and a YouTube channel and Instagram, you know, a Twitter a tick tock platform and Alexis show a podcast a new fragrance line. You're responsible for everything. So like you look at every Sir, Graham that comes out. Do you read all the captions? I do I prove all the tick tock videos, you know, the only way that I can survive in the only way that I think what we do is so great is that I have a team of phenomenal mind blowing Lee smart hilarious young women working for me who I trust to own it and run with it. And so I would say that I have my hand in every pot but it's more supervisory. I always added being micromanaged and so I hate to micromanage. So MIA lardy our Snapchat editor oversees our Tick-Tock Channel and I let her do that and I look at what's there and I give her feedback, but II don't I don't like to Over Control. I also think the thing about digital content is that it kind of has to be what it is endemic to the platform that it's on and once you get too precious about it, I think you can hinder what makes digital content fun and great. So I Are you know obviously in the news? It's always like the death of magazines. And now I have a lot of people in media digital media like it's the death of our industry and I'm like bull everyone like someone's gonna survive right you seem to be diversifying which will ensure your survival. But what do you see as like as things are dying or they aren't what they were I used to say when I couldn't afford to go anywhere or afford to go to Paris or anything a friend of mine would like put everything on uncle Sy I like she's like thanks Uncle side because like those were the days right the private cars and the she would just pay forever. She was like my sugar daddy, but it was really Uncle Si's money by new house. Yes. Oh, yeah, welcome. Yeah. So those days are over. So where do you want to take this in this media World which digital brands are dying. Some magazines are faltering. Like what? What do you see as your strength? I'm going to answer that a couple of different ways. I do hear this narrative a lot this whole death thing and it's depressing but I don't have to read magazines. I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about. But I have a pile. I know me too and my new apartment building. I just saw a huge stack of magazines getting delivered the other day, which was so exciting. You know, it's interesting. I are you familiar with the astrologist Susan Miller. Yes. She told me once that no form of media ever dies out or has ever died out. We all thought the TV would kill the radio it didn't we all thought texting would kill phone calls. It hasn't and I thought that was really interesting and if sort of hung on Hang on to that. I don't think I really don't think print magazines will die and there are a couple of reasons. The first is that I have a theory that I don't think is all that crackpot of a theory. I think a couple of years from now, we're going to find ourselves as a culture and a place where we recognize that just because we can get all of our content digitally on our phones doesn't mean that we want to or that we should I think about being a user on a phone. It's not a space. I control I'm there. I'm sort of navigating around but then I get a text from my mom. And then I remember I have to email my sister back and then I see in my inbox that my boss is ask me a question that I have to go. It's a very sort of frenetic space where in magazines you can't get a push notification, you know, totally and I do think that I'm going to put I'm on the record right now putting money down saying that in five years in a restaurant in New York City if you have your cell phone out on the Table like we both do right. Now that's going to be as decla. Say is if you light a cigarette I really think that that we're headed for that that there will be I hope so right that what that there will be a world in which there are cell phone blocked areas. We're talking about a concept related to that right now work. So I think for that reason we as a culture that's very Wellness aware will get to a place where we feel like it's it is restorative and recuperative to not read on the phone sometimes and to choose instead to Read a physical thing and I think that's that's really important. I also think that there are certain certain kinds of stories that print magazines do do even better than digital and this is where I struggle against myself because I'm working for all platforms, but we did a story recently called how to go to rehab about how most of the young addicts and his country most of the addicts in general in this country will never get help which is a crisis and the rehab piece of the you know, opioid epidemic is not is not what gets really talked about and so we as a staff discussed what a critical need that was for our reader and how impactful it could be for a girl who is reading Cosmo for fun reading it for the sex tips for the great fashion for the beauty for the astrology section for her to stumble upon a story that destigmatize has rehab for her and makes it seem like a less terrifying concept if we Impact readers that way that seemed really important right that telling that story online is difficult. We've done it we've put the story online but it's harder to navigate a concept that has a ton of different a wheel that has a ton of different spokes. It's hard to do that online in the same way that you can do in print so I do think there are certain things that print magazines just to better. Yeah and always will I like in your story of the phones on the table like we're consuming right our phone. Because we're digital word that digitally native. Whatever's like kids on Halloween, right and then you eat so much of it. You're sick to your stomach and then you're like, all right. Just one one a day. Yeah good after the like I make myself want to throw up. Exactly. Yeah. I mean if you look at what Apple's doing with their screen time monitoring I had lunch not long ago with Tim Cook who came to Hearst and was talking about how he did you have lunch like you and him just you and Tim me and he and a couple The other editors in Chief. Wow. Yes. We all tried very hard not to call him Tim Apple, but when someone did he laughed heartily, but he talked about how he feels like if people are on his devices all the time. He's failed right because they're meant to empower your engagement with the world around you and I believe in that and I think I think the whole restorative thing will become a really important component of self-care totally. Yeah. So a lot of the In that interview have encountered whether it's a glass ceiling or being held down or and I'm not trying to make the podcast only be about that. But I've always felt that in fashion while it is mostly women. It's a lot of women like kicking each other down or like throwing each other under the bus or in full strands parents be like me yelling at the leading fashion membership organization saying you've nominated the same women for several years in the in a row and there's like two and you've given the Awarded the same fucking men over and over again. Like why do you have a woman at the head of this? Who's not empowering more women or supporting them? So what do you think has to change about our industry and what can like listeners do to like make sure that the other women in the room are our brought along for the ride? It's so interesting. I feel like in a certain way. We work in close adjacent, but maybe not the same industry because Magazine Media really is run by women almost entirely. I actually realized at a certain point recently that I have never really reported directly to a man when me to exploded onto the scene. I realize how lucky I was that women were always who I was surrounded by in the workplace. And that's who I learned from. I do feel like early on it certainly felt like a bit more of a barbed ambitious kind of place where we all had to jockey because what is c Are about your industry in my industry is that there are so few positions so few opportunities, but so many women so many people who are interested in them, correct. So I think the competitive nature of our work makes it a little bit less. How should we say hospitable to General kindness towards each other right like competing brings out your worst sometimes so I would say more opportunities in general will help. It's And to do that and industries like artists that are continuing to get more efficient and have to get more in fissioned. But I think not feeling like another woman in the room means that there's one less spot for you right is key. I hope that's not the way anybody who's listening feels anymore. It has, you know, I have felt like that at certain points in my career and I certainly hope that your listeners don't have to deal with that. So what is the best part of your job in the worst part of your job? Oh, this is going to sound cheesy. It's hard to nail down a best part because I love so much of it is so fun. I am having so much fucking fun. That's awesome. It's the most fun and it's cool to see when people ask me what I do and I tell them I work at Cosmo their eyes light up because everyone knows Cosmo they don't know a different kind of Cosmo but everybody knows Cosmo and there is excited about it as I am, which is really cool. But I think right now the best part of my job is being able to come up with big exciting ideas that haven't been done before that maybe aren't in the mode of traditional magazine publishing you mentioned earlier that we're diversifying to invest in our future and that really is what we're doing. So we're thinking of events. I just had an event idea this morning. I'm excited about were thinking about products were thinking about brand extensions that aren't stretching Cosmo thin for the sake of like getting it out there but are but are what Power of this brand and how can we leverage that power in a new place that will offer benefit to our not just reader but our consumer our girl that's really exciting to me to flex a lot of different muscles. You can tell from my background to that. I like to do a lot of different things and I think my career has been marked its at least by now at this point by adapting and taking the sort of central skills of Storytelling and reaching an audience and poking an emotion and doing that in a lot of different ways depending on where I am at the particular time and teaching myself in certain ways how to do that. So being in a place now where I can Flex all kinds of different muscles at the same time is really sick. And also I love managing. I love being a manager. I love having I have this inspiring staff of Millennials and gen Z women who are so cool and confident and they have such great ideas and So I love being a manager and I love I also love to edit. So it's amazing to be in a position where I can do all of that and where I can sort of choose. Okay today. I'm going to spend my time doing this. The magazine schedule is pretty demanding. So not 24/7, right? Yeah, it really is but but being able to sort of guide where I put my focus based on what the needs are. That's really cool. My least favorite part of my job. I probably I don't get as much sleep as I I probably should my staff knows this about me and fortunately because I am the horrible person who sends the like 3 a.m. Email. Yes, they all know I hope hey guys, if you're listening, please make sure you know that they all know not to respond to me. You have to be a lot of system. I get it. Yeah. I wish there were better like email scheduling Tools in this world or slack scheduling tools because I have to do it when I'm thinking about it or when I have time, but that's probably enough. I think I'm working on time management drawing boundary is finding ways to take care of myself as a person as much as I take. So take care of myself as a as a professional and I think at this stage I'm starting to about to turn 30 3 you're so young. Oh my God. Are you starting to at this age? I'm starting to realize that me being a powerful effective professional is almost as much about me being a healthy. Z happy person that like having fun in my normal life is a valuable thing for me to come and bring back to my work. My tendency is to pour it all into the job. And as I go I'm realizing that pouring some of it into myself is really important all around totally. That's why I fantasize about the vacation. I'm going to take to do that. Yes. I'm planted yet. But at the same I never take time off. I'm horrible about that. Yeah. I've started forcing myself to just I have to like feel rejuvenated. Otherwise, I just get like Angry. Yes and bitter. Yes. So I have two questions. I like to ask all my guests probably been prepared for this. But what is one thing we'd be surprised to know about you. I cut my own hair. Oh, I know that's good. Your hair looks great. I was ready. I was looking at it before I'll say thank you. It's I do it partially because I am a Virgo. So I mean, I am a control freak, but when I was in college my mom took me to To Vidal Sassoon and she said let's let's get you a funny haircut and I told them do whatever you want and I meant it so they took me from like waist long, you know, ballerina hair you'd have to put it up in a bun. They gave me a pixie and I loved it. But holy shit. That's hard to maintain. Yeah. I didn't as a college student. I did not have Vidal Sassoon maintenance money. So I started just cutting it myself with a pair of manicure scissors. I still use that same pair of scissors. And it has probably saved me like a lot of money over the years. Hey, so yes, and the other last question I like to ask is what is one piece of advice either you come up with on your own that you can share or that someone gave you that was really valuable. I had to learn this the hard way and it's a lesson that I'm constantly reminding myself, but the my focus on perfectionism my insistence that I be perfect I think is has backfired and so many ways. Ways and has held me back. And as soon as I started to realize a couple of years ago, maybe two years ago that not only focusing on being perfect but focusing on making sure that everyone around me that my boss and that her boss and that you know, this other boss over there that they all felt like I was the perfect employee it meant that I was sort of stressing a lot about the emotional states of other people and maybe not always doing my best work. Because I was focused on doing the perfect work and I know now that there is no such thing as the perfect work and there is no such thing as the perfect employee which sounds obvious probably but it was earth-shattering once I realized it and when I started to shed that which again I'm still I'm still peeling off those layers, but when I started to do that, then I started to be Brave and Bold and to take risks and I started to get more satisfaction out of my own work my own ideas. I believed in my own ideas more because I was less focused on measuring them against what I now realize was some imaginary, you know rubric so dropping the perfectionism it's hard, but I think that's really changed my life. That's amazing. I love that. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me on the corner on. Yeah, of course. That was Jessica Pals to find out more about what she's up to a cosmo. You can follow at cosmopolitan.
Things I bet you didn’t know about Cosmo: The first issue was released in 1886; It’s now the largest media brand for young women in the world, reaching 81 million readers; The current editor in chief, Jessica Pels, is a Virgo who loves to cut her own hair! Jessica didn’t always envision herself working in magazines, but she has always loved a great story. Growing up she would watch a movie, then immediately afterwards watch the full director’s cut. For a time she considered a career in film, but it was ultimately the culture of female leadership that led her to choose the path of women’s media. Now as the editor in chief, Jessica is working with her team to make Cosmo a space in print and online where readers can look not only for sex tips, but also for political, financial and career advice, seeing themselves reflected in the full spectrum of what it means to be a woman in the 21st century. Plus horoscopes! Thanks for listening! We love our listeners! Follow Superwomen on Instagram. [14:01] The double-edged sword of perfectionism. [26:12]  ---   Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/superwomen/support 