Adam Torres and Lisa Sun discuss GRAVITAS.
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Show Notes:
Launching an innovative retail brand while creating a movement is no easy task. In this episode, Adam Torres and Lisa Sun, Founder and CEO of GRAVITAS, explore the GRAVITAS story and Lisa’s book, Gravitas: The 8 Strengths That Redefine Confidence.
About Lisa Sun
Lisa Sun is Founder & CEO of Gravitas, a company whose origin story dates back to Sun’s first professional review: that she “lacked gravitas” and “should go buy a new dress, big jewelry, and great shoes.” Realizing the transformative power that clothing can have, Sun secured the global patent on building shapewear into dresses and launched Project Gravitas as a Confidence Company that offers innovative apparel and styling solutions designed to give every woman a confident sense of self. Prior tofounding Project Gravitas, Sun spent 11 years at McKinsey & Company where she advised leading luxury, fashion, and beauty brands globally on strategic and operational issues. Sun has always had a passion for style and for helping people look and feel their best, having been a size 22, a size 8, and now proudly a size 12. At every size and age, she has found creative ways to show off her style, having been named one of Washingtonian Magazine’s Best Dressed Women.
About Gravitas
Gravitas is a Confidence Company whose patented innovations in women’s apparel and styling solutions empower every woman to have a confident sense of self, inspired by founder Lisa Sun’s own life story. The signature product offering is a figure-flattering Core Collection of dresses and skirts made with luxury fabrics and a patented built-in shapewear lining. Offered at an accessible & aspirational price point, each piece isso versatile that it can be styled over 30 ways. Each month, inspiring Woman of Gravitas is featured, along with donations to a charity of her choosing.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest, head on over to missionmatters. com and click on be our guest to apply. All right. So today I have Lisa Sun on the line and she’s founder and CEO over at Gravitas. Lisa, welcome to the show.
Thank you for so much for having me. I’m so excited. All right, Lisa. So we’ve been doing this, this whole series around the speakers and the whole event for the State of the Woman Conference 2024 put on by Gail Letts and her team over there. And hey, I’m just excited to hear your piece as well of what you’ll be doing at the conference and we’ll get into all that.
But before we do, we’ll start this episode the way that we start them all with what we like to call our Mission Matters Minute. So, Lisa, at Mission Matters, our goal and our aim is to amplify stories for entrepreneurs, experts, and executives, you know, people that we feel need to be heard. That’s our mission.
Lisa, what mission matters to you? Our mission is to catalyze confidence. Tell me a little bit more about that. So, one of the things that our team, that is actually our company mission statement is we catalyze confidence. And part of that is we are as a team, redefining what it means to be confident. So, so much of the time when you think about confident, you think about behaviors, like be assertive, be outspoken.
And if you look up the word confidence in the dictionary, it has nothing to do with performance, bravado, or swagger. It’s an understanding of appreciation of, and trust in your own abilities. And so one of our primary missions is to redefine confidence as a mindset and a choice before it becomes a behavior.
And our team creates products, content services, all designed to help women channel. The right mindset and to really see the best in themselves before they go out and do incredible things in the world. So our mission statement company and it’s been that way since day one over a decade ago is we catalyze confidence.
It’s amazing. And so when I look at your, your background, I mean You know, graduate of McKinsey and company were there for over a decade as well. And then I look at what you’re doing now. Like, how did that transition take place? Like you’re obviously highly educated, plenty of things you could do super smart in business and otherwise.
And then you get drawn to this somehow, like, like, how did that happen? you know, I always say your life story is your leadership story. And when I think about my life story, it actually starts way before McKinsey.
the daughter of immigrants from Kaohsiung, Taiwan. And my parents came to the U S in the seventies. My mom worked on a hamburger truck. My dad worked on a loading dock. And they owned a Mongolian barbecue, 4. 95 at lunch, 12. 95 at dinner, all you can eat. That’s amazing! And in 1987, as an eight year old, I was a cashier at the restaurant.
I know that, I know the grip strength that is required now to run an old carbon coffee credit card machine. Because if there was one number missing, my parents didn’t get paid. And so I start there with, it was amazing to see what it takes to create something from nothing, or to believe in something before you can see it.
I think immigrants, entrepreneurs definitely see things before other people do. And that’s really one of the most formative parts of my story is growing up with immigrant entrepreneurs. The second part of my story is I spent 11 years at McKinsey and company, which most people spend 18 months, right?
Thank goodness for my Asian genetics, 11 years is a long time. And I learned apprenticeship, mentorship and client service. And it also was a place where I learned how hard it is for a Asian American woman to be in business, because it took me twice as long to get to partner as my male colleagues. And I think when I joined the firm in September 2000, less than 13 percent of the partnerships globally were women.
And then the third part of my story is my mom in 2012 convinced me to take my life savings and bet on myself and start my company Gravitas. And over a decade ago, it was really important because I saw a white space in the market to be able to serve women in a size inclusive way, but also one that was very mission driven and filled with empowerment purpose.
So if you think about it, I definitely think Steve Jobs connects the dots of your life. Is, is true, right? You have to just trust the dot, these dots connect because I really sit at the intersection as a Venn diagram of immigrant entrepreneurs. So, I was always going to be an entrepreneur at some point.
The second part, you know, 11 years being at one of the best firms in the world, seeing how hard it is for women, both whether it’s from a fashion sense or, but from an emotional and, and, and, and well being sense. And then the third part is, I knew that I wanted to do it on my own, and I knew that there was white space in the market to be able to create something that would make a difference in people’s lives.
It sounds elegant, as you know, life doesn’t get easier, we get stronger. I will tell you, it wasn’t that. Now, I, I love his speech, because Steve Jobs says, like, you don’t know how they will connect in the future, you just have to trust that they will. So I’m definitely an accumulation of lived experiences over the last 25 years.
Wow. Big shout out to mom for having the, the foresight to kind of prod you to going out on your own and starting. What do you, what do you think gave her that, like, whatever that is, that insight, that foresight, that oomph to like, encourage you to go out on your own. Cause normally it’s the opposite. Like for many.
Like many families, you get the high education they want to not stereotyping all obviously, but like you get the, you know, great education, you get the great corporate gig and then you’re, you know, you have stability, especially from some immigrant backgrounds that I’ve seen. Like, that’s it. Like, what do you think gave your mom that foresight to say, no, go out there, do it, Lisa.
Right, you know, everyone always says mama’s son. Can we have her on the podcast? I actually think you’d have more fun probably talking to her Yeah, no, no, no I actually dedicated my book to my mom because I want to be just like her when I eventually grow up I don’t know if she would tell you that there was any right or wrong answer I just think that she has an innate sense of Passion belief.
And what’s the worst outcome that could happen is I would just go back to my corporate gig, right? I think she kind of felt like I’ve pushed you. She, she was a tiger mom before tiger moms were a thing. So she definitely pushed me. Right. I skipped two grades in high school, skipped two grades. I went to college at the age of 16.
I think I had done all the things you’re supposed to do. At which point she said, okay, you have enough that if this. Gig doesn’t work on your own. You could probably go and beg McKinsey for your job back. Right? I feel like, you know, I really think that I had proven myself, had enough of a track record. Not that I’d want to go back into a traditional corporate setting, because I really love what I do, but I think she probably felt like the safety net was strong enough at that point.
That makes sense. What about the rest of your, I know, so my background. So, I mean, I was in for my long term listeners, they know this, but I was I was in corporate America, I don’t know, solid 14 years in finance, like super traditional managed a little under 200 million and just super, super traditional corporate guy.
And I know when I. Decided to make that switch and and start a business or go out on my own. Like people thought I was crazy. Like my, my parents, they were fine. They’re supportive. They’re always supportive for me. I’m just curious. How was your, other than your family, obviously your mom’s like, Hey, go out there and do that, like, how was your overall support network where people just like rah, rah, go ahead.
Or were they like, is she crazy? Like, how was your experience? Well, you know, it’s, it’s interesting. I love big things, just publish some data that says the average age of successful entrepreneurs, 45 luckily I’m turning 45 this year. And what I think happened when you start a company a little bit later in life is you have time, talent, treasure, and network, and so what was nice about.
Over the course of 11 years is I built some very deep relationships, whether it was with mentors at the firm client my friends, obviously long time friends. And so when I said I was going to do that on my own, I don’t think anyone was surprised and everyone was excited to be a champion and have fingerprints on the journey.
I always think the myth of the young entrepreneur should be abolished. I think if you start your company a bit later in life, like you did, you realize how much of a support base you’ve built. And so oftentimes when younger people, you know, in their twenties go, I want to start a company like you did.
And I said, save up every penny you’ve ever made. So you don’t have to raise money. Right. I started the company with my own money first. And you’ll just know more people. You’ll get things done faster. You’ll hire people who want to follow you because they’re not like following a 22 year old. They’re following someone in their mid to late 30s.
And I think that made all the difference. So people weren’t surprised. In fact, one of my mentors at the firm said, You know what? I really think you’re going to be so much bigger on the outside. Like this was always going to be a square peg round hole situation. And we were forcing it because You knew you needed the brass ring of partnership at a major firm, but I really think you’re going to make a bigger difference out there.
Yeah, I, as I’m reflecting on your story, they’re like, man, I, I guess you, you had it together. So everybody’s like, definitely rooting you on. And it’s, it’s, it’s amazing. And I love to see what, how you’ve you know what, though? I don’t think anybody has it together that’s an entrepreneur.
I, I, I, just to be totally open with you, I, I loved the book Shoe Dog, and I loved Giants Enterprise, because what was very clear is folks like Phil Knight, who founded Nike, he talks about when all of his payroll checks bounced, and he had to borrow money to hand out 50 bills. Or how he had to work as an accountant during the week and sell shoes on the weekend, or George Eastman at Kodak, who worked on his business at night for nine years while he was an accountant.
I always tell people, like, know, myth number one is young entrepreneurs are better than older ones. I want to abolish that. The other myth I want to abolish is that, like, it all looks great. I really. I’m very open, like, I’m definitely no one’s role model, right? I want everyone to be their own role model.
I make a lot of mistakes and being an entrepreneur, I think, requires a certain brand of pain tolerance, coupled with vision, coupled with And most people think they want it, and it’s been elevated, but then when you get into it, and you have to make payroll, health insurance, rent, there’s bills that are still pending, you know, you really have to, you have to really know that you want it.
You know, you have to really love it. Let’s so jumping around a bit here, I do want to spend some time on your book. So my long term listeners know I love promoting authors and books. I’m a huge fan of writing books, of obviously promoting them. But I want, you know, if you spent the time, the way I look at it, if you spent the time to write it and put it together, I want to talk about it.
So Gravitas, The Eight Strengths That Redefine Confidence, which I see is a USA Today bestseller, Amazon number one bestseller. What inspired the book? Well, what I’ll say is I realized about, you know, we’ve been doing this for over 10 years.
About six years ago, I was one of the ways in which we reach our target. Customer is I was starting to do a lot of speaking engagements and sharing our message and learnings around confidence with broader audiences. And what I realized is our primary vehicle to reach women was through our clothing, right?
But if you don’t go to a conference and you don’t buy a. 200 dress from us. You don’t get a chance to participate in what we’re doing to have an impact on people’s lives. And so I met with my now literary agent and said for 26. 99, I want to be able to give people the chance to be in the dressing room with me and to take everything we’ve learned.
We actually did quantitative and qualitative research that was proprietary to us. I brought my old McKinsey mentor out of retirement to run a whole study for us over the last five years. And I said, I want to actually encapsulate all the things we’re learning, the ways in which we’re making a difference into 26.
99. Which means you get a chance to participate in Gravitas and have Gravitas, even if you never join one of our events. Even if you don’t buy a dress from us, you get a chance to have your life transformed from what we’ve learned. Hmm. That’s amazing. What has been, what’s been the response? This is your first book, am I correct?
Yes. This is my first book. I don’t know if there’s a second one in me. I mean, this is, this is, this is, What’s been your response? I love talking to first time authors. Like, what’s your response? How’s the journey been? So the book came out in September and we were just, I think we were just really lucky that it caught on.
I don’t love to focus on awards. We did get USA Today Best Seller. We were number one on a bunch of retail channels. You know, we get all that, but What I think has been really powerful is in my book, you get to take a quiz at my confidence language. com for free to discover your own form of confidence.
And within the first two months, we had over 30, 000 people take the quiz and message us. Across lots of social media platforms, even to our call center talking about the impact of learning their superpowers or learning their, their family superpowers, their teammates, superpowers on how they saw the world differently.
And so more than anything, you know, we wrote the book, I think, in part to. Encapsulate what we’ve learned, but also, I think, shift the conversation around confidence. I mean, there’s so much ink that’s been spilled about confidence. Do you really need another book about confidence? And I said, we’re only going to write it if we have a totally different point of view that resets.
The way people discuss it for the next hundred years, right? Dale Carnegie wrote his book. I loved his book a hundred years ago. And at the time in the 1900s, telling people to smile, shake hands, remember names, that would have been revolutionary. I think a hundred years later, we’re talking about confidence as a choice and a mindset before it becomes a behavior.
So yes, you can smile, you can shake hands, you can be outspoken, but that’s only one 10th of actually what it means to be really confident. It’s a self assurance. It’s a way in which you see yourself differently that changes your life. And so I’ve been more excited about people saying you completely reset the way I think about this topic.
And that, that, that I think has been my favorite response. Oh, that’s so cool. That’s, that’s so interesting, and it’s fun, and I love to hear when a response, especially for a first time author, like when you hit a vein or you strike a vein with a book I think it’s going to be fun to see as you see they continue to grow.
I mean, I know it’s already had success, but it’s weird how sometimes these things happen, especially with all the, I guess this is a good transition, wasn’t planned, but with all the Speaking that you’re doing, like, for example, the upcoming state of woman conference 2024, like what happens is that people learn more, they learn more about it.
They knew people discover your content and it just keeps on going. So it’s gotta be, it’s gotta be fun to watch this thing continue to, to pick up steam. So that being said, state of the woman 2024 conference talk to me, like, are you excited? Oh, very excited and even more excited because Maggie Palmer is a dear friend of mine and we’re doing the session together.
So you’re getting a two for one when we come to Nashville. I feel like I’m part of the gang. I interviewed Maggie, so I’m understanding it now. That’s amazing. Yeah, so we’re going to do a session together and I’m really excited about, we’re going to be talking about the power of sisterhood. We’re going to be talking about how to steer your career, authentic confidence.
So, Maggie and I have known each other for some time. I’m a huge fan of hers and I love it when you can team up, so you’ll get double the impact from that session. That’s absolutely amazing. What, what do you know what the like some of the, some of the content covered and we’re not going to go all the way into it.
No, no spoilers here too far. So don’t worry about that. But high level, some of the content that will be talked about or covered. I really am excited to talk about the power of sisterhood and one of the things that I’m. Excited about is where we’re sitting in the middle of the feminist movement.
And so the way I’ve described it is we’re sitting in a fourth wave, right? The first wave being, can women even have bank accounts without a man named attached? Can they be in the workplace, right? The fifties and sixties, even the seventies. The second wave being Helen Gurley Brown. Not can we have it all, but can we have all the choices?
And then thank you millennials for bringing times up. Me too, right? They really ushered in a level of activism. I think this fourth wave is a place of abundance and opportunity over scarcity. So if I look at a lot of my female mentors who grew up during the 80s and 90s, there was really only one seat at the table.
So there was a scarce mindset. I think now as that goes to being two seats, three seats, in some cases, half the seats, there’s an abundant mindset where we don’t compete with each other. We can celebrate each other’s successes without envy or comparison. And so think there’s a lot of joy I have that we’re going to talk about, but also how do we do that?
Right? We do that, which the second thing, which I’m very passionate about. We do that when we know our own value and our own worth. And we feel really happy with our own inventory of talents and strengths. And so what I’ll be diving a bit deeper into is what does confidence really mean? And we started to hit on that a little bit, Adam.
But for us, we’re born fully self confident. If you’ve ever been around a five year old. A five year old knows what they’re the best at in the world, right? And it’s really our adolescence, between the ages of eight and twelve. We identified six forces that hold us back from confidence. They form the basis of an inner critic.
And so most adults actually listen more often to their inner critic than their own source of confidence. And so to break out of the hold and the limiting beliefs of your inner critic, you have to make a choice. And then you have to be able to take an inventory of what you bring to the table, right? If you can look at yourself and know and articulate your superpowers, then it’s very easy to be happy for other people, because you already have abundance in your own life, right?
They’re actually very interconnected. How you see yourself, how you see your own worth, and therefore how you can participate in the collective, are really connected. And so this is, coming back to my book, the research we did is we identified 8 types of confidence, 8 superpowers. Most of us have 2 or 3. My mom took the quiz.
She has all 8. She’s like, I take your quiz, I’m all 8. 2 percent of women have all 8, but it’s not like Pokemon. You don’t need to catch them all. But these 8 superpowers really change the language around which We identify our own talents or strengths and therefore believe in our own abilities and therefore are confident and therefore can participate in the collective of hyping other women.
Absolutely amazing. And I think that is, I think that’s a good place to end it, Lisa. I don’t want to give away too much. Definitely want people to attend. That being said, Lisa, if somebody wants to follow up, they want to continue to follow your, journey. They want to pick up a copy of your book, et cetera.
, how do they do all those things? Well, I always say the first stop is go take the quiz, MyConfidenceLanguage. com. Our website is GravitasNewYork. com and you can find us on social media at GravitasNewYork and at Lisa L. Sun. Perfect. And we’ll put all that information in the show notes so that our audience can just click on the links and head right on over.
And speaking of the audience, if this is your first So if this is your first time with Mission Matters and you need an invitation, this is it. So listen up, hit that subscribe button. We have many more mission based individuals coming up on the line and if you’re a long term listener and you haven’t left us a review yet, I don’t know what you’re waiting for.
Come on, leave that review. It’s okay. It’s not going to hurt. But seriously, we appreciate everybody for tuning in and Lisa, thank you so much for your time and I’m looking forward to continuing to watch this book take off. So thank you. Thank you so much, Adam.
