Speaker 1: No one has all the answers, but when we ask
Speaker 1: the right questions, we get a little closer, closer to truths,
Speaker 1: closer to each other, even closer to ourselves. I'm journalist
Speaker 1: Danielle Robe, and each week, my guests and I come
Speaker 1: together to challenge the status quo and our own ways
Speaker 1: of thinking by daring to ask what if, why not?
Speaker 2: And who says?
Speaker 1: So? Come curious, dig deep, and join the conversation. It's
Speaker 1: time to question everything. I am coming off such a
Speaker 1: fulfilling day or week. I have to tell you about
Speaker 1: it before we jump into today's episode. I went to
Speaker 1: New York for thirty six hours basically for one reason.
Speaker 1: And those of you who have been listening to the
Speaker 1: pod know that I went to Glorius Dynam's Brownstone her
Speaker 1: to sit in her living room at the end of
Speaker 1: last year, I think it was, and I was kind
Speaker 1: of nervous because it was my first time there and
Speaker 1: I just have so much reverence for her. And this
Speaker 1: week I went back, and I'm so grateful I got
Speaker 1: to go back because my nerves subsided. I wasn't jittery,
Speaker 1: I was just present and taking it all in and
Speaker 1: I got like forty minutes alone with her on the
Speaker 1: couch just to talk, and you know, I asked a
Speaker 1: million questions, but she's just such a special person and
Speaker 1: I left thinking like this is the pinnacle of my
Speaker 1: career because I can't, like, I just can't believe that
Speaker 1: all of the like hard work and all the things
Speaker 1: right led me to Glorious Steinem's couch. I've literally read
Speaker 1: every word she's at written that I could get my
Speaker 1: hands on.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't have her journals, but.
Speaker 1: I just I don't know if I've ever like admired
Speaker 1: a person more. I'm not like a big admirer. I
Speaker 1: have a lot of reverence and respect and love like
Speaker 1: complimenting people and recognizing what's special in them, But the
Speaker 1: word admire feels I don't know. I just I don't
Speaker 1: say it a lot. And I really deeply admire her.
Speaker 1: I admire how she's lived. And one of the things
Speaker 1: that stood out to me I want to share with you.
Speaker 1: So we were there for a talking circle and the
Speaker 1: topic was AI. So there were two experts and a
Speaker 1: few other people in the space, tangentially in the space,
Speaker 1: and she was like really into it. I think, because
Speaker 1: you know it, we're all sort of like learning about
Speaker 1: AI at the same time in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: So anyways, we went around the circle. We introduce ourselves
Speaker 1: and then talked about what AI means to us, how
Speaker 1: we're using it in our life, the positives, the negatives,
Speaker 1: et cetera. And everybody talked about how they use it
Speaker 1: in their life, so mostly chat GPT at this point,
Speaker 1: right like, the future of AI probably looks more like robotics,
Speaker 1: but right now we're using chat GPT, which is basically
Speaker 1: a language tool. Because I don't know if you've ever
Speaker 1: tried to have chat GPT do math, it's not so good.
Speaker 1: It's also like mediocre at planning a trip because AI
Speaker 1: doesn't have taste, right, humans have taste. But it is
Speaker 1: really good with language because AI is only as good
Speaker 1: as the data set that you input, and the data
Speaker 1: sets they have is a lot of words, a lot
Speaker 1: of language, a lot of writing from the internet. So anyways,
Speaker 1: we go around the circle. I share how I've been
Speaker 1: using it, which is I've found for myself the best
Speaker 1: way is to create on my own, like write on
Speaker 1: my own and then put my writing through chat GPT
Speaker 1: to edit it to see if there's anything that I
Speaker 1: could word better, say better, be more concise with et cetera,
Speaker 1: and I found it to be really great. So we
Speaker 1: go around the circle and everybody's explaining how they use
Speaker 1: it and what they're thinking about, and we were all
Speaker 1: pretty self focused. It was about how we were using
Speaker 1: AI and Gloria was the last person to speak, and
Speaker 1: she said, you know, all I keep thinking about is
Speaker 1: what this means for people that live in developing countries
Speaker 1: who don't even have access to it. What does that
Speaker 1: mean for the division that that causes, for the class divide,
Speaker 1: the racial divide, all of that. And I just looked
Speaker 1: at her in awe because that is part of what
Speaker 1: makes her so special. She always thinks about the least
Speaker 1: privileged person, not just in the group we're sitting in,
Speaker 1: but in the world. And it totally changed the conversation.
Speaker 1: It turned everything into a much more robust, inclusive conversation.
Speaker 1: And I just wanted to share that because, you know,
Speaker 1: as much as I try to look outward all the
Speaker 1: time and I try to think about others first. I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's age or I don't know, Like
Speaker 1: we all were talking about ourselves, and then Gloria spoke
Speaker 1: about what it means for the least privileged person, and
Speaker 1: it just really shifted my mindset. I really want to
Speaker 1: try to think like that more so before we jump
Speaker 1: into today's episode, which is a really fun episode, mostly
Speaker 1: because our guest today is awesome, but also she happens
Speaker 1: to be a friend of mine, and so I feel
Speaker 1: like when I know people before I interview them, it just,
Speaker 1: you know, like changes the dynamic. But I was looking
Speaker 1: at the numbers of podcast listens and it's been really
Speaker 1: interesting to see what you guys are interested in. And
Speaker 1: I feel like there's been a lot of new people
Speaker 1: that came to the pod from listening to the Bosomas
Speaker 1: Saint John episode, which Wow, she was one of my
Speaker 1: favorites for sure this year, maybe even in the last
Speaker 1: few years, Like she's just a remarkable person. But if
Speaker 1: you're new here, there's a few things I want to share. One,
Speaker 1: I zoom with a listener every single week, so all
Speaker 1: you have to do is write a review or send
Speaker 1: a screenshot of you sending the episode to two friends.
Speaker 1: Any episode to two friends, and you're entered in the
Speaker 1: lottery for the week, and you can enter as many
Speaker 1: times as you want. It is the highlight of my
Speaker 1: week for sure. But yeah, if anybody out there wants
Speaker 1: to chat or your friends want to chat, that's always available.
Speaker 1: So I was looking at the most popular episodes this
Speaker 1: year in case you need to go back and listen
Speaker 1: to a few, and it was interesting.
Speaker 2: The twenty twenty five My New.
Speaker 1: Year's episode about five life changing moves to get ahead
Speaker 1: for the year, is our second highest rated episode, and
Speaker 1: the highest rated episode of the year was the first
Speaker 1: one in January. Actually, it was with doctor Ellen Langer,
Speaker 1: who is Harvard's Mother of Mindfulness, and it's about reversing
Speaker 1: aging and rethinking health.
Speaker 2: That one is such a must listen.
Speaker 1: If you need to go back and haven't listened to
Speaker 1: that one, please do. Not only is she a great storyteller,
Speaker 1: but it's one of those episodes that will literally change
Speaker 1: your mindset, particularly about illness, mindfulness, the way you approach friendship.
Speaker 1: It's pretty unbelievable. Okay, let's get into today's episode. There's
Speaker 1: a video I saw in twenty nineteen that rewired my
Speaker 1: brain and I'm not exaggerating.
Speaker 2: Jamila Jamil posted this, I.
Speaker 3: See tremendous value and honor in trying stuff and I
Speaker 3: don't believe in. I think trying is winning, and this
Speaker 3: is something that I talk about a lot, and I
Speaker 3: really genuinely believe it, and I've proven that by how
Speaker 3: many ridiculous things I've put myself up for that would
Speaker 3: result in global humiliation, even just my Twitter every day.
Speaker 2: What am I doing? What am I saying?
Speaker 3: But it's because I'm willing to put myself out there,
Speaker 3: and because of that, via my periphery, the most incredible
Speaker 3: opportunities have come up, and women in particular are told
Speaker 3: not even to try. We are dictated to us to
Speaker 3: what our lanes are from as soon as we can understand.
Speaker 3: And that's so toxic because there are so many things
Speaker 3: that you are all capable of that you have no
Speaker 3: idea about because you've never even been encouraged to try,
Speaker 3: because you've been fearmongered around failure.
Speaker 2: Failure does not exist.
Speaker 3: The only thing that I think failure exists in is
Speaker 3: not ever trying. That's the biggest failure that you can commit.
Speaker 1: And in the caption of that video, she wrote, trying
Speaker 1: is winning. You're a hero for taking a chance on
Speaker 1: yourself for whatever happens, and most people will be forever
Speaker 1: haunted by the words, what if don't be that person?
Speaker 1: Please just go for whatever it is that you love.
Speaker 1: If you have the slightest opportunity to rejection still means
Speaker 1: you are a legend for risking your pride, being hurt
Speaker 1: to put yourself out there. That takes so much character.
Speaker 1: I've failed a million times that I consider those as
Speaker 1: noble as my few big wins. Do not apologize for
Speaker 1: being ambitious and thinking outside the box that you have
Speaker 1: been forced into by the people around you. You know,
Speaker 1: I just mentioned that I zoom with one listener a
Speaker 1: week right. People ask me about creative endeavors, about their businesses,
Speaker 1: about public speaking, about career transitions. Sometimes we talk about
Speaker 1: things that I am not an expert in. And you
Speaker 1: know what, I realized, people are asking for permission most
Speaker 1: of them time, permission to begin, permission to be seen,
Speaker 1: permission to risk, permission to want more than they've been
Speaker 1: told they're allowed to want, Permission to just freaking go
Speaker 1: for it, to go for whatever it is they want.
Speaker 1: And that idea that trying is winning is at the
Speaker 1: center of today's episode. Sarah Haynes is warm and sharp
Speaker 1: and so funny. She can disarm a room in seconds.
Speaker 1: You may know her as one of the co hosts
Speaker 1: of the View, but today we get to go behind
Speaker 1: the camera, ready polish, and into the story that you
Speaker 1: don't often hear, the story of someone who's tried again
Speaker 1: and again, often without certainty, often without applause, and always
Speaker 1: with a whole lot of heart.
Speaker 2: Sarah opens up about.
Speaker 1: What it took to become the woman that we see
Speaker 1: on screen, from her childhood dreams of SNL to one
Speaker 1: of her lowest moments where she narrowly walked away from
Speaker 1: TV altogether. It was pretty shocked to hear about it.
Speaker 1: It's something she doesn't talk about that often, and to
Speaker 1: hear her honest reflections on that time as well as
Speaker 1: some of the invisibility that she felt when she became
Speaker 1: a mom, it was pretty cool to hear someone speak
Speaker 1: that candidly. I also love when she talks about her
Speaker 1: big ambition, and woven through all of it is this
Speaker 1: her philosophy on trying.
Speaker 4: I don't want to sit here and tell my daughter
Speaker 4: I once thought I would do something.
Speaker 2: The fear was never having tried.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm a Chicago girl, So I love hearing
Speaker 1: her talk about her Midwestern upbringing and how she got
Speaker 1: her first job as an NBC page. There's so much
Speaker 1: determination that she had that I feel in her to
Speaker 1: this day, and yet she talks about being told that
Speaker 1: she didn't have it. Can you imagine that She talks
Speaker 1: about watching others rise while she felt stuck, about the
Speaker 1: pivots that almost broke her, and the quiet, radical decisions
Speaker 1: that brought her back. And you know, I'm obsessed with
Speaker 1: daytime television, Okay, especially the view. So we also peeled
Speaker 1: back the curtain on what it really means to sit
Speaker 1: at that iconic table and what happens when your inner
Speaker 1: critics shows up uninvited.
Speaker 4: There are days I still walk away from that table.
Speaker 4: The inner voice says, that was dumb. You didn't offer anything.
Speaker 1: We chatted about dating, what it means to find love
Speaker 1: later on in your life, on your own timeline. Sarah
Speaker 1: met her now husband at thirty four, she got married
Speaker 1: at thirty seven, and had kids in her late thirties,
Speaker 1: And as somebody navigating that chapter myself, it felt both
Speaker 1: comforting and expansive to hear her say this.
Speaker 4: I never lost sight of what I wanted and never
Speaker 4: would I have categorized myself as someone who's a professional
Speaker 4: woman choosing her job.
Speaker 1: She also got pretty real about how becoming a mom
Speaker 1: didn't just change her, it changed how people saw her.
Speaker 4: From the moment you say you're pregnant, you don't realize
Speaker 4: how quickly you fade.
Speaker 1: And underneath Sarah's story is this question of trying that
Speaker 1: echoes again and again, not just does a motivational phrase,
Speaker 1: but as a way of living, because I don't think
Speaker 1: trying is just about effort.
Speaker 2: It's about identity.
Speaker 1: It's about who you become when you risk failure, when
Speaker 1: you listen to that inner voice over all the noise,
Speaker 1: and when you keep showing up, especially when no one
Speaker 1: is clapping.
Speaker 2: Sarah's story is full.
Speaker 1: Of answers, like she gives really good advice, but I
Speaker 1: think even more importantly, it's full of proof that trying
Speaker 1: is winning. Trying is the point. So the question I
Speaker 1: think we're really circling today is what does it mean
Speaker 1: to try? It's time to question everything with Sarah Haines.
Speaker 1: It was hard for me to figure out where to start,
Speaker 1: but I always try and think of like a theme
Speaker 1: for the episode, And as I got deeper into your story,
Speaker 1: I realize for me looking in it was hitting a
Speaker 1: wall and then running, either jamming a Sarah Haynes size
Speaker 1: hole through the wall or finding a way to climb over,
Speaker 1: Like every single time you were hit with something, you
Speaker 1: find a way forward. I read that you attribute that
Speaker 1: resilience to your parents. They never signed a form, came.
Speaker 2: To a game.
Speaker 4: Well, they loved coming to my sports, but like they
Speaker 4: with four kids, I don't feel it they never took
Speaker 4: the lead. There's this whole generation of parents where people
Speaker 4: will call or my kids doing this, and they were
Speaker 4: great parents in the nineties standards, you know, But looking back,
Speaker 4: I'm like, they never don't forget to take that, don't
Speaker 4: do you know it was?
Speaker 2: You're going to be left out if you don't remember that.
Speaker 1: Then you look back now that you're a parent, are
Speaker 1: you ever like, why didn't my parents step in anymore?
Speaker 2: No? I love it.
Speaker 4: I love it because I just read a quote the
Speaker 4: other day that said, it won't be what we teach
Speaker 4: our kids to do, it will be what we empower
Speaker 4: them to do for themselves that will lea the greatest mark.
Speaker 4: That's not exactly how it was, but that's the sentiment,
Speaker 4: and I thought, yes, yes, that's the point. You can't
Speaker 4: always be there for them. I want them to be resilient.
Speaker 4: I want them to handle everything coming at them and
Speaker 4: know that I'll be there as long as I can
Speaker 4: for whatever they need.
Speaker 2: But I need them to be okay. And that's what
Speaker 2: I want for them.
Speaker 1: You said it so beautifully. My mother says starve them out.
Speaker 1: She always says, I need to starve you out, like
Speaker 1: I trapped my whole life. I tried to not give
Speaker 1: you things so that you could give yourself things.
Speaker 2: And it's actually harder than I thought.
Speaker 4: Coming my oldest sister had kids young, and she was
Speaker 4: my oldest sister, so I grew up judging way out
Speaker 4: of like I was way out of my lane, judging
Speaker 4: my sister at times with my nephew and niece, who
Speaker 4: are great, but I was constantly like, why would.
Speaker 2: You do this? Why would you do that?
Speaker 4: And I realized, and my beliefs in what the vision
Speaker 4: is have actually remained pretty sturdy. The execution is much
Speaker 4: harder than I thought. So it is much easier at
Speaker 4: times out of pure exhaustion or just the glee of
Speaker 4: seeing your kids joyful in a moment. That means that
Speaker 4: starving out means you have to really comprehend delayed gratification
Speaker 4: and love them more than a moment, and that's I
Speaker 4: do my best and Max is on the same page.
Speaker 2: But it's hard. It's really hard.
Speaker 1: Because you want to make their lives easier.
Speaker 2: I just want to watch them laugh.
Speaker 4: I want to watch them laugh and I want to
Speaker 4: know that in that moment, with how hard parenting is,
Speaker 4: those little moments, you can really solve those things. Yeah,
Speaker 4: but if I do, what will prepare them for the
Speaker 4: next challenge in the bigger hurdle.
Speaker 2: So I'm kind of starving them out. I like your mom.
Speaker 2: I hate that. I will get so mad I tell
Speaker 2: you for starving her out. That's why she's sitting here
Speaker 2: right now.
Speaker 1: Okay, So high achiever Sarah. You went to Smith College
Speaker 1: and you studied government. Why government?
Speaker 4: So my mom said, pick a major based on what
Speaker 4: you want to study.
Speaker 2: It's a liberal arts education.
Speaker 4: You're going to spend the majority of your time in
Speaker 4: those classes and reading that topic.
Speaker 2: What interests you.
Speaker 4: I had always loved social studies in history, and so
Speaker 4: to see all the classes from comparative government to political theory,
Speaker 4: I mean, oh my god, philosophers, I was like, ooh,
Speaker 4: this is my homework. So that ended up being kind
Speaker 4: of the topic. When I looked through the catalog that
Speaker 4: I was like, this is kind of an easy decision.
Speaker 1: It's wild to me that none of the sort of
Speaker 1: points in your life could have added up until they
Speaker 1: were in hindsight, like now being on the view that
Speaker 1: that degree in government is so valuable and useful and
Speaker 1: probably taught you how to think and how to perceive issues.
Speaker 1: But like at the time, you hadn't even thought of broadcasts.
Speaker 4: No, no, no, In fact, broadcast, my sister had wanted
Speaker 4: to be in broadcast, so she was a communications major,
Speaker 4: had all the internships, and then a really sad story
Speaker 4: of a missing TV anchor who she never was found,
Speaker 4: Like that day my sister pivoted to behind the scenes production,
Speaker 4: but she actually was on the local station, you know,
Speaker 4: her college station and stuff, So broadcast I thought, definitely
Speaker 4: not that, Like I'm not a newsperson like I was
Speaker 4: all I was a little more nerdy in my pursuits,
Speaker 4: like I wanted nerdier things that got me more excited.
Speaker 2: But I did love to make people laugh.
Speaker 4: So the personality of a third child in a big
Speaker 4: family was probably more pivotal than my studies.
Speaker 1: Well speaking, of laughing, you have a dirty little secret.
Speaker 1: You wanted to be on SNL.
Speaker 4: I still want to be on SNL. I still am
Speaker 4: putting this out. My dream was Saturday Night Live?
Speaker 2: Have they ever spoofed you? They did? They did. That's
Speaker 2: kind of amazing.
Speaker 4: Okay, thank you, Hota Kappy and Kathy Lee Gifford. Because
Speaker 4: there was a time and Zach Gallifanakis was on the
Speaker 4: episode and I heard that in the because I knew
Speaker 4: so many people in thirty Rock the building, so many
Speaker 4: people said, you're lucky they made that choice for the
Speaker 4: live because they had a crazier version of me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I think.
Speaker 4: They probably went for the laugh by not making us
Speaker 4: all crazy, so I got to be not totally insane,
Speaker 4: but like it was when I was reading side comments
Speaker 4: and there's a point where it's Abby Elliott and she's like,
Speaker 4: watching you too, Like I'm reading a fan comment, Watching
Speaker 4: you too is like watching two chickens fight over something.
Speaker 4: It was like the dumbest thing. And my nephew, who's
Speaker 4: now twenty six, called me. He's like, did you know
Speaker 4: they played you on Saturday Night Live? And it was
Speaker 4: like he had not seen one thing I'd done before
Speaker 4: and I haven't done that again since. So that was
Speaker 4: my pinnacle moment and honestly for me too, I was like,
Speaker 4: this sketch comedy was what I wanted.
Speaker 1: Because you wanted to be an actor.
Speaker 2: I wanted to be.
Speaker 4: In comedic acting, so I wanted to do not stand up.
Speaker 4: Some people are like, oh, you wanted to be a comic.
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh wah, that makes my stomach, like that
Speaker 2: makes me nervous thinking about not that.
Speaker 4: I wanted to play over the top characters and be ridiculous,
Speaker 4: and I think in SNL sketches, So sometimes when i'm
Speaker 4: there's a moment the most awkward thing goes through my
Speaker 4: head and my husband's always like, are you doing it
Speaker 4: right now?
Speaker 2: I'm like, I'm doing it. I'm writing the sketch, Like
Speaker 2: it's just stupid stuff. Are you doing the thing? I'm
Speaker 2: doing the thing.
Speaker 4: And that's how I experienced the world, so I always,
Speaker 4: you know, I thought what a trip that would be.
Speaker 4: And SNL was really the main show we all grew
Speaker 4: up on where that was like, oh my gosh, that's
Speaker 4: a job.
Speaker 2: Those people are paid.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you have to really love comedy and
Speaker 1: improv to feel that way. Because I look at SNL
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I'm running the other way. That looks
Speaker 1: so scary. It's really brave.
Speaker 2: It's brave, it's over the top, and it's I mean.
Speaker 4: Now, I've also watched those behind the scenes of how
Speaker 4: much writing and leading up to it what they do,
Speaker 4: so I eat in a way you're seeing Iceberg product. Yeah,
Speaker 4: but oh my god, like it's still everything. Comedians are
Speaker 4: some of my favorite people I get a meet.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So you mentioned knowing so many people in thirty rocks. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to rewind a little bit and share your
Speaker 1: story to thirty because it's kind of unbelievable. You're in
Speaker 1: New York, you're pursuing acting, you're going on auditions. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you see this guy on the train you run
Speaker 1: the same route yep, and he has an NBC backpack.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you decide to go up to him.
Speaker 4: Well, so at that time, I'd come to New York
Speaker 4: to do all that, but I hadn't even I had
Speaker 4: to find a job to pay rent because I had
Speaker 4: no help. So I was like, I'd saved money up
Speaker 4: from like being a nanny and waiting tables. So I
Speaker 4: wanted to get into the page program, because the page
Speaker 4: program I thought would teach me everything I didn't learn
Speaker 4: in school, you know, because I want to be in
Speaker 4: this world, but I don't know anything but what I
Speaker 4: watch on TV.
Speaker 2: Yes, So I stopped a guy on a train.
Speaker 4: His name was Gary Quinn, and that was a time
Speaker 4: where they'd pass your resume along.
Speaker 2: And I still am in touch.
Speaker 4: With Gary Quinn, like I because I am fiercely loyal
Speaker 4: and he always jokes. He's like, you can stop thanking
Speaker 4: me at this point. You barged through that door and
Speaker 4: been there ever since. And I'm like, but I believe
Speaker 4: that it often takes one person, one moment, and so
Speaker 4: but he passed it along, and I knew I could
Speaker 4: sell my work ethic and my enthusiasm. So once I
Speaker 4: got the interview, I thought, now if I don't get it,
Speaker 4: it's on me. But I just had to get someone
Speaker 4: I knew, no one. Yeah, And once I was in
Speaker 4: the program at the time, I learned so many people
Speaker 4: had an inn and it didn't have to be a
Speaker 4: big in It could be I have an aunt who's
Speaker 4: works on the crew, or you had to know someone otherwise.
Speaker 4: It was just thousands of resumes that were faceless people.
Speaker 1: And when you do, you remember what you said when
Speaker 1: you went up to him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was like, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 4: I don't want to scare it. I'm from Iowa. Because
Speaker 4: in my mind, I look back and I'm like, why
Speaker 4: did my mom prep me for New York City living?
Speaker 4: The woman had never left Kansas, but she had me
Speaker 4: so prepared that, like, I wouldn't want to approach a
Speaker 4: man as a twenty three year old with a suit
Speaker 4: during commuting hours because I might scare them.
Speaker 1: You would scare them.
Speaker 2: Yeah. She was like in New York.
Speaker 4: Like you don't want to wear your jewelry. I was like,
Speaker 4: what jewelry? I'm twenty one. I have no jewelry. Like
Speaker 4: my Clare's boutique is not going to lure anyone in,
Speaker 4: like I was. So I looked back and I'm like,
Speaker 4: I'm so mortified.
Speaker 1: It's my mom said the same thing to me in La.
Speaker 1: It's such a Midwest thing.
Speaker 2: It is, right. I was like, I have no jewelry.
Speaker 1: Yeah, these are from Zara, Yes, And.
Speaker 2: I was like, what do you want me to take off? Like?
Speaker 4: You know, so the culture shot and that's what's underestimated
Speaker 4: when you moved to a big place. It's not just
Speaker 4: like you hit the ground running. I didn't know the
Speaker 4: first thing about how to get a head shot. I
Speaker 4: knew I needed one, but I was like, those costs
Speaker 4: a lot of money. Like, so my first headshot was
Speaker 4: an assistant photographer at Saturday Night Live because through a
Speaker 4: friend of a friend in the program, and they said,
Speaker 4: if you call this person, it's for their portfolio. So
Speaker 4: it was like two hundred dollars and I thought, oh,
Speaker 4: I think I can say you know, I got that.
Speaker 4: So every learning curve set me way back. I wasn't
Speaker 4: even to the place where I was considered in the business.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I didn't know what the heck the business was.
Speaker 1: So you get this internship right, and you're a page
Speaker 1: and you're actually paid.
Speaker 2: It's like right out of.
Speaker 1: College, and is this the page program? Yes, okay, and
Speaker 1: you were obsessed with being a page.
Speaker 4: I loved being a page when I got a job,
Speaker 4: which is the whole point. I did a plus's and
Speaker 4: minus column about why I should not take this program
Speaker 4: because I had two full months left in the program.
Speaker 1: Oh, because when you talk I heard another interview that
Speaker 1: you talked about the page program, and other people are
Speaker 1: like yeah, it was like an internship.
Speaker 2: And then I moved on.
Speaker 1: You were like, I love being a page.
Speaker 2: Every tour was a stage for me. Yes, I had
Speaker 2: the most fun. Most pages hated their tours. But you're
Speaker 2: going with a friend.
Speaker 4: So if we're in the page program, Daniel, you've come
Speaker 4: in for your schedule and that day you and I
Speaker 4: are partners, so all five of our tours will be together.
Speaker 4: We had the most fun. These are all people that
Speaker 4: are like minded. Yeah, they're writers, their comedians there, some
Speaker 4: of them are into marketing sales. You get a play
Speaker 4: all day with a friend, and every tour it's a
Speaker 4: new life audience. I had the best time. We also
Speaker 4: would this is probably not things we should admit, but
Speaker 4: we play like.
Speaker 2: Word games where.
Speaker 4: You'd say, like I remember doing the tour in rose
Speaker 4: O'Donnell's studio in my page friend who most of us
Speaker 4: are still friends.
Speaker 2: Anyway, it was.
Speaker 4: Like halatosis and I was like, how the hell am
Speaker 4: I going to plant halatosis in a tour?
Speaker 2: And we talked about how prizes drop down.
Speaker 4: I say, you don't know, you know, like maybe you'd
Speaker 4: get mouth washed for your halotosis, and the guy said, yeah,
Speaker 4: you would make up anything. Then we'd give each other
Speaker 4: a word you couldn't say a word that starts with
Speaker 4: an S, and we're like, that's not fair. We're in studios,
Speaker 4: you know, like you can't. But then if you did it,
Speaker 4: your partner would raise their hand in the back and
Speaker 4: you'd have to find a way to give your tour
Speaker 4: while literally going like this. So we're here in the set,
Speaker 4: right over here, and you'd have to turn every time
Speaker 4: you did it. So we were also a little area
Speaker 4: like it.
Speaker 1: Was so fun, so fun. You have great memories from
Speaker 1: that time, the.
Speaker 4: Best memories and hard because that was also nine to
Speaker 4: eleven and then Anthrax the next month.
Speaker 2: Oh wow. So there was a lot of history playing out.
Speaker 2: But the job itself was just it was amazing.
Speaker 1: And did you get hired by NBC right after the
Speaker 1: Page program?
Speaker 4: Yes, So that the debate was I got offered a
Speaker 4: job in operations, so you know, as a creative person,
Speaker 4: I knew the majority of things I could learn from
Speaker 4: more and more producing writing things.
Speaker 2: This was going to be all logistics, but it bought.
Speaker 4: Me a year in the building because you know, you're
Speaker 4: all freelance, so I thought, but I'd get a year
Speaker 4: in the building.
Speaker 2: That's a plus.
Speaker 4: That was my columns, today's show operations versus my assignment,
Speaker 4: which is not even a job. On last call with
Speaker 4: Carson Daily Go and I had like a whole list
Speaker 4: of what it would mean to stay or go, but I.
Speaker 2: Took the job. It's interesting, So you mentioned creative.
Speaker 1: I could not believe that you said you don't consider
Speaker 1: yourself a creative person.
Speaker 4: I'm really logistically oriented as a virgo, as a type
Speaker 4: a person.
Speaker 2: It's funny.
Speaker 4: I feel creative when I'm going for a joke, like
Speaker 4: when I'm saying, you know, what would be funny if
Speaker 4: like when we do little things on Instagram or something.
Speaker 4: I love being creative in those spaces. But I feel
Speaker 4: I've always colored within the lines. I've always, you know,
Speaker 4: kind of spent my life on programming or deprogramming so
Speaker 4: many things that are kind of boxed in.
Speaker 1: It's so interesting that you see yourself that way, because
Speaker 1: I'm like, you have lived such a creative life.
Speaker 4: That makes me feel so good because it's sometimes that
Speaker 4: you don't see what other people see.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like you got married at thirty seven.
Speaker 2: Yep, I think creative. That's creative.
Speaker 4: And also one hundred percent a choice I made to
Speaker 4: wait until I was thirty seven.
Speaker 2: But that's a creative life.
Speaker 1: But that's not yet, You're right, And then I think
Speaker 1: you had to get really creative to get to all
Speaker 1: of these different positions like we're going to go through.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think all of this took so much creativity.
Speaker 4: You know what, though, it only looks creative when you
Speaker 4: look back. It's kind of like the picture you're life
Speaker 4: life draws when you look back at it. Because my
Speaker 4: mom would tell people how determined I was, and I
Speaker 4: stopped and I said, Mom, you're giving me false credit.
Speaker 4: It wasn't just determined. It was a deep fear of regret.
Speaker 4: So it was more of a negative drive, not a
Speaker 4: positive drive. It wasn't like she has such a great attitude,
Speaker 4: she'll figure it out. It only looks that way when
Speaker 4: it works out and you tell the story.
Speaker 2: But how do you know what regret is?
Speaker 4: At twenty well, twenty, all I kept thinking about is
Speaker 4: when you channel when I'm hopefully with a partner, when
Speaker 4: I have kids, when i'm my parents' age, Am I
Speaker 4: going to look back and say I never tried? Because
Speaker 4: my mom when like a lot of pivotal decisions I made.
Speaker 4: My mom said, you know, one time, and I'd never
Speaker 4: heard this story. After college, I was going to at
Speaker 4: this point now I have my government major, but I'm
Speaker 4: thinking maybe I'm going to do teaching.
Speaker 2: That's my safer also a dream. I'm going to teach.
Speaker 4: So I had applied to grad school at my undergrad
Speaker 4: so I'd gotten into the Smith program. My mom tells
Speaker 4: me a story the week of graduation. These moments are
Speaker 4: the big like road maps, you know. She said, I
Speaker 4: once wanted to go to New York and be an actor.
Speaker 4: And I thought, what, Like, she is a nurse, she's
Speaker 4: a person of science. She's I'd never heard that, and
Speaker 4: in that moment, I thought, well, there we go. I
Speaker 4: gotta go because I don't want to sit here and
Speaker 4: tell my daughter I once thought I would do something.
Speaker 1: Wow, So she's it's her fault. That's interesting that such
Speaker 1: like it was probably an aside comment.
Speaker 4: For you, And it was quick. I remember I was
Speaker 4: standing in my dorm room. Essentially it's our houses on Smith.
Speaker 4: Finals were done, graduation was in a few days. I
Speaker 4: was like telling everyone the kitchen. Could you live in
Speaker 4: a house so you get really close with like your
Speaker 4: kitchen staff, and they'd always saved me boxes of cereal
Speaker 4: on the side. I went down and like, you, guys,
Speaker 4: I hope you're not sick of me because I'm coming
Speaker 4: back next year. And they were all excited and then
Speaker 4: that and I thought, well, no, gray area, I've done.
Speaker 2: We're going.
Speaker 1: There's in one of Gloria Steinem's books, like the the
Speaker 1: dedication talks about how she's living out the dreams that
Speaker 1: died with her mother, and it's like, how we anytime
Speaker 1: anything good happens in my life, I think about the
Speaker 1: generations of women that have sacrificed that didn't get to.
Speaker 2: Live those out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I'm thinking about that with you.
Speaker 2: How does she feel about what you're doing.
Speaker 4: So it's funny because she, in addition to being pivotal
Speaker 4: in a lot of crucial ways for me, picking to
Speaker 4: go to school in the Northeast. Oh, Sarah, if I
Speaker 4: had been able to go to college and had the grades,
Speaker 4: I would go in the Northeast. That's a heart of education.
Speaker 4: That's the only place I looked every decision.
Speaker 2: My mom did.
Speaker 4: But she also was the person that could have been
Speaker 4: a blockade. When I got into the page program. She said,
Speaker 4: you can't survive in New York on ten dollars an hour,
Speaker 4: and I was like, I guess we'll see and I did.
Speaker 4: And then she also said when I got offered a
Speaker 4: job for that Today Show job, where I thought, part
Speaker 4: of my fear is I'm going to get stuck there
Speaker 4: because I knew I'd do a good job for me staff.
Speaker 4: That's benefits that my mom asked me every time, will
Speaker 4: this job pay benefits? I didn't want to tell her
Speaker 4: till i'd made it the decision inside myself, because if
Speaker 4: I heard my mom and dad endorse that it would
Speaker 4: have been harder.
Speaker 2: I ended up taking it.
Speaker 4: I got stuck for about five years. But it's also
Speaker 4: when that transition happened to being on air. Every decision
Speaker 4: along the way, my mom was the yes and the no.
Speaker 1: I don't want to make this about me. No, But
Speaker 1: I've never heard anybody talk about this. I had a
Speaker 1: very similar experience, and I found it incredibly confusing. It is,
Speaker 1: how did you learn to listen to your own voice
Speaker 1: over your mother?
Speaker 2: She needed to be volume up.
Speaker 4: And I've taken a lot of time therapy things to
Speaker 4: kind of realize how squished that little girl was, yeah,
Speaker 4: and how much I reveled in making my parents proud
Speaker 4: doing the things like when I was moving to New York,
Speaker 4: which I made that decision that day, that one day
Speaker 4: in my dorm room before graduating, and I went home.
Speaker 4: I hustled for money on the side, and I remember
Speaker 4: the day I told my dad, like, I'm definitely going
Speaker 4: to be moving to New York City with my niece
Speaker 4: on and like the few things, I have to live
Speaker 4: on my brother's couch. My dad didn't even look up,
Speaker 4: I remember, and he was slicing a tomato for a
Speaker 4: salad and he's like, I didn't send you to Smith
Speaker 4: College to be an actress. And it hit me, but
Speaker 4: I actually am grateful. I wouldn't want him to light
Speaker 4: to he that's how he felt. And so it hit
Speaker 4: me like a punch in the chest because I was
Speaker 4: the play it's safe. Look at my grades, look at
Speaker 4: my athletics, look at how much I will work at
Speaker 4: things like aren't you proud?
Speaker 2: Aren't you proud? Like record scratch, there she goes.
Speaker 4: And that was the first time I broke with things
Speaker 4: my parents would be really proud of. I mean, it's
Speaker 4: a little embarrassing. My older sister went into media communications successful.
Speaker 4: My next sister went into finance successful. My brother went
Speaker 4: into real estate and sales successful. Oh, Sarah, she's a
Speaker 4: production coordinator in New York City. Like I stayed a
Speaker 4: production coordinator that's an entry level job for years because
Speaker 4: as they offered me promotions, I didn't feel I could
Speaker 4: keep the dream a lot and like this handtakes and
Speaker 4: this handtakes, and that was like an unspoken agreement. So
Speaker 4: my boss would say, I know your answer, but we
Speaker 4: need to offer it to you. Would you like to
Speaker 4: become a production manager? I said, nope, I'm sticking with the.
Speaker 1: Plan because the other hand was acting.
Speaker 4: The other hand was my boss, and I had said,
Speaker 4: he goes. I know after they decided to keep me,
Speaker 4: because I didn't even want them to know what my
Speaker 4: dream was, because I wanted them to take me seriously.
Speaker 4: And you know this, it's the name of your pretty
Speaker 4: smart people judge people that want to do certain things.
Speaker 4: It's always like she wants to be on air, as
Speaker 4: if in being on air is only one version.
Speaker 2: I mean, Diane Sawyer's on air, so is Amy Poehler.
Speaker 4: Like there's versions, but I didn't want people saying, oh,
Speaker 4: she's one of the people that wants to be on air,
Speaker 4: so I never told them. When I accepted the job,
Speaker 4: I said, I'm going to be straight with you and
Speaker 4: this is what I want to do. And he said, Deil,
Speaker 4: you tell me whenever you have something you need to
Speaker 4: go for and.
Speaker 2: I'll let you, but don't lie. No, doctor's a point,
Speaker 2: I said. Deal.
Speaker 4: He never said that deal would be expired if I
Speaker 4: took the promotions, but I felt that was my insights
Speaker 4: felt wrong for that. I'm not going to climb up
Speaker 4: and keep getting opportunities if we have a deal here,
Speaker 4: and so I just stayed. But it was so hard
Speaker 4: as a type a overachiever to have my friends who
Speaker 4: never met shade.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, you're still at the Today Show. You're
Speaker 2: still there.
Speaker 4: They all climbed by the time I went on air.
Speaker 4: My friend who paged next to me was the publicist
Speaker 4: for the show. She had climbed from page program to publicists.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 4: She makes the phone call to me and we cried,
Speaker 4: we're still friends this day. But all my friends were
Speaker 4: climbing the ranks live in their dreams.
Speaker 2: What a phone call did she make? She needed the.
Speaker 4: Phone call to tell me that they wanted to make
Speaker 4: an announcement on air because I had grown up at
Speaker 4: the show. Because normally I'm a random correspondent. It's a
Speaker 4: one year deal. No one's doing it. But I had
Speaker 4: been there for years and they wanted one of their
Speaker 4: own to get that. And she cried when she told
Speaker 4: me so, And in that moment, I thought all of them,
Speaker 4: all these birds had flown from the nest. They never
Speaker 4: meant it, but every time, oh my god, you're still
Speaker 4: at the Today Show. Yeah, I'm still at the Today Show.
Speaker 2: How old were you? I would have been thirty thirty two.
Speaker 1: And what was your personal life like at the time?
Speaker 1: Are you seeing feeling.
Speaker 4: Really unhealthy relationship that I had been obsessed with this
Speaker 4: guy for years, always like we're going to be serious,
Speaker 4: We're not, you know, And he was in the building
Speaker 4: and we were on getting to that point where I
Speaker 4: had to listen to that voice even when I didn't
Speaker 4: like the answer. So she was getting louder and she
Speaker 4: was like, girl, you know too much to stay.
Speaker 2: And I know her so well. Yep.
Speaker 1: That must have been I don't want to project, but
Speaker 1: that must have been really challenging to feel like your
Speaker 1: personal life wasn't quote unquote moving forward. Your professional life
Speaker 1: was a bit stagnant.
Speaker 2: What made you stay? Each time?
Speaker 4: I'd like stay, And I mean there were some dark
Speaker 4: tunnels i'd go down of, like the fear was never
Speaker 4: having tried. So I'd go down to get coffee with
Speaker 4: my friends, climbing the ranks, my page friends, they all
Speaker 4: have two promotions. They're up and I'm sitting there and
Speaker 4: I'm like, I'm not doing it. I'm not going after it.
Speaker 4: I'm not hustling. I worked twelve hours a day. If
Speaker 4: in three months I write into one or get one audition,
Speaker 4: the pace at this dream is a never And I'm
Speaker 4: going to be forty and I'm going to be pretending
Speaker 4: I'm a character at a kid's birthday?
Speaker 2: Like was it enough?
Speaker 4: Was it worth it? When I had so much other
Speaker 4: love and passion in my heart?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: And I remember stopping and every time thinking but did
Speaker 4: I really try? I've got Now I'm going to sprint
Speaker 4: because then I can quit and say I tried? But
Speaker 4: have I really tried yet? And that kept like driving me.
Speaker 2: You wanted to be a person who tried.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So you're there as a PA yep, and how
Speaker 1: do you move up? You're pitching your boss's digital content, right,
Speaker 1: this is when Facebook exists.
Speaker 4: Well no, so I wasn't even pitching my bosses. Digital
Speaker 4: blows up and they need content. And I thought, if
Speaker 4: I'm sending reels out to try to now go on air,
Speaker 4: think if it says Today's show dot com on it
Speaker 4: like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they didn't pay me for it. They don't know
Speaker 2: who cares. They put me on.
Speaker 4: They were desperate, No one needed to know. And I
Speaker 4: would just pitch segments and I was doing all kinds
Speaker 4: of fun. That's when I felt creative because it was
Speaker 4: like confession booth where you're asking things that like I
Speaker 4: remember asking like Jamie Fox. I think it was like
Speaker 4: who was your first kiss and you remember it and
Speaker 4: like innocent.
Speaker 2: Just cute things that are perfect for digital.
Speaker 4: They're not going to ask that in a mount Blower
Speaker 4: interview or a Katie Kirk or Meredith Fiera.
Speaker 2: But Sarah can ask. So we just it was so simple,
Speaker 2: and I was creating a real, full, full stop just
Speaker 2: for myself.
Speaker 4: This is where you go in the end of your careers,
Speaker 4: Like this is the goal. I am not that dumb
Speaker 4: like I or as brave as some people make me sound.
Speaker 4: I wasn't looking yet the two show. I wasn't in news.
Speaker 4: I wasn't but I was ready to be paid full time,
Speaker 4: not to be ordering the cars because I would sit
Speaker 4: on the couch with like Maria Minuno's and be like,
Speaker 4: while you're here, what time do you want your car tomorrow?
Speaker 2: Because like I was, just the lives were converging.
Speaker 4: I was ordering cars and catering and VIP lists and
Speaker 4: making an appearance and ordering the cars and the people
Speaker 4: around me.
Speaker 2: So that's hard.
Speaker 4: Yet well it was hard because I thought eventually, like
Speaker 4: I got my shot.
Speaker 2: Don't overstay.
Speaker 4: You're working for free, Like take what you need, but
Speaker 4: go live it. Don't be so swooned by how long
Speaker 4: it took you or what you you know, like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you got to leave, and did you think about leaving?
Speaker 4: I was fully leaving. I had gotten to the third
Speaker 4: round of an interview for Teach for America. Oh my god,
Speaker 4: Well I was on the show every day and my
Speaker 4: mom's like, well, why would you leave? They put you
Speaker 4: on every day? I said, because Mom, they put me
Speaker 4: on every day and do not pay me. I want
Speaker 4: to go do a dream that wait.
Speaker 1: Are you to have talking about on the show with
Speaker 1: Hoda and Kathy Lee because we skipped a step.
Speaker 2: You have to talk about the Yeah, before we go there.
Speaker 1: You're in the hallway and you're doing behind the scenes
Speaker 1: interviews for Today dot Com.
Speaker 4: Like when we couldn't get all the main guests, we
Speaker 4: always had our anchors. Our anchors would always play okay,
Speaker 4: so when you want to know about the first kiss,
Speaker 4: I'd drag Kathy Lee, Hoda, mat anyone that would come down.
Speaker 4: I'm like, oh, please come down and tell you. It's
Speaker 4: like whatever you know, and they'd come down.
Speaker 5: And so I didn't realize that, Yeah, so we could
Speaker 5: dangle the talent because even if I can't get the celebrity,
Speaker 5: which sometimes they walk in their people nix it before
Speaker 5: they even ask.
Speaker 4: But if we need some star power, we have built
Speaker 4: in stars. So Natalie Natalie always humored us. She would
Speaker 4: do it and they'd all come. They're like for me
Speaker 4: because they hear about me. They're like, I'll do it
Speaker 4: for you, Sarah. And that made the content and so
Speaker 4: they were coming in and out. It was one of
Speaker 4: the times KATHYI and Hoa were leaving. They're like, why
Speaker 4: is she not on our hour? She's so fun? And
Speaker 4: I thought what am I going to do interview on?
Speaker 4: You know, like I do what you do. I'm not
Speaker 4: a health expert. I'm not a chef, I'm not an author.
Speaker 2: I just chat. I chat. You want to just chat,
Speaker 2: you can shoot the shit all you want, but like,
Speaker 2: I do what you do.
Speaker 4: And so I remember they said it once and I thought,
Speaker 4: what a phenomenal thing, But that was just it was
Speaker 4: a compliment that they said it. By the third time,
Speaker 4: Hoda said why is she not coming on? It was like,
Speaker 4: oh my god, channel something.
Speaker 2: What do I pitch? And they said, do young people things?
Speaker 4: And I'm thinking, I'm not even young, Like in the
Speaker 4: scheme of things that's for me, I'm not even young
Speaker 4: compared to you guys, Like what can I do? When
Speaker 4: I thought of things my mom couldn't do, and it
Speaker 4: was like a digital photocard, like how do.
Speaker 2: What you can do with all your photos? Save them?
Speaker 4: How to back them up? And I thought, to young people,
Speaker 4: they're gonna be like, she ain't young. But I was
Speaker 4: like to my mom and a lot of the people,
Speaker 4: I had a skip in my step. Once I started
Speaker 4: doing my passion project, I ordered catering with a vengeance.
Speaker 4: I was like, yes, with my hair back.
Speaker 2: I got it.
Speaker 4: I felt so good just doing my job. That gave
Speaker 4: me access to this dream.
Speaker 1: And then crush And if you're on Hoda and Kathy Lee,
Speaker 1: do you start having sort of like starry eyes about
Speaker 1: broadcasts at this point.
Speaker 4: Still not about broadcast hosting, because now this fourth hour
Speaker 4: was a total change in the TV landscape. You now
Speaker 4: had Hoda who had been dateline Hoda, as Kathy Lee
Speaker 4: called her, but now they were drinking wine and they
Speaker 4: could get comedy.
Speaker 2: They could throw on things like that. Now now you're
Speaker 2: talking the first three hours.
Speaker 4: Fine, I can deliver the lines, but this one I
Speaker 4: can get my hands like, this is going to be fun.
Speaker 2: You can have fun.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So then I started to you.
Speaker 1: Know, so many people in gen Z talk about healthy
Speaker 1: boundaries with work, and I'm so curious your take on this,
Speaker 1: because I'm not sure that you get to be Sarah
Speaker 1: Haynes on the View with healthy boundaries at work.
Speaker 4: There was definitely no balance or boundaries. And I say
Speaker 4: it straight in the sense that I did not have
Speaker 4: a personal life, but I was so fueled. I had
Speaker 4: down days. I felt lonely. I watched all my friends
Speaker 4: get married in the mid twenties. I didn't even get
Speaker 4: married by the mid thirties. We were you know, so
Speaker 4: I was watching. I never lost sight of what I wanted,
Speaker 4: and never would I have categorized myself as someone who's
Speaker 4: a professional woman choosing her job. It wasn't a conscious
Speaker 4: deliberate It was incidental in a way that that was happening.
Speaker 2: But I was so fired.
Speaker 4: And that doesn't mean I didn't spend a lot of
Speaker 4: night stuffing my face, miserable, going through breakups, bad dates,
Speaker 4: all the things.
Speaker 2: But nothing stopped me.
Speaker 4: And that's when you also then trigger and you treat
Speaker 4: that part like a job because there was a button
Speaker 4: that flipped.
Speaker 2: I think I'm almost there.
Speaker 4: Yep, where you stop and you say, I know I
Speaker 4: can do all these things.
Speaker 2: I love these things.
Speaker 4: My life doesn't look like the things I still want,
Speaker 4: and those are the north star for me. That family.
Speaker 4: I want a partner. I didn't even know if kids
Speaker 4: would be in my cards. I didn't I was older starting,
Speaker 4: but I said, I need a best friend. Best friend
Speaker 4: because every time I hit one of these poop storms,
Speaker 4: which is like lost grief. I can't do this by myself.
Speaker 2: It's not fun.
Speaker 1: You love fun, it's not fun by yourself, it's not fun.
Speaker 2: I need someone to laugh at my jokes, and I.
Speaker 4: Might pick poorly because Max only laughs like every fifteenth joke,
Speaker 4: and he's like, hm, that's funny.
Speaker 2: This is so funny. Why why did I pick out
Speaker 2: all Russian?
Speaker 1: Like? Do you think you were funny when you first met?
Speaker 4: No, he always says you're silly, and I'm like, well,
Speaker 4: I am silly, but and thank you because he once
Speaker 4: said in a Sexy Time moment, He's like, you are
Speaker 4: really hot, and then you turn into an SNL character.
Speaker 4: He said, excuse me, what can you say that again?
Speaker 4: Did you just say a Saturday Night Love character?
Speaker 2: He doesn't turned on more for me. It's turning him
Speaker 2: off and turning me so on. That's unbelievable. You were
Speaker 2: saying that that is so funny. I'm going through my
Speaker 2: twenty cards.
Speaker 1: So okay, you get Tahoda and Kathy Lee. You have
Speaker 1: an amazing experience. But then the executives at NBC say
Speaker 1: something to you that I wouldn't even call this a wall.
Speaker 2: This is like debilitating to me. It's a roof. It's
Speaker 2: a roof. Yeah, what did they say? So? I had
Speaker 2: approached them.
Speaker 4: It was the end of a contract and I had
Speaker 4: approached them about more of the hosting roles because I
Speaker 4: loved being in the field. But again at the expense
Speaker 4: of never having tried, I wanted a shot in the
Speaker 4: hosting chairs and I had been put in the third
Speaker 4: hour hosting. Jeff Zucker, who I was a big fan of,
Speaker 4: had put me in a few times. He said I'll
Speaker 4: let you swing, and he was known for taking chances.
Speaker 4: But he left the company and then I was no
Speaker 4: longer asked, and I asked the same people that knew
Speaker 4: me for years and were being honest like my dad
Speaker 4: with the tomato, They said, we don't see you doing that.
Speaker 4: It was one pivotal person was the head of the
Speaker 4: fourth Hour, and she was like, love you. I love you,
Speaker 4: and I again appreciated her honesty, I don't see you
Speaker 4: doing that. And again the easiest and hardest decision I
Speaker 4: had ever made. ABC had already been approaching me about
Speaker 4: we want to do bigger things with you. And even
Speaker 4: though I didn't know if they would bench me like
Speaker 4: I didn't know if they'd bring me over and nothing
Speaker 4: would happen, I was absolutely told what would happen at
Speaker 4: NBC and it was we will love you, we will
Speaker 4: keep you, you will keep doing this, and you're awesome,
Speaker 4: and this is it and hearing it was the end
Speaker 4: of the road when I had so many things I
Speaker 4: needed to prove to myself.
Speaker 2: Still, I had dreams of being on the View. I
Speaker 2: had dreams of.
Speaker 4: Being on a talk show like at the time it
Speaker 4: would have been Kelly and Michael. Yeah, all these things,
Speaker 4: this is it. I'm not done yet, and maybe I am.
Speaker 4: Maybe I do it and I fail, but I tried.
Speaker 4: I needed my shot. I could not stop by choice,
Speaker 4: and so I.
Speaker 2: Had to go. Were you sad when you left? I
Speaker 2: was a mess for a good year.
Speaker 4: In fact, I just ran into someone that jumped companies
Speaker 4: and she was saying she was struggling, and I said,
Speaker 4: girl like I cried for a year.
Speaker 2: I was in it.
Speaker 4: I was absolutely depression. Why because the transition from I
Speaker 4: had won, I still would do it again. In the
Speaker 4: heart of those tiers, I even Max and I would
Speaker 4: discuss this. I never regretted the decision to leave, But
Speaker 4: what I didn't couldn't have gotten through smoothly, was the
Speaker 4: things that make your day are the people around you.
Speaker 4: Every friend, I had I worked side by side with
Speaker 4: I loved the respect I got having run around the
Speaker 4: hallways of people that I'd watched their kids. I'd watched
Speaker 4: them go from single to married to babies. I had
Speaker 4: grown up at this building. And Jeff Zucker said again
Speaker 4: in a meeting before he left, I sat down with
Speaker 4: him and we weren't super close. He wasn't at the
Speaker 4: Today Show when I came, but he looked at me
Speaker 4: and he said, sometimes you have to leave home to
Speaker 4: grow up. And that sat really hard. So as I'm
Speaker 4: leaving home, knowing I had to leave home, I was
Speaker 4: in a dark hallway. I wasn't on a staff, I
Speaker 4: didn't know anyone, I didn't know where the bathroom was.
Speaker 4: For three months, like the building was old, I thought,
Speaker 4: what have I done? And yet that same voice was like, Nope,
Speaker 4: you couldn't have done it any other way.
Speaker 2: But how this sucks?
Speaker 4: And so I would count the months with Max because
Speaker 4: I said, when can I quit where it's not embarrassing
Speaker 4: that I insult them? And he's like six months minimum.
Speaker 4: We celebrated at six months and then he goes to you,
Speaker 4: I think you have another six months in you and
Speaker 4: I was like, well, year would probably be better, right, We
Speaker 4: celebrated at a year, Max laughed, He goes, we celebrated
Speaker 4: your six month anniversary every chunk of that first contract,
Speaker 4: thinking I was going to leave.
Speaker 2: When did it get better?
Speaker 4: Probably only when the View had asked me to come,
Speaker 4: I went once. I'm so glad I nailed that. But
Speaker 4: I was going to leave at the end of my contract.
Speaker 4: It was a three year contract, because I was going
Speaker 4: to be offered more of the same correspondent. But what
Speaker 4: I didn't know was the View had already approached Because
Speaker 4: it's the network saying we want her, we want her
Speaker 4: at the show.
Speaker 2: They already had asked for me.
Speaker 4: But I was being presented with they're probably going to
Speaker 4: sign you again for two or three years, and I
Speaker 4: thought visiting wasn't enough.
Speaker 2: I already proved I can do it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I get that the chairs aren't always open, but
Speaker 4: I'm not going to do more of this now.
Speaker 2: I'm going to go teach.
Speaker 4: Now I'm going to go do And they said, what
Speaker 4: if they were offering you a View contract, because that's
Speaker 4: also on the table, And I said, that changes everything.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 4: That really was a pivotal moment when it went from
Speaker 4: a very dark time too, after every dark time and
Speaker 4: Valley there's light. Yeah, but it was a long one
Speaker 4: and I came out the other side.
Speaker 1: When I went to college, I didn't want to join
Speaker 1: a sorority, and my mom was like, you got to
Speaker 1: join a sorority because it makes a big school.
Speaker 2: I was at Wisconsin, it was huge.
Speaker 1: I was going to say it makes a big school
Speaker 1: smaller and she was like yeah. She was like, you
Speaker 1: don't have to stay in it, but just try it.
Speaker 1: You got to make your life smaller and connect with people.
Speaker 1: And sophomore year, I moved into the house and I
Speaker 1: was like, I hate living with this many people.
Speaker 2: Like I'm a loner.
Speaker 1: You know I'm a loner, yeah, because I think when
Speaker 1: you're an extrovert, you're actually sometimes secretly an introvert.
Speaker 2: You're it's one in the other you're introvert at home extrovert.
Speaker 1: Yep. So I called her one day and I was like,
Speaker 1: I hate living in this sorority house. I I gained
Speaker 1: fifteen pounds. I was miserable. And she was like, here's
Speaker 1: the thing about sororities. There's a lot of weird people
Speaker 1: because you didn't choose them yet. But eventually they become
Speaker 1: your weirdos. Oh and by the end of the year.
Speaker 1: She was right, it's like a cruise ship, like and
Speaker 1: then you get on You're like, who are all these
Speaker 1: weird people?
Speaker 2: By the end and then you're like jamming at go
Speaker 2: with them? Yes, And that's how I'm imagining. I'm sorry
Speaker 2: for the aside, but that's how I'm imagining.
Speaker 1: I love the experience at ABC. It was like so
Speaker 1: tough at the beginning because they weren't your weirdos Nope.
Speaker 2: But all of a sudden they become you are weird.
Speaker 4: But they were all my weirdos, and I didn't feel
Speaker 4: like an imposture on the view. So my whole time
Speaker 4: in news, when I came over at Today's show, I
Speaker 4: did a job that made sense.
Speaker 2: I could perform.
Speaker 4: I was a psych it was self created, it matched me.
Speaker 4: I got recruited over and with all these opportunities comes
Speaker 4: You're now going to be working on morning news shows
Speaker 4: as a correspondent. Wow, And I thought, I feel so
Speaker 4: bad standing next to real journalists and pretending I'm just
Speaker 4: like them. I can't do this, Like if I'm nothing,
Speaker 4: I'm authentic. And that was also eating away at me.
Speaker 4: So getting the opportunity at the view, I thought, I'm
Speaker 4: not faking this, like, I'm not pretending to hang here.
Speaker 2: This is what I love doing.
Speaker 1: So you got like over the imposter syndrome because you
Speaker 1: felt like it was aligned.
Speaker 4: Yet, well it got I don't think you ever get
Speaker 4: over it, because there are days I still walk away
Speaker 4: from that table and I'm like, the inner voice says,
Speaker 4: that was dumb. You didn't offer anything, you know, And
Speaker 4: that's those moments where you're like, I don't think you.
Speaker 2: I don't think you truly ever get over that.
Speaker 4: I've never met a recovered imposter syndrome person. Yeah, we're
Speaker 4: all just one day away from another episode.
Speaker 1: I actually interviewed an expert and it kind of stems
Speaker 1: from perfectionism's which, yeah, your successes and your curses, it's
Speaker 1: all they're all tied. Yeah, okay, so if we stay
Speaker 1: with this story, well, can.
Speaker 2: You tell me do you have imposture syndrome?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, huge?
Speaker 1: Okay. I didn't even realize it. I thought that's just
Speaker 1: how everybody felt all the time.
Speaker 4: The worst is when you sit in a room and
Speaker 4: I'm not joking. I was in a room a few
Speaker 4: months ago when we're going to talk about imposter syndrome.
Speaker 4: And I said, oh, everyone doesn't. But one person I
Speaker 4: work with racering goes, I've never felt that.
Speaker 2: Is it a man? Nope? And I was like, oh.
Speaker 1: Damn, Like that's amazing.
Speaker 4: I can't decide if it was true or not. I mean,
Speaker 4: I don't know, but it was aggressive. I was like, well,
Speaker 4: thank you for sharing.
Speaker 2: When I just took off all my arm room, I'm like,
Speaker 2: I'm vulnerable, and she was like, I'm not. Like that's amazing.
Speaker 2: I laugh at it because I don't know if I
Speaker 2: believe anyone who says they haven't.
Speaker 1: I agree with you at least in some rooms.
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, because you've had to have felt it. In fact,
Speaker 4: you're probably not taking enough risks if you haven't.
Speaker 2: Oh that's interesting. That's going to stay with me. Okay,
Speaker 2: keep that right over there.
Speaker 1: So if we stay on this storybook theme. This was
Speaker 1: kind of the dream because you said your dream basically
Speaker 1: was Kelly and Michael, which you got to guest host on, yes,
Speaker 1: or The View YEP, which you got to guest host on,
Speaker 1: and then you get this contract which is like, there
Speaker 1: are five women at that table.
Speaker 2: The chances in the whole.
Speaker 1: I don't know math, but the probability of that is
Speaker 1: so unbelievable.
Speaker 2: So it was so meant for you. It must have
Speaker 2: felt so exciting.
Speaker 1: But then I heard that you did feel imposter syndrome
Speaker 1: when you got to that table.
Speaker 4: Initially, well, I definitely felt it, so that the job
Speaker 4: itself wasn't imposter Now the task fit me, okay, But
Speaker 4: that table had Meredith Fierra. I mean, it has will
Speaker 4: be Goldberg as Joy Behar, it has Lisa Ling, it
Speaker 4: has you name the people that have sat at that table,
Speaker 4: and I thought, out of all these people, yeah, that could.
Speaker 2: Sit here, Daniel Rober, like you could sit there. When
Speaker 2: you look at it, it is a lot of timing,
Speaker 2: it's a lot of luck.
Speaker 4: You know that you got to be prepared when that
Speaker 4: moment lines up, but it rarely lines up, if we're
Speaker 4: being honest.
Speaker 1: But it's lined up for you in a way that
Speaker 1: is so it's almost like a miracle because it lined
Speaker 1: up twice. And to me, that's like it's so it
Speaker 1: was you were meant to be there.
Speaker 4: I have to remind myself that on certain days, like
Speaker 4: when I'm feeling that insecurity. But I'd like to think
Speaker 4: that because I felt all the things I missed from
Speaker 4: NBC and that family. I had the best compliment I
Speaker 4: gave the View when I just visited, was you remind me.
Speaker 4: After a few visits, I said, this staff, this crew,
Speaker 4: this reminds me of the Today Show. And that was
Speaker 4: like saying, it's the epitome for me. So that's where
Speaker 4: I liked that. It lined up for me.
Speaker 1: Everyone knew that you had so much love for the
Speaker 1: Today Show.
Speaker 2: Everyone.
Speaker 4: My husband said, like a year into going to ABC,
Speaker 4: stop lecturing people about NBC.
Speaker 2: It's not a good look for you. I'm just being honest,
Speaker 2: too much honesty, Sarah. It's a Midwest thing. We can't
Speaker 2: help her some O.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, then you decide to leave the View?
Speaker 2: Yes, because.
Speaker 1: The only other dream job that could exist was a
Speaker 1: Kelly and Michael type of show, and now it was
Speaker 1: going to be Sarah and Michael.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which is kind of unbelievable.
Speaker 4: Unbelievable and literally the only thing you could have offered
Speaker 4: me other than.
Speaker 5: Esenl which we're still holding out for is we were
Speaker 5: waiting for that phone call because literally that is the
Speaker 5: one thing.
Speaker 2: And I love the View. I loved the View.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's why I always laugh because I'm like,
Speaker 4: it's not like I left out of anything. I mean,
Speaker 4: I really was emotional leaving because that was a place
Speaker 4: I'd found after years of feeling misplaced, displaced, like I
Speaker 4: just didn't feel good, and then I felt good, and
Speaker 4: I thought, do I want to leave good again?
Speaker 1: And you had this like really emotional, tearful goodbye that
Speaker 1: I'll never forget.
Speaker 2: I literally you would have thought someone died. It was
Speaker 2: kind of it was a funeral. Yeah.
Speaker 4: And right before I walked on stage, Joy looked because
Speaker 4: I had spent the whole morning hugging everyone and saying
Speaker 4: goodbye and little cards and this, Joy go, are you
Speaker 4: gonna fucking cry again?
Speaker 2: And I was like, you were so mean to me?
Speaker 4: She laugh She was trying to make me laugh. She goes,
Speaker 4: are you gonna fucking cry again? Right as we're walking out,
Speaker 4: and I was like, well there it goes.
Speaker 2: Here we go, I'm gonna busy being means you punch
Speaker 2: me in the face.
Speaker 1: So you joined the third hour, it's called GMA Day
Speaker 1: and then it's rebranded Straighthan and Sarah and you said
Speaker 1: it was not good from the beginning.
Speaker 2: Well, one thing is the name.
Speaker 4: So, first of all, I love Michael Strahan and I
Speaker 4: loved when he called me. I thought, are you kidding me?
Speaker 4: Like I already have my dream, You're really going to
Speaker 4: dangle this. I should have known the foreshadowing of this, though.
Speaker 4: So I joined the show and they say, we've got
Speaker 4: three ideas for names. Okay, Gma Day start something like
Speaker 4: two other names, and I said, oh gosh, the only
Speaker 4: one that sounds kind of is GMA Day. The next
Speaker 4: day they're like, so we're going with Gma Day and
Speaker 4: I thought, oh wow, so that's where you know, Like
Speaker 4: I still laughed at this moment. That was the first
Speaker 4: thing I ext. They asked about a title, I expressed
Speaker 4: it and they went that way. So I thought that
Speaker 4: should have told me everything I needed to know. But
Speaker 4: I think the problem was it was a failed experiment
Speaker 4: from the beginning. You cannot put a Kelly and Michael
Speaker 4: show at that hour. They needed to keep it branded
Speaker 4: to make it that it needed to if it was
Speaker 4: going to be a standalone, it couldn't be a replication.
Speaker 4: I wasn't the only one thinking it was like a
Speaker 4: Michael and Kelly. I'm sure Michael was thinking that that's
Speaker 4: why I.
Speaker 2: Loved the dream.
Speaker 4: But Kelly Rippa is amazing, and she works in a
Speaker 4: place where she has this established audience. This is like
Speaker 4: a lunchtime crowd. No one's everything about. It was like TV.
Speaker 2: One oh one. But I still don't regret making the decision.
Speaker 4: But that took me back into some really dark places
Speaker 4: as well, because the pressure, like, yeah, Michael's a name,
Speaker 4: Keiky Palmer was a name, but your name is in
Speaker 4: the title. My name's in the title, So it feels
Speaker 4: like it's all on you regardless of It's like TV's
Speaker 4: a team sport, but nobody knows that because you're just
Speaker 4: watching Strahan and.
Speaker 2: Sarah right and Michael had been on Mike w and Kell.
Speaker 2: He chose to leave. He's already proven he can do that.
Speaker 4: Everything I had wanted to prove in my mind was
Speaker 4: riding on that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So and then I find out I'm pregnant. So
Speaker 2: I was thoroughly Caleb, that Caleb had a little bit
Speaker 2: the stinker. So I told my husband.
Speaker 4: I said, as a thirty seven year old bride, I
Speaker 4: never would have uttered the words it's.
Speaker 2: Not a good time.
Speaker 4: Because I had dreamt my whole life of having kids
Speaker 4: and I wouldn't mess with the powers that be. But
Speaker 4: we had a boy and we had a girl, and
Speaker 4: we'd always wanted a third But now knowing what two
Speaker 4: looked like, I thought. I remember turning to Max and saying,
Speaker 4: there's I feel so much pressure that if I were
Speaker 4: to get pregnant right now, I could have a mental breakdown.
Speaker 4: And I wasn't joking, and I said, so, we have
Speaker 4: to be careful. What I didn't know is I was
Speaker 4: already pregnant. It just wouldn't have showed up. Like a
Speaker 4: week later was when I found out I was pregnant.
Speaker 4: So I was already sitting in the midst of a breakdown.
Speaker 2: And that was the.
Speaker 4: Beginning of all the falling dominoes because I knew the
Speaker 4: appearance I would never I knew the north Star was family,
Speaker 4: but I also know, girl, you were just given a
Speaker 4: show and you are Sarah and not Michael, and you
Speaker 4: get pregnant like every bad female storyline started flying at
Speaker 4: my face.
Speaker 2: What have I done?
Speaker 4: And that was a lot of me putting that on me.
Speaker 4: But then as it went on, I could see when
Speaker 4: I was due and Michael was on vacation, and our
Speaker 4: names were in the title and they're like, we've got
Speaker 4: to fix this, and I felt it was all on me.
Speaker 4: So I remember telling them I'll come back at six
Speaker 4: weeks and I'll come back the next week, and they
Speaker 4: were like, legally, we can't let you because I thought,
Speaker 4: you can't have Michael and Sarah gone on a show
Speaker 4: called Michael and Sarah.
Speaker 2: Oh my god. So it was like and then literally
Speaker 2: the depths of how low I got.
Speaker 4: The best part was and the pivotal moment on the
Speaker 4: other end of this dark like it always felt like
Speaker 4: it was my No one made me think that, so
Speaker 4: I'm not blaming anyone. It was me, but the depths
Speaker 4: I fell. And then Max said the most beautiful thing.
Speaker 4: He said, stop holding onto this show like it was
Speaker 4: the dream you had, because.
Speaker 2: It never was. It just sounded like it.
Speaker 4: Well that was when like, I was so low. I
Speaker 4: never lose weight when I'm stressed or I go the
Speaker 4: other way. It was the first time in my life
Speaker 4: I was losing weight.
Speaker 2: I was depressed.
Speaker 4: The show had been suspended and eventually it was going
Speaker 4: to be canceled, and Max said, you are fighting like
Speaker 4: it's everything you thought it was.
Speaker 2: You know it's not.
Speaker 4: You've known that let go, and it was like, oh
Speaker 4: my god, and then I could recover because I could
Speaker 4: handle and deal if I just stopped running and fighting
Speaker 4: and clinging.
Speaker 1: And it was like like you still tried. Yeah, you're
Speaker 1: still a person who tried.
Speaker 4: I tried, and a lot of the things were out
Speaker 4: of my hands and I needed to let go of.
Speaker 4: This wasn't like the other pivots where up being my shot,
Speaker 4: my shot, my child. This was something I was projecting
Speaker 4: that wasn't that, and I needed to stop.
Speaker 1: Well, something you've talked about in terms of those female
Speaker 1: storylines that I think is really I'd actually never thought
Speaker 1: about it until you said this. But you said you
Speaker 1: went from like the young woman on the show. You
Speaker 1: were the hot young Sarah, and then you came back
Speaker 1: as a mom, and all of a sudden, Kiki had
Speaker 1: the young sort of segments or things that were attributed
Speaker 1: to her, and mom became your identity. Yeah, which is
Speaker 1: so hard when you are just had given birth and
Speaker 1: are freaked out about your identity.
Speaker 4: Well, it wasn't even like when I was doing all
Speaker 4: the fun things, I was super young. Now looking back
Speaker 4: your thirties, you're very young. Yeah, But in my mind
Speaker 4: because I'm at the time, I was in my thirties.
Speaker 4: The twenties were young. I wasn't in my young, vibrant
Speaker 4: hot self, but they would let me do anything I wanted.
Speaker 4: I literally scaled down the tallest building in Jersey City
Speaker 4: to fight breast cancer for hotocopy.
Speaker 2: I jumped out of a plane.
Speaker 4: I learned how to child, I learned how to stand up,
Speaker 4: paddle board, I bleue glass and Canada. Anything I wanted
Speaker 4: to not because I was young, because I wasn't a mom,
Speaker 4: I could still be Sarah.
Speaker 2: It was like night and day.
Speaker 4: Now Kiki, who I adore and I literally love her
Speaker 4: so much and admire her.
Speaker 2: It was not her or either of us doing this.
Speaker 4: But now these producers would come to me and they're like,
Speaker 4: we've got a mom segment, We've got a parenting segment.
Speaker 4: And I thought it was like a build off postpartum depression,
Speaker 4: which I now look back and realize from the moment
Speaker 4: you say you're pregnant, you don't realize how quickly you fade.
Speaker 4: Like the back of the Future photo when the brothers
Speaker 4: and sisters fade. Anyone understand that reference, you know it right?
Speaker 2: Thank you? The picture fades as they die and ememorated
Speaker 2: when you told me that, like he's so young.
Speaker 4: No, but it's a famous scene in this picture, and
Speaker 4: they slowly die away from the moment you say that,
Speaker 4: how's the baby?
Speaker 2: How is it?
Speaker 4: And it's not that you don't want to love that baby,
Speaker 4: but you don't know what you're doing.
Speaker 2: You don't.
Speaker 4: I don't believe that all the instincts kick in. I'm
Speaker 4: still waiting and my child's eight. Now you know that
Speaker 4: stuff doesn't just turn on. I was still Sarah, but
Speaker 4: I was no longer Sarah. Did anyone see me anymore?
Speaker 4: It's like an invisibility that you're like, how do I
Speaker 4: do this? And then it was playing out at work.
Speaker 1: Alicia Menandez on NBC Love Her she wrote the likability Trap.
Speaker 1: And I wrote this quote down years ago because it
Speaker 1: always stuck with me, She said, I was anxious about
Speaker 1: people who would know me for the first time as
Speaker 1: a mom. It's such a powerful identifier. All of a sudden,
Speaker 1: you become this one dimensional person that used to be multidimensional.
Speaker 1: All of my markers of motherhood predated my actual birthing
Speaker 1: a child, and it exacerbates gender norms.
Speaker 2: If a woman's warm and kind.
Speaker 1: She must be a mom, and then she must not
Speaker 1: be competitive or dominant because she would need to be
Speaker 1: the person in the leadership position, which is exactly what
Speaker 1: you just said.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it also showed me how the world saw me.
Speaker 4: And by the way, I do not at all any
Speaker 4: bad feelings towards the many women. But it was mostly
Speaker 4: a female staff, and they were young, and they weren't
Speaker 4: at that point in their lives yet, so I don't
Speaker 4: think they understood how that was received. As they pitched
Speaker 4: that way, like I could still jump out of planes now,
Speaker 4: they were like, oh, we can't have a mom.
Speaker 2: Well guess what.
Speaker 4: Moms do A lot of stuff and I hadn't changed,
Speaker 4: everyone else projected a change.
Speaker 2: It must have sucked walking into work every day. I
Speaker 2: cried every day.
Speaker 4: And funny enough, there were a lot of great moments
Speaker 4: because the staff was amazing. Yeah, I loved Keky and Michael.
Speaker 4: I mean, talk about laughing until you hurt at all
Speaker 4: the things. It wasn't anyone's fault, that's the problem. But
Speaker 4: as it played out, it felt like I was being
Speaker 4: dragged behind a car, and for the first time I
Speaker 4: couldn't wait to leave. So I was one of those
Speaker 4: moms that felt better going to work. Now, work was
Speaker 4: not a safe haven. And even though I felt like
Speaker 4: I clutched around as a mom, I would rather do
Speaker 4: that with all my heart than what was happening at work.
Speaker 2: I just couldn't do it. And so that was a
Speaker 2: really low point.
Speaker 1: There's this element to it, like when you would hit
Speaker 1: a wall when you were younger and starting out in
Speaker 1: your career. There was nothing to lose, Like of course
Speaker 1: you could go pitch executives. You didn't have a quote
Speaker 1: unquote name and broadcast Yeah, like you were Sarah Haynes
Speaker 1: from the View and it was this at like the
Speaker 1: industry was watching and people were watching, And so I
Speaker 1: understand why it felt like so much pressure.
Speaker 2: There was so much pressure. Yeah, I still to this
Speaker 2: day take a lot.
Speaker 4: When I look back, you'd think with years I could
Speaker 4: have fresh growth on that because it offered me so
Speaker 4: many strengths and practices that I came back with a
Speaker 4: new confidence, more fearless. Because again, when you've seen dark
Speaker 4: moments in your life, whether anyone else thinks it's a
Speaker 4: dark moment or not, when you've survived that, the strength
Speaker 4: you get never goes away.
Speaker 2: So you take that with each tra ever, refall you have,
Speaker 2: you take something with you.
Speaker 4: And I came back with a louder voice I heard myself,
Speaker 4: because anything was better than the dark spot.
Speaker 2: So all that stuff came with me.
Speaker 4: But still to this day, I can so quickly channel
Speaker 4: how delicate and vulnerable I was, and how grateful I
Speaker 4: am that the view said if you're not busy, we
Speaker 4: want you back, and I thought I felt even a
Speaker 4: double gratitude that there was a chance.
Speaker 1: Again, Well, what's amazing is that timing because Abby Huntsman
Speaker 1: was leaving the show yep, and you could have your
Speaker 1: seat back.
Speaker 4: Well I don't even know if this is possible to say,
Speaker 4: but Brian or Boss had when Abby decided to leave.
Speaker 4: He didn't want to rush to fill it because the
Speaker 4: writing was on the wall for our show.
Speaker 2: So I think a part of him was like any
Speaker 2: minute now. That's so nice of him.
Speaker 4: Though it was because he said, you know, Sarah, he goes,
Speaker 4: we always loved you here, you know, And it was
Speaker 4: the same table you left. Yeah, because Abby, and she's
Speaker 4: so kind Roise ships in the night. But Abby, for
Speaker 4: her own life, had made that decision. But that was
Speaker 4: literally my seat before and Brian was like.
Speaker 2: I don't know how much longer this show has led.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, and I was like, thank you, thank.
Speaker 1: You, Like, but that's incredible timing. That's how I know
Speaker 1: that was meant to be your seat.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Okay, So online comments because during this time, I can
Speaker 1: imagine you get with the view, you get negativity all
Speaker 1: the time because it's a polarizing show where you're sharing opinions,
Speaker 1: but with Strahan and Sarah it I can imagine it
Speaker 1: just hurts more.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 4: The problem and the reason it hurts is when the
Speaker 4: troll in your own brain is the loudest.
Speaker 1: Yes, it doesn't hurt if you don't believe it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And the problem is when they endorsed the troll in
Speaker 4: your own mind, that critical voice. That voice can offend
Speaker 4: you on any other person. And when someone else says yeah,
Speaker 4: I see that too, you're like, oh, she's right, Like.
Speaker 2: That voice is right.
Speaker 4: And so I had to make very deliberate steps. I'd
Speaker 4: check in with myself, what am I looking for?
Speaker 2: Here?
Speaker 4: Am I looking for external endorsement? Because I'm probably not
Speaker 4: going to find it, and I'll probably fall further than
Speaker 4: I feel right now by reading it. Do I want
Speaker 4: to check in. I was pretty disciplined about it because
Speaker 4: I was not in a good place. And the problem
Speaker 4: was because I was believing it. Now it was affecting
Speaker 4: me on air in a way it never had done.
Speaker 1: Because it doesn't now, you know the comment, Well, in.
Speaker 4: That moment, I now realized I was going through postpartum again.
Speaker 4: But you don't often know it until you're out of
Speaker 4: it and looking back because you're so busy surviving it
Speaker 4: that you're.
Speaker 2: Like, it's not so bad. No, I got this, it's
Speaker 2: just work.
Speaker 4: It's this, And then when time clears and you come up,
Speaker 4: you're like, that was bad.
Speaker 2: That was bad.
Speaker 4: And so I remember that during those times, I would
Speaker 4: blank and I'd never this far, nothing had ever rattled me.
Speaker 4: I mean, I'd have my own moments where I forget
Speaker 4: what I was saying, but really not an anxiety driven problem.
Speaker 4: I would sit and I'd go to ask a question
Speaker 4: and I'd blank. And I then had to tell my boss.
Speaker 4: I pulled him aside and I thought, something's not right here,
Speaker 4: and I need him to know in case this is
Speaker 4: to affect the product so much, and I said, I
Speaker 4: am struggling right now. I need you to know because
Speaker 4: I'm having a hard time sometimes in interviews, and so.
Speaker 2: That sucked.
Speaker 1: It's one of the worst feelings in the world. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've had it. Oh it's horrible. You feel like a loser.
Speaker 4: You feel like a loser, and you're like, externally, no
Speaker 4: one knows. So you're hurting, you're struggling, you're crying, you're
Speaker 4: fighting back tears. You're like, this is awful. No one
Speaker 4: needs to tell me, yea, and yet you can't. You
Speaker 4: also aren't feeling like you need to share all those
Speaker 4: vulnerable things. So I'm not going to come out and
Speaker 4: pour it on the table for you. I'm not even
Speaker 4: through it yet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you really dealt with a lot, Sarah in a
Speaker 1: public way.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that part was probably the worst so far.
Speaker 4: That's the lowest sit and I know life is long,
Speaker 4: so they'll probably be more. But that was dark, and
Speaker 4: I don't think I couldn't have fully grasped it while
Speaker 4: I was going through it, or it would have killed me.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about happy things because you give
Speaker 1: really good dating advice.
Speaker 2: I love some dating advice.
Speaker 1: So you were thirty seven when you met and married Max.
Speaker 2: Met Max thirty four, Okay.
Speaker 1: Married Max at thirty seven and he's five years younger
Speaker 1: than you. Yes, So I want to ask you about
Speaker 1: age gap relationships.
Speaker 2: Yep. I know men and women are different.
Speaker 1: But I was in a relationship when I was twenty
Speaker 1: with a thirty one year old Yeah, and I look
Speaker 1: back on that with I was a volunteer. I wasn't
Speaker 1: a victim, but I kind of feel like I was.
Speaker 2: A little bit of a victim. Like I'm like, I'm
Speaker 2: not sure I knew what I signed up for.
Speaker 4: So I dated a man that was eighteen years older
Speaker 4: than me when I was twenty two.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, And were you a volunteer.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I was a volunteer and we were together
Speaker 4: for four years.
Speaker 2: We were wow.
Speaker 4: And then the next one, the next serious one, the
Speaker 4: really toxic one nine.
Speaker 2: Years older than me. Okay.
Speaker 4: I had turned away guys that were even a year
Speaker 4: younger because I said, I don't date younger, and then
Speaker 4: I did and I married him.
Speaker 2: I feel like this is what always happens. What I
Speaker 2: realized is you should aim hide.
Speaker 4: But the privilege of describing what your type is, what
Speaker 4: you want is just that it's a privilege.
Speaker 2: It's an imaginary concept. Put it all out there.
Speaker 4: But be ready when you want six to one and
Speaker 4: he comes in at five ten. Be ready when you
Speaker 4: thought that.
Speaker 2: He would be older or at least your age, and
Speaker 2: he's five years younger.
Speaker 4: Be ready when you thought you were going to have
Speaker 4: someone that saw your whole spiritual world the way you did,
Speaker 4: and he's an agnostic ethnic Jewish man, like, be ready
Speaker 4: for whatever will be thrown at you, because that's what
Speaker 4: life does. It doesn't serve it up, because it wants
Speaker 4: to make sure you're paying attention and listening.
Speaker 2: How do you know he was it?
Speaker 4: So I always see There wasn't a moment I actually
Speaker 4: really I was just an efficient at a dear friend's wedding,
Speaker 4: and I laid into this in my remarks.
Speaker 2: The way we describe love in this.
Speaker 4: World, specifically for girls and women, is it happens to you.
Speaker 4: It's electric, you'll feel it, it's a bolt, it's all
Speaker 4: these things. Well, that gives all the power to something
Speaker 4: out external that happens. There's a very sober moment where
Speaker 4: you have to eventually make a choice, and there's not
Speaker 4: a guarantee. The people that you hear that from. I
Speaker 4: also felt how many the ones did I meet? They
Speaker 4: just weren't saying yes or calling back, you know, like
Speaker 4: I met other guys, I had storylines. You know, Eventually
Speaker 4: you have to stop and say, are we looking in
Speaker 4: the same direction When we look at what life looks like?
Speaker 2: Do we mostly agree?
Speaker 4: You may suck at cleaning up the bathroom, which he does,
Speaker 4: and he leaves the toothpaste lid off, and I'm about
Speaker 4: to lose my mind? All those things can be there
Speaker 4: when it comes to your values, the most important things
Speaker 4: in life?
Speaker 2: Do we agree on those things?
Speaker 4: When we have children, do we agree on what type
Speaker 4: of people we want them to be? Not necessarily what
Speaker 4: activity or what, but like in general, if we're doing
Speaker 4: that and I'm still attracted to you and I enjoy
Speaker 4: your company, eventually you make a choice.
Speaker 2: And it's timing.
Speaker 4: I don't believe Max was walking towards me his whole
Speaker 4: life and I was walking toward him. There's a lot
Speaker 4: of luck in life, a lot of stuff happens. You've
Speaker 4: got to be ready, and you've got to make a
Speaker 4: deliberate choice with your head, not your heart.
Speaker 2: Heart has to be involved. Yeah, you've got to use this.
Speaker 2: We make our best decisions not in the fog of.
Speaker 1: This but in the clarity of this, and you feel
Speaker 1: like you and Max wanted the same things out of.
Speaker 2: Life in general.
Speaker 4: We both wanted a family, Like I think it's a
Speaker 4: deal breaker if you disagree on kids.
Speaker 2: I don't think people change on that.
Speaker 4: Do we want a life with kids, Do we want
Speaker 4: to have those kids together those types of things. Do
Speaker 4: we believe in the same kind of integral values of
Speaker 4: character doing the right thing?
Speaker 2: We're both works in progress. We both agree on that.
Speaker 4: But we're marrying each other today where we're at, But
Speaker 4: we're gonna hope, We're definitely going to grow, or one
Speaker 4: of us is not going to be here in the end,
Speaker 4: you know. So all those really pivotal things, and you
Speaker 4: just have to you do have to enjoy their company.
Speaker 4: I think women learn to put themselves in a pretzel
Speaker 4: to be chosen as if we weren't worth choosing, you know, like,
Speaker 4: and we keep doing that, and then we stop, and
Speaker 4: we don't know where our voices, We don't know what
Speaker 4: we believe in or the amount of things I took
Speaker 4: on that one x I became a triathlete because he
Speaker 4: was a triathline guy. No, I was an athlete, and
Speaker 4: I ended up loving it. But I look at like
Speaker 4: how many times they came in. Why wasn't I offering
Speaker 4: what I had? Why wasn't I thinking about what I felt?
Speaker 4: Why wasn't that person saying, Hey, I want to go
Speaker 4: explore your gave volleyball league with you.
Speaker 2: I want to wear the shorts.
Speaker 4: I want to wear the short It's like, why was
Speaker 4: there was so much here that I knew value? Why
Speaker 4: wasn't I asking people to lean into me? I was
Speaker 4: so busy leaning.
Speaker 2: Out to them.
Speaker 1: There's this one question that I think nobody really asked.
Speaker 1: You probably did, but a lot of young people don't
Speaker 1: ask what does retirement look like for you?
Speaker 2: Okay, we actually talked about this. I wouldn't say I grew.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't say I knew so much that I asked
Speaker 4: every right question, because there are definitely questions I would
Speaker 4: hone in on, but retirement what I love about him
Speaker 4: and our parents are both a different generation and version
Speaker 4: of this. We never want to be away from our kids,
Speaker 4: so we said, aside from traveling and definitely enjoying not
Speaker 4: seeing the world, laying on beaches with Pina coladas, like,
Speaker 4: not like we're going to see every chapel I can't
Speaker 4: wait to go to Asia, beautiful places. Our mission is
Speaker 4: to lay on our asses and laugh and drink and
Speaker 4: read books.
Speaker 2: That's what we want to do.
Speaker 4: But in between, we never want to be away from
Speaker 4: our children. So my parents I went away to school,
Speaker 4: they're in another place. Max's dad is down in Florida.
Speaker 4: His mom's up here, but he's not that close with her.
Speaker 4: So everyone's spread out. And our kids will say to us,
Speaker 4: do we ever have to leave you? They're at that
Speaker 4: young age, do we have to leave you? We're like, no,
Speaker 4: right now, Alex in the face, I want to live
Speaker 4: with you forever. We're like, you are welcome to We
Speaker 4: think you're going to change your minds when you are welcome.
Speaker 4: But Max and I bond because it's mostly our dads.
Speaker 4: As much as they love us. They're like, we raise you.
Speaker 4: We're done, we're having fun. I said Max, I want
Speaker 4: to compound and I want to be near one to
Speaker 4: three children anywhere they go, and he's like, I agree.
Speaker 4: We want to be there and show up and take
Speaker 4: care of the grand babies. We want to let them
Speaker 4: get away from her, and we don't want to push agendas.
Speaker 4: We don't care what you want to feed them. We
Speaker 4: just want to love them and love them because we
Speaker 4: love you. So we have agreed that our life will
Speaker 4: just contain hauling after our kids, hearing about every test,
Speaker 4: every game.
Speaker 2: Once you meet them, you never.
Speaker 4: Want anything else, really, and it's not instant, just to
Speaker 4: be clear, it wasn't something I felt. But when I
Speaker 4: look at those three little people and they're very I
Speaker 4: stop and I like, I never want to not know you,
Speaker 4: and I want to.
Speaker 2: Know all of you.
Speaker 4: I want to know a Bland Tuesday in October. I
Speaker 4: want to know all the things. I want to hear
Speaker 4: your days. I want to as much as you'll talk
Speaker 4: to me, I'm going.
Speaker 2: To be there.
Speaker 4: And Max is the exact same way, and men are
Speaker 4: not always that way.
Speaker 2: Not to stereotype, but he is just as obsessed with
Speaker 2: as me.
Speaker 1: And is that because you guys didn't feel that in
Speaker 1: your childhood or because you did.
Speaker 4: We felt like his dad worships him if he literally
Speaker 4: he's his dad's only child. His dad was forty something
Speaker 4: when he had him, so his dad had given up
Speaker 4: on having kids. When Max read a book in college,
Speaker 4: he'd say, Dad, I read this cool thing. His dad
Speaker 4: would go find it his dad's language is Russian, so
Speaker 4: he I mean they're Russian for he's a first generation
Speaker 4: maxis so he only speaks Russian with his parents.
Speaker 2: His dad would hunt down that book and read it.
Speaker 4: Max took an excursion after law school for three months
Speaker 4: solo in Asia. His dad two years later repeated the
Speaker 4: same itinerary because he wanted to see what Max had seen.
Speaker 4: I said, my parents definitely don't love me like that.
Speaker 2: That's amazing.
Speaker 4: His dad worships him, like in the most beautiful I've
Speaker 4: never seen someone love so much. Max feels that, and
Speaker 4: he loves his dad back. My parents love me, but
Speaker 4: my mom would love to be close to us, but
Speaker 4: she's got four and were scattered.
Speaker 2: My dad is God love him.
Speaker 4: He's like, like my mom always say, should we go
Speaker 4: move up there? Take care of the kid. My dad's like, hey,
Speaker 4: I raised my four, love them. They can visit, but
Speaker 4: we're done. I never want to be done.
Speaker 2: You're in it. I am in it until the very end.
Speaker 1: What's the most fun you've ever had on TV?
Speaker 2: Probably when Tiffany sang to me on my fortieth birthday.
Speaker 2: That was amazing.
Speaker 4: I still like I can watch that video and like
Speaker 4: my body like shakes. It was one of the coolest moments.
Speaker 2: In my life.
Speaker 4: Why, I think because it channeled, like there's so many
Speaker 4: moments where I stop and I'm completely Sarah Hanes from
Speaker 4: where I came from. So some of my closest friends
Speaker 4: are childhood friends. Yeah, and I'm like, can you believe this?
Speaker 4: Like what's going on? That moment was so pinnacle because
Speaker 4: we used to dance. My sister a goofy not cute
Speaker 4: to Tiffany, I think we're alone now in that moment
Speaker 4: to realize it was like a record scratch moment where
Speaker 4: you realize, I'm standing here, that's Tiffany, that was Debbie
Speaker 4: Gibson on a video message. What the hell is going
Speaker 4: on right now? And it is so jarring and magical.
Speaker 4: And as you're looking next to your seeing your modern
Speaker 4: friends like Paula Faris, Amy Robach was backstage, all these
Speaker 4: friends and it's your life colliding. It's like your twelve
Speaker 4: year old self bumping into you in the future saying
Speaker 4: you're gonna be okay, this is fun.
Speaker 2: You got a lot of fun coming and like it
Speaker 2: was just amazing.
Speaker 1: That's a beautiful way of describing it. That's amazing.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 4: I don't think I thought about it that way, but
Speaker 4: there's something raw there.
Speaker 1: The record scratch, yeah, okay, some rapid fire yep. Dream
Speaker 1: guest panelist on the view, the most obvious question, Daniel, Okay,
Speaker 1: how about dream guest?
Speaker 2: Dream guest? Yeah, so not host Okay, yeah, dream guest.
Speaker 4: I have still yet to meet Bill Clinton or brockelone
Speaker 4: and just for that historical moment of that, I'm obsessed
Speaker 4: with Hillary Clinton, but I would love to.
Speaker 2: Meet one of them.
Speaker 1: A book that changed your life? Something you think everybody
Speaker 1: should read. She's come undone, finish the sentence. Every woman
Speaker 1: should try this once an acting class, really scene study.
Speaker 1: What's the most challenging part of your job right now?
Speaker 1: Being unapologetically strong with myself? How do you talk about
Speaker 1: money with your husband?
Speaker 2: Not? Well?
Speaker 1: What is the smartest decision you've ever made?
Speaker 2: Probably coming to New York?
Speaker 1: Okay, grab a question everything card which everyone calls you?
Speaker 4: Oh, what parts of yourself do you feel almost proud of?
Speaker 4: I feel most proud of the way I love people.
Speaker 4: It's from my toes and it's big.
Speaker 2: I give it freely.
Speaker 1: Everybody around you feels it, Oh, I hope so they do?
Speaker 2: You really take care.
Speaker 4: I love I love people when I connect especially It's
Speaker 4: not like I love every person, but when I love,
Speaker 4: it will pour out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you for your time today.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Danielle. This was amazing, so amazing. Okay,
Speaker 2: you know what time it is. Today's a good day.
Speaker 2: To have a good day.
Speaker 1: I'll see you next week.