Speaker 1: Hey Brightside Besties, Hello Sunshine. Today on the bright Side, journalist,
Speaker 1: TV host and best selling author Brooke Baldwin shares how
Speaker 1: leaving CNN after thirteen years helped her find her voice
Speaker 1: and where her journey on self discovery has taken her.
Speaker 1: It's Wednesday, May twenty ninth. I'm Danielle Robe.
Speaker 2: And I'm Simone Boyce and this is the bright Side
Speaker 2: from Hello Sunshine. All Right, We've got some fantastic news
Speaker 2: for all of our Reese's book Club besties. So in
Speaker 2: addition to our monthly Reese's book Club picks, we're going
Speaker 2: to be sharing even more recommendations. Reese is teaming up
Speaker 2: with her adorable nieces Abby and Draper to share YA picks.
Speaker 2: If you don't know what YA stands for, that means
Speaker 2: young adult, one of my favorite genres.
Speaker 3: Me too.
Speaker 2: And with that news, the summer YA pick has officially
Speaker 2: been announced and it is Twelfth Night by Alexin Ferrell Falmouth.
Speaker 1: Twelfth Night is a YA romantic and a coming of
Speaker 1: age story about taking up space in the world and
Speaker 1: learning what it means to let others in. This sounds
Speaker 1: like something I definitely need to read. I think it's
Speaker 1: worth mentioning too that the book has some not so
Speaker 1: subtle nods to Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, so same character names,
Speaker 1: but with a modern plot.
Speaker 2: We got to show love to the author of Twelfth Night,
Speaker 2: Alexi and Farrell Faalmuth is a first generation American, a
Speaker 2: romance enthusiast, and she has actually written a number of
Speaker 2: science fiction fantasy projects under the pen name Olivi Blake
Speaker 2: Ooh Mysterious right, including the international bestseller The Atlas Six.
Speaker 1: This is intriguing. I'm excited for this. And you know,
Speaker 1: even though YA is labeled young adults, we love YA
Speaker 1: love They're really fun to read. I feel like this
Speaker 1: book spans generations. And I do want to note that
Speaker 1: if you have not seen Reese's video with her Nieces
Speaker 1: announcing this extension of the book Club, it's really really cute.
Speaker 1: But this got me thinking about some of my favorite
Speaker 1: movies that you might not know were actually shakespeare inspired.
Speaker 1: So do you want to play a little games, Simon?
Speaker 1: I would love to a little Shakespearean rough runce. Are
Speaker 1: you ready?
Speaker 2: Let's go gla.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna give you two movies. One of them
Speaker 1: is Shakespearean inspired. Okay, that's my Shakespeare voice is a
Speaker 1: good That was a lot. Okay. Ten Things I Hate
Speaker 1: about You or She's All That, which one was inspired
Speaker 1: by Taming of the Shrew.
Speaker 2: Ten Things I Hate about You? I actually know this one.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, they have like a lot of Shakespeare references
Speaker 1: in that movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Should I do it in a Shakespeare voice?
Speaker 2: Sure? Please?
Speaker 1: Jungle Book or Lion King, which one was based on Hamelot.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go with Jungle Book.
Speaker 1: M whish I could do more noises with my voice?
Speaker 1: Or Lion King. I could not believe that was inspired
Speaker 1: by Hamlet. I did not know.
Speaker 2: I'm so entertained by all the sounds that are coming
Speaker 2: out of your mouth right now.
Speaker 1: Okay, how about She's the Man with Amanda Binds. Oh,
Speaker 1: bring it on?
Speaker 2: Oh? I mean bring it on is one of my
Speaker 2: all time faves. That feels Shakespearean to me. Bring it on?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know it actually does. But it's She's the Man.
Speaker 1: It was inspired by Twelfth Night.
Speaker 2: Wow, I'm learning so much today.
Speaker 1: Okay. Last one, I haven't seen this, but you liked
Speaker 1: this movie The Sydney Sweeney Anyone but You or No
Speaker 1: Strings Attached, which one was based on much Ado about nothing.
Speaker 2: Wait, give me a little refresher on no strings attached?
Speaker 2: Who's in that one?
Speaker 1: That's Natalie Portman got it and Ashton Kutcher got it
Speaker 1: and they're like hooking up and that was like the
Speaker 1: whole millennial hookup culture movie.
Speaker 2: I feel like I remember hearing something about the Sydney
Speaker 2: Sweeney Glen Powell and anyone, but you some going to
Speaker 2: go with that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you did really well?
Speaker 2: Nice. I got what like two out of four snaps
Speaker 2: for someone? You know what's interesting.
Speaker 1: About three out of four? That's a C plus.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: That's I mean better five percent better than I did
Speaker 2: in a lot of my college classes. Does any of
Speaker 2: this inspire you to go back and read some Shakespeare?
Speaker 1: No, because I just have flashbacks of high school where
Speaker 1: I would I had to read so much Shakespeare, and
Speaker 1: they're beautiful stories, but I much prefer an adaptation that
Speaker 1: I understand.
Speaker 2: I feel you on that. You know, my dad recently
Speaker 2: has been reading a lot of period fiction, Like he's
Speaker 2: read Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice, and like he's
Speaker 2: going back and rereading all these classics work than Shakespeare.
Speaker 1: You didn't ask me that question.
Speaker 2: I just I want to revisit the classics.
Speaker 1: I think, okay, I'm with you on that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And we're really in for a treat because the author
Speaker 1: Alexine will be joining us next month, so be sure
Speaker 1: to read along with us and send your questions to
Speaker 1: Hello at the bright Side podcast dot com. And tomorrow
Speaker 1: we're talking with May's book Club Pick.
Speaker 2: Yes, author Julien Kwang is here to talk about her
Speaker 2: book How to End a Love Story. It was so good,
Speaker 2: we both love it so much. And after the break,
Speaker 2: Brooke Baldwin is here to talk about her life after
Speaker 2: CNN and why she's leaning into her bad girl era. Y'all,
Speaker 2: welcome back, Bestie's all right on the show Today, we've
Speaker 2: got someone who has redefined reinvention again and again. Brooke
Speaker 2: Baldwin spent more than two decades in the news business,
Speaker 2: including many years as one of the most recognizable and
Speaker 2: respected faces at CNN. I'm sure you watched a lot
Speaker 2: of her there, like I did, Danielle. I have been
Speaker 2: watching from afar as Brook pivots from this celebrated news
Speaker 2: anchor career into a rich and meaningful second act, and
Speaker 2: I'm so curious. I can't wait to talk to her
Speaker 2: about it today. It's been really inspiring to watch her.
Speaker 2: She describes this pivot as her unraveling. So in addition
Speaker 2: to her work as a journalist, Brooke is the best
Speaker 2: selling author of the book Huddle, How Women Unlock their
Speaker 2: Collective Power, and the host of the Netflix reality series
Speaker 2: The Trust. She's written extensively about her exit from the
Speaker 2: network and, in my opinion, very movingly about her journey
Speaker 2: to self discovery. So we're lucky she's here with us
Speaker 2: now to talk more about it. Brooke, thank you for
Speaker 2: joining the bright Side.
Speaker 3: Hello Daniel Simon, it's so good to be here.
Speaker 2: We're so happy to have you Brooke.
Speaker 1: I want to start with a piece that you recently
Speaker 1: wrote for Vanity Fair. You titled it Leaving CNN was
Speaker 1: how I found my voice, and people speculated on why
Speaker 1: you left. They thought it may be the chaos of
Speaker 1: the pandemic or Trump coverage on the network. But you've
Speaker 1: called this process you're unraveling. I've never heard anybody use
Speaker 1: that term. I really like it. For those who haven't
Speaker 1: read your piece yet, will you explain what you mean
Speaker 1: by unraveling.
Speaker 4: Essentially, what I mean by unraveling, which is what I
Speaker 4: wrote at the very end. You know, at first you
Speaker 4: think unraveling means like coming apart right or maybe finding
Speaker 4: the truth. And for me, what I realized in the
Speaker 4: end is it's both.
Speaker 1: When did the unraveling start?
Speaker 4: Ooh, let me think back to when that man came
Speaker 4: down the escalator in Trump Tower. That was twenty fifteen,
Speaker 4: when he declared his candidacy for president. I would say
Speaker 4: my unraveling happened somewhere between him winning and the first
Speaker 4: probably month being at the Women's March, seeing all the
Speaker 4: women showing up in ways I had never seen before
Speaker 4: in my twenty year career and realizing, oh shit, I
Speaker 4: think I'm one of them.
Speaker 1: It was no longer aligned after that. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it feels like you knew something was going to
Speaker 2: change at that point. But at the same time, we
Speaker 2: also had no idea how much it was going.
Speaker 4: To change, right, We had no idea. I mean we
Speaker 4: were all covering the twenty sixteen election. I mean, no
Speaker 4: one had ever seen someone like that man. Do we
Speaker 4: need to say his name? Do we all know? Okay,
Speaker 4: that man running for president? We all remember the October
Speaker 4: surprise where he liked to grab women. Everyone thought it
Speaker 4: would be impossible for that person to then be elected
Speaker 4: president alas the joke was on us, you know, I mean, listen,
Speaker 4: we were blindsided and we shouldn't have been.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: I remember sitting with some of the Trump sons at
Speaker 4: another meeting before the election. They were pointing out in
Speaker 4: the Midwest, how all these Trump sides there were. There
Speaker 4: was momentum in a way that I think the quote
Speaker 4: unquote coastal media elites were just intentionally oblivious to. So
Speaker 4: I think some of the onus obviously falls on us.
Speaker 4: We just totally freaking missing it.
Speaker 2: You've been really open and vulnerable about your own hubris
Speaker 2: when it comes to having to unravel your identity that
Speaker 2: was attached to achievement, that was attached to being a
Speaker 2: good soldier, being good girl, and that comes up a
Speaker 2: lot for women who are pioneering in male dominated spaces.
Speaker 2: I'd love for you to read this passage that we
Speaker 2: feel like really stood out to us from your essay.
Speaker 4: Okay, it has taken me nearly three years to remove
Speaker 4: the blinders, feel the anger, welcome the fear, and recognize
Speaker 4: that in all my yeses, silence, and enabling the person
Speaker 4: who betrayed me the most was me. I wanted to obey,
Speaker 4: I wanted to please. I wanted to be the good girl.
Speaker 4: I was afraid they'd let me go jokes on me.
Speaker 4: It starts in childhood. We want approval from our parents,
Speaker 4: than our lovers, than our bosses. I wanted the people
Speaker 4: who had certain control over me to want me so
Speaker 4: that I could get what I wanted. It's a transaction,
Speaker 4: and it's a gamble, and the house always wins.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for reading that. In your piece,
Speaker 2: you mentioned instances where you didn't speak up at first,
Speaker 2: like when your producer would go dark on you on
Speaker 2: the air. I mean, that is a terrifying thing to
Speaker 2: think about. And then when you finally did ask your
Speaker 2: boss to remove that producer from your team, your request
Speaker 2: was denied, and that's what you called the beginning of
Speaker 2: the end for you. How do you think you would
Speaker 2: have used your voice differently if you had had this
Speaker 2: awakening earlier.
Speaker 4: I can remember moments, you know, at CNN with my
Speaker 4: own show, with my own team, where I should have
Speaker 4: spoken up, and things that were done to me or
Speaker 4: around me just we're toxic, We're not right. And instead
Speaker 4: of going to the boss, I tried to handle it myself,
Speaker 4: because that's what we do. We don't want to complain
Speaker 4: cue the America Fererra Barbie monologue. You know, I didn't
Speaker 4: want to come off as too aggressive.
Speaker 3: I didn't.
Speaker 4: I was worried that if I complained too much that
Speaker 4: I may maybe would lose my show or lose an
Speaker 4: hour of my show, And so I just kept my
Speaker 4: mouth shut for way too long. And it was really
Speaker 4: in just until I wrote this book Huddle, where selfishly,
Speaker 4: you know, my soul was withering through covering this man
Speaker 4: and covering Lies twenty four seven through sixty five, I
Speaker 4: needed to like get out and talk to women. And
Speaker 4: it was through sitting and sharing oxygen with you know,
Speaker 4: chefs and teachers and mothers and congress women and professional athletes,
Speaker 4: and learning that no is a complete sentence, like if
Speaker 4: I may like, holy fuck, no is a complete sentence.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: That's when it all really started to unravel for me
Speaker 4: when I went back to work.
Speaker 1: I think, to your credit, too, though you found success
Speaker 1: at a major network at a really young age, I
Speaker 1: can't imagine you had a lot of practicing no in
Speaker 1: local news. Like you're just that you have to say
Speaker 1: yes to everything coming up.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, when you're twenties, you're grinding your clawing,
Speaker 3: you're saying yes because you know there are especially in
Speaker 3: a you know, in a business like we've all been
Speaker 3: in in journalism and TV news specifically, it is brutal.
Speaker 4: You know that there are there's a line of women
Speaker 4: behind you who would like cut off their left arm
Speaker 4: to have your job. So, hell no, I'm not going
Speaker 4: to say no. You want me to leap how far
Speaker 4: you want to do flips? You know, like, I will
Speaker 4: do all the things in order to continue having these
Speaker 4: opportunities to continue to rise. And I think also when
Speaker 4: you do start out young someplace, you start out with
Speaker 4: this like, oh my gosh, I'm just so grateful to
Speaker 4: be here. Oh my gosh, I'm just so grateful to
Speaker 4: be here, instead of being like, wait a second, you're
Speaker 4: asking me to do this, or you're speaking to me
Speaker 4: this way. That's not okay. No, let's have a conversation
Speaker 4: and find a compromise. I didn't do that until it
Speaker 4: was too late, and that is on me, and that,
Speaker 4: to me, was the biggest point of my piece.
Speaker 3: Yes, I point out the.
Speaker 4: Toxicity and the bullying and also my own complicity my
Speaker 4: own self silencing, which is what got me in trouble.
Speaker 2: But you are also doing the only thing that you
Speaker 2: knew how to do in order to survive. And the
Speaker 2: thing is saying yes is actually a condition of that
Speaker 2: job being in the news industry. Like I can't tell
Speaker 2: you how many colleagues of mine were like, oh, this
Speaker 2: is my first year at NBC. I'm just gonna say
Speaker 2: yes to every single thing they asked me to do,
Speaker 2: because that's how you succeed and that's how you thrive.
Speaker 2: And the other element of this, I think is like
Speaker 2: once you reach the level that you are at brook
Speaker 2: the top and you realize how few opportunities there are
Speaker 2: at the top, and like there's not really much room
Speaker 2: to climb after that. So I think there's almost this
Speaker 2: like new scarcity mindset that gets introduced at the top.
Speaker 2: That's super interesting. Actually, you're totally taking me back to
Speaker 2: So the last couple of years when I was there,
Speaker 2: my biggest source of anger would be twofold one. I
Speaker 2: just didn't agree with how we were covering that man
Speaker 2: all the time, the way in which we were. But
Speaker 2: my second was I had done that job for ten years.
Speaker 3: That's a long.
Speaker 4: Time to have two hours to yourself on this giant network.
Speaker 4: It was a huge, huge job. And I got to
Speaker 4: the point where we all like we work hard, and
Speaker 4: we think, okay, well what's next?
Speaker 2: What's next?
Speaker 4: And what would have been next would have been maybe
Speaker 4: like a primetime job. And at the time, all the
Speaker 4: primetime anchers were men, and right after my show, it
Speaker 4: was a bunch of men in Washington. You know, not
Speaker 4: to speak ill of those men. Most of those men
Speaker 4: were wonderful to me. And I would talk to some
Speaker 4: of them about like our giant differences in salary, or
Speaker 4: the opportunities they would have, or all the times I
Speaker 4: would get bounced off my show because some huge Washington
Speaker 4: thing would happen, and that'd be bigfooted off of my
Speaker 4: show a lot of times for these men. And it
Speaker 4: started really pissing me off. And what message is that
Speaker 4: sending to the viewer that I'm getting bounced off my
Speaker 4: own show, that I'm not capable of covering X, Y,
Speaker 4: and Z because of someone else. I wanted to be
Speaker 4: treated equally.
Speaker 2: That was it.
Speaker 4: I wanted to be treated equally, and it was so
Speaker 4: obvious that that wasn't happening.
Speaker 1: I feel like the collective response to your piece signaled something.
Speaker 1: Because I saw it online, I can only imagine what
Speaker 1: you receive.
Speaker 3: Personally, crazy, What are you? Damns?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 1: What do you think the collective response says about women
Speaker 1: at work?
Speaker 4: It is so clear that my piece really resonated not
Speaker 4: just with women but also with men, men of color.
Speaker 3: Specifically.
Speaker 4: They would reach out to me and say, you know, hey,
Speaker 4: I have been bullied and treated poorly because of how
Speaker 4: I show up at the workplace and the opportunities that
Speaker 4: I feel like I'm not being given. And then all
Speaker 4: these other women and having their own experiences, you know,
Speaker 4: there was this huge needed me too wave where it
Speaker 4: was like that obviously was disgusting what was happening, and
Speaker 4: it became a hashtag and so many men got in
Speaker 4: trouble as a result, and good on them. But to me,
Speaker 4: there is this whole other movement that needs to happen,
Speaker 4: which is what I referred to in the piece as
Speaker 4: the thousand little cuts. It's less black and white. We
Speaker 4: all have experienced it. We don't know how to talk
Speaker 4: about it. It happens in broad daylight at work oftentimes,
Speaker 4: you know, you can't email about it. You don't often
Speaker 4: go to hr about it. You don't think that it's
Speaker 4: a big enough deal. Like I didn't think my story
Speaker 4: was a big enough deal to even write about it
Speaker 4: until I really sat on it for a while and
Speaker 4: talk to a lot of people. To me, we need
Speaker 4: to name it. We need to name this thing that
Speaker 4: is happening to us. I don't have the name. I
Speaker 4: am all ears on what the name of it is.
Speaker 4: But this thing that is happening to all of us.
Speaker 4: That is step number one, and then step number two
Speaker 4: is once we name it, what do we do about it.
Speaker 1: That's what happened with me too. We didn't have a
Speaker 1: vocabulary for what was happening. So I really think you're
Speaker 1: onto something. You mentioned gratitude in your piece. You talk
Speaker 1: about how you were told to be grateful for what
Speaker 1: you had there. Yeah, what was the exact point that
Speaker 1: you said, fuck being grateful?
Speaker 4: It wasn't necessarily fuck being grateful. It was fuck, this
Speaker 4: really isn't okay, And I've got to say something. And
Speaker 4: my first step was walking into my boss's office and
Speaker 4: trying to make my case in a very diplomatic way.
Speaker 4: I wasn't trying to get my executive producer in trouble.
Speaker 4: I wasn't trying to infer anything nefarious other than I
Speaker 4: literally said, we've run out of track. I am worried
Speaker 4: about the show, I am worried about being doing live
Speaker 4: TV with this person, and could we please just do
Speaker 4: a trade? And that is when at all, all the
Speaker 4: dominoes started to fall down.
Speaker 2: It sounds like you were experiencing like a spiritual disconnection
Speaker 2: between the life that you were living, yes, and the
Speaker 2: life that you felt in your soul like you really
Speaker 2: wanted to live. And I want to hear more about
Speaker 2: your healing journey that you went on after you decided
Speaker 2: to leave this job, because it sounds like it was
Speaker 2: so transformational, Like I.
Speaker 3: Want it still on it?
Speaker 2: We still at it? Yeah, we do. We want what
Speaker 2: did you read? Okay, where did you go? What our
Speaker 2: streets did you go on? Who did you surround yourself with?
Speaker 2: Anything you feel comfortable?
Speaker 3: Sure?
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, you know, I don't think I had
Speaker 4: the words yet when I was having that sort of
Speaker 4: disconnect or incongruity or the out of alignment feeling when
Speaker 4: I was doing this job. I mean, you know, in
Speaker 4: order to do this job, I work so hard, like
Speaker 4: from a little girl dreaming of lurking in New York City.
Speaker 4: You know, then you work in these small markets, you
Speaker 4: don't have as many friends, you date the wrong guys,
Speaker 4: you put off having kids, all the things to maybe
Speaker 4: maybe maybe one.
Speaker 3: Day make it, and I did.
Speaker 4: And then at some point you're sitting on this fancy
Speaker 4: set with these fake eye lashes and these extensions and
Speaker 4: these beautiful having really important conversations. But at some point,
Speaker 4: you know, I'm sitting dazing out the window and during
Speaker 4: a commercial break and thinking like you would in any
Speaker 4: relationship where the guy is impressive and shiny and you've
Speaker 4: been with him for a really long time or girl,
Speaker 4: and then you start wondering though, like is this it?
Speaker 1: Is? This?
Speaker 4: It?
Speaker 3: Yes, but hold on a second.
Speaker 4: I've worked so hard and there are all these girls
Speaker 4: who again would eat their left arm for this job,
Speaker 4: so I must, you know, keep going. And finally, once
Speaker 4: I left, I sent myself on a three week trip,
Speaker 4: which felt like.
Speaker 3: Who takes a three week vacation?
Speaker 4: Not me in my twenty whatever years. And I went
Speaker 4: to the British Version Islands and I just needed to
Speaker 4: like skinny dip and drink a lot of rum and
Speaker 4: journal and that started my journey of healing and centering
Speaker 4: myself and coming home to myself. And I remember staring
Speaker 4: at the most beautiful blue water.
Speaker 3: And thinking, I'm a named more than this.
Speaker 4: This is like beautiful to look at, but I gotta
Speaker 4: go really deep. I need to really excavate some shit
Speaker 4: in my in my body and in my soul. And
Speaker 4: so that then started my spiritual journey. And so I
Speaker 4: reached out to a friend of mine who founded this
Speaker 4: thing called the Class, which is a workout and a practice,
Speaker 4: and I'd do it all the time, and you know,
Speaker 4: and so she recommended going on this spiritual retreat in Sedona.
Speaker 4: And I was on this sort of solo journey. And also,
Speaker 4: let me say, parallel to all of this, I was married.
Speaker 4: I was very alone in my marriage. And I actually
Speaker 4: think one of the things that my now ex husband
Speaker 4: taught me was how to really be on my own.
Speaker 3: I went from never having eaten alone.
Speaker 4: By myself to like kind of prefer eating alone by myself,
Speaker 4: and you know, going off by myself and hiking by myself.
Speaker 4: So I remember doing all of that and realizing, like
Speaker 4: being in nature, I felt so close to what I
Speaker 4: referred to as just God. Or higher power, and from
Speaker 4: there my bible became Martha Beck's book With a Way
Speaker 4: of Integrity. It's the whole story of Dante's Inferno, but
Speaker 4: she explains it in a really palatable, digestible way of
Speaker 4: all the ways that we are all on our journeys
Speaker 4: ultimately to the being in full integrity. And I made
Speaker 4: my mission to interview her. I became friends with her.
Speaker 4: She has been in my home. Like I started doing
Speaker 4: a bunch of stuff with women athletes, Sue Brd.
Speaker 3: I got to know Meghan Rapino.
Speaker 4: I got to know a bunch of these soccer players
Speaker 4: and basketball players and volleyball ley all through Subird's production company.
Speaker 4: They hired me together to do a bunch of stuff
Speaker 4: for them. So I was then around a bunch of
Speaker 4: like badass, a lot of queer women who spoke my
Speaker 4: language of just no and being empowered and embodied. And
Speaker 4: it was really great to just soak up their oxygen
Speaker 4: and do those.
Speaker 1: Things interesting because like when you're not living up to
Speaker 1: the male gaze in any way, that changes.
Speaker 2: That's why queer women can teach us a lot.
Speaker 3: They literally are running the country.
Speaker 4: By the way that was like if that would have
Speaker 4: been the alternate subtitle of my book, like Huddle, How
Speaker 4: Queer Women Are Running America.
Speaker 1: We're taking a quick break, but we'll be right back
Speaker 1: with Brooke Baldwin.
Speaker 2: And we're back with Brooke Baldwin.
Speaker 1: So, at forty four, you changed your entire life everything.
Speaker 1: You moved from New York to LA You ask questions,
Speaker 1: You found your spiritual center.
Speaker 4: Chot my hair, became a vegetarian, learned about sobriety because
Speaker 4: of someone near and dear to me. Have stopped talking
Speaker 4: to my father. Yeah, the list is long.
Speaker 1: Through all your inner work and your excavation. How did
Speaker 1: your inner child factor in? Did you talk to her.
Speaker 3: The day I left CNN. I don't know what possessed
Speaker 3: me to do this.
Speaker 4: I remember going into work by myself, and before I did,
Speaker 4: I opened my journal and I journaled to my younger self,
Speaker 4: and I talked to her for the first time, basically
Speaker 4: trying to assure her don't be disappointed in us. I
Speaker 4: know we worked so hard. I know we dreamt of
Speaker 4: living in New York City. I know that we worked
Speaker 4: so hard in all these you know, small towns in
Speaker 4: America when all of our girlfriends were living their big
Speaker 4: sex and the city lives in New York City, and
Speaker 4: we were like going to bed at nine o'clock at
Speaker 4: night and waking up at two in the morning and
Speaker 4: being one woman newsroom and rolling the procter with our
Speaker 4: foot and covering water, skiing squirrels, like you know, goddamn
Speaker 4: it paid.
Speaker 3: Off, did you?
Speaker 2: That's an Anchorman reference.
Speaker 4: So so yeah, I just needed to talk to her
Speaker 4: and say, like, we're doing it. You know, hang tight,
Speaker 4: don't feel disappointed. I know I can understand why this
Speaker 4: feels disappointing, but I'm gonna make you proud.
Speaker 2: Why do you think she needed to hear that?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 4: Because she was disappointed and as we all now know
Speaker 4: of writing this piece, like how it all went down,
Speaker 4: it was really fucking disappointing, the way in which I left,
Speaker 4: the way in which I completed this twenty year chapter,
Speaker 4: most of which was the dream job. And she was disappointed.
Speaker 4: She was like, but we did all the right things,
Speaker 4: and we worked really hard, and we were nice, and
Speaker 4: we were good at what we did. Why did this happen?
Speaker 2: You know? Why did this happen?
Speaker 4: She was disappointed, and I needed to assure her that
Speaker 4: it was going to be okay.
Speaker 1: What did leaving CNN teach you about leaving things?
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, that nothing is permanent, and that also,
Speaker 4: you know, working for a giant machine. While it certainly
Speaker 4: comes with really fun fancy bells and whistles and cachet,
Speaker 4: it also comes with being a cog in the system.
Speaker 4: And what I really felt like for me was being
Speaker 4: a mouthpiece and not having a voice. And now that
Speaker 4: I have, like self emancipated, have a voice, and it's
Speaker 4: on me to use it and to show others how
Speaker 4: they can use it every freaking day.
Speaker 2: Now that we're having some much needed closure for our
Speaker 2: inner good girl, I need to know what is the
Speaker 2: least good girl thing about you? Now?
Speaker 4: Ooh, well, I got a tattoo that felt pretty bad.
Speaker 4: I got a tattoo a couple of months ago that
Speaker 4: felt pretty bad.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I sound like such a good cirl. Jesus,
Speaker 3: what are the other bad things? One of the other bad.
Speaker 1: Things I felt the same?
Speaker 3: Oh oh oh oh.
Speaker 4: Okay, I have really I'm just going to say this,
Speaker 4: I have in the last year really experimented with psychedelics
Speaker 4: and I don't feel like that's even a bad girl thing.
Speaker 4: That's just like I want to open my mind. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and my heart thing and expand. That's another thing on
Speaker 4: your list of things that Brooke Baldwin has done this year.
Speaker 4: I have experimented in multiple psychedelic ways and have had
Speaker 4: absolutely extraordinary spiritual experiences, open hearted, loving experiences.
Speaker 3: I've never like gone to a rave or been with
Speaker 3: a bunch of people.
Speaker 4: I've only been with my close, close people, but that
Speaker 4: has been.
Speaker 3: Mind altering.
Speaker 1: It's so la and so bad girl. I love it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, psychedelics and tattoos.
Speaker 4: I've done some breath work that's very la. I've become
Speaker 4: a yogi in the last year, trying to think what
Speaker 4: other bad girl?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 3: This is the thing that I'm gonna take away from
Speaker 3: this conversation.
Speaker 1: So, my best friend from college, Yeah, we didn't really
Speaker 1: drink when we were in college.
Speaker 2: We didn't really date.
Speaker 1: God like we were in the library. We were such
Speaker 1: good girls. And she texted me the other day and
Speaker 1: she was like, I really feel like we screwed up.
Speaker 1: We should have been bad girls. Then we're doing it
Speaker 1: so late. Why are we bad girls?
Speaker 2: Now? Wait?
Speaker 4: Wait, I've got to turn the tables. Are what is
Speaker 4: your most bad girl thing? I'm a reformed bad girl.
Speaker 2: So I did the bad girl things in college and
Speaker 2: I'm like married to kids suburbs.
Speaker 1: Okay, you did it the right way. Okay, my bad girl,
Speaker 1: I mean got a tattoo. I don't know all the things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you guys have you guys have dainty little baby?
Speaker 2: We got a girl mine. Yeah, I want to leave
Speaker 2: next time you come back. Okay, Brook, I agree.
Speaker 3: Ah, thank you guys.
Speaker 2: You know, this interview, your story, this conversation. My hope
Speaker 2: is that someone listens to this who's in a soul
Speaker 2: crushing job, and through your story and just the sharing
Speaker 2: of experiences that they feel the courage to make the jump.
Speaker 4: And yes, they feel seen and heard and they're not.
Speaker 4: You are not alone. Reach out to me Broke Baldwin Instagram,
Speaker 4: find me dm me. You know I always try to,
Speaker 4: like I love being in conversation with all these people,
Speaker 4: to just remind them and if they are in the
Speaker 4: thick of it, you know, I've got advice for you too.
Speaker 4: Hang in there, You're gonna be Okay.
Speaker 2: Brook, thank you so much for blessing us with your
Speaker 2: light on the right side.
Speaker 3: Thank you, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: That's it for today's show. Tomorrow we have the author
Speaker 2: of Reese's book Clubs, may pick Yuleen Kwang. She's here
Speaker 2: to tell us all about her debut novel, How to
Speaker 2: End a Love Story.
Speaker 1: Listen and follow the bright Side on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: I'm Simone Boye. You can find me at Simone Voice
Speaker 2: on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 1: I'm Danielle Robe on Instagram and TikTok. That's ro b A.
Speaker 2: Y See you tomorrow, folks. Keep looking on the bright side.