Speaker 1: You're listening to I Choose Me with Jenny Girl.
Speaker 2: Welcome to I Choose Me, a podcast about the choices
Speaker 2: we make to redefine what it means to evolve, reinvent,
Speaker 2: and thrive. Few women epitomize these qualities better than Joan London,
Speaker 2: a trailblazing broadcast journalist who co hosted Good Morning America
Speaker 2: for seventeen years. Joan helped transform the show into the
Speaker 2: highest rated morning program in the country, and over the
Speaker 2: course of her career, has authored multiple best selling books
Speaker 2: and mothered seven children, including two sets of twins.
Speaker 1: After turning fifty. She writes in her new.
Speaker 2: Book Joan Life Beyond the Script that she's hardwired to
Speaker 2: go go go, clearly, but she is putting aside busyness
Speaker 2: as a badge of honor to be productive with much more.
Speaker 2: Pea want to know who you can become without the hustle.
Speaker 2: Take a listen to my wonderful friend John London. Hi,
Speaker 2: it's so great to see you again after all these years.
Speaker 3: I remember, after all these years.
Speaker 2: Remember when you came to visit the set of nine
Speaker 2: two and oh in nineteen ninety two.
Speaker 3: As I get ready for every interview, I don't go
Speaker 3: into anything not prepared. So like, I'm looking to see
Speaker 3: all the things you're doing now, And I thought, when
Speaker 3: did I do that? When was I there? So I
Speaker 3: go onto YouTube and put good Morning America on the
Speaker 3: set of Beverly Hills nine two one, oho up pops
Speaker 3: the entire show.
Speaker 1: It was so good.
Speaker 3: I watched it hire show and I'm like seeing and
Speaker 3: I remember I was sitting next to Charlie and you
Speaker 3: were right next to me, and I said, so, I
Speaker 3: need to ask you, Jenny, your character, and Charlie's like,
Speaker 3: how are you gonna ask this diplomatically? I said, she
Speaker 3: just kind of keeps things juicy spicy.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: We went off on the whole, like the whole talk
Speaker 2: of sex and teens. Yeah, yeah, but conversations that needed
Speaker 2: to be had.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 1: We felt so big time to be glad.
Speaker 3: Were you? I mean, you look so young.
Speaker 1: Ninety two, I must have been.
Speaker 3: Nineteen nineteen. That's I kind of guessed you are probably nineteen.
Speaker 2: Yes, Oh my gosh. I so enjoyed your new book,
Speaker 2: Joan Life Beyond the Script. I devoured every page and
Speaker 2: I learned about your life and I saw myself in
Speaker 2: so much of your journey.
Speaker 1: It was wonderful.
Speaker 3: Oh absolutely, I mean I see you in much of
Speaker 3: my journey, you know, starting at young I got Good Morning.
Speaker 3: I started at Good Morning America. I was what twenty four,
Speaker 3: twenty five, and then finally kind of you know, shows
Speaker 3: end and like for me, everybody expected me to jump
Speaker 3: into another And actually, I mean there was a talk
Speaker 3: show that was tried to be designed for me and
Speaker 3: I didn't really lean in, and I couldn't even stand
Speaker 3: what's wrong with you? And I was exhausted, just completely
Speaker 3: heavily exhausted at the time. And you know it. You
Speaker 3: really can't appreciate what you did following something that's so big.
Speaker 3: And I don't think I could have written this book
Speaker 3: if I it like five or ten years, even five
Speaker 3: years before now, because now I had the ability to
Speaker 3: look at the whole arc and say, wait a minute,
Speaker 3: like you didn't like blow it. Your last twenty five
Speaker 3: years have allowed you to make your mark on this
Speaker 3: earth in kind of a lot of more significant ways. Actually, yeah,
Speaker 3: and a lot of the same ways that you now
Speaker 3: are out talking about.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I mean I so related to you said,
Speaker 2: you've come to realize that you've spent your entire life
Speaker 2: in a full sprint, always chasing, always pushing, always revving
Speaker 2: the engine to its highest gear.
Speaker 1: But as you look.
Speaker 2: Back now you find yourself asking did I even have
Speaker 2: time to.
Speaker 1: Absorb it all?
Speaker 2: I feel like that all women can relate to that.
Speaker 3: I mean, I gotta tell you, Jenny, one of my
Speaker 3: early early assistants started an archived timeline, and that timeline
Speaker 3: starts at the very beginning GMA, and it has every
Speaker 3: major interview and a lot of just even smaller interviews
Speaker 3: every trip we took. Now I have an incredible They
Speaker 3: also started keeping videos. I don't even know how I
Speaker 3: have all the videos that I have. One of these
Speaker 3: days I'm going to have to put them in a
Speaker 3: big truck and send them back to ABC and say,
Speaker 3: don't you guys want these now?
Speaker 1: Keep them forever.
Speaker 3: But it like it allowed us to put dates and descriptions.
Speaker 3: Having this archived timeline. I don't know if I could
Speaker 3: have written this book without. Thank God for all these
Speaker 3: assistants who kept that. But also I googled my way
Speaker 3: all through this book, like when did I do this?
Speaker 3: When was the Republican Convention? When was I was constantly
Speaker 3: BacT checking and then I would go to YouTube, and amazingly,
Speaker 3: so much of it was there on YouTube, and I
Speaker 3: don't even know how it all got there because I
Speaker 3: didn't put it all there.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's why you.
Speaker 3: Gave me the idea, Jenny. Don't you use the QR.
Speaker 1: Codes, which I think is brilliant?
Speaker 3: You really done? No, Like, my whole life is on video.
Speaker 3: I called my attorney. I said, can I put QR
Speaker 3: codes in the book so that people can read the
Speaker 3: story and then open it up to the actual story
Speaker 3: on video? He said, well, do you own all the rights?
Speaker 3: I said, they're all on YouTube. He said, if they're
Speaker 3: all on YouTube, have about it. You can use whatever
Speaker 3: you want. So that's when. So then, of course I
Speaker 3: made my job even harder because I not only had
Speaker 3: to go through thousands of photographs, now I went through,
Speaker 3: you know, hours and hours and hours of video to
Speaker 3: what do I want to share.
Speaker 2: Back to the like full sprint ahead and not really
Speaker 2: absorbing any of it. Tell us how you came to
Speaker 2: realize this and how you chose to course correct, you know.
Speaker 3: I was just telling someone the other day that after
Speaker 3: I left GMA, I was still doing behind Closed Doors
Speaker 3: and my producer called me one day and said, can
Speaker 3: you meet me in Washington tomorrow, wear that navy blue
Speaker 3: suit with a really short skirt and fight meels, and
Speaker 3: we need to go to the Pentagon. We're going to
Speaker 3: ask them if we can get into whatever crazy thing
Speaker 3: we were asking them to let us do. And I
Speaker 3: got up the next morning really really could take like
Speaker 3: a six o'clock flight to get there by seven, and
Speaker 3: I was walking across the parking lot and I said
Speaker 3: to my assistant, Oh my god, I'm so tired. She said, well, yeah,
Speaker 3: you woke up early. I said, no, no, No. What
Speaker 3: I'm saying is how i feel right now physically, now
Speaker 3: that I've had time away from the show. It just
Speaker 3: hit me that how I feel right now is how
Speaker 3: I felt for twenty years. I was this sleep deprived
Speaker 3: and and I mean quite honestly, when I go back
Speaker 3: and look at some of the things when I was
Speaker 3: trying to recall, because that's what you have to do
Speaker 3: when you're writing a book like this, I'd have to
Speaker 3: go to YouTube or I'd have to go to my
Speaker 3: video archive to say, oh, yeah, I was in eight
Speaker 3: countries that year, like holy.
Speaker 1: Crap, yeah, yours just full stop, like full time.
Speaker 3: I mean, quite honestly, from a very young age, even
Speaker 3: as you now that you've read the book, I don't know.
Speaker 3: Maybe there's just my husband always says, not that I'm
Speaker 3: looking forward to it, but when I'd like to be
Speaker 3: at your autopsy because I want to see that little
Speaker 3: chip inside you that everybody else doesn't have just keeps
Speaker 3: you going like this all the time?
Speaker 1: Oh my god? Is it ambition? Is it tenacity? Is
Speaker 1: it passion?
Speaker 2: What is it?
Speaker 3: All those things push of all. But it's such an
Speaker 3: interesting question because of the fact that it just it
Speaker 3: didn't just happen at like, you know, twenty three when
Speaker 3: I was going into the workplace. It happened when I
Speaker 3: was I don't know, a little girl. It certainly happened
Speaker 3: like in high school when I just decided I'm going
Speaker 3: about this at my pace, not the school's pace, and
Speaker 3: I'm going to graduate a year early. And I just
Speaker 3: started taking correspondence courses from UC Berkeley and going to
Speaker 3: night school and going to summer school. My mom said,
Speaker 3: why don't you just take a sleeping bag over there
Speaker 3: and stay over there. But I was so determined to
Speaker 3: graduate and get out into the real world.
Speaker 1: Get it over with, get in there.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, like let me loose, like take the reins
Speaker 3: out and let me go and run.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, you are the epitome of the Year
Speaker 2: of the Horse. Yeah that we're kinding tiny, You're thors,
Speaker 2: You're ready to run. You quote Audrey hepburn in saying
Speaker 2: nothing is impossible. The word itself says I'm possible. And yes,
Speaker 2: you have lived by that wordplay. You've taken so many
Speaker 2: risks in your career and your jobs and your roles
Speaker 2: that you've exceeded in the personal journey that you've been on.
Speaker 2: Just overall, your belief that you can do anything rings
Speaker 2: so clearly. I mean it's going to compliment you. You
Speaker 2: are an unwavering visionary and I'm so happy to be
Speaker 2: talking with you. But where do you think that belief
Speaker 2: came from, that feeling that anything is possible.
Speaker 3: I it came from positive affirmations from my parents, and
Speaker 3: I think that's a good thing to put out there
Speaker 3: into the universe other people who are raising kids. It's funny.
Speaker 3: I just interviewed Susan Lucci for her book, and as
Speaker 3: I when we first kind of met and got to
Speaker 3: know each other about a year ago, we couldn't figure out,
Speaker 3: like why is there feel this simpatico, like we have
Speaker 3: this connection, Like what could it be? She's this dramatic
Speaker 3: actress and I'm this pragmatic journalist. And when I started
Speaker 3: reading her book, I'm like, oh my god. Her parents
Speaker 3: gave her the same positive affirmations and I mean the
Speaker 3: same words you can be anything you want to be,
Speaker 3: you can do and it hit my mom, hits your
Speaker 3: wag into a star, sweetie, like it came to me
Speaker 3: all the time. And that was I mean, I'm going
Speaker 3: to date myself here.
Speaker 4: But that was in like the fifties and sixties, right,
Speaker 4: And that was not when young girls were being told
Speaker 4: go out and see the world and make your mark
Speaker 4: on this world.
Speaker 3: They were kind of being told to go to college
Speaker 3: so you can get an mrs degree, you know, so
Speaker 3: you can find a mate. And yet, so I really
Speaker 3: hand it to my parents to have been telling me
Speaker 3: back then, like just think in night like my I
Speaker 3: lost my in nineteen sixty four. I was only thirteen,
Speaker 3: So I've been hearing that women didn't get the right
Speaker 3: to have a credit card or open a bank account
Speaker 3: until nineteen seventy two.
Speaker 1: Insane and it's.
Speaker 3: Kind of insane. And I always love young people. I
Speaker 3: hope that young women because I'm sure you have a
Speaker 3: lot of young women who also listen to your podcasts,
Speaker 3: and I want them to understand how different it was
Speaker 3: for young women not that long ago. Like here I am.
Speaker 3: That was when I was a kid. That was when
Speaker 3: I was in my twenties and you just weren't expecting.
Speaker 3: Look when I went to try to graduate a year early,
Speaker 3: the principle wasn't like applauding me. He was like, what
Speaker 3: the hell are you doing? Because girls were supposed to
Speaker 3: just follow the rules and not try to be anything special.
Speaker 3: And I guess I had just started bucking the system.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, what an incredible mom you had, yes
Speaker 2: to be giving you. I mean I had the same
Speaker 2: thing with my parents. They told me there's nothing you
Speaker 2: can't do, and I believed them because that's what you
Speaker 2: do when your parents tell you something over and over.
Speaker 3: And it makes you think that you can actually be
Speaker 3: able to show At nineteen years old, it became like this,
Speaker 3: Oh man, that hit you, know, but then your parents
Speaker 3: let you.
Speaker 2: I think it was I can survive anything, and that
Speaker 2: was the message I was going with then, as it
Speaker 2: turned out, your career basically came from believing in yourself
Speaker 2: at every step of the way. You thought initially that
Speaker 2: you wanted to be you follow in your father's footsteps
Speaker 2: and become a doctor, but then you soon realized that
Speaker 2: you felt differently about that.
Speaker 3: So I wanted to talk about three months working in
Speaker 3: a hospital. Yeah, I'm sure that now, real quick, scalpels
Speaker 3: and stay, which is uh No.
Speaker 2: I've watched The pet I've been watching The Pit and
Speaker 2: I love that show. So you're just watching it and
Speaker 2: then all of a sudden you see something you've never
Speaker 2: want to see.
Speaker 1: They don't give you a warning. They just got to
Speaker 1: like the insides of someone's body.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I wanted to ask you, how does one
Speaker 2: come to know that a dream is not right for them?
Speaker 2: And then what steps should they take to let it
Speaker 2: go and figure out what is the dream?
Speaker 3: Well, it became very apparent to me. I mean I
Speaker 3: was young. I remember I was sixteen when I went
Speaker 3: into college, but said that summer before I was so
Speaker 3: anxious to dip my toe into the medical world. And
Speaker 3: so my dad had founded that hospital, and he had
Speaker 3: been chief of staff at the time that he crashed
Speaker 3: and we lost him. But so I got a job
Speaker 3: I probably shouldn't have, probably wasn't old enough to be
Speaker 3: working there, but they let me, and it just became
Speaker 3: very apparent to me that that was not going to
Speaker 3: be my path, very apparent, And it was a dilemma
Speaker 3: because letting go of that dream kind of in this
Speaker 3: weird little way, I mean, my thoughts disconnected me a
Speaker 3: little bit from my dad, who I was so young
Speaker 3: that I hadn't really gotten a chance to really really
Speaker 3: know him. And so then, how then what am I
Speaker 3: going to do? So I went into college and I said,
Speaker 3: I'll get a psychology degree. That's as close as I
Speaker 3: can get to the medical field, which by the way,
Speaker 3: probably has served me very well in my life as
Speaker 3: a journalist, definitely. But I think there was always this
Speaker 3: little nigglaly thing in the back of my head that said,
Speaker 3: you didn't live up to that legacy. You wanted to
Speaker 3: carry on your dad's legacy, this cancer surgeon back at
Speaker 3: a time when there was no chemo, there was no radiation,
Speaker 3: there was only surgery.
Speaker 2: And.
Speaker 3: All of that spurred me forward. Because he was born
Speaker 3: in Australia, raised in China, came to the US, so
Speaker 3: like he wanted me to go out and see the world.
Speaker 3: But I really think that the circle became connected when
Speaker 3: I was diagnosed with breast cancer, and that it was
Speaker 3: not until then. Meanwhile, I stole all the health spots
Speaker 3: on GMA, and I did like ten health shows after GMA,
Speaker 3: but they weren't on every day, so people don't even
Speaker 3: realize that I did another ten shows after GMA. But
Speaker 3: it was that breast cancer diagnosis that like within twenty
Speaker 3: four hours, I said, Wow, I just got I had
Speaker 3: a gift dropped in my lap, and this is going
Speaker 3: to be my opportunity to take that torch from my
Speaker 3: dad and run with it. And I just in that moment,
Speaker 3: I said, I'm not going to go through this journey
Speaker 3: as a victim as a patient. I'm going to go
Speaker 3: through this journey as an advocate, and I'm going to
Speaker 3: learn everything I can. I'm going to take that camera
Speaker 3: into every single appointment. I'm going to share it so
Speaker 3: I can try to make a mark in this world.
Speaker 3: Of all the things I could make my mark in,
Speaker 3: it would be cancer because that was how my dad
Speaker 3: saved lives. And you know how I always wanted to
Speaker 3: go out and save lives like him. And I've had
Speaker 3: a lot of feedback from women that I probably did
Speaker 3: help save lives. You know, when I was constantly saying,
Speaker 3: have you had your mammogram? Have you had your mammogram?
Speaker 3: And if you did, do you know if you have
Speaker 3: dense breast, because if you do, then a mammogram won't
Speaker 3: necessarily show your cancer. And all these women have written
Speaker 3: back to me on you know, my social media and said, like,
Speaker 3: you made me go get that and oh my god,
Speaker 3: I found out I have stage two cancer. So you know,
Speaker 3: I've said that if on my tombstone that that's the
Speaker 3: only thing I'm remembered for, that would be okay, because
Speaker 3: that's what gave me my opportunity to carry that torch
Speaker 3: of my dad's right.
Speaker 2: And that became your new dream.
Speaker 3: And advocacy, and you know, and by the way, that's
Speaker 3: probably what spurred when I started to understand the impact
Speaker 3: one can have when they have a platform like you
Speaker 3: do and like I do, and I started seeing all
Speaker 3: the feedback, I think that's what then set me off
Speaker 3: on just becoming so involved in all the other health
Speaker 3: campaigns that I did. Subsequently, going to Congress and testifying
Speaker 3: before Congress to you know, include senior care in the
Speaker 3: in the Family and Medical Leave Act. It's not just
Speaker 3: at the beginning when a baby is born that you
Speaker 3: need to leave work and have some time off and
Speaker 3: not lose your job. It's at the end of life
Speaker 3: where we have to take care of parents or spouses
Speaker 3: and we again need the time off and we don't
Speaker 3: want to lose our job or be you know, punished
Speaker 3: for that. And you know, I was at the FDA
Speaker 3: testifying to get mandatory mammogram reporting, and only, as I said,
Speaker 3: can I now kind of look at the whole thing
Speaker 3: and say, the next twenty five years were not the same.
Speaker 3: It wasn't topping, you know, the GMA years, but it
Speaker 3: was equal to And like, I'm happy and proud of
Speaker 3: the direction I took. But I don't know if I
Speaker 3: ever let myself say that's all until I sat down
Speaker 3: and decided to Because I sat down eleven years ago
Speaker 3: and started writing this book. And then I got breast cancer.
Speaker 3: I said, okay, I got to write a book about
Speaker 3: breast cancer. And I got so involved, as I say,
Speaker 3: on all these health campaigns. Oh, I got to write
Speaker 3: a book about women and aging and I wrote, why
Speaker 3: did I come into this room? And then I took
Speaker 3: this back up and I'm kind of glad that it
Speaker 3: happened that way because you know, my publisher who's written
Speaker 3: a few books with me, she said, you couldn't have
Speaker 3: written this book and made yourself go that deep even
Speaker 3: five years ago. Right.
Speaker 2: That's the beauty of writing a memoir is really looking
Speaker 2: big picture at everything, what got you to where you are,
Speaker 2: what you survived, how you handled crisis. Look, it just
Speaker 2: makes you appreciate your journey so much more. And then yes,
Speaker 2: to share that because it's so inspiring.
Speaker 3: You know. It's funny because my husband always says, I've
Speaker 3: got this home office and I've got all these pictures
Speaker 3: on the wall, and he said, you know, only now
Speaker 3: as you're doing this memoir of yours, he said, you've
Speaker 3: lived such an extraordinary life. He said, but to you,
Speaker 3: it was ordinary.
Speaker 1: It just was.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it just was, and it was it like a
Speaker 3: thousand miles an hour ordinary. And he said, this is
Speaker 3: really wonderful that you're doing this because it's allowing you
Speaker 3: to see that it wasn't an ordinary life my stretch
Speaker 3: of the imagination, and it probably even lets you look
Speaker 3: at these pictures of you with presidents, and you with garls,
Speaker 3: and you with every star imaginable with different eyes, and
Speaker 3: He's right. I mean I have a new appreciation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because when you're in it, you're surviving it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you know, you're figuring out how to manage
Speaker 2: all this craziness. And then when you step back and
Speaker 2: you look at it, you're like, wow, look what I've done.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they've all kind of come Jenny. I think
Speaker 3: with the chapters, which were kind of defined by age,
Speaker 3: you know, because as you get older, you want to
Speaker 3: talk to women about whatever it is it's happening to you.
Speaker 3: I wrote a book after leaving GMA called The End
Speaker 3: of the Road is Not the Bend. A bend in
Speaker 3: the road is not the end of the road. And
Speaker 3: I was dealing with this huge change. I mean, the
Speaker 3: only difference with me is that everybody in the country
Speaker 3: knew I was dealing with it. But everybody goes through change,
Speaker 3: and they lose a job, lose a relationship or whatever.
Speaker 3: They had these shifts in their life and they come
Speaker 3: upon us, especially when you don't expect them, is very
Speaker 3: scary and very vulnerable. And I definitely wanted to write
Speaker 3: not just about all the wonderful things I got to
Speaker 3: do in my life, but about how vulnerable I felt
Speaker 3: when some of these transitions happened and how I worked
Speaker 3: through it. Because one thing I've learned in the last
Speaker 3: twenty five years out speaking all over the country because
Speaker 3: it's different. I mean, GMA just kept me busy with
Speaker 3: GMA for twenty five years, and I've learned one thing.
Speaker 3: It's really important that we share our stories. When you
Speaker 3: share your story, your impact acting people in a room,
Speaker 3: you're impacting people on a podcast. There are people out
Speaker 3: there that are going to say, wow, she went through that, right,
Speaker 3: and she felt vulnerable and then somehow in around up
Speaker 3: and down, somehow got through it and kept her kept
Speaker 3: her mind open to maybe doing something else. And those
Speaker 3: are like important little lessons that we learn that if
Speaker 3: we're willing to that when we share them, that other
Speaker 3: people can kind of grab onto those and have hope
Speaker 3: or be motivated.
Speaker 2: Right right, Yeah, it's so powerful the power to inspire
Speaker 2: other people. Throughout the book, I felt that you grappled
Speaker 2: with negative voices, that imposter syndrome that we all sometimes feel, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, and how you manage those unhelpful messages can
Speaker 2: really be the difference between getting a job and going
Speaker 2: in a totally different direction. And there were several steps
Speaker 2: along the way where you thought, I can't do that,
Speaker 2: but you did it anyway.
Speaker 3: But I have to do it right. I mean, like
Speaker 3: the day I got the call, I was at Eyewitness
Speaker 3: News in New York. I was a reporter, and I
Speaker 3: was in my news cubby.
Speaker 2: This one this day and ariage, Yes, yes, that's a learning.
Speaker 1: Picture of you so much.
Speaker 3: This is the back cover when you're four years old.
Speaker 2: There you said that this was the picture you took
Speaker 2: on your first day of.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like right when I went there, and I didn't
Speaker 3: know what I was doing. To be very honest, I'd
Speaker 3: never been a reporter back in Sacramento because I started
Speaker 3: in the industry at a time when there weren't very
Speaker 3: many women, and so I started as a weather girl
Speaker 3: because that's how you started back then, and then kind
Speaker 3: of became a consumer reporter and went right to anchoring
Speaker 3: all on a very short span of time, and then
Speaker 3: went to New York and they they wanted me to
Speaker 3: be a street reporter, and I was like, okay, so
Speaker 3: do you tell them that you don't know how to
Speaker 3: do this or do you go ahead and go?
Speaker 1: And also the streets of New York City and.
Speaker 3: The streets in New York City no less, and during
Speaker 3: that time that if someone's going to take a page
Speaker 3: out of the John Lennon playbook, it's this. Whenever anyone
Speaker 3: asks if you can do something, just say yes and
Speaker 3: then go figure out how to do it. I love that,
Speaker 3: and that is how I've lived my life all the
Speaker 3: way along the way. And like the day that I
Speaker 3: got the call from my agent to tell me that
Speaker 3: I got the job at Good Morning America, I was
Speaker 3: like half an hour before the six o'clock news with
Speaker 3: startings I'm trying to finish my story. I was like,
Speaker 3: oh my god, that's awesome. I'll call you up to
Speaker 3: the show. And like twenty minutes later, the phone rang again.
Speaker 3: I figured it was him calling back with something, and
Speaker 3: it was my kind of collegist congratulations, you're pregnant with
Speaker 3: your first baby. Oh my gosh, and like delight, dilemma,
Speaker 3: like yes about this. And I don't even know if
Speaker 3: I ever really had the thought, to be honest with you,
Speaker 3: that I really don't think I ever had the thought
Speaker 3: of man, bad timing. This would have been so great,
Speaker 3: But now you know, I found out I'm pregnant. Never
Speaker 3: occurred to me. I just immediately said, Okay, I'll figure
Speaker 3: out how to do it. I'll just figure it out.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, showing the same thing happened to me
Speaker 2: when I got my first opportunity to do comedy on
Speaker 2: a show called What I Like About You. I got
Speaker 2: the job, the we did the pilot, it got picked up,
Speaker 2: and that same day I found out I was pregnant.
Speaker 2: It is so crazy, the parallels. Yeah, so many women's lives.
Speaker 2: I just said, and you went ahead and did it, said,
Speaker 2: you know what, I'm going to go forward with this
Speaker 2: because I want both things.
Speaker 3: And that's okay, because I want both things. They're both
Speaker 3: so amazing that you do that. You deserve it to
Speaker 3: yourself to go ahead and do both. Yep. And that's
Speaker 3: not to say that it's not hard.
Speaker 2: No, logistically very difficult, Yeah with it, you know. And
Speaker 2: I'll just physically and emotionally very difficult.
Speaker 3: Yeah, to be worth the down to the bone trying
Speaker 3: to do both, but so worth it. Yep.
Speaker 2: I love this quote from your book. You say I
Speaker 2: took a deep breath and told myself.
Speaker 1: Come on, you can do this.
Speaker 2: If you've believed in Santa Claus for five years, you
Speaker 2: can believe in yourself for five minutes. Yeah, that's a
Speaker 2: perfect mantra.
Speaker 3: I love quotes.
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 3: I love the love quotes. And this is my eleventh book,
Speaker 3: and I've used quotes in every book I've ever written,
Speaker 3: and I keep a collection of him. Whenever I find
Speaker 3: another one I really like, I put it in my collection.
Speaker 3: So when it comes time, I spend so much time
Speaker 3: just on and chapter titles. I love chapter titles. And
Speaker 3: once I get a chapter title and then I think, okay,
Speaker 3: so what is the quote that is going to set
Speaker 3: the person up in the right framework, their right mindset
Speaker 3: to have this chapter delivered to them. And I spend
Speaker 3: so much time. And then once you come up with
Speaker 3: a quote, the editors, the publishing editors, they make you crazy.
Speaker 3: No it actually wasn't so, and so who said that?
Speaker 3: Go back farther with someone else because they're so afraid
Speaker 3: of not giving the proper attribution. And sometimes I'd say,
Speaker 3: oh man, this isn't even worth it to keep trying
Speaker 3: to dig back. No, it actually is worth it. I
Speaker 3: want this quote.
Speaker 1: No, quotes are so inspiring.
Speaker 2: Yes, they're like succinct messages that you can wrap your
Speaker 2: head around and live your life according.
Speaker 3: To Yeah, short, sweet little things that stay in the
Speaker 3: back of your mind and you remember them forever, and
Speaker 3: they serve as inspiration.
Speaker 2: It's a pretty good matra for all of us as
Speaker 2: we learn to choose ourselves. Oh my gosh, there's so
Speaker 2: much we could talk about. I mean literally, I could
Speaker 2: talk to you all day. Your book is a generous
Speaker 2: four hundred pages of stories about reinvention and success and
Speaker 2: challenge and bursting free from imposter syndrome. Joan Life Beyond
Speaker 2: the Script is available now wherever books are sold, and
Speaker 2: of course you can hear her read the audio book
Speaker 2: as well, which I love so much. But before I
Speaker 2: let you go, Joan London, what was your last I
Speaker 2: Choose me moment?
Speaker 3: My last I choose me moment? My last I choose
Speaker 3: me moment was probably well, it was probably yesterday when
Speaker 3: I chose to go out in the sun and get
Speaker 3: a little bit of a tan, even though I don't
Speaker 3: I didn't really do that to my dermatologists.
Speaker 1: Yeah, don't tell that.
Speaker 3: I tell you. I'm at that stage of life where
Speaker 3: the last I choose me moment was when I decided
Speaker 3: I was going to work on a thousand piece jigsaw
Speaker 3: puzzle and not feel guilty. Oh wait, I love that
Speaker 3: so much because I always thought and being lazy. Uh uh.
Speaker 3: It's it's almost like a meditation. I don't and I
Speaker 3: shouldn't feel guilty.
Speaker 2: No, that is genius. Also, it's very good for your brain.
Speaker 3: Oh absolutely. So I take a hip hop class at
Speaker 3: my gym and this all women, and we all say
Speaker 3: the same thing. We are not here because we are
Speaker 3: good dancers. We are here so that when he does okay,
Speaker 3: now let's add the third, five, six, seven, eight, that
Speaker 3: we can think, oh my god, what was the first
Speaker 3: eight count? What was the second eight count? We're all
Speaker 3: there for a brain.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 3: That's so good.
Speaker 1: I want that. I want to go to your hip
Speaker 1: hop class. Joan.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, thank you so much for spending time
Speaker 2: with me. You are a legend and such an inspiration
Speaker 2: to me and so many women. I really appreciate your
Speaker 2: time today.
Speaker 3: Good luck with the book.
Speaker 1: It's amazing. Everybody you have to read it.
Speaker 3: Thanks so much, Jenny.
Speaker 2: You guys, I'm very excited to share that my book
Speaker 2: I Choose Me Chasing Joy, Finding Purpose and Embracing Reinvention
Speaker 2: is coming April fourteenth, and it would mean the world
Speaker 2: to me if you would pre order a copy or
Speaker 2: the audiobook wherever you get your books. And yes, I
Speaker 2: am definitely narrating the audiobook, so it's going to be
Speaker 2: so fun.