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PRETTY HUDDLE: How Women Unlock Their Collective Power by Coming Together with Brooke Baldwin · QUESTION EVERYTHING

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The following podcast is a dear media production.
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: Hi there, I'm Maaura mcgodwin, Founder and CEO of career Contessa,
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: the largest online career resource built inclusively for women. I
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: also have the privilege of hosting our new podcast, The Females.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: We're here to help with real talk career advice from CEOs, authors, creatives,
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: and other experts to give you real strategies for building
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: a successful career, all on your own terms. Each episode
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: of The Females is sure to not only inspire, but
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: also to motivate you to take action and move your
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: career forward. Be sure to tune in every Tuesday for
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: new episodes and follow along on careercantessa dot com.
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: Big things happen when you're pretty, pretty bold, pretty clever,
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: pretty strong. I'm Danielle Robe and each week my guests
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: and I have conversations that put a new spin on pretty.
• 0:55
  Speaker 4: This is pretty smart.
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: What do a DuVernay, Reese, Witherspoon, Stacy Abrams, Shannon Watts,
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  Speaker 3: Carly Kloss, and nineteen black female judges elected in Houston
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  Speaker 3: have in common. Well, they're changing the course of history
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  Speaker 3: and it all started with a huddle.
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  Speaker 4: What's a huddle?
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  Speaker 3: Well, journalists and former CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin says, huddling
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  Speaker 3: is when women lean on one another in politics, Hollywood, activism,
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  Speaker 3: the arts, sports, and everyday friendships to provide support, empowerment, inspiration,
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  Speaker 3: and the strength to solve problems or enact meaningful change.
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  Speaker 3: Brooke believed in the power of the huddle, but she's
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  Speaker 3: a journalist.
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  Speaker 4: She wanted proof.
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  Speaker 3: So she spent two years traveling around the country interviewing
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  Speaker 3: culture changers women like those mentioned above, and found that
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  Speaker 3: their life changing work transpired when they started sharing space,
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  Speaker 3: working with collaborating with other women. She saw firsthand the
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  Speaker 3: power women can yield when they work together, and she
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  Speaker 3: wants the same for you. So let's dig in. So
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  Speaker 3: let's start out with what a huddle is. Because I
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: loved the sports analogy.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Of it totally.
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  Speaker 5: So I came up with this word huddle, and I thought,
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  Speaker 5: I brought a lot of intentionality about what I wanted
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  Speaker 5: to label this thing that women have been doing for
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  Speaker 5: years and years and years. And so I thought of
• 2:25
  Speaker 5: something that was so seemingly, you know, masculine laced. I thought,
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  Speaker 5: I think about, you know, a bunch of guys on
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  Speaker 5: a football field, and so that, to me is a huddle.
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  Speaker 5: And so I said, all right, it's time for we
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  Speaker 5: women to flip this word on a head. Feminize it,
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  Speaker 5: give it power, name it. And so that's how I
• 2:41
  Speaker 5: came up with the word huddle. It's a now and
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  Speaker 5: it's a verb, it's an action, it's it's inspirational puddle.
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  Speaker 3: And the overarching ethos of the book is that when
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: women gather, when we congregate, incredible things happen. But it's
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: not just a wine night, which I thought was really
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: interesting because those have kind of been popularized, maybe even
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  Speaker 3: you know, like our little trite nowadays, this is different.
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  Speaker 3: There's a mission behind huddling.
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  Speaker 5: Yes, and by the way, I am here for a
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  Speaker 5: wine night, like fill up my cup, you know, I
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  Speaker 5: appreciate that. But I think the difference between a wine
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  Speaker 5: night or even a happy hour or a networking situation
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  Speaker 5: is that with huddling, you're bringing real intentionality to it, right,
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  Speaker 5: and everyone has this clear mission of how do we
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  Speaker 5: build an entirely new table for women. So that's more
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  Speaker 5: or less, you know, it's not your dad's networking group.
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  Speaker 5: It's not having a couple of ladies you know who
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  Speaker 5: happened to be in the neighborhood over for some wine
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  Speaker 5: and you just chat about whatever.
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  Speaker 1: This is a clear mission and a goal.
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  Speaker 3: I'm so interested in the twenty years that led up
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  Speaker 3: to this book. I've listened to every interview you've done
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  Speaker 3: and your path to CNN. I don't know if it's
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: because I worked in local news and felt your path
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: resonated so much with me, but yeah, I said, it
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  Speaker 3: was actually really hard to find a huddle, particularly while
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  Speaker 3: you were working.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, you know, like I was huddle lists
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  Speaker 5: for my twenties and thirties.
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  Speaker 1: So let me back up.
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  Speaker 5: So I went to the University of North Carolina at
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  Speaker 5: Chapel Hill. I graduated in journalism and Spanish. Actually didn't
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  Speaker 5: even know I wanted to be on TV until the
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  Speaker 5: very end of college, and I had a one of
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  Speaker 5: those fortuitous stairwell moments with a PhD student and he
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  Speaker 5: was like, why are you hiding behind the camera. You
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  Speaker 5: should be, you know, trying out for the anger of
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  Speaker 5: our little student newscast. And it's amazing how little moments
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  Speaker 5: like that become big, big life moments.
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  Speaker 1: I then left.
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  Speaker 5: Chapel Hill, and so you know, to be on TV,
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  Speaker 5: and there are many ways to do this now.
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  Speaker 1: But I at the time, you know.
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  Speaker 5: Worked my way through local TV. So I was in
• 4:45
  Speaker 5: you know, there's two hundred TV markets. Number one is
• 4:48
  Speaker 5: the big you know, New York City. Two hundred is
• 4:50
  Speaker 5: some small town in Alaska. And I landed in market
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  Speaker 5: one any two baby Charlottesville, Virginia, where I was hired
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  Speaker 5: as a reporter and soon after was promoted. I'm air
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  Speaker 5: quoting right, because and that meant I was working. I
• 5:01
  Speaker 5: was I had my own show for the first time
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  Speaker 5: in my life at age twenty one, working the weekend
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  Speaker 5: mornings where I would go into work Friday or Saturday
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  Speaker 5: nights when my girlfriends who were huddling in bigger cities
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  Speaker 5: and we're at happy hour and we're like drunk dialing me,
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  Speaker 5: you know, sixth seven.
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  Speaker 1: Eight o'clock at night.
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  Speaker 5: I'd be going to bed to then wake up to
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  Speaker 5: go in to be a one woman newsroom, to write
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  Speaker 5: my own show, to edit my own show, to roll
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  Speaker 5: the teleprompter with my foot sometimes the wrong way right,
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  Speaker 5: doing my own shows on a Saturday and Sunday mornings,
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  Speaker 5: and ultimately moved on to Charleston Huntington, West Virginia, and
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  Speaker 5: then moved on to Washington, d C. But in those times,
• 5:36
  Speaker 5: in living in these places where I really didn't have
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  Speaker 5: many friends. I had some in Charlottesville, but certainly not
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  Speaker 5: as many in West Virginia. And because you know, Danielle,
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  Speaker 5: because of working holidays and you know, weekends and funky hours,
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  Speaker 5: and I don't think I even went to my first
• 5:52
  Speaker 5: happy hour until I was like in my thirties. Because
• 5:55
  Speaker 5: of the hours I was keeping, I didn't have a huddle.
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  Speaker 5: I didn't have a group of girlfriends. I had amazing
• 6:02
  Speaker 5: singular women in my life in various places in the country.
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  Speaker 5: But as a result, I was very I was very lonely.
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  Speaker 5: There were many tears in my twenties and into my
• 6:11
  Speaker 5: you know, listen, there's tears all the time, depending on
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  Speaker 5: what what's going on in the world and how I
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  Speaker 5: just I feel it so deeply.
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  Speaker 3: It's a specific type of cry in your twenties out
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  Speaker 3: of loneliness and exhaustion.
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  Speaker 5: And I'll add to it that you don't always know
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  Speaker 5: if all of your hard work will pay off, right,
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  Speaker 5: So I'm dating the wrong people because I just you know,
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  Speaker 5: I had a wonderful first serious boyfriend who I probably
• 6:37
  Speaker 5: hung onto a little too long because I was because
• 6:40
  Speaker 5: I was lonely.
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  Speaker 3: You know.
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  Speaker 5: I got my first dog, my first and only dog,
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  Speaker 5: which was one of the best decisions of my life.
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  Speaker 5: When I was twenty three and working doubles on the weekend,
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  Speaker 5: so I had a three day work day, and so,
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  Speaker 5: you know, you just make it work.
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  Speaker 1: But it is that sort of lonely cry to your mom.
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  Speaker 5: You know, without really fully knowing if it will all
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  Speaker 5: pay off in the end. It's daunting. But I can
• 7:01
  Speaker 5: sit here today and tell you it was worth it.
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  Speaker 3: I know it's difficult to articulate because there's just a
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  Speaker 3: love of storytelling that you have. But while you're in
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  Speaker 3: your twenties and you're lonely and you're moving through some
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  Speaker 3: of those tears and the frustration and the uncertainty, why
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  Speaker 3: keep on?
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  Speaker 4: Like what in you was saying this is worth it?
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  Speaker 1: It's a great question. Why keep on? I think I
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  Speaker 1: just felt something in me. Let me back up.
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  Speaker 5: So, my first TV internship was at CNN. I'm from Atlanta.
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  Speaker 5: You know, all I wanted to do was be in
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  Speaker 5: a newsroom. I fell in love with it. It was
• 7:31
  Speaker 5: like everything in my bones. I just knew I wanted
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  Speaker 5: to be a journalist. I wanted to be part of history,
• 7:35
  Speaker 5: have a front row seat, asked tough questions. I've just
• 7:38
  Speaker 5: always been a curious soul, and so I think I've
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  Speaker 5: just always there was nothing else I ever wanted to do,
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  Speaker 5: and so I felt compelled.
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  Speaker 1: I felt called to do this job.
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  Speaker 5: And so you would have had to have, you know,
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  Speaker 5: slammed me over the head and said like enough, no,
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  Speaker 5: like no more for me to you know, CNN in
• 7:59
  Speaker 5: a way early on try doing that, you know, when
• 8:01
  Speaker 5: they took them two years to hire me, and I
• 8:03
  Speaker 5: was like, I'm hanging in man, like I just there
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  Speaker 5: was just something deep in me that said keep on.
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  Speaker 3: I love framing it as a calling. I'm not sure
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  Speaker 3: there's any other word for it. It's just a voice
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  Speaker 3: in you.
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  Speaker 5: You feel it starting this podcast, Yeah, you have felt
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  Speaker 5: I bet you have felt pulled for a lot longer
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  Speaker 5: than maybe you've even said out loud that this is
• 8:24
  Speaker 5: something that you've wanted to do, you know, and so
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  Speaker 5: you also know as you're doing it that you have
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  Speaker 5: to earn it every single day, every single podcast have
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  Speaker 5: I have done and that, let me just give you
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  Speaker 5: a compliment, Danielle, I have done several podcasts for this book.
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  Speaker 5: I have never received more thorough notes homework, you know.
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  Speaker 5: I just I appreciate you coming at this so wholeheartedly
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  Speaker 5: and thoughtfully and pretty smart.
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  Speaker 4: Thank you Rook. That means the world coming from you.
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  Speaker 3: I think part of the reason the book resonated so
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  Speaker 3: much with me also is that but I didn't have
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  Speaker 3: a lot of female mentors.
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  Speaker 4: Actually I didn't have any. I still don't really.
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  Speaker 3: All the people that have lifted me up have been men,
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  Speaker 3: though my peers that are women have been really supportive.
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: And you kind of had a similar situation I heard
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: in other interviews a lot of other female journalists had
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: the same thing to say. Do you feel like the
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: industry is changing? Do you see it moving?
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  Speaker 4: I do?
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  Speaker 1: I do, I do.
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  Speaker 5: But I had some loose mentors, maybe while I was
• 9:30
  Speaker 5: in my twenties, and I sought them out of the
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  Speaker 5: TV station, but I would say like they wouldn't fully
• 9:36
  Speaker 5: take I had one woman, Stephanie and Charlottesville, who I
• 9:39
  Speaker 5: was like loud and proud of my ambition, and she
• 9:42
  Speaker 5: got it and she helped amplify me. But I really
• 9:46
  Speaker 5: didn't until I really didn't.
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  Speaker 1: I try. I tried so hard.
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  Speaker 5: I was like walking around with like I am a huddler,
• 9:52
  Speaker 5: you know, flashing please like help me, and I would
• 9:56
  Speaker 5: love to help you. You know, my success is your success,
• 9:59
  Speaker 5: right Like I'm.
• 9:59
  Speaker 4: Not coming for your job. I just want your friends exactly.
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  Speaker 5: I just want to play on in the same field,
• 10:05
  Speaker 5: you know, like put me in, help me learn from you.
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  Speaker 5: I admire you, I respect you, and you know, I
• 10:11
  Speaker 5: had a moment and I write about this in the book.
• 10:13
  Speaker 5: I don't use her real name, but there was a
• 10:14
  Speaker 5: woman at CNN. She's not just long since not there,
• 10:17
  Speaker 5: but she was. She was a BFD you know. When
• 10:19
  Speaker 5: I came in and I was just this little freelance correspondent,
• 10:23
  Speaker 5: she was a huge deal and she did sort.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: Of take me under her wing.
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  Speaker 5: But the second I started climbing and then suddenly was
• 10:31
  Speaker 5: given this anchor job at twenty nine, thirty thirty one,
• 10:35
  Speaker 5: however old I was, you know, she suddenly wanted nothing
• 10:39
  Speaker 5: to do with me, and it broke my heart.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it broke my heart.
• 10:44
  Speaker 5: And that's probably part of one of multiple reasons why
• 10:47
  Speaker 5: I had to write this book is to show women,
• 10:50
  Speaker 5: you know, you can be successful and huddle and share
• 10:53
  Speaker 5: and throw down your ladders as Megan Rapino says, and
• 10:55
  Speaker 5: so I do think it's getting better. And if I may,
• 10:58
  Speaker 5: I am using myself as as an exampeople of always
• 11:01
  Speaker 5: keeping my door open, you know when I was at
• 11:03
  Speaker 5: CNN to help to help women and also to.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: Ask for help.
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a huge point that I want to dig into.
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: But as you write the book, the Me Too movement
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: had a huge shift for you.
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  Speaker 4: Something happened.
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  Speaker 3: You know, you did CNN's Afternoon Show, which is often
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: when news breaks, so you're not only reporting in real
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: time but processing and then regurgitating and sometimes forming your
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: own opinions on things. You were both a reporter and
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: experiencing the me too movement at the same time.
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  Speaker 4: What was that like?
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  Speaker 5: You know, to me, it was like this boom boom
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  Speaker 5: boom of this giant wave that was that was cresting.
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  Speaker 5: It was, you know, the twenty sixteen election and seeing
• 11:45
  Speaker 5: women showing up in ways I'd never seen as I
• 11:46
  Speaker 5: was crisscrossing the country covering the various campaigns, to then
• 11:50
  Speaker 5: having Trump win, to then you know, being embedded in
• 11:52
  Speaker 5: the Trump motor Caida the Trump inauguration, to the very
• 11:54
  Speaker 5: next day being on the clock for the Women's March
• 11:56
  Speaker 5: and then going back to my mostly male bosses and saying, hey,
• 12:00
  Speaker 5: can I please cover women, you know, creating American Woman,
• 12:03
  Speaker 5: and then me too came In fact, I remember all
• 12:06
  Speaker 5: of that started happening, you know, Frances McDorman standing up
• 12:09
  Speaker 5: there and winning her Oscar and talking about an inclusion writer,
• 12:12
  Speaker 5: and then times up and then and then twenty eighteen.
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  Speaker 1: I mean it was all this giant.
• 12:18
  Speaker 5: Moment I think for us as American, as American women,
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  Speaker 5: and then also me as a journalist. I think it
• 12:23
  Speaker 5: was the first real time that I am a feeler
• 12:28
  Speaker 5: and I am a processor and to be covering it
• 12:31
  Speaker 5: but also have it touched me in a way that
• 12:33
  Speaker 5: moved me and changed me and almost like I felt
• 12:37
  Speaker 5: called to, you know, continue in my twenties, you know,
• 12:42
  Speaker 5: in living in these small towns, I felt called and
• 12:44
  Speaker 5: compelled to really throw myself into highlighting women and women's stories.
• 12:50
  Speaker 5: And that changed the course of my life and thus
• 12:55
  Speaker 5: ended up becoming the book, and thus ended up becoming
• 12:58
  Speaker 5: my leading CNN.
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: I love you in the book.
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: You call it emotional whiplash, and you had to pull
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: yourself together because you were on the clock again for CNN,
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: having just experienced the whole rally.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: The Trump inauguration and the Women's March.
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and you say the Women's March glorious.
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: Steinem said, God might be in the details, but the
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: Goddess is in connections.
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  Speaker 1: How good is that? It's Oh, she's.
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: Able to put things into words that I only feel.
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: She is really amazing. But you looked around and you said,
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: who would I have attended the Women's March with?
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: And I have to tell you I did the same thing.
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  Speaker 1: Did you? Were you there in Washington or La or.
• 13:34
  Speaker 4: I was in Park City and.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: So City at the Women's March.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, Jane Fonda was there, and I just I looked around.
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: I was there with my then boyfriend and it was
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: so wonderful that he came.
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: But I was missing my huddle.
• 13:49
  Speaker 5: Yes, yes, I was standing there backstage getting you know,
• 13:53
  Speaker 5: looking at everyone from Kirsten Gillibrand Senator, to Luria Steinem
• 13:58
  Speaker 5: to t Miika Mallory to America Ferra to Share to
• 14:02
  Speaker 5: you know, interviewing Share like I interviewing all these women
• 14:05
  Speaker 5: and then it's being surrounded by half a million women.
• 14:07
  Speaker 5: How could you not be moved? That was my That
• 14:09
  Speaker 5: was my AHA moment. And then I sort of took
• 14:13
  Speaker 5: my reporter hat off, you know, and thought, would I
• 14:18
  Speaker 5: have had do I have a group of women?
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: Do I have a huddle? Who would have you know,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: shared the gas.
• 14:24
  Speaker 5: Tank or you know, hopped on a plane or stood
• 14:27
  Speaker 5: in the really long porta potty lines or you know,
• 14:29
  Speaker 5: grab the magic markers and poster board and you know,
• 14:32
  Speaker 5: written something that we really stand for. And I didn't.
• 14:37
  Speaker 5: And that was also the sort of unofficial beginning. I
• 14:40
  Speaker 5: think of me being obsessed with covering collectives of women
• 14:44
  Speaker 5: from that moment on, seeing all those women coming together,
• 14:47
  Speaker 5: and it was Ta Mika Mallory, you know, the black
• 14:49
  Speaker 5: activist standing on stage saying we are not all here
• 14:51
  Speaker 5: just because of one man.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: But I think that was this clarion call for for.
• 14:56
  Speaker 5: Women to speak the F up and two and that
• 14:59
  Speaker 5: include me just as a you know, non journalist, just
• 15:03
  Speaker 5: as a human as Brooke Baldwin. And that was when
• 15:06
  Speaker 5: I realized I wanted to bring all my women together
• 15:10
  Speaker 5: and be very intentional about it and nurture it and
• 15:12
  Speaker 5: then ultimately hopefully inspire other women to.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: Do the same.
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: Well, it inspired you to create American women. So for
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: people that don't know you did. Would we call it
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: like a special series or what was it type?
• 15:22
  Speaker 5: Yeah, like a digital series, a special digital series for
• 15:25
  Speaker 5: CNN dot com.
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and you went around interviewing incredible women. You dedicate
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: it to your mom. And that letter I remember years
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: ago reading that and bawling. It was so I urge
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: anybody listening to go read that. It was so beautiful.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: That means so much to me. That means so much
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: to me.
• 15:44
  Speaker 5: And I remember exactly where I was sitting in my
• 15:46
  Speaker 5: West Village apartment writing that sort of opening letter ahead
• 15:50
  Speaker 5: of series one.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: And what I.
• 15:54
  Speaker 5: Never have shared is that before American Women went live,
• 15:58
  Speaker 5: which would have been the following Jane, I had my
• 16:00
  Speaker 5: mom and my very best friend. We were going wedding
• 16:03
  Speaker 5: dress shopping for me. So this would have been December
• 16:06
  Speaker 5: of seventeen, sixteen, seven seventeen maybe, And we're sitting in
• 16:12
  Speaker 5: my apartment and the snow's falling outside, and I've found
• 16:15
  Speaker 5: my wedding dress, and you know, there's this sort of like,
• 16:17
  Speaker 5: you know, just joy and euphoria in the room. And
• 16:20
  Speaker 5: I decide to share with my mom this thing that
• 16:22
  Speaker 5: I had written, and she starts bawling. I'm bawling, my
• 16:27
  Speaker 5: best friend who I've noticed is that I right starts bawling,
• 16:30
  Speaker 5: you know, because my mom's just remembering I. You know,
• 16:33
  Speaker 5: one of the women I interview was really become like
• 16:35
  Speaker 5: a fair godmother to me is Diane on Furstenberg. And
• 16:37
  Speaker 5: the way my mom, who was a school teacher for
• 16:40
  Speaker 5: years and years and years before she had me, she
• 16:42
  Speaker 5: never had the money for like a fancy DBF dress,
• 16:45
  Speaker 5: And so she would tell these stories to me when
• 16:47
  Speaker 5: I was coming up, of how she was living with
• 16:49
  Speaker 5: a girlfriend at the time and the girlfriend had some
• 16:51
  Speaker 5: DBF dresses and she would like just slip them on
• 16:54
  Speaker 5: just to see what they felt like, and that like
• 16:56
  Speaker 5: take them off and put them back in her closet.
• 16:57
  Speaker 5: And so I'll never forget the day that my mom
• 17:00
  Speaker 5: bought me my first DBF dress just because she did
• 17:03
  Speaker 5: and she could. And it's literally been hanging in my
• 17:05
  Speaker 5: office ever since, and I look at it, and I.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: Look at it and I remember the very beginning.
• 17:09
  Speaker 5: But for her to just have this full circle moment
• 17:11
  Speaker 5: of me interviewing DVF and just acknowledging all the women
• 17:14
  Speaker 5: that came before me and before us, you know, upon
• 17:17
  Speaker 5: whose shoulders we stand in order to have a voice
• 17:21
  Speaker 5: is something that is I think extraordinary.
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: It is thank you for telling me that I got chills.
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: I think one of the things that the Women's March
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: that I felt more than anything was I am because
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: you are. But you said it so beautifully on their shoulders,
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: on your shoulders. So this ended up turning into the huddle,
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: which I thought was crazy because you were working full
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: time and then and people don't realize the crazy hours
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: that you're working when you have your own show, let
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: alone at CNN.
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: So you're working full time.
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: Sure, and then you decide, in the no hours that
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: I have that are like expendable, I'm going to go
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: travel around the country and write this book over the
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: course of two years. So you interview Reese Witherspoon, Ava DuVernay,
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: Stacy Abrams, Carly Klass.
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: This is one of my favorite passages.
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: America is vibrating with change, and many significant change movements
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: have been organized by huddles of women and girls who
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: have reached out to find each other when urgency demanded it.
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: They are often regular women, not celebrities or people in
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: any position of power, who have been activated by their
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: experiences in their own lives or communities to help make
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: the world a better, safer, and more just place. What's more,
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: they are often doing this with work where recognition of
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: their leadership matters far less than the cause at hand.
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: I mean you put it, yes, yes, yes, yeah, I
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: mean I get so excited reading that because my favorite chapter.
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: Am I allowed to have a favorite?
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: Oh?
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: Yes, you are, tell me I'm dying to know.
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: So my favorite chapter was the group of black female
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: judges who won on the county level in Texas. The judges,
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: they illuminated what the huddle was for me. Reading that
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: chapter so so much to unpack here. The first thing
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: is I learned that there's legacy in huddle.
• 19:05
  Speaker 5: Yes, yes, so black women specifically, and obviously as a
• 19:08
  Speaker 5: white woman.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: You know, I grew up in the South.
• 19:11
  Speaker 5: Checking my privilege in the prologue of this book, you know, obviously,
• 19:14
  Speaker 5: I am moving through the world with one very specific
• 19:16
  Speaker 5: privileged lens, and it was very important for me to
• 19:18
  Speaker 5: educate myself on the legacy of huddling and specifically the
• 19:22
  Speaker 5: rich legacy that that is part of, you know, black
• 19:26
  Speaker 5: women and women of color in this country. And so
• 19:28
  Speaker 5: I talked to black historian Kimberly Springer who basically explained
• 19:31
  Speaker 5: it to me that, you know, black women have been
• 19:34
  Speaker 5: huddling since slavery, And in fact, she she takes a
• 19:37
  Speaker 5: step further and says, before, you know, during slavery, when
• 19:41
  Speaker 5: you know, women's husbands would be at the auction and sold. Ultimately,
• 19:45
  Speaker 5: at the end of the day, it was that sisterhood.
• 19:47
  Speaker 5: It was the women, you know, helping out with the children.
• 19:50
  Speaker 5: That's that's out of necessity. It was who they had
• 19:52
  Speaker 5: that was that became their huddle. And even pre dating slavery,
• 19:56
  Speaker 5: you know, black women just have always really genuinely enjoyed
• 19:59
  Speaker 5: one another's com And then of course you go on
• 20:01
  Speaker 5: through history forward towards you know, the eighties and nineties,
• 20:05
  Speaker 5: the womanist movement, the Lynx organization, Black Sororities, a million
• 20:09
  Speaker 5: women in march in Philadelphia nineteen ninety seven, which had
• 20:12
  Speaker 5: as many women those grassroots march as the Women's March
• 20:15
  Speaker 5: in twenty seventeen, and then just on and on and on,
• 20:18
  Speaker 5: and so I wanted to acknowledge that and honor that
• 20:21
  Speaker 5: by starting my huddle journey in Houston, Texas with these
• 20:25
  Speaker 5: black women judges who had won in this unprecedented way
• 20:29
  Speaker 5: in the midterms in twenty eighteen.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: So yes, huge, rich history of black women.
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: And then I learned that there was a drought. Black
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: women never stopped huddling. White women stopped huddling. What was
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: that about.
• 20:41
  Speaker 5: Kristin Goss at Duke University coined the phrase huddle drought,
• 20:45
  Speaker 5: and so, as she explained to me, white women, when
• 20:47
  Speaker 5: you think to the fifties and the sixties, you think
• 20:49
  Speaker 5: of you know, June Cleaver and Betty Crocker, you know,
• 20:51
  Speaker 5: cooking the apple pie at home. And she was like, actually,
• 20:54
  Speaker 5: they weren't just cooking the apple pies. They were in
• 20:56
  Speaker 5: the kitchens. But then you know, when they were finished,
• 20:58
  Speaker 5: they'd be hopping the white pig offences going on, and
• 21:00
  Speaker 5: you know, volunteering with the League of Women Voters and
• 21:03
  Speaker 5: organizing and testing in front of Congress and helping bring
• 21:05
  Speaker 5: about change.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: And then in the eighties, nineties, in.
• 21:11
  Speaker 5: Two thousands, which I was born in seventy nine, so
• 21:13
  Speaker 5: this is roughly my entire lifetime, they stopped organizing as much.
• 21:18
  Speaker 5: Thus this drought, and only in the last decade, which
• 21:21
  Speaker 5: is I think what I started noticing, you know, and
• 21:23
  Speaker 5: covering the presidential election of the last decade and how
• 21:26
  Speaker 5: women were showing up for one another. Then they they
• 21:29
  Speaker 5: continued on huddling, but it was a giant it was
• 21:31
  Speaker 5: a pause, you know.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: And I thought that was just noteworthy for white women.
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: Very much so.
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: In a later chapter, Alicia Garza says, our survival is
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: deeply intertwined with each other.
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: Huddling is not only our strength, but our mission.
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: And I thought that really was full circle because it
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: was a necessity for black women and because we had
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: privileged white women didn't need it.
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: And I think the Me Too movement reignited that.
• 21:56
  Speaker 5: Yes, And you know, I'm no historian, but I know
• 21:59
  Speaker 5: that one hundred years ag when it comes to women's suffrage,
• 22:01
  Speaker 5: you know, black women and white women were fighting side
• 22:04
  Speaker 5: by side for the right to vote, and at the
• 22:06
  Speaker 5: end of the day, the black women were abandoned, and
• 22:08
  Speaker 5: it took them.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: Fifty more years, you know, to win that right to vote.
• 22:12
  Speaker 5: And through the seventies eighties civil rights movements, feminists and movements,
• 22:17
  Speaker 5: you know, there's been this sort of slow reckoning among
• 22:19
  Speaker 5: white women that, to quote Fanny Lukamer, nobody's free, and
• 22:22
  Speaker 5: tell everybody's free. And so we have to approach this,
• 22:26
  Speaker 5: we all of us, We have to approach this through
• 22:28
  Speaker 5: an intersectional lens. You know, we can't just like replace
• 22:31
  Speaker 5: the white men or move them aside to build our
• 22:34
  Speaker 5: own tables, you know, just with white women.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: We have to do so intersectionally.
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: It was interesting for me to hear about how the
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: judges went about huddling, because, like you've taught us at
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: the beginning, there's a mission behind it. So they created
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: a Facebook group they gathered.
• 22:51
  Speaker 5: Yeah, no, so for if you haven't heard of this story,
• 22:54
  Speaker 5: and this is one of the stories that I wanted.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: To cover on my own show.
• 22:57
  Speaker 5: Huddles just don't always make the headlines, but this they
• 23:00
  Speaker 5: they became viral because of this photo they took. I mean,
• 23:02
  Speaker 5: imagine nineteen black women's faces looking regals standing in a courtroom,
• 23:07
  Speaker 5: and this is the photo they used. You know that
• 23:09
  Speaker 5: they described to me as like you know, Beyonce hometown girl,
• 23:12
  Speaker 5: like Beyonce mood music in the background, as they're all
• 23:14
  Speaker 5: like striking this pose to use this photo to then
• 23:18
  Speaker 5: put out to the community that they all decided to
• 23:21
  Speaker 5: huddle in campaign together. And this was, as you know,
• 23:23
  Speaker 5: as you saw in the book, like this was something
• 23:25
  Speaker 5: that even their own party, the Democratic Party, did not
• 23:27
  Speaker 5: want them to do. They did not want them to
• 23:29
  Speaker 5: huddle in campaign, but it worked for them, right, strength
• 23:33
  Speaker 5: in numbers representation and thus through this photo that they took,
• 23:37
  Speaker 5: it was resonating within the community. And so they ended
• 23:40
  Speaker 5: up winning in this very red district on nineteen of them.
• 23:43
  Speaker 5: And I was able to go to brunch with six
• 23:45
  Speaker 5: of them, and you know, it was like going to
• 23:47
  Speaker 5: church on a Sunday morning, you know, over shrimp and grits.
• 23:49
  Speaker 5: Just hearing their stories and how many of their mothers
• 23:52
  Speaker 5: and they they started the private Facebook group, or like
• 23:55
  Speaker 5: if one of them had had a you know, commitment
• 23:57
  Speaker 5: with it with a child, they were like, well, we're all.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: My others here, you know, bring the children.
• 24:02
  Speaker 5: You have to doorknock today, Like we have to go
• 24:05
  Speaker 5: to this particular neighborhood. And even from the bench now,
• 24:08
  Speaker 5: you know, like they're still huddling. Like if one of
• 24:10
  Speaker 5: them has a question and she's sitting on the bench
• 24:12
  Speaker 5: and let's say it's like a child costody case and
• 24:14
  Speaker 5: she has a question over the legal code.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: You know, I was blown away when she said no.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: I hit pause on the trial.
• 24:20
  Speaker 5: You know, I go to my text, my tuddle text chain,
• 24:23
  Speaker 5: my black role's magic cuddle text chain and like throw
• 24:26
  Speaker 5: out an SOS and they come to her aid over
• 24:29
  Speaker 5: the cell phone. So you know, just imagine black women,
• 24:32
  Speaker 5: black mothers are hoping to change the face of justice
• 24:35
  Speaker 5: in in Harris County, Texas.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: It's kind of cool.
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: It's really cool this quote that you wrote. I just
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: want to read it for everybody and then ask you
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: about it. You write their male colleagues were allowed to
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: make mistakes and ask questions. If they ask the wrong person,
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: they're perceived as not knowledgeable or unqualified. What if we
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: were all able to admit so easily that our value
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: isn't diminished by the degree of advice we receive from
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: our trusted peers. So the judges were texting each other
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: from the bench like Hey, I have a question or
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: asking for advice huddling. That hit me because the very
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: first interview I did for Pretty Smart was with Alicia Menendez,
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: who wrote a book called The Likability Trap. And the
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: reason I needed her to be my first interview was
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: that book changed the way that I viewed my role
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: at work. Women do not have perceived competence when they
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: walk into a room, and I thought this highlighted it
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: so perfectly.
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: What if we were all able to just ask questions?
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 25:35
  Speaker 5: I mean it's about bringing that vulnerability, bringing your heart,
• 25:41
  Speaker 5: you know, bringing your smarts, bringing all of you to
• 25:45
  Speaker 5: center stage. And I think that, you know, these women,
• 25:48
  Speaker 5: because they have the safe space of the huddle, are
• 25:51
  Speaker 5: able to show up vulnerably and ask for help and
• 25:54
  Speaker 5: ask questions. And it even reminds me of the five
• 25:57
  Speaker 5: congresswomen who I interviewed as well up on Capitol Hill
• 25:59
  Speaker 5: who have this sh shared like Cia you know, US
• 26:02
  Speaker 5: military veteran background, who also were told by the party
• 26:04
  Speaker 5: do not campaign together. And they were comparing themselves to
• 26:07
  Speaker 5: the guys on stage who would often talk about you know,
• 26:10
  Speaker 5: my you know, their egos or what they've done. And
• 26:13
  Speaker 5: the women said, you know, they would come on stage
• 26:15
  Speaker 5: and share stories about how they lost a mother to
• 26:18
  Speaker 5: cancer and so they're trying to fight for you know, healthcare.
• 26:21
  Speaker 5: They just would, they would, they would share themselves in
• 26:25
  Speaker 5: a way that was very different from some of the men.
• 26:28
  Speaker 5: And yes, I hear you on you know, women are
• 26:32
  Speaker 5: perceived very differently. I've lived that, Like I understand that,
• 26:36
  Speaker 5: but I think that like, if you're able to have
• 26:38
  Speaker 5: a huddle, create a huddle, then you have other women
• 26:43
  Speaker 5: in a safe space to lean on to then be
• 26:45
  Speaker 5: able to advise and move through the world.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: I don't know, stronger, more competently better.
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: I realized it when I had my first female co host,
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: because I'd always co hosted with men, and she was
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: so one.
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: I really admired her, even though we were the same age.
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: She was just so great and she would complain about
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: things sometimes and I was like, oh my god, same,
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: I'm allowed to complain about that.
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: Like I felt so validated. But you only get that
• 27:12
  Speaker 4: in a huddle.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: Yes, you do, you do.
• 27:14
  Speaker 5: But what's also special and have experiences Having described to
• 27:18
  Speaker 5: you that I was huddle list for so many years
• 27:19
  Speaker 5: and now having activated my own huddle, I find that I.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: Am a better person.
• 27:23
  Speaker 5: I'm a better employee, I'm a better journalist, I'm a
• 27:26
  Speaker 5: better partner.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: You know, in my marriage.
• 27:28
  Speaker 5: Through all that I've learned in my huddle and how
• 27:31
  Speaker 5: to be in my huddle and how to show up
• 27:33
  Speaker 5: with other women in my huddle, it only has made
• 27:36
  Speaker 5: me better, and it only it just makes me better.
• 27:38
  Speaker 5: It just makes me better in a way that you
• 27:40
  Speaker 5: don't have to think, oh, should I ask for permission.
• 27:43
  Speaker 5: Do I need to color in the lines? Am I
• 27:45
  Speaker 5: supposed to be the good girl? Like?
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: I have lived all of those things, And the more
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: I've huddled, the more I'm.
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: Like, that's that. I want to dig into that actually,
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: because I think some people will hear huddle and say, oh,
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: really nice platitude. Women are stronger in numbers. It's great,
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: you should have strong female friendships. It's more than a platitude.
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: How do you describe that to people? Are there examples
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: where you've seen real tangible success.
• 28:16
  Speaker 5: I would say, read the book. I would say, look
• 28:18
  Speaker 5: at someone like Ava DuVernay. She is a unicorn in
• 28:22
  Speaker 5: Hollywood as a successful black woman director filmmaker. Ava is
• 28:26
  Speaker 5: a huddler. Ava's like this og huddler, I mean, and
• 28:29
  Speaker 5: she just lives this and embodies the ethos of huddling.
• 28:31
  Speaker 5: Because I was sitting on set with her at Queen Sugar.
• 28:34
  Speaker 5: This is a show, a really successful, beautiful show she
• 28:37
  Speaker 5: does for her own and she has made this intentional
• 28:41
  Speaker 5: decision to have every single episode directed by a woman.
• 28:44
  Speaker 5: And I don't have to tell you all that. You know,
• 28:46
  Speaker 5: Hollywood is very white and very male, and in doing so,
• 28:49
  Speaker 5: a lot of women come along. And let's say they're
• 28:51
  Speaker 5: coming from the independent film world. They don't have the
• 28:55
  Speaker 5: exact right things on a resume that would get them,
• 28:58
  Speaker 5: let's say, a directing opportunity at a show on own,
• 29:01
  Speaker 5: and so she is giving them this opportunity because she
• 29:04
  Speaker 5: believes in them, and she knows them, and she knows
• 29:06
  Speaker 5: their talents, even though they don't fit the quote unquote
• 29:08
  Speaker 5: proper you know box of Hollywood. And as a result,
• 29:12
  Speaker 5: she is now creating through huddling with these women, she
• 29:15
  Speaker 5: is creating this entire pipeline of more women and women
• 29:18
  Speaker 5: of color able to direct bigger and better shows in
• 29:22
  Speaker 5: terms of not better at than Queen Sugar, but you know,
• 29:24
  Speaker 5: at a network level, as a result of their experiences.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: You look at Stacy Abrams.
• 29:28
  Speaker 5: Of course, we all know Stacy and Georgia lost the
• 29:30
  Speaker 5: gubernatorial bid in twenty eighteen. She could have, you know,
• 29:35
  Speaker 5: cried herself to sleep and never appeared again.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: But that's just not who Stacy Abrams is. You know.
• 29:39
  Speaker 5: Instead, she threw everything she knows how to do, everything
• 29:41
  Speaker 5: she is into flipping Georgia blue. And you know she
• 29:45
  Speaker 5: learned that from a young age, just having been the
• 29:47
  Speaker 5: House Minority leader and becoming this Jedi fundraiser. And so
• 29:50
  Speaker 5: what does she do? She literally shares the wealth. She
• 29:53
  Speaker 5: huddles with other women and women of color in Georgia
• 29:55
  Speaker 5: who all come together to ultimately help flip Georgia for
• 29:59
  Speaker 5: the first time since nineteen ninety two. You look at
• 30:02
  Speaker 5: you know, Shannon Watts and Luciam McBeth, white women and
• 30:04
  Speaker 5: a black woman who've huddled and created the largest grassroots
• 30:08
  Speaker 5: organization six million strong, to help bring about as they
• 30:10
  Speaker 5: would say, guns since legislation in leading moms to man action.
• 30:14
  Speaker 5: I mean, there are all these various stories in the
• 30:17
  Speaker 5: book which are tangible examples of women huddling through all
• 30:21
  Speaker 5: you know, they don't have to you know, famous, not famous, extraordinary,
• 30:24
  Speaker 5: ordinary women who you know knew, moms, military spouses, Indigenous
• 30:29
  Speaker 5: women giving voice to nature. These are all tangible examples
• 30:33
  Speaker 5: of successful women huddling that lead to big, bold things.
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: Fact fact I also loved I don't want to give
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: away too much of the book, but I loved when
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: in your Ava DuVernay interview you asked her in a
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: different way, sort of the same thing, like, why you
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: know this is your first big moment, your big show,
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: Why take this moment and try and huddle, like you
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: could have just made a great show. And she said
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: I don't want to be alone at the party, which
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: was amazing, the.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: Best line ever, the best line.
• 31:04
  Speaker 5: I mean she meant that literally because here she is,
• 31:06
  Speaker 5: as a black woman filmmaker showing up at a lot
• 31:08
  Speaker 5: of industry parties, surrounded by a lot of white men,
• 31:10
  Speaker 5: you know, and so she was like, I don't want
• 31:12
  Speaker 5: to be at the party alone. But metaphorically, I think
• 31:15
  Speaker 5: about that all the time because it's like we especially
• 31:17
  Speaker 5: if you are a woman who has worked, who does
• 31:19
  Speaker 5: have access to power, who could hoard it right and
• 31:22
  Speaker 5: keep it to yourself or you could, you know, choose
• 31:26
  Speaker 5: be intentional about leaving the door open behind you, you know,
• 31:29
  Speaker 5: emailing that young woman who's been trying to you know,
• 31:32
  Speaker 5: get on your schedule, to just bring her under your
• 31:35
  Speaker 5: wing to help you. However, you could amplify someone in
• 31:38
  Speaker 5: your space. You know, that's what they're doing. That is
• 31:41
  Speaker 5: what huddling is.
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: So while you lacked female mentors, you talk about sponsorship
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: versus mentorship, And I love the example you gave the
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: woman who gave you that plaque.
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: Will you tell everybody that story?
• 31:55
  Speaker 5: So when I came to see Ann in two thousand
• 31:57
  Speaker 5: and eight. I was just like this low leaf freelancer,
• 31:59
  Speaker 5: which means like a contract employee. I could only work
• 32:02
  Speaker 5: a certain number of hours a week. I was making,
• 32:05
  Speaker 5: you know, not a lot of money. I was living
• 32:07
  Speaker 5: in my in the very beginning, my childhood bedroom at
• 32:10
  Speaker 5: my parents' house because I really wasn't getting paid. It
• 32:13
  Speaker 5: was also during the Great Recession and I had taken
• 32:15
  Speaker 5: this leap to move to Atlanta, and CNN was like, oh,
• 32:17
  Speaker 5: just kidding, you know, we can't hire you right.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: Now because all these opportunities are frozen.
• 32:22
  Speaker 5: But that didn't stop me from, you know, showing up
• 32:25
  Speaker 5: just about every day at the CNN Center in downtown Atlanta.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: And I don't know who I thought.
• 32:29
  Speaker 5: I was, but like marching in that into that building
• 32:31
  Speaker 5: with my yellow freelancer badge and make endearing myself enough,
• 32:35
  Speaker 5: like God blessed these people who you know, just kept
• 32:38
  Speaker 5: seeing me show up and I wasn't getting paid, and
• 32:40
  Speaker 5: I would just I was essentially squatting at a temporary office,
• 32:44
  Speaker 5: and at one point I was just like, damn it,
• 32:46
  Speaker 5: I need to put my name on something like I
• 32:47
  Speaker 5: am here. I love that song Pink I am here,
• 32:50
  Speaker 5: like I so I scribbled my name on a post
• 32:52
  Speaker 5: it and I slapped it on the outside of this office.
• 32:55
  Speaker 5: And at some point over the course of some months,
• 32:58
  Speaker 5: the bureau chief, Mary Lynn Ryan in for all of
• 33:01
  Speaker 5: the Southeast at CNN. I think she just I think,
• 33:03
  Speaker 5: I don't know what she must have thought of me.
• 33:05
  Speaker 5: You know, she just could tell it wasn't going away.
• 33:07
  Speaker 5: I had a lot of determination, a lot of grit,
• 33:09
  Speaker 5: and I you know, I think she did see something
• 33:10
  Speaker 5: in me, some sort of talent, some sort of future,
• 33:13
  Speaker 5: and so she went to her assistant.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: Without telling me, and they had an actual name plate
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: made for me with my name. It's something so.
• 33:21
  Speaker 5: Simple, and maybe it seems silly, but it meant everything
• 33:25
  Speaker 5: to me that they surprised me and put it on
• 33:28
  Speaker 5: the outside of this temporary office. She probably wasn't even
• 33:31
  Speaker 5: allowed to do that, but she did. And that was
• 33:34
  Speaker 5: that was huddling and sponsoring. And it's like those little
• 33:38
  Speaker 5: things that happened to you along the way when you
• 33:40
  Speaker 5: do have those moments of course of doubt or of
• 33:43
  Speaker 5: should I be doing this, or the tears of I
• 33:46
  Speaker 5: keep showing up and I'm not getting paid and this
• 33:49
  Speaker 5: is my dream but at what point do I just
• 33:51
  Speaker 5: need to like stop?
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: And those are the moments, those are the women that
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: remind you to keep going.
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: You know, you said in that story who do I
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: think I am? And there's an Oprah interview I Love
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: with Brene Brown and she says, everybody asked themselves one
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: of two questions, either who do I think I am?
• 34:10
  Speaker 4: Or am I enough? And who do I think I am?
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: Is so interesting because in the book, I can feel
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: your grit. It's like you said, you did gymnastics at
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: a young age. It seemed like it just was in you.
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: Where did you Where do you think your confidence came from?
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: Did your mom or dad do anything to foster that
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: that you can really pinpoint?
• 34:32
  Speaker 5: Definitely? I mean I had very loving parents. I had
• 34:36
  Speaker 5: a very healthy childhood. I was the kid who was
• 34:38
  Speaker 5: like had my hand and everything, just because I think
• 34:41
  Speaker 5: I was, you know, early on, very curious. I wasn't
• 34:44
  Speaker 5: like excelling at soccer, excelling a competitive gymnastics, but damn it,
• 34:48
  Speaker 5: like I was thrusting my body around those parallel bars
• 34:51
  Speaker 5: that you know, as I was a seen as like
• 34:53
  Speaker 5: a heftier.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: Bigger boned, you know, little girl.
• 34:57
  Speaker 5: That just didn't stop me from you know, be the
• 35:00
  Speaker 5: captain of the cheerleaders in the fall and then like
• 35:02
  Speaker 5: going out with the slightly gruffer gals and like throwing
• 35:06
  Speaker 5: the shot put in the spring. I think my mom,
• 35:08
  Speaker 5: especially just she instilled in me this like can do attitude,
• 35:13
  Speaker 5: you know, just go for it.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I.
• 35:16
  Speaker 5: Would say yes, And the rest of it is just
• 35:20
  Speaker 5: sometimes I wish I like, sometimes I have to remind
• 35:23
  Speaker 5: myself to like die, like dial it Backbrook, you know,
• 35:25
  Speaker 5: just sometimes like let things come to you. You don't
• 35:27
  Speaker 5: always have to go. Like my husband's always reminding me Brooke, Hold,
• 35:31
  Speaker 5: you know, hold.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: Which I'm currently working on.
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: Which interview really shifted your perspective? I'm sure all of
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: them you garnered something really special from. But was there
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: one that really changed you something in you?
• 35:45
  Speaker 5: I mean, I think for me, like we touched on
• 35:47
  Speaker 5: the judges, but to me, it was it was everything
• 35:49
  Speaker 5: about going to Houston. It was this was the first
• 35:52
  Speaker 5: time that I had ever booked myself a ticket to
• 35:55
  Speaker 5: fly to a city where I wasn't working for CNN
• 35:58
  Speaker 5: or some other you know, TV station. This was a
• 36:00
  Speaker 5: that I created for myself, and I was saying out
• 36:03
  Speaker 5: by myself and so just even like flying out of Lakewarria,
• 36:07
  Speaker 5: I was like, okay, here goes.
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: I'm going on this huddle journey, you know.
• 36:12
  Speaker 5: And then sitting around with these women, these were women
• 36:16
  Speaker 5: who I had, you know, fangirls essentially from Afar ever since,
• 36:19
  Speaker 5: I had a producer send me that viral of photo
• 36:21
  Speaker 5: of them all nineteen of them standing and you know,
• 36:24
  Speaker 5: looking regal in that courtroom where I you know, it's
• 36:27
  Speaker 5: funny the people I am. I get all giddy around,
• 36:30
  Speaker 5: like it's not the people you would expect, but it's
• 36:32
  Speaker 5: these black women judges in Texas.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh my gosh, like here we are,
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: here you are.
• 36:36
  Speaker 5: And you know, we sat for hours and passed biscuits
• 36:40
  Speaker 5: and talked about, you know, everything that you read about
• 36:42
  Speaker 5: in the book about just like their own calling and
• 36:44
  Speaker 5: their own how how they huddled and the rich history
• 36:48
  Speaker 5: of huddling within within you know, black women. And I
• 36:51
  Speaker 5: think what also shifted, which is so different from what
• 36:53
  Speaker 5: has been my day job for for so long, was
• 36:57
  Speaker 5: at the very end of the interview and I would hit,
• 36:59
  Speaker 5: you know, off the on the audio recorder and I
• 37:02
  Speaker 5: thought I was done, which is how it normally works.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: In live TV. They were like whoa, whoa, whoa. No no, no, no.
• 37:07
  Speaker 5: No, sister, like, tell us about you and what was
• 37:10
  Speaker 5: it like growing up in Atlanta and why are you
• 37:13
  Speaker 5: writing this book? And what is it like being a
• 37:15
  Speaker 5: woman in journalism in you know, twenty nineteen or twenty
• 37:18
  Speaker 5: twenty when we were all sitting together or you.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: Know, just all these questions.
• 37:22
  Speaker 5: That was the beginning of my own sort of inner churning.
• 37:27
  Speaker 5: And I think I'd already started this own, this you know, journey,
• 37:30
  Speaker 5: and it was only I think, exacerbated in the pandemic
• 37:34
  Speaker 5: after I'd done all these interviews and we're all like
• 37:36
  Speaker 5: sort of you know, thrust in our own homes and
• 37:39
  Speaker 5: forced to lock the door and really sit with ourselves quietly.
• 37:42
  Speaker 5: Where things started to move and change with me. But
• 37:45
  Speaker 5: I think it was the judges who kicked off that
• 37:49
  Speaker 5: journey of Wow, all right, So I see how these
• 37:52
  Speaker 5: women exist and sometimes defy and speak up and ask
• 37:58
  Speaker 5: for help and in body everything that I aspire to be,
• 38:03
  Speaker 5: And that.
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: Changed me for good.
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: One of my favorite quotes from my mom's lessons are caught,
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: not taught. And I feel like you saw the way
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: they moved through the world that I felt it in
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: that chapter.
• 38:18
  Speaker 4: That's why it was my favorite.
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: And I love the idea of people like them and
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: Shannon Watts who just make incremental change in their day
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: to day lives, like you don't have to have celebrity
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: or money or fame or any of that.
• 38:30
  Speaker 5: I would also add to that, I, you know, I
• 38:33
  Speaker 5: know when I'm really moved, I take my journal wherever
• 38:35
  Speaker 5: I am, and I only journal when I feel like moved.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: I don't make myself journal just because I have a
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: journal with me.
• 38:41
  Speaker 5: And I remember leaving Reees Butherspoon's production company, Hello Sunshine
• 38:45
  Speaker 5: and Santa Monica, and I had this whole long conversation
• 38:48
  Speaker 5: with the CEO, this like tough talking, brilliant Australian woman,
• 38:52
  Speaker 5: Sarah Harden or you know Lauren Levy who's in charge
• 38:56
  Speaker 5: of the scripted over there and is brilliant and bubbly,
• 39:00
  Speaker 5: and just I walked out of there having met all
• 39:03
  Speaker 5: these various people, and I went back to my hotel
• 39:06
  Speaker 5: room and I just, I like got emotional just writing
• 39:09
  Speaker 5: about what it was like to be in a workplace
• 39:11
  Speaker 5: surrounded by women and their whole ethos is about, you know,
• 39:14
  Speaker 5: putting women at the center of the story and how
• 39:18
  Speaker 5: Reese started this whole thing herself, and how it was
• 39:21
  Speaker 5: nerve wracking.
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: You know, for her to throw her own money.
• 39:25
  Speaker 5: In this company with only the hope of it being successful,
• 39:28
  Speaker 5: and that people actually want to watch, you know, stories
• 39:31
  Speaker 5: that are written by women and acted by women with
• 39:34
  Speaker 5: mothers and women protagonists, and it just I joked, like,
• 39:39
  Speaker 5: if you you know, I would I would like be
• 39:41
  Speaker 5: a PA for them. I just I love everything about
• 39:43
  Speaker 5: Hello Sunshine. I can't say I can't say more positive
• 39:46
  Speaker 5: things about what they're about.
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: That's really cool to hear from the outside. I feel
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: that way, so nice to hear that that's the inner
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: work sans as well. How can someone start building a huddle?
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: Like what if we don't know where to start?
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: I would say a couple of things.
• 39:59
  Speaker 5: So when you rea the book, you see there at
• 40:01
  Speaker 5: the very end, the end of the epilogue, I want
• 40:03
  Speaker 5: people to be inspired and ask exactly the question you're asking.
• 40:06
  Speaker 5: And so there's this whole huddle how to this huddle handbook,
• 40:08
  Speaker 5: and there are ten tent poles of ways to activate
• 40:12
  Speaker 5: a huddle, everything from you know, finding people with shared passions,
• 40:17
  Speaker 5: whether you want to pray or protest or sweat or
• 40:20
  Speaker 5: write or go into science or whatever it may be.
• 40:24
  Speaker 5: You know there are people who want to join you
• 40:27
  Speaker 5: and do it with you. And thank goodness for the
• 40:30
  Speaker 5: Internet or our networks of people where you can find
• 40:33
  Speaker 5: those people shared interest. It's showing the f up fully,
• 40:37
  Speaker 5: you know, like it's approaching a huddle like you would
• 40:41
  Speaker 5: a job or a relationship. This is not just a oh,
• 40:45
  Speaker 5: you happen to be in my orbit so we can connect.
• 40:47
  Speaker 5: This is a like I want this, I'm going after this,
• 40:50
  Speaker 5: and I'm going to work my ass off to make
• 40:51
  Speaker 5: sure I nurture it.
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: And maintain it.
• 40:53
  Speaker 5: It's making sure you have people in your huddle who
• 40:56
  Speaker 5: are different from you. You know, as we mentioned before
• 40:58
  Speaker 5: about approaching all of this with an innert sectional perspective,
• 41:01
  Speaker 5: just making sure you're not just hanging out with all
• 41:03
  Speaker 5: these women who all believe you know exactly as you do,
• 41:07
  Speaker 5: like you need people to help open your aperture. Those
• 41:10
  Speaker 5: are a couple of I think the main tenets of
• 41:13
  Speaker 5: a huddle.
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: How to find a huddle.
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: You know, every interview I watched about the huddle at
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: the end, every single interviewer would say, you know you're
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: leaving CNN it's it's really scary or something to that effect,
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: and I'd kind of look at your face and rewind
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: and watch it again, and I thought to myself, it's
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: not scary, it's excuse my French, it's fucking liberating.
• 41:37
  Speaker 4: You've had a few weeks or so.
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, obviously you'll have more reflection as time goes on.
• 41:44
  Speaker 4: But how are you feeling now?
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: Gosh, I mean, you're hitting me where I am feeling
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: my most raw on vacation, you know, just sinking deeper
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: into myself as I am, you know, thinking about me
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: and what I want. And also I think hugely right
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: now I'm telling myself to hold I am feeling some
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: days I.
• 42:10
  Speaker 5: CNN was my home and my family, and I think
• 42:13
  Speaker 5: just because I always know there'll be a part of
• 42:15
  Speaker 5: my life.
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: I'm not sad about it, you know.
• 42:17
  Speaker 5: I hear from folks all the time so that it
• 42:20
  Speaker 5: was never a goodbye. It's who I am. It will
• 42:23
  Speaker 5: forever be who I am. But I think it's a
• 42:25
  Speaker 5: stepping stone to the next thing for me. But I mean,
• 42:28
  Speaker 5: I've also I had a day I think it was
• 42:29
  Speaker 5: the day before yesterday where it just I think it
• 42:31
  Speaker 5: all hit me for the first time, you know, Danielle,
• 42:34
  Speaker 5: I just like I woke up and I've been reading.
• 42:36
  Speaker 5: I finished this Brandy Carlele memoir and that was like
• 42:39
  Speaker 5: stirring stuff up in me. You know, any good book
• 42:41
  Speaker 5: is like not just about reading about the person's story,
• 42:43
  Speaker 5: but reflects some of you back to you. And I
• 42:46
  Speaker 5: just I just had a like a huge holy shit,
• 42:52
  Speaker 5: like what am I doing?
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: Who am I? What am I interested in? What is
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: the thing that I want to do? You know? I
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: was just sitting staring.
• 43:01
  Speaker 5: At the sea and I just I had a moment
• 43:05
  Speaker 5: by myself and I had a conversation with my husband
• 43:08
  Speaker 5: and I journaled.
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: And my big.
• 43:10
  Speaker 5: Thing right now is just to not rush into anything.
• 43:13
  Speaker 5: Everyone keeps saying to me, Brooke, take your time. And
• 43:18
  Speaker 5: as we've discussed, like I'm not always good at that.
• 43:21
  Speaker 5: I'm like, onto the next, under the next. I'm used
• 43:22
  Speaker 5: to breaking news. I'm used to pivoting. I'm used to
• 43:25
  Speaker 5: you know, throwing out a rundown. I'm used to this
• 43:26
  Speaker 5: kind of this kind of deal. And this is almost
• 43:29
  Speaker 5: like the biggest challenge is not like the thing that
• 43:31
  Speaker 5: I'm going to do next, but it's the in between.
• 43:34
  Speaker 5: But this is the most precious part, and so I'm
• 43:39
  Speaker 5: in it right now.
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: I personally am so looking forward to seeing what Brooke Baldwin,
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: the person and the human does next.
• 43:49
  Speaker 4: You have Thank you.
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: You have this really unique mix of heart and head
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: that's it's so rare and it reverberates. It's really cool.
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: I have a few rapid fire questions for you. Yes,
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: a book that shifted your perspective that you think everybody
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: should read.
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: Something that really changed me. I thought about this.
• 44:11
  Speaker 5: I loved reading plays in high school, like I loved,
• 44:14
  Speaker 5: you know, Tom Stoppard and August Wilson, and I think
• 44:18
  Speaker 5: reading Our Town by Thornton Wilder, where there's this scene
• 44:22
  Speaker 5: at the very end, and there's this character and she's
• 44:24
  Speaker 5: looking back at her life. She's standing at this cemetery,
• 44:27
  Speaker 5: and you know, she realizes that so many people live
• 44:31
  Speaker 5: their lives and just don't stop to treasure those seemingly
• 44:35
  Speaker 5: mundane moments.
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: And that rocked me as a seventeen or eighteen year old.
• 44:42
  Speaker 5: And I hope that, especially with all of us coming
• 44:44
  Speaker 5: out of the pandemic, that we have our own sort
• 44:46
  Speaker 5: of like Our Town moments of realizing, you know, like
• 44:49
  Speaker 5: how precious life is. And how precious it is just
• 44:52
  Speaker 5: to like have a first sip of coffee or steraere
• 44:54
  Speaker 5: at a sea, or talk to be invigorated by someone
• 44:57
  Speaker 5: you know you've never met in a conversation like these.
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: This is the magic that's.
• 45:02
  Speaker 4: So wild that that rocked you at seventeen.
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, wow, oh yeah.
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: You dedicated American woman to your mom. And now the huddle.
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: What is the best advice your mom gave you? Something
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: that plays in your head all the time.
• 45:16
  Speaker 5: It's something just as simple as like believe in yourself.
• 45:19
  Speaker 5: You know, people will tell you you can't. You will
• 45:22
  Speaker 5: hit many many brick walls, but it's really truly keep going.
• 45:28
  Speaker 4: Keep going. How do you filter what to say yes
• 45:31
  Speaker 4: to and what to say no to in life?
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: Hmmm?
• 45:34
  Speaker 5: I think I'm old enough that it's a combination between.
• 45:37
  Speaker 5: I have a pretty good gut instinct. I think we
• 45:39
  Speaker 5: all do. We just have to listen to it. So
• 45:41
  Speaker 5: it's that like quick reaction of does that feel right
• 45:44
  Speaker 5: for me or not? And then it's also like how
• 45:47
  Speaker 5: will this challenge me? How will I learn from this?
• 45:51
  Speaker 5: Is this something entirely new? Would this be an adventure?
• 45:53
  Speaker 5: Would this?
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: Would this bring about joy that would be the Yes.
• 45:58
  Speaker 4: That's very maricondom of you. I like that.
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: I was about, like, am I sparking joy? Yeah?
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: Does this T shirt bring me joy?
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: Does this email bring your joy? We do a pretty
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: smart question every week. I picked one at random and
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: I really loved her. That was excited you got this one.
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: What is the lesson that has taken you the longest
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: to learn?
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: I think it's the lesson I am still learning, which
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: is truly slowing the f down and being patient and
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: letting things come to me.
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: Last question, the smartest decision you've ever made?
• 46:30
  Speaker 5: RELI like I should say marrying my husband, and I
• 46:32
  Speaker 5: love him dearly, but I'm going to pre date my
• 46:34
  Speaker 5: husband with you know, being twenty three, being hoddle Lists,
• 46:38
  Speaker 5: living in a small area of West Virginia where I
• 46:41
  Speaker 5: didn't have any friends, and going and getting my very
• 46:44
  Speaker 5: first dog.
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: He is coming up on eighteen. He is a pug.
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: And that little guy has.
• 46:51
  Speaker 5: Licked many a tears, has met a few boys. Has
• 46:55
  Speaker 5: you know, lived with me as we've crashed on mattresses,
• 46:58
  Speaker 5: you know, hoping to achieve and be and live and
• 47:02
  Speaker 5: appreciate those mundane moments. And I think that was the
• 47:06
  Speaker 5: best thing I ever did was get a dog.
• 47:09
  Speaker 4: I was so not expecting that. That's an awesome answer.
• 47:13
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: I'm so so grateful for your time, Brooke, and I
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: hope you're on vacation for much longer.
• 47:37
  Speaker 4: All Right, today is a good day. To have a
• 47:38
  Speaker 4: good day. I'll see you next week