Latest / I Choose Me with Jennie Garth / I Choose … Just Say Yes! with Joan Lunden

Transcript

I Choose … Just Say Yes! with Joan Lunden · I Choose Me with Jennie Garth

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: You're listening to I Choose Me with Jenny Girl.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: Welcome to I Choose Me, a podcast about the choices
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: we make to redefine what it means to evolve, reinvent,
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: and thrive. Few women epitomize these qualities better than Joan London,
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: a trailblazing broadcast journalist who co hosted Good Morning America
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: for seventeen years. Joan helped transform the show into the
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: highest rated morning program in the country, and over the
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: course of her career, has authored multiple best selling books
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: and mothered seven children, including two sets of twins.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: After turning fifty. She writes in her new.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Book Joan Life Beyond the Script that she's hardwired to
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: go go go, clearly, but she is putting aside busyness
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: as a badge of honor to be productive with much more.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: Pea want to know who you can become without the hustle.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: Take a listen to my wonderful friend John London. Hi,
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: it's so great to see you again after all these years.
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: I remember, after all these years.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: Remember when you came to visit the set of nine
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: two and oh in nineteen ninety two.
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: As I get ready for every interview, I don't go
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: into anything not prepared. So like, I'm looking to see
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: all the things you're doing now, And I thought, when
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: did I do that? When was I there? So I
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: go onto YouTube and put good Morning America on the
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: set of Beverly Hills nine two one, oho up pops
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: the entire show.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: It was so good.
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: I watched it hire show and I'm like seeing and
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: I remember I was sitting next to Charlie and you
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: were right next to me, and I said, so, I
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: need to ask you, Jenny, your character, and Charlie's like,
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: how are you gonna ask this diplomatically? I said, she
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: just kind of keeps things juicy spicy.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: We went off on the whole, like the whole talk
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: of sex and teens. Yeah, yeah, but conversations that needed
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: to be had.
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: We felt so big time to be glad.
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: Were you? I mean, you look so young.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Ninety two, I must have been.
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: Nineteen nineteen. That's I kind of guessed you are probably nineteen.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: Yes, Oh my gosh. I so enjoyed your new book,
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: Joan Life Beyond the Script. I devoured every page and
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: I learned about your life and I saw myself in
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: so much of your journey.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: It was wonderful.
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: Oh absolutely, I mean I see you in much of
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: my journey, you know, starting at young I got Good Morning.
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: I started at Good Morning America. I was what twenty four,
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: twenty five, and then finally kind of you know, shows
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: end and like for me, everybody expected me to jump
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: into another And actually, I mean there was a talk
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: show that was tried to be designed for me and
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: I didn't really lean in, and I couldn't even stand
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: what's wrong with you? And I was exhausted, just completely
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: heavily exhausted at the time. And you know it. You
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: really can't appreciate what you did following something that's so big.
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: And I don't think I could have written this book
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: if I it like five or ten years, even five
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: years before now, because now I had the ability to
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: look at the whole arc and say, wait a minute,
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: like you didn't like blow it. Your last twenty five
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: years have allowed you to make your mark on this
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: earth in kind of a lot of more significant ways. Actually, yeah,
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: and a lot of the same ways that you now
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: are out talking about.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: And yeah, I mean I so related to you said,
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: you've come to realize that you've spent your entire life
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: in a full sprint, always chasing, always pushing, always revving
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: the engine to its highest gear.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: But as you look.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: Back now you find yourself asking did I even have
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: time to.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: Absorb it all?
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: I feel like that all women can relate to that.
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: I mean, I gotta tell you, Jenny, one of my
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: early early assistants started an archived timeline, and that timeline
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: starts at the very beginning GMA, and it has every
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: major interview and a lot of just even smaller interviews
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: every trip we took. Now I have an incredible They
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: also started keeping videos. I don't even know how I
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: have all the videos that I have. One of these
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: days I'm going to have to put them in a
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: big truck and send them back to ABC and say,
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: don't you guys want these now?
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: Keep them forever.
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: But it like it allowed us to put dates and descriptions.
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: Having this archived timeline. I don't know if I could
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: have written this book without. Thank God for all these
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: assistants who kept that. But also I googled my way
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: all through this book, like when did I do this?
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: When was the Republican Convention? When was I was constantly
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: BacT checking and then I would go to YouTube, and amazingly,
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: so much of it was there on YouTube, and I
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: don't even know how it all got there because I
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: didn't put it all there.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's why you.
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: Gave me the idea, Jenny. Don't you use the QR.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Codes, which I think is brilliant?
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: You really done? No, Like, my whole life is on video.
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: I called my attorney. I said, can I put QR
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: codes in the book so that people can read the
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: story and then open it up to the actual story
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: on video? He said, well, do you own all the rights?
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: I said, they're all on YouTube. He said, if they're
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: all on YouTube, have about it. You can use whatever
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: you want. So that's when. So then, of course I
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: made my job even harder because I not only had
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: to go through thousands of photographs, now I went through,
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: you know, hours and hours and hours of video to
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: what do I want to share.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: Back to the like full sprint ahead and not really
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: absorbing any of it. Tell us how you came to
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: realize this and how you chose to course correct, you know.
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: I was just telling someone the other day that after
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: I left GMA, I was still doing behind Closed Doors
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: and my producer called me one day and said, can
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: you meet me in Washington tomorrow, wear that navy blue
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: suit with a really short skirt and fight meels, and
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: we need to go to the Pentagon. We're going to
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: ask them if we can get into whatever crazy thing
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: we were asking them to let us do. And I
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: got up the next morning really really could take like
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: a six o'clock flight to get there by seven, and
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: I was walking across the parking lot and I said
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: to my assistant, Oh my god, I'm so tired. She said, well, yeah,
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: you woke up early. I said, no, no, No. What
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: I'm saying is how i feel right now physically, now
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: that I've had time away from the show. It just
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: hit me that how I feel right now is how
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: I felt for twenty years. I was this sleep deprived
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: and and I mean quite honestly, when I go back
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: and look at some of the things when I was
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: trying to recall, because that's what you have to do
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: when you're writing a book like this, I'd have to
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: go to YouTube or I'd have to go to my
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: video archive to say, oh, yeah, I was in eight
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: countries that year, like holy.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: Crap, yeah, yours just full stop, like full time.
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: I mean, quite honestly, from a very young age, even
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: as you now that you've read the book, I don't know.
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: Maybe there's just my husband always says, not that I'm
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: looking forward to it, but when I'd like to be
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: at your autopsy because I want to see that little
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: chip inside you that everybody else doesn't have just keeps
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: you going like this all the time?
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: Oh my god? Is it ambition? Is it tenacity? Is
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: it passion?
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: What is it?
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: All those things push of all. But it's such an
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: interesting question because of the fact that it just it
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: didn't just happen at like, you know, twenty three when
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: I was going into the workplace. It happened when I
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: was I don't know, a little girl. It certainly happened
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: like in high school when I just decided I'm going
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: about this at my pace, not the school's pace, and
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: I'm going to graduate a year early. And I just
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: started taking correspondence courses from UC Berkeley and going to
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: night school and going to summer school. My mom said,
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: why don't you just take a sleeping bag over there
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: and stay over there. But I was so determined to
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: graduate and get out into the real world.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: Get it over with, get in there.
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, like let me loose, like take the reins
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: out and let me go and run.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: Oh my god, you are the epitome of the Year
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: of the Horse. Yeah that we're kinding tiny, You're thors,
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: You're ready to run. You quote Audrey hepburn in saying
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: nothing is impossible. The word itself says I'm possible. And yes,
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: you have lived by that wordplay. You've taken so many
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: risks in your career and your jobs and your roles
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: that you've exceeded in the personal journey that you've been on.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: Just overall, your belief that you can do anything rings
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: so clearly. I mean it's going to compliment you. You
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: are an unwavering visionary and I'm so happy to be
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: talking with you. But where do you think that belief
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: came from, that feeling that anything is possible.
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: I it came from positive affirmations from my parents, and
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: I think that's a good thing to put out there
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: into the universe other people who are raising kids. It's funny.
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: I just interviewed Susan Lucci for her book, and as
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: I when we first kind of met and got to
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: know each other about a year ago, we couldn't figure out,
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: like why is there feel this simpatico, like we have
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: this connection, Like what could it be? She's this dramatic
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: actress and I'm this pragmatic journalist. And when I started
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: reading her book, I'm like, oh my god. Her parents
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: gave her the same positive affirmations and I mean the
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: same words you can be anything you want to be,
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: you can do and it hit my mom, hits your
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: wag into a star, sweetie, like it came to me
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: all the time. And that was I mean, I'm going
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: to date myself here.
• 10:28
  Speaker 4: But that was in like the fifties and sixties, right,
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: And that was not when young girls were being told
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: go out and see the world and make your mark
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: on this world.
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: They were kind of being told to go to college
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: so you can get an mrs degree, you know, so
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: you can find a mate. And yet, so I really
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: hand it to my parents to have been telling me
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: back then, like just think in night like my I
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: lost my in nineteen sixty four. I was only thirteen,
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: So I've been hearing that women didn't get the right
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: to have a credit card or open a bank account
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: until nineteen seventy two.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: Insane and it's.
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: Kind of insane. And I always love young people. I
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: hope that young women because I'm sure you have a
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: lot of young women who also listen to your podcasts,
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: and I want them to understand how different it was
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: for young women not that long ago. Like here I am.
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: That was when I was a kid. That was when
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: I was in my twenties and you just weren't expecting.
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: Look when I went to try to graduate a year early,
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: the principle wasn't like applauding me. He was like, what
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: the hell are you doing? Because girls were supposed to
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: just follow the rules and not try to be anything special.
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: And I guess I had just started bucking the system.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, what an incredible mom you had, yes
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: to be giving you. I mean I had the same
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: thing with my parents. They told me there's nothing you
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: can't do, and I believed them because that's what you
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: do when your parents tell you something over and over.
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: And it makes you think that you can actually be
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: able to show At nineteen years old, it became like this,
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: Oh man, that hit you, know, but then your parents
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: let you.
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: I think it was I can survive anything, and that
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: was the message I was going with then, as it
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: turned out, your career basically came from believing in yourself
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: at every step of the way. You thought initially that
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: you wanted to be you follow in your father's footsteps
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: and become a doctor, but then you soon realized that
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: you felt differently about that.
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: So I wanted to talk about three months working in
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: a hospital. Yeah, I'm sure that now, real quick, scalpels
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: and stay, which is uh No.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: I've watched The pet I've been watching The Pit and
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: I love that show. So you're just watching it and
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: then all of a sudden you see something you've never
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: want to see.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: They don't give you a warning. They just got to
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: like the insides of someone's body.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but I wanted to ask you, how does one
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: come to know that a dream is not right for them?
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: And then what steps should they take to let it
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: go and figure out what is the dream?
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: Well, it became very apparent to me. I mean I
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: was young. I remember I was sixteen when I went
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: into college, but said that summer before I was so
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: anxious to dip my toe into the medical world. And
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: so my dad had founded that hospital, and he had
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: been chief of staff at the time that he crashed
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: and we lost him. But so I got a job
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: I probably shouldn't have, probably wasn't old enough to be
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: working there, but they let me, and it just became
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: very apparent to me that that was not going to
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: be my path, very apparent, And it was a dilemma
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: because letting go of that dream kind of in this
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: weird little way, I mean, my thoughts disconnected me a
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: little bit from my dad, who I was so young
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: that I hadn't really gotten a chance to really really
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: know him. And so then, how then what am I
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: going to do? So I went into college and I said,
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: I'll get a psychology degree. That's as close as I
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: can get to the medical field, which by the way,
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: probably has served me very well in my life as
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: a journalist, definitely. But I think there was always this
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: little nigglaly thing in the back of my head that said,
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: you didn't live up to that legacy. You wanted to
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: carry on your dad's legacy, this cancer surgeon back at
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: a time when there was no chemo, there was no radiation,
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: there was only surgery.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: And.
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: All of that spurred me forward. Because he was born
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: in Australia, raised in China, came to the US, so
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: like he wanted me to go out and see the world.
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: But I really think that the circle became connected when
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: I was diagnosed with breast cancer, and that it was
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: not until then. Meanwhile, I stole all the health spots
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: on GMA, and I did like ten health shows after GMA,
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: but they weren't on every day, so people don't even
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: realize that I did another ten shows after GMA. But
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: it was that breast cancer diagnosis that like within twenty
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: four hours, I said, Wow, I just got I had
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: a gift dropped in my lap, and this is going
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: to be my opportunity to take that torch from my
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: dad and run with it. And I just in that moment,
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: I said, I'm not going to go through this journey
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: as a victim as a patient. I'm going to go
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: through this journey as an advocate, and I'm going to
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: learn everything I can. I'm going to take that camera
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: into every single appointment. I'm going to share it so
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: I can try to make a mark in this world.
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: Of all the things I could make my mark in,
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: it would be cancer because that was how my dad
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: saved lives. And you know how I always wanted to
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: go out and save lives like him. And I've had
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: a lot of feedback from women that I probably did
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: help save lives. You know, when I was constantly saying,
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: have you had your mammogram? Have you had your mammogram?
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: And if you did, do you know if you have
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: dense breast, because if you do, then a mammogram won't
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: necessarily show your cancer. And all these women have written
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: back to me on you know, my social media and said, like,
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: you made me go get that and oh my god,
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: I found out I have stage two cancer. So you know,
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: I've said that if on my tombstone that that's the
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: only thing I'm remembered for, that would be okay, because
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: that's what gave me my opportunity to carry that torch
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: of my dad's right.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: And that became your new dream.
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: And advocacy, and you know, and by the way, that's
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: probably what spurred when I started to understand the impact
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: one can have when they have a platform like you
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: do and like I do, and I started seeing all
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: the feedback, I think that's what then set me off
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: on just becoming so involved in all the other health
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: campaigns that I did. Subsequently, going to Congress and testifying
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: before Congress to you know, include senior care in the
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: in the Family and Medical Leave Act. It's not just
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: at the beginning when a baby is born that you
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: need to leave work and have some time off and
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: not lose your job. It's at the end of life
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: where we have to take care of parents or spouses
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: and we again need the time off and we don't
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: want to lose our job or be you know, punished
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: for that. And you know, I was at the FDA
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: testifying to get mandatory mammogram reporting, and only, as I said,
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: can I now kind of look at the whole thing
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: and say, the next twenty five years were not the same.
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: It wasn't topping, you know, the GMA years, but it
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: was equal to And like, I'm happy and proud of
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: the direction I took. But I don't know if I
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: ever let myself say that's all until I sat down
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: and decided to Because I sat down eleven years ago
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: and started writing this book. And then I got breast cancer.
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: I said, okay, I got to write a book about
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: breast cancer. And I got so involved, as I say,
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: on all these health campaigns. Oh, I got to write
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: a book about women and aging and I wrote, why
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: did I come into this room? And then I took
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: this back up and I'm kind of glad that it
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: happened that way because you know, my publisher who's written
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: a few books with me, she said, you couldn't have
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: written this book and made yourself go that deep even
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: five years ago. Right.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: That's the beauty of writing a memoir is really looking
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: big picture at everything, what got you to where you are,
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: what you survived, how you handled crisis. Look, it just
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: makes you appreciate your journey so much more. And then yes,
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: to share that because it's so inspiring.
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: You know. It's funny because my husband always says, I've
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: got this home office and I've got all these pictures
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: on the wall, and he said, you know, only now
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: as you're doing this memoir of yours, he said, you've
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: lived such an extraordinary life. He said, but to you,
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: it was ordinary.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: It just was.
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it just was, and it was it like a
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: thousand miles an hour ordinary. And he said, this is
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: really wonderful that you're doing this because it's allowing you
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: to see that it wasn't an ordinary life my stretch
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: of the imagination, and it probably even lets you look
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: at these pictures of you with presidents, and you with garls,
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: and you with every star imaginable with different eyes, and
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: He's right. I mean I have a new appreciation.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because when you're in it, you're surviving it.
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you know, you're figuring out how to manage
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: all this craziness. And then when you step back and
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: you look at it, you're like, wow, look what I've done.
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and they've all kind of come Jenny. I think
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: with the chapters, which were kind of defined by age,
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: you know, because as you get older, you want to
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: talk to women about whatever it is it's happening to you.
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: I wrote a book after leaving GMA called The End
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: of the Road is Not the Bend. A bend in
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: the road is not the end of the road. And
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: I was dealing with this huge change. I mean, the
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: only difference with me is that everybody in the country
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: knew I was dealing with it. But everybody goes through change,
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: and they lose a job, lose a relationship or whatever.
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: They had these shifts in their life and they come
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: upon us, especially when you don't expect them, is very
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: scary and very vulnerable. And I definitely wanted to write
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: not just about all the wonderful things I got to
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: do in my life, but about how vulnerable I felt
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: when some of these transitions happened and how I worked
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: through it. Because one thing I've learned in the last
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: twenty five years out speaking all over the country because
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: it's different. I mean, GMA just kept me busy with
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: GMA for twenty five years, and I've learned one thing.
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: It's really important that we share our stories. When you
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: share your story, your impact acting people in a room,
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: you're impacting people on a podcast. There are people out
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: there that are going to say, wow, she went through that, right,
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: and she felt vulnerable and then somehow in around up
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: and down, somehow got through it and kept her kept
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: her mind open to maybe doing something else. And those
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: are like important little lessons that we learn that if
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: we're willing to that when we share them, that other
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: people can kind of grab onto those and have hope
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: or be motivated.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: Right right, Yeah, it's so powerful the power to inspire
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: other people. Throughout the book, I felt that you grappled
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: with negative voices, that imposter syndrome that we all sometimes feel, yeah,
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: you know, and how you manage those unhelpful messages can
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: really be the difference between getting a job and going
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: in a totally different direction. And there were several steps
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: along the way where you thought, I can't do that,
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: but you did it anyway.
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: But I have to do it right. I mean, like
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: the day I got the call, I was at Eyewitness
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: News in New York. I was a reporter, and I
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: was in my news cubby.
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: This one this day and ariage, Yes, yes, that's a learning.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: Picture of you so much.
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: This is the back cover when you're four years old.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: There you said that this was the picture you took
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: on your first day of.
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, like right when I went there, and I didn't
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: know what I was doing. To be very honest, I'd
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: never been a reporter back in Sacramento because I started
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: in the industry at a time when there weren't very
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: many women, and so I started as a weather girl
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: because that's how you started back then, and then kind
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: of became a consumer reporter and went right to anchoring
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: all on a very short span of time, and then
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: went to New York and they they wanted me to
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: be a street reporter, and I was like, okay, so
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: do you tell them that you don't know how to
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: do this or do you go ahead and go?
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: And also the streets of New York City and.
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: The streets in New York City no less, and during
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: that time that if someone's going to take a page
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: out of the John Lennon playbook, it's this. Whenever anyone
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: asks if you can do something, just say yes and
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: then go figure out how to do it. I love that,
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: and that is how I've lived my life all the
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: way along the way. And like the day that I
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: got the call from my agent to tell me that
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: I got the job at Good Morning America, I was
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: like half an hour before the six o'clock news with
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: startings I'm trying to finish my story. I was like,
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: oh my god, that's awesome. I'll call you up to
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: the show. And like twenty minutes later, the phone rang again.
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: I figured it was him calling back with something, and
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: it was my kind of collegist congratulations, you're pregnant with
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: your first baby. Oh my gosh, and like delight, dilemma,
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: like yes about this. And I don't even know if
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: I ever really had the thought, to be honest with you,
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: that I really don't think I ever had the thought
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: of man, bad timing. This would have been so great,
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: But now you know, I found out I'm pregnant. Never
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: occurred to me. I just immediately said, Okay, I'll figure
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: out how to do it. I'll just figure it out.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, showing the same thing happened to me
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: when I got my first opportunity to do comedy on
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: a show called What I Like About You. I got
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: the job, the we did the pilot, it got picked up,
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: and that same day I found out I was pregnant.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: It is so crazy, the parallels. Yeah, so many women's lives.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: I just said, and you went ahead and did it, said,
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: you know what, I'm going to go forward with this
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: because I want both things.
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: And that's okay, because I want both things. They're both
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: so amazing that you do that. You deserve it to
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: yourself to go ahead and do both. Yep. And that's
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: not to say that it's not hard.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: No, logistically very difficult, Yeah with it, you know. And
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: I'll just physically and emotionally very difficult.
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, to be worth the down to the bone trying
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: to do both, but so worth it. Yep.
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: I love this quote from your book. You say I
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: took a deep breath and told myself.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: Come on, you can do this.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: If you've believed in Santa Claus for five years, you
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: can believe in yourself for five minutes. Yeah, that's a
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: perfect mantra.
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: I love quotes.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: I love the love quotes. And this is my eleventh book,
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: and I've used quotes in every book I've ever written,
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: and I keep a collection of him. Whenever I find
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: another one I really like, I put it in my collection.
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: So when it comes time, I spend so much time
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: just on and chapter titles. I love chapter titles. And
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: once I get a chapter title and then I think, okay,
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: so what is the quote that is going to set
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: the person up in the right framework, their right mindset
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: to have this chapter delivered to them. And I spend
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: so much time. And then once you come up with
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: a quote, the editors, the publishing editors, they make you crazy.
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: No it actually wasn't so, and so who said that?
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: Go back farther with someone else because they're so afraid
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: of not giving the proper attribution. And sometimes I'd say,
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: oh man, this isn't even worth it to keep trying
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: to dig back. No, it actually is worth it. I
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: want this quote.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: No, quotes are so inspiring.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: Yes, they're like succinct messages that you can wrap your
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: head around and live your life according.
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: To Yeah, short, sweet little things that stay in the
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: back of your mind and you remember them forever, and
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: they serve as inspiration.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: It's a pretty good matra for all of us as
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: we learn to choose ourselves. Oh my gosh, there's so
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: much we could talk about. I mean literally, I could
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: talk to you all day. Your book is a generous
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: four hundred pages of stories about reinvention and success and
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: challenge and bursting free from imposter syndrome. Joan Life Beyond
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: the Script is available now wherever books are sold, and
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: of course you can hear her read the audio book
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: as well, which I love so much. But before I
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: let you go, Joan London, what was your last I
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: Choose me moment?
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: My last I choose me moment? My last I choose
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: me moment was probably well, it was probably yesterday when
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: I chose to go out in the sun and get
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: a little bit of a tan, even though I don't
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: I didn't really do that to my dermatologists.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, don't tell that.
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: I tell you. I'm at that stage of life where
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: the last I choose me moment was when I decided
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: I was going to work on a thousand piece jigsaw
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: puzzle and not feel guilty. Oh wait, I love that
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: so much because I always thought and being lazy. Uh uh.
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: It's it's almost like a meditation. I don't and I
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: shouldn't feel guilty.
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: No, that is genius. Also, it's very good for your brain.
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: Oh absolutely. So I take a hip hop class at
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: my gym and this all women, and we all say
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: the same thing. We are not here because we are
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: good dancers. We are here so that when he does okay,
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: now let's add the third, five, six, seven, eight, that
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: we can think, oh my god, what was the first
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: eight count? What was the second eight count? We're all
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: there for a brain.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: I love that.
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: That's so good.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: I want that. I want to go to your hip
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: hop class. Joan.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, thank you so much for spending time
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: with me. You are a legend and such an inspiration
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: to me and so many women. I really appreciate your
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: time today.
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: Good luck with the book.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: It's amazing. Everybody you have to read it.
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: Thanks so much, Jenny.
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: You guys, I'm very excited to share that my book
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: I Choose Me Chasing Joy, Finding Purpose and Embracing Reinvention
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: is coming April fourteenth, and it would mean the world
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: to me if you would pre order a copy or
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: the audiobook wherever you get your books. And yes, I
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: am definitely narrating the audiobook, so it's going to be
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: so fun.