Latest / QUESTION EVERYTHING / Maria Shriver: What You Need To Know About Brain Health + Advice on Ambition, Love + Getting Back Up

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Maria Shriver: What You Need To Know About Brain Health + Advice on Ambition, Love + Getting Back Up · QUESTION EVERYTHING

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  Speaker 1: The following podcast is a Dear Media production.
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  Speaker 2: What's Up Family? We Are Tyrolinjari is the host of
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  Speaker 2: Let's Go There, where we will in fact go there
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  Speaker 2: every single week.
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  Speaker 3: Every Wednesday. In this podcast, no topics are off limits
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  Speaker 3: for us. We will be pushing ourselves and you to
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  Speaker 3: see different perspectives, challenging what you think you know, and
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  Speaker 3: have fun all at the same time.
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  Speaker 2: So listen. I want you guys to go ahead and
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  Speaker 2: buckle up, because going there is going to be the
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  Speaker 2: ride of your life.
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  Speaker 3: See you guys next week.
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  Speaker 4: Big things happen when you're pretty, pretty bold, pretty clever,
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  Speaker 4: pretty strong. I'm Danielle Robe and each week my guests
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  Speaker 4: and I have conversations that put a new spin on pretty.
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  Speaker 4: This is pretty smart. Maria Striver has spent her life
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  Speaker 4: trying to improve other peoples.
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  Speaker 1: I see things that can be and since.
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  Speaker 4: Her father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, Ria worked tirelessly to
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  Speaker 4: make breakthroughs in brain health, particularly for women.
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  Speaker 5: Once someone in your family gets Alzheimer's, it's like the
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  Speaker 5: entire family is impacted in so many different ways. So
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  Speaker 5: it's bankrupting and it's also just devastating, you know, not
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  Speaker 5: just financially, but emotionally, spiritually, cognitively in every way.
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  Speaker 4: So she and her son Patrick started Mash the Brain Bar.
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  Speaker 5: I'm very energized about the field of Alzheimer's research and prevention.
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  Speaker 5: My hope is that MASH can be a player and
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  Speaker 5: changing the conversation around brain health.
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  Speaker 4: We also talk about ambition.
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  Speaker 1: I don't think it's ambition swallowed me at all.
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  Speaker 5: Okay, I think it made me make different choices, and
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  Speaker 5: it may have not to be off of the path I.
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  Speaker 1: Was on Oprah.
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  Speaker 5: We both were like two working girls living in this
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  Speaker 5: little complex near our station, and we bonded over laughing
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  Speaker 5: and working and a love of eating and not having
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  Speaker 5: dates and sitting in the marina setbacks. I think it's
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  Speaker 5: important to try and to understand that, like anybody worth
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  Speaker 5: their salt, has failed.
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  Speaker 1: And while she.
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  Speaker 4: Loves reading, Maria talks about the importance of writing your
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  Speaker 4: own story. So first of all, I'm holding the Marsh box.
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  Speaker 4: I actually had one for lunch today. I had the
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  Speaker 4: chocolate peanut butter.
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  Speaker 1: You have the trial pack.
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  Speaker 5: I have the box of just one flavor of the
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  Speaker 5: peanut butter, and I was sitting here in my hotel
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  Speaker 5: room and I got up early because I'm here to
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  Speaker 5: do the Today Show, and I was like, I was like, oh.
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  Speaker 1: Wait a minute, I have my marsh bars. Then I
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  Speaker 1: got a mash bar, and I got all this like
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  Speaker 1: boop energy. I'm like, okay, let's go.
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  Speaker 4: I did too. I was sort of surprised by how
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  Speaker 4: good they tasted.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you. Yeah. We worked really really hard on them.
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  Speaker 5: And you know, certain people obviously have certain, you know,
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  Speaker 5: flavors that they really like. And I'm a peanut butter person,
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  Speaker 5: so I love peanut butter and peanut butter chocolate. And
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  Speaker 5: it was really hard to make them taste good, you know,
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  Speaker 5: it was hard to make them delicious so that you'd
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  Speaker 5: come back. I've tried things that are so quote unquote
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  Speaker 5: healthy and I just gag, you know, I don't want
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  Speaker 5: to have them. Then I have other things that are
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  Speaker 5: so good, but they're so bad. So trying to find
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  Speaker 5: something that tasted good, that was good for you and
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  Speaker 5: did good was really a very fine line and took
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  Speaker 5: a lot of time and effort.
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  Speaker 1: But I'm really proud of every part.
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  Speaker 5: Of these bars, how they look, you know, the packaging.
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  Speaker 1: I'm so happy when I look down at the packaging because.
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  Speaker 4: People don't realize how much time that takes.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean you never think about, you know, like
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  Speaker 5: whiting out where it's his brain fuel, putting ox is there,
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  Speaker 5: you know, deciding that mass should be in brown and
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  Speaker 5: not black, making this gradiated color so that it looks
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  Speaker 5: like the brain scan that it was derived from, having
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  Speaker 5: the message on the back, keeping it under two hundred calories.
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  Speaker 5: Every decision that went into this bar, first from the
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  Speaker 5: why of the bar, to how to make the bar
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  Speaker 5: stay in the why, stay in the mission, be true
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  Speaker 5: to the mission, was such a kind of great undertaking.
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  Speaker 5: But so, I mean, every decision was like a decision.
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  Speaker 4: Well, I'm so glad you brought up the why because
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  Speaker 4: you've touched so many people's lives with philanthropy over the years,
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  Speaker 4: and I think, most notably, I think of your work
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  Speaker 4: with brain health. What started your advocacy in the space?
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  Speaker 5: Well, my advocacy in this space of brain health and
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  Speaker 5: Alzheimer's prevention came back in two thousand and three when
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  Speaker 5: my father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and I started to
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  Speaker 5: go out and look about what was out there to
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  Speaker 5: help me explain it to my children, to help me
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  Speaker 5: explain it to myself, and there was nothing. So I
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  Speaker 5: wrote a children's book that was my first kind of
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  Speaker 5: entry into this what is Alzheimer's and how to explain it?
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  Speaker 5: And then I realized there was no documentary on it.
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  Speaker 5: So I spent several years doing a five part series
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  Speaker 5: on HBO called The Alzheimer's Project, which was the first
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  Speaker 5: kind of multifaceted, big documentary about Alzheimer's, what it is,
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  Speaker 5: the science of it, the caregiving, talking to children about it.
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  Speaker 5: And then when I became First Lady of California, I
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  Speaker 5: started to notice that more and more women and daughters
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  Speaker 5: started to come up to me and say, my mother
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  Speaker 5: has it. And I went to all the doctors and
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  Speaker 5: I said, I think.
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  Speaker 1: This disproportionally impacts women.
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  Speaker 5: And they were like, no, no, you're wrong, and I'm like,
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  Speaker 5: I don't know about that.
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  Speaker 1: And I spent two and a half years.
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  Speaker 5: Reporting all over the country doing polling and stuff, and
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  Speaker 5: lo and behold found out that this disease did disproportionately
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  Speaker 5: impact women, and it wasn't because.
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  Speaker 1: They lived longer.
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  Speaker 5: That report two doctors to researchers and to the nation
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  Speaker 5: and government leaders, stating that two thirds of those who
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  Speaker 5: get Alzheimer's were women, and two thirds of the caregivers
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  Speaker 5: caring for those with Alzheimer's also happened to be women.
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  Speaker 5: Changed the narrative of this disease. And then the Women's
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  Speaker 5: Alzheimer's movement was born out of that report, which I
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  Speaker 5: did in partnership with the Alzheimer's Association to really fund
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  Speaker 5: research into women, what was happening in women's bodies that
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  Speaker 5: might be different from men, what's going on at perimenopause,
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  Speaker 5: what's going on in menopause, what is the role of estrogen,
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  Speaker 5: what is the role of hypertension, diabetes. So the Women's
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  Speaker 5: Alzheimer's movement has really kind of pushed advocacy and education
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  Speaker 5: into a whole different realm than it existed, certainly when
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  Speaker 5: my father was diagnosed. And now we know a lot
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  Speaker 5: about lifestyle. We know the importance of the different verticals
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  Speaker 5: of our lifestyle that go into Alzheimer's and possible prevention
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  Speaker 5: of it, and food.
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  Speaker 1: Is a big part of that, as is exercise.
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  Speaker 5: And so that's how MASH came out of WAYAM, which
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  Speaker 5: came out of the Shriber Report, which came out of
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  Speaker 5: the Alzheimer's Project, which came out of me testifying several
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  Speaker 5: times in the Congress, and out of the film still
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  Speaker 5: Alice that I did. So I've done all of this
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  Speaker 5: advocacy and activism, and I just finished a big report
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  Speaker 5: for Governor Newsom in California about how states need to prepare.
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  Speaker 5: And everywhere I went, people said, well, do you have
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  Speaker 5: anything to eat? And I I was like, no, I don't,
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  Speaker 5: and then I was.
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  Speaker 1: Like, okay, I will.
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  Speaker 5: And I'm a protein bar fanatic. So that's how marsh
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  Speaker 5: was born. It was born out of people's desired for
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  Speaker 5: me to give them something other than a book in
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  Speaker 5: a film and a documentary and a roadmap. They wanted
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  Speaker 5: something to eat. So I'm hoping this will be the
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  Speaker 5: beginning of many more products.
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  Speaker 4: It seems like I interview a lot of founders, and
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  Speaker 4: the best companies are found on problems. You know, they're
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  Speaker 4: really trying to So I loved this idea. I heard
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  Speaker 4: you cite that five point eight million Americans are living
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  Speaker 4: with Alzheimer's, and then more.
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  Speaker 5: Than six million, and there's about another sixteen million caring
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  Speaker 5: for them. And that's only Alzheimer's. You know, there's other
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  Speaker 5: forms of dementia. There's forms of Parkinson's als, which are
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  Speaker 5: all neurological diseases that you know, bring in all different
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  Speaker 5: kinds of caregivers.
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  Speaker 1: But that's specifically about Alzheimer's.
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  Speaker 4: Well, I love that you mentioned caregivers because you said
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  Speaker 4: something that stuck with me. You said, it's bankrupting our country.
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  Speaker 5: Can you explain it now, Well, it's an incredibly expensive disease,
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  Speaker 5: as anybody who's dealt with it knows, it can go
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  Speaker 5: on for many, many years. Very often someone in the
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  Speaker 5: family has to drop out of the workforce to care
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  Speaker 5: around the clock for somebody with Alzheimer's. We don't have
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  Speaker 5: enough caregivers. So you have millions and millions and millions
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  Speaker 5: of family caregivers having to either care solely for someone
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  Speaker 5: with Alzheimer's, sharing that burden across families, and very often
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  Speaker 5: women drop out to care for a loved one with Alzheimer's,
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  Speaker 5: which takes them out of the bread winning providing role
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  Speaker 5: that they might have been in, takes them out of
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  Speaker 5: their social security earnings, and it's just really expensive for
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  Speaker 5: an entire family to care for someone with Alzheimer's, to
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  Speaker 5: consider assisted living, to hire a caregiver, and so it's
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  Speaker 5: an incredibly expensive disease. It goes on for a really
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  Speaker 5: really long time. There's no remission with Alzheimer's, and once
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  Speaker 5: someone in your family gets Alzheimer's, it's like the entire
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  Speaker 5: family is impacted in so many different ways. So it's bankrupting,
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  Speaker 5: and it's also just devastating, you know, not just financially,
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  Speaker 5: but emotionally, spiritually, cognitively, in every way.
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  Speaker 4: I don't think we treat the brain like we do
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  Speaker 4: other organs, like our kidneys or our livers, and it's
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  Speaker 4: arguably the most important. Yeah, do you see the conversation
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  Speaker 4: changing and how do we move it forward?
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  Speaker 5: Well, I think it's definitely changed in the time that
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  Speaker 5: I've been in this space kind of advocating for people
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  Speaker 5: to think about their brains. Particularly, I say to women,
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  Speaker 5: if we thought about this what's in here, as much
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  Speaker 5: as we think about our eyes, our lips, or our thighs,
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  Speaker 5: we would really treat this well. You know, I think
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  Speaker 5: so many women, you know, kind of people in general,
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  Speaker 5: they take this because they can't see it, they take
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  Speaker 5: it for granted. But I think so many young people
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  Speaker 5: now have seen a loved one, a grandparent, a parents
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  Speaker 5: struggling with their brain health, struggling with their cognition. So
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  Speaker 5: there's a lot more like, wait a minute, I want
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  Speaker 5: to do everything I can so that I can age
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  Speaker 5: with my cognitive abilities and my physical abilities. Intact, I
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  Speaker 5: now understand that there are things that I can do
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  Speaker 5: today that will put me in better standing when I'm
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  Speaker 5: in my sixties or seventies. Can I sleep? How do
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  Speaker 5: I handle stress? What am I eating? How is that
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  Speaker 5: impacting what I'm thinking? How I'm learning? We now know
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  Speaker 5: a lot about how kids learn. We know a lot
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  Speaker 5: about the effects of sugar that we didn't know. We
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  Speaker 5: know a lot about pre existing conditions and their impact
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  Speaker 5: on dementia. We know the importance of exercise. These things
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  Speaker 5: weren't talked about at all when I started in the
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  Speaker 5: Alzheimer's space. Alzheimer's prevention wasn't even a thing. You weren't
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  Speaker 5: even quote allowed to say that in the same breath.
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  Speaker 5: And I kept saying, well, why aren't we looking beyond
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  Speaker 5: plaques and tangles and maybe you know metopause or hormones
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  Speaker 5: have something.
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  Speaker 1: Oh no, you can't say that. You can't say that.
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  Speaker 5: So I think what we've tried to do, certainly at
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  Speaker 5: the Women's Alzheimer's movement is spread the research around. Let's
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  Speaker 5: look under every nook and cranny. Let's look where we
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  Speaker 5: haven't looked before. Let's look at hormone replacement. Let's look
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  Speaker 5: at the brain at perimenopause and postmenopause. So that's why
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  Speaker 5: I wrote the introduction through the XX Brain. That's why
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  Speaker 5: where I'm funds Lisa Mosconi and the Women's Brain Initiative.
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  Speaker 5: We want to look at what's happening. You know, women's
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  Speaker 5: hormonal life is very different than the hormonal life of
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  Speaker 5: a man, right, and so we're now looking at what
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  Speaker 5: happens to the brain during meditation, what happens to the
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  Speaker 5: brain during sleep, what happens to the brain during exercise,
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  Speaker 5: What happens in the brain if you're brought up in
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  Speaker 5: interbusive situation or poverish situation, you don't get good nutrients.
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  Speaker 1: This is a huge exploding field.
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  Speaker 5: So I have great hope and great excitement about where
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  Speaker 5: we're going and people's new found interest in the brain.
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  Speaker 4: I learned from your interview with Mika Brazinski that per
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  Speaker 4: your research, Alzheimer's turns up in the brain about twenty
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  Speaker 4: years before it's actually detected.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, is that still the case. That's still the case.
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  Speaker 5: So everything I know now, I'm trying to tell people
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  Speaker 5: really your age, because it's hard for people my age,
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  Speaker 5: you know, to kind of make changes, but it's never
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  Speaker 5: too late to make changes. And I think boomers, uh,
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  Speaker 5: which I'm a boomer, we want to age differently than
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  Speaker 5: other generations, right. But this information that we're getting in
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  Speaker 5: real time wasn't around when I was in my thirties
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  Speaker 5: or forties, wasn't around when I was going through perimenopause,
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  Speaker 5: which is why I'm so adamant about getting it out there,
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  Speaker 5: so that people will begin to think about what am
• 13:28
  Speaker 5: I putting in my body read labels, that they'll think
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  Speaker 5: about talking to their doctors about their cognitive health.
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  Speaker 1: No doctor ever spoke to me about my cognitive health.
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  Speaker 1: No doctor, you know.
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  Speaker 5: So the more we know, the better informed we are,
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  Speaker 5: and the better we can make changes in our life
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  Speaker 5: that benefit us and our children.
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  Speaker 4: I was so fascinated to hear part of that conversation
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  Speaker 4: with her where you discussed the potential effects of stress.
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  Speaker 4: So you mentioned that women in their forties are oftentimes
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  Speaker 4: in the peak of their career raising children, and you know,
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  Speaker 4: have a million plates spinning in the air. What are
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  Speaker 4: the potential effects of enormous stress on a woman's brain.
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  Speaker 1: Well, stress is deadly to you know, no matter your gender.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 5: We know, stress causes heart attacks, stress causes depressions, Stress
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  Speaker 5: causes all kinds of you know, your inability to think,
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  Speaker 5: your inability to feel, causes all kinds of health problems.
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  Speaker 1: So stress is across the board.
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  Speaker 5: But women ruminate, Women process stressed differently, and I think,
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  Speaker 5: you know, women have a lot of balls in the air.
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  Speaker 1: I'm not saying men don't.
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  Speaker 5: Either, but very often we see, you know, women trying
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  Speaker 5: to be partners and providers and doing the majority of
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  Speaker 5: kind of parenting at home. Men have certainly stepped up,
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  Speaker 5: and I want to acknowledge that they're also stepping into
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  Speaker 5: the caregiving space because I'll often talk to couples whole
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  Speaker 5: say what the woman will say, my mom got Alzheimer's
• 14:58
  Speaker 5: and the guy will say, my dad got all time.
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  Speaker 1: So it used to be like.
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  Speaker 5: Oh, the woman will go do it, But now you know,
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  Speaker 5: people are saying, well, wait a minute, this is a
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  Speaker 5: shared burden, this is a shared responsibility. We all have parents,
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  Speaker 5: and I think the pandemic also brought up. You know,
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  Speaker 5: where do we want to put our parents as they're willing? Yeah,
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  Speaker 5: so how do we want to care for our parents?
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  Speaker 5: Who will care for our parents? And I think people
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  Speaker 5: really are thinking. I know people are thinking twice about
• 15:31
  Speaker 5: what they saw all of the deaths and nursing homes.
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  Speaker 5: They saw their inability to connect with their parents. So
• 15:37
  Speaker 5: you see people moving their parents back into their homes.
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  Speaker 5: But that's expensive. You know, not a lot of people
• 15:43
  Speaker 5: can do that, and different you know, ethnic groups deal
• 15:46
  Speaker 5: with these things in different ways. But I think, you know,
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  Speaker 5: the American worker, the American family is under incredible stress
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  Speaker 5: as we speak. And while Alzheimer's is a global epidemic,
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  Speaker 5: I think certain countries have a different way of treating
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  Speaker 5: those who get older better than we do.
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  Speaker 4: It was so interesting to see during the pandemic how
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  Speaker 4: little we valued elderly lives like it was almost like, oh,
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  Speaker 4: they're most at risk, it's fine, And it was interesting.
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  Speaker 5: I think we had conversations certainly on both ends of
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  Speaker 5: that spectrum. I saw a lot of people going, Okay,
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  Speaker 5: wait a minute, you know the elderly or the sixty
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  Speaker 5: five and up are vulnerable. Let's take care of them.
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  Speaker 5: Let's honor them, Let's get them their shots first. And
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  Speaker 5: then we had other people saying exactly what you just said. Hey,
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  Speaker 5: they've lived and you know, there we are. But more
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  Speaker 5: often than not, I heard people saying, wait a second,
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  Speaker 5: how are we treating the elderly?
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  Speaker 1: Who are the elderly? What's going on in.
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  Speaker 5: Those nursing homes? What are the rules in those nursing homes?
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  Speaker 5: Who's in the nursing homes? Who's caring for our parents?
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  Speaker 5: Why can't I get in? What's going on in there?
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  Speaker 5: Those were the conversations that I heard a lot of.
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  Speaker 5: And since I was running the task force for the
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  Speaker 5: governor in California and the majority of you know, many
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  Speaker 5: of the deaths that we experienced amongst the elderly were
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  Speaker 5: in nursing homes. I think people have really said, well,
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  Speaker 5: wait a minute, now, wait a second, where do I
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  Speaker 5: want to put my mother and my father?
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  Speaker 1: And there go I.
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  Speaker 5: So, how we treat people who are seventy eighty ninety
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  Speaker 5: today is going to be how we treat you when
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  Speaker 5: you're seventy eighty or ninety. So we better get clear
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  Speaker 5: on what do we value and what is the measure
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  Speaker 5: of our character? As in society, because that says the lot.
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  Speaker 5: You know, it always says how you treat the youngest
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  Speaker 5: and the oldest among us tell a lot about what
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  Speaker 5: we value and who we value. And so I'm very
• 17:49
  Speaker 5: energized about the field of Alzheimer's research and prevention. My
• 17:54
  Speaker 5: hope is that MASH can be a player in changing
• 17:57
  Speaker 5: the conversation around brain health. This bar, I'm hoping we'll
• 18:02
  Speaker 5: make brain how fun, It'll make it non threatening or scary.
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  Speaker 1: People are a little scared of the brain.
• 18:08
  Speaker 5: So I'm hoping that this bar, which is fun, it
• 18:12
  Speaker 5: encourages you to live your MASH life to every time
• 18:16
  Speaker 5: you take a bite, think about what you're feeding your
• 18:18
  Speaker 5: brain in terms of food, positive thoughts, positive mantras.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: I'm a big believer in all of that.
• 18:25
  Speaker 5: And that's how we slowly begin to change culture shift,
• 18:29
  Speaker 5: culture shift conversation.
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: You've always been a culture changer. Do you mind if
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: I ask you a few personal questions?
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: Sure? S sure? Okay.
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: So I was so excited to learn that you were
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: a Chicago girl. I am too. Yeah, what is the
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: most Chicago thing about you? And the most Hollywood thing
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: about you?
• 18:48
  Speaker 5: I don't think there's anything Hollywood about me. I think
• 18:50
  Speaker 5: my brother always says, you're a Midwest girl at heart.
• 18:53
  Speaker 5: You like Midwestern people, you kind of have Midwestern values.
• 18:57
  Speaker 5: People are always surprised that I was born in Chicago.
• 19:00
  Speaker 5: They're like, you're from Chicago. I thought you're from Boston
• 19:03
  Speaker 5: that I was like, yeah, I was born in Chicago,
• 19:06
  Speaker 5: lived there for the first five years of my life,
• 19:07
  Speaker 5: and then went to the East Coast with my family.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: But I love Chicago.
• 19:13
  Speaker 5: I wanted to move there after college, and then I
• 19:15
  Speaker 5: got a job in Philadelphia, so I ended up moving there.
• 19:19
  Speaker 5: But I think my values are very kind of Midwestern,
• 19:23
  Speaker 5: and I kind of always get along with people from Chicago.
• 19:27
  Speaker 5: So I don't think there's really kind of anything. I've
• 19:30
  Speaker 5: never identified with Hollywood. It's never been I don't live
• 19:33
  Speaker 5: in Hollywood. Obviously, I was married to somebody who worked
• 19:36
  Speaker 5: in Hollywood, but there isn't really I don't think anything.
• 19:40
  Speaker 5: I think there's something California about me. There's definitely. I
• 19:44
  Speaker 5: think I'm a risk taker, I'm a dreamer. I have
• 19:48
  Speaker 5: always been kind of an independent woman, somebody who wanted
• 19:53
  Speaker 5: to blaze my own path, and I think that's very
• 19:55
  Speaker 5: California at large to kind of identify with the dreamers.
• 20:00
  Speaker 5: I've always had a big imagination, so I think that's
• 20:03
  Speaker 5: very California.
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: I also think that you're always at the forefront of things.
• 20:07
  Speaker 4: California is a first mover in so many ways, and
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: you've always been.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: That, Yeah, thank you.
• 20:13
  Speaker 5: I've always kind of followed my own path. I've never
• 20:17
  Speaker 5: really known where it's taking me, but I've always been like,
• 20:19
  Speaker 5: I'm going over there, and people were like, where is
• 20:21
  Speaker 5: over there?
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't know, but come on, we're going.
• 20:25
  Speaker 5: I've always been you know, I'm an only girl, so
• 20:28
  Speaker 5: I've always been interested in women's issues and treating them seriously,
• 20:33
  Speaker 5: long before I feel like a lot of people did.
• 20:36
  Speaker 5: I was always interested in kind of mythical female characters,
• 20:40
  Speaker 5: from saints to explorers, to pioneers, to trailblazers to poets.
• 20:47
  Speaker 5: My mother was certainly a trailblazer and her own right,
• 20:50
  Speaker 5: and I felt like I had to be a trailblazer
• 20:53
  Speaker 5: in my own family just to get hurt and fight
• 20:56
  Speaker 5: for my space. So I think being a kind of
• 21:00
  Speaker 5: a groundbreaker, trail blazer, or someone who likes to see
• 21:04
  Speaker 5: kind of over to the rainbow is a good quality.
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: There was I think you're One of the Midwest things
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: about you is your work ethic. There's this great story
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: that I read in the late seventies. You and Oprah
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: worked for WJZTV in Baltimore, and she tells this story
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: she walked into the office bathroom and sees you splashing
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: water on your face in the sink, and she's like, Mario,
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: what are you doing? And you said, I've been at
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: the office for four days, working through the night. This
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: is my idea of a bath. And I was like,
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: oh my god. First of all, I identify with that
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: so much.
• 21:35
  Speaker 5: Second of all, you know, it's like, you know, I
• 21:38
  Speaker 5: started working, and I knew that people thought like, well,
• 21:41
  Speaker 5: oh you're some you know, rich kid, you just got
• 21:44
  Speaker 5: in here.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: And I knew that I had.
• 21:45
  Speaker 5: To work twice as hard to show that I was
• 21:49
  Speaker 5: serious about what I was doing. And I was definitely
• 21:52
  Speaker 5: serious about what I was doing. I started as a
• 21:55
  Speaker 5: desk assistant, and then I was a writer, and then
• 21:57
  Speaker 5: I was a producer, and only later did I go
• 22:01
  Speaker 5: on camera. But I wanted to work my way up
• 22:03
  Speaker 5: and I wanted people to know that.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: I was willing to work.
• 22:07
  Speaker 5: And I also came from two people who really worked,
• 22:10
  Speaker 5: who worked, you know, seven days a week, and who
• 22:13
  Speaker 5: admired workers. So my mother had great disdain, I would say,
• 22:18
  Speaker 5: for people who didn't bust their cans and have a
• 22:21
  Speaker 5: vision beyond themselves.
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: In so many of your books, there's this restlessness that
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: you talk about. Yeah, and you said, like you, I
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: was wondering if you were running from something or running
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: towards something both.
• 22:33
  Speaker 5: I think, you know, certainly running from you know, the
• 22:37
  Speaker 5: way I grew up running to California. I went there
• 22:41
  Speaker 5: for love, and then I went to fulfill my dreams.
• 22:44
  Speaker 5: And I was always running towards a vision I had,
• 22:48
  Speaker 5: be it about journalism, be it about women, be it
• 22:51
  Speaker 5: when I was first lady, I had a very big
• 22:53
  Speaker 5: vision of how I thought the women of California should
• 22:56
  Speaker 5: be viewed, regarded, treated, honored.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: And so I think both.
• 23:02
  Speaker 5: I think it's a curiosity mixed with a restlessness, mixed
• 23:07
  Speaker 5: with a lot of energy, you know, mixed with you know,
• 23:12
  Speaker 5: I see things that can be.
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: I see things that can be. I really love that.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: That's how Marsh came to be.
• 23:18
  Speaker 5: I mean, you know, certainly, I kept saying I see this,
• 23:21
  Speaker 5: and my son said to me, well, stop seeing it.
• 23:24
  Speaker 5: Do it, and I was like, well, I don't know
• 23:26
  Speaker 5: how to do it. He goes, I'll help you. I
• 23:28
  Speaker 5: know the people and let me help you. And that's
• 23:30
  Speaker 5: how it happened. It was something that I saw that
• 23:33
  Speaker 5: people asked me for, and I thought I can make this.
• 23:37
  Speaker 5: I can do this, but I needed help. And that's
• 23:39
  Speaker 5: where he stepped in and said, you know, I can
• 23:41
  Speaker 5: help you, and he did.
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: You wrote a book Ten things I wish I'd known
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: before I went out into the real world. So I
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: have a few dare Maria questions because I am in
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: need of your advice and all of our listeners and
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: viewers are too. Okay, as I'm looking for a life partner,
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: what am I so to be looking for?
• 24:02
  Speaker 5: Well, you know, I had a life partner and I
• 24:04
  Speaker 5: don't have a life partner anymore, and I would be
• 24:07
  Speaker 5: looking for something different today, I would say, and I
• 24:11
  Speaker 5: look for at twenty one. But I think you want
• 24:15
  Speaker 5: to first and foremosts I say, it's somebody who would
• 24:17
  Speaker 5: make you laugh. I'm always big believer in that, and
• 24:20
  Speaker 5: someone who's interested in communication too. I would add to
• 24:23
  Speaker 5: that today, I think, you know, kind of finding a
• 24:26
  Speaker 5: partner who wants to grow with you, who's as curious
• 24:29
  Speaker 5: as you, but who wants to really prioritize your relationship
• 24:33
  Speaker 5: and the growth of that and can communicate with you,
• 24:37
  Speaker 5: and who also wants.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: To be on equal footing with you.
• 24:40
  Speaker 5: I think that's super important for young women your age
• 24:43
  Speaker 5: or young men your age, to find partners or no
• 24:46
  Speaker 5: matter if you're in the WGTQ community or if you
• 24:49
  Speaker 5: however you identify, to find somebody who wants to celebrate
• 24:54
  Speaker 5: your success, your choices right alongside theirs.
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: What's something that you wish people could see about you
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: that they don't see at first glance.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: That's good question.
• 25:05
  Speaker 5: I think that I'm kind of pretty tender hearted, and
• 25:09
  Speaker 5: I think I'm very People always say, oh, you're so intimidating.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: I go, no, I'm not.
• 25:13
  Speaker 5: I'm really easy going and fun and light and tender.
• 25:17
  Speaker 5: And I think people use those words once they know me,
• 25:20
  Speaker 5: but they always say to me, Vatasha, I didn't realize this,
• 25:23
  Speaker 5: So I guess I wish for that.
• 25:26
  Speaker 4: It's so interesting because I think we see principled women
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: as serious and we're like, we don't. We're not able
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: to see the other side of them.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: It's strange. Yeah, well, I think that's true.
• 25:36
  Speaker 5: I mean, certainly, and I would say everybody in my life,
• 25:40
  Speaker 5: I've first bonded with them over humor, you know, over laughing.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: You know, you mentioned Oprah.
• 25:46
  Speaker 5: We both were like two working girls living in this
• 25:49
  Speaker 5: little complex near our station, and we bonded over laughing
• 25:53
  Speaker 5: and working and a love of eating and not having
• 25:57
  Speaker 5: dates and sitting in this you know, Oh, you know,
• 26:00
  Speaker 5: everybody kind of in my life, I've been attracted to
• 26:03
  Speaker 5: their humor first and foremost.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: I love to laugh.
• 26:07
  Speaker 5: But I also came up in the news business, where
• 26:09
  Speaker 5: you had to be serious, you know, to be taken seriously.
• 26:12
  Speaker 5: So it's always a fine balance between being silly and
• 26:18
  Speaker 5: being serious.
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: Out of all the extraordinary people you've encountered, and you've
• 26:22
  Speaker 4: encountered many who left a lingering memory.
• 26:26
  Speaker 5: Every single person, I mean, I couldn't you know. People
• 26:29
  Speaker 5: used to say, well, what's the most what's the best
• 26:31
  Speaker 5: interview you've ever done, or who's the most interesting person.
• 26:34
  Speaker 5: I'm like, I'm as interested in the guide that drives
• 26:38
  Speaker 5: me when I come here to New York, Eddie as
• 26:41
  Speaker 5: I am in the doctor who I profiled this morning
• 26:43
  Speaker 5: on the Today Show, doctor Sarah Gottfried. I was interested
• 26:47
  Speaker 5: in learning about Castro. I was interested in understanding King
• 26:50
  Speaker 5: Who's saying when I went to Jordan, or Coreaquino when
• 26:54
  Speaker 5: I went to the Philippines. But I'm also super interested in,
• 26:58
  Speaker 5: you know, the veteran that I met in La or
• 27:01
  Speaker 5: the you know the women I just did.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: A profile on the nine o'clock who were.
• 27:06
  Speaker 5: You know, taking their dating life into their own hands
• 27:08
  Speaker 5: and define judgment and dating twenty years younger than them.
• 27:11
  Speaker 5: I'm like, Wow, that's cool. Wow, You're super interesting to me.
• 27:15
  Speaker 5: So I couldn't say there is one person. I come
• 27:19
  Speaker 5: back quite often to Mary Oliver, who turned into a
• 27:23
  Speaker 5: great friend of mine. And I'm a big poetry lover.
• 27:27
  Speaker 5: I write a lot of poetry, but she was someone
• 27:31
  Speaker 5: I always admired whose work really changed my life. And
• 27:34
  Speaker 5: then she became a dear friend, and she was definitely
• 27:39
  Speaker 5: way ahead of her time, and her words spoke to millions,
• 27:44
  Speaker 5: and yet she was kind of monastic in an introvert.
• 27:46
  Speaker 5: So I always kind of come back well, and then
• 27:50
  Speaker 5: I was going to say five other people.
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: So well, I like that one because my next question
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: was that, you know, through all my research of you,
• 27:59
  Speaker 4: I kept coming back to this one thing that you
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: are such a seeker and you've been seeking a life
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: of meaning since probably before you were even writing about it.
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: Was there a moment that catalyzed that for you or
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: were you just always like that?
• 28:13
  Speaker 5: I think I was just always like that. I was
• 28:15
  Speaker 5: always curious. I mean, according to people who you know,
• 28:18
  Speaker 5: whether it was my mother or people who knew me
• 28:21
  Speaker 5: when I was young, they were like, you were always
• 28:22
  Speaker 5: asking questions or I would tell you to go sit
• 28:25
  Speaker 5: over there, and you'd say why and people say, well,
• 28:29
  Speaker 5: because I want you to sit there, and You're like, no,
• 28:30
  Speaker 5: I want to sit here or so. I don't know,
• 28:34
  Speaker 5: but I've always been super interested in people's journeys, and
• 28:41
  Speaker 5: I've always been super interested in kind of existential questions.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: Of why too, where, what? Yeah?
• 28:50
  Speaker 5: And so I know, you know, I've always felt like
• 28:54
  Speaker 5: there's so much to life to uncover, to discover, to experience,
• 29:00
  Speaker 5: and I have a big appetite for that.
• 29:04
  Speaker 4: What is your first instinct or what do you tell
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: yourself when you feel fearful or things didn't go the
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: way you hoped.
• 29:10
  Speaker 5: When we were launching Marsh the other day, I was like, hey,
• 29:13
  Speaker 5: you know, like, what's the worst thing that can happen,
• 29:15
  Speaker 5: it could fail. I really don't you know I have failed.
• 29:19
  Speaker 5: I assume I will fail again, and I don't look
• 29:22
  Speaker 5: at failure as kind of an end dollar.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: I remember that.
• 29:26
  Speaker 5: When I got fired from CBS to the Morning Show,
• 29:29
  Speaker 5: I thought like my world ended. And I remember Walter Cronkite,
• 29:33
  Speaker 5: who was the anchor at CBS News at the time,
• 29:35
  Speaker 5: called to me and he said, you know, welcome to
• 29:37
  Speaker 5: the club. You're going to be fine. You're going to
• 29:40
  Speaker 5: continue on. All the good people have been fired. And
• 29:43
  Speaker 5: I was like, oh, really, okay, And so I think
• 29:48
  Speaker 5: it's important to try and to understand that, like anybody
• 29:52
  Speaker 5: worth their salt, has failed.
• 29:55
  Speaker 4: I love that you mentioned that story because I read
• 29:58
  Speaker 4: something about your time at NBC. You said so many
• 30:00
  Speaker 4: people would come up to me and say, which Kennedy
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: are you. At a very young age, I thought, you're
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: going to know which one I am. I decided I
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: was going to be the Kennedy who makes her own
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: name and finds her own job and works like a dog.
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: My come upance was when Arnold got elected. I became
• 30:14
  Speaker 4: the Kennedy who was married to the governor. So you
• 30:18
  Speaker 4: lost your job at NBC because they felt like it
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: was an endorsement to put you on air, which when
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: I was reading about that, it hurt because you had
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: worked so hard. I can only imagine how that felt
• 30:29
  Speaker 4: for you. And then I thought about this quote from
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: Michelle Obama's book Becoming. She wrote about Barack and she
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: said she met Brock and she said she knew his
• 30:38
  Speaker 4: ambition could end up swallowing hers. And I thought, oh
• 30:43
  Speaker 4: my god, his ambition swallowed yours without you having a
• 30:47
  Speaker 4: choice in the matter.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: I don't think his ambition swallowed me at all.
• 30:50
  Speaker 5: Okay, I think it made me make different choices that
• 30:54
  Speaker 5: it may have knocked me off of the path I
• 30:57
  Speaker 5: was on. But I was fully aware that Arnold was
• 31:01
  Speaker 5: an ambitious person, so as was I. And so you know,
• 31:06
  Speaker 5: I think those are risks you take, or you know,
• 31:09
  Speaker 5: things that happened along the way. And I also think
• 31:11
  Speaker 5: nothing goes according to how you think it's going to go.
• 31:15
  Speaker 5: So his ambition took us in a different direction. But
• 31:20
  Speaker 5: I think in my time as first lady, I was
• 31:22
  Speaker 5: anything but swallowed. But I think it's it's you can
• 31:25
  Speaker 5: take these experiences and say to yourself, okay, here I am.
• 31:30
  Speaker 5: I didn't think I was going to be here, but
• 31:31
  Speaker 5: how do I take this experience, this opportunity and make
• 31:35
  Speaker 5: it my own. And it turned out to be a
• 31:38
  Speaker 5: blessing to me that NBC said, hey, wait a minute,
• 31:41
  Speaker 5: you're out now because we perceived this as a potential
• 31:44
  Speaker 5: conflict of interest, and go do that and call us
• 31:48
  Speaker 5: when you're done. And I was at first, you know,
• 31:51
  Speaker 5: like first I was shocked, then I was mad, and
• 31:53
  Speaker 5: then I went ahead and took what I had and
• 31:57
  Speaker 5: made it the best thing that ever happened to me.
• 32:00
  Speaker 5: So being first Lady of that state was a huge
• 32:04
  Speaker 5: growth opportunity for me. It brought me into areas that
• 32:08
  Speaker 5: I had never kind of stepped into. It made me
• 32:11
  Speaker 5: step up into my own space and place. And I
• 32:15
  Speaker 5: would argue the same happened to Michelle Obama. Becoming first
• 32:18
  Speaker 5: Lady was the best thing that ever happened to her.
• 32:22
  Speaker 5: And so I think we it depends on the story
• 32:24
  Speaker 5: we want to tell ourselves. So I would never say
• 32:28
  Speaker 5: that I got swallowed by I would maybe say that
• 32:31
  Speaker 5: his ambitions springboarded me into something else and gave me
• 32:34
  Speaker 5: opportunities that I never would have imagined.
• 32:36
  Speaker 4: I really appreciate that what should be required reading for
• 32:40
  Speaker 4: every human being.
• 32:41
  Speaker 5: Well, you know, I think probably I would say required
• 32:45
  Speaker 5: writing is your own story. I think, you know, spend
• 32:48
  Speaker 5: more time writing your own story, writing out how you feel,
• 32:51
  Speaker 5: writing about your own path. I think certainly for me,
• 32:56
  Speaker 5: The Gift of the Sea by n Marl Lindberg, The
• 32:59
  Speaker 5: Journey by Mary Oliver, When Things Fall Apart, by Time
• 33:02
  Speaker 5: of Children. Those have been really great things for me,
• 33:08
  Speaker 5: and so many other books, The Revolution.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: From Within from Gloria Stein.
• 33:14
  Speaker 5: It depends on who you are, but I think, you know,
• 33:17
  Speaker 5: people spend a lot of time reading other people's stories,
• 33:19
  Speaker 5: and they don't spend enough time trying to write out
• 33:21
  Speaker 5: their own. So I would say what's required is you
• 33:24
  Speaker 5: write your own story.
• 33:26
  Speaker 4: I think that's the best answer I've ever received with
• 33:28
  Speaker 4: that question. I have a pretty smart card deck with
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: fifty two questions, so I pick one at random.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: Okay, you got to ask you?
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: Oh my god, no, I mean.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: I need a marsh bar. I need a mash bar. Okay, okay, perfect.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: I love it.
• 33:46
  Speaker 4: This is actually good too, because in your book about
• 33:48
  Speaker 4: Reflection you talk about the power of women, the power
• 33:51
  Speaker 4: of pause. So this question is what is your superpower?
• 33:55
  Speaker 5: My superpower is to see other people's superpowers.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: My superpower is to see people.
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: And last question, what's the smartest decision you've ever made.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: The smartest decision I ever made to get back up.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for your time.
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: Maria, You're thank you, thank you so full of wisdom.
• 34:33
  Speaker 4: All right, today is a good day.
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: To have a good day. I'll see you next wee