Brooke Baldwin: Where Are Our Huddles?
Many years ago, journalist Brooke Baldwin sat in her mother’s bedroom and cried about the state of her career and her relationship—and while she was grateful for her mom’s attention and support, she had a simultaneous thought: Where were her friends? Thus became her quest—ancillary to her daytime job as an anchor on CNN—to find her huddle. In her mind, she wanted to reclaim the idea of huddle—a macho sports term—and apply it to groups of women working together for mutual goals, like joy, success, and intimacy. She wrote a book about this adventure—understandably called Huddle—where she explores the power of female friendship and camaraderie all over the country. And the way that when women come together, they achieve improbably awesome things. As her book went to press, she announced her time at CNN was coming to an end, and we met each other shortly after, when we were both feeling stripped down and open to new adventures. Brooke is now part of MY Huddle, and her enthusiasm for the power of friendship is palpable and contagious. I loved our conversation on Pulling the Thread.
TRANSCRIPT:
(Edited slightly for clarity.)
BROOKE BALDWIN:
I feel like the theme of my life is just to slow down, you know. I think just coming out of news, I'm just so used to like pacing. And so when I went to see the hip doctor this week in the city and he was like, yep, you need surgery. I was like, okay, how about next week? And he was like, okay, great. And then I realized that like, you should have a second opinion, and you know, I should actually maybe go try to get it. Like the universe like sent this friend in the middle of my day yesterday, who happens to an expert in hip arthroscopy, who studied under the godfather of hip arthroscopy at HSS in Lennox Hill. And he was like, I can get you into the best guy, but like, you're gonna have to wait till June. Like I was about to upend some travels. That's the theme of my life. Just slow down.
ELISE LOEHNEN:
Slow down. It's hard for you. I mean, it's funny. I have only known you post-CNN. But I feel like you were trying to get slow.
BROOKE:
I have slowed down Elise Loehnen, but I'm not always successful. And I think also as the world feels like it's reopening, and somebody like flipped the switch, and I was traveling. I was like in five cities in four weeks, the last couple weeks, it's like, okay, I know how to be back. You know, I was saying to my husband, all I know is functioning in a space where I had a job, where if something horrible happens it’s like, okay Brooke, get on the plane to Manchester, England, and go cover the Ariana Grande terror attack the next morning. You're gonna be on a plane. You're gonna fall asleep. You're gonna be on TV globally at 8:00 AM for like hours, and hours, and hours. Go pack your bag. Like that's all I know how to do. So this whole notion of my husband's favorite word, wait. Wait, Brooke. It's hard, but I'm trying to get better at it.
ELISE:
It's such a different way of operating in the world, but are you worried? Like, I sense this about you and I know this about myself. It's like I'm terrified if I take my foot off the gas, then I'll never be able to get any momentum going. Is that a deep fear for you?
BROOKE:
Have I consciously thought about that? Maybe-ish. I think, yes, I'm a big believer in momentum, but I have already acknowledged that by taking my foot off the cable news gas, or the hard news gas, which has been 20 years of my life, coming off of that extraordinary ride, and then meeting people like you in my, to borrow our friend Jennifer Rudolph Walsh’s great phrase, my sacred pause, I have already so slowed down. That honestly, what it is, is I'm just eager to create. It's less about, it's less about FOMO, and it's more about, I'm really good at doing X, Y, and Z. All I want to do is X, Y, and Z. And so that's what it's about. I just wanna create and be a team with people and tell stories. And I wanna hurry up and do that like today.
ELISE:
No, no, I get that. I feel like, if that's the instinct, I feel the same way when I didn't have a podcast for almost a year. I don’t remember the exact length of time, but that was really hard. I mean, I was finding other avenues to try to exercise that muscle, but to not be able to share is very difficult,
BROOKE:
But also Elise. And I think this is, you know, the way in which we met each other, and through, you know, spirituality, like deepening my spiritual practice this past year, deepening my meditation practice ,and doing all the things that, you know, moving my body, exercising, journaling. I know that when I come out on the other side, after this year, I just know that I will be a more whole person and be better at what I want to do. I know that.
ELISE:
Do you think, you know, and it's funny reading Huddle, I could sense your, I don't even know if I call it regret, but the sort of the pervasive loneliness of that sort of life, which I very much relate to. That's one of the, the biggest emotions that comes up for me in therapy is I loneliness. I feel lonely.
BROOKE:
In what space for you?
ELISE:
Well, I don't know. I mean, I think we, all we want is to be seen and known. And I certainly feel that way. Like, I have a lot of great friends, many of whom have become my closest friends in the last two years, which is really interesting. Not a complete, like some of my oldest dearest friends are still my oldest dearest friends, but some of the people I'm most intimate with now, relatively new ones. People I knew, but now know.
BROOKE:
I am so glad you made that point. And I think for people listening, I talk to so many women who, you know, we talk about Huddle and we talk about, I referenced, you know, back catalog friends, people who I've known for years and years. But you are never too late to add to your Huddle. You are never, it is, you are never too old to add to your circle of friends. And what Elise is alluding to is certainly something that I feel as well, which is, you know, we live in these various chapters in our lifetimes, you know, things change. We go through different phases. We have these various aha moments, I think for you, and I, we've both really deepened our spiritual practices, and our intentionality around life, and what we wanna do, and how we wanna share ourselves. And I think as we've been in these more vulnerable spaces on the other side of giant things, we've gotten to know ourselves better. And as we've gotten to know people like Scott, and Richard, and Taryn, and Jen, and Kristen, and others, they've gotten to know us at these really pivotal moments where layers have been peeled back. And that's so precious. And even though we've only known these folks for the last year or two, that to me is equally as valuable as people who I have known for 20 years.
ELISE:
I love that. And it's a different way of relating, and I'm sure in some ways you felt this too, I certainly felt this way, being part of a big brand that people…. there were always the people, always curious about that, or they maybe wanted something from me, or thought that I could do something for them. And not that there were necessarily always strings attached, but I went through life constantly being like, okay, it sounds insidious. And I don't mean it like that, but exactly where I'm like, what do they want from me? Is it something that I can give them? Am I gonna feel beholden? It was really a boundary issue. Do they only wanna talk to me because they think I can do something for them, which I'm sure was not that frequent, but to actually be stripped down. And then go in and just be, just be just like, me.
BROOKE:
Just Brooke. That was part of my conversation. When I first talked to our mutual friend, Carissa, who said to me, you get so used to being Brooke from CNN. I'm just so used to having like this sentence being, oh, nice to meet you, I’m Brooke Baldwin from CNN. It's not just, I'm just Brooke Baldwin. And you think about people, you introduce yourselves to you, to places you wanna go places you wanna stay. Like, it just all rolls off the tongue. I'm totally fine with it now. But in those early months, I remember just being like, and I’m Brooke Baldwin, take a beat. I'm Brooke Baldwin and worrying that that is that enough, to having the machine be part of my identity. And I remember Carissa saying, eventually, you know, all the people will want is just Brooke. And listening to your podcast with Carissa, I know you guys have had similar conversations where it's like, you don't need the machine behind you. You just need you. And that was a really big aha for me.
ELISE:
Yeah, no, it reminds me of that Anne Lamott quote, which I'll butcher I'm sure. But essentially she's like the lighthouse doesn't go around the island being a lighthouse. The lighthouse just stands there and is a lighthouse. Which is such a beautiful sentiment. And she says it so much better than I just did, but I love that for you, too. It's very confusing. It's people in general, I think this is widely applicable where you're like, what's me, where do I end? Where does something else begin? And when you're creative and you're giving your energy to something that's outside of you, which can be amazing. But that you start to understand you lose the ability to adjudicate between… like for you. Am I just another, you know, butt on a seat on a news desk, right? Like, are people coming for the news? Are they coming for me for me? How do you, and I guess you get the validation of ratings throughout that sort of career, but is it something you get addicted to, or is it a bad thing?
BROOKE:
It's funny. I was watching that the Jon Stewart Apple show where he was actually talking about media, and he did this panel and he was talking to Soledad O’brien, and Soledad, who I had the honor of filling for a bazillion times back when she hosted the morning show at CNN man, she was a hard worker, and she would just be in the weeds. But her point with Jon was, you know, you could, you could get minute by minutes. So you could like at any minute, like I hosted a two hour show every day for 10 years on CNN. And so you could know, all right, well, what was the story that didn't do well? What was the story that did? And, you know, we would have major conversations around, like a real meat and potato sort of story, like a real, you know, newsy story, like what's happened. What's been happening, obviously this atrocity in Ukraine, this genocide, you know, but you can start seeing after a few weeks, like when the viewership starts dropping off. And when people, when viewers, when Americans start getting bored of Ukraine and wanna know more about Will Smith's slap at the Oscars, and you have to have a real conversation around like, all right, well, how do we thread the needle and make sure we keep our journalistic integrity and make sure we're giving people the news that really matters versus what people are maybe talking about around the dinner table. And for me, and how I took that in, I actually would say most anchors, probably at CNN, and certainly all the executive producers and producers got all of the ratings every day.
And they would come out at a certain time every afternoon. You can just tell, like the newsroom got quiet and people were looking, like your report card every day. And I never got the ratings. I just didn't want to be married to it. And my producers knew it. And they were looking at them all the time. And certain days I would obviously ask, and I can be very competitive, and wanted to be number one. But I was very mindful of not always wanting to be graded and really trying to be driven by what I really felt was newsworthy and how we should lead our shows. And just because people weren't paying attention to some story that I felt really mattered shouldn't mean that we shouldn't continue to tell that story or leave that story the next day.
ELISE:
No, the attention economy is a really difficult metric. I think, particularly for something like news, it's such a downward spiral and you and I know, we were born the same year. Obviously we've had different media trajectories, and I've never been in hard news, but even working at magazines for a decade and having those one way conversations and then the transition to digital and getting that sort of feedback, you can understand, it was very easy to predict the media landscape based on clicks. And a completely different product, that being the sole metric rather than engagement or sentiment, how dangerous that game was. And I hope we engineer our way out of it because I think in a way, podcasts are such a great medium one, because I think audio, and actually hearing things and hearing resonance.
BROOKE:
And we love you, Elise Loehnen. We love Pulling the Thread with Elise Loehnen.
ELISE:
You're hilarious. But I love podcasts, too, because when you get into a, and you're like, I dunno if this is for me, but I'm just gonna trust.Those tend to be when I'm listening to other people, those tend to often be the most rewarding podcasts, like that unexpected insight, where you're just like, as a creator, you're like, I'm just gonna tell the stuff that I think if it's interesting to me, I'm gonna hope that it's interesting to other people. It’s a leap of faith.
BROOKE:
But you can also with a podcast, you know, you can jump in the deep end of conversation with someone versus, you know, when I would sit at the news desk, as I did every day for a decade, you know, I would get very wrapped up in certain segments and certain guests that we would be booking and had, you know, if it were a day where we didn't have breaking news and we'd have to throw the rundown out and the teleprompter would get blinked and I'd fly by the seat of my pants for an indefinite amount of time. You know, it would be those moments and those interviews, it would matter so much to me. And you can only imagine, you know, you're watching the clock and you're mindful. And the producers were never really in my ear, they're like saying, you know, one minute or wrap, or if I'm totally missing a thought, and they're like, you gotta ask about X, but you know, you get four and a half minutes into an interview on live TV and, and it flies by, and then you're getting wrapped and you're barely three and a half questions into something you could go eight questions deep into. And some interviews you're like, praise Jesus. Like, let's end this thing. This is not interesting. But a lot of times, a lot of times it is interesting. And I often had that longing of needing more. And I didn't get it. And that's where I am now, just in wanting more, and wanting more, and to be in the deep end of story. But yeah, that was just another piece of what it's like hosting those shows.
ELISE:
But I think that that's the book, right. Is like you needing to scratch a deeper itch. Starting this project and then having ghostwritten so many books, I have held a lot of people's hands. It's interesting how books can unmake and remake your life in a way that I don't think that that has been maybe studied or understood.
BROOKE:
How do you mean?
ELISE:
Well, I used to think… I thought I was a curse, because I would work on a book project, nand ot always, but often something really bad might happen to the person who's working on the book. And so I was like, am I a curse? It was lots of breakups, disillusion, I've experienced death secondhand. But I think what happens is when you transition, it's obviously a different for you, a book is a different medium than you're used to, but you start a really deep excavation of yourself. And as you write, I don't know if, I don't think you mentioned this, but they say research is me search. And so clearly, like how personal this book was for you. And that, I'm not surprised that you, in a way you're so changed. Do you feel dramatically different after you, I know your whole life changed with the book.
BROOKE:
Yes. I remember writing a line in the epilogue. I can see exactly where I was sitting at a two top kitchen table looking at the Freedom Tower and Soho and writing the line. Like “I have the suspicion that my life is about to drastically change.” Something to that effect. Or, “Writing this book is changing my life.” And that was before I knew definitively what was happening with me at CNN, but sat with these various women, you know, extraordinary to ordinary women whose names you might not know. Teachers who led strikes in West Virginia, new moms, reaching out to other women huddling with them through Facebook, military spouses who know how to huddle through various, in the virtual space, before we all had to learn that through COVID. To the likes of, you know, Megan Rapinoe, Alicia Garza, Stacey Abrams, and Shannon Watts. You know, like Dominique Crenn.
You know, this is an example of someone… she's the only Three Star Michelin chef woman in America. Her restaurant is Atelier in San Francisco, and I'll never forget sitting with her. This is all, I was lucky that I got to do most of these big interviews in person before the world shut down. And I was sitting with Dom in the Bowery Hotel in New York. And we had this whole interview in the middle of the lobby drinking tea. And she started talking about her father and the legacy of her father, and her life and in her work. And then she started to weep and I started to weep. And I think as I had been just sharing oxygen in rooms with women like this, it had started to change me. I started showing up like my, I was holding myself differently.
My shoulders were back. I felt more confident. I realized that, you know, the power in saying no, and the power in truly women leaning on each other for the greater good. And I found myself showing up differently at work, in a way that, you know, where previously I was just so grateful to have my job. And I would, you know, sure, let's cover this story. Who do you want me to talk to? How do you want me to, et cetera, et cetera. It became more like, no, these are the stories I wanna cover. This is how long I wanna have this conversation. And here's a cooks in the kitchen when it comes to creating shows, and it's my face. And I had a lot to say, but in some cases, I wish I had more toward the end. And I think that speaking with and sitting with all of these women, it, you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. I felt changed. And then the process, of course, of writing the book changed me. And there was no going back.
ELISE:
Yeah, no, you can sense it. I mean, you can feel it in the energy and the trajectory of the book itself, and the writing, and I'm sure in the revising and things were moved around. But like, and I guess I know you, it's, it's funny to read this book now and know…
BROOKE:
Cause you only know me now.
ELISE:
I only know you now, but I also can imagine you. I can see it. I can see the whole, I can see the line. I can see your life in a way. And I relate deeply to you even, you know, we're both tall women, the section near the end about Taryn, and The Class, and your body. And, I thought that was so brav and moving the way that you put that out there. And the fact that you also acknowledged, like you were this confident, sweaty, like shot-putting girl, and that's who I think of you. I think of you as like an athlete. I think of you as so powerful. And I'm glad that that wasn't completely shamed out of you.
BROOKE:
No, no, it wasn't. It wasn't. But for many years. I was this confident kid. I grew up in Atlanta, you know, very fortunate with my family. I was involved in everything. I was always a curious kid just as I am now, you know, I wanted a piece of everything. I wanted to see what ballet, tap, jazz, soccer, gymnastics, softball, you know, ran for president of my class more times than you should. In theater played I played a male role in MacBeth. My senior year through the shot, put in the discus. Like I wanted a piece of all of it. I swam on the swim team for two years, because my best friend was gonna make the Olympics and I wanted to just swim alongside her to know what that felt like. I mean, looking back, I mouthed all the words to Handel’s Messiah, you know, my senior year, because I wanted to see what it would feel like to sing alongside people who could actually sing.
I don't know who I thought I was, but I was just interested, and curious, and wanted to taste it all. And I did have this confidence. And I really do credit my mom for being my original huddle, for instilling that in me. But the second I moved into this very male-dominated culture that is TV news. And I had no idea. I just was like, I was like this Pollyanna, like I just wanna tell stories. I can like cut my hair short and wear the jewel tone blazers like anyone else. And get out there, and talk about right and wrong, and listen to both sides and let the viewer decide for his or herself. And I thought that I had all the right motivations for going into journalism and then quickly realized, wow, this really is a newsroom, mostly full of men.
And the few women who I was working with as cub reporters had sharp elbows and you know, were doing shitty things behind the scenes to try to take me down, or take an assignment I had away from me. And that was like a, you know a cruel realization. But obviously like reality, and Brooke, you gotta learn how to grow up and live and function in the working world. And you know, then moving through this just really competitive, cutthroat, but also like work all the holidays, not really see your family, not have girlfriends anywhere in my twenties, because just when you start getting comfortable in one city, your contract is up, and you're moving onto the next. Or just when you thought you'd made a friend, her contract was up, she got the big job in Kansas City, and you're still stuck, you know, in Huntington, West Virginia. It was just this bizarre existence, and never really dating the right person, and just always putting my career first until it all kind of came to a head in my late twenties, early thirties, when I got this opportunity to freelance at CNN, my dream growing up in Atlanta, right. You cheer for the Braves and you know all about Ted Turner and CNN. And I tell this whole story in my book, but I have this yellow chair moment where I basically move back into my parents' house at age 28, 29, because my boyfriend cheated on me, my parents are about to get divorced after 40 years of marriage, my brother peaces out to go get his masters in London. And I have like this front row seat to everything and I'm reeling and oh, by the way, it's 2008 and it's the recession.
And CNN's like, oh, Hey, we thought, we think what you're really great, but just kidding. We can't really hire you because we froze all our positions and I'm barely working. I'm like working overnight hours for CNN International as a kid talking about geopolitics in Germany. And I have no business doing that in hashtag imposter syndrome. And I'm just having a moment, and I'm sitting in my mom's bright, sunny, happy yellow chair in her bedroom, weeping buckets of tears, and thinking I should just quit, and I'm not a quitter. But I'm thinking of quitting, and I'm pretty sure she quoted some Pocahantos lyrics from the Disney movie about "hang in there, and it's just around the river bend, and bless her heart. But I had this also, Elise, I had this moment of thanks mom, but also like, hi, I'm 28, 29, and I'm sitting in my mother's bedroom, and where are my girlfriends? And where is my huddle? And what have I done wrong in my life? You know what, like snapshot of my world. And that was a real moment where after that moment, I started shifting in prioritizing. By the way I dumped the guy. Shifting the way I thought about women and prioritizing collectives of women started shifting. And I think that's also when the seeds of Huddle were born.
ELISE:
I thought that that was fascinating. I think it was, um, Kristin Goss, and I want to read her book, The Paradox of Gender Equality, but I thought that was fascinating how essentially when you and I were born, the drought, that is the moment when white women, particularly white middle class women were like done, we've accomplished our ends. And we stopped huddling.
BROOKE:
Our entire lifetimes.
ELISE:
And what was it? This was, this data was amazing. The rate at which women's groups testified before Congress suddenly declined dramatically and a large number of female civic and political organizations dropped.
BROOKE:
So if, while as you're listening it, this interesting juxtaposition between being a privileged white woman from the South, very different from moving through the world as a black or brown woman. As a woman it was fascinating for me to learn from we're referencing this feminist professor at Duke, Kristin Goss, who did all this work. And she essentially was saying that in the 1980s, ‘90s, and 2000’s, after women had done so much work, in the revolutionary space, even talking about, you know n the days of June Cleaver and Betty Crocker, hopping the white picket fences after they made the perfect dinner for their husbands and going to picket for women's rights, you know, and all these women testifying in front of Congress in the ‘80s, ‘90s, and 2000’s women. White women just stopped huddling.
And she referred to it essentially a huddle drought. We were born in 1979. So it was essentially my entire lifetime. So once I started tuning in and noticing how women were coming together. So as an anchor at CNN covering the 2016 presidential election, if we can remember back, that was Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, and they had me, I was riding on the backs of Harley's with Trump Bikers for Trump. I was interviewing the Bernie Bros, the millennials who were all about Bernie Sanders. I was interviewing women of all shape sizes, colors, ages, who all wanted to see the glass ceiling ceiling shattered. My realization was that left right and center, women were coming together and becoming active politically in a way I had not seen in my lifetime.
And so to realize that that hadn't happened for white women for three decades was fascinating for me. But then on the flip side, for Black women, I interviewed a lot of women of color for this book. And they would say to me, well, like, why are you writing a book about huddle? Because like, we've been doing this forever, you know, and I wanted to honor that and acknowledge that. And I wanted to put a name to the thing that we have been doing for so many in the case of Black women before slavery, for centuries and legitimize this, and put a word to it, which is huddle, but to know that Black women, and in particular, not only the Black historian and I spoke with, but the women, the Black women founders of Girl Trek really were specific with me in saying, Brooke, it wasn't just because of slavery out of necessity. When the husbands were sold at the auction blocks and the mothers were left behind to huddle with other women to survive, you know, huddling predated slavery in a way, because it's just in Black women's, in their bone, in their blood. And that's why I started my huddle journey with the Black women judges in Harris county, Texas, because I wanted to honor that legacy and that tradition, and that's why I started in Houston.
ELISE:
Well, I wanna talk about the judges. I wanna go back to this idea that it's in Black women's blood, it's a collective female value that I think has been driven out of all of us by the patriarchy. I was talking on Instagram with someone who was like, have you read Sylvia Federici? And I was like, yes, I love her. She started the Wages for Housework project. She’s a radical feminist professor. And she has written a lot about witchcraft, which is on the rise actually in various parts of the world. And she talks about it as witch hunting and the emergence of capitalism going hand in a hand. And it's complicated, and I don't wanna take us on too much of a tangent, but this idea that witch hunting and women gathering, she talks about how gossip, the actual etymology of gossip is god-parent, and that it became a negative and it became associated primarily with women, and women were forbidden to sort of gather and talk, and the collecting of women became dangerous.
And typically we did life together. And so we were, we were split up, we were aligned under patriarchs and taught to be wary of each other. So it's something I'm really interested in trying to understand, like, was there a moment when we were torn away from each other and taught to not only disassociate, but distrust. But I do think it is, as you write about in the book, this is our birthright. And we were supposed to be in these collective supportive communities with these deep sister-like relationships. Sp I just wanted to say, I feel like we are really far a away from that, but our collective, I mean, you see what happens when women
BROOKE:
Come together?
ELISE:
Shit happens.
BROOKE:
Yeah. I mean, the entire book is examples, whether it's in the political space, the activism space, the sports space, the mom space, you know, how, when you have this collective of women or,you know, I dare anyone listening to one super successful woman. And I will tell you that behind that woman is her huddle. Like, we are meant to be here, and we are meant to be here leaning on one another together. Like, whenever you text me Elise, and you're like, this is happening with me. Or, you know, I genuinely feel like your success is my success and vice versa. And yes, let's acknowledge that women can be total witches to one another. And there are many a book and Broadway play and movie about this, but I just didn't wanna focus my time on that. I wanted to show women of all ages, races, ethnicities. We are better together. And also, I see you, if you are lonely to your point, I know loneliness, you know, loneliness, and there's a way out of that loneliness through huddling.
ELISE:
Yeah. And just to underline one part of that, I think that we are taught that, you know, this mean girl, that it's a biological reality of who we are. And it's cultural. This is what we've been taught. This is not biological. And so I think we'll, hopefully I feel like we'll start to shake it out of our systems and model something different. So let's talk about the judges, because I was a openly weeping on the plane when I was reading about these 19 judges in Harris county. Is that right?
BROOKE:
Yes. Harris county, Texas.
ELISE:
Will you tell us the story?
BROOKE:
Okay. So if we all remember back to 2018, this is, you know, Me Too, and Time's Yp, and this is when the biggest largest number of women were running for office at the local state and federal level. And I remember sitting, you know, doing my show sitting at the news desk. And so many women were winning that year and our cup sort of runneth over in terms of the various women we could feature and talk about on my show on any given day that week. It was extraordinary what was happening. And there was this little story in ruby red Texas in Harris County, which is Houston, where these 19 black women were running for these judge positions. And all of them together had an insane amount of experience, right? You line them up next to, you know, various white men who were up for similar judicial positions.
And I, I bet you that they would out experience them like times three. And they all announced themselves in 2018 decided to run for these judge positions. And only after they won the primaries and were sitting in this room and started to look around the room and count the Black faces, did they realize how many Black women were in this together. And that is when they decided to huddle. That is when they realized that their power was in the collective. And again, in Black women's blood, you know, they, each of them were either like a Delta or an AKA, you know, we talked a lot about Black sororities, and how they went through Black church, how they were at the beauty salons, how interestingly, a number of Black men were wary of having these Black women become judges because of the stereotype that these Black women would actually be really, really tough on the Black men, who they would be trying in the court system.
And so slowly but surely they're gaining all this momentum. And it's just sort of like a little sleeper story happening in Harris County as the rest of the country is watching, you know, the federal, the US Senate and governor races. And I remember that day when every single one of them had won their race and it made the Times and CNN.com covered it. And, you know, we couldn't cover it. They did it all together. And how it made news really was they had this clever idea of all going into this mock courtroom and ooking like judges wearing black and white and taking this one giant photo. And they made managed to get every single one of them in this room on this very day. And the photo went viral and they had like Beyoncé, who's from Houston, like her music playing in the background, and they take this photo and this photo is what really propels them to win. I mean, they become rock stars in Harris County. As they’re out stumping for votes, like everyone from like little girls to janitors at the restaurants, everyone wanted their autograph. And in the end they won. And I think part of their secret sauce, a lot of them were mothers. One of them was, was like the first out lesbian judge, I'm gonna say in the family court. And she had a baby at the time. They all, their husbands were looking out for them. Their kids were out, it was a real like group thing.
They got on a text chain. They were all on a private Facebook group, you know, huddling, virtually. They pulled it off and even after they won, they would tell me stories of sitting up in the top of the courtroom,presiding over a case. And if someone had a question over a certain penal code and they didn't know the answer, they would literally stop the case, the trial. They would jump down to their phone from the bench and ask their huddle text chain, they call themselves Black Girl Magic. So like the Black Girl Magic text chain, somebody would chime in with, ah, you should think about this, or this is the code, or what have you. And so, you know, they would ask for help, which is something Elise, that we women don't always like to do.
I'm in touch with them because sitting with them that day for brunch, I'll never forget the restaurant in Houston, Weezy’s table eating like, you know, shrimp and grits, and biscuits, for like five hours with these six of the 19 women. It filled me with, I don't even know if I have the words, but to have the privilege to now know these women, to be in touch with them, to know that they're all running again this summer, it's now four years later, all hoping to win, all hoping as Black women to change the face of the justice system in Harris County, Texas is a story that everyone should know. And if you are listening and you're not driving, or you're not walking, and you can Google… Google Black Girl Magic Harris County, Texas, and you'll see this photo of them. And I'm guaranteeing you're gonna go down a rabbit hole.
ELISE:
And there had never been a Black woman elected.
BROOKE:
I think there had been a Black woman elected, but I think there had never been 19 at the same time elected.
ELISE:
Got it. I loved, you were writing about them and the fact that they would call each other in for help. As you just mentioned, and you wrote, “What if we were able to admit so easily that our value isn't diminished by the degree of advice we receive from our trusted peers, why don't more women talk about this? Why hadn't I found more strength and comfort and leaning on other women in the workplace, and how many opportunities have I missed over the years by letting this amazing resource go untapped?” Which I thought a lot about that, too. And I loved the moment in the book where you talked about telling another woman your salary as she went in to negotiate.
BROOKE:
Yep.
ELISE:
Why isn't there more of that too?
BROOKE:
I think maybe it goes back to your whole point. I'm gonna have to Google this woman you're referencing and how this notion of women coming together, something is wrong with it, but we need to shout from the rooftops that everything is right with it. You and we are better together. And the only way tofight the patriarchy is to all come together and to come together,not all looking the same, or of the same beliefs, but making sure we're diversifying our huddles, but like why not share our knowledge? Let's embolden one another, whether it's…I couldn’t believe I shared my salary and it wasn't something I really thought about doing, because it's such a taboo thing. And by the way, when you get to a point, I mean, listen, I started out in TV news making, like, I don't know, $19,000.
I mean, I did not make a lot of money for a long, long time. And then all of a sudden, you kind of do, and then you're like really shy about it. And you don't wanna tell, especially your other girlfriends who, you know, aren't maybe making as much as you, or even in TV. And I knew this friend of mine was about to go in with her boss. And I knew that she needed to know what she was worth. And she needed to know what other women in that space were making, including myself. And I felt very vulnerable sharing that information with her. And she's still, you know, in the business and kicking ass and I'm proud of her. And after that, I talked about it on my show and I still have young women who've come up to me and said, wow, Brooke, like ever since you shared that, I had a woman slide into my DM’s, who I barely even know, who was asking me questions about it, but it's just the kind of thing that we should feel empowered to do.
Because men do it all the time. Men have done this all time and they help one another and they go golfing together and they talk about what jobs are coming out, you know, and Hey buddy, you should look out for this. Or they sponsor, you know, men sponsor other men. I was talking to a company recently just saying, like, if you are a successful man at the top of a company, you know, I challenge you to sponsor a woman and bonus points for a woman who doesn't have the same skin color as you. But assuming that most men still like running companies of white men, the only way that we can diversify and broaden the spectrum is by bringing those other are women up, and giving the other women a leg up about a job opening that's coming available, like let someone else have the heads up on. I could go off in a whole tangent on that.
ELISE:
I remember having a drink with Sallie Krawchek of Ellevest years ago. And we were talking about how women have been taught that money is not for us. And we were conditioned to not speak about it, but it's, and as you say, men are conditioned to talk about it, that it is for them, that they should be fluent in it, which I think is also in its own way can be repressive. But she asked me, she was like, how much money do you make? And I told her, and she almost fell off her bench. She was like, I have asked that question so many times and no one has actually ever told me, which I thought was really trusting.
BROOKE:
Like, why is that…
ELISE:
Revolutionary?
BROOKE:
Why is that revolutionary?
ELISE:
Comp to me feels like it should be transparent. The fact that it's not transparent suggests that it's shameful or unequal. I think it should be open. I think it should be transparent. I think it should be entirely...you need to be able to defend it. And I think then sort of all this lack of parity becomes evident.
BROOKE:
I wonder if some of it, too, for me just growing up in the south, it's like, just be grateful for what you're given and, and keep your mouth shut. You know, who am I to dare ask for more like, I, even though I've worked so hard to earn the spot and I'm continuing to work so hard every day to earn the spot and as the woman, or as the younger woman, I'm thinking I have to do like five times the amount of homework, just to continue to be able to hold my own. Why not ask for more? I mean, now I'm like shouting from the rooftops. I have a best friend who's just negotiating a new job. And she was just like, you know, I'm not quite, I'm almost where I wanna be, but $5,000 less, I was like, dude, ask for what you want. Ask for the $5,000. And guess what? She got it. She got every thing she asked for. Why aren't we all doing that?
ELISE:
I dunno. I don't know. And it's interesting that I know we're well, actually we have a little bit more time, but going back to the fact that you were a confident child and I'm curious for your thoughts on this. I was also very confident. I think that most girls and maybe people will refute this, but I feel like most girls are like, we know who we are. We are confident. I don't think that there's a confidence gap. I think it's just conditioned out of us to express our confidence because you're shamed for being too big or are too big for your britches.
BROOKE:
I've done work on that.
ELISE:
Oh, have you?
BROOKE:
Oh yeah. I mean, I just grew up hearing, don't be too big, don't be too big for your britches. And now I have this whole, I have this whole thing. B B G B B, Brook Baldwin Gets Bigger Britches. I did some work with a life coach friend of mine. It's this whole notion of, don't ask for more it's, it's what we were talking about. It's like, be grateful for what you have and don't shout too loud, or don't ask for too much and, keep your mouth shut. I don't know if that's the South in me talking, or bless my mother for instilling in me confidence, but also the whole, like I remember her coming into the CNN newsroom. I was still like a baby anchor, you know, like maybe 31 32.
And I remember her meeting the intern one summer, and she was like, Brooke, why have you not taken her out to lunch? And you know, all of this and that. And I'm pretty generous with the younger women and the interns, but she just like, you know, she was, so I almost felt like shamed in that moment, and outed that I was just like, you know, a CNN anchor, who wasn't being nicer to the intern or going so outta my way. And that's my mom, my whole family keeps me very, very humble, but equally there's some of that and not the intern piece. And obviously I took her out, but there's the other piece, which is it's okay to want more. It's okay to ask for more. There was a line in my book where I was talking about early on, when I first was coming on this one show at CNN and, you know, I was joking.
I think I wrote something like, you know, if they had asked me to spiral in, on ropes, into the studio upside down, I would've literally been like, awesome. Where do you want me to buy the ropes? You know, I was so excited, and I'd worked so many years to get to this moment. If you want me to come in upside down, like twirling, no problem. And like, looking back on that, I'm like, bro, shame on you. You know, I would never, I would say, no. I feel so empowered for so many reasons now to do that. It's the whole like getting bigger britches. It's the saying, it's the having boundaries. It's the speaking up to your boss when something feels uncomfortable. If I could say anything and I did, and I do to younger women, it’s speak the F up, speak up wherever it's complicated.
Because it is complicated. But I would, I would pause it that. If you start speaking up, and not in a whiny, find your moments, have grace, but speak up early, because when you only start speaking up later, speaking from experience, when you only start speaking up later, I think that it falls on deaf ears. But when you start speaking up earlier, and you're speaking up in the right moments for the right things, it's successful, and you're listened to, and you're respected. I felt respected, but there are things I should have said earlier that I didn't right. Like learn from me.
ELISE:
No, I know it makes it totally makes sense, but I also feel like similar to you. I think I credit a lot of my early success in publishing to being…no one was asking me to, you know, I know no one asked you to come down the stripper pole, but no one was asking me to do anything like that. But I was, I was willing to do almost anything.
BROOKE:
That's what I mean, that's what I mean. All the hours, all the days, however, whoever, whatever. Sign me up. Just say yes. And I also think that there was a time in your life, 20, these early thirties were like, you should do those things. If you want to have a top job, you can't just sit on your laurels and do nothing. You have to work and sacrifice. But there's a…
ELISE:
Fine line. No, I hear you. It's difficult. And I would say, I would put the onus on us too. I mean, neither of us have full-time corporate jobs right now, but if anyone is listening and they have power in their organization, the more that you model and assert yourself yes. Within a company, the more you give permission to younger women.
BROOKE:
Say that again. And Elise, I'm Brené Brown. Say it again.
ELISE:
The more you assert yourself, the more you give permission to younger women so that they aren't labeled difficult, but you establish a precedent as someone with power. That it's okay to say no, it's okay to have boundaries.
BROOKE:
Yes.
ELISE:
It's difficult. You have to. I have to hope though. I do feel like younger generations and we're not that old. I will say that, but that I think people are doing it better.
BROOKE:
I do too. I do too. I do too. That's the one part of my book that people ask me a lot, about like various generations. What have I found? And that's the one space where I didn't do research, but I've had, I've been eyes wide opens in talking about my book so much to various people. And I do think that younger women coming up this, this youngest generation. So I was in Minneapolis for the college hoops, the C championship and not to name drop, but I was sitting with some pretty amazing professional women athletes. And I was sitting next to Megan Rapinoe. And we were around her fiance, Sue Bird. Who's got like five years on her. And then five years younger than Megan is Brianna Stewart, who plays with Sue in Seattle. Who's like late twenties.
And it was so interesting to talk to Megan and we were laughing because, you know, she would sometimes talk to Sue. Who's closer to our age and Sue, maybe like, whatever they're talking about, Sue may say, I don't know if we should do it, can do it. And then Megan's like five years younger. She's like, oh no, we can totally do it. And Brianna Stewart is like, oh, I've already done it. And that was the whole point being generationally, just that, is exactly what we're talking about. So I have the utmost hope in these younger women coming up and I actually enjoyed so much being, you know, as a 40-something year old CNN anchor with these 20-somethings in my office. You know, we talk about mentorship. You can also, you know, you can learn so much mentorship, reverse mentorship, learning from these younger women. Like be open to it. I'm so open to that too, because I think you're right. I’m hopeful too.
ELISE:
Okay. What do you wanna do? Like what's what do you wanna do next?
BROOKE:
What do I wanna do next?
ELISE:
With all this energy you clearly, I don't know if, I don't know if you've hit like the nadir of recovery and you're really back, or you just don't wanna go down there. Because you haven't been out of the game as long as I have and you you're bouncing back.
BROOKE:
What's look at you, miss. I have a podcast I'm about to publish a book
ELISE:
It’s different than daily TV!
BROOKE:
It's different. It's definitely different pace wise. And I've had to really like intense or against my own wishes. Like slow myself down as we talked about. But I think for me, and you know this, but I would love, I really believe in, I wanna continue using my skillset of journalism interviewing, listening, curiosity, storytelling, and just take it from like…pull it up and take it from cable news where I'm talking to people on five minute intervals, and move it over here and drop it into hopefully a deeper end of the swimming pool of storytelling, where it's, you know, hosting and producing an unscripted doc series for a premium streamer network where I can be out among people, be in the field, be in America, or who knows where. Where I'm gathering the stories. And with people in person. Kind of going back to my reporter roots, and telling the stories, and lifting the veil. And I've been going through so many concepts of things that are really authentic to me that I think people might be interested in that would be, you know, zeitgeisty and a little edgy, but also inspirational, and leave people with some hope. And that's what I'm hoping to do. It's been a slow pivot and I'm like fingers crossed that, you know, someone is interested in my ideas and will help me tell these stories, and we'll get it done.
ELISE:
In terms of the research, what are the big questions or themes? Are there any, or is it just, you just wanna report America?
BROOKE:
Well, as you know, Martha Beck and her integrity book, as you have had her on your podcast, I've gotten to know her. I got to interview her for a gig I had with the app Calm. And her book about integrity has become my Bible. And there has not been a day where I've not thought about integrity and telling the truth. And since it's so hard. Since reading this book, it is so hard and I'm mental, like, you know how you count, like, okay, I worked out these days, oh, I haven't worked out for a couple of days. Like, you're mindful of those days. I'm mindful of my truth. And I've been thinking a lot about truth as in, I think journalists are truth tellers. And even as a young girl for various reasons, I was always like hoping to tell the truth within my family. And it's something very close to home for me. And so I'm interested in truth telling, I'm interested in the erosion of trust in America when it comes to our political figures and even our own journalists, I put that in air quotes, depending on who you're watching, or what. And I'm interested in the world andwhere I come from, which is media and journalism.
And that's all I'm gonna say. I have an idea around that, in that space where I think, you know, a lot of people come to me and they're like, wow, Brooke, now that you're a year removed from CNN, what do you watch? Who can truly be objective? How are you getting your news? And I'm also curious, like, what is the news? And a lot of these violent images that certainly was my life in my world for so many years, what is that doing to our brains? And I'm curious about these people who literally have stopped reading or watching the news now. I'm not supporting doing that. And I read every day, but I'm curious about these themes and exploring these themes in some form of something.
ELISE:
I think it's really important, and it dovetails with what we were talking about earlier, which is the attention economy and the stuff that we're attracted to and give attention to. And is that really what's gonna lead the news, or lead the discourse of the day. And so, and finding that Venn diagram with what's responsible citizenry, you know. I think about that too, in the context, I'm one of those people who we cut our cable. I go to a couple of newspapers and I peruse them, or like look at Apple News, I know obviously like on social, too, I'm gonna just see it endlessly. I think it depletes all of us energetically in a way that's not. So it's, it's that, how do you know enough to be engaged without…
BROOKE:
Taking your soul down?
ELISE:
Yeah. Where you, you can't look. And I think we’re on the other side of responsibility there. And similarly, I think truth, which is the most nebulous concept and most essential concept. But is there any single version of the truth. It's only sort of, what's true for you. But how do we parse that more, how do we distinguish between someone's perspective and objective reality? Like I think that's such an interesting question.
BROKOE:
Executive producer of Brook Baldwin's truth show, Elise Loehnen.
ELISE:
Oh I love Brooke. She has such great energy, and she really is larger than life with the most amazing voice and enthusiasm. And I think enthusiasm is another underrated quality. We shame it out of ourselves and each other. But she really, really wants the best for people. In her book, she interviews so many fascinating people. She talks to Stacey Abrams, Shannon Watts from Moms Demand Action, incredible groups all over the country who have been coming together to get stuff done, in ways that I think show us the potential of female friendship. And as also mentioned, Brooke and I met about a year ago, right after she left CNN, and have become really good friends. It’s like when you meet your partner later in life, your romantic partner, and nobody bats an eye when you’re engaged three months later because you’re old enough to have seen unsuccessful relationships and to know what you need. I feel like late-in-life friendships are the same. You go right to it in a way that’s so refreshing and so fun and so refreshingly intimate. So, for those of you who are also feel lonely, particularly in the wind-down, or endlessness of COVID, there is still hope for great female friendships to come.