- When you walk outta Hoffman, I, I'm sure everyone can relate it. It's like this bright light was beaming out of my chest, you know, I felt like some superhero, like anyone in my path. It's like zoom. Zoom, zoom. Here I am. - Welcome to Love's Everyday Radius, a podcast brought to you by the Hoffman Institute. I'm your host, Sharon Moore, and I hope that you enjoy today's conversation and that the stories shared by our graduates impact move and inspire you. My guest today is Brooke Baldwin.
Brooke is a TV host for Netflix show, the Trust. She's a journalist, a former CNN Anchor. She's an artist, a director, and a bestselling author. And she's incredibly humble and funny and smart and loving, and she's a Hoffman grad. Brooke, welcome to the show. - Hmm. It is so good to be here. I feel like I'm home. - I should say welcome home. I love that. Well, Brooke, just to start us off, let's talk about what brought you to the process. I think you're right around your year anniversary.
- Yes. One year ago this week. My goodness. Oh, why did I go to Hoffman? First of all, I'm an East Coaster, all 44 years of me never had heard of the Hoffman Institute until two very wise California friends of mine. Over the course of, um, you know, the year before I had shared with them some of my own just self-doubt, trepidations worries. And they knew me.
They knew my heart, and they both recommended literally within a week of one another, Hey, have you ever heard of this place called the Hoffman Institute? And so when the second one said it, you know, when we were in Mexico, I was like, okay, universe, I'm, I'm, I'm listening, I'm tuning in. I remember going to the website and being like, what is this place? And I'm signing up, you know?
And, um, and what I loved was one of my friends said, listen, Brooke, you know, you can, you can sign up, but if something in your life happens, or if you're not quite ready, you can always put it off, you know, and I'm sure there are plenty of people who, who do that. So I put it off once I was supposed to go in October of 2022, I was putting my first and only dog down, and I just wasn't ready. I wasn't ready for a multitude of reasons. It felt like my world was kind of crumbling around me.
And as to the why, ooh, um, I think when I, when I think of the why, let me just tell a story, and this feels so emblematic of where I was. It was, um, so I put my dog down, I put my pug down in October. I had already, you know, I had been married for just a couple of years to an absolutely lovely, generous human being. But after I left CNNI was at CNN for half of my career hosting my show once I left CNN Ooh, man, my heart cracked open in a million different ways.
And I went on this real big internal journey into myself. I started going on spiritual retreats and wellness retreats and reading all the books and trying to just understand what was happening with my heart. Who did I really wanna show up as, and, and learning really how to come home to myself. And I realized that I was out of alignment in a few ways in my life.
And so I remember being with my then husband in London right before Christmas of 2022, and I had gotten so sick, like I had the worst kind of bronchitis. And I remember standing on Piccadilly Circus and just, I was that girl. I was like, so sick, so unhappy, so splintered internally. And I just cried my little eyes out, you know, in the middle of a very vibrant Christmas, London scene.
And I remember trying to like find my way to an alley so that people wouldn't like stumble over this sad girl on the, on the street . And I just remember saying to my, to my partner at the time, I am in such deep grief. And what I didn't realize at the time is I was just in deep grief over myself, some of my own choices, my own self abandonment, my own, um, self evacuation, whether it was in my marriage or in where or how I was living, or what I was trying to do professionally.
I was in this just really big deep liminal space in my life. And it was mourning parts of my, my blood family. And, um, I just felt like I was falling apart. If you would've seen me that day, I'm sure I looked like I was falling apart. You know, I couldn't even, I could barely speak. And I felt like that was the universe being like, Brooke, sit down, sit still, shut the f up.
Like, we got, you just get well, and then I literally flew to San Francisco from London, you know, a week later and started my life anew at Hoffman. Wow. - When you say your world was crumbling around you or just splintered, does that mean this was the feeling in all aspects of your life? This was just the universal norm at that point? - It started slowly. I think so at first, you know, my last couple of years, you know, listen, I, I'm a journalist.
I'm so proud of my journalism, lemme start there. And I worked all in my young twenties in local news to one day, maybe, maybe, you know, have a dream job. Whether that looked like hosting the Today Show or going, you know, I'm a hometown girl. Like when you grow up in Atlanta, you root for the Braves, and you, you wanna work at CNN.
And so I had worked all through my twenties not knowing I I was gonna make it, but having really profound self-belief and ultimately landing this dream job and holding onto it, for, gosh, I was at CNN for 13 years, but the last couple of years I was there. Suddenly it wasn't my dream job anymore. It was a combination of what we were covering, you know, the politics, how we're covering it, what I was being told to say at times, and also just how I was being treated.
And by the way, how I allowed myself to be treated. That was the beginning of my real disjointedness, because that was the most important thing in my life, you know, if I, if I have to say it was like my career was numero uno, and then it was, you know, relationship, friends, everything else, family, uh, I'll admit that. And that started to crumble for me, and I couldn't quite wrap my head around it because I'd worked so hard for this.
And I worked all of the Christmases and the crazy overnight hours and rolled the teleprompter with my foot in small town America and had no friends and had no, you know, partners for so long because goddammit, I was gonna be successful. And I couldn't wrap my head around how in these commercial breaks, and I'm sitting on this national news show, a top ranked anchor in my time slot for a long time, wait, this is supposed to be something that I love, where I feel that warmth in my belly.
And, um, it stopped. And so that was the beginning of it. And then once I left CNN in the middle of a pandemic, then it kind of came into, well, my world got really quiet. I wasn't getting emails at all hours of the day and getting called and having to run around the country or the world on, on breaking news. Ooh, well what now I need to do like this deep excavation into myself.
And in doing so, I realized, or really perhaps just allowed myself to acknowledge that little voice inside of me when it came to my marriage. You know, that God, I love this man so much. I hit the fricking jackpot. He is like James Bond, legit. And also, I'd never felt so alone in my life, in my marriage, and I, my God, all the hours of therapy I did by myself, a lot of therapy, trying, you know, for the two of us. I loved him massively, but you know, a lot of times he was on one continent.
I was on another. By the end I was like trying to convince myself that we could be in this modern marriage where he could live in one continent and I could live on another and we could make it work. God damnit. And there, there I go again, like sacrificing my own self. And I was pretty open a lot of that time with him. And, and the reasoning why I ultimately went to Hoffman, and then also just trying to figure out my work.
I felt like my whole life I had been so self-identified as that person on television, that person who would bring you the news, the person who would come into your living rooms, you know, every time I'd call up somewhere, I'd be like, this is Brooke Baldwin with cnn, this is Brooke Baldwin with CNN. And all of a sudden I was having to call people and be like, this is Brooke Baldwin.
Period. I had to go through this whole process of like really getting to know just Brooke and loving just Brooke, all of her natural, untamed wild, you know, curls that I never was allowed to wear on air, you know, through just how I showed up in the world, how I dressed, you know, how I, how I put myself together, um, how I showed up in the world. And so, and what, what does that mean and what do I wanna do for a living? And I'd been so intricately linked with what I did was who I was.
And I, I had to do a lot of work just getting to know myself before I could become this person I'm becoming, if we were in a room full of people and I said, how many people relate - To this thing? You work so hard for IE your, in your case, the dream job getting there. And it stays. Yes, it's amazing. This is happening there. And then at one point, what did you say? I didn't get that warm feeling in my belly anymore. I would imagine 75 to 90% of the room would raise their hand.
Same with the question of how you said it so beautifully. Who I was, was what I did. It's so relatable. It is so relatable to have to undo our identity, especially when it's so a high profile, like what you were saying, like, I'm Brooke Baldwin from CNN, everybody knows who you are. That's even more seductive of emerging of the identity with yourself without having any discernment, right? So you had to really work hard to let that go. But the concept of who I am is what I do.
We need to work hard to undo that. That is not easy, especially when you're so driven. Like you were so using ha you know, you did the Hoffman a year ago. Were you able to unpack what's this whole thing around success? Like, is there a pattern? What, what was that about? - So growing up in Atlanta, you know, loving household father provider went out outta town every week working hard.
Mother doted on my brother and I, but I realized when I was at Hoffman that, you know, a couple of patterns emerged, a huge one for me. And maybe this is gonna sound crazy to people, but really like worthiness, am I worthy? And, and also not speaking up, which sounds cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, because that is literally what I did for a living.
But what I realized is just because you have a microphone, I was using it for everyone else, shining a light, giving voice of the voice voiceless for everyone else by myself. And I grew up watching my mother, bless her, but like she has real issues around her own worthiness. She stayed in a marriage for 40 years. That was unhealthy as a child, you know, I have a lot of memories around willing her to find her strength to leave.
And, you know, I love my dad and he's off and happy and remarried and good for him, but like, that just wasn't a marriage that needed to stick. And it stuck for far too long. And I was this little girl and, you know, behavior is modeled. And so I watched her on the one hand, you know, tell me to run for student class president and obscene amount of times and cheer me on with like glitter and magic markers, and I'll help you make the posters.
And then on the other hand, you know, watching this beautiful, sad sadden that she didn't speak up for herself. And so of course, what does that mean for me? You know, I'm gonna go out and be bold in the world and you watch me, I'm gonna be successful. I'm not gonna have to like rely on a man, I wanna make my own money. Ah, and also I'm gonna speak for everyone else but myself.
And so at Hoffman, I really, really worked on that pattern of not speaking up for myself and also feeling worthy because I think through these various, whether it was my, you know, my marriage, my work, this whole liminal professional space I've been in, it's like, am I worthy? Should I, can I do these things? I'm driven as f you know, I'm super determined. I know how to grind. I know how to hustle.
In fact, so much so that I feel like I have to do all that to actually earn something and have happiness, which is also effed in something else. I'm working on . But I would say really like the patterns around worthiness and speaking up for myself were huge for me at Hoffman. - Yeah. The other thing that struck me is you said, you know, I have this microphone, and so I, I reacted to that pattern and here I am speaking up for everybody else.
The other thing that struck me was there was abandonment that happened somewhere along the way. It's not that your inner voice wasn't there, it was maybe that it got squashed a long, long time ago. - Boy, oh boy, let me think about that. I mean, yes, well, it got squashed when I was a child. I'm, you know, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, saying to my mom, leave, speak up.
Stand up for yourself, leave, you know, when you're a kid, it almost feels like you're born knowing what's right and wrong. It's like black and white. There is no nuance. And I felt possessed by this knowing. And when I kept speaking up for myself on her behalf, which by the way, I'm a child, you know, the dynamics were all kinda cuckoo. But that then is how I learned. I learned that.
And also, you know, I have, I wrote about this in my book Huddle, you know, and, and again, my father was this beautiful provider and showed me love of language and music and culture, but also, you know, shamed me. You know, this goes down to who, who doesn't, who hasn't had stuff around their bodies, you know? And I remember being a 13-year-old, they basically sent me to like, I won't call it fat camp, but it was one of those, it was like Jenny Craig.
And I'm a child and I'm, I look back sharing at photos of myself. I was a healthy, you know, I'm like a strong athletic build kind of gal. And this was perhaps a way to control, I think that I was always a bold, speaking up kind of young woman. I felt shamed. I was shamed by the people who should be loving me unconditionally. And so I felt punished for my strength, if that makes sense.
Also, like this theme of me trying to do the right thing or being big and bold and then getting punished for it, whether it's for something tangible or not, also became a theme in my life. You know, it has been pervasive ever since I was a child. So those two things I've really had to tussle with. - That's huge. I mean, I go back to something you said earlier, like, I have wild curls. I like to dress a certain way, but on air, I wasn't like, what? - Right? It's like, we want you to be great.
We want you to be everything. Be super, super smart, but stay in this lane. Stay in this lane. Don't go outside. I'll never forget, you know, I had what we would call sun beachy waves that were put in my hair by my most amazing glam squad at CNN. And I remember one day, you know, finishing the show, we were covering the, the war in Syria. It was all about isis. It was a lot of breaking news. Like, teleprompter is blank. I would've had to riff for a long time.
It was, it was, if I may a brilliant show, , - You may - And I will. And so I remember finishing the show and walking back to my office, and I'm sure a lot of people can relate. 'cause I feel like a lot of times at work, you know, you only hear like the negative stuff. You don't often get a lot of praise. You know, I think that's kind of like, sadly pervasive in the corporate culture.
But I remember one of my bosses coming into my office, and I sort of like sat there and I like threw my shoulders back and I was like, just ready? Like, yes, you tell me how amazing I was today. Thank you very much. I'm right here for it, you know? And instead they were like, um, so you're covering a war on terrorism and I'm looking at you and you just look to fun. You cannot have any wave or any kind of curl in your hair ever again.
We are gonna instruct the teams across the country and our bureaus to make sure they blow your hair out. It will be straight, you'll look professional. These are the moments where that little voice inside of me was like, what the, what? You know what? But of course I'm like, I'm, I was 30 something and so grateful to have my job, so grateful that I'd made it. So I'm like, of course, I'm saying, of course, blowouts from here on out.
No problem. I'm fortunate that I didn't get a lot of stuff from management around what I wore, how I looked like I felt blessed that way. A lot of people had it way worse, but I'll never forget that day, you know? So again, it's like these little moments in, in your life where someone comes to you in this, in this position of power authority and they're, it feels like some little bit of control when you think, you know, you're doing this tremendous job and it's like poof.
You know, like the whack-a-mole, it's like Kosh every time. And um, that starts to dim, it started to dim my light. - Yeah. Well, I mean, if, if I zoom out based on what you're telling me, it feels like you were this young, young, young girl, like you said, bold speaking up type of young girl, and then things happen.
The camp, the messages, the modeling of the parents, all these things happen where you got smaller and dimmer and smaller and dimmer, maybe even replaced it with this out of control drive to prove, oh yeah, Jenny Craig, watch this. I'm gonna be on TV and I'm gonna be a desired woman. Oh yeah, watch this. I'm gonna have a microphone. I'm gonna speak up for everybody, et cetera. Here's this drive, plus let's be real. Yes, patterns are there, but you obviously have the skillset.
Let's not diminish the fact that you have skills here that came to play. The why behind it may have been propelled by a pattern. Okay, we can work on that, but the skills don't go away. But then this happened, and it seems to me like you're going back to who you were. It seems to me like this bold speaking up kind of girl is kind of putting on her outfit again, which is in this 40 whatever year old version of Brooke Baldwin.
- Yeah, no, I have, after leaving CNN, that whole thing rattled me to the core. I knew I needed to go, the way in which it was handled was not amazing the way I had to, you know, explain it to the public part of a sort of charade, which was reminiscent of a charade I was part of as a child in my family. So that felt familiar, okay, they want me to say this, okay, okay, I'm gonna do that, I'm gonna do that.
This really feels, and then again, it's like I then be feel like I'm betraying myself because this is not right, because it's not the truth. Instead of thinking this thing happened to me, I'm like, okay, how did this happen for me? Where are the hidden treasures along my path? What am I learning in this moment? And so, thanks to that, it forced me to go so deep inside myself to do a giant, like self inventory.
I'm still in it, but I've done a tremendous amount of work for like, about, you know, two years since leaving. And then I, I went to Hoffman, which was like the big kabang, which was like super deep, soul level excavation. And that just cracked me the F open. Yeah. - Let's go back real quick because I think as we said, it's so relatable to have this dream job or something you're striving for, and then suddenly it doesn't give you the feeling you want.
So between that and having the awakeness alertness ability to accept the truth that this is happening and then put it into action, how did you do that? How did you get to the point where you had the courage to leave to untangle? - Well, I wish I could say I had all the courage, you know, if you were to go back and read my journals a couple years leading up to when I left, I knew I needed to go, you know, I knew I needed to go. I knew I had fallen out of alignment with myself.
This is not why I went to journalism school. I didn't like arguing on television. I didn't like having, you know, a producer get in my ear and continuously tell me to interrupt my guest. I just wanted to shut the F up and listen, okay, you're a southern sheriff and you're explaining to me why you don't believe in coronavirus. And PSI, Brooke Baldwin had just had covid, you know, for three weeks. But go ahead and tell me, I'm curious.
Even before I was at Hoffman, I wanted to be like, tell me about your childhood. How were you raised? What were your patterns? Why are you thinking this doesn't exist? And all these people who are sick and dying in hospitals, I genuinely wanted to understand, I wanted to listen some of these TV segments, it was like for sport, and it was all about clicks and going viral. And I just, is it wrong? I just didn't care. I didn't care.
I started to not care. Like, okay, the guy in the White House is tweeting all the time. I need to do four segments around tweets. Okay, uh, I'm hating this, I'm hating this and I'm hating this about myself, that I'm sitting here doing this. And then ultimately, you know, I spoke up, I spoke up, I spoke up, uh, internally about a few things that I thought could be better or places where I could use my voice more. And I got punished and it was public.
Like this isn't, you know, you can find this in the googles, you know, I, I got taken off of the last election cycle for two months without much explanation, which was gut-wrenching to basically it feels like I had been running, you know, covering that White House. I'd been running this like marathon and at 26.0 miles I had 0.2 left. You know, they're like, peace out, someone else is gonna do your show. I felt like a giant punishment.
Or then suddenly I came back and suddenly after having, you know, two live hours as my show for my entire tenure at CNN, suddenly one just disappeared. And when I started asking why, no one seemed to wanna give me the answer. And so I was like, I had that terrible feeling in my stomach. I knew that I was performing. I loved the people I was working with. I think that, you know, one of the sweetest texts I got from one of the anchors today was like, but you're the heart of CNN.
How can you leave? I'll never forget that. But ultimately, I was told, and I've never said this out loud, I've never said this out loud, but you know, I was told to go, I was told to go. And I remember doing my last show and really trying to just be so full of grace and just class and talk, you know, in my last message about wanting to leave this place better than I found it, and talking about all the women that were coming up and up in the ranks just overall in, in television and journalism.
And I remember, oof, it was a pandemic. So, no, you know, I'd been there for 13 years, I'd given so much to that place, those people, and it was my honor. And I remember, you know, no one was there, you know, I heard from a lot of my colleagues, they were so beautiful. But, you know, it was so odd to be ending this giant career.
I literally slipped out the side door, and the one person who greeted me and had this sweet gift was my security guard, this guy Anthony, who handed me a pair of Air Jordans. And I'm like, a bubbling mess. And he's like, thank you. It's been so lovely knowing you. And here are these Air Jordans. I just wanna say thank you. Uh, and I left and that was it. You know, that was it. Did I have courage? Fuck yeah.
I had courage in the sense of I was able to put one foot in front of the other and continue on after having my career sort of self emulate for reasons I didn't completely understand. And also see how it was happening for me, and know that this was actually like I needed to move on. And I had known that for a few years. I just wasn't willing. I was like, white knuckling. It's sort of like you're, you've been married for so long, but you know, you're got not getting along with the spouse anymore.
Or the spouses like been sleeping on the sofa and you're in the bedroom and you just sort of like, you're sharing space. No one's really talking, but everyone's kind of cordial and you just had to move out. That's the truth of what happened. And I love CNN and I will forever cheer these folks on. I mean, there're some of the freaking bravest, baddest, best humans and journalists I know, but that's the truth of what happened. And so I just wasn't allowed to tell my truth
until I just decided I am today. Yeah, I mean, - I think, think there's the happy ending that happened afterwards when we zoom farther out and do the work. But the truth is, on that day, the way you say that, how you're telling your story with grace in class and talking about wanting to leave it better than you found it, and you found a kernel of truth there.
It was, it, there was some authenticity when you were thinking about, wow, look at all the women that are you, you know, they're, it wasn't not true. So you found the way you're gonna in your body feel authentic. And so that's what it was. And then you just walk out the side door, and here you gave 13 years of your life. And as you've said before, journalists don't just clock in, clock out. This is not a joke of a job. It's in your bones.
And what that means is you, uh, abandon yourself, your family, your loved ones. Sometimes you put yourself in danger for this work. And then tell me if I'm saying this right, but because you kind of started speaking some truths internally, the end result was this situation, right? There was a punishment. And that punishment, I know that we can see it as a thank you so much. I needed to leave. I probably wouldn't have left otherwise, blah, blah, blah.
I get that. And I get that sitting here now a year or two, three later, we see that it was good. But man, that day, that moment, the aftermath of recent aftermath that you had to navigate, I can't imagine. - Yeah, no, I was, I was on the floor. I was on the floor for a while. I'm not a depressive person. I've never had the blues. But you know, there was a period of time there where, and I also like, this may sound crazy, but I felt like I disappointed people.
You know, all of a sudden I'm like, oof. Gone. And people were like, why did she leave? Or what's going on? Or was she retiring? And I just wanted to scream from the rooftops the truth, but I, I wasn't allowed. I wasn't allowed. And it was, it was hard. - And the truth is, you, you didn't disappoint them, right? You didn't disappoint them, but they were disappointed because they were used to, like you said, they were, you were their person.
You were in their living room. You, you were telling them what's going on in the world. - Yeah. And I think that's another thank you, Hoffman. Another one of my patterns is like worrying too much about what other people think of you. I'm so guilty of that. That was hard. But then ultimately, I, I was just mad at myself that I participated and I allowed for certain behaviors and that I didn't stand up for myself. Here I am now on the other side. Roar, , - You definitely are on the other side.
Yeah. Now, I'm curious about this thing that you keep using the word punished. Do you feel like this is an old kind of belief statement that you have of like, if I speak up, I get punished, or did it start here? And how, how do you navigate this belief? Does it show up? Is it thematic or is it just from this? - Ooh, Sharon, you're good. Oh, where did it start? I mean, I think it started in my childhood, probably to some degree with my father and just carried on.
You know, I'm a big believer in the universe placing people in your path for a reason. And if you don't learn the lesson, then like, poof, here comes another one. Carving copy, Brooke. You gonna learn, you're gonna learn. Nope. Poof. Here's another one. And so I would love to figure out a way of reframing the feeling of being punished. You know, it feels almost maybe too easy to say, thank you so much for the teaching. Um, you know, I've learned so much from this onto the next.
Um, I'm, I'm all ears former Hoffman teacher and wise woman, like, help me understand me, - . Well, so is it a pattern? Like is this a belief statement that continues to show up in your life? If I speak up, I get punishment? Uh, - Yes. Yeah. Okay. - So again, I would guess this is also relatable, right? We speak the truth, which means we break free out of what was supposed to be a truth that was imposed on us, right?
So we're changing the rules with people who are still subscribing to the old rules. So it could be perceived as punishment. I think there is a certain amount of freedom that you get afterwards. So quite possibly it's after the quote unquote punishment, right? So it's like, I speak up, I'm punished. But if we go back and look at all the times that it's worked, what if it's A plus B equal? See, it's like there's a third part to this belief. It's like the domino is speaking up.
Yes, you're shaking things up. Then there's some sort of aftermath, which does not need to be named as punishment. It could be like, there's an aftermath. I I just shook shit up and therefore things are getting, uh, reassembled and, and re kind of calibrated. Then there's freedom. - I'm freeing myself instead of I was punished. - I mean, what I see when I hear your CNN story, I will hang up from this interview and still think about you walking out with nobody there.
That hurts. It hurts. I feel the pain in my body right now. I'll have to shake it off later. And especially given all the blood, sweat, and tears and compromise, right? To only be not even thanked, barely. And God bless this human being who got you Air Jordans, which by the way, that is a very cool parting gift. - So cool. I still rock them. I love them so much. Yeah, , - I bet. But still, there is something very hurtful about that exit.
And like you said, I don't wanna gloss over that and completely be like, and now look at me. So I I wouldn't gloss right over it. But I do think it gave you freedom. It gave you freedom to then have the courage to change your marriage. Suddenly you were in different conversations with different communities, with different people. Ah, that curiosity in your spirit was alive again. - Yes, a hundred percent. A hundred percent no. And I feel that, I feel that there is like no turning back.
It's like, you know, I, I've grown so much because of these experiences. It enabled me to, you know, show up differently ultimately in my marriage. And I'll never forget, I said to him, I, I wanna, I love you so much, but I've gotta let you go. I was just out of alignment. And I'll never forget this weekend we had with one another. I said, are you relieved? And he said, I am. I think we both had tremendous love for each.
I know we had tremendous love for each other, but we were just on different paths. He married one version of me and I married one version of him. And maybe he hadn't changed, but I changed, and I was desperately trying to yank him onto my path. And he was like, I'm, you know, putting words in his mouth. I shouldn't do that. But I imagine it was some version of like, I'm good, please don't try to change me.
You know, like I'm, I'm good. And, um, I was just going in a different direction and needed, whether it was gonna be a partner ever again, or just myself being on my path. What happened at CNN was really actually incredible training in a way for me to have the strength. And also, this is gonna sound crazy, but, you know, putting our dog down, you know, my, my dog was 19 years old, this little teeny Aly wiggly pug, you know, I remember just knowing it came to me, it was almost like a download.
It was like October 4th. That's the day, that's the day you're gonna say goodbye to him in the physical form. And I remember my then husband thanking me so much after the fact because what I said to him was, I didn't wanna put this dog down and have him like wobbling on one leg and making a mess everywhere. Like, I wanted to put him down with dignity before that happened.
And that's what I said about my own marriage, you know, like, let's part now while we love and respect each other, and we can do this with dignity instead of hang in a couple more years and have it get really ugly and messy. And not to say that divorce is ever not ugly and messy, and you know, I could, you know, it has not been a picnic , but I think anyone who's been divorced can relate to that. But I, I close my eyes and I send him like love, capacity and compassion every day.
That's how it's starting to show up in my life. And then, you know, I get this call from Netflix literally two days before I go to Hoffman. It's like, I'd done all this work and somehow the universe was like, okay, Brooke, we're gonna give you a gift. And the gift they give me is hosting this show - You did Hoffman, and then you went and took this gig of, and you're hosting the show for those who don't know, it's on Netflix. And it's called the trust.
- The Trust, - Yes. Which is very different than being a journalist. And you are a different version of yourself, right? So like CNN represents this patterned version of you, this one filled to Succeed, willing to do anything. And here you have this new gig as a different person. What's that like? - Ooh, it feels so good. You know, it was so fun because I got this call from Netflix after a couple of Zoom interviews. Thank you Netflix for believing in me. And so they call me.
And I remember being able to go into my week at Hoffman and being able to put my work worries down, and I could really do that deep soul excavation and not have to worry about that pesky thing called getting paid, and how am I gonna have health insurance? And like, what am I doing? You know? And so I was able, we shot the show down in the Dominican Republic, and I went to host and shoot the show not even two months after Hoffman.
Man. I mean, when you walk outta Hoffman, I, I'm sure everyone can relate it. It's like this bright light was beaming out of my chest, you know? I felt like some superhero, like anyone in my path. It's like zoom, zoom, zoom. Here I am. You know? And I remember being down there and I'm, I'm hosting this reality show. I couldn't even, and I love this show, but I just hadn't even been a, I'm not like a reality show person, but I'm a, I'm a student of humanity.
And so when they told me about the concept of the, of the show around the theme of trust and money and greed and how do we know to how we, we can trust people. And honestly, like all I did was stand up there. They edited a lot of it out. But like, I went all Hoffman on these people. Like I'm standing on the cliff and I'm like, so Julie, like, help me understand, is it a pattern of unworthiness?
Like why can you not take the $30,000 you bounced around in foster care, you know, you had friends as a child so that you could have shower, a shower to shower in, and you're really, really struggling around accepting this money and you're, you're crying, like, let's talk about this pattern.
And I'm almost like, I'm so open for these people and I want, it's been, was fascinating for me to watch them and their arc of self-development and, and self-awareness for, I don't know if this has ever been done before, but I totally took Hoffman to reality television, . And um, and it was an incredible experience. And I was able to show up as my full freaking self. And I love Netflix for saying like, please don't be the TV news anchor. Please wear clothes that you would want to wear.
Let's make you look however you wanna look. You wanna put waves and curls in your hair, girl, you do that. And I was just like, ugh. I felt my shoulders back. And I'm like, strutting on the set. Like, here I am. You know? And it was such a different experience. And so I was able to bring my, my light, you know,
to just glow on that show and beyond. And - Again, I mean, I think if we skipped over the middle part of our conversation, we would be like, yeah, you quit CNN and then you've got your dream job. But the truth is, for those of us listening, sometimes when we're in it, we forget that on the other side of that tunnel, as far away as it is, it could be years, it could be months, it could be weeks. We don't know. There will be payoff, right?
And so in, in this equation that you live with, which maybe others do too, or for those listening, you can personalize it. But you know, for you it's, I speak up, there's some aftermath which often feels like punishment. And then there is freedom and authenticity and connection and liberation and put in all the other fun words of, of what you feel on the other side. And I think it's important for people who are still in that aftermath, what feels like the punishment, the hard part.
We have to remember that there is still more after that. And this is a perfect expression of that. - Uh, I mean, let me just say like I realized also I have been in a privileged position, you know, I made no money like eight ramen noodles for much of my career, and then suddenly poof, you know, and I, then I was able to save money.
And so I have had a, a healthy savings, which I have very much been, you know, delving into to keep myself afloat so that I have been able to afford myself to say the word no thank you to job offers that didn't feel in alignment with me because I, I was not gonna do that again. And also in that, in-between time, between CNN and Netflix, I did a lot of work that people didn't see.
I did a lot of, I've done a lot of speaking, I wrote this book huddle about the collective power of women, which really helped like keep me afloat the, the last stretch of being at CNN for my own, for my soul. And I got told no a lot. You know, I worked much of the entire year leading up to, to Netflix calling me on developing this TV series, which I put everything into. And at the end of the year, you know, I got this giant, nope.
And I remember going to a Christmas party here in New York City and like crying into my pink champagne and here I go again, start, I'm about to start another year not having a freaking clue what I'm doing with my life professionally. I am excellent at beating myself up. But you know, so many, so many people have said to me, it takes so many no's before you get a huge yes. And it only, you know, this is crazy.
I was reading my a journal, a journaled since I was 18, and I was reading my journal from just before I knew Netflix was a yes. And in between the crying into my champagne and the No, and I wrote in big block letters at the bottom of this one page. I was like, Brooke, all it takes is one. Yes. And just below it, and even bigger letters, I wrote the word trust. Do you know what the freaking name of my Netflix show is?
The Trust. Okay, now I think, uh, you know, our folks above whatever you believe in, you know, universe, God's source, spirit, like they have a sense of humor. They were like, Brooke, it's right in front of you, trust, and it's gonna be called the trust. It's so hard, it's so hard to just like surrender and let go. But that was a also a huge part of my journey and, and still is. There you go.
- I think calling out the privilege that allowed you to have this time and space is absolutely a necessary thing for us to recognize. I also think you mentioning I'm going into another year and not knowing what's up with my professional life, it illuminates something interesting to me, which is, okay, you don't know, but guess what? It's just a slice of your life now. It's not the whole thing.
And so therefore, yeah, you know, we want it, we wanna know what, where we're getting our income and health insurance, et cetera. But it didn't debilitate you to the point of like your whole I when it was your whole identity, - Right? No, it didn't. It didn't. I mean, I've had many days I have been in the fetal position, I have been in tears because it's very easy to fall back into that I am what I do.
And then I remind myself, I mean, I've really leaned into deep, beautiful friendships with mostly women. I have an extraordinary sisterhood, an extraordinary huddle. And thanks to also just leaving CNNI really recalibrated like who really is standing by me, who really is linking arms with me and lifting me up and wants, you know, as Brene Brown talks about, these are not light blower outers.
These are, you know, women who want my light to shine even brighter between what I now refer to as my chosen family and just self-belief and then ultimately like having Hoffman change my life. And then, oh, by the way, like falling in love with someone else that was not on my, you know, agenda so soon after loving my ex-husband and letting him go. So it's like all these things have just helped propel me, and I've just been able to show up fully
as myself for everyone. Well, - Yeah, it seems to me like it's the same kind of, again, I'm back into this pie chart of like, okay, loving of myself, relationship, work, family, et cetera, but you are different. So yeah, you fell in love again, in the less patterned version of yourself and ideally more authentic version of yourself. And the truth is, somebody like you is somebody who's gonna continue to change and evolve. This new way of showing up carries that flag.
Like, Hey, this is me right now. I'm gonna keep changing and growing and evolving, and hopefully you can be right at my side as we change and grow and evolve - Together. Yeah, yeah, because I have been evolving the way in which I have. And also just giving myself again, like Brene Brown's, like why do we have to give herself permission all the time? And it's like giving myself permission to just show up as I am unapologetically me.
And, you know, thanks to all these things that I've had to go through, it's really like tested myself and who I wanna be and who I wanna show up as in the world and coming home to myself. What does that really feel like? You know, it's kind of like wearing an outfit that just doesn't quite fit, right? The shoes are a little tight or like, you're like, fuck, I don't wanna wear heels anymore. Like, you know, it's finding that, right? So that your outsides matches your insides.
It's finding that just right and then walking through the world and you're like, ah, and then how have I not had this on the whole time? Yeah. - Well, it seems like you've done the work in that in many, if not all, the aspects of your life are now the right outfit for the right body and the right spirit, and the most authentic version of you. This is where we call our interview. Thank you so much for sharing the way you did and for letting us all in.
It's so incredibly relatable and so courageous of you to share with all of the people whose ears and souls this will land on. So thank you. Thank - You. It feels good to, to just tell my truth. And I hope if we can just inspire one person, it means so much to me. Just hang in there and let your light shine as brightly as you can. And I see you and I love you, Sharon. Thank you, - . I see you and I love you. Thank you so much, Brooke. - Thank you for listening to our podcast.
My name is Liza in Grassi. I'm the CEO and President of Hoffman Institute Foundation. - And I'm Ra Rossi Hoffman, teacher and founder of the Hoffman Institute Foundation. - Our mission is to provide people greater access to the wisdom and power of love - In themselves, in each other, and in the world world. To find out more, please go to hing institute.org.