Ep.61 Why I Won't Stop Being Bold

Not many of us will have the opportunity to spill coffee on a future president during an interview, but think about the times in your life when you had to be bold, stepping out of your comfort zone to accomplish something that you needed to do or wanted to do.  We have all been called to address a relationship, situation, or life calling where we have had to summon courage to overcome what it was that may have held us back.

One of the many great things about being in midlife is that with our hard-earned life experience and maturity, we can push aside the fear of failure and more readily tap into our boldness.  

Some people make a life or career out of being bold.  Julie O'Neill is a speaker, author, and former news anchor, whose dynamic personality has entertained and inspired on TV and stage since the age of six.  Her work over 30+ years in TV news has been seen on ABC, CBS, CNN, and stations across the country.  Her recently released book, BOLD, chronicles the secret to her big wins to help you crash through your own comfort zone.  She wants you to unleash your inner boldness, because now is the time to reach your greatest potential in life!

In this episode Julie O'Neill and I discuss:
- Building a foundation of boldness in her early years
- The positive impact of competing in pageants and the value in losing in life
- How Julie came to spill coffee on Bill Clinton and other stories from the news desk
- Mentorship, relationships, humility, and humanity - defining what is really important in your work and life
- Getting pushed out of her 30+ year career due to ageism and Julie's desire to speak up for other midlife women (and men, too)
- Why Julie filed a lawsuit against her former employer
- The mission behind writing her book BOLD
- The importance of having your own "board of directors" and finding your path forward when the chips are down

You can find Julie O'Neill at:
https://www.instagram.com/julie_oneill_justme/
https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=julie%20o%27neill

You can purchase Julie's book BOLD on Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Bold-Secret-Crash-Through-Comfort/dp/B0C6VZ3VP1/ref=sr_1_1?crid=156BM9B3YG1B6&keywords=bold&qid=1688823328&s=books&sprefix=bold%2Cstripbooks%2C94&sr=1-1

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*Transcripts are done with AI and may not be perfectly accurate.

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Transcript

Asking for a Friend
Why I'll Never Stop Being Bold
Michele Folan
Julie O'Neill

people, baton rouge, book, bill clinton, worked, julie, women, bold, feel, years, photographer, news, life, lose, talk, decide, jogging, called, listening, friend, lawsuit, ageism

Unknown Speaker  0:00  
Think about times in your life when you had to be bold, stepping out of your comfort zone to do something that you needed to do or that you really wanted to do. Some people make a life or a career out of boldness. Some may decide to take the path of least resistance. But either way, we have all been called to address a relationship, a situation, or even a life calling, where we've had to summon courage to overcome what it is that may be holding us back. One of the many great things about being in midlife is that with our hard earned life experiences and maturity, is that we can push aside the fear of failure, and more readily tap into our beautiful boldness. At the time of the recording of this episode. Our guest had just tapped into her own boldness and filed a federal lawsuit against her former employer. She opted to forego severance pay in order to be able to tell her story and stand up against ageism in the workplace.

Unknown Speaker  1:25  
Health, Wellness, career, relationships and everything in between. We're removing the taboo from what really matters in midlife. I'm your host Michele Folan. And this is asking for a friend.

Unknown Speaker  1:45  
Welcome to the show everyone. I am very excited about the conversation with today's guest. Julio Neil is a speaker, author and former news anchor whose dynamic personality has entertained and inspired on TV and stage since the age of six. Her work over 30 plus years in TV news has been seen on ABC, CBS, CNN, and stations across the country and included interviews with a president, a saint, and CEOs of multi billion dollar companies. A singer in her spare time, Julie has performed the national anthem for countless events, including a Cincinnati Reds home game, and the inaugural ceremony of the World Peace Bell that's here in town. Yeah. And I hear she also does a pretty good Shanaya Twain.

Unknown Speaker  2:47  
If anybody agrees with that.

Unknown Speaker  2:50  
Welcome to asking for a friend, Julie O'Neill. Thank you so much. My great pleasure to be here. Thank you. Thank you for what you're doing. You're zeroing in on some really key issues for a lot of women. I'm now a new fan of yours and listening to your podcasts getting so much out of them. So thanks. Oh, well, Thanks, Julie. That's very nice of you to say, I think the best place for us to start here is for you to tell the audience a little bit more about you where you're from and what you've been doing the last 30 years. Yeah, crazy times it goes by in a blink. I've actually just recently reconnected with a lot of people I worked with at my first station. And there are just so many stories about how I got my foot in the door differently than others might have and how I got some of the key interviews in the beginning and those are my fun stories to tell don't we'd love to tell our stories of success to our kids or friends or whomever will listen or is it just me?

Unknown Speaker  3:54  
Oh no. I share my kids have heard mine at nauseam as you start looking through it, you start to see a theme develop and mine was bold. I came from a family big Italian family on one side big raucous, loving family and Papaw ruled the roost and you didn't want to get called into talk to Papa or mom or for that matter. And then on the other side singers in concert pianists and all musicians and very different sides of the family. The Italians in the O'Neill's but everyone loving and working through things and boy standing up and not one of the group that lacks boldness. That's the background. I was born in New York City because dad was singing opera at the time. And then we relocated once there were three children living in Staten Island and dad was taking the ferry every day that got old. It was time to go and help with the family business which my grandfather who was a concert pianist started selling pianos and so forth. And so dad took over that now my brother

Unknown Speaker  5:00  
Other ones it down in Baton Rouge. So I grew up down there. And then at some point, went to Cincinnati to study musical theater at the college Conservatory of Music, went back to that ridge finished after three majors and moving all over the place and driving my parents crazy, settled on broadcast journalism, it was mom's idea. She always was a fan of my writing, to be fair, but I could imitate the anchor women on the air and make everyone laugh.

Unknown Speaker  5:30  
They said you should do that. For real, you can do that. If it only takes two more years to graduate, I was getting tired of college and trying to figure out what I wanted to do. It was going to take exactly two years. I did that. A year into that with one year left of college, I had my internship. And once I got into the internship, which is the real life experience, oh, yes, indeed. This is me. It was that obvious. It took into account every gift God may have given me, every joy I have. Everything that has to do with whatever talents or things I have that light my fire. That was it. That whole thing of, it's a different story every day, you don't know what's going to happen that day. If you're driving two hours to cover some farmer someplace or the next day, Merv Griffin is coming to visit. And we're going to do an interview with him in next. It's the Bill Clinton stories, the one everyone loves, and he was in town. He was governor at the time of Arkansas and trying to get a word in with him when there was a big controversy going on. You just don't ever know what the day is going to bring. There was that excitement. That was something I always needed in life good or bad. And it was the right fit. Yeah, I was in Baton Rouge for my start in my hometown, and then to Miami, Florida, a big station. Then I went to Cincinnati for what was supposed to be one year because that was where I was going to really hone in on writing and live reports and have a team that was going to really groom me and get me ready for New York. Then I got married and had kids and settled in wonderful Cincinnati area, it was a great place to raise a family and have wonderful friends here. So I've lived in the Cincinnati area for most of my life. I want to talk about your book in just a minute, because that is one of the reasons why I really wanted to talk to you. And I did read your wonderful book. Thank you. But there is a common theme here with you that I think you displayed this early talent for performing and being in front of people. But you have this incredible tenacity. Which, again, you saw this tenacity very early in your life. Do you think that made all the difference in the world in your success in television news? I think it's the old question of how much is genetics and how much is environment? I certainly have that gene of being competitive, born and wired that way to go after and don't take no for an answer kind of thing. That I don't want to say that it's all genetics, because it is something that grew over time. And also through discipline, and a little emotional maturity, you know how to tamp it down when you need to, and you know how to bring it up a notch. And that's a learned thing that developed over time, which is why I felt like I could help people get to that themselves whether or not they were naturally wired that way. Well, you were a former Miss Baton Rouge? Yes. I have to say the picture in the book with your very voluminous hair.

Unknown Speaker  8:56  
From 1986. I got a good giggle out of that, because there was a lot of hairspray going on there. We should go back to that.

Unknown Speaker  9:06  
look slimmer when we have figured out

Unknown Speaker  9:09  
exactly right. You went on to compete in the Miss Louisiana contest. And you said that being a type A competitor, it's good to lose from time to time. What did you learn from those knocked down moments? And how did they impact how you approach life even into adulthood? I will say that anyone who has had a loss or a big failure, you know this already, but I'm for winning, winning build self esteem and confidence. I'm for winning, when you're that person who's driven to be number one and get it first and have the best and all those things. And you're genuinely disappointed when you don't reach that mark. When you have a major loss. A major failure

Unknown Speaker  10:00  
And it's in front of everyone, you know, I had previously done Miss Baton Rouge made it to the top 10 at Miss Louisiana won the talent, competition and got to do the song on stage. And you know all that it's awesome. When I went back to miss Louisiana again, and felt like I was better than ever had a better song was more confident and then didn't even make the top 10 No one was even going to hear me do my song. It was on statewide television. I mean, it was like, when I lose, I do it right.

Unknown Speaker  10:34  
You just do in front of everybody. It was genuinely that feeling of I've not been paying attention in the rehearsals where you're supposed to go. Where did the losers go? This is not in the book. But it's a profound story in my life that I'd love to share. That night when I lost and I had to just figure out where do you exit now trying to hold it together. And what happens is you go backstage, and you watch the pageant on the television screen, you're seeing all the other girls perform their swimsuit, evening gown and talent, while you're sitting back there waiting to have to go back on stage at the end for the last production. We're all back there. Some of the girls are crying and they're embarrassed. There's just a lot of pain. My instinct was to make them laugh and just try to have some fun. Back then on Saturday Night Live they had this Sweeney sisters thing where they were like the women you know at the piano and Clang, Clang, clang with a trolley.

Unknown Speaker  11:36  
I think doing that the sweetie sisters for them all week when we're rehearsals and everything. And they would say Julie do this when he said my song that I would have sung had I made the top 10 on stage was that song he touched me the Barbra Streisand song he touched me. He put his hand near mine. And then he touched me it's just a great song. I get up in front of all the girls and ice change the words to we're losers. We've all got big fat tails, because we're losers we're sitting here, cause Beggars can't be choosers. So they're cracking up laughing. And then it started every commercial break, I'd get up and do some stand up comedy. I don't know what I did. But we ended up having a great time backstage. At the end of the night right before we had to go back out to do the last performance number, which is always a lot of fun to have to go back up on the stage after you've now cleaned up your makeup. Some of the girls had slipped out and they got a paper plate and cut it and some coffee straw sticking out of it and made it into a crown. And they crowned me queen of the losers. All that I still have that you do, I value it more than the one with the rhinestones they put on my head when I won Miss Baton Rouge, which by the way, I ran over with the cards story, but

Unknown Speaker  13:03  
we get the crowns, we're supposed to have to be crowned queen of the losers. My daddy said he's never been more proud of me. And because it's where we are when we lose, and I had bad moments, I have some bitterness and anger and all those things. But you don't build compassion and empathy for others if all you do is when it's in those losses, that you feel all of those things more deeply. And it connects you to humanity. And I really have nothing to offer anybody, if I haven't experienced all of that in a real way. Real embarrassment, real pain, shame, all of those things, and having to go back out in public and show my face these losses. And that was one that happened long before I embarrass myself over and over again, as a news anchor. There are lots of opportunities to say or do stupid things, and to not win, understanding where to place those things and how valuable it is to take those losses. Look at them. What could I have done differently or better? And how am I going to proceed going forward? And what kind of human being do I want to be? Your book is called Bold. We speak about the difference between confidence and courage all the time on this podcast. Do you think you need to have confidence to be bold? Or do you just need to have some courage? I would say courage Yeah. I don't think you have to have any confidence to be bold. As I say in the book bold is something that is a mindset. I talked about some of the tools that I used through the years that I didn't even realize I was using to have the mindset that fake it till you make it and channeling somebody else in order to feel confidence when I lacked it.

Unknown Speaker  15:00  
But to press over to cross that bridge into bold and crash through into it, it does take courage. And you have to decide I'm going to have it. Just like you decide to love someone when they don't deserve it. Or we can decide what we're going to do. And you have to decide I'm going to be courageous. And sometimes that's a quick decision. You don't get confidence until you have enough wins. And early on in your career early on in your life, you haven't had enough wins to have a certain level of confidence. I tell people, I pretended I was Connie Chung, who was the main anchorwoman that everyone knew back in the day when I started, I would pretend that I was her on the set so that I would know which camera to look at and when to look down at my script. And I just pretended now I pretend on me.

Unknown Speaker  15:52  
I'm gonna send somebody to do it and trust him. It's going to be Julie O'Neill. That's confidence. But that took 30 years that grew over time. Now I trust myself. But back then I sure didn't. How do you encourage other women to shake off that fear of embarrassment or failure in order to go after what they want in life? And the reason I'm asking you this is we're in our 50s. Yeah, some of our listeners are even in their 60s. Mm hmm. I think that there are a lot of women out there that still have stuff they want to do. But there may be that fear of failure or that embarrassment. How do you get people to shed that cloak? I will say this, I just looked at reviews. Again, today, I like to go and see how people are reviewing the book and one person for the first time said, Thank you for chapter 14, because that's where I pull it together. And I give you the five steps on the footbridge to bold as I see it.

Unknown Speaker  16:57  
I talk about what are the five things you need to get there. And the first thing is know what you believe. And I'll just give them to you. You have to know what you believe know who you are, know your people know your business, and know when to laugh. And I break those down in the why in the book. And if you know what you believe. And you have clarity about that, that makes a lot of decisions. Very simple. You broaden everything out, you look at what is my big picture. My big picture is that I am here to love and serve God and the people he puts around me, that's mine, yours might be different. That's mine. So if I didn't get this promotion, or this happened or that happen, I have to widen out the lens. What's the big picture? Am I okay with God and the people he puts around me? Am I living true to that? That's the most important thing. I cannot spend my day beating myself up. If these little nuances didn't work out the way I want it. But also when you're making a decision, do I go for this? Do I make this bold move? Looking at what is my big picture? What is the why of my life? What is my mission statement. And then knowing yourself, you've done a wonderful podcast on the Enneagram. That's my favorite. My friend Al Zimmerman is a specialist in that and the executive producer of the remake of Julio Neill having a best friend that's an expert. And this has been wonderful for me. I'm the three. So am I Enneagram, which is the achiever we don't mind getting out in front and high achiever. But I have a strong four wing, very soulful, very independent, and I can get really deep and dark. And I have to be aware of that. And then that all the other things, you know the numbers point to each other. I don't understand all of it. But the more I understand who I am, and whom I am dealing with, then I can make better decisions. The more you know about what you believe who you are, and understanding the people with whom you're dealing and all of those things, the more you will have what you need to take that bold step. I put know when to laugh last. And it's been the most important one for some of the people who've given me feedback. I had a father who was very much the perfectionist and high performer and my grandfather was the same a concert pianist that could rip across a piano with Chopin like nobody you've heard, they were really hard on themselves as I am. And if I don't learn how to laugh, and keep a sense of humor and grandpa would say to dead, Jackie, don't take yourself so seriously. I hear that voice in my head all the time. Because if you just want to die, frankly, and you just have last year

Unknown Speaker  20:00  
zest for life, or really the strength and courage to move forward. Because you're so deep in the pit. What good is that to anyone, you've got to surround yourself with people that make you laugh, and encourage you to laugh, and not take yourself too seriously. And keep your eye on that big picture. I get into it more in the book. But that's the gist of it. Look, I know who I am yesterday, and this will run I'm not sure exactly what they are when the person will be listening. But this last part of June, I'll say I filed a federal lawsuit. I filed a federal lawsuit. That's profound. And do you know what I did afterward? I sat home alone all day. And I just took it in.

Unknown Speaker  20:54  
I think we have to understand that big decisions, take it out of us emotionally. And when we do something that is bold, we have to give ourselves time and space. It's nine months after I lost my job. And now I'm just taking that step, there is no hurry.

Unknown Speaker  21:20  
You have to go through the steps and understand who you are what you really want, what you really believe what you really think is important. You go to your board of directors, as I talked about the book, what do your girlfriends say? What does your mama say? What is your big brother, say, your close friends, and you take it in, and then you do what you think is best. We have a powerful gut. I found some tremendous research that I did put in the book. And I wrote my stories was the first step. To me, it's not enough to just said, Well, here's what I did. I wanted to understand why something worked or didn't work. And found some amazing recent research about how powerful the gut is, and how it informs us. It's critically important that we're in touch and listen to our guts. Because of that, I haven't done everything mom thought I should or dad or brother, or best friend. But I certainly listened to wise counsel and take my time to do what I'm going to do. Chapter 14 was my favorite chapter in the book. Really, it absolutely was. And I loved the Board of Directors philosophy, where you have a group that's close to you that are your trusted advisors. I think that's so important for women, particularly as we get older to make sure we have those networks in place. Because we need that sounding board sometimes. Here's the thing that I'm just now at 55 Really taking in.

Unknown Speaker  22:56  
We don't just need to have them to tell us. Yeah, what you did was great, or what you did was bad or give us the truth. The second part of that is we have to be able to trust when they tell us if you've gotten a criticism. I'm a person when I get any criticism, I take it in full bore. Is there any truth to this? What is it that I might need to change? How do I need to adjust my life to the light? Because I tend to take it all in so deeply. It could be easy for me to believe something about myself, that just isn't true.

Unknown Speaker  23:36  
I wonder if you're that way, as a fellow three Enneagram? Do you find yourself even at this age second guessing yourself until someone you trust says stop it. That's not true. That's not the case. Then if you get that word, do you believe that you have to have people that you trust enough to believe them when they tell you something that you are afraid to accept? Yes, I agree with you. What I got from you reading this book was that you do have a pretty fine tune intuition that you knew something was coming. Yeah. When you lost your job at the new station. And I think we see those signs. I was in that situation. Back in 2020. I saw the signs. I knew something was coming.

Unknown Speaker  24:34  
But I chose to ignore it because I almost didn't believe it. But I knew it.

Unknown Speaker  24:41  
If that makes sense. Well, we tell ourselves what we want to hear to protect ourselves. Right? I learned something profound. Years ago, I was told by a friend who's a therapist, the greatest driving force of any human being on what they say and do is the protection

Unknown Speaker  25:00  
Have their self esteem. We protect ourselves. And that's why we believe what we want to believe we hear what we want to hear, we see what we want to see. And the wise person understands that and says, Wait a minute, am I just trying to protect myself so I can keep doing this thing? Or listening to this thing? Or that takes courage to say, Hmm, am I just trying to feel good about myself on this one? Or do I need to make a change? We want to say, oh, no, no, everything's gonna be okay. And make ourselves feel better. But I knew what was coming. It was obvious. It didn't take much got to be honest. But there's still the fear, and the tidal waves coming. And there's really nothing you can do about it, except wait for it to hit. That's a scary time.

Unknown Speaker  25:55  
It happened just as I thought, but I didn't die. Guess what, I didn't drown. I know, I'm still here. I have a book now. And I found out people believe in me, and I'm starting a new course for my life. There's victory at it any defeat or failure or pain that we have God uses at all. God works for good for those who love the Lord. As the Scripture goes, I hear daddy in my head again. He called him Pastor Jack Welch. He's proud of you. He's watching over you. Thank you. I'm certain of that. You have been a natural mentor pretty much your whole career you even mentored people, early in your career. Do you feel that writing this book has afforded you the opportunity to continue to mentor? Yes, I hope so. I hope it broadens. I will tell you one of the young women that I've mentored some when she was at my most recent station with me,

Unknown Speaker  26:56  
and I was having a rough day. And she needed me to help her decide between two pretty major jobs she was being offered, both surpassing the furthest I ever went just so you know. On some level, I'm thinking okay, so I called her. And I said, Okay, well, this one, this is great. This is going to look better on the resume. But this one here really fits better the long term and I helped her kind of troubleshoot and work through that. And she said to me, alright, I'm gonna go because I want to just read your book again, today. It sounds like a promo, I don't mean to sound like an ad for you. It's just that it was such a joy for me to write this thing to show some of the things and I certainly show my bad moments too. But if there's something that I learned the hard way, and reading it fills that young person with, okay, she did it so I can do I need to put this on this mindset on. And that was going to inspire her in some way. That was the greatest compliment I've gotten on all of this, since it started. It really touched me. You hear about these competitors. It's a cutthroat business and all this, you know how many women that I worked with that were at a lower level than I that are now up to the network level that far surpass me, and I'm still in touch with them. And you have two choices, you can decide early on, I'm going to be a cheerleader for everyone who comes my way. And they might get that job instead of me, they might pass me, they might not treat me very well. You don't have any control over those things. But the joy you feel when you see them flying high, having that success, having that influence is tremendous. It's just a better way to live. I would like to see us as women especially. And I talk about this a lot. I have always had issues with body image. I gain and lose weight. It's one of the crosses I deal with in life. But it's a long time ago I had to decide when I see a woman with perfect beautiful long legs. I can vicariously live through her. I can enjoy them on her. My sister is such a woman, and has had six children and is slim and beautiful and has a great figure. Can we be joyful that someone else has prettier eyes or better skin or nicer leg or whatever the physical is, and then so and so has more money and has the nice thing are that if we just can choose to be joyful and lift them up. It just I promise it makes us feel better about ourselves and your audiences, women in your 50s and 60s. And you already know you're listening to me now you already know this. I just think when we realize we know this, let's do it more and let's teach the young people to live this way because it's just a happier life. Our kids are watching Good day

Unknown Speaker  30:00  
Watch how we behave and how we treat our friends and how we treat other women. I want them to see that there's always going to be that person that has more money or is prettier or whatever. But yeah, let's just celebrate being women. Yes, and lift each other up and support one another. Yes, I go to the anyway poem that is attributed to Mother Teresa, but she didn't actually write it. She just had eight of the 10 parts of the poem on her wall. And so people thought she wrote it, but it comes from the 10 Paradoxical Commandments of leadership. And the last one is if you give the world your best, you'll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you've got anyway. Yeah. And I just love that. And clearly, Mother Teresa loved it. That's a bold way to live, you don't have control of what anybody else does. But I can tell you who I am, and what I'm gonna do. And that's what you have to look at in the mirror at night and either celebrate, or, Oh, well, we'll try.

Unknown Speaker  31:07  
Wasn't my best day.

Unknown Speaker  31:10  
But yes, there is always tomorrow. I do want you to tell the story about your interview with Bill Clinton. And you don't have to like go soup to nuts on it. But it's such a great story. Can you share that one. It's one that I love to tell because it happened early in my career. And it was such an important moment for me for building confidence and so forth. And the way the whole thing came out was so crazy. It's in the book. I actually went crazy trying to find pictures. The station that I worked for at the time in Baton Rouge did not keep the tape. But I had made a VHS copy. And so I'm going through all my VHS tapes. It was turned in backwards in the envelope. When I pulled it out. If you flipped it over then it said Clinton was one of the fourth stories I had on there when Oh no, I had to get my old VCR out and get it working and then snap the picture from the screen so that I would have pictures. It was crazy. But my friend said you gotta have the pictures. Julie. I get a call of when I had done the Miss Baton Rouge pageant. The president of the Jaycees calls me up and I was his queen like five years before this. He says, Hey, I got a tip for you. Bill Clinton is going to be in town doing a news release and not know where he's going to be that morning, if you want to try to get him one on one. And my first thought was, who's Bill Clinton.

Unknown Speaker  32:39  
At the time, he was the governor of Arkansas. It had been in the news that he was trying to get the Democratic nomination. I was in school full time I was working part time. I had just started part time on the weekend. The name sounded familiar. But there's that embarrassing moment of do I ask or do I use my context clues to try to figure it wasn't like now where you can Google it? There was no way to quickly look it up. So I just kept listening. But over time, I've learned to just ask the stupid question. Often a lot of other people have the same stupid question you do. I figured it out. And he said he's going to be leaving the hotel. The Hilton on Saturday morning is going to jog over to coffee calm, which is a little coffee place that had that vas. So if you want to try to catch it, and that was back then for those of us who are older, we remember when he was campaigning, they always showed him jogging. Oh, yeah. So I get out there. And I have my photographer. I'm in my purple suit and my four inch heels and I'm looking good and ready to go. And sure enough, we see him jogging with a bunch of students and LSU T shirts. They're in Baton Rouge. I'm hooked up to the photographer. I said we're going to have to run because I'm going to jog alongside and try to throw a question in four inch heels. Yeah, and the four inch heels. If you can't get it four inch heels. Yeah, all of these students are jogging with them. You have a major entourage of news media's cameras and everything because the network's were following him because he was trying to get the Democratic nomination. So there were no local media there. But the national media was so here's this young cub reporter running out into the street, trying to jog alongside Bill Clinton. And all these students. The network guys are just rolling out what is she doing? Thank God I'm not her photography. And my photographers think why do I get assigned to the one that that's so great. I start jogging along and I'm huffing and puffing. He's huffing and puffing. I don't know what I asked him but I knew this wasn't working. I had to pull away and go back to the side of the street. My photographer is being strung along like a dog on a leash. Not happy with me but very gracious about it. And I said okay, we got to come up with another idea. So we decided we're gonna get over to coffee calm. We'll get him in there. He walks into coffee calm

Unknown Speaker  35:00  
all the cameras are following behind. He gets his coffee and that moment my photographer Ken Brumfield was listening. He says, See that table of veterans over there. If he doesn't walk up to that table of veterans, he doesn't deserve to be president.

Unknown Speaker  35:16  
I agreed. He said, Let's go stand behind the table so that we have the video of him walking toward us, we get his face instead of his back like everybody else following. Okay, that sounds good. We're gonna get behind the table. Sure enough, he goes straight over to that table sits down with him. And I take the mic out, because I'm going to pick up what he's saying. And maybe I'll throw out a question. Well, George Stephanopoulos and James Carville. Were there, George Stephanopoulos, who's now with ABC News. He was one of the campaign advisors, as was James Carville, who was the ragin Cajun of Louisiana. Yeah. And all that they were both there. I get the camera out what George Stephanopoulos says, What are you doing? And I'm scared that I don't know anything. He says, This is a video lock. And of course, I'm thinking to myself, what's a video up? I was just that green video up is an opportunity to get video with the understanding. You're not allowed to ask questions. If the media are invited for a video up, the understanding is you can come you can capture video, but you cannot ask a question now I know. So I'm like, Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Then James Carville pulls me aside. He's a Louisiana boy. I'm a Louisiana girl. So he says, I'll tell you what, Julie, Bill Clinton is going to go over there and fill up his coffee again. And he's going to turn around and he's going to walk out that side door to the patio where those students are sitting. If you want to set up out there, I can't guarantee it. But there would be a chance to ask him a quick question. So thank you, I'm excited. Find photographer and I go setup outside. Sure enough, Bill Clinton goes over, fills up his cafe LA, and then walks out the side door and he walked right up to me. And I fire off a question. Now he's answering my question. All the other photographers are jumping over tables and falling all over the place trying to get in place so that they can ask a question, you get out this interview that they didn't realize what's going to happen. It was a video up. They are all gathered behind us while he finishes answering I fire my second question. And they're all yelling out their questions at the same time. But Clinton took my question again. Nice. He's answering. And he finishes that answer. And all of us at once fire the next question. He took my answer again. He's looking at me he's talking only to me with all these other people around at this point, I need what's called a reverse cutaway. This means the photographer has to get on the other side of him and get a picture of him talking to me proof of performance. He was talking to this reporter. He goes to try to get he's got photographers over him underneath them on both sides that were packed in and it's crazy. I'm jab and Ken Hey, cutaway, it gets kind of white. So he starts to try to get through to get around the other side. And a photographer bumps into him. he bumps into me, I bump into Bill Clinton and his Bill Clinton's coffee goes all over like coffee.

Unknown Speaker  38:24  
And you hear

Unknown Speaker  38:28  
I burned a future president that I'm Lucy from I Love Lucy with my notepad patent and down. I'm so sorry.

Unknown Speaker  38:39  
And horrified, just mortified. But all while I'm patting, not trying to get the coffee off. I've been apologizing. My photographer's getting in place. He finally was in place for that cutaway shot. So I go from this patent him down to suddenly since straight up at the mic there and that news dog face and I'm listening intently to what's being said, because that's my shot that I have. That's your kind of way. It was just a comedy of errors that I got my cut away. I got three questions in with Bill Clinton who of course later would become President of the United States. Yeah, I was the only person nationwide that got an interview with Bill Clinton that day. He had his big news conference later, it was a video up. He did the news conference, but he didn't answer questions of the local media. It was a big deal. And I was a green reporter working part time still going to LSU Oh, how does that happen? That's a great story. I'm gonna have you tell me how did that have tenacity. I think as I break it down, you have to get past the fear of embarrassment. You're gonna go for it. You're going to try things, the others art, you're going to maybe break some rules. You're going to trust yourself. When one plan doesn't work, you're going to switch gears to another and you're going to come

Unknown Speaker  40:00  
Keep trying. On some level, I was lucky. Luck is a good thing. But I kept trying and I was bowled when I had no right to be. And that's a key thing when you're early in your career, even if you're 5560 65. And there are some things we're just not good at, we don't have the experience. Don't be afraid to be bold when you have no right to be. That's how we get to the next level. I think that was the key there is that I didn't care if they were laughing at me who laughed last that day. I got him and they didn't know

Unknown Speaker  40:36  
about that little girl from Baton Rouge. And it was a big win in her purple suit in her four inch heels. Exactly, exactly. As I say it was a cornerstone in the construction of confidence. Confidence takes time, it takes winds to build self esteem and confidence. But until you have that, bold will do well, speaking of bold and bold moves, you decided to forego your severance from the new station in order to be able to tell your story. What do you want people to know about this journey that you're on right now?

Unknown Speaker  41:21  
I will tell you, here we are around the Fourth of July holiday. And it sounds a little melodramatic. And my friends like to roll their eyes and me but I'm a flag waiver. I got a big flagpole in front of my house. I've seen the Patriot many times, I think about those men and women who were very clear what was going to happen. When they signed that Declaration of Independence, there was a lot of debate over that. And a lot of people didn't want to do it. It was giving up your lives, your fortunes, everything imagine us being asked to give up our homes and risk the lives of our boys and girls. And but it was that critically important that they be free.

Unknown Speaker  42:07  
I mean, we're it we're the leaders in the United States of America, that first amendment right to free speech is profound.

Unknown Speaker  42:17  
And it should not be given away or sold lightly. Now, I'm in a position to where, frankly, I'm not going to go hungry. I have family and friends. If I get in a jam, I can sell a house I can. There are things I can do I have some money in my 401k I'm going to be alright for a while. And no one's ever going to feel sorry for me. They're people far, far, far worse off. But I'm just wired this way I could not

Unknown Speaker  42:49  
say to them, I'm going to stay silent about how you treated me

Unknown Speaker  42:55  
and not tell anyone for 50 grand or 100 grand or whatever it is. I understand that some people have to they're in a position that they have to and I respect that. But it wasn't palatable for me. I had a lot of people who love me say take the money. Take care of yourself, Julie. And I just couldn't do it. If you don't sign the non disclosure, you don't get your severance is how it worked. I will say the National Labor Relations Board has changed the law since then. And they say that non disclosures cannot be a prerequisite for getting severance. I did go back and ask for it. And I was told no, we owe you nothing. Hmm, we'll see what the court decides. And look, I may lose. But what I'm finding since all of this happened to me is that it's happening to so many, namely women, some men, they want to get rid of you because you're in your 50s. And so they start building a case, oh, you're doing this too much. Basically, you're not talented anymore, and you're a problem. After all these years of being a great employee, suddenly I'm no good anymore. And I'm a problem. It was painful. It was scary.

Unknown Speaker  44:09  
And it was not okay. And I'm gonna be okay. Because I'm a fighter and survivor and all those things. But don't we know people that don't have that wiring? That they're just going to get beaten up by Do we not have a mental health crisis in this country? We have people who are already dealing with a lot of trauma in their lives and difficulty. We don't need corporate America exercising these kinds of tools, tactics, whatever, for their bottom dollar. It's not okay. That's as plainly as I've put it publicly, by the way,

Unknown Speaker  44:50  
because I'm getting bolder as I go. It's not okay to treat people that way. Find another way to get rid of me. If you don't want me

Unknown Speaker  45:00  
But oh, by the way, I'm better than I've ever been. I know more, I can teach more, I'm a greater value. And if I have a few crow's feet, so what? I'm just not going to stay silent. And it's the way I feel about it, I feel strongly about it. And my best friend said to me the other night, and thanks for giving me some time here to really share. She said, are you why are you so quiet? What are you afraid of? You're afraid of losing?

Unknown Speaker  45:28  
And I said, yeah, yes. I don't know that. That's all of it. And I thought about it some more. And I think I'm also afraid of winning. Nobody wants to be known for the person who filed a lawsuit. I want to be known for being bold, and building people up and for my career and the things I've contributed. And I mean, there's so much I would like to be known for, that's positive and good. I don't want to be known as the, the whistleblower person who's complaining and being litigious. I'm not that. But I believe in what we have in America, I think corporate America has gotten too strong over the worker, and these tactics that they're using to have this control over us, I also had to sign a non compete, we don't want you but nobody else can have you for a full year. My expertise is as a news anchor reporter, I can't make as much money doing something else. It's like, you have no power, there's got to be some leveling of this. We got to give the worker the normal person, the mom, the dad, the brother, the sister, the auntie uncle, little more control over their lives to be free. Or what good is it to live in this country. And that's how I feel about it. Thanks for letting me I wanted you to feel comfortable talking about this. Because I just fear that because of ageism out there because that's what this is, is that companies are missing out when they I'm doing air quotes, throw away a more mature, experienced workforce, who's going to mentor those young people coming up, who's going to be the cheerleader for others. If we don't have that foundation in our workforce, it boggles my mind that those who are our leaders don't see it. And, frankly, that leadership, men and women in leadership positions who could change this aren't doing, I want to see people tap into the courage that is within, when you know something is wrong.

Unknown Speaker  47:48  
Be courageous. There's just not enough of it. It's go along to get along, take what you can get and move on. That's how life is that's how businesses will know.

Unknown Speaker  47:59  
I say in the book, they say, Oh, it's just business. It's not personal. No. All of business is personal because it involves people. Yeah, we go through this leadership training, I was asked to be the first leadership champion of the station, I was asked to train everyone on up to the general manager, I went to a week of training, and learn the five leadership principles and encouraged the heart model the way I challenge the process. I did the training and I for weeks and weeks I trained. Well, let's do this. Let's not just check the box that we're doing leadership training. Let's be leaders. I was inspired by that train. Was I the only one? I think you're right. I think there's so much that we have to give in our 50s 60s and beyond. I wish the television news industry would see it, you won't see this story of what I'm doing in my lawsuit on any television news, I can tell you that. Because they're all owned by the various companies that are not going to cover any news that is negative about enough. And that's the reality. That's okay. They're going to be watching though, because the outcome of your lawsuit is going to be very important for the industry. And I do have two more questions for you. Are you at all yet? Seeing this as a gift? This whole situation? Yes. Okay, good. I am and I will say that I saw it as a gift very early, even though it didn't feel like a gift

Unknown Speaker  49:40  
in the pain and the hurt and all that I knew pretty quickly that I was going to look back on it as a gift. Because Isn't it always when you get a door slam that you it opens the window as the old cliche goes, and I look back

Unknown Speaker  50:00  
I get how mortified and crippled I was over losing that silly beauty pageant all those years ago. If I had a one and gone on and competed in Miss America, I don't know what would have happened. But I know that because I lost, I continued my internship and news, got my foot in the door, before I even graduated college, and had a tremendous career that I enjoyed. For more than half of my life I've worked. I think God takes these things and he makes them for good. Yeah, some good is going to come from this, how much good and what the timing will be how much more pain I have to endure the process. I don't know. But I'm blessed to be in my own shoes, whatever it is grateful for the support around me because I've had a lot from not just family and friends, but strangers. And that part feels good. It always feels good. When you know, in your heart, you're in the right and you're doing the right thing, doesn't it? It absolutely does. It absolutely does. When I think about you and what could be next for you.

Unknown Speaker  51:14  
I think there is a whole world out there that your book and your voice is going to open. There's just something else out there. That's ahead. Do you see a beach in a really good looking man and

Unknown Speaker  51:39  
I see speaking engagements. I see podcasts. I see another book. I see all kinds of things for you, Julie. I really do. Really another book. Okay. Very good. I have some ideas for that. Thank you. I appreciate that. That means a lot coming from you know, thank you for being here today. This was delightful. I'm so happy to get to know you and I feel like I made a new friend. Same here same here. Let's do coffee said I'd love that. Thank you to those who've listened I hope you got something and God bless you.

Unknown Speaker  52:21  
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