Saying Yes Before You Feel Ready with Joan Lunden: Ep 39
Highlights from the episode:
• How early challenges shaped Joan’s confidence on air
• The role mentors and camera crews play behind the scenes
• What newsrooms looked like for women in the early 1970s
• The lessons Joan hopes younger generations take away from her story
Podcast show notes:
For nearly two decades, Joan Lunden welcomed millions of viewers into their morning routines as the longest-running female host of Good Morning America. But behind that familiar presence is a story filled with unexpected turns, bold decisions, and a lot of learning on the fly.
I was honored to be asked to speak with Joan about her new book; a conversation recorded in front of a live audience at Verso Studios in the Westport Library. I am thrilled to share that talk with you now on this episode of Things No One Tells You. Joan reflects on how she stumbled into television at a time when women were barely represented in the newsroom and how what began as a chance opportunity quickly turned into a career that would help reshape the industry.
Joan shares the difficult lessons she learned breaking into a male-dominated field, the mindset that helped her grow into one of television’s most trusted voices, and why sometimes the best career advice is simply to say yes before you know how it will work out.
We also talk about the deeper moments that shaped her life beyond the studio, including motherhood, resilience, and how facing breast cancer changed her perspective.
What You’ll Discover
Joan’s early career and unexpected start in TV (10:30)
The challenges women faced in journalism in the 1970s (11:24)
Why saying yes before you're ready can change everything (17:21)
The power of having a co-host who is the right fit (29:34)
Advocacy opportunities beyond the Good Morning America years (35:44)
From breaking barriers in television news to reflecting on the lessons that have made an impact along the way, Joan Lunden’s story is both inspiring and deeply human. Conversations like this are exactly what Things No One Tells You is all about. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to follow the show and take a moment to share it with a friend.
This live event interview was recorded at Verso Studios in the Westport Library.
Connect with Joan Lunden
Follow Joan on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/therealjoanlunden/
Discover Joan’s books, including her new memoir https://joanlunden.com/books/
Be sure to subscribe to Things No One Tells You—Lindsay’s podcast all about the real, unfiltered conversations we don’t always have but should. From big names to everyday voices, each episode dives into the moments that shape us. Listen wherever you get your podcasts!
Follow along with Lindsay below!
Full Transcript
[00:00:00] Joan: This is the page outta the Joan Lunden playbook. Whenever anyone asks you if you can do something, just say yes and then go figure out how to do it. And that's how I moved to New York City, and I frankly learned how to be a street reporter from my camera crew.
[00:00:23] Lindsay: Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Things No One Tells You.
[00:00:26] And this time, I am excited for you to hear this conversation with Legendary Broadcaster Joan Lunden. First, really quick, I just wanna share that I am coming off the high from watching the Oscars 'cause I always loved to watch them, but I just, I was struck this year. How much female camaraderie there was.
[00:00:43] And I feel like you always get that, but I really loved, especially I think, 'cause I'm thinking about the moment of all the actors from Bridesmaids and I love that movie so much, but, but I don't know, there's just something so cool about seeing all of these women going up there, you know, talking about also maybe some of them balancing, their job as actors and then being moms.
[00:01:03] I think that's really cool. So that sort of plays into this episode, but I wanna give you the backstory real quick because this was an unexpected gift of a conversation that I was able to have. And the truth is, the library and the town where I live in Connecticut, they're really sort of cutting edge, and they have all these really just newsmaking, you know, people like, whether they're artists, entertainers, authors, what have you, from time to time come to the library and they will give talks.
[00:01:30] They will speak all sorts of different things. And I've worked with them before, but they came to me and said, Hey, Joan Lunden is coming. She's written a new book, by the way. It's number 11. And they were like, would you host this conversation? And I started reading the book as I was prepping for this, and it just, from the jump, captivated me.
[00:01:50] And I know that part of the reason why is that I could see my own journey, sort of. In terms of the things that she was talking about. And Joan Lunden is a superstar in the world of news. I mean, she catapulted in the late seventies, through the eighties, to the lead seat at GMA. I loved what I was reading in her book, use it; it took me back to this memory I have when my mom, when I was a little kid, probably in my early teens, and she took me on a weekend to see this panel in Washington, DC.
[00:02:22] My mom loved to take me on these little adventures, and she was like, I wanna come show you this panel of women who are broadcasters. And it's funny because my dad is always the one that I think about in terms of my career because my dad was a sports journalist,t and I sort of followed more in those footsteps.
[00:02:39] But my mom was really the one who was, I think, finding ways to show me what. What strong women looked like. And she's also just one of them on her own because she was an educator and was always working. There were a couple of years that she was home with us, but then she went back, and she pivoted, and she was still in education, but she went on to become a principal.
[00:03:03] And watching that journey was really cool. And what I love so much about Joan's conversation is Joan's book, and she explains this memoir and why it's different from anything she's ever written. And I think that is a key piece of why this conversation is so powerful. But she really talks about all the hardships that she went through, and the way that she made it work.
[00:03:25] And that includes balancing really early on when there weren't really working moms that you could see on TV. balancing the travel, all the things, all the hardships in terms of breaking that glass ceiling as a woman in the news business. But I also love that, besides the thing that no one tells you that Joan really digs into in our episode, there's an overarching theme that is very much a thing that no one tells you, that I can't wait for you to discover for yourself.
[00:03:57] And it really is Joan's new mantra, which is the thing no one tells you, is that reinvention never retires. I also, real quick, wanna give a shout out to Westport Library because I love doing these conversations live. It is so much fun to be there with an audience that, and this audience was really feeding into everything that Joan was talking about.
[00:04:20] and it was really fun to just sit there with her in conversation, which was really just that, and hear what she had to say. And the book is fabulous. I encourage everybody out there to read it. But for now, here is my conversation with Joan Lunden.
[00:04:34] I told Joan, I started reading this book on an airplane,e and I literally underlined the first sentence and didn't stop.
[00:04:44] This is such an incredible book, and I feel so grateful to be able to be here with you and to be able to hear more of your story. And I, you know, when you hear all the accolades and all the things that you've done, this is your 11th book.
[00:04:56] Joan: Yeah.
[00:04:57] Lindsay: The story behind how this one came to be, what it is. It is really cool.
[00:05:02] Can you share that?
[00:05:03] Joan: Yeah. You know, I never would have, if you had told me at the beginning of my career, just coming in as a journalist, that I would end up writing 11 books. I would never have even believed that. But sometimes things come about in your life that you just feel like you need to share.
[00:05:22] And, I've shared a lot of different chapters, you know, along my journey. I started writing this one probably about. I don't know, 10, 11 years ago. And then I got diagnosed with breast cancer. And so I put it down. And after a year of very aggressive chemotherapy, I wrote a book called Had I Known, once again sharing another chapter of my life and everything I could learn about that.
[00:05:50] And then I started getting booked on all these different health campaigns for women. And I got the urge to write a book about women and aging. So I wrote my last book, which is, " Why did I come into this room? Come on, you guys. Can you know that one? However, it came out on March 13th, 2020. Does anybody remember what happened that day?
[00:06:15] Oh my goodness. Yeah, my six-week book tour got canceled. It still did well, but made the New York Times bestseller list. But then I finally took this back up, and I started writing this book, and a couple of things I think are worth talking about. First of all, I turned the first book into my publisher, and she said, " This is an autobiography.
[00:06:36] And an autobiography is kind of a compilation of all the things you've done. It's kinda like Joan Lunden reporting on Joan Lunden's life, which I would expect from you. Your readers want a memoir. And quite honestly, I didn't really know the difference between an autobiography and a memoir at the time, but she teamed me with a wonderful memoirist.
[00:07:01] She said, " You, they wanna go into those moments of your life. And I stopped and thought about it. I'm a voracious reader. I love books. I love to read, and I love historical fiction. I love mystery thrillers. Anything about the CIA or the Navy Seals, because I did a show behind closed doors where I got to deploy with all the different branches of the service.
[00:07:23] My husband called them my stupid human tricks. You know,
[00:07:27] Lindsay: By the way, those stories are incredible.
[00:07:29] Joan: Like, you know, landing on an aircraft carrier in an F-18 or jumping with the Golden Knights, or deploying with the Navy Seals, I'm really good at a cocktail party. But, so then, you know, we started writing the new version of this book, which took me over a year.
[00:07:49] And, you know, we would talk, I talk about certain stories, I gotta share this story. She said it is a good story, but probably people have heard about that one. I call it a postcard. It's nice, it's pretty, it looks good, but it's not revelatory. It didn't create a moment in your life where you had to figure out how to navigate your way through that, which created some vulnerability in your life.
[00:08:15] And so we looked for those moments. The hardest part was that for every story I opened up, I had to lose like five or six other stories. It's gotta be another book, right?
[00:08:29] Lindsay: Yeah.
[00:08:29] Joan: But, but that, but it became the kind of book that I like to read, you know, where a book takes you to another time and place with the protagonist and all the people in their lives and what they went through.
[00:08:44] So I'm much, much happier with the fact that I took all that extra time and rewrote. And I gotta tell you, David Hartman and I, for 10 years, and Charlie and I for 10 years, never. Had the ability to fact-check anything. We didn't have laptops, and we didn't have Google.
[00:09:06] Lindsay: Oh my gosh.
[00:09:08] Joan: I have anchors now that see me, and they say, how did you do it when you didn't have Google?
[00:09:13] Lindsay: Right.
[00:09:13] Joan: And.
[00:09:14] Lindsay: No, with AI, I mean, it's,
[00:09:15] Joan: Well, for me, I'll tell you, writing this book, I was constantly googling because I kept trying to figure out my timeline. So like, I'm setting this scene in the studio, and you know, David and I are there, and I've broken my arm, and it's in a cast, and Al Gore walks in and, you know, the conventions are going on.
[00:09:34] I mean, I'm starting this like, wait a second. When was the convention? Now I'm Googling. I was constantly Googling, and then I was going to YouTube, and I couldn't believe how much of my career was on YouTube. I don't, and I don't for the life of me know how it got there. 'cause I didn't put it all there.
[00:09:55] Lindsay: You know what? It's like when your tapes started going to the network. Network. Yeah. And you didn't know, and that's some of the story you talk about in this book. And it was like, how does it get there? It just shows up. But when you talk about that in the book, there are QR codes.
[00:10:10] Joan: Yes.
[00:10:11] Lindsay: And we were discussing this upstairs, and forgive me if you guys all know this already, but I think that's such a cool thing, is that the QR code you go up, open up,
[00:10:19] Joan: It opens it up.
[00:10:19] Lindsay: And it opens up the memory.
[00:10:21] And I was saying that I loved looking at the old video of you in Sacramento, where you started. And I think a lot of people here probably don't know that you started as a weather girl.
[00:10:31] Joan: As a weather girl. Yeah.
[00:10:33] Lindsay: And you didn't see news or TV news in your future. You were looking at
[00:10:37] Joan: No.
[00:10:38] Lindsay: Being a talker when you were a kid.
[00:10:40] Joan: There weren't any women on, I mean, for those of you who, you know, are as old as I am. So you can remember like in the, I grew up in the fifties and sixties, there were no women on television news. I mean, it was really an all-male white industry period, across the board. And the only woman I can remember was Barbara Walters.
[00:11:00] She was on the Today Show. Even she started as a Today Show gal. That's what they called them back then, that, you know, ran and got coffee and ran and got coffee for, and then now and then, like, have a little fluff assignment. And then she worked her way into that. But when I stop and think about when I started, it was 1973, that first job.
[00:11:24] And it was only because a family friend who was an ad salesman at a local station said, Hey, what are you gonna do when you get outta college? Like, I don't know. And I was a psychology major. I'd always thought I'd be a doctor just like my dad. And then I'd worked in a hospital right before I went away to college, and I found out pretty quickly that stitches and scalpels were likely not gonna be part of my career.
[00:11:49] Psychology felt like it was about as close as I could get to medicine, but you know, when I stop and think about the time that it was, and this is why I hope this book gets into the hands of a lot of young girls, if you have daughters or granddaughters that are in their twenties and thirties, I want them to understand the timeline of how different life was for women.
[00:12:13] Like in 1973, when I started at KCRA in Sacramento, a woman couldn't open their own charge account. Until 1972. Wow. You had to get a, if you wanted a blooming card, it had to be your husband that would get it for you, you know? And Mrs. So and so, you couldn't open a bank account, you couldn't buy property.
[00:12:36] So, I mean, it was such a different world. And the television news business, there just were no women in it. Oh, there was one woman at that local station, and she was on the news, but she was married to the owner of the station. So that doesn't count. Wow. In my book, that doesn't count. But you know, I well, I actually just went on a fact-finding mission, 'cause this guy had said, you ought to think about television news, which frankly seemed like kind of a hair-brained idea.
[00:13:04] And he said, well, in case you decide to at least ask about it, he wrote down the name of the news director and the phone number. So the next day I. I pick up the phone, and I call him, and this guy says, " You know that bill is down in sales? He told me that you might call,and if I did, and if you did, I'd be crazy if I didn't meet you.
[00:13:27] So he said, what are you doing at two o'clock? I said, seeing you. So I went in strictly to ask questions about what the industry was like. How are they going to start bringing women into the industry now that the nationalization of women was like suing, you know, everybody trying to force them to hire more women.
[00:13:47] And after about five minutes, he looked at me. He says, well, clearly you know how to write an interview. Yeah. He said, I think you have something. He said, I wanna take you down to the studio and audition you. I was like. Okay, so I went, and he auditioned me, and he was very nice. He was very flattering, but he didn't have a job.
[00:14:06] There was no job opening. And he said, but we might start like an early newscast at five 30 in about six months. So I want to keep your name. But as I did that audition, the weatherman behind the set was doing the weather maps back in the day, where you had a big black felt tip pen and you drew the weather front, and you wrote, you know, L for low and H for high.
[00:14:32] There was nothing automated back then. And he had seen that. He walked right out into the parking lot with me and said, I just saw that, and I'd like to make you Sacramento's first weather girl. There are a few stations around the country that are putting weather girls on now. I'm gonna be honest with you.
[00:14:49] That sounded incredibly boring. It didn't sound at all interesting, but somehow. I knew of an opportunity when I heard it, and I said, " Okay. And he said," Okay, be at the station at five o'clock on Monday. And I said, 5:00 AM, and I should have known right then. That was an omen. I was gonna be on that morning shift forever.
[00:15:14] Lindsay: I know it, it's funny, Melvin, my husband was up there meeting Joan and asking questions about that. 'Cause it is so interesting. It is such a small group of people that does the role that you have done. And when you were thinking back in this memoir and putting those stories and really going through that process, was it sort of like different things were coming to the surface for you in terms of just realizing your journey?
[00:15:38] Joan: You know, I'll tell you, my husband's always said, you have had the most extraordinary life. But what's so weird to me is that. You don't think that, you think it was ordinary. I need to remind you it was extraordinary, and it certainly was, but putting that kind of life into a hundred thousand words is not easy.
[00:16:00] The first draft had 196,000, I think, and they said, " No, I mean, quite honestly, this one's probably maybe 106,000. But it's hard, you know, when you try to say, what do I want to leave? This is really kinda my legacy memoir, but I didn't wanna just give you the highlights of my career. I mean, I wanted to take you on that journey of, you know, breaking into an all-male industry as a young female.
[00:16:32] And then, you know, getting the call, you know, getting the job in New York now. I started as a weather girl. Then they gave me some consumer reporting to do. But admittedly, I shot up to be an anchor within a year and a half. I mean, you know, 'cause there just weren't any women. And then all of a sudden I got the opportunity to go to New York, and I thought I'd been an anchor, that's, they're bringing me in as an anchor.
[00:16:59] But the job was actually Sunday anchor, Monday through Friday, Street reporter. I'd never actually been a street reporter. You know who, what, when, where, and why you go to fires and political things. And everybody at my station said, " What are you thinking? How do you think you're gonna go to New York City and be a street reporter?
[00:17:21] You've never done it. Yeah. And so this is my, this is the page outta the Joan Lunden playbook. Whenever anyone asks you if you can do something, just say yes and then go figure out how to do it. And that's how I moved to New York City. And I frankly learned how to be a street reporter from my camera crew.
[00:17:47] Lindsay: Right? And I love hearing that.
[00:17:48] Joan: I don't know why I thought so. I don't know how those executives at WABC hired me, knowing I hadn't been a street reporter. Did they think it was that easy?
[00:17:58] Lindsay: Or did they think that the camera crew, because I've had this same experience in sports, I got into sports. I didn't cover sports.
[00:18:04] I was a news girl first. And they said, " Do you wanna cover auto racing? And I was like. I don't know what a chassis is. Like what? And they said, just get here, and we'll teach you everything you need to know. But I relied so much on my photographers. Oh yeah. And that eventually, when I got to Washington DC and I was a sports anchor, Chris Kerwin was my photographer, and Dan Buckley.
[00:18:28] And they would, they were my guys. Yeah. I mean that they were my confidence. We would be going to a certain interview, and I would be like this: I'm terrified. This is the head coach of whatever team. And they'd be like, this is fine. You know, they become your lifelines.
[00:18:42] Joan: So I'm gonna tell you that. The ab the first story.
[00:18:48] It was the first story. Well, first of all, I should tell you my name is Joan Blunden. My dad was Dr. Blunden, and when I got to WABC, they said, " We think that you should change your name. Now, I do remember that when I was a little girl, we would go into a restaurant and you would give your name to the hostess, and you would sit and wait, and then the hostess would sometimes say, Dr.
[00:19:11] Blunder, your table is ready. It made my dad crazy. He's a surgeon. You can't be a blunder. So now all of a sudden I have this news director telling me, you know, when you write Blunden, it can kinda look like a blunder. You don't wanna give the critics like, you know, a, a good route to go here. So I had to call my mom and tell her.
[00:19:34] I might be famous, but not with your name. No, I did. I started the call by saying, " Remember how dad used to get crazy? I said, well, the news director here kind of feels the same way, so they want me to change my name. And I remember one of the reporters, I don't know how many of you watched, you know, kind of eyewitness news over the years, but they put together this very ethnic group of reporters, for the first time, really Eyewitness News.
[00:20:03] And it became the biggest hit ever. And one of the reporters, Gloria Rojas, said, I think you should be Joan Cartwright. I said, " Okay, why? She said, because you come from California and everybody watches the Ponderosa, you know, remember the show Ponderosa? And it was the Cartwrights that owned the Ponderosa.
[00:20:27] I said, do you think all of California looks like the Ponderosa? And I went, and finally, after a couple of days, they gave me, I'd gone on stories, just kind of watching. And I got called,d and I said, " You're gonna go on this story. And I popped my head very sheepishly into the news director's office and said, I'm going on a story.
[00:20:47] So, I absolutely have to have a name, you know, to close the story. And there was a reporter, Don, Doug Johnson, some of you may remember. He was sitting there. He said, " Why don't you just drop the B and call yourself Lunde? People will, you know, it's recognizable. The city of Lunden. At that time, there was a big star, Julie Lunden.
[00:21:06] And I said, that seems pretty easy. It got changed in a nanosecond. I said, " Okay, bye.
[00:21:13] Lindsay: Wow.
[00:21:13] Joan: I mean, and literally, I don't even know if it took a minute to have that conversation. And I walked out. When I went to close that story, I had to do it about three times. Joan Lunden, uh, I mean Joan Lunden. But the story I went on was a bombing and conspiracy trial because the Vietnam War was going on, and some activists were blowing up recruiting offices.
[00:21:36] And so I drove with my crew, and back then, there was no videotape. Everything was on film, cameraman, lighting, man, sound man. And we drove up in front of this big, impressive courthouse in New York City. The guys got out, and they started getting all their stuff out of the trunk. And the cameraman says to me, how many mags do you want?
[00:21:58] And I said, I don't think I'll have any time to read any magazines there. Okay, so some of you know about a film camera, that big round thing up on the top that houses the film. That's the magazine. And he was asking me, do you think you need a hundred feet of film or 300 feet of film? So he just said, " Okay, so I'll bring a couple of mags.
[00:22:19] We're walking in, and I kind of get up by him. I say, Herb, what's a mag? I mean, he knew I had no idea. So he explained the whole thing to me. I mean, they almost fell and peed in their pants when I said, I gotta tell you. And they realized that they had this newbie who didn't know, but they were so wonderful, and they taught me what to do.
[00:22:41] You know? I mean, they literally explained to me, they said the next day they sent me to a fire, I jumped outta the car. There's a fire going on. I'm the reporter. I should find out what's going on. I went over to one of the firemen. I'm like, you know, how did the fires start? Again, my cameraman comes running over to me, saying," You can't talk to the fireman, you gotta talk to the man with the white hat.
[00:23:00] He's the chief, they're fighting the fire. This fireman looked at me like I was like a little sister annoying him. You know?
[00:23:07] Lindsay: That's so funny, right? You have to wait for the PIO. I mean, it's
[00:23:10] Joan: So naive,
[00:23:11] Lindsay: But isn't it great? I think naivety is such an awesome thing. I love that you touch on that. Real quick, before I forget, what was your mom's reaction to dropping the bee?
[00:23:21] Joan: There's a moment of silence. She couldn't argue with it because it had happened to my dad.
[00:23:27] Lindsay: Yes, and you teed it up that way, which was really,
[00:23:30] Joan: Oh, believe me. I teed it up that way, and when she realized Lunden wasn't gonna be that much different, but, you know, I had been in Sacramento, and I'd risen very quickly to this.
[00:23:41] Top position on the new news that was, you know, winning all the ratings, so my mom got to see me every day. And then I went off to New York, and I was on New York News. She never got to see me anymore. So she was really sad. And then I got Good Morning America, and once again, my mom got to see me, so she was happy again.
[00:24:01] Lindsay: I know, I thought about that when you said that too. 'Cause when we moved here, it was from Washington, which is where I'm from, and so it was, it feels weird, right? Yeah. When that happens, it's like a big hug 'cause you're in your hometown and then you go somewhere else. Can you share what Barbara Walters told you early on?
[00:24:17] Because I just thought that was so profound.
[00:24:21] Joan: Well, she was really the only, she was, to me, she was my idol and. And when I was one, the first morning that they finally met, it was in the contract with David Hartman that I couldn't do any big interviews, any celebrities, any major athletes. I couldn't open the show.
[00:24:38] I couldn't close the show, and I couldn't be called the co-host.
[00:24:42] Lindsay: And it Was it specifically that you couldn't or
[00:24:44] Joan: No, there is nobody else on the show. Oh my gosh. Could do anything. But remember, in his defense,
[00:24:49] Lindsay: Yeah.
[00:24:50] Joan: ABC had hired him from Hollywood.
[00:24:52] Lindsay: Yes. He was an actor.
[00:24:53] Joan: He had been a star on Lucas Tanner. Some of you, he was a teacher, I think of Lucas Tanner.
[00:24:58] He had been on the bold ones. He was a doctor. So he was a big Hollywood star, and they brought him in as that. So,
[00:25:04] Lindsay: And they had a different outlook, which I thought was really interesting from the book, too. At that point, NBC was very much more the news division that ran it. Yeah. ABC was very much the Hollywood side of entertainment.
[00:25:16] Joan: Well, I won't say the Hollywood side. What I'll say is that they understood that today's show had been on forever and was very strong. And they decided to do an alternative kind of program, but still news. So what they did is they created a set that looked like a home, like anybody's home.
[00:25:35] And it was all in gold and oranges. And our logo was a rising sun. They had Marvin Hamlisch do some nice music, not the news. They wanted to, but we didn't call our experts. Experts, we call them our family members. We. Created like a completely different kind of program that happened to absolutely take off and win the ratings for the next almost 20 years.
[00:26:04] So, it was in those early days that it was like a big deal that Barbara was coming. And she might have asked for me, I don't know, I don't know how I ended up with that story that day. And she was coming on to talk about something special of hers after the store, after our story. She took me aside during the commercial break, and she said, I'm gonna tell you something.
[00:26:29] Do not try to fight for equality. Now, this would've been 1980, she said. It's not there yet. We're not there yet. And not just in here, out there, like the country's just not there yet. And if you do that, you're gonna end up exactly where your predecessors ended up, right out the door. This is what you need to do.
[00:26:51] Take every small assignment that they're willing to give you and make them shine. Just make them so good that they have to notice. That's how you will, your star will rise. And she was right. I mean, I followed that. I'll tell you something else she said to me. Always write thank-you notes.
[00:27:12] Lindsay: Oh.
[00:27:12] Joan: She said, people wonder why I always get the big interviews, the big celebrities.
[00:27:17] She said, I'll tell you why. " She said, " When I see in Variety that you know, somebody's been cast for a movie or for a Broadway show, I immediately write them a handwritten note. Oh my gosh, you're just absolutely perfect for this role. I can't wait to see it. Please let me know when it's gonna be coming to you know theaters.
[00:27:36] I'd love to talk to you. Then she said, when it comes out, who do you think they wanna talk to? She said, I do that. I planted the seed then. And she said, When you get big interviews, always write a thank you note. Cut. One day, David Hartman's off and I'm there. Richard Burton is on the show, and he's gonna be starring in Equus on Broadway.
[00:28:03] So by default, I got the interview. I really got ready for that interview, and afterwards I wrote him a beautiful thank you note, and cut it a year later. Now he is on for some big movie he was doing,g and he says, I want that same Joan Lunden that interviewed me last time Dave Hartman hears, and he's like.
[00:28:25] What do you mean, Joan's doing the interview? I've known Richard Burton for a long time, like we're buddies. And he said, sorry, but Mr. Burton asked for Joan. So I mean, that's, yeah. Those little things. I mean, I followed a lot of those little pieces of advice, those little gems that Barbara gave me, and they worked.
[00:28:47] Lindsay: What are some of the gems that you have found through your own experience that you, that are maybe things that you have come across?
[00:28:56] Joan: I think it's important to, for women, and look, we've come a long way, baby, as it says, but we're certainly still not at a place where, you know, there's total equality in almost all workplaces.
[00:29:12] I'll tell you that when Charlie Gibson came, after 10 years of being with David. He left, and they tried out a lot of different guys. I really thought Charlie was the guy; he was the Capitol Hill correspondent. He was super smart, but he was just kind of like this, every man's man, he didn't wear how bright he was.
[00:29:34] He didn't talk down to you. When I met him, I forgot which inauguration it was. It was so cold out that everything had to get moved inside. But we all, we both got moved to the Rotunda, and that was the first time we met each other. And so I was the big cheerleader for Charlie, and he knew it. And so the first day he came to the office to put his books and stuff in the, in his office, he came into my office and said, I want to do this show 50-50 equal, let's show America that a man and a woman can do this show as equals.
[00:30:12] And I said, I'll take that. And we were always that way. Now, cut to about three months ago, the 50th reunion of Good Morning America. Charlie and Spencer and I went out to dinner the night before, and Charlie said, " You know, I never told you. He said, I, you know, he had read the book. He said, I saw in the book that you talked about that day that I walked in and sat down across your desk.
[00:30:36] I didn't tell you that. When I actually first walked into the office, the vice presidents and the executive producers called me in. They said, " Okay, we got you here, 'cause there's something very important. You need to immediately establish yourself as the alpha male. Really. You've gotta let Joe know that.
[00:30:55] You've gotta let the audience know that. And Charlie said, he looked at them and said. I don't think that's how I took this job. That may be the way they've done it for the last 10 years, but I don't think that's what we should be doing. And he walked outta the office, walked into my office, and I knew the second half of the story, which is that he sat down across from me and said, " We're doing this show 50/50.
[00:31:18] And he was so right on, because you know, that was 10 years later. That was almost like, I forgot what year Charlie came? 89, 91, something like that. And he,
[00:31:30] Lindsay: Wow.
[00:31:31] Joan: And he stuck to that, and it was awesome. And that's, I mean, our show just flourished when Charlie and I started. Yeah.
[00:31:41] Lindsay: And that com, I mean, the camaraderie.
[00:31:44] Joan: Oh
[00:31:44] Lindsay: My God, it's like
[00:31:44] Joan: A brother to me.
[00:31:45] Lindsay: Right. And you, I mean, and that's what it takes to have, I mean, chemistry equals success. It's like that in sports. But in morning shows, absolutely.
[00:31:54] Joan: Morning shows are different.
[00:31:56] And you know, your husband will tell you guys all know she's married to Craig Melvin, but it's a different time of day.
[00:32:04] You don't have your shoes on. You may have brushed your teeth or brushed your hair, and we are in your house. You know, it's, I've always said that on, there can be a familiarity with a star. You know, if you're walking down the street and you saw Mariska Hargitay, you would say, guess what's over there.
[00:32:23] I know I'm a big Law and Order fan. But you don't necessarily go over there and say hello. But I was in everybody's living room every day, and they almost, when people meet me out somewhere, I gotta tell you, even to this day, sometimes people will come up and put their arms around me and say, oh my God, I watch you every morning.
[00:32:41] I was like, okay, I haven't been there for 25 years, but that's okay. But it's just this natural kind of reaction. I remember the first time my mother-in-law saw me, a nd I was still on GMA at this point. The first time,e a woman came and wrapped her arms around me. Oh my God, and afterwards she said, she was in your personal space, said, yep, welcome to my world, because it's more of a familial bond that you create with a morning audience.
[00:33:11] And I'll tell you, when I left GMA, it was almost 1990, the end of 1997, we still didn't have social media. And to me, one of the hardest parts of leaving that show and walking outta that studio that day was disconnecting from the millions of people that shared their morning with me. And remember back then, you know, when I was on that show, there were ABC, NBC, CBS, and then later CNN.
[00:33:39] There weren't like 28 outlets. We had 28 million viewers sometimes in a week. Wow. Like, that's impossible to have in today's world of television. So, it was really sad for me to disconnect. And then Facebook came, and I, like all of them, started connecting with myself again. I remember when my, my, my husband said, first of all, never bring that laptop to bed again.
[00:34:07] Second of all, you're not gonna be able to answer all those people. And I said. I'm sure I'll try.
[00:34:13] Lindsay: Like I can write 'em all. Thank you notes.
[00:34:16] Joan: Yep.
[00:34:16] Lindsay: Wait, so what was it like, 'cause you are the queen of reinvention, and I love that about your story. But before you talk about that, what was it like when you walked away from that?
[00:34:28] How do you describe what that felt like, and was that hard to deal with? Is it after so long of, you know, having such a high-profile job?
[00:34:38] Joan: You know, I think about even for years, like, you know, the men would leave a job, you know, at their retirement age, and have sometimes difficulty because that is whatever they've been doing as a living.
[00:34:51] That's kind of how they define themselves. Yes. But when you have such a public-facing job, that is how every, I mean, to this day I'm introduced as the former host of Good Morning America. It's also how you see yourself. It is your definition of yourself. And it's, it was really vulnerable, and it was really difficult.
[00:35:15] And, and I knew that everybody was waiting for me to pop up on the Today Show or a talk show, and I actually got some of those opportunities and didn't lean into them. And I talk about that a lot in the book, which I don't need to all go into here, but I think it took until this time in my life to be able to look at the arc of my whole life and to realize 25 years of such.
[00:35:44] Publicly well-known, such a big career. And then I have the other 25 years after, but only now can I look at those 25 years where I refocused, and I focus so much on advocacy. By the way, I did 10 shows since I did GMA, but people don't realize that 'cause they weren't on national TV every single day.
[00:36:08] They were on a lot of different networks. We shot one way up around here, though, wickedly Perfect. Looking for the next Martha Stewart. I don't know if you remember that one on CBS primetime. They're still on one right now on PBS called Second Opinion, another health show. But as I look at these last 25 years now.
[00:36:27] And I realized that in breast cancer and caregiving, in the American Heart Association testifying before the FDA to get mandatory mammogram reporting, testifying before the House Ways and Means committee in Congress to try to expand the Family and Medical Leave Act to include caregiving at the end of life, as well as newborn care.
[00:36:52] I might have had even more opportunities to truly make a difference in people's lives in the last 25 years than I did in those 25 years that preceded it,t and that was good for me. One of the real pleasures of doing this book was being able to stand back and finally getting to see that.
[00:37:18] To really kind of understand that and to understand the value that you don't always have to top what you were doing before. You don't always have to do the same thing that you were doing before. And sometimes being open, you're leaving your mind open, and your heart open to other things, where maybe you could make a difference and have something to do that's really self-fulfilling.
[00:37:41] if you're just open to it. So a lot of my book is about reinvention, and I love what I love, chapter titles. And one of these is that reinvention never retires.
[00:37:54] And look, we live in a world today where people are gonna be phased out of businesses. Businesses are gonna cut back. AI is gonna phase people out, and people are gonna find themselves having to reinvent themselves over and over again, as I think never before in our history.
[00:38:13] So if I can add a little bit of. Guidance, inspiration, or motivation, in that realm. Then once again, I think I've kind of done my part.
[00:38:25] Lindsay: I also, and I love all the men that are in the audience here, but I think that women are really great at reinvention.
[00:38:32] Joan: Yeah,
[00:38:33] Lindsay: Right. Well, we have to be. Not that men aren't, but yes.
[00:38:37] But you know, we're multitaskers.
[00:38:39] Joan: Whoa. Are we multitaskers?
[00:38:41] Lindsay: I know. So to that end, how did you balance all of that?
[00:38:45] Joan: Oh, you with a breeze,
[00:38:47] Lindsay: But you, there are so many things that I wanna ask you about, 'cause this is so chock-full of just really fascinating, relatable stories on some levels. But how did you balance? You found out that you got the job at GMA, literally the same day you got the phone call that you were pregnant with your first child.
[00:39:04] Joan: Yeah, the phone call was 20 minutes after the phone call from the agent, you got the job.
[00:39:09] Lindsay: I mean, that is
[00:39:10] Joan: 20 minutes later. Congratulations, you're pregnant. And it never really occurred to me, honestly, Lindsay, to say, oh boy, bad timing. That would've been so great, I said, all right, how am I gonna pull this one off?
[00:39:22] And that's just how I've kind of always walked through my life, is just to figure it out. And you know, I have a 4th of July baby, my first little girl, Jamie, and they wanted me back in August. And I remember I called my agent and said," You know, I've interviewed a lot of people from La Leche League, so I know I should breastfeed.
[00:39:44] Will you ask him if I can bring Jamie with me because I'm gonna be breastfeeding now? Just remember in 1979. Yeah. That was one of the words that the FCC said. You could not say on television.
[00:39:56] Lindsay: Breastfeeding.
[00:39:56] Joan: Breastfeeding. You could not say breast or breastfeeding on television. Right. And I was asking him to go to the ABC executives to ask if I could bring my baby to work.
[00:40:08] 'Cause I was breastfeeding. Well, they just wanted me; they wanted my tush in that seat. They wanted to get the show kind of back on track. And so they said yes. I don't think they understood. Kudos to ABC for saying yes. I think that they felt it was gonna be the best-kept secret. I really do. I mean, they gave me a little, they gave me the dressing room next to mine.
[00:40:28] Yeah. And put a crib in there. They put a crib in my office.
[00:40:32] Lindsay: Look, there's the picture.
[00:40:35] Joan: Oh yeah. There.
[00:40:35] Lindsay: That was amazing, baby Jamie. Yeah. I mean, that is so special.
[00:40:40] Joan: And they, I really, and oh, and then we had a press conference, the first day after the show, and the PR guy took me aside and said, whatever you do, don't say that you have that baby upstairs.
[00:40:52] These are reporters. These are TV critics. They will chew you up and spit you out. They'll think that you will never be able to do your job. I said, all, I really wasn't gonna bring it up. So now we walk into the studio,o and it's packed, and David Hartman welcomes them all there, and he introduces me as the new co-host of Good Morning America.
[00:41:12] And I open it up to questions, first question. Time Magazine, we hear you're bringing your baby to work. How did you work that out with ABC? Like, my eyes shot to the back of the room where all the executives were, but I had to answer his question.
[00:41:27] Lindsay: What was their reaction?
[00:41:28] Joan: Were they, like I said, well. ABC actually gave it to me in my contract that I could bring my baby to work because I'm breastfeeding.
[00:41:39] Print that second question. Newsweek, this show travels the globe. What are you gonna do? I said, actually, ABC gave me permission to take the baby anywhere I go for at least the first year. And by the way, nine months later, I took her with me on the Concord to London to cover the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana.
[00:42:01] Lindsay: That's amazing.
[00:42:02] Joan: And I'm, I remember sitting at the inner turret at the, where did they keep the royal jewels? In the,
[00:42:08] Lindsay: Yes.
[00:42:09] Joan: Tower of London.
[00:42:11] In a turret. And they had to pull up, you know, like lines to give us electricity so they could plug in the blow dryer so that the guy could blow my hair dry.
[00:42:21] And I'm sitting with Jamie in my lap, ready to go down and see the jewels of Lunden, I mean. It was really a pretty crazy, extraordinary life. And it was a lot of fun being able to share it with everyone.
[00:42:35] Lindsay: That's so wild. My daughter came with me. I was pregnant at the Indy 500, and they wanted to put me in a two-seater to take a ride around the track, and Mario Andretti was driving, and I said, I can't, I'm like five months.
[00:42:48] And he said," Ohh, that's fine. And I was like, what? So I checked with the authorities to be there, and they said" No no, it's okay. He's really good, and he's safe. And I was like, all right. So it's like my claim to fame for my daughter. I'm like, you are not my, your brother's been there, but you've really been there.
[00:43:03] Like you were in a car with Mario and ready. But no, not to. I mean, the stories you have with your that's amazing. And that's amazing that they did that. And I love that picture so
[00:43:12] Joan: That, so once I let the cat outta the bag. The next thing I knew, the PR guy who had told me, don't you dare say anything about that baby.
[00:43:22] I see him walking in the door to the studio with Jamie in his arms, all swaddled up, and he walks right down the center aisle as all these reporters and hands are to me. And that was the picture on the cover of every newspaper and magazine. Oh. It took us about 10 minutes before everyone realized that the story, the breaking news that day, wasn't who was the new co-host of Good Morning America?
[00:43:47] It was that a major media organization had allowed a woman to be brought. A baby to work with her.
[00:43:53] Lindsay: Did you realize that moment when you were in it? Did it feel,
[00:43:56] Joan: I don't think so. I don't think I can really honestly say that. And I don't think ABC understood. The ripple effect that it would have across corporate America, and they really weren't sure how the audience would take to it.
[00:44:10] But quite honestly, the audience really, they had such a positive reaction. I think they saw me there. Obviously, I had read my research, I was there, I was doing the interview, and yeah, I probably had spit up on me and dirty diapers to change. And that I think endeared me to the public. I will tell you something else that I just learned recently from one of the guys who was the producer when I first went there.
[00:44:33] 'Cause I've been fact-checking with him for the last year, and the other day he said, you know, I never told you something. He said," When you really started a show, I got a call from the head of Entertainment, and our show was under the entertainment division. And he said to me, You gotta get that Joe Lunden off the air now.
[00:44:53] And he's like, why? Because like nobody wants to see a pregnant woman walking down the street, let alone on their TV while they're eating breakfast for God's sake. And the producer said," Well, that's really not the reaction that we're getting from our audience. Like we've had a real, a really positive reaction from the audience.
[00:45:14] And by the way, a really positive reaction from the press. He said, I got together with David Hartman, and with the Vice President, and we stood firm and said, ' No, it would be a huge ratings mistake if we took her off the air because she's pregnant and he finally acquiesced. And backed it down. And this producer said, so you stayed on the air until like two weeks before you delivered.
[00:45:39] And he said, and we decided not to tell you that at the time. I said, I'm so glad you'd never told me right at the time that the head of entertainment wanted me off the show 'cause I looked so big.
[00:45:51] Lindsay: Oh my gosh.
[00:45:51] Joan: And by the way, you know, now you can have these cute little maternity-right clothes with a baby bump. We wore tents.
[00:45:59] Lindsay: They were like muumuus.
[00:46:00] Joan: They were tents. So, I mean, I get it that he was saying that maybe it wasn't so appealing.
[00:46:08] Lindsay: But really, I mean, how did you balance all of that? How, and you have seven kids. I mean, how? What was your secret to making it work?
[00:46:16] Joan: Listen to the mumbling. I've covered five presidents in three Olympics, but it's the seven kids I know that always get the applause, you know?
[00:46:24] Lindsay: I love it. I love it. And look, there's the family.
[00:46:26] Joan: Oh, yes. Here they are. Seven. Now they've grown up a little. The younger ones, the two sets of twins, are now 21 and 23. Wow. Yes. We've had four of them in college for the last four years, and my older girls, who literally grew up in that studio, are now 37, 43, and 45, and two of them are married with little kids of their own.
[00:46:51] If you were watching Good Morning America last Tuesday, they were on the show.
[00:46:54] Lindsay: Yes.
[00:46:55] Joan: Yeah.
[00:46:56] Lindsay: Yes. It was awesome to see them back there. What would you say as you think back about your journey? What is the thing that no one tells you?
[00:47:05] Joan: That 3:30 in the morning is really early, and do you wake up when your husband wakes up?
[00:47:12] Lindsay: So we've gotten into a routine where he always says goodbye in the morning, which I love. Except that sometimes I can't go back to sleep, so that is really nice. So that is one of the things I think if that didn't happen, I would not feel that connection. So that's nice. But yes. So for a hot minute I do.
[00:47:32] but then I usually go back to sleep, but it's very early.
[00:47:35] Joan: Yeah. Boy, is it very early. And, when it came to the very end, I was quite honestly just beyond exhausted. 20 years of sleep deprivation. And I was really kind of yearning for some normalcy in my life. And I'd met a wonderful man that I knew I wanted to spend my life with.
[00:47:54] And, you know, I was, I didn't really wanna sign another contract and they, like, were, I said, can't you find somewhere else to put me 2020 something else that doesn't require getting up so early in the morning. And they wanted, Nope, you, we want you on this show. And they got me to sign that contract, a three-year contract, and I signed it reluctantly, but I then said, all right, fine, I'll stay. And three months later, they took me off the show. So it was, and they had to pay me for the next few years.
[00:48:28] Lindsay: Right. So you're like, okay, the outcome is all right,
[00:48:31] Joan: Fine. But you know what, you know, I, what I built for myself after that was just an incredible life with a wonderful husband.
[00:48:43] And we had these two sets of twins and, you know, now they're just coming out of college. And I've done all of these, in my opinion, different kinds of. Programs and advocacy work. That has meant so much to me, and I've challenged myself. I, for a couple of years, signed on at Lehigh University, and I taught public health and the media, like that was really drawing outside the line, coloring outside the lines, and it was so much work.
[00:49:18] You have to come up with a curriculum, and you have these thirt18-year-oldsds who have no idea who I am, and one day, one day they're like, no, really. One day. Really? One day, I said to them, I said, you know, where do you guys get your news? I said," Do you get your news from television news? Not one hand. I said, " Well, I personally take offense at that.
[00:49:43] I said, so do you get 'em on those laptops? A couple of people? I said, are you telling me that you get it all? Of your news on your phones,every hand in the whole audience. I said, okay, so the first thing we're gonna do is you are gonna close those laptops. I said, 'cause I don't know whether you're really taking notes or whether you're trying to decide between the red Nikes and the white Nikes.
[00:50:07] So close those laptops. You're gonna, you are gonna put some kind of a news alert on your phone. But I mean, a news alert from, I don't care what it's from, it can be from Reuters, it can be from the Washington Post. It can be from the New York Times. But you want, I want, how would you know if we went to war for God's sakes?
[00:50:26] I mean, I was so startled by it. And so I said, from now on, this is a no-technology class. And they were like, how are we gonna take notes? I said, I will bring paper and pens. " And the next time I brought paper and pens, and I said," These are, and I, every one of those classes I booked, I ran it like a TV show, and I booked a guest.
[00:50:49] My first guess for my book was Anthony Fauci. These kids had no idea.
[00:50:54] Lindsay: Wow.
[00:50:54] Joan: What, I mean, I had interviewed him many times, so when I called him up, he said, okay, you know, the next week I had Charlie Dent, who had been a senator who was from Allentown in Pennsylvania, to talk about how medical health legislation was passed or not passed.
[00:51:11] And I mean, and after a couple of classes, they weren't asking questions that said, from now on, you're gonna take two index cards with you, and you're gonna write out three questions. When you come into class, you'll hand me one that's taking roll call, and then you'll be ready. And as soon as I would introduce a guest and I would ask the first couple of questions, I would call on them, and they would have to sit up, like, " Would you please ask question two?
[00:51:38] And it's the only way I could get them to like,
[00:51:39] Lindsay: That's really cool.
[00:51:41] Joan: But I mean, they had the opportunity to ask these extraordinary people
[00:51:45] Lindsay: Yeah.
[00:51:45] Joan: Questions. So, I mean, it was a challenge, but it was a great experience and a lot of fun. It was a lot of work. So I. Oh, I didn't do it after a year. I did two semesters.
[00:51:56] Lindsay: That sounds awesome though, that I love that you thought about that, and that those guests that you had there, certainly incredible. I wanted to ask you about your advocacy that you mentioned, and a funny story. When I met Joan, we were upstairs in the McCall room, and I said, " Oh, it's so funny. Four years, four hours earlier, I was there with our brownie troop because we were having a brownie meeting in that same room.
[00:52:17] And my co-leader, Tracy, is here. And one of the things that we were talking about was rainbows, and we were talking about getting through the storm that might lead to a rainbow. And one of the themes that I think Tracy brought up was about being brave, and one of your friends, when we were talking about some of the stories that are in the book, and that, you know, makes you so special, is the bravery that you showed with the People magazine cover in 2014.bCan you share that story?
[00:52:43] Joan: The bald picture?
[00:52:44] Lindsay: Yes. Yeah,
[00:52:44] the bald picture while you were going through cancer and getting treatment.
[00:52:46] Joan: So, when I found out, when I heard those words, you've got cancer. I knew where I was gonna have to, I knew I'd have to tell the public. And so I called Robin Roberts because we all know she had gone through it, and everything she went through because of it.
[00:53:03] And she said, oh, you gotta do it right away, otherwise the tabloids will have you dead. And I said, I know that. And she said, I'm gonna have you come in. I won't even put your name on the guest list because she said, I don't want you to have to walk in. And everyone's gonna say, o" Oh, Joan, hi. Why are you here?
[00:53:19] 'cause you're gonna have a lump in your throat. And so they hid me out. I came in at the last minute and sat down, and it was, you know, if any of you have gone through any kind of cancer or any kind of serious illness, just calling a friend is hard to call and say, I'm calling you to tell you that I have cancer.
[00:53:38] And I knew I'd have to sit there and say it to everyone. And before I left, Robin said, I'm gonna tell you another thing to do. Shave your head. Don't let cancer do it to you. You're gonna have a year of chemo. You're gonna lose your hair. Don't let the cancer do it to you; you do it. So that day I went back up to Greenwich.
[00:53:57] I did not go to my normal hairdresser because I knew they'd probably try to talk me out of it. I walked into a salon that I hadn't been to before. There are two young girls behind the counter. I said, I wanna shave my head. And they looked at me like I was from Mar. Oh wow.
[00:54:13] Lindsay: There's a picture. Is that?
[00:54:15] Joan: Yes. All right. So then this tall, dark, handsome guy said, took my hand, and followed me. And he took me back to the back of the salon, and he pushed my head down. And he took those buzzers like, you guys are used to those things. That's creepy. When? Right by your ear. And I said, wait a minute.
[00:54:39] Gotta get my phone on. Have to get to some videotape. I have to video it. And, so People magazine called, and I've done many covers of People Magazine, and they said, "We really want you to do this, and you don't have to do it, Paul, but we'll see when we get there. They came to my house, and we did one shot with a wig.
[00:55:02] We did one shot with an air maze scarf, and then everybody cleared the room, and I just dug down inside, and I said, " You've gotta find a really awesome smile. And we did the shot with bald, and you know, nowadays they can show you on their laptop right then and there, all the shots. And we all sat there and looked at that shot.
[00:55:23] And the editor in chief said, not only do you know how iconic that is, but do you know how many people will be inspired by this?
[00:55:31] Lindsay: Yeah.
[00:55:31] Joan: I said, go for it. Go for it. Run with it. And, I've had, I remember one woman came up to me one time and said, when I got diagnosed with cancer, all I could think of when they told me that, was that picture of you on the cover of People.
[00:55:47] I said, really? She said, " Yes, because your eyes said, I will survive. And that to me told me I will survive. I was like, all right, even if it's one person, it was worth it.
[00:56:03] Lindsay: What did that mean to you?
[00:56:04] Joan: I was a little worried that the twins were really young then, and I was really worried.
[00:56:11] Lindsay: How old were they?
[00:56:12] Joan: Oh, I don't remember. They were probably, I don't know, like six and eight or something. And we sat them down, and we, you know, my husband did most of the talking. 'Cause again, it was hard to even talk, you know, mommy's got something inside of her that's sick, and we're, and they're gonna take it out, and afterwards she's going to be just fine.
[00:56:33] But she's going to, you know, not have her hair because this medicine makes you lose your hair. And they were really worried. You know, and you were, I always worried about how my life and the fact that I signed up for it. It's funny, you never actually sign a piece of paper one day that says, from now on, every nuance of my life is fair game for the public.
[00:57:00] But that is what happens. But your children don't, your family doesn't. And I always worried about how it was. Public life is going to affect them. I even worried that they would grow up with a little bit of a warped sense of reality because they would think that when you're in a restaurant, everybody stops by your table and says hi.
[00:57:23] And I said, " That's not reality. I'm happy to say that they grew up to be three amazing, lovely young women. The four younger ones kind of know about my life, but not completely. I think it still kind of astounds them when we go in somewhere, and somebody fawns over me, and they're like. She's just our mother because they didn't grow up in it.
[00:57:49] So it's very different to them. In fact, the three older ones, of course, have read this and have
[00:57:55] You know, checked me on all kinds of things, and the four younger ones now are gonna read it. And it's almost like, I feel like they're gonna read about a person in history, but not necessarily their mother.
[00:58:06] Lindsay: I mean, when you think about all the stories, and by the way, when you were talking about, the, having your, baby and the press conference, and I was thinking about, there's one QR code in here that I was just swiping through the other night and it was the, The promo for you coming back from, was it having another one of your kids?
[00:58:25] Yep. And they, it's like a full-on commercial. Yeah. And these women, it's like someone in their home, and they're like, Joan's coming back. And it was, I mean,
[00:58:32] Joan: And it was blending reality with
[00:58:34] Lindsay: Yes.
[00:58:35] Joan: And I mean, I had to share that one. You guys are gonna love the videotape in the book. Yeah, just wanted, you know, my life has been extraordinary, and it's fun to tell, but I could actually show it, and that I thought was really cool.
[00:58:49] Lindsay: Yeah. And they're, do your daughters or your kids that are very familiar with their story, did they talk to you about what a badass you are?
[00:58:57] Joan: Oh yeah. My, my older daughters are, you know what I mean? Like, just coming here, one of my daughters will say, by the way, mom, just remember. You are Joan Lunden.
[00:59:09] Lindsay: That's awesome.
[00:59:09] Joan: Thanks, honey.
[00:59:12] Lindsay: What does that mean to you? You're Joan Lunden.
[00:59:14] Joan: You know what I mean? I've asked my daughter, as an adult now, if I had any kind of a negative impact on their lives because of, you know, the demanding job that I had. And they all say the same thing. All right, so you weren't in the pickup line like no big deal.
[00:59:32] You were everything important in our lives, and you showed us that we could be more than one thing. So Lindsay is right here.
[00:59:43] Lindsay: It's a great name choice.
[00:59:44] Joan: Ran my company for 12 years. Is married to Evan, that's Parker and Leo. They call me Jojo. And over here, that's my Jamie, that's the one I took to work with me that first day.
[00:59:57] She's married to George, has two little boys, Mason and Asher, and my Sarah right there. They've all worked with me, and from right to left, that's Kate and Kim. And my very handsome, wonderful husband, Jeff, and Jack and Max, so Max is still at Lafayette. Jack got recruited to the University of Michigan to play football.
[01:00:21] Lindsay: Oh, nice.
[01:00:21] Joan: She's Kim at Skidmore and an education major. And Kate has now taken her master's degree at Fairfield University in clinical social work.
[01:00:32] Lindsay: Oh, wow.
[01:00:33] Joan: Yeah. So that's kind of the update.
[01:00:35] Lindsay: That's Wow, what a beautiful family. I think there's a lot more that we could cover. I mean, there are so many great stories, but we were going to open it up for questions,
[01:00:44] Joan: But you and I talk too much.
[01:00:46] Lindsay: Yeah, I mean, we, like, there are so many ways that you were a trailblazer, and I know that, you know, there are stories in here too that are about just things that you've overcome, and things breaking glass ceilings in many ways too. So all of that. But I do, I realize it's eight 16.
[01:01:01] Carrie: That's okay. We still have time for a few questions.
[01:01:03] If anyone has a question, I would just ask that you come up and queue up here and ask a question to the mic so we can capture it.
[01:01:08] Joan: I think I see somebody here. Do you have a question?
[01:01:16] Maybe we can bring the microphone over to you. There's a quick, oh, there, can you go over there? Do you mind? All right. And then we'll be able to see your pretty face too.
[01:01:30] By the way, I'm a Connecticut girl. I'm from Greenwich.
[01:01:35] Audience Member 1: Hi. I am really happy to be here, to listen to you talk about your story and your activism. Do you still do any advocacy and activism? 'Cause it's something that I am involved with right now, and, you know, we do the book signing. I wanted to, you know, briefly just talk to you about that.
[01:01:56] So I was wondering if that's something you're still involved with? 'cause I learned that you were subjected to sexual harassment at work, and that's something that I'm fighting to protect people from, frivolous and retaliatory defamation lawsuits, that protect survivors of sexual assault, abuse, harassment, and discrimination.
[01:02:21] Joan: So I'll take a few of those things. First of all, I've never, ever, before talked about any sexual harassment that I got in my career until this book. So I'll leave it at that, and you can find the chapter called Fire Island Fiasco. It was back at a time when I didn't even think that the phrase HR existed.
[01:02:50] I mean, you really didn't know as a young woman. Who to talk to, and especially if it's your superior that's doing this to you, who you know is directly almost in charge of you. It's a, and look, it's still going on today. Obviously, it's not, we haven't, it's not beyond that time. But this is the very first time I've ever talked about it in the book as to what I'm doing when we walk through parking lots, and my husband and people say, " Oh, are you enjoying retirement?
[01:03:20] My husband always says, please just say yes. Don't try to tell them all the things you're working on.
[01:03:25] Lindsay: Oh, no,
[01:03:27] Joan: But I am still involved in several different health campaigns. I probably do a couple of dozen speeches a year in a lot of different categories, you know, whether it's breast cancer, American heart, whether it's caregiving, whether it's successful aging, whether it's women's health, or sometimes just town halls.
[01:03:46] I mean, I, and I'll tell you something. When I was at GMA. I was deathly afraid of public speaking.
[01:03:53] Lindsay: Really?
[01:03:53] Joan: And people would say, what are you talking about? How can you be afraid of being in front of a few hundred people? You're in front of millions of people every day. I said, but I don't see any of them.
[01:04:03] And so I went on tour with Tony Robbins right after leaving GMA for two years. We did 24 speeches a year in arenas with 24,000. 'Cause that's Tony. And it was like baptism by fire. But I can tell you that I'm a walking example, that you can turn a complete fear into a complete passion because I do a tremendous amount of it.
[01:04:30] Speaking of these today, and I love it. I know I'm good at it. I am, you know, you walk out, it's just a wonderful feeling to think that maybe you know, you inspired someone. So yes, I do a lot of advocacy work today. And you know what? Charlie retired. I did his podcast the other day. He's looking old.
[01:04:49] I'm gonna keep working.
[01:04:52] Lindsay: I have a follow-up question. You're talking about the topic of sexual harassment and the fact that you're talking about this in your book for the first time, and the Fire Island situation, people can read about it. It is a situation that you were put into with a superior that you did not realize was going to happen.
[01:05:11] Why did you feel that? Now is the right time to be talking about those examples.
[01:05:18] Joan: You know, I was asked again and again as the whole Me Too thing came up. I would always be called like CNN and different, like, do you have a story? I didn't wanna get into the, you know, I didn't wanna go. Oh yeah, I got, yeah, I just, I don't know.
[01:05:32] That wasn't me. But at the same time, if I'm going to tell my life story, I'm just not gonna whitewash it and paint it as all like, oh, it was really all easy. Like, like tell the challenging times as well, and then tell how you kinda muddled through and navigated through it. And to me,t I felt that at this time, I felt that it was important to do.
[01:05:57] Do you have a question?
[01:05:58] Audience Member 2: Well, I have, yeah, a question. I am relating very much to what you said. I came to New York in 1983 from Wisconsin, one of those little girls, you know, just trying to make it till you fake it or fake it till you make it. And, you know, I've endured being the only woman, even now in my business.
[01:06:18] I'm still the only woman in my organization. It's crazy. I had no time off after I had my son. I've cared for my husband, my late husband, for 25 years. Now I'm trying to figure out what the next part of my life is, and I don't know what I'm good at. And everyone says, well, that's crazy, but I see you grabbing onto these things.
[01:06:39] And I, how did you know what you were? Good at, other than that, you were on TV for 25 years,
[01:06:44] Joan: So sometimes you don't know. You gotta have your mind open. I think that a lot of people hear about opportunities and they sometimes think, " Oh wow, that was cool. What, for someone else, like you, really has to be open. Yeah.
[01:06:57] I think you have to like to explore a little, you can even think back to what you were passionate about, what really kind of, you know, interested you in your younger life.
[01:07:06] Audience Member 2: It's hard to remember those days.
[01:07:08] Joan: Yeah. And sometimes those things can be brought up. I mean, personally, you know, I had always thought that I was going to be a doctor.
[01:07:15] I think I always had that little nagging thing in the back of my head that said You didn't live up to that You were supposed to.
[01:07:23] Lindsay: Oh, really?
[01:07:24] Joan: I, yeah. I thought, you know, I lost my dad when I was 13. He was also an avid private pilot, and he crashed coming back from speaking at a cancer convention, and I think I became even more.
[01:07:35] Dedicated to that idea that I would carry that torch. And then I didn't do it. But ironically, getting breast cancer kind of, and by the way, I hogged all of the medical stories at GMA, all the health stories. And then when I got breast cancer, it was like, weirdly, this gift got dropped in my lap that I said, oh my God, with my platform I can learn everything I can about breast cancer and take my phone into every single appointment and share it with women.
[01:08:09] And it turned out to be this huge, we did a whole website on it. and so I became. From a patient, I became an advocate in an instant. And it changed my breast cancer journey, like really in the most positive way. And that kind of also changed the tra trajectory I think of my life a little bit.
[01:08:30] And pushed it over even more into advocacy, you know? And, you know, if you've taken care of a husband as they've been ill, if you've taken care of older parents, like these are all things, like, I got into the advocacy for senior care and for successful aging by taking care of my mom.
[01:08:49] And for learning, you know, how much I didn't know about senior care when you all of a sudden get that call.
[01:08:55] And boom, you have to learn about assisted living overnight, and that there are eight different levels of assisted living. And so, you know, as I go through different chapters of my life that I've kind of gone through and I've said, you know what? I should work on that. I have a platform, especially, I should work on that.
[01:09:16] And so I think it's from different things in your life that you can kind of open up. Now, as far as just aging well, they say that we need to be doing things that use our minds. Now I'm a juggle a, jigsaw puzzle nut. Oh, I love
[01:09:33] Lindsay: them. I love puzzles.
[01:09:35] Joan: And that does help you. Except that I'm so good at them that you should enter me in a contest.
[01:09:41] 'cause I could probably do a thousand-piece puzzle. Don't think it would be a great show. Oh my God. I could probably do a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle in a few hours, which means that it's not as good for my mind anymore because now my mind has kind of learned to do it. They say that the things that will keep your cognitive thinking really, as good as it can be are to learn new things, new languages. There are a million ways to go on babble or any of the things and learn languages or to learn something new, whether it's crocheting or knitting or gardening or piano or whatever it is. and reading and joining a book club so that you not only read, but also are with other people.
[01:10:24] 'cause the more you can be with other people, that's the other thing they say that the secret ingredients to staying, successful aging, staying engaged, that means with people,n ot being reclusive. And keep on doing things that are gonna create those new little neurons in your brain. And I hate to tell you, but the thing that creates the neurons the most.
[01:10:48] Exercise, and that's one of the most important things because that's what not only creates the blood and the oxygen going up to your brain so that all those little neurons start working, but those are the neurons that best connect to the brainstem. So I've done a lot of studying on this. I love it.
[01:11:07] Lindsay: I'm about aging. Of your 11, wait, what do you do to exercise?
[01:11:12] Joan: Oh, a lot of different things, but I mean, and I, my husband and I, or I got another one for you. So when I was 29 years old, you know what I'm gonna say? When I was 29, I got married, and I married a guy who's 39 and we had three great girls, but it didn't work out.
[01:11:30] 20 years later, when I was 49, I got married again, and I married a guy who was 39. Oh, I'm gonna give you a minute to do the math there. Okay. And how was that? I have a great exercise buddy. I got a great workout, pal. Are you kidding?
[01:11:53] Lindsay: That's so great.
[01:11:54] Joan: And I sometimes run circles around him.
[01:11:56] Lindsay: Yeah.
[01:11:57] Joan: My husband always says, not that I'm looking forward to it, but I really like to be at your autopsy because I wanna know, oh my God.
[01:12:03] I wanna know what that little chip is that you have inside you that the rest of us don't have.
[01:12:10] Lindsay: I do think, you know what, it's so interesting hearing you talk that it's like. The reinvention. It's, you've had so many different iterations of what you've done, but it's, the interesting thread to me is, you know, the news, the GMA, all along the way, the advocacy, it's relatability and the power to connect with people.
[01:12:30] Joan: Yeah.
[01:12:30] Lindsay: And the difference that you've made in all of those atmospheres is just so amazing. So
[01:12:36] Joan: Thank you.
[01:12:36] Lindsay: Well done. This is awesome. I can keep going, so someone's gonna have to cut me off here. Oh, I'm getting the wrap. Thank you. Wait, can I ask you one more thing?
[01:12:45] Joan: Yes.
[01:12:45] Lindsay: Do you do the borders first on the puzzles?
[01:12:48] Joan: Yes.
[01:12:48] Lindsay: What is your strategy?
[01:12:49] Joan: I do the borders first, but while I'm doing the borders, I look at what the main different things are in the puzzle. So if I see a red barn, I'll start pulling all the reds over here. Yeah. If there are people, I put all the faces over here. I'm a certain little, there's a flag in it, like pick those out.
[01:13:06] So while I'm doing the borders, I'm also sorting. I'm also sorting. Sorting. Do you use a puzzle board? I use a puzzle board.
[01:13:14] Lindsay: Yeah.
[01:13:14] Joan: Yep.
[01:13:14] Lindsay: Great. Alright.
[01:13:16] Joan: Don't, but I don't keep 'em, I mean, I don't make, I don't like to put the glue or anything, and my husband will come in, and he'll see me. Like, you've been working on that for the last two days, and you're just like, what?
[01:13:27] As soon as you're finished with it, you just like, do this. I said, yeah, like, guys fished, they stand out there forever. They finally catch the fish. What do they do? They threw the damn thing back in.
[01:13:39] Lindsay: Yes. Yes.
[01:13:40] Joan: Like, come on.
[01:13:41] Lindsay: Right.
[01:13:42] Joan: It's done. I completed it. It's done. I do take pictures. I just, some of you know, I've shared them on Facebook.
[01:13:50] Lindsay: Awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you. This book is amazing. Thank you, everyone. I could have talked to Joan for three more hours. I just found so much interesting, I think really for me it was like. You did that, then the fact that she was, that she found out she was pregnant the day she got the job at GMA, and I did not realize how much of a specific trailblazer she was in that regard.
[01:14:19] So I really loved hearing that story. But also, I just think anybody out there that is feeling stressed or thinking about their worth in terms of the job that you do and what that means, I mean, God knows I have been there, you know, stepping away from a place like ESPN to do different things and then feeling like, whoa, where am I?
[01:14:40] Like, who is Lindsay? You know, and in this moment, I love how she talked about reinvention and also. Keeping the door open and the question of why we have to label something. And I also just have to tell you guys that in these conversations I'm having with a lot of different people, and not just entertainers and broadcasters, but also athletes, I feel like that's something that people keep sharing, is that what you do now is great.
[01:15:08] It doesn't have to be the forever thing, and when this chapter is done, maybe it's okay to just let it be done and move on to the next thing. That's really like speaking to you at that time. Maybe that's how it's supposed to be. I don't know, just my thinking, but I did really think it was cool how she talked about that.
[01:15:25] This next chapter for her has really already been so much about advocacy and how the amount of work that she has done in that space and the amount of fulfillment and satisfaction she's had has already basically equaled the amount of time that she had as a successful broadcaster, you know, in the days before and during the time at GMA.
[01:15:46] So I thought that was really cool. Anyway, Joan, thank you. If you don't have the book, go get it. It's called Joan. It's amazing. Also, I would love to hear what you think about this episode, and thoughts and questions that you have. So I encourage you to follow me socially if you don't, Lindsey @lindsaycz on Instagram.
[01:16:04] And if you love this episode, please like it, rate it, and review it. As always, one of our favorite ways for you to show your support is to share the episode with a friend. So for my team, we say thank you for listening, for watching, and we can't wait to bring you more episodes. We'll see you next week.
[01:16:21] Thanks so much for joining me. I can't wait to see you back here next week. Please don't forget, follow and subscribe to Things No One Tells You. And of course, if you're listening to Apple Podcasts, don't forget to leave a five-star review because that's really what helps people get more. Listeners, we would love to grow this community.
[01:16:37] We are so grateful that you're a part of it. See you next time.
