How to Be the Boss of Yourself with Bozoma Saint John
June 2, 2022
Bozoma Saint John:
Yay. So question, first question.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. Yes.
Bozoma Saint John:
Going in?
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Bozoma Saint John:
Are you still being an African auntie? Are you checking your WhatsApp?
Glennon Doyle:
No. I don’t check WhatsApp anymore.
Bozoma Saint John:
I’m very disappointed, because Lovey and I taught you about WhatsApp and the importance of it. If you are going to be a true African auntie, you have to check your WhatsApp because that’s how the messages come. I sent you a video from this morning … Wait, hold on. Let me see if I can just play it here, so you can see it. Maybe you won’t hear the sound. This was critical this morning. It was God talking to me this morning.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. What did God say to you?
Bozoma Saint John:
God said this. Can you see?
Glennon Doyle:
God said …
Bozoma Saint John:
It’s my mother and her shirt says I can do hard things.
Abby Wambach:
No way.
Glennon Doyle:
This morning?
Bozoma Saint John:
This morning. I came in from the gym and she was in the kitchen dancing around wearing a shirt that said I can do hard things. I looked at her and I was just like, “Where did that come from?” She said, “Oh, do you like it?” I was like, “Why did you do that?” She was like, “This is just a shirt, I just put it on.”
Bozoma Saint John:
We both freaked out when I told her what I was going on today.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh my gosh.
Bozoma Saint John:
I sent it to you on WhatsApp and look at you, you missed the message.
Glennon Doyle:
I deserved to miss that beautiful message, because I did not check in.
Bozoma Saint John:
I feel like this is what we were meant to do today.
Glennon Doyle:
It was destined.
Bozoma Saint John:
Destined.
Glennon Doyle:
I know it was destined because we have been so delighted all morning, because we knew we were about to see your face and we haven’t seen you for a while.
Bozoma Saint John:
I know. I miss both of you so much.
Glennon Doyle:
First of all, I should tell everyone what’s happening. There are a lot of people listening and they’re like this is a lovely conversation but who is talking.
Abby Wambach:
What’s happening?
Glennon Doyle:
Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things.
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
We have over time noticed, Boz, that the pod squad here on We Can Do Hard Things has 40 million questions about being a woman in the workforce, or really being any kind of marginalized human in the workforce. I want to answer their questions but I am not really in the workforce. I am mostly in the bathtub. Okay?
Abby Wambach:
Confirmed. Confirmed.
Glennon Doyle:
Right? We decided, Abby and I, that there really couldn’t be any more qualified human being on the earth …
Abby Wambach:
Ever.
Glennon Doyle:
Ever. To discuss and guide the world really through the minefield of work and womanhood, and that human being is Bozoma Saint John, who also happens to be a dear friend of ours. Can you introduce …
Abby Wambach:
Yes. Bozoma Saint John is a Hall of Fame inducted marketing executive, author, entrepreneur, and, in our opinion, a general bad ass.
Glennon Doyle:
Also, the world’s opinion.
Abby Wambach:
Boz has led global consumer marketing at Apple Music and iTunes. She was chief brand officer at Uber and global chief marketing officer at Netflix. Boz is currently named the number one most influential CMO in the world by Forbes and has been named one of Billboard’s most powerful women in music for 10 consecutive years.
Abby Wambach:
In 2021, Harvard Business School published a multi-media case study on her career titled Leading With Authenticity and Urgency, through which she developed and taught a program at the university aptly named The Anatomy of a Bad Ass. Boz is named as an ambassador for the African diaspora and special envoy to the president of Ghana, and in the spring of 2023, Penguin Books will publish her memoir The Urgent Life.
Abby Wambach:
Boz counts her highest achievement as being a mother to her 12 year old daughter, Lael.
Bozoma Saint John:
You guys.
Abby Wambach:
Welcome.
Glennon Doyle:
Do you listen to your bio and say what is my life? What did I do? What?
Bozoma Saint John:
Yeah. All of that. All of that. Yes. Yes. I am also in awe.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s amazing.
Bozoma Saint John:
Of all the things. It doesn’t actually make sense, because the stats are not in my favor and have never been. Yes. It strikes me as awe-inspiring too.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Abby Wambach:
Do you remember the first time we met Boz?
Glennon Doyle:
Of course. We met Boz on the Together tour.
Bozoma Saint John:
Onstage.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Bozoma Saint John:
That’s right.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. I walked into a room and you were already there. I told Abby this morning the first thing I noticed about you was your clothes. Abby said is it okay to say that? Is that objectifying? I was like I don’t know.
Bozoma Saint John:
Oh no.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s Boz, so I’m just going … It’s fine.
Bozoma Saint John:
It’s totally fine. Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
I thought you were the most incredibly beautifully dressed human I had ever seen and I was intimidated because of your fancy … All the words behind your name. When you were onstage, though, talking, what I was telling Abby this morning that I was most struck by was you were so bold and strong when you were talking about work and the world, and then the conversation switched to your daughter and motherhood. Then this unbelievable vulnerability came forward, this softness. You just never see both.
Bozoma Saint John:
Yes. Either the strong or the soft, right?
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. You’re strong and soft, you’re both.
Abby Wambach:
Do you remember meeting us? Were we memorable?
Bozoma Saint John:
Oh, memorable. Yes. You were memorable. You were memorable because also I had seen both of you separately before I saw you in person, obviously. Abby, clearly. The whole world had seen you already. I knew that. I was very excited about that.
Bozoma Saint John:
Glennon, I don’t know if I even told you this. I first saw you on Oprah’s stage at USC.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, I didn’t know that.
Bozoma Saint John:
I was only able to be there for like one session and it was yours. I sat in the audience and then this sprite of a person came across the stage and I was like, “Oh, this is the most interesting white woman I have ever seen in my life.” I was like, “Okay, yeah. Her. That one. This one.”
Glennon Doyle:
Aww.
Bozoma Saint John:
And honest. You know? I hadn’t heard such honesty before. By the time we got to the Together live tour, I knew exactly who in the hell y’all were.
Glennon Doyle:
I did not know that.
Bozoma Saint John:
You did not disappoint. I was like, “Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.” Still honest. Even backstage, still honest. I was very, very impressed by you both in-person.
Glennon Doyle:
Thank you, Boz. One of our themes this year on this pod is how to know when to dig deep and stay and how to know when to stop digging and go. This is something that we have not figured out yet. Okay? Just to preface you with that.
Glennon Doyle:
I keep thinking of it in terms of you, because I’ve read some quotes that you’ve said recently. You recently left Netflix where you were the global chief marketing officer and you said this, “You have to know when time is up and keep it moving.”
Glennon Doyle:
Then you said, “You don’t have to be the savior. You can save yourself too.” Chills. How did you know when it was time to leave Netflix? How do you know when it’s time to leave a place? What settles in?
Bozoma Saint John:
It is so hard to articulate. It really is. It’s hard to articulate because of that hard place of trying to figure out whether or not the problem is you, or the problem is them. You know? When they say, “No, no, no. It’s not you. It’s me.” It’s like how many times do you have to say that before you realize, no, no, it’s actually not me at all, it’s them.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Bozoma Saint John:
Then the disappointment in that, in knowing that you chose, you decided, and they were the problem. To be able to admit that is so hard. Then you spend the time trying to prove that you actually were not wrong, that you chose right. That’s what you spend your energy doing. That’s what happens to me too, that often I’m in a situation, I’m like, “No, no. I chose right”, because I’m good at choosing. I thought about it, I have followed my intuition, God told me, and I moved, I went.
Bozoma Saint John:
Then at some point, you’re like, “Uh oh. I don’t think this is right.” I’ve spent so much time then trying to convince myself that it wasn’t wrong, and that it must be me, that if I’m only smarter, if I’m only more likable, if I’m only wittier, if I’m only more amenable, then maybe I’m not wrong because how could I be wrong? Right? I know myself, I take no shit, I could never be wrong in that.
Bozoma Saint John:
It’s become very humbling actually when we’re talking about being strong and soft. It’s like you can be self-assured and also humble, and humble in knowing that sometimes you get it wrong, sometimes you get it wrong again and again and again.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s right.
Bozoma Saint John:
In that wrongness, it’s okay. You still survive, you can be wrong. You know? I’m very comfortable in being wrong now. Very, very comfortable. I’m like, “Oh, wrong time again. Everyone will know.”
Glennon Doyle:
And God is like the GPS. That’s like redirecting, redirecting.
Bozoma Saint John:
You missed your turn.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s so fascinating, Boz. I’ve never heard anyone describe it like that but it is like, at some point, whether it’s a marriage or a job, relationship, whatever, at some point, you realize it’s me either way because either it’s me in this situation that’s making it hard or it’s me that made the decision before to go into this relationship.
Bozoma Saint John:
Yes. Yes. It’s me. It’s me. It’s me. It’s not them. It’s me. That is such a hard thing. It is a hard thing to acknowledge, it’s a hard thing to accept. Then it’s a hard thing to correct.
Glennon Doyle:
You have the moment where you’re like either way, it’s me. Whether it was me that got me into this or it’s me that’s making being in it hard, I’m choosing me.
Bozoma Saint John:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
I’m choosing me. I’m getting the hell out.
Bozoma Saint John:
Yes.
Bozoma Saint John:
And I’m forgiving me. I’m forgiving me. For making the wrong choice. Again. We are so hard on ourselves. You beat yourself up, “I should have known better. I’ve seen it before, I should have seen it again.” Right? Then it’s like the forgiving myself. I’m talking about me. I constantly have to forgive myself for sometimes making the wrong call for myself. It’s so much easier, right? To forgive other people.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Bozoma Saint John:
Sometimes it’s hard but you know. It’s so much easier to say, “That person made a mistake.” If I look at my daughter and she makes a mistake, I’m like, “Oh, hon. It’s fine. You’re still an amazing person. It was bad for the moment. It’s okay. It’s okay. We’re going to figure it out.” Right? I encourage her that she can make mistakes and that she can turn around and do better, but yet for myself, I could spend months saying like, “Why did you do that? You knew better” and that’s what becomes so hard about the staying or the going. How fast can I forgive myself for making the wrong decision?
Glennon Doyle:
That’s good.
Bozoma Saint John:
Will determine how quickly I’m able to get out and correct.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s that thing about when you grab onto barbed wire, don’t just hold on forever. Don’t keep making the mistake, because you’ve put so much time into making the mistake.
Bozoma Saint John:
That’s right. That’s right.
Glennon Doyle:
We always talk about squishing the time, like all of our suffering comes in the time between the knowing and the doing. Right?
Bozoma Saint John:
Yes. Yes. I was having a conversation with a friend and I was like, “You know when you hit your shin and that moment between knowing you’ve hit your shin and when the pain sets in is like the worst.”
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Bozoma Saint John:
Because you’re just sitting there waiting for the pain to come. You’re like, “I know this is going to hurt.” That moment right there is what sometimes we’re sitting in, because you don’t want the pain to come and so then we’re sitting there being like, “I made a mistake. Uh oh, I hit my shin. How long can I wait before the pain sets in?”
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Abby Wambach:
I understand from a personal perspective you might view some of these choices that you’ve made as mistake, but I have kind of another perspective, that the world is only ready when it’s ready, so corporate America might only be ready for a Bozoma Saint John in their minds and then in practicality, Bozoma Saint John walks through the door and starts to fuck shit up and starts to do her work and they’re like, “Actually I don’t know if we’re this ready yet. I don’t know.”
Abby Wambach:
Maybe it feels like a personal mistake or a personal decision that you’ve made that you don’t think was great or, in hindsight, you may have chosen differently but from the perspective of the macro, I think what you’re doing is you’re laying a foundation for those of us who will come after you and getting the corporate world or all of those tables you sat at, a little bit more ready for people in certain ways.
Abby Wambach:
I think that that’s really important not to get lost in this conversation that your presence and representation at some of those tables and this leads me to my question, you’ve been at all of the most powerful tables in the corporate world, how does it feel to so often be the one who looks like you at those tables?
Glennon Doyle:
The only one, I’m sure.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. Probably the only one.
Bozoma Saint John:
Yeah. Yeah. Look, Abby, thank you for that perspective, because I do often need the reminder of that too. I think both can be true. Part of the reason why I stopped looking at them as the cause or the reason why sometimes something didn’t work or for me to figure that out is I feel like I was giving my power away, and perhaps that’s a survival mechanism, that I was like, “Well, if I look at myself, if I say it’s me, then I’m better able to feel like, ‘Okay, I can make something else happen, I can be the one who chooses, because I chose to come and I can choose to leave. If I put the power over there, then it feels like I can’t choose because I’m waiting for them to do the thing that’s right.”
Bozoma Saint John:
When I am sitting at those tables, and, yes, almost always, by myself, it is both frustrating to know that I’m probably doing the right thing for the future, but also that I am the one who has to take the brunt of it. You know?
Bozoma Saint John:
Again, I’ve been thinking a lot lately. Ever since I left my job, doing a lot of thinking. I was just like, “Damn, the idea of Hidden Figures hurts so much”, because to think that perhaps you were the catalyst for something and then nobody remembers your name, nobody gives you the credit, and that’s what it feels like when I’m in the room. I’m thinking this is going to be so great for the people who come after but will anybody remember me, remember my pain, this moment, this choice I made?
Bozoma Saint John:
If not, is that okay? Am I all right with it? Am I okay with the sacrifice? If I’m being totally transparent and honest, I’m not. I’m not okay with it. I don’t want to be hidden, I don’t want to be forgotten and, yes, people can say, “Oh, but how could you be? You’re going to be in the Hall of Fame”, you’re this and you’re that and people know your name.
Bozoma Saint John:
No, no, no. I want the credit. I want it.
Abby Wambach:
Of course you do.
Bozoma Saint John:
I deserve it.
Glennon Doyle:
I love that you said that.
Abby Wambach:
For me, it makes me think about being in those rooms and the temptation of wanting to align and become them and to align with the men, the white men in those rooms, how easy and alluring that is …
Glennon Doyle:
We talked about that in your career.
Abby Wambach:
I feel like this is the real fight is to resist, to keep resisting the urge in that alignment. How do you do that?
Glennon Doyle:
And then that’s what you’re doing and then that’s why it’s not working.
Bozoma Saint John:
Yes. Because, look, I think one of the most obvious places and it happens a lot, it happens every time but one of the most obvious I think for everyone who sees it will understand was the moment I took the stage of the Apple keynote, WWDC, where no other Black person, forget a Black woman, no other Black person had presented the software before … I mean, Steve Job’s stage, right? You’ve got all of the known people on the stage and Phil Schiller. They’re the ones who present, right?
Bozoma Saint John:
Leading up to that moment, first of all, there was a lot of doubt that I should even do it, right? Because, look, I’m a marketer, I’m not an engineer, I’m a Black woman, although, nobody wants to say that out loud.
Glennon Doyle:
They’re like, she’s a marketer, not an engineer.
Bozoma Saint John:
That whole statement about, “Oh, well, I don’t know if they’ll believe you.” Yeah. I know why. You know? Abby, your point about the allure of just aligning to make things easier, that was my choice that day too where it’s like, look, everybody showed up in their jeans and button down shirt, like a literal visual, I walked into the green room in the back of the stage and it was just a rack of jeans and blue button down shirts and pink button down shirts and khaki colored things. I just looked at it and I was standing there in my curly Afro, my very tight pink dress, my Louboutin stilettos with the little poof on the back too. How dare me? A little poof on the back just to add insult to injury.
Bozoma Saint John:
I was standing back there and it was like Tim Cook went first to start the presentation, and then Eddie went and Eddie is supposed to introduce me. I’m standing back there and I was just like, “One of these things is not like the other.” You know? Waiting for my turn.
Bozoma Saint John:
When I went on that stage, I know it would have been easier for me, too, by the way, if I had just put on the jeans and the button down, if I had just tried to look like everybody else. Maybe that would be one less barrier. You know? Then even how I appeared to be, not even … I hadn’t even opened my mouth yet. I had not even presented one idea yet. Just how I look.
Bozoma Saint John:
For all of us who are showing up in these spaces, of course, you just want to align in that little moment of like just walking in the door and knowing everybody is going to turn and look at you, if you didn’t have that hair, if you didn’t have on that crazy outfit, if you weren’t wearing those doggone earrings, if your nails weren’t painted a certain way, if you weren’t wearing those shoes, the clack, clack, clack, here I come down the hallway, you know I’m coming because you heard my heels clicking.
Bozoma Saint John:
It would be so much easier. But I refuse to do that, because I do know all the people who are walking behind me. I am very aware of that. It still hurts. Both of those things can be true. No, I am not like some humble martyr out here. I want my roses. I want them now.
Bozoma Saint John:
Yes. Both can be true, that I want it for them too but I want mine. That’s why I choose. That’s why when I’m sitting there and I’m like, “You know what? This ain’t right. Where’s my purse at? Let me just pack my things and get up the hell out of here” because I recognize that unless I do that, I will be that hidden figure. Nobody will know my name.
Abby Wambach:
I love you so much.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s amazing when you think about … I don’t know how to put this into words, you will, but how the corporate world and the whole world uses words that cover the racism and the misogyny, uses words like professionalism, when what it really means is whiteness. “Well, we just want you to wear this. We just want you to talk like this” because it’s professional without dissecting what they’re actually saying by professional.
Abby Wambach:
White maleness.
Bozoma Saint John:
That’s right. That’s right. Or when we are creating strategies or telling stories, especially as a marketer, right? That’s my whole job is to create narratives about things and you have to make it for the mass market. Meaning that my story doesn’t matter in it. But how can that be? You know? Very early on in my career, I contemplated that. I was like, “So how am I supposed to create this narrative for white men when I’ve never been one?” That’s very strange.
Bozoma Saint John:
Then I thought, “Huh, I must be smarter than all the rest of y’all because if I can do it and you can’t tell my story, then I’m very fucking good because I could tell my story and yours. Oh my God.” That’s where it started from, right? Because I was just like, “Oh, I see. You’re trying to tell me that I’m not as good as you but I actually am better because I can do both. You can only do one.”
Bozoma Saint John:
Then at some point, I was like, “Oh, well, wait, my story is actually really important too. How do I put my story into the thing?” You know? How do I add my perspective onto the story to really tell it? It was so interesting how much resistance you can get when you simply just try to show up as yourself? It’s still surprising to me. Most times, I’m like, “But this can’t be? You can’t really ignore me, right? You wouldn’t be that overt about it” but, no, it’s true, we hide it in all the words that it’s got to be mass-market, it’s got to hit the majority and, therefore, your story is not important, your perspective is not important, please consider everybody else before yourself, and perhaps that’s also what is striking me, because I have been conditioned that that’s what I am supposed to do, whether it’s for the opening the door so everybody else, consider everybody else but myself.
Bozoma Saint John:
Or in the narrative telling or in the strategy setting, consider everybody else but myself. I’m just at the point where I’m like, “No, I’m only considering myself.”
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Bozoma Saint John:
How about that?
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. That’s what you’re doing for the people that come behind you.
Bozoma Saint John:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s the difference between freaking diversity … Especially for a woman like you. When they hire you, they say we want you for your perspective, we want you for your story, we want you for your whatever.
Bozoma Saint John:
Of course.
Glennon Doyle:
Then the second you get there, that’s not what they want you for.
Bozoma Saint John:
No, no. Exactly.
Glennon Doyle:
They want you for their sheets that says we have her. The checklist.
Bozoma Saint John:
Yes, yes, yes, and to appear to be different but not actually be different. You know? That was another thing that I’ve realized is that, look, I actually really do show up as myself really. You know? When that happens, people are just like, “Oh, but wait, I thought you would then just fit into our culture. Because our culture is our thing and you’re supposed to fit into it.”
Bozoma Saint John:
What’s so interesting to me is, although, I love the arts, I’m really a science gal, I’m like molecules are so interesting when you think about matter. It’s like in any matter, it could be DNA, it could be water, it could be anything, you add a molecule into the matter and the whole matter changes. It doesn’t matter what you’re talking about.
Bozoma Saint John:
If you consider that the matter is a culture, whether it’s society or it’s a company or it’s a family, you have matter. Then the one molecule that enters that matter changes it. It is not the same. Then you’ve got to contemplate if that is true, because it’s true in science, if I walk into a corporate culture, I am the molecule, the matter has to change. It’s not even a choice. It has to change. Then why would I consider myself insignificant? Even if I’m just one.
Bozoma Saint John:
Because if you have a glass of water and you drop some red dye into it, regardless of how small that drop is, it changes. It is no longer the same.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Bozoma Saint John:
That little drop can’t be insignificant, so I am not insignificant. Why would I behave that way?
Glennon Doyle:
That’s why it’s not working.
Glennon Doyle:
At the end of the day, Boz, is it that a lot of places want to say and get credit for wanting to change but at the end of the day, that’s the last thing that’s wanted?
Abby Wambach:
They don’t want it. They don’t want the actual change.
Bozoma Saint John:
They don’t want the change. They don’t want the change, because the change is also too hard. I think they really do want it, because we all want things. You know what I mean? We all want things but just as in the name of this podcast, it’s hard. It is hard. Like everything else, I don’t think anything is just black and white. I do believe that there is a desire to change, a sincere one. You know? A sincere acknowledgement that, “Oh, yes, okay, we are all the same here and we do need to have perspectives that are different” but then that difference comes and it’s like, “That’s way too different. Can you just behave a certain way? Can you just not say the things? Can you not bring up that story when you’re talking? That doesn’t fit into the thing we’re trying to say.”
Abby Wambach:
Speaking of hard, I think it’s important, what is it like communicating with white women?
Glennon Doyle:
An easy question. That’s interesting. What’s the hardest part of communicating with white women?
Bozoma Saint John:
What is it like? The hardest part about communicating with white women is that they still think we’re the same, that somehow that just being women means that we’re the same. That is not true. Right? Again, I think it’s like intellectually we all know that but practically do we know that? Emotionally do we know that? I don’t think so.
Bozoma Saint John:
Then the idea of our united sort of energy and our united mission falls apart because we’re still working inside of a society in which whiteness then is the superior and so it’s like the superiority of the white women experience is completely a giant as compared to mine. Then mine doesn’t really matter.
Bozoma Saint John:
The individual kind of struggles or other types of challenges that I have, because there’s so many other connection points in whiteness to white men, that I simply don’t have, right? You would think, “Well, look, I have the connection to women regardless of race” and then the white women have the connection to the men, because of race. Then they’re connected here to the men and they’re connected to me because of women, so they’re connected on two points and I’m connected on one and dependent on that one.
Bozoma Saint John:
I’m already at a disadvantage. Just understanding that as a literal practical thing, and that’s just the bottom of it, right? Everything else builds on top of it but that is the most difficult, actually getting the understanding, not just intellectually but emotionally, that we’re not on the same playing field is very, very difficult.
Glennon Doyle:
How would that play out? Because, again, we’re talking about alignment, so when white women say, “I’m aligned with you because we’re women, you’re Black, I’m white but I’m aligned with you”, do you see it throughout work?
Bozoma Saint John:
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
That really the alignment goes the other way, really when the shit hits the fan, white women align with the power.
Bozoma Saint John:
With the white men. That’s right. With the power. You know what’s a practical one of that? Do you remember in the Obama administration, you probably read this, where they said that the women banded together to help amplify each other’s voices in meetings and whatnot? I thought that was such a beautiful thing.
Bozoma Saint John:
It has taken root in corporate, you can see it. You know? Where women say, “Okay, we’ll get in there, you have an idea, I’m going to support your idea.” It’s like that’s such a beautiful thing.
Bozoma Saint John:
What is happening also is that in those situations, it is not just my voice that needs to be heard but my perspective and my story, which sometimes needs to lead, but I find that white women have a hard time following Black women. Then it’s like that whole affirmation, like rah, rah, rah, let’s support each other, only is also one direction.
Bozoma Saint John:
There is the meetings before the meetings but there are meetings after the meetings. Right? The meetings after the meetings are the ones that it’s like, “I’m so glad you said that. Did you hear me when I supported you?” I’m like, “So you kind of didn’t. You kind of said my idea again and then they heard you. That’s kind of what happened.”
Bozoma Saint John:
It’s like, “Oh no, no, no, but we still got the point across.” Like, we, the women, we said the thing and we made the point. I’m like, “No, no, no. It was my thing and then you took it and made it yours and then you came back and said it was ours. Nobody remembers that I said it, because you said it.”
Bozoma Saint John:
That’s the thing, like at the end I’m just like, “Ah.” Sometimes you just feel so frustrated because I’m like where is my voice? You know? It’s like, yes, we are going further because the women’s story went forward but it was taken forward by the white women and she didn’t even acknowledge me.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Bozoma Saint John:
And so then it’s like, okay, well, here I am again, by my damn self.
Abby Wambach:
Having to be the kind of jerk afterwards in that post-meeting going, “Actually, no. You stole my idea.”
Bozoma Saint John:
Yes.
Abby Wambach:
“That wasn’t ours.” That makes you feel like a jerk.
Bozoma Saint John:
Yes.
Abby Wambach:
You’re still having to do it.
Bozoma Saint John:
Yes. By the way, everybody thinks you’re a bitch. You know how many times I’ve been called arrogant, selfish, a bitch? You know how many times? All the time. I’m like, “No, I’m not selfish, I’m not a bitch. I’m just asking to be acknowledged. I’m just asking to be seen. That’s it.”
Bozoma Saint John:
It is the lowest of things I’m asking for, the lowest. I didn’t even ask you to call me a genius, which I fucking am. I just asked you to see me. That’s it. That’s it.
Abby Wambach:
Low bar here, folks.
Bozoma Saint John:
Now I’m selfish. You know what I mean? I said, “Oh no. It wasn’t your idea. It was my idea.” “This is teamwork, though.” “Oh, really?” You seem to be the only one on the team.
Glennon Doyle:
People are going to feel so … Well, I was actually thinking about Share The Mic because when you said is anyone hearing my story? That’s what I remember you saying to me is you said … I’ll never forget. One sentence, you said, “I am screaming into the wind. I am screaming into the wind.” I said, “How are you?” Or something, and you said, “I am screaming but no one is hearing me. I am screaming into the wind.”
Bozoma Saint John:
Glennon, can we also pause just there for a second? Because that moment also just needs to be acknowledged because when you and I talked, you said the thing that most white women don’t say, you were like, “How do I help your voice?” I was like, “Oh, shit. She wants to know how to help amplify my voice?” It literally knocked me off my feet. You know? I was like, man, I’ve been in so many environments, conversations with very well meaning people … Again, I don’t think everything is black and white, things are very gray. People who mean well, they want to help, and all that, but they just take your voice and then they put theirs on it and it changes. Then it’s out and you can’t get it back. You know?
Bozoma Saint John:
What you said in that moment is what then led me to say I feel like I’m just screaming into the wind, nobody hears me. Then it almost became an easy solution after that.
Glennon Doyle:
It did.
Bozoma Saint John:
It was like, of course, of course, of course, you should just be heard. How do I put you on the platform so you can be heard?
Bozoma Saint John:
It was such a fundamentally different question from everybody else. We have to acknowledge that. That was not just because I answered but because you asked the question.
Glennon Doyle:
Then that was a question that led to oh so many questions because then you and Lovey … Right? You and Lovey came back and were like … You had a whole plan like 12 minutes.
Bozoma Saint John:
I know.
Glennon Doyle:
You had a whole plan.
Bozoma Saint John:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Do you remember what happened next?
Bozoma Saint John:
Oh, man. This is when I feel like the ancestors or the spirits who are not yet here, the ones who are waiting, they just all came through. It really does not feel like our idea. It was just conduit, right? To let it be born, because it just felt that easy. It was like as soon as we just stopped, you asked the question, it was like a portal being opened. You asked the question, we went back, we were like, “Okay.” Because I was exhausted. Again, frankly, honestly, I was just exhausted, I was like I don’t want to talk to nobody. Y’all can keep talking, I’m going to be sitting over here resting my vocal cords.
Bozoma Saint John:
From that moment, it was like, look, okay, let’s figure out how do we open up our contact list and find the white women who have these enormous platforms and how do we get them off of there? How do we get them off?
Abby Wambach:
That’s good.
Bozoma Saint John:
We don’t need them saying our thing. How do we get them out, though? But we still want their platform. It was amazing to think that all we had to do was ask.
Glennon Doyle:
Yup.
Bozoma Saint John:
Ask the right people who are willing to say, “Oh, okay. Let me just move over …” Again, I don’t want to pretend like that was an easy thing either because, look, I feel like Instagram or social media platforms to some degree feel even more sacred than their own homes, right?
Glennon Doyle:
Isn’t that interesting.
Bozoma Saint John:
You invite somebody over to your house, to look in your fridge, much quicker than you would say, “Oh, go ahead and say whatever you want on my Instagram.” What if they say something crazy? What if they say something you don’t like? What if they say something that’s offensive? You don’t know what that person is going to say. How scary is that? The bravery of both sides of this incredible movement that we make of white women being brave and vulnerable enough to say, “Look, I’m going to get out the way, here are the keys to the house. You just do whatever you want” and then the bravery and tirelessness of Black women who were saying, “Okay, I’m going to say it one more time and I’m going to say the truth and I’m going to be unafraid of what people are going to say about me because they don’t know me. They might judge me. I’m going to say it anyway.”
Bozoma Saint John:
Let me tell you, even for me, right? Somebody who is I’m loud, I’m talking, I’m saying the things, all of the work that was going into creating this movement … I remember I called Lovey … It was like we had told everybody to go online at noon or something like that. I swear to you, it was like 11:55 and I called Lovey in a panic and I was like, “Oh, I forgot I’m supposed to do it too.”
Glennon Doyle:
I remember that.
Bozoma Saint John:
I totally forgot. I completely forgot. Somehow that completely escaped me. Then I was just like how am I going to do that? I’m so tired. I don’t even know what I’m going to say. I hadn’t even started thinking about it. Then I got afraid, I was like what if I say the wrong thing? There’s so much expectation. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I was worried about my outfit, I forgot what I was going to say.
Bozoma Saint John:
Then after I was done saying what I wanted to say, I fell out, exhausted, completely drained, and so I continuously think about that too when we’re … I think about the corporate settings or these business settings where it’s like it takes so much energy to show up, to say the thing bravely, to go back outside of that space, and still continue without laying down and taking a break. You got to do that day after day after day after day. It is a miracle that we’re still able to do this.
Bozoma Saint John:
Look, I had to give myself a pep talk the other day. I looked at myself in the mirror and I was like, “Girl, you are just a miracle. You are a miracle.” The fact that you are where you are from where you came from, withstanding what you’ve been through, it is a miracle that you’re here smiling with that clear ass melanin skin of yours, looking as good as you do, having a happy spirit, raising an incredible daughter, being an awesome friend. You are a miracle. Go on ahead, keep your head up.
Glennon Doyle:
Speaking of miracles, can we talk about that daughter of yours? I think Instagram land is really big on love stories and we, as a culture, tend to value most of the romantic ones but I swear to God … I have goosebumps already and you all don’t know what I’m going to say but I’m just saying that the love story of you and Lael has got to be one of the most beautiful ones being told right now.
Glennon Doyle:
For those of you who don’t know, you’ll have to go, we’ll put all the links to Boz’ social so you can see all of her genius but also see this love she has. Tell us about Lael. Right now, from where you are in the world, what are your dreams for her?
Bozoma Saint John:
Oh, Lael. I don’t even know where to start with that. You know? Lael is my rainbow baby. I lost a daughter before Lael. Eve, my first. I lost her the day she was born, which was just devastating and crushing, to put it mildly.
Bozoma Saint John:
Three months after I lost Eve, I was like I want to have another baby, because I want to be pregnant. My doctor was like, “Are you out of your mind? Sit your ass down and let your body heal.” I was like, “No, I’m determined. This is what I want. This is what I want.”
Bozoma Saint John:
The thing is that maybe looking back now, it was, again, maybe a reaction to trauma, feeling like I was supposed to be a mom and then I’m not a mom, so now I got to be a mom, I’m going to do everything in my power to do that. As soon as I got pregnant, I was terrified. Like I’m talking about sheer terror, trying to think of every way to get out. “Okay, I made a mistake …” Again, “I made a mistake. My fault. I wasn’t supposed to do this. I don’t know why I did it.” Okay?
Bozoma Saint John:
But I held on and held on and held on. Lael was born two and a half months early. I prayed every single day of my pregnancy, and every single moment of my labor that she would be born, alive, breathing, kicking, crying. Anything.
Bozoma Saint John:
I promised God, I was like, if she lived, that I would name her for him. I said, Lot El, meaning belonging to God. She was born on May 29th, 2009. Same day as my sister.
Glennon Doyle:
Alua.
Bozoma Saint John:
Yes. Alua’s birthday. The doctor had prepped both Peter and I that because she was premature, because they had given me a bunch of steroids to help her lungs develop, so she could breathe, that’s unfortunately what happened to Eve was that she just couldn’t breathe, and he says, “She’s probably not going to make a sound. You won’t be able to hold her. We’re going to deliver her and then she’s going to go, so just be prepared for that.”
Bozoma Saint John:
Lael came out like lightning. You know? It was like a crack in the air. A scream. I mean, I was in such awe of her, in that moment. I was like, “God delivered a warrior.” A real life warrior. I refused to let them take her because I was like, “Oh no, no, no. She’s fine.” When I tell you, I did one of those like in the movies where you just reach down and grab the kid, that’s what I did. I was like, “No, she’s mine.” Ripped her right out of my womb, put her on my chest, took in the scent of her, her heartbeat, the thin translucent skin that she had, and felt every inch of her. She was not bigger than one palm but I felt it, all of it.
Bozoma Saint John:
In the months that followed, she was in the hospital for a while, I prayed every day, she came home right before her due date and I thought, “Now I’m responsible for this warrior”, to show her the way, to make her understand that her life is such a gift, that she was so wanted, so needed, not just for my own salvation and belief in faith, but that she is here for such a great purpose.
Bozoma Saint John:
I mean, we all are but I believe it for her. I know she’s destined for something great. I don’t know what that is and I won’t try to force it, whatever the path is, I will follow it because there is no math that says she should be here but yet she is. My hope is that she’s just going to walk in her destiny and fulfill it.
Glennon Doyle:
We started this interview with you saying there is no math that says that you should be here, where you are in this world. There is also no math that says the little warrior should be where she is, and yet you both are freaking warriors, gorgeous warriors, a beautiful love story.
Glennon Doyle:
When The Urgent Life is ready, will you come back here to tell us the story?
Bozoma Saint John:
I would love to.
Glennon Doyle:
I just cannot wait, Boz. I cannot wait. Please send me that book as soon as it’s ready. Okay?
Bozoma Saint John:
I will. I will. You already know it’s like the process of writing is so, so difficult. This has been a long time coming. You know? I was ready … The moment I sat down I was ready. I wasn’t ready a moment before that but as soon as I sat down it was like everything just started coming. I’m telling all of it. You know? All of the pain, all of the triumph, all of the things.
Glennon Doyle:
What a gift.
Abby Wambach:
Boz, nobody will ever forget your name.
Glennon Doyle:
That is for damn sure.
Abby Wambach:
You are unforgettable. Thank you for being with us and sharing your story. Please come back when that book is published.
Glennon Doyle:
The next right thing for all of you Pod Squadders is to go back and listen again. Okay? Then pretend when Boz is giving her pep talks to herself that it’s for you. You are also a miracle.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Glennon Doyle:
All right? Boz, go do all of your million important hard things. We love you forever.
Abby Wambach:
We love you.
Glennon Doyle:
We will always be in your corner, and Lael’s.
Bozoma Saint John:
I love you so much. Thank you.
Glennon Doyle:
We will talk soon. Thank you for this.
Bozoma Saint John:
Thank you so much.
Glennon Doyle:
To the rest of you, carry on, warriors. Bye.
Glennon Doyle:
We Can Do Hard Things is produced in partnership with Cadence 13 Studios. Be sure to rate, review, and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Odyssey, or wherever you get your podcasts, especially be sure to rate and review the podcast if you really liked it. If you didn’t, don’t worry about it, it’s fine.