Episode 121: Your Story (ft. Joan Steffend)

From the KARE 11 news desk to HGTV, Joan Steffend has spent her career sitting down with thousands of people and hearing their stories. That curiosity runs deep—she’s not just interested in understanding others, but in helping people better understand themselves and recognize their own worth.

Looking back on the harder moments in her life, Joan reflects on how even the toughest experiences can shift perspective. Instead of holding onto anger, she’s learned to ask what those moments were meant to teach her—and finds peace in that.

We dig into what it really takes to navigate our chaotic world—from the surprising strength that comes with vulnerability to our constant search for certainty. 

Transcript

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How did you get your first big break in news? Well, I, I, I accompanied my now ex-husband to an interview at a television station in Duluth, Minnesota, KBJR, superior Television for the Port Cities. And, uh, they had an opening from what. I had heard and he went up there and he auditioned for it for some, I don't even know why I was along, and I don't even know where this courage came from, but I asked the news director if he would audition me too. I didn't have any background in television news. No, I didn't have a college degree. I didn't have, I was just somebody who, for some reason in that moment believed in herself. They did it, they gave me an audition and they hired me and I became the morning news anchor. Um, shortly after that, probably two weeks after that. What year was this? That was, oh my gosh. What would that be? 1981 maybe somewhere around there. Um, and my lead in was the news director, another redhead like me. He was leaning against the wall right before he hired me. And he said, I hired a woman once before. Oh my. It didn't work out, you know. So it was kind of like the pressures on you mm-hmm. To make sure that women will work in this newsroom. So, I mean, I did. Okay. I was up there for two years, so. What do you think is the most common misconception people have about a news anchor? Oh, what is the common misconception? Um, I think people have misconceptions individually about each person, but as a group. Probably that they're smarter than they're really not. No. Everybody is smart and they're, you know, they're, they're experienced, but, but you can't be expected to go deep on every issue that you are meant to report on. you have to be able to, to act as if you know about everything that you're talking about. So I, I think that would be it. With no disparagement to anybody who's out there.'cause I mean, I've sat next to Paul Majors, he's a very smart man, but he can't expect them to know everything. There has to be a different element. When you're reading the teleprompter versus breaking news happening, something huge and unexpected is happening and, and now you're ad-libbing. Yes. And like to your point, maybe not everyone is a geopolitical. Experts. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Like, how do you know what you're gonna be talking on a, a, a big farm in northeast Minnesota that caught on fire? You know, it's like, I got no experience with that, but let's see what I have in my head that shows up in my mouth. You know, you just start to, you just open your mouth and start to talk, but so much easier to read a teleprompter. Yeah. But also so much. Fun to not have a teleprompter and to know that you've just gotta do it. That was, that was one of my favorite things that would happen when it would go well, when it would go poorly. It went really poorly. Really? Oh, so poorly. Can you tell a memory of that? Oh gosh, yes. This was long time ago. Uh, it was before Paul Douglas even got to care, Levin. I was solo anchoring on the weekend. They had brought in a news producer. It was the first time I'd ever worked with her, so she was producing the show for the first time and she didn't know how to time a show apparently at that moment. And she left me with about four minutes of nothing. At the end of the newscast you had to fill? I had to fill. Oh boy. There was no, nobody was out on set with me. There was no weather person, there was no sports person. It was just me. And so, um, she comes running in with a handful of copy, like the old days you see in TV and movies. A handful of copy I've never seen before. And, um, just throws it at me and I'm just reading stuff cold and I just, I wanted to just die. I don't, I I don't, I never looked at the call sheet for that, that day.'cause we, they, you know, people can call in and tell you what they hate about you. I. All the time at a television station, they would record it and they For real? Yeah, yeah, yeah. For everything from close to, yeah. Something, oh, almost always closed. Not knowing that you weren't smart enough about the pig farm. Yeah. Right, right, right. Whatever they hated about you, they would call in and then it would be distributed around the station for everybody to see. I didn't look for a long time after that experience. I was, it was horrible. It was, I, I still feel. Did you feel like Albert Brooks, what movie, when he started Flop Sweating was that was happening. Yeah. Right. The good news is I lost 10 pounds. Yeah. It was a challenge. How has the rise of social media changed how you view journalism? Ooh. Um, that's a interesting question. Well, here's, here's a confession. First of all, since I left the news. I don't watch the news. How come? It's one voice and it's a voice that people take as fact because it's spoken via a news anchor on a newscast. You know, you choose your television station and then you choose to believe that it's true. Yes, there is truth in what is reported on the news, there's also. People's opinions that's, that are in there. And there's also the fact that, say I was going out to do a news story and I back in the day, they would make you do both sides of an issue. Okay? I got two people in a story that affects an entire community who are gonna speak for those two sides. No, that isn't, that isn't how it works. We all have a side, we all have a lens that we look at these stories through and it doesn't. I think that's part of what's happening in our culture right now. That's a real challenge for us because you hear it on the news and it becomes a certain thing in your life. It is certainty, um, at play. And you, you can't hang on to information like that, that, that strongly. You've got to, you've gotta stay open to what is also possible, what somebody said to you on the news. That may be only one person's opinion, you know? It just. So social media is this wonderful thing in this horrible thing as far as I can tell. It's this wonderful thing in that everybody gets a chance to voice their opinions. Everybody gets a chance to put their opinion out there, um, without being interviewed by a, a news reporter. But it's also become a place where people want to believe that they are right and somebody else's wrong. With their opinion instead of just listening to the opinion and going like, huh, I wonder how much of that is true and why he thinks that. And, and, um, you know, what would the benefit be of believing that? Or, you know, just kind of having this roundness of thought around something like that. Um, so that's a, that's a really hard question, but I think I've danced around it enough. like you said. One voice is telling this story. Mm-hmm. On the news. Mm-hmm. Sure. But now you have TikTok and Facebook and Instagram and reels and threads. Right. And all of these different things. Mm-hmm. That maybe. Partially true, somewhat true. But it now, now it's, it, it's an an infinite number of sources of quote unquote news. Right. Or what's happening in the world. And like you said, well, I saw it on TikTok, so therefore yeah, I feel it resonated with me, so therefore it's true. Yeah. There's a lot of that. If something resonates with you, then you believe it's true. It fits into the paradigm that you created, your belief system that you've created, then it's like, oh, that, that makes sense. That's true. But you gotta understand that there's somebody diametrically opposed to you who feels the exact same thing. I have a note on my, um, on my, uh, office wall that says if we disagree who is right and who was wrong. I mean, if you stop and you think about that, it's like, if we disagree, you have a really good reason for disagreeing with me. You feel very clearly that your life experience has brought you to a point of view. I feel the same thing. So who's right and who's wrong? And I think we need to play in that field a little bit more. That one, right? I think that's a roomy thing, right? Yeah. Meet you in that field, but beyond. Right and wrong, for lack of a better term, and just start playing in that field. Um, I wrote a, a short story couple of years back that I absolutely love, and it's about the idea that the earth is a great big house and we all live in it, and we all look out different windows and they all face different directions. I mean, in fact, if the earth was a great big house, one would face the sunset and one would face the sunrise. And then we come out of our rooms and we argue about it in the hallways, you know? And if we would just take a moment and look out each other's windows and go, ah, I see why you think that. And you wanna look in outside mind. Oh, I see. Why you think that. You know, it's a great visual. Yeah. that was a story that came to me in a, in a waking up dream. Yeah. Like even the name of this story came to me, what it was it called The Great Big House on Sweetwater Street where everyone lives together and, you know, seriously, I had to jump out of bed and go, I have to write that down and then disappear quickly. Yeah. I heard someone say recently that having an open mind is a sign of intelligence. Mm-hmm. we're all set in our ways. We think we're open-minded, but we hear something we don't agree with. Mm-hmm. And then we dive in with all of the conflict entrepreneurs on social media. Oh, I like that. Conflict. Entrepreneurs stepping into the octagon figuratively speaking, and then the fight begins. Mm-hmm. So much static. So much static and it's almost like we've become to just, just expect it, you know, like of course. Are we, are we numb to that? Yeah. I think in some ways we are. Um, I mean that you can certainly feel the electricity around stuff. So there's not numbness in the sense that I'm going to dig in and I'm gonna be angry and I'm gonna tell you am I angry? That whole thing, you know, the us versus them thing. But, um, but there's also a numbness, I think, to the idea that there's a solution. We're reading something online or we're talking to someone and we're not reading it to understand it. We're not listening to understand. We're just preparing our response or our rebuttal. Mm-hmm. Somehow to find a way to disagree, agreeably is really elusive right now. It is elusive. And the weird thing is we have the most opportunity right now to understand somebody else's point of view than we ever have. We have the ability to, to read things online, in books, in magazines of other people's, you know, opinions and ideas. But we, it seems like we're just using'em to bolster our arguments in some ways. But I think I, I honestly think that story, the great big house, I think that that is, um, I. To me that's a solution to embody. You know, I think that, I think we're not going to get to a solution unless we sit down and ask people why they are who they are. What's something you learned about yourself during your time on the air? I was not as confident as I wanted to be. I learned more about my weaknesses than my strengths. You learned about them or you felt them more? Hmm, that's a good point. I think I probably felt them more. It's a, it's a, it's like being a, a public experiment to be on, on television. Um, you know, you're in a, you're in a dark room, all of a sudden the lights go on. You're the bug in the, on the slide that people are staring at and deciding what they like and they don't like. And, uh, the hardest part for me was how much criticism that you, that even I got before social media time. there was so much criticism, uh, both from inside the newsroom, the people who were running the newsroom. and certainly the people who were watching the news, and so I, I feel like I was constantly having to. Make excuses to myself, for myself, it's like, it's okay. You have red hair, Joan. It's okay. It's okay. You know, I lost a ton of my hair after I, after I had one of my children, and, um, oh my God, the, the, the horrible things people would say to me. Um, and I wasn't allowed to tell people that at that time. Of course. Yeah. So, so it was just like, you, you just, you just feel apolo. I was feeling apologetic a lot of the times for four. It, it was obvious I wasn't meant to be a news anchor. I didn't have the news anchor, female news anchor look that people were going for. I mean, even, uh, an executive at Gnet at the time, uh, when they were thinking about putting me in a Monday through Friday position, he said she should be on a street corner selling pencils. Wow. Yeah. Um, I had, um, a news director come up to me right before I went on the air and told me that my hair looked like sh yes, and you can fill in the rest. It's, it's just you, you, I don't, I don't know why that has to be part of the, the experience, and I hope it's not today, but it was definitely back then. So it, it hurt. People have no idea. Viewers of what you just described, that's probably, that's the tip of the iceberg, I imagine. Yeah, well, back then, and I, I can't, I can't speak for, you know, I've been gone for a couple of decades, so, um, but that's maybe part of that timeframe when women weren't as welcome or as obvious a choice inside a newsroom. Now, you know, now we're not fighting each other for the one position. Did it feel like you just can't do anything Right? Between the, the phone calls and the news director and the internal bickering? Was it sometimes yes. I would say that I felt like I couldn't do anything right. And I think what I was, what, what I was feeling was this wasn't a good place for me. It was a good place for me to learn some stuff, but I needed to move on. I, I didn't, um, I didn't do, I don't do well with criticism and there was way too much criticism. So yeah, that's where my. I decided to move on. You have a passion for storytelling? Mm, yes. Why is that so important in our lives? Oh my gosh. I think it goes back to that idea of understanding one another again, I, I have. I have gone to the library since I was little and always picked out the biographies or the autobiographies. And I think that has something to do with trying to understand why we are here, why we are here together, how we can do this better. And um, if we, if we don't try to understand the other person and you're just living in an echo chamber, um, it is something that. It's something that I, I, I feel really strongly about that, that everybody has a story. Um, some people think only stories happen to people who are in the public eye, who are movie stars or government, uh, you know, politicos or people who have money or people who have power. And, um, each one of our stories informs the greater whole. And I think it's really important for us to understand. We have a story to tell, because that gives you a sense of who you are and why you are here. Um, I wanna know why you're here, but you should certainly wanna know why you're here. I don't think we're all here by accident. You know, even if you're living what you would consider a small life. You are here for a purpose. You are a puzzle piece. And you know, when you're putting a puzzle together and you're missing a piece, how it'll drive you crazy. It's like, that could be you, that could be your puzzle piece. Yes. So, so yeah, I, I, I'm just fascinated by people and I think, I think story is one of the most important things that we have to offer. Conversation. Yeah, conversation. The understanding. I remember the first time I sat down, I wrote, I wrote my biography. It turned out to be a metaphor that you can read in four minutes, but, um, it was a huge turning point for me because I actually sat down and gave it thought, like, why did I do what I did? Why am I here? How did that get derailed at one point? How did I get back on the, on the, uh, path that I was meant to be on? and just the act of writing that down. Changed my life because for the longest time I thought I was the absence of good qualities because there was so much criticism coming toward me. So I just always felt like there was something that I needed to do better. I was, I was wrong. I didn't have, I, I just needed to be apologetic for who I was. Two things that changed that one, I took a Myers-Briggs test, and I know that sounds really old school, but it made me feel like I was somebody, I wasn't the absence of the good qualities I saw in other people. I was the presence of qualities that actually, helped me make meaning in my life. And I, and I started to feel less apologetic for that. And then the, the story that I wrote about my life, um, that made. It made a huge difference just turning a corner to go like, I am somebody and I'm here for a purpose. And my qualities aren't necessarily what you would wanna hire in an, um, economic engineer. I don't know if that's probably not even a job, but, but I, but I do have qualities that are valuable to the world, and it's been so much fun since I figured that out. I really take a long time to just wind around and answer. No, I love it. No, it's great. our studio is at the Masonic home. I've had so many great conversations with residents here. Mm-hmm. Oh, stories. Yeah. Not, these people are not celebrities, they're residents Mm-hmm. Airline pilots, military veterans, ballet dancers, everyone has an incredible story. Mm-hmm. You don't. Mm-hmm. Like you said, you made a good point. You don't have to be famous or obscenely wealthy or own a yacht. Mm-hmm. And Brother Mason recently said, he's so tired of attending funerals of our friends or brothers. Learning all these cool things about them mm-hmm. At their funeral and is so bummed, why didn't I know this about you before? Right. He's really making a concerted effort to have a more meaningful conversation. Yeah. It's like opening a, a really fascinating book when you start to talk to somebody, if you start to ask them questions and I, I don't know, are we afraid to ask each other's ques other questions or are we afraid to. To, um, you know, strike up some familiarity with people. because I, I've been going out for the last year and, um, I've done it with 11 people where I, I've sat down face-to-face not for money, not to record it, just to have a conversation. I, I'll talk to them for four, five hours about their life in each situation I have found people who have. Experience things that I would never wanna experience, that they have allowed to strengthen themselves, and that they still move out into the world and they offer kindness and light to people. I mean, that's kind of an overarching theme in all of the things that I've, that I've, all of the people that I've interviewed. And you've interviewed thousands of people. Thousands in your life. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I worked in news for almost 20 years, and so yeah, I would interview somebody virtually every day that I was doing the news. And then in real life, I'm the person who just shows up and starts talking to somebody that I've never met before in a stores. I'm thinking half an hour later, I know everything about their life. So, but maybe we underestimate that. Mm-hmm. I, yeah, people won't put down the phone. We sit down on an airplane and we put our AirPods in. Oh my gosh. I don't want to be, I don't wanna do small talk for the next three hours. Mm-hmm. But yet, sometimes in those situations, you meet fascinating people. Mm-hmm. I think most of the time, if you're willing to open up to them, you will meet a fascinating person. And I understand there are introverts and there are extroverts in the world. And so yeah, if you wanna put your AirPods in, go ahead. But, um, it just. I, I think we're, I think we're losing the opportunity for that spontaneous beauty that can show up in, in places like that. And if you ask somebody about their life, they will never be bored. No, no. Uh, there was a, a Harvard study, It, it stated that people were more excited to talk about themselves than to receive money. Yeah. How, how much would you like to tell your story or share your perspective on something? What do you think that's saying though? That people, people have this pent up idea of who they are, that it never has an opportunity to be, um, released. I mean, I think about, like you mentioned, a eulogy, like how often. how often do you, you get a 10 minute eulogy, right? Yeah, probably something like that. And it's done by somebody who kind of knows you, is generally not the closest family member. Um, it may even be done by the minister who has gathered information in the last three days that they can put together that will speak to that person's life. I cannot imagine anybody coming close to understanding what my life has felt Yeah. To me inside living my life. You could put together the building blocks of it. You could go like, she did this, she did that. Um, she was pretty joyful. She made, you know, she was a good listener. She, you know what, you know, you could put together building blocks, but nobody knows what it felt like to be me. I, I think that's. Why I'm doing what I'm doing. You know, I'm asking people to talk about their own lives. Yeah. And I know this is a particular passion. Mm-hmm. Of yours. And understanding people and helping people understand themselves mm-hmm. And their worth. And you shared your own story that really plays into. Wanting to do something like this. Yeah. So tell us about your next project. Yeah, it's, it's some, you know, it's basically been my project my whole life. I'm just, we've just decided my husband and my daughter and I to do it kind of out loud, out in the world. But, um, I'm calling it story. S-T-O-R-Y story and then the cut line is because it's yours to tell and it kind of references back to that eulogy situation. You know, like your life, you have lived it, it has meaning. There are lessons, there are ups and there are downs. There are, you know, things to pass on to a another generation or even to yourself. So we're sitting down with people and we're talking to them for as many hours as they'd like about whatever they wanna talk about. Do you wanna talk about lessons you wanna pass on? Do you wanna talk about, um, the history of your life? Do you wanna talk about your heritage? Do you wanna talk about the business that you built and the lessons that that came? Do you wanna just talk about who you are and try to figure out where you are on the journey? so we're. I'm the interviewer because I can't stop being the interviewer. Um, this is driving me crazy that you're asking me questions. Um, and um, my husband is a film and video, um, documentarian, and so we're going to people's homes and we're sitting down with them and we're talking to them. it will capture their hand gestures, their laughter, and that for some reason that's important to me. My sister died almost 20 years ago, and I miss her laugh so much, and I don't have it recorded anywhere. Um, so we're sitting down and we're talking to them and. And the gift that will come out of that is all of all of the hours of interviewing will be gifted to that person or given to that, that person, and they can give it to their family. And then we're also editing down a miniature documentary. With some of the, the answers that they feel are most important. So they'll have like a six minute video of them talking. We're doing a couple this Saturday, so we'll do single people, we'll do couples and um, we'll just, we'll just spend time and curiosity with them. And people tend to bloom when you have curiosity about who they are. And, um, I. I, I just long to have this with the people who have departed in my life. Yes. And it's too late for me. And so I'm very excited about it. I'm glad to not be the only one who I listened to voicemails of my late brother who passed away a couple years ago. Yeah. I don't, we don't have a lot of video. Mm-hmm. Or maybe we do. It's on a VHS. We never converted to a, an updated platform. But I miss that there are little things mm-hmm. That I just, I think about him. You think about so many people that you've lost. what an amazing idea this is. I'm excited to really get a, a more. Comprehensive perspective of someone. Mm-hmm. It's not just in the funeral setting. This is not end of life. Right. This is tell your story. Yeah. Of whatever makes you ex, whatever you passionate makes you. Yeah. Right. That's, I wanna, I wanna make that really clear'cause I'm referencing it as an end of life kind of a thing. But I really, it can be that, but it doesn't have to be that. Um, I, I think about the stories my mom used to tell and I so wish I had a recording of them because my little mind has let. Go of so many of the details. Um, I remember her telling me once about the night she met my dad and she was telling me what earrings she wore and what necklace she wore. And, and, and I'm, I'm thinking like, I listened, but I, I must have half listened or, or it must be filed away in some, you know, it's in there somewhere far away filing system in my brain. But, um, but there's, I, I think the bottom line is we need to tell people. Or I hope that we can get people to understand that there's value in their life, whether or not you have been on the cover of a magazine or not. And the value will only grow with, with time to have that experience of somebody else's life on video. Um, I'm, I don't mean to do a, a, a sales pitch on this because, um, well first of all, there's only three of us working on this, so there's a finite amount of time, but, uh, for us to do, uh, many of these, so we're not, we're not doing a big marketing campaign or anything like that. We're just kind of. You know, floating it out there into the world and for people that it wouldn't have meaning. We're here for you. Listening to you describe, this makes me think about the genealogy pursuit as we look at old photos or old timelines. Mm-hmm. I found myself so many times wishing I had more insight on a photo of mm-hmm. Family. Some family event that happened 80 years ago. Mm-hmm. A hundred years ago. Yeah. My father-in-law passed away late last year, and in his archives we found his dad's World War II diary. Oh my gosh. And he was a physician, a combat physician, and I don't know what prompted him to journal. There's pages and pages of these folders of what he was seeing, who he was struggling with as far as the commanding officer. Oh my gosh, it's all there. That is a treasure trove. Treasure trove. Yeah. And I feel like what you're doing capitalizes on that because not everybody thinks in the moment to, well, my day to day is mundane. Why would I journal this? Mm-hmm. Why would I put this down on something? But the cumulative, Timeline of everyone's story has meaning, has depth, and we should capture that. Mm-hmm. I mean, you're preaching to the choir. I mean, I, I've spent my whole life as I think about it, just asking people who they are and what do you think about that? And, um, I'm so grateful. I, I feel like that's giving me the opportunity to live a different life in, in these crazy times. Because I have experienced so many people like that in their day to day, in their homes, in their times of crises, in their, um, you know, different nationalities, different ages. and it gives you, it gives you a perspective that you, you can't. Get any other way? I think we should, I think we should pick people up. Like you pick up a book or an encyclopedia and go like, okay, who are you? Whatcha doing? Why are you doing that? And um, and, and use that to inform ourselves. It's not, it's not, I don't know. It just, to me it's has meaning beyond just making somebody's day. It's, it's something that. It can help you make a better life for yourself and for the person who's telling the story. Does the person sharing with you discover things about themselves? Do you see that in real time? Mm-hmm. Is they having these light bulbs or these perspectives that are Yeah. Suddenly they're. Contemplating more? Yeah. Well, it feels like that. It depends on the personality of the person, but the, um, I've definitely had a lot of situations where they go, oh my gosh, I haven't thought about that. I don't remember the last time I thought about that. Oh, I never drew that comparison between this experience that I had and this other experience I had. It was really part of the same continuum. I never saw that. I didn't see that I had this through line of me running through my life. Like I didn't know that I had this through line of. Caring so deeply about story. It was just, I was just living that life. But when I started to look at my life and go, oh, that is important to me, that's been, I remember checking out the book when I was probably six years old from the Cambridge Library, you know, and it was the founder of a, it was about the founder of the Girl Scouts. Um, so I was looking for her story. Why? I don't know. It was baked into me by God, I guess, you know. Do we live in a time where we're just obsessed with certainty? Mm-hmm. We just need that hard and fast answer. Yeah. I think so. I mean, you're, we're living in such a, a time that almost everybody can look at and say it's, it feels unbalanced. I don't know what's gonna happen next. I don't know, um, who my enemy is, but I should, I need to know who my enemy is. I better identify that. Yeah. I want the certainty of knowing that, that what I am saying is right, because that's a way to make me, my system Calm down. Yeah. Makes my ego feel better. Yeah. It's the ego, it's the, the body, the, you know, everything because you're. Your nervous system is on high alert almost all the time right now if you are paying attention to the news. Sure. Yes. Well, and And certain this certainty has been something we've been looking for since time immemorial. For sure. For sure. But in the here and now. Yeah. The only thing that I've found that I've, I, I'm a distiller by nature. I mean, and that, that also worked in news because you had to take big stories and distill it down to just a couple of minutes maybe. And, um, I was, I'm also a contemplative and so I was contemplating distilling, you know, like, what do I know for sure about the world, you know, trying to come to some place that felt like certainty for me that I could live with. The thing that I've, that I distilled it down to are two things. One is I don't know, and I'm certain of that, I don't know. There's so much that I don't know. And I find it really easy now to say I don't know to a lot of things because I mean, who could have predicted what we're doing right now? Right. And the other thing is love. It's gotta be about love. Um, ultimately. This, this world had to have been created with love for love to expand through love. So, and not just, not just a buzzword, right? Oh, no, no, not some abstracts. I'm not talking, yeah. Romance. I'm talking, you know, I'm not, I'm, there's, um, kindness. Yeah, kindness. That sense of compassion. Um, so those are my two most certain things in my life right now. But who knows, you know, but bottom line, I don't know. And it's probably about love. What's a story you covered either in having a conversation with someone or in front of the camera that changed your perspective on life? Mm. I did a story, back in the late eighties. Um, a young man who had muscular dystrophy with the, he had just watched the muscular dystrophy telethon, and he reached out and he said, no one's telling my story. There was always, there were always these cute little five year olds, six year olds with muscular dystrophy that would be featured. And he was an 18-year-old who was dying of muscular dystrophy. And, um, that changed my life to he, he allowed me and my photographer Jim Douglas to, to watch him die. Um, the last few weeks of his life, he and his mother let us in because they felt it was important. They felt like if people could understand, then they would care and they would help do something about it. And, um, yeah, to, to watch somebody be so brave, to let a stranger yeah. In and trust them with their story. And to have the mother there. I mean, I cannot imagine, um, now being a mom, the grief and the pain and she, and um, she allowed us to tell their story. Uh, I think that changed my feelings about death, about vulnerability and the strength of vulnerability. Um, we don't always think of vulnerability as a power play, but if you can be vulnerable with somebody. And, and I can't imagine a more powerful thing. And it was a, a very powerful story. I, it ended up winning a national Emmy and, so people saw the, the value of it. And I, and I, I'd like to believe that it made a difference. Vulnerability. Mm-hmm. Is the power move in life? I think so. We just don't look at it that way. Yeah.'cause you're gonna think I'm weak. You're going to. Mm-hmm. Hmm. I didn't think he was so susceptible to feeling a certain way. And I know with men, when someone's vulnerable with us mm-hmm. We don't know what to do with that. Mm-hmm. So man to man, when we're talking about the arduous process of life mm-hmm. And someone says, Hey, I, I need to talk to you about something that I'm either struggling with or I need an opinion on, I don't know what to do, is. Maybe it's because as men we're fixers. We, we lose sight that just providing presence witness is, is enough. Yeah. But it's also an opportunity to kind of crack open yourself. Yes. You know, I, I, I've often thought of it, uh, people as kind of, um, in this culture, we, we like shiny, polished, smooth surfaces, and that's what comes out on social media and that's, you know, that good filter that Yeah, you gotta have the good filter, you know, so you've got these shiny, polished surfaces and they shiny polished surfaces will just. They'll, they'll pass by one another without any issue at all. But if you show your wounding. That's where you will connect with somebody else. You know, if you can sit down at a bar or a library or wherever, airplane or airports gate, and if you brag to somebody about what you are and how you've been and how wonderful you are, nobody wants to talk to you. But if you have the ability to say something vulnerable and somebody else can go, oh my God, me too. To me that is, that is like this energizing. Okay, now there are two of us. Yeah. Okay. You know, I'm not the only one. Yeah. And you know there are more. Yeah. I wrote, I wrote my little biography, my little book called Angie Sparkled, and I thought it was. I thought it was only for me. And then I started reading it out loud at book signings and people would come up with tears in their eyes and saying, that's my story. I thought I was alone in my story of not feeling like I fit in and feeling like I had to work really hard to be acceptable to other people. And all that turns out. Almost everybody at my book signings. Yeah. Were having the same experience, but we were doing it individually. We didn't know each other was there because nobody opened enough up enough to say, I am in pain. I need somebody to just witness my pain or hear my pain, or, you know, it just, it just feels like we, the polished surface wind. Yeah. Be authentic. Yeah. Yeah. And don't struggle. In silence. Yeah. Yeah. So many people doing that right now. Yeah. It's like, I'll talk to you about this when I've figured it out. Yeah, no. Once I solve this, then I'll share this. They'll have a great story for you then. Yeah. No. Let's, let's talk now. Yeah. What's the most important lesson your career taught you? I'm gonna sound really redundant, but that everybody is different and we try to, we try to make everybody the same, but everybody is different. I mean, I've interviewed thousands of people, and everybody has value and it's easy to discount people. you know, who are you gonna talk to for that story? Oh, it's gotta be somebody who's in charge. It's gotta be somebody high up in that organization. The person who really holds the, the, uh, truth of a story may be the person who is delivering, um, you know, working in the mail room. Yeah. You know? it all goes back to people. For me, it all goes back to story. It all goes back to the amazing diversity that we have here and the idea that we shouldn't be diverse. You know, we, even in the United States, we've got this idea of, you're gonna be this lone ranger and you're gonna go out there and you're gonna do this on your own, but then they want you to be like everybody else at the same time, so you don't make waves. It's like, this does not make sense. You don't, you don't have to make big tsunami waves, but you can. You can certainly be your yourself. Right. What did you think you wanted but realized you didn't want after you got it? I don't know that I have a good answer for you because the weird I, it maybe would've been something that I could have answered maybe 10 years ago or 15 years ago, but I've become such a weirdo with stuff like this because no matter what I get, I feel like there's a purpose behind it. And so I've been able to look at even the things that were, you know, disastrous in my life where I thought they were disastrous at the time. I look back now and I go like, what was the purpose for that? It allows me to, um, to not hold anger about things that happened that I wish hadn't happened. So I don't think there's anything from my vantage point in this moment. It was all good. What do you wish you didn't like? Can I say what I wish I did? Like? Sure. I wish I did like running. I feel like I could be so much healthier. Um, what do I wish I didn't like? I wish I didn't. Always like to, to please other people. I mean, I am a people pleaser by training and probably by nature. Um, the thing that I've been able to do, I hope in my life now that I'm, I'm growing, I'm always trying to grow, is to be conscious of choosing to please somebody rather than unconsciously feeling like I have to choose somebody or please somebody. There you go. What's something that is legal that you could not be paid enough to do? Well. To hold public office? No. Well, you kind of did in a way. Yeah. You worked at a career where the, every night the phone rang in the newsroom. And why is she wearing that? Her hair is, it is like, why is she holding a pencil? Why is her a blazer that color? Uh, no. I was given the opportunity, I was asked to run for the US Senate at one point in my life. I thought, um, I gave it some thought for about a week, and every time I'd think about what it would entail and how much anger would be coming at you, no matter what you did, I would break onto a cold sweat and, uh, I thought, I can't live like that. I can't do, I can, I could not do public service like that. What are you ridiculously bad at? Mm, organization. Really? Oh, would Joe say that too? Yes. My husband, Joe would absolutely say that he is the organized person. I, there is not a filing system that can contain me. It is not gonna happen. I, I love living my life on the fly. Like there were, I made Joe go on a road trip with me where, where we would just go like, which direction do you wanna go now? I like being in the moment so much that I find it difficult to organize for the future. If you had to move to another country, but could pick any, you'd like. Which would you and why? I have no doubt I would be moving to, uh. England and Scotland, that cute little island out there. Uh, for some reason it has always drawn me. I have visited there three times and I, there's a sense of being at home. There's a sense of history that shows up in my body that I, I don't, I couldn't tell you a story of like, I've lived there, but it feels like I have. And, um, there's a, a place in. Southwestern England called Glastonbury. That is my all time favorite place to go and to be it. Um, it has a lot of mythology surrounding it and I love mythology. They have a tremendous music festival there every year too. Yes, they do. Yes. And Scotland. Oh my god, Scotland. I don't even know how you survive in Scotland, but it must feel so good when you do. I mean, everything feels wind swept and, you know, historic and prehistoric and Yeah. So probably. Probably somewhere around there. What's a piece of advice that you'd give to a young journalist starting out today? Hmm. Hold on to who you are. Stop thinking that you have to please everybody else in order to, to do your job well. Um, what you will bring to the job will be who you are, and that will be what makes you a good journalist and a unique journalist. Uh, there's. I don't like the idea of the, what happened to me, where it's like you have to look a certain way. You have to sound a certain way. Um, so know who you are. Spend time knowing who you are before you start getting into other people's businesses and trying to tell the world what they're doing. You gotta know who you are first. Joan Steffen to say you are authentic is the understatement of the century. Mm-hmm. Thank you. That's the best thing you could say to me. It's been a pleasure having you. I appreciate you stopping in. Thank you. I appreciate being here. It was, it was fun and, uh, challenging in a good way. I.