Transcript, E205: Bozoma Saint John on surviving loss

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LinkedIn news.

Jessi Hempel:

From the news team at LinkedIn, I'm Jessi Hempel, and this is Hello Monday. There are some people who seem to skate through life without ever losing anyone they love. That's not most of us, of course. Most of us experience loss and the grief that accompanies it at some point. I know I have. But then there are people who seem to get more than their fair share. Just a huge helping of it, served up all at once. That's like today's guest, Bozoma Saint John. You may have heard of Boz. She's a prominent marketing executive. She's been CMO at Netflix and Endeavor, and head of brand at Uber. That's where I first wrote about her career when I was a tech journalist at Wired. Bozoma was head of global marketing for Apple Music and iTunes before that. And she spent years building her career at Pepsi. What I want you to know about Boz's career is that it was demanding, and she was and is a star. But that's not what we're gonna talk about today.

Nearly 15 years ago, Boz lost her first daughter. A few years after her second daughter was born, her husband was diagnosed with cancer, and he died too. The scope and substance of this loss changed her. Imagine for a second, trying to show up at work while grieving an infant, caring for a toddler, and preparing to lose your husband. I don't know. Maybe you don't have to imagine. Maybe you, too, have lived some version of this extraordinary experience. Boz has just released a memoir called The Urgent Life: My Story of Love, Loss, and Survival. It's remarkable not for what is unique about her story, but for what is universal. Through these experiences, Boz learned a lot about how she wants to show up in her career, as a mother, and in her life. There are lessons here for all of us. Here's Bozoma.

Bozoma Saint John:

I had somebody once that thought they were paying me a compliment, you know, by saying that, um, they were so excited for me because that at the end of my career, I'd be lauded for all of my achievements. And um, I looked at them and understood in that moment that they didn't understand what it had taken to get there, as if somehow collecting all these things was actually the win. And I was like, "No, actually I, I don't want to be remembered for the awards and the titles, and the roles, and the campaigns. I want to be remembered for overcoming." Like that, that is the win. And so that's why I wrote the book. I had always been pretty open, I think, in the last ... Especially in the last decade, you know, about my life, on social media anyway (laughs). But somehow, I think that the sheen and the sparkle of success just covers all of the icky parts of life. People just want to see the highlight reel.

And especially after coming through the last three years of the pandemic where people have suffered so much loss, you know, not just in death of family and friends, and what not, but, um, loss of a sense of safety or identity, or any number of losses, you know, and perhaps don't feel like there's a way for them to survive, let alone thrive, it just felt like, "Hey, look. I've been down in there too. I've been down in the darkness too. And let me tell you my side. And maybe, maybe, you'll be comfortable telling your side. And maybe then we can all be more empathetic about what we're going through instead of expecting people to be strong all the time." Because what the hell does that even mean?" You know, I remember, um, at my husband's funeral, people kept saying to me, like, "Boz, you gotta be strong. Be strong. Be strong for your daughter." And I looked at them like, "You don't even know half of what I'm going through. You have no idea." You know?

And I, I wish that there was room for vulnerability, for sadness, for grief, for all the things that we all as human beings go through without seeming weak. I wish there was room for that. And so, perhaps if I can usher in, a little bit of that, you know, someone who is seen as strong and vibrant and, uh, fill in the blanks, maybe there will be room at the table for other people who feel the same.

Jessi Hempel:

Bozoma and her husband, Peter, came from different backgrounds. He was the youngest child of a big Catholic family from Worcester, Massachusetts. She lived in Ghana and in Kenya before her family immigrated to the United States. They finally settled in Colorado Springs the year she turned 12.

Bozoma Saint John:

Peter had pretty much grown up in the community that he had always known, didn't know much outside of that. You know, I think if Peter was sitting here today and you asked him like, you know, "Diversity inclusion, do you, you know, you agree, you believe?" Da, da, da, he'd be like, "Yes, of course." But he didn't have any Black friends (laughs).

Jessi Hempel:

(laughs).

Bozoma Saint John:

I think that happens-

Jessi Hempel:

Yeah.

Bozoma Saint John:

... to a lot of people, you know, where it's just like, you believe that, of course, you're not racist. Of course, you're not biased. Of course, of course, of course. But as like, you look around at your people, and there's no diversity in there, that was Peter.

Jessi Hempel:

Yeah.

Bozoma Saint John:

Yep.

Jessi Hempel:

Yeah.

Bozoma Saint John:

So, by the time he and I met, uh, I was working at Spike Lee's advertising agency. He was working for DDB Worldwide. They were in the same building. DDB is the advertising agency that Mad Men was based on-

Jessi Hempel:

Yeah.

Bozoma Saint John:

So, you know, pretty storied advertising, Madison Avenue in New York City. You know?

Jessi Hempel:

Yes.

Bozoma Saint John:

And um, Spike's kingdom was on the third floor. Very Black whereas, the rest of the building was very white (laughs).

Jessi Hempel:

(laughs).

Bozoma Saint John:

So, there was really ... The likelihood that Peter and I would meet and like, interact was pretty slim. You know? But upon first meeting, what struck me about him was, first of all, his audacity, audacity to even think I'd be ever interested (laughs).

Jessi Hempel:

(laughs).

Bozoma Saint John:

Then when I challenged him on essentially, reading my favorite book as a way to get to know me 'cause I was uh, not about to go out to dinner with that man. Um, uh-

Jessi Hempel:

And he asked you r- straight away?

Bozoma Saint John:

Yeah. He asked me straight away, straight away. I mean [inaudible 00:06:53]. Also, can we just pause and say that, like, the audacity of white men, like, seriously, like, I literally was struck.

Jessi Hempel:

I mean, (laughs)-

Bozoma Saint John:

Yeah. Like, he was just like, "Oh, uh, but of, of course, she would go out with me. Right?" "Uh, excuse me, guy. Move it over. Move it over." But I asked him to read the book, thinking that it would deter him. And instead, he came back with lots of thoughts about Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon, which is my favorite book, which is a very difficult read, you know. Lots of things happened in between the time that we met and when we fell in love, and all the things. But um, Peter was an open-book kind of guy that looked at life as, um, one big, happy place. You know? In his life, he hadn't really suffered a lot of loss. His ... Maybe one of the biggest, scariest things that happened to him was that his mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer. This was right before we got married.

And um, that was scary, but she got her surgeries and her chemo, and radiation. And she was on full recovery pretty quickly. You know? And so even for that, it felt like a little bump in the road. So, it really wasn't until our marriage and the tragedies in it that, um, he had to manage any kind of loss. And so I think that really stru- ... That s- struck him.

Jessi Hempel:

Yeah. I appreciated the way that you, um, you pulled back the curtain on your marriage and how you navigated, in particular, the fact that you, you had chosen each other, a Black woman and a white man.

Bozoma Saint John:

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jessi Hempel:

And even living midst of New York City where people ostensibly appear to be so diverse-

Bozoma Saint John:

(laughs).

Jessi Hempel:

... you ran into a lot of microaggression and a lot of macro-aggression. Let's be real honest.

Bozoma Saint John:

Yeah.

Jessi Hempel:

And you spoke pretty openly about that. Um, and I just, I, I wanted to know, did you know when you set out, when you were first falling in love, did you anticipate that, that your relationship would mb met with that?

Bozoma Saint John:

Hmm.

Jessi Hempel:

And how do you reflect on it now?

Bozoma Saint John:

Well, you know, I think you, you said it. You know, New York City is such a diverse place. We think of it, right, as like, this great mecca of so many cultures and people, and ideas and philosophies. I don't think anyone considers New York City to be a place where you could be afraid to live your love out loud. But it was, and it still is. You know, I don't, I don't believe that there's a place on earth that is neutral. And that is actually a reality that we all should really begin to accept instead of lying to ourselves and thinking that, "Oh, we've come so far." Where? (laughs) [inaudible 00:09:39] it's not true. You know? I thought our love was big enough. I thought it was courageous enough that, um, we were inseparable.

Jessi Hempel:

Boz and Peter knew early that they wanted to make a life together. They got married in their 20s. It was a speedy introduction to differing sets of family values, her traditional Ghanaian family and his Catholic one. An early romance gave way to the challenge of navigating the tensions that emerged when they had different ideas about what family should be. One thing they hadn't talked about all that much beforehand was kids. Peter was anxious to get started on a family. Now, it wasn't that Boz didn't want that. But she was excelling in her career and enjoying that. She didn't know that she was ready. And then she discovered she was pregnant.

Bozoma Saint John:

Yeah. I mean, I think the cracks had already begun in our marriage by the time we got pregnant. The cracks of society, of our families against our relationship, you know, had already begun to create a measure of, of space between us that we didn't even recognize was space until the big thing hit. And then it was like, "Ooh, there's a big chasm now." You know? And so leading up until the day I found out I was pregnant, I think we were both [inaudible 00:11:02] masking these slight, little tremors in our relationship. You know? And Peter wanted to be a father. He wanted to be a father almost immediately (laughs) when we got married. I was the one who was like, "Oh, hell no. I'm not doing that." I always thought like, "Oh, gosh. Well, I'm too young for this."

Jessi Hempel:

(laughs).

Bozoma Saint John:

I wasn't too young to get married. I didn't think that. Like, the commitment to someone, someone I loved, someone I found as a partner, I knew that immediately. Like, I was like, "Oh, yeah. No. This is my person, and I wanna do life with this person." I wasn't afraid of that kind of commitment. But I knew the difference of like, becoming a mother. I knew that for sure.

Jessi Hempel:

Yeah.

Bozoma Saint John:

And I did not want it.

Jessi Hempel:

Yeah.

Bozoma Saint John:

And so, and I was taking all the precautions (laughs). You know?

Jessi Hempel:

Yeah.

Bozoma Saint John:

But clearly, I wasn't doing a good enough job 'cause I here I go, pregnant. And um, the day I found out, I mean, I cried. I cried my eyes out. You know? Peter was the one who was elated. And I was sitting in the bathroom, thinking like, "What am I going to do?" And by the way, who could I even tell that to? Right? Because on paper, it's like, "Look, I have a great job. I have a great husband. We live in a nice apartment in Manhattan. We're both doing well financially." How could anyone in that position say they don't wanna be a mother, they don't wanna be pregnant? Or now, they find themselves pregnant, and they're just crying because they can't believe it's happened. You can't, you can't be that honest with people. You can't say that to anybody.

Jessi Hempel:

No. [inaudible 00:12:21]. I hear this from listeners all the time. The stakes are different for men and for women, especially people who are career driven and who are on the brink on something, which you were at that point.

Bozoma Saint John:

Yes.

Jessi Hempel:

Um, like, put aside whether you wanna have children at all and talk about whether, you know, in that moment in your life, wanna have children-

Bozoma Saint John:

Yeah.

Jessi Hempel:

... versus-

Bozoma Saint John:

Yeah.

Jessi Hempel:

... delaying it a little while.

Bozoma Saint John:

That's right.

Jessi Hempel:

And I think that men and women come to that conversation differently. And there's so much at stake. And it feels big.

Bozoma Saint John:

You're 100% right. But nobody, again, nobody talked about the dangers. Of course, now, we talk a lot about maternal health, you know, especially Black women's maternal health. But that wasn't a conversation then. And I didn't know how to be heard. I said things. I opened my mouth. I did say the things. But I didn't know how to push for my voice to be heard. And so by the time I knew what was happening, I was in full-blown early preeclampsia. I was six and a half months pregnant. And I was being induced into labor to save my life. And the problem for me at that point was that I was angry at everybody. I was angry at my doctor for not listening to me. I was angry at Peter for making the decision for me, that he would choose to have me induced versus take the risk. And of course, now, I can look back and say, "Well, it was kind of a lose-lose situation, wasn't it?" You know? It's like, you can't really save the mom and the child.

Jessi Hempel:

I was struck by the way that Boz writes about this. One moment, everything is fine. She's six and a half months pregnant. Maybe her ankles are feeling a little puffy. And then with such little warning, the world is happening to her and not for her, or with her. And then so suddenly, she and Peter are in the midst of an incredible loss.

Bozoma Saint John:

Feels like a failure to some degree. You know? I certainly felt that way. I felt like my body had failed me. I felt like I had failed me, that I should've known, I should've done something better, I should've yelled louder when I felt something was wrong. I should have eaten something different.

Jessi Hempel:

Yeah.

Bozoma Saint John:

Felt all, all the guilt, all the things. And there was nobody to talk to about that, really.

Jessi Hempel:

Yeah.

Bozoma Saint John:

You know? And even in the process of like, um, what happens afterwards, you know, my body behaved like I had a baby to feed. You know, so, I was lactating.

Jessi Hempel:

Yeah.

Bozoma Saint John:

Ugh. What an evil, terrible curse that is. You know? And um, it just felt like everybody and everything was betraying me. Like you said, it felt like all these terrible things were happening to me. And then there was the guilt of feeling like, "Well, I probably could've prevented this? Like, what could I have done differently to change it?" And so immediately, I went into action mode to solve.

Jessi Hempel:

Boz was determined to get pregnant again. But this time, instead of her feeling fearful and Peter being all in, their roles had reversed.

Bozoma Saint John:

It's incredible how trauma can sometimes do that. You know? Um, almost immediately after Eve died, I knew I wanted to become a mother again. And I was determined to do it. My doctor said no. Everybody said no. But I was like, "No, I'm gonna do it. I don't care what you say." Peter would say, "No, absolutely not. Let's take our time. Let's, let's heal from this. [inaudible 00:15:43]." And I was just like, "What are you ... " He was terrified. I was terrified too. But I think I was masking it in my determination to become a mother. Now, we, we start out therapy. You know, so, we were in therapy together, uh, in the process of becoming pregnant again. And when we became pregnant, again, I was kind of struck by the like, "Oh, no. Oh, no. I've done it again. What am I gonna do?" Again, grief and trauma makes you behave, sometimes, in ways that are surprising. And I felt that I needed to be better with my body. I thought that I could be in control of how to navigate so that I would not get preeclampsia again.

Peter was very, very, very concerned about me getting ill again. And I did get preeclampsia again. This time, a little bit later. Uh, uh, I think I was like seven, seven months pregnant, seven months and like, a week pregnant. So, only a few weeks passed when I was pregnant with Eve. And in my delivery, everything changed, really, in how we were going to interact with each other and now, our new baby, who had to be in the NICU, who was struggling for her life. And I felt very judged by Peter. And I judged him too. You know? He was allowed to go back to work and you know, start essentially, like, getting back to normal, if there was ever such a thing. And I didn't recognize the pain that he was in pain. I never even considered what he was going through. I only thought about myself, you know, and sitting there, and then resenting him for being able to leave when I had to sit there and listen to all the beeps and the noises of this very, actually, weirdly and eerily silent place. There was no babies crying-

Jessi Hempel:

Yeah.

Bozoma Saint John:

... in the NICU. It's just, it was a, it was a terrible, terrible time. But I think when Lael came home, on one hand, we're so happy, so grateful, so thankful that she was gonna be able to come home. And at the same time, we were fiercely protective of her, but not together. You know? He was protective of her, and I was protective of her, which meant that we were at odds, meaning that I thought knew best, how to take care of her, and he thought he knew best, how to take care of her without seeing that we had a similar goal. And so instead figuring out ways to come at it together, we were competing with each other. I regret that so much.

Jessi Hempel:

I, I think back over just the massive amount of change that you endured over a few years, and I think I-

Bozoma Saint John:

Mm-hmm.

Jessi Hempel:

I think one has to have so much compassion for oneself, not that that's easy to do.

Bozoma Saint John:

Mm-hmm.

Jessi Hempel:

Um, a- and at the same time, Boz, your professional life was, was taking off in many ways.

Bozoma Saint John:

Yes.

Jessi Hempel:

Tell us a little bit about how you thought about your career and what you were doing during-

Bozoma Saint John:

(laughs).

Jessi Hempel:

... this period.

Bozoma Saint John:

Well, Jessi, I've always been very ambitious. That's not a secret (laughs), you know, highly ambitious person. I was born this way. Um, yeah. In my career as a marketer, I knew that ... Even then, I knew that I, I could really make it to the top if I applied myself. I felt that I had great ideas, great relationships. I knew how to navigate a room. The challenges for me as Black woman in corporate America were something that I knew could be obstacles and could stop me because talent alone doesn't get you to the top. You know? But um, I was optimistic-

Jessi Hempel:

Mm-hmm.

Bozoma Saint John:

... about that.

Jessi Hempel:

Mm-hmm.

Bozoma Saint John:

But at the same time, I knew what the challenge was for women, mothers in the workplace. You know, I had a well-meaning female executive who came to me after Lael was born. I had, had returned to the office. And um, I had her pictures up on my desk. And this woman came and told me that I should take the pictures down, that um, my colleague wouldn't take me seriously. They wouldn't think I was committed to the work if her pictures were on the desk. So, I took them down. I wanted to be a great mom. I love Lael fiercely. I was in a job at PepsiCo that was escalating (laughs), you know, so much so-

Jessi Hempel:

Mm-hmm.

Bozoma Saint John:

... that-

Jessi Hempel:

Yeah.

Bozoma Saint John:

... I was able to actually leave the job and take another one at Ashley Stewart where I could become the head of marketing, the first time I was able to do that. Lael wasn't even a year when I took that job. And then looking at my marriage, and looking and saying, "I don't wanna do this. You know? I'm not the person I want to be in this marriage. And I don't wanna be in it." And so I was navigating all of those things at the same time.

Jessi Hempel:

I just wanna hold space for that as second because I think we do too much of cleaving our professional life and our personal life in this world-

Bozoma Saint John:

Mm-hmm.

Jessi Hempel:

... and having them and separating them.

Bozoma Saint John:

Yes.

Jessi Hempel:

And it is remarkable to me that your personal life, as it were, your full body life-

Bozoma Saint John:

Mm-hmm.

Jessi Hempel:

... could have so much birth and death, and uh, love, and a marriage coming apart.

Bozoma Saint John:

Mm.

Jessi Hempel:

And then also, you would go to work and bring so much to these very big roles. What parts of that eng- extraodinary home presence, like, bled into your work life?

Bozoma Saint John:

Yeah.

Jessi Hempel:

Did you have people you talked to? Did you allow that part of you to emerge?

Bozoma Saint John:

Absolutely not. I think at the time and, and still is taboo to bring any part of your personal life in. I mean, it's just so ridiculous that even in the midst of the pandemic where we're all used to having these Zoom meetings, and you can see into people's kitchens, and their half dressed spouse is in the back, and all kind of things, that we still find it taboo to bring our personal business into the work (laughs). It's so ridiculous 'cause there isn't space to separate these things. We're the whole person. You know? And so it's like, yes, of course, my life was ... And my work work was absolutely influenced by what I was doing or what was happening at home.

Jessi Hempel:

We're gonna take a quick break here. More with Boz when we come back. And we're back. You know how, sometimes, life just gives you more than you think you can handle, and it just keeps coming? Well, that's where Bozoma is at this point in her story. And her solution to manage all of that, at least in the moment, is to just keep everything bottled up inside.

Bozoma Saint John:

The hits keep coming. It's like, "Can I catch a break?" And it felt like that. It's like, look, on top of my ... You know, losing my job, like, you know, Eve dying, birthing Lael, my marriage coming apart and the divorce, my father had a stroke. He came to live with me. I mean, it was like ... All of these things were happening. Oh, and my mother also then was on her second bout of cancer. I mean, it was like, every- everything was happening. And I didn't talk to anyone at work about that. No one, not a soul. I didn't tell 'em anything that was going on. You know, because again, it was like, I had to keep the professional side apart from the personal side. Nobody could know. Reaching back out to, to PepsiCo was embarrassing, you know, but I was desperate. I needed, I needed something. I needed another job. I needed a way to pay the bills. And at the same time, I wanted (laughs) ... And this is, like, the wildest thing. I also wanted it on my terms.

Jessi Hempel:

Yep.

Bozoma Saint John:

Yeah. I didn't want to go back into the same thing that I was doing before because I didn't love it. And so I proposed a new path within PepsiCo. And that was to create music and entertainment marketing. I, I even knew then that I wanted more purpose in the work that I was doing to make me excited about it. And it was in that job, then I was able to be put onto the big projects-

Jessi Hempel:

Yep.

Bozoma Saint John:

... you know, that would allow me to continue skyrocketing.

Jessi Hempel:

Yep.

Bozoma Saint John:

Now, as I said, I did all of that without disclosing what was going on in my personal life.

Jessi Hempel:

Would you do it again the same way?

Bozoma Saint John:

It's a really tough question. Um, I can probably say no pretty confidently because I haven't done the same thing in the last 10 years after Peter's died. I've completely changed my philosophy on how I show up at work. You know, I don't think that the challenges I have at home are signs of weakness. They're actually signs of strength. Like, if you're able to manage all of that and you're doing the work, yeah, I think that's a pretty strong person. I wish we would give more applause to people who do that (laughs)-

Jessi Hempel:

(laughs).

Bozoma Saint John:

... who show up in spite of everything that's going on. You know what I mean? It's like, "Oh, your kids just like, threw up all over you today. And you had to, like, run back home and change. And then you came to the office, and you still knew the numbers. Ah."

Jessi Hempel:

Yeah.

Bozoma Saint John:

"Good on you."

Jessi Hempel:

Yeah.

Bozoma Saint John:

(laughs).

Jessi Hempel:

I-

Bozoma Saint John:

You know, good on you (laughs).

Jessi Hempel:

It is, it is so true.

Bozoma Saint John:

Instead, we're over here like, trying to hide it. You're like, trying to hide the wet spot. And somebody says, "Oh, what happened to you? "Oh, I just spilled some coffee. [inaudible 00:24:56] no big deal. No, I'm fine. Everything's fine." No, it's not.

Jessi Hempel:

Yeah.

Bozoma Saint John:

Your kid's probably sick a- at school right now. You're probably gonna have to go pick 'em up (laughs). You know?

Jessi Hempel:

Well, look, the, the takeaway there, Boz, the immediate takeaway for everyone is that we, we owe each other more grace than we give each other. Right?

Bozoma Saint John:

Yes.

Jessi Hempel:

'Cause you, you do not know where that wet spot on your colleague's lapel has come from no matter what they tell you in that moment.

Bozoma Saint John:

No matter what they tell you. You asked like, you know, "Would I do it again?" And the truth is that like, look, I've been more transparent about what's going on in my personal life than, than probably is recommended (laughs) because I do want my colleagues to understand what is happening so that should I need grace, they can extend it. And shockingly, a lot of people extend it. They really do.

Jessi Hempel:

Before we finish, I wanna go back to what inevitably became the, the crux of, of your, of this part of your story, in The Urgent Life-

Bozoma Saint John:

Mm-hmm.

Jessi Hempel:

... which is that you had a toddler at home. And you were divorcing your husband.

Bozoma Saint John:

Mm-hmm.

Jessi Hempel:

Although, it seemed like you both had a pretty amicable, um, relationship at that point. And then you found out that he had cancer. And then you found out it was terminal.

Bozoma Saint John:

Yeah.

Jessi Hempel:

And you had this fairly short period in which you had to set a lot of things straight.

Bozoma Saint John:

Yes.

Jessi Hempel:

Tell us about that period and the impact it has had on, on who you are today.

Bozoma Saint John:

Yes. Well, the day that Peter found out his cancer was terminal, I was at the office. He had his mother call me to tell me to come to the hospital immediately. And I knew that there was something that was really terrible that was happening. And like, you're, you know, like you were saying, at that point, we, we were very amicable. He was in another relationship. I was in a relationship, you know, but we were co-parenting and friends, really. But I walked into his hospital room that day. And when he told me that he was dying and that there was nothing to be done, the doctor said, "Maybe a few weeks." The first thing on his list of things to do was to cancel our divorce. He wanted to reconcile. You know? And um, in that moment, I said yes. I didn't say yes because it was, like, this dying man's wish. I said for myself. I said yes because I wanted to set things straight that, perhaps, I had gotten terribly wrong. You know? And I didn't want to live with the thought of that for the rest of my life.

And so in reconciling our divorce, it also meant that we had to forgive each other for a lot of things, you know, the small things and the big things, all of the things. We had to forgive each other. And also, in that decision to reconcile became the need for us to urgently figure out, "Okay. What do we do now?" You know? You have a few weeks left together. What do you do? What is it most important things? What are the priorities? It's incredible how crystal clear things can become when you're faced with that. And I don't think it's morbid to think about life that way, to think about, "If I only had a few weeks left, what would I do? What would be the most important thing?" I think about that all the time, Jessi. It helps me make decisions 'cause things get very clear when you think about the fact that, like, "Is this going to matter to me? If I do this thing, like, do, do I actually enjoy it? Do I enjoy the company of these people? Do I enjoy the work that I'm doing?"

And it has made me so intentional in my urgency. That is really at the center of the book and what I'm trying to communicate, which is that my urgency is not reckless. It's not haphazard. It's not even about speed. It's really about intention because we think about life in years. Right? We say, "Oh, gosh." You know, it's like, you work out. You drink water, try to eat healthy so that you could have a lot of years in your life. Right?

Jessi Hempel:

Yep.

Bozoma Saint John:

That's what you're trying to do.

Jessi Hempel:

Yep.

Bozoma Saint John:

You wanna li- ... You see somebody lives and 95, you're like, "Oh, man. What a good life they lived, long life."

Jessi Hempel:

Yep.

Bozoma Saint John:

And it's like, "Well, what if you went at 44? What would happen? You know, do you still feel good about the life you live?" And if you wouldn't, d- change that shit. You gotta change it. You know? And so it's made me very, very clear.

Jessi Hempel:

There's one central idea that moves through Boz's book. She had this incredible ability to trust herself. And through all this loss, her ability to perceive synchronicity, to trust her intuition, well, it's expanded. Before we ended our conversation, I asked Boz to reflect on where that ability comes from and how she's cultivated it.

Bozoma Saint John:

Yeah. Uh, what a gift it is to trust yourself. [inaudible 00:29:39]. If I had, like, a magic wand, and I could wave it over the planet, I would wish for everyone to trust themselves more because we spend so much time asking for other people's opinions, not trusting ourselves, not doing the things we wanna do because we're afraid that we're not right, that the things that we see are somehow incorrect. You know? But like, why not believe in some magic, in the magic of synchronicity or in the truth that your own spirit knows and is trying to tell you, and you don't listen to it? I'm so glad that I'm able to have the faith in myself that I have because no one has this path. No one is walking this walk. No one is living this life. Only me. You know? And so I have to move in the way that is best for me. And the only way I know how to do that is to really listen to myself. And just like any other muscle, just like any other relationship, it gets stronger the more you do it.

And so I just wish that we could all expand that way, we could all learn to build that muscle of trust of your intuition, that it is right. I promise you, it is right, but only if you believe.

Jessi Hempel:

So, do you think, Boz, do you think that the incredible amount of loss you experienced in the first half of your life-

Bozoma Saint John:

Mm-hmm.

Jessi Hempel:

... has, has influenced your ability to trust yourself?

Bozoma Saint John:

Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely, because I don't know what is coming. I don't know the future. I know that I have seen the very bottom of the pit. And I've been able to come out. I trust myself. And that's why I am able to move the way I move, and I have the relationship with myself the way I do. It's made me bolder because I know ... It's like, "Look, something could come, but I have me. That's good enough."

Jessi Hempel:

That was Bozoma Saint John. Her debut memoir is The Urgent Life: My Story of Love, Loss, and Survival. Check it out. You're all invited to Office Hours to talk about the episode. And you know, Office Hours, well, it kind of sprung from loss, from our collective loss during the pandemic. Hello Monday was really just a, just a show before the spring of 2020. But when it hit, Sarah and I were home, and trying to figure out how to record episodes. We were lonely and nervous. And we needed each other. And we needed you. And that is where Hello Monday community came from. We made some space for it. So, join us on the LinkedIn news page where we have been meeting ever since. You'll see listeners you know, friends. You'll see us. We go live every Wednesday at 3:00 PM Eastern from the LinkedIn news page. And if you need a link, you can email us at hellomonday@linkedin.com. We'll also pick up the conversation in our Hello Monday group on LinkedIn. You can find your invitation in the show notes. Join us there.

Hello Monday is a LinkedIn editorial production. Our show is produced by Sarah Storm and engineered by Assaf Gidron. Rafa Farihah, Lolia Briggs, Wallace Truesdale, Kaniya Rogers, and Michaela Greer support us in difficult moments. Enrique Montalvo is our executive producer. Dave Pond is Head of News Production. Our theme music was composed just for us by the mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder. Courtney Coupe is head of original programming. Dan Roth is the editor in chief of LinkedIn. I'm Jessi Hempel. We'll be back next Monday. Thanks for listening.