THE ED MYLETT SHOW - Creating Her Own Legacy w/ Maria Shriver

Episode Date: June 29, 2021

Maria Shriver is one of the most intelligent, well-known, and beloved women in America. I’m honored to call her my friend and im so grateful to have her on my show for a wide-ranging exchange about: Incredible life lessons, personal growth and development, reflections on family, self awareness, why we often behave the way we do... and an extended discussion about her work as an advocate for advancing research and a cure for Alzheimer’s disease. Maria has accomplished so much in her life. She has maintained a high public profile as a member of the Kennedy family, a producer, network television journalist, and as the former first lady of California. She is also a multiple Emmy award winner, best-selling author, philanthropist, and women’s rights activist, among many other notable achievements. You’ll want to hear what Maria has to say about creating self-confidence and identity, and how you can apply the lessons she has learned to your own life. Maria also reveals some unique insights about what it’s like to live in a famous family, and the dynamics of what it’s like when every one of your relatives is a high achiever. If you’re a woman, Maria speaks directly to you on the need for feminine empowerment and strength, balanced by kindness, compassion, sexuality, and overcoming stereotypes that have challenged women in the workplace for decades. We also have a thought-provoking discussion about who we want to be in life, and how our perceptions and what we value changes as we get older. It’s a question all of us should ask ourselves frequently. Perhaps the most important part of our talk centers around Maria’s work with the Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement, a group she founded to raise awareness about women’s increased risk for Alzheimer’s disease. If you or somebody you know suffers from Alzheimer’s, you must listen Maria has to say on this subject. 👉 SUBSCRIBE TO ED'S YOUTUBE CHANNEL NOW 👈  → → → CONNECT WITH ED MYLETT ON SOCIAL MEDIA: ← ← ← ▶︎ INSTAGRAM ▶︎ FACEBOOK  ▶︎ LINKEDIN ▶︎ TWITTER ▶︎ WEBSITE  

This is the Ed Milach Show. All right, guess what I'm wearing right now. Tommy John Underwear, and I don't share that with everybody, just my friends. And so it's the best underwear of all time. And I don't just say that. Like they sent me my first pair about eight months ago, and now from their undershirts to everything,

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I'm just going to tell you especially when it's hot out right now I love wearing this because it keeps me cool so 15 million pairs sold by the way so enough set on it's hot out right now, I love wearing this because it keeps me cool. So 15 million pairs sold, by the way, so enough set on that. Go get some right now. Get 20% off your first order at Tommy john.com slash my let Tommy john.com slash my let for 20% off. That's M Y L E T T. Last time, Tommy john.com slash my let see the site for details. Now let's get into this epic show with Miss Maria Shriver. Welcome back to the show everybody. Today's special for me because I get to I get to share with you. I just think one of the most remarkable people walk in the earth. She's she's an amazing woman. I just I

just don't know why I like her very much and so any chance I get a chance to any opportunity to spend time with her is a blessing for me. And I know to be a blessing for all of you. You all know who she is. There's a lot of things I can say. She's a journalist. She's an author, Emmy Award winner. She was the first lady of California.

She's a philanthropist. But she's just a remarkable and good human being. And you're going to feel her spirit today. So I'm really grateful she's here. Maria Shriver, welcome to the show. Thank you, Adam. Kind of blushing It's all true and there's like 80 other things I can say you know what else. She's an amazing mother To and so when you have someone that's this diverse she had an amazing life by the way everybody

You can go in a lot of directions. So we're gonna talk about all kinds of things. We're talking about you know life wisdom parenting We're gonna talk about all timers. It's gonna be a Far-reaching call and move. That's a lot. Are you ready? Oh, I'm always ready. I'm already. I'm always ready to go in whatever direction you take me All right, I'm gonna take you all over the place today. So I When we met Y'all basically I'm you the spirit I immediately loved and liked you very much. But then I'm like, I'm going to learn more about her.

So I read a couple of your books right away, like within a couple weeks of us meeting. Yeah. You guys, she's known as a journalist. I think most people think TV or something like she's an amazing writer. She's an amazing writer. And so I want to ask you this, you wrote this book, 10 Things I Wish I'd Known Before I Went Out Into the Real World. Yeah.

Right? Can you share with everybody what one or two of those things where I know what they are? But could you share with them? Because people watch in the show, a lot of them are younger, some of them are our age. But they're all looking for some kind of wisdom to make their life better.

And in this book, there was a bunch. That was a while ago. I wrote that. I gave a graduation speech, actually. And it came out of that graduation speech where I talked about career, I talked about marriage, I talked about motherhood, I talked about working your way up from the bottom. I talked about who you work for being more important than what you do. I talked about the definition of success.

I thought I would actually write a sequel to that book kind of 10, 15 years afterwards. And I started it and then kind of my life blew up. So I love a lot of things that would go into the sequel that I never anticipated. But I think one of a couple of the things that really still, I think, apply these many years later is the importance, I believe, in working your way up and whatever it is you do. I know some people say, well, you don't have to do that anymore.

And I couldn't disagree more. I think it's really important to do every kind of a job in the profession that you choose to be in. Why? As I think you learn, first of all, I think you have self-confidence. I think it gives you knowledge. I think, you know, in journalism for me,

I started on the overnight. I did the police radio. I logged other people's tapes. I wrote other people's scripts. I was a producer. I went in the's tapes, I wrote other people's scripts, I was a producer, I was in the edit room, I learned lighting, I was a sound woman. So when I go out into the field, I know about lighting, I know about sound, I know how to produce, I know how to write, I know how to edit. And it's helped me in every way, in my career, and also it helped me build up myself confidence

that I could take care of myself out in the field and then behind the anchor desk. So to the point where when I got to the anchor desk, I felt like I deserved to be there, regardless of what anybody else said. You deserved it. I deserved it, and I knew I deserved it. So I think that's super important. I think also who you work for is super important. I think you can go get a big job for someone you don't respect or admire or you can start at the bottom with someone you respect and admire and then work your way up. So I'm a big believer in that as well. And so, you know, there's a lot, I think also kind of the whole

superwoman thing being overrated. I think that was a big factor, I think for women, when I was starting out, and I still think it worth, it's worth talking about. There's a lot on women's plates. If you choose to have a high-powered career, if you also want to be a wife, if you want to be a mother, if you take on the role of daughter, if you take on the role of caretaker, whatever all these multiple roles, I think pacing yourself is really important and acknowledging the kind of marathon of life

as opposed to the moment where everybody looks like they're getting ahead of you. Gosh Maria, I got to tell you that's very true for me. I just like acknowledge that. I think I've discovered that maybe just in the last year or two that there there should be a pacing because that pacing I think gives a richness to your experience that you don't have if you're just all the time.

It steals some of the richness out of your life of being even present in certain places because you're so focused all the time on do do do do and I do think you miss so many things. I totally agree with you on that. I think we don't really have a culture that honors that right. We really have a society that honors you kind of going slow. Everybody when they meet you. What are you doing now? You write a book and they're like, what's next? You meet a guy, what are you getting married? When are you having a kid? When are you having your next kid?

We're always, I gave another graduation speech called the Power of the Pause. And I really think that that's super important is to pause in your life, particularly in journalism where everything is like reactive. Let's get this up, let's get it up now. Wait a minute, should we get it up now? Do I really need to send that text?

Do I really need to respond from that place? Do I really need to be first with that story, even if I haven't double-triple checked it? So I think there's a lot to honor in the pause, but we don't honor it when someone says, I'm taking a pause, we think, what's that about? That's a weakness almost. Yeah, well, we don't see it as a sign of strength, as a sign of getting to know yourself, as a sign of strength, as a sign of getting to know yourself, as a sign of trying to be more present.

You know, it's interesting. I was just writing about this actually, and I was saying, you know, a full life requires some reflection during it. And I think that's part of the clause. You know what you though? I mean, I think that, I think if, in order to grow, there has to be some rest period of reflection.

If you just worked out in the gym every day on the same muscle and it never had a chance to pause and grow and reflect that you're just tearing it down all the time. So a lot of times, I think you can get a little bit of further in your life. And there's stages for this, obviously. But you know, there's, you get further in your life

and you've acquired all these things or achievements. Maybe they're not even material things. They or just awards or you were first at this or but there was no real richness to your life and that's why I'm so grateful that you're on and you're actually saying these things. I'm writing about it right now so I agree. That's great that you're writing about it because I think oftentimes people can't see that. They don't see the pause. They don't see reflection. They don't see you taking a break and going in and thinking about, what do I think about this? Somebody went and, you know, they told me that they were sitting there at a desk and just kind of staring into space and someone came in and said, what are you doing? And they said, this is what thinking looks like.

That's awesome. You know, we need to have like, what does it look like to pause? What does it look like to daydream? What does it look like to be bored? What does it look like to be reflective? I came from two parents who went to mass every single day. And that was where they were quiet. So I had a visual of what prayed looked like. I had a visual for going to church, you know, but I didn't have a visual for being. I had a visual for doing.

Doing those things. Doing doing doing, but I didn't have a visual for sitting down and going, okay, what does that look like? And so I've tried to model some of that for my children that, you know, how I feel about you, my love for you is not predicated on your doing, on your accomplishing, on your winning. Yeah. My love for you is there.

Yes. Hardless. Unconditionally. Unconditionally. And does not, you don't have to do something to earn it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's amazing. I, I've not been a perfect parent. That's one thing. Oh, it is. Now, one is. You know, but it's one thing I did. Well, was that I really don't think my children think in any way my love for them is conditional on something they do externally or achieve. I think it's a great lesson. By the way, on the topic of

thinking, she has another book called, I've been thinking, which I recommend. Okay. So I do my research Maria, but I am what is thinking everybody? Just so before we move on to that, thinking is the process of asking and answering your questions to yourself. And if you don't have that pause, there's no time to ask yourself the questions. There's no time to reflect. And so this is a really, it's counterculture right now. As she's saying, that's why it's so valuable to have you here. But I noticed something when you were talking earlier, you mentioned self-confidence twice, pretty early on. And it's interesting.

I would think that when people look at you, you can come from a successful family. Your my dear friends, I'm allowed to say this, your beautiful, articulate, successful person, I would think self-confidence was really something you had. Is that something you've struggled with or had to work on yourself in your life? Yeah, I think anybody, I try to say to my kid self-confidence, you have to earn self-confidence. You have to earn self-esteem. Nobody just post-os it on you and says, here it is, you know, take it and go. I think particularly if you are in a family where people are excelling at the level, they were excelling in my family. That's pretty big,

you know, excelling. So I was a little bit more people. Pretty much everybody in my house and in my cousins, they were everybody was running for president. So, you know, it was like, you know, about how people were settling. So I think you have to, and I would adjust that too, maybe everybody in your family is a doctor or a preacher or, you know, a pastor, whatever it is, a real estate person, everybody, I think, has to find their own self-confidence and

earn it. And I was an only girl for brothers and I was raised in a very testosterone-dominated arena. I knew that if I wanted to get my parents' attention, if I wanted to single myself out in this larger plan that I was in, I was going to have to find my own thing. I was going to have to work my ass off. And I was going to have to develop my own self-confidence in who I was, separate from being somebody's niece or daughter or cousin.

And that was a really driving force in my life and has been for pretty much all my life, that I would be my own person, my own name, my own journey. And that took a lot from me to craft that out. But with it came self-confidence. And that took a lot for me to craft that out, but with it came self confidence. Yeah, thank God you did that because I don't, I don't know that if you don't,

I think you can't give somebody something that you're not experiencing. It's pretty difficult to give the gift of that. And thank God you developed that because you ended up creating a family that was very similar in the sense of achievement and public achievement and those things. And've met your children one of them Patrick I know far better than all the other ones, but they all seem to have that same sense of

contribution making their own way. They've sort of modeled your Maria has this very beautiful nuance of very strong But a kindness that comes with it simultaneously and I think that's reflected in your children too, but they've all made their own way and are making their own way, even though they come from a family that's achieving true. You probably had to instill that in them. Well, I tried to talk to them about that. I tried to acknowledge that that was going to be challenging for them, that they had a very famous last name. They came from, they had famous parents, they came from kind of a long lineage

and people would assume certain things about them and that I understood that, that I had come from the same place. That might be something their dad had understood because I think it's very different when you're the one making the legacy. Yeah. This is the one inheriting it and having to uphold it and then trying to carve out your

own version. And so I grew up in a legacy. I grew up with a family that said here, look what we've done. Match it. Deal with it. Honor it. Take care of it. Apold it.

What are you going to do with it, honor it, take care of it, uphold it, what are you going to do with it? And then I think Arnold built his own legacy, right? And so our kids have had to deal with like, okay, here it is. Do you want to honor it? Do you want to uphold it? Do you want to have anything to do with it? Do you want to be free from it? And so I've tried to have that conversation with them.

You don't have to have anything to do with this if you don't want to be free from it. And so I've tried to have that conversation with them. You don't have to have anything to do with this if you don't want to. You can go off and do whatever you want to do. I think we were both very united in saying to them, you don't have to do what we're doing. You don't have to do what your grandmother, your grandfather did, but you have to do something. Yeah. You have to find some way to give back to the world. You have to work. You have to develop a work ethic. You have to craft your own life, design your own life, but you don't have to carry what your dad's done,

what your mom has done, what your grandmother, your grandfather have done, if you don't want to. If you do, great. But I really think this is so important because the people that listen to the show, by and large are people that are breaking, they're becoming the one in their family for the most. By call it the one where you do sort of change

your family tree forever, right? You're an achiever. And so most of you, you know, maybe you're not going to be the president or the governor, but you're the breakaway person in your family. And then if you're going to be raising children in that environment, this lessons huge that these conversations have to happen.

I noticed even with my son Max when he was younger, I started to sense this pressure that I wasn't putting on him, but our conditions put on him that he had to live up to what dad did, or if I have an average life, it's gonna be miserable because of what I came from and I remember having these conversations with him very similar to what you've had.

So you parents that are listening to this, that are the achiever in your family. This is a really, really big deal. If some of you don't know, I mean, you know, Marie was first lead of California when Arnold was the governor and then she's also a Kennedy and a Schreiber. And so there's a lot going on in that family and you know when you have uncles that are the president of the United States and you know there's

kind of a it's kind of a big version of what we're describing in our lives but I just wanted to ask you that and on that it's like I'm gonna go to your books because I I just recommend everybody's you you should read these books many of them and by the way you should read these books many of them. And by the way, you should read her Sunday paper every Sunday that comes out. It's awesome. It's your personal development person. There's so much richness in this experience and Maria approaches it. She said, testosterone earlier. She even reminds me sometimes dial that down a little bit. You know, there's a there's a there's not a lot of I, often in self-help personal development.

I don't know what I would call it. I don't really believe in these things, but sort of a feminine energy to the same topics that brings a nuance in a perspective. Don't you agree that's different from someone else again? You bring that. Well, thank you. And I think I just wanted to pick up on your thing about you're speaking to quote the one, people who are the one in the family who are breaking away the achievers. I think there's so many ways that we don't talk about to quote break away or break a cycle.

And it doesn't always have to be in being the quote successful one. There are so many different ways to break a cycle of silence that might exist in a family, a cycle of shame that might exist in a family, a cycle of shame, anger, all of these things that exist families. There's a way to break those cycles as well and be the one in that respect.

So the one isn't necessarily the one making all the money. It's the one who is following their path. I think who has the courage and the bravery to chart their own course. And I think that's really, when we talk about feminine strength, I think for I grew up in a time, my mother was certainly an incredibly strong woman started special Olympics was tough,

but she dressed like a man. She only had male friends. She went to work with a briefcase like a guy. She was fighting all the time to be at that table. She smoked cigars. She only just kind of, you know, she was a force, right? And I came into journalism when there were no women in it, right? And women were coming in and you had to wear a power suit and you had to work twice as hard. And if you had a baby, you had to come back in a week, and you had to do a lot of things

that perhaps this generation doesn't have to do. So I think what is the model of feminine, all-encompassing feminine strength? And I try to speak a lot to the idea of holding these qualities of tenderness and toughness, strength and sexiness, feminine beauty, and vulnerability, but also being aware that anger is in there, strength is in there, intelligence is in there,

as is these other kind of more traditionally feminine qualities. And I think that's the conversation when we think about feminine power that I'd like to be having this generation and others to have. So it's kind of being able to take care of yourself but also need someone else and lean in someone else and be able to celebrate your femininity

and your sexuality, but also hold your ground and have boundaries. And these are things you learned through life, but that was not part of the conversation when I was in my 20s or 30s. By the way, I don't think, first off, everybody listen to this, you need to go rewind that part back and send that to your favorite woman

not listening to the show right now. I, by the way, I wanna just say, I don't think it's being said right now very much, what you just saw, which is why you're so, so important. I think people know you, I know the multiple sides of you. I think a lot of people are getting exposed to this side and maybe on my show for the first time,

this person who really reflects on life, really cares about human beings. And I think there's, I don't know, I think one thing we share in common is like we, we, we, we take our life seriously. I don't take myself, maybe sometimes I take myself too seriously, but I do take this gift of being here pretty darn seriously. Like I, I want to, I always call it maxing out, but I, I want to contribute as much as I can. I want to grow as much as I can. I want to, I want to pause as much as I can at this stage of my life, too. That's become much more important. But one thing I did do because my dad was good at this. My father could care less about material

things, achievement. It was not even really discussed. It was, who are you going to be? Not what are you going to be? And I, that's something that my dad said over and over. So I'm researching more about my friend here. And I read this quote, you said, I've learned that asking ourselves not just what we want to be, I'm like, this is my father said this to me. But who do we want to be? Is important at every stage also of our lives,

and she has this book called Just Who Will You Be? But would you talk about that? And this changes Maria, wouldn't you agree at different stages of our lives? But not enough people ask the question. I think absolutely. I think, you know, it's a good time to ask it coming out of this pandemic. We're all very different people than we were before this pandemic. How are we coming out? How are we taking the gift of coming out and going out into the world? What have we learned? How have we changed?

How, what did we notice during that time, right? Who checked in on us? Who did we check in on? Who turned out to be important? What turned out to be important? So I think it's, you know, I used to always say that I noticed growing up in a political family, it was the only profession that penalized you

if you changed your mind and still does, by the way. It doesn't allow for you to have been affected by life to change your mind, you're always, oh, you're a flip-flopper, you're a changer. And I don't want to, you know, to me, what's really trouble somebody at 50, who's exactly the same as they were at 30. That's a problem. Because that means that for 20 years, nothing made you think, nothing made you reevaluate, nothing

impacted you. How could that be? How could that be? Right? And so like in the last book I wrote, I've been thinking I write a lot about all the things that I book I wrote, I've been thinking, I write a lot about all the things that I was wrong about, that I've changed my ideas about, because life has happened to me, right? My parents are both dead. I got separated after being with one person for 34 years. My kids are grown up. They've left their house. I've achieved certain things in my journalism career that, you know, propelled me. So I've got to be different at this age than I was in my 20s. That was one of my questions, Maria. What is one thing you used to really believe about life that you no longer believe?

Just one thing. Oh my God. I mean, I used to think that, you know, weakness was kindness. I used to think that, you know, being gentle was a sign of weakness. I used to believe, oh my God, I have so many things I used to believe. I used to believe you had to earn your way into your parents' heart. I really believed that if I did well in my professional career that my parents would love me and if I didn't do well they wouldn't.

I was wrong about so many things. I believed that divorce was a huge sin. I believed that I grew up as a Catholic, you know, I believed that, you know, priests weren't fallible. I believed that women should be precondition citizens in the church. So today I'm angry at my church. I believed that the Democratic Party was the only way. I resigned from the Democratic Party. I believed, you know, I never believed

I'd be sitting here single at my age. I would have thought that that was like, what's up with that girl that she's single? At that age, you know, that she not have anybody who loves her, what's wrong with her? So there's a lot of stuff that I thought, if I were that 30 something year old,

35, 40 year old girl looking at me, that I would have made a judgment about. Wow, thank you for being so honest about that. There's a, it's funny, I was at a car wash when Max was a little, and there was a man there that was there every Sunday reading the paper. Max was six and he said, how old's your little boy? And I said, he's six years old.

And he said, well, enjoy the six year old because when he turns seven, that six year old's gone forever. Which is really true if you have children, right? You're, when they're 10, they're not the same person. They were at six. They're the same spirit, but they're different. And he said, and when he turns eight to seven year old's gone, and it made me think,

I'm like, when does that process stop for most people? It should never stop. Never, right? That should be life. We're replacing our skeletal tissue every few years. I've got our lung tissue and digestive tract. All the cells replace themselves all the time. But we don't do that in our lives.

We're not conscious enough of you should be growing. You should be changing your mind. I ask you that question because my list is so long. When I just turned 50, as you know, and you know, you were great to me when my dad passed away. And so when I turned 50, I took this walk. We were in Mexico, I took a walk. And the question I was asking myself is, who do I want to be now that I turned 50, I took this walk. We were in Mexico, I took a walk. And the question I was asking myself

is who do I wanna be now that I'm 50? Who do I wanna be now? Not who did I wanna be three years ago, or not what do I wanna do, but like who do I wanna be? And I'm gonna tell you everybody, an all-cander, it was easy to list the things I wanted, who I wanted to be, but it's not easy to live it. And I've already, this was like five weeks ago, there's already three or four things I've done that aren't consistent

with that, who I want to be. And it's that reminder all the time. One of the things I wanted to be, I want to be, I want to be that person that when something's bothering me, that I take a pause, ironically, that you said this earlier, and that I wait a while to respond, and with more clear thinking and less emotion attached initially. It's one of my weaknesses, even it's not always anger,

it's just a quick response that's almost like, I'm such a doer, it's like I gotta check this off that I responded, I gotta check this off that I expressed myself, because I'm a very doer. It's like, I gotta check this off that I responded. I gotta check this off I expressed myself because I'm a very expressive person. And I sort of promised myself that I would be a person who is more concerned with that person's well-being and give them some peace and some grace

and think through their side of things before I respond. That's who I really wanna be. It's so funny you say that because I just yesterday added a little thing to my email signature. And that, you know, moving forward, I'm going to take more time with each email. I'm not going to check them as quickly as I used to. I want to respond to them from a place of reflection. And so therefore, I will not be responding as quickly as I used to be because I didn't like and I didn't put this

in the signature. I didn't like, you know, the person I was responding and I did the same thing. You know, I'd be like, I've got to respond right away because people think like, what's wrong with you? I sent you an email in the morning and you haven't responded in its night and you're like, and like, I remember my friend Martha Beck saying, I was like, I'm in such a hurry. I'm in such a hurry. She was, where are you going? And I was like, well, what do you mean? Where am I going? She goes, well, where are you going?

That you're in such a hurry to get to. And I sat back and I was like, I don't know where I'm going. I don't know where I'm going. Why am I in such a hurry to get where I don't know where I'm going? Oh, my gosh, that's awesome. That's so true. Well, you can hold, you can hold me to it. And I'll hold going to text, but I'm on my earpiece and I'm like, I'm about four sentence response, I should have, I could have waited till I got back to the house. It was, by the way, it was a verbal text, everybody.

I could have waited till I got back to the house. I was like, I'm going to text, I'm going to text, I'm going to text, I'm going to text, I'm going to text, I'm going to text, I'm going to text, I'm going to text, I'm going to text, I'm going to text, I'm going to text, I'm going to text, I'm going to text, I'm going to text, I'm going to text, I'm going to text, I'm going to text, I'm going to text, I'm going to text, I'm going to text, I'm going to text, I'm going to text, I'm going to text, I'm going to text, I'm going to text, I'm going to text, but I'm on my earpiece and I'm like, by the way, four sentence response,

why should I? I could have waited till I got back to the house. It was, by the way, it was a verbal text, everybody. I could have waited till I got back to the house, took some, so I've already, I think when you decide, here's who I want to be now, don't forget, this other person that you have a pattern of being is still right there.

And so it's being intentional about it's being aware, it's given yourself some grace, it's checking in on yourself. Am I really being this person now? Am I reflexes? That's one of the things I'm not. Yeah, I think it's really important that I've learned in life is checking in with who's running your show. And by that, yeah, what do you mean?

I think that many people will find their smaller self, their inner child, their little kid self is really running their show. That's the one who's stopping their feet trying to get the attention, looking for the love, feeling misunderstood, and it's not actually who you are today. And so so often I have found that my little girl self is running my show. You don't hear me, you're not responding to me, you shut the door, I'm gonna show you. And that's not the present reality.

So I think it's really, I'm a big believer in kind of, you know, understanding who you are and looking within, trying to figure out what is your motivation? Where are you going? Who are you? Who do you want to be? And who's running your show? Is it your six-year-old self? Are you still trying to get your parents' attention even though they're dead? Are you angry at somebody who did something to you at 17 and you're taking it out on somebody who's 50? You know, understanding, do you feel small and why? And what are you doing about that? Do you feel invisible?

Do you feel alone and is that real? Or is that old? And I think that's a really big thing to understand because you react from a completely different place if you know who's reacting. That is so awesome. Who is running the show? Yeah, everybody, you got to ask yourself that question. And one thing I want to tell you, I had said, do you run and and he talks a lot about profoundness of experience. One of the things I'm grateful about,

this is a profound experience for me. I'm glad everybody else gets to listen in on this today. But because you know what? The thing you said about your parents is reflect on that really quickly, you know, about, hey, if I achieve more, do more, I'll earn my parents love. I absolutely 100% am that person. But what I realized is I got a little bit older that everybody in the world was with still my parents, that I thought everybody will love me more.

The only way someone will love me is if I'm achieving or winning or I can give them something, advice, this, an experience or whatever it might be. And it wasn't until very recently, and I'm not saying that I don't even still struggle with that, but it's not too very recently that I realized that that's not how it has to be all the time in life. And that that might not even be real love. Because for me, I got attention when I brought home an A, I got attention when I hit a home run. And maybe some of you that are listening to this, they're like, well, maybe

that person's still running my show because I, I think that's that thing where I respond quickly thing too. It's like, I'd have limited time with my dad so that when I would get it, even if it wasn't a rich experience, I would get into it very quickly because I only had limited time. And so everything with me is limited time. And as I, as you just said that, like, where are you going?

It's like, really nowhere. Why am I doing this all the time? What the hell am I doing? It's so good. And what's really crazy about both of us, people looking both of us like, this is really good. But hey, these are the people who show me how to live my life better.

Hopefully, you're listening to this and going, yeah, people that can show you how to live their life better are trying to live their own lives better. And maybe we're just a little bit more focused on it, right? I'm constantly inspired. The guy that parks the cars here at my office. I said to him, you know, how are you always in such a good mood? Tell me your secret. Tell me how when I drive in and you go, oh, you're going to be great today. It's going to be a great day every day.

Yeah. I'm like, how are you like that? I think everybody's looking for, you know, to be seen first and foremost, as I always say in the Sunday paper, we're trying to help you feel seen, valued, understood, and less alone on your journey to what I call the open field, right? I think that's what we're all trying to do. So I don't wanna tell you how to live your life better

because I really don't think anybody can do that for you. I just want you to know that I'm here when you fall down in your life because we're all gonna fall down and I think there's so much shame in falling down. There's so much shame in feeling humiliated or feeling like, oh my God, I just got fired. So, I try to talk about some of those things. Yes, I got fired. Yes, I've been ashamed. Yes, I've been publicly humiliated. Yes, and yes, and yes.

And maybe you'll have it happen in your own way, but there's life after all of these things. And, you know, my mother once said, look at life as a marathon. It is not a sprint. And so your better isn't my better, right? You know, my life, somebody else might look at it and go, I don't want that. And the truth is, I don't want anybody else's life. Yeah.

When I say better, I don't necessarily mean one is better than the other. I mean, finding your true north, finding what makes you happy, finding what gives you bliss and peace. And I think listening to someone navigate their own. Yes. Can give you reflections based on the other thing I think that happens sometimes is that you can listen to someone who's had a little bit more experience than you. Maybe some of their mistakes can save you the time. Now, you have to go through your own process, your own life, your own journey,

but there's certainly things that the me at 50 years old, yeah, I wish I knew some of those things and I was 25 or 30, but they've arrived in my life, you know, I guess at the appropriate time. One other thing I wanted to ask you about, because I want to make sure we do it early enough in the interview because I talked about you being a philanthropist and we're talking about a lot about conscious

things in our lives right now. And your dad, Sergeant Shriver, who, you know, eventually at some point started to struggle with Alzheimer's, correct? And this is, you know, the women's Alzheimer's movement is something that I'm just so grateful that you did that exists. And this is something that, even though it seems not connected to the topic we're communicating on, it actually really is.

It's a life topic. And so many of us are gonna lose people in our lives that may still physically be present. And my grandfather had, we really never diagnosed it. It was a form of dementia. I don't know if it was Alzheimer's. It was some form of dementia, but he started to slowly fade away as well And so I want you to talk about because I know it's such a passionate thing for you

Talk to us a little bit about that movement and then also, you know any reflections any insights you have Are there anything we can do to prevent? At this stage there are things that you're aware of that you believe in now? Et cetera, et cetera. Well, first of all, I want to thank you for supporting the Women's All-Time Resort. I think I'd like to just say that you, to your audience, have been a supporter, a benefactor of the work that we're doing,

and I'm deeply grateful for that. My honor. Thank you, of course. And so I think that, you know, brain health is something that we should all be concerned about no matter our age. So you're 30, you're 40, you wanna be doing things today that will make your brain resilient to tomorrow, right?

And my father was certainly the most intelligent bar non magnicomalia law school, Yale undergraduates started the Peace Corps, started the war on poverty, started Job Corps, VISTA, legal services for the poor, head start, all out of the brilliance of his imagination, his work, his creativity, this was a man who could testify for hours on the Congress without a note. This was a man who knew every historical fact about the country. And this is a man who did not know who I was. This is a man who did not know what a spoon or fork was.

So I thought to myself, now that is something to look into. How could somebody who had a brain like that have a brain like this? What goes on in a brain like that to end up in a brain like this? And so I started looking at the issue when he was diagnosed in 2003 and it was at a time when nobody spoke about it. I'd never even heard anybody having it other than Ronald Reagan. And he had it, what seemed to me at a very advanced age,

and so it didn't kind of compute, and it didn't kind of compute that somebody as smart as my dad, I'm not saying Ronald Reagan was smart, but I'm just saying daddy was like an intellectual bar not. So anyway, I wrote a children's book about it. I went and did as a journalist to five part series on HBO about it. And I started to really report on it, look into it, ask questions about it. And then lo and behold, I did a big report about it because I started going around the country and I noticed while more and more women seem to be having this. What's happening to women? And every doctor and researcher said to me, no, that's not right. You're misinformed. It's just because women live longer. And I've often felt

when anybody's told me in life, no, you're wrong. I'm like, okay, I just here we go. Watch out. So I went and partnered with the Alzheimer's Association gathered group of journalists. And we did a thing called the Shriver Report, which was the second in a series of reports to the nation about the status of women. And we reported for the very first time in 2010 that Alzheimer's does in fact discriminate against women.

Two thirds of those who get Alzheimer's belong to women and two thirds of the caregivers in our nation against women. Two-thirds of those who get Alzheimer's belong to women and two-thirds of the caregivers in our nation are women. And that led me on it. So we created the Women's Alzheimer's movement to try to understand what's happening in women's brains back it up 20 years in your brain before you're symptomatic. What's going on with women when they're 50? Medipause, parimenopause.

It's different than men. So the women's Alzheimer's movement with others has been studying the role of estrogen, has been studying, looking at the shrinkage in women's brains from parimenopause to menopause. We've been looking at the role of, you know, drugs that you take for breast cancer, what impact that might have, what impact the drugs that you take for breast cancer, what impact that might have,

what impact the drugs you might take for type 2 diabetes, is Alzheimer's type 3 diabetes. What is going on, particularly in women's lives, women are two-thirds of those who take drugs for depression, they're two-thirds of all the autoimmune diseases. What is going on, and lo and behold, I discovered that in fact, you know, most of the things we know about health in general come from white men, that women's health research lags by decades. So we have tried to, in this period of time, catch up a little bit. We've tried to fund a lot of research into women's health, into what is going on at women from puberty, to pregnancy, to parimenopause, to menopause, to mild cognitive impairment. And I'm also very cognizant.

I always say, like people say, we will men get Alzheimer's. I said, I know, but the smart thing is to go where the majority of cases are and see what we can learn. When I got involved in Alzheimer's, everybody was looking at just plaques and tangles, which were the arctic of Alzheimer's. Now, the net is much wider. As I said, we're looking at estrogen,

we're looking at type 2 diabetes, we're looking at hypertension, pre-existing conditions, and we now know that lifestyle, the American lifestyle in particular has a huge impact on your brain health. Stress has a huge impact on your brain health. Sleep has a huge impact on your brain health. Food, nutrition, exercise, builds up BDNF. It can revitalize your brain. So we do know a lot more today than we know that we knew when I got involved in this than we knew 10 years ago. But this is an issue that everybody should be concerned about

in their 20s, their 30s, their 40s, their 50s, and women in particular who are in the parimenopausal time of their lives or the menopausal time of their lives have to be extra careful. They have to learn their numbers. They have to get a doctor who is smart about hormones, who is smart, smart about cognitive testing, who is smart about neuroprotective supplements and drugs and that sort of stuff. So, um, and has to educate herself about what does it look like to get older as a woman? And if she's taking one thing, what impact does that have on the other thing and so on? So, I want to stay on that one thing. I want to talk about the hormonal thing. So, you are, I want to be clear, you are convinced that there's a hormonal impact involving a lack of estrogen potentially.

Well, there is. It's not that we've seen that now. If we take a brain scan and we look at a paramedical pausal brain versus a post-menopausal brain. So I think, you know, hormones after the Women's Health Initiative got a really bad rap and terrified women. Everybody felt like if you went to hormones, you were going to get breast cancer. So the one thing we know today is that every woman is different from every other woman. So what works for me might not work for your wife, what works for a listener's mother might not work for her grandmother. That's really important to know your history, to know if breast cancer runs in your family. But what we do know now is that estrogen is a neural protector and that there is a window for hormones, if you are, you know, if your history is good, right, to take that in a window that

will help you and will help your brain health. And that's really important to understand, to know, and to find a doctor who is up to date on the newest research in this space for women who had hysterectomase. It's important to know about your health and how that hysterectomy might impact your brain health, to know about how long you should be on hormones. And most women will tell you they'll go to their doctors in their 50s or 60s and their doctors will tell them we just don't know. We don't have the re-perch to be able to tell you yes or no. So you have to make up your own mind. Do you believe there's a genetic predisposition? Well there is. You know so you can go but it's not. And as they say, your genes are not your destiny. Yeah.

So because you might have an APO4 gene that doesn't mean you're going to get Alzheimer's. And it also doesn't give you a free pass. If you don't have it in your family, you think like, oh, well, I don't have to worry about it. That's also not the case. So APO4 is directly connected just to Alzheimer's? Yeah. And it's, but it doesn't mean that you're going to get it. And so really

important, I think there's a lot of people who feel also like, I don't want to know because there's nothing I can do. And the lack of it doesn't mean you're not going to get it. You could have cognitive decline. Do you believe Maria? Do you believe? I've started maybe three years ago to do more cognitive work on myself, more cognitive testing, more, I do crossword puzzles. I've got these games I play on my phone that are cognitive tests that I do very regularly, which by the way, I was somewhat surprised by my very poor deficiency of doing these things, thinking I'm a pretty, you know, mentally alert person, and I already scored pretty poorly. And I must say three years later there's been a pretty stark improvement on just I guess I'm building my cognitive muscles do you believe

people should be doing that? Yeah I think well all the research has shown that kind of just to keep yourself curious, keep yourself learning, you know we kind of go to school and then we are like okay I'm done right? So I think, you know, it tells us, can you learn a new language? Can you learn a musical instrument? Can you do, you know, processing a gig, cognitive processing? I'm also slow in those kind of processing games. I'm also slow in math, for example. And as you age, certainly your processing may slow down. So there are games that can help you increase your processing. There are silly little things like I brush my teeth in the morning with my left hand. I go, you know, my take my car and make a different

turn all the time. I find my way home in different ways, just to keep yourself learning and keen. Yeah, so they tell you those are small things that you can do, you can work on balance. You can stand on your, you know, your left leg, if you're right-handed, you can do things right with your left hand sometimes in your right hand, just to keep tricking your brain,

keeping it like, I know who's in charge, you know, keep it growing. I also wanna say that, you know, this kind of emphasis on lifestyle, some people that I know who I work with, who have Alzheimer's say, you know, that makes them feel that they did something wrong, that then they didn't have a lifestyle. So I want to be really

clear that, you know, that is, you know, I'm not saying that, right? Because we don't know enough. But what we do know is that a highly processed diet, a sedentary lifestyle, a lifestyle where you're alone and not in community and where you're not learning and where you're maybe hold up by yourself, which happens as people age, right? That's not good for your mental health, your cognitive health, and your prognosis eventually for Alzheimer. So I think it's a larger conversation that I really want to have about aging. conversation that I really want to have about aging. Yeah, we're on the contrary. And like, you know, what do we do for people as they age?

How do we include them in life? How do we keep people learning? How do we keep them involved? This is a larger, much bigger conversation for a country that likes to pride itself on youth. Yes. And pride itself on excelling many of the things we started by talking about and doesn't want to age themselves.

So we're all doing everything we can. And yet kind of aging is inevitable. It's a gift. How do we change that conversation is something not super interested in? Super glad you saw. I was going to go there just because we have a culture in our,

there are other countries that are far better at this than we are that revere wisdom and experience in aging and in our culture, it's to be avoided. It's almost, it's, go back to that word here. It's almost a weakness. He's old. She's old instead of being something that's of reverence. Now, if I'm flunking all of your Instagram tests

on these cognitively which I've never passed one of them, so to put these great tests on the time, is that an early indicator? But in all seriousness, if you notice, I'm just curious, maybe this is dumb. If you notice your memory is slightly not what it used to be, is that normal agent or could that be a sign? Now, that's normal agent and they have lists of, if you're getting a car and you don't know what a car is, that's something to be concerned about.

Or if you get home and you don't know where you are and what that is, that's different from like, I'm like, yesterday, I can't find my glasses, I can't find my glasses and my daughter's like they're on your head mommy. So that happens to me frequently or you can't find my glasses. I can't find my glasses. And my daughter's like, they're on your head mommy. So that happens to me frequently, or you can't find your car parking lot. So I think there's now a lot of new science around memory, what is memory, what is normal forgetting?

How do we create memories? It's a whole new space and really exciting. I think space to look into the brain, to learn, you know, how no two brains are the same. And I think kind of this will open up really how we teach children, how we raise children, really. How we raise children, how the school system fails our children because some kids can be incredibly smart but not quote book smart and then they get labeled or they think they're dumb. Yes. And they get very excel in so many other ways. So I think we haven't really had a

conversation about how all of our minds and brains are different and how they process information and what is forgetting what should be forgotten, what's good to forget. Good to forget too. Good be forgotten, what's good to forget. Good to forget too. Good to forget and what's good to remember. Okay, a couple more things. So, I just want to sum this up. I am not a medical doctor.

In fact, I'm probably as far from a medical doctor as you will ever hear or watch on a show everybody. But one thing I would just acknowledge that Maria has said, and she's obviously done so much more. She's at the forefront of all the research on all this stuff and health. But this issue about hormones and hormone balance is something that I hope all of you are pursuing and reviewing. Also inflammation in your body and even the role of cholesterol in your body. There's more and more things I've been reading recently about, you know, a lot of the things that we do that may think are protecting our heart by reducing cholesterol. Your brain functions on

cholesterol and it's a necessity in your brain, not to go too low in those numbers. So again, I'm giving you no advice and just saying these are benchmarks, these cognitive tests, et cetera, that I think are just all things to be aware of at every single age, as Maria has said. I want to ask you about, go ahead.

I'm just going to kind of reiterate that most doctors that I work with will say, like, what's good for your heart is good for your brain. So if you're on a hard healthy diet, that's good for a brain healthy diet. And once again, what works for me might not work for whosever listening. So I think it's really important to follow the research to make decisions based on how you feel. I've often spoken to people who feel like I feel better on hormones or I don't want to take them at all.

I don't feel like I need them both are good. Right. Value, it's valuable and valued, right? You're right. And I think we have to just refrain from thinking, I do it so you need to do it. Very good, very good. Now, last thing on this,

let's talk about the living with a loved one who is now maybe fading a little bit mentally. So it's living with a loved one. You went through this with your father. I went through this from a distance. What would advice would you give to somebody who says, mom or dad or grandma or grandpa, are struggling now cognitively,

one way or the other, it's Alzheimer's, some other form of dementia, whatever it might be, what would your counselor advice be to them? Well, at first I would try to encourage them to see a neurologist and try to get a definitive diagnosis. Sometimes that's not the easiest thing to do, right? But I would also say that, you know, as what doctors said to my brothers and myself, once you've seen one case of Alzheimer's, you've seen one case of Alzheimer's, because they all are somewhat different. It manifests differently in women than in men. Some people, you know, it goes very quickly. Some people, it's a long goodbye, right? I wouldn't once again judge anybody who makes a decision like, I can't do this anymore in my own home. It's too much for me. That's a really deep conversation. It's a very personal decision and conversation that families have, but it's a really long, tough road if you have a loved one with Alzheimer's. It's expensive. It's really expensive.

We're not set up in this country to help families care for other members in their family with Alzheimer's or other dementias. I spent the last year and a half working for governor Newsom on developing a plan for the state of California moving forward, which is an aging state. What do we need to do to take care of the people with Alzheimer's in the state? We have more people, believe it or not, in California with Alzheimer's than any other state in the country. We have more people doing caregiving in the state of California than any other state in the nation. So we did a task force, we came up with 10 recommendations for the governor that involved research, that involved standards of care, that involved the training of a 21st century caregiving workforce. We don't have enough caregivers in this nation. What should they be paid?

How should they be paid? Who should pay for people who get older in their country? And Ed, if I've met one family, I've met thousands and thousands and thousands of them who are stunned at the cost of Alzheimer's, stunned at what the government does not pay, stunned at what they have to pay, stunned at how they have to leave their jobs to do the work because it's so expensive, trying to find a caregiver. So this is part of a, you know, President Biden has included care in the infrastructure bill and the jobs bill. And I think we're at a place where we're maybe for the first time, certainly in my lifetime,

where we're looking at care as infrastructure, care as tough work and a tough job, and care as something that warrants a living wage. And care, maybe everybody you should consider as a right. Care as a right. At some point, medical care. And it's just something for all of you to consider. Whether you're left or right, just ask yourself whether or not

you think at some point that should be a right in this country. It'll give you some of your answers. So by the way, if any of this grabs your attention or grabs your heart, go get some more information on the Women's Alzheimer's movement everybody. If you're inclined to want to learn more, contribute more, make a difference, be staying formed, please go get more information. So thank you for that, Marie. Okay, two questions. We're running out of time. Oh, we are. Yeah. Well, it's flying by for me. I knew this would be awesome today,

but I promise everybody that we'd cover a lot of stuff and we have covered a lot of stuff and in some really profound ways as it's been a profound experience. So two things about you is one to know. What are you most proud of in your life? Oh my kids. My kids. That was easy. Yeah, it was easy. My kids and also that I'm still standing. Yeah, but I'm still here. And I kind of, I've done a lot of work on myself. I'm good with who I am. I'm proud of the woman that I am. And, you know, I'm good. I'm good to go.

Good, Maria, I'm glad to hear both of those things. I knew you, I figured you would say something. And I just want to commend you. I don't think, I think it's difficult to be a parent anywhere, anytime, any place. And just from all, you know, you're, you know, Patrick, I love very much. And I often, I get them, I don't know why I get emotional.

I talk about him. It's so weird. But I biggest compliment I could give you about that one son of yours. It's so weird, but I biggest compliment I could give you about that one son of yours. I met the others, but I know Patrick is, I hope Max grows up to be an awful lot like Patrick. And I've told you that before. And that's a reflection of you and his dad in his life. So, and then the last thing, what's that?

I feel really blessed by, you know, my children who I always think of as gifts from God, you know, they came into this world a little bit like who they are, and that they are good people, they're kind, they're fun, they're funny, they're really so loving towards me and their dad, and they're gracious and they try hard. And paths will be unique to them, but I think they know how important it is to me that they stick together, that they feel like they have each other. And that was something that my mother really stressed.

Her best friends were her brothers and sisters. And we live next door to them. My whole life we did everything together with my cousins who are still my, like sisters and brothers. And you know, she would do anything for anybody in her family. And I kind of have really stressed that to my kids

and they're, you know, good people. So I'm really proud of them. Yeah, you should be. and they're proud of you. I, one of the things I, you know, mine are getting a little bit older now too. What I sense from your children is that they know that you love seeing and accept them. They feel that very strongly,

and I think you guys, I just want you to know, I think that gives a confidence to a child, a grown child, that they, they otherwise may not have, if they didn't feel that type of love from somebody. The other thing is your children only love you, they very much like you. And that something is apparent that I think's important,

is that you're working on your children and you liking each other, not just loving each other. And I notice that. Well, different way, you know, now having kind of grown children. I have a child who's got a child herself, right? And the bonus grand. So I have a granddaughter and a bonus grandson. I have a son-in-law and my kids have partners. So I'm learning this new dance with adult children. And you know, there's a lot of books out there for, you know, little kids. But there's a whole new world out there for grown kids.

And, you know, how can you be needed, but get out of the way? How do you self-available, but not too available? How do you give them the sense you're living your own life? But they're still the most important thing in your life. How do you show them that you're continuing to learn and grow, but that you would drop it all for them, but you're not gonna show up at their door

and intrude on their life. So I'm learning a new dance. I stayed this past weekend with my daughter and her husband and their family, and I was a guest for the first time. And so I'm learning different ways of letting go, stepping back, going to the side, stepping in, giving my opinion and also waiting for it to be asked. And, wow. new role that I'm finding myself in and that I'm learning on the job. You know what's amazing about that? You're just such a way of articulating a thought, but since I'm such a crazy person, I'm thinking

about things you say, not just in the family sense, but also business, what you know might drive you crazy. But I was thinking when you were saying that, that that's a lesson for entrepreneurs to at different stages of your business is learning those nuances and that dance as well, that even if you're in a business, for example, everybody that got you at one stage and how you needed to behave and be involved, in order for that organization to grow

and flourish and develop leadership, some of the things that Maria just said also applies in business as well, they're universal truths. So thank you so much. My last question is, it's a softball. Where do you want everybody? Everyone listening to this is either they knew you and they're seeing, I think today, a depth of

topic that's not always discussed all the time, all, you know, on my show or any show that they're seeing with you. I think they're going, I would like to be connected to this woman more. I would like to be more involved with her. So where would you want them to go find you so they can stay connected to you? Where would I want them to go find me? Is it Instagram? Is it? Well, the Sunday paper is my baby, my labor of love. I write what I've been thinking every week in there. And I also use that platform to elevate the voices of others I admire who fire me. And so it's a combination of views and news and what I'm trying to put out into the world. So that's important to me. The Women's Alzheimer's Movement is important. I'm trying to build something that will

make a difference in the lives of particularly young women who come up in age that their experience with the age in will be vastly different from my own. And I have, you know, I work with my mother's program Special Olympics. That's very near and dear to me. So if you're interested in that, you can go to special Olympics or best buddies. And then you don't have to do any of it. People live and have fun. And then I have a bar coming out in the fall, so I hope people will eat that. They will eat it more than I've ever had. I just hope people have the confidence

to live their own lives. I think that's the, I think we're in this wild time in our history where people are afraid to speak up, afraid to do anything, afraid to have an opinion, afraid to make a move, and I would just encourage, no matter your gender, no matter your age, is live your life. Have the courage to live your own life. The other stuff doesn't matter in the long road. You're going to be okay. You're going to have the people around you that you need and honor your

truth, honor your voice and get busy. You say max out, I say pause. Us, you can do, by the way, you can max out, you can max out your pause, which you need to do. So I, I told, I, I gotta tell you what a beautiful conversation. I'm so happy, so grateful. My mouth will this big old check in the beginning of this interview, everybody that I told you you would deliver on. And Maria cashed it for me through the last hour.

So thank you, Maria. Thank you. I had always a pleasure and nice talking with you. Thank you you Maria. Thank you. I had always a pleasure and nice talking with you. Thank you so good. So good. I'm grateful. Hey everyone, you know this was special. So share it with somebody that you care about or that you believe in. Subscribe to whatever you're listening to or watching right now. And let's spread the message of this incredible show. Maria Schreiber, you're a gift. And thank you so much for sharing you with all of us today. God bless you. Thank you God bless you too

Thank you max out everybody This is the ed Milach show you