How to Let Go after Being Let Go with Oprah and authors Laura Brown & Kristina O’Neill

Summary

The Oprah Podcast

Episode: How to Let Go after Being Let Go

Guests: Laura Brown, Kristina O’Neill, Brooke Baldwin, Adina Presley
Date: October 8, 2025
Host: Oprah Winfrey

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Oprah Podcast explores “letting go after being let go” with powerhouse former editors Laura Brown and Kristina O’Neill, co-authors of All the Cool Girls Get Fired, and others who have faced high-profile professional setbacks. Oprah and guests dig deep into the emotional, practical, and cultural aspects of job loss—especially for women—offering personal stories, hard-earned wisdom, and actionable advice. The authors and other speakers share how losing a job, while devastating, can also become a powerful catalyst for self-reinvention and growth.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Reality of Getting Fired—Breaking the Stigma

• Women and Layoffs: Oprah launches the conversation by acknowledging the emotional impact of getting let go, especially for women, where feelings of shame and career-related identity loss are magnified.

  "For women, it just hits differently. And oftentimes it feels like shame." – Oprah Winfrey [00:57]

• Corporate Euphemisms: Frequent layoffs and “reorgs” are discussed, but the language rarely captures the personal impact.
• Taking Ownership: Laura and Kristina describe how being open about being fired (“all the cool girls get fired”) unlocked solidarity and conversation among women.

  "We were great at our jobs. We got fired." – Laura Brown [02:26]

2. Personal Stories of Job Loss at the Top

• Laura Brown: Let go as InStyle editor-in-chief via a budget meeting, with her entire team dismissed during a “Zoom all hands” meeting.

  “There was 20 minutes notice... myself and my entire team were on a Zoom call. They call like an all hands meeting. And we were laid off.” [03:30]

• Kristina O’Neill: Lost her Wall Street Journal magazine editor job following a regime change and found herself dismissed with no warning, prepped with “PowerPoints, printouts” for a meeting that was suddenly shifted to HR.

  “Ten minutes before the meeting changed from her office to the HR room. So I knew instantly.” – Kristina O’Neill [05:09]

• Handling the Narrative: Kristina insisted on transparency, refusing to participate in spinning or hiding her exit from her team.

  “If I had to carry a lie in addition to carrying the shock... I would never get through it.” – Kristina O’Neill [06:32]

3. The Book: "All the Cool Girls Get Fired"

• Genesis: The idea was born over drinks, validated by a viral Instagram post and immediate, enthusiastic responses from women everywhere.

  “There was this deluge immediately from women going, oh, wow, you said it. Oh, me too.” – Laura Brown [07:17]

• Purpose: A roadmap blending practical “service elements” (legal, financial, emotional) with stories from high-profile women.

  “It's the book we wish we had. You know, it's a book I wish I had.” – Kristina O’Neill [10:07]

4. Universal Experience, High-Profile & Everyday

• The book intentionally features interviews with women like Lisa Kudrow, Tarana Burke, Jamie Lee Curtis, Katie Couric, and Brooke Baldwin—all of whom “sat on the couch, cried, and felt alone” after being fired, despite public success.

  “It's part of the lore that Steve Jobs got fired… There aren't that many women out there who have acknowledged a setback that unlocked what came next for them. And we need to change that.” – Christina O’Neill [12:38]

5. Distinct Burden on Women: Shame, Perfection, and Isolation

• Cultural Double Standard:

  “Men are expected to be brave, but women are expected to be perfect.” [13:22]

• Structural Barriers: It’s generational—women fought harder to get and keep those seats at the table; losing them hits harder.

  “When we got up this little rung and we're pushed off... it hits more harder.” – Laura Brown [13:47]

• Women often believe they’re wearing a “scarlet F” (for fired), but most of the shame is internal, not from others.

  "They have created that shame. They have put the shame upon themselves." – Christina O’Neill [16:21]

6. Letting Go of the Narrative & Reinventing Identity

• Oprah’s Story: She recounts being taken off the Baltimore evening news as a young anchor, feeling public embarrassment and failure—an experience later leading to her iconic talk show career.

  “I was embarrassed by it. And I also felt like a failure... which eventually turned out to be okay.” – Oprah Winfrey [16:49, 17:23]

• “Record scratch” moments when a prestigious job and its attached identity are suddenly gone.

  “I'm just making a phone call and I'm just Brooke, who's just Brooke?” – Brooke Baldwin [24:18]

7. Practical Takeaways (Service Elements)

• Be Proactive: Update your resume, save your contacts, backup important data—don’t wait for a shake-up.

  “I hadn't updated my resume. I had not gone on LinkedIn, I hadn't downloaded a single contact or backed up an email.” – Christina O’Neill [18:54]

• Watch for Warning Signs: Tune into “off vibes,” sleeplessness, dread—your body and intuition may know before your mind does.

  "Read the room... If you dread going to work, that's a pretty telling sign." – Christina O’Neill [18:50]

• Resilience Is Community: There are thousands of people experiencing layoffs, so don’t isolate—community is both comfort and resource.

  “You actually do have a community... try not to wear it on yourself because sadly, you don't have the exclusive on it.” – Laura Brown [18:09]

8. Transformation & Moving Forward

• Reinvention at Any Stage: Adina Presley, after 34 years in finance, uses her layoff to fuel entrepreneurship, rejecting shame and embracing self-definition.

  “You guys actually did me a favor. You put a battery in my back and you gave me the confidence to say, I can do this and I can do this on my own.” – Adina Presley [29:12]

• Experience Stays with You: What you built—your skills, your network—remains even after a job ends.

  “Everything you built didn't evaporate when your job did.” – Christina O’Neill [31:59]

• The Beach Beyond the Sandbox: Explore the possibilities—sometimes being removed from a familiar “sandbox” lets you discover a much bigger “beach.”

  “Then something happens when you're fired. You're like, there was a beach the entire time I've been sitting in this sand pit.” – Laura Brown [33:16]

• Boundaries and Balance: Don’t let work become your only center; develop passions, relationships, and boundaries beyond your job.

  “You have to set boundaries. You have to create passions and interests outside of the day job, and those are the things that remain when the job doesn't.” – Christina O’Neill [34:53]

• Capital R Revelation: The epiphany after loss is that you have more options, worlds, and opportunities than you realized.

  “You have options you never knew you had in worlds you never explored working with people you really respect.” – Laura Brown [36:19]

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Memorable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• On Facing Layoffs Head-On:

  "We were great at our jobs. We got fired." – Laura Brown [02:26]

• On Owning Your Story:

  "If I had to carry a lie in addition to carrying the shock... I would never get through it." – Kristina O’Neill [06:32]

• Community Reaction:

  "There was this deluge immediately from women going, oh, wow, you said it. Oh, me too." – Laura Brown [07:17]

• The Burden of Being Perfect:

  "Men are expected to be brave, but women are expected to be perfect." – Oprah quoting Azejani [13:22]

• Self-Redefinition Post-Firing:

  "I'm just making a phone call and I'm just Brooke, who's just Brooke?" – Brooke Baldwin [24:18]

• On Experience & Reinvention:

  "Everything you built didn't evaporate when your job did." – Christina O’Neill [31:59]

• Discovering New Possibilities:

  "There was a beach the entire time I've been sitting in this sand pit." – Laura Brown [33:16]

• Capital R Revelation:

  "You have options you never knew you had in worlds you never explored." – Laura Brown [36:19]

• Hope & Community:

  "Just that moment of, like, there's a community for you. There's no shame. ...Let's flip this. Let's get a bit of bravado, let's get a bit of ownership and let's move on. Let's change the culture." – Laura Brown [38:42]

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Timestamps for Notable Segments

• [00:57] Oprah introduces the issue of being let go, especially for women
• [02:09] Kristina O’Neill recounts her own firing
• [03:30] Laura Brown describes being laid off from InStyle
• [05:09] Kristina’s HR meeting signals the axe
• [07:17] Instagram post and resulting community response
• [10:07] On creating a practical roadmap for newly fired women
• [13:22] Discussion of gendered expectations around job loss (“Men are expected to be brave...”)
• [16:21] The “scarlet F” of getting fired and internalized shame
• [18:50] How to recognize it's time to move on (“read the room”)
• [24:18] Brooke Baldwin on losing her CNN identity
• [29:12] Adina Presley’s personal reinvention story
• [33:16] Laura Brown’s “beach beyond the sandbox” metaphor
• [34:53] Christina on boundaries and passions outside work
• [36:19] Epiphanies and revelations post-job loss
• [38:42] On building community and “flipping” the narrative

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Takeaways for Listeners

• You are not alone. Job loss—especially in today’s climate—is more common than ever, and the shame is often self-imposed.
• Own the narrative. Telling the truth, rather than spinning your exit, is both empowering and healing.
• Reinvention is possible at any stage. Your skills and network are still yours; use this as a moment to reassess and pursue what you truly want.
• Boundaries matter. Avoid letting your job become your entire identity—find fulfillment, community, and purpose beyond work.
• There is a beach beyond your sandbox. What feels like an end can contain the seed of a new, exciting beginning.

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End Note:
Oprah and her guests redefine the setback of being let go as an opportunity for a “capital R revelation”—a moment to reclaim agency, expand life’s possibilities, and find community and support among fellow “cool girls.” Their call: let’s change the culture, own our stories, and move forward—together.

Transcript

[Oprah Winfrey]

I actually said to the Journal manager, is this an April Fool's joke? And he goes, no, we're taking you off of. We're taking you off the news. Gayle King was a production assistant at the time. I was the 6 o' clock co anchor. And I went back downstairs and I go, meet me in the bathroom now. Okay, everybody.

[Adina Presley]

Hi.

[Oprah Winfrey]

I'm so glad you all are here. And I know life is busy, so I thank you all for spending your time with us on the Oprah podcast, where every week we're diving into topics that we hear are top of mind for so many of you watching and listening. And on this episode, whoa. We're talking about something that is just so timely, about the seismic shift that millions of you are facing in the job market these days. Nobody is safe. Don't care where you are, you're not safe from the stress of thinking you may be let go, you may be laid off, or experience a reduction in force rifts, as your company may call them. Downsizing, restructuring, reorgs, all the corporate buzzwords and euphemisms that, you know, people use. But let's face it, no matter what it's called, what it feels like is getting fired. And for women, it just hits differently. And oftentimes it feels like shame. And this is a really important conversation that rarely gets attention. So I'm so happy to welcome to the Teahouse the authors of a new book Working Women Need Right now. It's called all the Cool Girls Get Fired. All the cool girls get fired. When you say it, you have to say it like that. All the Cool girls get fired. Powerhouse executives Laura Brown and Christina o' Neill have decades of experience in fashion and media. The two friends spent 10 years working together at Harper's Bazaar. Christina then rose to editor in chief of the Wall Street Journal magazine. Later, Laura became editor in chief of InStyle magazine. In 2022, Laura was stunned when she was asked to step down. Fourteen months later, Christina was also let go.

[Christina O'Neill]

Ten minutes before the meeting changed from her office to the HR room. So I knew instantly. After 10 years, my time was up.

[Oprah Winfrey]

While out for a drink to commiserate, Laura and Christina posted a photo on Lara's Instagram with the caption, all the coolest girls get fired.

[Laura Brown]

We posted it that night, and there was no second guessing. There was no ambiguity because it was like, we were great at our jobs. We got fired.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Their post hit a nerve and inspired them to write a book.

[Laura Brown]

There was this deluge immediately from women going, oh, wow, you said it. Oh, Me too.

[Oprah Winfrey]

All the Cool girls Get fired is a roadmap for rebuilding your career and figuring out who you really are without your job title.

[Brooke Baldwin]

In all of my time at CNN, I would make phone calls and be CNN's Brooke Baldwin. And then all of a sudden, record scratch. I'm just making a phone call and I'm just Brooke. And I had to have a real sort of come to Jesus with who that person is.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Laura Brown, hello.

[Laura Brown]

Thank you for having us.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And Christina o', Neal, welcome.

[Christina O'Neill]

Thank you.

[Oprah Winfrey]

So I want to start by hearing what happened to you cool girls. To each of you. You were at different popular magazines, but both of you were at the peaks of your careers. You had the titles and what happened.

[Laura Brown]

Do you want to go chronologically? Because I was first. Not to brag, I was first. Yes. I ran InStyle magazine and all the way through Covid. You know, it was a really challenging time as an editor. We worked for three different companies during the time at the same magazine. You're on our cover seven years ago. And in early 2022, I got a call from my immediate boss and I was like, hi. And it was also, I was also an HR professional on the phone. And I was given 20 minutes notice that in the InStyle print side is what they referred to. It was being shut down. So 20 minutes later, myself and my entire team were on a Zoom call. They call like an all hands meeting. And we were laid off on Zoom. And that was that. And it was like, okay, you're going to get your paperwork, you're going to get your HR contacts, roll up your, your stuff and you're done.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Had you had any warning, any signs before?

[Laura Brown]

I mean, I think, yes, I think that, well, I was a bit head out the window. I was looking to do my own thing. But yes, my managing editor one day said, laura, we don't have a budget. But I was, no, I was like. Cause we'd been through so much change and coming through Covid and all of those huge seismic cultural things. We'd been rolling with things so much. So this just seemed like another thing to roll with. And our rolling stopped on that morning when we were all laid off. And immediately after that, we all just got back on.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Always is a sign is if HR.

[Laura Brown]

Is on the call with hr, if an HR professional is on the call, because there's always a script, you know, and because they've got to do all the legal stuff and the language has to be correct. And so we got through that. But yeah, I sort of got everybody back On a zoom right after. And I was like, okay, what are we going to do? What are we going to do? Because it was 35 people.

[Oprah Winfrey]

35 people. Christina, how about you?

[Christina O'Neill]

I was one of one.

[Oprah Winfrey]

One of one.

[Christina O'Neill]

One of one special. There was a regime change at the top of the masthead at the Wall Street Journal at the beginning of 2023. The editor in chief of the newspaper was replaced, who was my direct boss. And the new woman who came in, you know, started in February. February went by, March went by, and I couldn't get a meeting with her. So in late April, I finally got the meeting, 10 minutes before the meeting changed from her office to the HR room.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Whoa.

[Christina O'Neill]

So I knew instantly. You knew instantly after 10 years, you know, my time was up.

[Oprah Winfrey]

But you hadn't had any indication before. So the fact that you're going to hr, would you think. I would think, well, this isn't about me. This must be about somebody else. Yes.

[Christina O'Neill]

I had PowerPoints. I had printouts. I was ready, you know, I was ready to knock her socks off. But, you know, unfortunately, I think her message to me was that, you know, she wanted to go into a different direction.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah. And then she didn't she say that you can, you know, help create your own narrative.

[Christina O'Neill]

Yeah. And you said, no, we are going to go and tell my team that you're firing me. And I don't know how I had the wherewithal in that moment in that room, but I knew if I had to add a layer of complexity to the situation when I was, like, shaping the story.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah.

[Christina O'Neill]

If I had to carry a lie in addition to carrying the shock and the devastation, I would never get through it.

[Brooke Baldwin]

Yeah.

[Oprah Winfrey]

I think it's so good that you're using those words that a lot of women use throughout all the Cool Girls Get Fired. It's shock at first and devastation.

[Christina O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Cause I'll tell y' all my story later. My story is in this book. But I remember leaving the general manager's office being told, and I was just kind of numb. There is a kind of. You are in a. In a state of disbelief. So tell us, Laura, how the book title and the idea of this book came about.

[Laura Brown]

And it came. What Christine was mentioning, from ownership, from. From owning what happened to us and being straightforward in title.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Let me remind you, all the cool girls get fired.

[Laura Brown]

So as cool girls do when they get fired or if they're into this, they tend to go to a bar. And I just come back from a trip to South Africa, and Christina had been fired. And she'd actually texted me when I was in South Africa getting canned from.

[Christina O'Neill]

Under the table in the HR room.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Really? Yes.

[Laura Brown]

And so I arrived back to South Africa, I was like, I've got to see my friend. And so we went to meet at a bar.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Just remind us, how long had this happened to her? How long had it been since.

[Laura Brown]

14 months between.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Okay.

[Laura Brown]

Yeah.

[Oprah Winfrey]

OK.

[Laura Brown]

So I was February 2022, and you were end of April 23rd.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Okay.

[Laura Brown]

So on the way down to the bar, I texted Christine her and I was like, here's what we're going to do. And she's like, yeah, yes, that's our relationship, basically. And I said, we're going to take a picture for Instagram, we're going to look super cute, and we're captioning it all the cool girls get fired. And she went, okay. And we did it and we posted it that night because. And there was no second guessing, there was no ambiguity because it was like, we were great at our jobs, we got fired. This happened. This is honesty and this is ownership. And so we flung it out on the Internet and there was this deluge immediately from women going, oh, wow, you said it. Oh, me too. Oh. Oh, damn. Like, there's kind of almost like a psychological door opening with women that we sit. And honestly, there was some ego in it, too. It was like, we are good. We are good at what we do. This happened. It will happen to you. It's happening to everyone right now. We're gonna own it. It's actually also the easiest way out because it cuts short all of this spin and narrative that so many women feel like they still have to do.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Then you all decided. You decided then with the drinks.

[Laura Brown]

Oh, yeah. The next morning.

[Christina O'Neill]

It was the next morning.

[Laura Brown]

Cut to our mutual bathrooms.

[Christina O'Neill]

Yes. So I was, you know, hurriedly getting ready and I called Laura and I said, this is a book. I knew instantly that this was the messaging that we needed to put out into the world. Also, I think at that point, Laura was probably sick of me asking her questions. You know, there's so much you don't know when you get fired. You know, I didn't know how to navigate cobra. I didn't know if I needed a lawyer and then if I had a lawyer or, you know, was I paying them, you know, the right amount? Like all these things that sort of, you know, present themselves when you're suddenly let go. So we thought it was so important to, you know, combine that service element with the. With the stories of the women who we had seen kind of immediately respond on Instagram.

[Oprah Winfrey]

So I think it's so, it's so smart what these women did. They have chapters with experts who offer practical, step by step advice on what to do and what not to do once you're fired. It's just invaluable information that nobody ever tells you. So what do you want to say about that, Christina?

[Christina O'Neill]

Well, it's the book we wish we had. You know, it's a book I wish I had. Thank you.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Wow. If there had been this book, I wouldn't have felt so alone.

[Christina O'Neill]

But in addition to all the emotions, you're sitting there googling like 101 stuff that thankfully you know, now exists in one place. But that was really what we felt like was missing. And that inspiration, those women talking about what they had been through and that opportunity to hopefully fire up some dreams.

[Oprah Winfrey]

I am so glad to be with you here. When we come back, what I learned from getting fired from anchoring the evening news in Baltimore. Big lesson.

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[Oprah Winfrey]

Welcome back to the Oprah Podcast. I'm with the authors of a timely new book called all the Cool Girls Get Fired, Laura Brown and Christina o'. Neill. And then you also have these personal interviews with women you call badass who've been fired at one time or thanks.

[Brooke Baldwin]

I'm one of the badasses.

[Oprah Winfrey]

But others, Lisa Kudrow and Tarana Burke and Jamie Lee Curtis and Katie Couric, to name just a few. Why did you want to incorporate other women besides yourselves? Cause your stories are strong.

[Laura Brown]

It was very deliberate. Because when you're alone on that couch and you've lost your job and you don't know where your money's coming from or you don't know if you have healthcare anymore and you're staring at your bank balance and you may be picking up a glass of wine or you're just staring at the window, whether you have guess breaking news, it's easier in life to have more resources than less. But when you're fired, from whatever context it is, you all feel the same. You feel Terrible. And so the important thing was to remind everyone we specifically chose high profile, extremely successful, well known women for this book. Because these women, including yourself, felt like that when you were fired, you weren't here, you didn't have a rose garden, you know, and. And all of these women, none of these women did. So they were there on the couch, they were crying, they felt alone. And look at them now. So when they're.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And even if you have a rose garden, you're still gonna feel pretty bad.

[Laura Brown]

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[Christina O'Neill]

It's just not part of the legends that are told about women. Right. It's part of the lore that Steve Jobs got fired. It's part of Mike Bloomberg's narrative that he was let go from Solomon Brothers. There aren't that many women out there who have acknowledged a setback that unlocked what came next for them. And we need to change that. We need to have more conversations with women so that other women, you know, can sort of see the. I mean, that's why we're so happy you're in the book.

[Oprah Winfrey]

This is the thing. Why is it that men seem to. Or maybe they're just hiding behind it too, but they seem to be able to move on? Because I think, I love one of the quotes in the book. Men are expected to be brave, but women are expected to be perfect.

[Laura Brown]

Azejani.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah, that's. Who says that, yeah, men are expected to be brave, but women are expected to be perfect. And because of that, women carry more shame with the firings than men do. Men just seem to pick themselves up and keep moving on.

[Laura Brown]

Also remember that the workplace in itself is a male construction. You know, men started working before we did. We only got the vote 100 years ago.

[Brooke Baldwin]

Yes.

[Laura Brown]

So, you know, when one of our HR experts said, we were like, why does it hit harder? And she said, because it took us longer to get there. Generationally. We do carry that. When we got up this little rung and we're pushed off that we hit. It hits more harder. And that's again, part of the book is like, if you own it and you have a little bit of, I don't know, be male, be. Whatever the. Whatever that thing is, the sooner you own it, the sooner we change this culture, we want more women to put up their hands. We would have done double the amount of stories in this book. But people still, women we know, are still spinning it. And it's like, enough. It does no one any good.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Well, I think too, when you have public jobs that everyone else knows, and also when you have Jobs like yourselves, you get that editor in chief title, you work for, whatever that means and all that that means to the rest of the world. And you feel that there's a sense of embarrassment. I know for me, because for me, it was being on the evening news and having had. This is when I was 22 and having had so much promotion about it that, you know, everybody in town was like, well, who is this girl coming to Baltimore? And then I end up being, a year later, less than a year later, removed from the evening news. And as I was saying, when I got called up, it was on April Fool's Day. So it was April 1st. Yeah. And I thought, oh, this is an April Fool's joke. I actually said to the Journal manager, is this an April Fool's joke? And he goes, no, we're taking you off of. We're taking you off the news. Gayle King was a production assistant at the time. I was the 6 o' clock co anchor. And I went back downstairs and I go, meet me in the bathroom now. And I told her that I've just been taken off the 6 o' clock news, but I still have to do the six o' clock news. And the embarrassment of everybody knowing it, I think is very much like having to go back in the office when you have been the manager, director, you've been or not. And everybody knowing it.

[Laura Brown]

Oh, it's reputational. I mean, everyone has different levels of where the stress comes from. Financial, health, reputational. Everyone Tirana talks about that. You know, there's certain. Whatever industry you're in, there is sometimes a status that comes with that. There's relationships that come with that, there's comfort that comes with that. There's rituals that come with that, and you are yanked out of those. You are like a beetle on its back. And that's an absolutely normal feeling.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah.

[Christina O'Neill]

But one of the things, you know, I think that was consistent across the reporting that we did for the book was the fact that women think they're wearing a sweater with a scarlet F on it.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah.

[Christina O'Neill]

Is mostly in their head. And they have created that shame. They have put the shame upon themselves.

[Oprah Winfrey]

That's right.

[Laura Brown]

Yeah.

[Christina O'Neill]

And the sooner you're able to shake the shame and take off the, you know, metaphorical sweater and stop thinking that everyone in the room is talking about you when you walk in or they're talking about you behind your back.

[Laura Brown]

They're not.

[Christina O'Neill]

You know, they're not. And the sooner you can shake that, you can move on and reach out to people about other opportunities.

[Laura Brown]

Yeah.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Well, the other thing is, I remember when it happened to me at 22, because there'd been so much publicity about me coming to Baltimore and doing the evening news and I had a co anchor who didn't want me there. And all of that stuff that I walked into that I didn't know, I felt shame and embarrassed by it. I was embarrassed by it. And I also felt like a failure. I felt like I had failed at this thing that I had come to do, which eventually turned out to be okay. Cause they put me on a talk show and that was really where I. Touche.

[Brooke Baldwin]

Touche.

[Oprah Winfrey]

But something you said earlier, Laura, you said we knew we were good at our jobs.

[Laura Brown]

Yes.

[Oprah Winfrey]

You know, and we're left to feel like there's something you did that was inadequate. It's very different when you feel like you're being blamed for being inadequate and you fail. Then, you know, something happened in the company. I was great at my job, and we're no longer. Do you see a difference?

[Laura Brown]

Yes, there's absolutely a difference. But there's also a difference in numbers. So if you feel like, you know, especially the dogeless, often we were just reading about all the college educated people now who have lost jobs and you do. It is, you know, harder to control. But there's so many more of you, unfortunately. Yes. And so what you do have, while you have this terrible feeling you do have, you actually do have a community.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yes.

[Laura Brown]

Because there's thousands of people who lost their jobs at the same time as you're not being. So try not to wear it on yourself because sadly, you don't have the exclusive on it.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Right.

[Laura Brown]

You know?

[Oprah Winfrey]

Right. I think so many of you will relate to this passage. If you're not confident in your position, you don't know where you stand day to day, or worse, if you're even valued. Well, get out of there, sister. Leave them before they leave you. Oh, and forget that quiet quitting thing. Nonsense. Why would you want to passively prolong a situation that is chipping away at you every day? Christina, you say you fantasized about firing yourself. Right. But you never had the courage to do it. How do you know when it's time to leave?

[Christina O'Neill]

Yeah, well, read the room.

[Laura Brown]

Vibes are off.

[Christina O'Neill]

Yeah. Are the vibes off? You know, I think if you dread going to work, that's a pretty telling sign. If you know you're having sleepless nights, if you're, you know, sitting there sort of, you know, wishing Friday came sooner. You know, I think all of that is very you know, your body tells you before maybe your mind catches up. So, you know, I think if you're in a situation like that, protect yourself also. There's so many things that people can do even if they love their jobs. But there are things that I hadn't done in 10 years. I hadn't updated my resume. I had not gone on LinkedIn, I hadn't downloaded a single contact or backed up an email. So when this happened to me, I felt like the triage that needed to be done just to sort of save the, like, simple things that you could be doing along the way to sort of put yourself in a better place. You know, if I had done some of those things, maybe I would have felt a little more confident in the next step.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Thank you for listening to the Oprah Podcast. Stay with us. We're going to be talking with former CNN News anchor Brooke Baldwin about how she coped with losing her identity after being fired.

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[Oprah Winfrey]

Thank you for listening to the Oprah Podcast. We're back with all the Cool Girls Get Fired authors Laura Brown and Christina o'. Neill. We're talking with former CNN News anchor Brooke Baldwin. You all know Brooke Baldwin. She was a high profile CNN news anchor for more than a decade with her own show. It was her dream job since she was a little girl. And then she was fired in 2021. This year, Brooke gave a TEDx talk titled Getting Fired from My Dream Job Taught me about Truth and wrote an essay for Vanity Fair titled Leaving CNN was how I found My voice. So hi Brooke.

[Brooke Baldwin]

Good to see you. Hi everyone. I needed this book four years ago. I needed Four years ago.

[Oprah Winfrey]

You described getting fired as an unraveling, but in a good way. How so? Let's talk about that.

[Brooke Baldwin]

I mean, at the time, not so much. And I'm listening to all of y' all and I'm like, there was no HR involved in mine. I was like, does anyone want an exit interview? No. No. Okay. I can't tell the truth as to why I'm actually leaving. No. Okay. That was so, so hard and my bar was three weeks in the British Virgin Islands drinking a lot of Dark and Stormies. That said, after I wiped, you know, my tears and had wiser friends say to me, brooke, like, this is. This is a gift. This is a gift. And I was like, I don't know what you're talking about. You know, ultimately, I realized this was the beginning of my unraveling. Like Oprah. You say this, and it's so right on. It's like the universe comes, and first it's the whisper. And we're really always. We're like, I don't want to hear. I don't want to hear. And then comes the knock, and we're like, I don't want to know who's on the other side of the door. And then, as I put it, like the frying pan to the forehead. And I got the frying pan, and I only now know that I needed it, that I had veered so totally off my path and I needed to come home to myself, which is exactly what I've been doing.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Wow. But did you know why at the time you were being fired? And was it a surprise?

[Brooke Baldwin]

It was a total surprise. You know, like who. I think it was Laura, who said I had sort of one foot out the door. I knew I wasn't in full alignment. I knew that, you know, I was into covering stories, using my humanity, my authenticity. And I think the currency more and more in cable news was around being pugilistic and interviewing people and having these cable news food fights. And it just wasn't my jam. There are people way better at that than me. And so one day I got a call, you know, during like a Trump impeachment trial, and he got impeached. And that was my version of April Fool's Day. And I got a little. I got impeached as well.

[Christina O'Neill]

And.

[Brooke Baldwin]

Yeah, and I. And to this day, I have no. I have no idea. I got fired without cause. I have that on paper. And that was part of the hardest part. It's like, you know, I had this perseverating, like, I'm a good person. I'm a good person. I'm a good person. Like, how. How did this happen? Why did this happen? But it needed to happen, and I know that now.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Mm. How did it affect your self identity? You know, I think particularly people who are in high profile jobs that other people recognize as high profile jobs.

[Brooke Baldwin]

Yeah, you.

[Oprah Winfrey]

You lose yourself in that job. You lose yourself in the identity of what you do. So how did it affect how you saw yourself I've also heard this from other women who aren't in high profile jobs. You become, and I know you all talk to lots of people, so I want your thoughts on that and then your thoughts on that.

[Brooke Baldwin]

Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, my identity was inextricably linked with those three little letters. Like in all my time at CNN, I would make phone calls and be, you know, CNN's Brooke Baldwin. I'm seeing it. This is Brooke calling from cnn. And then all of a sudden, like, you know, record scratch. I'm just making a phone call and I'm just Brooke, who's just Brooke?

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah.

[Brooke Baldwin]

And I had to have a real sort of come to Jesus with who that person is. But you know, to all of y' all's point, I have in coming home to myself, I literally get down on my knees and pray all the time. It helped me free myself to now figure out, ah, who does, who is just Brooke and what does just Brooke now want to do?

[Laura Brown]

Yeah.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Did a lot of people talk about self identity?

[Laura Brown]

Yeah, I mean, I mean, you know, it's an easy thing to do if you enjoy what you do and you're passionate about what you do. You do place some of your value in what you do, but that's the dangerous part if it becomes all your, all of your value. And, you know, it's, it's an easy thing to say, don't do it, but we all do it. Especially, you know, in any business. Again, there's status, there's comfort, there's all of these things.

[Oprah Winfrey]

The Oprah show was my life. Yeah. It was my life. I know. And that's. And similar to you, Brooke, it was my, that's all. I did everything. I went to work, I did work. And then I got up and went to work again. Yeah.

[Laura Brown]

Yeah. And I think that it's a very seductive thing, obviously, and it's a very rewarding thing, but you have to just peek around it a bit, you know, just to remind yourself that there is something else out there to keep something else going on in your life. Your friends, your family, some other thing that just broadens you as a person so when this happens, you're not totally laid out. You know what I mean? And that's what's really, really hard, though.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah, Christina.

[Christina O'Neill]

Yeah. And I think we live in an interesting time where the types of jobs that people are able to create when they walk away from something as monumental as what you had built and what Brooke's role on CNN was, there's so many more opportunities out there. Than there were when we were coming up. Right. And I think it's been really exciting to sort of see people who lose their jobs create new opportunities to start working for themselves. You know, the landscape has changed so dramatically even in the three, two and a half years since we left our positions. And I think that's such a good reminder that you can create something new out of the ashes.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah. I love what Brooke said, too, about coming home to herself. I think no matter who you are, no matter who you are, when it happens, you have to give yourself room to be still. Have the drinks, go out and do the drinks, lay on the sofa. Lay on the sofa, do the tears, all of that, but be still enough to come back home, because it is a resetting for yourself, no matter who you are. I think it's a resetting.

[Laura Brown]

It is. And honestly, I mean, my husband came up with this is. He calls it the Johnny Appleseed rule, where basically, like, you don't know this, but in any career you're in, if you're a nice person and you've worked hard, you're actually throwing seeds around.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah.

[Laura Brown]

You know, all the time, unwittingly. And then when you need it, you look around and there's a little orchard for you because you've created this world for yourself.

[Christina O'Neill]

And.

[Laura Brown]

And we had. People will show up for you. Don't be shy. Ask them if you've done good work and you have good relationships. People will show up for you. And don't isolate yourself and open yourself up to that because you're reminded of who you are and not what your job was.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Absolutely. Brooke, what do you want to say to anyone listening about how you recovered? What didn't work, what did?

[Brooke Baldwin]

You know, I think one of the things that was actually the hardest part was I really had to get to know my younger self. Like, we had to get in. We had to be in deep conversation, you know, because when I was graduating college and all my girlfriends were living in a big city and living these, you know, sex and the city exciting lives, I was moving to small town America. You know, I'm rolling the teleprompter under the desk with my foot. I'm covering water skiing, squirrels. I'm working all the graveyard shifts. You know, I dated the wrong guys. I put off having kids like, my eggs were still frozen. And so I had to really. I had to tell her, like, talk to your younger self. She's not disappointed in you. You know, you're gonna make her proud. Just watch. Just watch and wait and have Faith. And speaking of the drinking, I'll end with this. I quit. You know, for the first time in my life, I realized, gosh, with all this change happening for me, I felt myself starting to reach a numb in a way that I felt was unhealthy. And I feel fortunate that I could just quit cold turkey like that. But I like, clarity is a gift. That's where I am.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Clarity is your gift. Yeah.

[Laura Brown]

Agree.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And it takes time to get there.

[Brooke Baldwin]

It does, it does.

[Adina Presley]

Years.

[Oprah Winfrey]

It does. Well, thanks, Brooks. Good to see you. Good to see you. Thriving, flourishing. Good to see you. Adina Presley is a single mom of two daughters, and for 34 years she was vice president at a well known financial group. And last year she was laid off due to large scale downsizing. And Adina, I hear you relate to the shame piece, but now you're feeling better about it. Excited, right?

[Adina Presley]

I'm feeling so excited about it and, you know, I'm sitting back here.

[Oprah Winfrey]

So now you belong to the. Now you belong to all the cool girls. Cool girls. One of the cool girls.

[Laura Brown]

High five.

[Oprah Winfrey]

High five. That's right.

[Adina Presley]

High five. I'm such a cool girl. As I'm sitting here and I'm listening to Christina and Laura and even Brooke, I'm sitting here and I'm just like, oh, my God, yes, that was me. Every single thing that they spoke about happened to me. And I think what I really wanted to let people know is, yeah, it's okay to be a cool girl and get fired. It's okay for you to say, you know what, I don't want to work for anybody else anymore. I want to work for myself, you know, And I looked at it as, you know what, you guys actually did me a favor. You put a battery in my back and you gave me the confidence to say, I can do this and I can do this on my own. So I am loving it. I have to be honest, when I first got the call, I didn't say that I was let go. And I think the reason why I didn't, it wasn't so much shame. It was so much like, I'm not going to let your bad decisions or your, you know, the, the decisions you made with regards to business and that you had to downsize, diminish the work that I did. You know, I was successful at what I did, I was good at what I did. And yeah, I was a cool girl where I was. So I was not gonna let that define me. So, yeah, that's where I met.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Right. So. But did you grieve in the beginning, was there some grief for you about the job that was. Or did you immediately go into, I'm gonna do something on my own?

[Adina Presley]

Well, first of all, I think, like Laura had mentioned, I kind of knew it was coming because 15 minutes before the virtual meeting, I saw that it was my boss and the HR professional. So the writer.

[Christina O'Neill]

Oh, my God, it's so cliche. I mean, that's the most like, oh, my God, we're all in the same boat.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah.

[Adina Presley]

Yes. So I knew it was coming. And when they. You know, when you finally hear the words, I sat there for a second, and I literally closed my laptop and I said, wow, that wasn't so bad. I feel like a ton of bricks is. Is lifted up off of my chest because, like Christina, you know, in my role, I was starting to become discouraged. I was starting to become, you know, I couldn't even motivate my team. You know, it was a struggle for me because I didn't like the direction that the company was going in. I didn't like the decisions that they were making. You know, I saw the cutbacks that was coming, and to be honest with you, I was actually shocked. So my question is, and this could be for either one of you ladies, what advice would you give women, especially those like me, who's further along in their career, because I'm 54 and we have to reinvent ourselves and start over, you know, like, what advice would you give with regards to that?

[Christina O'Neill]

Well, I was inspired to hear that you're working for yourself, and I think that that is such a good reminder that everything you built didn't evaporate when your job did.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Oh, that's good.

[Christina O'Neill]

And that you're able to take it with you and put it to work for yourself. And I think that so many people get shocked into, you know, discouragement and can't see, you know, an opportunity. And I think it's really impressive that you were able to sort of see the forest from the trees and, you know, came and put something together for yourself.

[Laura Brown]

Yes. You've built a platform of your own skills and history, and it doesn't disappear if you lose your job, you stand on that, and you should feel tall and not make yourself small number. The second thing I would say is one of our experts mentioned this. When this happens to you and you are in shock. But. But he said, look at. Take a beat. And we all have a beat, you know, to what made you more happy and less happy over the course of your career. So what can you do? To increase the happiness and decrease the unhappiness. And we call it math for your dreams. Like, take that moment. And there's just. And any job we've had, we're like, okay, this is fine. This is fine. I've got it. Sort of. I've got. And there's a little. Hopefully a bit of curiosity or a bit of attention to change or a bit of a passion that's been lying in you that you haven't explored because you've been in this job. You know, the job that you're in sometimes is like a sand pit. You know, when you go to the same sand pit every day, you know everyone there, Hi, Jimmy.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Laura Brown]

Hi, Johnny. Hi, Jimmy. Hi, Johnny. And you know the sand pit. You know the sand pit, and you go there. Maybe the sandpit's a little dirtier, but you still know it. And then something happens when you're fired. You're like, there was a beach. The entire time I've been sitting in this sand pit. There's a whole beach out there. I didn't notice.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Laura Brown]

That's the beach. And that's what you look at. Look at as especially. We're all in our 50s, you know, we have that experience and that ability to look at that beach and follow that passion. You've done that by working for yourself. So bravo.

[Christina O'Neill]

An experience doesn't. Doesn't go away. Experience becomes. That's the thing that you bring with you.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah. I absolutely believe that. One of the things I said in all the Cool Girls get fired is that when I was telling my story about being taken off six o' clock news is that the bounce back is even greater. However far down you are taken, the bounce back comes back even greater because it gives you a moment to reassess, as Brooke was saying, to come home to yourself. Which is exactly how I felt the very first day I did my first talk show interview. And I felt like, oh, this is why that happened. This is what I was supposed to do. And now that's exactly where you are. Dena, congratulations, actually.

[Adina Presley]

Thank you so much.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Congratulations on the. Setback was a setup, girl. Setback was a setup. Thank you. You all write that getting fired can actually be a wake up call, that it's actually a wake up call. And you say that if one's identity is tied to that job, then it's time to reset.

[Laura Brown]

Exactly.

[Oprah Winfrey]

So what do you want to say to women about resetting boundaries at work?

[Christina O'Neill]

Yeah, I mean, listen, it's so tempting to answer the emails at 8, 9 o' clock at night or on the weekend. And it's very tempting to kind of only, you know, hang out with friends that you met in the office, you know, But I think with time and age and perspective, you know, I have learned, you know, going into my new job, you have to set boundaries. You have to create passions and interests outside of the day job, and those are the things that remain when the job doesn't. You have work friends and then you have real friends, and you have to have those. You have to be able to make a distinction. And I think too many people get wrapped up in.

[Oprah Winfrey]

You lose your. You lose your. Lose the line, lose the boundaries. You've given it all. Yes.

[Laura Brown]

Keep your eye on the horizon, I think, you know, and. And what you're in right now is what you're in right now. But if you are, there's. I mean, look at the change that we're all just facing as a country every single day. You know, it's. It's like Christina said, read the room in your workplace. Read the room in the world, you know, and be aware of what's happening in your business, what's happening around you, and just there's strength in that. There's strength in that for when something does happen, that you feel that you have some power. And that's really key. I think it's just like that's. So there's your job and here's the world and just keep your eye on the bigger picture.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Well, you end the book with a collection of epiphanies. In one, you write what you've experienced, hopefully, is a capital are revelation. You have options you never knew you had in worlds you never explored working with people you really respect. And hopefully you're not only inspired, you are prepared. What do you most want? All the cool girls who are watching us right now, listening to us, to know about getting fired.

[Laura Brown]

It's not the end. Yeah, it is the beginning. It can sound trite, but we promise you, even if you're shocked into this moment, sit with it. Rest. Don't rest, you know, rest, but don't retreat and open your eyes up to what's out there. And we promise you the reward is out there and it'll be more on your own terms.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah, yeah.

[Christina O'Neill]

No echoing that. I mean, we wouldn't be here if we hadn't been fired. You know, we kind of joke that we're now the poster girls for getting fired, but we really, you know, we're proud of that. And I think starting the conversation Reach out to people, let them know what you're going through, Let them lift you up. You have to let people know you want to be lifted and carried. And I think that that is so important and was such a reminder how many people reached out to us in the moments that it happened. It was so refreshing and so rewarding to have that network and, you know, just a reminder to everyone who's going through it. Just keep your head up, you know, stay positive and, you know, do some math for your dreams.

[Oprah Winfrey]

I go back to the fact that when your boss said, you know, I'm gonna let you create your own narrative, you're like, no, I want to tell people the truth that I've been fired. And I think one of the things you all have done with this book, all the cool girls getting fired, I mean, listen, I hope that it's a best, best, best, best bestseller and that it gets normalized, that we can say the words out loud. There's no shame, no blame, no, you know, grief and sorrow attached to that, that it's like, it's a fact of life. And now I'm gonna reset and use that set back to set myself up for something even more attuned to what I really wanna do. I mean, I think it's a, it's a, it's a wake up call and it's also a growth spurt.

[Laura Brown]

It's such a great spot. I mean, I've had, you know, literally women coming up to me in the street saying is, when's the booker? I need it. Oh, I got fired. Or he's my friend, she got fired. And they're having drinks in a restaurant, whatever. And I just go, you are so cool. And just that moment of, like, there's a community for you. There's no shame. You see the faces change, you know, women light up and it's like, let's flip this. Let's get a bit of bravado, let's get a bit of ownership and let's move on. Let's change the culture.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Oh, I love that you've done this. Thank you, Lara Brown and Christina o'.

[Brooke Baldwin]

Neill.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Their inspiring new book, all the Cool Girls Get Fired, is available wherever books are sold. And thank you, Brooke Baldwin and Adena, for sharing your stories. Listeners, thank you for your valuable time. Let's meet up again next week. Go well, everybody. You can subscribe to the Oprah Podcast on YouTube and follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. I'll see you next week. Thanks, everybody.