Revisited: The Kennedy Family and the Search for Self with Journalist Maria Shriver

0:00Simon Sinek:You and I actually don't talk on the phone that much. No, we text. But you don't ever pick up the phone. That cat picture comes up and I call in like there's the cat. It's because it's not personal. It's because my phone's always on do not disturb. But when I see you called it, I always call you back. Then you call you back. We all know people with big personalities, but we would rarely call them kind. We also know people with small personalities and they are usually the kindest. But every now and then, there's a big personality, a huge personality, that shows up that just exudes kindness and warmth.

0:36Simon Sinek:And one of those people is Maria Shriver. I had the opportunity to sit down with Maria to talk about her new book, I Am Maria. Maria is my best friend, and to hear her talk about the journey she is on to reclaim her own identity is nothing short of inspiring. And that little question, I am and what it yields, turns out has great value to all of us to find out who we really are and why we love ourselves. I am Simon, and this is a bit of optimism.

1:16Simon Sinek:So yours and my friendship, I think most people, including me, would not have predicted. We met kind of by accident. Right. right? I don't know how you tell the story, but I can, I know that. So you reached out to me many years ago. Right. And I don't know, to this day, I've never asked you how you got my email, but you reached out to me out of the blue and said, my son, Patrick is a young entrepreneur. If you're ever in LA, would you like to meet him? And I said, of course. And I came to LA and I met Patrick. Right. And he and I had a lovely time. When I got back to New York, you sent me a lovely email saying thank you and I wrote back and saying the pleasure was all mine and if who Patrick is is any statement about what kind of mother you are you must be an amazing human being because he's an amazing kid thank you I said I would love to meet you so next time in LA I'll come out and see you and I come back to LA on work for work and you said come for dinner on Sunday and I thought it would be you me and Patrick having dinner at your house that's what I thought I walk into the house and there's some folks getting dinner ready and you're not around.

2:22Yeah, that's kind of normal.

2:23Simon Sinek:That's kind of normal. And so I'm a stranger in a strange land and I said, is Maria here? Right. And they said, she's downstairs. And I said, where's downstairs? I went down and sitting on the couch was Chris Pratt. And I had no idea he was your son-in-law at the time. Uh-huh. So I'm like, okay. Hi. He's like, hi, I'm Chris. You know, I'm like, hi, I'm Simon. Where's Maria? Yeah. Anyway, long story short, it was the start of what became now an amazing friendship. And you're my best friend. If I say one of my best friends, I get in trouble. You're my best friend. And it is a joy to have you here talking to you very formally.

3:02Simon Sinek:It's weird. This whole thing is weird. I tell the story. Well, I actually don't tell the story. I just say like, you're my bestie. and that's exactly how it happened. And you walked into a family dinner on Sunday night, which was packed. And overwhelming. It was? I mean, no, no, meaning the personalities. They are? I mean, there's a lot of big personalities at the table. Yeah, there's a lot of big personalities at the table, but you held your own and you got into a big discussion with my brother Bobby and then Chris and everybody was talking. And then you stood in the door and you're like, that was fun.

3:38And I'm like, he's fine. He's smart. He's fine. I'm going to pursue him. It was fun. And then we walked and we talked our way, you know, through years.

3:50Simon Sinek:We covered years. We covered years in weeks. We pioneered the long distance walk. Right. It was very early in COVID where we said, I think we can go outside. I think we stay very far apart from each other. Right. And we just started walking. And we did it every single week. Yeah. For really long periods. And we talked about everything. Everything. We talked about everything. And it was so intimate and deep and meaningful and bonding. And it was so rewarding for me because those are the kinds of conversations I like to have. These are the kinds of relationships I like to have. But what I think what so that wasn't unexpected to me to, you know, fall in love with you and to have this relationship with you.

4:36But what was so beautiful or what is so beautiful is that you develop that with each of my kids and my brothers and my son-in-law. And you took the time to figure out who each person was. And you have a different relationship with each of them, which is so beautiful. And so few people do that, I think. And my kids often say that to me. You know, they'll meet somebody 10 times and they'll go, oh, hey, your name is or what? And you know what their interests are, what makes them laugh. They know you. You talk to them individually. You make an effort. And so you have this relationship with my whole family, with my brothers.

5:21And so I think that's such a gift in my life. And it's a gift in their life.

5:28Simon Sinek:So you're in it. You're being very kind. And thank you very much. Oh, that's true. It's a good transition. It's a good segue, which is you grew up in an insane... For you, it was normal as a little kid. You didn't know any different. But visiting Uncle Jack at the White House as, what, an eight-year-old, nine-year-old, this sort of larger-than-life, the Kennedy Shriver family. As you became older and you started to realize that your life is not like everybody else's life, how did you learn to manage that? And more importantly, kids growing up now in the Kennedy Shriver clan, and now you add a Schwarzenegger to it.

6:02Simon Sinek:How did you keep them grounded? I'm so curious because I've met a lot of kids of people who've grown up in different ways and maybe they get lucky with one of the kids staying grounded, but not all the kids. I'll probably take it from kind of my own creation of my own kids and go backwards. So what I wanted to do when I started a family was to make sure that the kids that Arnold and I had felt like they were a priority, felt that they were loved for who they were, not for what they did, and that they had a sense of home, a sense of calm, a sense of peace, that they understood that they were coming into a privileged home, but that their part of that was also that I and their dad expected them to be of service somehow in the world.

6:56Those were my goals and that they have manners and they be kind. And I really wanted them being a priority and feeling loved was the most important thing to me because I had felt like I was part of this, you know, group of like 27 first cousins. And I felt like, you know, I was always a couple rows back. Like I just wasn't really clear. You know, I knew my uncles were in the front row and everything was geared around them and we were all part of a larger story, but I didn't feel like, you know, a priority. And I felt like, oh, the love was attached to what you do. This is not a complaint to my parents.

7:35I adore my parents. I love my parents, but it's the way they were raised and it was the way I was raised. And I wanted to break that pattern. So I wanted the house not to be a place where there were fundraisers and political things. I wanted it to be a place of home. I wanted them to understand that their names and who they were was more important than the Kennedys, the Schwarzeneggers, the Shrivers, and all of that. And I wanted to talk to them at length about that, about what those legacies were. They were not theirs to work, you know, uphold for the rest of their life. if they didn't want to, that there was good things and bad things about all of them, and that they were free to depart from them in whatever way they wanted.

8:27I also did not feel that. I think it's also different when someone is making a legacy versus inheriting a legacy.

8:33Simon Sinek:Is this a conversation that you and Arnold had when you first got pregnant with Catherine? Well, I think Arnold was creating his legacy. He had not ever grown up in a legacy, right? and so that was something that I came to the union with. I came with like, look at, these kids are gonna be dealing with me, the Kennedys and you. He didn't have an experience with that. So he was like, okay, well you deal with that, you know, kind of thing. And you were very prescriptive. I was very, yes. I was very like, I wanted these things for them. You know, I wanted them to feel like they were their own people.

9:08I didn't want them to feel weighed down by it. I didn't want them to walk out the door and think every person was a vote. Like I'd walk with my grandmother and she would be like, every person's a vote. Everybody we walk by, we stop, we say hello, we smile, we keep walking. We stop, we say hello, we smile, like, oi. But I didn't want...

9:27Simon Sinek:So family was being, having that Kennedy Shriver name, that was a job. Oh, it was like a lot. Yeah. I mean, it was a lot of joy, a lot of advantages. A lot of work. But it was, you know, I definitely felt like, okay, we were on a stage, we had a job to do. I was a player in some larger show. I wasn't quite sure what the show was. And I think for much of my life, I was trying to get out of that show. I think that's why I went into journalism. It's why I moved to California, trying to kind of figure out, well, who was I in all of this? And then, you know, be able to go back home and understand who I was in the larger storyline.

10:11And I think this is something that every kid probably deals with, right? You know, every person is trying to figure out who they are, no matter what their family is, and where is home for them. And, you know, what role are they playing? And I think it's, it's emphasized when you're dealing with a legacy.

10:31Simon Sinek:I think what you're touching on is every single one of us at some point in our lives, and sometimes multiple times will struggle with our identities. Correct. And it's not unique to somebody who's grown up like you have. Right. People will confuse their identities with their job title. Correct. I am a CEO. Right. Or their career. I am a lawyer. Like that's who I am. No, no. Correct. It's what you do. Right. Or it's the position you have. And I've seen it. You've seen it many times, which is very successful people, when they move on or they change jobs, they literally will suffer an identity crisis because for 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, their whole identity has entwined with a job or a position that when that job or position no longer exists it's depression or collapse or strange things start to happen yeah and so you know um but even beyond i am a mother i hear some people say that tell me who you are well i'm a mother or i'm a father but even that's not an identity well i think but i think society puts a lot of pressure on you to respond in that way people ask you like i went to a party the other night with my daughter and her first question to her every single time was, tell me what you do.

11:37Tell me what you do. What is your interest? What do you do? And not who you are and not even like what your name is. Tell me what you do. And I think, you know, this book, I called it I Am Maria because I grew up being asked all the time, which Kennedy are you? That was just, you know, the question I got more than any single other question. Which Kennedy are you? And I still get it today. Like if I'm walking through the airport or, you know, somebody will say, you're a Kennedy, right? And I used to just be like, no, I'm not. I'm Maria. And they would be like, but you're a Kennedy, even as an adult.

12:14And now I just go, yeah, I'm a Kennedy. Yeah. It's like, I'm in my sixties, right? So, but I think it's, so I understand. So I often find people come up to me and say, I'm just this, that, or the other. And I always try to say, well, what's your name? Who are you? Tell me about yourself. So that's why I wanted to call this I am is very spiritual to me. It's a, it's kind of has a religious feeling to it. But it's owning your name, you know, your parents give you your name and it's claiming this is I am, this is who I am. It's claiming the identity of yourself. The only thing we get to define, right?

12:53Simon Sinek:Because our surnames are predefined for us and we're part of that legacy, whatever that is. There's at least a lineage. Our jobs are not ours, you know, but our name, as you said, like it's the only thing that really is us. Right. And it's claiming that over and over, right? It's claiming I am this person. And then it's like, well, tell me who is that person? So who is Maria without saying mother, you know, journalist? That's been a lifetime to figure that out. and that's what this book is really about. So who is Maria? So, well, if I were, I am Maria. I'm a woman. I'm a monastic, spiritual, loving, kind, fun, funny, artistic, deep, I think wise, broken, scared, strong, vulnerable, 69-year-old woman.

13:50Simon Sinek:Yeah. That's who I am. And I have had the joy to be able to have been a mother. And I am a mother. I have been a wife. I have been a daughter. I am a daughter, even though my parents are deceased. I am a sister. I'm an aunt. But these are all titles that society puts on you. I try to be a loving, a supportive family member. That means I'm an aunt, a sister, a mom. I love the redirect, you know, when somebody says, so what do you do? Instead of making, pushing back against the question, it's an honest question to simply say, let me tell you who I am. Right. Just to simply redirect. Yeah, redirect.

14:32Simon Sinek:What do you do? Well, let me tell you who I am. Exactly. And to say that list, you know, that is how we feel and all of the things that go along with it. I mean, I know you really well, but just to hear you say all those words together, it's arresting. because we see ourselves in some of that and we find connection in some of that. Yeah. Well, I hope because that is, for me, the best way to form connection. When somebody says, you know, I am insecure, I am scared. And then I go, talk to me about that. I also feel insecure. I also doubt myself. I also feel vulnerable. I also feel tender. Tell me how you feel.

15:13Do you ever feel strong? Do you ever feel old? Do you feel young? Talk to me about that instead of, tell me about your job at the law firm. And I mean, I can get to all of that, but who you are is how I connect to you.

15:32Simon Sinek:More interesting. It's way more interesting. And people often find it, they're surprised that you're interested in who they are and not what they do. Some of these poems, reading them, which surprised me, was it's how you talk. I didn't even connect that. But you speak in poems. You speak like this. Like when you and I are having a conversation, even now talking to you, you know, if I were to write some of these lines down, the repetition and some of the reinforcements and tell me who you, I mean, it's, I'm, it's, I'm just like, if you read this, then you know what it's like to hang out. That's a great compliment.

16:08It is a good compliment. Yeah, this is a very real.

16:12Simon Sinek:It's you didn't. It's it's how you speak reporter poetry, you know, that I said I'm reporting from the front lines. It's kind of it's, you know, the first part of the book is reflections on life and kind of identity and trying to figure out what. But it's how you think. It's how I think. It's how I think. And it's giving a kind of framework to how I think, how I visualize, and how I visualize my way forward. And it's a revelation to me to discover my own heartbreak and to find connection in other people's heartbreak. It's a revelation to me to discover my own loneliness and to find connection with other people with their loneliness, to talk about what does home mean, where is home, to talk about healing and the strength that is required to actually heal, to heal patterns, to heal family dramas that have gone through generations.

17:13This is not work that I thought of when I was a kid or a young woman as hard work or as successful work. And I now look at it as the most successful thing we can do.

17:24Simon Sinek:Did you have to learn to be vulnerable? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Is it like, oh, yeah, that's five years, the past 10 years, the past 20? Like, I mean, it's, I know it's a journey, but like, there has to been a point where something clicked. Well, I think certainly, you know, kind of my divorce, I think, you know, landed me on the floor. And I had to kind of go like, whoa, you know, what is this? And I want to get up from this, but I'm going to get up differently. And I think that has certainly, you know, set me off onto a different path. I think it really probably began way before that with my mother's death.

18:02How old were you when she died? I was in my 50s. So she died. But that was something I had feared my whole life because she'd been sick a lot. But she was my, you know, anchor. She was my everything. And it was something that I thought, like, I'll never be able to survive my mother's death. And I think when she died, it was a soul shifting experience for me. It was an identity shifting experience for me. And it was quickly followed by my father's death, by the end of my marriage, by finding a new home, and then a search for a new identity.

18:41Simon Sinek:It all happened within two years. Oh, wow. And then, you know, then it's been all of these many years later. Yeah, my mother died. Two weeks later, my uncle died. Two years later, my father died. And a couple of months after that, I got separated. And I had been first lady and that ended. So it was a rapid succession of really groundbreaking change underneath my feet. And I think, you know, for me to step back and go, okay, wait a second now. I need to emerge from this. I need to rise from this. I always talk about rising above the noise. I need to rise and I'm going to rise differently. I have to rise differently.

19:23I have to break through, as I write in the book, the denial that I had had since I was a child. I had to break through the identities that I had kind of hid behind, you know, and that had given me cover, that had given me protection. And I now knew I was on my own, 100 % on my own. So who was that person? She wasn't the first lady anymore. Was I still a journalist? I don't know. What was I? Who was I going to be?

19:52Simon Sinek:Well, people always talk about, you know, the importance of doing the work. I'm doing the work. That person, they need to do the work. You know, in relationships, I wish my partner would do the work. I'm helping them do the work. You know, I'm so fascinated by the relationship of quote, quote unquote, doing the work alone versus needing the support of others to do that? Is it possible to do the work alone of finding oneself? Well, I've been, I've done the work in community, I would say, because I had, as I wrote in the book, I write about kind of having a masterclass in friendship. People held my hand.

20:25They walked with me. They talked with me. They sat with me. But I went and did alone work with a therapist, with shamans, with journeys. I went away on my own. I went to a convent on my own, but I did the work or the silence in community. So I don't see that I did it alone. I wasn't in a relationship doing it, but I don't think anybody really quote does it alone.

20:50Simon Sinek:Okay. I'll just say, I'll say from a personal point of view, which is I know that I'm a better version of myself. I know that I'm more comfortable being vulnerable. I know that I am taking myself on and away because I wouldn't be able to get away with not because of our friendship. That's what I mean. And to be your friend means you sign up for all of it. There's the fun, there's the laughs, there's the family, but there's also like the conversations about, you know, loneliness or ADHD. They come out relatively effortlessly now in company, not alone. Yeah. At the end of the day, what jobs come and go.

21:28But if we work on our friendships, if we laugh with our friends, if we love our friends, if we show up for our friends, if we give them the eight minutes in those moments of like, I need you on the phone, are you there? Right? Those are the things that are going to be with us till the end.

21:45Simon Sinek:That's what's important. And for those who may know that video that I made where I talked about the eight minutes, it was you and me. It was you and me. That was our experience where I asked you how you were and you said, I'm better now. And I said, what do you mean you're better now? And you're like, I've had a horrible week. I'm like, well, why didn't you call me? And you're like, I did. And I look at my text and it says, you there? What are you doing? I'm like, yeah. And it was that you were the one who read the article that said all a friend needs is eight minutes. And so now if we need each other, I like, you have eight minutes.

22:15We have eight minutes. Do you have eight minutes?