Joan Lunden: Reinvention, Identity, & Life Beyond the Script | EP 736

22:31Joan Lunden:And if you've been getting value from PassionStruck, supporting the brands that support us helps keep these conversations going.

22:41Joan Lunden:You're listening to PassionStruck on the PassionStruck Network. Now let's return to the conversation with Joan Lunden. Well, I love it because this whole podcast is about why we need to be intentional with the choices that we make throughout our life. I love what you brought up earlier about saying yes to opportunities. And I'll just share a little bit about my life. I was given this opportunity to join Lowe's Home Improvement as a senior executive. But the task I was being given was to clean up the worst hacking incident that had ever happened in retail. And as I went into this, people have asked me after the fact, how did you even think you could do the job?

23:24And when I was thinking about it, I'm like, nothing like this has ever been done before.

23:30Joan Lunden:No one has ever solved this. So it's not like anyone has a resume to solve it. So I just thought I could figure it out. And then when they asked me to build a 200 ,000 square foot data center, I'd never build anything like that. But if I figured I could get the right people around me who had, and I hired the right engineering firm, then I could get it done. And I think people let themselves think themselves out of opportunities before they even hit the starting line. Is that what you have found in your own experience?

24:04John R. Miles:100%. And I resonated this thought, I think probably in a number of the books I've written, and I keep resonating it again and again, because it needs to be, is that I think people often hear things that are opportunities, and they immediately think, oh, wow, wow, that would be great for someone. Why not for you? And I don't think that people just let ideas and opportunities, like pass them by, like just float right by them, because they don't take that moment to consider, maybe I can do that. And it's, you don't have to see as one of the quotes in my book is you don't have to see the whole staircase.

24:45John R. Miles:You just have to take the first step. And as you start down, when I was in the very beginning, 23 years old, KCRA TV, an affiliate in Sacramento, California, my hometown before I ever got to national. And they brought, and I had just gone in because someone said, you ought to consider this. There were no women on news back then. There was Barton Walters. I was almost like it. And so I called and I got this appointment to go in and I asked him all these questions about what the possibilities were. And after five minutes, he said, well, clearly, you know how to write an interview. You have the look, you have that it factor.

25:26John R. Miles:Let me take you down and audition you. It was like, okay. He put me on this news set that I saw every night on TV and he auditioned me and he said, I think you have something, but I don't have a job. He just walked in here out of the blue, but we're going to start this new early news show and I'll keep you in mind. But then weatherman at the station was back behind the set, saw the audition and followed me out into the parking lot and said, a few stations around the country are hiring weather girls. I'd like to make you Sacramento's first weather girl. and that sounded absolutely totally uninteresting to me but thank god i was a smart little whippersnapper who knew an opportunity when i heard it so i said okay he said okay you'll be here monday morning at 5 a.m it's 5 a.m because he went on the air and did all this morning drive time weather on the radio that was very important to the sacrament of the agricultural valley all these farmers and i guess that was the start of my early morning career right out of the box But then a few months later, the news director called me in and said, remember when I told you we were going to start an early show?

26:35John R. Miles:Well, we're going to do something that just a few stations around the country are doing. They're having consumer reports, and this had never been done before. Do you think you could come up with some consumer reports for us? I was like, okay. So I lived in Sacramento. That's the capital of California. And I got in my car and I drove to the Department of Consumer Affairs and I found their public relations office and said, if I was going to go on television as a consumer reporter, could you give me some news to report? And they said, oh, my God, we're always having recalls of products and things we were always trying to get our information on.

27:13John R. Miles:I got in my car and went to the Department of Agriculture and said, could you give me any information like on a regular basis about food prices or maybe tainted food or things like that? And by the end of the day, I went back into the news director and said, I could do a consumer report every night. Mind you, I was convincing myself of that just as much as I was convincing that news director. And I was making it up, but I was figuring it out, kind of like you figured out how to solve that hacking thing. there was no precedent there was no other consumer reports on television that i could look at and so i just put it together and figured out what does the consumer want to hear what does the viewer want to hear out there and started writing up my reports and okay i'll tell you a funny one and i think it's it's in the book i'm pretty sure it's in the book they used they used something in television called a blue screen where you sit in front of a blue screen or a weatherman stands in front of a blue background or green background.

28:17John R. Miles:It's crazy to watch too. And the camera only sees everything but the blue so that they see your image. And then they roll a piece of tape in the back. Then it was film videotape hadn't been invented at that point. And they run a piece of film of a rainy day. So you see this weatherman seemingly standing outside in the rain. so they sent me out with a camera person and said you're going to do all these agricultural reports take the camera person with you and they'll shoot footage of tomatoes and lettuce and meat and milk and blah blah blah so we did all this footage and so now my first night going on talking about food prices and I'm in front of a blue screen and they're running the footage that's now been put together and I didn't realize it but back in those days it was a very big thing to wear blue eyeshadow okay it was very trendy so no judgment and every time and there was no teleprompter so you went by the script in front of you on the desk and every time I would look down at the script, you would see tomatoes or lettuce or meat, like through my eyes.

29:38John R. Miles:And needless to say, all of the other reporters up in the newsroom who wondered how in the world this girl just walked in here off the street and got this job, didn't exactly welcome me with open arms. And they thought it was the funniest thing in the world and didn't tell me for weeks because they just wanted it to keep happening.

29:58Joan Lunden:So throughout the book, and you've been giving us some great examples, you describe moments where being unflappable became part of the job. But I wanted to ask this in a different way. What do you think being unflappable cost you internally?

30:16John R. Miles:There are plenty of times I can think of a million different kind of things that you needed to remain unflappable, even though people were writing things about you in tabloids. First of all, back then, we didn't have social media. They would write letters. But they'd still write letters. I don't like the dress she wore. Or the big one for women. Hasn't she gained a little too much weight? That was the big one. You were supposed to be thin if you were on TV. And by the way, I had three babies. One, two, and Good Morning America. And they would write things in the tabloids. And you can say, I don't read that, but that's not true.

30:55John R. Miles:And if you don't read it, a friend of yours reads it and tells you. And you get dressed down every now and then by the boss who says, I don't like the interview you did yesterday. And no matter what it is, you do have to just, there's a saying that's better to stay even than get even. You couldn't get mad about it. You had to just take it as constructive criticism, whether it was coming from a viewer or it was coming from your producer. and always remain unflappable. And certainly live on television, no matter what happened, you had to. And sometimes there was a lot of chaos going on that we might hear in our earpiece and you had to remain unflappable.

31:37John R. Miles:You were never to let the audience know there was something going on. The next satellite interview is off. We don't have it. We're going to get something else. We're going to put something else in its place. Okay, so I won't go to that. You really have to just remain cool and calm and collective. And I don't think most people ever necessarily think about that while watching live news on television.

32:00Joan Lunden:And I know one of the things that I learned through reading the book is that you were quietly rewriting the rules through the course of your career. And one of the first starts of this is you would bring your daughter to work and it was framed as activism at the time. But little things like that started, I think, to give you permission to expand. But did you feel like that at the time?

32:27John R. Miles:I was not a flag-waving, braw-boarding feminist at all. I was like the mom with the new child that got this big job, and I was just putting one foot in front of the other, trying to figure out how I could do them both at the same time. And I don't think ADC understood. Kudos to them for saying yes to me. Because back then, it wasn't like today's world. There weren't all the contraptions. If you were breastfeeding, you really had to have the baby with you. And while they said yes, and I give them credit, I don't really think that they totally understood what they were saying yes to you or how it would impact the show or the audience or America, society.

33:09And the first day back, they planned this big news conference

33:14John R. Miles:after the show, and we went upstairs. sort of dressing rooms and they put all these chairs out and had a nice little breakfast and they invited all the newspapers, New York Times and the Washington Post and I'm and Newsweek and Ladies Home Journal. It was a packed house and we walked out. David Hartman introduced me, welcomed me to the show. I said a few words. I opened up questions. But right before I came downstairs, the PR people came and grabbed me and said, listen, whatever you do not say anything about the fact that you have a baby upstairs. These are critics. These are television reporters.

33:50John R. Miles:They're going to, they would chew you up and spit you out. They'll never think that you could actually do your job. It's okay. No problem. I didn't plan on mentioning it. So now here I am and I opened up to the questions and I'm supposed to have this best kept secret. And first question, Time Magazine, we hear you are bringing your baby to work. How did you get ABC to let you do that? Like your eyes dart to the back of the room where all these executives are standing up. The PR people that just gave you your marching orders. But I had to answer. You not answer. I answered this question. Second question, Newsweek magazine.

34:30John R. Miles:This show travels the world. How are you going to do that? Again, I had to answer. Well, actually, ABC has contractually given me permission to take the baby with me wherever I need to go for as long as I'm breastfeeding or throughout the first year. Oops, I said breastfeeding. And it clearly became very obvious to everyone within the first five minutes of that press conference that the breaking news story of the day wasn't who, what female was the new co-host of Good Morning America. That was a little story. The breaking news that day was that a major media corporate corporation had given a woman permission to bring a baby to work.

35:17John R. Miles:It was in every paper. And by the way, before the press conference was over, that PR guy went up, scooped my little seven-week-old baby out of the crib. And all of a sudden, I saw him walking in with my little baby Jamie in his arms. And he's like, bring her to you. He walks right up the center aisle through all the different news reporters, puts her in my arms and every camera is flashing. And that was the picture on the cover of everything. And I still don't know if ABC really clearly understood at that point what the reaction was going to be by our audience, which was, I think that I bonded with the audience so much more quickly because they knew I was showing up.

36:01John R. Miles:they know I was prepared for the interviews, but they also know I was dealing with dirty diapers and spit up. So there was like a, like an interlocutor there that just created the fun and our ratings soared. And I'm going to tell you a little something that didn't make the book. And it's because I only found this out six months ago. I'd set my galley off to a couple of producers of GMA and the executive producer at the time I started, I just wanted them to fact check everything and he got back to me he said i'm going to tell you something he said when you started really showing the head of entertainment called me and said you gotta get joan long and off the air i said why he said she's showing nobody wants to see a pregnant woman walking down the street let alone on television in the morning when they get up and he said well that's not really the reaction that we're getting from our audience.

36:57Our audience is absolute, all of them

37:00John R. Miles:are reacting favorably. And he said, I got together with David Parkman and the vice president in charge at the time, and we powwowed and we decided we just can't do this. It would go against what's, our audience would get upset. So they went against him and the guy eventually acquiesced and dropped it. And they let me stay in the air until, I don't know, two weeks, three weeks before delivery. And back then they didn't have all the cute little maternity clothes that they have now. It's like tense. And I said, and he said, we opted not to tell you. I said, oh my God, I'm so glad you did not tell me that back then.

37:37John R. Miles:Because it would have, I think it would have just thrown me for a loop if I knew that. Yeah, it would have destroyed you. Get her out of here. And I'm so glad they didn't tell me. But, and here I am 50 years later, John, 50 years later. And I find out that story.

37:54Joan Lunden:It's unbelievable. Well, I think looking back, everything humanized you and that's, and it drew people in because they saw you, you weren't just a placard. You were a real person, which wasn't what they were accustomed to seeing. So I think it made it appealing. And what I think a lot of listeners might also not realize is during your time with David, which lasted about a decade, if I have it right. He had strict parameters in on how the show would begin, how it would close, who got to interview, how much money he made. I made. Yeah, I understand that there was almost like a 10x difference in pay at one point.

38:36John R. Miles:Yeah, 10 times what I made. Yeah.

38:39Joan Lunden:But then new ownership came in and he played his cards wrong. And Charlie then comes in. And from the get-go, everything changed. But Charlie was a primary reason for that. What did he do differently in his approach?

38:56John R. Miles:Okay, so now your listeners are going to hear one other thing that I just found out at the 50th anniversary this past November. Charlie flew in and Spencer flew in and we all went out to dinner. And Charlie said, I remember when I first came and I knew that I was like a huge cheerleader. I really thought Charlie would be great. I thought he was the right. He was very smart, but he didn't wear it. And he said, the day I came to move into the office, he said, the executives called me in. And they said, all right, you need to establish yourself immediately as the alpha male. You got to make Joan realize that.

39:33John R. Miles:You got to make the audience realize that. And he said, I looked at them and said, I think you're really wrong. That's what it's been for the last 10 years. I don't think that today's audience, That was like 1987. And he said, I don't I can't buy into that. I don't think that's right. He said, and then I came to your office. Now, this is the part that I knew. I never knew about that meeting where they told him to come in and be the alpha male until this past November. So it's not in the book either. The book was already put to bed at that point. And he said, and then I know this part. He walked into my office and he sat down across from me.

40:10John R. Miles:And he said, I want to make a deal with you. Let's do this show 50-50. Let's show America that a man and a woman can come together and do a show as equals. And boy, I shot my hand across the desk and said, I'll take that deal. I knew I liked him, but I liked him even more. And that is how we did the show. And I think the audience felt that. And you usually have a dip in the ratings when one host leaves and they're bringing somebody new on. We did not have a dip in the ratings. The ratings just continued to go up and they stayed that way for the next over a decade.

40:47Joan Lunden:For those of us who've not been behind the scenes on a show like that, when it comes to a guest is coming on the show and it's a desirable guest, what was the difference between when you were working with David and who got assignments on stories versus how that changed with Charlie, and was it a pretty big shift?

41:08John R. Miles:Well, when I was with David, if it was anybody, if it was any kind of a political leader, world leader, senator, major star in any industry, I knew I wouldn't get the interview. I got the woman's stories. I got DIY and do your own. I got cooking spots. I got all the Julia Child spots. I I got parenting and nutrition. And the doctor's daughter here, who always thought I'd be a doctor, I hauled any medical spot that I could possibly get my hands on. And he'd let me have them unless they were really important. And that's just what life was like during those years. And every now and then, when he would be out of town and I would be on with someone else, the producers would slip me an important interview.

41:57John R. Miles:you. And that's where they allowed me to take it, be prepared and shine so that they can have confidence in me. And quite honestly, over time, so I grew the confidence in myself. And by the time Charlie came, we took one of our first trips overseas and we got to the hotel. And back in those days, still, Charlie and I never had a laptop. Today, bankers with laptops in front of them, they're seeing people's comments in real time. We never had a laptop. We couldn't Google anyone that we were about to interview and fact check something that didn't exist. We got packets and packets of research that we had to read.

42:34John R. Miles:And I got to my hotel and I saw, oh my God, I'm interviewing the king and queen of Sweden. Like that, it was astounding to me because that never would have happened before. And so it was really a huge kind of power shift. It was like coming out from behind that barrier as a woman. And it worked. It worked for Good Morning America and ABC. The audience loved it. And I see it on my social media every day, my 99 ,000 BFFs that I don't know, but they're really nice. And I hear it all the time. if I post anything remotely has to do with television or GMA, I have all these people that come in and say, you and Charlie, that pair that we had in our home every morning, we could tell.

43:26John R. Miles:And you told us like it was. Back then, John, it was so different than today. Like today, they expect anchors to give their opinion. And the audience doesn't really like that, quite honestly. They don't want opinion news. Like we just gave the news. And if I had an interview, if I was interviewing two people with opposing views or moderating a debate, our goal was that at the end of that, you wouldn't know what our opinion was, which by the way, was somewhat of a challenge. It wasn't always easy to do, but you didn't chime in and say, oh yeah, you're right. You just didn't do that. And that's a major difference.

44:08John R. Miles:And I'm really glad that I was in that position for the 20 years that I was and not in today's world. And I think that viewers out there, from what I hear on social media, is that they yearn for those days.

44:26Joan Lunden:I always think from a podcast host, I listen to other podcasts, and I find that oftentimes the host is inserting themselves so much into the commentary. where I always felt my job as the interviewer is to serve my audience by interviewing the guest in a way that brings them the most value. And I find so few people really do that anymore. It's more they're trying to win. Yes. Well, I want to talk about when GMA ended. And I'm going to build into this a little bit because as I was thinking about this moment for you, this was such a colossal part of your life and such a platform of your identity.

45:09Joan Lunden:And few people I think could have faced as daunting a transition as you did. But I happened to interview one about six months ago. I'm not sure if you ever interviewed Susan Kilrain on a little bit of background. Susan was the first F-14 pilot in the Navy. And then she became the second. She became She became the second female space shuttle pilot in the program. And after flying her two missions, because she was on the space shuttle journey where they had to come back early because they had an issue and then they sent them back up. She made the decision, because her husband is a retired Vice Admiral Navy SEAL, that they wanted to have a family and allow him to pursue his career.

45:58Joan Lunden:So she had to give up everything. And I just think about giving up everything as an astronaut or giving up everything like you did. I just wanted to ask for you, what do you think disappeared first when this happened? Was it the routine? Was it this platform that you had behind you? Or was it your own sense of mattering?

46:17John R. Miles:It was my own sense of mattering. It's like the world just drops out from underneath of you. I wasn't so sorry to say goodbye to the 330 Winnie Cups for 20 years of that. But it leaves you very vulnerable. And you really can't help but have that thought, then, who am I? Because you've just been so completely enmeshed in this national identity and this self-identity as Joan Lunden, the co-host of Good Morning America, for 20 years. And that's how you're always introduced. That's how everybody thinks of you. and all of a sudden you're not and I was exhausted at that point and truthfully I'd asked ABC like can you put me on an evening show put me on 2020 put me on something else get me off the shift and they didn't really have a place to put me and so they wanted me to sign another three-year contract and I almost reluctantly signed my name to that three-year contract another three years of getting up at 3.30 in the morning every day.

47:26John R. Miles:But I did. And then three months later, I got the call that said, they're going to make a change. You're going to be taking off the show.

47:38And it was a shock.

47:40John R. Miles:I don't know why it should have been a shock. I'd asked for it, but it's still a shock when it wasn't you that did it. When it was them that decides that they're going to replace you with a 30-year-old Joe London look-alike. that nobody knows. And it was really rough. It was really, it was really rough. And I finally, I came out and I told the audience and I called up the executives at ADC and I said, they did this over at the day show. They replaced Jane Pauley with Deborah Norville, the younger girl, and didn't work so well for them. They took a big hit. Like you're about to do the same thing.

48:17John R. Miles:So let me help you help yourself. I'm going to say that I'm leaving because I was asking you to leave anyway. So I want to leave a class act. I've been a class act here for 20 years. I want to leave a class act. And I don't want to leave the woman scorned. That's just, I don't identify with that. And also it'll be good for me as I go up into whatever else I'm going to do. And so I went and I really deliberated, John, a lot as to whether I was going to tell this story in its entirety and how I was going to tell it. And I thought, you know what? Don't write a legacy memoir if you're not going to be 100 % honest.

48:58John R. Miles:And let them understand what you went through, how you decided to make that decision, to leave just saying, I wanted to leave, so I'm going to leave. So there wasn't this big uproar with the audience. There was a big uproar anyway, because I think people see through that whenever someone says, I want to leave with my kids more. okay there was a huge drop off but I wasn't interested in participating in that and I don't regret for a minute taking the course that I did but it's taken 25 years to write a book and say it and I thought it was important to tell it like it was and to let people understand what that was like and then and there was this recorder that said as I left some young little spunky guy that that, gee, how are you going to ever talk this one?

49:49John R. Miles:And like that question lived at the back of my brain year after year, that expectation that I was supposed to pop up on some other major show. And again, I was exhausted and I had opportunities that came to me that I didn't lean into. And I thought that was important to tell people and to realize that there are other ways you can make your mark on this world. And I think it took me this long to be able to look at the whole arc of my life and say, you know what? I became this advocate. I did 10 shows after GMA, but they weren't shows that were on every day that people saw. They were all health shows.

50:29John R. Miles:And I worked on all these campaigns and I made a difference. And that to me at this point, I can now stand back and say, all right, that 25 years was just as meaningful as the 25 years before as this big national broadcaster. And I needed people to hear that so that they could take that to their own life.

50:49Joan Lunden:Joan, one of the things that I wanted to make sure we talked about was the journey you had with facing your battle with cancer. And this is very personal for me because I lost my sister to pancreatic cancer last year. Sorry. And as I was reading your story and remembering some of my conversations with my sister, there was a similar aspect to it. You write candidly about fear and not just of dying, but of disappearing. And Carolyn told me the same thing. For you, how did that shift your definition of courage and what surprised you most about who showed up for you and who you expected to and didn't?

51:39John R. Miles:Well, certainly you learn when you go through something like that, who are the people, friends and family that show up for you. And in the aftermath, they become your besties. They become the people you know that you can count on and that will always have your back and always be there. But I think the main thing that I wanted to convey in telling that story, and of course I told it in its entirety in another book had I known, but I felt it was important to touch on it for a chapter in this book too, because within 24 hours, maybe less, it occurred to me that I always thought I'd be a doctor like my dad.

52:17John R. Miles:My dad was a cancer surgeon back at a time when there wasn't radiation, there wasn't chemo. And I just got this gift. And I know it's hard to imagine somebody thinking of a cancer diagnosis like that. But in this weird way, it was this gift that just dropped in my lap. But I said, I can finally fulfill that legacy. I can finally pick up that torch and run with it. And I'm not going to go through this journey as a victim, as a patient. I'm going to go through this journey as an advocate. And I'm going to learn everything I can about breast cancer and about treatments that, and I'm going to take that by phone into every appointment and I'm going to show them.

53:03John R. Miles:And I got to tell you, John, I've had so countless women come back to me and say, thank you so much for sharing all of that because you took the scary out of it. It's allowed me to, not to mention I went in front of Congress, in front of the FDA to testify in favor of mandatory mammogram reporting. I started becoming involved in the advocacy for women. And we got that legislation passed so that now when a woman goes to get a mammogram, they can find out if they have very dense breast tissue, which masks cancer. It shows up wide on a mammogram, exactly the same as cancer. And now that they know that they need an ancillary test.

53:45John R. Miles:I only learned that by going for an interview. I was sent to do an interview for a health show I was doing. I learned it from Dr. Susan Love, who wrote the breast book, and came back, like marched into my gynecologist, said, write me a script for an ancillary test. And I got a clean 3D mammogram that day of my diagnosis, and then went across the fold and found out in an ultrasound, that ancillary test that I otherwise wouldn't have known to have. And that left that I had cancer, and I said, I have to pass this message along. That's really what lit this fire in me. You have to do something about this.

54:23John R. Miles:You have to make sure that women are told this and you have to go out and spread the word as far and wide as you possibly can. And for the next five years, I didn't, I don't even know how to tell you how many breast cancer luncheons I did and how many times I went back and forth to Washington. I couldn't even get all the female senators to sign on with this legislation. why because everybody knows that the next domino to fall is getting the insurers coming to pay for this ancillary test and they were bigger stronger and more well financed than us little grassroots ladies that were coming in there and saying can I come in and talk to you about the senator and I've never gone to Washington in that capacity I know always gone as a reporter where they open the door and go ahead set up your lights now I was like knocking on the door would you please signed this bill, it was a totally different experience.

55:11John R. Miles:And I loved every minute of it. And it made that journey, it was so hard. I had a year of chemo. I lost my hair, lost my eyebrows, and you lose everything. But at the same time, it was an amazing year. And I wouldn't have passed it up for anything. And I reached a lot of women. I made a difference. And seriously, John, if I'm like a tombstone, all it said was she helped other women in their journey in breast cancer. If it just said that, I'd be okay with it. But I've shared these journeys. I've shared these moments in my life, whether it was dealing with this huge change leading GMA. and I wrote a book about dealing with change or whether it was aging and going through the things that all us women go through.

56:07So I write a book, my last one,

56:09John R. Miles:why did I come into this room? A candid conversation about aging. Like all these things all the way through because I've chosen to share them. That's what's given me the opportunity for self-fulfillment. That's what's given me this opportunity to feel like I made my mark on the world. And maybe that mark is even more important than my incredible career in journalism.

56:38Joan Lunden:Well, I wanted to ask you a follow-on question about that, Mark Joan. My aunt, who is also a breast cancer survivor, is the one who wanted me to ask you this, but her father, my grandfather, had dementia. And it was very hard. And she was closer to it than I was, but it was so difficult to see a person who was so brilliant reduced to the state that he was in. And on this topic of advocacy, she wanted me to ask you, you were an advocate for your mom who had dementia, and you're an advocate on behalf of the elderly and caregivers. She wanted me to ask you, what current challenges do you feel right now are the most important to address for the elderly and caregivers.

57:24John R. Miles:And once again, dealing with my mom, and then I just felt that I needed to help other Americans get prepared. You don't want to make all these decisions and figure out what caregiving to an elderly parent is all about when the crisis occurs. And yet, unfortunately, that's how most of us do it. In today's world, the reason why I went to Washington to advocate for passing an addition to the Family Medical and Leave Act. It was wonderful that Family Medical Leave Act finally gave women and then subsequently men the ability to leave when their child is born and not lose their job at work. But now I went and said, that's not the only time people need to have protection.

58:11John R. Miles:They need to at the end of life. This is like at the beginning of life. At the end of life, we have a nation full of people that are having to leave jobs and dip into their own retirement to take care of aging parents and aging spouse and anybody that's in your circle that you become responsible for advocating for their actual care. And this is going to become a bigger and bigger issue because the population in our country is going through this very rapid change. And by 2030, we're going to have far more people over 65 than we have under 18. And as we have these wonderful advancements that are keeping us all alive, this huge older population is going to live longer and longer.

58:58John R. Miles:And it's starting to get good publicizing so that people start understanding, I'm going to have to maybe live another 20 years when I only thought I was going to live another five or eight years. And I have to plan for this. but I'm going to say to everybody out there right now who has aging parents, and you might not even consider them aging yet. If they're in their 60s, sit them down and take your phone and interview them. Start with them about what life was like when they were young. And then what was life like when you and dad or you and mom met? What was I like as a kid? And they might, if they're older, They won't remember what they had for lunch 15 minutes ago, but they can connect with these memories.

59:43John R. Miles:Now you've got them in this wonderful place that they're talking about their life and they're sharing with you. And this is your opportunity to say, and by the way, as long as we're talking about this, is there a relative that had any kind of a chronic illness that you know that maybe other people don't know? Like an aunt, an uncle, a grandpa, or grandma, did they have like polyps? Did they have colon cancer or breast cancer or anything? that maybe didn't get talked about because in the old days they didn't talk about it, that's your chance to find out that so you know your health risks. And then you can say, all right, we've been talking about the past.

1:00:19John R. Miles:Let's talk about the future. I'm the one. I can be your advocate. I want to know how you see your future if you want to stay here in the house, if you can. And instead of sitting down saying, all right, I'm going to be responsible for you, So tell me all this stuff, which they're not going to want to do because it makes them face of mortality and it's an uncomfortable situation. This is a really cozy familial opportunity to get them to look at their future. So that's something that I always suggest people do. But in the meantime, make sure you are signed onto their bank account. Make sure you have all the important papers you need.

1:00:59John R. Miles:Make sure there's a FIPA release because hospitals and assisted living places can't talk to you and their doctors can't talk to you unless your name is on that KIPAA release and only one name. So don't get the most worrisome person in your family. Don't let the sibling who's the worrywart put her name on that and make sure you have a durable power of attorney for financial and for health and get them to do a living will. A will is for what they're going to leave after they're gone. But what about when their life is in the balance and you don't know whether they want to have a feeding tube, be put on a respirator, donate their organs.

1:01:38John R. Miles:And they're uncomfortable conversations, but you can do it. You can say, mom, dad, my husband and I just saw this. We just listened to this podcast and they told us we should do this. So we just did this with each other. Have you guys done that? There's ways you can get them to open up without making them feel like you're forcing them to face their mortality.

1:02:00Joan Lunden:And I, we just did this with my parents and it is tough because you realize they are getting older, but it was actually them who forced the issue on my brother and I, but I'm glad we did it as painful as it was. Joan, today we've really talked about how for part of your life, you were mastering the script and now you're in this new chapter where that script has grown in ways you probably never expected and would have. So my last question for you is for someone who's listened today, who feels their best chapters behind them, what's your advice for them?

1:02:37John R. Miles:No, you're never too old to write a new script. Ever. And a lot of people do feel that way. And that's why I just felt it was so important to write this book. Not just to say, oh, look at all the things I've done. But to let them realize that I've rewritten my script. I don't know, like a dozen times, at least since I left GMA. And I think when they, and a lot of people, when I'm out places, they'll say, oh, how are you enjoying retirement? Meanwhile, I've got five campaigns I'm working on. My husband always says, just tell them you're enjoying retirement, please. Don't feel compelled to tell them all the things you're still doing.

1:03:15John R. Miles:But it's important for them to understand that I've still been open to opportunity. I'm lucky that having had the platform I've had, a lot of things come my way, and why pass up the opportunity to do all these meaningful things? And it might not be the situation where you have those kinds of opportunities, but that doesn't mean you can't plant a new garden, learn a new hobby, join a group, be a reader. A reader never goes to bed alone. You can always be ensconced in someone else's story, and then join a book club because it's really important as you start to get older that you stay engaged and you keep talking with people.

1:03:52John R. Miles:These are some of the most important aspects of successful aging. And I thought that was important to talk about in writing this book. I'm excited to read light beyond the script.

1:04:06Joan Lunden:Joan, thank you so much for joining us today. This, I'm sure, will be a fan favorite for the PassionStruck listeners. It was such an honor to have you.

1:04:14John R. Miles:Thank you so much.

1:04:16Joan Lunden:That brings us to the end of today's conversation with Joan London. and the beginning of something new. Because this episode introduces a question that many people avoid until life forces it. Who am I now? Joan's story reminds us, identity evolves, confidence follows action, transitions shape who we become, and reinvention remains available at every stage of life. This is what life beyond the script is all about, continuing forward with awareness. If this conversation resonated with you, Share it with someone who may be navigating change. Leave a five-star rating or review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

1:04:54Joan Lunden:Explore more at theignitedlife.net. You can also pick up a copy of my new children's book, You Matter Luma, at umatterluma.com. Next, we continue Life Beyond the Script with Leslie John, a behavioral scientist and professor at Harvard Business School. We discuss her new book, Revealing, and what it takes to show up honestly in a world that often rewards performance over authenticity. We explore why people hold back, what it costs to hide parts of ourselves, and how revealing who we are at the right time in the right way can reshape our relationships, our work, and our sense of identity. We want to feel known for who we are and we want to not be so alone.

1:05:35And what's interesting,

1:05:36Joan Lunden:the corporate world or academia, buttoned up academia, I started noticing like in these meetings, nobody is sharing their actual feelings about this. Like we're sharing our thoughts, we're kind of dancing around. And I just realized how pervasive this is, the holding back. I'm not saying we should reveal everything all the time, but I think that most of us stand to benefit tremendously from revealing a little bit more a lot of the time. Until then, remember, you are allowed to evolve. You are allowed to change and you are allowed to write a new chapter. at any point in your life. This is John Miles, and you've been PassionStruck.

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