TUP EP 105

Aransas Savas: [00:00:00] One really fun thing about the Uplifters Podcast is that sometimes I get to have up close and personal conversations with [00:00:15] women I've admired from afar for years or even decades. Today's.

It took place live on stage at our second annual Uplifters live event [00:00:30] in New York City, surrounded by so many incredible uplifters all there to lift each other up, to have deep, meaningful conversations and to explore. How to get and stay [00:00:45] courageous in this weird wild world that we're living in. Friends, we had women from ages 13 to 73 with a surprise guest, none other than Sandra Bookman.

I [00:01:00] hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. For me, it's a dream come true. Be joined by none other than the legend, the icon, Sandra Bookman. [00:01:15] So if you live in New York, you know Sandra because she truly is a part of the fabric of New York.

Sandra Bookman: Let's first dispel the icon and legend thing. I work [00:01:30] with some legends, but I'm not one of them.

Aransas Savas: I mean, let's talk then about how you would define that.

Sandra Bookman: I think I'm just old. No, and you know what? Okay. Aransas, his husband is in the business, so you know. Sometimes we don't last long. Mm-hmm. [00:01:45] In the business. 'cause it's fickle and I've been here for a long time, 27 years. I at wbc. Yeah. It's like dog years.

So stint icon. Yeah. Okay. We had a conversation about this in the newsroom, believe it or not, yesterday. Because I was [00:02:00] writing a, I was reading a copy, editing a script I had to read, and I said to my co-anchor, why the hell do they keep writing icon? You know? No, and the person was important, so I won't say who it was, but I said, it's not, I wouldn't call her an icon.

They're people, you [00:02:15] know? So I changed it. That's just my view. What did you change it to? I think I said she was a champion for whatever, you know, the causes that she, but you know, it's like saying hero over and over. Yeah. And we are guilty of saying it and yeah. And I'm not saying people aren't doing important things and [00:02:30] great things, but maybe they're just being a human being, not necessarily a hero.

Yeah, I know. I'm, I think that's sensitive.

Aransas Savas: No, I like where you're going with that because to me what it says is that it is. A role that we can all play.

Sandra Bookman: Yeah. But [00:02:45] also I think language means something. Yeah. A lot of times, and we have a tendency, you know, hyperbole, it's been mm-hmm. You know, everything is super.

Like, I'm fantastic. I'm a supermodel. I'd love for somebody to say that about me. Not gonna happen. Me and my five [00:03:00] foot four, probably actually five, three self, we don't need,

Aransas Savas: I think though, in some ways, being a resilient human being. Is even more impressive.

Sandra Bookman: Yeah. The truth of the matter is I think that most of us are resilient.

The thing is, you [00:03:15] can say you've been here 26 years. I think it's 27 and it may actually be today is my anniversary and which is kind of weird. That's kind of amazing. Yeah. I love that. I think it is today that I got here in New York, but [00:03:30] I, I think that most of us are resilient. People see me on TV every day.

So you, you know, you get credit for things that you don't really deserve credit for because people just sort of, God, she's been there a long time, man. She's working hard. God, she did all the shows today and [00:03:45] that's true. Uh, but I'm no more resilient than the woman who. You know somebody else that's working at the station, you don't see her on air, but she's there every day doing her job.

She goes home, now she's taking care of her kids and she's helping with [00:04:00] homework, and she's finding whatever her husband can't find in the house, and she's figuring out what people are gonna take for lunch the next morning, and she's getting her clothes ready the next morning and she gets up and gets everybody dressed.

No, I mean. That's every single day. I don't do any of that 'cause [00:04:15] it's just me and my shoes. And they do not too, I do have a husband now, but me and my shoes. So I don't, you know, I don't see myself as being much more resilient than probably most of the people sitting in this room. 'cause everybody has their own load to carry.[00:04:30]

Yeah.

Aransas Savas: You know what I mean? Yeah. I think that's such an important and, and beautiful and generous point to make. I just think it's the truth. Like we are the center of the universe as human be. Yeah. Well,

Sandra Bookman: I am the center of my universe. My husband knows that. [00:04:45] I say that jokingly because for a long time I probably was, because I wasn't married.

I don't have children. I have lots of nieces and nephews, but I don't have kids. And I made that decision when I was six. I know that's crazy, right? But it's truth. I [00:05:00] wanted Barbie dolls. I wanted fashion. I didn't want diapers. Work was everything. It just really was everything. 'cause I loved my job. I was so happy to be able to do this thing that I decided I was gonna do as a kid in Texas, in a little [00:05:15] town where we had the streets in my town were dirt roads.

I'm not embarrassed to say they're paved now, but it's a small town right outside of Houston, right between Houston and Galveston. And this is, it was just my dream to live in New York City and the first dream. Was that [00:05:30] I was going to be in a Broadway play and I was gonna be in the chorus and somebody was gonna discover me, and then I was become star.

I don't know, I read that somewhere, or it was in some old 1930s movie, but that was what I had in my head. And [00:05:45] then journalism sort of came into my life. And when I was in high school. A teacher was actually my debate coach. We were very close and you know, I was trying to figure out what am I gonna do? I the acting, I don't think I can.

I can sing, okay, I dance [00:06:00] okay, but I don't think I'm pretty enough. I don't know if I'm talented enough. What are my skills? It was this whole thing. And we were talking one day and she goes, well, you know what, you're always, because I was, I gotta read the newspaper. My parents, I grew up, you gotta know what's going on.

And she said, have you thought about [00:06:15] broadcast journalism? You're a great writer. Because I'd write some of my speeches and debates and competitions I was involved with and. So I went home and I watched Channel 13 in Houston, which is also a Disney station by the way. [00:06:30] And I'm on brand here. And I said, you know what, mom?

I think I wanna do be on tv. And my mother said, okay, go in and clean your room up. That is not a joke. That's what she said [00:06:45] to me. And so from that moment I said, this is what I was gonna do. And that was it. Because I felt it that I had the skillset, uh, the interest and, and I was gonna do it in New York City.

Wow. Eventually. Eventually. Wow. [00:07:00]

Aransas Savas: Well, and I think there is a real tension there between two things that you said. One being I'm going to be discovered. I know, right. And I think as little girls, many of us were raised to. Get really pretty and [00:07:15] really smart and really good. And then somebody would see us across a room and say, you, yeah, and we'd feel seen and validated, and then we could step into our light.

And so there was that fantasy and then there was the [00:07:30] reality of, this is what I'm gonna do. So what did the, I'm gonna make it happen look like,

Sandra Bookman: you know,

Aransas Savas: I

Sandra Bookman: was thinking last night, I was like, what am I gonna talk to them

Aransas Savas: about? I honestly hate talking about myself. I noticed that I tried to do some [00:07:45] research and I found out you're from Beaumont.

That's it.

Sandra Bookman: Yeah. Beaumont is, that is totally incorrect information. But security folks said years ago at one of the jobs, said, don't even correct it. Let 'em think what they want. Wrong birth date wrong. Hometown, everything. That's [00:08:00] fine with me. Fascinating said, it makes it easier. I'm actually from a small town called Dickinson, Texas.

Mm. Beaumont another small town in Texas was the, my first job, my first TV job. I always say it's like, well, I'm not gonna say you were born in then.

Aransas Savas: Uh, [00:08:15] no.

Sandra Bookman: But Beaumont is right on the border between. Texas, Louisiana border, and that was my first, first TV job. So somehow over the years, everybody said, oh, she's from Beaumont.

And I was just like, okay, that's fine. I'm, I'm from Port

Aransas Savas: Aransas. Yeah, I know. That's where Texans down, down the coast, [00:08:30]

Sandra Bookman: right. On the Gulf. Right, exactly. On the, on the Gulf of

Aransas Savas: Mexico. So now that we've cleared that up, back to how you went from fantasy to reality.

Sandra Bookman: I was thinking about it last night [00:08:45] because I.

I'm a sort of a goal oriented person, and it started really early when I was a little girl, and I really don't know where that comes from. My mother's personality was that [00:09:00] if it needed to be done, she was gonna do it and she might complain about it a little bit, but it was gonna get done. She was gonna move on to the next thing.

So I do have that. Part of her. My dad was just a, also, he's just, you know, he's been [00:09:15] perpetual motion since I was a kid. Always working, always working. He always had to be busy if he wasn't working at home. Actually, his job, he worked for an oil company in Texas. He was in middle management. We owned another business and autobody shops, and [00:09:30] he was working that he was.

Mowing the lawn. I mean just always working. So I had that thing I think I got from both of them. And once I got into school, I mean, I'm from the era, you know, as a black woman. I grew up in the [00:09:45] seventies and eighties. So you coming out of that time period when there were so many things that were opening up black people in America.

And women and women and opportunities. And it was just drilled into me and my sisters, [00:10:00] you can do what you want, you can be anything you want. You need to get your education. So I was one of those people that, I mean, I took it all to heart because you got it from the people in the church. We were Big Baptist, uh, family [00:10:15] and you know, so, and the family, friends, and early on we discovered that I obviously can talk, but I was a really good student and.

It just so I got it in my head that I'm gonna be somebody. It sounds silly [00:10:30] saying it now, but you know, when you're a little kid, it was the inspiration that I needed and so I set goals for myself in school. It just sounds so crazy, but it's the truth. Third grade, I knew there was award in the fifth grade for the best student in my [00:10:45] school, and I was gonna win it.

I didn't tell anybody that, but I had it in my head. I did. It is just so weird because I remember saying, I was telling this story, my dad, seeing my parents come to the school. It was the middle of the [00:11:00] afternoon and we were having this big assembly and I saw my mom and dad there. It was weird. And you only saw your parents if you had done something.

And my parents showed up at school if I didn't behave right. Mostly wasn't me as my sisters, [00:11:15] but I saw them and so I knew I won. I know it sounds so crazy, but I did and it, that was like a first goal and then it went from there to junior high school, whether it was running for class president, being a cheerleader.

[00:11:30] I'm just a goal-oriented person. It used to bother me if I didn't, you know, get what I want and I didn't. I didn't get mad at other people. I always thank God I had that, you know, I wasn't envious or, I mean, I can envy some people, but I wasn't jealous. I [00:11:45] wasn't mean-spirited. It just mean I had to work harder.

If I didn't get it was because I didn't do something. I mean, that's just the way my mind worked. I pretty much feel like all the goal, not all of them, but some, most of the goals that were truly important in school [00:12:00] I set for myself and I, it just kept to college. Once I decided I was doing this, I'm doing this, and then sometimes you had to shift gears.

Maybe this wasn't the thing for me or I didn't get it, and I was able to [00:12:15] talk myself down off the ledge of whatever that disappointment was to move on to the next thing. A lot of it was my mother. My mom. I lost my mother two years ago. And honestly the [00:12:30] hardest thing I've ever gone through and I felt like cats and dogs when I was growing up until I was about 25.

And I mean, cats and dogs is just crazy. Then I gotta the point where I just couldn't live, you know, without her. So that's been really hard to get past [00:12:45] as, as an old woman, but it was my mom. She just was encouraging and you got down about something and she would say, snap out of it. You got more important things to, you know, she just had a way of.

Pushing you to focus on the next thing. [00:13:00] Focus on you know yourself, not what you think you messed up or what you lost, and it just sort of kept my head on straight, if that makes sense. And I'm still goal oriented Now. I like I've run outta goals. Well, I have a goal, a billion dollars in a [00:13:15] retirement and, but everybody in here has that goal, right?

I believe you will get there. Not the billion

Aransas Savas: I may choose too. Look, may not exactly what you like. Yeah. What you expect, right? And that there are two things I'm really taking from your story. One [00:13:30] is a complete absence of a victim mindset.

Sandra Bookman: No, I've, I've been really, I'd like to call myself a victim sometimes, but then I just keep it moving.

'cause what am I complaining about? Uhhuh and I, I really mean that. Yeah, I can whine with the best of them, [00:13:45] but I, I do sort of have that ability to snap out of it. Get on with it. Mm-hmm. I'm a little British, I think a little British. There's probably some British in there.

Aransas Savas: I think. I'm a little Irish. I like to tell a long story about it, [00:14:00] but I think that lack of a victim mindset so often comes with a sense of self-empowerment and self-reliance, and an ability to manage what's in front of us, which is the.

Other piece of what I'm taking from you is that [00:14:15] yeah, things aren't gonna go expect.

Sandra Bookman: No, they don't. Is. Because I, I think I have sort of a, a force of nature. I can make it right. It's probably why I have so many bad relationships as a young woman because I could be in a room [00:14:30] with 20 men. 19 of them are terrific.

That 20th, the Fool, that is the one I would pick every time I would pick him, and I'm gonna fix him. I don't know. Now he had to be cute though, but [00:14:45]

Aransas Savas: that part wasn't bad.

Sandra Bookman: No, that part wasn't bad. And inevitably it was a disaster, but I just had this thing, I can fix it. I stopped that though. I'm glad you deserve that maturity.

Yeah.

Aransas Savas: Like look, a [00:15:00] good person is also interesting. Yeah.

Sandra Bookman: Unfortunately, I was able to recognize it when it, you know.

Aransas Savas: And I'm sure he's very handsome too to me. And I think the other thing then that I'll, I'll pull outta this, is [00:15:15] this idea that things don't look like what we expect, but they may meet the need that we were looking to meet.

Music: Mm-hmm.

Aransas Savas: Yeah. Right. So you may not get a billion dollar retirement. I hope you do, but what is a billion dollar retirement? Like what, what would that [00:15:30] give you?

Sandra Bookman: The funny thing is, is that I throw the billion dollars out there. Obviously I'm joking. For me retirement, when I say that, the reason I even mention the money is because it is one of the things that I am struggling with as I worked [00:15:45] toward the last few years of really working, I.

This thing I have about to take care of other people, mostly family members. As I said, I lost my mom and two years ago my dad is, is still living thank God, and driving us bananas. [00:16:00] But he's 84. He's has multiple myeloma, which is a, you know, cancer that's incurable. It's in remission, but it's. Sort of a day-to-day thing, and I feel responsible for taking care of not only him, and [00:16:15] he's, you know, financially fine, but I have three younger sisters and I have a, a younger brother, and they're all adults.

I talk about them as if they're teenagers, but in the back of my mind, because I'm the oldest, if you hadn't figured that out, I know there's some firstborns in here [00:16:30] and I, I know I'm a classic firstborn. But I feel like I wanna, even when I'm not working, the, the income is steady that I still need to be able to, the thing is, is I know that that's not really my responsibility.

So [00:16:45] intellectually I know it, but I am sort of working through the, you gotta let some of that go. 'cause if you don't, you're gonna be working till you're 85. So that is the struggle in myself right now. That's one of the ones my husband keeps going, you can quit now. You can [00:17:00] quit. We can move to Italy. You can quit.

And I'm like, mm, not yet. Yeah.

Aransas Savas: I mean, I think for a lot of women that is part of feeling a sense of safety and control to feel like we can take care of everything. Yeah. [00:17:15] If you give women 50 plates and 10 hats to wear simultaneously, we'll stack that shit up. Oh, I

Sandra Bookman: know.

Aransas Savas: And

Sandra Bookman: juggle it

Aransas Savas: all. And juggle it. And only be upset when we drop one, and then we'll blame ourselves and be like, what's wrong with you?

Exactly. Yep. [00:17:30] With this strong sense of responsibility, how do you manage kindness toward yourself? I am not always very kind to myself. Thank you for being honest about that.

Sandra Bookman: You know, I'm, I probably like a lot of [00:17:45] high strong women. I just, you are going, going, going, doing everything, and then like you said, you drop the plate and it's your fault when you're like, are you kidding me?

Mm-hmm.

Music: You

Sandra Bookman: shouldn't have been juggling 15 things

Aransas Savas: Right. To begin with. Why does nobody in your family know how to juggle a plate? Because you were juggling [00:18:00] them all. Yes. That's, and honestly,

Sandra Bookman: that is a big thing. Keep calm, carry on. As I've gotten older, I just acknowledge that I can't do some things anymore.

I mean, [00:18:15] again, it's in the back of my mind because I'm trying to beat myself up. But thank God I, as my mom would say, I learned some sense. So she'd say it like that and realize you can't do all this, and if you can't do it, [00:18:30] there's no reason you can't ask somebody for help and no reason. You can't say no.

Which I've learned in the last five years, I would say to say no to things because I would say yes to [00:18:45] everything coming my way. Work things. I still say yes to too many work things, but, uh, things associated work, speaking engagements because honestly I feel so lucky to do what I do to work in this [00:19:00] city.

I just feel really blessed 'cause a lot of people don't get a chance to do the thing that they dreamed of doing to live in the place they wanted to live. To see all the things that I've seen, to experience the things I've experienced, to, to meet the people I've [00:19:15] met, to work with some of the smartest people on the planet, to actually, when shit, excuse the expression, hit the fan, you know, to not be home wondering what's going on, but to, to be doing my part.

Whatever that is, whether [00:19:30] it's, you know, on the street telling people what's going on, sitting on the set, explaining to people, trying to make it so that you know, they have a real sense of what's happening and understand, I mean, I feel privileged to do that. So my feeling was I [00:19:45] should be saying yes, I have to be giving back and this cost me nothing except.

I don't sleep very well. I'm always tired. And so finally I started saying, okay, you gotta say no. It doesn't mean you don't care, but you can't do all that stuff and. [00:20:00] I'm not 30, which my husband keeps telling me. He keeps reminding me. I thought we liked him. You're not 30 anymore. No. I'll say he's younger than me too.

Not he ain't 30 young. I, but he's younger than me. We don't judge. No, no, that's, that's a [00:20:15] baby. But he will remind me. What are you doing? And that has been really helpful for me because I know he has my best interest and it's not about controlling me, which he absolutely can't do. I think he's okay with that.

He sees it that I will just [00:20:30] keep working myself to death. And my mother had that straight too, and my dad, so as we say in Texas, oh, he got it honest and he come by it honest. Mm-hmm.

Aransas Savas: A of course, [00:20:45] we change throughout the course of our lives and we learn and we grow, but hopefully along the way we learn to show ourselves the grace that we show everyone else.

Sandra Bookman: Yeah, I think it's important because you gotta take care of yourself. How are you taking care of other people? [00:21:00] And you can't take care of yourself, you're not gonna be able to do all that.

And so I have learned over the years to take a minute and stop whatever that is. It just means reading or traveling or saying I'm exercising, but not really. [00:21:15] And I know that's really bad, but you know, not drinking too much 'cause that doesn't solve anything. But just the right about does take the edge off.

I'm just, just Okay. [00:21:30]

Aransas Savas: Yeah. Finding that balance there in all things. Enough rest, but not too much.

Sandra Bookman: Yeah. Well, there's no such thing as enough rest. Yeah. Not in your business especially. You have what,

Aransas Savas: two daughters? I do, but actually I, [00:21:45] you know. Except for last night, I mostly sleep pretty well.

Sandra Bookman: Well then you, then you must be doing something right?

I

Aransas Savas: mean, you know, I'm just, I'm turning 50 today. I'm not turning, I'm 50 today. Oh my God. Happy birthday. Thanks. On your [00:22:00] anniversary. And you know, like the menopause bug is like crawling up, right? And so that is the part I'm most afraid of, the sleeping part.

Sandra Bookman: Yeah, well, I, I've not slept well my whole life. I, again, my parents, [00:22:15] my dad sleep two hours.

He is fine. I would do that. I used to do it all the time. I can't do that anymore if I have to. And I can do it if I'm working and I have something to focus on, but I try not to do it 'cause I, I can't really function, you know? I can't think. But you will [00:22:30] be fine. You will be fine. Lemme tell you, I didn't think I was gonna be fine and I didn't even wanna tell anybody.

Mm. I know it sounds crazy. I, 'cause I felt I have issues with age. It's my issue, nobody else's. It's [00:22:45] issues with my age. That's it. And so I didn't even wanna talk about, you know, going through menopause, I girlfriends, but I was just basically sucked it up, did what I needed to do, took you know, advice from the doctor and [00:23:00] knew that this too would pass.

And it did.

Aransas Savas: Yeah. And I think too, every time we get to hear somebody say, you're gonna be okay,

Sandra Bookman: I promise you it is. It's just another phase and you keep on living all the things [00:23:15] that I just thought, oh my God, how am I gonna get through this? How can I do it? How can I deal with that? It's kind one of those things.

It is, and this is natural. It's not some manmade catastrophe. It's just a natural and it's just, you're just moving from one phase to the [00:23:30] other. You know? Yes, some things do change, but that's life. Yeah. The important thing is that you get on the other side and keep it moving.

Aransas Savas: That's right. And that you embrace what is, instead of trying to hold onto what was,

Sandra Bookman: and it doesn't change who you are.

I think that's an [00:23:45] underlying, at least for me, that you know, who am I? I can't have babies anymore. You don't even have children you didn't want what are talking about? Mm, I think, I think my mother said that to me and I was like, okay, you're right. After she said, [00:24:00] well, you never know what God has in store for you.

Sarah had a baby. When she was a hunch, I was like, Sarah was in the Bible. You know? It was just was, it was like

basically [00:24:15] she was just basically trying to get me to realize how ridiculous I was sounding and. But she understood.

Aransas Savas: Yeah. I think though we all have that tendency, right? Mm-hmm. To hold onto what was, to hold onto old dreams. And one of the things I think [00:24:30] that we can do for ourselves that is the biggest gift is to say what's right for right now.

Sandra Bookman: Yeah. But it's um, day to day thing, you don't have to even make a decision about that. I'm saying this now I can my husband go, did you say that? Was that you? [00:24:45] 'cause I behave exactly the opposite. You know, it's, it's a fire, fire every time I, you know, I want something, I have to deal with something at least in my head for a few minutes.

Aransas Savas: Yeah. And maybe that's just part of the process. Mm-hmm. Is to have the fire. To get [00:25:00] to the calm. Yeah. This has been really exciting to have Sandra here, hasn't it? I think your job is so interesting in that you really have helped millions of New Yorkers over the last [00:25:15] 27 years navigate some of the toughest moments of our collective existence, a calm presence.

I appreciate that. A voice of wisdom. Voice, I know about the wisdom. That's kind of like the icon

Music: thing. [00:25:30]

Aransas Savas: Did it your, and you always brought your own unique stamp. To your storytelling, and you've made us feel a little bit safer, a little bit better informed. I'm watching the New Yorkers in the room. Not along, especially those who are old enough to have had [00:25:45] televisions,

and you've helped us all find our way through those moments.

Sandra Bookman: I hope so. I, I really do love this city. I think that it is just a, we got some issues. Mm-hmm. Not surprising for the times, but it [00:26:00] is just this magnificent. Place of energy. And a lot of times, to me it feels like it's what you'd want the world to feel like.

Unless you're sitting in traffic on Broadway in Soho and wondering why the hell is [00:26:15] there one lane? What, what is that?

Aransas Savas: I don't know.

Sandra Bookman: But other than that, I just, and it's all, I love it. Yeah. And it's, it's just every neighborhood has its own flavor. And one of the things I loved about being [00:26:30] on the street. Is that because I don't believe you can really, it's hard to sit.

I'm street as a reporter, sit as a reporter. You sit at the anchor desk, which which is great thought. Yeah. And on the street. Thank you. It's how you get to know the city. You report on Frog's [00:26:45] neck or. Bay Ridge or Brownsville or East New York, and if you don't go there, how do you know? I'm not saying I'm an expert on them, but it's important for me to go there to see who people are, [00:27:00] how they live, how the housing is different, find the best sandwich shop.

It sounds weird, but I also think that. You're gonna work in the city like this and do what we do. People need to see you in their neighborhood because then they have a feeling that you at least have a half [00:27:15] an idea of what you're talking about. You know, that is just really important to me personally.

And believe me, I would love to sit on the anchor desk every day with my lipstick on and my hair combed and somebody else doing it. And now I think I've gotten old enough, but [00:27:30] I really loved that. I sincerely. I do miss that sometimes.

Aransas Savas: I think that is a perfect way to close this out because we started today with what I called a poo platter, and we brought up people who had different lived [00:27:45] experiences to talk about moments of courage in their lives so that we could sample and taste one another's experiences.

And so much of what scares me about these times, what feels most [00:28:00] alarming, is our lack of curiosity about one another. The assumptions we keep on each other and we, we just make up human beings based on our own imagination. And the movie we saw or the story we heard. Social media. [00:28:15] Right. I mean, I think, and I'm not blaming social media, you're

Sandra Bookman: absolutely right.

Problems on social media, but I think we only have a tendency now to read that's already reinforc in a, with us Reinforc reinforces what we think. We go to a few sources and it [00:28:30] just. You're hearing it over and over and over, you know, if you're lucky, the source is positive and factual. The problem is most, most of it's not, and people seem to have a, a hard time differentiating between even [00:28:45] when it's fantastical.

What is this? People blood sucking something, movie stars in Hollywood? I, I just, I'm like, but people really believe that. I don't know how that, I still can't understand [00:29:00] how some of the things people really start to believe. If you're in an echo

Aransas Savas: chamber though, and you're hearing that reinforced, you start to believe it.

Sandra Bookman: But Haitians eating dogs, I mean, and no, but first of all, anybody can say anything. Yes. [00:29:15] That's just bizarre. I used that because it became the basis for a lot of other just craziness. That scares me.

Aransas Savas: It scares me too, and I think we need to get out of our own. Echo chamber, echo, and we need to hear [00:29:30] other people's stories.

And we need to go into other neighborhoods. We need to go into other towns. We need to go into the places where we're making assumptions and reconnect as human beings. And so to have you here in this room with us. In real life [00:29:45] and off the screen, it's freaking awesome, Sandra book. You're so sweet. Thank you, Ram.

And I promise I won't call you an icon or a legend to your face again. No, I'm, I'm not offended. I'm just like, I, I can't live up to that. I was at an [00:30:00] event last year with Andrea Shields and he introduced himself. He was like. I go by the pronouns icon legenda

Sandra Bookman: god

Music: of theater.

Sandra Bookman: Well, you know what? He actually can, he lives up to it.[00:30:15]

Yeah.

Aransas Savas: Thank you for listening to the Uplifters podcast. If you're getting a boost from these episodes. Please share them with the uplifters in your life and then join us in [00:30:30] conversation over@theuplifterspodcast.com. Head over to Spotify, apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. And like, follow and rate our show.

It'll really help us connect with more [00:30:45] uplifters and it'll ensure you never miss one of these beautiful stories. Mmm.

Music: Big love painted water, sunshine with rosemary. And I'm dwelling the [00:31:00] perplexing, though you find it ing. Toss a star in half for be around best love for relish in a new prime land, a tree in springtime dance.

With that hindsight, bring the [00:31:15] sun to twilight. Lift you up. Whoa.

Lift you up.

Lift you up. Whoa. [00:31:30] Lift you up.

Lift you up.

Lift you[00:31:45]

lift.

Mm. Beautiful. I cried. [00:32:00] It's that little thing you did with your voice, right? In the pre-course, right? Uhhuh. Uhhuh. I was like, mommy, mommy, stop crying. You're disturbing the peace.