Stop the Need for #MeToo, Its Up to You!

Good day, good day, good day everyone, and Happy Thanksgiving! Or at least Happy Thanksgiving week. I hope, I hope, I hope you have a blessed, blessed, blessed celebration with your family and friends. And for those of you around the world who don't have a need to celebrate Thanksgiving, maybe you just want to Relish in, um, an opportunity on Thursday to be grateful for everything, uh, that you have in your life. I know I certainly, um, not only on Thursday, but I've been making it a practice to intentionally, um, whether it's just in my head, you know, just kind of rattling off all the things I'm grateful for, in my prayers, or in my journal. And I've been trying to do that because you guys know how much I love putting your thoughts to paper. So I've been really focused on putting those things down on paper so I can really look at them and appreciate them. But today, as I mentioned, today I kind of changed things up as far as wanting— what we want to talk about and what I would love your input to. So of course it is the time period of gratitude, and I'll be honest with you, I'm grateful for the chaos that is going on right now, um, as far as the Me Too movement and this, um, kind of revelations of all these powerful men, um, as it pertains to sexual harassment and sexual abuse. Um, and we'll talk about the difference— differences and the extremes of what all of that looks like because I think there's a lot of kind of confusion on both the part of women and men, even as far as victims are concerned and the perpetrators, as far as what really is like outside the line. And I'm going to give you a clue of what might be outside the line: anything and everything that puts someone else in a very, uh, difficult, painful, um, shameful position, or a position where they don't have the, you know, their power and they aren't able to voice. And if they are voicing it, you're not hearing it. So anything outside of those lines. However, however, legally even, there's delineations. And I'm not going to get into the legal stuff. I'm not a lawyer. That would be a great conversation and a person to have, and maybe I will do that in the coming weeks. Find someone who can speak to it. But at least from a professional, from an executive coach, from a both corporate and entrepreneurial leader, from a woman's standpoint, we'll definitely get into what those differences are just so we can clear some of the air. And I'll include the conversation that's going on out there and tidbits that are coming out of that so you can hear not only from myself but from others. But what really has me kind of worked up about it, and what we're gonna then kind of package into a conversation today, is I'm just blown away by the outright ignorance on this issue. You know, for example, you know, right now in politics, because it's voting season, everyone has an agenda. And it is stunning to me, uh, what is coming out of high officials that we're supposed to revere and respect and trust in guiding us. And they're basically ignoring the victims, actually blaming them, and allowing the perpetrator to get away with it. All in the name of politics, all in the name of protecting a seat in Senate, all in the name of getting, you know, a particular party into, you know, into their position, into their role, into the Senate or the House or wherever. And it's just stunning to me how they're blatantly saying, I don't like what I'm hearing and seeing, but I'm gonna vote for them anyway. So we're gonna get into all that. And then I'm also, um, I'm also kind of outraged on the number of victims that are coming forward and the— their— and then as a result of that, the number of people that are still thinking that these women are lying and they're not trusting that they're— that they have had and they've dealt with some form of abuse or harassment. Or the situations that they're explaining, because it's been decades since, since these things have happened. So we're going to get into that because I'm going to share with you my stories. If you want to join and share your stories, I would love you to, um, and so we have your voice into this, in this as well. And I'm going to work on doing that and getting it more structured and more formal as far as having people on the show. But I, you know, woke up probably late last week and decided on this subject. But then when I woke up this morning, I just— it got amped up 100 times more, and you'll, you'll learn why. So stay tuned. And then lastly, why this is, you know, kind of just got my goat, so to speak, is not only because of the number of men that are on the list, but The men themselves, the specific men, some of them I kind of, you know, I don't really care. I mean, you know, it's— I feel more for the victims, I feel more for those impacted by it than I do for that person and therefore their career and their lifelong, you know, investment in whatever it is that they're doing. But there have been a couple that have greatly, greatly, greatly disappointed me and soured me. And we're gonna get into that because one of them was this morning, so you could probably conclude who that is. But one of them came up this morning, so we're gonna kind of wrap that up into conversations regarding the impact of sexual harassment, abuse, and why do women— why do victims— because it's— there's men out there as well that are coming forward— why do they wait so long? What is the impact that these situations and events are having on them to where they're not coming forward, and what causes them not to come forward, and why does it happen. So there's a lot of opinions about why it happens, and trust me, a lot of them go finger-pointing back to the victim, as you know, blaming them. So we're going to talk about that, and then we're going to talk about what we could be doing about it, because nothing is going to happen, nothing's going to change, nothing's going to be different unless we're willing to do something about it. And it doesn't matter if you're the victim, it could be everyone, and it should be everyone around you And you should be supporting everyone around you in order to ensure that this doesn't continue to happen. And when it does, we, we were able to do something about it. Okay, so we do have a rich question for this kind of sensitive subject today, but it's going to be merely around: if this happened to you, what would you do? If it's happened to you, what did you do? And if it hasn't happened, what are you willing to do? I want you to think about that as we have this conversation, because I'm hoping that at least from a Me Too— I'll call myself a victim of sexual harassment and abuse. At the same time, I'd rather just call myself a Me Too, not for any other reason than I don't want people to kind of, you know, use that label not against me. I really could care less what you think. Quite honestly, I mean, it's not about you, it's about me. And in this situation, it's about all those other women and men who have fallen victim to this situation. So I want you to be thinking about, if it happened to you, what would you do? If it happened, what did you do? And if it hasn't, what are you willing to do to ensure it doesn't again? You can hashtag with us with #MeToo, but also use the hashtag #ShedTheAbuseBitch. Not just #ShedTheBitch, but #ShedTheAbuseBitch. And then of course #MeToo. All right, we're gonna take a quick break. When we get back, we're gonna be getting into the impacts of this situation of sexual abuse and harassment. We'll be right back. Welcome back everyone to our conversation regarding #MeToo, the hashtag #MeToo, and also the hashtag #ShedTheAbuseBitch. So those are the two hashtags we're talking about, because what we're talking about is sexual harassment and sexual abuse and all the skeletons that are coming out of people's closets. So we first want to talk about the impact of this, the impact not only to the victim but even to the perpetrator. And why would I do that? Well, we'll talk about that. Why would I, I, I, would I highlight you know, the, the victim— I'm sorry, the perpetrator— in this conversation. But in order for you to understand the impact, I thought I should tell you some stories, some of my stories, and break them into various situations and examples. And hopefully, like I said, we're gonna be weaving in great gratitude through this conversation. You should be grateful if this has not happened to you. So what I ask of those that have not dealt dealt with this and therefore might be confused and unsure of their position in this matter, I just ask you to keep an open mind and just walk through the scenarios as well as this discussion. And maybe through that, through our own stories, we can help each other gain an understanding and gain a degree of opinion, because then you have one, as opposed to just draw— making judgments and drawing conclusions without at least engaging in conversation around it. So I want you to picture this. So picture a young woman, or even a seasoned woman, in the workplace. It could be a male-dominated place. So mine was— I typically was in environments where, especially in my 20s, where it was male-dominated, and I was typically one, if not a few, women in the room, as they say. And I didn't do a lot of traveling at the beginning of my career, and I'm gonna say like, you know, in my early 20s. However, I did run into a situation where I went away on a, on a business trip, and it was with other men. And maybe I'm trying— I was trying to think about this the other day— maybe one other woman, maybe two. And we were in a hotel and we went out to dinner. We went back to the bar to have drinks, which was a common thing to do, and I headed up to my room. Well, unbeknownst to me, I was being followed to my room. And so it was someone that I worked with, and it was someone that was in a higher level of position than I, and I kind of was like, okay, well, maybe I wasn't going to challenge, you know, why I'm being followed. I thought maybe, you know, his room was down my hallway. Maybe they put us all in the same vicinity of this hotel room. So I really didn't think much about it. And now I will acknowledge and admit that I had a couple of drinks in me. Actually, I had a few drinks in me. And I will also say that he definitely did. He definitely did. But again, that's not— I'm not going to be using that as an excuse. So I just kind of went on my way, but I'm cautious, I'm smart, I've, you know, traveled pretty much, not just for work, but so I knew that I should be kind of aware of my surroundings. Well, in a matter of seconds, I was overcome and overtaken actually at my hotel room door, opening the door, you know, they used to, you know, they had those plastic keys, they probably still do, it's been a while since I've needed to stay in a hotel room, but they had these plastic plastic keys, and I was having a hard time swiping it. And but when I— by the time I did, and my latch of my door opened up, I was overtaken by this, this guy, this man that was behind me, what I thought was walking to his room. And so he kind of, kind of forced himself on me. My door didn't fully open at the moment of time, and he kind of was like, oh, you know, well, Bernadette, you want this as much as I want this. And and why not, we're away, and you know, no one would know, and you know, it doesn't have to change anything, and so forth and so on. And he did manage to kind of push the door open and push me into the room. But I fortunately, and thank God I have 6 brothers and kind of was a tomboy as a kid, plus at the same time I'm pretty, you know, assertive and somewhat aggressive, and I was able to just kind of find my grounding, and I was just like, I'm like, that's not happening. I can't exactly remember the exact words, but I— this— that's not happening. This isn't happening. And trust me when I say, I, you know, I will report you, you know, should you try anything, you know, further. Which he did. Which he did. He thought I was blowing smoke, and he didn't get to the point of calling me a bitch just yet, but it, you know, he worked his way there. And I just kind of took all my force and I just pushed him out of the room, and I shut the door and I locked it. And fortunately, he kind of gained enough composure to where he wasn't gonna be stupid enough to start banging on the door and raising attention to himself, and he kind of wandered away on his, you know, merry way. Well, we were gonna be in this environment for a few days, so I was definitely gonna be running back into him. And I recognized the next day that he was very fuzzy on the details, like he really didn't remember. And the reason why I say that is I didn't confront him first up front, but he was very blatant. He didn't— he wasn't embarrassed to come right up to me, "Hey, what's going on?" You know, and engaging with me. There was no of that. However, I was somewhat taken aback because I thought, okay, what do I do? He wasn't my boss, but he was a senior person to me. You know, what is this going to do to my career? So all of those things run through a person's head. So just put yourself in that position, and what would you do? As I asked in the Rich question, what would you do if that happened to you? What if you heard about it? What would you do about it? And then we're going to come back to just kind of what I did do and what I recommend anyone to do. So the other one would be, um, and this isn't actually specifically me, but what if you were an up-and-coming actor, singer, musician, athlete, and all of a sudden someone of influence was— and, and you traveled maybe, or you were kind of alone with them. Uh, in the situation of the, of the U.S. gymnastics doctor, the head medical doctor responsible for all of the athletes, of the gymnasts, female specifically, and here they're entrusting you that you're taking care of them. Here they're 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, teen into adulthood, and they're made to believe that this is normal medical procedure and only learn, you know, through their own discomfort and inner workings or inner discovery that it's, you know, it's far more than just typical routine medicine. However, at the same time, that individual, especially if young, or even if they're an older musician, actor, actress, singer, and the decision makers who— that they may be alone with, that they may have to be in a car with, that they may have to go to their home, their private home even, as many have discussed, and kind of not necessarily have auditions, but maybe they have to be there for reviewing scripts or working through their song or their lyrics, or, you know, auditioning for their athletic competition or whatever the case might be. And this person who can decide on whether or not they go to the Olympics or whether or not they, you know, get a record deal or whether or not they're gonna get cast in that next, that next TV or film, this person is causing them to believe that they have no power and that that is a welcome situation. And especially, especially when, if it is in situations where they are left alone, they're meeting after hours, and/or they're doing, you know, they're putting themselves into position in situations that aren't surrounded by other people or typical. However, don't be fooled, there's a lot of what I'll call entourages in business as much as in entertainment or, or sports. There's entourages that kind of turn a blind eye and support the person who's paying them the paycheck and/or making decisions about their career, um, and kind of introducing them to the people that they need to be introduced to. There are those situations as well. Uh, the third situation I want you to consider is you're a wife of a prominent person. And now, as a, you know, the title wife would— people would assume would mean that, well, you know, anything goes, so to speak. And yet you are being emotionally or physically battered and abused, even mentally, emotionally, mentally, physically battered or abused. But this individual is a well-known prominent figure in the community, at church, in the workplace. Maybe it's your own business and both of you are working there. And I'm well aware of a situation such as that. And so both those individuals, the husband and the wife, work together, and still she, she is a victim of his abuse and harassment. However, what does she do? So if you have any soul, if you have any compassion at all, you, you know, you could kind of walk through and put yourself in their shoes and walk through those scenarios to kind of think about, think about what would you do or what did you do. But let's But let's break down the actual event, because then from the— those scenarios is the impact that we want to talk about. And people question, why are these people waiting 30, 40 years to come forward? Well, I'll take— I'll tell you for myself, my situation, and that scenario that I gave you, um, when I was in my 20s. Now I can give you multiple scenarios I can give you multiple stories when it comes to my being a very, you know, young teen and with an older boy. And I can give you a scenario with a cop. I can give you a story with multiple business people, whether it be, you know, at home, so to speak, in the workplace, or during travels and during outside of work type of scenarios. Uh, you know, so I— you can use any one of them. I can use any one of them to kind of walk you through what actually goes on from the time the moment the event starts to when it finishes to years later. What's going on in that person's head that you need to make sure you understand? So first off, it's the actual moment. It's the in-the-moment event. And that individual, myself specifically, I can tell you, you're really not quite sure what the hell's going on. I mean, that's your first response is, holy crap, what is happening? And then you go kind of go into that fight-or-flight mode, and you might be not be able to, you know, flee. You may be stuck there. I can tell you with the cop scenario, it was a scenario where it was a, you know, we were outside of the workplace, though I, you know, he was a cop and he happened to be off duty. And we all, a group of friends of mine and I, were drinking. I happened to stop drinking, so I was the sober one by the time we decided to leave where we were, and I offered this gentleman a ride home. And the next thing you know, I am dropping him off. I have to go to the restroom, to the bathroom, really, really, really bad. And I'm like 20 minutes from home. I had no choice. Either I was going outside or I was running in, using his bathroom, and turning around and leaving. Well, there was my— I'm not gonna call it a mistake, but there was my situation. I went to the bathroom, came out, and there he was naked, and there I was trying to get out, and he wasn't allowing me to get out. So you're, you know, when it's happening, you're sitting there trying to figure it out, and then you're trying to figure out a way out of it. And in some situations, you're kind of forced to play along. And if no one out there can understand that, lucky for you if you weren't in that situation, never put in that situation. So you're trying to figure out, how can I get out of this situation? You know, and can I, can I kind of fake my way through? And in some situations I was able to. Obviously with that guy in the hotel room, God, somebody gave me the strength to just literally— I just pushed him and found a strength within me that just got him out of that, you know, that room, and I was able to slam the door. And be done with that situation. The situation with the cop was somewhat similar. Won't go into all the graphic details, but basically I was able to, as he was kind of trying really hard— I don't want to use the word rape, but as he was assaulting me, I'll say— I was able to conjure up a way, and it's graphic, so I won't go into it, but for him to kind of take care of himself and for me to get out of the situation. But I will tell you, when I got outside— so this is immediately after, so you have what's going on in the moment that these individuals are dealing with. You know, you're dealing with people feeling trapped, people absolutely fearful. I don't know that I felt that I was fearful for my life. I was just fearful for my body and my being. And they're, they're feeling just panic and, and just utter, like, that flight— fight or flight type of mentality. But moments later, moments later, and hopefully if, you know, someone gets out of it, and if they don't, moments later they're then dealing with the shame and the disgust, and still that fear is hanging on. Like, what the hell just happened? And is it going to happen again, or is it, is it done? You know, am I going to get myself home safe and sound in order to, you know, put this behind me? And for me, I know I jumped in my car and raced down the street but stopped because I had no freaking clue where I was. I knew how to— how I got there directionally. But at that point in time, in the state of being that I was in, I had no clue where I was. And so fortunately there were those big, big-ass cell phones at the time. I called a friend and she came to pick me up. I left my car, she drove me home, we came back for it the next day. So, you know, moments later, a victim of of anything, even if the situation is simply, um, like Sally— oh darn, I'm gonna forget her name because I'm all worked up— uh, but the, um, the CEO and president of, um, Elevate, she was on CBS This Morning talking about this as part of a panel, and she was even describing the fact that in the workplace she simply would find herself kind of working at her desk leaning over the desk, you know, talking with someone, going over a spreadsheet with someone, and there was another man behind her, like, acting as if he was, like, you know, grabbing her butt and wrapping his arms around and grabbing her boobs. He didn't, but that's what she was dealing with. She also said that she would come across, um, she would, you know, come across men at their desks, and she'd have to be, you know, they'd have, like, pictures of genitalia there and kind of egging her on about it, like, what does she think and all this. This kind of good stuff. So it doesn't matter what degree of harassment— as I said, we're going to delineate— that would be harassment, just kind of shaming you and embarrassing you and mocking you and making you feel very unsafe and insecure in those situations that Sally was dealing with, all the way to sexual abuse. But you're right then and there after the moment are trying to figure out how you got in that situation. And you're blaming yourself. You're work— walking through it to say, how could I have done something different? You're feeling pretty grossed out and disgusted, not only about the situation and that person but yourself. Uh, you know, you're— all kinds of things are going on. Now let's take it to, you know, days, weeks, months later. Um, and I can only tell you, um, for myself, it still came down to being now, because if I'm considering, or anyone's considering, talking about it and sharing it, let alone reporting it, because that's different— talking about it to a friend, sharing it with kind of a psychiatrist, somebody in confidence, or reporting it— those are drastically different, and they also create and build up a whole other degree of emotions that can cause someone to then make choices about whether or not they do report it and move forward with it. Because you're now feeling guilt. I mentioned embarrassment. You're feeling insecure that you're going to be trusted, that you're going to be heard, that you're not going to be blamed. And again, there's that fear, you know, am I going to lose everything that I just have, you know, that I've just spent my entire life building up? So you have to really— for any of you who have been through it, you get it. Maybe have touched on it or may have kind of known somebody, you kind of get it. But, you know, thank gosh, gratitude, you, you know, weren't a victim of it. And to those that absolutely, you know, have no— don't know anyone and have not been through it, well, all I have to tell you is you have to walk in these people's shoes in order to understand. That's all I'm asking you to do, is to walk in the shoes through any of these type of scenarios to really truly understand. Now we're going to take a quick, quick break just because I can sense that I'm getting all worked up. I'm going to take a glass of water and then we're going to come back because what I really want to talk to you about is, okay, so why does it take so long? What are the choices that these women— I mentioned them briefly But what are the choices these men or women are working through in order to decide whether or not they come forward or not? And then it's 10, 20, 30 years later and everyone is then like, what the hell, why are they— why have they waited so long? All right, we'll be right back. Welcome back everyone, it is all about #MeToo today. It's all about trying to gain an understanding of, God, the chaos that's going on in the world when it comes to sexual harassment and abuse. And I got worked up about it and felt that I just needed to kind of take a little breather there. At the same time, I'm gonna take another little breather just to kind of tell you and share with you. I got up— I am videotaping this And I videotaped last week's, so if anyone's wondering why that didn't go up on YouTube, I'm gonna be posting it, but I'm gonna just tell you right now, this is what happens when I'm in a studio by myself. So here I do this, the whole program last week, videotape it, and I go to watch it and I have like this splotch of lipstick underneath my lip because I have no lips, so I always tend to kind of get a little piece of lipstick slab of lipstick underneath. So I was like, I'm not gonna post this. And then I looked at it yesterday and I said, you know what, what the hell, I don't care. I have lipstick on. If the message resonates and you can learn something from it, then that's what's most important. So I will be posting that because it was all around shedding the chaos of time. But more kind of joyfully, I guess I'll say, when I took a little break during that commercial to check out the video, I I noticed, and I did not notice even though he's lying right here next to me, but I noticed Mr. Charlie— you all know Charlie, my 11-and-a-half-year-old pup— I noticed he kind of came and laid behind me, and he was very visible on the video. So you'll get to actually see Charlie for quite a bit, although thank God he's nice and quiet and sleeping and having a good old time. Anyway, that little break gave me time to at least breathe. But let's get back to this conversation because we're talking about the impacts of sexual harassment and sexual abuse, whether or not you have been a part of it— I'll call you a victim— or you're a standby. Maybe you were a witness to it, as many people in the workplace are. They're witness to those subtle sexual harassment. And that's the difference— sexual harassment, sexual abuse— because sexual harassment mostly is done kind of in public environments, where sexual abuse you would hope not. But you would actually hope too that you could actually then stop it. But so sexual harassment is even those very subtle innuendos, jokes, Maybe they are judgments. Maybe, you know, just someone is bringing in the conversations or the topics of sex or pornography or just outright disgust— that's all I'll call it— into the workplace. And if you are a woman in a male-dominated industry— technology, financial services, Wall Street, you know, you'll understand what I'm talking about. And so, you know, people will say, well, that's just joking around, you know, that's just messing around, that's just locker room talk. Oh, I hate that. I hate that term. And even our president used it. That just goes to show kind of the abuse the total abuse of power that, that many people in power, and specifically in these situations men— oh gosh, it's just, they like, they like to write it off to locker room talk. Anyway, back to what we're talking about. So we were talking as we went on to break about choices, the choices that these victims make or have a choice to make. So let's run through them. So there's that choice of where you simply decide that you're going to say something. Okay, I'm gonna start with the most drastic. You're gonna say something and you're gonna risk everything. I mean everything. People are fired because of reporting these type of situations. People are further abused. For reporting these situations. Um, and what really disgusts me about it is here these women have the courage and the bravery— and I should say men again, I'm sorry— uh, to come forward and tell their story. And yet there's tons of people out there, haters out there, and many of them deem themselves Christian. All these Christian evangelists who come out, and specifically for Moore in Alabama, uh, that race in Alabama that's going on, and, you know, are blaming the victim and/or saying that none of it is true and that they're all lies and that they're still willing to support. That is the risk that women and men take when they go to the far extreme to report it. So Think about, okay, would you report it? What would you do? That was one of our questions. What would you do? The next degree is just tell a friend or share it with a professional, yet keep them all in confidence. Like, just purge it because you need to purge it. I ran home to my sister, uh, for one of my situations, the cop situation. I ran home to one of my, to one of my sisters, um, and kind of purged it to her. Now, the first situation that I had mentioned, uh, in the— with the guy that followed me to my hotel room, I should mention that I actually reported it. I didn't care about my, my, um, career, my reputation. I didn't care about risking anything. That was, that was so terrifying to me, and that was so frightening to me, um, and that was just so— such a horrific experience for me that I didn't even think about kind of everything else. I just said, no, I'm reporting this and this needs to get taken care of. And thank God it actually did. And despite the fact that they were senior to me, it was taken care of and that person was fired and out of my life and out of the company's life. But even there's a risk there because there's a risk that if you do report it and that person loses their job, career, their livelihood, in their mind, then that could put you in danger. That could put me in danger. And one of my situations was even when I was, you know, 13 or 14, and I had a stalker, which is another time and another story. But so there, you know, there's also that, that type of situation that causes, you know, then 3, 4, 10 years later another situation happens and you're like, no, this time I'm reporting it, or this time I'm burning it deep And that's the third layer of choice that victims have, is they can then just choose to repress it, and they could choose to want to forget about it and choose to want to just like move on. And they think they're moving on and putting it behind them, but unfortunately we know that that's not true, that that's not true. So those are choices, and each one of them, if you want to understand why it takes people many, many years and even decades to come forward is those are the choices. And think about it again, put yourself in their shoes. Are any of those choices good? Are any of those choices in favor of the victim in any way? Sure, when you report it, um, you are owning it. You're, you know, you're controlling the situation. You're going and making sure something's done about it and holding that person accountable. That person gets fired, or that person gets, you know, whatever that the case might be. You get divorced, but you're still living in that situation and with that, that horror, that fear, or that, that event. So there's never a winner or a loser here because you might think that you're, you know, someone's taking care of it by stepping forward. And yes, they might feel free, and I hope to God I feel free a lot of the times as a result of all the talking that I do and the self-awareness and the purging that I do and the writing that I do. I certainly, certainly don't carry around, you know, as much as I used to carry around, but I still carry around, you know. I still have those insecurities, those doubts, and those fears about trusting or getting intimate or having relationships of any kind. Because once that trust level is broken or shattered, it takes a lot to build that back. And that's why you really need to look at these victims that are having the balls to come forward and report it. That yes, is there— I think it's like 8.9% of individuals are lying, like the situation never happened and they're being used or they're a scapegoat or whatever the case might be. I don't care if it's 15%, I don't care if it's 20%, there's still 80, 70, 60, 50% of people that are telling the truth, and we need their— we need to trust them and we need to believe in them. So those are the kind of things. Telling a friend, well, yeah, you could tell a friend, you could share it with a therapist, and again, purge. But again, you're living with a— not a lie, you're living with that junk. And then of course, if you choose to repress it, well We all know kind of the outcome of those impacts, the outcomes of those choices. We know that people that we know and love and trust that are overeating, that are overdrinking, that are overworking out, that are overdoing drugs, that are overdoing something, or maybe they're on the other extreme and they're, you know, going to the couch or going to the bed and not moving and coming out, and they're losing a part of themselves. We all know and see the impacts. It's a matter of are we tapping in and really appreciating what the cause of that, that impact is. And during— in this situation of all of this MeToo, you know, again, all I ask is that, you know, you open up your heart, you open up your ears, you open up your eyes, and you're even— your brain, your mind— and you consider things that you didn't understand or believe before. And you appreciate that of all the hundreds of women that have stepped forward, not only for one victim, because there's one victim, or there's one person that has hundreds of people, and I'm sure there's multiples that have hundreds of people reporting on them. But there's hundreds and thousands of women now stepping forward across this spectrum of men. The other degree of impact is— and this I even went through— is, as you know, as a response and a reaction to their situations, they may go to the extremes of not necessarily doing the drugs or going inward and fearing relationships and intimacy, but they may turn themselves off completely and go the opposite direction where they get very promiscuous and very dangerous to themselves, um, not necessarily other people, but to themselves, and put themselves in more and more of those risky life danger situations because that's their response to it. And we can understand why people respond to certain things. We just have to be able to appreciate it. Now, why does it happen? Well, I think kind of I bled some of those, those reasonings in our conversation, and that is really because of people find themselves, or think of themselves, as powerful, as, as kind of owners to the people that are around them. You know, you could hear women, you know, kind of express, and men kind of express that, you know, these people, they knew, they understood that someone else will do something in order to get ahead, in order to get that job, in order to get that movie, in order to get that album They're willing to compromise themselves. They're willing to do things that they ask them to do, and sometimes they don't ask, they just do it. And they know that these people are not going to report them. These people are not going to take action against them because they have so much power and so much influence. There was one individual, um, and I'll share with you my disappointment, my outright hurt this morning was to learn that Charlie Rose of CBS This Morning is now on that list. I just kind of fell onto the couch. I've woken up with this, with this man, um, at 6:55 every morning for the last who knows how many years to see him and his, you know, posse on CBS This Morning, trusting, you know, in what he was doing and what he was telling me and what he was expressing. And it was heartbreaking to me this morning to see and to hear and learn that he is now on this list. And two things came out of that so far, and that is one of the people— and it was, um, nothing's happened from his cast or his team at CBS this morning, but more so at the Charlie Rose Show— one individual, one woman said that he yielded so much power and influence. He's like an icon in the industry. She knew there was no way she'd ever have a career ever again if she were to expose him— no pun— expose him and what he was doing. And then his executive producer— I'm waiting for her to get called out on this whole subject— because his executive producer knew of these situations. Women came to him years ago because his situations are late '90s to 2011. Not to say nothing's happened since 2011, but since 2011, and his executive producer knew about it. And her comment back to these ladies were, oh, that's just Charlie being Charlie. Bullshit. No, absolutely no, not acceptable from anybody, and from no individual in power or influence. No one should yield that control over another person. No, no, no. And so all we can do— and I just realized that I've been talking, um, and we're like almost out of time— but what we can do as a community is to first, as I mentioned multiple times, listen, open your heart, and at least try to understand and appreciate and then find ways that you could support that individual. If you're the victim, speak up. Find someone that you trust, that you know that will help you through the process, and understand that no one should have power over you. The only power you should own and be controlled by is your own.. And please take effort to bring yourself forward and tell somebody, because you know what, at least this is what I've learned, because you know, you all know, I lost my career. And it wasn't about this, but I lost my entire career and therefore my lifestyle that I knew for 25 years. You know what, there's other lifestyles, there's other careers, there's other companies, there's other spouses there's other friends, there's other communities, there's other that you don't need to be— to be playing— not playing victim, I don't want to say that. You do not need to be a victim. You do not need to take this on by yourself. You do not need to put the blame and the guilt and the shame on yourself. It's that individual that deserves all of that. And you know what? They're walking around living their life, you know, relishing in the power that they have. All I can ask you to do is to find that courage, find that well of self-love to want to make sure that you're not allowing this to happen to you. And if it does, do something about it. That's all I can ask, and all you can do is just do something about it and then help and support other people around you, whether you are involved or you're not, because this has to change. MeToo has got to go away. We should not be proud of a hashtag MeToo. And while we have it, we're gonna use it, but let's make sure that we don't need a MeToo hashtag.