Work in Progress with Sophia BushPOTUS is in the house! Bellamy Young has been a busy actor for 30 years, tackling many roles, including playing President Mellie Grant on the hit show ‘Scandal.' Now, she's teaming up with humanitarian group Care to uplift women's voices.
Bellamy Young shares with Sophia what inspired her to use her platform to highlight women leaders from around the globe in her new podcast "She Leads With CARE." She also reveals the obstacles to doing a podcast in multiple languages worldwide, the inspiring stories that left her in tears, what's possible when we care, her work in progress, and the new sci-fi novel she wrote!
Bellamy also opens up about her time on 'Scandal,' from what the atmosphere on set was like to her feelings about working with Shonda Rhimes, and whether she thinks the cast would really be up for a reboot! Her answer is scandalously good!
Hi, everyone, it's Sophia. Welcome to Work in Progress, Friends Whipsmarty's fellow lovers of excellent television. We are joined today by a woman who I just adore, look up to, and who I can't wait to have in front of me for a whole hour so I can pepper her with questions. Today's guest is Bellamy Young, who you probably love as I do from her role playing Melody Mellie Grant in ABC's hit series Scandal. Yes, she won the Critics Choice Award. Yes, she's gone on to star on other series. Yes, she is a singing and acting legend, a theater baby, and a brilliant, brilliant, heart forward woman who is an author and now a podcast host. She's also just one of the loveliest people I have ever met, and I can't wait to sit with her today and talk about how she balances all these things, her career, her fascination in the world, and her work as an ambassador with Care. Care is the world's leading humanitarian organization that is dedicated to saving lives and defeating poverty around the world. And the work that Bellamy has done with Care, the women that she's met, the change she has seen made in conversations from Honduras to Jordan, to Nepal, to Tanzania, to Ukraine to Vietnam to name a few, inspired her to make sure the stories that touched her in her work could touch the rest of us. So, in partnership with Care, she has launched an incredible new limited podcast series called she Leads with Care, and she will take all of us around the world to have inspiring conversations with women leaders that are changing this planet for the better. I am absolutely thrilled that she's here, and I can't wait to ask her about all of her favorite shows and about the life saving work that she gets to champion every day. Let's hear from Bellamy Young. How are you?
I'm so good? How are you?
I'm great. I'm so excited you're here.
I'm so happy to be here. Thanks so much.
Well, I have so many questions for you. I mean, first and foremost, I suppose I should say, my president, welcome to the podcast. What I would give Bellamy?
I have to laugh because we can't cry.
Yeah, what I would give? It would be so nice. But I guess we persist.
We persist, That's all we can do.
I have like I said a million questions for you about what you're up to and your work and all these things. But before we dive into any of that, I love to kind of go back to catch up, and I want to know about who you were as a kid, because there's so much I know about your life, your career, your advocacy, your activism, your collegiate career. But I wonder if if we could kind of bend space time and we could hang out with Bellamy at nine while we had this chat, would you see do you think you'd see yourself who you are today in her?
Oh it's such a beautiful question, isn't it, Because we I mean, when you do work on yourself, you try and bring back little pieces of you that you've strayed from over the years. And so that's definitely been a question I have asked myself before. I don't think when I was nine in nineteen hundred and seventy nine there would have been any idea that I could have conceived of any part of this life. Like, I'm such a twentieth century human, so just the twenty first centuriness of it all is continually outside my scope. But I also I do think I thought that freedoms and that sort of thing were inextricably a course that moved forward. So I think I took that for granted as a nine year old. I loved to saying when I was nine, but I don't think I could have dreamed to have a career where I got to do what I loved for a living like that didn't seem feasible or practical. Yeah, nine year old Amy, she was honey doing some pageants. Because that's what happened, North Carolina, North Carol. I was adopted. I was in foster care for a little while, and my adopted family thought they found out about my biological family and so tried to give me opportunities sort of based on this one little sheet of paper, like a paragraph on my quote unquote mom and two lines on my biological dad. I have met them, now, my wonder biological parents had the opportunity to meet them. And turns out none of that stuff we thought was true true at all. So where are they thought that, Oh, her biological mother is a singer, so we better give her opportunities to sing. And I've met her and she's like hmm no, or you know, like so a lot of the path of my life was predicated on a mistake. But you can also call it fate or luck or grace, because I deeply love where I am in my life, and I have fought to be able to say that sentence. But I stand firmly planted, two feet rooted into the ground with gratitude for, like I say, being able to get to do what I love, and by the grace of that sometimes being able to help anybody who needs it.
That's so special. And I think it's really interesting. You know. You said two things that kind of light up for me, that when you work on yourself, you get to collect pieces of yourself, and you said that you've fought really hard to like your life so much. I think there's something really interesting, and this is something I'm kind of noodling on in my own journey right now. I wonder why it is so many of us who do the jobs we do, who entertain who want to bring books to life, who want to create these sort of vessels or the human experience that might create some empathy or some catharsis, or make someone feel seen or represented. It's not lost on me that we all are healing while we do this. Do you think we get into this because we've got stuff we're running away from until we're ready to face it, Or do you think we face what life gives to us because we have to love our characters, and maybe through loving them we learn how to love ourselves better.
I think it's yes, and I think it's all of the things, you know. I think, first of all, I deeply believe souls come in with a mission and there's a heartbreaking, breathtaking randomness for where that soul lands, gender, geography, socioeconomics, you know, like because all the souls they come in with the same hopes and dreams and wants, but very particular path in mind. And I think ours, those of us that are drawn into this work and I mean this and the largest umbrella, come in on a path of empathy. And sometimes we apply that empathy last to ourselves. You know. We lead with the curiosity. We often are people pleasers, so we try to understand so that we can excuse things that we see around us or things that are happening in a room or in the world. But I do think that the conscious work can begin when we take a pause and apply that empathy to our own experience life path so that we can get sort of clear of the dust storm that is our pain. You know, we kind of like rain down a little love on that so it settles to the ground, and then our vision is cleared. Then we can really cleanly use that empathy and curiosity to assess what we see around us again in the room or in the world, and assess our part in it, because we don't. You know, we can't care in everything it's not ours. Is not a role for you know, every day, in every situation. But we're here for a reason and we can help what we can help. And engaging in the world with love and curiosity and a full heart. I feel like, you know, nobody gets out alive. If we can leave this place a little bit better than we found it, then I think that's the measure of success.
I love that it interests me because you've got such passion about your calling and about humanity at large. That's so clear, And yet you went to school for a completely different course of education and took a hard left, which, by the way, was my journey. So I'm just absolutely geeked on how you figured it out. I thought I was going to be a heart surgeon. I wanted to be a cardiothoracic surgeon.
WHOA wait, were there people in your family that are surgeons or what to you know? Like little Sophia? How did little Sophia be like, no, no, I want to cut on hearts.
I don't know. I think for me, I always loved science. I'm a naturally kind of nurturing person, and I really like to fix things. That's something I've definitely had to work on. You know, not everybody wants things to be fixed all the time. Sometimes people just need to vent. So I've I've learned to say to my loved ones, do you want to be heard? Or do you want my help? And then I kind of know how to be when they're going through something. That's how I stopped myself from trying to fix. But I think that natural inclination just I don't know. I don't know if it was watching medical shows, I don't know what it was. I just thought that's what I wanted to do. And then I sort of got, you know, knocked over the head with the beautiful reality that a play was a book come to life, and I thought, I actually think this is what I want to do. Literature is my favorite thing. I think I'm going to go to school for theater. And when I told my parents that my senior year in high school, you can imagine how well that transition went. But here we are. And when I was reading about your story, I was like, wait a second, wait a second. You were going so hard into science and then also pivoted into theater and literature, and how how for you? How?
Oh well, first, let me say, like, you're still doing your dream on like in metaphor, You're still like healing hearts in your work and in your life and in your creative endeavors. So I think I think it's I think you stayed true to the impulse, if not the exact, you know, non metaphorical implementation of that. So you do a good job, little tiny Sophia. You did right. You chose right. And I loved science always. It was where I felt the most awe and grace. You know, it felt what some people feel about organized religion. I and I love like. I grew up going to Catholic school. I was raised Methodists like that. Religion was part of my life growing up as a child, but I always saw the human hand in it and that gave me misgivings. And with science, I felt that overwhelming smallness and the interconnectedness and the wonder and it just pulled me, just my whole heart, mind, body, everything was pulled there. And you know I was I was doing okay studying, figured a couple things out in North Carolina, and got to college. And you know, we're not all, not all of us. There's not alignment between what we dream and what we can do. Some things just have to become interests and passions and loves. So I was not that great at physics on the international level, and I had to quickly pivot. And my mom was an English teacher, still like bless her she died in Christmas the twenty twenty three, but still one of the best teachers I ever had. Mentally unstable, but like the most beautiful mind I've ever come in contact with. And so it was a really easy pivot to be like, oh, I'll do English because I get that, Like she taught me to write, and yeah, I could do all I could interpret, like do all that, and I thought, oh, I'll do a double major and maybe somebody who'll confuse it for thinking. I went to drama school so it was a bit of a con and a bit of a dodge.
I that was what happened, And where does the singing fit into that.
Well, I wouldn't have my first dad, my adopted dad had just died before I went to college, and I wouldn't have gone so far away. I don't think if Yale hadn't had this like amazing a cappella scene, which I loved so much. And I thought, Oh, if I can get in that school, I can sing and I can get a good education, and she can't. My mom can't say I shouldn't go because they meet one hundred percent of demonstrated financial need. And my mom, like I say, it was just a high school English teacher, and so not just was a high school English teacher. That is a field of people who are not financially rewarded for the impact they have on the world. So I applied early admission, got deferred. I'm Southern, so I thought they were just being polite and that they wouldn't tell me later that I was not invited to come to school with them. No, I filled out like twelve more applications over Christmas, resubmitted my application, and bless their hearts.
They let me in, but I felt like they were giving you a bless your heart.
I did that, honey, aren't you sweet? I know, bless your heart?
You are just you are just lovely. I'm so cute you aplied, Oh my god. And now for our sponsors, I would imagine just you know, based on what you're sharing, it's so clear how much you loved your mom and I'm so sorry, you know, for her passing. And when we heal, we have to be really honest about what we come from. And you know, you talk about her instability and the all the sort of good old college tries that she gave. Love that wasn't always good for her. Was was being able to get far enough away to you know, not go home to do your laundry or not have a surprise visit, you know, from a parent to the dorms. Did that also give you a respite to kind of find yourself and your own independent strength from what was being modeled for you at home, you know, both the amazing and the dedicated and the heart.
I love that you're being gracious enough to use the past tense because that was a lifelong situation. I mean, I la wasn't far enough, you know, like I it was, because when you're a heart and your mind and your mental health, they're intertwined like that. Physical distance is sort of ancillary. You know, it's great they can't walk in your room in the moment of any day. It's great they can't be up in your physical business all the time. But you know, there were still decades of time where I spent you know, three hours a day on the phone with her and told her everything that I did, and you know, there was there. It was a long, long road of healing and I won't say clear like division, but it took a lot of work. My very first therapist when I got to LA was like, Okay, you're going home for Christmas, so I just want to give you the opportunity to while you're there, put on your lab coat, just in your mind, little white coat that you can just observe. And that was sort of the first little bit of little bit of distance. Like you said, it's so beautifully do you need me to little listen or do you need me to fix this? Like that's just knowing there's a little separation, that there's all love and we're holding it all with love. But there's choice in that cushion, that buffer zone, there is choice. And so that began many many decades of loving work, seeing both of us for who we really really were. And now that she's gone, that was the part of the healing too. Is not forgetting any of it, because it all just like everything in the world, it all informs who we are and what we do, what we choose for our lives, for ourselves every moment of every day. And if we are ignoring things or you know, deciding that that's not factoring in, it's all factoring in. It, all filters in it, all factors in. And so the most loving thing to do is to be present enough to notice and decide with intention and yeah, which is presence. That's what that's what. That's that that wound up being that softness because I for so many years tried to like I'm gonna be good at this, or I did this right, or you know, all the silly stuff that's forced. And when you realize that the softness of presence is the true source of power, seat of power, and from that all decisions can flow, and decisions that you're far prouder of. So that's that was that journey.
Yeah, that's so beautiful. I think soft power is something that's really been underestimated. And you know, it's not lost on me that we're at a moment in the world where I think there's a lot of shock, you know, not just in our country but around the globe at seeing the US kind of rip up all of its pledges to its like softest and best kinds of power, you know, the things that won the Cold War, the things that have led to better global health outcomes, and the kind of thirty thousand foot view, you know, the space station view. Maybe if we're talking about the whole world, it's not lost on me that we see that in kind of every level of society and what works and what doesn't. And when you talk about how you've had to carry this sort of you know, more whole version of yourself throughout your life and through all your work, and you know, out in LA and back back now on the East Coast, I've experienced a version of a soft power. And it's something you know, your your lab coat analogy. I'm like, oh, yeah, I do that. Sometimes the stand back and observe isn't something I think I felt as confident to do as a younger person, I was so scared that people would think I didn't know what I was doing if I didn't have input or a way to help. And now I'm very happy to just sit and listen. And I have observed the most beautiful soft power in the Shonda Rhimes world. Ow oow that, Oh my god. And of course everybody wants us to talk about scandal, and I want to ask you six hundred and forty seven questions about it because I loved it so much.
I have six hundred and forty eight answers, thank god.
But it's dawning on me as i'm listening to you talk that some of what I've seen in the Gray's Anatomy world, watching her, watching Ellen, watching Kim Ray, for watching all these people what She's built are these spaces where people are excellent. But it's not like a bullied demand. It's a you can be this, and if you come in here, this is the level we play at. It's like an elite sport and it's kind and it's tender, and people have real honor and gratitude about their jobs. And I don't know, I don't think it's an accident that we're having this conversation in this moment, because now you've obviously got the perspective on what cultural phenomenon the show was, how valuable it was to all of us, how it got us through the first two years of the current president's first term. Did you have any clue how different it was when you read the pilot script or could you just not even have imagined it yet?
Well, you know, they didn't let me read the script. I was just I'm just in for a recurring I had no pilot, Sophia. I'm so lucky. I fell ass backwards into that dream and I am so lucky. I mean, it's you know, it changed my life utterly, utterly. There's no Quali fire to that. It changed my life, full stop, period, deep gasp of gratitude. So no, I don't I don't think I was given the script. I read it when I got a part of time that I went and did it, and but I can tell you it was and the you know, the pilot's always one thing. But when we came back and did those first seven and I was just supposed to be there for three, so I was like, right, but it was instantly different, and I've I'm lucky enough to have, you know, been a guest star on a thousand things, and so you as a guest star, you really see it all because nobody's behaving well around you. You really see the truth. No one cares what you think, so they don't care enough to hide anything. So I was like, oh, man, so I've been on a thousand sets and I got to Scandal and it was just instantly different. It was just instantly different, and over the course of the seven years, only grew in that regard. And you said something that it made me realize. It was we were all seen. So we were hired to do what was inside us and that we could share, and then we were supported in every way so that we could give that. Not in the coddled actors get everything, you know, like what kind of algae do you want in your smoothie? Kind of good no, But in a oh you want to have a baby, great, let me, you don't have to stop work. Let's figure out how to do this. And now's the time to do this because you also have a paycheck. So this is wonderful. Where when Katie got to have a baby on the show, Carrie had a couple like and we would Iola could bring her kids to work. You know, we made a whole space for the kids to play in event. But we you know, no problem, let's incorporate little breaks. I think we called it hummingbird when people would have to would need to go breastfeed. I mean, this is care that is not regular on a set and also doesn't take much effort and yields. You know, you still have your seventeen hour workdays and they're still wearing stiletto's high as my eyeballs and remembering all their lines and doing their perfect work and also being a mother, and it was just lovely. Also, I do remember wow, when someone lady wanted to do what was having a first go at intimate moment and we're a little uncomfortable with the notion, and Shanda immediate was like, listen, I need you guys to kiss in the scene, but if you're more comfortable kissing in a parka, I'll put you outside like I'll do like however you want it. I just need the emotional connection. I'm not here to exploit you now. Meanwhile, I realized that Tony and Scott had to take their shirt off all the time, So I realized I realized there's a balance, but listen, listen. But no, it was always and Carrie also must be credited with being an incredible, thoughtful, indefatigable number one. I mean the first year that we did press together. I remember she was somewhere maybe in Italy doing django press at that point, and Carrie and Darby and I were going to some someone who knows one of the early our times on the carpet, and you know, she knew we didn't know much about doing anything on the carpet. You get a text from Carrie like, what do you need? Do you know? You know this is how you stand? Do you have stylists? Like? I mean, we were just really held in love in that whole show, and we everybody met it with love, a bunch of theater kids, just grateful to have the jobs and showing up for each other. And it steel that way like with still my family.
Yeah, and now a word from our sponsors that I really enjoy and I think you will too. It's so sweet. Whenever I get to see you all together, it just brings me so much joy because you you made something enormous, but you also you make it in this little world and as much as all of us who watched it got to enjoy it, nobody was on that ride but you all. And there's just something priceless about that. I feel the same way with you know, all my castmates from my first show from One Tree Hill, Like we show up for each other and it it gave me the sort of familial experience I'd never had, because you know, especially when you start at twenty, like we were babies. We were all stupid and you know, adorable, but we didn't know you know, our ass from our elbow, And it's like when you go through those things together. I finally remember saying to a girlfriend of mine, I was like, Oh, I get now why my friends with siblings can be in a knockdown, drag out family fight for a week with their siblings, but if somebody on the playground talks about their siblings, they're going to get laid out. And it's like, oh, I get it. There's a It is a really kind of priceless dynamic. And I think, what a cool thing for you all to have been able to do that, and also probably to have been able to do it like a little more from your adulthood. You probably had even more fun than we did.
Oh yeah, no, that's the other thing. We were all old people already like when we started, so there was no like everybody had a burgeoning at least sense of self. So there was less acting out and confusion, and you know, because La is such a headspinner, much less success. So we were all pretty grounded about all of that. And if we were, Carrie instantly grounded, you know, like she was like, I remember we were season five. They wanted us to do Good Morning America to launch the season, and we were like, eh, that means we have to be in here and makeup at one thirty AM. And Carrie's like, well, I'm going to be here. I think it's amazing They're gonna promote us season five of a show. I mean, that's really special. And we were all like, she's right, she's right, right, She's.
Like, mom's right, Mom's right. She does She's got such a beautiful she has such a spirit of leadership. Everything she does. I just absolutely adore her.
The level of thoughtfulness, it's a little boggling, it really is. And how hard she works to make this world a better place, you know, through her work, through activism, everything That's.
What's really interesting is that's how she and I are friends.
I know from you know, the same persons, be much the same wonderful person here making things better just like everything in your mind, body, soul, to like be of service and love.
It's been really special to have her sort of you know, in my group of political peers, if you will, to have somebody who likewise I know, is up at two in the morning reading you know, the report on maternal wellness and will listen to me, you know, yam or about it. It's it's so I think special and I've thought a lot about it for all of you. Because the world of Scandal was amazing, you guys, as actor is the chemistry between people, the writing, I mean, that work was amazing and culturally to begin that show when when Barack Obama was the president, to take us into the first two years of Trump's first term, it's such a cultural phenomenon, not just an entertainment phenomenon. Do you think now, looking back, do you think we needed to be in the time of Obama for Scandal to be possible? And do you think it helped people care maybe a little bit more about politics because I don't know if I don't know as a viewer, if the Resistance would have spoken the language so well, so fast had y'all not been on the air.
Oh I hope Seana hears you say that.
I do.
I think that would. I think she'd be really grateful that you held that thought in your heart, even for a moment. You know what she's always told us because I can't speak to her, you know, process or intentions, But what she's always told us is how much she loved the West Wing and how much she always wanted to write her West Wing And you're right, come on and and that you know, her enduring commitment is that television looked like the world. Yes, so this was she met Judy Smith, who Scandal is based on, and she thought, oh, that's not in and she just all of a sudden could see She was like, this is my DC story. But that's also why it was. She knew it had an ending spot. And I do think we squeaked out one extra year because of real life circumstances. I don't think Mellie would have been president. I think, oh, Jeff, I think Jeff was supposed to have I think Jeff was supposed to have you know, he won, and then we shot him or soon I can't even remember. I'm not even sure, but I know I wasn't and then I was. And I do think that was I think she had some things to say from the mouth of a female president because she had been writing on Hillary's campaign and so I just think she was ready to write some speeches that she did not have the opportunity to write, and so maybe imported herself the right opportunity to share some of those ideas.
I love that, gosh, because I was going to ask, when you're doing something so special with people you love so much, you don't want it to end.
So we didn't want it to end.
Yeah, that's what I was going to ask, Like, did you feel ready to move on? But maybe if I guess never, but also if you got an extra year, Yeah, that must feel so great.
I think so. And I like, I say, you'll see shot it one day and you'll ask her the truth of it. But I think that was everybody's feeling. And I know Josh was like, please, my kid is still in college, you know, just a couple more years and we would have stayed together forever. And also we knew she was right to finish where she knew she wanted to finish. You know, it's we've all also been on shows that are still going past maybe where they should have landed. And I want everybody to have jobs. God knows. And also it does feel a little more like work when you're in that phase. So it never fell in one day. One day on our set never felt like work. It always felt like joy and curiosity and there was a story to tell and we were lucky to be there telling it together.
You guys all had such great language, and that's something I think is true of the West Wing as well. Like Aaron Sorkin writes the hell out of a Scene, Shonda Rhymes writes the hell out of a scene. Did it take getting used to the kind of cadence and the politics of it all? Or do you feel like you really just found yourself in all of that dialogue and in all of that verbage? Really?
No, we all like scandal paste was a real thing, and we drill, drill, drilled. Like I say, we're like theater babies, so we're having to run lines and like just you just get it till it's so in your marrow that you can, you know, a walk and talk is like impossible, but like walk down those halls and hit it hard, speeding like Tabasco style, and then like you know, not mess up the steady cam guy. It took. It was quite intentional, and I think they found it. I can't speak to that. Katie Lows will be able to speak to that. I feel like they found it in Katie's audition really just because Katie's a natural fast talker, and it just it was always great writing, but with the speed, it just lived, it just sang and and are you know it was so hard for guest stars. It's so hard to step into that and meet that pace. And I always, you know, we were a loving embrace for anyone that joined us, but the pace was a bit of a sissaphi and hurdle that we loved it. And having Shonda in my brain, I mean, I am a lord, I am a bear of I am self doubting little bear constantly, and having Shanda's sort of Shanda's idea of Mellie like my way or the Highway seventeen hours a day, five days a week, was personally radically transformative. Just the act as f of it all. Oh yeah, some people live in this life a whole different way than I am, you know.
Yeah, and then she.
Give us these little perfect one act plays like me and Tony and Jeffy are just Oh, it was just the most satisfying creative experience my stars.
I mean, you know, it's just so cool. It's so cool. If you had the chance to do some sort of a reunion, like a reboot or a movie or something, would you just jump.
We'd all get on a plane tonight. I thought there's nobody that would be like, I don't know. I mean, we'd have to carry's busy, we'd have to work around our schedule. But I think she'd do it too. Yeah, there's so much love and yeah, yeah in an.
Instant, Oh, I love that so much. Now, when right around when the show was ending, you started working with care right that was all twenty eighteen?
Yeah, yeah, I started in twenty eighteen exactly.
And was that an organization you met through the political world kind of overlap of scandal or did that happen in a completely different way.
My dear friend Renee Jones that I know through Uta is who drew them into my life and me into theirs. And I was so grateful because of course we all know care care is the care package. You know, it's eighty years old because right after the Second World War, humans in America realized that humans in Europe might need things because they've been bombed and gone through a war and or impoverished and in need, and so they would make these care packages and send them to Europe and it made such an impact and everybody, you've gotten a care package right in your life or send them, and you know how loved you feel. And from that this incredible organization group from that little acorn, and there's still that bespoke, thoughtful intentional organization. They go into local areas and they ask what the need is, and then they hire from the local area. They hire folks and help create infrastructure that allows those folks to create lasting, transformational, intergenerational change for themselves. And cares Gooal is like teach a man to fish. We don't want to be there forever, and we don't want you know, we aren't just like giving you aid in a way that we think you need. It's very thoughtful, intentional, local based, and they plan for their own obsolescence so that change can continue to happen and I loved that they you know, they have the data right like the Sun says, if you lift up women and girls, they bring their families and their communities with them. So that's how they focus their work is in partnership with women and girls, giving them, you know, safe spaces to learn and to get healthcare and to have market access. And it's just been transformational, truly transformational, but still born out of that just humans knowing that we're all connected, wanting to help other humans.
It changes everything, It.
Surely does, like the tiniest thing, the tiniest thing I think about. Actually, the episodes just came out today. Lillian who works in the Care Office of Tantania. She's the only care officer we talked to. We should talk to care program participants, but she was saying she's done over seven hundred Village Savings and Loans vslas and helped over ten thousand people changed their lives. So she told this story about going into this village and saying, you know, what do you need what would help you the most? And they're like, well, this or that and the other thing that they're like. She was like, no, no, you what do you need? What do you need? In your life, that would make your life better. And the women thought and they said, oh, well, it'd be so good if we didn't have to take our kids to the fields with us to harvest, because it's like very hard to manage our children and get the crops. And she said, oh great, so let's make a daycare. And the village Vsla made a daycare and started with just twenty one kids from the people who were doing the harvesting. And this year, this is maybe four years later, and they're doing a brick and mortar school for ninety three students and it's transformed everything. Of course, it's also return on the investment of the women's money, of course, but it allows them just to breathe a little, to go to work and do well at their job, and their kids have a good meal and have some education and transformational change that just takes somebody saying what do you need? How can I help?
And now a word from our wonderful sponsors. You're talking about my exact favorite kind of thing, which is when the math and the morals meet, because so many people think that you can do well or you can do good for the world, and that is like a complete lie. Usually set in motion by the powers that be who want to hoard wealth and not share with people, and programs like the ones you're talking about. When you invest in a community that some might call underdeveloped or whatever you're adjective, sometimes all people need is a jumpstart. It's not that different to certain states in our country getting huge economic boosters with the infrastructure build that President Biden and Vice President Harris passed. When you get an infrastructure project and you're going to reinforce and upgrade every bridge in a community like I don't know, Pittsburgh famous for bridges, not only does that make your roads safer, but everybody in town who works construction, steel car rentals trucking you down the line to the sandwich shops at the ends of the bridges. Everybody's making more money. And so sometimes all you need is you need the wind in the pinwheel to get it going, and then it keeps going. And so it's why I think organizations like care are so special because exactly what you said, they're not coming in saying we're here to help and we know what's best, and now we're going to build an office here and work going to have employees. They're saying we're going to come help you get started, and the pinwheels yours and that's the way we heal. I think, not just neighborhoods and municipalities, but the planet. And it's why I think it's so cool that you're using your platform not just to work with them, but this story you're talking about when you said the episode for our friends at home. Bellamy launched a podcast called she Leads with Care, and it's so inspiring to hear these stories of these incredible you know, volunteers, helpers, organizers. I've listened to some of this and gon, oh, that's a really good thing to take to our local food bank or I want to send this to three of my friends who really care about maternal wellness and have them listen to this because it feels relevant to what we're working on, you know, with mom that are fire victims in LA and like it's it's such a lovely place to sit and be inspired. So thank you for doing this, not just because the world needs it, but like selfishly, I really needed it. I've been so sad and stressed out.
No, that's why I did it. It came during COVID. I was so alone and depressed and feeling so unconnected to the world, and I kept looking for stories of hope and connection, and I kept coming back to these care stories. Yes, I I thought, oh, if I need this, why are we not sharing these women's stories with the world. And it's not mine to tell you got to let them tell their story, you know, I mean, it's there's no substitute for a lived experience. And I don't never want to put words in anybody's mouth. So we just set up, set out to try and and it turned to be you know, we're novices. You're so good at this, but we were. We had a long learning curve with doing a podcast in multiple languages all around the world, shipping by you know, getting women to you know, four hours where there where there might be Wi Fi and from really rural locations, and translating and you know, doing voiceover. You know that's appropriate to the region and to the woman because you want her life, her life force to stay. But it just meant everything to me. And this year was an especially hard year. Last year in particular, and in so many ways personally and in the world. And every time I would sit down to have a conversation, I would I would cry like more time I was during the conversation, just out of gratitude and awe and the humble enormity of first of all, again going back to the twentieth twenty first century living. That I can have a conversation with somebody in Nepal and you know, ask them about to tell me about their lived experience is a miracle. It's magical. It's so cool. And then to like learn about all these things and to be reminded also of the grace and gifts that we have. I particularly think about village savings and loans. Like you're saying, we still in the world so many places women don't have access to financial freedom. I know in America it was what nineteen seventy four when women could get a bank account, and there is in my lifetime. I was born in nineteen hundred and seventy. I spent since my lifetime that a woman could get alone and could get a bank account and that kind of thing in America. So that still doesn't happen in the rest of the world. So allowing people not even investing in people, allowing women to invest in themselves so much.
I know it was nineteen seventy four, I believe was a bank account, and then I can't recall. I'm going to look and I'll follow up with you. It was like nineteen eighty three or nineteen eighty eight for a business.
Loan, business loan. You're right, that's true.
What what? And to your point, you know, we use that data that ninety percent reinvestment around the world. It's a it's a stat that we use, you know, in philanthropy and social change to talk about building a better global economy. And it's often ascribed to, you know, the developing world. Whatever that you know means depending on who's using the term. And women reinvest ninety percent of what you invest in them into their children and into their community and into their families. And with men, they invest ninety percent in themselves. So the ROI on us is major. And now when you look at America, women are the single largest creators of small businesses in the country and among women, yes, among women women of color or leading. And so the way I think about it when I put on you know, my financial hat, my investor hat, is if fifty one percent of the population has historically been under resourced, we've been underserved yep, which means we're missing out on profits. Fifty one percent of the population could be generating. And if women of color in particular have experienced so much more withholding, they get underfunded at so much a greater rate than even you or I would imagine how much unmade profit is sitting in those sectors of our country. So I get really excited when we start to be able to prove these metrics because all it means is that everybody does.
Better, everybody wins these And it's not wins, it's it's opportunities, it's cultural growth, it's social change, it's.
The GDP of a country. Yeah, it's all of it. And it goes back to what we were talking about about sets. What you guys, what you can identify and name that you had on the set of Scandal because women were in seats of power, benefited the men also. And I will never forget one of the most impactful days of my whole career full circle moment, playing a cardiothoracic surgeon on a TV show.
My mom was like, she finally did it.
My wonderful head of props lovely man named Jordan, local Toronto guy, one of my favorite humans I've ever worked with. Sidled up to me one day and I'd been meeting with our camera department to go over something, and he said, you know, I really love coming to work here. And I was like, Jordan. I was like, dude, we love you. And he goes, he goes, I love you, man. And I always feel really special when my guy friends call me.
Man.
I'm like, I made it in and he goes, yeah, he goes, I love you, man. He goes, But it's bigger than that. He said, you and Katie, because our showrunner was a wonderful woman named Katie Wesh. She said, you've made this place so nice and it's really nice for me too, And like, I'm a single white guy with inexpendable income and I'm having a nicer time than I normally do. And I was like, that's it, Like that's it. Everybody's happier because somebody thought about childcare. Everybody's doing better because somebody thought about lived experiences of everyone in the room, so everyone's quality of life got better.
I think about you think on the first trip I went for a care I went to Rwanda in twenty nineteen and I met this woman named Bridget who was a VSLA participant. She'd saved up just like well we think of as pennies from what her husband would give her to get groceries or to get soap or whatever. And it took about a year to save up enough to invest in herself and join a VSLA, and another year till it came time for them to invest in her. And they're like, what's your dream? You know what, what do you need to take out of the fund? And she wanted five chickens and they got She got the five chickens and you know, paid back her investment and all that sort of thing. I met her almost six years later. Honey, she had a thousand chickens, She had two farms. She employed three men that she gave the community. She got eight hundred and fifty eggs a day. So the nutrition in the community, which had usually subsisted on cassava and cassava based products, God had soared through the room. But what one of the things that made her happiest is that her marriage was better. It was so much happier and kinder in her house because there was equality, less fear less status. And I just think about that when we're all allowed to participate with our whole heart. We're all allowed to give all that we have to give. Then everything calms down, yeah, and everything is everything can reach its highest potential.
Well, and what that is is it's the opposite of scarcity.
And whether there's scarcity or not, scarcity mindset even, that's it.
But this idea that you know, pre nineteen seventy four, god forbid, you had a bank account, what are you going to do with it? You're not looking to use it as a bully club. You just want to build something. And so I think the US and them thing is so toxic because what it actually does is it just puts everyone in the scarcity mindset. It puts everyone in the competitive experience in their own house, like your friend Bridget. And then you flip it. Everybody grows, Everybody does better. Incomes get bigger and more stable, education gets bigger and more stable, nutrition in community gets bigger, expanded, more stable, and everybody's just doing better. And her husband didn't lose anything because she succeeded. They both won. Yeah, you know, the two of them, the one plus one became three, yeah, instead of one and one fighting over one.
And I think that.
Is that's a universal story, and that's part of why I think your your podcast, like everybody you're interviewing around the world, is in a unique place with a unique experience, but the core of the story is so universal. And when I'm you know, sitting here pouring over the articles and panicking about you know, what's going to happen to all the kids that are about to lose access to education with no Department of ED, Podcasts like yours are really fortifying for me. So thank you so much.
It did land at an unexpected time. We were worried no one would be interested in these stories. Now they're everything, because you need to know what it means to help one another, what it means to care, what's possible when we care?
Just let yeah, And I think to be reminded that you can build against all odds, and so no matter what is taken a part here, we have us and that I think is so meaningful. Does it ever overwhelm you or does it feel more exciting that so much of this platform that you've built is so clearly positive. Is it weird to think like I was a kid who grew up and wanted to sing and maybe study science, and now I'm like, out here is this you know, positive influence for social change and activism and advocacy. Is it crazy a little bit? Or does it just feel right?
I don't know. I guess I haven't stepped back and look at it now. I'm like, oh no, I don't know. I think when I engage in socials it is often with trepidation because I'm always afraid of going to see something that crushes me.
Because people are so mean.
Yeah, yeah, it's really like it. It takes Yeah, it takes a lot. I have. I have fear around it, so I never want to be a part of contributing to anyone else's fear. I want if somebody notices something that I have in my heart and want to share, I want them to feel like they got hugged afterwards. I want them to feel a little bit better about themselves. I want them maybe to remember that that's that joy is in them too. Oh yeah, I had a day like that too, or you know, like to see themselves reflected and to see a space for safety and love. I really really, that's all I want. That's what I want to share. And also I'll say in these times where I get scared and hopeless and start to feel disconnected again. Like in COVID. The only tonic is to know that people are doing the work, and that if we all did just you know, if we all just made a few choices in our day that connected us, if we were all just a little bit of service, or if we all just raised up a little bit of positivity, the reget like that butterfly effect, those ripples. Oooh, I mean that's been nothing could stop us with that intentional love and that sort of the fuel and the engine of that progress. Goodness, inclusion, help, just helping each other. We're all gonna need help, we all are, and we're all going to be in a position to give help. And so if we just stay present and open enough to see where we are on the seesaw and tune in and engage in life. I think I spent a lot of time hiding in my life, and so now I just always want to be the loving act for myself is to engage with all the positivity I can, because we are also capable of making good change in this world if we feel safe enough to do so.
I love that when you think about all of this, you know how all these elements and passions and beliefs kind of add up into the work you do. And really, I think into the person you are in the world and you look kind of out at the horizon line, whatever is ad for you for us? Is there something that pops up that you go that's my work in progress or is it kind of continuing to figure out how to hold the whole thing?
I think my work in progress is showing up, honestly. I yeah, like getting through the stuff from my childhood, getting through the people, pleasing, getting through the may I add very happy years of spending all my time pretending to be someone else, which was you know, on screen and off and then you know, COVID happened, the industry changed, like there's been some years of nowhere to hide, and lots happened in my personal life during that time. And mhm, through the work on myself and by being scrupulous about who I surround myself with, I just try and what I surround what I feel my day with. Right, Like I love to work hard. I love to work hard. It makes me really happy, it makes me feel engaged. I really love to work hard. But you have to like be sure that you're we have such a little time on this planet, and so you have to really be sure you're not chasing your tail, right, that what you're doing is in alignment with your heart, and you know with your why your soul came on this planet, whatever its mission might have been. Yeah, so you find those people that are safe to share your heart with than your truth. And this year has just afforded me the opportunity to decide whether or not to share that more broadly, Like I wrote a little article about my mom and all she went through and did the podcast and Hani wrote why a sci fi like the first novel on a trilogy with my dear friend Fay. We're gonna put it out dream Oh my god, we had so much fun. Speel oh my, we just had the best time. So the Ethery and Code Book one, the Spark look for it. But so it's been really fun to uh just yeah, just meet each moment in a much more honest way. And that's still that will still make me stutter sometimes. I used to really stutter when I was being honest because it was just too scary. Is how like singing helped? Because singing is such an honest gift you give either yourself or if someone might be listening. But it helps get you on your breath and in your body. And that I still stutter if i'm That's how I can tell I'm not in a safe situation. Yes, it's when I when I am giving my truth and it starts to flutter me, I think, Ohney, maybe it's throttled down, throttle down. Maybe this is in the place or the time, But so yeah, I think I think showing up honestly in my life is my uh is my continued work in progress, and who knows where that'll go? Who knows?
That's beautiful, I think, especially when the sort of gift in the curse of this beautiful job is that you get so good at performing and you're also always expected to be on and being a human in the world and wanting to go be in the world, wanting to go walk through Manhattan means you probably have to perform for people even on your day off, and it can be so hard to learn how to just be yourself when you're not on. And I think you know when you said at the top of the hour, you were talking about how it's a lifelong journey. You know, the distance and the healing and the reclaiming all those parts of yourself. That's one of the things I'm trying to reclaim is like, who am I when I'm not trying to make someone else's day? Because that's such a gift. But it's also a gift I have to give away every time and when was the last time I gave it to me? And I'm working on it.
Baby steps, baby steps and often awareness, right, that'll elan on edge awareness, successions action, right.
Yep, that's it. Oh my goodness, You're just such a joy. Thank you for this. I'm like, I want to talk about a thousand more things with you, but not on a recording and over a bottle of wine.
I like it. I'll take the tequila. But we're in. We're in great, I'm coming over. We're not far. I like it.
