How to Let Go after Being Let Go with Oprah and authors Laura Brown & Kristina O’Neill

The Oprah Podcast

Harpo

Society & Culture

4.2 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 9 October 2025

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode of The Oprah Podcast former In Style Editor-in-Chief Laura Brown and former Wall Street Journal Magazine Editor-in-Chief Kristina O’Neill talk about the many challenges—and opportunities—that come with losing a job, no matter where you are in your career. They discuss their new book All the Cool Girls Get Fired which dives into everything you need to know if you’ve recently lost your job including how to figure out who you are without your job title. Oprah shares her own story of being fired when she was let go from being the co-anchor of the Baltimore evening news at age 22 and former CNN news anchor Brooke Baldwin talks about how she dealt with losing her high-profile job. We also hear from another woman who says she learned to bounce back better after losing her corporate role of 34 years. BUY THE BOOK! ⁠https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/All-the-Cool-Girls-Get-Fired/Laura-Brown/9781668067451⁠ Subscribe: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@Oprah?sub_confirmation=1 Follow Oprah Winfrey on Social: https://www.instagram.com/oprahpodcast/ https://www.facebook.com/oprahwinfrey/ Listen to the full podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/0tEVrfNp92a7lbjDe6GMLI https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-oprah-podcast/id1782960381 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I actually said to the journal manager, is this an April Fool's joke? And he goes, no, we're taking you off of the news.
0:08.6	Gail King was a production assistant at the time. I was the 6 o'clock co-anchor. And I went back downstairs and I go, meet me in the bathroom now.
0:20.0	Okay, everybody. Hi. I'm so glad you all are here. And I know life is busy. So I thank you all for
0:25.2	spending your time with us on the Oprah podcast where every week we're diving into topics that we hear
0:30.4	are top of mind for so many of you watching and listening. And on this episode, whoa, we're talking
0:35.5	about something that is just so timely about the seismic shift that millions of you are facing in the job market.
0:43.3	These days, nobody is safe.
0:45.5	Don't care where you are.
0:47.0	You're not safe from the stress of thinking you may be let go.
0:51.1	You may be laid off or experience a reduction in force rifts, as your company may call
0:55.9	them, downsizing, restructuring, reorgs, all the corporate buzzwords and euphemisms that, you know,
1:03.9	people use. But let's face it, no matter what it's called, what it feels like is getting fired.
1:11.1	And for women, it just hits differently.
1:14.5	And oftentimes, it feels like shame.
1:17.7	And this is a really important conversation that rarely gets attention.
1:20.5	So I'm so happy to welcome to the Tea House.
1:22.7	The authors of a new book, Working Women Need Right Now.
1:26.9	It's called All the Cool Girls Get Fired. All the Cool
1:31.5	Girls. Get fired. When you say it, you have to say it like that. All the cool girls, get fired.
1:38.3	Powerhouse executives Laura Brown and Christina O'Neill have decades of experience in fashion and media.
1:45.8	The two friends spent 10 years working together at Harper's Bazaar.
1:50.6	Christina then rose to editor-in-chief of the Wall Street Journal magazine.
	...

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