Fear is healthy when it’s used to help us grow, but when we’re young, we often let it hold us back. In this inspiring episode, Dr. Sylvia Morris and Dr. Angela Walker sit down with Emmy Award-winning journalist Bridget Sims Lewis to explore her incredible career journey—from broadcast journalism to corporate communications, and beyond. Bridget shares candid moments of fear and self-doubt, reflecting on how overcoming them allowed her to make bold career moves, become a storyteller, and create space for authentic self-expression. Join us as we dive deep into how embracing fear and Sisterhood can shape a more courageous life.
X: @bridgetsl
LinkedIn: @BridgetSimsLewis
IG: @mochamomtravels
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No Fear: The Bold Career Moves Of Bridget Sims Lewis
We are having an exciting conversation. Angela, how are you? What is going on with you?
I’m glad to be here. Grateful to be in your presence. Beautiful Fall day. Enjoying everything. I just got back from a trip to Europe, which has been on my bucket list for a while. Not necessarily the destination I went to, but travel in general. At this stage in life, that has always been one of my passions is traveling.
I got your postcards. Postcards are my love language. I love the written word. I love a personalized note. Thank you.
It took everything I had to be able to mail it from Paris. I was like, “I can’t take it home and mail it from Atlanta.”
You can’t. I do that all the time.
I bought it and I was like, “Can I mail it from here?” She said, “Sure.” Paris was amazing. It was beautiful. Travel puts your life in perspective in so many ways. When you are learning about a different culture, you realize that we are a small piece of this beautiful world, and it helps you appreciate other cultures and where people are coming from. I loved the process of enjoying each other’s company when I was in Paris in the cafes, sitting, eating, drinking, and lingering versus what I feel is our fast-paced atmosphere here at home.
You were on vacation mode it sounds like.
I was completely. We were. It was good. How about you? What’s up with you?
On my last big trip, I went to Accra in Ghana. The thing I like about being in Accra is I feel seen. I feel seen as a woman, as a Black woman, and it is an inspiring and affirming place to be. I brought a little bit of Accra back to the States with me and feel so grateful for the time, the music, the food, the people, and the dresses.
I loved your pictures. Beautiful. You make it enticing. I have a long bucket list, but I am putting Accra on my list.
I recommend it but we have a wonderful guest. We have Bridget Sims Lewis. She is an Emmy Award-winning journalist. She is a book author. She works in corporate communications. She’s had her PR firm, so she has been making boss leaps for a very long time and we want to welcome Bridget Sims Lewis. Welcome, Bridget.
Thank you both. I’m so happy to be here.
It’s great to have you here.
I probably should, in full disclosure, add one of her accomplishments and that’s putting up with me since middle school as my BFF. There are so many more accolades that I could add to your list, including teacher. You teach a class at the University of Nebraska. I can’t even explain the places that you’ve been. Clearly, we can talk about that, but also the mother and recent empty nester of a brilliant freshman college student.
Boss Leap
I agree with Sylvia. We are so happy to finally get you booked in your busy schedule on our show. I’m going to start with some of the questions we wanted to ask you, and one is I’m curious because I have known you since you were your youngest self, but in terms of life in general, what advice would you give to Bridget Angela Sims Lewis when you were a wee teenager?
Advice that I would give to my younger self that’s such a great question. I hear people talk about that often. You see articles in magazines where people write letters to their younger selves. The only thing that comes to my mind and I’m sure there are a lot of things I could have advised myself on is that whole concept of no fear. Fear is healthy when it’s used in positive ways that help us to grow but when you are younger, it’s something I certainly wish I had been able to lean into more not to be afraid to do things. Since you mentioned us going all the way back to childhood, something that Dr. Sylvia might not know is that I tried out for the drill team in high school.
Let me give some context here. We are talking about the Dallas, Texas, drill team. It’s not just a drill team in some ordinary place. The drill team is serious in the South.
It’s been, and at our school, it was something else. I don’t know.
What high school was it?
It was Skyline and I don’t know if it’s official history but, I want to make this short, the school was known for its drill team because it performed at such a level that other schools admired it. Drill teams from other schools patterned their drill teams after ours. Our drill team probably could have competed with, certainly, some of the junior colleges in that area. One that comes to mind is Kilgore. You remember, Angela, because they had a well-known I was going to say, famous drill team. I don’t even remember how many girls were on our high school drill team, but there were a lot. When you think about other schools, we had a lot.
To make the drill teams a big deal I had never been athletic a day in my life, always a bookworm but there was something about this team. They were fun. It was diverse. You had girls who crossed the socio-economic spectrum. They came from all different backgrounds, everything. I thought, “I want to do this.” I can’t remember if it was going into my junior year maybe. I don’t think I would have waited until my senior year. Maybe somewhere around sophomore or junior year, it was the thing and I thought, “I wanted to do this,” but I was scared because I had never been physical in that way. Splits, high kicks, and all of those things. My coach helped me and worked with me. She didn’t do everything for me because that’s an unfair advantage, but I remember being so proud that I tried.
I didn’t make it. I cried afterward, as some girls cried when they did make it. I cried because I didn’t but I remember thinking later, “What was I afraid of? What held me back?” The physical skills, I could have grown. I could have learned. I did have regret later that I was fearful. That fear of, “I’m not going to make it, I’m not good enough, I’m not what they’re looking for,” and that type of thing but I wish I had continued along that path.
It’s interesting because there have been people in my life who said they thought I was fearless. After all, I can walk out on a stage and talk to people or do certain things in that realm that maybe isn’t the realm someone else is comfortable in but I think, “If you only knew how often I have to talk myself up and say, ‘Do it. Don’t be afraid.’” That whole concept of fear. Don’t be afraid.
Advice To Teenage Bridget
That’s so much a part of our lives as kids and teenagers. As I reflect back, I was naive. Completely naive. I tried out for everything I could but I came from a small school and then went into this large, huge high school. I went to school with Bridget. Our high school Skyline High School was the largest high school in Dallas.
No. In the United States. At one point.
I was so naive. I was like, “I want to do this. I want to do that,” and I tried out for almost everything but fear certainly, I can understand it more as I get older. It’s interesting. I didn’t have as much fear when I was that age, but it started to creep in later on. That’s an interesting topic, and maybe we address it in some future episodes in terms of how to address it, but you clearly have. Like you said, you have stepped out there and done it. I’m so proud of you. Thank you for sharing.
Broadcast Journalism
Bridget, you mentioned being able to go out on a stage and speak effortlessly. Tell us about how you got into broadcast journalism.
There’s only one story I got into journalism because it was my first love. I think of the movie Love and Basketball. My first love is journalism. The written, spoken, and visual sounds of stories. On the radio, the way stories were told on the news. Reading the encyclopedia. I was that kid. For fun on Saturdays, I’d watch TV with a dictionary in front of me, flipping the pages and finding words that looked pretty to me. That was my world. Everywhere I used to go, I carried paper and a pencil or pen in my bag or purse. If we were at the auto body shop and my mom was getting work done on her car, I always had something I could pull out and write with. My favorite toy was Speak & Spell. Do you all remember Speak & Spells?
I remember it, but I didn’t have one either.
Sylvia’s thinking, “What is that?” Spell dictionary. That was a game for me. That was fun.
Raised by a single mom my mom had me when she was in college. From a very early age, I remember going to class with her. She’d be in class, and I might be sitting either beside her or outside the window. She would sit next to the window, and I’d be near that window outside. Always with her at the campus library. I remember the name of the library, the look, the feel. Nothing was out of place. There were other kids around, but it didn’t bother me because I was with my mom. That was my early reading, writing, and storytelling.
Once my mom started teaching, I spent a lot of time with my grandmother. She was a nurse. She watched the news. She read the newspaper daily religiously. What did I do? I sat there beside her, reading the newspaper and watching the news. When they talked about something I didn’t understand, I’d hop up. We had this huge, beautiful wooden bookshelf in my grandmother’s den, and one of those old, huge console TVs on the floor. I’d be on the floor watching the news while she sat in her chair, sewing or stitching something. I remember being little, I went right back to that floor and they mentioned Ayatollah Khomeini. I jump up and grab the encyclopedia to look it up.
Did you have encyclopedias in your house?
We do.
I had to go to the library to get encyclopedias. We had a dictionary, but no encyclopedias.
That was my life. That formed everything I did. In junior high school, I was briefly part of the newspaper staff The Tiger Tales or something like that, I don’t remember exactly. In high school, I was on the yearbook staff, where I learned to interview people. Back to that fear thing, there was always a little level of fear, a nervousness but I always thought, “I’ve got to get this job done. Fear needs to be pushed aside so I can talk to people and get the story.” That naturally led to college and journalism.
As far as majoring in broadcast journalism, that came down to my university. My alma mater had a journalism college, and you had to choose a major either broadcasting, which was the study of television and radio advertising, or print, which was magazines and newspapers. Back then, they didn’t have sports PR or business PR. It’s exploding in so many different directions. I chose broadcasting because I loved that medium. I loved that you could tell a story sometimes with very few words and just pictures or videos. I loved the radio.
That’s what led me into broadcast journalism. I didn’t know that I wanted to be a news producer. That fear I never liked looking at myself on camera. In college, you have to study everything. How to direct, how to produce, how to write, and how to edit not just copy editing but physically editing video and audio tracks. Laying down tracks on top of tracks. Complicated storytelling. Even being a photographer.
I had to shoot the camera for my classmates when they were reporting. Then, they’d become the photographer or videographer when I was reporting. Kept along that track and loved it. I wish I had learned more about the business side. That’s another story but that led me to broadcasting. Along those lines, you become very comfortable speaking to people of all kinds. The president of the university, a governor, a celebrity, a sports athlete, an entertainer, a homeless person, someone down on their luck. You learn. That’s what led to being able to become more comfortable, accessible, and enabled to speak to people.
You have described things that I have lived through with you and your process, and how you became a two-time Emmy award-winning producer, and yet, that’s not the end of your story and a part of it. Our show is Boss Leap, and we want to talk to women who have made courageous moves in their career, their life, and their relationships. You went from that. You’ve been in a college setting doing public relations. You’ve had your own public relations firm. We all have these processes when we are making these bossly moves. What drives you? What do you use in terms of making the decisions, and how has that shaped you along the way?
I have made a few boss leaps. What drove me then, and what drives me now, are people. I’m driven. I’m passionate about people and their stories, and I’m cause-driven. When I made the move to education, it was something that I believed in and now you know the history. I’ve always had a passion for education. Never thought I’d work in education, ever. I thought I was going to be a lifer and retire from the newsroom. They’d have to wheel me out. The move to education, though, was a lot more natural than I thought. I did return to school to get my Master’s degree because I thought that I’d been out of school for quite a while, and I needed to tighten up some skills and learn some new ones.
What did you get your Master’s in?
My Master’s degree is in journalism. It’s specifically called Professional Journalism, so you focus more on the business side of things, the community side of things, and the way in which journalism plays a role in the community, in institutions, or in organizations. The reason that I made that move, being very transparent, was that I was at a crossroads. For me, it felt like forever to be a mom and at the point at which my husband and I welcomed our baby girl, I was at an age when many of my friends were high school teenagers, and some were grandparents at that point.
Can you share with our readers how old you were when you conceived?
I was almost 40. I was 38, almost 39.
That’s more common. That’s Angela’s side of the street as an OBGYN but that’s very common.
It is more common now. It wasn’t as common, as I felt several years ago or even in our parents’ generation. I thought I was behind the ball, and I thought, “This is not going to happen. It’s never going to happen.” At the point at which it happened, I thought, “I like this. Complete.”
I have gotten everything I wanted out of broadcast journalism. I have traveled. I don’t want to get too granular and talk about the different types of journalism, but I have done things that some news producers want to do and seldom have the time to do, which is field producing. I’ve done field producing, and that’s where your organization sends a team, like a news team, to another location to report on an extended story. It could be anything from a week at the Super Bowl and everything leading up to that. In my case, it was a tornado.
I hate using words like, “Wipe a city off the map,” but it came close to wiping a city off the map. It was horrible. FEMA was there, along with all these national emergency leaders and what have you. My station felt that it was a big enough deal that they sent a team, which consisted of a producer. I was the producer. Two reporters. One to handle dayside and one to handle nightside. Photographers, satellite truck operators.
I’ve done those types of things. I’ve field-produced. I’ve done extended breaking news. Extended breaking news can be something like I’m showing my age here but like the death of Princess Diana. That’s when you have what’s called wall-to-wall coverage. That’s when the news station goes on the air at midnight and stays on the air through 8:00 in the morning. It’s not a 30-minute newscast or 1-hour ordeal, but something political, something happening at City Hall, a lockdown at a prison facility, or any number of things.
I’ve done all these different major weather coverages. I thought that I’d done everything I wanted to do. I’d won the Emmys. I worked with my idol, Peter Jennings. I produced the Town Hall Meeting, and he hosted it. ABC News came to Dallas, and I was the lucky producer. Probably no one else wanted to do it. I’ve done all the different types of producing, and I thought, “I don’t think there’s anything left.” Now I’ve got this baby. I’m ready to go. I’m ready to go and so, what I did, like everything I do, I started to do research. That’s the first thing. I started reading. I started doing these little strength tests, and everything kept coming back to journalism. “What are you good at? Writing? Maybe you could tell stories.” I started thinking about these things.
It’s natural that education because a university is somewhat like a city, I would imagine. It’s a lot like hospitals. You have everything taking place and so I thought, “There are wonderful stories to be told here.” I met the right people, reached out, and built relationships. We talked about boss leaps and making those moves. We all know how important relationships are and how important cultivating relationships is. I don’t think we always do that as successfully as we can, but it takes effort.
I did that. I landed at a local university. Interesting story they had never had an African American in that high level of a position in their communications office. This was the university that my mother first attended. Shortly after they started integrating, allowing African Americans into this school, this college, she did not feel welcome. Consequently, she ended up leaving and transferring to the HBCU in town, where a lot of African Americans in the local DFW attended.
When I started working there, she had not been to that university in decades. I ended up inviting her to a basketball game there. It was the night we found out we were sitting in the game, and I got a message on my phone. It was the night that Whitney Houston passed away. It’s weird. I connect things. We are sitting there at the basketball game. I can’t even imagine the thoughts, the memories, and the feelings she had but she was proud of me. She couldn’t believe how much the university had evolved and changed. That’s like a little detour.
What drove me then, and what drives me now, are people and the stories. From the university, I also worked at a college preparatory school. Education. In between this time, I launched my PR consultancy with my husband because he also has a PR background. We have worked with so many different types of clients, but it is always because of the people. We have never done work, maybe to my detriment. I was going to say that it was money-driven but always the cause, and the people, and so that’s what drove me.
That’s what drives me now in corporate America. I’m in a financial services institution. I never thought I’d be in financial services or banking, but here’s something interesting. I was discussing it with someone once. I said, at the heart of nearly everything we do is money. At the beginning of this segment, I listened to you both talk about the trip to Accra and Europe. You can’t travel without money.
Money is a tool that we use to do good with, to share love with, or to have experiences. Money is not the root of all evil. Money is simply a tool.
It’s how you use it. That’s where evil comes in. Our daughter is in college, and when we think about families and the journey they take with their children, a lot lead to college, or some, in other directions but college, you can’t send a child to college without money. We think of college loans, the great American dream to own a home, and mortgage loans. We think of buying a teenager their first car, car loans. We think of working life well lived, working hard, and retiring. Investments and retirement. How are you going to live and survive in retirement without money? They need money.
It’s interesting because I never thought of it that way before. I thought of it as the bank, the bank. There are so many stories to be told, and I work in a space that’s focused on specifically my segment or my team DSRI Diverse, Segments, Representation, and Inclusion and so, you have great, wonderful stories of small business owners. We think of mom-and-pop shops, and those are business owners. You think of so many stories. The short answer is, that it’s always people and the stories that drive me and move me. At the end of the day, when I think about getting to the end, did I use the talents that God gave me in the best way possible? That’s what I always try to do.
You’ve given us a lot of things to think about, especially when it comes to you making boss leaps and your motivation for pivoting is the other word that we like to use here. I want to thank you because when I worked with mouthpiece communications with you and your husband this was back before the pandemic you were helping me start to market myself, to do media and public speaking.
You said to me, “Write a book.” I said, “We are working on it.” We published our book, THE GAME PLAN: A Woman’s Guide to Becoming a Physician and Living a Life in Medicine and the second thing you said to me was, “Start a show.” I said, “I’m trying. I have to get the book done first.” Here we are. You are on the show. I wanted to thank you for pushing me to be more fearless because all of those things are outside of my natural wheelhouse, and you always encouraged me. You encouraged me and Angela “No, no. You can do this.” Thank you for that.
Full disclosure, even in the capacity of a mouthpiece, we begged you guys to help us with the launch of THE GAME PLAN. I have known you forever, but I have learned so much in this short segment. The stories, the ideas that you have. I call you a dreamer. Some of us are dreamers. We have these dreams, these ideas, and your gift is that you give that to people. Along those lines I wanted you to talk a little bit about the dream that you had to create the book Upside Down Is Right Side Up, the children’s book that was a top seller on Amazon. Fantastic children’s book but I will let you go into it because that stems from your gift of storytelling and dreaming.
Upside Down Is Right Side Up
I don’t even know why I’m pausing because it’s so easy to tell a story when you know the truth. I don’t know why I paused. I have an idea maybe of why I pause. My husband and my mother often talk about me being such a giving person. My mother has set it off, and in a way that could almost be taken in the wrong way. “You are such a giving person,” she says to me all the time.
Maybe there have been times when I should not have been so giving. She and I had a conversation and I told her, “I will never apologize for being who I am.” There have been times when, maybe, when you think about it, thinking about this the word boss leap. When I think of a boss, it entails so many things and of people who are astute business people and who know how to make boss moves, but there’s a difference, and I don’t want to get bogged down in semantics. There’s a difference between boss moves and boss leaps. My husband says, “You are so giving.”
From day one, he has said Let me say, my husband is a New Yorker. I like to use that. You have to understand I’m a Southern belle. He’s a New Yorker. He’s a little bit gruff sometimes, though people don’t always know it, and I’m laid back and patient most times. We can be different. He can be in-your-face, though he’s worked on that and isn’t always like that but our daughter is more of that. He always says, “You give things away. You should learn to monetize that.” If I have an idea. I do. It’s like I give birth over and over. I give it away.
I laughed, and the reason I paused is because I did create and edit a children’s book. I’m very excited about it, very proud of it. Many members of my family, including my aunt, used to give me journals. Always, for birthdays or different holidays. I got journals. I had a collection of journals, like lots of journals, and I used them all. I wrote from the beginning to the end of the book. I had all these journals. I wish I still had those journals.
Whenever I have a dream or a thought, I put it in the journal but if I have a thought or an idea or a dream for someone else, I give it away. What they do with it is their business. I’m not always willing to walk them through it. I hand it to them “Here’s what you should be doing. Now, you go find the accountant or the accounts, or whoever, to help you bring this to fruition.”
The dream for the book was that it would be written by me and the co-author. The co-author ended up writing the book and did a wonderful job on it. Then my role shifted to being the creator and editor but not the co-author. I chuckle a little bit because I say a little bit of clarification when I talk to people. I say, “I’m the creator and the editor, not the author.” If anyone knows about the editing process, they know that the editing process is equally as important as the writing.
That’s where the money is. All these flowery words. It’s about being succinct and getting the message across. Without the editing, there’s no book. Truthfully, there’s no book without the spark of the idea and then being able to execute the said idea.
It’s true of other forms of media such as young books, and magazines. If you think about any magazine, you’ve got your writer but then the magic you’ve got your editor, who sets eyes on every single piece and takes accountability for every single piece. The dream for the book was just that it was a dream. It was as simple as that. I went to sleep. I had a dream. I woke up, and my brain was on fire with this dream-like, “I’m gonna write this book.”
I reached out to my co-author and said, “Listen to this. I had this dream. We need to do this.” What’s interesting is that there was an interview with a radio station, and the author was interviewed. When the reporter asked, “How did this come about? How did this whole thing come to be?” The author said, “My friend had a dream, and then I ran with it.” I first paused. Then I laughed because I said, “That’s true.” As with every story, there’s a story behind the story and so I thought, “It is what it is.”
I love that Southern expression. I’m from Los Angeles, but that’s my favorite. We are going to say bless her heart, and we are going to bless her.
That was the story of it. It’s funny because when you said the dreamer in the interview when I heard it, I said, “I’m the dreamer. Why wasn’t my name mentioned?” That’s something like that little vanity creeps in and you think, “This is a small radio.” I’m not minimizing what I said. When I say that, it wasn’t on Satellite XM. It wasn’t for the world to hear. It wasn’t on New York Radio Station One or something like that, but I was thinking.
Vanity does creep in. Let’s be real. Not everything is about, “God gave me this gift.” You would like for your name to be mentioned. You do want the credit when the credit is due. I don’t want credit for anything that I don’t do. If it’s crap. When the you-know-what hit the fan, you take credit for it. When the show was amazing, we got wonderful ratings. When we didn’t piss off any advertisers when the sales team was happy because we made their clients happy when the stories were great. It’s a team. Thanks, team.
When I won my Emmys, the team because one of the Emmys was for the space shuttle Columbia disaster. When the space shuttle tragically exploded, I was producing that day. I could not have produced that newscast without the team but it’s interesting, though, that when something does go wrong, people blame the producer. Or what happened, or a story that’s poorly written people blame, “Where is your editor?”
Sisterhood
I want to go back for a moment and perhaps help us think about this a little bit. When you talk about vanity. From my side of the street, I see it as if you were the co-creator, or you were the creative spark, the creator of this idea for Upside Down is the Right Side Up. Anytime there was an interview, from my perspective, if I’m talking about our book, I mention all of my four co-authors because they are integral in the writing of the book. They are my co-authors. If there was a creative idea, and we had a creator, we always mentioned our editor. I wouldn’t call it vanity and I am saying this, but then coming to the question of sisterhood let’s talk about sisterhood and what that means to you, and, you know, how can we be better supportive of each other as women?
It’s interesting because having grew up while I was an only child until I was fifteen. I’m not going to say I have been up and on the child.
The three of us are only children.
The notion of sisterhood comes from, for me, it is anyone who supports you and helps you to become better and maybe you don’t become better, but they are there to help you or to encourage you to become better because you might fall up and down. I will use Angela’s example and try not to tear up. One of the things I have struggled with probably since maybe after college I don’t know. Even when I was a teenager, I always felt that I was the chubby one. It was funny because I was a preemie. I was 2 pounds and 3 ounces when I was born. Doctors gave my mom a 50/50 chance of me surviving. They said that, if I did survive, I’d have lifelong cognitive difficulties.
They were wrong.
I was in the hospital for five months after I was born. I thought, “I was so tiny at first, why am I not tiny?” I have never been tiny, but I have felt that weight has been this burdensome thing. Even when it was, I looked back at photos of me in high school and I thought I always felt like I was the largest but a larger girl and looked back at some photos and I showed my husband and I’m not going to make the face that he made, but he said, “You thought you were heavy?” I said, “Yeah. College after college. It’s a struggle.
Sisterhood analysis.” That’s it. It’s having a friend who supports you through that, listens to you, whether you’ve said it one time, 10 times, after these many years, 100 times, and keeps saying, “You can do it,” and they are not saying it because they think it sounds good. They believe that you can do it. I think of that as sisterhood, someone there to listen and when you mentioned Sisterhood, I thought, the last book that I read in its entirety was Becoming by Michelle Obama. I have read other books. I’m looking at some books right now that I need to read.
Even though Michelle talked about a wide range of things from her childhood, that family support system, meeting the former president, her relationship with her brother, and following him to college the thing that stood out to me that resonated with me was the Sisterhood, that idea of finding your tribe, your people that will get you through, that will just be there in the good and the bad. You have a lot of friends who are good friends and they are like that, but they are not always consistent with it. Like they drop in. You have friends who drop in and drop out. We love them too. I’m here if you need me. That’s why we have Sisterhood. The last part of your question was, “How can we achieve Sisterhood?”
How can we be better sisters? How can we be better friends? How can we support women better?
I mentioned building relationships and nurturing relationships in the business space. It’s the same in the personal space, and being better sisters. We can’t always be there physically, but we can send a postcard because we know that a postcard means a lot to our friends. We can send an emoji. There are days when I’m busy, but Angela is on my brain and I send this hand emoji. I don’t know if that’s supposed to be a high five, a hello, or you. I don’t know, but I will send that.
There have been days when I was working. I’m working from home, there have been days I have been at the physical office, and she pops into my head and I send the hand. She’s busier than I am, but she knows that when I send that hand, it means I’m not trying to have a conversation. I’m letting you know you’re on my brain. I don’t have time for a conversation. I’m sending the hand but we can be better sisters that way, showing up to hear them speak. I have a friend who calls me sis. We worked together at one point. She’s a younger one and she’s in real estate now. She used to be in prison in real estate and she is doing a fabulous job.
I messaged her one day and said, “The next time you have a webinar, let me know. I don’t want to be a realtor. I want to come and support you.” She said, “Thanks, sis. I know you mean that?” She did, and she sent me the information, but I couldn’t attend and had a scheduling conflict. Those kinds of things and I don’t, besides Angela, I don’t often hear from friends in the way that I would like and I asked my husband. I said, “I feel as if I’m always sending messages to say, ‘How’s everything? Hope you are doing well.'” At that same moment, I’m reminded that that’s not being a good friend. If you are expecting to receive it back because you gave it, you expect to receive it. They might be busy or they might be doing something. They are not able to reciprocate in the time that you wanted, in the way that you wanted, but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t. Show sisterhood. Check on them and encourage them if they are trying to get their recertification or their licensure, and they are going through different things. Be you.
For some people, yes, but for others, it is a relationship. As we age, our lives are busier, and we have more responsibility but Angela always talks about it, and reminds me of intentionality. You are right. The expectation of someone responding to me in the same way that I show them appreciation or sisterhood is not necessarily ideal. However, if I’m sending you a postcard and then maybe I don’t hear from you until you need something, or you have a problem, or you want me to show up at your event, but I don’t hear anything in between, then perhaps I have to readjust where you are on that list for my sisterhood. That’s something that I have had to learn to forgive people for not showing up in the exact way that I would do it, but then understanding the way in which they do show up for me and for those who don’t show up for me at all.
We are at an age where I don’t think you can continue to expend energy when you are not receiving the positive energy back. Sisterhood is having the expectation that a person wants you to thrive and that they see joy when you are thriving. They are not there to hear the T and talk about all the negative things in your life. They are there to hear it when you need to unload but ultimately, their goal is to see you thrive.
I agree with that 100%. I have been fortunate. I think you get what you give out. I have a cousin who’s like a sister to me. Angela knows her. Her name is Carol. We call her by her middle name, Lin, and she’s like a big sister and she said many times, “You have such great friends. You have such great friends.” She said that again and again. I don’t have any friends that I can think of. Maybe one. We don’t even talk that often, but who calls for tea?
I do have friends who want to see me do well and be well, and one of the things, Sylvia, you mentioned is it’s all in how you not you, but a person treat their friendships and what they are willing to accept. Thankfully, I don’t have a lot of friends. For many who only call when they need something, you mentioned, if the friend only calls when they need something, that’s not what I was talking about sisterhood, you should be intentional. Have the expectation of a friend being there for you, but I have a few friends who only call when they need something. If I am honest, I have family members who only call when they need something.
That’s a whole show right there.
Would I be there for them in a heartbeat? If I can. Friends, and when it comes to sisterhood. I don’t have a lot who only call when they need something. I have some dear old friends, good friends from college, one in particular I’m going to say her name because I love her so much Tanya Horn. If she ever read this, Angela, you met Tanya. She was at the wedding. She’s your soror. We don’t talk as often as we used to, but when we talk, that love and support are genuine still, and we are there for each other. We are talking about people who are there as much, and in a way as much as they can be from a distance. They’re several states away, but they’ll call to check on me and see how I’m doing, how my husband’s doing, how our daughter’s doing and maybe they are calling to share their love, but sometimes not to check on you.
Self-Care
I have so many more questions for you, Bridget. We may have to have you back for another segment, but I want to, as we talked about friendships and how we hope that people are showing up for us, we want to always come back to how we are taking care of ourselves and how you practice self-care and share with our audience how you do that, or how you’d like to do that, and what that means to you.
I don’t think I practice self-care in the way that I should. Like a lot of busy women, and I don’t want to make this excuse, but there are a lot of women who put themselves last and of course. I will say this, though I’m making a commitment to better self-care. Part of my self-care involves prayer. For me, it’s even spiritual. Yes, but that centering usually, when I’m praying, I have quiet, and it’s time for me. Sometimes I go all wobbly and all over the place, but He understands me. He designed me, so He struck me. That’s self-care.
It’s funny because my husband says that he thinks I’m so happy in the kitchen. I don’t consider myself a great cook, but I love to be in the kitchen with some music playing. There’s music right now playing it’s slow, some jazz but I love it. You talked about, again, across or I have spices. I like to create. I like to see if I can create something that I’ve had at a restaurant. For me, it’s often not even about eating but creating. Self-care takes me to a place that makes me feel good when I’m in the kitchen. I think of my grandmother often. When I’m creating something healthy, I’m doing something to help myself. I think of my travels, and so that’s a form of self-care but I am planning to learn to swim. For me, self-care, but I’m not the woman who spends a lot of time at the nail salon or the hair salon because, quite honestly, I don’t have the patience. I don’t. It’s not that I don’t do those things because I don’t like them, I just don’t have the patience.
Bridget Sims Lewis, we are so thankful that you were here with us and sharing your journey. You have left us and our readers with a lot of pearls, certainly encouraging sisterhood for you, being encouraging to your sisters and other people to be a better version of themselves. The importance of finding your people, or your tribe, being cause-driven. That’s my biggest takeaway people-driven as well as being able to tell their stories. Again, we thank you for being here on the show.
I have to say, as you were trying not to tear up for those who may be watching on YouTube, what you see is what you get, and you are 100% authentic. You have been the most amazing friend that I could have ever asked for, and I am so grateful. You’ve been there with me every step of my boss’s moves, my boss leaps. Always a very sound person, someone who gives sound advice. You listen well. You are a very good storyteller. If I call, I’m going to get some good information, and it’s worth knowing but you’ve always got my back, so I love you, girl. I can’t wait to see what is next for you. It’s just bigger and better. I can’t thank you enough for being here with us.
Thank you. I didn’t expect it to even be a guess.
We will add your information in terms of if anyone wants to reach you and how to get in touch. Is there anything that you’d like to add at the end here? I will say that you can get your book Upside Down is Right Side Up on Amazon, and it is a wonderful read for young girls of any age who want to do something that they may feel like they are called to do but aren’t quite sure. It talks about her story of being a girl of color made to feel like she didn’t belong or fit, in and how her support system, which was her parents, made her feel comfortable. That’s a very good platform in our community to talk about but anyway. I could go on and on and on, but it’s a great read, and it’s almost Christmas. There are like 15 or 14 Mondays left until Christmas, and by the time this airs, we’ll be close to that time. Just a plug there.
Thank you, and I’m looking forward to supporting you all and learning and hearing more from you.
Until next time, be well.
Important Links
- Bridget Sims Lewis
- THE GAME PLAN: A Woman’s Guide to Becoming a Physician and Living a Life in Medicine
- Upside Down Is Right Side Up
- Becoming
About Bridget Sims Lewis
Bridget Sims Lewis is a versatile professional with a background in journalism and a passion for storytelling. With over 30 years of experience in communications and media relations, Bridget has worked in various newsroom settings, navigating complex dynamics and sharing remarkable stories.
A two-time Emmy Award winner, Bridget has used her expertise to enhance communications strategies for medical doctors, judges, and leaders in banking and the higher education industry. She also recently created and edited a children’s book.
Bridget holds a Master of Arts and Bachelor’s Degrees in Journalism from the University of Nebraska, where she has served as an adjunct instructor and as a member of the Chancellor’s Council of Alumni Ambassadors and Nebraska Alumni Association Executive Board. She is also an advocate for domestic violence awareness and prevention.
Alongside her professional journey, Bridget is a wife and mother who loves to travel and explore cultures different from her own. Her favorite family trip involved riding a roller coaster through the roof of Ferrari World in Abu Dhabi.