KEISHA LANCE BOTTOMS: EPISODE LINK

BOOK: LINK

TRANSCRIPT:

Colleen: Welcome back, everybody. I am thrilled to be speaking with Keisha Lance Bottoms today.

Welcome to the show.

Keisha: Thank you for having me. I’m so excited to be here.

Colleen:  Well, it’s our pleasure. And, you know, congratulations on the new book. It’s called The Rough Side of the Mountain. It’s a memoir and I’m showing it for all the YouTubers out there. I read it this past

weekend, and I learned so much about you that I had no idea. And it’s a very honest,

it’s a very thoughtful read. I think my first question to you is,

why did you want to call it The Rough Side of the Mountain?

Keisha: Well, thank you for reading it,

and I’m glad that you enjoyed it. There was a gospel song called The Rough Side of the Mountain

when I was a little girl, and I would often hear it when I was in my grandmother’s kitchen while

she was cooking. She would often play gospel radio or either have the television on,

and there was this commercial that would come on, and I can’t sing at all, so I’m not going to try

and do it justice. But it talked about just going up the road and said, I’m going up the rough side

of the mountain. And it’s a phrase that I often think of just in challenging times.

And so when we were tossing names around for the book, it came to me.

And then we just started doing a little more research. just on what the background of that title,

the title of that song was. And it was so appropriate. Aretha Franklin said it best that when you

go up the smooth side, you don’t have anything to hold on to on the mountain. It’s the rough side

that gives you something to hold on to. And I think it completely captured the story that I hope to

tell about my life, my upbringing, and all the things that shaped me.

Colleen: Well, let’s talk a little bit about that because you do have such an interesting story to tell. I

did not know that your father was an R&B singer. Can you talk a little bit about your dad?

Keisha: Yes, my dad’s name was Major Lance. He was just the most incredible human being,

just this salt of the earth guy who happened to be a big star.

He was especially popular in the early 1960s. He gave this little known guy named Elton John, and Sir Elton has shared a story with me of going to audition for Wilson Pickett.

There was this music craze called Northern Soul. So for a lot of the soul singers who were popular

in the United States, they then moved to England on the back end of their careers.

And my dad was one of those people. And Sir Elton says that Wilson Pickett passed on the band.

It was Bluesology, I believe, was the band. Didn’t like them. So my dad picked them up.

They traveled all around Europe. And Sir Elton says at the end of that tour,

my dad took off his tie and gave it to him. And he says it was the biggest professional break that he ever received in music. And then he serenaded me with one of my dad’s songs.

Colleen: So so lovely.

Keisha: Yeah. And, you know, my dad struggled with addiction.

at some point on the back end of his music career. And to make ends meet,

he started selling drugs and he ended up going to prison. So this was this wonderful,

kind-hearted human being, and I often say good people sometimes make really bad mistakes.

And my dad was very family oriented, but it literally felt like the death of our family when my dadnwent to prison. And it’s my life.

Colleen: Well, that’s kind of where you start the book.

You start the book with your dad being arrested and you actually witnessing that and how what a

pivotal moment it was for you. Can you talk about what your life was like after?

Because I think a lot of what you talk about in the book, that point,

there was a before you and an after. Can you talk about the after?

Keisha: And it still makes me very

emotional. Like it, you know, catches me at really odd times, like talking to you.

Colleen: Oh no, please don’t get upset.

Keisha: My dad was this really family-oriented guy who was always present.

He was a very… engaged dad. And he very much made sure that our family got to be a part of all

these extraordinary things that he experienced from traveling the world to going to see his shows

or whatever the thing may have been, including coaching my brother’s little league baseball team.

My parents separated at some point and I grew up in an era where adults just didn’t always tell

kids what was going on. We didn’t get to be in the adult business. So I didn’t realize the

challenges that my parents were having. It felt very abrupt to me when my mom said that we were

moving from the only family home that I had known. And they separated.

I later came to find out it was, you know, because my dad was having a lot of financial issues,

just being very irresponsible. And it was really impacting our family. So we had moved into an

apartment. My parents had reconciled at some point and we were preparing to move into another

house. And I was used to my dad being at home every day when I came home from school because he,

as an entertainer, of course, worked at night. And I came home to police officers all over our

apartment and they were leading my dad out in handcuffs.

 I remember what the sun felt like that day.

I remembered how I felt that day. I mean, it was such an impressionable moment for me.

And my dad ultimately was sentenced to 10 years in prison. He served three.

But as you can imagine, at eight years old, that three years is an eternity.

And everything about our lives changed. I went from this very pampered carefree life with this

intact two-parent household to my dad suddenly being taken away from us.

My ballet lessons were replaced with going to visit him in prisons across this state.

And just the comfort that I’d always known was suddenly gone and it completely changed.

My life, the life of our family, my parents never reconciled. And it was not until adulthood that I

even began to speak of it publicly. It was something that I carried a lot of shame about and not

quite frankly until therapy that I realized how much of an impact his going to prison still had on

my life and decisions I made and just the lens in which I saw the world.

Colleen: It was, you know, you were eight years old and it was almost intuitive that you knew, we did not

discuss this. Dad was traveling. Dad was doing a show. And that really carried you for a long time

and even into you going to law school, becoming an attorney, your political career, people

thought you were kind of aloof. But you didn’t tell your story.

You went through therapy. Why is it so important to tell it now?

Keisha:  We carry so much shame and

oftentimes it’s rooted in believing that we are the only ones who experience things.

And the reality is there are a lot of families who have family members who struggle with addiction.

There are a lot of families who experience that. There are a lot of families that things happen suddenly

and changes everything about your family. And for me,

and I know a lot of African-Americans, you’re taught you don’t ever let anybody see you sweat.

You walk out this door and you look like everything’s okay, even when it’s not okay.

And that’s a heavy burden to carry, not just for a child, but to carry that throughout your life.

And I came to realize that this mask that I…

had been taught to put on every day was really almost a chain on my life.

That it stopped people from understanding or even seeing the full me.

And sometimes people would take that aloofness as arrogance or whatever the phrase you would attach

to it. But it really was just a guarded coping mechanism.

Can’t let you know too much about me because then you might hurt me. Then you might see the real me

and you may not think that I’m good enough or that I deserve to be here.

And I didn’t fully conceptualize how much that was weighing me down,

quite honestly, until I had to put myself out there publicly to run for office.

Colleen: Right, because that does open you up. to everyone kind of doing research on your background and

learning about your personal life and things like that, so you kind of got that love of the

spotlight from your dad that you aren’t afraid to be in the spotlight but you’ve got your tenacity

it seems from your mom because your mom telling the story, she sounds like a very strong,

she was a very strong woman. She did not let your father going to prison, stop her, you know,

working at the IRS, but she did what she had to do. She wanted to be a hairdresser. How was your

relationship with your mom? It sounds like it was really good as you are an adult. How was your

relationship through the teen years? Cause I know, you know, I have two daughters and I, you know,

was a daughter obviously, and it can be quite. Quite aggressive sometimes. Not aggressive,

but quite challenging.

Keisha: Oh, yeah. Challenging would be an understatement.

I had a lot of resentment toward my mom. I adored my mother.

I respected my mother. But I never placed blame on my dad.

It was her fault that. they didn’t stay together, that she didn’t see it through,

that she didn’t wait for him to get out of prison. And, you know,

I often say, and I find myself saying this to my kids, life is complicated.

And the older you get, the more you realize love is not simple decisions that you make.

You just, you do the very best that you can, in that moment. And as I’ve grown,

my mom is my very best friend and nobody would ever know that we,

that I felt otherwise toward her. She probably didn’t even know it quite frankly,

because again, I was born of this age. You didn’t get to express your opinions.

Colleen: Oh yes. Not without consequences anyway.

Keisha: But I understand my mother so much more. And even just in being able to have open conversations

about how she felt about what my father had done. And she said,

you know, I was just, I was so angry. I just couldn’t believe all of this was happening under my

nose and that he would put our family at risk in this way. But my parents had just this very…

deep unending love for each other. And they, in so many ways,

they were the model for divorces. My mother never spoke ill about my father.

He never stopped loving my mother. And she would often say to me,

as you get older, you’ll form your own opinions. And I don’t want my opinions and my feelings.

to form yours. I want you to be able to form your own. And in forming my own opinions,

I now see it was very complicated. It was a very difficult decision for her,

but she made the decision that she believed was best for her and for her children.

So writing this book in so many ways was therapeutic for me.

I was so grateful that I was talking to my therapist often as I wrote it because I don’t know that

I could have expressed myself in the way that I did without processing all of the feelings that

many things that I hadn’t talked about that I had buried away without talking to my therapist at

the same time.

Colleen: Well, it’s difficult to be vulnerable. And knowing that people are going to read

this, especially in the position you’re in, being vulnerable is not always looked upon as an asset.

So you walk that fine line of being a strong woman who is in a position of power and being

vulnerable about your truth. That’s your truth. And I think at one point you say there’s a price to

pay when you lose a connection to yourself. What did you mean by that?

Keisha: Yeah, when you lose that

connection, you find yourself chasing every shiny object in the moment.

And you’re constantly searching for a purpose.

At least I was. Like, who am I? What do I care about?

What do I value? What matters to me? And I’ve also come to appreciate that it’s not going to always

make sense to other people. And it’s not supposed to. That there are some things that are specific

to you and your heart, a calling on your life that only you will understand and only you were put

on this earth to fulfill. And, you know,

you often hear it said. You know, you’re doing the right job when it’s the job that you would do

for free.

And for me, that purpose has always felt fulfilled when I’ve served in public office.

And it’s because you get to have this heart for community and you get to do for community and you

get to represent people who otherwise don’t have a voice. And I’ve learned so much of that is

rooted in feeling like I didn’t have a voice at eight. That there was nobody who was speaking up

for me. There was nobody who understood me. There was nobody who understood the challenges my

mother was going through, that my dad was going through, that our family was experiencing.

Oftentimes feeling alone. Outside of family, very loving,

supportive, close-knit family. But I… felt that we as a unit were misunderstood.

And I truly believe in serving in office. I get to fulfill that space,

stand in the gap for people who may otherwise feel like I did.

Colleen:  Well,

that’s really powerful. I think that you’re, you know, as women in our 50s, because I’m in my 50s

too, there is so much learned wisdom. That is a gift to be shared.

However, we choose, we each get a platform to share it. And I think we’re a lot more, we’re more

open to allowing people to see the journey because we survived it. So you’re saying I survived it.

You can do so as well. And if I can teach you something along the way, so you don’t have to maybe

fight the same battles. That’s a really powerful statement, I think, to do.

Keisha:  And,

you know, we grew up in an era before the Internet. Where everybody didn’t publicize their

business and you didn’t talk about bad things publicly. And I,

in so many ways, admire these younger generations. You know,

sometimes with kids, I’m like, please don’t post that.

There’s too much information. But I do admire that they find community in sharing what they’re

struggling with. It’s much more accepting, I think, now. Much more accepting. And for so many of us

of our age, we were just left to figure it out or to just get over it.

Colleen: Exactly. Exactly.

Keisha: One of my uncles passed last year and I was so close to him.

And in driving, my mom and I were in the car and we were driving to the hospital and I started to

cry. And she said, uh-uh, can’t do that. Get yourself together. I’m like,

I don’t even get to cry.

Imagine saying that to one of your children now. No crying, no crying.

And, you know, and I can laugh about it now, but I pulled it together. And I didn’t get to cry for

a long time because I didn’t have permission to cry. So even at my ripe age.

We still listen to our mothers. No, no, no. You better pull it together right now.

Colleen: It is such a generational thing. It really is. And I completely get that.

I went to law school, you’re practicing law, you adopted four beautiful children, very close in age.

So you’re, you know, I think the youngest twins were six when you decided it was time to run for

mayor. And you have a really supportive husband, which is lovely. But what were you thinking at

that point?

I know you had been on city council, so you had some experience, but my gosh, what a time to

decide.

Keisha: Yeah, and it’s funny when I look back on pictures,

even as I was pulling pictures together for the book, I’m like, oh, these are some tiny little

beings.

You know, I was moving forward.

And we don’t often realize. how much we’re juggling until we’re on the other side of it.

And thankfully I had a great support system. My husband is beyond incredible.

My mom would come to my house every morning before I even got out of bed to get the kids ready and

make them breakfast and make sure they got to school and all those things. So the support system

was there. But, you know, having four kids,

I think I had three in elementary school and one going into high school,

embarking upon being the mayor of Atlanta. That was, it was a lot.

And someone just asked me the other day, just kind of in hindsight.

what I would do differently. And what I’ve said is this time around, I’ll save something for me.

I gave everything that I had to give to being mayor. I gave everything I had to give to being a

great wife and a great mother, but I left nothing for me,

nothing at all. And in this season, I am mindful of saving something for me.

Even if that means listening to a podcast, listening to a book of fiction that doesn’t have

anything to do with world affairs or how I can be a better leader. Just something that I want to

listen to because I get enjoyment out of it. Being thoughtful of that because,

you know, again, at the right page that I am now, I realize.

And through talking with my therapist, there’s a difference between being strong and being

powerful. And when you’re strong, you often are depleted.

And what she said to me, and I quote her so often, her name is Rosa Ash. Strong women push through.

They have heart attacks. They have high blood pressure. They have strokes. They die.

Powerful women stop. They feel. They process. They learn the lessons.

And then and only then do they move on. So I’m committed to being powerful in this season.

And being powerful means that I’ve got to exercise self-care,

even when it means I can’t be everything for everybody else.

Colleen: Well,

I think from a very early age, women are taught that we have to be everything to everyone. And

making any kind of… for ourselves is somehow selfish.

Keisha: That’s right.

Colleen: But as we get older, I think we realize that self-care isn’t selfish. It’s important so that we

can fill our cup, as they say, before we can help someone else.

 But I don’t know that we,

you know, I wish women in their 30s would learn it, but it takes experience to learn that we can’t

give everything and leave nothing left for us.

Keisha: Because we are often raised by these women who keep

it together and we don’t see their struggles. They just show us how tough they are and how they

push through and how they do it all. And we, at least I didn’t, I never got to see my mother cry.

I think maybe the first time I saw my mother cry was when my grandmother passed and I was 29.

She never cried in front of me. She never complained in front of me. She always looked like she had

it together no matter how much things were falling apart.

And a part of it is it’s a great example,

but it’s not always a healthy example. I think it’s a great example in resilience in that bad

things can happen. Tough times can come your way. You can go up that rough side of the mountain and

you’re going to be okay. But is it… Is it even realistic?

And I, you know, I find myself even with my daughter,

who she’s read the part to the book with her name in it.

She searched for her name.

And she says she’s learned so much that she never knew about me. So I’m even thoughtful about,

well, how truthful am I being with her about who I am and all the things that have made me into who

I am? You know, clearly not completely honest because she’s reading the book and learning things

about me with the rest of the world.

Colleen:  Right. But it’s hard because there’s this balance of what we

were taught. growing up that we show our kids strength and we, we are what they can rely upon where

there’s safe space. We have to show them that we can, you can survive anything. And then being

vulnerable to them wasn’t something that was promoted as we were younger. It was taboo.

Keisha: Not at all. Um, not at all. And I, I,

again, in this season, I just, I want to experience all the feelings.

I want to give myself permission to. So even over the past year,

you know, we’ve seen these staggering numbers about women who’ve been fired or let go from the

workforce. The number I think for Black women has been 300,000. And I do consulting work and had a

really big contract that was canceled recently. In my other season in life,

I would have said, girl, God got you. It’s okay. Don’t worry about that. And I would have just kept

it moving. And I thought, no, wait a minute. I’m supposed to stop and process and feel.

And I thought, well, how much time do I have for this? I don’t have time to be in my feelings.

But I allow myself to feel all the things. Like I’m scared.

I’m angry. I’m disappointed. I’m anxious. Like all the things.

And surprisingly, it didn’t take me long. I mean, less than 24 hours I had moved on,

but it was so refreshing to feel it and to process it and know that I didn’t have to push through.

And I hope that in that.

And reading the book that people will see that you can still reclaim your power.

It may not be writing a book, but it may even be being truthful to yourself about what your story

1. And feeling all the things. Even in recording the audio in the book,

I’ve never once cried in my life about the neighbor who molested me.

Ever. Never. I sobbed.

In reading those words out loud. And I thought, whoa,

where did that come from? You know, this happened to me 40 plus years ago.

Where did that emotion come from? But I never allowed myself to feel it.

Because I was taught you, you tuck things away and you keep pushing. But they keep coming up.

Colleen: They come up in other ways. You know, and saying it out loud was making it real maybe for you for

the first time to process it. And it’s a very vulnerable thing. You talk about the molestation.

You talk about your eating disorders. Those are very vulnerable topics. And I think through doing

that, you’re going to help a lot of people. I do.

Keisha:  I think it’s going to resonate with a lot of men

and women who read the story.

Colleen: And so. Now you’re mayor in this part of the book.

You’re mayor. You got four kids. Your husband’s great being supportive. But you kind of hit the

ground running between the cyber attack and George Floyd and the pandemic.

You did not have an easy time being mayor.

Did you just feel like, what’s next? What’s tomorrow going to bring?

Keisha:  Yeah,

 I was constantly in this state of anticipation of the next shoe dropping.

Like, OK, we’ve gotten past this. Let me let me brace myself for the next unknown thing.

And, you know, with Donald Trump in office, he was president three years of my term as mayor.

You know, you would never know even what he would bring your way. So there was constant

disruption, constant challenges, largest cyber attack in the history of the United States on a

municipality. You mentioned George Floyd, and then in the midst of that,

you’re still running a multi-billion dollar entity with…

,000 plus employees. So there’s his day job and then the grenades that just kept get thrown in

along the way. And again, I’m so proud of everything I did as mayor and how I pushed through and

how the city navigated and how I was able to use my voice.

But I don’t think it was really, for me anyway, it was the pandemic and us all having to go home.

And I remember being in my backyard one day and looking around.

And mind you, at this point, I’ve been in my house at least 15 years, looking around my backyard

going, oh, this is nice.

Like, wow, this is peaceful.

I’d never sat in my backyard. Which sounds insane. We would have family gatherings at the house and

I would be in and out of the backyard. But just to sit there and look around us like what nice

trees. So I think for, you know, so many people,

myself included, the 2020 just gave us all an opportunity and during this very awful time to be

still in a way that we had not given ourselves the luxury of doing in a really long time.

Colleen: And it seemed like from the get-go during the time you were mayor,

it just, you know, things like once in a lifetime cyber attack, once in a lifetime pandemic,

you know, you had these protests and it was all so new to people.

You’re trying to keep safety and security paramount.

But it’s also a personal thing because you have three boys and you’re trying to say in the book,

you’re very honest. I tell them what to say if they get pulled over by police officers. Like it’s

very hard not to make that personal. How did you maintain that balance?

Keisha:  Well, it was difficult and

my kids were always top of mind for me and watching them process the emotions.

really gave me a lens on how young people were feeling, but especially young people.

I would see these fluctuations in emotion from just bewilderment to anger,

to fear, to just not knowing even what to do with it all.

And it was, you know, again, you just kind of, you lean into What you know in many cases with this,

what you don’t know. And I think, again, this experience is my grandmother would often say,

God, you know, all things work for the good of those who love the Lord is what my grandmother would

tell me. It helped me become a stronger leader because there was no blueprint. And there was no one

who could say, well, when I was faced with a pandemic. Right.

You know, dealt with X, Y, Z. This is how I did it and this is how he did it.

We had to figure it out. And I realized that so much of what I’ve leaned into was not what I had

learned as a judge or city council or as an attorney. It was just this innate sense of direction

and purpose and knowing that. You make the best decisions you can make.

Sometimes they are right. Sometimes they are wrong. But you do the very best that you can do in

those moments. And that’s what I did quite often as mayor. And it was put to the test multiple

times in multiple ways during my term.

Colleen: You did not run for a second term.

And you talk about that in the book as well. Do you feel like your health?

had to be paramount? Do you feel like that term took a toll on your mental and physical well

-being?

Keisah:  Oh, I know that it did. And again, it wasn’t that I couldn’t do it.

Right. And I couldn’t take it. I could.

But as I approach the decision about whether or not I should run again,

looming for me was that my dad died suddenly at 55.

And I thought, if I have four more years on this earth, what do I want these four years to look

like? And I did realize, you know, there was a toll and a price that my family paid.

There was a toll and a price that I had paid during that time. I write about having pre

-hypertension, pre-diabetes.

what’s called a glaucoma suspect because I missed my eye appointments and my dad had glaucoma my

grandmother and aunt had glaucoma so I now do daily drops because just in a couple of years the

pressure in my eyes had changed. (I had) chronic inflammation I gained 30 pounds like I knew physically

that the job had taken a toll um but I also just And I write about this.

It was from a position of strength and not weakness. I was so proud of everything we accomplished.

Four years of balance, budgets, historic pay raises for public safety, created a child savings

account, put money into workforce development training, affordable housing, all these great metrics

that mayors dream of hitting. I’d exceeded all of those. But I…

Thought a lot about and I prayed a lot about running again.

Is this best for me? Is this best for my family?

And in a very rare moment, I made a decision that was best for me.

And that was best for my family at that time. And I don’t regret it a single day.

Colleen: Well, you know, it also. opened you up to becoming a Senior Advisor for President Biden,

which was, what was it like walking into the White House?  I can’t even imagine.

Keisha: So President Biden, I’ve been vetted as vice president.

He had asked me to join the cabinet more than once. And I said no, because I was committed to being

mayor and wanted to complete my term. And then they called again.

I later found out they just assumed I was going to say no again. Nobody thought that I would say

yes. And somebody said, well, just try it one more time. And I said,

yes, I was supposed to go to the White House just for a short period of time. And it ended up being

much longer. And walking in, I would never not feel the magnitude of the space.

There was an East Wing then that I would walk through every day through the East Wing entrance.

And I would go through the basement and it’s a staging area,

cardboard boxes, a lot of activity in that area from food, deliveries,

et cetera. And I write about my grandfather who used to haul cardboard.

and paper out for recycling from businesses in Atlanta. And I would always think of him when I saw

those boxes. And I would sometimes just kind of mumble under my breath.

I’m like, granddaddy, we made it to the White House.

Can you believe it? So it was… An incredible opportunity,

obviously, to serve the president, but just such a personally fulfilling moment.

Because I remember the first time I rode past the White House, seeing the front doors,

going like, wait, you can walk into the White House? That sounds so crazy. But I’m like,

people go in there. How do you get in the White House to go in there one day? I was a college

student. So I always felt that it was just such a privilege to,

one, serve the president, but also to be able to walk in that space on a daily basis was something

I never took for granted.

Colleen: I can only imagine watching the West Wing. I can only imagine what it

would have been like being in there. And there was a time where your husband was like, OK, it’s

been a year. Can you come home now?

Keisha:  Well,

so I was supposed to just go for a couple of months just to help in the interim while they look for

someone to leave the Office of Public Engagement. And I kept getting asked to extend,

extend, extend. And I remember one Sunday I was packing up to go back to D.C.

because I would come home either on Thursday or Friday. And then I would go back on Sunday and my

husband said, yeah, it’s time. Like, it’s time to wrap this on up. I’m like,

wait, what? Like, yeah.

It’s not for you to come on back home. So, and that was that.

You know, I said, my husband says it’s time for me to come home. And I did.

Colleen: And it’s so lovely because, you know, Bridgett and I have both been married to, I mean, I married my

high school sweetheart. She married a college sweetheart. So we get long marriages. And we get the

partnerships. My husband and I are both lawyers. So when you talk about how challenging it is at

home, I don’t practice anymore. But I just my kids being like, can we get a word in?

Keisha: I know one of my kids says to me, and you keep lawyering me.

Stop making the arguments. Stop.

Colleen: You know, and you’re not stopping. You take you took a little. break, but you’re throwing your hat

into the ring for governor. What made you decide to do that?

Keisha: My kids are much older.

But secondly, for me, it really was, I didn’t think that I would be running for office again now.

I always said I’ll never say never, but it was the day after the presidential election.

I woke up after said a few words that I won’t repeat here.

Colleen: I think we all did, yep.

Keisha: And really thinking and praying about what I’d be called to do in this

season. And it’s interesting, I came across some notes I’ve written in November of 2024,

where I just expressed all of my thoughts and fears about stepping back into the rink and was it

the right thing to do? And here I am.

You know, I want to be able to look my kids in the face and say, in this moment,

I did everything that I knew I could do. And for me, it’s getting back in and serving.

And it’s getting back in and fighting. And it’s doing all the things I’ve talked about.

when you’re giving people a voice, when you are fighting on their behalf, when you’re working for

their good. I know I’m really good at doing that. And this moment where so many people are stepping

away from public office saying, I don’t want to be bothered with it.

I know, and I describe it this way. When I was a little girl, I used to watch wrestling.

We called it wrasstling. I often think of the tag teams,

wrestler number one, wrestler number two. One gets in the ring, one sits down and rests, and then

they tag out. The other one comes in, the other one sits down and rests. For me,

I’m tagging back in.

Colleen: That’s a great way to look at it. What would you say to people?

You know, a lot of us feel powerless. A lot of us are watching this. It’s anxiety inducing.

It’s exhausting. And every day, it’s something new. what would you say to people to give them some

sense of control back?

Keisha:  Feel all of those emotions. Don’t tuck them away.

There’s a lot to be anxious about. There’s a lot to be, there’s a lot of fear and that’s normal.

And it’s okay if you got to step out and sit down and rest and step away and say,

you know what? It’s too much. It’s overwhelming. Just know that there are other people who are

stepping in to fight. And then when you feel powerful enough to get back out and step back in the

ring and fight in whatever way you are able to, then you come on back in.

I think that the challenge, we don’t allow ourselves to feel those things.

And it’s okay to feel those things. And for some people, it may be that you’re going to run for

office. For some people, it may be creating a nonprofit that’s serving people.

For other people, it may just be, I’m going to show up and vote. That’s all I have to give. I’m

going to show up and vote. And if that’s all you have to give, that’s enough. But I think people

should give themselves permission to feel all the things that they are feeling.

We’re not the first generation that’s faced difficult times. Other generations have survived it and

we’ll make it through. It may not be easy. It may be very uncomfortable, but we’re going to make it

through. But it’s okay to feel those things. It’s okay to sit in those feelings.

Just don’t get stuck there.

Colleen: That’s true. Don’t get stuck because a lot of people do feel like they

are stuck in a, just on a treadmill. So thank you so much for coming on and thank you for tagging

back in. We appreciate it. The Rough Side of the Mountain, a memoir,

Keisha Lance Bottoms. Thank you so much for coming on. We’ll make sure the link is in the show

notes for the book. Best of luck. And we appreciate coming on today.

Thank you so much.

Keisha: Thank you for having me.