Happy Aries season, y’all!
The astrological new year and spring equinox arrived on March 20. We made it through the depths of winter, through Pisces season, two eclipses, and a Mercury retrograde. As much as I love Pisces season because it is my season, it marks the end of the zodiac cycle and brings themes of surrender and release. It asks us: where do we need to let go in order to prepare for renewal? Now that we’ve entered Aries season, which is ruled by Mars, the energy shifts toward action. This is the time to move forward, to plant the seeds that will grow and bloom in the months ahead. So that’s what I’m focusing on (from London).
I’m thrilled to kick off season two of the podcast with Abby Phillip, the senior political correspondent and host of NightNews on CNN. I met Abby briefly at a dinner event in the fall. First of all, I was surprised that she even knew who I was—but as we started chatting, I was dying to dig into how she takes care of herself when the political landscape is so intense. She hosts a show in which people of all different political views and agendas talk about current events—and sometimes those conversations get really heated. We didn’t get a chance to get into it all before we had to take our seats for dinner, so I knew I had to ask her to be a guest on the podcast.
I really believe in staying current on what’s going on in the world—even when things feel as harrowing as they do right now. I try not to doomscroll, but I do keep up with major headlines. Aside from reading the news, Abby’s NightNews is the only political show I really engage with. It brings together people from across the political spectrum to discuss the biggest stories of the moment. Her show also often goes viral on my feed because of its more conservative guests who engage in shallow talking points or revisionist history. My blood pressure would be through the roof, so I really admire the way Abby handles her guests and guides conversations—she never loses her cool, even when she’s holding their feet to the fire.
One of my favorite parts of this conversation was hearing her share how they cultivate guests with different viewpoints —and how she navigates those high-intensity moments in real time.
Listen to the full episode to hear how Abby found her way into journalism after starting college as a pre-med student—and why she doesn’t believe in five-year plans. We also discuss whether debate is becoming a lost art, her post-show wind-down routine, and how she avoids falling into the doomscrolling trap.
Below, you’ll find a condensed and edited version of our conversation.
Welcome, Abby. I'm so honored to talk to you today. How are you doing?
Abby Phillip: I'm doing great. Thrilled to be here. Thanks for having me on.
To kick it off, I would love for you to take us back and tell us what you were like as a kid. Who was 8-year-old Abby?
Abby: I was the kid who always wanted to push the cart in the grocery store and do all the grown-up tasks and, you know, hold the babies. I was always just the type of child who wanted to do things that older people did. I guess you could call it precocious. I was not the loudest child or the biggest talker or anything like that, but I was more of a doer.
As you were going through school, what thoughts were you having about what you wanted to do with your life?
Abby: I never really had this strong sense of, I must do this for the rest of my life, and that used to scare me. Eventually, you develop a sense of what you're passionate about or what you're at least interested in, and that becomes a thing. Just being transparent, I really didn't feel like I was one of those kids who was like, I always knew I was gonna be a journalist, and I was writing for my high school paper, and I was the editor in chief, and I was writing letters to Tom Brokaw when I was a kid. No, I wasn't doing any of those things. I was just trying to get good grades and be a good student. It wasn't until later in my life that I really developed a sense of what I'm interested in. And I think that what I took away from that is that that's okay.
That's so fascinating to me, though. Because as I interview people for my newsletter, I love hearing, obviously, the stories of people where there were little Easter eggs in their childhoods that really spoke to what they were gonna end up doing. But that's really not always the case. I have two older brothers, and I knew from the time I hit middle school that I wanted to work in fashion. Then one of my other brothers is a pilot, and he's been obsessed with planes since he was like eight years old. But then our other brother was definitely one of the people who just kind of had to move through life to really figure out what he was good at.
Abby: You saying that just reminds me, when I was in middle school, maybe early high school, I used to really wanna be a volunteer paramedic. I used to read in books that fire departments would hire teenagers to help them— it was sort of like a volunteer job. I don't think that's a real thing anymore because I couldn't get anybody to hire me to do this. I was like, well, maybe I wanna be a doctor. And I thought that was sort of the next way to figure that out. But my interests shifted over time and over my life. I think the one thing that maybe remains consistent throughout all of these things is maybe my belief in my ability to do whatever that thing is. I guess I never really thought I needed some sort of special skills or special sauce to do something that I wanted to do. So when it came time to pivot, which I did in college...
You were pre-med, right?
Abby: I was pre-med. I was very interested, and I still am, to be honest, in science and medicine. I was doing a neuroscience minor, and I still love all of that stuff. I just realized that I didn't want it to be my profession. When it came time to pivot, it was like, okay, well, now it's time to just apply the work ethic to something else. And I think that's what made pivoting easier.
So why did you end up switching to journalism?