Architects of Change: Kris Jenner & Maria Shriver

I'm really glad to be sitting here with Kris Jenner who's been a friend of mine for a really long time we met many many years ago and our lives like many people have kind of gone here and there but I wanted to speak with her because I think she has a lot of lessons for a lot of people and I think she really is an architect of change because she saw a problem maybe it was in her own home and she said you know I'm going to create a solution for my family and I think that there's a lot of lessons so many people need to be entrepreneurs in their own lives today particularly women who have to go out and make a living who have children to take care of and very often corporate America doesn't allow you the kind of schedule you need to live a life and also be a parent so I thought she might have some lessons for all of us and I know her to be also somebody that we don't always see on TV so I wanted to begin by thanking her for coming and say that I was swimming me yes see you as an architect to change and I want to ask if that resonates with you and how you define that well I think the way you describe being an architect for change is somebody who does find a solution to a problem and I think that my whole life you know growing up I feel like I've had about nine lives because I've been through so much and I think that the first part of my adult life was having kids and I had my first baby at 22 and four kids later and divorced and for single for five minutes married met and married Bruce Jenner and um I guess I kind of pulled a Khloe because I met him in five months later we were married and I he it was very interesting because he had probably $200 in the bank and I didn't have much more than that and I had some child support and we thought okay well now what are we going to do with ten kids you know or eight kids at the time and it was very interesting because we weren't thinking you we just kind of dove into a situation and suddenly we were left with a situation that looked really great on the outside but we were in trouble on the inside and there's a lot of people that do live paycheck to paycheck although our paychecks were a little bit larger than other people's but it was still a struggle and I you know thought how are how are we going to make a life together how is he going to make a living what are we going to do what am I going to do and I didn't have a lot of hands-on work experience although I had been in the business world you know just because I was married to an executive might and you know the first part of my life and I learned so much just paying attention and being around which I think was like my college you know at the end of the day because I paid attention and I didn't know I was paying attention anyway Bruce and I tried to figure it out and it was a struggle and then one day I just had to roll up my sleeves and thought this isn't working what are we going to do and that's when I became Bruce's manager and just we just started deciding that I was going to you know this was before there was really a lot of email and it was like snail mail anytime you wanted to get a message out to somebody you mailed it if you wanted to reach a lot of people corporate executives anybody like that and Bruce Jenner had a speech that he gave called finding the champion within and we sat down and I said you need to go and do these motivational speeches like you used to do around the country around the world and we are going to tell everybody about it and I didn't know how he was going to do that so I grabbed my buddy who then became my assistant she was amazing and we spread all over the living room floor that had no furniture in it just every single piece of material we could find and we may press kits out of nothing we were we had I had a Xerox machine that was like you know on just Auto Drive and we mailed 7,000 things to everybody we could think of you know Visa coca-cola every single company you Carl's jr. jack-in-the-box we just started mailing these things to corporate executives and waiting for them to hire wait is for the phone to ring and the phone started to ring and then we couldn't keep up with the call like I'm like this is this is amazing this is really working so he was back on the road doing his motivational speaking we raised his price because I thought well he's just not charging enough it's got to be something that they really want they almost can't have and we just would think of all these really great things to do now where did you get the confidence to say you know I mean obviously Bruce Jenner at that time was an Olympic champion so not everybody has an Olympic champion sitting in their home right so but old metal hanging there I thought I can do something with this yeah but where did you get the you know so many of us struggle with confidence right where did you get the confidence to say like I'm going to raise that price okay I'm get I got him doing this now I'm going to do infomercials okay now I'm going to do this now I'm going to do that and you didn't have the background to really be doing that I took a risk and I I think part of it and this is what I tell my kids all the time a lot of how you live your life and how you succeed in life is who you associate yourself with and who your friends are and my parents taught me that my whole life and I heard my friend's parents say it and then Robert Kardashian drilled it into my older four kids you know they're most of their lives and it just was ringing true it's like you associate and and and hang out with people that are like-minded or that you want to be like and then you go out and do it and I think that I just started thinking about you know what just a lot of thought about how could I utilize what I have in my own living room which was Bruce Jenner you know or your own backyard you know I thought okay not like you said not everybody has a motivational speaker that can go out and do a speech or that has something to say that's interesting or that you know a corporation might get something out of and he Bruce was very motivational and amazed I mean his talk was you know it just you just it was the silence in the room and people would stand up and cry and laugh and it was an amazing talk and so he had a real gift and he just needed to be able to go out there and share his gift with everybody and it just so happened that my gift I found my gift because my gift was was having the organizational skills and the you know the just being a self-starter and just staying up until three o'clock in the morning until all those darn press kits were done and they were pretty they were like I I loved my whole thing and my personality I loved to be just resourceful and I'm creative I think and I like things to look good and so I thought you know if this is the presentation and this represents Bruce Jenner and our family he's going to go up and you know be buttoned up in that beautiful new suit and he's going to go up there and give a speech and I just had it all in my mind did you not have you ever dealt with fear Oh in in saying like okay I want to change that price oh I'm looking at my family and I think you know there'll be a good TV show and now you look at I was looking at my family thinking this is a lot of little mouths to feed and this is a lot of education I'm thinking this one's going to private school and that one's going to private school and that you know and it was I was there was fear the fear was that you're going to disappoint and not be able to take care of your kids the way that you'd love to disappoint ho your children you know that they couldn't go to where you wanted him to go to school or they couldn't have the things that they wanted you know to have and you know I had we had raised I had raised four kids in this opulent lifestyle with this amazing you know anything they wanted there was never a fear of you know a money thing they had their very privileged lives and so then when I got married the second time and it wasn't the same pocketbook you know it was it was much different and you I was based with I've got to learn how to get it together and so the fear was that I would disappoint anybody because I am a people pleaser but I'm also very I have a strong will and I'm very determined so once I set my mind to something and I knew that this had to happen and then I found a way to make a change and that's what was so rewarding and satisfying because I would work so hard all day long things started to happen because I figured out a way to have an income for my family and then the hard work didn't scare me because every time I would go to bed at night and put my head on the pillow I was like this is so I had such a great day this felt so good and I worked so hard but what gave you the confidence or the hutzpah to after you know you have enough somebody who wanted an Olympic gold medal who's in the house oh I get that but then you're like sitting there and you're looking at your children and you're thinking I can make a TV show out of this when that really hadn't been done what made you think that anybody interested in I or kids your family and that you could actually be the executive producer and sell that well I think what happened was and a lot of people don't know exactly how that panned out but I think what happened was after we were you know established and Bruce was doing well and speakings going well and I still felt like there was a lot left to do and that we could create something else and my kids were getting older so Kourtney Kimberly and Chloe were in their early 20s late teens you know amongst them and Kendall and Kylie were just very little and I had been down in San Diego working with my mom because she has a children's store and my dad had a tear my stepdad had an accident a car accident and he was in the hospital for 16 weeks and my mom said I'm going to have to close my store because she was the only one that worked there and I said you're not going to close your store he just bought all this inventory all go down and work for you every day and I'll just go back and forth until he gets well and so I did and I would go down to San Diego and I would work in my mom's store and I would dust the shelves and change the windows and fold the t-shirts and I made this store this store was rocking it's it's it's still there it's called Shannon and company and it's in La Jolla and it's this cute little store my mother's had it for like 40 years she's been in the same store and she's so proud of this store and I could not let that happen so I went down there single-handedly and I'm like now I know all the neighbors and I'm you know out there getting people coffee it was so much fun I mean it was it was fun because I was helping my mom it wasn't like fun because my dad was sick but it was so rewarding and when I came home and that whole experience was over I got really sad that I didn't have that experience anymore so I said to Courtney Courtney I'm gonna open a children's store and she goes are you kidding and I said no you want to do it with me yes or no and she takes Courtney a really long time to make a decision but I just made it for her so we're opening a store so we opened a store and then the other girls said well we want a store this is so you guys are having so much fun and it was really successful and so the children's store was doing really well and they said well this is great because you guys are making a living and it's a great way to all be together and let's have stores you know write down the little alley from each other the little sidewalk so Courtney Kimberly and Chloe opened - and just about that time I was talking with friends and we just talked about Kathie Lee Gifford who's one of my best friends um and she's a Kendall and Kylie's godmother and she kept saying to me you know your family's so crazy and so big and you've had all these kids and what a reality show people just don't even get what goes on inside this family or this house I was like oh yeah yeah yeah and the you know there was several other families who had reality shows at the time and I said actually that would be really cool and fun and I talked to my kids about it and they said you know mom you're kind of crazy and I said yeah we know that but what do you think and they said well you know if you're into it we're all in if you think it would be a good idea and I said well here's what I think I think if we had a reality show people might be interested and come to the store and we'd have really great sales so that was my like that's where my mind was I was like oh my god could you imagine how many t-shirts we could sell this is amazing so so you're surprised where it's at today exactly so we started that I took the show and got together with Ryan Seacrest I had a meeting somebody set up a meeting Ryan loved it we sold it to E and the rest is history but are you surprised now I there's you said there was several other families who had reality shows but as far as I recall several families after they have reality shows it doesn't go so well for them it doesn't go so well for the family or anybody concept yeah so did that not scare you did you never think along this whole way like maybe I shouldn't do this maybe this isn't good for my family no I think I was so definite in that you know I thought of it in such when I do something I don't really think of like I always look at the glass half-full I try to have a positive attitude I try to see through the mud and say this could be a really great thing because I'm gonna do it different or I'm gonna make this you know work or I'm always very I'm very stubborn for one and I don't like to let things go so if I start doing something and it's not going well I'll I think I'm so persistent that I will do it until I feel like it's good or right you know so it there wasn't an option I was gonna you know once Ryan got on board and I was I trusted him and he thought it was a good idea and my kids thought it was a good idea and one of the things that we sat down as a family and said to one another especially Courtney was I think the ringleader of this conversation and said the minute that one of us is really having a horrible time it's over we only will do this it's like all for one and one for all we're all in or we're not so that made us all feel come comfortable and I think that in the very early stages of doing this I be I you know I named myself producer you know because I knew what I wanted and I you know it's my house because we all live together at the time basically now we all have different homes thank God but you know at the time it was like we were all under one roof so I was running the show and making sure the house looked nice and making like okay you can park over there you know it was like literally producing all the people and the and what was going on as far as organizational and I was always good that was my strong point was the organizational skills and I thought all the same skills I brought to other areas of my life I was now using here and then kind of like taught myself and learned on the job did I realize that twelve I mean we just started filming season twelve yesterday which is I mean incredible to me and we're having so much fun because we're all working together but one thing that people don't realize when they say oh they're just filming a reality show I think what I didn't realize was the amount of work that would go into a project and it was very ambitious because you have to film a show 18 hours a day at that in those days it was just a little bit longer of a day and then you didn't have a lot of time off between it was seven days a week and we didn't have any time off between two seasons because it was like success out the gate um season two that the network was like on let's just roll right into season two and we were like so excited high five high five and then we went wait we we don't get any time off okay and so then we realized you know this is a commitment so you have to promote the show and travel around you know different cities you know doing press and you know there's just a lot that goes into doing a TV show so we learned that on the job too now you mentioned that you said that you sat down as a family and said we're all in and when we when one of us isn't in were done now your son isn't in Rob well he is still part of the show he's had a year where he kind of wanted to chill he hasn't been feeling well we didn't really know why he was just diagnosed with diabetes so we're taking care of that but he will he's always around he's just I mean I think you are if you're in a public family and one person in the family or two people in the family say you know I don't like this I want to live a private life I want to live it it would be really hard I think Rob enjoys the families all the family stuff we do he loves his business he has a sock line and is his stuff but I think that he it was just the perfect time for him to take like a little hiatus because he does that we were doing that you know we gave him and said just get well you know feel better he what he wasn't he was depressed and just you know wasn't feeling good and didn't know why so you don't think about stopping because of that no because he's we see him every you know he's with us all the time but that on the show no well no because he wants he wants to still come back you know and shoot the show he just wants to feel good it's not that he doesn't want to be on the show it's just he wasn't feeling good I want to pick up with something you were saying that you used the skills that you had learned as a mother running the house your organization skills you looked inside your own home for a solution for your life yes and I just wanted to say that Chris and I were talking and we she is going to work on workshops architect of change workshops for women who are living paycheck to paycheck and give some lessons to those women about how to look at the skills they actually already have and use those to lift themselves above the break above paycheck to paycheck and I'm really excited that you're going to be partnering with a woman's nation with us to help so many women there's 44 million women who live on the brink in the United States of America who are working and who can't get their head above water they're in minimum wage jobs they maybe haven't had the education lift themselves up and you have a lesson about like how to use what you already know and turn it perhaps into a life that could lift you out I think there's something that's really exciting so give her a round of applause for that it's so exciting yeah it really is and when Maria came to me and with this idea I was like I'm in she goes you can think about no I don't want to think about it I'm in it's good it's fabulous because there's so many of us all of us out there that have such untapped resources right up here there's so much that we can do and and share with one another and there's so many people out there I was telling Maria earlier that are just lost and people that do live this paycheck-to-paycheck stressful life where they just that you lose focus you know and you can't think or see the forest through the trees as my mom used to say because you're so focused on trying to get past this thing that you don't know how you got yourself into this situation and sometimes people just need a way out and they don't even know what they have you know inside themselves or that you know a friend might you know have a resource that's right there and it's not somebody a resource meaning fight you know cash it's how to make a living for yourself when you don't think that you have skills that can get you out of a bad situation so I think everybody just needs I mean I I'm going to be I'm so proud to be a part of something like this because I think and I said to her earlier if we could help one person get their life together it would be so rewarding and fabulous and she goes we're going to help a lot more than one person well that would be really happy yeah but I'm excited yes I'm excited too and I think that's so terrific and I want to talk to you a bit a little bit about kind of you live such a public life and there I'm not telling you anything you don't know that there's a lot of people who criticize keeping up with the kardashians criticized you know what kind of mother you are what kind of life you're leading you know on social media cetera and we talked about this before we did this and I'm wondering how you deal with that how does your family deal with that the you know the kind of backlash how people do how judgmental people are and how much they hurl like you shouldn't be doing this and what about that and all of that I think that again one of the first things that I think it was Kim that told us when we started nobody go on the Internet it's horrible there and we were like ooh you know so and this by the way I think maybe my daughter Kylie is here Kylie was there Twitter yet no right so there wasn't really these social media platforms that we have today but there was all the tabloids you know so I first it's like you know they're kind of okay to you like oh you know look at Kim and that cute dress and her bum and you know then it just turns into this craziness of and chris is being fired for the fifth time by her children and you know the show's been canceled and you know all this crazy stuff on the cover of tabloids and I think what happened very early on was there was this insatiable appetite for news on the family but everything that people were reading at the grocery store was a hundred and fifty percent just not true and I thought how can they do this and people often ask me how can they do this and you know they just do they just write what they wanted how do you handle that personally no personally at first I'm human so it really upset me I remember which I'll just tell you one particular incident I was you know you know we're at home and we're filming so I've always got a glass of wine and I like to have a glass of wine at five o'clock I mean what six-year-old woman wouldn't want one so I'm shopping I'm shopping with my kids one day and we're filming and we were in a store that had glasses and I picked up the glass and I said oh like girls we should get these wine glasses and then the next day I'm on the cover of the star and I'm holding that wine glass and it's full of wine and it said something like she's even drinking when she's shopping I'm like oh my god so you can't win so as as hurtful as it was in the beginning we just you know I just told my kids look just don't pay attention you know everyone will figure out that this stuff is not true but then social media exploded and with that came the ability for somebody to go on the internet and actually type really nasty things about horrible things about and say things on every single platform Twitter Instagram like you'll Instagram and I'll you know see all these wonderful comments and then just like you know I hate you you know I'm like oh my goodness that person is so cranky today so it gives young people I mean probably people of all ages but young people a place to go who you know people that are very unhappy very angry very hateful and hurtful and say whatever they want and it's like a bunch of internet bullies and that doesn't bother you or bothers all of us to a certain I don't read it anymore I really don't Kylee started an Instagram campaign about anti-bullying which was so amazing she still works on that because you know I have grandchildren now I have five grandchildren who are growing up in this generation that kind of anything goes and what I you know I was always raised like if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all so I'm so like I just didn't know that people were raised this way to be so disrespectful even if you thought somebody was like a butt-ugly you don't go you're butt ugly you just go oh nice suit you have on today I mean you like like you I like yeah but I just like the to go the opposite direction and have all this hate and anger and then I did have an experience in the very beginning when somebody got my email address and sent me a nasty email and by the time I finished emailing them because I was so like I'm just trying to do the best I can I'm really a great moment I'm really fun you know and that by the time the exchange was over this woman asked me if she could be my assistant and this was a woman so did you hire her no but I should have have a feeling there's always somebody that turns around but there's always the person who's on social media making all these nasty comments has way too much time on their hands and I all often think if that person just redirected this energy into a real positive place they could be doing so much more good for themselves you know like go get a job or go to something nicer to go walk somebody's dog just don't pick on me and my kids we're not doing anything what do you think you have yeah that's yay walk a dog new campaign what do you think has been the effect of Keeping Up with the Kardashians your family as a whole on American culture on the media culture and the media well it certainly has not just pop culture yeah the media culture um America America the world the world yeah world Dominic it's been positive what do you think we get 90 percent positive and probably 10 percent you know of the haters but I think what's so satisfying and makes me so happy is the people that you run into from time to time and they'll say oh you know I just want it they'll like be crying I just want to thank you because my mom had cancer and she was in a hospice and you made her laugh for four weeks because she loved your show or she loved the message behind every episode it seems like you know you're just this great family and you know this and that and I think when somebody really sees through the silliness of some of it or the laughter of some of it or the drama God knows we have drama of some of it and they see the message behind all of it is just that we really love each other and we're a tight-knit family and we do have a voice and we like to use our voices for really great causes and reasons but so what is it like the fame what is the fame for what are you trying to use it for I don't think we're trying to use it for anything but once in the beginning but once you hi Lee you save or anti Emily so you're like we want to use this fame to make this change in the world or we want to use this to affect that I think that when you discover that you do have this thing called Fame and a certain amount of power where as a family I think we have over 500 million followers on social media if you add up the different social media platforms and this and that somebody just gave me this crazy number and I and I said you know what you can really make a lot of noise we could help a lot of women I know but you can really do something so amazing and positive with that kind of that that listened that 500 million people that are following your every move you need to choose your words wisely and you need to make a difference and you need so every single one of my family members has causes that they truly truly are passionate about and that they love and they you know they put their energy there and so each one of my girls Kendall has aligned herself with different charities and she's I mean right now she wants to go to Africa and you know she's got a path and Kylie with her anti-bullying campaign who is so passionate and compassionate about people that are that don't have a voice you know and Courtney with everybody in the whole world has to be green and if you have one piece of plastic in your house you will you know die and so you know she's like save the world and like you so many great things that you know Kim is obsessed with helping young women like the Dress for Success and helping young women be able to go out into the workforce and get a job and feel professional and you know she helps with so many Kim helps with so many things but if everybody finds you know a that where they feel that can really make a difference and really help and you have that voice I feel that there's a huge responsibility that comes with what we do in giving back to someone who can't help themselves let me ask you mother to mother you raise kids who seem to be very supportive of one another and yet they're also kind of in competition but you don't feel they're in competition to take the other one down and there's a lot of girls there and very often that's not a trait that people attribute to sisters or a lot of girls in house it could be a lot of jealousy or competition how did you raise girls that seem to be supportive of one another and are they they're very supportive of one another that's it's remarkable I think that they're they have you know I've always said all I really you know the most important thing to me raising kids was their hearts I wanted them to have really kind hearts and I think that they have you know they care about each other they care about other people but they also have all of them a very strong they all have a strong faith they all have a strong incredibly strong work ethic and they would do anything for anybody and give you the shirt off their back so I think their character and their integrity is so strong and I think that they're there for each other and they would do anything for their friends I've seen them how it was a life lesson that you started in the house like we will not be competitive you will support your sister was there any way they were little you know we ate dinner together as a family all the time when they were little and you talk about all that stuff at the dinner table I think that's always a lesson that I used to hear when I was raising my kids and I was 22 and I had little babies and I thought oh you know I didn't like all these things people tell you and I thought oh you know we'll see and then my kids got you know to be toddlers and a little bit older than I thought you know what that is really a great idea and to keep your family close and to do everything together on the weekends you know it was always about the family barbecue and being too feather and being you know swimming you know we were blessed enough to have a pool and swimming in the pool all weekend and just were always together always with family all the aunts and uncles came over and the benefit of that is they bring the food so you don't have to you know but we so I love to cook so a big thing is the kitchen and everybody in the kitchen and all those conversations you know about that with the big family so did you worry you have two divorces in a family and what did you worry about the effect of that on your children and how did you keep that together I think you know I've had many long conversations with girlfriends about this and I think that if you're unhappy for whatever reason and you make that change and that decision to get divorced at the end of the day the kids are going to be fine because you're going to be so much happier and I've managed to be friends with anybody you know Robert and Bruce now Caitlyn but I've had such great relationships which i think is such a great how did you do the message I'll tell you how I I had a very good friend who got divorced very good friends are best friends with both of them that husband and the wife they got divorced and they were such an amazing example of exactly what I just said and that happened when I was very very young it was like 23 years old and I watched them for years be like best friends and I thought that's remarkable never thinking I would ever get divorced and then when I did and Robert and I got through that rough patch for a minute we became best friends where we would be on the phone together all the time it was like we were such better friends than we were any other way so we were he was literally my best friend he would come over and walk through the back kitchen door and have dinner with Bruce and I three nights a week and they'd go golf and he'd be there Christmas Eve and it was just really unusual but such an amazing relationship and it really made my kids be the only people that get hurt when two people don't get along and are real nasty to one other or the kids because they're sad that they you know they it's traumatic for children and you don't I wasn't thinking about as much about the kids when I was so caught up in my own emotions but the minute that settled down that was my only focus that was everything to me was that the relationship would be a good one and I was so lucky to have that so even in your family if your children split up you keep their spouses boyfriends girlfriends the whole thing is one big large planet family it's really crazy when my kids break up with somebody I feel like I just broke up with somebody it's not normal I mean it's like you know I get very emotionally attached to my my kids you know spouses or their the people they bring home because we all spend so much time together and we all manage though to be really really close you know and I think that my kids have a very you know just strong love for the people that they have in their lives and I just have a hard time you know letting anybody go so I'm lucky that I've been able to do that I think my kids see that through example you know my kids have seen me you know with and my relationship with Robert Kardashian and how great that was and so they they have that example that's the only thing they've ever known so we were talking about the effect of the show on media and culture and I'm not telling you that you've read I'm sure people say like Donald Trump wouldn't be running for president if it weren't for reality television do you think oh now I'm responsible for that now but do you think that we have mixed reality pop culture and politics and that Keeping Up with the Kardashians is somewhat responsible for what we're watching now unfold in the political I'll blame it on the show Maria just my everyday on a show I think that definitely it you know the show is in over a hundred and sixty countries around the world and it seems like wherever we go people are talking about the show wanting to talk to the girls wanting to talk to all of us and it you know it becomes like this big deal and it's fascinating how many people I realize being out about the world and I travel with Kendall a lot and Kylie and my other kids obviously but you know when you're out and about you realize how many people know who you are like you'll be on this like little deserted island in the middle of the Indian Ocean and people are going there they are you're like what like how do these people you know know that and it's quite fascinating the effect it has had some good some bad I'm really proud of the show because I think that it you know we do get that 90% positive reaction but you know the 10% negative makes a lot of noise but do you think that people confuse now like what's personal what's public what's political that it's all just one big reality show just everything yeah that everything I mean people you know originally when Donald Trump announced people are like oh he's a reality TV star then all of a sudden well he's a businessman of reality oh wait a minute he actually might get the nomination and and that it's all kind of for good or bad but do you see it as all blending it's all just kind of one big popular I mean it's definitely a very important part of our culture today very important much more so than I thought any of us ever thought and the more that it evolves and the more shows that come out and listen that I remember thinking I think a lot of people were thinking when Ronald Reagan became president and we were like wait wasn't he an actor that was like shocking like oh my goodness he was an actor and I thought you know that was kind of like back in those days right and now it's you know reality TV is such a big deal whether it's American Idol or keeping up with the Kardashian or you know these other shows that are out there I think it's definitely something that isn't going away anytime soon so it is something that's very you know it does it does make a lot of noise and sometimes it does get muddy you know and they all blend together but I don't I don't know so when Kanye West says I'm running for president is that real god I hope so I want to sleep in that Lincoln Bedroom just one night in the Lincoln Bedroom no I you know I think I'm not going to answer that for him because who knows but you know with him anything's possible but I think Donald Trump has just shown us that anything is possible you know I guess I mean I'm just I'm I'm someone who wants everybody to reach for the stars and follow a dream and have a vision and and I I you know I'm a dreamer and I work hard so I mean you know it's just like all of that that combination I think you can have anything that you work hard enough for and if you can have the the stamina you know and be strong and you know go out and fight for what you want I'm I'm I'm kind of stubborn so that way what do you think is the most misunderstood thing about you I think the most misunderstood thing is just the stuff you probably read in the tabloids which is a variety of things it's like people don't realize that I'm actually I mean they realize I'm a mom because that's you know what they see but that I'm you know this crazy wacko mom that has you know these kids that are you know whatever but I mean the truth is that you know we work hard and I love hard and I give back hard and I like have a great family with great friends and you know pretty normal like I love to do the the most random normal things that I'm obsessed with my thing that I love to do the most is probably clean my drawers like I'm obsessed with running around my house cleaning everything and I love to cook and I love to garden and I love all those things that make me feel calm and I think that I feel like I'm much calmer than people probably think I am and much probably smarter and you know I run businesses for my children and I'm really proud of their work ethic and we work really hard and so I set the bar really high and I I was raised with like really great manners and how to be a lady and you know so when you say the most misunderstood and I see like tabloids with this crazy woman on the cover and I've gotten fired for the fifth time and like what in the world so that's disappointing to me that maybe your personal persona is different than who you are like 180 degrees because there's I just feel like there's a lot of bullying going on and then that's what comes out the loudest because that's sitting at the grocery stores you're checking out so you said you know you're a mom but you're also a businesswoman huh and you're managing your children that's your business right and yourself so do you make decisions sometimes that are contrary to the best interest of the mom and but it's a good business or do you make some decisions like I'm a mom I'm not going to let you do that even though that's good business which hat are you wearing at home I wear a lot of different hats but I think I have a really great balance when it comes to being a manager for my kids I think that I had a conversation with Kendall this week because she's has a conflict with travel and personal so we've been going back and forth and Kendall is very thoughtful she'll she'll think things through and she needs to make the right decision and she needs me to help her make it so we sat on the phone literally 12 times and she'll say I have to go do this job which modeling in Europe and I really feel like I need to be here and so we we spend you know hours on the phone trying to figure out how can you do both and I know that seems like not a big deal to most anybody else but to her she doesn't want to let anybody down as her manager she needs to go do this job because she needs to not necessarily the financial side of it just for her career and then I give her all the reasons why it's so important because it's a huge opportunity and she feels like she needs to be home for somebody else who needs her to do something that's personal who's having a celebration and so we try to do the pros and cons and so I'll say to her as your manager you're going to Paris but as your mom I get why you need to stay home so let me help you figure it out and we will go to great lengths to help her figure it out so she has a balance in her personal life and her business life so I feel like as a mom mom is always first I feel like it's my responsibility to make sure she's stable and and she's responsible but that always comes first do you ever like as a mom go like when you see some pictures of your girls that are like scantily clad mm-hmm Prince worthy yeah do you ever go like oh my god what am i doing well sometimes I don't even know that they're coming out like Kim did the picture with the martini glass on her booty yeah and then I was like what where did this come like I thought it was Photoshop for a second it was so like I knew she was doing the magazine but I never sometimes know I obviously know for the little ones because if they're underage or their and we have somebody at every shoot but if the older ones who were in their 30s you know I feel like sometimes I don't have to babysit but do you ever say like as your mom I'm not cool with that a couple times yeah oh yeah I mean I I don't know remember me I'm the one with the loudmouth I will scream from the top of my lungs I'm not happy with this so yeah they've heard my voice loud and clear if I don't like something but then they're the same thing with me like they're very critical of me if they think that I'm going off to the left to the right so we kind of watch out for each other they just have a different way of expressing themselves and I think it's this generation is a little looser with things than I ever was would you ever talk to your mother the way your kids talk to you oh no no no no no and I tell like Chloe Chloe constantly says I'm so sorry mom I didn't mean to say that I just saw the show back and I feel really really bad you know so they do feel bad if they you know go off do you have any kind of hard and fast rules about my daughter asked me to ask you I'm a mom I'm not a best friend this is a big subject always in parenting circles you know I want to be the mother but not the best friend but I want to be the best friend but yeah stay with the mother and you're you're managing many hats well I think at this point when your kids are in their 30s I have a 30 year old 35 year old and a 36 year old Khloe Kourtney and Kim those three and with those three it's I am more of a friend than a mom because they're pretty much at this point telling me what to do and then I start like I don't want to be that you know like nasty mom all the time and you know griping and telling them what to do because I still want them to take care of me when I get really old and like now it's like I'm 60 it's like who's pushing me around and getting my nails done you know like I want them to be nice to me did you think this would be 60 this would 16 would look like be like did you look at you I know you're gonna hi We're like day of our 60s but she has five grandchildren my two daughters are here come on kick it into gear yeah but with a funny I like it but with the little the younger ones you know they they're just they get they grow up so fast but they know that you know I have a real mother-daughter relationship with Kendall and Kylie and and with Rob and he's still like the only boy so you know it's easier to to be softer with him but with the girls it's they're just they're in their 30s now are you happy at 60 yeah you're happily happier than I've been I mean 40 was really good and 50s I feel like was just all work somehow it just like flew by and I was like what just happened and 60 I feel confident and you feel like you know yourself and you made a lot of mistakes that you're glad you made because you grew from those mistakes and you know you've been through a lot of things but like I said I feel like I've had nine lives you know because I've been through so much and you lose people and you start to think about your life you know I read this Courtney my oldest daughter sent me sent a group text to all of me and all my kids last night it was interesting she said read this and it was the quote it was a quote from Steve Jobs about what he said while he was in the hospital right before he died and it was so sad what did Kendall sendin oh I thought it was Courtney I guess I can't read either but it was so interesting because he was talking about how he actually said once you've made enough money to live on and you're happy in your life then he was almost regretful that he had worked so hard through his whole life and all this money mattered so much and he was just saying love your family love your spouse be kind to one another you know be loving have open hearts just what you talked about I found that so I didn't know I had never heard it before I'd never read that before until last night and I thought wow what an what an amazingly soft sweet touching thing to come from Steve Jobs who realized on his deathbed I think he died like right after that and said I'm really sorry I worked that hard and that really for some reason at home I thought I have enough huh do you have enough I have I have yes I have enough and I have like so much love and that's that's the that's the bar that I say that I said so highs that's what I'm proud of is how full I feel with that and that's when you have to say then tell each other that you love each other another thing I read today and I promise you I read these things in the last 12 hours which is so it's kind of weird that you're asking is is John Travolta and he was somebody L&K Instagram day yesterday and it was the quote that he had given to some magazine or interview that said he misses his son so much that passed away and he just said you just don't know what it's like until you lose the person that was most important to you so everybody if you love somebody tell them you love them you know all the time because you never know and you know he talks about telling your parents you love them because you're going to look up from your phone one day and they're going to be gone and that was so powerful like look up from your phone when Dan Lee who knew that we'd all have our heads like this at a dinner so it's just it just reminds me to appreciate my family even more you know we we have followed and we finally you talk about everybody having causes and watching your whole family and I'm interested to ask you finally what you learned this past year when we watched you your entire family deal with an issue that really the country hadn't dealt with at all and what you learned about sexuality gender family men women that you didn't know a year ago wow that's a loaded question well I think what I learned this last year was patience that I don't know everything that I can't control everything which was really not good no kidding just hard for someone who's always in control that's right I had to let a lot of stuff go and kind of see things with a new attitude I had to take a deep breath and that deep breath took me a minute you know to kind of catch up with everybody else's excitement but I it's it was tough you know and I and I don't find myself in that position that often or that I admit to but when you're powerless I did for a long four months you know personally yeah you know not with anything else I think I kind of threw myself into other things to try to numb what was really going on but I think that when you have I'm someone who loves professional change and growth and excitement and hates personal change amen hates it and it makes me very sad and very uncomfortable so because I'm that way and then you throw that in it's like that was that was tough because you know you see everybody reacting now I'm someone who thinks that I have to fix everything talk about an architect you know I'm the head builder sometimes with your kids and you know their emotions and everybody's got personal stuff and then you see everybody start to go through the situation and you feel like you have to be there for every single one of them so it was like being you know in a you know emergency room taking care of you know trying to figure out who do you stop the bleeding with first because everybody was upset or you know or dealing with something or their feelings were their emotions were running high we either for understanding or happiness you try to get each other through a situation and it was I learned that I can get through anything like you feel like you got through I I don't know I got through 2015 and I thought well now I know that I can I can kind of deal with any challenge that comes at me but did you feel any sense of like you used this platform to like educate the entire country I think that we all my family was learning as we went and I felt like the reason we decided just to go for it and it was happening you know we could have stopped camera we could have stopped but it was too important on some level I just you instinctively know that how can you go for 11 years or 10 11 seasons and show every single part of your life you know everything and then leave that out you can't that's not fair to anybody else either and the people that whose lives it's changed as the result of what happened is wild it's just really interesting how many people were suffering their own way quietly and who were able to have the strength to tell someone about it or you know deal with it within their own family a different way and not feel so alone so I think that for many many reasons it was something that I'm glad that people saw that are you proud of how you handled it your as a family are you proud of Caitlyn I am I'm very proud I'm proud of my kids I'm proud of listen everybody wants the person that they love or anyone they love to be happy did I understand that situation no do I now yes and am I glad that I do I am I've learned a lot I've learned tolerance I've learned patience I've learned how to be a better person and be more understanding and love harder I thought I didn't think I could love any harder but I'm so darn proud of my kids are you proud of you yeah yeah Thank You Kris Jenner great way to end proud of yourself

Channel: Maria Shriver

Views: 929,325

Keywords: Kris Jenner, Maria Shriver, Kardashian, Caitlyn Jenner, Entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, architects of change, Dash, family

Id: Ti-OB3aGYWY

Length: 57min 53sec (3473 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 20 2016