Lisa Guerrero: Road Warrior – Brave Heart

BY STACEY GUALANDI

Photography courtesy of Lisa Guerrero

On just one of a dozen recent investigations, Inside Edition Chief Investigative Correspondent Lisa Guerrero flew to Boston, interviewed the grieving parents of a 13-year-old killed in a tubing accident in Aruba, hopped on a plane to Aruba, then confronted the company that failed to use safety measures that would have saved the young teen’s life. All in 48 hours.

It was a brutal assignment, but it was just a typical day in the life of this fearless road warrior.

“It was so worth it,” says Guerrero of this consumer safety story.

Since Guerrero joined the long-running newsmagazine 17 years ago, chasing “bad guys with a microphone and lip gloss” has become her mantra. Her multiple award-winning stories uncover “crime, scams, child abuse, and cold case murders.” Whether it’s diving in a dumpster, disguising herself as a grandmother, ambushing wealthy preacher Kenneth Copeland (that video amassed one billion views!), or solving the murder of 2-year-old Juliette Geurts, there is very little she wouldn’t do on camera to right a wrong.

Now, this seasoned storyteller has more than earned her reputation as a journalist-for-justice with a brave heart of gold and is sharing her personal journey in a candid memoir, Warrior: My Path to Being Brave.

“My mother [Lucy], a Chilean immigrant, was diagnosed with lymphoma, and she knew she would die soon,” shares Guerrero. “She pulled me aside and said, ‘Never forget, Lisita, that Guerrero means warrior, and you were born to fight.’ She passed away within a month of that conversation, so at eight years old, I didn’t know what my last name meant; I didn’t know what a warrior was; I didn’t know what being brave was, and so it took me decades to unpack that brief message that my mother gave me.”

In her book, Guerrero chronicles her incomparable decades-long career to warrior status. She went from LA Rams cheerleader-turned-sportscaster-turned-national television host-turned-Monday Night Football sideline reporter, with the joy of victories and agony of defeats throughout. In the process, she uncovered what bravery truly is and how we can all become a superhero!

Lisa Guerrero and I have known each other for almost 20 years. As a former Inside Edition reporter, I was very excited to grab our lip gloss, reunite and talk about being brave, finding balance through art, and living up to the name “warrior.”

CHIC COMPASS: Where does your bravery come from?

LISA GUERRERO: My bravery comes from empathy. I have empathy because I have gone through trauma and challenges: sexual harassment, verbal abuse, and misogyny. All these things I recount in my book Warrior to great, painful detail. Those are gifts. Those things that happened to me are an essential part of my story because I was able to turn pain into power, which you must do to overcome obstacles.

CHIC COMPASS: Does that help you in your storytelling?

LISA GUERRERO: I have gone through trauma, and other people I interview in my stories have gone through trauma. That’s how I connect with them, and because they trust me to tell me their stories, I then go forward and chase the bad guy or hold somebody accountable on behalf of the story or behalf of the survivor. That tells me the story—not because I want to chase bad guys, although it is fun—I’m doing it in service to the story.

CHIC COMPASS: There is a lot to learn about you in your book. Many may not know you create mosaics when you aren’t busy chasing the bad guys or telling stories! How did that happen?

LISA GUERRERO: My dad and mother were both artists, as were my grandparents, so I come from a long line of people who were painters, musicians, and performers. When Richard and I were little, we were encouraged to take art classes, make crafts, and be artistic. When I got older, my ex-husband and I were on a honeymoon in Europe, and while in Barcelona, we saw all the Gaudi mosaics everywhere. That was really inspiring to me, so when I got home, I said, “I want to learn how to make mosaics!” I took a weekend mosaic class here in Los Angeles…I only did one day of the two days, but through that one day, I learned how to break glass, cut glass and ceramic, attach glue grout—just the basics of how to do mosaics—and then I was off!

CHIC COMPASS: Is there more to this than just being crafty?

LISA GUERRERO: Ultimately, I also connected with it because of the concept of taking broken things and making them whole or making them into something beautiful. When I understood that concept, everything fell together. I realized, “This is the art form that I’m going to be practicing forever,” because anything that’s broken, like a piece of china that I drop, or a tile outside that breaks, or there’s a glass base, I keep everything because all these pieces I’ll use in future projects. I use many recycled and up-cycled materials and vintage jewelry in my pieces, so now I have a defined style. But it started with just the concept of taking broken things and making them whole.

CHIC COMPASS: You write that this job is very dangerous. As an empathetic person, how do you deal with the risk and the emotional nature of your storytelling?

LISA GUERRERO: When I finish a traumatic story, I usually go into my art studio and break a bunch of glass. It’s very cathartic, and I think it releases much of the depression, the anxiety, or the feelings of, “Did I do enough? Was that good enough?” I step into my studio and become a much more creative, relaxed person there. That’s been important to me. I think that’s good. Everybody needs to have that balance. We all need to find out what it is.

CHIC COMPASS: Whenever you finish a mosaic, do you feel the same kind of satisfaction that you have when you complete one of your stories?

LISA GUERRERO: Oh yeah. There’s a beginning, middle, and end. I think these pieces of art—now I’ve probably made nearly 200 mosaics—and every single one of them tells a story and has a meaning behind it. It is specifically emotionally connected to me in some way, the same with my stories. I connect with every single one of my investigations, and they all have meaning to me. I remember them, my survivors and victims, and the parents of the children killed in an accident. I remember everybody, and it’s something I will carry with me forever, that connection to those victims.

CHIC COMPASS: Can we all “be brave” like you?

LISA GUERRERO: We all have an inner warrior, and we all have bravery. We just need to be able to unleash it and exercise it. I believe bravery is like a muscle: the more you use it, the stronger you become. Over time, when life calls for it, and it will, there will be a big moment when you will be called to be a superhero. Unless you practice being brave, you won’t do it, but if you practice being brave every day, you will step into that place, and you will tap into the inner badass that you have inside you, and you are going to conquer that dragon. You will be that superhero because you practiced it in small ways.

CHIC COMPASS: What kind of feedback have you received since the book came out in January?

LISA GUERRERO: It’s been so gratifying. I was not expecting the amount of feedback from people saying, “This happened to me! Something similar happened to me! I’ve experienced that!” And especially from men, who have said, “Oh my gosh! I had no idea that women faced this kind of thing! I didn’t know you faced that!” I even had people apologize to me for having badmouthed me previously, including one big columnist from the LA Times, Larry Stewart. I was blown away by the connection that people have with the story. I thought it would be my story, and hopefully, I would have tips and help people, but people have specific things about how it helped them and things that they related to. So that’s been the best part of it, and the glowing reviews. I can’t get over how positive people are about the book.

CHIC COMPASS: Do you think you have another book in you?

LISA GUERRERO: I do. I feel like I’m still having adventures, learning, and discovering myself. As we get into our 50s—women especially—I think so many of us feel our sell-by date is up. It’s not! We still have a lot to accomplish. We still have a lot of ways that we can grow and experience things. I think we have a lot to share. Men are still accomplishing and expected to be CEOs and captains of industry into their fifties and sixties and beyond. Why can’t we? So, I’m still working. I’ve got two jobs: Secrets of Playboy and Inside Edition; I’m trying to develop my book into a series; I’ve got some other projects on the side I’m working on, so I still have things I want to accomplish and stories I want to tell.

CHIC COMPASS: Do you believe that you have lived up to your warrior name Guerrero?

LISA GUERRERO: Now I believe that I live up to my name, but as you will read in Warrior, there were many times that I thought I wasn’t living up to that name; that I had made mistakes; that I had compromised; that I had brought shame to my heritage and my mother’s name. So it took me years to refocus my life and purpose to say, “This is what I am meant to do. That is what I’m going to work towards. These are the things that are important to me.” Now, I wake up every day and feel like a warrior!

CHIC COMPASS: Thank you! Now I’m going to go practice being brave!

To learn more about Warrior, go to lisaguerrero.com.