Juggling Two Big Career Passions—Actor-Activist Gloria Reuben, Waterkeeper Alliance

Gloria Reuben’s activism started when she played an HIV-positive nurse in the blockbuster television series “ER,” and became an activist for HIV-AIDS. She saw the devastating effect it was having on the black community in particular and focused there.

With “ER” came fame, two EMMY nominations, and invitations to various celebrity events. One celebrity ski event she attended shifted her focus. “I heard Bobby Kennedy, Jr. speak about what was going on specifically about factory farming and with mountain coal top mining, dumping waste into the waterways…and people can’t drink the water,” she explained on my podcast, Green Connections Radio, recently. “I thought he was talking about another country,” not the United States, and she felt compelled to find out more.

So, she visited some of these dumping sites with Kennedy’s group, the Waterkeeper Alliance, and the rest, as they say, is history. “When you see what’s going on in person, I can’t help but do something,” that’s the power of personal experience, she emphasized.

Reuben ended up joining the board of the Waterkeeper Alliance and became an avid environmental activist.  She served as an advisor to former Vice President Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project, on the advisory council of the National Wildlife Federation, and on the leadership council for the Natural Resources Defense Council.   

Today, Reuben has come full circle. She’s President of the Waterkeeper Alliance – along with her day job as an actor, singer, songwriter and author.

The Waterkeepers Alliance was founded by fishermen in New York to protect their livelihoods from industrial polluters that were dumping waste into the Hudson River. Led by Robert Kennedy Jr. for many years, it is a network of 350 grassroots groups around the globe “protecting everyone’s right to clean water,” by “patrolling and protecting over 2.5 million square miles of rivers, lakes and waterways on six continents.”

How does Reuben do two intense full-time careers? Here are 10 insights from our conversation:

1. Feeling compelled is crucial: As Reuben explained, she had to do something to help clean up the waterways once she saw what was happening. When you feel compelled to step up, you find a way to juggle it all.

2. Re-evaluate your priorities: Deciding you want to work on two big career passions at once, requires adapting how you spend your time and resources. Having to adjust how we work due to the pandemic has also inspired many of us, including Reuben, to gain a new perspective. “One of the things that’s been kind of positive about covid, if you can think about it that way, is that everything has been realigned,” she told me. “I mean, how many pairs of jeans do I need really?”

3. Leverage what you have: Reuben’s fame can attract attention and resources, so she uses them to support the Waterkeeper Alliance’s goal to bring attention to the dangers to our water supply.

4. Use what you do well: As an accomplished actor, Reuben can articulate a message powerfully. So, she uses it to engage lawmakers on policies that protect clean water and hold polluters accountable for their actions, as well as to encourage potential donors to support the organization’s work.

5. Choose your actions deliberately: Reuben in anxious to hit the road to meet all the Waterkeepers around the world in person, which she can obviously only do virtually while the pandemic still rages. But once she can travel, she will likely absorb lessons from covid about prioritizing time and identifying which meetings can continue to be virtual, saving environmental resources as well as time.

6. Embrace a support system: Everyone has different strengths, which comes in handy when you’re trying to juggle two full-time careers you’re passionate about. Reuben has a team at the Waterkeeper Alliance with operational skills to support her, for example, enabling her to use her strengths without feeling like she needs to know how to do everything. “I’m learning lessons about how to ask for help,” she told me.

7. Protect what you create in one from the other: As I talked about extensively with veteran intellectual property lawyer Christina Martini previously on my podcast, it’s critical to specifically state that your “side hustle” creations are separate from your “other” job. The fine print in employment contracts can be tricky, often stating that anything you create during your time employed by that employer is owned by that employer, unless specifically stated otherwise. So, check with a skilled employment lawyer to be safe. In Reuben’s case, the songs, scripts, and books she writes in her entertainment career are clearly separate.

8. Self-care is crucial: As Reuben put it, “self-care, self-care, self-care.” You can’t handle the craziness or help anyone else without first taking care of yourself.

9. Be open to where each road may lead: Reuben never expected to be leading the Waterkeepers, but she was open to it as circumstances evolved and is happy she embraced it. “Especially considering what’s been happening in this country and around the globe, and I know many careers have been halted or stopped and may not return in any ‘normal’ way, at least for a number of years… There’s so much that’s unknown,” Reuben explained.

Therefore, “I think the advice I would give…is to just stay open to possibilities that might surprise you and take a risk in a positive way.” she added.

10. Know you’ll be okay: “When I was in talks about possibly taking on this role as president of this global organization, I was a little terrified….but, here’s the thing: Nothing ventured, nothing gained, and knowing that, even if I fall on my face, I’ll be okay.”

You’ll be okay too. You’ll figure it out.