May 31, 2019 • 35 mins
Seeking and dreamstorming requires that we let go of old stories we tell ourselves so we can master the reinvention we’re living through now. With our podcast soul sister, and co-host of “The Sheri and Nancy Show,” Nancy Hala, we laugh our way through it.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
I am Lisa Us and I'm Chill Herzig and today
it's funny like in the podcast sphere, you think, oh,
you know, we're sort of alone in this universe. We're
two friends, were kind of navigating the weird hairpin curves
in our lives, and then you discover you are totally
not alone in the universe. There are We're a cliche.
(00:31):
We are a big cliche. No, we at least have
some soul sisters up there. I feel like that's what
we discovered. Yes, and one of them is with us today.
We are joined by the co host Well first of all,
she's the co founder of Story, which is a brand
innovation company and the co host of The Sherry and
Nancy Show. And Nancy Halla, thank you so much for
(00:52):
being with us today. Hw you guys, Nancy Hi, I'm
so excited. And yes, we are soul sisters. We know
this for sure. Out this is this is our third conversation, right,
the three of us. Yes, we are all. We are
training around guesting and it has been really fun. Let's
just appear on each other's podcasts in the towel and
(01:14):
make like four co hosts podcast. Let's play doubles tennis
to the doubles tennis version of podcasting. I'm sure, I'm
sure it will. It will be great, except our voices
might get really confusing and never be able to have
a guest on because we all just talk so much. Um,
how do you guys start your podcast? I know you
were friends for a gazillion years. What made you want
(01:36):
to do a podcast of all things? Yeah, of all things?
That's a great question. Yes, Sherry and I have been
friends for about thirty years, and we have had a
front row seat to each other's ups and downs and
and and I like that that phrase you use, Jill
hairpin turns um. And we know we've we've been having
the same kind of the same conversation in different iterations
(01:57):
for years and years. You know, it's always about you know,
what do we really want out of life and out
of love and out of and out of and what
how how how how big can our imaginations grow? And
what more can we do? And we know we started
out this conversation when we were you know, much younger,
and so it's only grown, right and sort of like
the horizons have only expanded. So we started our company story,
(02:20):
which is a it's a media company and a branding company,
and um, we're literally sitting around one day talking about
ways to to grow a community, ways to have this
conversation that she and I had been having with more
people and kind of hatch this idea of let's start
a podcast. And at first it was a total We
were really kind of just joking because we didn't know
(02:41):
how to do a podcast. I mean, who does. We
ordered some microphones from Amazon, like, let's give us a shot. Now. Luckily,
my best friend and and co host happens to be
a producer extraordinaire. She was the executive producer of The
Open Wind Free Show for twenty one years UM as
well as the president of own and so she knows
(03:02):
her way around chords and microphones, right, So that's really
a little bit, just a little bit. So I thought, okay, cool,
let's give us a shot. And you know we're were
We are too people who just love each other's stories.
I mean, the greatest thing about our friendship is we
can listen to each other's stories over and over again.
I think that's the mark of a true friendship. You
know that you don't you don't say yeah, I've heard
(03:23):
that before, you say Oh, tell me that again. You know,
tell me that story again, because every time you tell it,
it's a new thing. We learned something new about it.
Pull up a chair, snuggle under a blankie. Let's hear
that story again. And so it's really really easy for
for the two of us to just talk and talk
and talk and talk. And then because um Sherry knows
so many people in the health and wellness space and
(03:46):
the spirituality and happiness space, we're able to get really
really interesting people to come on our show and talk
with us, which makes it, you know, fantastic, just like
getting the two of you on our podcast. So, I
mean that's where it started, just this this notion of
let's have this conversation, but let's have it sort of
writ large and reach more people and then lo and behold.
(04:06):
You know, wow. The the response has been kind of amazing.
People keep writing into us and saying, you know, not
not not all women at our stage of life, You
guys have really great best friends to talk to. That's
what I'm learning from all the people who are writing in.
People are like, oh my gosh, I just turn you
guys on, and it's like I'm having a conversation with
best friends. I wish I had a friend like that
in real life. So that's kind of really inspirational to
(04:30):
me and heartwarming to me that people feel a sense
of community just listening to us talk. It is, I mean,
it actually makes me a little concerned about how alienated
we are from one another. I mean it's something that
particularly women are so good at. This is like our
natural talent is bonding this way. And what does it
say if you know, in our sort of ultra digital
(04:51):
world where you know, some people are really thirsty for friendship.
I do want to ask you though about the guests
you've had, because you've truly had some fantastic people, and
listening to your podcast, I've gotten a ton out of it, Uh,
of all of those people that kind of, you know,
amazing array, what's who's who's reached you in a way
(05:14):
that's been most powerful? Can you think of like one
one or a couple of samples. I can think of
one right away. And just because the conversation we had
turned incredibly personal and intimate for me and I was
not expecting it. So the woman, um is Martha back
you guys, I'm sure the back she's super you know,
(05:35):
super well known. She's amazing, one of my favorite people
in the world, one one of your favorite people in
the world. She is a lovely person. Now, I did
not know that much about her, um, you know. I mean,
of course I was aware of her, and I knew
of of her, but I hadn't read all her books.
I wasn't I wasn't immersed in her content the way
Sherry was. And it was one of those podcast recordings.
(05:55):
This was when Sherry and I both lived in Los Angeles.
I lived in West Hollywood. She lived in Lost really
about a forty minute drive, and I, you know, zooming
over to her house. I I show up at the
at the house, rush into the garden room, you know,
a few minutes of prep okay, got it, got it,
headphones on, and I was not I really didn't know
what to expect except we're gonna have a fabulous conversation,
because all the conversations are fabulous, and you know, and
(06:17):
it's it's really easy for me to sort of zig
and zag with the people that we have on and
then and I don't know how this happened to this day,
I don't know how it happened. And the name of
the name of this podcast is called Martha Beck Cracks
That Open, and by it we met me. All of
a sudden, Martha Back sort of turned her attention to me,
because you know, she's super intuitive. You know, she's just
(06:38):
an intuitive being. And so she turned her attention to
me and said, you know, Nancy, can we can we
talk about um about your childhood and we talk about
your you know, your your sense of love and and
and whether or not you feel lovable. And I was
like okay. And then she had me write some some
things and she gave me writing problems, and she goes,
(06:59):
I'm gonna take you on a journey. I promise I'm
not going to leave you there. I mean I could
get Terry just thinking about it. I'm gonna take you
on a journey. I promise I won't leave you there.
It's gonna feel like Dante's Rings of Hell, but I
promise I won't leave you there. Okay, okay. And I
remember that Cherry was sitting next to me on the
couch and she sort of like turned away to like
let me have some private space. And I remember after
(07:20):
the recording, I said to her, I don't know if
we can ever air that, like I like that was
maybe because personal thing I'd ever discussed in my life
with anyone, and you're worry about your your family hearing
about about my about It was really came down to
what we were talking about, love, about falling in love,
finding a soulmate partner. And I said to her, you know,
(07:42):
I don't know if that's ever gonna happen for me.
I don't know if that's ever gonna happen for me,
And and I guess I'm okay with that. You know,
I'm fifty five years old and I've never really been
in love, and you know, I would have expected that
he would have showed up by now. I'm I'm a
super open person. I'm out in the world. I'm I'm
excited to meet people, but you know, this might not
happen for me. And that's when she said, let me
(08:04):
take you on a journey. And we went back and
sort of excavated all these feelings I had about myself
and you know, growing up and just just a million things.
I can't even recall it, to be honest with you, um,
but it was it was deeply, deeply personal. Sherry was crying.
She always like sitting over there by herself on the couch,
crying and um, and you know, she had me write
(08:24):
some things, and I'm a writer, so that was really
easy for me to really like channel. And then she
asked me if I was if I if I could
read it, and I did. I read it out loud,
but after we taped it, I said, to share it.
I don't know if I we can never air that
because that feels like crazy personal, and she goes, let
me just tell you something now. Of course from her
Oprah day, she knows. She's like, this is the kind
of stuff you gotta we gotta get real on this podcast,
(08:45):
like we just we can't just talk about fluff like
this is this is real and this might actually really
be helpful to people to hurt to hear. I said, Okay,
I'm not gonna ever listen to it. I'm gonna trust you,
my best friend, you listen to it if it's terribly embarrassed,
saying we can't air it, because I promise. So we
did air it, and we got the and the responses
that we got were like crazy, crazy good and wasn't
(09:08):
where people moved mostly because you'd been so open or
were or did they realize that they needed to do
this kind of work themselves too. I think, you know both.
I think it was I think it's refreshing to hear
you know, and I know that this is kind of
one of the benchmarks of our of our conversation. It's
refreshing for people to hear you'd be really honest about
(09:29):
stuff like here, we are in the middle of life.
We want to make all the rest of our dreams
come true, if not now when that those are our mantras.
But you know, underneath all that, there's some pain, there's
some feeling of loss or not good enough, or haven't
accomplished you know everything yet, or you know a lot
of different things, a lot of self doubt and a
(09:51):
lot of struggle. And so when you talk about things
in a real way, I think that everybody their ears
perk up as they feel the same things you know
you said just a minute ago, Joe. Like I think
that people do feel isolated and feel alone. Um and
and and I think especially women. You know, if you
if you focus your life on raising kids, for example,
(10:13):
as many of us do. I've got two children there
in their twenties, their launched. They're amazing. We are very
close but they don't live with me anymore. You know,
I live alone now, which is weird after you know
what I mean, after living with people your whole life
that you're taking care of and cooking three meals a
day and shuttling people to uh, you know, music practice
and and and showing up for games and PTA meetings,
(10:35):
like all of a sudden boom, you're you're kind of
not with anyone anymore. And um, I think that women
do feel isolated after they reach certain milestones in their lives,
like the kids leave the house or they get divorced,
or their career, you know, they retire. You know, there
are those milestones or their career changes abruptly, um where
you feel like boom, okay, who am I? Who am I? If?
(10:59):
If I'm not mom, who am I? Exactly? You know?
So I feel like all of those things are underlying
currents in our conversation and and that Martha, that conversation
just correct it open, you know, for me and for
a lot of people who are like, you know, yeah,
let's talk about some real stuff. Well, when we come back,
we're gonna dig deeper and find out who Nancy Hallo
really is. Oh, before the break we were talking about
(11:31):
a powerful story with Nancy Hella about her experience on
the podcast. So I want to just ask you to
touch back on that and then transition into story, which
is your new life I guess, um, but based on
your experience with with that pod, that episode of the
(11:52):
podcast and you're living it in Martha, unpacking everything about
your feeling worthy of love? Did you change? Was there
a transformative process? Are you now dating Prince Charming? What
have has life changed? And and then I want to
segue from that into the whole idea of how stories
(12:13):
can change how we see ourselves in the world. Yeah, yes,
I mean And what one of the things that Sherry
and I say all the time is, um, is that
the stories we tell ourselves or what make our dreams
come true. In fact, that was our our very first
sort of a declarative statement when we started our company
and named its story that you know, we know for
(12:34):
sure that if you if you are in an endless
loop telling yourself the old story about yourself, you know,
I'll never find someone. You know, I'm no good at
X y Z, I can never do. That's one thing
that I'm scared to do. Then that's then that's your reality.
That's just true. We all know that, you know, you
manifest what you tell yourself. It all starts in your
own imagination, in your own head. What I didn't realize,
(12:55):
and I think that this is probably true for a
lot of us. What we don't realize is, uh is
the extent to which we are constantly telling ourselves a
bunch of different stories that we might not even be
aware of. You know. So that episode with Martha Beck
was my opportunity to see to really kind of starkly
look at some really negative stories. I was telling myself
(13:16):
about my own love ability, about my own desirability, um,
about my own ability to to find to find someone
to be in like a loving, supportive partnership with. And
it's weird because I would never have said that out
loud to anybody. I would have been like, oh, you know,
I'll find him, you know, Oh yeah, I'm on match
dot com. I love going on dates, which I do.
(13:36):
I love going on dates, I love meeting new people.
I'm totally open. And that was what I was saying
on the surface, right, but in the depths of my
sort of psyche and personality and and and feelings and
heart I was saying a much different thing. So I
had these two competing stories, and the one that was
really winning out was a story of like, listen, it's okay,
(13:58):
you're just gonna be alone now you raise your kids.
That's that was really your love work. And on this
time around, you were meant to be, you know, a
phenomenal mother and have two wonderful children and love them
with your whole heart. And that's your love story. And
and you know you have a wonderful friends and a
great family, and that's part of your love story. You're
not going to meet the guy. And it's weird how
(14:18):
pernicious that voice can be. It is actually quite self sabotaging.
And that now I can see, I can look back
and say, wow, even when I met guys that probably
looked really good on paper, part of me was like, yeah,
this will be nice for five minutes, Like this isn't
just you just couldn't believe that that the story could
(14:41):
go in a different direction. Yeah. I was just really attached,
weirdly and wrongly attached to this old story. And again,
I think that all of us are attached to old
stories in some ways. You know, I'll never I'll never
be healthy, you know, I I can never break this habit.
I can never do that one thing, can never go
to that one place. Like for me, for example, it's
really easy for me to to to change my life,
(15:03):
to move. I just moved to Seattle four years prior
I moved from Chicago to Los Angeles. Like it's just
not hard for me to uproot and move to different locations.
That's a that it feels very fun for me. Um, yeah,
you call yourself a crazy hobo. I think, yeah, Like yeah,
like I don't. I don't mind being nomadic and in
a certain respect. But for other people they look at
(15:23):
that and say, oh my god, how you know that's
so brave? How can you do that? It's like, well,
you're telling yourself the story that it's so brave and
hard and you know, maybe change would be good for you. Right. So,
like the more attached we are to these old stories
and more self sabotaging they are, I think, And that's
why like the middle of life is such a great
opportunity to like just break free of those shackles and
(15:45):
just tell new stories. So is that is that what
you're talking about when you discuss the big dream story?
When you and you and Sherry talk about that. Yeah,
the big well, the big dream, that's all about the story,
because I mean, a great story starts with big dream, right,
So I don't want to just tell a story about
how I'm gonna lose five pounds, like that's not a
(16:05):
big dream. I want to tell a story about having
to transform into an athlete finally, after all these years
of wanting to be athletic, really athletic, you know, not
just every once in a while or you know, three
months out of the year, but you know, be it,
be committed to to you know, physical physical fitness and athleticism.
So and I don't want to tell the story about
just like dating a semi nice guy who I can
(16:28):
tolerate for a few months. I want to tell the
story about falling in love with my soulmate partner and
the man of my dreams. So it's like that, that's
where we started. We challenged each other and ourselves, like
what's the big dream? Which is scary because then you
have to really you know, we call it our moment
of reckoning, because then you have to get comfortable with
the fact that you know you're not you're not there
(16:48):
you're not at your big dream level. So it's like,
here's the big dream, and what other stories are we
going to tell? What stories are we going to tell
to get to that dream? So you can you can
tell these stories, these big dream stories, and you've probably
been telling them for I know I've been telling myself
the the twenty bound story for our a good twenty
(17:09):
years now. My youngest child is nineteen, so you I.
I don't have a problem articulating a dream more story,
it's getting from there to believing it and acting on it.
I think we all tell ourselves stories all the time,
but are subconscious stories don't always mesh with our conscious
(17:33):
stories that we articulate, or even that we that we
think we want. There's something going on. How do you, guys,
in this whole story process of transformation, get people to
actually buy into their dream stories. So that's exactly what
we what Shery and I talked about all the time,
that the discrepancy between the subconscious undermining, sabotaging, you know,
(17:56):
voice in your head, you can't do it, You're not
good enough, it's never gonna work. Don't that that's crazy talk.
Don't even try it? And and the and the lip service,
right that you give to the big dream. And that's
where you know, there in lies the problem for all
of us, right, Like, that's the that's the gray area,
that's the discrepancy. And you know, yeah, I I can
(18:16):
be great fun at a cocktail party and and talk
a mile a minute about all these fabulous, fabulous things,
and then you go home by yourself and look at
yourself in the mirror and say, Okay, that was a
bunch of malarkey. You don't believe any of that, and
and and you know, how are you gonna get there?
How are you going to really convince yourself that all
those things are true? I mean that's where we started
(18:37):
with all this work on our pillars, right, We started
with you know, um our spirituality pill pillar. Just just
the simple act of meditating twice a day and getting
really still and really calm really helps me get get
more aligned with the story I want to tell, you know,
feeling really healthy, feeling physically fit, eating eating plant powered
(18:58):
foods so that all sounds, these are all part of
your eight pillars, right, Yeah, we have, yes, our eight
We have eight pillars, right, eight pillars that that are
all about self care so um and and we came
up with those pillars for this exact reason though, Lisa,
because the story that we're telling ourselves on the outside
(19:18):
and the story that we're telling ourselves on the inside,
there was like a mile wide gap. So how do
we how do we close that gap? You know? How
do we start taking care of ourselves and honoring ourselves
and honoring our desires and our imaginations and dreams to
the extent that we start manifesting them in real life
and believing them for real. It's not as easy as
(19:39):
flip a switch. It's not as easy as saying, Okay, great, Nancy,
you're awesome, You're fantastically perfect, Go go out and live
that great life. It's like, because you don't believe it,
that's just more lip service. So for us and for
me for sure, it starts with a lot of self care.
And that's something that I hadn't been focusing on. And
I'm not gonna just blame bad motherhood, but that is
(20:02):
a part of it. You know, when you're when you're
dedicating a lot of your time to caring for others,
it's hard to to look at your own self care,
you know, And and it just and it just is.
I just think I think it's part of our societal
definition of motherhood right that there's some self abnegation in there,
that you're going to put the care of others ahead
of the care of self. And it's hard to feel
(20:24):
good about yourself as a mom with those societal messages
when it takes some time out for yourself. It really is.
I don't know, though I got it. It's gonna be
really contrary in here. I'm not sure that self care
in parentheses um or quotation mark sorry um makes you
(20:45):
actually feel better about yourself weirdly, like getting massages and
and doing. But does that make that how you're defining
self care or is your self care a little bit
of a sweatier, more exhaustive business. I mean, like that
Martha Beck moment that you had. If that's self care,
that's self care that can leave you a little sore.
(21:07):
I mean yeah, I mean I think real self care
is super challenging. I love a massage. I don't consider
that self care too much, though, I consider that pampering
in a beautiful moment, just like a many petty or
a facial But I mean, like real self care, like
getting to the root of some things that are really
bugging you about yourself. And you know, certainly by the
middle of life you can be honest with yourself. Here's
(21:27):
what really bugs me about myself. It bugs me when
I feel inactive. It bugs me when I feel like
I'm a procrastinator, which I am. I'm a huge procrastinator,
and it and it bugs me about myself. You know,
it's like, well, Jesus Nancy, when are you going to
get off your butt and do this thing? And and
then I feel bad about myself. So it's like looking
at you know, health and wellness, spirituality and happiness, romance
(21:50):
and sex, friends and family, you know, sanctuary and beauty,
adventure and discovery, money and abundance, creativity and innovation. Those
are our pillars. Those are really the pillars of like
a happy life. You know, it bothers me when I
don't write every day because I'm a creative person. But
that takes some self discipline. So I know that that
(22:11):
when I do, when I write every day, when I
go to the gym every day, when I eat a
huge salad in the middle of the day and not
much else, when I connect with a friend or a
family member. Those are things that make me feel better.
And when I feel better, I can align more closely
with that story, that really good, juicy story I'm telling
about my life that I want to align with. When
(22:33):
I feel disconnected from myself, I'm disconnected from my better story.
Right when we come back, we're gonna talk more about
the Pillar life with Nancy. Hello, you've been chatting with
(22:54):
co founder of Story and Um, the co host of
the Shary and Nancy shown Nancy Halla. We touched in
the last section. We touched on the pillar life, which
is really the foundation of what you guys are all about.
And you walked us through um each one of the pillars.
But I'm I find and why you're talking about yourself
(23:14):
the procrastinator. I'm like, yeah, check that to me. But
I find that if I have too much stuff going on,
like I need to clean my room, I need to exercise,
I need to finish my emails, I need to get
back to that screenplay that I was supposed to finish.
I have like fifty projects, none of them get done.
And so like with the without eight pillars, like I
(23:35):
need to meditate, I need to I'll put it politely,
have more sex, I will need um, you know, to
write more. Whatever it is. Those eight pillars can be daunting.
Is there a way to like do just one? I mean,
do we have to do all eight at once? No,
we do not know, Lisa, we do not have to
do Let me. Let me be the voice of relief
(23:57):
for you, because exactly so, this is something we talked
about a lot. Uh. The pillars are like the way
I picture them is it is if I'm in the
middle of a sort of an open air um amphitheater
and I've got eight pillars sort of surrounding me, and
I try to touch at least one or two pillars
a day. So it's like it's like they're touchstones for me,
you know, they're okay, health and wellness. Today, I'm going
(24:18):
to Orange Theory and I'm going to have a beautiful
workout and sweat and I'm gonna to come back and
you eat a delicious salad, and that's gonna be my
health and wellness pillar for today. I'm gonna touch that one.
And I'm also going to reach out and give my
mom a call because I haven't talked to her in
a week and I and she's important to me. That's
a friends and family pillar. They're kind of like guide posts,
right and and and and they surround me in a
(24:38):
loving way, not in a judgmental way, because I know
I'm you and I are the same. I'm a list
maker and I feel overwhelmed because I've got too many
things on my list. But that's really not what the
pillar life is all about. And and look here's the truth.
Not every day are you going to feel like you're
humming on each one of these pillars. You're not, you know,
but the but the the the trick is to have
(24:59):
a few pillars that are shoring you up, you know,
And then a couple of the pillars can go to
the wayside, and then guess what, You're gonna take a
look at your creativity and innovation pillar and come up
with something, a beautiful idea and write it all down.
You're gonna have a creatively inspired day and that's going
to be your creativity day. And that day, maybe you
don't get to the gym, or maybe you don't get
to meditate. So it's like you don't have to have
(25:21):
every single one of them every day, but it's nice
to know that they're there for you to sort of
reach out and touch um on a daily basis, so
that you're moving the ball forward in some way. Because see,
that's my fear and my my anxiety is that these
days are piling up and I'm not moving the ball
forward at all and in any way. Like what are
you doing? Nancy? What are you doing? You know, just
(25:43):
moving to Seattle wasn't enough. You've got to do X
y Z. You know, you've got to make new friends.
You've got to Oh gosh, there's so much. But so
that can make put me in that deer at the
headlight sort of frozen stands. So I just get easy
with myself and say what pillar are you touching today?
And that feels good? Like today because I'm talking to
the two of you. This is a friends and family
(26:05):
day because you if you think of you two as friends.
This is a creativity and innovation day because this is
a creative conversation we're having UM, And so I feel good.
So if this is the only thing I do, all
the healths and we're not just friends, were family because
we're like the soul sisters in the podcasting in ours,
we're podcast families absolutely all right, So, uh, looking at
(26:26):
your site. There seems to be stories connected to each
of the pillars. Are these actual stories, like body love
Reign Supreme, Happiness is my Compass? Are these are these
actual stories? Are they just kind of words that helped
open them up? You know what they are? They're their mantras. Right,
there's something that we I think of, you know, body
(26:46):
love reign supreme. When I think about health and wellness,
for example, it's it's not about being a size four
or whatever size. It's not about a weight, being a
certain number on a scale. It's about loving my body.
And that's that's what reigned supreme when I think of
health and wellness, feeling good, feeling like I can move,
feeling flexible, feeling strong. So that's a just reminder. And
(27:07):
when Sherry and I were writing our pillar descriptions and
then each one of the mantras, we called them stories
because that's the story we want to tell ourselves about
health and wellness. Here's the story that we're telling ourselves
about that body love reign supreme. Right, So that's the story. Um,
you know, happiness is my compass. Happiness is my compass,
(27:28):
not a certain number of minutes that I meditate every
day not not some kind of achievement. Happiness and all
things is my compass. That's the only reason to even
do any of this is because we're we're we're we're
we want that joy. So that's the story we tell
ourselves internally and externally, and we just you know, we
wrote that out and shared it with people because we
wanted to give our dream tribe is what we call
(27:50):
our our listeners and subscribers, we call them the dream tribe.
We wanted our dream tribe to have some something to
hang their own hats on, like tell yourself that story,
you guys, and then tell us what it means to you,
and people right in and tell us about you know,
they're pillars. It's also fun the pillar the pillar life.
One of your big pillars is food, and I think
(28:11):
probably because of that, you've made a new you turn
in your life and you actually have a cooking show,
which is very cool. It's great, it's so much fun.
I defin really want to make your broccoli soup. The
cash is in it. I was telling Jill and Alicia
about the one of the episode I watched, and I like,
what is that big freaking salad? The big salad? I
(28:36):
hope you shared that with someone. It was like enough
to feed like a whole circus tent. Oh. I know, yes,
Well listen, I can eat a big salad. I can
eat half of a big salad. When I was living
with Sherry our first startup year, the year of our startup,
we lived together for a year and I um am
a cook and so I was the cook and you
know which is which was super fun and I loved
every minute of it because I love I love making
(28:58):
food for people who love to eat food. It's one
that's the greatest joys of my life. And Sherry is
a is a great recipient because everything I made was
plant powered and you know, super healthy for us. So
she was excited. And I would make that big salad
almost every day for lunch. We had some form of
a big, huge salad and we'd each you know, we'd
split it. Delicious. But I'm glad you guys like the
cooking show, the Pillar Life Kitchen show. It was really
(29:19):
fun to make. I remember once, um, I don't know,
years ago, I was interviewing an expert about weight loss
for the Woman's magazine I happened to be working for
at the time. I think it was Self, and this person,
almost in a moment of exasperation, said, you know what,
it's just really really simple. Just eat a big salad
for lunch every day and then don't worry about it. Honestly,
(29:42):
if you just have a huge bowl of salad with
tons of different colorful things in it, then the rest
of the day, whatever happens happens, you're gonna be okay.
And I thought, well, if if it's really that simple,
you've just put Self magazine out of business. Well you
know where I learned that. Do you guys know who
Dr Joel Furman is until he went to did As
(30:02):
in medical school? Yeah, there's in class. Are they friend?
Because I have such I have such a crush on him.
He's amazing. Oh my god. He changed my life, you guys,
because that I read that book Eat to Live, and
that's when I really embraced being a plant powered eater.
And I was actually a vegan for a full year
and I followed that book to the letter. And that
(30:23):
was what he talked about, is like, just make sure
that you're eating a big, huge salad, you know, during
as many meals as possible, and have one meal. Just
be dedicated to that and and his his point of
view on food and plants is so smart and good.
So I always feel better when I when I follow
my my firminesque way of eating. So I wanted to
(30:45):
touch on a little bit and we never got there.
Which was your old self before he became the pillar
life and story and working with Sherry. You were a
brand strategist, Yes, how much for big companies, for like
fortunate companies. Um, how much of branding of self branding?
(31:06):
I guess individual branding not corporation branding? Do you bring
in now into the story aspect? Is that? Is telling
stories really a way that we create a brand identity?
And how is it? How is a brand different from
a personality? Well? So, yeah, so I think it all
starts with a story. And when I was a brand
(31:27):
strategist and a brand storyteller brand I did a lot
of writing and a lot of creative campaigns for brands
and and really the only way to get anybody to
care about your brand is to tell them a story
about it. You know, here's what we stand for, here's
what here's who we are as a brand, and and
brands you know exists to be able to connect and
(31:47):
and and engage a community, to connect with a community
and engage that community, and to inspire loyalty and to
inspire incite excitement. And that's how brands thrive. And the
same is true of people, right the stories that we tell,
I mean, the only the only way to really connect
with others is to is to tell them the story
of who you are. You know, That's what we do
(32:07):
all the time. That's what we're doing right now. I'm
telling you the story of who I am. I'm learning
the stories about who you guys are. And we feel connected.
We feel like soul sisters, we feel like we're part
of the same community, and we have a lot in
common common. I mean, that is the that is the
you know, the the dynamic of the human experience. That's
why we're all here to connect with each other. And
(32:28):
so it's a it's a beautiful thing to be able
to tell a story well, and and especially to be
able to tell your own story well. And I do
think that that is where a lot of people struggle
with a sense of of being isolated, with a sense
of being disconnected, of being lonely, is that they're not
really telling the story of who they are effectively to
other people because all of us, every person, we are
(32:50):
all magical, beautiful beings and and it's all about being
able to to tell each other our own stories and
feel empathy and connectedness with each other. So I bring
that that the brand stories I told We're We're you know,
all all surrounding a sense of connectedness, community and humanness.
(33:13):
You know, how does this brand contribute to the human experience?
What does this brand stand for? And especially today, and
the thing that I love about brand storytelling right now
in our world today is that brands are really standing
up and taking a stand about things like this is
who we are. We we stand for you know, inclusiveness,
we stand for diversity, we stand for fairness, we stand
(33:34):
for equality. Well, the help, I mean, if they have
put it out there, someone's going to tell a different
story about them and they'll be stuck with it. Yes,
that's exactly right. In in in the absence of a story,
someone will make up a story about a brand and
about you and personally, and that's where sort of personal
brand story comes into play as well. So brands that
are taking a stand, brands that it want to be
(33:55):
part of the cultural dialogue that we're having right now.
They want to be part of the sort of cultural
momentum and contribute in a positive way. I applaud that.
I love that, and I tried to help brands do
that um and the same I think is applicable to
personal brand storytelling. Is. You know, you want to contribute
to the cultural zeitgeist in some way. You want to
(34:17):
be you want to be empathetic to others, You want
to be um inclusive to others. You want to connect
with others. So what story are you telling? And it
comes back to what we were talking about a little
while ago. Most of us have two stories that we tell.
We've got the story we tell out here on the outside,
and then we have a very very contradictory story we
tell ourselves on the inside. And you know that that
(34:39):
the the trick is to get those two really aligned,
to tell your best and highest story, and then connect
with others and help them tell their best and highest story.
You know, to me, that would be a life well lived. Well,
we have loved sharing your stories and hearing your stories
from your life well live to Thank you so much
for being with us today. Yes, thank you, Nancy, so thanks.
(35:03):
I loved it. Well, come back again soon and for
our listeners, you're going to want to check out The
Sherry and Nancy Show podcast and also follow Nancy on
Twitter at Nancy at Nancy Hollow h A l A.
So thanks again to you, Nancy, and also always thanks
to our producer Alicia Heywood and Boom Rate and Review
(35:24):
if you haven't done so already. Until next time,
I am Lisa Us and I'm Chill Herzig and today
it's funny like in the podcast sphere, you think, oh,
you know, we're sort of alone in this universe. We're
two friends, were kind of navigating the weird hairpin curves
in our lives, and then you discover you are totally
not alone in the universe. There are We're a cliche.
(00:31):
We are a big cliche. No, we at least have
some soul sisters up there. I feel like that's what
we discovered. Yes, and one of them is with us today.
We are joined by the co host Well first of all,
she's the co founder of Story, which is a brand
innovation company and the co host of The Sherry and
Nancy Show. And Nancy Halla, thank you so much for
(00:52):
being with us today. Hw you guys, Nancy Hi, I'm
so excited. And yes, we are soul sisters. We know
this for sure. Out this is this is our third conversation, right,
the three of us. Yes, we are all. We are
training around guesting and it has been really fun. Let's
just appear on each other's podcasts in the towel and
(01:14):
make like four co hosts podcast. Let's play doubles tennis
to the doubles tennis version of podcasting. I'm sure, I'm
sure it will. It will be great, except our voices
might get really confusing and never be able to have
a guest on because we all just talk so much. Um,
how do you guys start your podcast? I know you
were friends for a gazillion years. What made you want
(01:36):
to do a podcast of all things? Yeah, of all things?
That's a great question. Yes, Sherry and I have been
friends for about thirty years, and we have had a
front row seat to each other's ups and downs and
and and I like that that phrase you use, Jill
hairpin turns um. And we know we've we've been having
the same kind of the same conversation in different iterations
(01:57):
for years and years. You know, it's always about you know,
what do we really want out of life and out
of love and out of and out of and what
how how how how big can our imaginations grow? And
what more can we do? And we know we started
out this conversation when we were you know, much younger,
and so it's only grown, right and sort of like
the horizons have only expanded. So we started our company story,
(02:20):
which is a it's a media company and a branding company,
and um, we're literally sitting around one day talking about
ways to to grow a community, ways to have this
conversation that she and I had been having with more
people and kind of hatch this idea of let's start
a podcast. And at first it was a total We
were really kind of just joking because we didn't know
(02:41):
how to do a podcast. I mean, who does. We
ordered some microphones from Amazon, like, let's give us a shot. Now. Luckily,
my best friend and and co host happens to be
a producer extraordinaire. She was the executive producer of The
Open Wind Free Show for twenty one years UM as
well as the president of own and so she knows
(03:02):
her way around chords and microphones, right, So that's really
a little bit, just a little bit. So I thought, okay, cool,
let's give us a shot. And you know we're were
We are too people who just love each other's stories.
I mean, the greatest thing about our friendship is we
can listen to each other's stories over and over again.
I think that's the mark of a true friendship. You
know that you don't you don't say yeah, I've heard
(03:23):
that before, you say Oh, tell me that again. You know,
tell me that story again, because every time you tell it,
it's a new thing. We learned something new about it.
Pull up a chair, snuggle under a blankie. Let's hear
that story again. And so it's really really easy for
for the two of us to just talk and talk
and talk and talk. And then because um Sherry knows
so many people in the health and wellness space and
(03:46):
the spirituality and happiness space, we're able to get really
really interesting people to come on our show and talk
with us, which makes it, you know, fantastic, just like
getting the two of you on our podcast. So, I
mean that's where it started, just this this notion of
let's have this conversation, but let's have it sort of
writ large and reach more people and then lo and behold.
(04:06):
You know, wow. The the response has been kind of amazing.
People keep writing into us and saying, you know, not
not not all women at our stage of life, You
guys have really great best friends to talk to. That's
what I'm learning from all the people who are writing in.
People are like, oh my gosh, I just turn you
guys on, and it's like I'm having a conversation with
best friends. I wish I had a friend like that
in real life. So that's kind of really inspirational to
(04:30):
me and heartwarming to me that people feel a sense
of community just listening to us talk. It is, I mean,
it actually makes me a little concerned about how alienated
we are from one another. I mean it's something that
particularly women are so good at. This is like our
natural talent is bonding this way. And what does it
say if you know, in our sort of ultra digital
(04:51):
world where you know, some people are really thirsty for friendship.
I do want to ask you though about the guests
you've had, because you've truly had some fantastic people, and
listening to your podcast, I've gotten a ton out of it, Uh,
of all of those people that kind of, you know,
amazing array, what's who's who's reached you in a way
(05:14):
that's been most powerful? Can you think of like one
one or a couple of samples. I can think of
one right away. And just because the conversation we had
turned incredibly personal and intimate for me and I was
not expecting it. So the woman, um is Martha back
you guys, I'm sure the back she's super you know,
(05:35):
super well known. She's amazing, one of my favorite people
in the world, one one of your favorite people in
the world. She is a lovely person. Now, I did
not know that much about her, um, you know. I mean,
of course I was aware of her, and I knew
of of her, but I hadn't read all her books.
I wasn't I wasn't immersed in her content the way
Sherry was. And it was one of those podcast recordings.
(05:55):
This was when Sherry and I both lived in Los Angeles.
I lived in West Hollywood. She lived in Lost really
about a forty minute drive, and I, you know, zooming
over to her house. I I show up at the
at the house, rush into the garden room, you know,
a few minutes of prep okay, got it, got it,
headphones on, and I was not I really didn't know
what to expect except we're gonna have a fabulous conversation,
because all the conversations are fabulous, and you know, and
(06:17):
it's it's really easy for me to sort of zig
and zag with the people that we have on and
then and I don't know how this happened to this day,
I don't know how it happened. And the name of
the name of this podcast is called Martha Beck Cracks
That Open, and by it we met me. All of
a sudden, Martha Back sort of turned her attention to me,
because you know, she's super intuitive. You know, she's just
(06:38):
an intuitive being. And so she turned her attention to
me and said, you know, Nancy, can we can we
talk about um about your childhood and we talk about
your you know, your your sense of love and and
and whether or not you feel lovable. And I was
like okay. And then she had me write some some
things and she gave me writing problems, and she goes,
(06:59):
I'm gonna take you on a journey. I promise I'm
not going to leave you there. I mean I could
get Terry just thinking about it. I'm gonna take you
on a journey. I promise I won't leave you there.
It's gonna feel like Dante's Rings of Hell, but I
promise I won't leave you there. Okay, okay. And I
remember that Cherry was sitting next to me on the
couch and she sort of like turned away to like
let me have some private space. And I remember after
(07:20):
the recording, I said to her, I don't know if
we can ever air that, like I like that was
maybe because personal thing I'd ever discussed in my life
with anyone, and you're worry about your your family hearing
about about my about It was really came down to
what we were talking about, love, about falling in love,
finding a soulmate partner. And I said to her, you know,
(07:42):
I don't know if that's ever gonna happen for me.
I don't know if that's ever gonna happen for me,
And and I guess I'm okay with that. You know,
I'm fifty five years old and I've never really been
in love, and you know, I would have expected that
he would have showed up by now. I'm I'm a
super open person. I'm out in the world. I'm I'm
excited to meet people, but you know, this might not
happen for me. And that's when she said, let me
(08:04):
take you on a journey. And we went back and
sort of excavated all these feelings I had about myself
and you know, growing up and just just a million things.
I can't even recall it, to be honest with you, um,
but it was it was deeply, deeply personal. Sherry was crying.
She always like sitting over there by herself on the couch,
crying and um, and you know, she had me write
(08:24):
some things, and I'm a writer, so that was really
easy for me to really like channel. And then she
asked me if I was if I if I could
read it, and I did. I read it out loud,
but after we taped it, I said, to share it.
I don't know if I we can never air that
because that feels like crazy personal, and she goes, let
me just tell you something now. Of course from her
Oprah day, she knows. She's like, this is the kind
of stuff you gotta we gotta get real on this podcast,
(08:45):
like we just we can't just talk about fluff like
this is this is real and this might actually really
be helpful to people to hurt to hear. I said, Okay,
I'm not gonna ever listen to it. I'm gonna trust you,
my best friend, you listen to it if it's terribly embarrassed,
saying we can't air it, because I promise. So we
did air it, and we got the and the responses
that we got were like crazy, crazy good and wasn't
(09:08):
where people moved mostly because you'd been so open or
were or did they realize that they needed to do
this kind of work themselves too. I think, you know both.
I think it was I think it's refreshing to hear
you know, and I know that this is kind of
one of the benchmarks of our of our conversation. It's
refreshing for people to hear you'd be really honest about
(09:29):
stuff like here, we are in the middle of life.
We want to make all the rest of our dreams
come true, if not now when that those are our mantras.
But you know, underneath all that, there's some pain, there's
some feeling of loss or not good enough, or haven't
accomplished you know everything yet, or you know a lot
of different things, a lot of self doubt and a
(09:51):
lot of struggle. And so when you talk about things
in a real way, I think that everybody their ears
perk up as they feel the same things you know
you said just a minute ago, Joe. Like I think
that people do feel isolated and feel alone. Um and
and and I think especially women. You know, if you
if you focus your life on raising kids, for example,
(10:13):
as many of us do. I've got two children there
in their twenties, their launched. They're amazing. We are very
close but they don't live with me anymore. You know,
I live alone now, which is weird after you know
what I mean, after living with people your whole life
that you're taking care of and cooking three meals a
day and shuttling people to uh, you know, music practice
and and and showing up for games and PTA meetings,
(10:35):
like all of a sudden boom, you're you're kind of
not with anyone anymore. And um, I think that women
do feel isolated after they reach certain milestones in their lives,
like the kids leave the house or they get divorced,
or their career, you know, they retire. You know, there
are those milestones or their career changes abruptly, um where
you feel like boom, okay, who am I? Who am I? If?
(10:59):
If I'm not mom, who am I? Exactly? You know?
So I feel like all of those things are underlying
currents in our conversation and and that Martha, that conversation
just correct it open, you know, for me and for
a lot of people who are like, you know, yeah,
let's talk about some real stuff. Well, when we come back,
we're gonna dig deeper and find out who Nancy Hallo
really is. Oh, before the break we were talking about
(11:31):
a powerful story with Nancy Hella about her experience on
the podcast. So I want to just ask you to
touch back on that and then transition into story, which
is your new life I guess, um, but based on
your experience with with that pod, that episode of the
(11:52):
podcast and you're living it in Martha, unpacking everything about
your feeling worthy of love? Did you change? Was there
a transformative process? Are you now dating Prince Charming? What
have has life changed? And and then I want to
segue from that into the whole idea of how stories
(12:13):
can change how we see ourselves in the world. Yeah, yes,
I mean And what one of the things that Sherry
and I say all the time is, um, is that
the stories we tell ourselves or what make our dreams
come true. In fact, that was our our very first
sort of a declarative statement when we started our company
and named its story that you know, we know for
(12:34):
sure that if you if you are in an endless
loop telling yourself the old story about yourself, you know,
I'll never find someone. You know, I'm no good at
X y Z, I can never do. That's one thing
that I'm scared to do. Then that's then that's your reality.
That's just true. We all know that, you know, you
manifest what you tell yourself. It all starts in your
own imagination, in your own head. What I didn't realize,
(12:55):
and I think that this is probably true for a
lot of us. What we don't realize is, uh is
the extent to which we are constantly telling ourselves a
bunch of different stories that we might not even be
aware of. You know. So that episode with Martha Beck
was my opportunity to see to really kind of starkly
look at some really negative stories. I was telling myself
(13:16):
about my own love ability, about my own desirability, um,
about my own ability to to find to find someone
to be in like a loving, supportive partnership with. And
it's weird because I would never have said that out
loud to anybody. I would have been like, oh, you know,
I'll find him, you know, Oh yeah, I'm on match
dot com. I love going on dates, which I do.
(13:36):
I love going on dates, I love meeting new people.
I'm totally open. And that was what I was saying
on the surface, right, but in the depths of my
sort of psyche and personality and and and feelings and
heart I was saying a much different thing. So I
had these two competing stories, and the one that was
really winning out was a story of like, listen, it's okay,
(13:58):
you're just gonna be alone now you raise your kids.
That's that was really your love work. And on this
time around, you were meant to be, you know, a
phenomenal mother and have two wonderful children and love them
with your whole heart. And that's your love story. And
and you know you have a wonderful friends and a
great family, and that's part of your love story. You're
not going to meet the guy. And it's weird how
(14:18):
pernicious that voice can be. It is actually quite self sabotaging.
And that now I can see, I can look back
and say, wow, even when I met guys that probably
looked really good on paper, part of me was like, yeah,
this will be nice for five minutes, Like this isn't
just you just couldn't believe that that the story could
(14:41):
go in a different direction. Yeah. I was just really attached,
weirdly and wrongly attached to this old story. And again,
I think that all of us are attached to old
stories in some ways. You know, I'll never I'll never
be healthy, you know, I I can never break this habit.
I can never do that one thing, can never go
to that one place. Like for me, for example, it's
really easy for me to to to change my life,
(15:03):
to move. I just moved to Seattle four years prior
I moved from Chicago to Los Angeles. Like it's just
not hard for me to uproot and move to different locations.
That's a that it feels very fun for me. Um, yeah,
you call yourself a crazy hobo. I think, yeah, Like yeah,
like I don't. I don't mind being nomadic and in
a certain respect. But for other people they look at
(15:23):
that and say, oh my god, how you know that's
so brave? How can you do that? It's like, well,
you're telling yourself the story that it's so brave and
hard and you know, maybe change would be good for you. Right. So,
like the more attached we are to these old stories
and more self sabotaging they are, I think, And that's
why like the middle of life is such a great
opportunity to like just break free of those shackles and
(15:45):
just tell new stories. So is that is that what
you're talking about when you discuss the big dream story?
When you and you and Sherry talk about that. Yeah,
the big well, the big dream, that's all about the story,
because I mean, a great story starts with big dream, right,
So I don't want to just tell a story about
how I'm gonna lose five pounds, like that's not a
(16:05):
big dream. I want to tell a story about having
to transform into an athlete finally, after all these years
of wanting to be athletic, really athletic, you know, not
just every once in a while or you know, three
months out of the year, but you know, be it,
be committed to to you know, physical physical fitness and athleticism.
So and I don't want to tell the story about
just like dating a semi nice guy who I can
(16:28):
tolerate for a few months. I want to tell the
story about falling in love with my soulmate partner and
the man of my dreams. So it's like that, that's
where we started. We challenged each other and ourselves, like
what's the big dream? Which is scary because then you
have to really you know, we call it our moment
of reckoning, because then you have to get comfortable with
the fact that you know you're not you're not there
(16:48):
you're not at your big dream level. So it's like,
here's the big dream, and what other stories are we
going to tell? What stories are we going to tell
to get to that dream? So you can you can
tell these stories, these big dream stories, and you've probably
been telling them for I know I've been telling myself
the the twenty bound story for our a good twenty
(17:09):
years now. My youngest child is nineteen, so you I.
I don't have a problem articulating a dream more story,
it's getting from there to believing it and acting on it.
I think we all tell ourselves stories all the time,
but are subconscious stories don't always mesh with our conscious
(17:33):
stories that we articulate, or even that we that we
think we want. There's something going on. How do you, guys,
in this whole story process of transformation, get people to
actually buy into their dream stories. So that's exactly what
we what Shery and I talked about all the time,
that the discrepancy between the subconscious undermining, sabotaging, you know,
(17:56):
voice in your head, you can't do it, You're not
good enough, it's never gonna work. Don't that that's crazy talk.
Don't even try it? And and the and the lip service,
right that you give to the big dream. And that's
where you know, there in lies the problem for all
of us, right, Like, that's the that's the gray area,
that's the discrepancy. And you know, yeah, I I can
(18:16):
be great fun at a cocktail party and and talk
a mile a minute about all these fabulous, fabulous things,
and then you go home by yourself and look at
yourself in the mirror and say, Okay, that was a
bunch of malarkey. You don't believe any of that, and
and and you know, how are you gonna get there?
How are you going to really convince yourself that all
those things are true? I mean that's where we started
(18:37):
with all this work on our pillars, right, We started
with you know, um our spirituality pill pillar. Just just
the simple act of meditating twice a day and getting
really still and really calm really helps me get get
more aligned with the story I want to tell, you know,
feeling really healthy, feeling physically fit, eating eating plant powered
(18:58):
foods so that all sounds, these are all part of
your eight pillars, right, Yeah, we have, yes, our eight
We have eight pillars, right, eight pillars that that are
all about self care so um and and we came
up with those pillars for this exact reason though, Lisa,
because the story that we're telling ourselves on the outside
(19:18):
and the story that we're telling ourselves on the inside,
there was like a mile wide gap. So how do
we how do we close that gap? You know? How
do we start taking care of ourselves and honoring ourselves
and honoring our desires and our imaginations and dreams to
the extent that we start manifesting them in real life
and believing them for real. It's not as easy as
(19:39):
flip a switch. It's not as easy as saying, Okay, great, Nancy,
you're awesome, You're fantastically perfect, Go go out and live
that great life. It's like, because you don't believe it,
that's just more lip service. So for us and for
me for sure, it starts with a lot of self care.
And that's something that I hadn't been focusing on. And
I'm not gonna just blame bad motherhood, but that is
(20:02):
a part of it. You know, when you're when you're
dedicating a lot of your time to caring for others,
it's hard to to look at your own self care,
you know, And and it just and it just is.
I just think I think it's part of our societal
definition of motherhood right that there's some self abnegation in there,
that you're going to put the care of others ahead
of the care of self. And it's hard to feel
(20:24):
good about yourself as a mom with those societal messages
when it takes some time out for yourself. It really is.
I don't know, though I got it. It's gonna be
really contrary in here. I'm not sure that self care
in parentheses um or quotation mark sorry um makes you
(20:45):
actually feel better about yourself weirdly, like getting massages and
and doing. But does that make that how you're defining
self care or is your self care a little bit
of a sweatier, more exhaustive business. I mean, like that
Martha Beck moment that you had. If that's self care,
that's self care that can leave you a little sore.
(21:07):
I mean yeah, I mean I think real self care
is super challenging. I love a massage. I don't consider
that self care too much, though, I consider that pampering
in a beautiful moment, just like a many petty or
a facial But I mean, like real self care, like
getting to the root of some things that are really
bugging you about yourself. And you know, certainly by the
middle of life you can be honest with yourself. Here's
(21:27):
what really bugs me about myself. It bugs me when
I feel inactive. It bugs me when I feel like
I'm a procrastinator, which I am. I'm a huge procrastinator,
and it and it bugs me about myself. You know,
it's like, well, Jesus Nancy, when are you going to
get off your butt and do this thing? And and
then I feel bad about myself. So it's like looking
at you know, health and wellness, spirituality and happiness, romance
(21:50):
and sex, friends and family, you know, sanctuary and beauty,
adventure and discovery, money and abundance, creativity and innovation. Those
are our pillars. Those are really the pillars of like
a happy life. You know, it bothers me when I
don't write every day because I'm a creative person. But
that takes some self discipline. So I know that that
(22:11):
when I do, when I write every day, when I
go to the gym every day, when I eat a
huge salad in the middle of the day and not
much else, when I connect with a friend or a
family member. Those are things that make me feel better.
And when I feel better, I can align more closely
with that story, that really good, juicy story I'm telling
about my life that I want to align with. When
(22:33):
I feel disconnected from myself, I'm disconnected from my better story.
Right when we come back, we're gonna talk more about
the Pillar life with Nancy. Hello, you've been chatting with
(22:54):
co founder of Story and Um, the co host of
the Shary and Nancy shown Nancy Halla. We touched in
the last section. We touched on the pillar life, which
is really the foundation of what you guys are all about.
And you walked us through um each one of the pillars.
But I'm I find and why you're talking about yourself
(23:14):
the procrastinator. I'm like, yeah, check that to me. But
I find that if I have too much stuff going on,
like I need to clean my room, I need to exercise,
I need to finish my emails, I need to get
back to that screenplay that I was supposed to finish.
I have like fifty projects, none of them get done.
And so like with the without eight pillars, like I
(23:35):
need to meditate, I need to I'll put it politely,
have more sex, I will need um, you know, to
write more. Whatever it is. Those eight pillars can be daunting.
Is there a way to like do just one? I mean,
do we have to do all eight at once? No,
we do not know, Lisa, we do not have to
do Let me. Let me be the voice of relief
(23:57):
for you, because exactly so, this is something we talked
about a lot. Uh. The pillars are like the way
I picture them is it is if I'm in the
middle of a sort of an open air um amphitheater
and I've got eight pillars sort of surrounding me, and
I try to touch at least one or two pillars
a day. So it's like it's like they're touchstones for me,
you know, they're okay, health and wellness. Today, I'm going
(24:18):
to Orange Theory and I'm going to have a beautiful
workout and sweat and I'm gonna to come back and
you eat a delicious salad, and that's gonna be my
health and wellness pillar for today. I'm gonna touch that one.
And I'm also going to reach out and give my
mom a call because I haven't talked to her in
a week and I and she's important to me. That's
a friends and family pillar. They're kind of like guide posts,
right and and and and they surround me in a
(24:38):
loving way, not in a judgmental way, because I know
I'm you and I are the same. I'm a list
maker and I feel overwhelmed because I've got too many
things on my list. But that's really not what the
pillar life is all about. And and look here's the truth.
Not every day are you going to feel like you're
humming on each one of these pillars. You're not, you know,
but the but the the the trick is to have
(24:59):
a few pillars that are shoring you up, you know,
And then a couple of the pillars can go to
the wayside, and then guess what, You're gonna take a
look at your creativity and innovation pillar and come up
with something, a beautiful idea and write it all down.
You're gonna have a creatively inspired day and that's going
to be your creativity day. And that day, maybe you
don't get to the gym, or maybe you don't get
to meditate. So it's like you don't have to have
(25:21):
every single one of them every day, but it's nice
to know that they're there for you to sort of
reach out and touch um on a daily basis, so
that you're moving the ball forward in some way. Because see,
that's my fear and my my anxiety is that these
days are piling up and I'm not moving the ball
forward at all and in any way. Like what are
you doing? Nancy? What are you doing? You know, just
(25:43):
moving to Seattle wasn't enough. You've got to do X
y Z. You know, you've got to make new friends.
You've got to Oh gosh, there's so much. But so
that can make put me in that deer at the
headlight sort of frozen stands. So I just get easy
with myself and say what pillar are you touching today?
And that feels good? Like today because I'm talking to
the two of you. This is a friends and family
(26:05):
day because you if you think of you two as friends.
This is a creativity and innovation day because this is
a creative conversation we're having UM, And so I feel good.
So if this is the only thing I do, all
the healths and we're not just friends, were family because
we're like the soul sisters in the podcasting in ours,
we're podcast families absolutely all right, So, uh, looking at
(26:26):
your site. There seems to be stories connected to each
of the pillars. Are these actual stories, like body love
Reign Supreme, Happiness is my Compass? Are these are these
actual stories? Are they just kind of words that helped
open them up? You know what they are? They're their mantras. Right,
there's something that we I think of, you know, body
(26:46):
love reign supreme. When I think about health and wellness,
for example, it's it's not about being a size four
or whatever size. It's not about a weight, being a
certain number on a scale. It's about loving my body.
And that's that's what reigned supreme when I think of
health and wellness, feeling good, feeling like I can move,
feeling flexible, feeling strong. So that's a just reminder. And
(27:07):
when Sherry and I were writing our pillar descriptions and
then each one of the mantras, we called them stories
because that's the story we want to tell ourselves about
health and wellness. Here's the story that we're telling ourselves
about that body love reign supreme. Right, So that's the story. Um,
you know, happiness is my compass. Happiness is my compass,
(27:28):
not a certain number of minutes that I meditate every
day not not some kind of achievement. Happiness and all
things is my compass. That's the only reason to even
do any of this is because we're we're we're we're
we want that joy. So that's the story we tell
ourselves internally and externally, and we just you know, we
wrote that out and shared it with people because we
wanted to give our dream tribe is what we call
(27:50):
our our listeners and subscribers, we call them the dream tribe.
We wanted our dream tribe to have some something to
hang their own hats on, like tell yourself that story,
you guys, and then tell us what it means to you,
and people right in and tell us about you know,
they're pillars. It's also fun the pillar the pillar life.
One of your big pillars is food, and I think
(28:11):
probably because of that, you've made a new you turn
in your life and you actually have a cooking show,
which is very cool. It's great, it's so much fun.
I defin really want to make your broccoli soup. The
cash is in it. I was telling Jill and Alicia
about the one of the episode I watched, and I like,
what is that big freaking salad? The big salad? I
(28:36):
hope you shared that with someone. It was like enough
to feed like a whole circus tent. Oh. I know, yes,
Well listen, I can eat a big salad. I can
eat half of a big salad. When I was living
with Sherry our first startup year, the year of our startup,
we lived together for a year and I um am
a cook and so I was the cook and you
know which is which was super fun and I loved
every minute of it because I love I love making
(28:58):
food for people who love to eat food. It's one
that's the greatest joys of my life. And Sherry is
a is a great recipient because everything I made was
plant powered and you know, super healthy for us. So
she was excited. And I would make that big salad
almost every day for lunch. We had some form of
a big, huge salad and we'd each you know, we'd
split it. Delicious. But I'm glad you guys like the
cooking show, the Pillar Life Kitchen show. It was really
(29:19):
fun to make. I remember once, um, I don't know,
years ago, I was interviewing an expert about weight loss
for the Woman's magazine I happened to be working for
at the time. I think it was Self, and this person,
almost in a moment of exasperation, said, you know what,
it's just really really simple. Just eat a big salad
for lunch every day and then don't worry about it. Honestly,
(29:42):
if you just have a huge bowl of salad with
tons of different colorful things in it, then the rest
of the day, whatever happens happens, you're gonna be okay.
And I thought, well, if if it's really that simple,
you've just put Self magazine out of business. Well you
know where I learned that. Do you guys know who
Dr Joel Furman is until he went to did As
(30:02):
in medical school? Yeah, there's in class. Are they friend?
Because I have such I have such a crush on him.
He's amazing. Oh my god. He changed my life, you guys,
because that I read that book Eat to Live, and
that's when I really embraced being a plant powered eater.
And I was actually a vegan for a full year
and I followed that book to the letter. And that
(30:23):
was what he talked about, is like, just make sure
that you're eating a big, huge salad, you know, during
as many meals as possible, and have one meal. Just
be dedicated to that and and his his point of
view on food and plants is so smart and good.
So I always feel better when I when I follow
my my firminesque way of eating. So I wanted to
(30:45):
touch on a little bit and we never got there.
Which was your old self before he became the pillar
life and story and working with Sherry. You were a
brand strategist, Yes, how much for big companies, for like
fortunate companies. Um, how much of branding of self branding?
(31:06):
I guess individual branding not corporation branding? Do you bring
in now into the story aspect? Is that? Is telling
stories really a way that we create a brand identity?
And how is it? How is a brand different from
a personality? Well? So, yeah, so I think it all
starts with a story. And when I was a brand
(31:27):
strategist and a brand storyteller brand I did a lot
of writing and a lot of creative campaigns for brands
and and really the only way to get anybody to
care about your brand is to tell them a story
about it. You know, here's what we stand for, here's
what here's who we are as a brand, and and
brands you know exists to be able to connect and
(31:47):
and and engage a community, to connect with a community
and engage that community, and to inspire loyalty and to
inspire incite excitement. And that's how brands thrive. And the
same is true of people, right the stories that we tell,
I mean, the only the only way to really connect
with others is to is to tell them the story
of who you are. You know, That's what we do
(32:07):
all the time. That's what we're doing right now. I'm
telling you the story of who I am. I'm learning
the stories about who you guys are. And we feel connected.
We feel like soul sisters, we feel like we're part
of the same community, and we have a lot in
common common. I mean, that is the that is the
you know, the the dynamic of the human experience. That's
why we're all here to connect with each other. And
(32:28):
so it's a it's a beautiful thing to be able
to tell a story well, and and especially to be
able to tell your own story well. And I do
think that that is where a lot of people struggle
with a sense of of being isolated, with a sense
of being disconnected, of being lonely, is that they're not
really telling the story of who they are effectively to
other people because all of us, every person, we are
(32:50):
all magical, beautiful beings and and it's all about being
able to to tell each other our own stories and
feel empathy and connectedness with each other. So I bring
that that the brand stories I told We're We're you know,
all all surrounding a sense of connectedness, community and humanness.
(33:13):
You know, how does this brand contribute to the human experience?
What does this brand stand for? And especially today, and
the thing that I love about brand storytelling right now
in our world today is that brands are really standing
up and taking a stand about things like this is
who we are. We we stand for you know, inclusiveness,
we stand for diversity, we stand for fairness, we stand
(33:34):
for equality. Well, the help, I mean, if they have
put it out there, someone's going to tell a different
story about them and they'll be stuck with it. Yes,
that's exactly right. In in in the absence of a story,
someone will make up a story about a brand and
about you and personally, and that's where sort of personal
brand story comes into play as well. So brands that
are taking a stand, brands that it want to be
(33:55):
part of the cultural dialogue that we're having right now.
They want to be part of the sort of cultural
momentum and contribute in a positive way. I applaud that.
I love that, and I tried to help brands do
that um and the same I think is applicable to
personal brand storytelling. Is. You know, you want to contribute
to the cultural zeitgeist in some way. You want to
(34:17):
be you want to be empathetic to others, You want
to be um inclusive to others. You want to connect
with others. So what story are you telling? And it
comes back to what we were talking about a little
while ago. Most of us have two stories that we tell.
We've got the story we tell out here on the outside,
and then we have a very very contradictory story we
tell ourselves on the inside. And you know that that
(34:39):
the the trick is to get those two really aligned,
to tell your best and highest story, and then connect
with others and help them tell their best and highest story.
You know, to me, that would be a life well lived. Well,
we have loved sharing your stories and hearing your stories
from your life well live to Thank you so much
for being with us today. Yes, thank you, Nancy, so thanks.
(35:03):
I loved it. Well, come back again soon and for
our listeners, you're going to want to check out The
Sherry and Nancy Show podcast and also follow Nancy on
Twitter at Nancy at Nancy Hollow h A l A.
So thanks again to you, Nancy, and also always thanks
to our producer Alicia Heywood and Boom Rate and Review
(35:24):
if you haven't done so already. Until next time,
Road to Somewhere News
Hosts And Creators
Lisa Oz
Jill Herzig
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