Meet Cher Hale, an inspiring force of nature who's rewriting the rules of public relations and her own life story. As the founder of Ginkgo PR, Cher is on a mission to create a more equitable media landscape by amplifying the voices of underrepresented authors and entrepreneurs. But her journey to this purpose wasn't a straight line - it was a winding path of self-discovery, loss, and ultimately, courage.In this intimate conversation, Cher opens up about the transformative power of grief, the importance of reclaiming our narratives, and the unexpected ways our dreams can evolve.

Apologies in advance if you find yourself wanting to turn your life upside down and go all-in on your dreams after you listen to Cher’s insights on raising "courage capital," creating boundaries that serve our highest good, and redefining pleasure in pursuit of our true wellbeing. Whether you're a budding entrepreneur, an aspiring writer, or simply someone seeking to live a more authentic life, Cher's wisdom will leave you feeling uplifted and ready to take on your own journey of self-discovery.

5 Key Uplifting Lessons:

1. Embrace the messy first draft - in your work and in life.

2. Invest in your dreams, literally and figuratively.

3. Redefine pleasure to align with your true purpose.

4. Use the inevitability of death as a compass for living fully.

5. Cultivate a support network that believes in your dreams.

Ready to invest in your dreams? Join us for our first-ever Uplifters Retreat where we will go all-in together on designing and creating your next chapter!

The Uplifters website

TUP EP 073

Aransas: Welcome to the Uplifters [00:00:15] podcast, I'm Aransas Savas, and every week I get the amazing gift of talking to an inspiring woman about how she finds the courage to go after her dreams and how she takes [00:00:30] care of herself. Well, she does that important work, and I've really been looking forward to this particular conversation for a long time.

Cher: Oh, it's such a joy to be here and to be chatting with you again. I love being in your atmosphere, so I'm ready for whatever path this conversation takes.

Cher: it's a combination of discovering who I am again. [00:01:45] after it has been co opted by so many of our systems, right? Capitalism and patriarchy and colonialism, uncovering all those layers and reclaiming who I am and then taking what I've learned and using it [00:02:00] to find my own deep joy and to share that deep joy with everybody else.

Which is what I think of Uplifter does, right? We discover our own gifts, and then we use those gifts to lift everyone else up.

Cher: much work. And so much work. Yes, and as parents ourselves, we understand the importance of doing that deep work, that excavation, so that we can, you clear the path for our

So, when did you start thinking this way,

And I decided early on that I needed to find a different way to live my life. And after a lot of experiences with online entrepreneurship and traveling to Italy and using business as a playground for my own liberation [00:03:15] and healing, I was working as a public relations consultant and just serving a lot of the same clients around us.

No one saw it coming. And in the, I think, like, the early days of after her death, I just kept thinking, like, there has to be something here that is going to make this matter. And it wasn't [00:04:00] until a year and a half after she died that the pieces began to coalesce, because what I haven't told you yet is that my mother was a inspiring novelist.

I helped her edit the manuscripts very early on, but I will tell you that I wasn't actually sure if she could make this dream a reality. So I lacked belief in her own dream and her own volition for her [00:04:45] dream. And after she died, I thought, man, not only do I have the skills to help people like her tell their stories on a much larger stage, but why am I sitting here having this conversation?

And that shift was the soul [00:05:30] fulfilling change that I needed to see, okay, here's the path I want to take, here's why her life and her story mattered and made a difference in my own path. It opened the viewfinder for me to see, oh, this is a recurring [00:05:45] pattern in my life because I live in a very white dominant area.

So what is it about me that's so scared to be seen? I work within this field where I help people, I lift them on a stage, and I say, look at their message and their [00:06:30] stories and who they are as people. But I'm routinely hiding behind the curtains.

And the language you used for it was so powerful when you said that you listen in order to boost your courage. Capital courage is [00:07:00] underrepresented capital that every dreamer needs to raise. We talk all about money. We talk about time, but most of us aren't talking about the courage piece of it. And so I'm curious what [00:07:15] else you were thinking of when you said that.

I think it's time. I think it's time that I go through these books, edit them, and then [00:07:45] launch them into the world. Because that's what would make this whole journey feel very real. full circle. And so I'm in there, I'm remembering how much I love to write fiction, I'm enjoying the process and having this like spiritual connection with her the whole time, [00:08:00] asking her like what should we do?

I have a very active dream life, but this was a very cohesive, like, through line. And I woke [00:08:30] up and I thought, this is why. Her story is not mine to tell. The point was to remind me how much I loved to write. And so when you asked that question, I was thinking, I have this novel in my heart, and I've [00:08:45] been working on it, and I'm going to make this a reality, but I need the courage.

Aransas: Clavis is amazing. Her story is amazing and I think about it every day because I think we all have those quiet dreams [00:09:15] that we can sit on for our entire lives.

And just start to ask ourselves, what [00:09:45] could I do to make my own dream come true? What were some of the thoughts or fears that said, don't do this. You're not ready. This isn't the right time. Why you?

And I was an expert. In my shadow artistry, I was like, I'm a publicist. I write for a living. I get paid for it. But none of it is feeding my soul in the way that it [00:10:15] needs to be fed. And the well is dry around us. And you can tell when the well is dry, right? And so I thought like, this feels kind of like a do or die situation.

It's, it is both. And [00:10:45]

music: yeah,

Do you [00:11:15] still think that this is the right path? Just to check in and see, like, I need a little bit of that extra courage capital to keep me going. And having those external voices who love me and support me, and who unconditionally want to see me thrive, it's everything. [00:11:30]

Aransas: What do they say to you that breaks through in those moments?

like hearing his feedback and like letting someone in and being visible that way was just the [00:12:00] most supportive, reaffirming experience. So a little bit of courage on my part and a little bit of love on his part. It's a positive feedback loop.

To let others in on our dreams. And to let them support us in making them reality and they're going to play all sorts of different roles for us. Some of them are going to force us to [00:12:30] advocate for our dreams. Some of them are going to make our vision of our dream better. Some of them are going to remind us that we have a dream when we forget.

And so I'm curious what that looks like for you at this point in your process beyond the act of writing.

I'm waiting to see what is on its way to me. This is for so long in my life and I'm sure others can relate. Opportunities have come our [00:13:30] way and we haven't been ready financially for them. And I thought, no more of this. I'm going to make sure that whatever is on its way to me, I can meet it with equal measure.

So it's like clear bedtimes, non toxic products whenever I can, just making sure that like the world [00:14:15] around me is so supportive and that I don't sabotage my own purpose by me needing to eat the bread. The bread is good, but it's

What helps you stay [00:14:45] connected, in those moments? Yeah. I

Right? I had to make space so I could feel all of my feelings. And once that space was made, I was like, Ooh. I am unwilling to feel this kind of misalignment. [00:15:15] And so what is the minimum viable action I can take to remind myself that I am aligned to the pain in my body? I get a direct feedback loop when I eat something or ingest something, whether it's media or it's [00:15:30] food, that is not supportive of my needs.

So what am I going to do with today?

Like this is all just the same thing. There's that old phrase, choose your heart. And I think if we were to unpack your process here, it's the pain and the pleasure.

music: Mm hmm.

That's also pleasure. And it was literally, Whenever I had a moment like that, a moment of awe or wonder, saying to myself, This is a moment of [00:17:00] pleasure. This is pleasure. Because it was definitely that neural programming that I had to do all over again in

Aransas: small pieces every day. It's about getting really conscious about that programming.

But now you get to say to yourself, my pleasure is pleasure. There are no consequences to my pleasure. Yeah, there's no [00:17:45] consequences to feet in the grass, to the color yellow. I have yarn sitting next to me just because I bought a ball of yarn, because it made me feel really intense feelings.

Cher: Yes. Because how often, oh, we are such rational, logical people and it's just so boring.

Aransas: sense. Yes. And especially if it makes us feel something intensely, that's worth listening to.

music: Mm. Mm hmm.

Aransas: So where are you with the book now?

Is this not working? What else does this story need? And then continuously asking the characters, please tell me what you need so that we can all be on the same page.

And so when you say this first draft is a hot mess, I actually think that's pretty empowering in its own right. [00:19:30] How did you talk yourself into letting it be messy?

Cher: I took Anne Lamott's advice and I wrote a shitty first draft and I let it be shitty. And I just kept saying, and every sentence, nobody is going to read this.

May we all have that courage. Yes, and it really, I was really a perfectionist before this, like really struggled to untangle those [00:20:15] knots and having no time to write, but needing to get the story out of me not only made me press pause on perfectionism on the page, but also in my life where I was like, you know what?

Aransas:. [00:20:45] Alright, I want to talk to you about this forever, but I'm cognizant that you have a life and a book to write.

So will you just talk to me about boundaries for a little while, because actually it feels like a big enabler in this work.

Boundaries with my co parent to make sure that we are having [00:21:15] an equitable amount of responsibility in our relationship of raising our daughter together and pushing back when I see that it's not working for me anymore, and boundaries with my own free time. I sometimes will put [00:21:30] PR down to sleep and all I want to do is lay on the floor, look at the ceiling, and remember, okay, I'm a separate entity now.

Because every moment matters. And I'm not wasting my time thinking, well, what did she think of me? I think of the Buddha and how he [00:22:30] says, when fear arrives, come have tea with me. And it's very much that line of thought. It's, it's, you're here. You're welcome here. And you are not the master of my mind. I'm not going to, follow your direction but you are welcome at my table.[00:22:45]

Cher: Thank you, Aransas.[00:23:15]

Thank you [00:23:45] for being your share. Uplifters, thank you for listening. Thank you for listening to the Uplifters podcast. If you're getting a boost from these episodes, please share them with the Uplifters in your life. Join [00:24:00] us in conversation over at TheUpliftersPodcast. com. Head over to Spotify, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast and like, follow, and rate our show.

music: Big love painted water, sunshine with rosemary. And I'm dwelling [00:24:30] the perplexing, though you find it flexing. Toss a star in half for beer around. Best love for relish in a new prime Plant a tree in springtime dance.

Lift you up.

Cher: crying. You're disturbing the peace.