Who’s Holding Your Dream For You? (The Bookmark People)

On the quiet people who keep your place in the story when you’re ready to walk away, and why they matter more than willpower. I think.

There’s a kind of person you don’t think to thank until you almost lose your nerve completely. Not the person or people who cheer the loudest when things go well, anyone can do that. I mean the person or people who hold the door open on the days you’re ready to give up on your own dream. The ones who keep your place in the story when you’ve stopped believing there’s a next chapter. I have these people and it looks like this.

I’ve been thinking about doorstops this week. That small, unglamorous object wedged under a door so it can’t slam shut, even when the wind, or the world, or your own doubt is pushing hard against it. Nobody notices the doorstop. It doesn’t do anything flashy. It just refuses to let the door close all the way. And I think some of the most important people in our lives function exactly like that. They’re just quietly making sure the ones we’re afraid to walk back through never fully shut.

I’ve had a few of those people, the kind of support system you don’t build on purpose, you just get lucky enough to have. My parents, who never once treated my dream as something to be practical about, even when practicality would have been the easier conversation to have. My husband, who’s watched me retreat after a hard no more times than either of us would probably admit out loud, and never let me file it away as proof I should stop. Friends who kept bringing up the thing I’d quietly stopped mentioning, not because they forgot I’d gone quiet about it, but because they hadn’t.

Here’s the other image that keeps coming to mind, a bookmark. Not a random scrap of paper, an actual bookmark, placed with intention, right at the page where you stopped reading. It doesn’t finish the book for you. It doesn’t even know how the story ends. It just holds your place, exactly where you left it, for however long it takes you to pick it back up. That’s what these people do when you want to give up on something that matters to you. They don’t chase the outcome for you, they just refuse to let your place in the story get lost. They’re your bookmark people.

This is a bookmark Nyla made me years ago and I still use it.

So I try to be that bookmark for the people in my life too. Kids, friends, family, all of it.

When a friend is going through something hard and starts talking like the dream is already over, like they’re just being realistic, moving on, letting it go, I’ve learned not to disagree with them in the moment. They need to let that out. I just quietly hold the page. I bring it up again a few weeks later, casually, like it never stopped being possible. I remind them of who they were before the low point convinced them otherwise. Remind them why they loved it. Sometimes that’s the whole job, not fixing anything, just refusing to let the door shut while they’re too tired to hold it open themselves.

With family it looks a little different. Longer history, more shorthand. But it’s the same instinct. Noticing when someone’s gone quiet about something that used to light them up. Bringing it up not as pressure, but as proof you haven’t forgotten it matters to them, even if they’ve started pretending it doesn’t. When they rattle off reasons why reality is telling them it’s not possible, I’m ready to hold that door open while they get it out of their system.

And with my own kids, I think about it the same way. There’s a version of parenting that’s encouraging, get up, don’t quit on yourself. And there’s a quieter version, one I’m learning in real time, that’s just about holding the page. When they’re low, when they’ve had a bad outcome or a bad day and start talking about themselves like the disappointing version is the true one, I don’t argue with them either. I just remind them, gently and often, of the version of them I actually see. Not deciding for them. Not needing them to succeed on my timeline. Just making sure that if they ever want to come back to the thing they’re scared to fully commit to right now, the page is still marked, still waiting, exactly where they left it because we still see it in them if they want it.

I think this is the actual difference between giving up and moving forward, and it’s rarely about willpower. It’s about whether someone believes in you enough to hold the dream as though it’s their own on the days you can’t hold it as though it’s yours. Willpower runs out. It’s supposed to. But if someone else is holding your place, you don’t have to relight the whole fire alone. You just have to walk back through a door that never actually closed.

So here’s what I want to ask you, if you’re still reading this.

Who is your bookmark person or your doorstop person?

Not the person who claps the loudest. The one who kept your place. The one who brought up your dream again after you’d gone quiet about it. The one who never let the door shut, even on the days you were the one leaning hardest against it.

If someone came to mind, and I’d bet someone did, almost immediately send them this. Not a paraphrase, not a text saying “this reminded me of you.” Send the actual thing. Let them read the whole way through and land on this line knowing it was written with them in mind.

Thank them. Out loud, in writing, however feels right. Tell them you noticed. Tell them the door never closed because of them. People rarely get told they were the bookmark. Most of them don’t even know they’re holding a page for you until you tell them so.

And if you’re someone else’s bookmark right now, a parent, a friend, someone quietly holding a page for somebody who’s forgotten thank you too. It’s easy to miss your own role in someone else’s story while you’re busy holding it open.

Who’s holding yours?

Share

Love C

For the version of you who’s paying attention

I used to think I was just a scared person who kept doing scary things anyway. Like fear was this thing I had to muscle through every single time, hoping nobody noticed my hands shaking.

Turns out I had it backwards. Completely, embarrassingly backwards. And it took me until now decades into this career, standing at the edge of yet another leap, as we all are these day to actually see the pattern that was there all along.

I’m 17. I’m leaving home for college, and half of me knows I am absolutely not ready for this not emotionally, not practically, not in any way you could measure. I remember packing my bags and feeling like I was going to throw up. I remember my mom’s face at the door. And the other half of me is scared and excited in that specific way where you genuinely cannot tell the two apart anymore…. where your body is doing the exact same thing whether you’re about to ruin your life or change it. That was the first time I felt it. I didn’t have a name for it yet. I just knew I had to go anyway.

-Year book Pic oh my-

Fast forward a few years and I’m working at a station, and nobody has taught me how to be a camerawoman or an editor in school, also that was never the job I was hired to do, never something they covered in any class I took. So after my shift ended at eleven o’clock at night, when everyone else went home, I’d stay until three in the morning teaching myself. Editing pieces over and over just to understand the flow of it, the rhythm, why one cut worked and another one died. Nobody asked me to do this. Nobody was paying me for it. I just kept staying. Kept following the puck.

Eventually I started shooting myself and editing myself into my own stories, which if you’ve never tried it is its own particular kind of humbling. Watching yourself back at 2 a.m., alone ( wait a guy named Loopy was also there a lot, great guy) I kept deciding I was not good enough yet, and doing it again. I had no idea what I was doing. None. But I knew and I mean I knew, in a way I couldn’t have explained to anyone watching me pack up and drive home in the dark that whatever this was, it was leading me somewhere. Felt it in my bones.

Not long after that, the program director came to me with a problem. There was a dead slot in the middle of a daytime soap opera and nothing to put in it. Could I fill it? Every day? With entertainment content? All of it … the concept, the content, the execution on me. Oh, and I’d also need to build the set myself. The maintenance man ( such a nice guy) handed me a room in the back of the garage, in the truck bay, gave me a can of purple paint and, for reasons I still don’t fully understand, a ceramic cat. That was my set!! We called it “Lather Up With Cheryl Hickey, great soap opera reference, btw my dad hated this name lol.

I was terrified. Of all of it coming up with content out of thin air every single day, adlibing, having zero budget, having zero experience doing this exact thing. But I was more terrified of saying no. What if this actually turned into something? What if I bet on me?

It did. Years after I left, someone else picked it up and ran with it for a long time after that a whole segment, born out of a purple room and a ceramic cat, because I said yes to something that scared me instead of protecting myself from looking foolish.

Then Toronto happened. I got the offer and I almost didn’t take it. I didn’t know a single person in that city. I’d never driven the 401. I’d never been live on television, and this job was built on live TV a newscast, shooting camera, live every day top and tail my stories. And half of that job was in a helicopter over the city. I am afraid of heights btw. All of it terrified me, every part. Ps my first live I called the anchor by the wrong name real smooth on my part.

But that fear had a texture to it I recognized, even back then, before I had words for it. It felt less like danger and more like a pull. Less “run” and more “go, now, before you talk yourself out of it.” So I said yes. Terrified the entire time. Terrified while I learned the highways. Terrified the first few times I went up in that helicopter, looking down at a city I barely knew yet.

Years later: ET Canada. If you have been here a min you know this story. I auditioned never having hosted a television show before in my life … not once, not ever, not even close to this at least and not just any show, a beloved franchise that people had grown up watching. CBS executives in the room. Terrified doesn’t begin to cover it. And there it was again that same unmistakable feeling, the one I’d started to recognize by now, guiding me toward something instead of away from it.

Here’s what I know now, looking back at all of it was never fear. Not really. It was misdirected excitement it really was. It was my intuition, firing on all cylinders, trying to tell me this is the direction and I just didn’t have the language yet to tell the difference. For years I called it fear because that’s what it felt like in my body. Racing heart, sweaty palms, that pit in your stomach. But fear and excitement are chemically almost identical. Your body can’t actually tell them apart. Only you can and only if you stop long enough to ask, you get to label it.

So here’s the question I want to leave you with.

If you’re in your twenties, your thirties, your forties, whatever chapter you’re in and you’re standing in front of a decision that has you scared, I want you to stop and actually ask yourself is this fear, or is this something else wearing fear’s clothes?

Is there a lion chasing you? Is something actually on fire? Is someone about to get hurt?

If the honest answer is no if it’s just your chest tightening and your stomach dropping and every rational, risk-averse cell in your body whispering maybe don’t there’s a real possibility that what you’re feeling isn’t a warning sign at all. It might be the exact opposite. It might be your intuition, screaming at you in the only language it knows how to use, that this is precisely the step you’re supposed to take!

Every single time in my life this feeling has shown up … the purple room, the 401, the helicopter, that audition it wasn’t there to protect me from disaster. It was there to point me toward the thing I actually wanted, before I was brave enough to admit I wanted it.

I’m standing at the edge of a new chapter right now with so many of you and I feel that same old flicker again. Chest tight, stomach uneasy, all of it. I know better now than to call it fear.

I’m calling it a sign my intuition.

I hope this finds the person who needs it today.

Okay so I have a theory about myself, and I want to test it on you.

I will try almost anything once. New workout class, weird green juice, a skincare device that looks like it belongs in a dentist’s office… sure, hand it over. I love trying new things. Heck, I’m on here and this is still kind…

Read more

Not the fun part. Not the set, the wardrobe rack, the produced version of a day where someone else picks your words and your lighting. He wanted to know what happens after. When the spotlight follows you out the door, into the grocery store, into your actual life, and the people who’ve watched you every night for years have already decided who you are. And expect you to keep being her. Every single day.

I sat with that question longer than I expected to.

Here the thing nobody tells you about being “on” for a living the audience didn’t just watch the show. They build a version of you in their head, and then they hold you to it. Trust me, many of us have felt it. When you don’t match it, when you’re tired, or you don’t wear your wedding ring one day ( trust me when I didn’t I heard about it:), or you’re having a bad day, or you’re just a normal, unglamorous human, some people get generous about it. Others get a wee bit cruel. Not often, but it can happen. I’ve had moments where strangers online decided they knew exactly who I was based on eleven seconds of tape, and felt it was important to tell me about it! I’ve also had viewers go overboard with their, let’s call it, enthusiasm.

I remember being newly pregnant, and from the jump I wanted to share it. Some said what if something goes wrong? I always felt either way, I’d love support on my journey. It takes too much energy to hide morning sickness and the wave of exhaustion. Well, I popped early, and a few people decided to comment on my newly changing body. The gap between the TV me and the real-life me was closing in, which honestly I had always longed for on Entertainment Tonight Canada.

But here’s what I keep coming back to. That entire stretch of my life, the one people think they know from a screen, is the same stretch where my actual life was happening. I started that job single. I met my husband during it. I had both of my kids while I was doing it. The biggest, most tender, most unscripted things that ever happened to me happened in the exact years I was supposedly performing a version of myself for a camera.

Which tells you something. The split people imagine, public self over here, real self over there, isn’t nearly as clean as it looks from the outside. You don’t actually get to leave yourself at the studio. You just learn to carry both versions at once. The one that shows up polished and on time, and the one that’s falling in love, or exhausted at 2am with a newborn, or grieving somebody nobody in the audience knows about. They’re not in competition. They’re the same person, split across two different kinds of visibility, getting closer and closer together. I wanted them this way. But if I’m honest, it also scared me.

I remember interviewing Oprah, and somewhere along the way I asked a question that hit a nerve. The kind that puts it all into perspective, I guess. I can’t remember the exact wording, but it was something like what does it feel like to truly matter to people the way you do? Life-changing stuff. I panicked a little because she started to cry. Who makes Oprah cry. Then I let the moment be what it was, a breath, and realized she was stopping her beautiful, uber successful world to truly take that in with me with us ( hi Nadine) it was one of those real human moments I will never forget. I felt the shift from TV to real life right in front of me. She got up and asked to take a minute backstage, and we were all suspended in this moment of the veil coming down.

.

If there’s a learning point in here, I don’t think it’s really about the fame part, or whatever you want to call it. Most of us don’t have a TV audience, but a lot of us have a digital one. And almost all of us have a version of this. A work self people expect us to be at all times. A curated feed. A role at home that doesn’t leave room for the messier parts. The instinct to keep the two selves neatly separated is exhausting, and honestly, it’s a bit of a lie. The people who’ve made peace with themselves aren’t the ones who perfected the performance, trust me. They’re the ones who stopped pretending there was only supposed to be one version of them in the first place.

Love this quote by Case Kenny

I didn’t expect a podcast question to turn into a whole reflection on identity. But that’s usually how the good ones go. The question you weren’t braced for is the one that actually gets somewhere. Thank you, Tony Chapman, on Chatter That Matters that was a thinker…..still working through that one.

I’m a walking long shot. I mean that literally, starting from before I could walk at all.

Read more

For the version of you who’s paying attention.

Note I wrote this as a voice note because it was from a reel I posted.

I’ve worked in television for a long time. Long enough to have made just about every mistake there is to make in front of a camera. Long enough that I actually figured some things out along the way, mostly by getting it wrong first.

Remember I was the girl who showed up on a national entertainment show my first year trying to channel every host I’d ever seen on TV, all at once. Talking too loud. Smiling weird. It took a while to find my own groove. IYKYK.

Anyway. Back to my point I’ve learned a lot. And the thing is, it doesn’t really matter what the medium is. A live TV hit, a Zoom call, a boardroom presentation, or me filming something in my kitchen so Aunt Michelle in Australia can see what I’m up to. The fundamentals of actually connecting with someone don’t change. I keep landing on the same handful of things no matter what I’m doing.

So here’s what showing up, over and over, in front of a camera for two decades has actually taught me.

1. Have a plan.

You don’t need a script. But you need to know what you’re trying to say before you hit record. Be a little researched, or at least have a sense in your own head of where you’re headed. Nobody wants to sit through someone rambling with no destination you know that feeling, where you’re half listening and thinking, wait, what were they even talking about? A plan doesn’t mean stiff or rehearsed. We all know what that looks like and it can feel fake and disingenuous. It just means you know your own point before you ask someone else to follow it.

2. Eye contact.

Genuinely one of the most underrated skills in life, on camera or off. Think about the last time someone talked to you but looked past you, or over your shoulder, or worse stared at your teeth the entire time. It is distracting. Pulls you right out of the moment even if you couldn’t say exactly why.

Same thing online. The camera lens is the viewer. That’s who you’re actually talking to. Try to talk to it like it’s one person, not a stadium full of them. Make it personal when did we become so afraid of being personal with each other? Something shifts in how people receive you when eye contact is there.

Though …. don’t overcorrect into staring into someone's soul lol without blinking either. That’s its own kind of unsettling. Balance is key.

3. Know your why and your who.

Who are you actually talking to? Why does this matter enough to say out loud? This is the part that lets your authenticity come through, the thing that actually cuts through when everyone’s fighting for the same three seconds of someone’s attention. You can nail the plan, nail the eye contact, and still fall flat without this piece. It’s the soul of the whole thing, honestly. Soul is what we are all searching for these days. I know I am.

4. Watch your camera angle.

Those who know me know I love to talk camera angles. Subtle ones, but it matters more than people give it credit for. If you’re telling something personal… something meant to feel like an actual one on one conversation the framing needs to reflect that. Chest up. Closer than a full body shot I promise it makes a difference.

A wider shot, camera further back, has its place for like a hook, something with movement, a fashion moment. But when you’re sharing something real, something meant to land when you’re speaking directly to the one person watching, distance works against you. Literally and emotionally, I think. Even if what you’re saying is just as honest either way. Crop in tighter. Let people feel like they’re sitting across from you instead of watching from across a room. Let them see the longer blink the contemplation in your face or you eyes smile before you mouth does …..that kind of thing. Don’t be afraid of the intimacy.

Bonus: watch your body language.

Easy one to forget about. If you’re hunched over, closed in, not fully facing the camera it reads I am unsure, even if what you’re saying is completely locked in. Your body says something before you’ve spoken a word, and it keeps talking the whole time you are too. People pick up on it whether you’re standing in front of them or showing up on their screen. Take it from the girl who use to never know what to do with her hands and people use to dm me asking about how I stand or my hands all the time. It was kind of funny we all ( viewers and I) laughed about it together. Let your body back up what you’re saying instead of quietly undercutting it.

None of this is a secret. Plenty of people more qualified than me have said versions of this before. It’s not exclusive to television either it’s basic, honestly, which is probably exactly why it works for almost anyone. A Zoom call, a presentation, the first time you ever hit record on anything.

Let me know if any of this lands for you. And tag me if you try it on your reels, stories, post or a TikTok. I genuinely want to see how it goes for you.

Remember this also nobody really has it all figured out especially when so many people are transitioning online. So don’t stress but pls do try. You owe it to yourself and Aunt Michelle in Australia who is watching your stuff:)

I want to say something before I get into this…. I’m not a therapist, a coach, or any kind of mindset professional. I don’t have a certification hanging on my wall. What I have is decades of being a genuinely curious person someone who has taken more courses than I can count, read more books on this stuff than fit on one shelf, and quietly tested all of it on myself, in real life, for years. I’m a lifelong learner before I’m anything else. I am learning more about myself and what works everyday. So take this as one person sharing what’s actually worked for her, not gospel.

And I want to say the word out loud early, because I know it makes some people’s eyebrows go up: manifestation.

I get it. For a lot of people that word conjures vision boards and wishful thinking a little bit of whimsy dressed up as self-help. I don’t need you to believe in the woo-woo version of it. What I do need you to consider is this there’s a real, unglamorous mechanism underneath the trendy word. I feel like it is the practice of deciding what you want clearly enough that you actually start noticing, and acting on (inspired action), the openings in front of you. Call it manifestation, call it intention setting, intuition in action, call it whatever gets you comfortable enough to try it.

The First 60 Seconds of My Day

Before my eyes are even open, I say this to myself the moment I realize I’m awake under my lids. Thank you for the breath in my body. I am open to receive the good that is out there for me, and every day in every way I’m getting better and better. The last part I picked from the famous psychological coined by French Psychotherapist Emile Coue. He is fascinating. If you have the time a great rabbit hole to go down another time.

That’s it. I don’t wait until I’m caffeinated or scrolling to decide how the day is going to feel. I decide before I’ve even confirmed I’m fully conscious. It sounds almost too simple to matter, and I understand the skepticism. However there’s something to starting the day by choosing the frame instead of letting the frame choose you.

Right after that, still with my eyes closed, I name three things I’m grateful for. Some mornings it’s big my health, my home, my healthy family. Some mornings it’s small a good cup of coffee waiting, a laugh I shared with a friend the day before. It doesn’t need to be profound. It just needs to be honest. Then I open my eyes and get up to usually two dogs staring at me from above, waiting for breakfast… my favourite view!

-Usually what it looks like expect not outside-

That’s the whole ritual. Under two minutes. I’ve been doing this for a few years now. No app, no journal required in that exact moment, anyway though the journaling is where the deeper work happens. Let me add little extra if you are still reading.

Then there is little day design.

Day Design: The Exercise That Changed How I Set Goals.

Here’s the piece of this that took me the longest to actually sit down and do, because it asks more of you than a gratitude list does.

The 8’s- I was born on the 8th so it’s a thing for me.

Write down 80 of your dreams. Not five, not ten 80. Big ones, small ones, embarrassing ones, ones you’ve never said out loud. The number is intentionally uncomfortable, because it forces you past the polished, socially acceptable answers and into the ones you actually mean.

Then narrow it down to 8 that you really feel in your soul. You will know.

Write 8 reasons why you want to achieve this thing.

Write 8 ways you will feel once you have achieved it.

Write 1 mantra, and end it with “and so it is” my friend Lori taught me that ;)

That last line matters more than it looks like it should. It’s a small verbal full stop that tells your own brain this isn’t a maybe, it’s decided! Whether or not you believe there’s anything mystical happening, there’s something genuinely useful about the discipline of narrowing a vague hope into a specific reason and a specific feeling….that then will inspire your action towards it. Vague wishes rarely turn into action. Specific ones have a better chance “if” you move toward them.

Why I Think Mindset Matters Most for Parents

I realized this somewhere along the way.

If you’re a parent, your mindset isn’t just yours anymore it’s the weather system your kids live inside. They absorb far more from how you handle a hard morning than from anything you tell them about resilience.

Your self-talk is being watched, even when you think it’s private. Kids clock the sigh, the I can’t do this, the eye-roll at your own beautiful reflection long before they understand the words. Narrating your own good moments out loud teaches them to do the same for themselves.

.

Gratitude works better as a habit than any lecture. Naming three things you’re grateful for at breakfast does more for a kid’s outlook than any speech about being thankful. Warning… they may give you that eye roll, like mine have, from time to time.

Let your kids see you name a want out loud….a dream. Not just for them, for you. Saying I’d love to get better at this or here’s something I’m working toward models that dreaming isn’t something you outgrow at eighteen. Then let them see your inspired action.

You don’t need to overhaul your life to start this. Two minutes before your eyes open. Three things named in your head. That’s a low enough bar that it’s actually sustainable, which is the whole point.

The Honest Caveat

None of this replaces therapy, medication, or real support when you need it we know this and I’d never suggest a morning mantra fixes a hard season on its own. Trust I have experienced a season or two or three! What I’m describing is maintenance, not medicine. It’s the daily practice that keeps my own baseline a little higher, so that when life does get hard, I’m not also starting from empty.

I’ve taken enough courses and read enough books to know that no single framework works for everyone. But this one, unglamorous and two minutes long, is the one that’s actually stuck for me over the years. If you try one thing from this, make it the three gratitudes before you open your eyes. It costs you nothing, and it’s the easiest place to start… even when sh!t hits the fan of life.

What’s your version of this? do you have a morning ritual that’s actually stuck? I’d love to hear it in the comments I’m open to learning from you also!

When did hustle become a bad word? I feel like over the last two years it has become a bad word. If someone sees another out there going for it or trying something new there is a little side-eye. You know what I am talking about! I know you do. No matter your age we all know what this is. Maybe you're 20 and you are becoming a content creator and your friends are giving you that look. Or you are 38 and you are grateful for the life you have but you want to make that online store or you are 62 and you want to try and teach that dance class for women?

Read more

I almost didn’t take the call.

Read more

Hi. I’m Cheryl. You might know me from your couch on TV, asking other people about their lives, dressed up really well in designer clothes, with perfectly positioned hair and makeup, for the last two decades. Funny thing about that job I got so good at asking everyone else the interesting questions that I forgot to ask myself any out loud. At least, until now. I’ve also always had the comfort of a co-host. Now I’m stepping out on my own.

So this is me, finally asking the questions I want to know.

.

If you’re here because you liked a caption, or a photo, or you’re just Substack-hopping, or maybe new to this Substack life on a Saturday… welcome. I’m not going to give you a polished “here’s my brand” pitch. I’m going to tell you the truth, which is messier and, I think, way more useful.

I was told by a producer once that I was a terrible writer. They said I was excellent at coming up with ideas, putting a story together, adlibbing, and interviewing but that I wrote like I talked, and that was a bad thing, I guess, back then. Maybe all these years later, this platform is built for people like me? We will find out.

Eighteen-plus years on ET Canada. Two Canadian Screen Awards. Thousands of interviews with people who were, in that exact moment, living out the biggest or scariest or most exciting chapter of their lives. I got a front-row seat to reinvention over and over again… it was just other people’s.

I built a career on certainty. On knowing the question before I asked it, knowing the beat before the segment ended, knowing exactly how to hold a room steady even when everything backstage was chaos or falling apart. That said, I got the most excited when I just followed the puck and asked the unexpected that’s when the art of conversation was born. We’ll come back to this thought one day.

Turns out that’s a great skill for television the holding it all together, making it look seamless part. It’s a terrible skill for figuring out who you actually are underneath the job.

Who I Am Growing Into?

Here’s the part I used to be too scared to say out loud… I don’t fully know yet. Oh, that felt uncomfortable. And I’m done pretending that’s a problem.

Here’s the thing about me, though: I’ve never actually been afraid of that part. I’ve been trying new things and falling flat on my face at them since long before it was trendy to post about “embracing failure.” I’ve failed way more than I’ve succeeded. Ideas that never got off the ground, versions of me that didn’t stick, ventures I quietly let go of because the timing wasn’t right. I don’t say that with any shame now ….shame then, yes, some. I say it because trying and missing has always been more interesting to me than staying safely still, even when it hurt. A couple of my big wins in my career, which I am forever grateful for just lasted a long time and were very public.

Then there’s the art of resetting after a fall. That’s actually always been one of my strengths.

Until it wasn’t. When my dad died in 2023, I got lost in a way I hadn’t experienced before. I really didn’t see that lost feeling coming. The usual reset button didn’t work the same way. For a while, trying didn’t feel brave it just felt hard, and at times I was spinning. I’m telling you this not for sympathy, but because I think it matters in a way that connects us. The last few years have genuinely been me finding my way back to that part of myself. And I have. I’m here, trying again, fully believing in it again, and honestly more sure than ever that starting over is possible at 20 and beyond, after any kind of stop and start. Career wise and personally. I’m living proof.

That’s exactly the energy I’m bringing into what’s next. I’m building some exciting things with people I really care about. There’s a little something else stirring too… I’ll leave it there for now, until we’re ready to share. That said, you’ll hear it here first. When the time comes, I want to bring you in on the actual making of it — the messy middle, not just the shiny launch post. Because honestly, that’s the part I find most interesting anyway.

But here’s what I’ve landed on, and it’s the whole reason this newsletter this Substack

Curiosity Curbs the Flat.

I absolutely believe it’s doing that for me.

Not the cat… the flat. The flatline. The plateau. The version of you that stopped asking questions because you got comfortable, or scared, or tired, or were told “you’ve made it” so many times you believed staying put was the goal. That doesn’t mean you can’t be happy where you are it just means you can keep creating in this life of yours, of ours right?

Staying put is not the goal. I don’t think it ever was. I think the goal is staying curious enough to keep becoming someone new, at every single age, without needing permission or a perfect plan first.

Not a highlight reel. Not a “here’s how I did it, now you do it too” guide. I have no idea if my next move is the right one, although what is coming feels really good. That’s kind of the point. More than ever, I want my kids to see me try, succeed, and even fail because it’s in how we handle both that becomes the lesson.

This is a place where I ask the questions I’m scared of, out loud, before I know the answers. Where I wonder in public and share some of what I find. Hoping it inspires you to wonder more!

1. Real questions, asked before I have the answers. Career pivots, identity shifts, the “am I allowed to want this?” spiral all of it, live, not retrofitted with a tidy lesson.

2. Stories from two decades of interviewing people mid transformation what I actually learned sitting across from them that I never got to say on air.

3. No fake certainty. If I try something and it flops, you’ll hear about that too especially since that’s going to be really hard for me, true story. I want to share what I’m trying, what I love, what I’m reading, or courses I’m taking.

4. A standing invitation to wonder alongside me. This isn’t a lecture. It’s a conversation I want you talking back into.

5. A front-row seat to the new things I’m building. I can’t share the details yet, but when it’s time, you’ll get the behind the scenes version, not just the finished product. We’re growing into this one together videos, pictures, links to things and products, all of it!

If you’re 24 and terrified your first career isn’t your forever career… you’re in the right place. If you’re 45 and quietly wondering if it’s too late to want something new… same. If you’re 60 and everyone’s stopped asking what YOU want because they assume you’ve already decided… I want you here. I don’t care about your age this is a life thing that connects us all. Changing is part of the human experience. From jobs to relationships even hormones!

Nobody has this figured out. The people who look like they do are usually just better at hiding it… remember, I was her!

So here’s my ask: don’t come here for answers. Come here to ask better questions with me. Try things. Fail a little, in public, on purpose. Let’s make it cool again to say “I don’t know” and mean it as a starting line!

Life is long, if we’re lucky, and curiosity does curb the flat. This I know.

So Why Am I Charging for This?

Great question. I’ve never negotiated my own deals or contracts that’s why I have the best manager so even me talking about this feels weird. Trust me, we’ll explore the connection between monetary value and self-worth another day. See, we already have another topic! Oh, focus, Cheryl!

Okay, subscribing helps support my work and gives me the ability to produce more of it! So: $5 a month as a Substack member (or $60 for the whole year). You used to pay for cable to see me now you’re here, but this time it’s personal. Still feels weird to talk money…we must explore this topic!

What will you get

• As a member, a sneak peek at new projects and behind the scenes videos

• Invitations to participate with me in live video Q&A sessions where you can ask me what you really want

• Links to things I love

• Videos

• Plus plus plus

So, back to that producer who told me I wasn’t a good writer working on giving that less weight. That said, I will be using AI to help with a brain that moves faster than my hands. All ideas and personal stories are very much mine, but I’ll be accepting all the help I can get in this modern day and age. If that producer is reading this: “Hey, look at me not giving up.” ;)

Stay Up to Date

So now you know what this is! Every post comes straight to your inbox, no clickbait. For a better experience, get the Substack app for ad-free reading and exclusive content. We’d love for you to be a paid subscriber, but we totally get it if you can’t.

Continue to follow me on:

Instagram — @CherylHickey

TikTok — @CherylHickey

And now YouTube — @CherylHickey

There’s always more to come…. just find out about it here first.

To learn more about Substack, check out Substack.com.