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Tonight's show is going to start off very different.
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I've always wondered what it's like to be in the public eye, a
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celebrity. Must be exciting when you're in
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studio, and set designers, and wardrobe consultants
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and makeup artists and people trying to produce great content and
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script fantastic words and every day you're interviewing a
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different celebrity. But what
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happens when you leave that studio and that spotlight follows
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you and those viewers that watch you every night have framed you in a
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certain way and almost expect you to be that way every
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day? And some are even so grotesque that they
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shame you in social media. Well, that's what
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I thought the show was gonna be about today. My guest is Cheryl Hickey. For
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eighteen years, she was the cohost of Entertainment Tonight Canada.
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I started, you know, a single woman on that show. I met my
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husband, had both of my kids, learned so much, grew so
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much. I thought we're gonna talk about that private and public
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life and some of the people that she interviewed, and we we certainly touched on
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that. But what you're gonna find in this show was so much more. At the
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beginning, it was they wanted me to just with Rick, and I was like,
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Cheryl Hickey is a beautiful human being. And I've
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always been nervous to step forward myself. I
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love a partner, a co host, a cast, but
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me, that's what the hardest part about ET Canada was. Just
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such gratitude for the small town she's been raised, or the lessons in life from
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her parents. She's gonna share with you some powerful lessons in life
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for what we're all going through, transitions. Because they have to be.
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Because the industries are changing, all industries are changing. And
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you've just got to evolve, put your head down, find out what you love to
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do, and find a way to make it work. Rugs being pulled from underneath
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us. People trying to hold us back. Or passions that we
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know we should be chasing, but we don't have the courage to do so. It's
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okay to fail. It's okay to start again. It's okay to
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try. And I think the most important thing we're gonna learn from Cheryl
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is how to listen generously, not just to the people that you're talking
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with. Inside, listen to what makes you happy. Listen
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to the passions and pursuits you you should be chasing. We're supposed to
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create and inspire each other and start again. That's the
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point. There's so much to Cheryl Hickey, and I hope you feel after
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listening the way I felt after interviewing her.
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Hi. It's Tony Chapman. Thank you for listening to Chatter That Matters presented
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by RBC. If you can, please subscribe to the podcast.
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And ratings and reviews, well, they're always welcome, and they're always appreciated.
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Cheryl Hickey, welcome to Chatter That Matters. Hey.
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Cheryl Hickey, I always in my mind, you were this
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red carpet superstar that that just had Manhattan as
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your background, but it it turns out you grew up in Shallow Lake near Owen
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Sound. That's a pretty small town. It sure is. And we had one
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little convenience store called Ed Allen's Convenience
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Store, and they used to sell the best penny candy. What's the values
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that you take out of a small town? Because, you know, Hollywood always has this
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folklore of the small town, and you just, you know, you go to the big
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city, but you never take the small town girl out of it. I think part
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of it is an appreciation for connection and an appreciation
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for a slower pace. And I think that I've been able
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deep inside to hold on to that. There's been times I've
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been like, woah, my head is spinning certainly. But I think that
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at the core of who I am, I can still, like, mentally go back to
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that place and find myself again. That's
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something that I am so grateful for. Do you ever feel like a
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square peg in a round hole when you're involved in
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the dynamics of what's happening that's just busy? You
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question even why you left that sort of almost sounds like a
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utopia? That's the beauty of this life. Like, evolving
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and changing and growing and experiencing different
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things is why we're all here. I was blessed enough to have
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this really incredible childhood where we played in the back 40,
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right, and we just ran around and climbed trees and then rode our bikes on
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gravel roads with no helmets. But, you know, like, did all these
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things where you you created this sense of
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adventure and then my life took me in because I dreamed
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a lot. I daydreamed. I envisioned. I played and imagined
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of what I could be and who I could be. I had no goalpost,
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but no. I don't feel like a round peg in a
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square hole because, like, I I know that life is about changing.
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One of the things that I read was your I and I love this quote
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when your dad said, I think you're age 16, Cheryl, you
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talk a lot. Maybe you should volunteer at the local TV station. And
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I just cracked up because who would have thought just trying
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to quieten you down would suddenly turn into this incredible television career.
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So how how did that all come about? Well, my brother and I used to
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compete for talking time at the dinner table, and it used to drive my mother
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crazy and my sister because my sister's, like, the quieter one. I think I was
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just always curious, like, curious about everything. I asked
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a million questions. And when my parents would watch Barbara Walters at
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night, I'd kinda, like, sneak in and kinda peer and watch. I
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remember she bought me this microphone and there was a point in time when I
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was like, I'm gonna be like Whitney Houston. But then I turned it and I
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was like, okay, well, what else can I do with this? So I would interview
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my family and walk around and do that. And so my parents were clever
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enough to be like, hey. Let's figure out what this girl is doing naturally
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and see if we can push her into a direction that just feels right,
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and they did. And I'm very grateful for that. You went to Fanshawe
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College studying radio and television arts. Not that I'm dating you, but back
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then, radio and television was the place to be. I mean, it was
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exciting. And so what did you learn in that school that you
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feel was important enough that has stayed with you as you started to
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build this illustrious career? Things actually aren't that different. And here's
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what I'll say, because I remember back then, our profs and other
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people, graduates, saying it is a terrible time to get into this
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business. There is no work. Things aren't da da da da. It's this, it's this,
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it's this, it's this. And if you listen to it, then you
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would never find your way. You'd be like, oh, well, then I guess I better
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not do this. And boom. That's the same message broadcast journalism
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and radio students are being told today, that there's no room.
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When in fact, if you look at it differently, the landscape is
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huge and fast and you can create your own channel.
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There's so much that you can actually do. Look what you're
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doing. It's all in how you look at it. The forms are
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changing and evolving, but the opportunity is still there. So I think
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back then, I remember hearing that and being like,
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no, I really love this. This makes my heart full.
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I'm gonna keep going. Definitely feeling like a bit
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of an underdog because my profs didn't really take me seriously, some of
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them. Some of them did, but some of them didn't. I I just remember just
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the grit. The grit was important. Three in the morning, your eyes are bleeding. You're
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just like, I'm so tired trying to finish this project. But just
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having a resolve and holding onto that. It's a great
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insight in terms of friction versus fuel, where so
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often today, we just tell people there's so much friction out there that
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why bother even trying. And I just love the way you framed it to
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say there's always opportunity. I wanna talk to you about your first
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entry into the world, the new VR in Barry, and how you didn't
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just wait for opportunities. You you decided that you're gonna start creating
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them. I started out, I think, as a PA. My gosh. I
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remember having so much anxiety around writing Lance Chilton, the news
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anchor's tease. Like, I was just frozen. And then quickly, I was like,
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okay, well, I don't wanna stay in this position. What else can I do? So
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I started shadowing the cameramen and women. One woman,
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Audra Brown, she still works at City TV, and she was kind enough, along
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with some of the other guides, after my shift was done at 06:00, I would
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then go out at night and follow them and kinda learn
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about the camera, and then there was a broken down one that they eventually let
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me take out alongside of them. So while they were shooting, I was shooting, and
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then I would come back at 11:00, stay until, like, three or
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four editing my own stuff, just to, like, see if I could get the feel
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of a cut, and then eventually, I would shoot my own standup, along the
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reporter would go back into the truck and then I'd go and shoot my own
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standup, edit myself in, and I would just give those tapes to the news
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director. At the time, the news director, I didn't
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know, but he would just file them underneath his desk. He wasn't sending
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them downtown to City TV, which was where, at the time, all the decisions
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were made. And then the creative directors came to me and said,
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Listen, we have five minutes in the middle of a soap opera that we have
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to fill with an interstitial. Can you create one? And I was like, yes.
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And then immediately, it was like, oh, crap. With what? I don't know.
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So I decided at the time that I was going to create something in the
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middle of a soap opera where people could write in their questions, then I
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would contact the PR people down at Days of Our Lives and ask
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them the questions that people wanted to know. And then in that five minutes, I
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would give them their response. A really nice maintenance guy there in the
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building gave me, an old room in the garage and
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gave me a can of purple paint and said, have at her, kiddo. If you
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can make a set, that it's yours. And I painted this whole room. I
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found a ceramic cat in the garage, put it in there as decoration. And
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literally a week later, one of the other team
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members came up with the name Lather Up with Cheryl Hickey. My dad was so
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angry at that. He was like, no one's gonna take you seriously. And I was
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like, but it's funny. Anyway, that ended up being the name, and we
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went to air. And it was a little something where I ad libbed every day
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for five minutes. It's like working a muscle, and it was fantastic.
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And then, the news director in in Toronto,
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Paul Rogers, heard about me through another cameraman, said I'd like to
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come up and take you out for coffee. I I've heard a lot about you.
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He offered me a job that a new job where they were creating a
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helicopter role for a cameraperson, a reporter, but also a
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videographer on the evening shift, and then it kinda took off. It
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took off, but you were scared of heights. Oh my gosh. Deathly afraid of
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heights. In fact, I tried not to take the job, which is part of
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the story. I went back to my news director at the new VR and said,
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what can you give me? Long story short, he said, I'll give you one
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slot on Sunday nights, but I made you who you are. And
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eventually, Lance Chilton, the news the the news anchor there said to me,
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if you don't take this job, this'll be the biggest mistake of your life. Like,
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you need to lean into the fear. I was I'd never driven in Toronto. I
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was definitely afraid of heights. All I knew was a small town.
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And then I just remember being like, okay, I'm gonna take it. How
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often did you come across people that, as you
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succeeded, wanted to take credit, wanted to let you know it was because of them
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and not the fact this was Cheryl Hickey at three in the morning painting purple
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on the wall and finding ceramic hats? What advice can you give
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to others when somebody's trying to jump in on a spotlight that
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you've actually lit? The only time that it's really happened in a really big bay
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was was was with that previous boss. He really,
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I feel, didn't want me to succeed and he didn't really believe in me.
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And and when I took the job in Toronto, he told me that
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he taught me everything I know and how dare I and actually
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yelled at me for, like, forty five minutes. I remember thinking,
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this is not how it's supposed to be. You're supposed to be happy for me,
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and I've been showing you all of my things trying to get
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going here. Yeah. You can't control what other people do, and you
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can't control what other people think, but you can control how you act. And so
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I try to focus on that. Do you think when you write your
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memoirs one day, those times in life where people put up
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those obstacles and you found a way around it, you think you're get there'll be
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some of the memories you treasure the most. It's also about finding your way
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around, above, through, underneath, whatever you needed to do to
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kind of turn this obstacle into a stepping stone. They're there
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as lessons. We know they are. And sometimes they repeat and
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you're like, wait, I've seen this kind of person before, or I've seen this before.
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Am I going to act the same way? Or am I going to learn from
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the last cycle and act differently and see if this keeps reappearing?
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So the call that changed everything was Entertainment
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Tonight Canada. You were initially passed over for the role. So
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I'd love for you to share how that show came
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about because it was a defining moment for you. And I would say that you
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helped define Canadian television for eighteen years. So I'd I'd love to hear
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the background story. Well, I was working at Global News. I think I went from
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a court reporter to I was working a three to
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eleven shift. And then I think one day I ended up doing, like, a quirky
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story of some sort, and Paul was like, what is
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this side of you? And he started to allow me to do
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more entertainment and lifestyle stories. When bands would come to town, I would
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go down to the then Skydome and do lives and things like that, and that
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started to really build. And then I really
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realized that, wow, I just I love entertainment. I love making people
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smile. I love talking about things that highlight other people,
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and it just spoke to me. We got wind that Entertainment Tonight
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was I think I went up to Barb Williams' office a year before and said
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to her, is there any way I could be a Canadian correspondent for Entertainment
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Tonight? And she was like, I don't know. Kinda went
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away. It died. Then about a year later, I heard that they were gonna be
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doing an entertainment show, so I thought, ah, I need to audition for this. So
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then they started bringing people in, Zeb Shalev and whatever, and I asked to go
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and do a read. I went and did a read. I did a chemistry read
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with some guy. I don't know who he was. And my cubicle
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was in the back of the room. And then I continually
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saw all these beautiful models and accomplished broadcasters
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and some of my friends going by my desk to also go audition for, like,
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a couple weeks. And I thought, oh, wow. There's
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no way I'm getting this job. Like, these people are way more qualified than
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I and, you know, beautiful and stunning and, like, they were looking for
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someone to, like, pow pow and hit it, and they said as much.
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So I remember one time, I think I went for a
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callback and they said, here's the deal. We don't want someone people know, and
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we don't want someone blonde haired, blue eyed. And you know and I know it's
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a casting thing. Like, they're trying to build a team and so I was like,
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okay. Well, there's not much you can do with that. I can't really it's it
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is what it is. And I am already known on Global News, so
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okay. I was frustrated and sad and
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I all the feelings that you feel, but it it stirred something up in me
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where I was like, but I know I want more and I know I
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wanna change. I did the logical thing that any
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broadcaster would do is I booked a trip to Australia to go see a boy.
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I was like, you know what? I'm out of here. I need a break. I'm
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gone. I know that I'm changing. I know that I'm evolving. I gotta
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see. So I come back from this vacation, and I knew that
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I I loved Global. It was my home, but I knew I needed
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more. So I my plan in my brain was I was gonna start looking at
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what else was out there. And I came back, and they said, can we have
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a meeting? Literally, I was in this big boardroom. It was Barb Williams, Zeb
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Chalev, and they were like, hey. We're gonna do this entertainment
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show. We'd like you to be the host with Rick
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Campanelli. And by the way, it's called Entertainment Tonight. And I just remember
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looking through both of them. What is happening? Like, my whole world
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just spun. I didn't think it was me. All of a sudden, the
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CBS executives were down, they were building a set, we were practicing and
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rehearsing, and then the imposter syndrome
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took over and I was panicking. Do they know I don't know how to
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host a show? Like, I've never done this before? But I was terrified. I remember
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being at our press conference, and my voice was shaking. And
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I just I was like, alright. Did they get the right person? Like, are we
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okay? But isn't that part of when you stand on a tight rope
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so high? I mean, you talk about your fear of heights. This is your emotional
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fear of heights. You have no idea how you're gonna get to the other
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side. Everybody's believing in you. So they're just like, they're not even
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worrying about a safety net. That's the difference between
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someone that dreams and like you did as a young kid and someone
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that does, is you just have to find your way on that tightrope. I've always
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felt comfortable in a team and I find it very hard
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to step forward on my own. So I'm evolving right
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now in this space because I
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am, I'm doing it on my own and that is stepping out
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again and it's exciting and it's scary and it's fun and
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it's all those things. And if we didn't love what we do so
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much, you'd stop. One of the interviews
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that you did, this small town girl now out in front, putting a
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microphone in front of the Beyonces and the Ryan Reynolds and dozens
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of others. And you said that interesting enough, it was your shallow,
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late personality that allowed you to connect because you connected
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from a sort of a position almost of authenticity as
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opposed to being, you know, just fawning over these celebrities.
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Tell us a little bit about that because it I think for the average listener,
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most people would freeze if they were in front of a celebrity
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like a Beyonce. But to me, when I watched you on television, it was just
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you ran into an old high school friend. I wish people could see it. Maybe
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some people see this in the behind the scenes stuff now. When a celebrity walks
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up on a red carpet, you see this moment in their
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face. They're scared. They're nervous. They're trying to put themselves
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out there and promote whatever they're paid to promote, and they're just people.
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Doesn't mean that I don't get excited and a little bit nervous to meet
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someone, but that means you care. It means you're still engaged. You're still in
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it. But at the end of the day, we're all, we're
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all people. We're all from somewhere. We're someone's daughter. You know?
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We're someone's best friend. That's what connects us all. And
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so if you can find those moments in conversation and get lost in those
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moments in conversation, then you're gonna get something real. And
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it doesn't happen all the time, but most of the time, if you're really paying
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attention and you're a really good listener, when you're interviewing someone,
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you get those moments. Barbara Walters. This is someone you must
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have watched as a very young child when you're playing with your microphone.
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You talk about choosing your moral compass over a sort of gotcha
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question. Unpack that. She had a book, I think it was. And
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I I remember reading the book and cramming for this interview and just being so
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excited. I mean, Barbara Walters, Oprah, those are
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your Pinnacles of female journalists. Like the people like that,
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that I really admired and watched over the years. So I
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had this opportunity to interview her and I was, this is the greatest thing ever.
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And in the book, I quoted something that she said, she's
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no, I didn't say that. And I remember, you know, picking a moment
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of, you're you're a journalist. You're not a fan. So you stick with the plan.
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You stick with what you know, and I did. But there's also a way
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of doing it with grace and kindness. You don't have to make a big moment
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of it. You don't have to expose someone. You can do it in a way
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that is respectful and kind. And what ended up
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happening after that is I ended up getting a handwritten letter mailed to me
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from Barbara Walters talking about how much she enjoyed the interview and how much she
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appreciated our time together. It's not bowing down to the moment and
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disappearing. It's about leaning into it, but being confident, but
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also being courteous and kind. And all of that matters at the end of the
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day. It just does. What Entertainment Tonight interview
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do you wish you could do over? Oh. I wish
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my listeners could see your giggle right now. And there's one and I've
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posted this video before, but it was at the Grammys
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with Bruno Mars. I'm a huge Bruno Mars fan. Fan. Love him. Love him. Love
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him on Saturday Night Live. Like, I just think he's so talented from his dancing
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to his songwriting to, like, blah. He gets up to sing a song to me.
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When I see your face. And I think my face
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had fear, and he just stopped. And he was like, yeah. And I'm done. But
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he didn't realize, like, I was so into it, but I think he thought I
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wasn't. Anyway, it was like a miscue. It was like an awkward
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moment. I forgot I was on TV and just was like, oh.
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A chapter in the book that we're gonna write together, I'm not gonna write it,
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but I'm gonna get you some of it because I want your book, is the
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best interview I ever had. Again, this was before ET
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Canada. I had the opportunity to interview the late Quincy
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Jones. He's a creator, really. Like he's touched TV, he's
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touched music. And there's really, there's very few artists that he didn't
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have a hand in creating some of their their music or their
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art. You name it. It was so good. So he leaves, my cameraman and I
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are like, woah, mind blown. How are we gonna make this a two minute story?
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This is crazy. We're packing up. This is not like the four seasons or
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something. We get a knock on the door about thirty minutes later, and it's Quincy
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Jones. And he's like, this conversation was so much fun.
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Can I get a chocolate bar to the menu bar and sit back down?
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I said, Yes. And then we put the camera back up, we roll a little
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bit more, and he just told stories of his life and it's like,
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it was fascinating. I'm so grateful to
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people like Oprah Winfrey who just took me up on stage and
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said my name in the Cheryl, like the John
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Mairs of the world and the Taylor Swifts and
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Jan Arden. Like, there's just I've had wonderful
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conversations with people. Sidebar. I mean, you know, people might think that the
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job is one hour a day. I was in the entertainment tonight. I was on
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the show a couple of times. I know how how much it takes to produce
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that show. How did you manage to also find time to meet
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your husband, get married, have two kids? Like, how do you balance both of
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those? Because and it's not that the word compromise or trade
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off, but I know how important both are to you. So how
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did you find a way to prioritize one over the other at times so
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that you could have the best of both worlds? There's no such thing as balance.
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I truly believe that. There just isn't. Sometimes this gets more attention, and sometimes this
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gets more attention. That said, my kids have always been at the forefront of
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my life. But I also should say with a show like Entertainment Tonight,
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you just see me out there, but it is an
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entire crew working tirelessly. Like, I that's the thing I
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always used to say. If you could see our crew, if you could see our
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cameraman, if you could see our floor director, Double j, for me to do the
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things I do and have the time that I have, it's those people.
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I went back to work after four months of having my son, and it was
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one of the most difficult things I've ever done. It's one of my biggest
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regrets also, but I truthfully, I was afraid of losing
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my job. You know, you don't dare take an entire year off.
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There were times where I'd be in my dressing room pumping and crying. My
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hormones are crazy. I haven't slept in days, and now I've got to put a
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dress on and pretend everything's okay and go interview this big celebrity. Like, I
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know you're like, woe is me also. But it's a very real
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thing whether you're working on an entertainment show live in front of a lot of
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people or you're working in an office and you're a mom and you have to
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go back. Like, I'm not gonna say that it was easy all the time because
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it just wasn't. And that's something that society really has to
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come to terms with. The fear of losing your job because you're at home doing
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what you wanna do more than anything in the world is take care of your
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newborn. I have to believe you must have turned on the television
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set to see who was doing your role. And it must have been
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really tough on you when you should have been just home celebrating
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life. No. I wasn't turning on the role and worried about the person who was
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filling in for me because I was also just happy for them.
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I think where I struggled the most, and it wasn't with the job,
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I knew intrinsically in me that my my kid
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needed me. We know the importance of zero to three, that
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mom connection. We know how big it is. So I had a lot of
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guilt around that and a lot of fear and worry around that. And then
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when it came to my job, I just I wanted them to know I was
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still as dedicated, but I also did have,
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at the time, a boss who was pretty good at making sure that
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I still was able to be there for my kids. We also moved to be
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closer to the station, my husband and I. So I was five minutes from the
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station. I would always whip home and do what I needed to do. So
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You know, you talked about in one interview how people would body
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shame you for being pregnant. How do you come to terms with that as a
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because there's a price that's you paid to be a celebrity. Funny. I don't see
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myself as a celebrity. That's the weird part. Sure. To say that sometimes it
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doesn't hurt would be a lie. But, also, I always would try to
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remember it says more about that person than it does about
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me. Because if you're a person who can put that out on social media
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and say those things or say that behind someone's back, you've got a lot more
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going on than I would care to recognize. But
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there were more kind, loving, and supportive comments.
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So it's kind of like, you get more of what you pay attention to,
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right? Wherever you put your attention is what you get more of. So I just,
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a lot of the time, just wouldn't give it energy, I wouldn't give it, didn't
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give it air. And also my body was evolving. Me as a person
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was evolving, and that's okay.
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When we return, Cheryl Hickey's career and life is firing on
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all cylinders. But one afternoon when she's swimming with her
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kids, suddenly her heart fires out of control.
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How does someone that wants it all and has it all deal with the reality
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of it's not always your choice?
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Hi. It's Tony Chapman, host of Chatter That Matters. Great leadership
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is where we make things happen versus just simply watch and wonder what
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happened. And a big shout out to RBC for investing their
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intellectual and financial capital to help lead the way so
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Canadians can thrive and our communities prosper. Olympics, the arts,
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00:26:05,200 --> 00:26:09,015
youth, climate change, and much more, leadership matters to RBC.
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Even now, it's like, no, I have to step forward myself. And that's my
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biggest challenge right now. That's terrifying to me. So I've
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been in a group or in a co host position for so long.
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I don't even know how to step out on my own. And so that's my
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lesson right now. You know, that's my growth. Joining me today is
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Cheryl Hickey. For eighteen years, she graced your silver screen as the
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host of Entertainment Tonight Canada. What I thought was gonna be a
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show about interviews and celebrity, well,
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I'm celebrating because this show is about life and transitions
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and dreaming and doing.
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2018, I believe, you had a a serious health
437
00:26:54,230 --> 00:26:58,070
crisis. 2018, it was September. It was film festival,
438
00:26:58,070 --> 00:27:01,830
which everybody who knows entertainment and knows, you
439
00:27:01,830 --> 00:27:05,625
know, the scene sort of in Toronto. Time of year is really busy. It's
440
00:27:05,625 --> 00:27:09,465
back to school. It's Toronto International Film Festival. It's all
441
00:27:09,465 --> 00:27:12,985
of it. So those are days where you're working around the clock. You're
442
00:27:12,985 --> 00:27:16,424
going. I actually got shingles right before film
443
00:27:16,424 --> 00:27:20,100
festival on my back. I remember telling my boss, this happened.
444
00:27:20,960 --> 00:27:24,100
She's like, we need you. You go on this medication
445
00:27:24,640 --> 00:27:28,160
and you do what you need to do and you get going, as any
446
00:27:28,160 --> 00:27:31,600
anybody does. Right? Like, we've all pushed ourselves and you just keep
447
00:27:31,600 --> 00:27:35,405
going. So I did. Kept going, go, go, go, go, go, go,
448
00:27:35,405 --> 00:27:39,005
go. It was the end of film festival. I was out in the back with
449
00:27:39,005 --> 00:27:42,765
the kids. I was actually swimming with the kids, and I remember feeling my
450
00:27:42,765 --> 00:27:46,225
arms being really heavy and my whole body being really heavy.
451
00:27:47,149 --> 00:27:50,990
Made my way to the shallow end, and I stood up, and, again,
452
00:27:50,990 --> 00:27:54,830
my body just like, it wasn't operating properly. And I screamed at the kids to
453
00:27:54,830 --> 00:27:57,470
get out of the pool, and I knocked on the window to my husband, and
454
00:27:57,470 --> 00:28:01,309
I was like, something's wrong. And my heart rate started to really go
455
00:28:01,309 --> 00:28:05,095
up. And I went into the bedroom, immediately changed, put
456
00:28:05,095 --> 00:28:08,695
some clothes on, and I went to the front of the house
457
00:28:08,695 --> 00:28:12,534
oddly. And I remember my kids sitting in the bay window,
458
00:28:12,534 --> 00:28:16,100
and I said to my husband, go get our neighbor who's a who's a nurse,
459
00:28:16,100 --> 00:28:19,780
an ER nurse or a nurse. She came over and she's like, gas,
460
00:28:19,780 --> 00:28:23,380
something's wrong. We're gonna need to call an ambulance. I was going into
461
00:28:23,380 --> 00:28:27,060
AFib, that's atrial fibrillation, where your heart rate goes up really, really
462
00:28:27,060 --> 00:28:30,765
high. So the ambulance comes. I remember being on the stretcher
463
00:28:30,765 --> 00:28:34,525
and watching my kids' faces, and that's something that just horrifies
464
00:28:34,525 --> 00:28:38,125
me. Anyway, went to the hospital. They tried to do all these things to get
465
00:28:38,125 --> 00:28:41,645
my heart rate to go down. It wouldn't. There was medication. There was
466
00:28:41,645 --> 00:28:45,025
these physical movements they tried to do. Nothing was working.
467
00:28:45,450 --> 00:28:48,990
So then they said, you know, we're gonna need to cardiovert
468
00:28:49,130 --> 00:28:52,889
you, which is they put you to sleep and they stock your heart back
469
00:28:52,889 --> 00:28:56,649
into into rhythm. So my husband signed some documents, I
470
00:28:56,649 --> 00:29:00,015
signed some documents, and the next thing I know, I was asleep and then
471
00:29:00,335 --> 00:29:04,175
awake, and there were, like, nine doctors all around. It turns
472
00:29:04,175 --> 00:29:07,935
out in the end, stress can do some pretty wild things to
473
00:29:07,935 --> 00:29:11,775
the body. Not that I'm blaming myself, but I wasn't listening to
474
00:29:11,775 --> 00:29:14,735
my own cues, and I wasn't taking care of myself the way I needed to
475
00:29:14,735 --> 00:29:18,280
take care of myself, And I didn't have any boundaries and, and, and, and,
476
00:29:18,280 --> 00:29:21,720
and, and, and, and, and I pushed it too far. For
477
00:29:21,720 --> 00:29:25,500
me, it was the most incredible awakening.
478
00:29:25,799 --> 00:29:29,640
It was also a big awareness because after the event you would think, well,
479
00:29:29,640 --> 00:29:33,325
that's the end of that. And it wasn't because so much more
480
00:29:33,325 --> 00:29:37,005
happened after that. I started to have a little, my anxiety kicked up
481
00:29:37,005 --> 00:29:40,685
again. I was really nervous to be alone. I was afraid to fly. I was
482
00:29:40,685 --> 00:29:44,530
afraid to drive. It was what if this happens again? So then I had
483
00:29:44,530 --> 00:29:48,370
to go through this whole layer of it was like a mental
484
00:29:48,370 --> 00:29:52,210
rebirth of trusting my body again. And all that was going
485
00:29:52,210 --> 00:29:55,810
on while I was on ABC Canada. I remember having panic
486
00:29:55,810 --> 00:29:59,435
attacks while hosting the show. One person you credit a lot
487
00:29:59,435 --> 00:30:03,275
in terms of dealing with a lot of these anxieties and your ability to
488
00:30:03,275 --> 00:30:06,875
cope is your mom, mind over matter. Tell me a little bit about your
489
00:30:06,875 --> 00:30:10,475
mom. My mom immigrated here when she was five years old with a
490
00:30:10,475 --> 00:30:13,900
trunk. Her family came here from England.
491
00:30:14,520 --> 00:30:18,360
They worked the farms. They lived in the top of barns. Her
492
00:30:18,360 --> 00:30:22,120
always looking for the silver lining ever since she was little has
493
00:30:22,120 --> 00:30:25,885
been something that I just admire so much. And
494
00:30:25,885 --> 00:30:29,665
even when I was a teenager, I can remember her talking about mindfulness.
495
00:30:30,285 --> 00:30:33,965
Remember back in the day when Oprah at 04:30 would always bring on these
496
00:30:33,965 --> 00:30:37,804
mindful like, she brought mindfulness to the masses. She really did. So back
497
00:30:37,804 --> 00:30:40,470
in that time, time, my mom and I sat down and we watched The Secret
498
00:30:40,470 --> 00:30:43,830
and we would talk about, you know, how to frame your mind to do all
499
00:30:43,830 --> 00:30:47,590
those things. She's really helped me in so many
500
00:30:47,590 --> 00:30:51,350
ways when things are rough, when she's experienced rough
501
00:30:51,350 --> 00:30:54,615
times on how to find the right
502
00:30:54,995 --> 00:30:58,515
path. She's just my little light. I adore her. And at
503
00:30:58,515 --> 00:31:02,275
2023, a tough year. I mean, the end of ET Canada
504
00:31:02,275 --> 00:31:05,955
and the loss of your dad, two things to come at you at one time.
505
00:31:05,955 --> 00:31:09,575
But let's talk about your dad because he was
506
00:31:09,679 --> 00:31:13,440
one of the rocks of your life. Yeah. He really was and
507
00:31:13,440 --> 00:31:17,120
is still. I talk to him every day. Yeah. I
508
00:31:17,120 --> 00:31:20,900
mean, he had a really rare brain disease called progressive supranuclear palsy.
509
00:31:21,360 --> 00:31:24,260
And if you knew my dad, he was just like a strong,
510
00:31:24,825 --> 00:31:28,585
silent type of guy. And so as this disease sort of crept in, we
511
00:31:28,585 --> 00:31:32,265
all knew something was wrong, but we couldn't quite put our finger on it. And
512
00:31:32,265 --> 00:31:35,945
in 2023, he I don't wanna say lost his
513
00:31:35,945 --> 00:31:39,559
battle, but he went to a better place. I truly believe that because he
514
00:31:39,559 --> 00:31:43,260
was not living the life that he deserved to live for sure.
515
00:31:43,480 --> 00:31:47,000
But he was a fighter. I mean, he had COVID twice during COVID. I
516
00:31:47,000 --> 00:31:50,280
mean, he did the best. He fought the hardest he could to be around for
517
00:31:50,280 --> 00:31:53,654
us. And in the end, losing him was,
518
00:31:55,815 --> 00:31:59,495
I don't know, a parent is it's that stable ground, you
519
00:31:59,495 --> 00:32:02,855
know? And so when he left, it was really
520
00:32:02,855 --> 00:32:06,370
difficult. And again, another time where you
521
00:32:06,370 --> 00:32:09,809
have to get up on that stage again. And in many
522
00:32:09,809 --> 00:32:13,110
ways, being back on the stage that January
523
00:32:13,730 --> 00:32:17,169
gave me a piece because it's weird when you go on stage and you do
524
00:32:17,169 --> 00:32:20,705
things, you can flip a switch after a while and you can just
525
00:32:20,705 --> 00:32:24,304
go. It also gives you a place of peace where you're
526
00:32:24,304 --> 00:32:27,745
not sitting in your feelings all the time. Since it's, you know, it's interesting you
527
00:32:27,745 --> 00:32:31,285
say that because a lot of people will find a way to mask that with
528
00:32:31,740 --> 00:32:35,420
alcohol or substance abuses. And it's great that you had something where you could
529
00:32:35,420 --> 00:32:39,180
flip the switch and remind you that life still goes on,
530
00:32:39,180 --> 00:32:42,780
that you have that responsibility. I wanted my kids to see. It was
531
00:32:42,780 --> 00:32:46,015
really important for me to show the kids, obviously,
532
00:32:46,235 --> 00:32:49,995
grief and how to feel it because it's important to feel the grief and feel
533
00:32:49,995 --> 00:32:53,835
the sadness, but also to appreciate this life that we have and that
534
00:32:53,835 --> 00:32:56,235
you need to live it and you need to live it for the people that
535
00:32:56,235 --> 00:33:00,019
you're with and honor the life that you're given. And
536
00:33:00,019 --> 00:33:03,399
I had this beautiful life with my family, this incredible
537
00:33:03,460 --> 00:33:07,299
career that had given me so much, that show. And so
538
00:33:07,299 --> 00:33:11,005
getting back at it was really important. Wasn't easy all the
539
00:33:11,005 --> 00:33:14,705
time, but it was really important to get back at it. And then
540
00:33:15,005 --> 00:33:18,685
the show ended that September. I
541
00:33:18,685 --> 00:33:22,365
thought it was probably gonna be one of the most devastating things to you
542
00:33:22,365 --> 00:33:25,610
personally, but you said, in fact, if anything, it was a relief that this is
543
00:33:25,650 --> 00:33:29,430
I should have made that decision maybe a few years earlier,
544
00:33:29,730 --> 00:33:33,250
found a new tight rope to go on. And they they took the tight rope
545
00:33:33,250 --> 00:33:36,870
away and I was okay. There were so many people who loved that show
546
00:33:37,090 --> 00:33:40,550
and so many people who worked on the show that loved that show.
547
00:33:40,865 --> 00:33:44,325
So was I sad that the show itself was ending?
548
00:33:44,785 --> 00:33:48,565
Absolutely. It was a show that I think Canada still needed.
549
00:33:48,785 --> 00:33:52,165
You know, talking I mean, Etalk's doing a fantastic job,
550
00:33:52,705 --> 00:33:56,460
but I also think competition is good, and I think it's really important to
551
00:33:56,460 --> 00:34:00,220
the landscape. So seeing the show end was I was sad for that
552
00:34:00,220 --> 00:34:03,659
for Canada. But I have to say, as a person, as a
553
00:34:03,659 --> 00:34:07,179
professional, I also knew that in my soul, I
554
00:34:07,179 --> 00:34:10,619
wanted more. I wanted to talk about more things. I would go on the morning
555
00:34:10,619 --> 00:34:14,185
show with Carolyn and Jeff. And I was like, that's sort of like,
556
00:34:14,185 --> 00:34:17,085
like stirring something up in me. Like, this is exciting,
557
00:34:17,864 --> 00:34:21,625
talking about other things that have to do that are outside of entertainment.
558
00:34:21,625 --> 00:34:25,385
I still love talking about entertainment. I love talking to celebrities, doing all of
559
00:34:25,385 --> 00:34:29,059
that. But also there was more. I could feel that I wanted
560
00:34:29,199 --> 00:34:33,040
more. Let's sort of wrap the interview up, talking a little
561
00:34:33,040 --> 00:34:36,000
bit about more out there. And I know that you're working on some stuff we
562
00:34:36,000 --> 00:34:39,839
can't discuss yet today, but you had your stint in
563
00:34:39,839 --> 00:34:43,424
hosting a show. You've got work ethic. You've got
564
00:34:43,424 --> 00:34:46,804
personality. You've got presence. And more importantly,
565
00:34:47,585 --> 00:34:51,204
you've got this incredible appetite for humanity.
566
00:34:51,344 --> 00:34:55,040
So but is that the tease that we can get going forward
567
00:34:55,040 --> 00:34:58,660
that we're gonna see more of Cheryl in the future? Listen, I have an incredible
568
00:34:58,800 --> 00:35:02,640
appreciation and and gratitude towards global television for just sort
569
00:35:02,640 --> 00:35:06,335
of the bedrock and the foundation and the growth and the people
570
00:35:06,475 --> 00:35:10,315
that I had there. It was amazing. It was a fantastic time. And then
571
00:35:10,315 --> 00:35:14,155
even the time I spent at Rogers, albeit it was really short, I had a
572
00:35:14,155 --> 00:35:16,715
lot of fun there and I met a lot of really great people and some
573
00:35:16,715 --> 00:35:20,309
really great things happened there. And actually told me and
574
00:35:20,309 --> 00:35:23,910
reminding me of how much I love creating. And I
575
00:35:23,910 --> 00:35:27,750
still love this business very much. And there are different platforms and
576
00:35:27,750 --> 00:35:31,109
different ways to sort of scratch that itch, if you
577
00:35:31,109 --> 00:35:34,515
will. I do love talking about the humanity and I do love
578
00:35:34,515 --> 00:35:38,195
talking to people and bringing comfort. What I want
579
00:35:38,195 --> 00:35:41,815
people to, who anyone who's listening to this, is to understand
580
00:35:42,035 --> 00:35:45,395
that it's okay to transition, it's okay to
581
00:35:45,395 --> 00:35:49,190
grow, allow it to be exciting, allow it to be
582
00:35:49,190 --> 00:35:52,869
a little bit scary, but also look back on
583
00:35:52,869 --> 00:35:56,390
all the successes or all the lessons that you've had and know that those are
584
00:35:56,390 --> 00:36:00,204
stepping stones to where you're going next. And I have
585
00:36:00,204 --> 00:36:03,505
some exciting things coming up and I'm excited for those things.
586
00:36:03,885 --> 00:36:07,724
Now, Cheryl, I always end my podcast with my three takeaways and you used
587
00:36:07,724 --> 00:36:11,484
the word in the last sentence that to me roared through the entire episode
588
00:36:11,484 --> 00:36:14,950
and it's gratitude. You're so grateful to the small
589
00:36:14,950 --> 00:36:18,390
town. You're so grateful to your parents, your husband, your
590
00:36:18,390 --> 00:36:22,150
kids, the people that employed you, the people that believed in
591
00:36:22,150 --> 00:36:25,269
you. And I think one of the great lessons in life, as big as you
592
00:36:25,269 --> 00:36:28,724
might get in life, this day you forget about the people, the Yodas in the
593
00:36:28,724 --> 00:36:31,685
world that helped you get to where you needed one, is a day that you
594
00:36:31,685 --> 00:36:35,525
lose everything. The second one is this concept to speak to me. And there's two
595
00:36:35,525 --> 00:36:39,300
ways I came through. The first was finding the things that speak to
596
00:36:39,300 --> 00:36:42,740
you that you're passionate about, which I loved. I also love the way
597
00:36:42,740 --> 00:36:46,180
you you sort of use it in a different way. So when people are
598
00:36:46,180 --> 00:36:50,020
speaking at you, there's gonna be negative and positive. Choose what you wanna
599
00:36:50,020 --> 00:36:53,655
listen to. Focus on the positive and you can grow from it.
600
00:36:53,655 --> 00:36:57,095
Focus on what people are speaking in the negative and you're gonna succumb to it.
601
00:36:57,095 --> 00:37:00,375
And I think that's a great lesson in life. And I realized this when my
602
00:37:00,375 --> 00:37:04,070
dad passed, actually. This was my lesson. Obviously it
603
00:37:04,070 --> 00:37:07,030
left a big hole, but I was like, I have a choice in how I'm
604
00:37:07,030 --> 00:37:10,790
going to react to his death. Either I can let it shut me
605
00:37:10,790 --> 00:37:14,550
down and do all the things, or I
606
00:37:14,550 --> 00:37:18,010
can find the beauty and the grace.
607
00:37:18,455 --> 00:37:22,075
I get to choose how I react here and how I'm moving forward.
608
00:37:22,695 --> 00:37:26,535
We always have a choice, even in the most disastrous of
609
00:37:26,535 --> 00:37:29,815
things, there is a choice. It could be a small choice, it could be a
610
00:37:29,815 --> 00:37:32,695
big choice, but when you make one choice it leads to the next choice, and
611
00:37:32,695 --> 00:37:36,470
the next choice, and the next choice. And that's what it is all about.
612
00:37:36,770 --> 00:37:40,370
And your energy, you gotta follow your energy and where you wanna go, not what's
613
00:37:40,370 --> 00:37:44,050
already happened. If something hurts, why are you reliving it? Why are you looking at
614
00:37:44,050 --> 00:37:47,615
it again? It's over there. Where are you going? The final
615
00:37:47,835 --> 00:37:51,675
lesson, this combination of friction and fuel that there's we're always gonna
616
00:37:51,675 --> 00:37:55,355
face circumstances. And what I loved about the way you
617
00:37:55,355 --> 00:37:58,815
overcame them, whether that was somebody that wanted to hold you back
618
00:37:59,400 --> 00:38:02,920
or something you went after, is how hard you work. You
619
00:38:02,920 --> 00:38:06,200
shadowed. I was up to three in the morning. I tried to edit to see
620
00:38:06,200 --> 00:38:09,960
if I could cut a story. I painted the office purple. I
621
00:38:09,960 --> 00:38:13,799
found this cat in the garbage, you know. For people listening, you know,
622
00:38:13,799 --> 00:38:17,224
today, I think a lot of times life is easy. You now with AI, you
623
00:38:17,224 --> 00:38:20,845
just say what you want, the video appears. The difference is
624
00:38:21,144 --> 00:38:24,825
you had that ten thousand hours of practice. You went in there and you
625
00:38:24,825 --> 00:38:28,585
said, no matter what it takes, and it wasn't to brag, it was
626
00:38:28,585 --> 00:38:32,339
this is just what it took for me to chase my dreams. I
627
00:38:32,339 --> 00:38:36,020
went into this just interested about your career. I'm walking
628
00:38:36,020 --> 00:38:39,700
away from this interview. Absolutely. You've gotta become a keynote
629
00:38:39,700 --> 00:38:43,380
speaker. Cheryl, I've hosted conferences for the last
630
00:38:43,380 --> 00:38:46,755
fifteen years all over the world. Your message, whether it's a
631
00:38:46,755 --> 00:38:50,195
fireside chat or a lot just out there telling your
632
00:38:50,195 --> 00:38:53,954
story is what the audiences today need to hear because right
633
00:38:53,954 --> 00:38:57,734
now we are succumbing to this overpowering negativity
634
00:38:57,875 --> 00:39:01,440
out there and with it, then the world's impossible. And it's not It's
635
00:39:01,440 --> 00:39:05,140
odd. The reality is if you focus on the positive, things have become
636
00:39:05,440 --> 00:39:07,619
possible. I'd open to trying that.
637
00:39:10,000 --> 00:39:13,700
Once again, a special thanks to RBC for supporting Chatter That Matters.
638
00:39:14,160 --> 00:39:17,655
It's Tony Chapman. Thanks for listening, and let's chat soon.
00:00:00,320 --> 00:00:03,379
Tonight's show is going to start off very different.
2
00:00:04,319 --> 00:00:07,680
I've always wondered what it's like to be in the public eye, a
3
00:00:07,680 --> 00:00:11,040
celebrity. Must be exciting when you're in
4
00:00:11,040 --> 00:00:14,685
studio, and set designers, and wardrobe consultants
5
00:00:14,825 --> 00:00:18,345
and makeup artists and people trying to produce great content and
6
00:00:18,345 --> 00:00:22,025
script fantastic words and every day you're interviewing a
7
00:00:22,025 --> 00:00:25,545
different celebrity. But what
8
00:00:25,545 --> 00:00:29,130
happens when you leave that studio and that spotlight follows
9
00:00:29,130 --> 00:00:32,969
you and those viewers that watch you every night have framed you in a
10
00:00:32,969 --> 00:00:36,410
certain way and almost expect you to be that way every
11
00:00:36,410 --> 00:00:40,250
day? And some are even so grotesque that they
12
00:00:40,250 --> 00:00:44,045
shame you in social media. Well, that's what
13
00:00:44,045 --> 00:00:47,644
I thought the show was gonna be about today. My guest is Cheryl Hickey. For
14
00:00:47,644 --> 00:00:51,425
eighteen years, she was the cohost of Entertainment Tonight Canada.
15
00:00:51,644 --> 00:00:55,085
I started, you know, a single woman on that show. I met my
16
00:00:55,085 --> 00:00:58,870
husband, had both of my kids, learned so much, grew so
17
00:00:58,870 --> 00:01:02,469
much. I thought we're gonna talk about that private and public
18
00:01:02,469 --> 00:01:05,750
life and some of the people that she interviewed, and we we certainly touched on
19
00:01:05,750 --> 00:01:09,350
that. But what you're gonna find in this show was so much more. At the
20
00:01:09,350 --> 00:01:12,649
beginning, it was they wanted me to just with Rick, and I was like,
21
00:01:13,785 --> 00:01:17,385
Cheryl Hickey is a beautiful human being. And I've
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always been nervous to step forward myself. I
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love a partner, a co host, a cast, but
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me, that's what the hardest part about ET Canada was. Just
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such gratitude for the small town she's been raised, or the lessons in life from
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her parents. She's gonna share with you some powerful lessons in life
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for what we're all going through, transitions. Because they have to be.
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Because the industries are changing, all industries are changing. And
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you've just got to evolve, put your head down, find out what you love to
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do, and find a way to make it work. Rugs being pulled from underneath
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us. People trying to hold us back. Or passions that we
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know we should be chasing, but we don't have the courage to do so. It's
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okay to fail. It's okay to start again. It's okay to
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try. And I think the most important thing we're gonna learn from Cheryl
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is how to listen generously, not just to the people that you're talking
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with. Inside, listen to what makes you happy. Listen
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to the passions and pursuits you you should be chasing. We're supposed to
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create and inspire each other and start again. That's the
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point. There's so much to Cheryl Hickey, and I hope you feel after
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listening the way I felt after interviewing her.
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Hi. It's Tony Chapman. Thank you for listening to Chatter That Matters presented
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by RBC. If you can, please subscribe to the podcast.
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And ratings and reviews, well, they're always welcome, and they're always appreciated.
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Cheryl Hickey, welcome to Chatter That Matters. Hey.
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Cheryl Hickey, I always in my mind, you were this
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red carpet superstar that that just had Manhattan as
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your background, but it it turns out you grew up in Shallow Lake near Owen
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Sound. That's a pretty small town. It sure is. And we had one
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little convenience store called Ed Allen's Convenience
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Store, and they used to sell the best penny candy. What's the values
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that you take out of a small town? Because, you know, Hollywood always has this
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folklore of the small town, and you just, you know, you go to the big
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city, but you never take the small town girl out of it. I think part
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of it is an appreciation for connection and an appreciation
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for a slower pace. And I think that I've been able
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deep inside to hold on to that. There's been times I've
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been like, woah, my head is spinning certainly. But I think that
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at the core of who I am, I can still, like, mentally go back to
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that place and find myself again. That's
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something that I am so grateful for. Do you ever feel like a
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square peg in a round hole when you're involved in
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the dynamics of what's happening that's just busy? You
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question even why you left that sort of almost sounds like a
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utopia? That's the beauty of this life. Like, evolving
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and changing and growing and experiencing different
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things is why we're all here. I was blessed enough to have
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this really incredible childhood where we played in the back 40,
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right, and we just ran around and climbed trees and then rode our bikes on
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gravel roads with no helmets. But, you know, like, did all these
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things where you you created this sense of
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adventure and then my life took me in because I dreamed
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a lot. I daydreamed. I envisioned. I played and imagined
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of what I could be and who I could be. I had no goalpost,
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but no. I don't feel like a round peg in a
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square hole because, like, I I know that life is about changing.
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One of the things that I read was your I and I love this quote
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when your dad said, I think you're age 16, Cheryl, you
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talk a lot. Maybe you should volunteer at the local TV station. And
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I just cracked up because who would have thought just trying
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to quieten you down would suddenly turn into this incredible television career.
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So how how did that all come about? Well, my brother and I used to
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compete for talking time at the dinner table, and it used to drive my mother
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crazy and my sister because my sister's, like, the quieter one. I think I was
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just always curious, like, curious about everything. I asked
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a million questions. And when my parents would watch Barbara Walters at
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night, I'd kinda, like, sneak in and kinda peer and watch. I
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remember she bought me this microphone and there was a point in time when I
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was like, I'm gonna be like Whitney Houston. But then I turned it and I
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was like, okay, well, what else can I do with this? So I would interview
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my family and walk around and do that. And so my parents were clever
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enough to be like, hey. Let's figure out what this girl is doing naturally
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and see if we can push her into a direction that just feels right,
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and they did. And I'm very grateful for that. You went to Fanshawe
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College studying radio and television arts. Not that I'm dating you, but back
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then, radio and television was the place to be. I mean, it was
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exciting. And so what did you learn in that school that you
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feel was important enough that has stayed with you as you started to
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build this illustrious career? Things actually aren't that different. And here's
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what I'll say, because I remember back then, our profs and other
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people, graduates, saying it is a terrible time to get into this
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business. There is no work. Things aren't da da da da. It's this, it's this,
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it's this, it's this. And if you listen to it, then you
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would never find your way. You'd be like, oh, well, then I guess I better
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not do this. And boom. That's the same message broadcast journalism
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and radio students are being told today, that there's no room.
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When in fact, if you look at it differently, the landscape is
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huge and fast and you can create your own channel.
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There's so much that you can actually do. Look what you're
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doing. It's all in how you look at it. The forms are
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changing and evolving, but the opportunity is still there. So I think
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back then, I remember hearing that and being like,
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no, I really love this. This makes my heart full.
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I'm gonna keep going. Definitely feeling like a bit
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of an underdog because my profs didn't really take me seriously, some of
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them. Some of them did, but some of them didn't. I I just remember just
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the grit. The grit was important. Three in the morning, your eyes are bleeding. You're
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just like, I'm so tired trying to finish this project. But just
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having a resolve and holding onto that. It's a great
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insight in terms of friction versus fuel, where so
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often today, we just tell people there's so much friction out there that
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why bother even trying. And I just love the way you framed it to
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say there's always opportunity. I wanna talk to you about your first
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entry into the world, the new VR in Barry, and how you didn't
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just wait for opportunities. You you decided that you're gonna start creating
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them. I started out, I think, as a PA. My gosh. I
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remember having so much anxiety around writing Lance Chilton, the news
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anchor's tease. Like, I was just frozen. And then quickly, I was like,
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okay, well, I don't wanna stay in this position. What else can I do? So
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I started shadowing the cameramen and women. One woman,
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Audra Brown, she still works at City TV, and she was kind enough, along
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with some of the other guides, after my shift was done at 06:00, I would
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then go out at night and follow them and kinda learn
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about the camera, and then there was a broken down one that they eventually let
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me take out alongside of them. So while they were shooting, I was shooting, and
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then I would come back at 11:00, stay until, like, three or
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four editing my own stuff, just to, like, see if I could get the feel
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of a cut, and then eventually, I would shoot my own standup, along the
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reporter would go back into the truck and then I'd go and shoot my own
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standup, edit myself in, and I would just give those tapes to the news
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director. At the time, the news director, I didn't
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know, but he would just file them underneath his desk. He wasn't sending
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them downtown to City TV, which was where, at the time, all the decisions
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were made. And then the creative directors came to me and said,
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Listen, we have five minutes in the middle of a soap opera that we have
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to fill with an interstitial. Can you create one? And I was like, yes.
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And then immediately, it was like, oh, crap. With what? I don't know.
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So I decided at the time that I was going to create something in the
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middle of a soap opera where people could write in their questions, then I
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would contact the PR people down at Days of Our Lives and ask
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them the questions that people wanted to know. And then in that five minutes, I
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would give them their response. A really nice maintenance guy there in the
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building gave me, an old room in the garage and
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gave me a can of purple paint and said, have at her, kiddo. If you
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can make a set, that it's yours. And I painted this whole room. I
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found a ceramic cat in the garage, put it in there as decoration. And
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literally a week later, one of the other team
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members came up with the name Lather Up with Cheryl Hickey. My dad was so
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angry at that. He was like, no one's gonna take you seriously. And I was
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like, but it's funny. Anyway, that ended up being the name, and we
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went to air. And it was a little something where I ad libbed every day
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for five minutes. It's like working a muscle, and it was fantastic.
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And then, the news director in in Toronto,
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Paul Rogers, heard about me through another cameraman, said I'd like to
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come up and take you out for coffee. I I've heard a lot about you.
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He offered me a job that a new job where they were creating a
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helicopter role for a cameraperson, a reporter, but also a
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videographer on the evening shift, and then it kinda took off. It
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took off, but you were scared of heights. Oh my gosh. Deathly afraid of
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heights. In fact, I tried not to take the job, which is part of
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the story. I went back to my news director at the new VR and said,
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what can you give me? Long story short, he said, I'll give you one
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slot on Sunday nights, but I made you who you are. And
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eventually, Lance Chilton, the news the the news anchor there said to me,
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if you don't take this job, this'll be the biggest mistake of your life. Like,
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you need to lean into the fear. I was I'd never driven in Toronto. I
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was definitely afraid of heights. All I knew was a small town.
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And then I just remember being like, okay, I'm gonna take it. How
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often did you come across people that, as you
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succeeded, wanted to take credit, wanted to let you know it was because of them
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and not the fact this was Cheryl Hickey at three in the morning painting purple
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on the wall and finding ceramic hats? What advice can you give
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to others when somebody's trying to jump in on a spotlight that
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you've actually lit? The only time that it's really happened in a really big bay
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was was was with that previous boss. He really,
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I feel, didn't want me to succeed and he didn't really believe in me.
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And and when I took the job in Toronto, he told me that
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he taught me everything I know and how dare I and actually
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yelled at me for, like, forty five minutes. I remember thinking,
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this is not how it's supposed to be. You're supposed to be happy for me,
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and I've been showing you all of my things trying to get
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going here. Yeah. You can't control what other people do, and you
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can't control what other people think, but you can control how you act. And so
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I try to focus on that. Do you think when you write your
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memoirs one day, those times in life where people put up
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those obstacles and you found a way around it, you think you're get there'll be
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some of the memories you treasure the most. It's also about finding your way
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around, above, through, underneath, whatever you needed to do to
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kind of turn this obstacle into a stepping stone. They're there
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as lessons. We know they are. And sometimes they repeat and
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you're like, wait, I've seen this kind of person before, or I've seen this before.
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Am I going to act the same way? Or am I going to learn from
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the last cycle and act differently and see if this keeps reappearing?
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So the call that changed everything was Entertainment
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Tonight Canada. You were initially passed over for the role. So
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I'd love for you to share how that show came
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about because it was a defining moment for you. And I would say that you
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helped define Canadian television for eighteen years. So I'd I'd love to hear
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the background story. Well, I was working at Global News. I think I went from
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a court reporter to I was working a three to
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eleven shift. And then I think one day I ended up doing, like, a quirky
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story of some sort, and Paul was like, what is
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this side of you? And he started to allow me to do
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more entertainment and lifestyle stories. When bands would come to town, I would
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go down to the then Skydome and do lives and things like that, and that
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started to really build. And then I really
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realized that, wow, I just I love entertainment. I love making people
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smile. I love talking about things that highlight other people,
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and it just spoke to me. We got wind that Entertainment Tonight
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was I think I went up to Barb Williams' office a year before and said
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to her, is there any way I could be a Canadian correspondent for Entertainment
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Tonight? And she was like, I don't know. Kinda went
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away. It died. Then about a year later, I heard that they were gonna be
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doing an entertainment show, so I thought, ah, I need to audition for this. So
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then they started bringing people in, Zeb Shalev and whatever, and I asked to go
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and do a read. I went and did a read. I did a chemistry read
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with some guy. I don't know who he was. And my cubicle
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was in the back of the room. And then I continually
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saw all these beautiful models and accomplished broadcasters
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and some of my friends going by my desk to also go audition for, like,
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a couple weeks. And I thought, oh, wow. There's
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no way I'm getting this job. Like, these people are way more qualified than
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I and, you know, beautiful and stunning and, like, they were looking for
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someone to, like, pow pow and hit it, and they said as much.
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So I remember one time, I think I went for a
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callback and they said, here's the deal. We don't want someone people know, and
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we don't want someone blonde haired, blue eyed. And you know and I know it's
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a casting thing. Like, they're trying to build a team and so I was like,
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okay. Well, there's not much you can do with that. I can't really it's it
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is what it is. And I am already known on Global News, so
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okay. I was frustrated and sad and
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I all the feelings that you feel, but it it stirred something up in me
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where I was like, but I know I want more and I know I
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wanna change. I did the logical thing that any
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broadcaster would do is I booked a trip to Australia to go see a boy.
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I was like, you know what? I'm out of here. I need a break. I'm
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gone. I know that I'm changing. I know that I'm evolving. I gotta
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see. So I come back from this vacation, and I knew that
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I I loved Global. It was my home, but I knew I needed
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more. So I my plan in my brain was I was gonna start looking at
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what else was out there. And I came back, and they said, can we have
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a meeting? Literally, I was in this big boardroom. It was Barb Williams, Zeb
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Chalev, and they were like, hey. We're gonna do this entertainment
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show. We'd like you to be the host with Rick
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Campanelli. And by the way, it's called Entertainment Tonight. And I just remember
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looking through both of them. What is happening? Like, my whole world
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just spun. I didn't think it was me. All of a sudden, the
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CBS executives were down, they were building a set, we were practicing and
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rehearsing, and then the imposter syndrome
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took over and I was panicking. Do they know I don't know how to
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host a show? Like, I've never done this before? But I was terrified. I remember
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being at our press conference, and my voice was shaking. And
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I just I was like, alright. Did they get the right person? Like, are we
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okay? But isn't that part of when you stand on a tight rope
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so high? I mean, you talk about your fear of heights. This is your emotional
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fear of heights. You have no idea how you're gonna get to the other
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side. Everybody's believing in you. So they're just like, they're not even
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worrying about a safety net. That's the difference between
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someone that dreams and like you did as a young kid and someone
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that does, is you just have to find your way on that tightrope. I've always
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felt comfortable in a team and I find it very hard
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to step forward on my own. So I'm evolving right
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now in this space because I
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am, I'm doing it on my own and that is stepping out
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again and it's exciting and it's scary and it's fun and
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it's all those things. And if we didn't love what we do so
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much, you'd stop. One of the interviews
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that you did, this small town girl now out in front, putting a
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microphone in front of the Beyonces and the Ryan Reynolds and dozens
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of others. And you said that interesting enough, it was your shallow,
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late personality that allowed you to connect because you connected
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from a sort of a position almost of authenticity as
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opposed to being, you know, just fawning over these celebrities.
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Tell us a little bit about that because it I think for the average listener,
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most people would freeze if they were in front of a celebrity
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like a Beyonce. But to me, when I watched you on television, it was just
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you ran into an old high school friend. I wish people could see it. Maybe
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some people see this in the behind the scenes stuff now. When a celebrity walks
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up on a red carpet, you see this moment in their
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face. They're scared. They're nervous. They're trying to put themselves
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out there and promote whatever they're paid to promote, and they're just people.
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Doesn't mean that I don't get excited and a little bit nervous to meet
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someone, but that means you care. It means you're still engaged. You're still in
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it. But at the end of the day, we're all, we're
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all people. We're all from somewhere. We're someone's daughter. You know?
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We're someone's best friend. That's what connects us all. And
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so if you can find those moments in conversation and get lost in those
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moments in conversation, then you're gonna get something real. And
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it doesn't happen all the time, but most of the time, if you're really paying
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attention and you're a really good listener, when you're interviewing someone,
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you get those moments. Barbara Walters. This is someone you must
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have watched as a very young child when you're playing with your microphone.
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You talk about choosing your moral compass over a sort of gotcha
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question. Unpack that. She had a book, I think it was. And
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I I remember reading the book and cramming for this interview and just being so
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excited. I mean, Barbara Walters, Oprah, those are
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your Pinnacles of female journalists. Like the people like that,
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that I really admired and watched over the years. So I
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had this opportunity to interview her and I was, this is the greatest thing ever.
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And in the book, I quoted something that she said, she's
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no, I didn't say that. And I remember, you know, picking a moment
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of, you're you're a journalist. You're not a fan. So you stick with the plan.
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You stick with what you know, and I did. But there's also a way
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of doing it with grace and kindness. You don't have to make a big moment
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of it. You don't have to expose someone. You can do it in a way
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that is respectful and kind. And what ended up
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happening after that is I ended up getting a handwritten letter mailed to me
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from Barbara Walters talking about how much she enjoyed the interview and how much she
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appreciated our time together. It's not bowing down to the moment and
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disappearing. It's about leaning into it, but being confident, but
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also being courteous and kind. And all of that matters at the end of the
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day. It just does. What Entertainment Tonight interview
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do you wish you could do over? Oh. I wish
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my listeners could see your giggle right now. And there's one and I've
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posted this video before, but it was at the Grammys
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with Bruno Mars. I'm a huge Bruno Mars fan. Fan. Love him. Love him. Love
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him on Saturday Night Live. Like, I just think he's so talented from his dancing
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to his songwriting to, like, blah. He gets up to sing a song to me.
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When I see your face. And I think my face
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had fear, and he just stopped. And he was like, yeah. And I'm done. But
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he didn't realize, like, I was so into it, but I think he thought I
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wasn't. Anyway, it was like a miscue. It was like an awkward
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moment. I forgot I was on TV and just was like, oh.
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A chapter in the book that we're gonna write together, I'm not gonna write it,
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but I'm gonna get you some of it because I want your book, is the
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best interview I ever had. Again, this was before ET
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Canada. I had the opportunity to interview the late Quincy
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Jones. He's a creator, really. Like he's touched TV, he's
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touched music. And there's really, there's very few artists that he didn't
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have a hand in creating some of their their music or their
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art. You name it. It was so good. So he leaves, my cameraman and I
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are like, woah, mind blown. How are we gonna make this a two minute story?
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This is crazy. We're packing up. This is not like the four seasons or
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something. We get a knock on the door about thirty minutes later, and it's Quincy
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Jones. And he's like, this conversation was so much fun.
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Can I get a chocolate bar to the menu bar and sit back down?
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I said, Yes. And then we put the camera back up, we roll a little
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bit more, and he just told stories of his life and it's like,
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it was fascinating. I'm so grateful to
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people like Oprah Winfrey who just took me up on stage and
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said my name in the Cheryl, like the John
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Mairs of the world and the Taylor Swifts and
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Jan Arden. Like, there's just I've had wonderful
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conversations with people. Sidebar. I mean, you know, people might think that the
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job is one hour a day. I was in the entertainment tonight. I was on
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the show a couple of times. I know how how much it takes to produce
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that show. How did you manage to also find time to meet
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your husband, get married, have two kids? Like, how do you balance both of
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those? Because and it's not that the word compromise or trade
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off, but I know how important both are to you. So how
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did you find a way to prioritize one over the other at times so
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that you could have the best of both worlds? There's no such thing as balance.
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I truly believe that. There just isn't. Sometimes this gets more attention, and sometimes this
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gets more attention. That said, my kids have always been at the forefront of
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my life. But I also should say with a show like Entertainment Tonight,
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you just see me out there, but it is an
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entire crew working tirelessly. Like, I that's the thing I
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always used to say. If you could see our crew, if you could see our
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cameraman, if you could see our floor director, Double j, for me to do the
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things I do and have the time that I have, it's those people.
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I went back to work after four months of having my son, and it was
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one of the most difficult things I've ever done. It's one of my biggest
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regrets also, but I truthfully, I was afraid of losing
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my job. You know, you don't dare take an entire year off.
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There were times where I'd be in my dressing room pumping and crying. My
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hormones are crazy. I haven't slept in days, and now I've got to put a
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dress on and pretend everything's okay and go interview this big celebrity. Like, I
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know you're like, woe is me also. But it's a very real
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thing whether you're working on an entertainment show live in front of a lot of
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people or you're working in an office and you're a mom and you have to
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go back. Like, I'm not gonna say that it was easy all the time because
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it just wasn't. And that's something that society really has to
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come to terms with. The fear of losing your job because you're at home doing
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what you wanna do more than anything in the world is take care of your
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newborn. I have to believe you must have turned on the television
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set to see who was doing your role. And it must have been
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really tough on you when you should have been just home celebrating
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life. No. I wasn't turning on the role and worried about the person who was
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filling in for me because I was also just happy for them.
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I think where I struggled the most, and it wasn't with the job,
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I knew intrinsically in me that my my kid
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needed me. We know the importance of zero to three, that
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mom connection. We know how big it is. So I had a lot of
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guilt around that and a lot of fear and worry around that. And then
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when it came to my job, I just I wanted them to know I was
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still as dedicated, but I also did have,
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at the time, a boss who was pretty good at making sure that
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I still was able to be there for my kids. We also moved to be
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closer to the station, my husband and I. So I was five minutes from the
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station. I would always whip home and do what I needed to do. So
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You know, you talked about in one interview how people would body
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shame you for being pregnant. How do you come to terms with that as a
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because there's a price that's you paid to be a celebrity. Funny. I don't see
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myself as a celebrity. That's the weird part. Sure. To say that sometimes it
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doesn't hurt would be a lie. But, also, I always would try to
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remember it says more about that person than it does about
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me. Because if you're a person who can put that out on social media
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and say those things or say that behind someone's back, you've got a lot more
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going on than I would care to recognize. But
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there were more kind, loving, and supportive comments.
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So it's kind of like, you get more of what you pay attention to,
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right? Wherever you put your attention is what you get more of. So I just,
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a lot of the time, just wouldn't give it energy, I wouldn't give it, didn't
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give it air. And also my body was evolving. Me as a person
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was evolving, and that's okay.
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When we return, Cheryl Hickey's career and life is firing on
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all cylinders. But one afternoon when she's swimming with her
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kids, suddenly her heart fires out of control.
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How does someone that wants it all and has it all deal with the reality
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of it's not always your choice?
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Hi. It's Tony Chapman, host of Chatter That Matters. Great leadership
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is where we make things happen versus just simply watch and wonder what
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happened. And a big shout out to RBC for investing their
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intellectual and financial capital to help lead the way so
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Canadians can thrive and our communities prosper. Olympics, the arts,
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00:26:05,200 --> 00:26:09,015
youth, climate change, and much more, leadership matters to RBC.
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Even now, it's like, no, I have to step forward myself. And that's my
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biggest challenge right now. That's terrifying to me. So I've
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been in a group or in a co host position for so long.
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I don't even know how to step out on my own. And so that's my
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lesson right now. You know, that's my growth. Joining me today is
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Cheryl Hickey. For eighteen years, she graced your silver screen as the
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host of Entertainment Tonight Canada. What I thought was gonna be a
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show about interviews and celebrity, well,
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I'm celebrating because this show is about life and transitions
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and dreaming and doing.
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2018, I believe, you had a a serious health
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crisis. 2018, it was September. It was film festival,
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which everybody who knows entertainment and knows, you
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know, the scene sort of in Toronto. Time of year is really busy. It's
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back to school. It's Toronto International Film Festival. It's all
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of it. So those are days where you're working around the clock. You're
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going. I actually got shingles right before film
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festival on my back. I remember telling my boss, this happened.
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She's like, we need you. You go on this medication
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and you do what you need to do and you get going, as any
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anybody does. Right? Like, we've all pushed ourselves and you just keep
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going. So I did. Kept going, go, go, go, go, go, go,
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go. It was the end of film festival. I was out in the back with
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the kids. I was actually swimming with the kids, and I remember feeling my
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arms being really heavy and my whole body being really heavy.
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Made my way to the shallow end, and I stood up, and, again,
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my body just like, it wasn't operating properly. And I screamed at the kids to
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get out of the pool, and I knocked on the window to my husband, and
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I was like, something's wrong. And my heart rate started to really go
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up. And I went into the bedroom, immediately changed, put
456
00:28:05,095 --> 00:28:08,695
some clothes on, and I went to the front of the house
457
00:28:08,695 --> 00:28:12,534
oddly. And I remember my kids sitting in the bay window,
458
00:28:12,534 --> 00:28:16,100
and I said to my husband, go get our neighbor who's a who's a nurse,
459
00:28:16,100 --> 00:28:19,780
an ER nurse or a nurse. She came over and she's like, gas,
460
00:28:19,780 --> 00:28:23,380
something's wrong. We're gonna need to call an ambulance. I was going into
461
00:28:23,380 --> 00:28:27,060
AFib, that's atrial fibrillation, where your heart rate goes up really, really
462
00:28:27,060 --> 00:28:30,765
high. So the ambulance comes. I remember being on the stretcher
463
00:28:30,765 --> 00:28:34,525
and watching my kids' faces, and that's something that just horrifies
464
00:28:34,525 --> 00:28:38,125
me. Anyway, went to the hospital. They tried to do all these things to get
465
00:28:38,125 --> 00:28:41,645
my heart rate to go down. It wouldn't. There was medication. There was
466
00:28:41,645 --> 00:28:45,025
these physical movements they tried to do. Nothing was working.
467
00:28:45,450 --> 00:28:48,990
So then they said, you know, we're gonna need to cardiovert
468
00:28:49,130 --> 00:28:52,889
you, which is they put you to sleep and they stock your heart back
469
00:28:52,889 --> 00:28:56,649
into into rhythm. So my husband signed some documents, I
470
00:28:56,649 --> 00:29:00,015
signed some documents, and the next thing I know, I was asleep and then
471
00:29:00,335 --> 00:29:04,175
awake, and there were, like, nine doctors all around. It turns
472
00:29:04,175 --> 00:29:07,935
out in the end, stress can do some pretty wild things to
473
00:29:07,935 --> 00:29:11,775
the body. Not that I'm blaming myself, but I wasn't listening to
474
00:29:11,775 --> 00:29:14,735
my own cues, and I wasn't taking care of myself the way I needed to
475
00:29:14,735 --> 00:29:18,280
take care of myself, And I didn't have any boundaries and, and, and, and,
476
00:29:18,280 --> 00:29:21,720
and, and, and, and, and I pushed it too far. For
477
00:29:21,720 --> 00:29:25,500
me, it was the most incredible awakening.
478
00:29:25,799 --> 00:29:29,640
It was also a big awareness because after the event you would think, well,
479
00:29:29,640 --> 00:29:33,325
that's the end of that. And it wasn't because so much more
480
00:29:33,325 --> 00:29:37,005
happened after that. I started to have a little, my anxiety kicked up
481
00:29:37,005 --> 00:29:40,685
again. I was really nervous to be alone. I was afraid to fly. I was
482
00:29:40,685 --> 00:29:44,530
afraid to drive. It was what if this happens again? So then I had
483
00:29:44,530 --> 00:29:48,370
to go through this whole layer of it was like a mental
484
00:29:48,370 --> 00:29:52,210
rebirth of trusting my body again. And all that was going
485
00:29:52,210 --> 00:29:55,810
on while I was on ABC Canada. I remember having panic
486
00:29:55,810 --> 00:29:59,435
attacks while hosting the show. One person you credit a lot
487
00:29:59,435 --> 00:30:03,275
in terms of dealing with a lot of these anxieties and your ability to
488
00:30:03,275 --> 00:30:06,875
cope is your mom, mind over matter. Tell me a little bit about your
489
00:30:06,875 --> 00:30:10,475
mom. My mom immigrated here when she was five years old with a
490
00:30:10,475 --> 00:30:13,900
trunk. Her family came here from England.
491
00:30:14,520 --> 00:30:18,360
They worked the farms. They lived in the top of barns. Her
492
00:30:18,360 --> 00:30:22,120
always looking for the silver lining ever since she was little has
493
00:30:22,120 --> 00:30:25,885
been something that I just admire so much. And
494
00:30:25,885 --> 00:30:29,665
even when I was a teenager, I can remember her talking about mindfulness.
495
00:30:30,285 --> 00:30:33,965
Remember back in the day when Oprah at 04:30 would always bring on these
496
00:30:33,965 --> 00:30:37,804
mindful like, she brought mindfulness to the masses. She really did. So back
497
00:30:37,804 --> 00:30:40,470
in that time, time, my mom and I sat down and we watched The Secret
498
00:30:40,470 --> 00:30:43,830
and we would talk about, you know, how to frame your mind to do all
499
00:30:43,830 --> 00:30:47,590
those things. She's really helped me in so many
500
00:30:47,590 --> 00:30:51,350
ways when things are rough, when she's experienced rough
501
00:30:51,350 --> 00:30:54,615
times on how to find the right
502
00:30:54,995 --> 00:30:58,515
path. She's just my little light. I adore her. And at
503
00:30:58,515 --> 00:31:02,275
2023, a tough year. I mean, the end of ET Canada
504
00:31:02,275 --> 00:31:05,955
and the loss of your dad, two things to come at you at one time.
505
00:31:05,955 --> 00:31:09,575
But let's talk about your dad because he was
506
00:31:09,679 --> 00:31:13,440
one of the rocks of your life. Yeah. He really was and
507
00:31:13,440 --> 00:31:17,120
is still. I talk to him every day. Yeah. I
508
00:31:17,120 --> 00:31:20,900
mean, he had a really rare brain disease called progressive supranuclear palsy.
509
00:31:21,360 --> 00:31:24,260
And if you knew my dad, he was just like a strong,
510
00:31:24,825 --> 00:31:28,585
silent type of guy. And so as this disease sort of crept in, we
511
00:31:28,585 --> 00:31:32,265
all knew something was wrong, but we couldn't quite put our finger on it. And
512
00:31:32,265 --> 00:31:35,945
in 2023, he I don't wanna say lost his
513
00:31:35,945 --> 00:31:39,559
battle, but he went to a better place. I truly believe that because he
514
00:31:39,559 --> 00:31:43,260
was not living the life that he deserved to live for sure.
515
00:31:43,480 --> 00:31:47,000
But he was a fighter. I mean, he had COVID twice during COVID. I
516
00:31:47,000 --> 00:31:50,280
mean, he did the best. He fought the hardest he could to be around for
517
00:31:50,280 --> 00:31:53,654
us. And in the end, losing him was,
518
00:31:55,815 --> 00:31:59,495
I don't know, a parent is it's that stable ground, you
519
00:31:59,495 --> 00:32:02,855
know? And so when he left, it was really
520
00:32:02,855 --> 00:32:06,370
difficult. And again, another time where you
521
00:32:06,370 --> 00:32:09,809
have to get up on that stage again. And in many
522
00:32:09,809 --> 00:32:13,110
ways, being back on the stage that January
523
00:32:13,730 --> 00:32:17,169
gave me a piece because it's weird when you go on stage and you do
524
00:32:17,169 --> 00:32:20,705
things, you can flip a switch after a while and you can just
525
00:32:20,705 --> 00:32:24,304
go. It also gives you a place of peace where you're
526
00:32:24,304 --> 00:32:27,745
not sitting in your feelings all the time. Since it's, you know, it's interesting you
527
00:32:27,745 --> 00:32:31,285
say that because a lot of people will find a way to mask that with
528
00:32:31,740 --> 00:32:35,420
alcohol or substance abuses. And it's great that you had something where you could
529
00:32:35,420 --> 00:32:39,180
flip the switch and remind you that life still goes on,
530
00:32:39,180 --> 00:32:42,780
that you have that responsibility. I wanted my kids to see. It was
531
00:32:42,780 --> 00:32:46,015
really important for me to show the kids, obviously,
532
00:32:46,235 --> 00:32:49,995
grief and how to feel it because it's important to feel the grief and feel
533
00:32:49,995 --> 00:32:53,835
the sadness, but also to appreciate this life that we have and that
534
00:32:53,835 --> 00:32:56,235
you need to live it and you need to live it for the people that
535
00:32:56,235 --> 00:33:00,019
you're with and honor the life that you're given. And
536
00:33:00,019 --> 00:33:03,399
I had this beautiful life with my family, this incredible
537
00:33:03,460 --> 00:33:07,299
career that had given me so much, that show. And so
538
00:33:07,299 --> 00:33:11,005
getting back at it was really important. Wasn't easy all the
539
00:33:11,005 --> 00:33:14,705
time, but it was really important to get back at it. And then
540
00:33:15,005 --> 00:33:18,685
the show ended that September. I
541
00:33:18,685 --> 00:33:22,365
thought it was probably gonna be one of the most devastating things to you
542
00:33:22,365 --> 00:33:25,610
personally, but you said, in fact, if anything, it was a relief that this is
543
00:33:25,650 --> 00:33:29,430
I should have made that decision maybe a few years earlier,
544
00:33:29,730 --> 00:33:33,250
found a new tight rope to go on. And they they took the tight rope
545
00:33:33,250 --> 00:33:36,870
away and I was okay. There were so many people who loved that show
546
00:33:37,090 --> 00:33:40,550
and so many people who worked on the show that loved that show.
547
00:33:40,865 --> 00:33:44,325
So was I sad that the show itself was ending?
548
00:33:44,785 --> 00:33:48,565
Absolutely. It was a show that I think Canada still needed.
549
00:33:48,785 --> 00:33:52,165
You know, talking I mean, Etalk's doing a fantastic job,
550
00:33:52,705 --> 00:33:56,460
but I also think competition is good, and I think it's really important to
551
00:33:56,460 --> 00:34:00,220
the landscape. So seeing the show end was I was sad for that
552
00:34:00,220 --> 00:34:03,659
for Canada. But I have to say, as a person, as a
553
00:34:03,659 --> 00:34:07,179
professional, I also knew that in my soul, I
554
00:34:07,179 --> 00:34:10,619
wanted more. I wanted to talk about more things. I would go on the morning
555
00:34:10,619 --> 00:34:14,185
show with Carolyn and Jeff. And I was like, that's sort of like,
556
00:34:14,185 --> 00:34:17,085
like stirring something up in me. Like, this is exciting,
557
00:34:17,864 --> 00:34:21,625
talking about other things that have to do that are outside of entertainment.
558
00:34:21,625 --> 00:34:25,385
I still love talking about entertainment. I love talking to celebrities, doing all of
559
00:34:25,385 --> 00:34:29,059
that. But also there was more. I could feel that I wanted
560
00:34:29,199 --> 00:34:33,040
more. Let's sort of wrap the interview up, talking a little
561
00:34:33,040 --> 00:34:36,000
bit about more out there. And I know that you're working on some stuff we
562
00:34:36,000 --> 00:34:39,839
can't discuss yet today, but you had your stint in
563
00:34:39,839 --> 00:34:43,424
hosting a show. You've got work ethic. You've got
564
00:34:43,424 --> 00:34:46,804
personality. You've got presence. And more importantly,
565
00:34:47,585 --> 00:34:51,204
you've got this incredible appetite for humanity.
566
00:34:51,344 --> 00:34:55,040
So but is that the tease that we can get going forward
567
00:34:55,040 --> 00:34:58,660
that we're gonna see more of Cheryl in the future? Listen, I have an incredible
568
00:34:58,800 --> 00:35:02,640
appreciation and and gratitude towards global television for just sort
569
00:35:02,640 --> 00:35:06,335
of the bedrock and the foundation and the growth and the people
570
00:35:06,475 --> 00:35:10,315
that I had there. It was amazing. It was a fantastic time. And then
571
00:35:10,315 --> 00:35:14,155
even the time I spent at Rogers, albeit it was really short, I had a
572
00:35:14,155 --> 00:35:16,715
lot of fun there and I met a lot of really great people and some
573
00:35:16,715 --> 00:35:20,309
really great things happened there. And actually told me and
574
00:35:20,309 --> 00:35:23,910
reminding me of how much I love creating. And I
575
00:35:23,910 --> 00:35:27,750
still love this business very much. And there are different platforms and
576
00:35:27,750 --> 00:35:31,109
different ways to sort of scratch that itch, if you
577
00:35:31,109 --> 00:35:34,515
will. I do love talking about the humanity and I do love
578
00:35:34,515 --> 00:35:38,195
talking to people and bringing comfort. What I want
579
00:35:38,195 --> 00:35:41,815
people to, who anyone who's listening to this, is to understand
580
00:35:42,035 --> 00:35:45,395
that it's okay to transition, it's okay to
581
00:35:45,395 --> 00:35:49,190
grow, allow it to be exciting, allow it to be
582
00:35:49,190 --> 00:35:52,869
a little bit scary, but also look back on
583
00:35:52,869 --> 00:35:56,390
all the successes or all the lessons that you've had and know that those are
584
00:35:56,390 --> 00:36:00,204
stepping stones to where you're going next. And I have
585
00:36:00,204 --> 00:36:03,505
some exciting things coming up and I'm excited for those things.
586
00:36:03,885 --> 00:36:07,724
Now, Cheryl, I always end my podcast with my three takeaways and you used
587
00:36:07,724 --> 00:36:11,484
the word in the last sentence that to me roared through the entire episode
588
00:36:11,484 --> 00:36:14,950
and it's gratitude. You're so grateful to the small
589
00:36:14,950 --> 00:36:18,390
town. You're so grateful to your parents, your husband, your
590
00:36:18,390 --> 00:36:22,150
kids, the people that employed you, the people that believed in
591
00:36:22,150 --> 00:36:25,269
you. And I think one of the great lessons in life, as big as you
592
00:36:25,269 --> 00:36:28,724
might get in life, this day you forget about the people, the Yodas in the
593
00:36:28,724 --> 00:36:31,685
world that helped you get to where you needed one, is a day that you
594
00:36:31,685 --> 00:36:35,525
lose everything. The second one is this concept to speak to me. And there's two
595
00:36:35,525 --> 00:36:39,300
ways I came through. The first was finding the things that speak to
596
00:36:39,300 --> 00:36:42,740
you that you're passionate about, which I loved. I also love the way
597
00:36:42,740 --> 00:36:46,180
you you sort of use it in a different way. So when people are
598
00:36:46,180 --> 00:36:50,020
speaking at you, there's gonna be negative and positive. Choose what you wanna
599
00:36:50,020 --> 00:36:53,655
listen to. Focus on the positive and you can grow from it.
600
00:36:53,655 --> 00:36:57,095
Focus on what people are speaking in the negative and you're gonna succumb to it.
601
00:36:57,095 --> 00:37:00,375
And I think that's a great lesson in life. And I realized this when my
602
00:37:00,375 --> 00:37:04,070
dad passed, actually. This was my lesson. Obviously it
603
00:37:04,070 --> 00:37:07,030
left a big hole, but I was like, I have a choice in how I'm
604
00:37:07,030 --> 00:37:10,790
going to react to his death. Either I can let it shut me
605
00:37:10,790 --> 00:37:14,550
down and do all the things, or I
606
00:37:14,550 --> 00:37:18,010
can find the beauty and the grace.
607
00:37:18,455 --> 00:37:22,075
I get to choose how I react here and how I'm moving forward.
608
00:37:22,695 --> 00:37:26,535
We always have a choice, even in the most disastrous of
609
00:37:26,535 --> 00:37:29,815
things, there is a choice. It could be a small choice, it could be a
610
00:37:29,815 --> 00:37:32,695
big choice, but when you make one choice it leads to the next choice, and
611
00:37:32,695 --> 00:37:36,470
the next choice, and the next choice. And that's what it is all about.
612
00:37:36,770 --> 00:37:40,370
And your energy, you gotta follow your energy and where you wanna go, not what's
613
00:37:40,370 --> 00:37:44,050
already happened. If something hurts, why are you reliving it? Why are you looking at
614
00:37:44,050 --> 00:37:47,615
it again? It's over there. Where are you going? The final
615
00:37:47,835 --> 00:37:51,675
lesson, this combination of friction and fuel that there's we're always gonna
616
00:37:51,675 --> 00:37:55,355
face circumstances. And what I loved about the way you
617
00:37:55,355 --> 00:37:58,815
overcame them, whether that was somebody that wanted to hold you back
618
00:37:59,400 --> 00:38:02,920
or something you went after, is how hard you work. You
619
00:38:02,920 --> 00:38:06,200
shadowed. I was up to three in the morning. I tried to edit to see
620
00:38:06,200 --> 00:38:09,960
if I could cut a story. I painted the office purple. I
621
00:38:09,960 --> 00:38:13,799
found this cat in the garbage, you know. For people listening, you know,
622
00:38:13,799 --> 00:38:17,224
today, I think a lot of times life is easy. You now with AI, you
623
00:38:17,224 --> 00:38:20,845
just say what you want, the video appears. The difference is
624
00:38:21,144 --> 00:38:24,825
you had that ten thousand hours of practice. You went in there and you
625
00:38:24,825 --> 00:38:28,585
said, no matter what it takes, and it wasn't to brag, it was
626
00:38:28,585 --> 00:38:32,339
this is just what it took for me to chase my dreams. I
627
00:38:32,339 --> 00:38:36,020
went into this just interested about your career. I'm walking
628
00:38:36,020 --> 00:38:39,700
away from this interview. Absolutely. You've gotta become a keynote
629
00:38:39,700 --> 00:38:43,380
speaker. Cheryl, I've hosted conferences for the last
630
00:38:43,380 --> 00:38:46,755
fifteen years all over the world. Your message, whether it's a
631
00:38:46,755 --> 00:38:50,195
fireside chat or a lot just out there telling your
632
00:38:50,195 --> 00:38:53,954
story is what the audiences today need to hear because right
633
00:38:53,954 --> 00:38:57,734
now we are succumbing to this overpowering negativity
634
00:38:57,875 --> 00:39:01,440
out there and with it, then the world's impossible. And it's not It's
635
00:39:01,440 --> 00:39:05,140
odd. The reality is if you focus on the positive, things have become
636
00:39:05,440 --> 00:39:07,619
possible. I'd open to trying that.
637
00:39:10,000 --> 00:39:13,700
Once again, a special thanks to RBC for supporting Chatter That Matters.
638
00:39:14,160 --> 00:39:17,655
It's Tony Chapman. Thanks for listening, and let's chat soon.
