Healing Our Relationship with Attention With Cher Hale

Healing our relationship with attention begins with noticing the ways in which our natural need for attention has been damaged. In a society that commodifies attention and polices who and what is allowed attention, we develop a distorted relationship with a core aspect of how we connect to each other. This disconnection feeds feelings of isolation and loneliness, leaving us vulnerable to systems that exploit our need to feel seen and heard. By addressing the shame around seeking attention and understanding its role in genuine connection, we can start to reclaim our capacity for presence, care, and community in a way that fosters deeper relationships and collective healing.

In this episode of Unlimited, I invited Cher Hale (she/her), to join me in a conversation about the weaponization of attention and healing our relationship with attention.

Some of what we talk about in this episode includes:

• The stigmatization of seeking attention
• Shifting from unhealthy to intentional attention
• Individualism’s role in loneliness and disconnection
• Using visibility for collective empowerment

LINKS FROM THIS EPISODE:
The Slow Build to & the Life-Saving Payoff of Asking for Attention
The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls by Mona Eltahawy
Learning Self-Advocacy to Strengthen Collective Action with Jenique Jones
Swimmy by Leo Lionni
Holiday Stress Support

CONNECT WITH CHER:
Substack: For the Attention
Website

CONNECT WITH VALERIE:
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Get email updates

Transcript

Valerie Friedlander: 0:00

Hello, my friends and welcome to another episode of Unlimited. Today, we are talking about healing our relationship with attention. Our relationship with attention is unhealthy in this society. It has become so distorted by so many layers. Now, the layer that I have typically thought about more recently, at least, is attention, capitalism and the commodifying of our attention, which is really icky. So I've been struggling with my relationship with social media and a lot of online spaces because of the way in which we are activated, our Neuropsychology is manipulated to hold our attention and keep us caught up and activated, instead of able to be present and really connected. So these spaces where in some ways, we connect, we are not truly connecting. And in a lot of ways, our aggression, our struggles and lack of skill around conflict is turning into this magnification of disconnect instead of real connection. So that's where my focus has been more recently, I was in a conversation with Cher Hale, and she was talking about the idea of our attention being weaponized in terms of asking for attention, and the shame and shaming that is so prevalent in our society around asking for attention, particularly so for women and people with other marginalized identities, the asking for attention is weaponized. And I was like, oh, that's fascinating, and really kind of at the core of some of our healing, because that's where we start to disconnect early on, this disconnection of, oh, I can't ask for attention. I can't have needs, essentially, is what it comes down to, because we're social creatures, so we need somebody's attention, especially as a small child, we need attention, and yet that turns into something we're supposed to be ashamed of in this individualized society, this society that upholds individualization and being self sufficient and all of that sort of stuff. So being able to engage that level hits on a deeper level of disconnection that I'm sure then allows room for attention capitalism to suck us in, because it's this way of connecting that's not really connecting. Gabor Mate talks about addiction, and the things that we use for addiction are things that give us a sense of betterment. It kind of sort of solves the problem that we having or the pain that we're experiencing, but not doesn't really so that we keep wanting more. And I see that in so many of these online spaces, where we are becoming more and more disconnected, more and more isolated and alone, and there are roots in the need for attention, the need to be seen, the need to be cared for. So I invited Cher Hale to have this conversation with me, because this is a big focus of her and exploration as someone who owns a PR agency, it has stood out, particularly for her. So she is the founder and director of gingko PR, an agency that uses public relations to create a more equitable media landscape as a Taiwanese black American woman, Cher is passionate about leveraging the power of the media to take back narratives that have been traditionally told for under recognized authors and entrepreneurs. One of the ways she does this is by highlighting how the act of asking for attention has been weaponized against us when she's not pitching. You can find her revising her first novel, rollerblading or hiking anywhere near water. She lives in Spokane, Washington, unseated cour de Lane tribe territory with her three year old daughter. Some of the things that we talk about are the stigma of seeking attention, shifting from unhealthy to intentional attention, individualisms role in loneliness and disconnection and using visibility for collective empowerment. Of course, we talk about so much more, and I want to share the rest of a quote that we talk about in the episode that I didn't share the wholeness of she shares it in one of her sub stacks that i. Have linked in the show notes, but it's from the seven necessary sins for women and girls, and it says attention is a reward, a burden, a taunt, a taint, an accusation. Attention is a bone that patriarchy dangles in front of women. If we want it too much, we're whores if we don't want attention, when it determines we should have it. It stalks and beats us with it. We can't win share in the sub stack invites our reflection and awareness that seizing attention is an inevitable skill that we must build if we want to move the needle in the direction of the vision we have in our hearts. I know that you're going to love this episode before we dig in, I want to let you know two things. One is that we got into a conversation after this recording that I then recorded because it was so juicy. So there will be bonus interview coming soon. So definitely keep your eyes out for that. And also, if you are feeling the stress of the holiday season, this winter season, I have put together a page of resources to help processing stress and showing up with less reactivity and more responsiveness, more intentional responsiveness. So if that is something that you would like, that will also be linked in the show notes. And now, without further ado, let's get started. Hey there. I'm Valerie Friedlander, Certified Life business alignment coach, and this is unlimited. This podcast bridges the individual and the societal, scientific and spiritual, positive and negative, nerdy and no, there's just a lot of nerdy. Come on board and let's unlock a light that's as bad ass as you are. Welcome, Cher. I'm so excited to have you on the podcast today.

Cher Hale: 7:04

I am so happy to be here with you, Valerie.

Valerie Friedlander: 7:06

Before we dive in, I want to ask you my question about you, which is, what is a limit that you took for granted that you have since unlearned.

Cher Hale: 7:20

When I thought about this question, the first thing that came to mind was the energy and effort it takes to build relationships that I definitely used to take for granted. I can think of so many friends and members of my family who put a lot of energy into reaching out to me, trying to create bonds when I was younger and less wise, I definitely took those efforts for granted, and now, at this stage in my life, with community being a core component of of who I see like how I'm becoming into myself, I just can no longer to get for granted, and I so honor and respect and I'm grateful for the people who really made an effort to connect with me early on.

Valerie Friedlander: 8:09

Yeah, yeah, I have found myself in a lot of spaces where I'm the one who puts in a lot of the effort, and I don't mind that, and I recognize it so much more, because I don't have as much capacity as I used to have. I have so many other things as a parent and as an activist and all of these things that I'm doing to pour into and I appreciate that idea of who I am becoming, that constant evolution and the vulnerability that it takes, which I think is something that is part of the effort, at least for me, there's a certain amount of vulnerability in reaching out and putting effort into a relationship, because it means that what if it's not reciprocated, You know, like, what if, all the what ifs all the possibilities, and that ties us into that idea of attention. There's a vulnerability in attention that I know a lot of my clients struggle with, and I just want to open the floor to you to maybe share a little bit about like, what attracted you to attention as a concept as a focal point?

Cher Hale: 9:30

Yes, it really began with my daughter, who is now three and a half, almost four years old. And I just kept reading these pieces from parents. I mean, the the advice for so long is like, Oh, they're doing it for the attention. And I kept getting this message like, oh, well, if she's doing it for the attention, like, here's how to handle it. And I kept thinking like, this doesn't sit right with me. And I think once I unpack this idea of like, how do I approach my child in a way that's loving and compassionate? That when she wants attention, she gets love in return. I began to connect it to other aspects of my work, which is, I think, how most things happen in our lives, right? Like nothing is disconnected from the other. So I began thinking, well, she's not doing it with attention. And I see so many entrepreneurs who are getting flack for wanting to go viral or wanting to be seen in it in a really big way, or having troubles promoting themselves and like, what's the hold up here? And the more that I untangled these threads, the more that I was like, well, it's what the problem is for everything. It's a it's our capitalist post colonialist white settler mentality in America, like it's it's all of our systems, um, infiltrating our minds and our bodies to stop us from doing what we want and to being seen for who we are, so that we stay with the status quo. And when I connected that to public relations and how this is my job, right to ask people for attention. I thought, Oh my God. Like, there's so much here that I could talk about to help people realize that their relationship with attention is being co opted by the system, and that we have agency to take it back.

Valerie Friedlander: 11:16

That's so big. Because again, like I work with a lot of people, and my myself has struggled with that idea of drawing attention to myself and I'm an Aries, like, I'm all like, Hey, you too. And it's just like, when I read that idea of like, an Aries is the baby of Zodiac. So they're like, Ooh, you know, looking just enamored with fingers and toes. Because you think babies are like they see their hand, and when they see their hand or their feet for the first time, they're just like, wow, so Didn't you see this? It's amazing. And then we start getting the story that we shouldn't want attention. And I had never thought about that connection before, of as kids, oh, they're doing it for the attention, and somehow that's wrong, like, somehow they don't deserve attention. Like, yes, you do. And so there's a quote that you wrote in one of the essays that you shared with me recently, and it's from is Mona Eltahawy. How do you do you know how you pronounce that?

Cher Hale: 12:28

I think it's going to Mona Eltahawy.

Valerie Friedlander: 12:29

Okay, Mona Eltahawy. And one of the things she says is "the most subversive thing a woman can do is talk about her life as if it really matters, because it does. It is in the name of that subversion, for the sake of defying the patriarchy, that we must declare, I deserve attention. I demand attention, and my life is important. My views are important, and they deserve attention. We must understand the importance and power of being attention whores.

Cher Hale: 13:05

I feel like I'm hin church.

Valerie Friedlander: 13:07

Yeah,

Cher Hale: 13:09

So beautiful.

Valerie Friedlander: 13:11

You know, that hits in a particular way for me, I want to cry, and that tells me that there's a wound there. What does that speak to you?

Cher Hale: 13:20

Yes, when I first read that quote, which was on recommendation from Toi Smith, I had made this big change in my messaging. And she was like, by the way, share, have you read this? And I said, No. And when I was going through the chapter, I was like, this is everything. This is everything that I was intuiting, but didn't have, maybe the language or the history to back it up, or articulate it. And there's so much in there that I can see now attention on a spectrum right, from believing that we have the power to ask for it at all, to asking for it, to wanting for it, to asking for and then to demanding it. And for me, that's like it's you can see the evolution of a consciousness through that spectrum. And I love the idea that we can build ourselves up with courage and community to reach those levels for the collective good.

Valerie Friedlander: 14:14

Yeah. Well, that speaks to one of the the other things that you wrote in there, which had to do with the idea of asking for attention, receiving attention, giving attention and sharing attention. Would you speak a little bit more about that dynamic?

Cher Hale: 14:40

Yes, yes, absolutely. I think that even when we have the courage to begin to ask for attention, we might deflect whatever comes our way as it comes because we're not comfortable with being in that space of reception. So for example, I really needed help with child care and. Just needed maybe two or three extra hours, maybe every two weeks. And I asked a friend who's also an entrepreneur here, if we'd be willing to switch on and off, I'd watch her children while she works, and then vice versa. And when the time came to ask for attention, for the for the help that I needed, and she was like, Yes. I was like, Oh, well, actually, only an hour is okay. You know, we don't have to, we don't have to go that long. I don't, I don't want to be a burden to you. And there's, that's the space. I mean, right? When we ask for the attention that we need, for the attention on our work, for example, I'm asking for attention on my work to be to give, like, the time and space for it. And she says, Yes, I'm happy to help. And then I say, actually, I'm asking for too much, right? So we can want the attention, ask the attention, but still have trouble receiving the attention. And so there's a work to be done there. And then I think also there's the idea that this is a we live in a cycle, right? So we're asking what we're wanting. We're asking we're receiving, but we also need to give and share as well. Because what Neo liberal ideology has taught us over our lifetimes is that we are in an individualistic pursuit, and look where that has gotten us, this idea, right, this mentality. And the truth is that we are in a collective pursuit, and when we open up the cycle to include those actions, then we have so much more space to expand and to like, Dream brighter futures and to see more possibilities, and that's the space that I really want to inhabit as a citizen of this world.

Valerie Friedlander: 16:32

Yeah, it's wild to me, the idea of individualism, it just it doesn't really make any sense, because we are, at such a basic level, herd creatures, and I suppose maybe it's tied to this idea of we've evolved to be like individuals or whatever, but at a very basic level, our brain still Functions primarily with the the need for belonging, and with that means that we need each other. We need each other's attention and care, and so to think that we can just be alone, it's come into this really distorted way of being in the world, because we are craving attention. This epidemic evolves right like we're craving attention and we can't receive it, or we've been conditioned to not allow it in, and if we can't allow it in, then all our focus is going on that lack and we can't give it because we don't have the capacity, because we're not receiving it, because we're not allowing ourselves to receive it, and then we feel resentful of giving it. And of course, like the idea of sharing, it's right out what I'm supposed to I'm supposed to, like, step back and let you nobody's giving to me, like, that whole and that just eats everything. How can we possibly develop and grow and thrive alone?

Cher Hale: 18:09

I absolutely hear you. This is the question of my current time, right? I just keep wondering if we're so focused on trying to get attention in ways that are not holistic or healthy, right? And we know what these are, right? We live in a capitalist context. Then, of course, we're distracted from doing anything about our political state. Of course, we're distracted about bettering our own lives, and this is exactly where they want us, right? And I just, I refuse to, like, play in to that idea that I can't have what I want and get it in a way that doesn't cost anything,

Valerie Friedlander: 18:50

Yeah, and doesn't harm anybody.

Cher Hale: 18:52

Yes!

Valerie Friedlander: 18:53

We don't have to harm other people in order to have our needs met. Yes, if we actually created a structure that allowed for that. And it is remarkable to me that, like, as we were talking about this, I think about, well, when people call me, they want to do work with me. I ask why, and they usually tell me that is what they don't want. Like, I don't like this, then I want this to change. So we have to shift. Okay? Well, if this wasn't true, then what would be true? Like, what? What is it that we're looking for? Because you can't create something if you're only focused on what you don't want. And so we had, like, so many people have talked about this where we are right now as a failure of imagination. We failed to imagine a world that actually honored our humanity, which is collective. Our humanity isn't individualistic. It's collective, because that's what we're wired from. That. That's like the kind of creatures we are. So we have to be able to imagine something different. We have to be able to vision something different and and it really seems like that idea of of being seen. I mean, we've been so conditioned that it's dangerous to be seen, because, you know, there's a vulnerability in being seen. So I need to put on a mask. I need to put on a facade. And of course, certain identities are much more at risk in being seen. And so I think about with the, you know, as a white woman, What is that look like, in terms of so money pushes to, like, share attention, right? Like, I have a platform. How am I utilizing that platform, and whether it's, you know, a podcast or a space that I occupy in my kids school or in my community? Like, how do I uplift other people's voices so they can have attention? But how am I doing that in a way that also recognizes the dangers in our current system of allowing for that attention? Like, how do I place myself as a both a, I want to say, like a a shield as well as an amplifier.

Cher Hale: 21:24

Yes, I hear you, yeah, because true for marginalized identities, people who have been historically under recognized. There is so much fear in our bodies from generations past of when you ask for what you want, there are consequences to being seen and to trying to wield power, and that has been definitely 100% ingrained in us. And there is this, this idea of Angela y Davis, who is the feminist political activist, talks a lot about how people like Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King did not want to be sanctified, because the state will sanctify activists like this to show you what happens to them, so that they can give us the fear that we remember throughout generations now. This is what happens when you try to speak out and be different and be seen. Yeah, and I think I mean one, it's right, the healing that we need to do, both individually and collectively for those wounds, to address those wounds and to remember that we are safer in community, right? If we find our communities where we can shield each other, then it's not a one on one job, right? Then we have the collective behind us, and that's what we've I think we've been forgetting when we feel unsafe, we have to go into the safe spaces that we've created that we've cultivated ourselves.

Valerie Friedlander: 22:49

Yeah, well, and, and that reminds me about just also recognizing that the stories that the dominant culture tends to tell about people being that they are individuals, and obscuring the number of people that were part of a movement, part of what was being said. If we can make it an individual, then we make it so that it seems like everybody else can't do it, that it's not possible for all of us in our different places, in our different roles for movement, for action, and that importance of collective action, actually one of the interviews I just did With Janique about advocacy, learning to self advocate. That was one of the things that she really pulled forward, was the importance of it's a collective work, and you can't solve collective problems as an individual like it has to be collective solutions. We have to dream together. And so that is something that I run into, and I'm curious about your thinking around this. This is one of the things that I know I run into, is, who am I to who am I to speak here? Who am I to engage this? Who am I to demand attention? And I imagine there needs to be a reflective process of, well, what does that mean? What does that look like? Am I stepping into a space that's not mine? What is my role? What is my place in the communal effort recognizing that it's not just me, and I think it ties into what you're talking about, of sharing attention. And like, what does it look like to call attention, maybe not to myself, but to an issue or concern or a purpose? And I'd love to hear your thoughts along that and like, what you see when you're working with people.

Cher Hale: 24:59

Yeah. This all comes down to self belief for me, and that's from my perspective as like a multicultural woman who cannot pass as anything but what I am, a single mom, right, raised by a single mom for a long time, like I have these perspectives coming into this conversation. Just be clear for the context. For me, it was self belief. I didn't think that I deserved to tell my stories or to ask questions or to share opinions, not because I didn't have something to say I always did internally, but because I didn't want to rock the boat. I didn't want to be seen as a troublemaker. I wanted to keep the status quo in terms of like, what are people to like me? And I didn't have the belief that I would be okay otherwise. So for me, it's a story of co-dependence, right? This is a story of emotional outsourcing, as my client, Victoria Albina, says, where I just it was so much more important to me as a survival strategy, to be liked and to please and to be perfect, and that kept me from doing anything for a very long time or saying anything for a very long time. I'm in a stage now in my life where I'm I'm having to unlearn the belief that I can't bring a new perspective or something fresh or interesting to a conversation in the spaces where I'm in right or I can make things up and they can be useful for people, or I can use my imagination for the collective good. And that's a massive unlearning. I'm going through that I don't need to be an expert or a thought leader. I can be a citizen with opinions.

Valerie Friedlander: 26:41

I love that, and I'm so grateful that you're sharing because that that's one of the things I find with these conversations, and why I like them to be more conversational than just like an interview, is because I find so much value in the conversation, whether it's a one to one to one conversation or a group conversation, that is where I notice the evolution of an idea. And I think, and I feel that there's a danger to being seen right, that we were just talking about that, that idea of, like, keeping the status quo feels safe, and we're taught that if we just do that, then we'll be safe, which is a lie. It doesn't actually, I mean, it is to a certain extent, like, if you uphold the systems, the system won't necessarily reward you, but it might not like hurt you as directly as it would somebody who's like trouble making you're not going to face retaliation for speaking up, but it's still gonna hurt you. It's still gonna do that like it's not gonna not and it's gonna do it more and more as it can get away with it.

Cher Hale: 27:51

Yeah, and you know, you remind me, I think, often, of Japanese internment, how Japanese were living here as productive citizens, and after Pearl Harbor hit, it didn't matter what you were saying, or how good you were, how perfect or how how contributive you were to society, you were taken anyway. The system didn't care. This is a lesson from history that we can take into our future, right? That even if you do everything right, quote, unquote, the system will still harm you. That's what it's designed to do.

Valerie Friedlander: 28:23

Yes. Yeah, and, and it is a lesson that we absolutely need to be taking right now, because that is a big part of what we're going to be looking at, and being able to stand together and call attention is going to be key in our different ways of doing that. I'm wondering, when you think about your work in this context, and I do, I want to invite that conversation, particularly because I want people to know about you and what you do and how you can support because you're you're actually engaging for people to say, hey, you deserve to be seen and heard. How do you see your work in this broader context now,

Cher Hale: 29:21

Like in this political atmosphere,

Valerie Friedlander: 29:23

In this... Well, I mean, I don't think we can extract ourselves from it, unfortunately. I mean, I'd love. Part of me wants to be like, la, la, la,

Cher Hale: 29:33

Totally.

Valerie Friedlander: 29:34

But we, you know that that that's not giving it the attention it it requires, I want to say, requires, not the attention it deserves. And that may be a distinction too, of like, how do we think about how we give attention and where we give attention? And I'm curious, as somebody who works in attention, what are you thinking about? What. When it comes to this, and as you work with people, and what you'd like to invite people to think about?

Cher Hale: 30:08

The first thing that comes to mind is, again, like an Angela Davis inspired reflection, which is, why do we feel like we have to be experts on every current event to uphold the site of justice. And so in our work, people are more and more voicing right their opinions or their beliefs on things like Palestine and the government, and we're being very vocal. But there are also many of us who aren't. Many of us are holding back for fear of alienating others. I just want to remind people, you don't have to be an expert on Palestine, on the on the 100 year history of the Palestine conflict, to know that genocide is wrong to say that out loud. So there are things that I think that's a very important point to start with, that we can speak up for justice without having to know all of the details about what happened in the conflict, and then I would say there's a lot of like self reflection that has to go on. Are there things that you want to be promoting that you're not promoting? If you're not, why not? When you are in promotion, where you are engaging in promotion, are you promoting only your work, or are you doing the work to promote others who have less access to privilege than you do. Is there a way that you can create a symbiotic relationship, or a relationship where you uplift instead of just show up as your own? Because what happens the way that we heal our relationships to attention, as I see it, is that we first have to remove ourselves from that individualistic context and walk into a collectivist context. And when we do that, the the weight of promotion is lightened. We don't have to feel so heavy or guilty about it, because we're not doing it just for ourselves, right? There's there's more at stake here. Those are my two main thoughts right now.

Valerie Friedlander: 32:01

Yeah, I appreciate that that's a powerful thought, because it is when helping join together or develop an understanding like like you were saying at the very beginning, the energy of relationships, the energy that has to be put into relationships, it takes more conscious energy to engage these things when the flow of our systems is in the other direction. So we have to allow space, to set aside space to do what is essentially swimming upstream, counter cultural, to really think about, okay, what is alignment? Where do I connect with other people? How do I uplift in the work? How do I integrate? How do I collaborate? And even taking collaboration out of an individualistic context, because I've run into that a lot of times, it's like two people doing a thing together, instead of, like, really, like generating together, co creating, yeah, like co-creating in a more expansive way, not like this thing, but like in an expansive relationship, building kind of way, like I'm building a relationship with someone, with other people in a broader context. What does it look like to do that? And that's a big reason, and you probably find this a lot with people that you interact with that like have podcasts and stuff. That's a big reason why I started a podcast was to share ideas, but also like my own, but also other people's, because we miss out on so much innovation and so much creativity when we're only listening to ourselves or only listening to people who look like us, who have lived experience like us, there's so much creativity, so much idea stifling, that happens and that's not gonna that's not gonna change anything.

Cher Hale: 33:58

Yeah, it reminds me very much of the way the mainstream media takes narratives and distorts images and creates stereotypes against communities and foments right like destruction. And I think a lot about how these conversations where we still have access to our agency through these mediums. They're so important that we tell full stories with context, nuance and contradiction, because we are allowed right where we're allowed to be these full humans within these spaces, in the mainstream media outlets that have been bought in solar corporations, they just don't allow for that kind of storytelling, and that's so critical at this deflection point in time, that we allow our full selves to be seen, and that we tell those stories, the details like our our our contradictions, that that make us who we are as humans.

Valerie Friedlander: 34:57

Yeah, taking that risk and surrounding ourselves with other people who are willing to take that risk with us. The the I think, of like the school of fish that my kids have this book swimming about this fish who wants to travel and galvanizes these other fish to, like create the shape of a bigger fish so they can swim free, freely through the ocean, looking like a bigger fish, so that they're not attacked anyway. That's just, I, that was the visual that came to mind. Was the picture in this book about the fish. But that's, that's how I I imagine it. So this is a big part of what you do, helping people find the spaces to be able to share themselves and what they do and the amazingness that they have to bring. Would you please share with everybody listening a little bit more about what you do and where they can find you?

Cher Hale: 35:58

Yeah, so when I am not trying to stoke revolution, I am usually being a publicist, and I primarily work with authors and entrepreneurs who are from under recognized communities, so bi, fuck, queer, disabled and neurodiverse. I allocate most of my client roster to those populations, and the remaining 30% people who are social advocates or allies of the causes. Sometimes people have money to resource the causes. That happens sometimes and I help them either plan podcast tours or do ongoing brand awareness as they build their platforms, usually with a book in mind. People are very interested in having a book to hang their hat on. And then I also have a sub stack, which I'm obsessed with. Again, this conversation, it's called doing it for the attention, and it's all about how our attention has been weaponized against us, and how we can reclaim it from the system, so for our own creativity, liberation.

Valerie Friedlander: 37:00

Yeah, I love it. So now, what does it mean to you to be unlimited?

Cher Hale: 37:07

So much of what's happening now is, how can I disinvest myself from what I've been taught my whole life about what's good or right or proper? How do I know what thoughts are my own and what I'm buying into? Because, like, that's what I've always done or always been taught, and I think every strand that I untangle or break, quite frankly, the freer I feel, the more unlimited I feel to claim the space that is mine and to use my voice in the ways that serve me, the people who are also for justice and liberation.

Valerie Friedlander: 37:46

I love that. Thank you. And What song do you listen to when you want to access that sense of unlimitedness? Lately, I've been obsessed with Joy Oladokun.

Cher Hale: 37:58

Oh my god. I love her so much!

Unknown: 37:59

So much. I just saw her in I was like September in Spokane, and it was just like, she is magic and majesty, totally so soulful, so much depth and so funny. But her new album just came out, and one of the songs on the album is flowers, and the line in it that just gets me for this sentiment, is, I built a home on the mountain you said I couldn't climb. And there's so much we could unpack there about what that means to make a space for yourself where you were allowed. But that's that's the line, that's the song that gives me that sense of anything is possible.

Valerie Friedlander: 38:44

Yeah, I love that and that, yeah. I mean, like that could be a whole podcast episode. It's great. Well, thank you so much, Cher for coming on and giving us all this food for thought. Thank you.

Cher Hale: 39:01

Yes, you're welcome, and thank you for giving me the space this I'm really, I would say, early in my thinking about this and how it intersects with our lives as entrepreneurs and within the system, as citizens and as parents and as friends and like lovers. And so there's so much that I still have yet to learn that I'm very excited about. So I hope that you all will follow along as I as I figure it out, and we can collectively ideate together what comes next for us.

Valerie Friedlander: 39:26

Yes, yes, everybody, definitely. All the links are going to be in the show notes, so please check those out and follow along. I think this is an important ongoing conversation, as we figure out imagining a world where we're actually honoring our humanity and other people's humanity and all of that. So thank you for this generative conversation.

Cher Hale: 39:51

Thank you, Valerie,

Valerie Friedlander: 39:52

Thanks for listening. I so appreciate you being here. If you got something out of today's episode, please share it. Leave me a review. Take a screenshot. And post it on social with a shout out to me. Send it to a friend, or, you know, all of the above. Want to hang out more, join me on Instagram, or, better yet, get on my mailing list to make sure you don't miss out on anything. And remember your possibilities are as unlimited as you are. Allow yourself to shine, my friend, the world needs your light. See you next time you.