Following Your Passions with Kate Cherichello

Transcript:

Sofie: Hello everyone and welcome back to Claim Your Potential, the empowerment podcast. I’m your host Sofie and for this episode we are joined by Kate Cherichello to discuss following your passions.

Kate is an NYC-based performer, podcast host and certified fitness professional. She is the creator and host of the weekly podcast Be The Good with Kate where guests share their journey to finding their passion and helping others along the way.

Throughout the pandemic, Kate sought to remind herself and others that there is still so much good in the world and so she is continuously inspired by guests from across the globe including a Broadway music director, nonprofit founders and those healing from loss while helping others.

As a performer, Kate has toured with the USO Show Troupe, Jersey Boys and Broadway Tonite and performed in numerous productions across the country. She has appeared in commercials, television shows and films. By incorporating manageable and impactful changes each day, Kate inspires others to live their healthiest lives. She trains and coaches in person and virtually and brings health and wellness expertise to business and corporate settings.

Please welcome Kate Cherichello. Thank you so much for being with us today, Kate.

Kate: Oh, Sofie, thanks so much for the invitation to be on the show.

Sofie: Can I just say I am super excited to connect with you again? For those that don’t know, I was actually on Kate’s show Be The Good with Kate. So she and I connected back in October I think and so it is such a pleasure to be able to have you on and be on the other side of the mic this time.

Kate: Thanks Sofie. I absolutely loved your episode and I’m still blown away with all you’re doing and have done already in your life.

Sofie: Thank you and I don’t know if anyone heard the plug for Be The Good with Kate but go check it out and I will leave that linked in the description and speaking of your podcast, I would love to know more about how interviewing more than 75 people who are making the world a better place despite going through their individual challenges, how has that influenced your life.

Kate: Oh, absolutely. You know, let me give you the start of the podcast which will then help paint that picture better too. At the height of the pandemic when all the news felt like it was bad news and we needed to know what was going on but at the same time, it was just dragging me down and from hearing from other people, the same with them. Everything felt heavy.

So I was looking for a way to both keep my on-camera muscles going so to speak as a performer and the entertainment industry of course was on pause there and then also just find a way to bring that good news into the world, whether one person heard it or hundreds or thousands just to show that there are people still during this time doing great things and I am just constantly blown away by what people are doing.

I think as of this week I’m at 80 people now I’ve interviewed and each one is from such a different background and people are from all industries and all ages and all different experiences in life and yet they have all found their passions and are using those passions to make the world a better place. I mean what I’ve learned and how it has influenced my life is just that – I mean so many things but to highlight a couple, one is that first of all, it’s never too late. There is always time to still find what that next thing is in your life if you don’t feel like you’ve found that passion or that purpose yet or maybe you have and you say there’s more out there.

It’s never too late and another thing is just the idea of challenges that are just their roadblocks and/or their opportunities to learn more. It’s not the ending. A couple examples I had, a man named Aaron Smith, an incredible episode and it was only about 13 minutes long and yet jampacked.

He had been in prison for almost a decade and he said, “Prison was the best thing that happened to me because if I hadn’t gone into prison, I may not have found what I was supposed to do with my life,” and I always go back to his episode because that was just so impactful to me, but there are so many stories like that of this roadblock. It seemed like it was going to stop me completely and in the end I found this whole new life beyond it.

So that aspect and just lastly with that question I would say the idea of it doesn’t have to be the entire world changes by what you do. But if we can make the difference in one person’s life, how big a deal that becomes and I’m blanking right now which guest said it but something about the intergenerational aspect of that. If you influence one person today and that person takes what they learned from you and passes it on to their spouse or friend or child and then that one keeps going and pretty soon you have hundreds of people that you have influenced in a direct or indirect way. So those are just a couple of the things.

Sofie: Thank you for sharing that and yeah, I mean I was blown away as well just from listening to – when we had talked about interviewing together, I made sure to check out your podcast and I mean absolutely the amount of people that even again as you said even if it’s not changing the world, maybe it’s just changing a community or even just changing one person. I would imagine that just being around that all the time is absolutely inspiring. So how can surrounding ourselves with goodhearted people influence our path and our ability to find our passions?

Kate: Great question. There’s a lot of talk right now of this toxic positivity and I think sometimes when we say things like surrounding ourselves with people who are striving to make the world better, sometimes it gets lumped into that. I just want to make sure that I say that because it’s not. These people have all faced so many challenges. A lot of them have faced very traumatic experiences and they’re not brushing that off and as I mentioned too, the negative news we need to hear. We need to know what’s going on and that is a learning tool for us as well. But we need the other side of that. We need the hope.

I mean what is life if we don’t have that hope and just that knowledge of there are things better and there are ways that our lives can improve or that we can improve someone else’s life and that has just been so huge to me.

I know from personal experiences especially at the height of the pandemic and maybe it was raining outside and I was just feeling blah and the last thing I felt like doing was getting on camera and being super upbeat and introing someone in for the podcast and yet minutes into that my whole day was turned around because here I am sitting in my New York city apartment, hearing from people down the street, I discovered there was one guest that lives a block away from me to people in Japan and Bali and India everywhere and they’re telling me the ways that they have found to make the world a better place and I just leave every interview saying, “Oh my gosh! There’s so much hope in this world. There’s so much goodness in this world,” and despite whatever challenges we’re facing, there are ways to move beyond them and learn from them and continue to make a difference in this world.

So it’s just from our mental health aspect to just the lift in our souls that happens when we are surrounded by people who do have that sense of “I can do something to make it better.” It’s just so good for us all around for sure I mean I’m sure you’ve seen it with guests you’ve talked to too about all these people who are striving to make themselves and others better.

Sofie: Oh my goodness. Yes, absolutely. I think it was, oh my gosh, maybe two weeks ago and I was talking to a guest. We were talking about resumes and how to build a proper resume and I thought, OK, I mean I’m trying to give out practical tips to listeners and so I approached it from that lens. But just the amount of passion that she had for why she was involved in career development and why she was trying to steer her audience toward making sure that women had a standout kick-butt resume and to me it really solidified in that sense of when you’re passionate about something and you’re explaining your craft to someone else, that passion comes through.

So it could be something as simple as a resume and a resume workshop and I was blown away by like, “Oh my gosh. You are so passionate about this,” and truly you’re helping women get jobs that they otherwise would not have been able to get without your expertise and it’s those moments. I know that you probably feel them with your podcast where you’re just like, “Wow, this is just unbelievable.” Even if it’s something more niched and as you said, it’s not changing the world and the grand scheme of things. But with the individual person, it is changing the world because of that generational passing along of knowledge.

Kate: Absolutely, absolutely. I was just the other day listening to Dan Harris’ Ten Percent Happier podcast and he was interviewing the person who was in charge of the longest – oh, what is the official title? It’s like the longest official study of happiness in the world, something like that, and one of the big findings, not that it’s necessarily news to us all but to actually have it studied officially is that human connection is one of the top aspects of living a happy life.

So when we get to interact with these guests for us or just when you meet someone out and about in life who tells you a story about what they’re doing or you find a way to relate to this person, it really does make such a huge impact on our well-being and our overall happiness and we need those social connections. So this has been such a great way to make that happen as well, even just in this kind of a virtual space.

Sofie: Absolutely. I could not agree more and speaking of human connection, what are some other methods that have worked for you in finding your passions?

Kate: Oh, for me, I’ve always been grateful that from a very young age I knew that I wanted to be in the entertainment world as a performer in some way, shape or form and along with that from as far back as I can remember, I used to say I want enough clout in the entertainment industry that I will just be asked to do charity events as a singer or as a speaker.

For some reason, I don’t know what got that in my mind but that would be my definition of success in career was that idea of I can use my gifts and talents to then help other organizations that are helping the world in some way, shape or form and I have had the opportunity to do the occasional charity event but I see how that idea has actually played out in even something like Be The Good with Kate where I get to highlight people who are making the world a better place.

So it’s neat how life works where that theme of being a performer but also being a performer to help give back in a way has continued. It doesn’t look exactly always like I have it pictured and there’s still so much more I want to do and grow. I feel pulled to do more in the performing industry but the fact that I’m able to do something somehow to really embrace that, giving back and highlighting people who are fighting for positive change is definitely a blessing. So that kind of answered the question but also to say that that passion has always been a part of my life.

Sofie: And mentioned what you started off wanting to do, with life happening has morphed and has ultimately changed. So what are some methods that have worked for you in making choices that reflect your passions? I know it’s one thing to have passions, to have what you want to do. But how can we connect that to the choices that we make every day?

Kate: I’m very fortunate to still be a performer on stage and screen as well as doing the podcast. So I feel very fortunate with that. But it’s definitely a very conscious choice and it requires a lot of sacrifice and a lot of hard work and the performing industry is filled with so much rejection.

So I think there’s a huge aspect of when you follow your passion, knowing that it’s not always going to be easy but to always be reminding yourself of the why and that idea of purpose. What am I here to do that’s greater than just me? Like for me, I mean I know I feel fulfilled when I’m on stage performing or on camera performing. But how does that make the other people feel and what am I doing for others? I still have a goal of being in Hallmark movies because quite frankly they are just happy and their purpose is just to make people feel good and I said, “Sign me up for that.”

So I would say that the passions that have led through my life are still here and are still growing and I’m still trying to find a way to maneuver all of it because I’m also in the fitness industry on the side as well.

So It’s a lot of balls in the air so to speak and there are many times that I say, “Why do I have so many passions?” I feel like it would be so much easier to just have one but at the same time I say no, it’s such a gift that I’m passionate about interviewing people. I’m passionate about being in musicals. I’m passionate about being in movies. I’m passionate about making people feel healthier and be healthier on the fitness side of things. All of it really does fall under a big umbrella of that motivation and the feelgood and all of that. But it is tricky to navigate at times for sure because life also costs money so there’s always that balance of that.

So I’m getting a little rambly here. But yeah, it’s just following your passions but knowing that it’s a challenge to do so but it’s so worth it.

Sofie: Right and you mentioned the other balls that you have flying in the air and you also work with top execs in Fortune 500 companies and so I would imagine that you get to see a very full picture of what they do to be successful. So from these interactions, how does passion foster success?

Kate: Oh, I love how you worded that. How does passion foster success? You know? Yeah, it’s interesting with the Fortune 500 execs that I train at 6:00 in the morning and they are very type A and they want the hardest workout and then they go to work and then they go home to their families and they live these very long days but have found so much success in their careers.

It’s interesting. I hope that that’s their passion. I think there’s such a focus on people in the performing arts. You do it because you love it. A lot of times I think finance gets looped into you do it because it’s what you do or it’s what makes you money. But to see the execs without having gone into like really deep conversations about why they do what they do in their jobs, to see how they enrich their life outside of work is so cool to me and was something that really struck me.

These people that are commuting in, a lot of them from outside the city, I did mention yeah, I’m in New York city. So a lot of them commuting in from outside of there. A lot of them have kids in sports and they have families at home and they still make the effort to show up for themselves every morning at the gym because they know that that is part of them being their best selves is so darn inspiring and there have been so many days when I’ve been really tired. I mean it’s hard to wake up at 5:00 in the morning and yet I’m reminded, no, look at these guys. They work out at 6:00 and then they go spend an entire day in the office and then go home to all their other responsibilities.

That’s really inspiring to me and it’s funny how it really does parallel then in the performing arts. There’s a lot more job changeover and very different schedule in performing arts of course, but that idea of you’ve got to spend the extra hours. You’ve got to show up when other people are too tired to show up. You’ve got to take care of your whole self and not just the job at hand.

It’s one thing to be a singer but it’s a whole other thing to be a singer who eats healthy because they know that food affects how they sing and how they feel, who works out because they know their body is their instrument and that all plays a role, who seeks those social connections like we talked about before.

I mean again, the whole health aspect and that’s something I really love about the fitness industry is I get to talk. I do a lot of health coaching as well and I get to talk to clients really about what goes on outside of the gym. You show up at the gym. That’s awesome. That’s needed. But then what are the other factors that are influencing your whole life? Because when we have the passions in order to really find our success, we need to be taking care of ourselves as well as the career.

Sofie: I love that you said that and I absolutely could not agree more with just really looking at the big picture and I think that’s what I took away from that as looking at the big picture and seeing how everything comes into play in our life, making sure that it’s not just, “OK, how am I doing in my career?” but “How am I doing in everything else? How is that affecting my career? How is that affecting my home life? How is that affecting my relationships?” and making sure that yes, we are paying attention to every single aspect because they matter and we need to make sure that we that we realize that because I mean I’ll be the first to say that sometimes I put way too much into work and then my social relationships suffer.

I noticed that it causes a drop in happiness level when I’m not connecting with people that I’m usually connecting with and so it’s about finding that balance absolutely. Along with that, what is one thing that our listeners should take away from this episode?

Kate: Oh, that one person can make a difference and I know we’ve hit the point home already. It doesn’t have to be make a difference for the entire state that you live in or the entire world but each of us has the power to make a difference somehow some way, whether it’s from the – I don’t even want to say smallest aspect but from simple things I guess we could say, everyday things.

Maybe we could say of just being kind to those around us too. I mean I know I had an episode of the podcast where I interviewed my aunt and it was one of the most popular episodes. It was just all about family and loving the people in your household and having that relationship and to people who are creating international nonprofits at the age of 60 because again, each of us has the power to make a difference so exploring your passions, finding what really lights you up in your soul and using that to just make the world and yourself a better place in in some way, shape or form because it’s possible for all of us.

Sofie: Right. No change is too small. Everything has an impact.

Kate: There you go, exactly. Yes.

Sofie: Thank you so much for sharing that and thank you again for coming onto the podcast Kate.

Kate: Oh Sofie, it’s my pleasure. Thank you so much for this platform.