Music Industry Executive Grace Harry wants to show you how to break through whatever creative or emotional rut is keeping you from tapping into your ability to feel true joy in your life.
She knows how to guide creative people because that’s what she did for 30 years while guiding musicians and artists at Island Def Jam and Jive Records.
Now Grace Harry is “The Joy Strategist’ – sharing her authentic self and what she learned to help you get you to where she had to get herself… back to center, dismantling your ego and culturally conditioned limiting beliefs.
Grace said,
“I realized I had to get off the ride. And it wasn’t the ride to penalize anyone else, it was more where I wasn’t taking full responsibility for my own, you know, being the chief energy officer of my own life. And so if I have gotten this place in life where I’ve achieved all these things from other people’s version of success, why did I feel so joyless? And what kind of strategy could I put in place to change that? Because I believe very clearly that your children do as you do, not as you say, and I would never want them to have even more crap in their family karma backpack than I’d already given them.”
I thought Grace’s comment about ‘family crap in the backpack ‘ was a loud one. Giving yourself permission to see yourself in a new way is what Grace is trying to get at. I think we all have struggled with this at some point. We have preconceived notions of who our parents want us to grow up to be, our friends expect us to be, and who we expect ourselves to be. When in fact it may not be who we are supposed to be, and at what point do you realize you have permission to change…and can you? Because there are always relationships involved, finances involved, other people involved that your choices will affect. Which is exactly why I don’t own a Tiki Bar on some island!…Yet. LOL
Good thought provoking book and conversation you might want to explore. Here’s the link to ‘The Joy Strategist’ book on Amazon.
Meet Grace Harry in this podcast of our live conversation on The Debbie Nigro Show on WGCH Radio. If you’d rather listen the transcript is below.
If you want to catch the show it airs Weekdays 11-12 noon ET in the NY/CT area on 1490 on the dial. But you can listen from anywhere, just hit the ‘Listen Live’ button on WGCH.com
Photo Backpack Woman Credit: Image by 12138562 from Pixabay
AUDIO TRANSCRIPT:
0:00:00
And now, back to the Debbie Nigro Show.
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0:00:03
I had a premonition that this guest today would be just the right guest to kick off a Monday here on the Debbie Nigro Show.
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0:00:09
Hi guys, how you doing?
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0:00:10
You know me, I’m all about finding the light in the dark, putting hope in the day, and I gravitate toward people who are like, okay, I’m going to figure this out for myself and you too.
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0:00:20
You know, life is tough, right?
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0:00:22
So there’s a music industry executive, her name is Grace Harry, if you haven’t heard of her, you’re going to now, and she wants to show you guys how to break through whatever creative or emotional rut is keeping you from tapping into your ability to feel pure joy in your life. She knows how to guide people. She’s been doing it for, well she did it for 30 years. She guided musicians and artists at Island Def Jam and Jive Records and now she’s the joy strategist. Very authentic book she’s written to help you get to where she had to get to herself which is back to center by dismantling your ego and culturally conditioned limiting beliefs, I hate those things. Grace Harry how are you? I’m wonderful thank you thank you for having me on. Yeah, you’re my kind of girl Grace Harry you had me thinking this morning I think your book has got everybody thinking. I love hearing that. Yes. You know what you made me think about? It was hysterical. One of the first things you wrote in the book, it was, what cartoon character are you and like what is the song in your heart? I’m like, I spent ten minutes trying to think of what cartoon character I am and what the song in my heart.
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0:01:57
Did you find one?
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0:01:58
What did I come up with? I think I did. I came up with, in fact, I have, you really screwed me up this morning because I was reading about cartoon characters, trying to see where I fit into the whole thing. And who did I come up with? It was somebody with a big heart. Who was that? Oh, Fairy Godmother. Yeah, which one? Well, whoever’s trying to grant wishes, that’s who I am in the cartoon world. Blenda. Fairy godmother.
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0:02:28
Maybe Glenda.
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0:02:29
Oh yeah, I’m the good witch. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m the good witch. Who are you? Who are you in the line-up of cartoon characters that you made people think about? You know what’s funny?
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0:02:39
I played this game with my kids a lot and so I decided that I’m… Do you remember the Powerpuff Girls?
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0:02:46
Yeah, I do.
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0:02:48
I want to be the bad guy, Mojo Jojo. He always seemed to just make them lean into more like uniting with each other. Even though he was trying to like torture them and just doing whatever he thought he was doing, he always made them closer and so I’m Mojo Jojo.
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0:03:04
Okay, Mojo Jojo. I like that name. I like how you dedicated your book, you said, to the breaking open of your heart in many different directions. You opened explaining that you were recently separated with two kids. I was a single mom. There’s a lot of women out there who have been through an awkward transition in their romantic life where they are standing there. It’s scary. Somehow, that scary moment led you to this happy moment. Do you want to talk a little bit about the journey?
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0:03:31
Yes.
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0:03:32
I wish I were that brave that that first scary moment led me here, but it wasn’t. It was like the hamster wheel of a third divorce. And now adults have small children and gift children, and I just, I realized I had to get off the ride. And it wasn’t the ride to penalize anyone else, it was more where I wasn’t taking full responsibility for my own, you know, being the chief energy officer of my own life. And so if I have gotten this place in life where I’ve achieved all these things from other people’s version of success, why did I feel so joyless? And what kind of strategy could I put in place to change that? Because I believe very clearly that your children do as you do, not as you say, and I would never want them to have even more crap in their family karma backpack than I’d already given them.
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0:04:17
Yeah, that’s nice, a family crap in the backpack. That’s a good one. It’s about giving yourself permission to see yourself in a new way. I think we all struggle with this. We all have preconceived notions of who our parents want us to grow up to be, our friends expect us to be, who we expect ourselves to be. You get on a path and you’re like, okay, this is who I’m supposed to be. And when in fact it may not be who you are supposed to be, at what point do you realize you have permission to change and can you? Because there’s always finances involved, relationships involved, people involved.
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0:04:46
It’s tough.
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0:04:47
A hundred percent, Carly. I think, you know, there’s so many answers to that, but I think the big important thing here, and I really want people to walk away with, is that we have to be open as a world that two…with a concept that two opposing forces can both be true. We’re seeing that in the world at large, and we’re seeing that in our own hearts, right? Outer systemic change only begins with inner systemic change. So, what these people, meaning your first-time amateur adult parents and all the other people on your caregiving team, maybe gave you things that they felt would help you survive. And without penalization of them, it’s time for us to look inside our own hearts and say, what do we actually need? And the permission is real because as I say, I’m a recovering people pleaser, fear of rejection item. It took me a long time to even believe that I could be a decent person, I could be a good person, if I weren’t in service to everyone else’s dream. And even taking a step in this book is mainly… What do you say?
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0:05:46
I’m sorry. I think there are many more people than you realize who can accept and appreciate that comment that many people spend their lives trying to please other people or do for others. They think that’s how they win in life and find themselves empty. And you very clearly said joy is the paradigm shift. So how does somebody start getting in that direction?
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0:06:09
Yes, how you start getting in that direction is remembering that first of all fact checking. That’s a big joke in our world now with internet and stuff. Nothing is fact checked. I’m 53. So, when I was a kid everything was fact checked. Like if it weren’t fact checked and didn’t have a stamp of approval. So now let’s use that freedom of life to lean into our own beliefs and our own heart and what’s true? What did our parents and our family and our communities at large or the marketing and propaganda of this world give us as a belief that maybe isn’t true for us? And I believe that the permission and the entitlement and a good friend of mine said the other day when I was talking about having these conversations, he added the word endowment. And I love that word because it’s such a good people pleaser word because if you can’t access permission or if you can’t access these things that give your heart permission to lean into its joy then you get the concept that we’re endowed with something. Your kids do as you do not as you say so you have to be the person inspiring other people that you feel good about in your heart. You have to walk around as that illumination of joy to inspire people to have that same permission and same belief. So, yeah, it’s in a systemic change. We have to make it a trend.
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0:07:23
You got me with some of the things in the book you try to get people to do. Like you said, my eulogy. This is crazy. You started writing your own eulogy, but you make a really loud point. Can I just read a little bit of it?
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0:07:38
Please.
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0:07:39
Okay.
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0:07:40
Grace Harry, who’s with me now, the joy strategist, after 30 years in the music industry business, top exec, is now trying to show you what she needed to do to get back to joy, all right? So, she said, maybe writing your eulogy is a good idea. And I’m like, wow. She says, celebrating the life of Grace, aka Applehead. She was the daughter, the granddaughter of the wife, the mother of, born in Staten Island, raised in Brooklyn, a wild cat of a human, deliciously curious, constantly joyful, full of passion and light, lived her life in dedication to service, the first fifty to all, transcended to live the second half in service as the embodiment of joy. I think writing something like this, which most people get creeped out with the eulogy, but something like that, or you said, you know, and then war goes to. And writing down what people would say about you could tell you what you don’t want to be talking about anymore and what you’d like to be stuck in there that someone said about you, if you were going to be really honest with yourself. I think it’s a great exercise, Grace.
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0:08:38
Well, that teaches me a lot about you.
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0:08:39
You’re a very brave person, because most people do not go to that exercise first, but it really does cut through it. I mean, how many of you have thought of someone who’s no longer here, and what do we lean into about them? Were they a person who blah blah blah, they’re a person who and I was a person who made sure everyone else was good. So I would like my eulogy from other people to now be she played, she had fun, she you know enjoyed her life and it really gives you the opportunity to think how do I want to be seen in the world and how do I want to I want to see myself? So I love that that’s happened for you and it means that I need to hear your eulogy or you’re going to have to say it to me.
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0:09:17
What do you think about it?
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0:09:19
Yeah, you know what I’ve been thinking about lately because as time goes on, the longer you live on this planet, the more people who pass, the more you hear their, you know, you read about them and you read about the accolades and you see, you know, everybody types their RIP, but what the heck does it mean? They’re gone, it’s over and people move on with their lives. Obviously the closer the loss, the harder it is to move on. If you lose somebody you really love, I mean it takes a long time, sometimes you never get over it. But the fact that once it’s done, it’s done, should make people step back and say really, was I living for that mention of what they’re going to say about me or am I missing the boat right here, right now while I am here, right now?
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0:09:57
Well I have to say everything you’re saying, unfortunately and fortunately, is very advanced math. People are not even there. You know, this concept of making a stand is radical in itself because people want to be claimed by their tribe and their family and they don’t want to rock the boat. So, you know, this is why I really went into the word joy because every spiritual faith, every religious concept has some version of joy and responsibility to be a joyful neighbor or a joyful partner or a joyful parent. So how do we actually become that great love of ourselves? How do we make ourselves our own client, our own parent, our own lover? Whatever’s gonna inspire you to treat yourself as well as we treat other people. So I wish everybody was where you are, like I want my life to mean this at the end. But it really starts with just a very beginning permission to feel better.
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0:10:52
Well, you know, you’re bringing up a very loud point and I think your book is very thought provoking. I’m gonna recommend it, The Joy Strategist, because even though I sound like, you know, I got it all together, I know what I’m talking about, part of me would like to leave town and say to my daughter and my grandkids and everybody else, I love you guys, but I’m gonna get that tiki bar in like some island somewhere, and I’m sorry I can’t come this week and babysit because Grammy’s going to the islands, but I don’t do it, you know, so I’m not really being true to myself, I’m doing it more to, you’re making a lot of people think about really how honest you’re being with yourself and what are the choices, right?
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0:11:25
Well, you have to be.
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0:11:26
I mean, the only person who’s lying to you is you in there. And so I’m going through the same thing, I’m 53, and I’m starting to feel this new wave of adult children pull. And it is an interesting thing to figure out, okay I know this is my most important job, you know, setting them up with the backpack of things, the journey in their own life here, but also how do I maintain the practices that keep me feeling delicious? And that is hard because you learn math in kindergarten, now this is like life calculus because I’m still learning how to untangle the people-pleasing. So as with in my 28-year-old daughter, my life coach, she said to me, I need you to stop making everyone else’s situation your number one worry, even me. You know, and that was an interesting, it was embarrassing in a weird way and then also gave me such a gorgeous question to, oh yeah, clearly she’s gotten some of the messaging and how do I actually take this show on the road and be honest about what my heart wants all the time? Even the mean people I love are going to be uncomfortable.
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0:12:33
Yeah, I know that. So this book just came out and now you’re telling everybody about it and you know, I think that you’re hitting a real nerve or six or ten. There’s no game if you don’t play it. We sometimes unintentionally choose small. Some really, really good lines and of course your quote of Muhammad Ali which he said service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth yes yes of course I loved him I was a huge fan but boy you stir you stir sure make people start thinking about loving themselves more and taking some more time to be honest and taking some time so Grace Harry the joy strategist well
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0:13:11
done thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
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0:13:16
Really nice having you here on The Debbie Nigro Show. To be continued, I will put it out there so everybody knows about it. And I wish you the best of luck and a lot of joy.
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0:13:26
Thank you. I hope to hear youre at a tikki bar next time I talk to you.
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0:13:30
Okay, you’ll come and have a drink with me. Have a great day. Okay, Okay, bye-bye. Grace Harry, the joy strategist. More to come next.
Transcribed with Cockatoo
