Episode #36:

Sharing Your Heart with Starley Murray

Welcome back to Becoming Virtuosa, I’m so excited about the return of the podcast, and with it, a brand-new format. I’ll be welcoming all kinds of guests for conversations about all things healing and wellbeing to dive deeper into how we can become our better, healthier selves, going where the scalpel can’t go. And to kick things off this week, I’m welcoming a special guest and mentor, Starley Murray.

Starley is a national television producer and lifestyle entrepreneur, and she is also my media coach! She joins me to share her expert insights into how we can start sharing our hearts and sharing the love in a range of areas in our lives.

Tune in this week to discover what it means to share your heart in relationships, through your work, and through your standards. We discuss our personal experiences of sharing our hearts in these ways, and Starley shares her valuable tips for getting comfortable and confident in sharing your authentic work, your heart, and everything you have to offer with the world.

WHAT YOU’LL DISCOVER

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What it means to share your heart.

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Some of the common challenges when it comes to sharing your heart.

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Why you can have healthy boundaries while still sharing your heart.

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What stops us from sharing our heart through a business and feeling confident selling ourselves.

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How to develop confidence in sharing your heart with the world.

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The importance of sharing your heart, even when you think nobody is looking.

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Starley’s tips for sharing your heart with the world through your business.

FEATURED ON THE SHOW

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Starley Murray: Website | Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

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Zig Ziglar

TRANSCRIPT

Starley: There's power in vulnerability. Like we've talked about many times, it's okay to show the scar. It's not like you're showing the wound.

Dr. Crockett: Right. I love that saying. That's one of my favorite things that you taught me way back when we started working together.

Welcome to Becoming Virtuosa the podcast with Dr. Susan Crockett, you're listening to episode number 36, sharing your heart, a very special interview with celebrity image and brand expert and national TV producer Starley Murray.

Welcome to Becoming Virtuosa, the podcast that encourages you to become your best virtuosa self. Each week Dr. Susan Crockett goes where the scalpel can't reach, exploring conversations about how to be, heal, love, give, grow, pray, and attune. For the first time ever, she's bringing the personal one on one teaching that she shares with individual patients to you on this broader platform. A weekly source of inspiration and encouragement designed to empower you.

By evolving ourselves as individuals. we influence and transform the world around us. Please help me welcome board certified OB-GYN specializing in minimally invasive GYN surgery, internationally in the top 1% of all GYN robotic surgeons, a certified life coach, and US News top doctor, your host Susan A. Crockett, MD.

Dr. Crockett: This is my wonderful guest Starley Murray, national television producer and lifestyle entrepreneur. I'm so excited to have you on the show today Starley.

Starley: I'm really excited.

Dr. Crockett: So first of all, I want to introduce y'all to Ollie. This is Ollie, my little amazing dog. Our studio is called Ollie-wood Studios. He's the most important part of the show.

Starley: Yeah, we're all extras.

Dr. Crockett: We're all extras. Ollie is the thing. So we decided to start the show because I'm a physician. I'm actually a surgeon. I realized that there were a lot of conversations I was having with patients in the office privately that had nothing to do with surgery, right? We started having conversations about things that cause healing and wellbeing where the scalpel can't reach. So that kind of became the theme of this is how do we share those conversations for helping us become our better selves and healthier selves for those things where we're going where the scalpel can't go.

Starley: I love it. I love it. Well, and I'm just a walking talking testament to that, because that's how I originally met you was in the doctor's office and hearing those life changing comments and recommendations. Really more than that, just I saw the fact that you cared, and just in a deeper way than I see.

Dr. Crockett: Yeah. Thanks, Starley. So we decided we wanted to do a show. The format, as you can see, is very conversational. We're going to be having all kinds of guests on. We've got financial planners coming on. I've got other doctor friends coming on. I've got other female entrepreneurs coming on, authors.

Starley: Authors, speakers.

Dr. Crockett: Male, female authors, speakers.

Starley: Ollie.

Dr. Crockett: Ollie. We do you have a very special episode, Ollie episode. He was actually the first one. Yeah.

Starley: I know. I know. My cheeks are still hurting. I was smiling so big. Ollie, like you don't want to be on the same set as Ollie. He totally upstages you.

Dr. Crockett: That'll be coming up. That'll be fun. So welcome to the show. Welcome Starley Murray.

Starley: Thank you so much.

Dr. Crockett: So, today we're talking about sharing your heart.

Starley: Yes, yeah. You've always been very generous with your love and your praise with me, and then acknowledging that that's not just something I like to do with my hands like so many of us do. But thank you for always acknowledging me and seeing me.

Dr. Crockett: Well, you're welcome. I think that's maybe one of the most important things about what I wanted to share with our audience today is, this show didn't come about just because I thought oh, I want to expose myself to the whole world. No, I'm actually kind of camera shy. So you're also my media coach. This has been a long time coming.

But this really is coming from my heart wanting to share with you. So I see you. I want to get to know you a little bit better. If you find that this is something fun that you enjoy looking and you like our topics of conversation, I hope that you'll help us share that with others. Because this topic is really what the whole show is. It's sharing our heart, no matter what we do. That's how the whole thing came about.

Starley: Yeah, I know. There's that golden thread that's throughout many of your episodes. That's why it was just so cool that we started or had this first episode being specifically about sharing your heart. People will ask me all the time well, how do you share your heart with others, right? Because a lot of us share our love and our heart in different ways.

Dr. Crockett: Yep.

Starley: Right? We’re like acts of service and our family, you know?

Dr. Crockett: Yeah.

Starley: For me, if you feed me.

Dr. Crockett: She’s all in. Especially if it's vegetables.

Starley: Oh yeah, it goes a long way. I've got a secret greens thing.

Dr. Crockett: It’s not a secret anymore. Outed. So I have kind of a funny story about sharing my heart. I'm dating. That's ooh, that's a whole other episode. In fact, I think we have a guest that's coming up that we're going to do about dating over during middle age, but the sharing your heart with others when it comes to romantic relationships or that kind of relationship.

I've gotten my heart broken a couple of times. We got some stories, y'all. We got stories. Well, stay tuned. But some of the advice that I got recently was well, you just go into too much, both feet in. You should hold back a little bit. Don't go wholeheartedly into things. I just thought, you know what? That's just not me. I can't do it.

Starley: Well, that's the advice that the people that are closest to you that we want to give you because we love you, and we want to protect you. But I agree with you when you say you should just go for it.

Dr. Crockett: Yeah, like I would much rather have loved deeply, loved, and lost than not loved at all. Or you know what the other thing about it is? If you kind of go in tiptoeing and like halfhearted.

Starley: How does that work out?

Dr. Crockett: It just prolongs the agony if it doesn't work out. It doesn't make it better. It doesn't protect your heart. In fact, it may be worse because you go in longer.

Starley: Yeah, it doesn't give you your best start. That's no different than outside of the intimate dating relationships. That's just putting your heart out there for others in general. I know that a lot of times we want to be oh, I want to be careful what I say. I don't hurt someone's feelings. So I get that. Messaging is one thing, but just your energy and your demeanor and putting your heart out there is another. I think one of the biggest lessons that I got was literally from a, yes, I'm gonna say it, cassette tape.

Dr. Crockett: Oh, no.

Starley: That is a audio thing that you can, okay. I'm old. So yeah, Zig Ziglar was the first positive male role model voice I heard growing up.

Dr. Crockett: Ah, on a cassette tape.

Starley: Cassette tape. All I remember this man saying was you can have everything you want in life if you just help enough other people get what they want. I went well, that's cool because I already like to help people.

Dr. Crockett: That’s your nature is to be a helper. Yeah.

Starley: Yeah. There you go.

Dr. Crockett: So awesome.

Starley: Thank you, Zig Ziglar. Yeah, that's big touching moment to meet him too. Yeah. So first big fatherly hug I ever had and wouldn't trade it for a million bucks.

Dr. Crockett: That’s quite a hug.

Starley: Oh yeah, it was a million dollar hug from a dad.

Dr. Crockett: So what do you think are some of the challenges for sharing our heart? Because heartbreak is definitely one of the risks. Can you think of others?

Starley: Well, I thought of this interesting challenge because you know how we bring our heart into, like you said, full on with our relationships, right? Our family, intimate dating relationships. But in our business when is that that weird crossover?

Like I grew up in a family business. So we were so heart centered, heart first. But I think that you can have healthy boundaries and still share your heart. I remember a crazy, crazy gig that I did, a production gig, where it was one of those if we had an hour, I could literally tell you that many details of how many things went wrong and how hard it was. I'm gonna give you this 30 second version, which is not even that long.

Which is basically it was one of the hardest jobs I'd ever done. At any point in time, no one would have thought much if I would have walked off the set because a lot of other people walked off the set. It was a situation where people weren't being very good to the crew and all of that. But I thought, you know what? This isn't a reflection upon how they're treating me. This is a reflection of my standards. I was new. This was 25 plus years ago, and I stuck the whole gig out.

Dr. Crockett: You were like 12 years old.

Starley: I was. Here's your $50. Or is it $100? What is it? Oh, it’s wine. Yeah, sorry. Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah. When I was 12, I did that gig.

Dr. Crockett: And you stuck it out.

Starley: I stuck it out, and I did it just for those standards. But guess what ended up happening because I shared my heart during a challenge? I ended up getting called out by the producers of America's Most Wanted to work with them. Then I went from like makeup to set design to producing national TV just because they had heard of me on that one crazy job. So my tip on that is sharing your heart is do the right thing, even when you think nobody's looking.

Dr. Crockett: That's a great tip. Like I think we should put that up here. Tip number one. Yeah, that's awesome. Super cool. I love it. I think the other thing that is really important for us to talk about a little bit more is that importance of setting boundaries. Because like in this relationship thing that I'm going through, it's not like I'm going on like splashing myself all over the place. I'm certainly not the needy chick, probably the opposite.

So being wholehearted, or going into a relationship wholeheartedly, doesn't mean you don't do it without boundaries. So we do have our like protective bubble about where ourself ends and the other person begins.

Starley: Well, Doctor, I would say, though, that I totally respect what you're saying because you're talking about healthy boundaries, not push people away boundaries. As much as you are setting standards, and they're healthy. So I totally agree with you. That's where a lot of us get confused because we think a boundary is just shutting someone off, or maybe just protecting you and your bobble.

Dr. Crockett: It's not.

Starley: But that's actually about just establishing standards of how you think you should be treated. Yeah.

Dr. Crockett: How you'll interact with somebody in the world. So tip number two is set your boundaries.

Starley: Yeah, healthy boundaries for sure.

Dr. Crockett: Healthy boundaries.

Starley: Yeah, yeah. Ding. Oh, my gosh, you didn't say that I couldn't be dorky. That was not in the email.

Dr. Crockett: It was in the fine print. I'm sorry you missed it.

Starley: Darn. Too late now.

Dr. Crockett: Well, those are some good tips. You got any others for us?

Starley: Yeah. So let's see. I would say I'm gonna go back to that one about setting standards. Your viewers, and my viewers also, they're givers, helpers, healers, and they tend to put themselves out there so much that they are thinking well, if I do this, am I being taken advantage of?

You said, again, back to setting your own standards. I didn't leave that set because I didn't want that to be how I dealt with a challenge. Now, do I want to go back to another one of those? No. No, I learned the lesson, check mark. Feel good about it. Wow, we've got a hidden reciprocity or a hidden reward that I didn't expect.

Really, I was shocked, and it was a career changer for me. Because after starting to do the national producing and working with one celeb at that kind of national level than it was Schwarzenegger and Tommy Lee Jones, and the list goes on.

Dr. Crockett: Wow, what was that like?

Starley: Well, it was hilarious because they said, this was back before I was producing and I made some of those connections as the artist, as the image expert. They said, “Yeah, we understand that you're the top celebrity image expert we should work with.” As soon as I hung up, I told my assistant they think I'm a celebrity expert. I was like shh. Because it was a funky title.

But here's the cool thing is like earning people's admiration. I mean, I teach people about how to have an influencer brand. But it's not be a Just Add Water expert, spend a lot of money on marketing and branding, and then make yourself that. There's earning that. I've seen you. You've been walking the talk, and you have the years of experience, and the success stories in yourself and with others.

So yeah. When I always say if you're not branding yourself, other people brand you. Well, but still try to think about what is important to your target market and your audience, the people that you serve, and how are they going to think of you. So that just affects your language. But in the end, they're going to brand you. If they think that you are the great conversational, that you pull these great tips and stories out of people like you do. They're already thinking that.

Dr. Crockett: Yeah. That's a really good point. Thanks. So we're kind of blending into or running into different ways of sharing your heart. So kind of started with relationships. We've got our friendship relationship, which is amazing, and the romantic side partners, but we also share our heart through our businesses.

I don't want to forget that because I think so often when we're on our working day, and we're in our working mode, we tend to sometimes think of it just as a job. Not me, I just love what I do. It’s really fun. I call the OR my happy place, which is awesome. I tell this story frequently where over the years and seeing thousands of patients as a physician, you never have the choice of who is going to be on the other side of the door, right.

It's taken me a long time, but it's also molded who I am to learn how to open that door and just love whoever is on the other side. Meet them where they are, and take care of them and help fix them. So I think for me in the workplace, it's a very easy thing. I think for me on the camera, that's been a challenge. I'm learning that. That's another way of sharing your heart through business.

Not everybody can relate to sharing our heart through the camera and not everybody's going to be on camera, but some are. But everybody works. I think when we learn in our work life no matter what we're doing, what our employment is, or what we're doing. If we are able to start looking at our clients or the people that we serve with our heart and how we can serve them and help them, then it makes the workday a whole lot better for one, and the work environment with others better too.

Starley: I feel you. I definitely feel you. So sharing your heart and business, like you're saying, regardless of the camera situation. I mean a lot of people know me as the media trainer part. So that comes up a lot, but it doesn't matter whether you are in person, you're proctoring, you're on stage, you're training, one to one, groups. But many businesses serve to the point where they are going to be on a webcam or something. So I think the point about having that sharing your heart to camera is, if I don't have somebody there in person, how do I connect with them and really let them feel the things that they can't feel when they're not in person?

Dr. Crockett: Yeah. How can we help our audience feel part of this conversation?

Starley: Exactly. So I mean, for you, it's your audience. So you're going to reference them more by looking at the camera. For me, I'm going to look at you more because, as a guest, I would look at the host a little bit more. So those are just a couple of little tactical things. But let's – We think we’re vannas or something. I would say that just to go deeper that applies to everyone. For me I grew up in a house where don't be seen, don't be heard, because that'll be a bad difference. Right? You can't make a difference.

Dr. Crockett: Blend in and be quiet. Stay out of the way.

Starley: Right. Domestic violences and helping to caretake for my brother, co-parenting for quite a few years, about a decade. My main thought was I'm a person behind the scenes. That's why I produced and was production crew for over 10 years before I did the other 10/15, 20 years. You get to a point where you stop taking claim for all your credit.

I was like throw that page of resume away. That’s too many. That’s too many. Just go with the top one. Yeah. Because it's like, whoa, I'm old. But again, I love what I do. I love what I do. So I would say in closing on that is being seen, being heard, and making a difference. What are some tactical tips on that to make it easy?

One is you don't even think about the camera or the audience or other people watching when your main goal is to fall in love with them and serve them. A lot of times we fall in love with our service because I know that's, I get really proud, right? You've seen me over the years. I just, I want to look. We've got this. We've got that. I'm so excited.

But at any point in time, if it's about what I want to do and not what's important to you, I can't lose that connection. So I’d say fall in love with your client more than your service. Also, when you are in that moment, you don't even remember that there's a camera on you. Then the last thing I would say about that is that people forget flaws. They don't forget fakes.

So it's okay to make mistakes. In fact, some of my faux pas on a stage or camera or TV, that's the stuff that they like you because they get to see you being yourself or how you gracefully recover or how you are okay with your nerdiness, whatever.

Dr. Crockett: It’s your vulnerability, your authenticity.

Starley: Yeah, well, there's power in vulnerability. Like we've talked about many times, it's okay to show the scar. It's not like you're showing the wound.

Dr. Crockett: Right. I love that saying. That's one of my favorite things that you taught me way back when we started working together. At first, I had to think about it. Like what does that mean to show somebody the scar and not the wounds?

It really means not to show all the bloody mess and the gore behind it. It's to tell the story with the perspective of okay, this is something that happened. Here's what I learned. Here's what I'm sharing out of that story as my soul continues to grow on this journey. Thanks for sharing that part of you with me as I share mine with you.

Starley: Yeah. Well, misery loves company, but we'd all prefer to have like a leader of inspiration who can show you the way and give you these success tips and show you how not to stay in misery. So the other thing, the wound is almost a symbol of pride and achievement. I'm sorry, the scar. Whereas the wound is still going through it.

Here's just a little quick tip for a lot of us who aren't used to sharing our vulnerability in a moment, in a story, and in some sort of a tip. If you're reliving it to the point where it's making you not feel good in that moment, then that's where we want to have a little bit more work on ourselves.

Dr. Crockett: Some healing.

Starley: Yeah, a little more healing before we maybe do that sharing. It's okay to not do that. You do it when you're ready. But what you should be feeling is a sense of pride and empowerment that you're helping others not go down that path that you've been so you can save them some time and even save them the scar.

Dr. Crockett: Yeah, I've got a great example of a scar. I didn't even share this with you.

Starley: Oh, no.

Dr. Crockett: Okay, I don't know if you can see it, but I put some makeup on it. I have a scar right here, right.

Starley: Near your heart.

Dr. Crockett: Near my heart. There's a scar here. It's so stupid. Somebody asked me the other day like where did you get that scar from? Well, it's from vanity. How stupid is that, right? So I used to do these face peels, right. They're pretty strong acid face peel. When I was younger, before transitioning into menopause, my skin could handle it.

The last time I did one, the skin was too delicate for it, and it actually burned it. So, I'm not gonna sit here and tell you about all the gory details and cry about it, because that would be being in the wound of it in the moment. But the way I share this scar story is I got this little reminder here that my beauty is not external. Also not to do the face peels anymore on my skin because it just can't handle it anymore.

Starley: The cool thing about sharing say even that specific story is you're a doctor, right? A lot of people will say oh that makes me feel better, and I can relate to you more because I do stuff like that. I think about my look, you know what? We’re all a bunch of little easter eggs, and we can decorate ourselves however we want, right? It's okay if we want to do peels or not do peels. There shouldn't be judgment with all that.

But when you did have some sort of an oopsie, it does actually make people feel better because not only are they going down similar paths, but then they feel this camaraderie or that they can relate to you. Like oh, I didn't know she thought about stuff like that too. They kind of see you as oh, I'm Dr. Crocker, you know?

Dr. Crockett: I mean thank you.

Starley: Yeah. We had to teach each other that one. Yeah, it was like that other phrase I love. I have to do versus I get to do.

Dr. Crockett: I know. Well, that's a really good one that I use a lot in my office too.

Starley: I have to correct myself all the time. So when I catch myself saying I have to do this, I go I get to do. I reframe that in my head. Because if it's something I don't want to do then I should have maybe look at some different life choices.

Dr. Crockett: Yeah. Yeah. Not everybody gets to do the day. Every day is a gift.

Starley: Yeah. Yeah. I wanted to say that I love the way that you share your heart with not just your audience, but with your guests. I'm going to out you since, did you see that?

Dr. Crockett: Did you see it?

Starley: Oh, oh. Nobody can get, only media trainers can get those reactions within a split second. But I want to tell people that I've been on over 3,000 television productions.

Dr. Crockett: That's amazing.

Starley: Okay, and I'm a record holder for lifestyle appearances on local and nationally syndicated TV. I can't remember going into one of them where I got greeted in the same way that you greet me, which is to come in the door, and you call it a vortex.

Dr. Crockett: Yeah.

Starley: She lures you in with your favorite foods, and yes. You like how I say lures? Because we always have lures like where we give free content stuff. So you give me free snacks.

So well you get people comfortable, and then you do you have a collaborative moment where you talk about what are we going to share with the audience? It's not an overly structured with scripts or anything like that. We'll hit a couple of bullets, maybe. But we break bread, so to speak.

Dr. Crockett: Literally. Like I think that's one of the most important things about how our show has evolved. It's taken us a long time to get to where we are here. I think that having people come in and eating together and sharing stories and getting to know each other over the food for that hour or two before we come up here to the studio. I think that is the thing, that sharing that heart and sharing the healthy food is like a huge dopamine endorphin lifter. Then out of those conversations, we get to curate what we want to share with the audience on this 30 minute podcast. I think that's my niche. I think we found a niche.

Starley: I love it. Yeah, I've got a little hidden cameras down there in the kitchen. This angle and that angle. Here's the food camera, and then here's the vortex camera.

Dr. Crockett: The counter, the table. Where everything happens energy.

Starley: You've got all your virtuosas and your virtuosos that you cultivate into your vortex, and you have that collaboration. It's very unique, and that's one of the things that I think for a unique selling proposition. I'm sorry, it's the branding person me or just.

Dr. Crockett: She can't help it.

Starley: I can't help it. Yeah, nerd alert. But just being an audience member and in saying, Wow, how does she get so much rapport. Is she best friends with everyone that she puts on that set? Because not everyone did you have you don't as much rapport with. I don’t want to say rapport, but I'll just say long term relationships. It's just classic how you do that. It's awesome.

Dr. Crockett: Thank you. Yeah, I'm excited about moving forward with that, branching out, and actually sharing more meals and healthy conversations with more and more people. So if you guys have ideas about, oh, Ollie’s had enough.

Starley: Ollie has an idea.

Dr. Crockett: Ollie has an idea. He's like I'm going to the other side to take a nap. If you guys have interesting ideas about who you'd like to see on the show, or who you'd like to see me have a conversation for or with, just let me know.

Starley: I think that’s awesome. I think that we should, you're just gonna kill me. I'm like I think we should recipes too.

Dr. Crockett: Oh.

Starley: Because I want to see the guest comments in with what was eaten that day.

Dr. Crockett: Oh, that's interesting.

Starley: I think it's really cool. Like, I didn't ask permission to out her on that. But the thing is she's just incredibly brave. So, I mean, I know you as a top robotics surgeon, and you like to throw a shoe at me when I try to. I have to stand really far away when I'm like what is it? It's like, no way, less than 1% or the one percentile. I never get it perfect because she tries to interrupt me every time.

But your credentials are huge. So, the last thing people expect is you're going to be in there cooking with your heart. You are in there serving it up on a plate, my friend.

Dr. Crockett: It's so much fun. I never have been somebody who cooks. You know my story that I went whole food plant based. Well, mostly whole food plant based about a year ago.

Starley: We’re gonna get shirts that say mostly vegan.

Dr. Crockett: Mostly vegan. Not crap vegan. Not Cheetos.

Starley: Good vegan.

Dr. Crockett: Good vegan. No refined stuff. So that's a whole other topic for another show. But I think the point is, we've been able to cultivate that healing food. Food as a medicine into the conversations and incorporate that into the show, which is about becoming your best, your virtuosa self.

Starley: It is. It is. Actually, it fits nicely. So we've got the intro to the show of what The Dr. Crockett Show is about, and that common thread of heart and love. Then your particular, your seed that's this one, right, on love. So our segment today, like sharing your heart to the world, to yourself through challenge and even in business because you gotta have heart in business.

Then lastly, and most importantly, is how you pull it all together behind the scenes, what people can't even see and how you collaborate, and that is with love. So coincidentally, the vortex and the food that you put together is just a way to pull us all closer together. It's makes it really special moments. It's something I know not everybody gets to see. So I had to say that. So thank you for that so much.

Dr. Crockett: Thank you Starley. I think this is the way businesses are evolving. I think we're on the edge of evolution, a societal revolution. I think in the past businesses haven't always had heart. Capitalism is a nasty word to some people. I think what we're seeing is more and more people looking at the purpose and the people and at sharing their heart as the main thing instead of the money being the main thing. Money will flow when you do the right thing and treat people the right way. So.

Starley: Yeah. Yeah. Well, definitely. I mean people think brands are cool, but people are inspired by people.

Dr. Crockett: Yep. Well, thank you for being my first guest Starley. I'm so grateful. What a fun show. Thanks for joining us. Yeah, I hope you'll like, share, come see us next week.

Starley: Yeah, thank you.

Dr. Crockett: You're welcome. Bye.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Becoming Virtuosa. To learn more, come visit us at DrCrockett.com, or find us on YouTube for the Dr. Crockett Show. If you found this episode helpful or think it might help someone else, please like, subscribe, and share. This is how we grow together. Thanks, and I'll see you next week. Love always, Sue.

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