E6 S1| Sally Wolf on Dancing Through Cancer and Using Positive Psychology to Thrive Amidst Life’s Challenges

In today’s episode of the Sick and Seeking Podcast, I sit down with Sally Wolf, a wellbeing advisor, advocate, and speaker, who empowers others to thrive personally and professionally through her company, LightWorks.

Sally shares her journey as a breast cancer patient and now Stage IV thriver, leaning into healing through positive psychology, which she began studying after her first diagnosis in 2016.

Join us as Sally reflects on her seven years with breast cancer, discussing how she has danced her way through adversity and found meaning in life’s challenges.

Conversation Highlights:

• Dance as Healing: Sally discusses how dance became a significant part of her healing journey after receiving her first cancer diagnosis in 2015.
• Flourishing Tools: We explore how self-awareness and effective tools can support us in challenging moments.
• Listening to Intuition: Sally shares the importance of trusting your body and intuition, even when medical professionals may not express concern.
• Post-Traumatic Growth: We highlight Sally’s journey of resilience and the importance of recognizing personal growth after trauma.
• Career Pivot: Sally discusses her work in bringing positive psychology into the corporate world.

Quotes:

“Dance helps you speak with your body and quiets the overthinking mind.” - Sally

“I have the responsibility to share my story and connect with others because other people did that for me.” - Sally

Connect with Sally:
Website | LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook

Resources:
Sally’s dance teacher 
Sally in Allure
Positive Psychology - Where Sally Studied

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Transcript

leslie_field (00:03.874)
Hello, Sally, how are you today?

sally_wolf (00:07.138)
I'm great, how are you?

leslie_field (00:08.974)
I'm doing well. I'm so happy because I love speaking with you, Sally. You're one of my dearest, most lovely people in my life. So I have Sally Wolf with me today who's going to be sharing her story all about herself. And I think the best way to start is always talking about how we met. So we met in, dancing, through sort of what we would say erotic, sensual, feminine movement, I believe is a good way to maybe describe it. And we're currently still taking movement classes with Erin Pace. So

I just love dancing with you, Sally, and it's such a pleasure to have you here today with me.

sally_wolf (00:43.3)
Thank you, and you touched on it a little, but it's always a gift to meet someone in that kind of environment where you're just immersed in an activity you love and I love, and you really get to know someone in a very different way than at a cocktail party or a networking event or a job or whatever else it may be.

leslie_field (01:03.222)
I mean, absolutely. And we know each other very well, but we're not going to go into that completely. So I know in 2006, you started your dance journey and I think it's going to lend itself to kind of leading into who you are and sort of the journey and path that you've been on for these past few years. And I love how you say that doing dance helps you speak with your body and quiets the overthinking mind. And I also love that you said that it helps you tap into something that you loved as a child. So tell me about...

sally_wolf (01:07.93)
Thanks

leslie_field (01:32.748)
dancing because I think it's been a part of your healing story, if I have that correct.

sally_wolf (01:38.142)
It has been. I discovered, I mean, I was not a dancer. Let me back up a sec. you know, childhood, I grew up in a town where I must have gone to like 80 bat mitzvahs in seventh grade because that's what Long Island was. And I was never someone who felt uninhibited dancing. Like that whole dance like nobody is watching was not me. And then, you know, getting older in college or as I went to wedding after wedding, I always felt a little self-confident.

just on the dance floor, but...

It was really fascinating because a friend of mine in 2006 invited me to a what at the time was a pole dancing class before it was a thing. Like it was brand new at the time. Now it's sort of popped up. There've been a ton of studios, but it was this central movement class involved a pole. It had been marketed. I had seen the announcement because I had received an email from Daily Candy, a very popular at the time.

Daily Blast that I got and I pressed delete so quickly. I was like, there is no way I'm doing this. And a friend of mine actually forwarded it to a bunch of us, asked us all to go, told us it was the best thing. She had done it in LA. I said no. I actually said I went back and looked because it became such an important part of my life. I said, you're hilarious, huh? That's all I wrote. And she kind of persisted and I ultimately tried it and...

It was such a lesson to me in really embracing the unknown and just being open-minded about something. So the class itself was a sensual movement class. You now know it well as well. And so it was sort of like a sensualized Pilates and yoga. I was not a Pilates or yoga person, but there was something really cool about being told to slow down and take your hair down and not work out with your hair up.

sally_wolf (03:37.024)
embrace something in a class setting. I actually had this moment, so I was like lifelong academic geek, loved school, have a lot of degrees. And I kind of was like, hmm, maybe the reason I never liked the gym was I should have tried classes. There was something to me about the sharing of energy in a room, about having a teacher.

no joke, I kind of still like to be the teacher's pet. It was like, there was college and then there was dance class and like I put my mat right next to the teacher and show up early and do all the assignments and find all the cool outfits and clothing and that part was really fun. the poll, which I actually thought, hmm.

I don't think I'm going to touch that. There's a societal judgment of that that I came in with, like so many people might. But then I saw how much fun it looked like the teachers who did the demonstration were having. And I did that first trick and flew around that pole. And all of a sudden, I had this connection to the uneven bars that I did as a kid. And so.

That for me was like my favorite sport as a child that very rarely can you do as an adult. it's, right? How many times do you hear your friends say, I'm going to go to my gymnastics class now. And so that for me was, was a real invitation to just kind of rediscover something that I had loved for a really long time in a different way.

leslie_field (05:12.142)
Absolutely. And you know, it's funny when you were telling me how much you love the pole part, I've never shared with you that I had really very little interest in the pole. Of course, I wanted to try it. Of course, I wanted to learn all the tricks, but I very quickly noticed. I was like, it hurts. I don't want to do that. And so I always loved the dancy portion, the portion. So it's kind of perfect now, at least for me. I'm I'm loving it. You might miss the pole a bit, but now we're working with Erin Pace on Zoom.

sally_wolf (05:28.631)
Thank

sally_wolf (05:40.132)
Well, right.

leslie_field (05:41.26)
So Erin's going to come on my podcast later and yeah. Yeah. She's, Erin's going to come. Yeah, no, we'll fix that. It's like a delay. It's fine. I was going to say that, yeah, we're, we're, we are working with Erin Pace now over zoom and I'm not really missing the pole. I am loving just the dancing. I'm a full out dancer.

sally_wolf (05:44.856)
I was just gonna say in the part of the... Sorry, go ahead.

sally_wolf (06:07.268)
So that's something that I had.

sort of grown into in the studio as well. think part of the challenge with the dancing part of class early on for me was I can remember like any date for anything, but you want me to try to remember choreography for a dance routine and it's not happening. So if you remember very early on, there was this routine. I think maybe I could learn eight steps, but then, you know, there were eight more and I was like, okay, well I can either learn like steps one through eight or like nine through 16.

but not all. And so that for me never, it disconnected me from the part of dance which is so awesome, which is the ability to not be in your head, right? To actually be embodied, but the choreography part got me. So once we had been doing it long enough that we moved on to like the improv style of dance, which is all you and I do now, it was incredibly liberating because I didn't have to

Remember anything now I will say I remember very very early on like probably back in 2006 when our class was gonna graduate to improv Here's my overthinking mind in action, huh? How am gonna improv?

What am I gonna improv? And so I picked the song, Total Eclipse of the Heart, because there are lyrics that talk about turnaround. And I felt like if I forgot to do anything improv, I would just keep listening to the song and just kind of do whatever. So that's not quite improv either, but like, you know, there's usually a Sally nuance to a Sally style of something that will make me more comfortable. But the dance part, to your point,

sally_wolf (07:52.394)
What a gift. And you alluded to this earlier when you were giving the intro. I am someone who is an over thinker and very cerebral and spent, I think I discovered dance, was 30. And I had spent three decades.

really, really over-indexing on my brain. Right? Like, I used my head a lot. I actually just got a gift mug. I don't have it handy. I can't show you, and I know the listeners can't see it anyway, but it says, Excel is my love language. I just received this as a gift earlier this week, and I texted the person who sent it to me, and I said, I love it. That's so something I would say. And she said, it was something you said. Like, that's why I made you the mug. And so...

I really think a lot and walk into a class and learn to speak with my body and be as articulate with my body as I can be with my mouth. And actually, I will argue, be more articulate with my body so that in four minutes, a four minute song, right,

There can be the accessibility of such a huge range of emotion, potentially the entire spectrum, right? A song can start and I could feel sad when I walk in the door and need to work through frustration in a moment or anger or irritation or whatever it may be. And then there's that release.

And that release is like a toddler would release, but that us overthinking adult humans kind of don't do a great job of releasing in quote unquote real life. But in that studio, in that four minute song, I could get through all that darker emotion kind of stuff and suddenly be like, you know, a kid like dancing in a field of flowers, like envisioning like, you know, balloons in my hand kind of like rising up and on my feet and.

sally_wolf (09:54.866)
feeling really good. And that can literally happen in like what four minutes, even three minutes. Like there are some songs that are two and a half minutes that I used to shy away from because like I wanted my full four minutes. But in reality, if it connects me to my body, it could be a minute or two and I can get to a place that would have felt unthinkable if I tried to, you know, think my way there.

leslie_field (10:24.343)
Totally. my goodness, Sally, you know, you've been in so many classes with me. The big thing for me with dancing, I've always danced since I... I've danced since I was a kid and I always loved it. And then I lost it throughout the years for different reasons. And again, I was sort of introduced similar to you to this class. I was more, maybe a little bit more open because I liked to move, but I was like, what is this? But as soon as I was there and I knew it was the... this was going to be...

a really big key to sort of unlocking something for me that was very potent and powerful. And I was going to go here and say it, but you've seen me cry a lot in these classes. I mean, the amount of tears. It's quite embarrassing, but I've worked through a lot of my shame around it. And I'm really grateful that I found something that was helping me release a lot of trapped emotion. And

It's hard to explain how healing dance has been for me. But like you said, and we take Erin Pace's class, she talks about moving those emotions through our body. And I like how one time she told me, it's like kids, know, kids, they move so quickly through emotion. They run, they're happy, they see a butterfly, they're like excited about their toy truck, and then they fall, they scrape their knee, they cry, they wail, they get a little cuddle from maybe their parent.

And then they go and they notice that there's a cute little doggy and they're going to go pet the doggy. So like, I love how Aaron says, you know, kids are usually really great at just move those, those emotions. But as adults, we kind of get stuck or, I don't have time to feel that. Or that's not a productive way to be. If I am sad or angry, I cannot work or do all the things I'm supposed to do. So I love that dance just for me. And it sounds like you just dispelled that and we can just feel it all.

sally_wolf (12:15.38)
Yes, and I would add to that. yeah, kids are great teachers, right? Because when we see that ability to kind of transition through that all, it's great. And also just to be compassionate to ourselves because kids also have kid brains. And our brains as adults are wired to hold on and to like ruminate and to really live in the stuff that

we don't really want to be living in, but there's a negativity bias and it's tied to like fight or flight from our animal predecessors and it used to serve us and it doesn't serve us anymore, but.

We kind of need to learn the tools and dance for both of us is one of those tools to really be able to move through it because biologically, we're kind of like not set up for success unless we kind of figure out for each of us what are the tools that are going to enable me to really flourish. And some of that is to stop the mind chatter. And there are different tools for that. And like in my day job when I'm not

having fun podcast conversations. This is something I actually do within companies and we can talk more about that later. But like the little teaser for you now is we need to learn what works for us. And part of it is actually feeling like right naming and navigating the feelings when they happen, which is what the kids do. They're not naming it in a conscious way, but they're just expressing it. And so as adults, we can be better about that. And also we can learn how do I set myself up for better success so that I am doing that.

us more often. And to your point, not only when we need healing, because it's great to access it when we need healing, but also how are we doing that every day of our lives so that we don't get to a moment where we need healing and we're first figuring this out, right? We've already like built a foundation, which is what actually for me dance became because

sally_wolf (14:23.226)
I ultimately have been navigating cancer for six and a half years. And the moment of that first diagnosis in late 2015, I'd been dancing for

almost 10 years. that was really interesting because nine plus years of dance for a lot of people is quote unquote enough. They've learned all the things they can learn. They don't necessarily view it as a practice. There were people who would come in and want to master each pole skill or kind of get to a certain place and then they were good. And it's easy in some moments to

to feel like, okay, maybe I am complete. Like, I've gotten to this great place of self-awareness and introspection. I really know my body. Maybe I should go try something else. But what happens with all of us is life evolves. So we're never complete with our growth because even if I got kind of like, quote unquote, all the way there, right?

then I got a cancer diagnosis. Or for someone else who might have felt all the way there two and a half years ago, they got a pandemic, right? We all did. Or a layoff or, right, fill in the blank. Everyone has different stuff, but we all have something. There's a universality to that. so for me, having this foundation of dance and embodiment and add to that,

It's a really feminine, sensual movement. And I was diagnosed with breast cancer. So within two months of that diagnosis, I had lost both my breasts. had, well, I knew I was gonna need chemo, so I was about to lose my hair. And I would argue that...

sally_wolf (16:23.382)
At least for me, and I think for many women, the body parts that are sort of the most feminine, the most outwardly feminine, people see us as women presenting as a cis woman. It's those parts. And so it was this interesting thing because here I was losing mine. My breasts were lost forever and my hair for a while.

And yet I had this practice that let me very, very safely explore that changing body in what I kind of called my lab, right? Like which a lot of cancer patients aren't lucky enough to have. And you've mentioned Erin's name. So at that point, Erin and I had been probably friends for almost a decade. She was the first person in the world who knew I had cancer.

All three times I was diagnosed and I felt incredibly safe exploring that with her and having this space to be okay with what wasn't okay. Like it's an incredibly bizarre experience to have that kind of a surgery and

lose parts of your body. I mean, just like it's changing every day after surgery, like the healing process, the nerve regeneration. It's still weird to me when I touch and it's been seven years. So to have a space where I could be more comfortable than in my own shower, it was so important because it didn't let it.

grow to a place where I hadn't touched my own body for weeks or months, which is what happens with a lot of cancer patients who have had similar surgeries. when I lost my hair, so what happens, people don't realize this. They think like in the movies your hair just kind of falls out, but it's a process and it starts to really hurt. Like the scalp is tingly and.

sally_wolf (18:46.572)
So when it hurt too much to let it fall out naturally, I'd already cut it to an inch, but I made an appointment at my wig place to have my head shaved. And actually that exact experience, I tried to really lean into the support and love that I felt. My family was incredible. My sister came with me to get my head shaved. And that wasn't somehow that bad. I don't know if it was the adrenaline rush of it or.

sister love or like I had a really nice head, I will tell you. Like I hope to never ever see it again, like your universe, but there no weird birthmarks, there were no like bumps, like it was a nice head. You know, I felt very, very lucky in that moment. But like an hour or two later when I was still bald, it didn't like the adrenaline had worn off, right?

And it happened to have been a Monday. And I wish I could tell you I had planned that because Monday was our, like for folks who are listening, like when Leslie and I talk about our dance class and the magic of it, it's the magic of Monday. It's a Monday class. And it was a Monday. And what that meant was I had class at 6 p.m. and...

I had decided very early in the cancer journey I was not sitting out of class. That I might not always feel 100%, might not even feel 50%. But however I felt, I was going to go and bring what I could and be there as I was. And so I showed up at class just like I normally would. There were the moments I expected to feel vulnerable like the

you know, just being seen for the first time, right? Like really being seen. And that felt vulnerable. But then there were the parts that I didn't expect that as much overthinking as I could do, I never could have imagined. And one in particular was being on the mat during warmup and realizing as it felt all like icky and weird on my head that my hair had always cushioned my head a little.

sally_wolf (21:07.468)
And I was used to the feeling of that, of my hair right on the mat, but this was brand new and it didn't feel good. And in that moment, I was reminded, right? Like again, there were all these like little micro reminders, like, isn't right, this doesn't feel great, huh, how long am I gonna be bald for? This is gonna, right? All these things, and I felt paralyzed.

and not just felt paralyzed, like actually shut down and was paralyzed. And during the part after warmup, moving meditation, when everyone starts freely moving around the room, I was stuck. Like I didn't get up. And for reference, usually I'm probably the first one on my feet. I really like getting up. And I just was not. And Erin came over to me and sat.

facing me, you know, maybe two feet apart, not even. And she asked me to touch my head. And I know folks can't see this, so I'm literally putting both palms on my scalp the way that she did. And she invited me to mirror her to do the same. And I must have done it for what like felt like forever, but probably was a nanosecond. It was like this, like, you know, touched and like a little grossed out. This wasn't my head, like.

but it was my head, it didn't feel like me. And she said to me, and she looked at me, and you know, Erin, like these big blue eyes, they are like so full of love, are you going to leave her so quickly? And I can feel the emotion coming up in me, and this is six and a half years ago, because it was, like, I never would have scripted or chosen,

that moment, I never would wish it for someone else. And yet this was my moment. This was my life. I get one life. And so in that moment of me first being bald, that was the most incredible moment I ever could have wished for. And that's sort of like the both end, I think, of any difficult journey of cancer for me. It's like the hardest, the most obstacles, the...

sally_wolf (23:27.206)
I don't know how I'm gonna get through this, right? All of that. And then also the best of humanity because when we are our most vulnerable and our defenses are down and we are navigating whatever card we are each handed, when we choose to let other people in and really, really let them in, like in that moment, I didn't turn away from Erin, didn't.

not do it, right? I followed her lead. I did it as it felt safe. And then, and here's the beauty of dance, and I know you know this, and that was like, it was almost like the spark I needed. Like she lit the match in that moment, and then I could move. It was like this microdose of magic of like letting someone help me touch my head, and then I could dance, and then I did dance. And so,

That's where the toddlers that you referenced earlier, the little kids, they don't get stuck.

leslie_field (24:31.382)
Yes. Yeah. Sally, that moment when you said you were getting emotional too, it's always incredible to me that we could be so far away from each other talking on a screen that's actually quite fuzzy. And I was... it hit me too emotionally. My eyes started to water as well. That story is incredible. You've never shared it with me and I'm just so thankful you shared it with me today and the people who will be listening to this podcast because

I know there's something there for you. As you said, it was a very powerful, important moment to this journey that you've been on. And I know it's going to be important and powerful for other people too. So thank you for sharing that and for being here. And I know this, we talked about this, you've done a lot of work on yourself to really process and the dancing has really helped you. And it's just a gift that you can now share your story with others who might be...

facing similar circumstances or who knows someone who's facing similar circumstances. it's just really touching me in this moment. Yeah. Thank you.

sally_wolf (25:40.138)
I think there's, I mean, I almost see it as a responsibility to share and use my story to connect with others because other people did that for me, right?

I now have this opportunity and it is an opportunity and like I said just a couple minutes ago, it's not necessarily one I would have chosen. So just for context, I...

The moment I described to you where I was newly bald, that was the first journey I had with cancer. And I, in 2016, had a double mastectomy, had several months of chemo, was then on a hormone maintenance medicine. And I had basically been given the all clear. Like everything every doctor believed was that it was an early stage breast cancer. It was considered stage two at the time.

My mom had had breast cancer in 1989 and thankfully all these decades later is still fine. And so it was kind of like, had what my mom had and I'm good and I'm done.

that turned out not to be the case. And in early 2018, my oncologist felt another lump and that was highly unexpected. I had had a double mastectomy, but you know, the best doctors in the world are human and...

sally_wolf (27:18.562)
And as humans, like we have limits. So they got probably like 99.9 % of the breast cells. There were clean margins, but these cells are microscopic. So like a handful remain. And you hope that the ones that remain in any woman or anyone who's had a mastectomy, you hope that they're innocuous breast cells.

And that even if they're cancer, they stay dormant, right? So there are all these different parts of what could be a decision tree that didn't end up applying. It ended up being another tumor. And that was diagnosed on a Monday, literally an hour before class. Went to class, danced through it. And two days later, I...

had a PET scan because they wanted to make sure that given it had come back in my breast that it wasn't anywhere else. Now in that PET scan my left hip lit up ever so slightly like not not like lit up you know huge which is the term they use for PET scan but the thing was was that

in the year that separated chemo and that moment, I had had my hip scanned three times because I had mentioned a hip pain to my oncologist and it was so subtle and I actually, and here's another thing I credit dance for or credit dance with, I knew my body. And so my oncologist, she's listening to me describe this hip pain which started about four months after chemo.

And she said on a scale of one to 10, like, how painful is it? I thought about it and I said, like, it's a 0.5.

sally_wolf (29:03.778)
It's not like really painful. It's just that I feel my hip, like something doesn't feel right. Like my intuition said, this isn't right. And you know, it's very natural for people who have been through a cancer journey to worry that every single pain, every single thing, like we forget we're still just humans who have had cancer. And so...

Like stuff happens in every body, but it didn't feel right to me. And so a few months later, we did the first scan. I ultimately was scanned three different months, multiple different scans, like MRIs, pets, bones, blood tests, all these things. And both Mount Sinai and Memorial Sloan as of December, so like four months before this pet lit up that I just told you about, everyone dismissed it as just my body. Like it wasn't cancer. Memorial Sloan, Mount Sinai.

Fast forward, it was back in my breast and the PET scan lit up. And I will tell you, one of those institutions still said, let's not worry about it. We don't think it's cancer. The other one said, we don't think it's cancer either, but our radiologist thinks that he can get to it in a biopsy because there was this tiny spot inside my hip bone. So let's just put your mind at rest.

So that's what we did in early April of 2018. And April 11th, right after I left dance, actually got a call walking across 23rd street. And as it turned out, that actually was cancer. And so in that moment, breast cancer can come back countless times in the chest area. So that initial recurrence that I mentioned, that's still considered for fully curable.

But once it spreads anywhere else, that's when you hear words like metastatic and incurable, and that's when it becomes stage four. So in that moment, like that's when I expected my world to crumble, right? Because that's the moment that like, if I had to figure out, everyone's told me I'm so inspiring and, know, wow, I'm getting through cancer in this amazing way and.

sally_wolf (31:20.034)
You know, I had my moments too, don't get me wrong, but I was still showing up and still able to like, for the most part, keep up with my life. And I felt like I had been really lucky and healed really well from surgery and chemo and all of that. But if you had asked me what the moment was that I expected, I would crumble.

that I would stop showing up. That was that moment. That was my biggest fear. It wasn't curable. It was stage four. It was not what my mom had, thank God. So I no longer had this role model ahead of me who had gone through it and was thriving now in her 70s. And I was super scared.

And at the same time, when I look back on that day, and I can tell you it was April 11th, it was a Wednesday, I can tell you all the other things that were great about that day. And I share this because I think one thing that dance, that those four minute songs that we talked about earlier can really model for us is that life is often a both end.

And so that moment, that moment sucked, right? I'm sobbing on 23rd Street, so scared. And I happen to be with a friend and she put her hand on my shoulder. And so in that moment, when I am terrified, how lucky am I to not be alone? How lucky am I to have a friend who really cares?

And my sister happened to be down the block and my nephew, was four at the time, like, you know, favorite human. I got a hug from like a kid. All he knew was I was Auntie, right? Nothing about that day changed anything for him. And then I actually met Aaron a little bit later. We had New York pizza, like two of my favorite things in the world, Aaron and pizza. Like that was amazing. And then after my siblings had let my parents know because I couldn't do

sally_wolf (33:19.1)
that I knew it was gonna devastate them, I went to my sister's apartment and the whole family was there and I regularly tell people it was my body but my family's cancer. Like I was never alone. And so that night, I have like all these pictures, blowing up balloons with my nephew and his younger sister. Like they're legitimately authentically happy pictures.

There was nothing fake about it. It was a horrible day in some ways, and it was a beautiful day in other ways. that's been, that day is a microcosm of what these six and a half years have been. It's both end, and that doesn't mean that I would have chosen it, but.

It means that I constantly look for the light or the opportunities, going back to the question about sharing my story, because I didn't see people like me, meaning living and thriving with a stage four cancer when I knew that existed, right? I used to think there were these two possible outcomes for cancer. Someone was cured.

or someone died. plenty of people end up in both categories and I...

I don't diminish the people who have had a lot less good luck than I have because there are so many lucky breaks I've caught, like where my cancer spread, how much of it spread, how the biology of my cancer and all the treatment options, the fact that I'm on a medicine that was FDA approved a year before I needed it. I've caught a lot of lucky breaks.

sally_wolf (35:16.87)
And I'm also scared. Like, I don't want to diminish. Like, I can sound inspiring or positive in the moment, depending upon who's talking to me, or find the light. And it coexists, right? It's not all that. It's both end. I try to let myself feel both an honor that some days are tougher than others.

you know, not push myself to to kind of have to like to have to be on or light or whatever it is. Like if I'm authentically not in a good place for whatever reason, like spent three hours dealing with insurance or or.

you know, at Sloan all day for scans or whatever it may be. I try to honor where I am. And I would tell you, I've also found ways to make those experiences, for me, a little bit better. Like I have a playlist for my pet scans or, you know, like you kind of like figure it out over time. Like how am I gonna?

Be me, how am gonna still be me, not lose myself in this journey that I'm now on? And so sharing my story and connecting with others in this really deep way is, it's always win-win. People often thank me for sharing my story and I'm aware that it can support and inspire others and I'm grateful to have that opportunity.

I am also benefiting from sharing my story. It's just like dance is healing for the body. I think being able to verbalize this is really important. And about three weeks after my cancer was confirmed to have spread, I had a business school reunion and I had been invited to speak at that reunion.

sally_wolf (37:20.312)
before any of this happened. So like late February, I got this invitation, would you like to speak at our 15 year reunion? We've really admired kind of how you've navigated the cancer journey because by that point it had been on social media, not while I was in treatment, but kind of after. And we would love for you to speak about life's twists and turns. So.

I kind of thought about it and I was like, I'm a little anxious to do this. hadn't really stepped into this. I mean, now I speak. It's one of the things I do for a living. But back then that was new and that was my classmates and the imposter syndrome kicked in because they told me the other speaker was going to be this guy named Todd, who was a friend of mine. But Todd did what business school people aspire to do. He created a huge company. He sold it to Yahoo for millions and millions of dollars. You kind of go down the list and I was like, okay,

Todd's like this textbook graduate. And at the time, I was trying to navigate being an entrepreneur, not really sure of my idea, didn't really have a job, just had cancer. you know, didn't really like the bio. I was like, what's my bio gonna be? And so I said yes before I could overthink all the reasons that I hadn't earned that right, like whatever it was. I said yes, and a week later is when my oncologist felt that lump.

about a month later is when it was diagnosed in my hip. And so I suddenly had three weeks between that diagnosis and that reunion.

And obviously what I was going to need to write to really be truthful in that moment was a very different talk than anything I might have envisioned in February, which sort of validates my habit of procrastinating because if I had written something, I would have had to revise it. But luckily I hadn't yet begun it. And I remember one of my best friends from school whose last name is also Field actually, Melissa said to me, you don't have to,

sally_wolf (39:26.748)
don't have to give this talk. Everyone will understand if you back out. And similar to how I had decided I was going to show up for every dance class no matter what, I actually said, no, I do have to give this talk. I do need to honor this. And it wasn't for the class. It wasn't because I didn't want to break that commitment to anyone else. I didn't want to break that commitment to myself.

And I knew, I intuitively knew that it gave me a deadline not to come to like full unwavering acceptance of this. That was going to be a process that would take more than three weeks. But if I was going to get up there and speak and share my story, I needed to really wrap my head around it and really wrap my heart around it.

and not get up there and just share it like, you know, like it was like a therapeutic session, right? That's where I think people sometimes get tripped up. I think sharing our stories can be healing, but I do think that it benefits all of us, both those of us who are sharing and the people who are listening, to really come to some level of acceptance with it, to have done that inner work ourselves first.

right, like whether it's mind or body or I believe both, to be able to then share in a way that it's so effectively win-win. Like, my heart is expanding and other people are able to have that same experience versus someone who's just sharing from a place, like that day I couldn't have shared, right? If that reunion had been that day, I was like, you know,

a mess for me in terms of tears starting and stopping in between blowing up balloons for my nephew and niece and, you know, in between pizza and all of that. Like it was too much. It was it was too scattered that day. But once I was able to get to a place of acceptance and processing, which I think that that commitment really helped me get to in a relatively quick period, it was a really incredible moment for me, like a life changing moment for me.

leslie_field (41:49.364)
Absolutely. There's so many things you said that I could reflect back on or, you know, ask you about. The first thing I wanted to say is that one of the things... so, Sally, I do remember when you... I didn't know your full cancer history or journey, but I do remember the moment where you had... we had known each other at the time when you said that you had it in your hip because I remember you saying to me, and it was probably in passing, like we were running in and out of the class or something,

Remember you saying my hip had been bothering me and I, you like, like you said, intuitively knew to sort of like, wait a second, there could be something going on here. And I still remember you sharing that with me. And I think that's a really great thing. You shared that, that bodily intuition that we all have and just, you know, trusting ourselves and keep asking the questions or following through on something about your body. You're like, you know, I really should get that checked out. You know, that intuition is real and it's strong and it's good to pay attention to it. And what I also love about your story is,

and just who you are. Well, two things. I kind of joke, I've already been joking about this, that I seem to collect people in my life who have, I say, colorful health histories or colorful medical stories. And so it's no surprise that, I mean, of all the people in our class, you know, like, why are we drawn to each other? And often it's in these moments where I hear you sharing your story again, and especially here on the podcast, I go, that's right, because I see the parallels. I see me.

and myself and my story and what Sally is speaking about. And another thing that, so I just wanted to say that. And another thing is that what I love about you and like you said, you're not always in this place. You we all have our emotions. We go through them, the heavier stuff, the moments we're crying, the moments we may feel depressed and defeated, but, and this is the but, what I love about you is you have such a sparkle of joy around you.

I get that all the time, but you have this way about you that your sparkles and what you would say, sunshine and rainbows. And it really does, in many ways, it taps into your essence when I think about those visions of stars and sparkles and sunshines and rainbow and rainbows, I should say. And I should say also that when I've seen Sally dance, she likes to wear sparkles and rainbows.

sally_wolf (44:12.602)
you.

leslie_field (44:14.314)
and joyous colors and I've always loved that about you and how you express yourself also just in life and you know, I'll probably share a little clip of this podcast where you'll get to see us speaking and I mean even her in her house, she has vibrant, colorful, beautiful artwork and it just speaks to who you are and I just love getting to know you. It's such a pleasure.

sally_wolf (44:37.535)
So my sister, when she's considering gifts for me, know, like sweatshirt, t-shirt kind of thing, she like asks her now four and a half and six and a half year old daughters, I have a nephew and two nieces, she asks the girls if they like it because she kind of knows if Alex and Andy do, then Auntie will. Because I am like a big kid, so I do gravitate toward

you know, all the colors and the glitter and arts and crafts and just things that I loved as a kid. My middle name is Joy. So when you were talking, I picked up on that because it's something I never loved as a kid. I just was like, I don't know. It's not really a name. It's like a thing. Why is my middle name like a word? I don't know. I didn't get it. And now it's like my favorite. Like I

I just submitted, I don't know, I'm trying to manifest this. We'll know by the time the podcast comes out what happens, but I just submitted my first guest essay for, the New York Times. And I submitted it as Sally Joy Wolfe. And I had never done that before, but.

I was like, how cool is it that my name actually has the word joy? Like I didn't put that there, my parents did. Where my parents did not agree was that my mom wanted to actually name me Sunshine and my dad said no. So I think Sunshine Joy would have been like a lot of positivity, but you mentioned Sunshine as well. I was connecting all your dots because they all popped while you were talking.

leslie_field (46:08.76)
can't.

leslie_field (46:16.238)
stop it. I had no idea. I mean, I mean, your mom felt it. She was like, no, this child should be Sunshine Joy, but she had to, you know, she had to concede some part of your name. So that's fair. Sally, I had no idea. It makes so much sense now. It makes so much sense. I love that. I think maybe just shifting out of talking about, you know, your medical journey and cancer is to speak out what you do now because

sally_wolf (46:30.97)
Yeah.

leslie_field (46:42.784)
I love it whenever you speak about the work you're doing now. I'm learning something and I'm so glad that you're doing this work. It just feels so important and vital. And I'd love you to share a little bit more about your work with Positive Psychology and what it is and just how it connects to us as humans and our lives. And tell me, tell me all the things.

sally_wolf (47:06.052)
Sure, so.

In some ways, I can say to you as someone who I know from a dance class that or dance practice that positive psychology, I believe, is sort of like what we do in dance for our bodies. It just like sort of expands that. And so it's really the it provides a roadmap, if you will, to to flourishing for our minds, our hearts or emotion, our social interconnection with others.

our physical well-being. So what positive psychology is, it's the science of human flourishing. And it is maybe like the base level of positivity that you might think of, but then it's so much more. So what I mean by that is, yes, it includes positive emotion stuff like gratitude and...

how to cultivate more positivity in our lives. And it also includes things like mindset, like growth mindset. How do we prime ourselves to be able to not only go through something, but also grow through it and believe that if we don't know how to do something today, we just don't know how to do it yet. Right. We can figure it out. And how do we find more flow state like that feeling of being in the zone? How do we do that? And by the way,

like asking on our phones is not how we do that. But we all do that. So how do we say, OK, this is what I'm doing. I'm not setting myself up for great success. And we've all done it. I know this material cold. And yet, I'm not perfect, right? So I'll be on a Zoom. And I forget to my notifications off. And something comes in. And next thing I know, I'm not really present on the Zoom. But I'm there.

sally_wolf (49:03.246)
But I'm not really present with either thing I'm doing. So positive psychology says, do we really enhance our engagement so that we're really, really doing what we're doing and therefore deriving more pleasure from it? How do we build more meaningful relationships with others, right? Not the quantity thing, like the likes or the comments on social media, but how do we really, really connect heart to heart? How do we find more meaning and purpose?

not only when life is good and we kind of know we should because we just fell in love or just got our dream job, but how do we prime ourselves to be able to identify meaning in more challenging experiences too? And if you were to make a bell curve of resilience, we all have heard about PTSD.

Very few people have heard about PTG or post-traumatic growth. Like actually, I'm curious, have you heard of it?

leslie_field (50:05.512)
No, you mentioned it the other day and I'm still... I still am like, what? How do I not know about this? Because it's so beautiful.

sally_wolf (50:12.228)
So here's the thing, post-traumatic growth, it's the opposite end of that resilience bell curve.

You know, different things are going to work for different people. But if there was like kind of one thing I would work with my clients on, it's the ability to find meaning in difficult life experiences or moments is a really, really helpful tool that we can choose, right? We choose meaning. We make meaning. It doesn't have to be one size fits all. It's not meant to be. So if I can make meaning out of the pandemic and you can and each of our listeners can,

It's going to be different for each person. Same pandemic, but played out billions of different ways. If it's subjective for you and authentic for you, that's meaningful for you. And so that is super important. And I think a lot, like when I talk about the both ends or the opportunities alongside the obstacles of cancer for me, that is my decision to say, this is my path.

And it has brought me so much meaning. Meaning is something we look back on and we reflect on and we can kind of like look backwards. Purpose, which is often connected to it and we use sometimes interchangeably is a little different because it's more forward looking. So how do I take all the meaning I've derived from cancer, let's say in this case.

And it doesn't have to become part of my purpose. In my case, I think it does. But either way, whether someone takes their life experiences and really fuels purpose with it or not for them, purpose connects us to something bigger than ourselves. So.

sally_wolf (51:56.92)
There's this amazing study, it's like probably the favorite study I've come upon in positive psychology of janitors at hospitals. And some of them stated that they felt deep purpose in their jobs and others didn't. So a psychologist probed it, was curious, like, what is the difference? And she found that the janitors who...

did not feel purpose in their jobs at this hospital, these hospitals. When you said, do you do? Those janitors would tell you that they cleaned floors. Okay, let me tell you something. The other janitors who felt depurpose, they also cleaned floors. But when you ask them, what do you do? The janitors who felt depurpose, they would say things like, I help patients to heal. I help people get well.

Those are two hugely different answers. So positive psychology helps us figure out, like...

What am I doing? What's my why? How do I connect what I'm doing to the world? I spent 20 years in the media industry. So when I would teach about purpose at NBC, for example, I would want the most junior people at that company, right? NBC News, NBC has Peacock and Universal and all these entertainment platforms. So I'd want the 22 year old.

who just started at that company, to be able to see how they connected to helping Americans stay informed or to helping people feel good and laugh, right? Not to whatever junior entry-level job they're doing. That is part of their day-to-day. Those are building their skills. But what about their strengths? What about their purpose? Like, how is it bigger than whatever

sally_wolf (54:00.014)
their day to day is. So meaning and purpose is part of positive psychology achievement, not like in this. I went to Harvard, I have two masters from Stanford. My LinkedIn is full of names of companies that are recognizable. Those are achievements, but those names mean a lot less to me right now than like the person like having a conversation like this or

or building the company I'm building, which is all tied to positive psychology. No one's heard of Lightworks. That's name of my company. I love the name. You know, maybe one day people will hear of it. But that, Matt, that's like aligned with me. So how do we make sure that people are feeling like they're moving toward things that matter to them?

And lastly, the last piece of positive psychology, so I kind of breeze through positivity, engagement, relationships, meaning, achievement. And then the last piece is vitality. And that's the physical piece that we know really well from dance. Because when positive psychology was launched initially, was kind of like at UPenn in 1998, professor named Marty Seligman had this idea and said, psychology has traditionally been about

like kind of fixing something that's broken or not working ideally. So like if someone's struggling with whatever, how do we get them to struggle less initially and then to not struggle? So like, how do we get someone who's struggling to find, let's say. And he said, well, fine is better than struggling.

But why are we stopping there? Why don't we get someone who's fine to good, or good to great, or great to awesome, or whatever word you choose? And so he launched this. And the words I just shared earlier, the acronym was PERMA, positivity, engagement, relationships, meaning achievement.

sally_wolf (56:01.1)
And the woman that I studied positive psychology with was in his second cohort at UPenn of this MAP program, this Masters in Applied Positive Psychology. And Amelia said, but physical vitality matters. And she was right. And so now it's permavie, because physical vitality, which is movement and body health and sleep and diet and breath work, right? All of it.

It's really hard to get to any of those other things I shared if there's not a foundation of physical wellbeing. We actually, the biggest challenge to get to an engagement state, that flow state of being in the zone, if you're not eating right or not sleeping right, if you're really hungry or really tired, it's nearly impossible to have flow. And so,

how we treat our bodies doesn't just matter for our bodies, it matters for all the rest. And what I love about positive psychology so much, and I first studied it in depth while I was in chemo. So what great things to be learning when I'm going through cancer. And I just remembered thinking, how did I not learn this? How did I graduate?

With a psychology degree from Harvard, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, all these impressive things, how did I then get two masters from Stanford? One was an MBA, so maybe no one expects you to learn this in business school, but the other was a master's in education. And I never learned these things. And so when I was going through cancer, I was actually learning it in an academic way. But also, I was finding my resilience

dancing through cancer, I believe in part because of the foundation that dance had given me to access so much of this without realizing exactly what I was doing. Because as you know, our dance classes, they are body, but they're also like, there's this cognitive processing piece. And especially with Erin, and I know you and I both do private work with her, especially in those sessions, like I love

sally_wolf (58:25.24)
those coaching sessions with Erin because unlike other coaching sessions I've had, and I've had some great coaches, but they tend to stick in one domain, right? And the work with her, it kind of blurs the lines in the same way that the positive psych stuff I just mentioned does. And it makes sense to you because we are one human. for...

you know, to just address the mind, but not the body or just the body and not the rest of us. Like, it's all connected. And when I then kind of was rethinking or thinking through, well, what do I now want to do? You asked about positive psychology. I couldn't believe that.

I had never learned these things. And I don't use the word should a lot, but I really do believe this should be core curriculum for life. That all of us should learn these tools. Because first of all, what a gift would it be if we learned these as kids? And second of all, even as adults,

We take that growth mindset I mentioned. We all have the capacity to learn and to grow. there's neuroplasticity, which is basically saying our brains are constantly connecting and reconnecting neurons in all sorts of new ways. And we can override old patterns and override whatever we've kind of accepted as this is just the way I see the world or just the way I do things. But we have to choose to do that. And so positive psychology

really provides a foundation for that. And so I went back into the business world in 2018, not by choice. I needed health care, which as someone with chronic illness, as you know, is really important. And I...

sally_wolf (01:00:25.358)
live in New York. So if you're an American and you need good health care and you are single and on your own benefits, there are not a lot of options. And yes, Obama helped greatly, but those plans are not ideal plans for someone like me. And I say that with the privilege of having an incredible professional network, right? Those plans are better than not having a plan.

but I was about to start all these expensive medicines. I really wanted to be on a good corporate plan.

a friend who was senior at NBC had found, I mean, had, he found a place for me. He did an incredible, incredible favor for me. And my friends tell me like, well, he was getting your brain and he knows, you know, you're, we were colleagues 20 years ago. Like he knows he's getting something good. And I was like, yeah, but he didn't need, I needed that. And it became an incredible gift, not only for the benefits, but also in like new definition of friends with

benefits, right? But also because I was just thinking out loud as I was saying that, but beyond the benefits, I brought all the positive psychology I had learned into the team that I was with.

people were starting to notice the impact. I mean, I was like, just dropping these nuggets, right? Kind like when I give a keynote, it's a lot of my story, but I try to weave in the psychology, just enough of it, like, you know, people aren't hit over the heads with boring academic studies, but.

sally_wolf (01:01:57.676)
Like the janitor thing, it's really memorable and it can impact. And so people were starting to notice changes in some of my teammates and they were very generously crediting me. So my friends and I put our heads together and said, there's something to this and data backs it up. Like when you bring positive psychology into the corporate world, into teams, help people get to know themselves better.

It's win-win because people feel that investment in themselves and also companies see lower turnover. They see better profitability. They see more innovation. All these good things happen because people get to know themselves better and they authentically then are motivated and passionate and connecting with others. And so I pitched HR on what I thought could be the value to

BC of bringing this there. I got a yes, this was in 2019 before the pandemic, before mental well-being was like a thing that was actually valued by more corporate leaders. And I taught my very first workshop March 11th, 2020.

which was also my very last day ever in that NBC office. And so the first six months of the pandemic, I almost feel guilty saying this because I was sort of living my best life. I was an auntie in residence at my sister's house in Connecticut. I actually think, weren't you in Westport, Connecticut for a bit too?

leslie_field (01:03:31.028)
Yes, we were so close yet so far because we were in that really creepy, fearful, scary stage where we like, we can't leave the house! So we never saw each other, but we were so close.

sally_wolf (01:03:38.528)
Yeah, so I remember being on the phone with you at some point and like it was like, wait, we're both in Westport. So anyway, so I was at my sister's, I was Auntie in residence, like that was just the most magical for six months and also

very quickly, what was probably going to be a very slow rollout of a pilot program, because that's just how big companies work, very quickly HR said, hey, like people could really use some of this. And so I created dozens of classes. I taught hundreds, if not thousands of employees. I started coaching employees one on one. And then,

predictably, because despite the fact that I had incredible feedback on the classes and we had done surveys, HR had wanted to make sure they were serving people, all of that, I also knew I was highly dispensable because the company was struggling and couldn't open their theme parks and couldn't get movies out and the Olympics wasn't happening, which was a huge source of ad revenue. So I was also laid off.

And so again, right, we get to a place where we're flourishing. I literally felt like I was living my best life. And I was laid off.

And so here's real time ability to use positive psychology, right? I was talking about making meaning and connecting all the dots of my life. And here I was using my camp counselor roots for like just inspiring and bringing people together and using my master's in education and using it in a corporate space, which I had navigated for 20 years. So kind of understood the corporate world, using the positive psychology and leaning into the cancer journey as a source for rate. All these things are connecting.

sally_wolf (01:05:24.096)
And then I'm laid off. And so I, in that moment, and by the way, 10 minutes after I was laid off, I was teaching class on meaning and purpose. So I actually share, it was the first class, it was probably like the 10th one I created, and it was the class in which I shared my personal journey with folks. And I didn't say this to people who showed up that day, because that wasn't for them to have to think about my layoff. But in my head,

Where I usually ended that story and what I did that day was how all these different things connected in such a meaningful way to take me to this moment where I'm teaching this positive psychology material that I so believe in, that's so aligned with me in a company. Like it all came together. And so what I told myself, that self coaching piece in that moment was,

NBC is not meant to be the place where this lives. It's meant to be the place where it was born. And that very quickly, it was like, made sense. NBC's told me, this is great. Take it into the world. Do you own this? We will stay your client. I mean, it doesn't get better than that in the corporate world. And I just felt incredibly lucky. And so I was laid off.

And I was given a gift. And so it's not just cancer where I constantly strive to find the opportunity in a moment. It's other domains too. And I do think it's a skill. It's a muscle we build to be able to do that. And so when we can do it.

with one thing and then we're faced with another difficult life situation, we can apply it. we, you I think in the physical realm, like think about dance or stretching or last summer I had a very, very brief period where I thought I might train to run a marathon, which I didn't do, but I did a 10K on a treadmill. But still the point was, was when I had this moment of maybe I'll try to run a marathon. I'm not really sure if I know how to run like a mile.

sally_wolf (01:07:38.058)
I didn't start with the marathon, but I started with a few blocks in the city, and I was sweaty and winded. And then I kind of got a little bigger and then a little bigger. And I think it's easier to see it, to measure progress with something like running or stretching, because we know when we can reach a little farther. And with

some of this other stuff like resilience, it's hard because we're constantly growing. So we forget what we couldn't used to do, what we didn't process as well, what we used to shut down with. Because we kind of like, we evolve and I think we forget like where we were a long time ago. But with physical movement, it's much easier to remember. And so I use that analogy a lot with my clients.

because it's like a helpful tool for them to then realize, I can apply this in other parts of my life too.

leslie_field (01:08:42.966)
I mean, absolutely. What was really getting me right now was, gosh, I mean, you say so much. You said, excuse me, I should say, I'm all tongue twisted. You said so much right now and you did. You left me speechless. Really, first off, do you wanna know the first thing I was thinking was, thank you for coming to Sally's Ted Talk because this is incredible. So I cannot wait for your literal Ted Talk one day.

sally_wolf (01:08:56.622)
I left you speechless. No, I'm just kidding.

sally_wolf (01:09:07.866)
You

leslie_field (01:09:11.468)
I'm going to be there. So I had that thought. Like this could be part of your like, I don't know, submission. You give them some of these sound bites because when you speak about positive psychology, I'm literally sitting here like with popcorn, like just tell me more because it really, it's something that I know personally, I know it's very beneficial for me to hear these stories and hear about what it is, what it means and all the different, you know, obviously you were explaining the acronyms and the basis and the foundation.

but it's really touching me every time you speak about it and...

What else I was going to say is that this is so important what you're bringing into the world. And I'm not just saying that to say that because I mean it when I'm listening to you right now and I hear you speaking about it, you're, I would say you sound very much in your flow and it, just, it just, it's so beautiful and it's so authentic and you, you grasp onto the right words. And I'm so thankful that you shared with my listeners today about

sally_wolf (01:10:02.585)
Yeah.

leslie_field (01:10:14.926)
positive psychology. And as Sally was mentioning, this is what she does. She works with people. I know you are probably going to be launching things and have beautiful things to come. I myself cannot wait to check them out. any sort of free content that you put out there, but if someone wanted to reach out to you, hear more about positive psychology, work with you, check out your business, where could they find you, Sally?

sally_wolf (01:10:42.01)
So my website is just my name, so sallywolf.com. I also, you know, kind of, my social media skills, I feel like I kind of, can I re-record that? Okay. My web, so the best place to find me is my website, which is just my name, sallywolf.com.

leslie_field (01:10:58.348)
Yeah, yeah, go ahead again.

sally_wolf (01:11:08.166)
And I also have really taken a love to LinkedIn this past year. So I've been writing more and using that as a platform to share well-being tips, kind of a combination of positive psychology tidbits layered into personal story. And I've really loved connecting with folks on there too.

leslie_field (01:11:32.128)
I have seen that it's really incredible and beautiful. All the work that you're doing, what you're putting out to the world, you as a person, you know, I'm a huge fan. I love you. I love dancing with you every Monday. May it last forever and ever. And so thank you so much, Sally, for coming on today to speak with me and those listeners of Sick and Seeking.

sally_wolf (01:11:53.806)
Thank you for having me. And I'm so excited that this is real. Cause you've been talking about this podcast for a while. So I've been saving. I think you asked me to come on. Like, I don't know. It could have been a year ago and I was like, yes. And all of a sudden here we are. So congratulations to you for.

making this real and making it happen and having like, I know the listeners can't see, but like Leslie has these official looking headphones and microphone and I don't have any of that. So hopefully my audio is okay, but I was super excited to be a part of your launch or early episode. And thank you so much for having me.

leslie_field (01:12:25.23)
you

leslie_field (01:12:40.091)
thank you, Sally. I love you.

sally_wolf (01:12:42.966)
Mwah!

leslie_field (01:12:44.439)
Mwah!