We recently connected with Sarah Halstead and have shared our conversation below.
Sarah , we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?
I believe I was taught resilience from my high school track coach, Mr. Holmes. After failing to make the cheerleading, basketball, or tennis team, I was approached by Coach Holmes to join his girls Girl’s Track Team. “Halstead,” he said. “your problem is you lack hand-eye coordination, so you can’t participate in sports that include a ball. (Not true, I was great at Four Square.) And you’re never going to make the cheerleading team because of your Scoliosis. (I don’t have Scoliosis.) The good news is, running is an independent sport. We’ll get you some corrective shoes to fix your pigeon feet and see how it goes. What do you say?” (Ok, I do have a pigeon toe on my right side, but corrective shoes were surely not necessary.) I showed up for practice the next day. Coach Holmes had me run 100, 200, and 400 meter sprints. I thought I was going to have a heart attack. Running was the worst feeling I had ever experienced in my young life. I was overheating, dry-heaving and had cramps. When I finished, he said, “Halstead, speed is not your thing. I’m going to put you in long-distance.” Anything sounded better than the hell I had just gone through. I practiced and ran every other day from my house to the local Kroger and back, which was exactly two miles. I hated every minute of it. Long distance was worse than sprints because the suffering was prolonged. People would slow down their cars to see if I was ok. One woman stopped, rolled down her window and handed me a bottle of water because she thought I was having a stroke . I quickly became the talk of the town and was referred to as “the special needs girl who runs.” My first “race” had high stakes. Sharon Snow, the team’s star runner with legs like a race horse, and I had a crush on the same boy, Daniel Huskey. Sharon and Daniel had already been going together but were broken up. I let him feel me up at a party during their “break” and I’m pretty sure the whole school knew about it. The bleachers were uncharacteristically full. I could feel Sharon’s side-eye as we got into position. Once the starting gun went off, I became confused. The runners began to sprint! Why? This is a long distance race! The girls proceeded to run laps around me until I was the last one running. Sharon Snow finished first. I finished last. It was humiliating. Every single race for the rest of the season had the same outcome. All the girls ran six to seven minute miles while I ran closer to eleven. Sharon ran five minute miles and would receive standing ovations. People would leave the bleacher stands while I was still running. Coach Holmes would leave the field as would most of the school staff. But I never quit. I never stopped running. I kept going, no matter how slow, how humiliated, how painstakingly agonizing, I kept going. Over a period of time, I started to develop a rapport with members of the team. Classmates would wait for me in the bleachers and cheer me on. Daniel Huskey and I became a thing. Sharon remained hating me – after all, this isn’t a Hollywood script, this is real life. “If you ain’t first, you’re last” but quitting is worse. Don’t quit. I never will.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
I was born and raised in the small town of Flushing, Michigan – a suburb of Flint. I was a bad student and got into trouble a lot; never with the law, I was just kind of rebellious, discovered beer and would miss curfews. I left home and headed for New York City to become an actress. My parents were a wreck, but their worries quickly subsided when they saw how motivated I became by discovering my love for acting. I booked several commercials, theatre gigs and guest star roles for television. When my Mom with whom I was extremely close, passed away, I was devastated and decided to take a break from acting. I fell in love and followed my then fiancé to Miami. Back when acting, I worked as a waiter between gigs and had learned a little bit about wine. I knew just enough to land a position in the wine business and I had success in the field for the next twelve years. It was an opulent life representing the best wines and Champagnes in the world; however I felt devoid of my creative side and wasn’t happy. My marriage failed and I felt lost. I decided to sell my home, belongings, quit my job, and loaded a coffee maker and my cats into a RV and drove from Miami to Los Angeles to reboot the dream. Being a middle-age actor was difficult and the jobs weren’t as plentiful. I started standup comedy to fill the time and loved the challenge. I became obsessed with comedy and immersed myself in the craft. I bombed every night for three years and after four years, I began to bomb a little less. I started to get bookings at all the main comedy clubs in Los Angeles. In twenty-twenty, I dropped my first comedy special, “RVs and Cats” on Amazon Prime. Today it has over two million streams. I have a podcast, “Drinking During Business Hours” available wherever you listen to your podcasts, and I produce a monthly comedy show at Hollywood Improv, “Bottle Shock Comedy.” I perform all over the country and I’m good, but I’m not great. I have a long way to go, but I’ll never quit. My second comedy album, “This Might Be My Album” is in post production and will be released this spring.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Resilience, persistence, and patience. Young people have most likely already learned these skills somewhere within their childhood and need to dig deep to recollect those moments. Spend time being still. Write, read, stare at wall, whatever you have to do to find that creative space. Try not to compare yourself with others. We’re all on our own journey.
One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
I am absolutely looking to collaborate with other whimsical minds. Please DM me on instagram @sarahhalstead
Contact Info:
- Website: sarahjhalstead.com
- Instagram: sarahhalstead
- Facebook: sarahhalstead
- TikTok: @sarahjhalstead
- Youtube: Sarah Halstead
- SoundCloud: Drinkingduringbusinesshours
Image Credits
Jon Kondelik Danika Singfield
