TFN Talks with Cheryl Marella
TFN Talks sat down with Indonesia’s media darling Cheryl Marella whose impressive list of credits include being the managing Editor of Tatler Indonesia, cofounder of Good Shot ID and host of CNN Indonesia, Discovery Turbo and Channel News Asia. We spoke about Cheryl’s rise in the media industry and how spending a year in New York City changed her life.
Cheryl where did you grow up and what first sparked your desire to work in media and television?
I was born in Manado, North Sulawesi, but I grew up in Jakarta. We moved to Jakarta when I was maybe 3 years old. What inspired me to work in media and television? My neighbour was a close family friend. They were living right next to our house. Their children became my best friends, to this day. So their father, his name is Adolf Posumah, was one of Indonesia’s legendary news anchors. so I grew up watching him on TV doing his shows and all that and I found it fascinating, and my mom also, when she was in university, she was a radio DJ. So she was telling me her stories about how fun it was for her to be radio DJ playing music for her friends and also my neighbour was in the industry, so I decided that I want to work in media.
Can you tell us about how you got your first job on MTV and what did you have to do to get it?
It was back in 2003 that I joined MTV Indonesia DJ hunt, which was the radio, and I got the job after trying for it three times! I was the third batch of MTV DJs in Indonesia for the radio and from there when they opened the MTV VJ hunt the asked all of the radio DJs to join the casting, so I cast myself. Honestly I wasn’t prepared because they did it at a mall. It’s called Chips, in Jakarta and there were two steps. The first one is that you audition backstage, so you have to host a show backstage and the second step was that I had to go on stage and kind of like, do stand up comedy or whatever and so I didn’t expect much, I just went because my office sent me. I told them I’ll do the backstage casting but I don’t want to go on stage because I’m not funny and I know that I’m not funny. I don’t want to go up there and try to be funny and flop. So I told them, I’m just going to do this and then I’m just going to go home and I’m going to tell my boss that I’ve done it. And then two weeks later they called me back and said that I’m the one who actually passed and I was like What!? I didn’t even do the whole audition process. But I guess when t’s yours, it’s yours, right?
Can you talk about some of the challenges you have had to overcome personally and in your career? How did this affect or change your outlook on life?
I used to really really hate living in Jakarta. I mean that’s kind of why now I live in Bali. But that’s not the point. The point was that I became depressed when I was living in Jakarta because I felt like I’ve done everything career wise that I could and then I didn’t know what else to do next there. At the same time I don’t think I had support system in Jakarta that understands about healing or self awareness and all that, so and plus there are only malls there so I couldn’t go anywhere close to nature or the beach or the mountains, so I was pretty depressed and I was very anxious about the future thinking that I may be stuck doing this forever. And so I decided to leave Jakarta, I left my job and went to New York City to start with a clean slate. That’s how I met my first life coach. Her name is Tanya Badi. And I met her because she was my acting coach so when I went to New York I studied acting at Studio 4 NYC which belonged to James Franco, he had recently opened it after I moved there. So I joined the classes, she was one of my coaches. She was the* acting coach, turns out she is also a life coach, so I’ve done life coaching with her. That’s where my healing journey began. and how has it changed my outlook on life? It changed it a lot actually. I used to have a different focus. My focus was on fearing the future. I was scared if I didn’t know how to do something or what to do next in my career or in my relationship or friendship, everything. But now I always try to look at things from the bright side and focus on that. It makes me glad, it makes me happy knowing that actually my life is amazing. That’s the thing that changed.
Can you tell us about the year you spent in New York? Were you there for work? Do you have any crazy NYC stories to share?
Crazy NYC stories, hmm. I think the craziest part is that I actually left Jakarta, my career, my friends and my family to move to New York, a place where I did not know anyone. I think that’s the crazy part about NYC. But being in that city, I actually have sweet stories. I made great friends when I was there and they are all still my friends to this day. I feel like I've built a community there. These guys are my classmates basically, but they’re super amazing and very supportive to this day.
You have hosted an impressive amount of TV shows in Indonesia and even caught the acting bug in Indonesia’s version of Pretty Little Liars! Did you ever have the ‘Aha’ moment where you thought ‘I made it’? Many people dream of having the kind of career that you have. What does it feel like to actually live out that reality?
Interesting question. Maybe, actually when I got offered a job in GoJek before and Tatler and they really didn’t mind my terms and conditions which were: I want to work from Bali, I don’t want to work from Jakarta, and they said yes to it. I think that’s when I realized, that I have bargaining power because I have experience under my belt, but I don’t know if I actually thought “I made it!”. If that’s an "I made it” moment, I’m not sure. Maybe I’m aiming bigger.
I feel like since I was a child I always dreamed of having this kind of a career. Really, I dreamed about this every day when I was a kid, and when everything unfolds I think to this day, I feel like it’s only natural. It’s natural because. never wanted anything else and so I never had other options in my head since I was a child that I ever wanted to do anything but this. So since this was never an option in my head I feel like actually living this reality is the truest truth, it’s like natural. It is supposed to be this way. There is no other way. And look at that, I got inspired by my own words, haha. I was like “Oh, that’s right!”. It’s because I feel like this is very natural to me that’s why it is happening right? Yeah, I’m going to keep that in mind.
When I first saw your talk on the SpeakUp Monday series , you spoke a lot about the power of visualization and how it has helped you manifest a lot of goals in your life. Can you talk a little bit about this and explain the concept to readers who may not be as familiar with it as you and I?
I think I am quite blessed because I know some people probably are having problems with visualizing things but I have always been - maybe this is my creative brain but ever since I was a child again all I do is daydream, all I do is daydream things without even knowing that I was actually creating my future when I was a child by thinking oh one day I’m going to be on television and this is what I’m going to do, so I just imagined myself. I had a lot of fun imagining things without putting any limitations to it. Oh my God, there you go that’s another Aha! moment. I realized that I’ve been doing it since I was a child. I remember in junior high I pretended that I was a radio DJ. So I recorded my voice to this speaker, back in the 90s, and I just recorded my voice as if I was doing a radio show and I just enjoyed doing it without really thinking whether or not I’m going to be that in the future. I was just doing it because I was having fun. And if I wasn’t “role playing”, I was daydreaming of seeing myself on television or thinking of seeing myself being on stage hosting something and again it was just for fun. Because I never really think of how and when right? I was just having fun with it. I can learn a lot from the child me. She’s smart, she had no fears whatsoever, and that's why everything that I dreamt about when I was a kid happened today. But what I’m dreaming now sometimes I have fear around it and then I kind of stop myself. Funny huh. So basically when you visualize things, when you role-play things, things that you really really want just for the sake of it you know, just because when you’re doing it you’re having fun and you’re happy, that’s it. It’s going to happen in the future. You don’t even have to kind of believe. You don’t even have to bveloieve it. I didn’t even believe it, I was just roleplaying it. I was just playing it. I was having fun with it and I felt happy doing it. But then I realize one thing, there was never resistance when I was a child imagining what I wanted to become today. I never though “oh but I don’t know anyone in the industry”, “oh but how am I going to do this”, “How am I going to do that”. I never thought of that at all and suddenly the opportunity just presented itself. MTV opened in Indonesia. And I was like “oh, yeah, I’m going to cast myself”. And then I got the job . Not the first time that I applied, the third time that I applied, but still it happened.
How did you become the managing editor of Tatler Indonesia? What does a managing editor of a magazine do and what is the best part of your job? A sneaky three in one question!
It’s because of Goodshot! Oh my God, things happen like you just …. because I was having quite a hard time in my career in the beginning of this year. I was in limbo, do I have to go back to Jakarta, because media is kind of crashing and burning because of the pandemic. And I was kind of ready to go back to Jakarta, although I did whisper to this universe, saying that I promise if I could stay in Bali I’m going to do more for this place, which is why I am very committed to doing Goodshot. With Goodshot I was interviewing Ibu Millie Lukito and she is the owner of Mobiliari group which is Tatler Indonesia and how I got to interview her was also a very diving story because the PR agency of Tatler Asia is using found my press release saying that there is a new media focusing on good news and social impact and women empowerment, it’s called Goodshot and I’m the founder. And they reached out to me and asked if I wanted to do an interview with Ibu Millie and I was like, of course I would love to do that but I mean, she owns a publishing company, why would she want to have an interview with me and they were like , she doesn’t mind, she would love to do it. And the more media that cover stories of her, the better. So would you do it? And I said yes, of course I would love to do it. so I did and as soon as we started talking chemistry happened. And I thought, I love this woman, I love the way she thinks, I love the way she operates, I love everything about her. And at the end of the interview, she offers me a job, which is to be the managing editor of Tatler Indonesia and I was like in awe. I was like Yes Ma’am, I would love to work for you. I look up to her, to this day I am still looking up to her. I hope one day I can be like her. And what I do is, basically as a managing editor I have to make sure that all the content that is published aligns with our brand, all the brands that we are collaborating with as well. And also all the content across every platform, social media, print magazine, website, YouTube, everything, so that’s what I do. Being creative, basically. The best part of my job is to interview and to meet a lot of different people, successful different people from every walk of life and they’re very interesting and they always inspire me to be better. And I think that’s the best part of it. I love seeing people, I love meeting people, I love being around people, so I guess that’s the perk. And also the parties.
How did you come up with the idea for Goodshot.ID? Can you talk a bit about what the platform is and how you plan on running it?
So, this happened in March 2020. Literally, when the pandemic hit, every day I only saw bad news in every media outlet. People dying, and Covid, people are committing suicide because of depression due to the pandemic and there were good news at all in 2020. So I got really sick of it and I decided, why don’t I create something, like an antithesis of it, so that’s when I created Goodshot. Why is it called Goodshot? Because it has a double meaning. Goodshot can mean ‘a good photo’ and it could also mean ‘a good opportunity’, and so I just loved that. The meaning behind it. Right now we are a team of five and in 2023 we are planning to start selling ads because now I think we have quite a good database after three years of pretty much just creating content and just …. this is a passion project so we never really thought of how we were going to run it, we just do. And along the way we learn so I’m thinking this year maybe we can start monetizing and so we are a team of five. I’m the content creator and then there is Rarisa Sastromidjojo who is our PR branding person and another guy who is in charge of sales, one social media guy and one reporter. I think we are going to keep it that way for a while until we see what’s coming next and of course we are also looking for investors.
As The Fearless Nomad I have to ask this, what are the top three places in the world you have visited and why?
I love Prague because it’s in Europe but everything is pretty affordable there and they have beautiful beautiful views for sightseeing and I went to this thriller park. Oh my God I swear I’m never going to do it again because it scared the hell out of me but it was a really good scary haunted house kind of thing which I loved and I was never that scared in my life, so it was memorable for me and I went there with a friend of mine so I was pretty, yeah, I was almost s******g my pants when I was there.
Second would be New York. I felt like I found myself in that crazy city. And I owe New York so much and at some point I’m going back there. I need to revisit all of the places that I was there at and yeah … New York, definitely.
The third place, I would say is Holland. Half of my family, they are still living in Holland and it became kind of like a second home because we visited once a year before the pandemic. I haven’t been there since 2020 but hopefully soon. I want to see my grandmother, I want to see my cousins, I want to see half of my family who live there.
I read on your website that you are working on a new Public Speaking workshop and Public Speaking online coaching. Can you tell us more about that?
Sometimes I partner up with a few other companies like Rumah Remedi in Jakarta or I run it myself as well. Whenever people need my public speaking coaching they can always just come to me and tell me what they need and we will tailor the syllabus. It’s also one of my passions. I teach public speaking in universities like London School Bali. I lecture about public speaking. Again, for me teaching is making me smarter because then I also don’t forget all the things that I am teaching my students. The practical things that I teach them remind me that I know all this stuff and this is how to do this and that and run my passion. Does that make sense? I hope so.
What does ‘living well’ mean to you personally? Are there any life philosophies you go by that you would like to share with our readers?
Living well for me means that I can live happy because it’s no longer about how much money I am making it’s no longer about where I live or what I do but it’s about waking up in the morning not feeling depressed. Waking up in the morning being happy and knowing how to tame your own demons is living well for me. Stress, of course there will be stress here and there. But living well, meaning you know, no more unnecessary anxiety, unnecessary depression. You’re just happy, you trust yourself enough to make decisions knowing that you’re going to nail it and knowing that in the end everything is our creation so stand in grace knowing that everything is our creation. That is living well for me.
What’s next for Cheryl Marella? Can you share any juicy new goals that you have brewing on the horizon?
What I really want for Goodshot is to release an annual book hopefully, once a year. And for Tatler to create an international event series in Bali that is successful. That is on the horizon for me work wise, but personal wise I name my 2023 my harvesting year because I named 2022 as my transformation year because I was so committed to transforming myself. I wanted to be a better person. I wanted to be a different person. I don’t want to have the same anxieties and fear that I had before 2022 and I know I made it, so 2023 means harvesting. I’m already a different person. I know all the outcomes are going to be different. I know the world will shift according to what I’n feeling right now so yeah, there’s that. Every year I only want one thing for myself and that is to always be a different me, to be a better person, with a better mindset.
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