Show notes
SHOW SUMMARY
After a private hell gave her a new perspective on her glittering career, powerhouse publicist Tory Archbold—the woman who launched Zara, Victoria’s Secret and Nespresso in Australia—pivoted from her global PR business Torstar to empowerment platform Powerful Steps. She talked to Sharon about how her behind-the-scenes struggles led her to change priorities, how and where she found the strength to fight for a new life for her daughter and herself, and how her personal and professional decisions are guided by three core values. Tory shares everything from her daily shower ritual (you can thank a Thai monk for that), how to master cold calling (“I’m not afraid of the word no”) and why momentum is her North star: “The best advice I can give is view challenges as opportunities, because once you do, more doors open.”
KEY TOPICS AND TIME STAMPS
Zero: “You’re the person to go to when something has to be done.”
—Sharon introduces Tory and tells how, among her career successes, she and her Torstar PR agency pulled together Zara’s Australian launch in just six days and attracted 22,000 guests on just one day.
—Tory tells how when she started Torstar two decades ago she had “a vision and knew what I wanted to attract in my life. I had dreams but a bank account with next to nothing in it.”
—Says when people start with values they attract what they truly deserve. She names and explains hers: passion, integrity and delivery.
—Sharon asks Tory how she recognised and knew to live her values, “because that’s not a conversation everyone is having every day.”
—Tory: “It’s a no brainer. If you live your truth and are aligned to your values then 90 per cent of the time nothing can go wrong and that was how I lived my life and started my business.”
—Talks how she attracted David Jones as a foundational client and launched Megan Gale as the face of the department store.
5.40: The art of the cold call
—Sharon applauds Tory for landing DJs with a cold call: “That’s how I began. I got my first million dollar contract with a cold call.”
—Tory describes exactly how she signed David Jones before she didn’t had her “little black book of contacts” and talks why “I’m not afraid of the word no.”
—Sharon asks what it is about Tory that makes her able to pick up the phone.
—Tory advises switching your thinking but says she also believes people say no to you for a reason and some opportunities are meant to go elsewhere: “If that door isn’t opening gently for me, I say to myself, ‘You know what, I’m not meant to experience that or have that in my life at this time. That experience, that project, that deal, is meant for someone else. And as soon as you let go and live your life in flow and don’t get upset about things, that’s when everything starts coming into your life.”
—Sharon tells Tory she spent five hours a day cold calling and that “too many people generalise the word no and take it into the next experience. You put it in the box it deserves to be in. You disconnected.”
——Tory says she does because she knows if the experience if meant to come back to her it will.
9.00 Tory’s steps to success with Torstar
—Asked how she decided she wanted to be in PR, Tory says she “put it out there that I wanted to work with these amazing brands” and wanted to travel the world: “I had this innate gut instinct and intuition that I was able to tell the right story so the engagement would be there.”
—She says the gift she has been given in business is to work with her gut instinct and that the average time she retained brands was six to eight years.
—When she wound back Torstar in 2019, “I was very selective about the people and brands I worked with because I had to be aligned with their values. If you share the same values you can create incredible things but you have to be aligned on that journey otherwise it will never work. ”
—Sharon asks if Tory goes into meetings knowing what she is going to say and do.
—Tory speaks her truth: “I never go in with a plan but I’m very creative about developing ideas and strategies for brands.”
—She outlines her daily shower ritual given to her a decade ago by a Buddhist monk in Thailand: “He used to say to me, ‘Tory, slow down, you need to slow down and meditate’ and I would say, ‘I have no time.’” Now she uses showering to give back to herself: “Get a little bit of lavender, put it down your décolletage, inhale three times, centre yourself, set your intentions for the day. Just watch, all the ideas are just going to filter into your brain. Sharon, it’s brilliant.”
14.41: The power of passion
—Sharon agrees setting intentions is “everything … if you don’t know where you’re heading it’s going to be random”, and asks Tory if her innate passion attract clients (yes) and whether she noticed that as her business grew and she stepped away a bit that changed: “Creative ideas you have in the conversation with the client are unique to you. So when you step away that magic source is not translating anymore. Did you notice something of you was lost?”
—Tory agrees: “Also I think it’s why I did make that decision to step back. In life, money is not everything. Money buys you opportunity but money comes, money goes, and I’ve never been worried about that. We all have highs and lows as an entrepreneur. But the reason I stripped it back was that little bottle of magic wasn’t coming from me.”
—Talks about deciding to step back then winning three of the biggest brands in America in six weeks: Drew Barrymore, Victoria’s Secret and Steve Madden. After launching them, she decided again to do something different: “That’s when I decided I was going to take that powerful step forward and share my personal journey.”
19.51: Tory reveals her private hell to the world
—She was watching Drew Barrymore at a media event and thought, “You know what, I feel this is the last launch I’m going to do. It’s time to move on.”
—Sharon says it’s one thing to be ready for a change, another to publicly reveal a very personal story: “What was it that let you know you wanted to share it?”
—Tory says behind the scenes of her “very glamorous high profile life” she and her daughter Bella, now 15, had an existence that only a handful of people knew about. “When Bella was nine months old I decided I was going to leave her father, and what happened was very unexpected. It started a decade-long traumatic experience … and it wasn’t until 2017 that situation was resolved. To put that into perspective, at one point in time I was receiving up to 100 phone calls, text messages, emails a day.”
—Reveals she was ashamed, and that while those around her thought she had everything, “actually I had nothing.”
—Outlines her long court battle with her ex, and how her daughter inspired her to bring it to a conclusion: “I decided to step into my true power and potential. My daughter said, ‘Mum, you’re the only one who can resolve this situation’ and she pushed me to do it.
—Tory says she “celebrated” by crying for a week, which Sharon says was “suppressed trauma”.
—Tory says the situation “created space for us and the opportunity for us to really define what we wanted in our lives.”
28.02: The defining moment and Powerful Steps
—Sharon notes Tory’s values had helped her live her external life “and this defining moment caused it to go inside. It shifted focus from the goal to the growth.”
—Tory says she and Bella grew like “little phoenixes”. She found love and Bella is “this incredibly empowered woman now.”
—The story was told in Marie Claire, and Powerful Steps was born: “It’s been such a powerful tool and message, and for my daughter not to be ashamed or afraid of her past as well, is extraordinary.”
—Sharon notes “The shame is in the secrets.”
—Tory says the supportive reaction to her story was the opposite of what she expected, and that CEOs around the world contacted her to congratulate her. When she got those endorsements, she believed she “could show the way forward.”
—Asked by Sharon if it changed her perspective of people, Tory says “if you’re willing to take those powerful steps forward and become fearless, you’re going to naturally attract the people into your life that are meant to be there. You have to create the space to understand what you want. Now I am fearless in ways I never thought would be possible.”
—Sharon notes the “outside you” have always been fearless and the inside is probably now in alignment and Tory agrees they have become integrated.
—Tory: “Now this is just me and with me sharing it’s going to help millions of people to understand they have the potential to achieve what they want as well.”
—Sharon asks how Tory communicates her message now and what her transformation means to her.
37.42: The value of values
—Tory says her values are still the same: “I teach people about the power of connection, the power of your personal brand”.
—During lockdown she opened her books up to private mentoring sessions. “I’m showing Australians that you can be connected globally. You can work without other people around you. Don’t just look at the connections you have, get outside your comfort zone, discover new things. That’s where you’re going to get the best growth.”
—Sharon notes “no matter what” Tory is going through, she seems “very attuned, very curious, very open” to other people.
—For Tory, that’s the power and gift of listening: “When you listen you understand and the journey becomes clear.”
—Tells the story of the Nespresso launch in Australia when she changed the concept five days out and insisted on having dancers in a milk bath: “It’s never too late to change something. I never worry about the look of horror. Don’t be afraid to push back.”
—Tory’s closing message: “In life we have so many opportunities and so many challenges we face. The best advice I could give to anyone is to view those challenges as opportunities because once you do, more doors open, and when more doors open more choices come into your life.”