Georgia Woodbine – Create The Life You Love Transcript

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Host: Welcome to the Lifelong Wellness podcast where we talk to wellness professionals from so many walks of life from around the world and get their insight to living healthier. I’m your host, Wes Malik, and today's guest is Georgia Woodbine and she is one of the world’s top women speakers and leading experts in personal and professional development. She's widely known as a dynamic and entertaining speaker. She is a highly sought-after trainer and she’s helped motivate and inspire an entire generation. She's been interviewed on many radio channels including FM Terrestrial and Satellite Radio. She's been a guest speaker on many TV shows in many universities and she's authored several books including Total B.S (Body & Soul), which means body and soul, How to Attract the Right Man into Your Life, How To Make Big Bucks Without Selling Your Soul!, Jewels of Inspiration and Reflections, How to Choose Your Career Path, Minute of Motivation and audio we call The Secrets to Manifest Your Dream. And also she helps writers and aspiring writers with a program and a book called How to Write the Book Inside You Workbook and other informational products. She's been doing this for a long time for 15 years now and we’re so glad that she is with us on today's podcast. Welcome to the Lifelong Wellness podcast, Georgia. How are you keeping well these days?

Georgia: Well, you know I always tell people, you know, when you start putting that effort into your wellness like through meditation and taking out time for yourself, you start to see things more clearly. So that's one of the things that I do to help me stay well.

Host: So, it's a conscious effort. Is it a struggle or does it come easy to you?

Georgia: I would say it comes easier to me in the beginning, it wasn’t a struggle but I think that once a person learns how to form positive habits that they can also get to the level where I am as far as being able to do it on a regular basis.

Host: You are in incredible shape. You tell people, you explain to people how to get into shape as well. You've written so many books that we just mentioned in your intro and you actually teach people how to write books as well. You lead a very busy life. Is that getting to the way of living healthy?

Georgia: No, because the book that I wrote is called Total B.S and of course it’s not the total BS you’re always thinking. BS stands for Body and Soul and it’s all about a mind and body and soul so that you can have that balance in your life and that you can get to a place where you can really start leveling everything in your life and be able to, you know, to make choices or decisions without the confusion and the chaos in your life. So, you know, it gets easier once you learn how to deliberately create the things you want to create.

Host: Your book is available on georgiawoodbine.com and other places as well, correct?

Georgia: Absolutely. It's on Amazon, Barnes & Noble. Yes, so they could definitely get the book there.

Host: Alright. And we could always see your videos and your podcasts on speaker and on your Facebook page. If you just Google or Facebook search Georgia Woodbine you come up and there are so many things that you’re giving out for free, all the wonderful advice to give to people. But mind, body, and soul, these three things combined. Can we live healthy by just focusing on one of them or do we have to focus on all three of these things?

Georgia: Well, aligning mind, body, and soul is all about finding one's true self. And what is that mean? That means getting to a place where you could peel away life’s preconceived notions of what we think we are or what we think will make us happy. And removing those layers of self-doubt that really prevent us from living in our highest potential, both mentally and physically as well as spiritually and financially, so getting into that place where you can really align those three is about living a happier and healthier lifestyle. When you say living a healthy lifestyle is not just about being physically fit, it’s also about being mentally fit and when you think about getting fit for life is not, like I said about how you look on the outside but how you feel on the inside. So my conception of wellness and balance and fitness goes way beyond losing weight. It’s the interconnection of mind, body, and soul and how each one of those three things has the power to affect the other. And when these three are in alignment you are able to explore new pathways of inner peace and experience living a more fulfilling life.

Host: I was reading an article today about this woman in New Zealand who lost 50 kg and she was an X model and she's really happy about her lifestyle now. And she mentioned that it wasn't the food, it wasn't the diet, it wasn’t the exercise. The first thing she focused on was breaking bad habits. It was all up here, the focus on the mind. And it's hard to get yourself motivated to live healthy or well. How does a person get on the path to creating the life they love starting with the mind, then the body, and then the soul?

Georgia: Well, you know, the first step in changing anything in your life is to confront it because you can't change what you don‘t confront. So as you talk about taking control of your life really begins with your mindset. You cannot change anything unless you say, “You know what? This is important to me. I'm going to prioritize this”. When you challenge yourself to do something you think is impossible, what happens is you start to push yourself past your perceived limitations. And once you learn how to control your thoughts, you're able to find solutions to your problems. So, getting on a path to creating the life you love is more about understanding your “why”. What is your “why”? “Why am I doing this? Why am I spending time here? Whatever it is that you're doing and you’re pursuing, always ask yourself why because the “why” is your purpose. The “why” is why you want the things you want and why you do the things you do. And when you start to understand your “why” and what you do, you start to figure out, “Okay, these are the gifts and talents that I have and this is how I could use this to help someone else” because at the end of the day creating the life you love is all about serving others, it’s all about helping others get to the next level in their life. And when you focus on the “why’ and not the “how”, when you pursue something that you love you'll find the motivation to achieve your goals.

Host: We've always talked about on this podcast, we’ve always focused on the self and you raise a really great point, you know. Living the life you love is about serving others. If we don't, we probably do with our families and possibly our friends. Maybe we don't. Maybe, you know, we live singular lives. How do we start being selfless and start serving others?

Georgia: Well, the first step, like I mentioned, is to figure out your “why”. The next step I would say is to start setting goals about what you want. If for anything in life is like you say to somebody, “What is it that you want to do?” People say “I want to change. I want to change”. When you say to someone, “Why do you want to change” or “What are you going to do once you have the change?”, they can’t answer the question. You know it’s funny. Develop a plan of action on what you want to create and because I always tell people nothing happens until something moves. You need to take daily steps, actions steps daily if you want your life to change. You have to be consistent and keep your goals relevant and realistic and create a step-by-step plan, you know. I say the world wasn't built overnight. Yes, it takes time. Yes, it takes, you know, it's a process and so I think some people get really discouraged very quickly if they start to pursue something and they don't see the results right away. You have to be prepared that once you figure out your “why”, that's going to be your motivation even if things are not as quickly as you would like them to move. Making a commitment to yourself to figure out what your true motivation is behind achieving your goals. Behind every goal lies a deeper reason, reasoning that's motivating your desire for that change or achievement. Take small steps. Take small steps, don't be afraid to revise goals and, you know, break your goals down, you know, to shorter time frames, you know. One month, three months, six months, nine months, twelve months. Then try to start three or five goals you want to accomplish within that time so that you're not overwhelmed.

Host: Sounds like we have to start with an inner conversation with ourselves about “why” and then go on. You just briefly mentioned that we should space out our goals and keep them smaller, three months, six months, nine months. Is it okay to have very lofty goals and just write down stuff like, “Oh yeah, I want to be in the best physical shape of my life and get a six-pack by the end of the year, by the end of 2020, maybe, or 2021”? Is that advisable?

Georgia: Well, I will say to start small because if you’ve already formed bad habits, you’re going to have to try to start creating more positive habits. And that doesn't happen by you saying, “Okay, if I've been eating unhealthy or I’ve been doing these certain things for 15 years, all of a sudden, in one year it’s going to change”. I will say go slowly. Take it one step at a time because it takes time to form habits, you know. Most time, people don't even realize that to form a habit, you have to do something 21 times to make it, and then it becomes a habitual thought. Take small steps. It’s going to take time for you to really say, “Okay, this is where I want to change and this is how I want to change it”. And I would say definitely start breaking the goals up because sometimes when you start to send lots set up and lofty goals and it's just too overwhelming for a person, especially if they haven't been doing something for a long period of time. It’s going to take time to retrain their thought process.

Host: Have you ever broken a bad habit or gained a good habit? How did you do that?

Georgia: Of course both. (laughing) I think we’re all human. When you form a habit, sometimes you do it without even thinking about it especially bad habits. I think that part of it is being conscious of the choices that you’re making. So for me, what helped me on that path to be more conscious of the choices that I was making and to become more of a deliberate, creative of the things that I want to see happen in my life was to slowly do things differently. And I think that…

Host: Slowly, okay.

Georgia: Yes, slowly do things differently like so many things that I did was okay. I started to meditate. Meditation is powerful. Meditation is awesome. Meditation can change your life. And so that's one of the things I always recommend to my clients that if you want to change, start with implementing things that can help you on that path to change to get that clarity and that focus that you make.

Host: What kind of meditation did you start with?

Georgia: I don't really have a specific type of meditation. Meditation to me is just getting to a place where you can really silence your mind and not allow your trip your thoughts to control you so just allowing your mind to flow freely. And so when I started doing it, I started doing it like five minutes a day because I think most people get intimidated when they talk about meditation. It’s like “Is there a wrong way or right way to do it?” or “What should I be doing?” or “What should I be thinking about?” You should be trying not to think about anything and allow your mind to just wander and just flow freely. So for me, my experience, I’ve been doing it for almost 15 years now. In the beginning, it was hard. It was hard because we are so inundated with so much negativity around us that sometimes it's hard to allow your mind to flow freely without thinking about what you have to do tomorrow, or next week, or what you did yesterday. You know, it's hard to retrain that part of yourself where it’s like a robot. It’s always thinking about what’s the next thing that I have to do because we are such a microwave society.

Host: That’s what's going on, yeah. All the time.

Georgia: Yeah, it’s like “What do I have to do next”. For me, what helped the meditation, what did for me is it gave me ideas. It helped me to become more creative. Even as a writer, I didn’t know, when I wrote a book that I was going to write become an author, yeah I didn’t know 15 years ago I was going to be a writer or a life coach or any of these things, but I believe that they were already in me. And so what meditation does is, it takes those gifts and your talents and your skills and those natural abilities, and those could be things that you’ve gotten through education. Those could be things that you’ve gotten from your past jobs. It can be anything, but it allows you to connect those dots to make sense of your life and that's what meditation did for me.

Host: That's incredible. (I) Never connected the dots from meditation to your career, (I) always thought that meditation would just calm yourself, maybe silence thoughts, build better mindfulness of our environment around us. Getting to the body and of course, the soul in a bit as well, what kind of healthy habits do you have in terms of the physical aspect of the body part of?

Georgia: Well, I always talk about, especially when my book about how certain foods that we eat affect how we respond and react, and feel. And so when I was writing this book and I started doing research and all these different foods that I was putting into my body, I’m like, “Okay this is why I'm feeling tired all the time”. “This is why I feel depressed” or “This is why I have no energy in”. Sugar happens to be one of the biggest things that can affect how you feel and so because you won't, on a high then you go on a low, you don’t know why you’re feeling so tired, you don't know why you feel like not motivated to do anything. So always paying attention to what you're putting into your body because what you put into your body does affect how you feel. And you know, eliminating certain things that you may not know that may be affecting you. I do talk about, you know, looking at when you go to a supermarket and you purchase something, look at the calories in it, look at the fat, look at all these things, how much sugar because if you're not paying attention to what you're purchasing and what you're buying and you start to feel a certain way, how can you take control of it? How can you change it? So just becoming, really becoming more aware of your choices and how to change those choices and make better choices.

Host: What kind of exercise routine do you have?

Georgia: Now, when I first started out, let me tell you this funny story because, you know, I always love going to the gym but I think sometimes people go to the gym and they don't really know how to use certain equipment. And sometimes I would see these guys and they’re lifting this very, very heavyweight and they’re just slamming it down. And I’m like, wait a minute. It’s like almost they can't manage it but they try to lift them up but that’s too much for them to lift and I see them. People are using their equipment incorrectly. You know, they're not doing things right. I started off with personal training because I said, “You what, I want to learn how to use equipment properly. I want to know what I should be doing.” So I started out with, initially because I wasn't a big workout person, I started out doing classes, you know. I started out doing Zumba classes and then after that, I started doing yoga classes and Taichi and all these different things. I just wanted to delve into things that I thought would interest me. And I think initially, it was the music and Zumba that got me. Like a packet of this one hour and not even feel like I’m working out. Like this is just like I’m dancing out of the time. I think for anyone that’s on that path to wellness and getting physically fit is to try to tie in things that you really enjoy. And it may be, it may not be Zumba, maybe yoga, you know, and maybe something else that interests you, maybe kickboxing but something that will keep you motivated to continue to do it. When I started working out, I started doing it three times a week and I said, you know what, when I write this book, I challenge myself. I said, “I want to charge for my body and change and lose this weight and write about it at the same time”. I think that was probably the most difficult thing I’ve ever challenged myself to do is to write a book in 90 days and lose weight and that's what I did when I wrote that book Total BS. So what I said, “Oh my God! I can accomplish this”. Almost like, “Oh my gosh there’s nothing I really can't do”, you know, once you put your mind to it. So I really believe that you know, it's really about getting that self-discipline. And of course, you know, self-discipline is the key, is one of the hardest things for people to achieve. And so, most of us know what we need to do to change certain things but sometimes we lack the focus and the discipline needed. So there's always different techniques that you can apply to different areas of your life to take that action. So another thing I recommend is getting an accountability partner when you're trying to get on that path to wellness, physically, mentally, emotionally, financially. Get someone to hold you accountable, to say, “Did you do what you have to do?” because most of us know like if we don't have anyone hold us accountable is like out of sight, out of mind it’s like you’re another pretty back. So that part‘s important.

Host: So who’s your accountability partner?

Georgia: Well, when I first started out it was my personal trainer. I mean, usually, I’m all about getting fit and getting in shape, right? Physically. So that was my accountability partner. Now, initially in my business, I did have a business coach to help me as well so I think that anything in life you always want to get insight from somebody that knows more than you. And so, I teach at colleges and high schools because I have a career book that actually created a curriculum for and I told them, “You don’t ever want to be the smartest person in your circle because if you are, then you're not growing and you're not evolving”. You always want to be around people that know more than you know.

Host: Now, the third part that I’m interested to know about spirituality, the mind, body, and soul. How does that work in your book or how to live a good life?

Georgia: Well, you know it’s funny. I grew up in a church, right? So I am Christian and I do have a spiritual background but I can tell you this, no one teaches you how to deal with pain. It does not matter how spiritual you are, doesn't matter what color, where you come from, we got cultures, we have to background any of those things. So I think that when you go through life and you go through the pain and you go through disappointments and obstacles and challenges and setbacks, it builds your character. It teaches you to overcome the next challenge and so for me, spiritually, that's really what kept me, you know, as far as being having faith that “You know what, I don't know if this is going to work out the way that I wanted to but I know that it’s going to work the best way for me”. And so having that type of mindset where it's like sometimes we feel we have control over a lot of things that are going on around us and then we see in reality, we don't have control is sometimes we do have to let certain things go because sometimes when you're still pursuing things and everything’s going to work out this way and then it doesn’t and then you get discouraged. And so I think that who like a lot of people back from success is even just going through that, where they say they get excited about something and they feel something is going to work and then it doesn't work out the way that they wanted it to. So faith is what helped me to get through that, as far as the soul part, to learn, to understand that you know what, it may not always go the way that you want, but that's not a bad thing either because sometimes there are things about yourself that you need to shed, that you need to change. Sometimes it's your attitude, your mental attitude you need to change. Sometimes it's how you respond to people that you need to change, sometimes it’s how you react is what you need to change. So it's always about surrendering that part of ourselves where we know that things are going to work out the best way possible without being in control of every single piece of it that we think should go the way that we want. So that's really what helped me with that soul part, honestly.

Host: That's awesome. I was going to ask you if you share some personal insight but you just did and that's it so wonderful to hear how you deal with disappointment. Tell us about what you're working on these days. What are the current projects that you're tackling?

Georgia: Well, what I decided to do was, at first a challenge for me but you know what? I want to talk about this, about the two different mindsets because I do believe that your mindset has a lot to do with how successful you are in life. And the two different mindsets are the fixed mindset and the growth mindset. If you don't know which one you are and you’re continuing to making the same decision then it’s hard to see why you're not succeeding at what you do. So when you have a fixed mindset that's basically, it's two different theories that they came up with my people respond to things that the way they do. So when you have a fixed mindset you say, “You know what, I'm not good at this. I can’t try this because it’s not going to work. I'm just not any good at it” or “You know what, I tried that it didn't work. I’m not going to try anything else” or You know what, I don’t want to do that. It’s just too hard. It’s just going to take too much time”. That's when you know you have a fixed mindset, okay? When you have a growth mindset, you understand that you can do things differently to get different results. So you may not do well at something but then you look at it differently and you say, “You know what, this is for me to grow”. You know I did this for me to go to the next level or this is going to teach me something. So being aware of your mindset is very important. And so for me, when I get into the projects that I'm working on which is the online classes, which I know a lot of people they’re trying to figure out what technology or how to do this, how to do that. Sometimes if you have a fixed mindset it’s like, “This is just too hard. I just can't do this. There are just too many pieces to figure out”. But I have a growth mindset and so what I did was I created these online courses. Did I know what I was doing initially? No. Did I know how it’s going to happen? No. But I know I had a passion and I had the desire. And so when you have a desire, you know, you would have a desire if you weren’t capable of achieving what it is that you're thinking about. So when you pursue something with passion, it's like you don't worry about the “how’ or the “who” or the “what”. You just say, “You know, I’m going to do this. I don't know all the pieces but I’m just going to start taking the first step”. And so that's what I did. I created these online courses that I have now, the one is called Create The Life You Love, where I shared my personal blueprint, my story of what I did, how I was able to become successful at what I do, which is public speaking, which is motivational coaching, which is life coaching and doing these online courses and creating curriculums for schools and how I wrote a book and turn it into the curriculum and sold it to colleges and high school. I basically share my insight and everything that I did to make me successful. And I think a lot of times and like people see successful people but they still don’t know what that secret is like, what was that secret recipe? Why is it that some people fail and some people don't succeed? And it has a lot to do with mindset and that is really the key to your success because when you start to control, you know, your mindset will start becoming having more of a growth mindset instead of the fixed mindset, then you can start to figure out solutions to things, that barriers that's holding you back for what you want to achieve in your life.

Host: What are some of your best-kept secrets or tips that you keep to yourself that you can't share?

Georgia: You know what, I don't have any kept secrets that I don’t share because I do believe in giving and I believe in the law of reciprocity. I do have a lot of secrets that I do share freely as you mentioned earlier in this podcast where I’m always giving. Because you know what, I believe that the more you give, the more you receive. So the more insight that I get on certain things I share it because I believe that the more I share, the more I receive. So as you give you start to receive more. I can definitely give your audience three tips on how to stay motivated as an entrepreneur and to create the life you love. So one of the things that I talk about is to create a mission statement for your life. A lot of people here, people, companies have mission statements, not-for-profits have a mission statement, corporations have a mission statement. You should have a mission statement for your life. Why is it that you want what you want? So my mission statement, I’m going to share with the audience is, “What drives me every day?” It's why I make certain decisions that I make. It’s why I participate in certain things.

So, “I, Georgia Woodbine, I’m here to empower, inspire, and motivate 1 million+ people to transform their mindset to change their lives.”

So now that mission statement is what moves me with everything that I do and gives me focus and gives me clarity so that I'm not off-track doing things that really don't tie into my mission. Another thing is to prioritize your life. Prioritize your life based on what’s important to you. Make time for things that is important to you and do not, do not let other people monopolize your time if it’s not aligned with your happiness, your values, or your purpose.

Host: Sounds easier said than done. It sounds like a huge task to undertake. (laughing) Life knocks us down with so many things. It throws so many curveballs at us all the time. We’re dealing with change and we’re dealing with so many challenges. It's sometimes difficult to maintain that singularity of focus.

Georgia: Sure, Wes. You’re absolutely right. And this is why initially when I talked about meditation because when you do that you realize what you should be doing when you should be doing it instead of just aimlessly doing things. And what happens is sometimes when you do that, because you want to be everything to everybody and we cannot because there’s only one you. Do you know what I mean? You cannot make another you so you have to be wise about how you’re spending your time. And time management is also a big, big piece to figuring out what it is that you need to do and how you’re going to achieve it. So a lot of times you'll hear people say, “I can't do that because I don't have enough time”. And so most people don’t even look at it this way but when you look at the time, you know, there is 168 hours in a week. That is a lot of hours. So what are you doing with 168 hours a week? How are you dissecting that time? As I think that before you can’t change what you’re going to confront. You have to see where you’re losing time. You have to see what you’re wasting time and you have to redirect and refocus that time to say, okay, maybe I should cut back on this because this is not really aligning with my “why” or my purpose or my mission statement. And maybe I should focus more on this because this aligns with my “why” and my mission and my purpose. So understanding time and what you’re doing with your time and where your time wasted is where you should be cutting back is very important. So you know when I tell people that they’re like, “What? You know, I never thought about that way.” So yeah, when you start looking at things differently then you can change it, you know. When you change the way, there’s a famous quote, this is “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change”. So now you have to change the way that you’re looking at things.

Host: Well, there’s some wisdom for you. That’s awesome. I never heard of that quote before. But it’s such a refreshing take on time management. So there are three parts, you said. So there's a mission statement and is the second part-time management or are they different?

Georgia: Prioritize your life based on what's important to you. So yeah, time management, absolutely.

Host: What's the third thing?

Georgia: The third thing is setting goals. Decide what you want to achieve and develop an action plan. You know, goal setting is always the best way to maintain your focus. Because as I said before, out of sight out of mind. Anything in life you want to succeed you have to have a plan. You have to have a plan of how you’re going to achieve it. You just can't say “I want to be successful” and you don't have a plan on how you’re going to do it or you’re not taking action steps every day towards this goal. So you know it's always important to set goals because what happens is, as you achieve one goal you become more confident as you mentioned before, more motivated, and was like “Okay if I achieve this then I can achieve that”. So what happens is you start to become the driver in your life and you realize that “Wow! I could really change something I'm not happy with”. If I’m not happy with this relationship, if I'm not happy with this job, if I'm not happy with my finances if I'm not happy with anything. You can change it. You have the power to change whatever it is you want to change.

Host: That is so inspirational and it is so true as well. We forget that we have the ability to change ourselves sometimes and it's important to be reminded of that fact, Georgia thank you very much for reminding us of all those things. How can our audience get in touch with you?

Georgia: Well, they can find me on Google, they can go to my website www.georgiawoodbine.com, they can follow me on Instagram, like me on Facebook, tweet me on Twitter and share my information on LinkedIn and they could always go to my website again www.georgiawoodbine.com where I have a lot of definite videos where they can get a lot of insight and information tools that they can apply today.

Host: You have so many wonderful books out there. Total B.S (Body & Soul), How to Attract the Right Man into Your Life, that sounds like a very interesting book, How To Make Big Bucks Without Selling Your Soul!, Jewels of Inspiration and Reflections. What is that book about?

Georgia: Jewels of Inspiration and Reflections are just little stories that I’ve written about, you know, on my path to finding my purpose. So, it’s really to definitely inspire people and help to give them the motivation that they need to move forward. So I wrote that book when I was actually going through my own challenges, try to figure out what my purpose was. So that's really what that book. So, it’s a bunch of short stories and just different things and I share some personal stories about in my experiences about myself and how I was able to overcome those challenges and obstacles.

Host: How to Choose Your Career Path, Minute of Motivation, an audio CD, an audio book of Make It Happen: The Secrets to Manifesting Your Dream and How to Write the Book Inside You Workbook and that's also your workshop that you give to aspiring writers as well.

Georgia: Yes, I also have a class called How To Write a Book in 30 Days or Less that I taught at the Learning Annex. So that is also, well I have three online courses and that if they go to my site they’ll see three different online courses that I have.

Host: How is it possible to write a book in 30 days? It's impossible!

Georgia: Nothing is impossible if you put your mind to it. Nothing. It’s just knowing the “know-how” really. It’s not “I can't do it”. It's “How do I do it”.

Host: Very well said. You've done it. Have your students written books in 30 days?

Georgia: Yes, I do have students that have actually taken that course and they have actually have completed their books. People that we’re talking about had a book inside and that they were writing for 15 years that actually took my course and follow the path that I gave them and they were able to achieve their goals.

Host: Incredible. Georgia, thank you so much for being on the podcast with us today.

Georgia: Thank you so much, Wes, and I just want to share really quickly that I do have a free gift for your listeners, for your audience. It is the 5 Secrets to Turn Your Passion into Profit. It is a free guide and when they go to my website www.georgiawoodbine.com, all they have to do is put their information in and I will send them that free guide.

Host: That’s so wonderful. Thank you so much. You have a great rest of the day.

Georgia: Thank you very much.