5 minute burn in a different light! The Jessie Georgina Story

Hi, guys. Natalie, Jill, I've got a different type of segment for you today. I want to talk about women that support each other and how impactful that could be. And I've got my good friend here, Shelly, with us today. I'm so excited because I want to tell you a little bit more about her. Many of you may have seen my very first original YouTube videos, and you may not even know how that all came about. But before I was ever doing anything with fitness or nutrition, I was doing that as a hobby, and I was in corporate America. I had this thought that I wanted to do these videos. They were called 5 Minute Burn on YouTube. And this is before I ever really focused on YouTube or knew anything about social media. And I asked my friend Shelly, who used to work out with me, if she would be down with filming some little short workout videos. She had nothing to do with fitness or nutrition either, but she said, shock, sure. I mean, heck, anytime I get for a camera, right? A camera. So we had my friend Brian literally, like, film us in Shelly's living room and we did these fun little 5 minute bird videos together. And that was our first little social media on camera experience. And it was fun. And Shelly and I obviously continue to be friends, and we've done a number of things together, including being in Jillian Michaels video together, just having fun. But one thing that always sticks with both of us, that we always have in common is, is we talk a lot about women that empower other women and believe in them and make them feel energetic and confident and happy. And we've always done that for each other. And when I had shared that I wanted to leave corporate America and start my own business in fitness and nutrition, I had a lot of friends, family going, you're crazy. At the time, I was 39, and Shelly was one of the people that said, do it, do it, do it, you've got it. So Shelly went through a similar situation, not with fitness or nutrition, but wanting to leave a secure corporate job. And I know many of you listening are struggling with this right now, too, and it was scary because you're making a great living, right?

Right, Exactly. Yeah.

And she wanted to start a new business, had a great idea, and I wanted to share her story today. So thanks for being here. Thank you.

Well, it's good to be here.

So, Shelly, tell if you could tell everybody listening, because a lot of women go through this one not having a support network or friends that are supportive and encouraging and having that, you know, situation where you've got this comfort zone, you're in, you know, bringing in a certain income, you're, everyone knows you in a certain role and then leaving that what prompted you to make that change?

Well, that's just, that's exactly it. I had been in the corporate world for quite a while my entire professional life. And it was, it was comfortable and I knew what I was doing and it was almost as though I was on autopilot.

Sure.

And so I think that the. There were a couple things that happened. One, my mom that year had been diagnosed with breast cancer. And we have a very close knit family. And it was a very difficult time for our family. And it really caused me to think, you know, gosh, I mean, if I lost my mom, it really makes you think of what's important in life.

It was a big wake up call.

It was a big wake up call. And I thought, you know, for the last time that I lay my head on the pillow, what do I want to look back and know I have done? And I thought to myself, I want to feel like that I didn't leave anything on the table. I want to make sure that I really went for it. Because life can go by very quickly.

And that you like what you're doing.

Every day and that I love what I'm doing and that I wanted to go in and just jump out of bed and feel like passionate and excited about doing what I was doing. So I was traveling a lot for business and it was one of those mornings where you're just in a hassle and you're flustered.

I never have that.

Oh, my God. So I'm on my way to the airport, I'm getting on the airplane and I'm frustrated because my bag's disorganized. I felt disorganized. I'm in a fluster. And I look to my right and there's this poor mom with three kids in the aisle next to me. And she looks just as flustered as I am. And she's looking for Cheerios and she's looking for toys and her kids are going crazy. And I thought, oh, my gosh, you know, I can relate to her. I can relate to how she feels.

In a different way. You're both flustered.

We're both flustered. I'm flustered with, I can't find my report. She's flustered because she's trying to take care of three kids and she's pulling things out of this big, huge bag. And it kind of dawned on me, why couldn't we make bags and pieces that are Organizational and functional for the way women live their life and travel.

Yeah. Love it. Because it's something. When you first showed me your concept.

I was like, I don't.

That's a good point. I don't know why I always travel with that big, huge tote. Thank you. Just throw everything in there and you have to dig and find it.

Exactly.

Get mad at your boyfriend and your friends because you can't find your stuff because it's all in this big mess.

Exactly.

It made total sense to me when you showed it to me.

Yeah. We wanted to come up with something that didn't cater to just sort of the way men travel or the way men move about the world, because we move about the world differently. So we wanted to include pieces that would help women organize that were very specific to them. And so we sort of. My sister and I, who's the co founder as well, came up with this great clothes concept of sort of combining all of the organizational and functional features. But we wanted to make it nice, too. So we didn't want it to look like you were going camping or hiking for the day, which is great sometimes, but, you know, you want to look cute and you want to look good, and you want to have. And you want it more affordable.

I mean, nice. More affordable. A lot of the big designers, I mean, they're. Can't afford them.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of the premier designers are expensive. I mean, you'll pay 1,000, $2,000 for handbag, and that's just not affordable to.

A lot of people, especially for throwing lots of stuff. I mean, just especially thinking about the mom and throwing lots of stuff in there and whatever.

Yeah.

So, okay. Talk to everybody about. Because it's scary to start your own business.

I mean, that's a risk.

What went through your mindset with that?

Well, a couple things. One, I'd been doing what I had done for a long time, and I was making a good living. I led sales teams for a living. And, you know, you kind of realize that when you're jumping off into a new venture, you don't know anything. And it really is like standing on a boat for the first time and you're trying to get your sea leg. And the other thing that was scary about it is, you know, my husband didn't necessarily want me to leave the corporate world.

Yeah, you're bringing in a paycheck regularly.

I'm making a good living. And he's like, well, you've. You've got it made. You've got it made. You've got a good income, you've got a job that you love, which I did love it. I love leading people. And it was scary taking that leap, and it really was. And I thought, wonder if I fail, what if I fail? Wonder if it's a total flop.

What helped you go for it? What helped you stay focused and go for it and take that risk?

You know, I think that for women, one of our biggest assets is our sense of intuition. Right. It's not necessarily what makes sense and what goes through your mind. It's a feeling. And in my gut, I just felt that I had a vision about what I wanted to do, and I was just going to push through it. So I was going to push through the fear because I could see where I was going on the other side, and I felt just strongly about the vision that I had, and I said, I'm just going to do it. I. I don't want to leave anything on the table. I'm gonna go for it.

And you didn't. I always say, don't make failure even an option. And I think that's what you did. You don't even put it in your mindset that failure is even a possibility.

Well, I'll tell you, you talk a lot about the vision boards, and I've always been really big on the vision boards as well. And so I did. I had a vision.

You had a picture of me on there.

Yeah, I had a picture of you. I had a picture of you. And honestly, you were a bit of an inspiration, too, because I thought, you know, Natalie did the same thing. She jumped off and left a successful corporate job, and. And she's making it happen for herself. And that was inspiring to me. And I just thought, I'm going to do it. I'm just going to push through the fear is what it was.

What advice would you give somebody listening that is thinking, you know, I don't love what I do, or I really want to live my passion or going through a similar situation. They have a great idea. What advice would you give them first?

Well, first of all, you do have to have a solid game plan, right? So before I left or did anything, I had a solid game plan in terms of what I wanted to do, where I wanted to go, and what the product and the company would be. But other than that, I would just say, go for it. The only thing that people can say is no. The only thing they can say is no.

It's interesting, too, because you talk to entrepreneurs with great ideas, and it's funny because we all think we don't have time for things, we don't have time. But all of a sudden when you have that passion and that fire, you find the time and you make it, it just starts happening. I mean, you stop times that it doesn't feel like work anymore. It's like you just start moving towards it. So I would give that same advice just to go for it. And then the advice I would add, and I think you would agree, is finding if you feel like you don't have that support network, finding it somehow. So even turning to social media for that, if you really feel like I have no family, no friends of support, finding a group on Facebook or finding other like minded people or other stories of people that have done it. So you have that inspiration, so encouragement, because there are a lot of, you've had it too, people trying to tell you, hey, you're not, you shouldn't do this. You're crazy.

That's right.

Why would you do that?

Right? Look, I mean, sometimes you just don't have a support network. And let's be honest, sometimes you just don't. And there are times in my life where I felt like I didn't have a support network, where I didn't feel like I had people around me rooting for what I wanted to do. And you know what, I did it anyway. I went internal and I depended on me and I thought, I'm just gonna push through it. Nobody else may agree with what I'm going to do, but when you feel in your gut that it's the right thing to do and the right path for you, just push through it and do it.

I love that advice. Talk to us about the name of the product because that's got an interesting tie in as well.

Yeah. So Jessie Georgina. People normally think that my sister's name is Jessie and I'm Georgina. No, the name Jessie Georgina was our grandmother and it was my mom's mom. Now. She died when we were 18. But she had such an effect on us. She was just kind of one of those women who was well before her time and she was just like, you go for it, Shelly Marie. So it's like she always used to say, she would say, make it practical, but you can make it nice. And so that's kind of what we've done here. The price point, it's not way ridiculously expensive, but it's a nice piece. So we wanted to make it accessible. Luxury.

It is definitely a lot less expensive than the top line that people talk about.

So those really high end Designers that charge two, $3,000 for a bag. Ridiculous. We didn't want to do that. We wanted to make it accessible, luxury. So it's nice. It's made of all Italian leather and all the good stuff that women love, but it's at an accessible price and that's what we wanted to do.

So where can everybody, if you're interested in learning more about her line, which is fabulous by the way, some of you, if you've seen me on Instagram or Facebook, I posted about this red bag and she gave one to me and I'm so excited. I lucked out. So if you want to learn more about her line, which is amazing and she's even got a discount code, we do. So where can they find you and what's the discount code?

Absolutely. So the discount code is Natalie Jill and anybody can go to our website and it'll be 10% off of any piece that they like with the promo code Natalie Jill at checkout.

And where's the website? Where do they go?

Jessie georgina.com.

And I'll have that down below for you too. Thanks, Shelley, for sharing your story. I hope this helped you in some way want to go for your dreams and move forward and start your something with your passion so you can enjoy what you're doing and inspire others. So thanks for being here. Thank you. See you next time. Bye.