E62: Unleashing Mental Health and Business Success with Georgia Vanderville

Jim: Remote Start Nation, on this episode, we are going to be discussing the journey of one entrepreneur who's taken her just cause to inspire healthier mental health by connecting people to happiness, paired with what she's learned while traveling in the United States in Europe, hiking and backpacking, and listening to stories around the world has led her to start her multi seven figure candle manufacturing company. Georgia Vanderville is an award-winning entrepreneur, best-selling author, TEDx speaker and known for her international work with youth as well as with our women owned business community. She was also voted as the most influential women woman of the Sierra Nevadas, and she's used her influence to help women entrepreneurs internationally grow and expand their reach. I had the honor recently of meeting Georgia and her husband Nick. At a Growth conference and I started to hear her story and immediately couldn't wait to have her on the Remote Start Nation. So with that, Georgia, I wanna welcome you to the Remote Start Nation. I'm absolutely honored to have you today.

Georgia: Hi, Jim, thank you. I'm honored to be here.

Jim: Absolutely. I like I had mentioned, we had a great talk in Vegas at the 10X Growth Conference. I'm I was inspired by your story, I'm excited to share it. Yeah, thank you, and, let's get started. I'd love to know and share with the Remote Start Nation, what's something of, if we just met you.

Georgia: Oh, if you met me in person, you might notice this, but one of the biggest things is my height. I am five foot, half an inch. Actually, that's what it says on my driver's license. I'm actually four 11 and a half, but I will tell people five foot, half an inch, because someone once told me that under five foot is a midget and I don't consider myself a midget so that's a half an inch.

Jim: Five foot and half an inch, that half an inch is what matters right there, that's the big part.

Georgia: That's the big part.

Jim: So tell me, tell us a little bit about your entrepreneurial journey, when did it start? Tell us more about your story.

Georgia: It started in 2002, actually, officially, it started in 2001. I met a boy on a motorcycle. I asked him for a ride and he told me no. And then, he looked at me, realized he was okay with short girls, so he said, okay, I'll give you a ride around the block. And that was a few months before Christmas, but I had just gotten home from Europe and I didn't have any money, so I then needed to, at Christmas time, get him something for Christmas. I had no idea, I didn't know what he liked, I had just met him a few months earlier, I really didn't know anything about this dude, and he had a candle in his house. So with a conversation with my sister-in-law, actually we, I decided, I'll make him a candle. She showed me how to make candles and I made candles for him and for my girlfriends that I just moved in with, they saw me making candles. So then they gave me candle making stuff for Christmas, so I had all this extra stuff in the closet, and then Valentine's Day came and I made him a heart shaked candle, and I took it to work because my boyfriend was a dude and I needed a dude's opinion, and I ran valet at a casino here in Reno and I take it to this casino. I show all these guys and this one kid goes, these, this is the best candle ever. And at that point I thought I invented scented candles, I didn't. But I didn't know that I was 20, I was 21. So I go and I make, and this kid asked me, he says, Hey, can you actually make me a candle? I said, sure, what do you want? He said, I want a beer scented candle, I was like, all right, I could probably do that. And then I did research and since he was gonna pay me for something, I had to make a good product, I had to create it. And that was where we started was, from not having enough money to make this boyfriend a gift and then making him another gift of Valentine's Day, and then making this other kid a beer cied candle, and then believing that I'd invented something amazing that would make everybody happy. That was where we started, and then we did farmer's markets and we just kept going and we kept going and kept going.

Jim: So Shorty's Candles was started be, you made a beer candle a beer Senate candle, did it? Did it really smell like beer?

Georgia: It did, it was so gross, like Dale old beer that had been sitting open on a countertop, like warm beer, it was not good. But he loved it, we were all in college, he loved it.

Jim: I'm just gonna throw it out there and just guess that you don't sell a beer scented candle though.

Georgia: No, we don't. No, we had these tin cans, these old Milwaukee tin cans, and I told him if he cut the top off, I'd fill the tin can for him.

Jim: That's a good idea, I like that.

Georgia: He beer scented tin can candles.

Jim: There you go. You never know where it's gonna lead. How many cents of candles do you have now? I went on your site and there's so many.

Georgia: Oh that's a good question, I think we have 58, I could make that up.

Jim: Oh, awesome.

Georgia: Someone's gonna go and count. They're gonna be like, no, they have 62. I don't know, maybe 52, that's bad. I don't know, I'm not sure, I have 58 in my head.

Jim: Cool. We're going with 58.

Georgia: Perfect.

Jim: That's a lot of sense. And do you try, in the business model, is it something that you're trying to constantly come out with new scent and, or is it these are your trying and true, you've had them for a long time and you're just running with them or is R and D kind of a big part of what you do?

Georgia: R and D is actually a massive part of what we do. It does take us quite a bit of time to be able to launch a new fragrance. And the space in our warehouse sometimes can feel really limiting when we are trying to put a new product into it. But research and development, what we've been spending our time on recently is coming out with a product where you do not need to trim your wic. You just light it, it smells absolutely incredible and it burns clean. So that's really where we've been putting our time and energy, I actually do all the research and development myself, that is my position, there really is R and D.

Jim: Awesome. And what was it that made you go from, really trying those, the three things that you're focusing on right now? Was it just listening to customer feedback and understanding that's where it needed to go or is this something that you've been in the industry for as long as you have, that's a big step up with, the wicks and everything there.

Georgia: Honestly, the drive came. So a lot of things have come from my sister-in-law, I absolutely love her. But one of the things was I didn't grow up with a lot of money, and in my house we moved all the time. It was like this apartment to this condo, we had five kids, there were seven of us. So we were moved here to here to hear, and we just never had anything that was our own. And when we very first started making candles, it was about creating this product that everyone was just giggly and happy about, but then once my brother and his wife bought their first house, it became something different for me because they would burn our candles and our candles didn't burn as clean as I wanted them to. And we would do what every other candle company would do. We would say, trim your wick, she would never trim her wick and it would really bother me. So I would go over and I would trim her wick and I would clean her glass out. And finally I got sick of doing that, and I told her that she was not allowed to burn any of our candles in her house ever again until I figured this out. So I worked and worked, and it took me several years to be able to come up with this perfect, beautiful combination of natural fragrances, natural wax. Amazing, incredible wick that you don't have to babysit, you don't have to wipe your jar clean. You don't have to worry about your walls. You don't have to worry about all of these things. You know your animals can feel safe, your kids are safe, you're safe, and your house is safe, and now you know, my family has broken the tradition of moving. Now all the kids in my family, we all own homes, we all care about those things, but one of the biggest things was just making sure that what we had, what we'd worked so hard for was taking care of. And that was really the driving force behind moving over to a cleaner burning situation was, yeah, taken care of what we have.

Jim: Wow, that's awesome, that's a good place to start. What I know you're a huge advocate on helping women entrepreneurs, and I know that means so much to you. What are you doing? What are some of the things you're doing in, and I know speaking is one of them, but what are some of the things that you're doing to really pave the way for other women entrepreneurs.

Georgia: Speaking is really a big part of it. As well as going into classrooms and talking to younger women, and that is really have, that has really been an interesting situation. So I'll go into these classrooms and it might be a class on entrepreneurship and these. Younger women are trying to figure out, exactly how we move through, and I'm taking the lessons that I've learned in the past. We've been in business since 2002, and so we're coming up on our 21st year, that's a long time. There's a lot of lessons there, but there were a lot of things that I didn't know and I didn't have a mentor, I didn't have anybody that I could go to and ask questions from. So it was just all trial and error, but now I'm able to go into these classrooms and we're able to sit down and say, Hey, what is your company that you're looking at? That you're working on. And they'll tell me, oh, it's a candy company. Okay, let's go, let's talk to your customers. So who in here are customers? And then you know, what are the things that you know what are the reasons why you buy candy? So then they'll tell them, okay, so then, okay, so now you have this information and now you can talk to your customers in their language. So it's really about giving them different ideas and thoughts. So that way they can approach what they're doing differently as well as, how do we set up your facility? How do we make sure that you're following guidelines, especially if you're working with food. So really diving into the company itself as opposed to we dive into the company. And then also a big part that we address is mindset. So it's all about getting your mind and your thoughts, going in a good manner. That way you are taking yourself in a good direction instead of stopping yourself and recognizing when you are stopping yourself, and recognizing when you have these beliefs from a long time ago that you might have learned when you're two or three, that are now actually stopping and limiting your company without even recognizing it. So being able to talk about mindset has been a huge thing, especially for women.

Jim: Yeah, let's talk about that a little bit more, I think there's a lot of stigmas around that and, you and your experience, like what are some of the things you've seen and some of the ways you've been able to help other women overcome this mindset that they might have?

Georgia: One of the things, that I have noticed that will hold people back, is this pressure to impress somebody else, and it's not, excuse me, I said that incorrectly, it's not to impress somebody else, it's to uphold somebody else's expectations of them, we go to school and we're always told, let's work hard. Mom and dad, grandma, grandpa, aunt, uncle, we've all sacrificed for you, so now you're gonna do all of this work. You're gonna get this great job and you're gonna take the company or the, you're gonna take the family name to a different level. But that's a lot of pressure on somebody. So being able to take that off of yourself and move forward in a manner that's in your direction. Because when you go in your direction, that's when you will actually help uplift everybody else that's around you, that's when mom and dad, grandma, grandpa, aunt, uncle, brothers and sisters, that's when everybody actually is really proud of you because then you're following what you feel is right, plus you. Are an example to them that if you follow what you feel is right, then everything will come together and things blossom. Also, another thing is don't quit, that is one of the biggest things is, we had times where we went through a lot of hard hardships and back in 2014, 2000, 2008 to 2014. That's a big time span, but we I feel if I hadn't known that quitting was an option, I probably would have, but I didn't know it was an option, so I just never did. But I took on a lot. I took on way more than I probably should have for myself. And in recognizing that it's okay to reach out for help as well as, looking at what could go right, instead of looking at what could go wrong, look at what could go right. And making a list of those things that could go right, allows you to step forward and to see, and to take that next leap, even if you're scared.

Jim: I love that you hit on something a about, the mindset shift and proving yourself or showing yourself to, others that have maybe held you to a higher standard. And somebody once said to me, and I love this cause one of my daughter was very young. I said, just don't tell her how to be in business and just don't tell her, business lessons. Show her, let her see you doing the actions, let her see you paving the way and doing the things. And that's such a bigger opportunity to help her grow than to just tell her, and, I took that to heart and a lot of when my daughter was younger and we were producing and manufacturing apparel for our clothing brand and, she was there folding shirts and counting in things and seeing us talk to customers and, all the different aspects of running a business. She got to see firsthand, and now she's 13, but I see a lot of the traits, a lot of the things that I've wanted to instill in her, they come out naturally and I think that is a big part because I submersed her in what we were doing, and she saw the things that we had to do. I really feel like actually showing and doing it is such a better way than just telling. So yeah, that's I'm with you there.

Georgia: That's beautiful, nice work, that's really cool. And she might not realize it now, you've set it up. My kids, we have these machines that I want, these these pieces that I'd like them to make to work on our assembly line. And they bought 3D printers and we set up their own little businesses for them. So they're making these parts for us on their 3D printers, and we're actually buying them from them.

Jim: Oh, that's so cool. Have they, what stage of building these and making them, are they in, have they already built them out and they've or are they still prototype?

Georgia: No, we have a whole production floor going on, we have a production floor for their parts at our house, and then we have production at the warehouse. So lots of stuff going on.

Jim: That's so cool, in your being a parent and being a business owner, do you hope that your kids will one day take over and join and, be a part of the business with you?

Georgia: It's interesting because I see so many different things that can be really helpful and I sometimes I go back and forth on that because sometimes yes, I want them to step up and join, but then other times I want them to figure out where, what it is that they feel they're really good at and step into that. And this project actually, in having them work together, it's been really cool because one of them is really good at so we, one of them, my younger one, he created all of these little dinosaur, or not dinosaurs, snakes on his 3D printer. And he was taking them to school and the snakes just kept disappearing. We thought he was giving them away to friends, no big deal and then one morning I heard a knock at the front door. So I went to the front door and it's before school, I'm like, what is this little boy doing here? And I ask him, and he's oh, I'm here, buy my snake from your son, I'm like, wait a second here, what? So he was selling these snakes and in recognizing that one of his strengths is connecting with people and selling. And then my other son, he's very computer oriented, he's very this is this program, I can open this CAD drawing, he's 12 and he's making, he's designing in these solid CADWorks or whatever the program is called. He's and I could have made up that name or butchered it. But he's working in these programs and he's building all these components for us, and he's physically doing it, and wow, and being able to see that they both have these different strengths and then bringing them together, and saying, Hey, younger son, why don't you talk to the older one, and you guys can work together. They're only 14 months apart, but they totally are different people, and in being able to connect the two of them and create this little partnership for each other with each other, has been able to take their business to a different level and such a, and they are in our business by doing this.

Jim: Yeah, that is so cool, and I think it teaches at a young age some of the very important lessons of business, and that's partnership and learning how to work with somebody and understanding your strengths, and understanding your weaknesses and partnering with those who are strong with you, stronger than you are at certain areas. So I absolutely love that, that is incredible, thank you for sharing that.

Georgia: Yes, definitely.

Jim: Let's look at the staying on the theme of partnership, you work side by side with your husband Nick in the business on a daily basis, that is, I wouldn't imagine that's easy.

Georgia: Some days it is, and some days it isn't. The days it is are the days he's doing what I want him to do, days that isn't are the days where I feel. There's too much resting on my shoulders and I haven't organized myself enough. And I have found that for me in my partnership, being able to recognize that sometimes I'm the one that's causing the tension has been a big. Help for us because then I can take a step back and I can go, okay, wait a second here. You are the one elevating this, calm down and address it differently, and just because he's not doing what I want him to do doesn't mean that we're not getting to the same destination together.

jim: And do you set up, is there certain things that you say, okay, this month we're gonna accomplish this and I'm gonna work on this. You work on your end and then at the end, is there something that you can bring yourself back and say, okay, we're still getting to the same end goal, he's just not doing it the way I would like, like you mentioned.

Georgia: We have that, yes, we don't do it systematically, like we don't sit down and count minutes and have an official meeting. But and other things will come up, he was on a different server for a long time. For years and years we've been on one server and for our website and all of a sudden the gentleman who was running the server, his one of his best friends accidentally passed away. And so then all of a sudden, now we're in the middle of changing servers. And with all of that, it changed the direction that we were headed in because now all of a sudden it's taken some extra time, but in being able to go, okay, I see that we're being derailed, but what are we being derailed for? There's gotta be a bigger purpose for this. So what are the things that could go right now that we have changed paths a little bit and instead of Yeah, being able to, we wanted, we, I want PayPal hooked up to our website really badly. So do a lot of customers, and it just hasn't happened yet, but in being able to swap it over to our own server now, my husband has access to all that backend and he can, he's built some incredible software and in being able to bring his software onto our own server, Then means many different things, then now he can hook up PayPal and he's in complete control of it now. The software that he has that helps our, it's changed the face of our company. It's changed everything for us. It's helped us grow incredibly. It's saved I don't know, 12 jobs. It's, but with all of that, now we have more control over it. So being able to, instead of getting frustrated because everything wasn't going on that same track, and being able to jump over and go, okay, now what could go right because maybe this track is a different course for us and course correct, or I don't know if it's course correct or like course adjust, that would probably be it. Just adjust your course a little bit and be okay with it not being exactly how you think it's gonna go. That's okay.

Jim: And is that something, is it something over time you've realized and implemented or I mean there had to be some type of, like when you first started and you're both working together and what were some of the things that came up that were pretty tough?

Georgia: When we first started, we didn't go and start a company to start a company, we were just screwing around, we were just having fun and we were not depending on the income from it. So we had a little bit lighter of a load on our shoulders. Yeah, we weren't driven to make millions of dollars in the first three months, we were just out to have fun. And in that aspect it was really just about having fun, so a lot of little tiny things just got swept away. And then as things got a little bit more intense, things got harder things things did become a little bit more solid and real, then we had to, then we had to really take a step back and actually we had talked about this the other day, but In 2014, I had, we were just working really hard and it had gotten to a point where our company was really going downhill and we had lost every single employee we could, we couldn't really hire anybody back, I could hire keep one person on payroll, we just had nothing. And it was because of lack of belief in ourselves, lack of organization, lack of organization really was the biggest thing. But yeah, I ended up having a moment, actually it wasn't one, it was May 31st, 2014 and it was five 30 in the morning and I'm interviewing a lady and my brain just did a twist and it just, it was like a deja vu, like a deja vu for two minutes that didn't end. And at the end we were actually working on our property at that point, ‘cause we'd had a warehouse. We had to close the warehouse. We moved back to our property and we had built a shop on our property, and we had moved back to that. We were working in that shop and it was, really tough. And I had two little kids and I'm trying to take care of these two kids and run this company and be a wife and keep the house clean and just do everything, and I wasn't sleeping and I was putting all this weight on my shoulders, and I ended up losing about 95% of my memory after that. What happened actually, was that happened with that lady when I was interviewing her. I just, I couldn't remember what we had been talking about, yeah, just seconds earlier, just like I know minute earlier. So I just said, thank you so much for coming in, have a good day, and she left. And then I went in into my house and I ended up going to sleep and I woke up about two hours later and I heard crying. And so I just walked across to the house toward the crying and I opened the door and I was shocked that there were two cribs, and I was like, oh, I have two children, okay. What do you do with kids? And they helped me learn that they needed food and they just helped me, we did a whole bunch of things and I used to be an American Sign language interpreter. I had been one for four years, and so that day was a Saturday morning, May 31st was a Saturday morning, and then Sunday I had to go to church to go interpret for my friend, and I loaded my kids in my car and. It took me about half an hour to learn how to back outta my driveway. And I finally figured it out and I was driving a stick shift. So I just kept like jumping my car, I finally figured out how to get out of the driveway and then I had to MapQuest how to get outta my neighborhood and how to get to church so I could remember tiny little things, and then I got all the way in and I was like, okay, I made it here, I got it, I got it. Got all the way into church, sat down and all of a sudden I realized that it was bigger than I thought because I remembered one sign, sorry, all these signs, I'd been working for years and years on interpreting for four years, and it was all gone, I couldn't interpret, I couldn't do anything for her anymore. And in that I realized that we had to change what we were doing in our company. And wow, I had to change how I was thinking, and this was a journey. This was not something that I just went, oh wait, I need to do something different, alright. And I've changed overnight this, it was a journey to go through all of this, and it took a while to make it to the other side. And there's still some things that I don't remember, yeah, there are, but I've gained back most of my memory and I'm able to retain things now, which I wasn't able to back then, but in that, yeah, just in recognizing that I can come into something with a positive mindset. Yeah, with positivity and be grateful for what I have and not try to push myself or push other people to do something to the point where they break, but to guide people and to guide it, it's helped me become a better leader as well. And I think there was a question in there, but I forgot where that question came from.

Jim: You know what I, that sharing that story with us was incredible and to, for all of a sudden, just your life to change like that's so scary, and to, what was the process like, the healing process? Was it a lot of like work at the hospital and the doctors family? Like how did that look?

Geprgia: There was a lot of work with the hospitals, so we ended at the hospital, after hospital. They did they did a spinal tap, which was the absolute worst pain I would give, I gave birth to two children with no medicine in any way, shape or form, and I would do that again to not ever have to do that spinal tap again, that was awful. But after everything was said and done, it was really up to me to change. So I found I actually found myself in that journey and I didn't realize that I didn't know who I was and I wasn't doing anything for myself, there's that phrase like, take care of yourself first. Okay, but what does that mean? Okay I'll br I'll get up, I'll brush my teeth, comb my hair before I get up the kids and help them brush their teeth, but what does that mean to actually take care of yourself? And I came back to learning things. I found meditation actually, and meditation has been the biggest thing for our company growth, for my mental growth for every, so many things. I could go off on meditation, I also learned that it's okay for me to step forward and say, I'd like to learn that, and to go after what it is that I want to learn. And yeah

Jim: With meditation, do you meditate? Is it a daily, is it, in the mornings? Is it throughout the day? What does that look like?

Georgia: It is, I meditate every morning, so I'll meditate for 20 minutes by myself, and then I'll meditate with one of my sons. He likes to meditate, so I'll meditate with him for three to five minutes in the morning before he goes to school. And then with my, I will meditate tiny little amounts throughout the day if, but it's real. Just simple, just close your eyes, breathe in, just recognize where you are and let go of all the other stuff that's going on, and then you can come back to where you are. But one other thing too was also food. So one of my biggest things was food. And I know that this isn't business related, but being able to take food out of sugar was my number one thing. So taking sugar outta my diet was what helped me get into it was what allowed me to heal because after that moment, on May 31st, it kept happening. So it happened over and over and over again until about 2018.

Jim: And then that's when this is something that you got rid of sugar and you realized that sugar was the main cause of that.

Georgia: I can, so what happened was I would have these episodes, so like that one episode that I had on May 31st I would have these episodes that were exactly like that. But since I'd experienced that one, I could understand what was happening, and mine were never ever as big as that one ever again. But they were pretty big. So they'd be like, say 30 seconds, yeah, and so I'd sit there and if I was in the middle of a conversation with you and I would just sit there and be like, and I would just have to hold up my finger like, wait for me, please. And I couldn't say anything, I couldn't do anything. Nobody could, I just, I couldn't communicate and then, afterward after these episodes. So they would last for roughly about five days. So I'd have them, and they'd have 'em over and over and over again for about five days. So they'd be real small, then they'd get real, real large, and then they'd get real small again throughout this bed day period, and sometimes I might have three in a day and some I might have 10, 15 in a, it just would depend, and then at the end I'd always get really nauseated by the idea of anything that was sweet, and I didn't recognize it. And one day I was down in LA talking to a coffee stand guy actually, and I'm talking to this guy at the coffee stand and I, he was a nutritionist. He was going to school to be a nutritionist, and he, him and I, we started having this conversation and I never ever told anybody about what was going on. Unless you were real close to me, that's the only way you knew what was going on, and in this conversation I, but because he was a nutritionist, we started chatting about this situation and I told him, I see, I said, yeah, the one thing is really weird, I just never want to eat anything sweet afterward. It just sounds so gross. And he said, oh, you wanna know what that is? I'm like yeah, of course I do. Yeah, please. He said, that's your body's way of telling you what's causing the problem. Even just saying that just now gave me goosebumps. But in that moment, it was like the biggest gift I'd ever been given. And after that, I walked away and I went, I don't want sugar, I do not want sweets, I don't want any of it. And now, I made marshmallows with my son the other day, he wanted to make homemade peeps, that was fun. Yeah, it was a lot of work, but I took one tiny bite of it and I can feel it, just go, oh dear. But I just don't eat sugar anymore, but since meeting with that gentleman in LA I've probably had maybe three of those episodes and they're like, just real quick, like five seconds and done. It's like what you would consider a regular deja vu, yeah, to go from.

Jim: It's incredible that it what a story, thank you for sharing that, first of all, that is such a, we always think as entrepreneurs and businesses, it's like yours, at least for me, a lot of times, like I start, like things are going good and I'm always worried like, could something happen? Am I, have, I set this up to where something happens, I'm okay and it can run itself, and that's a very good example of you never, you can never be too sure and you always have to be, make sure you're set up and it's something that you said that. It really hit home too, is as you were going through this, you started to realize the things of your business that you needed to work on to make it better, and from that point, you changed things and it, and now Shorty Candles is a, it's a, you guys are doing very well.

Georgia: Yes, yeah, we noticed we needed to to systemize things, we needed to make it easier for employees when they came in to follow the steps that we take, we needed to, yeah, really dive in, organize, like I said, my husband, he's actually a programmer, so he has made some incredible software and in being able to any, like the software he is created does like time the time clock to forecasting for inventory, to ordering inventory to, it's everything you could want for a small company. It's so cool, yeah. And in being able to have this, and it took 'em several years to build it. It wasn't, overnight, but, and being able to recognize that I couldn't just keep doing this daily grind, that we had to systemize things, then allowed the system to run things so then we could step out and we could work on growing the company instead of running the system that was not systemized.

Jim: That's yeah, that's a good realization, I wanna go back to something that we talked about earlier, and you and I were talking before the episode started about a recent trip you went on and you had a realization based around, ha being a woman in business and I want to, I want to hit on that a little bit and, I know my wife, she's in, executive level business. And, sometimes for her there's like the stigma of having a seat at the table when, in a, with a lot of men in business. And we were talking about that a little bit. So I'd love for you to share that story and even, some of the stigmas you might feel as being a women owned business.

Georgia: Oh, definitely. As a woman, owning this company. I had never really felt like I had to compete really with anybody because I hadn't realized where things could go. So it was just me being this cute, sweet girl sitting in my garage trying to, communicate with people over the phone. And I, as we started to grow, I then started to realize that I was not the only person out there, the only company out there that I was competing against, because it was always like this internal battle more than an external battle, and nothing has ever really been a battle, I guess that might be the wrong word, but what we were talking about was an auction that I went to. So there was a huge candle company and they were shutting down and I had been invited to this auction for all of their machinery and their raw materials, that kind of thing. So I flew to the auction, went to the auction, and I walk in and I am actually the only female there. Actually, that's not true.

Excuse me, let me back up real quick. So there was two females that were there for bidding, and there was a few other females that were there. But I came to find out later that those other females that were there, they were employees of the company who had just simply come to watch the auction just to see what happened to the company that they'd put their time into. And during the auction I had flown there for two pieces of equipment, and I had the amount that I wanted to pay for them. I knew what I wanted, I knew what I needed to do, and as I was sitting there watching this auction happen, I'm sitting in there and all these guys, they're saying hey me and the auctioneers rattling off everything real quick. Duh, and he's got prices. And then I've got these men going, Hey me, and for me, I all of a sudden felt myself shrinking really in inner and I was like, ah, I can't stand up, I can't step up, I can't say anything because then these guys are gonna look at me, and I just first, but nobody said that to me. Nobody said to me, be quiet ‘cause you're a girl, but I walked into it feeling like that, feeling. It just, if I couldn't match their level, then I wasn't capable of being me. So we have this one piece of machinery and my budget on it was $2,000, and I got to that piece of machinery and everyone's crowded around and they start rattling off stuff and I'm like, oh, I want this piece of machinery. And there was a guy that was standing next to me and I spoken to him once or twice and I was like, this is the piece of machinery I want, and he's hit on it, but I couldn't bring myself to say anything, I was so scared. For some reason, because I felt so small, I felt like the men's voices were so much bigger than mine. And I let that piece of machinery go and it went for $1,900 for one $1,900 and I talked to the gentleman who bought it later and he said, no, I'm not actually buying it for our company. I'm buying it for another company, my ma, my max was 1900, so they had it gone over to 2000, I wouldn't have bought it, nobody else was gonna buy it over that, so I would've won it for 2000, but I did not speak up and I then I spoke up later in the auction. There were these smaller pieces of machinery and I bid on them, and I bought two of them. And I took them back but after I bid on those, I had several guys from other companies, which is where I met the guy who actually won the piece machinery that I really wanted, and they came up to me and they said, Hey, I'm from this company. Hey, I'm from this company, and they came up to me and started introducing themselves to me and brought me into the game because I stepped up. But when I didn't step up, when I thought my voice, I don't have a real loud voice, my kids are like, mom, you sound like a little tiny girl in the corner. And I just don't speak really loud, yeah I talk a little quieter, I grew up in that environment. My mom's really quiet and I, that's just me, but instead of hiding who I am, I need to speak up because you know what happens When I learned that I need to speak up and that I can speak up and trust my voice, don't try to become somebody else to mesh, theirs become me. So I might be in a room now with 14, 18, 20 guys, I might be the only female there, and the second I speak, everybody is quiet. And they ask me for more, because what I have to say is worthwhile, and when I trust what I have to say and my own delivery of it and believe in myself, that's when I bring myself to the game. But I was shutting myself out of that game. Nobody else did that to me, I did that to myself and yeah, maybe that came from when I was a child and maybe I was told to be quiet and I was told to sit in the corner, I remember a time when someone said, Hey, you need to be quiet because you're making it too difficult for me to think. I could tell you the entire situation, I still remember it, I can feel it in me when I say that. And maybe that hurt me later in life, but in recognizing that and recognizing that person wasn't saying that I don't have anything to say, they were saying, they were trying to protect themselves so that they could make a decision. It wasn't anything against me, and then in recognizing that, then I could step forward and I can say, Hey, this is my idea now, and be okay with being that only girl in the room or being with 30 other women in the room. I have a voice, I have a place, and trusting in myself is what takes me further. No matter whether it's a guy's world, a girls' world, or a co-ed world.

Jim: I love it, so much value in that story. Thank you for sharing that.

Georgia: Thank you, thanks for asking.

Jim: Absolutely. Unfortunately, what our times come into an end here, but before we do, I've got one more question, but before we go there, where can people find you?

Georgia: People can find me, my website is georgiavanderville.com, but we also have shortiescandles.com. So Shorties Candles is really where our candles are. You can also find me on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

Jim: And that's shorties, shortiescandles.com. And I'll drop that in the show notes as well. One last question that I have for you, there's one thing that anybody listening to this episode, entrepreneurs that are listening to us today, what's the one thing that you wanna make sure that they leave with and remember.

Georgia: To leave with and remember would be really. Don't shut yourself out, don't close the door on yourself, keep moving forward, keep stepping forward. And even when one thing feels like it's leading to a dead end, maybe it's not meant for you to continue down that path, but everything you've learned will come into play later. So you were supposed to learn that, and sometimes a dead end doesn't mean a dead end, it just means the door's closed for a few minutes and you gotta figure out how to open it.

Jim: So valuable, thank you so much, Georgia, for joining us today, it was an honor to have you.

Georgia: Thank you for having me. It's an honor to be here.

Jim: Absolutely. Remote Start Nation, I hope you learned as much as I did today and you could put some of the value that Georgia shared with us to work for you. From the bottom of my heart, I want to thank all of you for joining us on this journey as we help you to start a business, grow your brand, and to create your desired lifestyle. Remember, leave a comment, subscribe, and most importantly, share this episode with your community who you think could learn from what you heard today.

Until next time, go start something, start it today and go build a lifestyle you desire by taking action.