Success Can Feel Like A Cage

SPEAKER_00 0:00

We've been told for two for so long that success is something you build once and protect for the rest of your life. The title, the career, the version of yourself that finally made it. But what happens when the things you build start to feel like a cage? What if the most successful people aren't the ones who hold on the tightest, but the ones who give themselves permission to begin again? Today's conversation is about exactly that. Because reinvention isn't a crisis, it might actually be the whole point. I am Nazish, and this is a space where we slow down and have an honest conversation about the inner side of being human. But the part nobody puts on resuming. My guest today is Judy Garment. She is an award-winning author, a public speaker, and the CEO of the Executive Medicine of Texas. And she has spent years studying what actually makes a long, healthy, meaningful life, including writing a beautiful book called Love, Life, and Lucille about a friendship with a sanitarium. Judy is here today to talk about longevity, business, and why reinvention is a key to a truly successful life. If you have been quietly wondering whether you're allowed to want something different now, this one is for

Slow Down And Stop Racing

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you. And I welcome you to the show, Judy.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

Thank you so much for having me on. This is a great topic, and I'm so happy we're talking about it.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Likewise. So Judy, before we go anywhere serious, I want to ask you when you look back at the version of yourself from 10 to 15 years ago, the one who was deep inside the hustle, the building. What's the one thing you wish you could whisper to her right now?

SPEAKER_01 2:01

I think it would be slow down. This isn't a race. This this is a marathon. You know, it's not a sprint. And if you don't slow down, you're gonna miss so much, so much beauty, so much wisdom, so much of everything that makes life worth living.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

Absolutely. You know, we are rushing so much in our life that we actually forget about to slow down, and we actually forget how it feels to just give ourselves that space and that time. Because we often think that slowing down will hamper us in some way.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

You know, absolutely. And as we think about our memories, and you may think, oh, this wasn't very long ago, but then when you start looking at the years, this happens a lot when you look like movies or songs, and you're like, oh my gosh, that movie's like 20, 30 years old. You suddenly realize that so much time is passing so quickly. And I do think that the invention of social media, the the instant on of cell phones and computers and the ding that we respond to just like Pavlov's dogs when we hear it. Yeah, I do think that a lot of this constant connection to electronics is just adding insult to injury um when it comes to not being in the present.

Reinvention As Human Design

SPEAKER_00 3:33

Yeah, yeah, I believe that. And you know, I want to, I think that's a misconception because it's that one that runs deep. Like a lot of people hear the word reinvention and they think that it means failure. Like you only reinvent yourself when something has gone wrong, when a career has collapsed or a relationship has ended. So, from everything you have seen, what do you think is actually wrong about this?

SPEAKER_01 3:59

What I do think when it comes to reinvention is that we have to remember that we were designed to be reinvented. And and honest, and honestly, if you look back over your life and you look back over the evolution of who you are, how you became who you are today, it's it's really a miracle, honestly, that all the things that come into our path, the people that come into our path, everything that happens to us turns us into who we are. And because of that, everything that's gonna happen to us tomorrow and the day after, the day after that, is gonna turn us into that person that that we're to become. If I if I look back, if any of us look back, and this is for me a sad moment to think that we don't keep photo albums the way we used to, because it was really a reality check for so many of us, you know, even as kids and teenagers, to look back in our photo albums and remember who we were. And it's not just remembering the past, but it's also hope for the future. Because we can look back, you know, nobody wants to be their 15-year-old self. It's 15, you think that's the best thing ever. But once you get past that stage, you realize, oh, I'm so happy I'm not that 15-year-old person because you you don't know what you don't know. So when I when I think about reinvention, I think a lot about how each stage of the process of evolution for us as human beings is so important, but it's also just just so beautiful. And it's not just the good things that happen to us. So many people, myself included, grew through those hard times. You know, you you may have heard it said that a diamond only becomes a diamond because that lump of coal got put under pressure and heat. It's that same kind of pressure and heat that refines us as individuals and turns us into who we are today and who we're gonna be tomorrow. And and just all of the things that seem so bad if you're going through a phase right now or you've been through a phase where you just don't see a way out or how it's ever gonna turn around. It will. It will, you know. I I tell new moms, you know, no, I know you think your child's temper tantrums are never going to stop because they're two, but I promise you, no child of 10 sits on the floor and kicks and screams their feet to to get their way. And the and the same thing kind of goes for uh us in in what we kind of want out of life. The things that are important to us, maybe as a teenager, are less important in our 20s, and the things that we thought we needed in our 20s, in our 40s aren't so important. And by the time we get over 50, all the really important things in life start to come so much closer. And there's almost some some beauty in that, that we don't sweat all the stuff or have the need for so many even material things, because we've we've really found out some secrets to life, and that just continues on as we as we age. We just kind of refine even more on that.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

And you know, I believe that is something so powerful about being able to look back and see your own evolution, like like those memories remind us that we have already lived through so many different versions of ourselves, and then we grew out of it.

SPEAKER_01 7:36

Yeah, we do grow out of it. You know, I

The Card Exercise For Courage

SPEAKER_01 7:39

speak around the country, and one of the talks that that I often give, here's what I do in the talk, and it's so, so powerful. I everybody in in the audience will have um a three by five card um with lines on both sides, and I'll ask them to to take the the card and to write out goals. And I mean, I'm really like big goals, you know, like that book you want to write, and that and people just happily write these things down, right? And then I tell them to turn the card over and I say, we're gonna go on a journey. I'm not gonna leave you here, I promise. But we're gonna go on a journey. And I want you to write down all the really bad stuff that happened to you in the last three to five years. Really bad. Write down, you know, maybe your marriage didn't work out, you know. Um for me, I'll say, you know, my mom and my sister died within a year of each other. Um, there's there's things that happened that maybe you thought this is never going to get better. You know, and and this is where the audience gets really quiet. The high fives have stopped, the um, the tears are are often flowing, and people are writing, they're looking around. I always see this. They look around and I say, This list is only for you. No one's gonna see it, no one's gonna judge it. It's only for you. And then they make the list, and then I tell them to circle it, and then I tell them to draw a line through it, and I say, I'm not telling you to forget these things, but what I want you to understand comes next. I say, turn your card back over. And they turn the card back over, and I say, You still have dreams. You made it through all that, and you still have goals, and you still have dreams, and this is living proof that you're on the other side, and and and there's just like this sense of relief, and it it's so interesting when I talk about variety of topics, they all send to tend to um hit a little differently. But this particular talk, I think, has become so impactful uh because you never know what somebody's going through. And often if there's several people crying, I will just say, you know, if you're crying, it's okay. And the people at your table are gonna love on you because they have been there too. And you just watch sometimes it's groups of people that don't know each other, you just watch this wonderful human nature thing happen where these people are are embracing each other, and it's just beautiful. And they don't leave sad, they leave empowered. And and I think every time I speak, that's my job is to empower that audience. But I think when we talk about reinvention, it's important to know that we can give ourselves permission to to change, to move past the thing that happened to us and and have big dreams and have have courage to to not be the same person next year that you are today. Um, not and it doesn't mean that you have to make giant changes, although some people do. Some people change complete careers, um things that you would never imagine they would go into. But when given permission to evolve, to grow, to dream, uh to make goals, all these things, the human spirit is just so free inside when when it can feel that permission.

SPEAKER_00 11:27

Absolutely. And you know, I want to appreciate your approach towards it because I feel like, first of all, creating such an environment when people do not judge themselves when they write about these things is a very beautiful thing. And you know, sometimes just acknowledging those experiences, even privately, can be incredibly healing. And the way you mentioned it is just flip it, you have goals that can motivate, that can give you a sense of hope that you know you might you were not even aware about that you had it all over all always.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

Yeah, it was in there, it was in there, and it was in there post all the trauma.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

Yes, yes, yeah, and you know, you have been incredibly open about your own journey, including the years you spent caught in workaholism and then meeting Lucille and then slowly learning to live again.

Love As The Starting Point

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So if there is someone listening in right now and they're sensing that it is their time to reinvent, but they're scared, what is the practical and or a reflector starting point you would offer them?

SPEAKER_01 12:35

I think the the first thing is to do, you know, do the exercise I talked about. You can do it on your own, but I think the first thing is to know that um you are loved and you have to love yourself first. Um, but you are loved. There's not one person listening to this who is not loved, if nothing else, loved by their creator. And that's where I think everything has to start and everything has to end, is with that love. And that's a hard step for some people, you know. Um, I I always say, there's nothing you're gonna tell God that uh he doesn't already know. So, you know, regardless of of what somebody's uh religious affiliation is, um it doesn't matter. You know, when I did it doesn't matter in this context, when I did um a book called Age to Perfection, How to Thrive to 100, Happy, Healthy, and Wise, I interviewed all of these centenarians, people that had lived past 100. And they none of them were the same religion, not at all, but they all felt a sense for a higher power, but they also all had a very similar top 10 list for how to live to 100, happy, healthy, and wise. And so there's some things that we innately know when we're we're born that having friends is a good thing. Um, that we should sleep, that we should eat, um, we should eat healthy, we should have some of these these habits, but but also that that we really should love ourselves, love our neighbors, and in in doing that, we get love back. You know, there I love this um this little saying that I had it on my desk for years. It said, to have a good friend, you have to be a good friend. And I thought that was always a reminder, especially when I got super busy. You know, it's really easy to get busy and go, well, you know what? She never calls me anymore. Well, you know what? Ask yourself, when's the last time I called them? You know, you you have to kind of remind yourself that we're all in this together. And and sometimes the best way to find ourselves is to lose ourselves and the maybe the service of others are in those friendships. And I do think that reinvention always comes with the people and the experiences that that you're having. So

Friends And Influences Shape Change

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if you're stuck, if you're really stuck and you're like, I really need a restart uh or a reset or some kind of reinvention, the only way that's going to happen is to have friends spend time around people, learn new things, have new experiences, because the evolution of us of us as individuals is determined by those things, the the influences in in our life, um, for good or bad, honestly, but the influence in our life. So if you have, if you're in some spot in your life and you want to get to a different spot in your life, then you have to change some things so that those influences going in are going to create your next, your next sense of yourself. You know, it's um it's not rocket science and it seems really deep, but I think inside we all kind of know that. I know that the centenarians knew that. And when I was writing that book, I decided kind of towards the end to backtrack and go in an elementary school and ask these kids, what do you think it would take to live to be 100? These are elementary students. And do you know they gave me the same list as those people over 100? And that's such a beautiful thing because they also, oh, you gotta have lots of friends. And I mean, that, but they just kind of knew this. So I do think we're born with a sense of what makes us a well-rounded individual, a happy individual, a healthy individual. And maybe it's the marketing messages, maybe it's as we started this podcast conversation, the busy, you know, the four-letter word, busy. Um, maybe it is all of these things that are bombarding us that are taking over what we really deeply know within our hearts. And I couldn't.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

Yeah, I mean, absolutely, I couldn't agree more with you. And you know, this is gold. Because I think a lot of people are aren't afraid of reinvention itself because they're afraid of disappointing the old, disappointing the people who love the old version of themselves.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

I think you're right. And you know, the other thing that is important in this message is you hear people say, Well, I don't want to change. I like the way I am. This is how I've always been. I'll I'll challenge that actually, because I really think if you were to open up your photo album, whoever is thinking this right now, and go back a few years, I guarantee you're not that same person. So you have changed. You have changed. You know, um, there's another talk that I give on reinvention, and and I kind of start with with frames on a wall and they're blank frames. And I ask the audience to imagine that you know they're at their mom's house because we all know that moms get pictures, they hang them up, and they never stop, they don't take them down, they just keep adding pictures. So, you know, usually you you can go to your mom's house and and there's you know the the picture of you in the second grade with no front teeth, and there's you know, the the whatever, like in my case, you know, the teenage 80 per 80s perm, and you know, down down the list, and and you're not that same person, but it's really a capture of all of that. So whenever somebody says I can't change, I'm like, no, I think you can because there's proof, there's proof in every individual that we change. We're born to change, to grow, to reinvent.

SPEAKER_00 18:52

Absolutely. And

Proof You Have Changed Before

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you know, the best part is that the idea of love being the foundation of everything, I believe it truly comes through.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

Yeah, I think it does too. And you know, for everyone who's out there living that workaholic life, I encourage you to meditate. Um, you know, do do something, practice the pause, as they say. Um find yourself in prayer. Do do something that's going to give you a moment for a reset. I think it's critical to our health. I I wish I would have learned that sooner in my life that, you know, busy isn't always better.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

Absolutely. But thank you so much for being here and telling all these beautiful and accessible things to our listeners. It it is something that is gonna help them a lot in the the longer run of life. And I believe if there is one thing, yeah, if there is one thing that I would carry with myself with this absolutely beautiful conversation with you, is that a

Meditation And Permission To Pause

SPEAKER_00 19:54

long successful life isn't the one you protect by never changing. I believe it is the one you keep earning the right to live by, being honest enough to begin again as many times as it takes.

SPEAKER_01 20:10

Well, bravo. Well said. That's a that's a great way to end the show and wraps it up so nicely.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

You're very welcome.

Where To Find Judy Online

SPEAKER_00 20:18

So, Judy, uh, just one more thing. That before this got this conversation was such a gift for everybody listening right now. So, for people who want to read your work, follow what you're building, or just stay in the orbit. What is the best place for them to find you?

SPEAKER_01 20:33

Yeah, I think uh go to my website, Judy Gammon, J-U-D-Y-G-A-M-A-N.com. Yeah, there's there's the books I've written there, there's links to podcasts. Um, you can follow me on social under my name. Uh, I I'm out there and you know, being on podcasts like yours is always an honor and a pleasure. And I I love what you're doing, so keep it up. It's great work.

SPEAKER_00 20:57

Absolutely. Thank you so much for sharing that with us. And I'm gonna make sure to include all these details into the show notes so that a lot of people for can reach out to you. And thank you, Judy, for being so generous with your story today.

SPEAKER_01 21:11

My pleasure, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 21:13

And dear listeners, the one who stayed with us through this whole conversation. Here's what I love for you to carry forward. You don't have to know the whole new chapter tonight, you don't have to be honest enough. You just have to be honest enough to admit the old ones is asking to be turned. This is where it starts. This has been Healthy Mind, Healthy Knife. Take a breath, take care of yourself, and I'll see you in the next conversation.