High Powered Female CEO - Episode 8 with Jackie Woodside
"There's a higher calling, higher vibration that wants to be expressed through each and every one of us. And that's what we're here for."
Chronicles of the High Powered Female CEO Episode 8 with Jackie Woodside.
#FemaleCEOChronicles
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTION
Melisa Keenan 00:21
Welcome to Chronicles of the High-Powered Female CEO. And today I am bringing you Jackie Woodside, who has been one of my mentors. I think we've known each other for about a year. We're also in younger self letters together, so welcome Jackie.
Jackie Woodside 00:37
It's so great to be here with you. I love what you're doing. I love your creativity and how you make everything you touch just so, so beautiful. My gosh, you really live and breathe your brand, so it's great, great, great to be here. with you.
I'm a mom and a spouse, I guess that's first and foremost how I know myself, but other people in the world probably know me as a coach, a leadership trainer, a bestselling author, a torchbearer for a vision of a world transformed
Melisa Keenan 00:52
Thank you so much for that feedback. So, Jackie, how do people usually know you as? Tell us what you've done in the world?
Jackie Woodside 00:59
Alright. Sure. Well, I'm a mom and a spouse, I guess that's first and foremost how I know myself, but other people in the world probably know me as a coach, a leadership trainer, a bestselling author, a torchbearer for a vision of a world transformed and you know, I get it. It's really just such a blessing, Melissa. I get emails literally every day from people who have either read my books or taken my classes or been engaged in my work in some capacity, telling me how their lives have transformed, that they've been able to overcome anxiety or fear about money or their income has completely changed.
Your husband, you know, ended up getting a really wonderful career opportunity out of the work that I did. And so great to do that work with you guys and to be together. So I would say that. The way people most know me is who, someone who is passionate and committed about elevating people's experience of life in several domains. Generally I work around time, money, leadership, and life itself.
Melisa Keenan 02:05
So cool. And yeah. My work with Jackie was in, what did you call it? Money vibes.
Jackie Woodside 02:12
The Money Vibes Mastermind Program.
Melisa Keenan 02:15
Yeah, which was great and taught me so so much. I feel like…
Jackie Woodside 02:19
A really fun piece of work we did together.
Melisa Keenan 02:22
Yeah. So Jackie, tell us a little bit about your story because your story is so inspiring.
Jackie Woodside 02:31
Sure. You know, how far back do you want me to go? You know, I do think it's really interesting, Melissa, that, to really kind of capture the fullness of my story. It does really begin early because my mom was widowed when I was just two years old, and she was left with three kids in a high school education. And, then in that same exact timeframe that my mom was widowed. So my dad died, but his brother and his father also died in car accidents within nine months of each. Right. So my grandmother lost her husband and two of her three sons in nine months’ time, in three separate car accidents.
So you can imagine whatever you might know about like trauma and neurology, early development. So my early neurological development was riddled with trauma. And so much so that, you know if people would hear my last name, it's a small rural area. People would hear my last name. Like, you know, that I'm a Woodside, and people from the area would look at me like, oh, I'm sorry, years later. Like, I was just that, that was kind of our family legacy in that area of the tragedies that we went through. So you know, and what can I say about that? My mom did the best she could with a high school education and three kids. But look, it wasn't easy. So we were lower-middle-class we did not have a lot of money.
My mom was a blue-collar employee. I was raised by a lot of babysitters and wonderful grandparents, I must say. And so my early kind of young adult into mid adult or I dunno wherever from, you know, teenage college years up until my 30s, I was just bat shit crazy. Let's just be straight-up about that. I was batshit crazy. You know, I say my life has gone from a hot mess to happy and blessed.
Hot mess to happy and blessed. That may be my next book title, actually. And what, you know, what did that look like? You know, a series of just really chaotic relationships and I ended up in my 20s in a domestic violence battering relationship. I was homeless in my late 20s into my early 30s, you know, couch surfing, doing what I could.
Hot mess to happy and blessed.
I was sent home from work one day because I had bruises on my face and scratches on my neck. And my employer was worried about me and how that looked. It's I was, oh, I recovered from addictions. As well, I was been treated for depression, anxiety, attention deficit disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder. I was a hot mess. I mean, I don't know how else to say it. And then at some point, thank you, God. You know, I was really able to recognize that the common denominator in all of these life problems was me.
And if I didn't want to be living that life, you know, the chaos and, you know, and while I was being this crazy and doing all these things, I also got a good education. I went to college, I went and got my master's degree. I started my career as a young therapist doing child psychotherapy as a young therapist in my late 20s and early 30s. And so I finally was able to say if it's going to be it's up to me. So I think being a therapist, you know, I was introspectively oriented. Got into therapy, got into 12-step programs. I think the thing though, that probably was the real turning point for me was when I got involved in the unity spiritual movement, unity church movement, and it's a metaphysical approach to spiritual living, mind-body-spirit approach. And it gave me the tools and the truth principles that I could found my life on something other than trauma and chaos. And I did. I say that if you, you know, spiritual law consistently applied will heal your life, and it did for me.
Melisa Keenan 06:44
Wow. It's hard to imagine. Like it's just because I only know you, right?
Jackie Woodside 06:55
You only know me like this. Yeah. You know, it's sometimes people will like, for real? So you know, I, don't know how to say more about it. The domestic violence relationship was the, I moved from upstate New York to Massachusetts and I moved with my partner at the time she had undiagnosed bipolar disorder. So when the move from one kind of where she'd grown up and knew everybody and was familiar to this, you know, kind of city lifestyle, new job, new home, new apartment, it really dysregulated her. And so she went into manic episodes and I didn't know what was going on.
And so we had all kinds of issues. How we ran out of money? Cause she was blowing tons and tons of cash and eventually she ended up moving back to upstate New York and being psychiatrically hospitalized. And I was left homeless. I couldn't afford the apartment. I didn't have any place to go. And it was a really, really difficult time. So it was, that was right before I went to graduate school. So yeah, you know, that's a little bit about that. And I was, working at a place. I fell downstairs at work and had to go in to see a doc in the box, a quick kind of checkup from the fall at work. And that's when the physician who was treating me said, can I see you in my office after your exam?
And I was like, sure, fine. And he looked at me and he said, if someone was doing to my daughter, what I know someone is doing to you, I would want someone to say something. Because he saw the bruises on my face, the scratches on my neck, the hand prints on my arm. And I was stunned. That's when I got sent home from work. Cause when they went in to fill out the report and they're like, and the bruise on your face. And I was like that, wasn't from the fall. So that doctor, whoever that was that doc in a box in, you know, I think it was you know, east Boston or Everett, Massachusetts, who took that extra 10 minutes to say that to me was a real wake-up call.
And that helped me to make some changes and get out of that situation. Cause it was really, I'll be, I was down to like 105 pounds. It was, pretty bad. So that was a rough few months. Then I started graduate school and I guess that was the beginning of a turn, but certainly was not an overnight, like now I'm okay. And, but now I am, I do want to say that.
I do work that I love that I think is important and makes a difference in the world that is aligned with who I came here to be, and I teach other people how to do exactly that same thing
Melisa Keenan 09:31
Give us a painted, picture of your life right now.
Jackie Woodside 09:34
So I am the happily married person that I know, my spouse and I have been together for 22 years. We own three waterfront homes, which I love. Two of them have been in my family for six generations in upstate New York, and then our home in Central Massachusetts, where we live. We have a 16-year-old son who goes to a lovely boarding school right on the ocean in Northern Massachusetts comes home on weekends.
I do work that I love that I think is important and makes a difference in the world that is aligned with who I came here to be, and I teach other people how to do exactly that same thing. How do you live your life by design and alignment with who you came here to be? That's really my thing. I have wonderful spiritual practices. I'm sober. I, you know, have recovered with the 12 steps. They say not to say that, but I believe your, I am statement is the most powerful thing that you own.
And so I am clean and sober. I am recovered. And I just, you know, I have an extraordinary life. I spend my summers at our summer home, our two summer homes next door to each other and upstate New York. And then the rest of the year, I'm here in central, Massachusetts. I played basketball three or four times a week. I play racquetball two or three times a week. And I have a great life. I have a great team that supports my work. They see my mission and I have friends like you that I get to collaborate with. It's a great, like, right? I have really, no kidding.
I have to pinch myself sometimes like, whose life is this? How did this happen? And to say more, I'm not satisfied. I'm grateful, but I know there's so much more in me. There's so much more need on this planet for people to understand my work, to understand the transformation of consciousness and that we do create our world from the inside out, that your life is, and I call it the word an out-picturing your life has an out-picturing meaning it's the inside out reflected back to you.
It's an out-picturing of what you believe, how you think your inner vibration of belief-emotion-attitudes. That is what your life is. So, because I know that, and I've been able to use that truth to change my life from, you know, hot mess, to happy and blessed, I've been able to use these principles to move my life from homeless and addicted and depressed and battered to, you know, a life of happily married, prosperous and really life by design. I know that I can, like, it does not matter what problem you have. Literally, it does not matter. Bring it to me. And I will give you a coaching structure to resolve it. That's the truth.
Melisa Keenan 12:19
And that's so amazing. And I know that, you know, we had kind of touched on that a little bit before we came live. Just this piece that you don't anticipate that after you've created so much in your life, that you would feel unsatisfied.
It does not matter what problem you have. Literally, it does not matter. Bring it to me. And I will give you a coaching structure to resolve it. That's the truth.
Jackie Woodside 12:39
Right? So I'm grateful. So I don't want it to be like unsatisfied like I'm miserable. More like hungry. So I thought like, you know, when we get to a million dollars or when we have a waterfront home and then it's going to feel like, great, oh, then I was like, no, maybe we'll have two. And I was like, okay, the one next door is for sale. Maybe I'll have three. I hope nobody else in the lane sells their house.
Melisa Keenan 13:06
You might have to buy it.
Jackie Woodside 13:08
Well, because ironically, that was all my family land going back six, seven generations. All of them on that, like the whole strip, a couple of miles long was all my great, great great-grandfather's land. And I have all the deeds to back in the 18 hundreds. And it's meaningful to me. Right?
Melisa Keenan 13:24
Cool, yeah. I’m huge with family history. I, so get the vision of that.
Jackie Woodside 13:30
I’m like “I hope nobody else sells one”. Anyway so I'm not ungrateful, I'm really content. So content and satisfied aren't the same things. When I say I'm not satisfied, you know, I look at how many people have taken my courses or how many people have bought my programs, or how many people have worked with me. And just like, there are 8 billion people on this planet for goodness sake. That's ridiculous. You know, how do we get up to a couple million? And then how do we scale that to 20 million then how do we scale that? And not, you know, it's not about the money. It's about the influence and creating a world that I see as possible in my mind, from hot mess to happy and blessed.
Like I want to see the world go from the hot mess that it is today. Have you noticed? To happy, blessed, connected, oneness, like we're in it together for each other. That's the world I want to see. So until that is the case, until we're creating a world where love prevails, I will not be satisfied.
It's not about the money. It's about the influence and creating a world that I see as possible in my mind, from hot mess to happy and blessed.
Melisa Keenan 14:36
And I've heard this before from women who have really hit high achievements, this idea of because. We can't help it. It's our human condition to say, well, when I XYZ, then it's just going to all feel, you know, complete
And I think too that hunger for, I know I meant for more, which isn't that, it's like our gift. I think it's our divinity, like speaking and like almost pulling through us, and yet it can be so uncomfortable. Right? It's like knowing that you haven't, you know, whatever. I mean, I won't be satisfied, until I'm a goddess of my own planet. I'm pretty sure I'm just going to keep.
Jackie Woodside 15:37
I can appreciate that. Yeah, right. I mean, we are here to grow. Right? That's just part of my beliefs. We're here to grow and to express more, and be more. You're out. You took the words right out of my mouth. That desire to me is a spiritual process. It's a spiritual practice to manifest my desires because, in my teaching, our most deeply held desires are how God communicates. Desire of the father. And while I don't think God is male in any sense that I think that freezing kind of makes sense for me of the origin.
So your, desires, what you hold in your heart is how the universe or God wants to express through and as you in this lifetime. So if it wasn't mine to do, I wouldn't have the freaking desire to do it. But I have that desire. So because I have the desire, it's my spiritual practice to create myself as the person that's manifesting those desires.
Melisa Keenan 16:42
Man, I love that so much. And that's one of the most basic principles that I work on a lot. I mean, really that's like one of the ground principles is just: What do you want? And then what's the next layer of that? And then let's listen to it a little closer. What do you want? Because we aren't taught that as a baby, right? Like your desires are literally your path to your purpose and every fulfillment that you ever want in your life. I wish someone had told me that as a baby.
How the universe or God wants to express through and as you in this lifetime?
Jackie Woodside 17:12
I think the problem with that though Melissa because, in my life design course, I actually teach people that I don't ask that question. What do you want? until we answer the question Who are you Because what I see too often is what I call a default life. That people, you know, if they're not grounded spiritually, and I'm sure you help your people do this, but if you're not grounded in the essence of who you are, then the answer to that question what do I want? is driven by the ego.
Melisa Keenan 17:38
Totally
Jackie Woodside 17:39
Totally right? Yes, you have to ground people in something deeper. Because otherwise, you know, you get a regurgitated view of what's on the front of the magazines that you see on the stand or the TV shows that are hot right now, or the movies you get this kind of regurgitated internalized sense of, oh, that's what success means. That's what happiness looks like. And then people go after that and they feel no sense of happiness anyway. So I ground people, not in just, what do you want, but who are you, who have you come here to be? Which for me in the life design process is a matter of declaring core values and very specific processes and how to do that.
And then using those core values and turning that into a statement of being, which is your individual mission statement. Then from that sense of groundedness of who I am, what I value, why my purpose to grow in consciousness, back to the divinity from which I came. So we ground people in a purpose, their values, and their mission, then ask that question, given that this is who you are, and this is why you're here. And again, the question I ask isn't, what do you want? is how does God want to express through and as you? It's not a delightful question?
Melisa Keenan 18:53
Yes. I love that.
Jackie Woodside 18:55
And for people who aren't spiritually oriented, I just say, how does life want to express through and as you? Because it's the same thing. Same thing. There's a higher calling, a higher vibration that wants to be expressed through each and every one of us. And that's what we're here to do.
Melisa Keenan 19:11
So beautiful. Jackie, thank you for sharing so much of your insights with us. I'd like to ask one question to everyone that I have on here. Because again, it helps us get to know your heart a little bit. And that question is what's one time you can think of in your life where you felt the most fulfilled?
There's a higher calling, a higher vibration that wants to be expressed through each and every one of us. And that's what we're here to do.
Jackie Woodside 19:33
Oh, boy. One time. I have many. I would say when it's really funny, when my spouse and I bought our summer, our first summer home, my great aunt, uncle’s cottage. I knew I was, I wanted to buy it. My cousin who owned it at the time knew I wanted to buy it, but I thought it was going to come someday, right, like later. And I didn't have the money for it, but it'd been on my vision board on, you know, pictures of it on my vision board had been in my written vision that I would, you know, have a summer home and on the thousand islands in upstate New York.
And then my cousin called and I didn't have the money. It wasn't prepared. And I just knew like, in that moment, I don't know how this is going to go down, but I'm going to make this happen. And I believe because I'd already laid the spiritual groundwork. For that to happen that weekend. Some friends of mine who I had not seen in 10 years, college friends visited and I told them my problem of needing to figure out how am I going to buy this summer home?
And they looked around my house, my current house, which is a waterfront home in Central New England. And they're like, this is easy rent out this home and use the money that you from renting this home on HomeAway, or VRVO, Airbnb, Airbnb wasn't a thing back then. But HomeAway was, it was the first kind of hometown place. And they were already doing that. They had owned homes in Saratoga, Springs, and Lake Placid. And they rented out one and moved back. Well, by the end of the weekend, they had an account set up for me. They'd staged my home. They took pictures. And so the first year, so I called my cousin and was like, yes.
Then my cousin said, don't worry about getting a mortgage. We'll figure out, make whatever payments you can over how many ever years you need to do that. So I think one of those moments of like just deep level gratitude and fulfillment was sitting with my spouse on the front porch of our summer, watching the sunset over Canada, over the St. Lawrence River, with our feet up on the deck with our bare feet and our toes kind of intertwined. And we just looked at each other with tears in her eyes and said we did it.
It was extraordinary, you know, and I'm just so grateful for what I teach, for what I've learned, for these spiritual truths that if you work it, it works. If you constitute yourself as a person living in high consciousness, high vibration, with a clear sense of how God wants to express through you and you take clear, consistent action toward that, the universe will step up and meet you.
Melisa Keenan 22:08
It's so beautiful, Jackie, thank you so much for sharing your heart with us today and sharing your story and just how inspiring that is. You know, I think about a few people that I know in my life who are reaching older age and it's like, I love surrounding myself with people like you, because I have this whole, like, world that I see of what is possible. And I know many of my family members and ancestors and stuff, they didn't ever know someone who had done something like you have with their life. And so many people go to the end of their life, just unfulfilled and with unmet dreams and broken relationships. And, you know, I like to define richness a, it does include money a 100% because money gives you lots of options and stuff. It's not just zeros.
Zeros are very empty. It's the quality of our life. It's the richness, it's the connection to our loved ones, our ancestors, it's the connection to our you know, our spouse and our children and the people around us. And it's feeling that sense of contribution every day of your life. And so I just, I really appreciate how you radiate that richness that you live in.
If you constitute yourself as a person living in high consciousness, high vibration, with a clear sense of how God wants to express through you and you take clear, consistent action toward that, the universe will step up and meet you.
Jackie Woodside 22:36
Thank you so much, such a beautiful acknowledgment. You know, I just feel, I feel incredibly blessed to be able to bring this message and do this work all around the world. And to work with people like you or equally radiant and vibrant and committed. So thank you. Thank you for that.
Melisa Keenan 22:53
Thank you too. Guys. Isn't Jackie great? If you want to find her, we're going to put some links. I'll edit this and we'll put some links either in the comments or at the top for you to go and find Jackie and find out what she's up to right now, and follow her.
She's always got inspiring. The stuff that she's putting out there and very accessible too. Very accessible offerings and things. So go check her out. Jackie, thank you so much for joining us on Chronicles of the High-Powered Female CEO. And it's just my intention that there are more women out there who can celebrate each other in our richness, in our affluence and our impact and what we're creating in the world rather than tearing each other down, because we're so good at that connection space where kind of, when we link arms, we all rise together. So thanks for being another voice in that.
Jackie Woodside 24:49
Absolutely. So thank you so much.
Melisa Keenan 24:52
Okay. Bye guys.