Celebrating the power of possibility.
Hi, I'm Judy Bailoff and I believe anything is possible.
Welcome to Anything is Possible.
My name is Hallerin Hilton Hill.
These are great stories about great people whose lives prove that anything is possible.
One of the wonderful things that I enjoy about this is I often get to be with people that are a pure representation of possibility.
Today, no pure representation of possibility.
Thank you for being here today.
Hallerin, I just counted a total privilege.
I was really excited to come.
I met so many people before I met you that said I needed to meet you.
A number of people were like, you've got to meet Judy Bailoff.
You guys are going to hit it off.
And when I had you as a guest on the radio show, that's exactly what happened.
And we were like, oh, we're having so much fun.
Thank you for being here today.
When you answered this question, who is Judy Bailoff?
How do you answer that?
I answer it differently now than I would have a long time ago because I'm older than I look and we're not going there.
That's all we're saying about that.
I think back in the days when I was a mom of four kids under the age of five, just think about that for a minute.
I was always Tony's wife, Brittany Graham, Katie Taylor's mother,
and I had kind of left my nursing career behind to be a stay-at-home mom because everybody said that's what you should do,
is be there for your kids.
And I thought, I can get the house clean and the baby fed before nine and now what do I do?
So I've kind of reinvented myself several times.
And so now what I can say is that I'm a woman in the layers of life who has gone through multiple passages,
which covered six careers, two businesses of my own,
and a substantial transformation in my middle 60s through a medical challenge that changed careers
and took me to a place where now I'm on a mission.
So now it's going to be, yes, I'm a mom, I'm a wife, I'm a grandmother, I'm all of that stuff, which is all wonderful.
But more to the point, I'm somebody that God gave the knowledge to, to totally transform my life and my son's life and my mom's life,
and I hope I can do that for other people.
Where did you grow up?
Minneapolis, Minnesota.
What was that like, and do you have siblings?
I had two sisters.
They both died of cancer and my dad, dad of cancer.
I'm so sorry.
My dad at 52, my middle sister at 34, and my baby sister nine years ago at 53, I think she was.
And that actually caused me to start a business called Ange and Jan, and I remanufactured the makeup bag that we, all three of us had used for 40 years.
My baby sister brought it back from Paris on her honeymoon, and it was this perfect makeup bag that had 20 pockets in it,
so nothing fell over and broke, you're all guys in this room, so you have no idea what I'm talking about.
But it was the best makeup bag ever.
And so I started the company Ange and Jan, named after Ange and Jane, my sisters.
And so I miss my sisters, I wish they were here, they would be celebrating with me that life is so grand.
So you grew up in Minneapolis, what were your interests?
I was in the band, marching band, I played the flute.
I was on the debate team, which you probably know because I talk, talk, talk, talk.
I worked, I got a job when I was 14 because I wanted to buy my own clothes and my parents were not well to do,
and so you got your basic wardrobe every year.
And then I worked at, I forgot this, I worked at Swedish nursing home.
And worked in the kitchen, and five of us in the kitchen were all Christian girls,
and we decided to start a singing group for the old people.
Oh wow.
And we had little blue and white striped dresses and umbrellas, and we sang after dinner in the dining room three nights a week and entertained them.
So I've been performing my whole life, just never stopped.
So you grew up in Minneapolis, would you go to school?
Swedish hospital school of nursing.
Got my RN back in the day when you got an RN through a three-year school, which they don't do anymore.
You have to go for a BSN at a college, and I got a job right away at a hospital.
And then I went to a Youth for Christ rally, and my first husband was the speaker.
And we fell in love almost instantly, and went out on Wednesday, and he proposed on Friday.
That's fast.
Well, I should have been careful.
We got married four months later.
In the business world, they say, high or slow, fire fast.
I stayed for 27 years.
So you fall in love, you go into nursing, you get married, and then what?
Then I started having babies, and so I had them in 78, 80, 82, and 84.
So they were all under the age of five at the same time.
And my husband was a pastor, and it was hard.
We didn't have enough money for everything that they needed, but I couldn't go back to work with four kids who...
You couldn't find a babysitter for four kids.
Nobody volunteers for that.
And so I had my nursing degree, so I thought, what could I do with that?
Well, so at first, I couldn't get my genes back on because I put weight on with the babies,
so I got certified to be an aerobics teacher.
And I started an aerobics business called Classy Chassis, which I still think I should trademark that name.
That's a good one.
I think it's so good.
And so I taught aerobics five mornings a week at the community center, and then I got my certification to teach Lamaze,
prepared childbirth. So I had two businesses. I brought in about $26,000 a year, which was enough to pay for kids' stuff,
go on a little vacation at the mountains or the lake.
So I kind of like, I did that for 11 and a half years.
And then my ex lost his job, and he said, you need to go to work.
Like, do we what? Like, teach aerobics?
Lamaze, I don't... What do you want me to do?
And I called... I had run an auction for the school, and we raised a bunch of money.
I was Vanna White. I did all the auctioneering stuff.
And the guy's name was Bob Grandoff, and he ran a store called Bradley's, which doesn't exist anymore.
And so his wife said, well, come over for dinner. George will get you a job.
So I go over dinner, and George says, do you know Sam Walton?
I'm like, well, I know who he is.
And he says, well, I know Sam, and we were at a conference, and a woman walked up and he said,
I want you to meet my best employee.
And the story turned out that this lady, her husband, traveled for Sam Walton all over the country,
and her boys were raised, and she got bored.
So she went to Sam and said, give me something to do.
And so we put her in marketing. Perfect place for women. They buy everything.
So she became a huge success. So based on that,
George Grandoff gave me a job as a distributor at Bradley's.
Wow.
And from there, I got promoted to set up the Gitanoshops. Anybody remember Gitano Jeans?
Right.
Yeah. And they were coming out with a line of clothes.
And I got to go to New York on my first business trip.
Scared to death.
Anyway, I ran the Gitanoshop. I had the time of my life.
It was so much fun. I love clothes anyway.
I know you maybe can't tell that, but I really love clothes.
And I did that. And then I had to, I actually, I can't remember how that's what's happened when you get old stuff just fades.
I think I went, oh yeah, I had to leave when he lost a job. I got a job.
Oh, he got another job. He got a job interview at a church. And that's what happened.
We were going through the receiving line. She canceled her family, right?
To welcome the new pastor. And a lady walked up to me and she handed me your card.
And she said, I'm Sharon Humphries. I'd like to talk to you about working for me.
And so I looked at her card and it said retail banking.
And I said, do you do the toasters?
She goes, no. She goes, I run a division.
Like, I didn't know anything about banking. I balanced my checkbook. That's about it.
So I went and met with her and they hired me as a bank manager. And that was the start of 27 years of being a banker and then a commercial lender.
And that's how I got hired for that big job at a big financial firm running two states.
And that's where I was when I had my open heart surgery and my five strokes.
So your life is doing like this. And it's just, it just seems to be unfolding.
Unfolding.
Just unfolding and you're going along for the ride and then boom.
Boom.
What happened?
Went for my regular physical and the doctor said, I don't like the look of your echocardiogram.
And an echocardiogram measures the pressure in your heart, the openings, make sure they're all working.
And she said, I need you to see a cardiologist.
And the cardiologist did a cardiac cath and all the normal tests and said, you have a bicuspid aortic valve.
And you need to have open heart surgery.
And so open heart surgery is about six hours long and you get a big scar in the middle of your chest.
A lot of people have had it.
And the problem is, is when I woke up, I'd had five strokes.
My gosh.
And I couldn't read or write, use my right hand, lost my complex thinking, which I think I had before.
I'm not sure.
And my sense of balance.
So I've got to learn how to ride a bike again.
What does that do to you at that point?
I had a great support network.
People brought me out.
Like there was, I wasn't alone, which is the first good thing.
I've always, my faith is my bulwark, my go-to place, my be back there.
Like that's always what gets me through.
What I discovered was in retrospect, I do a thing, a thing that's in the book I gave you.
It's called pattern practice.
Yeah.
And it means you go back and you find the things in your life where it looked like it was the worst of days.
Right.
And you see where you went from there.
And then you can write down and say, every time God let something like that into my life,
it's to push me another direction.
And I would have never been here sitting, talking to you if I hadn't had those five strokes.
Because I wouldn't have lost my job, my big well-paid job.
So you lose your job.
I lost my job.
They got rid of me.
That company was self-insured and I was expensive and I was the highest paid employee.
And they said, well, we're changing how we do the business.
So at your lowest point, they cut you loose.
Then what's happening personally in your relationships?
Well, so I went from making a very big salary to going to work for a wonderful mutual insurance company,
100% commission.
They don't pay for anything.
You pay for all your own marketing, your own office.
You're on your own.
And what an amazing man I married to because for that, I'm grateful every day because he got me through that first year.
It's awesome.
No, I made money from the first day I worked.
So I did a good job, but I couldn't have done it without David.
And I was a really, really, really successful life insurance agent.
But that's where I met Bob Proctor through a class.
That's how I met Napoleon Hill.
The great Bob Proctor.
That's how I, all of those things happened.
And I have been growing and learning ever since that day.
So I stayed in New York Life Agent.
I won awards.
I was really successful, but suddenly I remember that Bible verse that said,
a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.
And I was trying to do this business and do this business.
And what God wanted me to do was be here.
So I retired from that company, October 31st, 2023, and I am full steam ahead.
Well, looky here what I have on this table.
You have done a lot of work.
This is the first book that I heard about, which is 365 days of abundance.
Let me tell you something about that book.
That book is directly from above.
That book got downloaded into my brain like in a, I knew the outline.
I knew the principles.
I knew the law.
I said, this is what it's got to be because I literally one morning after I'd taken those classes
and I'd learned what the universal laws was and I said to David, I said,
I think somebody should write a book like this.
I think they should write a book that helps people get through every day,
but not just the Bible because the universal laws are based on history.
That's like 36,000 years old.
The Hermetic Principles, the Emerald Tablets.
And then you put that with the Bible and you put that with a brilliant man like Napoleon Hill
and Bob Proctor who worked with him and those guys that really worked on helping people realize
that your words and your thoughts make your life.
And if you don't control them, you get squat.
Like it just doesn't work.
So it's just that book I think will be around forever.
This is a download forever.
That's a download forever.
That'll be around till I'm long after I'm dead.
Then you got the abundance journal.
That's so you can do some of the daily habits that we all need to do.
Because thoughts coalesce at the point of a pen.
Right.
And so when you write it out...
It sticks.
I am really, really thankful for...
You're writing new neural pathways.
And it's also full of really great quotes about gratitude.
And then this, flipping the script, which you're using to serve a lot of people.
I am.
Last week, my son who's a veteran called me and his really good friend who they had done charity bartending events together.
And his girlfriend had broken up with them.
And Graham had picked him up at the hospital and taken him out to his mom's house to dry out.
And he's not got out of the house and they couldn't find him for a few days.
And when they did find him, he'd committed suicide.
That's so sad.
I'm sorry.
I usually what happens to vets when their squad members or their friends commit suicide.
Because you know there's 22 suicides a day from veterans.
20 to a day.
And that statistic has not changed for years.
It's 22 every day.
Come rain, come shine.
It's 22 every day.
And I called my youngest daughter to tell her about Graham's friend.
So I said, you know, if you call him, be cognizant that he's grieving.
Well, always before when he would grieve, he'd go down the rabbit hole and start drinking.
But now that he works with mom, doesn't do that.
And Taylor said, you've got this incredible course.
Why don't you, it's called Power Blueprint.
A personal growth plan to change your life.
She said, what, there's, did you know there's 8 million vets in the country?
It's 3% of the population.
8 million vets.
I, we're working on it now.
I did the video.
We're going to put the word out.
And if you know veterans, any of your listeners know veterans, have them go to my website and send me a message so I can send them the information.
So any vet in the country that sends me, our company, their VA card or any proof of their military service, either active duty or veteran, they can have that $1,000 class for free forever.
Where can people get this?
That's actually the book, Flipping the Script.
The classes have Power Blueprint.
They can get it by going to my website, www.judybailoff.com.
So we're going to talk more about this.
Your life though, you've been through a few careers.
You've raised a family.
You've been through divorce.
And when I met you, the energy was, you're so optimistic.
You're on that, you're on a very positive frequency.
How did you get there?
Because given all that you've been through, you could be a supersonic.
You could be a really negative person.
And we've all met some of them.
Oh yes.
Right?
One thing that I believe is that the universal laws, which you and I have talked about before,
the universal laws are the laws that you live by every day.
And if you don't know what they are, you can't make them work for you.
So as I mentioned before, my faith has been the strongest part of my personality for my whole life.
I have come to realize that my faith needs to be based on something more than my mom taught it to me,
my son-in-school class taught it to me.
How do I get to where I need to be every day?
And I think we do that.
We all have it available to us by connecting to our higher self,
the one that's connected to the Almighty, to soars all up, whoever you call the Almighty,
because the universal law of divine oneness says,
God is in us.
So if God's in me, and God's in you, and God's in him, and God's in them, and God's in the table,
and the chairs, and the stars, and the moon, and the sky,
all the universal laws all work together.
And when you start to realize that they're working that way, and that you're part of that creation,
that's how I do it.
That's how I do it.
I am so convinced that if we don't let our thoughts and the garbage from this world
just come flooding into our brains on a constant basis,
building paradigms and belief systems that we operate on so we think people of a different color are wrong.
We think people of a different belief system are wrong.
Uh-uh.
My heart beats and your heart beats just like theirs do.
So let me ask you this question.
You said, I'm on a mission.
What is your mission?
My mission is to help as many veterans especially, but people,
you know that statistic about 22 veterans?
Take a wild guess how many Americans commit suicide every day.
How many?
132.
Wow.
So people, women, men, teenagers, we need to learn to control our thoughts, change your life.
It sounds like, okay, that's really cute saying Judy.
No, it's not.
It's really what you have to do.
When you change the way you look at something, the thing you look at changes.
I want to take a break here because in part two of our interview,
I would like for you to give us a thinking master class.
I want to take a look at flipping the script on negativity.
Thank you for being with us today.
My pleasure.
My guest is Judy Bailoff, part two next time.