TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] Casey J. Cornelius: Hello everyone. And welcome to the latest episode of the four college for life podcast. My name is Casey Cornelius. I’m the founder and president ForCollegeForLife, America’s leading college speaking agency. And I’m also the host of this podcast. I get the opportunity to chat with our speakers and facilitators and consultants, the people who help us earn that title each and every day.
[00:00:22] Casey J. Cornelius: And I love the chance to get to know these folks in a, in a really deep way, in a way that’s interesting and learn more about what makes them tick. Even people that I’ve known for months and months and years and years and worked with very closely. I still learn something new each and every time we hit record.
[00:00:39] Casey J. Cornelius: And I just have a strange feeling that today’s going to be one of those days as well. The person I’m bringing to the mic is one of our newer speakers. And I want to tell you a little bit about her before we get started, just so that you can have a sense of. Her background and all the things that make her so dynamic.
[00:00:53] Casey J. Cornelius: So before I bring her to the microphone, let me tell you a little bit about Jaclyn Gallo, she’s a nationally recognized speaker and two time best selling author, inspiring audiences to embrace optimism and never give up. She’s the host of a podcast too. It’s called the spark your light podcast, which ranks in the top 1.
[00:01:11] Casey J. Cornelius: 5 percent of all podcasts globally. Wow. Talk about a heavy hitter with listeners in 96 countries. Jaclyn’s work has been featured by Forbes business insider and good morning, Washington. Her entrepreneurial dreams were born in her college dorm room at Georgetown university, where she took a leap of faith and pursued her first business idea.
[00:01:32] Casey J. Cornelius: It was a total failure. She says. Going to get into that here in just a second, but applying the lessons that she learned, she built a thriving company, helping others use their failures as a springboard to achieve their goals. Just like she did. She’s spoken on hundreds of stages at conferences, corporations, and universities.
[00:01:50] Casey J. Cornelius: She’s delivered keynotes to top organizations like TEDx, Princeton University, Deloitte, Comcast, NBC Universal. She’s also a certified life and success coach and neuro linguistic programming practitioner. Yes, I did have to practice that part. Neuro linguistic programming practitioner. And without further ado, I want to bring to the bike.
[00:02:12] Casey J. Cornelius: None other than Jaclyn Gallo. Jaclyn, did I do okay with that really awesome bio of yours?
[00:02:18] Jaclyn Gallo: You did wonderful. I was smiling so big when you said that you had a feeling this conversation would bring some new insights.
[00:02:24] Casey J. Cornelius: I have this feeling because, you know, even we’re going to pull back the curtain, even before we pressed record, I learned something new about you just in the course of our conversation.
[00:02:35] Casey J. Cornelius: I’m not going to share that detail with our audience, but I’m telling you every time we do this, I ended up learning something new about how awesome our folks are. And, and it just, it makes me, by the way, did I get that part right? Neuro linguistic programming practitioner.
[00:02:50] Jaclyn Gallo: You nailed it.
[00:02:51] Casey J. Cornelius: Okay. All right. It rolls off the tongue.
[00:02:54] Casey J. Cornelius: All right. So I have to, to ask the question that I hinted to, uh, in, in the intro. So you are a student at Georgetown university in Washington, DC, and your first entrepreneurial dream was born, as you say, in your dorm room, you say it was a total failure, but what was the story behind that?
[00:03:17] Jaclyn Gallo: Yeah, so my freshman year of college, I developed an eating disorder, just dive right into the hard stuff.
[00:03:27] Jaclyn Gallo: And it resulted from what I believe was the college environment. It’s really interesting to me because growing up, I never had any issues with food with body image. And When I was at Georgetown, it was very competitive, and I noticed that a lot of the women were constantly discussing how many calories were in something they were eating, or how many carbs there were, that they shouldn’t eat too much sugar, and they had all of these rules, and wanting to fit in, I decided to try some of the rules.
[00:04:03] Jaclyn Gallo: And long story short, um, I developed essentially a, a very intensified yo yo diet where I would, you know, cut out a food group of some kind of fad diet that everyone else was doing, no carbs, and then I would binge eat. And I realized that something was wrong. The end of my freshman year, I was home from college, my first week home, and My friends were all going out for half price appetizers at Applebee’s after 9 p.
[00:04:35] Jaclyn Gallo: m. or something like that. And I was sitting in my bedroom, crying, thinking that I couldn’t go because if I went, I would binge and then I would feel really sick. And I, I never wanted to feel that way, but I just, I couldn’t control it. And I told my mom. I started meeting with a dietician at Georgetown who is an amazing, um, dietician, her name is Allison Tepper and she actually has a virtual practice as well, um, helping with eating disorders if anyone’s listening can relate to anything I’m saying and wants professional support.
[00:05:11] Jaclyn Gallo: And fortunately, through that support, I was able to heal my relationship with food in my body and I learned about something called intuitive eating where Um, And I think that’s really important because it’s really important that you focus on what your body is craving and what your body wants as opposed to all of these food rules.
[00:05:30] Jaclyn Gallo: About two years, I really felt healed, and one of the biggest things that helped me was cutting these crazy diets. So, as I was approaching my senior year of college, I had an interesting turning point in my life. Part one was this newfound spark behind Eating all the food groups and listening to my body and my new definition of health.
[00:05:58] Jaclyn Gallo: And part two was coming off an internship at a large corporation that felt utterly unfulfilling to me. And I knew right away that I was not going to fit in corporate. And I didn’t want to waste any time. I felt like if I just got a job in order to do the thing you’re supposed to do, I would. come to the same conclusion that I had already come to.
[00:06:27] Jaclyn Gallo: So I thought that my best bet was to start a business before entering my senior year of college. That way the business could grow. And what I thought would mean that it could support me. And so when everyone asked me the big question, what are you doing after graduation? I could tell them I’m working for my business and it already pays me a salary.
[00:06:50] Jaclyn Gallo: Now, it didn’t turn out like that, but that’s, that’s how the story began. And so I decided to create a plate that was a pineapple design and it encouraged a person to eat all the food groups and it followed the USDA guidelines for a balanced meal, which is what my dietitian taught me, which is what really helped me.
[00:07:09] Jaclyn Gallo: So that was the intention. It did end up being an epic failure. I am not exaggerating. I ordered 10, 000 worth of plates. I got the money. Um, I borrowed 6, 000 from my parents and I saved up 4, 000 waitressing on campus at a local restaurant. And I had the plates stored in my grandmother’s garage and I sold them only to people who knew me, family, friends, aunts, uncles.
[00:07:40] Jaclyn Gallo: And once I got past that circle of people, no one wanted them. And. I felt that maybe there was a chance that I could have continued to put my head down and, and try to get this idea to take off, or I could just cut my losses and realize that just because this thing helped me, I didn’t do any market research.
[00:08:04] Jaclyn Gallo: I didn’t do a lot of the things that you’re supposed to do in entrepreneurship because I didn’t know any better and I didn’t have the right guidance. And that’s okay. I learned all that through my first idea. So I decided that it was time to just cut the losses and go into the next thing. Unfortunately, I don’t think I really learned the lessons yet of needing to do the market research and all these things.
[00:08:24] Jaclyn Gallo: I just thought, well, it’s not a product, it must be an app. So then I tried to build an app. I didn’t have any more money, so I raised 20, 000 on Kickstarter, which was extremely difficult. One of the most challenging things as an 18 year old to do in a 30 day span. But I did it, and I used that 20, 000 to hire college student developers.
[00:08:47] Jaclyn Gallo: Unfortunately, these developers did not have the experience to build an app as complex as I was trying to make, and I was trying to take some of the concepts from the plate coupled with wellness concepts like meditation and workouts and just make this holistic wellness app for women in college. It ended up being an epic failure.
[00:09:11] Jaclyn Gallo: I ran out of money. The developers couldn’t take it any further. It was crashing. It had bugs. At this point, again, I came to a crossroads where I either had to raise more money so that I could hire more experienced developers. Or pivot again. And this is around the time where I had started speaking, but I didn’t call it speaking.
[00:09:33] Jaclyn Gallo: I called it marketing. So I was actually going around to sororities locally in the Philadelphia area where I live, as well as virtually all over the country on zoom. And I would give a 30 minute talk. sharing my story of overcoming my eating disorder, improving my body image. And I did this with the intention of raising awareness for the brand I was building, building users for the app I was building.
[00:10:00] Jaclyn Gallo: But what I realized is that I was actually really good at the speaking part. And that part in and of itself was an end. It was something that helped people. It hit on the exact mission I was trying to hit on as an entrepreneur, just in a different way. And so, I decided to run with it and it finally worked.
[00:10:20] Jaclyn Gallo: And that’s kind of how I got here and the story of the businesses.
[00:10:25] Casey J. Cornelius: Well, thank, thank goodness you, you did. I, I, um, I think that there’s probably a lot that people can relate to in that evolution, right? Um, but there, there’s a couple of things that sort of jumped out as you were describing that journey, right?
[00:10:40] Casey J. Cornelius: So you talked about the notion of, of cutting your losses, like deciding. Hey, look, this thing that I thought was the plan is, is not going to work. I think you probably hear this from folks too. That’s a really hard, not only mental process, but emotional process to get to, right? Like where you go, you know, this is, this is not the answer.
[00:11:03] Casey J. Cornelius: I need to do something else. How did you, how did you manage that? Both, both, you know, intellectually, but also emotionally, this thing that, that you had. Assigned your identity to your purpose, to your future, to your telling people like, yep, I’ve already got the salary. How did you, how did you get past that process of cutting your losses?
[00:11:29] Jaclyn Gallo: I think it’s twofold. So emotionally, I use journaling. That is a huge tool in my life. It has been for most of my life. I even think back on my childhood and I, I have found journals that I would fill out as a kid and they were very basic and simple, but I would write in them. I went to the pool with Alison today and we did this and it evolved as I got older and throughout college I journaled.
[00:11:55] Jaclyn Gallo: I remember one time. My new year’s resolution was to journal every day and I actually turned it into something that was very stressful and every day before bed I’d be like, I have to journal, uh, which is so funny because journaling is supposed to be something that is releasing. But somewhere along the way I learned to use it as a tool to process my emotions and write out the way I was feeling.
[00:12:16] Jaclyn Gallo: And so I would just brain dump everything I was feeling and I would do it even when it wasn’t the most appropriate time. Meaning, yes, it’s nice to journal in your bed when you’re comfortable, and maybe you have a cup of tea. But sometimes I was trying to study at the library, because keep in mind, I was a full time college student trying to build a business.
[00:12:41] Jaclyn Gallo: I had a long distance boyfriend who is now my husband. I had so many pieces of my life that I was trying to manage. And Sometimes I would be at the library studying and I couldn’t focus because I was emotionally distraught and I didn’t even have my journal with me. So I would take out a note on my phone and I would just brain dump.
[00:12:58] Jaclyn Gallo: I feel like a failure. Maybe I should give up. Maybe I would be happier if I just took that job and I would just let my mind, I wouldn’t judge my thoughts. So that was a really big part of the emotional process. The other part that I think is really important actually ties into what I speak about today.
[00:13:15] Jaclyn Gallo: I focused more on the vision I had that was beyond one small circumstance. So instead of the circumstance of my plates, being a successful product or the app being successful. I want it to be successful as an entrepreneur. I want it to be successful as someone who had their own business and who helped people.
[00:13:41] Jaclyn Gallo: That’s what I wanted, who felt fulfilled and also earned enough money to have a great life. Those were the two things I wanted. And so I was so focused on that end goal. I didn’t let the micro failures, even though they felt like macro failures, I didn’t let them. detract from knowing that I was going to hit the eventual goal in the future.
[00:14:08] Jaclyn Gallo: I made them mean nothing about my ability to reach my big goals. And because of that, I was so focused on this concept of the only way I can fail is if I quit. And I just kept telling myself that over and over again. And I didn’t want to fail. Failing and giving up on myself felt like the worst thing I could do.
[00:14:33] Jaclyn Gallo: I also had a really powerful motivator in the background and it is my father’s story. So time that I remember the most learning this lesson in my childhood was a specific day. It was a Saturday afternoon. I think I was around seven and my dad and I were running errands. My mom is She’s definitely a matriarch.
[00:14:57] Jaclyn Gallo: She makes the long to do list, the things, and would send my dad out, do this, do that, pick up that. And I was the youngest of two girls, well, three girls, I have two older sisters, and significantly younger, ten and seven years younger. So oftentimes I was kind of like my dad’s little pet, and my sisters would be helping my mom with more mature things, maybe they’d be cooking dinner or something, and I’d be on errands with my dad.
[00:15:23] Jaclyn Gallo: So on this particular day, my dad My dad is picking something up for my mom in a shopping center in our town. And so we’re parked right out front of this shopping center and my dad points to the building on the corner. And he says, see that building? I’m like, yeah. And he said, I almost bought it just before you were born.
[00:15:44] Jaclyn Gallo: And I was like, what? You know, I didn’t even know what this meant.
Right.
[00:15:47] Jaclyn Gallo: And he said, yeah, I had a dream of opening my own business. I wanted to start a deli and a seafood market. But my father talked me out of it. He said it was too risky. I was having my third daughter and it’s just not a risk I could take.
[00:16:05] Jaclyn Gallo: And it’s the biggest regret I have in my life. And I watched my dad from that point on, always struggle in his career, always living with that regret. And talking about it frequently. I mean, I can remember probably hundreds of times at family dinner where he mentions it. And so, that was a huge motivator for me that Regret truly is one of the most painful feelings in the world because my hero, the strongest person in my world felt so much pain because he didn’t pursue the thing he wanted for his life.
[00:16:46] Jaclyn Gallo: And I knew that the feeling of regret would be worse than the feeling of any failure. And so I just felt like I didn’t have a choice in giving up because it would be even more painful. And I think that that also really helped me having that strong why behind me and seeing someone that I loved really suffer throughout his life because of that decision.
[00:17:10] Jaclyn Gallo: So I think the combination of the journaling, changing the way I saw failure, and then that strong why were really the three things that helped me get through it.
[00:17:20] Casey J. Cornelius: What’s amazing to me is that, that he talked about it openly too, right? I mean, I think, I think all of us have, um, moments of, of pause or regret or, or failures in our life.
[00:17:34] Casey J. Cornelius: I think that the, the difference in the distinction is to, to the extent to which someone is willing to, to open up about them. I mean, the old adage is, You’re more likely to regret what you don’t do than what you do. And for him to, to talk so honestly with you, even as a young child about that, um, that, that shows a lot about who your father is too.
[00:17:58] Jaclyn Gallo: It does. And I think it’s really interesting because you can hear the quote or read it on the internet, but it doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t have any oomph behind it. And I used to think that you had to live experiences. I think about having a baby and how everyone told me how my world was going to change and how different my life would be.
[00:18:20] Jaclyn Gallo: And I just couldn’t comprehend it until I lived it.
But this is an
[00:18:24] Jaclyn Gallo: experience that I didn’t live myself. I mean, I guess you could say I had secondhand living. I lived. With my father, who often showed emotions related to this, but I didn’t live it myself. And so I think it’s really important as leaders that we do share our stories of times that we regret of decisions that we wished we made differently, because I think that secondhand experience really can.
[00:18:56] Jaclyn Gallo: Add so much value to a random quote that you see on the internet that means nothing to you.
[00:19:03] Casey J. Cornelius: It’s really profound, especially in, in, um, the entrepreneurship space, you know, so, um, I, I will, I will confess to those, those listening when, when people tell me sometimes that they’re entrepreneurs, I, I kind of, I smile inwardly, right?
[00:19:16] Casey J. Cornelius: Because it’s an, it’s an easy title to, uh, to take on, and it’s a really hard title to earn, right? Because it, it takes some. Some scar tissue. It takes some, some bumps and bruises to, to really own that title. Wouldn’t you agree?
[00:19:32] Jaclyn Gallo: A hundred percent. And it’s interesting because anyone can claim it, especially in today’s world.
[00:19:40] Jaclyn Gallo: I think that it’s a becoming very popularized and I don’t think entrepreneurship is for everyone or should be for everyone. No company would exist if there weren’t employees also. So I think we need both. Um, but it is. It’s a title that if you can own it in the way you live, then you’ll be successful with it.
[00:20:03] Casey J. Cornelius: Agreed. Folks, if you’re not yet familiar, please make sure that you check out, uh, Jaclyn’s page and programs. Uh, it’s forcollegeforlife.com/jaclyn. That’s spelled J A C L Y N by the way, J A C L Y N, um, to learn more about her and her signature programs and so forth. Jaclyn, I imagine that there’s probably some students, some professionals who are listening to this podcast and there’s something else in the evolution of your story that really jumped out.
[00:20:28] Casey J. Cornelius: Um, and without naming names. Uh, you had mentioned that you had a pretty unfulfilling internship. Can you talk about that experience as a student? How, um, this thing that I’m sure that you expected to be awesome and great. And so, so fond and enlightening didn’t, didn’t end up being what you expected.
[00:20:50] Jaclyn Gallo: Yeah, I had such a clear vision of what I wanted for my career.
[00:20:56] Jaclyn Gallo: And I think a lot of students. Might find themselves in that position. My dream job was to work for a large company and do marketing and climb the corporate ladder. And my first step was to land that perfect internship. And I did. And I was so excited about it. And it’s funny, I actually loved a lot of things about it.
[00:21:19] Jaclyn Gallo: I liked going to work every day, and getting to make friends, and have lunch in the cafeteria, and having my own desk, and a lot of the kind of culture. Uh, I don’t have anything poorly to say about that. Um, the company that I worked for had a very positive culture. But in the actual day to day work I quickly realized that I was A small cog in a large machine.
[00:21:51] Jaclyn Gallo: And even though I went into marketing because I thought it was creative, there was very little creativity that I actually was allowed to implement because there were many rules. There was also. a very, very, very large ship that was hard to move. So even if I had an idea, and my boss, who was also incredible, thought it was amazing, then she would say, Well, we have to get copywritten from this team, and we have to get a budget approved from this team, and then we would wait weeks and weeks and weeks.
[00:22:28] Jaclyn Gallo: And I started to feel so frustrated because as an ambitious person, I had so many ideas and I just wanted to implement my ideas and run with them, but I couldn’t. And that was the epitome of my frustration. I came to the conclusion that it was better for me to come up with my own ideas and implement them myself.
[00:22:54] Jaclyn Gallo: Then have to wait for all of these people to work with them. But before I got to that point, I did give it one last shot. I met with one of the VPs at the company. I was very ambitious. I would constantly schedule myself on their calendars and they would often tell me that no interns ever meet with them, by the way.
[00:23:12] Casey J. Cornelius: They’re like, who is the student? Yes.
[00:23:15] Jaclyn Gallo: My personal advice would be go for it. Like try to meet with, if you’re doing an internship, um, some of the leaders, a lot of times they just haven’t. Had students take the initiative, and a lot of times they’re very impressed by that initiative and you can learn so much from them.
[00:23:31] Jaclyn Gallo: So one of the VPs was actually extremely encouraging. I told him about all my frustrations with the company and He suggested this concept called intrapreneurship, where I could come up with my own ideas and implement them within a larger company. I could work for the company, and I thought it was this fantastic idea, so I designed um, a slide deck for this big idea I had that I thought would totally revolutionize the company, and I told him I wanted to present it.
[00:24:00] Jaclyn Gallo: So he emailed it out to a few people and told me that, unfortunately, we would have to review it when I was gone. Already graduated and then see if the idea was feasible and if it was and they could consider hiring me in a role where I could lead that idea. And ultimately I didn’t want to put my destiny into someone else’s hands that maybe they would think my idea was good enough when I knew I had great ideas and I wanted to implement them myself.
[00:24:27] Jaclyn Gallo: So
that
[00:24:28] Jaclyn Gallo: was my journey. I don’t think that all, um, all companies or experiences are like that. And it’s funny because looking back as I’ve evolved Just as a mature adult and my mindset has changed and I’ve learned a lot about myself I actually think today you could put me in any scenario and I could thrive.
[00:24:47] Jaclyn Gallo: I mean given that it was a healthy You know Culture and things like that. I think I could work for someone. I think I could work for a big business I think I could work for a small business because I just have a completely different mindset. So it’s funny that, you know, my 21 year old self had a completely different experience than maybe my almost 30 year old self, but I do feel that it’s really important to try things and get to know yourself and the areas that you thrive so that as you pursue your career goals, You can make choices that really align with you and know that it’s okay if you change your mind.
[00:25:27] Jaclyn Gallo: I hear a lot of students feel anxious when they have this vision and they try it out in an internship and they don’t love it as much as they thought they would because they feel like they’ve wasted so much time and energy. But most things, we can pivot, we can apply our learnings, and it’s better to make the changes when you’re 20 or 22 than when you’re 45.
[00:25:48] Jaclyn Gallo: So you might as well stay true to yourself, try things early, get as much internship experience as you can, and just keep trusting yourself and what sparks your light.
[00:25:58] Casey J. Cornelius: I love it. I love it. By the way, if you’re listening to this and you feel like that, that message, uh, belongs in the ears of someone, make sure you share this podcast episode with, uh, with that person.
[00:26:09] Casey J. Cornelius: Uh, I, I suspect that they’re going to find it pretty helpful. Uh, Jaclyn, there’s a, there’s a word that you’ve used a few times along the way, and I think it’s one that I would. Connect with, with you and your messages, uh, most, and that is mindset. And I want to talk a little bit about, um, one of your signature programs and the, and, uh, a topic and a title that I think is just so.
[00:26:31] Casey J. Cornelius: Timely. It’s so, so needed and necessary right now. So if you could talk a little bit about the evolution and, and the, the signature message of get your hopes up, uh, where you challenge folks to unleash the life changing power of optimism.
[00:26:49] Jaclyn Gallo: Yeah, so as someone who has been speaking for many years now, I kind of thought that I had a lot of this mindset stuff figured out.
[00:26:59] Jaclyn Gallo: After all, I was giving keynotes about resilience and the power of your mindset and a lot of the concepts that we’ve talked about here. But it’s funny how life always seems to know. the exact lesson that we need. And sometimes it’s not always at the most easy time in our life, but it sure does teach us a lot.
[00:27:22] Jaclyn Gallo: So. On February 7th, 2024, my son Michael was born. He weighed 4 pounds 6 ounces and was immediately taken to the NICU and soon transferred to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia where he was diagnosed with a rare condition called hyperinsulinism which causes his pancreas to overproduce insulin resulting in dangerously low blood sugar.
[00:27:45] Jaclyn Gallo: My husband and I moved into Michael’s shared windowless hospital room as first time parents, which, as you can imagine, was extremely challenging. But we did our best to stay positive. Michael’s doctors assured us that our stay would be short. Unfortunately, there was only one FDA approved drug called dioxide to treat hyperinsulinism.
[00:28:10] Jaclyn Gallo: But it worked for most children. Michael, on the other hand, did not respond well to this medication. After weeks of testing it, Michael’s doctors decided to place him on an overnight fast to see if he could maintain his blood sugar without breast milk. If he passed the fast, then we could finally go home.
[00:28:30] Jaclyn Gallo: This was Michael’s seventh overnight fast. So, by this point, I was exhausted from what felt like an endless string of disappointment. So, in an effort to boost my spirits, I made a personal resolution to stop getting my hopes up. And here’s where it gets interesting. Instead of feeling better, like I thought I would, I actually felt worse.
[00:28:56] Jaclyn Gallo: I realized that, despite our best efforts, we can’t avoid disappointment. We can pretend we don’t want something, we can push away our desires, and lie to ourselves. But deep down, we want what we want. And when we don’t get what we want, we feel disappointed, whether we have our hopes up or not. And that is the theme of my keynote, Get Your Hopes Up.
[00:29:22] Jaclyn Gallo: Because I think so many of us have gone through our lives falsely assuming that keeping our hopes low will protect us from disappointment. But I am sure that every single one of you listening can think of a time in your life where you purposely didn’t get your hopes up and the situation still resulted in disappointment.
[00:29:50] Jaclyn Gallo: So if that’s true, if disappointment is unavoidable, Then, what’s the power of hope? And that’s what, that’s what my message is all about. Hope can be a strategy. There’s a very famous saying, Hope is not a strategy. And I politely disagree with that. Hope is more than just wishful thinking. And in my keynote I talk about the drawbacks of optimism.
[00:30:21] Jaclyn Gallo: When optimism is not the most appropriate choice. Because it’s not recommended in all circumstances. But for a lot of circumstances, it’s not only appropriate, but it’s also extremely beneficial. And I Know Hope was a strategy for me in the hospital, and in many other times in my life, in building my business, in my career.
[00:30:41] Jaclyn Gallo: And I Know Hope can be a strategy for everyone listening. And so my keynote inspires listeners to be willing to get their hopes up, even though sometimes that will result in disappointment. Because it’s worth it.
[00:30:55] Casey J. Cornelius: I imagine that there’s like, I’m, I’m smiling listening to this just because it resonates so much with me and, and I, I know why it resonates with audiences as well, but I imagine that there’s, there’s a pushback, right?
[00:31:07] Casey J. Cornelius: And it might even be a bit of a cynical pushback that, um, optimism can be dangerous, right? Like when, when we’re overly optimistic or would we think everything’s going to work out, um, despite evidence to the contrary. I imagine that, that folks can be. fearful of putting themselves out there like that. Is that the, the most frequent pushback that you get on this notion?
[00:31:33] Jaclyn Gallo: Definitely. And that’s why I address it very early on in the keynote, because I know for a fact, there are people in the audience who say I’m a realist. If you might be listening and smiling really big cause you call yourself that, right? And so I want this message to land with everyone. And I know it can.
[00:31:55] Jaclyn Gallo: And so from the very beginning, I actually talk about what optimism is and what it isn’t. I think there’s a lot of misconceptions. People think that Optimism is about pretending that life is sunshine and rainbows, or even that it’s about positive thinking, right? Like if I said optimism is about positive thinking, true or false, most people would say true.
[00:32:16] Jaclyn Gallo: I would say false. Optimism is actually about changing your inner narrative. When you fail, it’s about saying less destructive things to yourself in the face of adversity. And all of my content comes from positive psychology and decades of research. So through this research. Optimism is something that has helped people on so many levels.
[00:32:41] Jaclyn Gallo: And as I mentioned earlier, it’s not appropriate in all situations. So that’s another thing that I address early on. Optimism is never appropriate in situations where the cost of failure is high. So the example that I give in my keynote is planning for an emergency fund. It would never be appropriate to use optimism when planning for an emergency fund.
[00:32:59] Jaclyn Gallo: Nothing is going to go wrong. We don’t need any savings. And then all of a sudden you can’t pay your mortgage or you can’t feed your children and you say, but Jacqueline told me to be optimist. Absolutely not. That is not what optimism is about. On the other hand, optimism is appropriate in any situation where you’re experiencing adversity and you can change the course of that adversity.
[00:33:28] Jaclyn Gallo: So for example, when most people fail, Especially people who struggle with pessimism, they attribute that adversity to permanent, pervasive, and internal causes. So for example, let’s say for the business failure that I experienced, a permanent cause would be something like, I’m not smart enough. Versus a temporary cause, which is optimistic.
[00:33:53] Jaclyn Gallo: would attribute the failure to might be something like, I don’t have enough experience yet. So what that implies is I can go get the experience to get better. And so it’s not a permanent cause, right? And then pervasive for the pessimist is something that not only impacts this one area or this one experience, but it impacts everything.
[00:34:14] Jaclyn Gallo: So I’m not smart enough would be also pervasive because if I’m not smart enough to run a business, I’m also not smart enough to thrive in a relationship or to manage my finances, right? Versus I don’t have enough experience. Marketing a product is a really specific thing, but I can go get that experience and it’s not going to hold me back in all the other areas.
[00:34:37] Jaclyn Gallo: And then the last category, is internal or external. So, are you blaming yourself or are you blaming something outside of you? Now, one of the other caveats that I mention, uh, in the beginning of my keynote about what optimism is and isn’t and when it’s appropriate and when it isn’t appropriate, it’s never appropriate when you need to take personal responsibility for a situation.
[00:34:59] Jaclyn Gallo: You always need to be self accountable, period. This is appropriate for situations where you’re blaming yourself but really You don’t need to be blaming yourself. So, for instance, with the business example, instead of saying you know, it’s, it’s totally my fault, I’m the one who had these terrible ideas and blah blah blah blah In external cause and optimists might say, you know, it wasn’t the right time in the market for, for this app.
[00:35:29] Jaclyn Gallo: Um, or the developers didn’t have the experience versus I led the project poorly and I failed. And so those things matter because when we. And the words that we use and the way we describe and internalize and attribute cause to our failures, then we are less likely to become helpless. Um, and it’s really interesting.
[00:35:56] Jaclyn Gallo: There was a fascinating study done by Dr. Martin Seligman, who’s a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, where he actually had dogs receive a light, gentle shock. And. He had two different groups of dogs and one group of dogs could control the shock. So if they pressed a button, then they would no longer be shocked.
[00:36:20] Jaclyn Gallo: The shock would stop. And the other group of dogs couldn’t control it. So it was uncontrollable. And after they experienced a period of time under this shock, then he moved the dogs and placed them in a new, um, Cage, you could call it. They called it a shuttle box. And basically it was a cage that had a teeny, teeny, teeny barrier that they could easily jump over to another side.
[00:36:47] Jaclyn Gallo: And on the other side there was no shock. So there’s only shock on one side. Well, the dogs who experienced the controllable shock immediately jumped over. But the dogs who experience the inescapable shock. They actually just lied down and became helpless. They didn’t move, they didn’t try to get out, and the only way to get them to go to the other side was actually to physically drag them and show them that there was no shock.
[00:37:20] Jaclyn Gallo: This was so fascinating to Dr. Sligman that he wanted to find out if it were also true in humans. So they continued to do more experiments and found that the same thing was true in people. And so then he wanted to figure out well, what is it about the people who were exposed to the inescapable circumstances, but still chose to get out.
[00:37:44] Jaclyn Gallo: Meaning they didn’t become helpless. Because it was a small percentage of people, about 2 in every 10, that despite the inescapable adversity They still continue to fight back. They never became helpless. And what he found is that the key was optimism. So this isn’t just something to make you feel good.
[00:38:05] Jaclyn Gallo: This isn’t just something to, you know, boost your spirits. That is great. It’s great to feel good, but ultimately it’s something to make you resilient, to give you the courage you need to pursue your goals. And more importantly, the resilience to achieve them. So. It’s really powerful. And while there are people who might criticize it, when you understand what optimism really is, and the science behind it, and when it should be applied, and when it’s not appropriate, there’s no reason to push back.
[00:38:40] Casey J. Cornelius: And besides, I mean, like. Let me defend this for just a second on your behalf. Besides, what’s the alternative,
right?
[00:38:48] Casey J. Cornelius: Like, what is pessimism? Like, that seems like a really bad strategy as well. And it seems like the, the negative potential outcomes of pessimism are so many multiple times greater than, than optimism.
[00:39:00] Jaclyn Gallo: Yeah. And, um, one of my favorite studies on pessimism is actually that, um, uh, researchers. Implanted cancerous tumors, um, into rats and, um, I don’t know how they test it for pessimism. I don’t remember that part of the study, but it’s, it’s, um, part of the same research under Dr. Seligman and essentially the, the pessimistic rats, um, the tumors grew faster.
[00:39:29] Jaclyn Gallo: So it actually can cause so many negative events in your life, physically, emotionally. It’s very fascinating.
[00:39:38] Casey J. Cornelius: Yeah, I love this and my hunch is that there’s a lot of people right now who, who want to know more about this and your other programs as well. So again, please folks, if you would visit forcollegeforlife.com/jaclyn J A C L Y N forcollegeforlife.com/jaclyn, Jaclyn, we, we probably could talk about this for hours, um, but, but want to be mindful of time and make sure everyone can listen to this. This podcast in one sitting. So I want to get you out of here on some, uh, some quick hit questions.
[00:40:07] Casey J. Cornelius: If you’d like. I got five of them. Are you ready?
[00:40:09] Jaclyn Gallo: I’m ready.
[00:40:10] Casey J. Cornelius: Okay. All right. So you referenced being a relatively newer mom. So this question is purely hypothetical, of course, but let’s imagine for a second. You have an entire day to binge watch anything. What do you choose?
[00:40:24] Jaclyn Gallo: And
[00:40:25] Casey J. Cornelius: it can’t be bluey.
[00:40:29] Jaclyn Gallo: I would watch and I did this in my early days of being a mom.
[00:40:33] Jaclyn Gallo: I don’t know if you can fit it all in one day. It took a couple days. I would watch all of the Harry Potters in order.
[00:40:39] Casey J. Cornelius: In order. Okay. How many hours? Like that’s, that’s a, that’s a commitment.
[00:40:43] Jaclyn Gallo: I’ve done it a couple of times, not in one day. It would, it will take like a couple of weeks usually and just, you know, any free night my husband and I will watch them.
[00:40:53] Jaclyn Gallo: I loved them as a kid. I read some of the books. I will admit that I, I didn’t even read all of the books as a kid. I remember thinking these are just so long.
[00:41:02] Casey J. Cornelius: There’s a lot. Yeah.
[00:41:03] Jaclyn Gallo: But as an adult, I think there are just so many great messages that I, that I really believe in.
[00:41:11] Casey J. Cornelius: And again, recognizing the fact that it is hypothetical for, for any, uh, parent of, of a, of a young human being to have a full day to do whatever they want.
[00:41:20] Casey J. Cornelius: Um, it’s, it’s good to know. I wonder how many people would agree with the Harry Potter one. That’s good. All right. Second question. Jack, what is the most used app on your phone? This
[00:41:35] Jaclyn Gallo: is probably a lame answer, but I’m going to say like the text message app.
[00:41:42] Casey J. Cornelius: Are you a, are you a texter? Is that your, is that your go to?
[00:41:45] Jaclyn Gallo: Um, I’m just not really a social media er. So I feel there’s not that many other apps, maybe FaceTime or call that I use. But it’s funny because a lot of my business is on social media, but I’ve actually found through experience that scrolling social media just drains my energy, so I do it very infrequently.
[00:42:11] Jaclyn Gallo: And when I do it, it’s usually very intentional. Like, I’m looking for a recipe. I’m looking for an outfit. And I’ll, um, go on and look for something specific, so. I would say that it’s not them. And so it’s got to be communicating to people. Maybe Voxer. Do you, have you ever used that app?
[00:42:29] Casey J. Cornelius: No, no, no. What’s that?
[00:42:30] Jaclyn Gallo: Um, it’s like a voice messaging app. So a couple of my friends, uh, we, we just talk and talk so much that it would just be too long to send like voice messages in the iPhone texting app. So we’ll send each other a voice message on there.
[00:42:44] Casey J. Cornelius: Voxer.
[00:42:45] Jaclyn Gallo: Yeah. It’s great. Okay. Okay. Interesting. You can send like up to 15 minutes of recording yourself talking.
[00:42:50] Jaclyn Gallo: Oh my goodness. Which I do frequently. You
[00:42:53] Casey J. Cornelius: know, it’s interesting, uh, quick, quick sidebar. I remember reading this relatively recently that, that of all the apps on the phone, like the standard, like comes with certain apps, the least used one is the phone. Like the, the actual telephone app.
[00:43:09] Jaclyn Gallo: Wow.
[00:43:10] Casey J. Cornelius: So there you go.
[00:43:11] Casey J. Cornelius: It sounds like you’re, you’re right on, you’re right on brand with that. All right. Jacqueline, let’s imagine for a second that you could have dinner with anyone. Who would you most like to have that dinner with?
[00:43:23] Jaclyn Gallo: I think Michael Jordan.
[00:43:24] Casey J. Cornelius: Hmm. Okay. Tell me why.
[00:43:27] Jaclyn Gallo: Um, I was just so inspired by his, um, Netflix docuseries, the one that last dance. Yeah. Thank you. Um, I’ve, I’ve watched it a couple of times and I think it’s just had a profound impact on my life and out of, out of all the, you know, successful people that I’ve studied their lives, he just really stands out to me as, um, really rare.
[00:43:51] Jaclyn Gallo: You know, it’s, it’s so. special to have someone who has accomplished so much success have the same drive. And I think that in the world we live in today, especially in the entrepreneurship world, I see this a lot. There’s so much push for take the easy path, take the easy path. Um, it’s almost like this energy that other people owe you things.
[00:44:18] Jaclyn Gallo: I just, it’s very icky to me and it gets worse and worse and worse. The more successful people are. And Michael Jordan is the opposite of that. And, um, one of my husband’s favorite quotes that he has imparted on me, and has now become one of my favorite quotes, don’t know who said it, is, um, It’s hard to be hungry when you’ve been fed.
And
[00:44:42] Jaclyn Gallo: Michael Jordan was always hungry even when he was fed. And I really respect that and want to. That’s what I want to do. I want to embody
[00:44:52] Casey J. Cornelius: that in my life. You know, that makes, it makes a lot of sense with even the things that we’ve talked about just in this episode, right? Like mindset. Optimism, vision, hope.
[00:45:02] Casey J. Cornelius: My hunch is that you and Jordan would be right aligned with all those things.
[00:45:06] Jaclyn Gallo: Yeah, I hope so.
[00:45:08] Casey J. Cornelius: Well, let’s see if we can make that happen. If anybody knows Michael Jordan listening to this podcast, let’s, let’s see if we can make that happen. All right. So Jaclyn, what do you do to wind down? Let’s imagine it’s the end of the day.
[00:45:19] Casey J. Cornelius: You’ve got some time to yourself. What is your process? What is your routine? What is your ritual to wind down?
[00:45:27] Jaclyn Gallo: I would like a cup of tea. Maybe some chamomile and a book and a hot shower burn my skin hot. I like it so hot that I get chills. It’s very weird. I don’t know why I like that, but apparently I’m not the only one and the shower will be so long that the hot water and then I will get in bed and I will, I will read myself to sleep.
[00:45:56] Casey J. Cornelius: So you’re going to, to first take the shower, roast from the outside, then grab the tea, roast from the inside, and then go to sleep.
[00:46:03] Jaclyn Gallo: Yes. And if it is any, um, help in, in this, um, conversation, I am always cold. So maybe that’s why I like to roast my entire body.
[00:46:13] Casey J. Cornelius: See, I, I knew that we were going to learn something new, new about you.
[00:46:16] Casey J. Cornelius: Okay. Excellent. All right. Last question. I promised Jaclyn, where can listeners best connect with you? I know that you said that you don’t love social media, but if someone wanted to connect with you, where would be the best spot? I
[00:46:29] Jaclyn Gallo: actually love social media for DMs, though I will say that. I think it’s just a great way to chat quickly with someone.
[00:46:37] Jaclyn Gallo: You don’t have to exchange phone numbers and all these things. So please DM me. I do check it frequently. I just don’t scroll. But I answer all my DMs and I love chatting with people about my work. So please feel free to reach out.
[00:46:52] Casey J. Cornelius: Is there a best spot?
[00:46:53] Jaclyn Gallo: I would say Instagram DMs is where I spend the most time and it’s @jaclyntgallo.
[00:46:59] Casey J. Cornelius: With the middle initial? Oh, the middle initial.
[00:47:01] Jaclyn Gallo: Yeah, because someone else has Jaclyn Gallo.
[00:47:04] Casey J. Cornelius: What?
[00:47:05] Jaclyn Gallo: Yeah, I know. So I had to just own the middle initial.
[00:47:10] Casey J. Cornelius: Okay, I said it was the last question, but we got to do it. What’s the T stand for?
[00:47:13] Jaclyn Gallo: Teresa.
[00:47:15] Casey J. Cornelius: There you go. There you go. It’s the trivia answer. You’ve made it all the way to the end of this episode and you’ve received the trivia answer.
[00:47:23] Casey J. Cornelius: Jaclyn Teresa Gallo. Thank you so much for joining today. This was so much fun.
[00:47:28] Jaclyn Gallo: Thank you so much for having me.
[00:47:30] Casey J. Cornelius: Everyone. Thank you so much for listening to the only thing that we ask with all of these podcasts is that you do the thing that you’re supposed to do with podcasts. Please make sure that you like and share and subscribe and get this episode into the hands and Ears of the people who need to hear it.
[00:47:47] Casey J. Cornelius: That is so helpful to us. Also, if there’s something that you’d like to hear more of, if there’s a topic or if there’s a combination of speakers or anything like that, that you’d like us to delve more deeply into, please make sure that you let us know. You can find us on all the social media channels. You can find us on all the podcast platforms, and we want to make sure that this is as good for you as it possibly can be.
[00:48:09] Casey J. Cornelius: So episodes like this, thank you for hanging in. Thank you for sharing it. And thank you for always being supportive of the work that we do here ForCollegeForLife. And until next time be well, everyone. Thank you so much.
