PP 330: Choose Greatness, Achieve Excellence with Gina Gardiner

Kim Sutton: Welcome back to another episode of Positive Productivity. This is your host Kim Sutton, and I’m so happy that you’re here to join us today. I want to take a quick second before I jump in and introduce the guests to ask you, if you please haven’t already done so to visit the podcast on your preferred listening platform and subscribe, rate and review. You know this is something that I don’t usually ask you to do, but I would love to get more exposure to potential listeners who need the messages that we are sharing. 

Anyway, to jump back into this episode, I’m thrilled to introduce our guest, Gina Gardiner. Gina is a Motivational Speaker, Author, Empowerment and Relationship Coach and Transformational Leadership Trainer with Genuinely-You Ltd. It’s limited right, Gina?

Gina Gardiner: Yes, it’s Genuinely-You Ltd.

Kim Sutton: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining us here today.

Gina Gardiner: My pleasure, really excited about it.

Kim Sutton: I can’t believe I got the blooper out of the way in the first two seconds. I would love it if you would introduce yourself a little bit better than I have already done to the listeners and let them know how you got to where you are today.

Gina Gardiner: It’s quite a long story really. So while you’re sitting comfortably, I have been in the business of empowerment, all my working life really. I started off as a teacher and I became the principal of a school very, very early on. Initially, I was appointed to be the deputy principal, I was 29. It was a very large school, and I was very cheeky. I applied for it and was told not to expect an interview because they were going to appoint a man, they could do that in 1982 when I was appointed.  But anyway, they did appoint me, and I was appointed to be the catalyst for change. It was a school that was fairly old fashioned. And so for the first two terms, we worked incredibly hard to plan how we were going to move things forward. The spring break, I went skiing and I went to Saint Anton in Austria. I was an experienced skier, but I’d had new skis for Christmas. And in those days, the ascribed wisdom was to have skis as long as possible. So I was convinced by the shop assistant that I needed longer skis than I was used to. 

For the first part of the week I proceeded to wrap the extra 10 centimeters around my neck fairly frequently. Lots of binding checks. And on Thursday, which was the penultimate day, I had a really bad fall and it knocked my confidence. So I said to the group of friends I was with, I’m going to scale my own tomorrow. You go off and do your own thing, and I’ll meet you for lunch, which I did. And they said that they’d found a great new run and why didn’t I join them. So by this time, I’d gathered myself together and we went off, and got onto the ski lifts. And those people who are used to skiing will know that as you go up in the ski lift, you have this incredible sense of peace. It becomes very quiet and you can see the fabulous mountains around you. We got to the top of the lift and I followed them, and they took a wrong turn, and we found ourselves at the top of the Schindler Gratz which is the most difficult black run in Saint Anton, which is several 100 feet tall. It has lots of moguls. I don’t know if your listeners, or their skiers, they’ll know that a mogul is where the weather has worn away the snow and the ice to leave bumps.

Kim Sutton: Oh ,my god.

Gina Gardiner: It could be anything from a couple of inches. These were six feet.

Kim Sutton: Oh, my gosh.

Gina Gardiner: And so if you just imagine very, very steep but full of these great lumps which you used to have to ski on the top turn and then slipped down. So for about the first third, I was managing that, but it was tricky. I have done black runs before, but this was a particularly challenging run, and I left it too late to turn and ended up falling. Took me 20 minutes to retrieve my skis and then I skied back to where the others were sitting. Each of them on a mogul, a bit like an alpha or toadstool, and I took my skis off and joined them. It was a beautiful day, brilliant sunshine, very warm. And the top of my mogul gave away, and I found myself falling. I knocked myself out and I came to have bounced. There was nowhere to land because it was so steep. I don’t know how long I was there for. The other ski down, I think they were quite prepared for me to be really badly injured. As it was I refused the blood work and I managed to ski down very badly. It was only the last couple of 100 feet to come down and fall, probably 200 feet to that point. And we traveled home the next day. It was a very challenging journey. 

And when we got home, my mom took one look at me and took me off to an extinction emergency. They told me that I had got a concussion and that I had cracked a nerve in my neck. So I then went back to school, I was sent home because I was speaking rubbish. There are those that would say that was probably quite normal that over the next few weeks, I began to recover. I was back at school, I was wearing a collar, but I was told I could go skiing with the school party, and I was the deputy leader of the bar. We had 150 children going skiing this time to Switzerland, and I managed all week. But as the week drew to close, I became more and more like Quasimodo. And the last day after the children had all done their races, I had got any more to give. So I said to my colleague: “I’m really sorry. I’m gonna have to go lie on the bed.” And it was a double bunk. It was not a posh hotel. Got up onto the bunk, and I then found that I was paralyzed on one side. I couldn’t move my right side at all. I was frightened to shout out because I don’t want to frighten the children. I had to wait till somebody came to check on me. I was rushed to hospital, and then rushed to Geneva University Hospital. And then five days later, I was flown home by air ambulance.

Kim Sutton: Wow.

Gina Gardiner: Things have never been quite the same since then. That was February. I was off school until the beginning of May, and I sort of limped quite literally. I’d got the movement back, but not the power back in my right side to the school summer holidays, which started mid to late July. I was really looking forward to it. We only have six weeks of holidays here, we don’t have the long holidays that you have in the US. And though I’ll have a really good rest, I’ll be ready to go back in September. But about 10 days later, I got the phone call to say that my then head principal had suddenly died in his sleep, and I was the head.

Kim Sutton: Oh, wow. Just like skiing.

Gina Gardiner: You never know what life is going to bring, and I was determined to make things a success. So I was acting head pre-term, and I was appointed formally as the principal, the head in January. I was determined at school that I was going to do well, and that my physical situation shouldn’t get in the way. But over the next five years or so, my mobility deteriorated. The accident was in 1982. 

By 1987, I was having to use a wheelchair around school because it was so spread. Really worried about what other people would think, and so delayed, actually using it much longer than one might expect. But it was brought home to me. I was out of the summer holiday, I’m out with friends, we’d gone to Wisley Garden, which are the Royal Horticultural gardens, and I wouldn’t use one of the wheelchairs that were on higher ground. I sat in the car park, cut my nose off to spite my face. And at the end of two hours I realized that this was silly. As it happened, I went to the hospital. I’d just started an experimental drug therapy which went badly wrong. I was in the hospital for four months. And when I came out, I had no choice. I had to use a wheelchair, then decided to keep away from doctors and ran my school which was doing very well. 

But in 1996, I sneezed and ruptured a disc. I had surgery, failed back surgery syndrome. I couldn’t put my left foot to the floor without fainting so I was wheelchair bound, took me two years to walk to the bottom of my very small garden, and then I was sick, and I ruptured lumbar disc, and I was completely wheelchair bound until 2004 when I had an internal spinal stimulator fitted. But in all of this, there were some huge gifts. Necessity is the mother of invention, I could not get my wheelchair past the door, and pretty well in all of the classrooms because even if I could get through the door, the classrooms were too crowded with furniture and children. I had to create a different approach to developing leadership and to empowering people so that everybody recognized what excellence was. And I’d like to think that I would have come up with the same thing if I hadn’t been wheelchair bound. Probably would have taken me a lot longer. But the fact, it was so successful is evidenced by, we were in the best 100 schools in England twice during my tenure. Had loads of accolades, kite marks and so on. And it was based on people taking responsibility for their own performance and for people to have a shared understanding of what excellence looks like in the context of the school, and it’s at the heart of the work that I do now with individuals, couples, with whole organizations and teams, and it works. That’s really one of the big gifts that came from the disability.

Kim Sutton: Wow, thank you for sharing your story with us. I’m blown away. I don’t mean to make a joke out of it, but I was supposed to go skiing when I was 13. Actually, it was my 13th birthday present, but I didn’t realize that instead, my friends had planned a surprise party. However, Gina, I can’t even walk from one side of my ass to the other without tripping over my own feet. Almost 30 years later, I feel fortunate that I have never been on skis, just because I know it wouldn’t have gone well. But that doesn’t mean that I haven’t faced my own struggles in my life that brought me to where I am here today as well. I’ve been so fascinated watching the stories of who we consider to be some very successful entrepreneurs, at least the US, but I’m sure it’s worldwide. For example, Tony Robbins. I had no idea of the adversity that he’s overcome, stemming all the way back to his child. And by taking your own approach, and your own stance, and by being genuinely you no matter what your setback. You can create massive waves and movements, and create phenomenal results like you did. I mean, top 100 schools in the UK twice, as you said, while you were there. So how did you decide to make the transition out of being the head of the school and into what you’re doing today?

Gina Gardiner: Like so many things in life, it was circumstances. My health was deteriorating. I used workers great pain control when I was at home. I mean, there’s been many times that I should have stayed at home. So for example, after the second back surgery, I was back at school five days after I came out of hospital. Five months later, the consultant said to me: “We’ll think about you going back a couple of hours a week.” And I just loved that I’ve been back part time for a couple of weeks and then full time. But if I’d stayed at home, if I had carers coming in, if they didn’t leave a cup out and the kettle full, I couldn’t make myself a cup of coffee. But I could use my mouth, you can tell my mouth works pretty well, my brain and my hands. And so if I went to school, I was being useful. I was doing something I loved, and I was not facing a disability. I think that physical disability is just a metaphor for life because I can get in a wheelchair and move away. And actually, I can walk short distances now. But if you believe you can’t, if you believe that you’re not capable, that you’re going to fail, then you take that with you wherever you go. 

But going back to school, because I became a workaholic and I was working 15 hour working day, I was doing lots of things outside school to bring an income into school and to keep interested, bits just kept on dropping off. I was given an ultimatum by my consultant, either I stopped working in that way or I would not be able to drive, and that would make me housebound. I had electronic hand controls, and so I could drive myself and be independent with my electric wheelchair. And so I made the very difficult decision that I was going to leave a job that I loved and felt very fulfilling, but knew that if I couldn’t do it properly, I didn’t want to stay. And the only way I could do it properly was, I felt to do it as I was doing, and that was slowly making my health more and more challenging. So having decided to leave, I then thought, well, what do I do now? Because I wasn’t ready for daytime television, and I had all of this expertise. I’d worked for the National College for the Department of Education, sciences and advisor, done all sorts of things, as I said, to bring a budget into school. And so my view was that leadership is the same whatever the context, that the conditions for great leadership are true whether you’re in retail, manufacturing, or health, or wherever. 

So initially, I took myself off to do a research project across all industries to look at people going into the world of work, and looking at what the issues were there, and then the development of leaders and managers. And of course, they were having exactly the same problems as we did in education. And so I wrote a couple of books to become my calling card. I did a lot more training. I was already a qualified coach, but to do a lot more training, incidentally a lot with Anthony Robbin. There’s a pivotal story there, which perhaps if you’ve got time, I’ll tell you in a moment. To start with, I worked with corporates doing training, consultancy and coaching, and then when the recession hit, I started to work. I’ve always done life coaching and Relationship Coaching, but I started to work with small and medium sized businesses around the development of potential within their businesses. And ultimately, that’s talking about the development of people.

Kim Sutton: I love that a lot of individuals don’t know about personal and professional development until they really need to know. I think that’s how I’m trying to say it. I didn’t know what personal and professional development was until I was just at that point where I couldn’t go any further unless I knew more. And it was as though a whole new world opened up in front of me.

Gina Gardiner: I think you’re right, that most often, it’s necessity which creates an awareness that there is something that could be better, or that there’s a gap, or there’s a problem that you’ve got to overcome. And then you start to look for solutions. And as you start to look for solutions, your mind opens up and you start to develop in a way that perhaps you haven’t given yourself the opportunity to do before.

Kim Sutton: Having been the head of the school, maybe your school had something like this, but I think often about how I would love to know that my children had personal development courses in their curriculum.

Gina Gardiner: I think that’s part of what made my school so successful. And part of that was creating the right team. And one of the things that I think made such a difference was that not only did we take a lot of time and trouble appointing the right people, but also the success was built on developing people. And people came for an interview and they were told, this isn’t the right place to come. If you don’t want to learn, if you’re not hungry to make things even better, then this isn’t the right place for you. So everybody was keen, it didn’t start out structured and sequential. But eventually, we had a structured sequential training program for people that not only involved me. That was partly why I went out and did these other things, which was to bring a richness back into school, but also staff were recognized that they’re responsible for their own development and for supporting other colleagues in their development. So we had a very clear view that professional dialogue meant professional challenge. Why are we doing it this way? Is there a better way? 

And so in some organizations you go and they’re very closed down, that if anybody suggests something different, it’s seen as a criticism. Where for us, it was about, we don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but we want to be clear and really look to see, is this the best way? Is there another way? Let’s test it. If it doesn’t work, then we’ll either adjust it. Or if we really think this is not the right track, then we will then work on something else. And that culture of development rather than blame, I think is so important. But I use the same principles with the children. They will be responsible for their own actions. We taught children how to negotiate, how to understand. In the UK when I was the head, it was very unfashionable in schools to have competition, but I believe children need to understand how to manage competition to win gracefully, and to lose graciously. But at the same time, not to see losing as a failure. The only failure is if you fail to try, or you fail to learn from it not going right. And we went to great lengths to help children understand that.

Kim Sutton: Oh, I absolutely love that. I mean, I think it was Einstein, I mean it took them hundreds if not thousands of times, am I thinking of Einstein? I think I am. Listeners I’m sorry. I’m not a walking history book. But for the light bulb, hundreds of failures. I’m gonna blame that on, let’s go with that. But in the lightning storm outside my window right now, which is just so funny, Edison, I should know that. I mean, flying a kite. Is that him? Or is that Benjamin Franklin? See? Look at that, I was more interested in boys. But had there been personal development and just really more of this type of training when I was going through, starting an elementary school, all the way up through middle and high school. Wow, yeah, maybe I would have been paying more attention to history.

Gina Gardiner: [inaudible], he’s no longer with us. He was a teacher all his life. He taught at my school too. After he retired, he was 73. Very strict. The kids loved him too, but he had a view that education done at the wrong time is wasted on the young. And actually, you can start your education after the hormones have had their wicked way. And when you can get up at a reasonable time without it feeling like resurrection. And I think there’s a lot of truth, that for many people, they come to learn and recognize the joy of learning much later in life.

Kim Sutton: Oh yeah, I can see that. I mean, with the exception of messing up Einstein and Edison, I feel like I’ve learned so much more even since I turned 30, because I love to learn. I’m picking on myself here. But clearly, you know what? I’m not studying. This is so inappropriate. I coined it a couple weeks ago as a learning gasm. So into what I am studying, and my mind just blows constantly, I love it. Like I’m being lit on fire by all these awesome skills, strategies, thought processes and mindset learning. And I’m constantly thinking to myself, why didn’t I know this before? And to see my teenager and my twin going through their own Middle School and high school experiences right now, there is so much that I do my best to pass on to them, and that I wish they just had any little glimpse of in school, but they don’t really want to hear it from mom.

Gina Gardiner: I think there’s got to be a readiness.

Kim Sutton: Yes, there does.

Gina Gardiner: The old saying is, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. I think it is true. There’s got to be an openness to this. Now, you can help create an openness, but you can’t make people open to learning unless there is a willingness on their part. And I’m not saying that they deliberately closed down, but they’re interested in other things. But once you do become interested, particularly around the world of personal development, it’s like being a kid in a sweetie shop, isn’t it?

Kim Sutton: Oh, yeah. I want to be able to put books on a USB port and put them in a port behind my ear. Like the matrix where he sits back in the chair and he learns it all, it’s like injected. But I guess that would be like rushing through a gore may meal, you can’t save her that way.

Gina Gardiner: And I think in essence, it is in the struggle, it’s in the effort that goes on, that you make it yours rather than you just becoming a clone of that information. And that for me is in part, when we are genuinely authentically allowing ourselves to be who we are meant to be in our broadest deepest form, we are incredibly powerful, we are incredibly creative, we are solution finders, we are unique human beings. What we’ve got to do is to get out of our own way and let all those limiting beliefs and limiting rules that we have about what we are capable of and what we are able to do, we have to let them go. You’re talking about Tony Robbins. I’m an NLP master practitioner and an NLP coach, and I did all my training with the same organization. And the guy who runs that organization was part of the group who developed NLP in the 80’s and 90’s. Brilliant training, but I decided that I wanted to go and see as many people using NLP in practical ways as I could, and decided to go and see Anthony Robbins. My view was quite cynical, big American guy, very noisy. It’s all hype, and very quickly, any benefit will dissipate. How wrong could I be? So I arrived at the XL Center, there were 10,000 people on the course, and part of the course was to do a firewall. Now at that time, I could manage a very few steps with help. I was determined to do the firewall, and I was ecstatic when I did it. I sat down in my wheelchair, and the guy behind me was a double amputee who had tipped himself up on his hands and did the fire walk on hot coals on his hands.

Kim Sutton: You just gave me two rounds of chills. That is absolutely amazing.

Gina Gardiner: At that moment, what I recognized is, although I’ve been running a school that I’ve gone all over the country doing work for these different organizations, I was self limiting. Because when Tony Robbins talked in the morning about doing a course in California, I completely dismissed it as impossible. How could I manage that in those days, they didn’t have a travel electric chair? How on earth would I manage that? And I discounted it when I saw this guy who’s nameless, I have no idea who he is, but I am eternally grateful to that man. And that’s the other thing I’d say to your listeners, you have no idea what impact you’re having on other people. Very often, without you knowing. I went and I bought the ticket on my flight that night. I went off to California, I eventually had a wonderful time although it was a bit tricky to start with. And since then, I’ve done all Anthony Robbins training, and I use his stuff on a daily basis personally and with other people. You can see yourself and the parameters of what you’re capable of. But I guarantee that if you challenge them, you can do so much more than you think you can.

Kim Sutton: Thank you for that. Thank you. There’s so many people who need to know that. I come across another person every day who tells me, why can’t they do something?

Gina Gardiner: If you believe, it’s a done deal, isn’t it?

Kim Sutton: Yeah. I have daily challenges. I mean, I have five kids, a gazillion animals, a husband who works out of the home, thunderstorms that crop up right before podcast episodes, numerous tech glitches. And listeners, if this is your first episode, I want to encourage you to go back and listen to some of my solo episodes because I share a lot more about me in those, but we have faced all types of struggles. My husband was homeless a year before we met. Living out of his car in Fargo, North Dakota. So if you’re International, I just want you to think about the coldest, like negative 40 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter and he was living in his car in the middle of winter. But within two years of us getting married, he was pursuing his college degree. And now, he’s pursuing his dream career. You can only not do something if you tell yourself you can’t, just like Gina said.

Gina Gardiner: I would offer my huge congratulations to your husband entity. But I believe everybody is capable of greatness. It’s just your mindset. People could turn around and say, it’s all right for you, you’re this, you’re that, you’re the other. But faced with a situation whether you’re homeless, or whether you’re physically disabled, or whether you’re mentally disabling yourself by believing you can’t, all of us are capable of so much more if we just believe in ourselves.

Kim Sutton: We just had a crack of thunder and lightning here. I was pulling down on the mute just a second longer for it to pass. I don’t know if you can hear it. Can you hear it in the background?

Gina Gardiner: In the background? Yeah.

Kim Sutton: It’s really fun. But every time you say something that is just so extremely powerful like that, there’s lightning and then thunder. Listeners, I need to share with you, this is not our first attempt to have this chat. But now I can see why it happened today. Because seriously, the mood is completely set. Yes, it’s dark and dismal here, but I can tell how powerful it is just because. And no joke, every time you say something that gives me goosebumps, I see the lightning flash, and I can’t impersonate thunder, I don’t have that ability. Just horrible. I mean, there was one time when you said something, it seriously felt like the lightning hit right outside my back door. I was like, wow, I know that was big. You felt it too? One of the comments that I see more frequently than I would like, and I’m sure you’ve seen it too, people who say yes, it’s easy to be super successful and get what you want when you have lots of money.

Gina Gardiner: I think that’s a load of old [inaudible]. There’s no doubt that life is more comfortable if you’ve got lots of money. However, you still take you into the situation, and your beliefs are still there. If it all comes easily, where’s the growth? Now, I’m not suggesting it has to be hard. It’s more about what you do with your money. If you’ve got lots of it, lots of people who’ve got plenty of money but don’t have a happy, successful and fulfilling life, they’re unhappy. They don’t have a sense of achievement. Nor am I saying that you have to be poor to be happy. It’s about you, it’s not about the trappings. If you focus on what you can do rather than what you can’t, then you’re going to achieve more in life. If you believe in yourself, that’s really important. But money for me is just a form of energy. What are you gonna do with it? If you’ve got lots of money, then how are you choosing to use it? Because in and of itself, it’s just an energetic currency.

Kim Sutton: Absolutely. And we’ve all heard stories of people who came upon money when they didn’t expect it, or people who inherited a lot of money and they weren’t prepared for it and they wound up in worse places than they were before they had the money.

Gina Gardiner: There’s a really interesting statistic around people who win the lottery. I mean, I don’t mean just a few dollars, but I mean millions. But a vast proportion of them, within five years, they’re back to where they were.

Kim Sutton: I can see that. Actually, just one town north of me in 2009, and listeners, I’ll put a link to an article about them winning in the show notes. There was a group of maybe eight city workers who won the mega millions, which is huge here in America, it was like 200 and something million dollars. And several of them, from what I’ve heard through the grapevine, ended up going bankrupt because they didn’t have the personal and professional development, nor the support by way of attorneys and financial advisors, and even therapists or life coaches to advise them on what they should be doing with it. They didn’t have that development in place. So as quickly as it came in, not as quickly as overnight, but it went right back out and they didn’t have the development in place to know how to use it.

Gina Gardiner: I think there’s a big bit about people needing to belong and suddenly thrust into a position where you have a lot more money, that sense will people like me for being me, can I still be part of something? Can I trust that they still value who I am? I need to get back to that. I think that’s almost hardwired into us to belong to a group. Caveman stuff, isn’t it? If you were moved out of the group, then your survival was unlikely so you need to belong to the clan.

Kim Sutton: Oh, yeah. I won’t deny, listeners or Gina, that if I came across a lot of money? Yes, I do want a bigger house. I want my own bathroom. Let’s just be totally honest. I want my own bathroom that other kids aren’t using, like leaving the toilet paper roll empty.

Gina Gardiner: I think that’s actually not unreasonable. I don’t know about you, but I would like to have a lot of money. But the reason I’d like a lot of money is there are things that I could do with money that currently I’m not able to do. And for me, a lot of it. Yes, I’d like a more comfortable life for me, I would be able to travel business class rather than steerage because it’s so much more comfortable. But I would in terms of what I could do, in terms of getting to more people, helping more people, empowering them. Because for me, that’s my purpose in life. And it sounds a little bit posey. But for me, it’s about, how do I reach more people to help them step into their power?

Kim Sutton: And what was the word that you used? Posey? I’m not familiar with the word.

Gina Gardiner: Probably an English word.

Kim Sutton: It doesn’t sound at all off to me, because that’s exactly what we want to do when we, when we, and it’s not as if we. But when we come into a lot of money, we have a dream of building a rehabilitation center for displaced veterans and domestic abuse survivors. Because we have experienced both sides and received assistance on our own paths. We feel it’s our right and responsibility to give back just the way that we were able to, we wouldn’t be where we are today if we hadn’t received the support that we did along our journeys. Let me just put it that way.

Gina Gardiner: And isn’t it interesting that how often, something that somebody does, that for them is perfectly part of just what they do, who they are that can make such a difference.

Kim Sutton: Absolutely. Gina, I started my business in 2012. When my husband went back to school, we needed some extra income. We had no expectation of it growing like it did. And within two months, I gave my notice, and I started my business as a virtual assistant. I see the opportunity to even just give training to people. And I’m not just going to say women, but to people worldwide on how they can do the same to break out of whatever circumstance they are in. And my husband was a veteran. I mean, those same services could be offered to, or the same training or whatever they want to do. I mean, look at my husband, he went back to school after getting out, and he has a ruptured disc and a herniated disc. Nothing like you’ve experienced at all, but there’s chronic pain, and he’s in line to get surgery himself. But there are so many people who have gotten out of the service with so far worse physical injury. 

Yes, you can look at it as a disability. I’m not going to call it a disability because I’ve seen so many phenomenal stories of what they’ve done with what they came out with. Listeners, you’ve already heard me talk about the Facebook show returning the favor. There was a feature about a gentleman who I think put his bag down on inland viners or something, he lost several limbs. But what he did was he took his drive and he built a rehabilitation center, like a retreat for other disabled veterans who have experienced the same thing. And it’s amazing seeing what people do. Not despite, but were there circumstances, just like what you’ve already shared with us today.

Gina Gardiner: I find it quite interesting when I’ve worked with thousands of people now. How often, it is a crisis of some sort, either relationship breakdown, or redundancy, or a bereavement, or a serious illness on the part of them or somebody they love, or disability that actually makes people reevaluate their lives and what’s important, and brings out the strengths and they talk about being tempered steel being tempered by fire. And I think in many ways as human beings that we are similar, we rise when there is the challenge. Probably see the very best and the very worst in people in those situations. But those who decide that that challenge is not going to define them and to overcome it have such strength and integrity. And I’m forever in all.

Kim Sutton: I love this steel analogy. That’s fabulous. I’ve never heard it like that before. I mean, it’s stronger. And sometimes, I joke with my husband that our battles make us stronger. So imagine how strong we must be now.

Gina Gardiner: Yeah. My dad used to talk about these sorts of events being character building. I can remember saying to him, it can be a dark day. My character is as high as Everest. Do I need any more challenges to climb? But I think the reality is that you are given the strength to deal with whatever comes your way if you choose to see it.

Kim Sutton: That’s so beautiful. I love that Gina. I would love for you to share more about what you do today, and how you are working with people.

Gina Gardiner: I work with people in a number of ways. But in the last week, I’ve launched a membership group which is called the Thrive Together Tribe. And it’s based on the principles of my latest book which is Thriving Not Surviving: The 5 Secret Pathways to Happiness, Success and Fulfillment. So the Thrive Together Tribe has got a number of elements to it. One is to have a group of people internationally. It’s all over the internet where people can actually be seen and heard. Because so many people that I meet feel that nobody listens, that nobody sees them, that they’re not validated, that they don’t matter. And so I wanted a place where people can share their ideas, have support from myself in the team and from other members because everybody’s got something to offer, that they can be challenged when they need to be, but also have help celebrating their successes. 

But also within that, there is a structured sequential personal development program which looks at the underlying principles and the belief system that you have the relationship you have with yourself and so on. And week by week, there are videos and activities, there’s a theme journal and so on. And then there’s twice monthly presentations and interactive group coaching. And that’s just launched last week. I’d love to offer your members the opportunity to have a month trial for that just for $1. They can get a free download of the book by going to the website, I can give them an address for that. And so that’s come about really, because although I’ve worked on a local basis with lots of people, I said to this, this feeling that I needed to touch and to help more people,, and this has been a two year project. It’s been really intense in terms of creating all of the content, the structure and so on. But it’s all based on my other strategies, and the approaches, and principles that have worked for me, worked for my school and for all of the people that I’ve worked with a simple, easy to incorporate into everyday living. They’re there because of my desire to make a difference to people. I needed to find a way, a vehicle to do that. So for me, that’s the big thing at the moment. I do one-on-one coaching as well, and I still work with businesses. But actually, this is my baby. I’m really keen to get it out there because I passionately believe that everybody can live an empowered life, a happy life, a successful life and abundant life.

Kim Sutton: I’m over here smiling because I feel the same way about Positive Productivity and what I’m doing here.

Gina Gardiner: It’s the same stuff, isn’t it? 

Kim Sutton: Yeah. Absolutely. Oh, I love it. So yeah, I would love to know where listeners can find your book and your site. Would you mind sharing that? Oh, and listeners, before Gina does, I do want to let you know that you can find the links and everything that we’ve talked about at thekimsutton.com/pp330.

Gina Gardiner: So if you’d like a free download of the book, you can get it in two places, thrivetogethertribe.com/podcast, or just go to my website which is genuinely-you.co. And if you sign up for the book, then you’ll be given the opportunity if you want to sign up for the dollar, Thrive Tribe Trial. But if you would like to get started straight away, we’ve got our very first inaugural call tonight, that’s thrivetogethertribe.com/30daytrial. We’d love to have you join us. Just $1, you get to try everything for a whole month. And then if you decide it’s for you, then you can sign up for membership. And as I say, that will be ongoing. As we finish the personal development program, we’re going to go much more into spiritual development which is, of course, still personal development, but I hope to have visiting speakers. We’ve got several plans to enrich the whole program as well, so I do hope that some of your listeners will join me.

Kim Sutton: I love it, and I’m sure they will. So thank you so much for sharing it. You’ve actually, I just need to tell you that you’ve inspired me in more ways than 20. I can’t say even one, more than 20.

Gina Gardiner: That’s wonderful.

Kim Sutton: Thank you. And thank you so much for joining us today. Do you have a parting piece of advice or a golden nugget that you can offer to listeners?

Gina Gardiner: I think what I’d like to say to you is everything that you do is a choice, everything. Everything you say, everything you do, everything you don’t say or do, the way you say it, and when you say, it’s a choice. And every choice has consequences. And people think that not choosing is not a choice. But actually, that’s often the choice that has the greatest consequence. So I would say to you, every day is a gift. Choose to live it fully. Choose to recognize the people you care about and tell them how much you care about them. Choose to see the best in people rather than look for the worst. Because ultimately, your choices determine the quality of your life. And if you’re struggling a bit, there’s plenty of help, and there’s loads of free stuff on my website, genuinely-you.co. Reach out because there are people, like the two of us, who are there wanting to help you. Choose to ask for help. And for me, one of the biggest lessons was learning to ask for help. I wasn’t very good at it, but I am getting better.