How Georgia Vanderville Found Freedom Through the Flicker of a Candle

[00:00:03] Hector: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the how to scale a business podcast. My name is Hector Santiasteban and I am your host today. Our special guest is miss Georgia Vanderbilt, and, we're going to talk about her story. And It's in a chain of another of a series of conversations that we had about the kind of the, the personal side of business and, and sort of, , what that sort of means.

[00:00:26] Hector: And,, the overcoming this of business maybe is where we'll start. But anyways, Georgia, welcome to the show.

[00:00:33] Georgia: Thank you for having me.

[00:00:35] Hector: because for some business leaders, it's a X to the nose sort of thing. Problem, right? They've got to read the books or they've got to figure out the tactics or the strategies or the marketing channel, or it's kind of that sort of thing. And then for other business owners or at other stages, it's very much a personal thing.

[00:00:54] Hector: are they able to kind of get past their own limitations? Can they get out of their own way? , it's more of an internal thing. thing. I'm curious for you and your journey as a, as a business owner, how that sort of played out. And then, I would love for you to share , with the listeners a little bit about kind of what you do and how you got there as well.

[00:01:11] Georgia: thank you for asking. I really like how you put that, that everybody kind of has their own stage in their entrepreneurial journey. And for me personally, I didn't realize that there would be a stage. I just figured I'd show up and it would work. And at the very beginning, we really did just show up and we did a lot of work and everything didn't always work.

[00:01:36] Georgia: And then. We move forward, move forward, move forward and got to a point where what we wanted to work wasn't working as good as we knew it could. And that was, at that point, that was when we had to really face, I mainly had to really face who I was and my beliefs and the things that have held me back. And I had to question them and I had to, Look at them differently, understand them, see where they came from, and move forward with them.

[00:02:09] Hector: What's interesting is that you've taken two sort of paths, if you will, you've built a kind of a successful. Consumer goods, like a physical product, which, you buy something and you use it. And, for, in your instance, you build a really, a very successful candle company , and also a speaking sort of education company as well, which I, in my head are like two totally different things.

[00:02:36] Hector: I would love for you to share, kind of the, The journeys of those. And, and if there is sort of a common thread between them, or if , you run them because they are sort of on, on polar opposites of,the business spectrum, if you will. So

[00:02:50] Georgia: That's a great question. Let me tell you first. So, I am known as the fragrance aficionado. Because over the last 22 years as a candle designer, I know that fragrance that just this art of smell can evoke the most beautiful feelings inside of us. It can bring up history and mystery and love and confidence and it can do so many different things.

[00:03:14] Georgia: And that's one of the things I absolutely love about candles. And then there's this other side. Of the, my universe is the speaking side, and that is taking the messages that I've learned and sharing them with other entrepreneurs who are deeply needing an answer to a question that they have. And we have so many questions, and sometimes we don't even recognize what kind of questions we have until we have a story from somebody who's already gone through that.

[00:03:48] Georgia: And those are those moments where those epiphanies happen, those light bulbs go off, and how do they correlate? Sometimes they don't. Sometimes candles and speaking, they don't go together. But that's okay, because that message of, improving people's lives comes through in that, just in that in itself.

[00:04:10] Hector: in my head, I go, okay, she's becomes a fragrance aficionado. And then now all of a sudden it makes sense for the speaking. So, okay, so let's go back and 22 years of being, , in the fragrance and the candle industry. How did you land there? What was that? Something like did you grow up wanting to make candles?

[00:04:30] Hector: Were you making candles with grandma? when you were, in a, at we pause house, like, like, take us into the, into the origin of the candle business.

[00:04:37] Georgia: When I was little, I remember we had a candle and I remember sticking my fingers in it and we would pull the wax off and we would chase each other around the house with a wax on our fingertips. And then when I was 15 and a half, we lived in this, we really didn't have very much money at all. And we lived in this house that was so incredibly old.

[00:04:58] Georgia: And I flooded the bathtub. I was 15 and a half. I just got distracted, flooded the bathtub. And this. Awful smell came out of the carpet and just brought everything up I at work one day, I told my coworker. what should I do? I asked what, how do I cover this up? What do I do? This smells horrid.

[00:05:16] Georgia: I can't sleep. I can barely breathe in there. It's awful. And she said, go buy a scented candle. So I, we didn't have a car, so I took my money, bought a bus pass to all the way down, rode it all the way down to the store, came back all the way to my house, walked quarter of a mile up the hill, lit this candle, and I was so excited, and it did nothing.

[00:05:42] Georgia: There was no smell. It was literally this horrid little ball of wax, and I did not realize. So that to me was scented candles. I didn't think anything of it. And then when I was 21, I ended up, I met a boy and I needed to do something for him for Christmas, but I'd been traveling Europe. So I had no money.

[00:06:02] Georgia: When I finally came home, met this boy, Christmas was right after and. literally, I'm sitting on his couch talking to my sister in law on the phone and I said, Michelle, what do I do for this? Dude? Like, I don't know. She goes, look around his house. What does he have? And I said, he's got a couch and a TV and a video game console and a candle.

[00:06:20] Georgia: And she was perfect. Make him a candle. He loves candles. I don't know how to make candles. She goes, I do. Come on over. So I went over to her house, I bought a 25 cent pan and I showed up to her house and we put all these old like junk candles that hadn't burned properly into this little pan and we made some candles.

[00:06:39] Georgia: And, Valentine's. So I made that for everyone for Christmas and one of my girlfriends gave me candle making supplies for Christmas because she saw me making candles for everybody else. I ended up with these candles, this candle wax, and then come Valentine's Day, I made him a candle, a heart shaped candle.

[00:06:56] Georgia: And I took it to work and I showed all the guys at work. I ran valet at a casino here locally. And. I took it to work, showed this guy, these guys, they all loved it. And I was shocked because I made something that guys loved. And then the girls loved it too, which that kind of blew my mind. So I gave him this candle.

[00:07:15] Georgia: And when we, he loved it. And when we burnt it, Oh, It smelled incredible. So to me, I had just invented scented candles and I had to get this invention out to the world. And that was really my start in the candle industry was I invented scented candles. We found out later that other candles and other candle companies had slightly done an okay job in the past, but we were bringing something new.

[00:07:47] Hector: kudos to you and Divine Intervention and that boy who, you know,

[00:07:52] Georgia: It's now my husband.

[00:07:54] Hector: Oh, I was gonna say, where in the story did he, did he play out? Okay, great. So he's still in the story. Great. Good. to know that the candles worked. They paid off. But I think though that you. a, there's, there's a lot of people who, who see something, they see a need, they feel a need, but then there's a, a gap between going from, I'm going to make this a nice little hobby and this is something sort of cool and neat and maybe I'll do it on the side or maybe, how did it go from that to all of a, like all of a sudden, like, okay, there's something here, this is a real business, , and where in the point was there a transition where you, like, when did you see yourself being the, the, the fragrance aficionado, right?

[00:08:41] Hector: Like , where does that, come into play or when do you embrace that sort of idea that this is going to be what you, put your life behind at least for the, for the time being.

[00:08:51] Georgia: I pretty much dove into candles right away. It was just something to occupy my time. I really enjoyed it. I had a lot of fun with it. And this boy that I had just met, he was on board as well. So it was kind of this project that we worked on together. So I started the company, I started moving forward and he looked at me one day and he said, are you really serious about this?

[00:09:13] Georgia: Cause if you are, I'll make you a website. So I said, yes, heck yeah, let's do it. And we just kept moving forward. And we just started just one step at a time, doing one little thing and one little thing, one little thing. And he, I remember I would say, Oh, I want to do this. Like someone would say, Oh, you should do this one thing here.

[00:09:33] Georgia: And I would go, Oh, okay. Like someone would say, you should do, we started at craft shows. And then someone would tell me about another craft show and then another craft show, which, so we just kept following these little, these little steps that everyone pointed us to. And then I remember being in the mall one day and I thought, I want to have a kiosk at the mall.

[00:09:53] Georgia: So I asked the mall, how do I have a kiosk at the mall? So it was, it was just researching and what is it I want to do? Where do I think I could sell these candles and taking those tiny little steps and moving forward. And we've had, we had a point in time where everything at two in 2008, everything just kind of took a crash, just an absolute crash.

[00:10:15] Georgia: And we ended up, we had moved out to a warehouse at this point and we moved from the warehouse back to our house. And that in itself was really defeating. I just, I couldn't let it go. I had to keep going because there were customers that needed these candles. So we just kept moving forward. And when did I recognize that I was, when, when did the candle aficionado become a thing?

[00:10:41] Georgia: It was really recent. It was within the last six months, which seems surprising because we've been in business for 22 years. And I had to recognize that there was a block for me, and I had a huge epiphany because I had this story that I told myself, you see. If we back up a little bit, remember when I said I had just gotten home from Europe? I had just gotten home from Europe, but before I went to Europe, I had been traveling. So I traveled the United States for several months and then came home with just nothing. And I wanted nothing in my life because I wanted to just travel. And then I traveled Europe. And then when I came home, I wasn't planning on staying here.

[00:11:25] Georgia: So when my friend gave me those blocks of wax, I didn't see them as a glorious gift. I saw them as weight on my shoulder, something I'd have to keep, something that would get in my way and be too heavy for me to take to travel again. And it took me a really long time to recognize that. And I carried that feeling with me for so long of not wanting to be anybody else's weight on their shoulders.

[00:11:51] Georgia: Now I'm recognizing that I'm not weight on somebody's shoulders, that this product that we've created, , it opens these doors for people. It opens the door to create relaxation in your home and in your mind. And it opens the door to experience so many other wonderful things in life.

[00:12:09] Georgia: Just, our imagination goes someplace new with all the different fragrances that we create. Get to experience and to be able to tap into that and to be able to open those doors for other people. That's a gift that I can't hold back. And in recognizing that my belief that those that wax was cluttered was actually holding us back.

[00:12:34] Georgia: So being able to release that belief in itself has allowed us to wait. We've been going, growing, growing, growing, growing, and it's been incredible. But over the last. Few months, the belief in myself as an entrepreneur has changed and the impact that we get to have on a broader, broader audience has massively grown, which has been beautiful, but it all starts here inside of our minds.

[00:13:05] Hector: Yeah, it harkens back to that, kind of how we opened the episode and when we get back from break, Georgia, I want to get into , the how I think , you've, you've painted a really cool picture of a transformation and, and I think a lot of the listeners are going, like, how do we do it?

[00:13:20] Hector: So, we're going to get into that, right after this quick break,

[00:13:24] Hector: Hey y'all. Today's episode is brought to you by Amplify Media and we are a podcast and content production company. Well, we'd like to think of ourselves as like a media arm for your company, because chances are you probably have a product, a passion, a mission, a message, something you're trying to get out to the world, but you may not have the time, the team, or the tech skills to be able to do it.

[00:13:39] Hector: Well, if that's the case, we can help go to amplify media. com. That's a M P L a F Y media. Media. com. You can also check the show notes for the link and with that, let's get back to Georgia. So Georgia, you talked about this internal battle, right? And I think that a lot of, business owners have this realization that at a certain point they are the limiter of their own success.

[00:14:01] Hector: And so the game just. It kind of becomes, how do you continue to level up yourself? And, and that is what I found is sort of a well that never, ceases to end. And so there's kind of a, always a new layer of evolution. I'd love for you to take us , into you internally, , as things are happening, , as all of a sudden this success is happening, that I'd imagine there's like, like you might almost be upset at the success because it's like, I'm supposed to be traveling, I'm supposed to be free.

[00:14:29] Hector: And there's these things that are tying me down. And, and I would imagine that a lot of entrepreneurs who not. Not really stumble upon their, sort of business, , but they kind of happened upon it, in some sort of divine intervention way. there's a, an adoption of that identity.

[00:14:48] Hector: Either they, they sort of embrace it or, or they kind of uncover it. Like, I'm, I'm curious

[00:14:53] Georgia: what were you thinking about? As all of this external success was happening, how are you dealing with that internally to a place where you can now, sort of embrace it and to where now it's, it's sustainable and it's kind of become part of your identity.

[00:15:06] Georgia: As far as success, I never saw anything as hooray. To me, this is so successful. I never saw it as that. It always was seen As something that needed to happen, it would feel good for a minute, but then there was always another challenge and there is always another challenge. So there were little tiny blips along the way where you would be super excited to share something with somebody else, like to my mom, have my mom come and see something.

[00:15:43] Georgia: And that felt successful, I guess, but the real success wasn't necessarily in my heart. For a long time, the real success, would say probably started to feel successful in the last, so many, so many things have changed in the last little bit that the real success has kind of started to show up over the last, maybe I'm going to say six months is when I've started to feel a little bit more in tune with all of the things that I've been learning and trying to put together.

[00:16:19] Georgia: So I feel that. Because my lessons are kind of coming together because my understanding of the world and how I play in it is becoming more clear. That's when I'm starting to feel more successful.

[00:16:35] Hector: And is that, is that practically like look any different or is that just a feeling of different or is it that \you're thinking about different things, from the outside for a listener, who's going, that all, that sounds great, Georgia, I'd love if you could just wave a magic wand, but, but I would imagine that it's that, overnight success sort of thing that happened, over two decades.

[00:16:59] Hector: So., if we could pull out some lessons from it, are there things that you are doing differently, beliefs that you have that have shifted, perspectives that you're more mindful of now over these last six months , than before?

[00:17:18] Georgia: when we first started, like I said, I wasn't really a leader. I didn't really feel like I understood leadership or even that leadership was a concept. So I always felt like I was an inconvenience. I would work really, really hard. And I would spend all of my time doing everything I possibly could, and I didn't delegate very much.

[00:17:44] Georgia: And if we did hire somebody, I didn't have a problem delegating to them. But I had a, I did not believe in myself as a person and, or as a leader, I guess I believed in myself as a person and I believed in my ability to move forward and accomplish what I needed to do, but I did not feel confident sharing that with somebody else.

[00:18:11] Georgia: And feeling like they still knew that I loved them for some reason. I felt like when I was asking somebody to do a B and C that they might feel like I was trying to repress them, although they were there and they were getting paid. I still didn't see it in that manner. And I think one of my biggest lessons is recognizing how to communicate with other people.

[00:18:37] Georgia: And when I. Finally started to recognize that I am doing a good job and that I am a good leader. And when I could start to appreciate who I am as an individual, that's when I started to feel the success of what we were actually doing.

[00:18:57] Hector: Yeah, it reminds me of early on in my sort of professional career. I was in the sales world and I remember kind of field training with other top sales professionals , in the company. And they were like, yeah, in order to sell more, you just expect more. They were just like, you just expect it.

[00:19:15] Hector: And I was like, what? What do you, they're like, yeah, you just be it. You just expect it. And you get it. And I'm like, what, like what, like I'm 17 year old kid. , I've never sold a thing. My mom sold all the candy bars for me. Like she did it. Like I have, I have no sales experience.

[00:19:32] Hector: And so for me, there was no concept of it. And it's almost sort of that same thing where, it's kind of like you just like, it's just being right. It's believing it first and then you sort of get the results, which is, it's challenging because a lot of times it's like, show me the results and then I'll believe it.

[00:19:49] Hector: , show me the weight loss, then I'll start eating healthy and it's backwards.

[00:19:55] Georgia: I think there's a difference between artificial belief and truthful belief. So artificial belief of, I just expect it is like, I expect it, I expect it, I expect it. But you still have that doubt in your mind. And I think that that doubt in our mind, that's the hardest part to overcome. But then when it's almost like this little wall, and then when we can get to the other side of that wall, that's where the magic is.

[00:20:20] Georgia: And that's when you can expect it, but you have to recognize where your wall is, and you've got to make it through or Make it over or make it around or whatever it looks like for you. You've got to get to that part where you actually trust yourself, trust in what you're doing and know that you're going to be okay on the other side of that wall, because expecting.

[00:20:45] Georgia: Sounds fantastic. But when you don't know how to expect it, but it's so interesting because like the candy bars, it's easy to sell someone else's candy bar because you're like, Hey, buy a candy bar, buy a candy bar, buy a candy bar. I'm 13. I've got a school fundraiser, buy a candy bar. But then when you have something that you're repping and it's yours and you've created it and this little product represents you.

[00:21:11] Georgia: You can't hide behind a Hershey bar. you can't hide behind that candy bar. You're here. You're raw. You're real and You have to know and i've known That our customers love our product And I've known that they love me, but I think I had to marry both of those together to be able to get to the other side of that wall for me as a person.

[00:21:34] Hector: Yeah. It just makes me think of, how important the. The work is another show that I host called, it's in the men's mental health space, and they, a big term in there is called the work, right? Doing the work, which is essentially , what you're talking about in the sense of, going deep and uncovering sort of what's holding us back from believing that we are here.

[00:22:00] Hector: Worthy of these sales are worthy of success or worthy of whatever, which tends to hold so many entrepreneurs back. Right. And I think that this, it only starts to make sense that these worlds are starting to collide because. Obviously, there's the mental health sort of crisis in in Silicon Valley and with entrepreneurs and that sort of whole thing.

[00:22:22] Hector: But then also just for those who are wanting to grow their business, I think one of the most the biggest things that I fall back on is, I think Jim Rohn said it. He said something to the effect of your level of success will rarely exceed your level of personal development. And that for me, I was like, that makes sense.

[00:22:41] Hector: And, and that journey is like something that now I can get behind.

[00:22:45] Georgia: I think that that's spot on. It's hard to recognize what that means and where to develop yourself. To get to the other side. And I think we all have those moments that just stop us in our tracks, where the company just goes bam and you go, I've got to figure something out.

[00:23:05] Georgia: I've got to push and something pops up and you're like, I have to learn about that and then you start this personal growth journey and then that's when you'll start to see your company grow. But sometimes we just have to hit absolute rock bottom. Bottom to get there. The

[00:23:21] Hector: Yeah, totally. Georgia. This has been really fun. And I'm grateful. We didn't even get to talk about your other business. So we're gonna have to have you come back and kind of talk about the whole speaking side. But I've been so fascinated by your dream and your sort of first part of your entrepreneurial journey, if you will, because I think that most listeners are not out there selling candles, but almost every single one of them related almost 100 percent to your journey, because I think that the the entrepreneur's journey is so similar in that regard.

[00:23:53] Hector: no matter what Product industry service that we're selling. So if I got one more question for you, but if people want to get connected with you, find out more about you, the candles, the speaking business, all that, where's the best place to go?

[00:24:07] Georgia: best place to, to find me would be at shorty's candles. com.

[00:24:12] Hector: So we'll link that

[00:24:13] Georgia: wanted to find me direct, find me directly, you could always email me Georgia at shorty's candles. com.

[00:24:20] Hector: Cool. last question here. In your opinion, what is the secret to scaling a business?

[00:24:30] Georgia: The secret to scaling a business. Is stepping forward into the opportunities that present themselves to continue to look for those opportunities and when they show up, don't shut them down because they have shown up for a reason. So look into them, dissect them. If you have an idea that pops into your mind, go to that idea, make that idea happen.

[00:24:55] Georgia: And it's going to take you a while. A lot of things can take a while. But just keep pushing and when you see somebody else or something pops up into your world and you go, Oh, that person was successful in that area. Question it. What is it that they're doing or what is it about that area and see if that's a direction.

[00:25:15] Georgia: I'm not saying jump from one idea to another idea to another idea because that can just be too scattered. But if you're looking at something going. Why is this person having success in this area and we are in that same space, but not having a success in it, either ask them what they're doing different, see what you can learn, see how you can grow and then jump into it and put some research and time into it.

[00:25:39] Georgia: And if you don't believe that you're the right person to do the research in time, sometimes waiting on somebody else to do the research for you might not be the best solution. So jump in, do the research, even if it takes a little bit, jump in and make it happen.

[00:25:53] Hector: Great stuff. Y'all want to appreciate everybody for hanging out and being with us today. We would be forever grateful for a rating or review wherever you get your podcasts. And if you know someone who needs to hear this and is on their own journey, hit that share button and let's grow the tribe together, but, go get connected with Georgia myself if you're not already.

[00:26:12] Hector: And we'll see on the next one. Let her go.