AJV (00:02): Hey, everybody. I actually just got off of the amazing privilege to interview a friend of mine on our podcast, the influential personal brand. And her name is Victoria Jackson, and she’s the founder and CEO of Victoria Jackson Cosmetics. She is the founder of No Makeup Makeup, which is, if you’re watching this makeup I’m wearing right now, I’m a super fan of No Makeup Makeup. She’s the author of five books. She’s half of the duo of the Guthy Jackson Charitable Foundation, where they have personally donated over $80 million of their own money to help fund cures for rare autoimmune diseases. She was inducted into the Women’s Hall of Fame by Gloria Steinem. She was awarded an advocacy person of the year by the Pope at the Vatican. Like she has done so many things, and there’s been incredible highs in her life, but there have also been some tremendous lows from a really stable, unstable upbringing to she was the victim of the Pillowcase Rapist when she was a teenager in California to her daughter was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease called NMO in 2008. AJV (01:23): And so there’s, it’s this amazing interview of really high highs and really low lows, which all, at the end of the day, make up life, right? And I think that’s one of the things that is hard to understand is I, I hear people ask all the time, like, why do bad things happen to good people? And, but I don’t hear as much of like, why do good things happen to good people? Right? And it’s, I think Victoria is an amazing example of, there has been so much goodness, so much blessing in her life, but there’s also been a lot of heartache and tragedy and, and loss. And this interview was about her new book that’s coming out called We All Worry Now, what? And as we were talking, it got me thinking about what I worry about and as a, a business owner and who feels Uber responsible for what? AJV (02:19): 42 employees. And as, as a wife to a husband who I love and adore and cannot imagine my life without, and as a mom to two incredible little boys, that even the thought of not having them literally brings me to my knees and to my family, who I love, my dad, my brothers, my my sisters in-laws, and my nieces and nephews, and my, my close friends. And, you know, even to the material things that like I love and hold dear, like our home. It just got me thinking. It’s like, whoa, it’s not, what do AJV (02:58): I worry about? What don’t I worry about? But one of the things that came up in the conversation is, you know, there’s, there’s, there’s always relief and joy on the other side of fear. And so how do you go from worry and fear to this other place of, of joy and peace and almost a, a calmness, right? And, and the answer is, is action. It’s action. And what, what does that give us? And ’cause sometimes not only is there joy and peace and calmness on the other side of fear, there’s also success and there’s, there’s blessing. And one of the things that I wanted to share is, and I don’t talk about this often, but well, one thing I do talk about often is I’m a devout believer. I have a very strong faith. I believe in God. I believe in Jesus. AJV (04:02): I believe that he was crucified and raised from the dead. I believe he is my savior. I believe that the words in the Bible are true. I believe those things, and not everyone does, and that’s okay. But these, these are things that I believe in ’cause I’ve seen the work of God in my life. I have seen what salvation has done for me. I, I, I’ve seen the changes that knowing Jesus Christ have made in my life. I have seen it physically, emotionally, spiritually. I’m a believer because I’ve witnessed it. And with that said, I was raised a believer, raised in a Christian home. There were lots of highs and lows in our family. We were in a really horrific car accident. When I was seven years old with we were the first car hit in a 13 car pile up by a tractor trailer. AJV (04:55): I don’t talk about this often. Both my brothers were pronounced dead on the scene. Hell, you know, hell evaced to the children’s hospital. Both my parents were severely injured, unconscious. Both of them admitted to the hospital. And then there was me who was sitting in the bo back of the car. And I was pulled out by the jaws of life and set in a police car while I watched limp Bodies pulled from this car. And I watched miraculously with no medical explanation. Both of my brothers healed, both of my parents healed. And we toured the country for years with the Children’s Miracle Network, telethon, telling the story of the miracle. That was my brother’s. I’ve seen God’s work and highs and lows in that. And when I was 13, my mother was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, and she died when I was 15. AJV (05:56): I deeply believe she would recover. She deeply believed she would recover but she didn’t. And I saw God at work in that too. And that took, that took a while to come full circle. But there was, there was God’s grace and and love in that time. But there were highs and lows in that, right? I have chosen to focus on what I was given, not was taken. But those were choices that took a long time to come to. So I share that to go, I have seen God’s work in my life since I was a really young child. And it hasn’t been until here recently that I decided to share that. And I think the reason why is I was worried, like back to the conversation with Victoria. Look, we all worry now. What are you gonna do about it? AJV (06:54): And I was worried about sharing my faith. I was worried in college, but I wouldn’t be cool. So I didn’t, in fact, I did the opposite. I just went with what everyone else was doing. I was worried in my young twenties that if I came a, you know, if I talked about that too much or I’d be a, you know, a goodie two shoes, which I most certainly was not. But I, I was worried that if I shared that I would be ostracized or I wouldn’t fit in. Or in my later years, I was worried that I didn’t wanna come across as judgmental or I didn’t wanna make anyone uncomfortable. And so I didn’t share it. I was, I was afraid. I, I was afraid. I was really worried of what everyone else would think about me if I opened up about my faith. AJV (07:42): And so we, we didn’t, I didn’t share my faith for a really long time because I was worried. And then in 2022, something changed in my life and my heart and my soul of going, I’m gonna be worried about anything in this world. It cannot be about what people think about what I believe. And I think a lot of that transformation happened because I started reading the Bible again as an adult. In fact, as a 37-year-old lifelong believer in Christian. I read the Bible for the first time, cover to cover. It’s kind of embarrassing for me to admit that. But that’s true. It was the first time that I had picked up the word of God and said, I’m gonna read it. I’m gonna read every word and I’m gonna try to understand it. I’m still trying to understand a lot of it. AJV (08:36): But I’m gonna read it because I need to. And so I did. And that’s also when I hired a life coach. And it’s when I started reading books by Jenny Allen and Craig Rochelle and John Mark Comer. And I really said like this, this worry, this, these, these fears. And not just about what people think about me, but fear of my business, fear of my children, fear of losing my husband. Like it’s, it’s consuming me fear of not being able to make payroll, fear of, is this gonna work? Fear, am I, am I making the wrong decisions as a leader? Like worry and fear were consuming me. And I was becoming a dreadful person at the end of 2020. One was probably like least I least ideal, aj, let’s just say that. And in 2022, I was like, something’s gotta change. AJV (09:29): Like, God, show me something. And through that process, I started talking about God publicly in my speeches, on Instagram, on podcasts, on videos like this. ’cause I realized that that was a real worry. It was a real fear. And on the other side of that, there had to be something better. And what I really needed to do is take action, right? Is, is do the thing that would like, kind of holding me up, which is, I, I’m not being authentically me. I’m not letting people get to know me. I am, I’m not speaking up for the thing that I believe in more than anything else in this world. I’m not speaking up when I know that God is prompting me too. And I got that’s a problem. And y’all, I share that to go with this. When this interview talks about like on the other side of fear, there is something beautiful. AJV (10:29): Here’s what I can tell you is that the moment that I just started sharing of going like, it’s okay if you don’t believe what I believe, it’s okay if I don’t believe what you believe. We can believe different things and coexist and have mutual respect for each other. But I can’t this not share this part of me. It’s that ingrained in who I am. I’ve seen it, I’ve witnessed it. I have to share it. Our entire business changed. My marriage changed, I changed. I believe that taking action in the areas where you have worry and you have fear that not only is there something beautiful on the other side of it what you do is you’re, you’re, you’re giving others the confidence to do the same thing. And I think that’s an a really powerful and empowering gift of going, even if they don’t agree with what you said, by going, man, I really appreciate, appreciate the courage. AJV (11:29): ‘Cause I know there can be a lot of hate coming your way for that, and you’re doing it anyways. And it’s like, if we’re not willing to stand up for the things that we believe in, what are we doing? Like what are we doing? And there’s a way to do it with kindness and respect. There’s definitely a way to do it not that way. But I believe there’s, there’s a way to, to overcome the worry that we have by, by facing it. And for me, a huge worry was what would people think if I let them know that, you know, Jesus Christ is my savior here? Like, what, what, what would people think if, like, I talked about God and faith and Bible verses and everywhere I went, like, like that was a worry. And here’s what’s happened. The more that I talk about it, the more that people are asking of, why are you doing that? AJV (12:20): Why do you believe that? It’s inviting conversations that I had never got to be a part of before. ’cause I didn’t share. It’s, it’s also allowing us to be authentically who we are designed to be. It’s, it’s giving us the strength and the power to do stuff that we probably wouldn’t have done before. And that’s what’s on the other side of fear that that’s what it looks like to overcome worry and overcome fear is to do things. Be things, experience things that you never thought possible. Because they were on the opposite side, right? They were on the side pre pre overcoming fear. And I just felt compelled to share this particular thing because it was the thing that was plaguing me. It, it was, man, I’m a, I’m afraid to do something that I feel called to do. And the moment that I stepped into that calling, my whole life has changed, our business has changed my relationships, my marriage my family, it has changed on the other side of fear. AJV (13:20): And so my question to you is like, what is that saying that you know that you should do, but you’re not because of worry or fear? Like, what are you worried about to the point where you’re not doing something that you know that you’re supposed to do or say or be, right? Like, what, what’s that thing for you and what’s the action that you know you need to take to overcome it? Even if it’s this first step in overcoming it. And it’s like, so what’s the worry that’s consuming you? What’s the fear inside of you? And what’s the action that next step that you need to take to start the path to the other side? So highlight of the conversation. If you wanna learn more, check out the book. We all worry now What? By Victoria Jackson. You can get your pre-sale orders now on Amazon Book comes out September 3rd.