Latest / Speak In Flow / Unveiling Resilience: Navigating Health and Public Speaking Journeys With Gin Villanueva

Transcript

Unveiling Resilience: Navigating Health and Public Speaking Journeys With Gin Villanueva · Speak In Flow

• 0:02
  Melinda Lee: Hello, dear listeners, welcome to another
• 0:04
  Speak In Flow Podcast. I'm so glad you're here. Today I had
• 0:09
  the pleasure and honour of introducing Gin VillaNueva. We
• 0:13
  have had an amazing, wonderful time working together. So I'd
• 0:17
  love for you to meet her. Gin. Welcome.
• 0:22
  Gin VillaNueva.: Hello. Hi, everybody.
• 0:25
  Melinda Lee: Hi. So as I mentioned, we had the chance to
• 0:28
  work together. And so I'd like for Jen to share her experience
• 0:32
  about what was like when we were working together and what were
• 0:35
  some of her results are. And but before we do that, Jim, can you
• 0:39
  tell us what you have done or what you do?
• 0:42
  Gin VillaNueva.: Sure. So I'm a certified personal trainer, and
• 0:45
  a health education coach, for Kaiser and the American Heart
• 0:48
  Association. And so I do a lot of work one to one. If, you
• 0:52
  know, very generally, if people say, hey, I want to be
• 0:55
  healthier, I really help them discover what that means for
• 0:59
  them and actually put that into action. And so, so currently,
• 1:03
  I'm doing more of a consultation, doing virtual one
• 1:08
  on one coaching, you know, phone coaching, or on Zoom. But I love
• 1:13
  it, it's something that has been very important for me, ever
• 1:17
  since I was a kid. And I just, every time I learned about ways
• 1:23
  to be healthier, I love turning it around and sharing it with
• 1:27
  other people. So it's been very different from my, my corporate
• 1:33
  job about my gosh, 10 years ago now 10 years ago, I quit my job
• 1:39
  and became a personal trainer, because I wanted my life to
• 1:42
  really be in service of
• 1:44
  Melinda Lee: other people. And you so do that you so do that
• 1:48
  you guide people in their health journey. And you are a
• 1:52
  relatable, honest, like caring person. And we know that health
• 1:56
  journey is so difficult and so challenging. And so you do that,
• 2:01
  and you model the way so beautifully, because we know
• 2:04
  that as we go on the health journey, like there's obstacles
• 2:07
  that come in the way and so how do we still like commit to our
• 2:11
  health journey, even when there's other things coming at
• 2:14
  us, and then be able to commit and stay committed? Absolutely.
• 2:19
  Gin VillaNueva.: And I think that's, that's kind of where I,
• 2:22
  where I actually want to kind of tell you, and if you don't mind
• 2:25
  me just jumping in and where or what happened to me. So, you
• 2:30
  know, in 2018, my, my, my sister had a stroke. And that really
• 2:35
  changed the trajectory of my life. Three weeks after that, my
• 2:39
  dad had a stroke, and he passed away two months after. So during
• 2:42
  that time, or right before that, I was doing personal training, I
• 2:47
  was teaching group exercise classes. And then I had to pick
• 2:51
  a pug and all of that to focus on my family. And when that
• 2:54
  happened, I took my eye off of my own health. And so I was
• 2:59
  gaining weight, I was more stressed out, I really wasn't
• 3:03
  like living my truth the way I wanted to. And, you know, I'm, I
• 3:07
  really started this when I was older, I became a trainer when I
• 3:10
  was 40 years old and made a huge shift then. And so, you know,
• 3:15
  flash forward to being older and you know, my, my body doesn't
• 3:23
  quite rebound the way it did. It was it was very much a struggle.
• 3:27
  And so, I deal with coaching for American Heart Association,
• 3:32
  coach, a women's group, they're called better you can bring
• 3:35
  Melinda Lee: offers a lot of resources experts, absolutely.
• 3:39
  Gin VillaNueva.: it was something that I plan I, you
• 3:39
  And
• 3:42
  know, I was I was still able to do in fact, my, my sister and my
• 3:46
  mom became participants in the program, which was really nice.
• 3:50
  So we were all able to do that together. But I felt that even
• 3:53
  though I was still able to coach, I wasn't doing that, to
• 3:57
  the extent that I wanted to or that and that I had in the past.
• 4:01
  And so, American Heart Association asked me to be part
• 4:05
  of a fundraiser called Women of impact. And at the time, I was
• 4:12
  just starting to get back into training again. And, but I
• 4:16
  wasn't feeling very confident, you know, I you know, I was just
• 4:20
  starting to move my own body again. And, and I was I felt
• 4:24
  like I was starting at the beginning. And, and when they
• 4:27
  asked me to do this program, which required a lot of
• 4:31
  community outreach, really putting myself out there. I I
• 4:37
  really was at a loss of or I felt like that was going to be a
• 4:41
  really big challenge for me. And and then I joined a I'm part of
• 4:47
  this networking group, where we have guest speakers every month
• 4:51
  both WT OC and in the newer one of the speakers and it really
• 4:56
  like made such a tremendous difference. You know, just that
• 4:59
  some are the exercises that, that you bought us to really
• 5:04
  reminded me of my, my roots, like, you know, in particular,
• 5:08
  like with my dad and my family and how important they are to
• 5:11
  me, and what kind of legacy do I want to leave to help represent
• 5:15
  them. And so public speaking was something that I, I was that I
• 5:25
  like to do. But I know that I needed to have more finesse.
• 5:29
  And, you know, teaching classes was pretty easy. But I do know
• 5:33
  that there's times where I can get easily frazzled. So this
• 5:37
  situation, all the conditions were ideal, that no problem, but
• 5:42
  you can't always count on that when you're like, in front of a
• 5:45
  big crowd of maybe a lot of strangers. And so that's where I
• 5:50
  knew that I was going to need those skills. And so that's,
• 5:52
  that's when I, you know, we started working together, I had
• 5:56
  to find my voice and my purpose and my mission, you know, like,
• 5:59
  really, kind of my mission statement of, of what I, you
• 6:03
  know, how I wanted to carry my life, you know, board. And so,
• 6:08
  you're such a big part of it, not only, you know, like, like
• 6:11
  teaching a class, and this can just like campaign that I lead,
• 6:15
  but then just continue to help me hone in my skill with, with
• 6:20
  teaching classes. In fact, I've been getting asked to teach more
• 6:23
  classes, which is great. And I really, you know, I think public
• 6:29
  speaking can really get in the way of the message that he wants
• 6:32
  to give people. And I think you've provided me like really
• 6:35
  tremendous skill in, in making sure that message is reached,
• 6:41
  and really, you know, connecting with people communicating and
• 6:44
  yeah, it's, I could go on and on, obviously,
• 6:48
  Melinda Lee: I love that pause there that pause that you just
• 6:51
  did, right. That's what it's about. Right? Again, I know,
• 6:55
  because you're such a go getter, high achiever, Jin. And so many
• 6:59
  of us that are leaders and people that I work with are high
• 7:03
  achievers, they're go getters. And then when we're like that,
• 7:06
  we want everything to go so well, right when it comes to
• 7:09
  public speaking. And then so we end up either either over giving
• 7:14
  or over speaking. And I remember you saying, Linda, I spoke. And
• 7:20
  I didn't, I just knew that it was enough. That you didn't
• 7:24
  second guessed, just like what you just did. Just now you took
• 7:26
  a pause. And you're like, said a couple of sentences. And then
• 7:30
  you're like, that's it? Yeah. You know, there's no need to
• 7:34
  over give, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, and
• 7:39
  Gin VillaNueva.: I think that idea of like being president,
• 7:41
  but like, the pause, like the pause was, like, my number one
• 7:44
  lesson rarely go on and on, especially when you don't know
• 7:49
  what to do next. Yeah, and, and so one of the other things that
• 7:54
  I noticed was just really being present with myself, this to
• 7:58
  know when to pause, to know to check in and even when I lose
• 8:02
  the thread, instead of getting flustered or stressed out. I
• 8:07
  just thought, and then I pause. And, and it's okay. So I do that
• 8:12
  all the time. In my classes. There's times where sometimes
• 8:16
  technology is getting in the way or there's, you know, I have a
• 8:21
  dog here and my in the background, like maybe he's
• 8:23
  getting fuzzy, or, you know, there's there's a lot of things
• 8:27
  that can happen, but I don't lose my cool.
• 8:30
  Melinda Lee: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Oh, my gosh, I'm so happy.
• 8:36
  I'm so happy. I mean, that in its nutshell, is just that you
• 8:39
  just owning your space and knowing, like you said, when to
• 8:44
  when to pause, when to not and I almost want to translate it also
• 8:48
  is connected to you as a work in health. Like, when do we pause
• 8:52
  for ourselves? There's so much that's going on and so many
• 8:56
  other things that are around us, like when is it to take a pause
• 9:00
  and take care of yourself?
• 9:02
  Gin VillaNueva.: Yeah, the pile. And I mean, self care is it's
• 9:07
  not like an extra thing that you do. It's essential. Yeah. And
• 9:10
  when I'm speaking, I mean, that is like there's there's a lot of
• 9:14
  parallels to that. Yeah. And, and even the i It's funny
• 9:20
  because now it was one of the things I wanted to mention was
• 9:23
  just the fact that you know, sometimes I might like lose the
• 9:26
  thread or go off on a tangent and get a little lost, but I
• 9:31
  could because I'm president I noticed it right away. And and
• 9:35
  then I take a step back, and I'm okay with that. So I give myself
• 9:39
  grace and allow other people to give themselves Grace too. So
• 9:44
  it's not an you know, it's not like hey, I'm gonna let you off
• 9:47
  the hook and let them fly. I'm gonna stand for for you in your
• 9:50
  your highest, you know. I don't like I don't know what the word
• 9:56
  is, but like in your highest like I just told you the highest
• 9:59
  regard And, and so I coach into that, although knowing that real
• 10:05
  life gets in the way. Yeah, and how do we navigate through that?
• 10:08
  So what do you do? What are some tools that you could do?
• 10:11
  Melinda Lee: Exactly, yeah, that's a parallel right there
• 10:14
  completely, like holding ourselves at the highest grace.
• 10:19
  Even if we get off on the tangent, even if they we go off
• 10:22
  track a little bit, like that's just life. It's just messy. And
• 10:27
  so sometimes I think public speaking people perceive it as I
• 10:30
  have to be perfect, I have to. And the thing is, the more we
• 10:33
  let go as a need to be perfect, the actual, the irony is, we end
• 10:40
  up relaxing into it. And we allow ourselves to fold
• 10:44
  ourselves with this compassion, safety, to to mess it up to go
• 10:49
  off to air, and then we do less of it, which then ends up
• 10:52
  feeling everybody feels good, and you feel good, I feel good,
• 10:55
  the audience feels good. And I'll open ourselves to this
• 10:59
  messiness. But I'd be okay with it. It's up here, ironing. But
• 11:04
  then you know, what, the moment, we know, the moment because
• 11:08
  we're present, we're here, we take the steps that we need to
• 11:13
  in the moment.
• 11:16
  Gin VillaNueva.: If I remember, when I had, so, I ended up
• 11:22
  winning women and back, which was really, really amazing. I
• 11:25
  was so proud, my team was wonderful. They, you know, we
• 11:28
  raised a lot of money for a great cause, and really went out
• 11:32
  there in the community. I mean, I think that we, I was the one
• 11:35
  who like, really, like, we had all these classes, and that were
• 11:39
  very impactful. And I saw, I had to say, a speech, you know, they
• 11:43
  told us all to prepare, prepare something, I couldn't tell at
• 11:46
  this time if it really told me because I want or if they told
• 11:50
  everybody else or what, but but when i i prepared and I use the
• 11:55
  format that you gave us. So I felt like I had like the at
• 12:01
  least the the outline, like a small outline in mind. So it was
• 12:06
  enough to have something to hold on to. But when I actually
• 12:12
  spoke, it wasn't from reading a script, I was able to be very
• 12:16
  organic. Tell the story. It was a great way to honour my dad, I,
• 12:22
  you know, my mom and my sister, my boyfriend, were there
• 12:26
  watching, there was a bunch of people I didn't know. And that
• 12:30
  didn't faze me. And after I, you know, I got to the point where I
• 12:33
  said, Okay, that's enough. You know, thank you very much, you
• 12:36
  know, get off the podium. And afterwards, I had so many people
• 12:40
  approached me and said, Oh, my God, that was such a, you know,
• 12:45
  that was a great tribute that you had your dad and you know,
• 12:49
  that it was there was just like, they really, really touched
• 12:51
  them. There were heart, you know, stroke survivors heart
• 12:55
  attack survivor there. And they relay. That message really
• 12:59
  resonated. And so that was so gratifying to have like that
• 13:03
  culmination. programme. And you know, that was that was two
• 13:08
  years ago. And now it continues. So
• 13:13
  Melinda Lee: how beautiful. I remember when you won that. And
• 13:16
  I remember when you Yeah, were you able to see that speech. And
• 13:19
  because you just had a framework, and you just went
• 13:22
  more from your heart, you're able to connect with audience in
• 13:26
  different in a way that is more deep in a way that resonates
• 13:29
  with them. And that's why you got came back. And they came
• 13:31
  back to tell you how they felt you how they felt that message?
• 13:36
  Gin VillaNueva.: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It was so much in
• 13:40
  contrast of a different time where I had to face something.
• 13:44
  Yeah. And there was a lot of people. Yeah, the I was on a
• 13:49
  mic, but the mic was like, it was echoey. And it really threw
• 13:54
  me off. I couldn't hear my own voice. And I kept on trying to
• 13:58
  talk through it. But the more I did, the more I kept on
• 14:01
  thinking, I don't understand what I'm saying. I don't even
• 14:04
  know like what, you know, what's going on, I was so frazzled. And
• 14:07
  that was, it was like the complete opposite of that
• 14:11
  experience, you know, like that, that experience was that, oh,
• 14:14
  I'll never do that again. Right. Like, that's the worst case
• 14:18
  scenario. And then here, you know, I had a completely
• 14:22
  different experience. And so I know now that if I started off,
• 14:27
  like, like, off the way I did that time, I know, I could
• 14:31
  handle it better. Yeah, I know, I could, you know, like, just
• 14:34
  thinking like, Hey, let me pause. Let me let me you know,
• 14:38
  get like, you know, just just get all my bearings and then
• 14:41
  continue instead of just trying to power through things.
• 14:45
  Melinda Lee: Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. So glad. The journey
• 14:53
  continues. You're able to take that with you. Take the pause,
• 14:57
  you know how to get the bearings like we're work with where
• 15:00
  you're at, I think when you're in that, in something like that,
• 15:05
  and you can't think we don't know what to do, but to power
• 15:07
  through the whole thing. So, so now you have more like presence,
• 15:12
  when you're you're not as afraid, or you just have more
• 15:15
  presence in the in the room. So you know what to do, you can do
• 15:18
  the problem solving if you need. So yeah, and problem solving
• 15:23
  Gin VillaNueva.: is actually a big thing of what I do with,
• 15:25
  with the my participants in the programmes I coach. So I need to
• 15:30
  be able to take material and then communicate it to them in a
• 15:36
  way where it allows, right, and not only land, but hey, this is
• 15:40
  something that I could, that resonates with me, and then I
• 15:45
  could put into action. Yeah. And, and, and because I am not
• 15:51
  just focusing on what I'm saying, I'm actually like
• 15:54
  reading the room and can be, you know, it's still via zoom, but I
• 15:58
  can still see if people are understanding or not, and, and
• 16:02
  trying to get that interaction, and really, you know, meeting
• 16:07
  them at the moment, though, people are asking questions, or
• 16:11
  they're putting their situation and I'm coaching them through
• 16:13
  that. I can do that on the fly, because I already feel settled
• 16:17
  with me now I could like look outside.
• 16:20
  Melinda Lee: Exactly. Yes. Oh, thank you, Gin. If people wanted
• 16:26
  to get a hold of you, or meet with you, or learn more about
• 16:29
  better you can you share more about that, and we could put it
• 16:32
  in the show notes.
• 16:33
  Gin VillaNueva.: I'm sure. So for American Heart Association
• 16:36
  better, the better you programme, it's, it's part of
• 16:40
  their go read initiative. The class is approximately 12 to 14
• 16:45
  weeks long. They and so every week, we talk about a different
• 16:49
  aspects of heart health, with an emphasis on stress management,
• 16:54
  and you know, we still talk about nutrition and getting more
• 16:58
  active, but we've, we've expanded the breadth of, of
• 17:02
  health, right? And so, you know, we we've included, like there's
• 17:06
  this path to communication, though, whether it's lifting or
• 17:10
  how to convey or how to, you know, speak your truth to other
• 17:15
  people where it lands for them. You know, that could cause a
• 17:18
  great deal of stress if you're not, when you're not practising
• 17:21
  that. And so giving them some tools around that can help
• 17:25
  alleviate a lot of stress and make people happier. That
• 17:29
  programme is in in San Francisco, they have a few other
• 17:32
  ones, but it's sponsored by UCSF and I, you know, I could send a
• 17:36
  link. I don't I think if you just look up better you the
• 17:40
  letter you at the end, then people can find it. And yeah.
• 17:47
  Melinda Lee: Awesome. I think that's it. Awesome. Gin, thank
• 17:52
  you so much. Thank you, and I'm wishing you the best. And I
• 17:58
  can't wait to sponsor also your colon awareness. Yes. Yes.
• 18:03
  Gin VillaNueva.: Yes. The other one is calling Cancer Coalition.
• 18:06
  So that's a 5k. That's starting July 14. So people want to run
• 18:10
  like Merced in San Francisco. It's a it's a small Well, it's,
• 18:14
  it's small right now, we would love to expand it. But it's such
• 18:18
  a great family oriented community setting we have such
• 18:22
  a, you know, it's a great group of people that are that we're
• 18:26
  we're helping and they're called Operation access and, and, you
• 18:32
  know, the people that have been planning and coordinating this,
• 18:38
  this event, and you know, they're, they're dear friends of
• 18:40
  mine. And, you know, we've, we're getting a lot done this
• 18:44
  year.
• 18:46
  Melinda Lee: Great. Thank you. Thanks, Melinda. Thank you so
• 18:49
  much.
• 18:51
  Gin VillaNueva.: And I just have to thank you, Melinda, you've
• 18:53
  been so amazing. I really you've made such a big difference in my
• 18:56
  life. And so anytime that somebody had mentioned, you
• 19:02
  know, whether, you know, public speaking being a fear or
• 19:04
  something that they're, they're dreading for work, I immediately
• 19:08
  think of you and I'm like here, you need to talk to her. She
• 19:11
  will set you straight. You'll feel so much happier. So good.
• 19:14
  Thank
• 19:14
  Melinda Lee: you. Thank you so much, Gin. Thanks. Lots of love.
• 19:19
  Thank you. And thanks for being here. Until next time, take
• 19:23
  care. Bye