Listen to the interview here!
Toni Reece: Hi there. This is Toni Reece. Welcome to the Get Inspired! Project for Berks County Living Magazine. Today I have Julie Stubler with me. Hi, Julie.
Julie Stubler: Hi, Toni. Thank you so much for having me.
Toni: You’re quite welcome. Julie, take a moment and tell us a little bit about yourself.
Julie: Not only am I a mother and a wife, but I am a skin care specialist in Berks County where I practice medical grade skin care and specialize in acne, anti-aging, hair removal, skin rejuvenation, as well as an educational facility.
Toni: Wow! There’s a lot going on there. Thank you for showing up for the Project, and let’s go into the first question. What does inspiration mean to you?
Julie: That’s a great question. I think inspiration to me is when you have that moment that time stands still. You feel it. You feel that you have to embrace that there’s going to be a shift in your life, that something just spoke to you. Oprah used to say, “That one moment.” It’s that inner feeling of you have to make a change. You can be something better. You want to do something that you were meant to do in life. Inspiration – you can't run from it. It’s always going to be behind you telling you, moving you in the direction you should be moving in.
Toni: Have you experienced that, where you can put your finger on that moment when it happened? The second question of the Project is, how do you put that into practice in Berks County, so maybe you can talk about the example and then how you put it into practice.
Julie: I remember the exact moment. I was 21 years old. It was August of 1991, and I had had my son. It was weeks before I had to return from my maternity leave, and I was so sad, because I didn’t want to return to a job that I didn’t like. That’s where I learned inspiration, because I worked with people that made a very good living for themselves, and I didn’t want to get stuck making money and not making a difference.
I was pacing in my bedroom as my baby was sleeping, and I was talking out loud, asking, “What am I supposed to do with my life?” As a kid I had so much fire, and I loved being part of and loved doing things, and I didn’t feel that any longer, and I was still such a young woman. I kept pacing and I asked, “What am I supposed to do?” and it sounds crazy, but this voice came over me and said, “Go back to school and get your teacher’s license.” I picked up the phone book and I turned it exactly to the page of the school that I was supposed to attend. I remember that.
I was going to have to work harder than ever. Being a young mom, working full time, and then going to school – and I couldn’t wait. I couldn’t wait. That moment when I called the school and I made the appointment just to register, it changed my life. I was a different person. I felt more beautiful. I was happier. I could do anything. I could sleep less. I could eat less. I remember that.
Toni: You were truly inspired.
Julie: It shifted my life, because I knew that I wasn’t on the right track. I wasn’t making bad decisions. I was in a wonderful relationship with my then boyfriend, my best friend. I had great friends. I had a great relationship with my family. But I wasn’t happy. My soul wasn’t happy, because I wasn’t doing any type of life purpose. All I was doing was working. It was incredible.
Toni: So you’ve defined this as a real moment of truth for you.
Julie: Absolutely.
Toni: And you walked into that moment of truth.
Julie: I did.
Toni: Some people could ignore it, and you walked into it. Have you experienced similar types of inspiration since then?
Julie: Absolutely. Watching television shows and learning weaknesses. Watching Iyanla or Oprah, watching those shows that you learn other people’s stories. One of the things I realized was the fears I had as a woman of wanting to do more and wanting to be the best person I could be, which at that point was being the best mother I could be. I think sometimes you learn you’re not doing the right things because the wrong things are being pointed out, or you feel guilty about some things. Watching programs and learning about parenting skills, career building skills, it would move me to tears because I wanted to be the best I could be.
Learning those weaknesses I had, and instead of me trying to overcompensate and be better at something, it was learning what I wasn’t doing right and forgiving myself for that, and recognizing that maybe I wasn’t being the best mom. Those types of moments were just … I would cry. I would learn that I can be a better person.
Toni: Would you call those moments also times that you were inspired, even if it was just to change your way of thinking?
Julie: Absolutely. Reading a paragraph in a book and you comprehend that paragraph, so if you and I were reading the same material and you read the paragraph but to me, it just hit me. It hit my soul, and I understood what that meant; or, I perceived it differently. I have that all the time from songs, from reading.
Watching other women with their children inspires me. The kindness, the love and sacrifice.
Watching people work hard, even if they don’t like their job inspires me, because I think that work ethic speaks louder than words. When I watch somebody doing a job and they’re giving 100 percent, I think that’s amazing, especially if it’s a crappy job. It inspires me. “Look at that person.”
Those moments. I’m a sap. Having kids makes me cry.
Toni: Who in Berks County inspires you?
Julie: My biggest inspiration was a woman named Pat Tigerman. When I was a young mother and I started teaching, I was teaching women from the first recession, very well educated, and they were coming to my course. I was 21. They were double my age, so their expectations of education were very high, and I didn’t want to disappoint.
Pat Tigerman was the Director of the school, but she also was a female mentor for me. She taught me how to separate myself as an instructor and not fraternize with women who may have wanted to become my friend. She taught me leadership. She taught me sophistication of how to use the right fork, or you put the napkin in your lap. Things where I was a little rough around the edges.
She was a neat woman. She had lost her husband tragically and instead of missing a beat she had to be a better woman, provide for herself and her daughters, and I always admired that about her. Plus, she not just mentored me as a woman, she mentored my coworkers, and never expected anything back from us. She was just an amazing woman.
Toni: Is there anybody else in Berks County that inspires you? There’s a common theme that’s coming out here.
Julie: Education. My friends. One of my closest girlfriends just battled breast cancer.
I had children early, and when I watch my girlfriends become wives and then mothers and watched the sacrifice from a different perspective. It was amazing to watch my girlfriend who worked third shift and go home and take care of her children without a nap. I thought that was amazing. Never complained about the lack of sleep or how hard it is. Mothering can be an amazing, rewarding job. It can also be very thankless. I admired how she had one child after the next with the schedule she worked. Her husband then got into real estate, and she really supported him in his efforts.
My friend Stacy Butler. She inspired me as a small child. You know why? Because she was kind to women, and she was kind to girls, where I was insecure and mean. She was never. She was always kind, and she also was complimentary. I realized that it was genuine, where it wasn’t disingenuous. She disarmed women right away with her kindness.
Toni: What do you want your legacy to be?
Julie: That I gave back to my community. Where I grew up in the city and where my friends grew up in the city is no longer our home. Where I’m at now in my life, I can give back to where I once lived and give back to that community, meaning giving back to the school. I think that when I’ve met people that have been raised in another area of town, let’s say Exeter, there’s generations and generations there but where I lived, we’ve all moved away.
I don’t want to forget that we can give back to help make a difference in those young children’s lives. To mentor some of the children. They need a little guidance. Scholarship fundraising is very easy for us now that some of us are in a better place. To put some money in an account that maybe a $1500 scholarship can help pay the way for a child that financially doesn’t have the means.
I want people to know that I never forgot where I came from, that I gave back, that I am a really good person. I think sometimes in the industry I’m in, people judge a book by its cover and think, “Oh she looks superficial. I bet she’s a real b----.” I think when they meet me and learn that I’m funny and I’m a very kind person and they tell me about that, they say, “You’re really nice.” I always think, “Yeah, I know!” That’s important to me. Not to be rich. I don’t need to drive a fancy car. To set that example for my kids.
Toni: Julie, I appreciate your candor and the way that you have really put a different definition to being inspired, and you’re actually working and living it seems through this interview an inspired life so that you can help others to be inspired. That is your living legacy as well. I cannot thank you enough for being part of the Get Inspired! Project.
Julie: Thank you, Toni.
