00:00 Tasha: Welcome to Diary of a Dreamer, where resilience unlocks your potential. I’m Tasha Eizinger, and each week I’ll bring you powerful stories and practical insights from my own experiences and inspiring guests. Whether you’re facing challenges or chasing dreams, this podcast is your go-to for motivation, building confidence, and practical tips for transforming obstacles into opportunities. Let’s dive into today’s episode and start turning your dreams into reality.

00:58 Tasha: Today we are with Jackie Walker who started in retail and got a job in HR where she went from women on the outside to women on the Inside, which led her to start her business, Option Dressing, back in the 80s. And she’s still in business, doing amazing things, and has also published a few books through Simon & Schuster. And we’re going to dive into all of that today and more. So Jackie, thank you so much for being here. I love seeing your face, because we text a lot and call each other a lot.

01:21 Tasha: It’s  almost like we’re together, right? Jackie: I know. I feel like it. I know. Tasha: Well, it’s been such a joy getting to know you better. And one of the things that you told me very early on is that you are known as the Doctor of Closetology. And I love that playful title. So what is a Doctor of Closetology? Jackie: Well, Closetology is a search for self-esteem through the psychology of your closet and your clothing. And as you said, I started out, all I ever wanted to be was a buyer. I thought if I could travel the nation, buy beautiful clothes, I would be a doctor.

01:58 Jackie: I thought if I could travel the nation, buy beautiful clothing for department stores and use other people’s money to do it, what a deal. Tasha: It sounds like fun. Jackie: It was so amazing. And I did it for years. And then I had my Oprah aha moment when in that department store I was working in, they made me their human resource director. And now I’m in an office dealing with insurance, hiring, firing. And I was dealing with the insides of women.

02:24 Jackie: And the aha moment was that if you’re not happy, inside your heart and mind, no materialism on the outside will make it so. So I started the playful title as the closetologist, the doctor, and I wanted to travel the nation. It was my dream to take clothing to a higher purpose. Tasha: I love that because I think so often clothing is associated with vanity and you flip the lid on that. It’s not about vanity at all. Jackie: You know, I think every woman has to learn to be her. I mean, every woman has to be her own kind of beautiful. There’s many looks of beauty.

03:03 Jackie: And when a woman looks in the mirror, I lead her to find her own true identity and purpose and to love herself. Tasha: Yeah. You know, one of the things that I’ve usually said about my fashion sense is I don’t have it and that I’m pretty just plain and simple, but you have these four personas and I took the quiz on Jackie Walker.com. 

03:27 Tasha: I love to say that I’m classic and natural. And it just has such an air about it that boosts my self-esteem instead of downplaying who I am. So can you share a little bit about your personas? Jackie: Well, that’s one of the things I’m known for because everyone is born with an internal blend of fashion personas. Classic, natural, dramatic, romantic, mood dresser, trend tracker. The quiz, as you said, on JackieWalker.com is free. It’s called the Clositology Quiz. When you take it, you find out what your blend is. Your highest number is your dominant, and then the others blend with it. And then it self-scores, and it leads you to lots of different wonderful newsletters to tell you what all of the attributes of each persona is. It’s so much fun.

04:19 Tasha: Well, and my daughter, she loved doing it as well. And I guess backtracking here, I misspoke. It’s not four. Is it six that you listed? Jackie: Well, there’s actually four dominant. The others are parts of each one. Like the modernist is part of the classic. The trend tracker is part of the dramatic. So really, there are four dominant, but then all the others make the blend.

04:44 Tasha: Yes. Well, I know that my girls love doing the paper doll books and my older daughter was like, it’s like shopping, mom. And she was like, I think I’m a romantic, and here’s why. And it was just, it was so much fun. It’s playful, and it’s also fun and exciting, and helps them appreciate who they are. Like you said, finding their own kind of beautiful, which I love. So how is it then that you got started in business? I know that we covered a little bit about your beginnings, but how did you start your business, and what inspired you to get going? Jackie: Well, first, I did a day in the home. That’s what I wanted to do. In fact, I’m doing one this Friday for a client. I arrive at 10 in the morning, and then I analyze a woman from the inside using my HR, you know, knowledge. And then I do her architecture, because I believe there’s no such thing as size. I put her in front of the mirror, and I look at her space and teach her how to layer her lines correctly against her personal space. Then I bring her closet in front of the mirror, and we start painting each other in the same space. Okay. And I usually start with the

06:15 Jackie: idea that we’re going to work together, we’re going to meet, we’re going to work together. So the next question was, do you have a book? Do you have a book? So I wrote my book for women. It’s called I Don’t Have a Thing to Wear. I wrote it for women. And I wrote it aware the psychology of your closet it’s amazing teaches you everything then they say I have a daughter do you have a book for a tween so I wrote my Expressionista tween book then they said what about little girl so as you said I have the paper doll book they’re all on Amazon and they’re absolutely amazing they change people’s lives as you said about your daughters they’re fun 

Tasha: it is so much fun and I think it’s important to grow in self-awareness and appreciate who we are because we’re all supposed to be different and I like that you’re not putting anybody in a box you’re saying this is who you are and that’s okay right it’s important it is I give them permission it’s interesting 

Jackie: I started doing fashion shows around the nation normal fashion shows you go to and you see these six foot models that you could never emulate it makes you leave poorly my fashion shows are about each one each model is a different persona and you go oh my god that’s me and oh my god that’s my daughter so it brings an awareness and it’s a real positive fashion presentation 

Tasha: I love that you said six feet tall because I’m like five two and a half I cannot relate to being six feet tall if I even put on a chair 

Jackie: I know they’re like hangers where clothes just fall on them they’re just so envious of them 

Tasha: you know they are kind of magical in their own way aren’t they? oh my goodness I know every time we talk I’m so inspired by you because you live your life so fully um you’ve had many adventures even since we’ve started talking in December you’ve had many adventures but when you look at your entire life what are some of your favorite adventures that you’ve had 

Jackie: oh my gosh you know I’m writing my memoir now and so instead of living my life I’m looking at it and it’s like this little girl who had dreams I always my title is dreams were her currency you know I always had dreams I had a lot of money but I had dreams and I constantly can reinvent myself because I get bored easily so oh gosh I got to meet the Beatles when I was young and do a teen board fashion show for them when they came to America the first time I got to take Priscilla Presley on tour when she launched her first fragrance moments for the JCPenney company um I’ve done fashion shows with celebrities um just so many wonderful things that I’ve gotten to do and then seeing a woman look at herself in the mirror through closetology and have an awareness that she is beautiful warms my heart so writing this book is really so amazing because I’m learning about the new adventures that I want to take and I’ve got 14 things I’m doing now as you know it’s just wild you know 

Tasha: life is supposed to be something that fills us up because I believe if we fill our ourselves up then we can fill up other people around us which is how you live your life I constantly am hearing where you’re volunteering or where you’re you know helping um even your neighbors are doing something special for other people as well and so I just love that you live that way it’s so beautiful 

Jackie: thank you 

Tasha: so what are some of your favorite things that you’re working on right now because I know it’s 14 but if you just want to narrow it down to a few things 

Jackie: I’ll narrow okay my mother worked in the Baptist Memorial gift shop hospital gift shop on Mondays for years I have her tabard uniform with her name on it her plate and so I said if I ever had time I would volunteer in a gift shop on Mondays so for over a year I have volunteered at Baycare Hospital in the gift shop and I love bringing joy to people who have relatives you know in the hospital and need to go to a happy place so I do um I am joining Ollie Osher which is a senior wonderful learning center through all the universities around the country the one here is USF University of South Florida so I go to the readers and writers group and I meet with other authors to improve my long writing which is my book my memoir um I belong to a movie group so we pick a movie and we zoom third Friday of the month and we ask fabulous questions about the movie and what the meaning is uh next week I’m going to a poetry event for Ollie and that’s out of the New Yorker magazine I listen to poetry and you know Tom Hanks said something years ago he said I eat life and that’s what I do I just eat it I love it and there’s every time the phone rings there’s a different Adventure that comes in my way 

Tasha: I love it and I mean this in the most endearing way it’s kind of like having like that child in your heart that’s never left and like giving her space because somewhere people become adults and boring and you’ve not done that 

Jackie: I’ll tell you something interesting for years I wrote for the Huffington Post and if you Google Huff Post 50/Jackie Walker all of my articles are archived and the one I just looked at the other day is about honoring the child inside of you and talking about you know coloring books and pickup sticks and my girlfriend and I play Jacks and ball and pickup sticks I must say Chardonnay is involved you know 

Tasha: you play them as an adult as an adult 

Jackie: yeah she you know when she was young she always wanted that big box of crayons with the sharpener she was poor and so one day for her birthday five years ago as an adult I bought her the box of crayons the coloring book Jacks and ball pickup sticks to her house and we played like seven year olds but there was Chardonnay um we laugh about that all the time um my son’s now are reliving their childhood with their sons playing Star Wars playing you know G.I Joe um I’ve taught them to eat life too so important 

Tasha: I love that you don’t just when we’re visiting it’s not like you’re just preaching and telling me what to do you’re modeling it by going out and doing it and living life and I guess um when you look forward to the next five years you know you’ve shared some of the things that you want to do here soon do you think that you’ll keep doing more of the closetology and going into people’s um closets and helping them in that way or more public speaking what is it that you’re wanting to do 

Jackie: well I did a presentation for Ollie uh two weeks ago it was two parts it was closetology and then architecture and personas and there were a lot of women in the audience and I saw that it still is relevant women are looking for something to make them feel beautiful they’re trying to get those things out of their head that were put there by mothers fathers men and so I know that my work is still important so yes I will do clients I will go into the home I will speak on the topic I’m already booked for the fall to do another session and um I don’t know what’s coming you know every day there’s a new you give me such inspiration you give me ideas ideas that I can, you know, emulate and act on. I think everyone that you meet in life has a gift to give you as long as you wear and as long as you can give them something and they give you something. You never know where that path will take you. It’s just very exciting. 

14:13 Tasha: It is exciting. And I love to hear that you’re excited by it because I think sometimes people look at the unknown as scary. Why is it or how are you able to look at it as exciting and fun instead of being scared of it? Jackie: You know, I realize that life is hard sometimes. I’ve been through a lot of struggles, which I’m putting in my memoir, but you can handle your struggles one way or the other. You can be the little cartoon character with the little cloud over your head, or you can be the mermaid who walks the path. I believe in a mermaid. I use her as an icon. She has a tail, but she can walk. She sees, I see the same things as everyone, but I see them differently. I try to make everything positive and fun because if you’re going to go through just life one time, why not do it phenomenally well? And I think that I have a mermaid mission that teaches you to go where there is no path, make that path and leave a trail for other people to follow. And I think if more people were kind and giving, that’s the way to go through life.

15:24 Jackie: You know, if you have one, one time, why not make it fabulous, really? Tasha: Yeah, it goes quickly. So we should enjoy as much of it as we can. And I feel like we don’t have to make life harder than it already is. Jackie: True. You’ve got to find that way. You’ve got to find that mission. And I believe that everybody in life has a passion. You know, there’s a big difference between being pushy and being passionate. And when you find your passion, whatever it is in life, you never work a day in your life. And I was very lucky to find my passion and taking clothing to a higher purpose to teach women to be beautiful in any way they feel they want to.

16:06 Jackie: And I also help women find their passion. I have a wonderful presentation called Personal Branding, you know, as a person in today’s world. And I teach them how to find their next step in life, whatever age they are. I have really been real proud of finding women’s passion, and they’ve started all new careers, sometimes in their 50s. So life is just really wonderful.

16:31 Tasha: So what do you think are some questions people can ask themselves to discover their passion? Because I know you’ve probably seen it. I see it when I go out and about. There are some people that are just, you can tell, they’re just getting through the next moment. They’re not even thinking out here of passion. So what are some questions people can ask themselves to discover it? 

16:54 Jackie: Well, my father taught me this years ago when I was little.

He said, whenever you have something in your heart and your mind, like a problem or a thought, it goes from here to here, here to here, here to here, and it never comes out. So you always take a legal pad. This is what he taught me, and this is what I teach. This is how I started option dressing. You draw a line down the center of the legal pad. On the left, you put things that you love. What do you love? What do you love to do? Travel, people, you know, food, cooking. List one word all the way down that list. On the right side, put what you don’t like to do. Like, I don’t like budgets and numbers and math.

17:30 Jackie: So leave it. Walk away, come back. Walk away, come back. Because I guarantee you, your next step in life, your passion, will be on the left side of the paper. If you can create a future, if you can create, you know, a job or a mission or a career, out of the things you love, but here’s the key, you delegate the things that you love.

17:54 Jackie: You delegate the things that you don’t like to people that love them. Then, instead of being with people that are just like you, you find those people that make the other side great. You’ve given them a gift. So you hire them, or you work with them, and then they are happy and have a passion. You have a passion, and everybody’s happy. And I see it work all the time. All the time. Tasha: So, Jackie, as you’re talking, I’m going to add another thing. I’m going to add another thing. To your 14 things on your list. Jackie: Okay. Okay. I’m ready. I’m ready. 

18:33 Tasha: As you were talking, I was thinking of my high school self. Because I knew I wanted to help people. And I knew that I love teaching. So I thought, well, I’ll just be a teacher. That’s common sense, right? So I was an elementary school teacher. But then I learned within the first year, I don’t think this is how I’m meant to teach. And this isn’t exactly how I’m meant to help people. So if somebody had taught me that in high school… Okay. So now you need to create a presentation for high schoolers and teach them that.

18:59 Jackie: And I would love to do that. Because I really believe that if you can find your passion early in life, you’ve wasted so many days of your life being miserable or being stuck in a career that you don’t like because your father said you should do it or your mother or, you know, that’s all you knew. And here’s the other thing called branding. Okay. I teach, again, women and men to brand themselves.

19:24 Jackie: So if you look at what your talents are, take me. Okay. I was in retail my whole life. And so what were my talents? Retailing, buying, fashion coordinating, all that. What happens if a woman or a man in retailing gets downsized and loses their job? What they do is they go out and look for another job in retailing. That’s all they know. But no, if they say my talents are speaking, my talents are, clothing, my talents are, you know, creating, you know, events. They can do that with anyone.

20:01 Jackie: So with me, my talents are writing, speaking, you know, clothing. So now I can speak to not only the retail industry, real estate, hotel industry. My world has now opened up in my speaking genre to the world. So it’s your talents and how you find the places to put them. 

20:32 Tasha: I know someone listening is thinking – Jackie, that’s great for you. You have talents. I don’t. What would you say to that person? Jackie: Everybody has a talent. Everybody has something that they could be passionate about. You just don’t believe in yourself. You don’t think that you can be an entrepreneur or work for a company. If you’ve always loved to cook in your kitchen, look at Ina Garten. She loved to cook in her kitchen. And one day, Jeffrey and she saw that little building, the Barefoot Contessa, and look at her now. So don’t ever think, don’t ever put yourself in a box and think you can’t be happy or you can’t have your dreams come true. So you can always email me, you know, it’s jax6014@AOL.com and tell me what your passions are, your dreams.

21:20 Jackie: And I would love to do that for you because I’ve learned a lot from you. So don’t wait your whole life to find that. Don’t sit in front of a mirror and think, I can’t do that. Yes, you can. Yes. Tasha: Just have a little courage, right? Just have the courage to take action. It sounds like, you know, have the courage, create a team. You have a plan. I love that you’re such a big dreamer, but you also put plans in place. You’re not just keeping your heads in the cloud. You dream and then you go out and do. 

21:53 Jackie: I find people that are detail oriented because I’m the big picture person. And I feel like everybody can do it. I feel sorry for so many people that say they’re stuck. You shouldn’t be stuck. There’s a way out of it. You just have to want to, you know, I always say I’ve met so many women that, you know, you heard ready, get set, ready, get set. When are you going to go? When are you going to take the leap? And when you do, even though it’s frightening, it’s so wonderful. It’s frightening, to be an entrepreneur, but guess what? No one can ever fire you. No one can ever take your insurance away. And if you don’t like who you’re working with, just go work with someone else. It’s really exhilarating. I love being an entrepreneur. I love it. I love it. I love my boss. It’s me.

22:44 Tasha: Do you buy yourself a gift for boss’s day? You should, if you don’t. Jackie: I never thought about that, but I should, you know, it’s, it’s funny. I’m an only child. And so I always say when I have an idea, I always agree with myself because I say, Jackie, what do you think? And Jackie says, I love it. I can’t go wrong. 

23:16 Tasha: I feel like you have such a positive mindset, which we’ve talked about. What are a few guiding principles that help you? Stay consistent with that, especially because you’ve shared a bit of your life with me and some of the really hard stuff you’ve been through. Like you’re, I don’t want anybody listening to this to think that your life has been sunshine and rainbows because you’ve kept the sunshine and rainbows close, even in the storms. But like, what are some basic mindsets you’ve had throughout your life to help you? Jackie: Well, you know, my struggles have been, you know, a lot of times personally, you know, not to share everything, obviously, but, you know, I lost my daddy at 61. I lost my mother at 66. I’m an only child. I’ve sat alone, you know, in hospitals with loved ones, with no one around me.

24:09 Jackie: I have children I’m blessed with and grandchildren, but there’s nothing like your mother and father. They love you unconditionally. So I think that what keeps me positive is I have a lot of books that I love. There’s a book called The Dance. That I absolutely love. And it talks about how in life, all the individual parts of us are on the dance floor. And what we do most of the time is we ask the parts of us that are easy for a dance. If we would ask the parts of us that are uncomfortable for a dance, the dance of life, what we would learn and how we would grow. So I love that book.

24:54 Jackie: I love the book, Everything You’ve Ever Learned You’ve Learned in Kindergarten. I love that. There’s the mermaid story in there. I love. I love the book, The Aladdin Factor, because these are the books I read and these are the seminars I write because we all know who Aladdin is. And when Aladdin rubbed the lamp, the genie popped out and we got three wishes. But I have an Aladdin’s lamp that I got on Amazon. It’s the same looking, you know, no genie pops out, but I tell women, you can rub that lamp 50 times. You can create 50 dreams for yourself and make them all come true. There is no limits on life.

25:31 Jackie: There’s no limits on anything. Now I know illness comes in. I know a lot of caregivers that are currently helping, but you can have that, those things that give you energy. Like for me, it’s music when I’m tired. It’s a fresh flower, you know, in the kitchen. It’s a talk with a beautiful friend. It’s reading a book that gives you a magical peace of mind. It’s a book that gives you perspective. When you’re depleted of that energy, know how to get it back and play that music and get that energy. And I think life would be a lot easier, you know, if we knew the things that gave us joy and they complemented and balance the things that are hard. You know, that’s my mantra, you know. Tasha: That’s really beautiful. And I, I love that it’s so doable because I know you and I, we are big, huge dreamers. We get very excited and revved up when we talk, but not everybody is necessarily wired that way. And that’s okay. But there’s these doable things to make life better and to get you closer to creating the life of your dreams. And it doesn’t have to be this big, grandiose vision, like you and I having a million things on our to-do list and seeing it as fun and exciting. It doesn’t have to be that way. So thank you for sharing, you know, practical things.

26:53 Jackie: Well, I’ve had people say to me, Jackie, what’s easy for you is not easy for me. And I get it because I heal the world and I want to tell everyone to dance and be happy and all that. But I realize it’s not easy for them. It is easier for me. And so I have to find those. My neighbor said the other day she was having problems. She came over and I was trying to chat with her. And she said, you know, every morning when I wake up, I look for those small joys, those small joys. You know, everything starts with one step. And I think that’s a million steps. You don’t have to have a million steps. What are the five things that bring you joy? And that’s easy. If it’s food, a flower, music, a chat with your grandchild, find three things a day that bring you joy. And I think your life will balance. I really do.

27:42 Tasha: Yeah. It’ll become more peaceful at the very least, right? Yeah. So what’s something that you would tell, like advice you’d tell your 20-year-old self? Jackie: I probably would tell my 20-year-old self to not try so hard, you know, to accomplish everything at once. When I was working for this department store, a part of my job before I was human resource director, I was managing fine and fashion jewelry. And I remember when my boss came up from Miami, it was Berdine’s, it was Federated Department Stores. And he would come up, his name was Herb Gold. And I would say, now, Mr. Gold, I’m going to tell you a story. And he would say, I want to do this and this and this and this and this and this. And he would look at me and say, Jackie, let me say something to you. This department store is not a speedboat. It’s a cruise ship. It doesn’t turn quickly. So if you would just ask me for 50% of your needs, I will grant them. Next time, ask me for 50 more. Eventually, you’re going to get 100. But don’t ask for them all at once.

28:53 Jackie: I have kind of learned to prioritize and to not feel like I have to have everything at once and to try to do a little bit at a time. And it’s really worked. I mean, I remember asking the world, do you want to write a book with me? Do you want to write a book with me? Because I didn’t know I could do it. And eventually, I realized that it takes time, as you know, with your books. But eventually, when you look back at your life as I’m doing now, you think, wow.

29:23 Jackie: It’s a step at a time. It’s ready, set, but learn to go. Go. You’ve got to leap. And if you make a mistake, so what? Just leap again. We all make mistakes. I told you, it’s what, 10 no’s for every yes? That’s right. Wow, that yes is worth it, isn’t it? It sure is. It sure is. 

29:53 Tasha: Oh, my goodness. I could just talk to you all day, Jackie. I love our visits. Jackie: I love us. Tasha: I am always learning from you and growing and inspired by you. So thank you for being here today. And I’m sure that there’s people listening that are like, I just would love a daily dose of Jackie as well. So how can people get in touch with you? Well, they can go to my website. It’s JackieWalker.com. Take the Clositology quiz. If you want to contact me, don’t go through the website. Just email me. it’s fine. You know, I give my number out. It’s, you know, 813-230-2153. Text me with a question.

30:39 Jackie: I get questions every day. And, you know, ask me about anything because sometimes a simple answer changes your life. It has mine. Tasha: And you’ve been so good to know that people have poured into you and you generously pour into stories. with us today. Jackie: Well, you inspire me too. So I love you, Tasha. Tasha: I love you. 

Tasha: Thank you for tuning into this episode of Diary of a Dreamer. I hope you found the stories and tips shared today to be a source of motivation and strength. Remember, every challenge you face is a chance to grow and move closer to your dreams. Don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share this podcast with anyone who could use a boost of encouragement. And I’ll see you in the next episode of Diary of a Dreamer.