{"id":16253,"date":"2015-05-08T10:08:41","date_gmt":"2015-05-08T17:08:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vivaglammagazine.com\/?p=16253"},"modified":"2020-05-26T11:06:52","modified_gmt":"2020-05-26T18:06:52","slug":"inspirational-woman-robin-mcgraw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vivaglammagazine.com\/inspirational-woman-robin-mcgraw\/","title":{"rendered":"Inspirational Woman: Robin McGraw"},"content":{"rendered":"

Robin McGraw is truly passionate about her roles as wife, activist, business woman, and especially mother and grandmother! It was an honor to speak to her about her family, her skincare line, and her dedication to empowering women through her foundation. She also shared with us the secret to great communication when it comes to her husband, Dr. Phil.<\/p>\n

Q: The work you do through When Georgia Smiled: The Robin McGraw Revelation Foundation is truly inspirational. Where does your passion come from for empowering women?<\/strong><\/p>\n

My mother, Georgia, was my first mentor. I credit so much of the woman, wife, mother and grandmother I’ve turned out to be to her influence. What I remember most of all is her smile. Even through the darkest times, my mother never failed to smile. Though she never experienced abuse herself, she taught me the strength of a woman and it is in her honor that I named my Foundation, When Georgia Smiled<\/em>.<\/p>\n

My mother also taught us to protect anyone who may not have the love and support they needed and, sadly, we don’t have to look very far to find those in need. One in four women will fall victim to abuse before they reach the young age of 25 and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention labeled it an American epidemic, yet it’s the most underreported phenomenon in our society. For so long, abuse has been something secret and shameful. I have sat in the audience for every taping of the nearly 2500 episodes of the DR. PHIL show, and I have been most touched by the guests who are courageous enough to share their own experiences of domestic violence in an effort to help others. Witnessing the incredible strength of those men and women moved me to take action and dedicate the next chapter of my life to this cause. I want to give women the fierce strength I learned from my mother. My mission is to give them ability to live joyful lives filled with purpose.<\/p>\n

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Q: You said that when it comes to preventing violence and bullying, education is the most important tool. Tell us about your educational program.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I launched my foundation in October 2013 with the introduction of The Aspire Initiative, a domestic violence program that aims to reduce the level of intimate relationship violence and instill the importance of bystander responsibility.<\/p>\n

This exciting, interactive educational program is available completely free of charge at whengeorgiasmiled.org<\/a>. The program is designed for three specific age groups, each with its own custom curriculum: tweens, teens\/young adults and adults .\u00a8 and is also available in Spanish. It can be done individually in the privacy of your own home, or it can be facilitated by an instructor like a school teacher, a guidance counselor or a youth education director in a church.<\/p>\n

It’s important to mention that the reason we customized a curriculum for teens\/tweens is that we are rolling this program into schools across the country, and the idea is to get to these boys and girls before<\/u> they get into relationships, so they recognize what’s ok and what’s not ok before any abuse starts! Sadly, many children grow up in an abusive atmosphere and are raised to think the behavior is normal, and so the cycle continues. Our goal is to prevent the behavior before<\/u> it begins, as well as to stop whatever habits may already have begun and offer safe exit strategies and resources for those in need.<\/p>\n

The program also includes what I’m perhaps MOST proud of, our Aspire News app. This app is the first of its kind, and a major development in domestic violence safety. The app allows you to send a pre-typed or a pre-recorded audio message to multiple trusted, pre-selected contacts, or even 911, saying that you are in trouble. Once you press the “go button” your phone will also start recording audio of everything that is going on in the room, so you have actual audio evidence of threats or abuse. The app also provides articles on domestic violence and other tools readily available to you at all times, including the Aspire curriculum.<\/p>\n

Despite all these features, Aspire News is designed to appear like any other news app to the untrained eye, allowing it to be downloaded and used in secret. The user can customize the homepage by choosing one of twelve different news feeds from options including: Yahoo!, CNN, Huffington Post, Univision and La Opinion. The Aspire News app provides an invaluable, unmatched resource to provide safety to those who find themselves in danger. It is completely free and available for download in the iTunes store, through Google Play and at whengeorgiasmiled.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The app has had nearly a quarter million downloads around the world including the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and India. I’m proud to share that it was recognized on Capitol Hill by the National Health Collaborative on Violence and Abuse as one of the two apps in 2014 most effective in the fight to end domestic violence.<\/p>\n

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Q: Can you touch upon what you teach kids about bystander responsibility?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I’m happy to! Our young people need to feel empowered to speak up when they witness behavior that isn’t right, or alert someone in authority who can take action. It’s important that we help change the attitude and thinking of generations to come.
\nWe need to teach our young people to treat others with dignity and respect in order to end the cycle of abuse.
\nI always told my sons that if they’re witness to bullying or violence and don’t do anything to help, they’re just as much at fault as the bully. I can remember one day my younger son, Jordan, came home and said that he needed nine dollars to take to school the next day. I think he was probably in third grade. When I asked him why he needed the money, he said that there was a kid at school who wore the same pair of bad jeans every day, and was teased mercilessly behind his back for doing so. Jordan had gone to the kid and said he would give him a dollar for every day in a row that he didn’t wear the pants in question. He made a bet to see how long the boy could go without wearing the jeans. I realized that Jordan had tried to come up with a way to stop the teasing without hurting the boy’s feelings, and felt a great sense of pride in him for wanting to do the right thing! That’s the kind of behavior we need to encourage, and we need to start young.<\/p>\n

Q: In addition to being an activist and philanthropist, you have a very successful lifestyle brand, Robin McGraw Revelation. Tell us about some of your products.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Robin McGraw Revelation launched with record-breaking<\/u> success on HSN with a collection of skincare products that I’m very proud of! The brand is growing quickly and has already expanded to include fragrance, lipgloss and candles, among other lifestyle products.<\/p>\n

With Mother’s Day just around the corner, I’d actually like to expand on the fragrance line, named after my mother, Georgia. I started with more that 300 notes and worked with top perfumers for more than three years till I felt like I had the perfect fragrance! I had narrowed it down to a few final choices and it was actually on Mother’s Day that I marked the bottom of the bottle that was my favorite, and asked my family to smell them and choose which they thought was the one<\/em>. Phillip, Jay and Jordan ALL picked the fragrance I had marked, and I knew I had my fragrance!<\/p>\n

The beautiful fragrance lasts without being overwhelming, making it a perfect signature scent for day or night. Speaking of signatures, I also want to point out that it’s my mother’s actual signature on the bottle. That was an important detail to me, as she was the inspiration behind the fragrance. In addition to the eau de parfum, the collection includes a shower gel, body butter and hand cream.<\/p>\n

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Q: You mentioned that you and your husband Dr. Phil don’t fight, but you do communicate through your disagreements. Can you give us some advice on having a loving marriage with healthy communication?
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

The fact that we don’t fight doesn’t mean we don’t disagree, but we communicate with each other without yelling or name-calling. This is a process we put in place from the start because a good relationship is not born; it’s made over time through an ongoing process of loving, unselfish negotiation. In my relationship with Phillip, I learned early on what upsets him, what irritates him, what makes him mad – and I choose not to do those things. And he treats me with the same respect.<\/p>\n

Phillip and I started planning our marriage long<\/u> before we got married by talking about what we expected from each other, and what we could and could not live with. I can actually remember telling Phillip, “I don’t just want to be married, I want to be happily married.” That was my number one goal. And so we began what I guess you could call a negotiation process. It wasn’t just one conversation. It’s been many conversations over the last 40 years, and it’s a conversation we will continue to have. I believe as people grow together as a couple, needs can change, and that’s why the dialogue has to be ongoing.<\/p>\n

Is our marriage perfect? Absolutely not. Nobody’s is. We all know that sometimes life gets in the way.<\/p>\n

But I believe the success of a marriage is in large part based on the willingness of each partner to do what it takes to meet the other’s needs.<\/p>\n

Q: How has being a mother shaped who you are?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Being a mother hasn’t shaped who I am, it IS who I am. Without question or hesitation I can tell you that the achievement of which I am the most proud is that of being a mother. I’ve often said that I believe my purpose on this earth is to be a wife and mother.<\/p>\n

I will admit, though, that lately I’ve wondered if that statement was a little premature, because ever since our precious grandbabies were born, I feel like my true purpose is to be a grandmother!! I love those grandbabies so much! As a parent, you worry about getting everything right, but as a grandparent you just love them and then send them home. If they want popsicles for breakfast, OK! It’s love without worry!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Robin McGraw is truly passionate about her roles as wife, activist, business woman, and especially mother and grandmother! It was an honor to speak to her about her family, her skincare line, and her dedication to empowering women through her foundation. She also shared with us the secret to great communication when it comes to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":105452,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,4,68],"tags":[356,4864,5370,5369,4787,5368,912],"yst_prominent_words":[71717,71702,35252,71712,71708,71698],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vivaglammagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16253"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vivaglammagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vivaglammagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vivaglammagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vivaglammagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vivaglammagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vivaglammagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vivaglammagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vivaglammagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vivaglammagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16253"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vivaglammagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=16253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}