Words for Winning with Carolyn Wilman

Words for Winning with Carolyn Wilman | Ep. 38

ByMegan North

On this week’s episode of The True North Show I am joined by Carolyn Wilman who has an incredible and fascinating story to share about how things aligned in her life and put her on the path she is on.  Carolyn came to prominence as The Contest Queen, teaching others how to find, organize, enter, and win sweepstakes, contests, and giveaways.  Her proven online entry system, outlined in How To Win Cash, Cars, Trips & More!, has helped others win millions in cash and prizes.  If you ever wondered about embracing a “winning strategy” then you will not want to miss this episode.

Bio:

Before you can win, whether it’s a sweepstakes or in life, you must believe you are a winner.

That’s why Carolyn Wilman, Founder of two other successful businesses dedicated to victory, has created Words for Winning, through which she republishes out-of-print books that help you manifest your best life.

These mindset and metaphysical books include all of Helene Hadsell’s works, and soon to be released are all of Tag & Judith Powell’s books and audio series.  In fact, Carolyn has committed to publishing one book each month in 2026.

Words for Winning speaks to the person who wants to expand their mind and heart, Carolyn explains, noting that contrary to popular belief, winning is not about besting someone else, it’s about actualizing yourself, winning should make us better people.

Carolyn came to prominence as The Contest Queen, teaching others how to find, organize, enter, and win sweepstakes, contests, and giveaways.  Her proven online entry system, outlined in How To Win Cash, Cars, Trips & More!, has helped others win millions in cash and prizes.

That business led to the formation of Idea Majesty, an agency helping companies create exciting giveaways and virally promoting them to engaged audiences.  To what does Carolyn Wilman owe her personal success? “I am lucky,” she begins, “lucky enough to have learned to heed my inner voice.”

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Transcript:

Megan North (00:34)
Hello, and welcome to The True North Show. I’m your host, Megan North, and I’d like to start by thanking the sponsors of the show, Quantum Awakening, Beth Lewis, Anne C. Clarke, and, of course, our lovely guest who has kindly supported the show and is featured on this episode.

Today I am joined by Carolyn Wilman, who says that before you can win, whether it’s a sweepstakes or in live, you must believe you are a winner.

That’s why Carolyn, founder of two other successful businesses dedicated to victory, has created Words for Winning, through which she republishes out-of-print books that help you manifest your best life. These mindset and metaphysical books include all of Helene Hadsall’s works, and soon to be released are all of Tag and Judith Powell’s books and audio series. In fact, Carolyn has committed to publishing one book each month in 2026.

Words of Winning speaks to the person who wants to expand their mind and heart. And contrary to popular belief, Carolyn says winning is not about besting someone else. It’s about actualising yourself, because winning should make us a better person.

So Carolyn came to prominence as the context queen, others how to find, organise, enter, and win sweepstakes, contests, and giveaways. Her proven online entry system, outlined in How to Win Cash, Cards, Trips, and More, has helped others win millions in cash and prizes. That business led to the formation of Idea Majesty, an agency helping companies create exciting giveaways and virally promoting them to engaged audiences.

To what does Carolyn Wilman owe her personal success? “I am lucky,” she says. “Lucky enough to have learned to heed my inner voice.”

Carolyn, welcome to The True North Show. It’s so good to have you here.

Carolyn Wilman (02:50)
Thanks for having me. You’re welcome. I love sharing with people, and I realised when I sent you my information, I should have added another word in there for you because in Australia and in the UK, they call sweepstakes competitions. So in America, or we call it, I’m Canadian, we call it the United States or the US.

Megan North (03:10)
wrong.

Carolyn Wilman (03:19)
They call them sweepstakes. In Canada and India, they call them contests. And in the UK and in Australia, you call them competitions. They’re technically all the same thing. And my favourite word is actually winner instead.

Megan North (03:39)
Yeah, yeah. So before you and I dive into how you can start to see yourself as a winner in every area of your life, we’re going to take a quick commercial break. And when we come back, we’ll jump straight in, so stay with us. Honestly, you will not want to. You won’t. You won’t want to win. You won’t want to miss a second part of our conversation because you’re going to be a winner. So we’ll be right back.

Welcome back to The True North Show. So I’m here with Carolyn Willman, and before the break we talked about the idea that you have to believe you’re a winner before you can win. So I’d love to start with this. So what does thinking like a winner really mean to you?

Carolyn Wilman (05:11)
Well, it’s the belief that it will always work out in the end. So, for example, I don’t win every competition I enter. I wish I did, but it doesn’t work that way. Now, Helene Hansel was famous for winning every prize she desired, but she entered sweepstakes in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, and it was a completely different hobby.

How she entered was nothing like we enter today. There was a lot more local giveaways. There was more creative challenges that she participated in because she was a whiz with words. So she would succeed at a lot of those ones that were like 25 words or less, or come up with a jingle or a slogan or something. She was really good at those. However, now it’s…

Megan North (06:01)
whatever.

Carolyn Wilman (06:07)
…a lot online. There’s Instagram, there’s TikToks, there’s games that you play. They actually, I’m a marketer too, so they call those adver games. It’s endless now compared to when she was entering.

So I don’t win every competition, but I do win a fair bit. And part of it is a numbers game. It’s similar to sales. A lot of people who… here in business know that they might make a lot of cold calls to get some warm leads, to get some hot leads, to make a few sales. And to me, entering is the same. I’m going to enter a lot, and a few are going to come out, and you have to shift and evolve your hobby based on what’s happening.

Like when I started, I was still doing mail-ins. I haven’t seen an entry blank in a store in 20 years.

Megan North (07:04)
Wow.

Carolyn Wilman (07:05)
Well, that’s, you know, that’s long gone. But I enter on my phone. Like my little trick is if we’re going anywhere that has, you know, a substantial drive to it, I make George drive. So I’ll sit in the passenger seat and enter Instagram giveaways.

I play. I don’t have a lot of time to do the social media ones, so I grab that time wherever I can. So instead of just sitting in the car…

Megan North (07:08)
Yeah.

Yes.

Carolyn Wilman (07:33)
…I’ll try and win things. And it actually worked this December. I won one prize off TikTok and one off Instagram. So you have to kind of take it where you can find it.

Megan North (07:44)
Wow.

And I would also think too is that I think I’m assuming that some of the mindset around it would also be, I’m just going to enter this one thing and I’m going to win the lotto and it’s going to completely change my life. Like it’s more, I think that some people go into this that I need to win this because I need my life to change. Whereas I would imagine a mind shift of, I’m just going to do this. I’m going to have fun.

Of course, I’ll win. I’m not going to win everything, but I’m going to have fun. And whatever result it is, I’m going to be really grateful for. Like, do you feel like that that could potentially be a mindset shift?

Carolyn Wilman (08:30)
It’s a huge shift. I get asked all the time, like, “How do I win the lottery?” is my number one question. And first of all, I tell people I don’t enter the lottery often. Yeah. So I have no idea.

I advise them to look up, there’s a lottery specialist on YouTube. His name’s Timothy Schultz. He won 28 million in the Powerball. I’m like, go talk to Timothy. He’s done it. That’s his focus. But the problem is they probably won’t win because of exactly what you said. They need the win to change their life. And you know better than anybody that it’s the other way around. It’s the paradox. You change the inside, and the outside will change.

So if you are desperate for the outside to make the inside feel better, that is never going to work. So many teachers use the example, teachers and coaches use the example of the mirror.

Megan North (09:01)
Mm.

Mmm.

Carolyn Wilman (09:26)
You’re trying to get the mirror to smile so you can feel better. The image in the mirror is never going to smile first. You have to do it.

So I also like to say, since the hobby’s changed so much and we’re entering so much more, like the amount of giveaways you can enter in an hour digitally is ridiculous.

Megan North (09:55)
the

Carolyn Wilman (09:56)
So quick now versus handwriting out, you know, entry blanks and writing out the envelope and then mailing everything. It’s so much faster now that I tell people the attitude they should have is, “I wonder if this is the one that I’m going to win.”

You’re assuming you are winning. You just don’t know which one. And to me, that’s like a little bit like, I call it Christmas.

Megan North (09:57)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Carolyn Wilman (10:25)
Now, Helene actually told me that I split my energy doing that, and she’s not wrong. However, the hobby’s changed. And to me, that’s part of the fun of it, is I don’t want to know what I’m going to win. I like the mystery of it. I like the expectancy of it.

If I knew all the gifts that were already under the tree before, you know, Christmas morning, that’s no fun. That’s no fun.

Megan North (10:52)
Yeah.

Carolyn Wilman (10:54)
I want to see all the packages and then think, which one is, you know, is it going to be a big gift? A little gift? Is it going to be, you know? So I like the hobby where I don’t know what I’m going to win. I am just excited to enter, and I dream about everything.

Ooh, look at that trip. Ooh, that’d be nice. Oh, that looks fun. We should go and enter for that. We might win tickets to that. And so I just ooh and ahh kind of at everything and just see what shows up.

Megan North (11:15)
Yeah.

Carolyn Wilman (11:22)
You always need to be like that in life. So if you’re looking for a job, is this the one that’s going to call me for the interview? Is this where I need to be for my highest good? Is this the job that’s going to help me fulfil my destiny? I’m going to send my resume off.

Or you’re going out for, you know, you’re looking for your partner. You don’t want to start dating again.

Megan North (11:41)
Mmm.

Carolyn Wilman (11:50)
You go out on coffee dates. I wonder if this person’s going to be the one that I click with. You know, if you have that attitude of it’s already, you are going to find that person, you are going to get the job, you are going to win that sweepstakes, you are going to close that deal, you are going to, you know, whatever it is, you’re assuming it’s done.

A little bit of Neville Goddard in there with the wish fulfilled, but you don’t know how it’s going to happen or who that’s going to be. You leave, you know, a little middle of Mike Dooley. I love pulling in all the teachers.

On the Contest Queen site, I call myself the hub of all things winning because I teach people this, and I point them in the right direction, but I don’t actually list sweepstakes on my site. So as Words for Winning, I’m also a little bit of like the hub of all knowledge, like a little piece of this one, a little piece of that one. You’re machinated all together.

So a little bit of Mike Dooley, the how is the domain of the universe. So you already know you’re going to get that job, a job that you’re going to be successful at. You already know you’re going to find your perfect person. What an adventure to go and get to meet all these people because you just don’t know where that road’s going to go. You know, I don’t know which prize I’m going to get.

So if you already go in with the expectation of success, it makes it fun and it takes a lot of the pressure off because the minute you’re desperate, Wayne Dyer always talked about this, try and drink some water out of your hands right now. This is going to do nothing. But if you’re just relaxed, you can bring that water to your mouth. Right? So if you go through life more like this, you’re going to get a lot…

Megan North (13:39)
…further. I love that. That’s really beautiful.

So how did all of this start? Like, would you say that this is your passion and purpose? Because, you know, we’re on The True North Show and so I often ask people, like, what led you to this? Is this your passion and purpose? Is this what you’re here to be and to do?

Carolyn Wilman (14:00)
I, yes, and this is funny. I had lunch with a friend and I said to her today, because I’ve known her since high school, and I said, I know, I said, “I can’t believe we are finally where we wanted to be, like 30 years ago.” Like it took us 30 extra years because we had these dreams and goals and stuff, and we thought we’d be there at 30, and it took us till 60 to get there, right?

Like, okay, a little longer than we thought. We did it, but it took a little longer than we thought. And I think that’s part of it, is that I think we have an expectation as a society, and I think it’s worse now because of the speed of computers and things changing, that we think we should be further ahead. And we think things should happen faster, but that’s not necessarily the way it needs to go.

There’s two different examples that I like. Robert O’Hara teaches this. He said, if you knew from day one what your destiny was, like if you knew the mountain, it’s like, you know, plunking you at the bottom of Mount Everest and looking up. You’d be like, no, no, no, no, no. We are not doing that.

And he says what you get is backpack guidance. So you never put some information in your backpack, and you go, like, to the next step and you know, I can do that. And then it gives you another load in your backpack and you go, yeah, I can do that. And then pretty soon you’re halfway up the mountain, but you didn’t notice because you’ve just been doing it in steps.

And Jack Canfield also teaches it with headlights. Like if you’re driving from, like, LA to New York at night, your headlights only go so far. You know the road is there. You’re not worried. You will get to New York from LA, but you can only see the next 200 feet with your headlamps. So if you trust that, you’ll get to your destination. But you can only see the next 200 feet, and you trust the road is there, there is a physical road under your tyres, you’ll get there.

And I think we just have to trust the process. I mean, if you told me that I would be doing what I do now, I probably would have said no. I remember taking, I’m going to laugh at this one, in college I was taking an English course and I got a C on a piece of paper and I thought, that’s okay, it doesn’t matter, I’m not a writer.

14 books later!

Megan North (16:51)
Mmm, you still believe that?

Carolyn Wilman (16:55)
Yeah. I think the universe, we also must remember that the universe has a sense of humour.

Megan North (17:01)
Hmm.

Carolyn Wilman (17:03)
But sometimes the one big thing, I know that a lot of your guests have said this, is we need to listen to our intuition. Sometimes we don’t like it, and sometimes you don’t listen to it because you’re like, well, that’s not logical. But it always turns out to be right. I hate that.

And even doing this. So I started on the Contest Queen by getting pieces of a puzzle. So I was looking, I was unemployed. I got caught in the dot com crunch. I’d been part of the big IT. I was in marketing for years. I went to, you know, that was my major. I graduated business with marketing. Everybody, all the computer companies were hiring at that time, and so I ended up in the IT industry and I worked for software companies, hardware companies, all the, every job in the marketing department. I did it.

Megan North (17:40)
Okay.

Carolyn Wilman (18:03)
And then, of course, the dot com bubble burst. Ooh, nobody was hiring. So I was unemployed for this long period of time. And I read an article in Reader’s Digest of a couple that won prizes as a hobby and it enhanced their life, and I thought, what a good idea. I don’t have to work. I’ll just win stuff. Oh, how beautifully dazed I was. You cannot, sadly, I’m sad to report that you cannot earn your living winning.

But it’s a heck of a lot of fun. Prizes do show up. We’ve won tickets, we’ve gone to shows, we’ve gone out for dinner, we’ve gone on trips. I’ve yet to win a car. We’re working on that one. Yeah, one day. But so many fun things have happened through the hobby.

Megan North (18:45)
Who?

Carolyn Wilman (18:58)
Did I just lose my train of thought? So, yeah, so I started doing that. So then I thought, it was very… so I started entering, and what happened was I ended up pregnant at the same time. So then I wasn’t going to be looking for work because no one’s going to hire me.

I was a stay-at-home mum for a couple of years, and I thought, okay, now that things have kind of settled down in the industry and my daughter’s big enough, it’s time to go back to work. And I was like, do I go back to the marketing? And meanwhile, my hobby was getting very successful and everyone kept saying to me, what’s your secret?

And somebody, now this is where this is such a lesson for us, I was at a birthday party and a friend of the family said, “You should write a book.” It was just a comment at a party. Now here’s what’s fascinating.

He never remembered he said that. You may say or do something in your life that can change the trajectory of somebody’s life and you have no idea. You are a king. Is it a kingpin, or a key, like the key to that whole journey?

Last summer we had a family barbecue and he was there, and he knew I’d been doing all these books and all these different things.

Megan North (20:16)
Yeah.

Carolyn Wilman (20:25)
And I said to him, “By the way, your comment was what…” He’s like, “What comment?” So I told him the story. He didn’t even know. He had no idea that as he was eating hors d’oeuvres and having a drink and he made, “Oh, you should write a book,” that that changed the course of my life.

Now how many people have read the books that I wrote and it changed their lives? So I tell people, if you think you have no significance in this world, you have no idea how big your pebble is. What I mean by that is if you’re a pebble and I chuck you into a pond, you have no idea how far those ripples are going to go across time and space.

Helene Hansel’s books are still being read. Another famous sweepstaker from the States, her daughter wrote a book about her life after she passed away, and her name was Evelyn Ryan. And the book is The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio. And if you see the movie or read the… box of tissues. This woman’s life. I went to her grave one time when I was in Ohio and I sat down, I talked to her for like an hour, bawling my head off.

She had no idea she had this, like, little life. She thought she had this little life. She had no idea how many people’s lives she had changed. No idea. She lived her whole life, came, had her adventure, left, and then her daughter wrote her story and so many lives changed.

We can’t assume that we’re not affecting literally the whole world. We have no idea. So if you’re ever having a down day, go watch that movie.

Megan North (21:55)
Changed. Wow.

Yep. Yep.

Yeah.

Carolyn Wilman (22:23)
That’s fantastic. Yeah, tissues, have tissues.

Megan North (22:28)
Disclaimer. But, you know, I love that story because, and just everything that you’ve just spoken about, because when you just talked, I love that you started with the reflection in the mirror because it all comes from within.

And so I think that a beautiful value and philosophy that we can have in our life is as long as we’re fulfilling ourselves and then just being kind to people, you don’t need to know how many people’s lives you’re changing. You just trust that you are. You know, a simple smile to someone on the street could completely change their day. A comment of, “You should write a book,” it could completely change the trajectory of your life, you know?

And I just think that it’s that inner, being a really good person and just being, inside, a really nice person. Doesn’t matter what, you don’t need validation from external.

Carolyn Wilman (23:24)
No, and it’s still, I think the mistake people make is they think it has to be something big. Like, I need to write a New York Times bestseller. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to be on that list, but they think they need an Oscar or a Grammy or a New York Times bestseller. They need to be on the cover of some magazine or featured on some show, like True North, just saying, to have made it. Like, I will fulfil my destiny when I’m a New York Times bestseller.

There was an author… why doesn’t… he wrote, I think it’s The Tortoise, the Donkey, the Hare and the Boy. I butchered this. I feel terrible that it’s not coming to me.

Megan North (24:00)
Yeah, yeah.

But…

Carolyn Wilman (24:22)
But he wrote this book, and it was one of the first book signings he did. And it’s been, like, on the New York Times bestseller for like 200 and some crazy weeks, or some insane amount of time. Millions of copies of this book are sold.

And he was at a signing and it was long and he stayed until the end. He signed everybody’s books. And then at the end there was a young man standing there, didn’t have his book in his hand, and he said, “I wanted to tell you, I read that book and it made me want to stay.”

And because he was, he, you know, he didn’t want to be here anymore. And he read that book and he decided he was going to stay. And the author got up and hugged him and he said, “That’s… if I sold one book…”

Megan North (25:16)
Yeah.

Carolyn Wilman (25:17)
If I sold one book, it did its purpose. Whew, I’m getting misty just thinking about it.

Megan North (25:20)
Yeah.

Really beautiful. Yeah, but it’s a perfect example.

Carolyn Wilman (25:26)
And yeah, and he said that’s, if that’s the only book I ever sold, that book was worth writing. And so that’s a New York Times bestseller saying, he is happy that young man found that book, and if that would be the only book he sold, he fulfilled his purpose by writing that book.

So don’t think you have to have a New York Times bestseller to fulfil your destiny. Just do… you’ve got a calling inside that says write that book, do it. It takes work. And sometimes it’s funny. I was fighting with the formatting of a book last month and every time I moved something, something else would move. And I was just ready to smack the computer.

And I sat there and I was fiddling with it, I was getting frustrated and angry, and I thought, wait a minute, this is your job.

Megan North (26:32)
What?

Carolyn Wilman (26:34)
What is someone said about… nobody’s telling you, “You have to edit a book.” No one said, like I didn’t get hired by some company. This is a decision I made to write a book and to format it and edit it and put it out into the world. That’s your job. Just suck it up and deal with it.

Megan North (26:56)
Get a grip. Get a…

I love that.

Carolyn Wilman (27:03)
Right? We forget that we sometimes make these decisions and then we’re upset. And then it’s like, no, wait. Shake your head. I finally figured it out, but the wall of the computer… sometimes those, you know, because you know, it’s something in the programming, there’s something telling it to push it over here and to move that over there, and you have to figure out which setting is moving and why it won’t flip.

And then I finally got it to stay. Okay, save. Don’t move. Don’t move anymore. So it’s kind of funny how we forget that sometimes we make these decisions and then we get upset, and then you realise that that’s just silly. I’m kind of chuckling at myself after, and now, look, it’s a good story.

Megan North (27:49)
You.

But, you know, I think that that example too of that author is that I think, again, when we are really comfortable and confident within ourselves that we are doing what we’re meant to be doing, we don’t also need the external validation. So for him, you know, hundreds and probably millions of books sold, but then that one person coming to him and giving him that message meant more to him.

So, like you talked about this show, I try not to worry about the numbers because I get so many personal messages from people who don’t have, never liked it or subscribed or anything, to say, “Oh my gosh, this episode was amazing. Oh my gosh, I’ve just listened to this one and this person was inspiring.” And I think, my God, like externally from a number point of view…

Carolyn Wilman (28:47)
Thank…

Megan North (28:51)
Okay, they’re not liking or commenting, but they’re coming to me directly. So I think, okay, well, that’s great because that guest was really inspiring and really changed their life. My niece actually messaged me and just said that this week, the episode, he said one thing, my gosh, that’s completely changed my life already.

And so, you know, yeah, so it’s really interesting that I think that we get so caught up in that external validation. What are your numbers? How many people are liking and subscribing to you? But actually, if you’re really doing something that you’re passionate about and it’s your purpose, then you just trust that you are making that change.

Carolyn Wilman (29:34)
Yeah, it’s sometimes hard to forget because we are living in the 3D world. You know, like, don’t get me wrong. We were talking before. You’re in Australia where it’s super hot. I’m up in Canada where it’s been super cold. We’re kind of polar opposites. And boy, one day I’d like to have a house with a fireplace. Yes, I miss the fireplace. I’d like an office with a library so I can have nice books behind me too, like you do.

Megan North (29:39)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Carolyn Wilman (30:05)
Right now I have to settle for banners.

Megan North (30:07)
You.

Carolyn Wilman (30:09)
Books, not the same though, right? I’d like a library. Goals, right? And it’ll happen. It’ll happen when the time’s right.

But yeah, so, but you know, we look around and we go, oh, it’s cold. I don’t have my fireplace. Oh, I don’t have my… like, you know, you kind of, sometimes you grumble a little bit because you don’t see the things. But then sometimes it works out that you didn’t go on that trip or you didn’t, you’re not there yet, because then something happens and you’re like, oh yeah, if that had happened, that wouldn’t have been very good.

You’ve heard stories where people didn’t get a job that they really wanted, and then they found out the place was terrible. Or they didn’t, you know, they put that bid on the house and they didn’t get it, and then they found out later it was, like, eaten by termites or something. Or, like, you know, whatever it is, they dodged the bullet, as they say. And then they’re thankful.

Megan North (30:45)
Yes.

Yeah.

Carolyn Wilman (31:07)
I think it’s Colette Baron-Reid that always says, “Rejection is God’s protection.” Sometimes when we don’t go down that path, it’s not necessarily…

Megan North (31:12)
Mm-hmm.

Exactly. Yes, exactly. Exactly.

And so I’m talking about the book. So in the bio, we talked about you republishing a whole stack of books this year. How has that come about? Like, how has that opportunity come to you?

Carolyn Wilman (31:36)
Well, it’s interesting, and this is where I think we also need to go back to what I talked about. We need to trust the journey.

Way back in 2008, I had a podcast before it was cool. And you had to phone in on landlines, and there was no adjusting microphones and there was none of the stuff, you know, that you’re blessed with right now. And Helene Hatzel was famous in the sweepstakes community because she’d won all these prizes.

So I had her on as a guest, and off air I asked her if I could come visit her, and she said no. But she was extremely intuitive. And three days later she phoned back and said, “Your spirit guides are so loud, you better come.” So clearly we had a soul contract, but I don’t think she liked it.

Anyway, I go down there to visit. I hang out with her for four days. I had so much fun, but she said to me while I was there, “You need to teach Whanoovers for Wishcraft, which is the subtitle of her book, The Name It and Claim It Game, because no one else is going to.”

And I think she realised, she was 84 at the time, and I think she realised that her grandchildren weren’t gonna… like, two of her children predeceased her. So they weren’t going to do it. The last one, he wasn’t interested, and then her grandchildren weren’t going to do it. And so she thought, if I don’t give this gauntlet to somebody, it’s gonna die with me.

And by then I’d already written a couple of sweepstakes books, so I knew the writing. I knew the sweepstakes community, right, because I entered like she did. I was entrepreneurial and I was techie, which were two things she wasn’t.

Megan North (33:17)
Right.

Carolyn Wilman (33:19)
So I said I would do it, and then my life did this. And so it sat.

And finally in 2019, like 11 years later, I thought, I better do something before her son dies. Like the last child, she had three children, a girl and then two boys, and it was the middle one that was still here. Still here. And that’s Dyke Hadsall.

And I thought, I better reach out to him and do something. So I did, and I bought the rights to her works because he agreed. He’s intuitive too. He had a lot of people inquiring, and when I did, he said yes. So I think he knew that I was the one that she had wanted this path to go down.

And so I bought the rights to all of her works, and I started republishing. And what’s amazing is that publishing today is nothing like it was back in the day. Like, you have to give her a little bit of credit. She’s not techie. It was 2000… you know, she passed away in 2010 and she was still updating her books at home. She had no skills whatsoever.

And remember Word like 20 years ago? And she was, I think it started with WordPerfect. That’s how long ago it was. And she edited with the return key and the space bar.

Megan North (34:48)
What?

Carolyn Wilman (34:48)
There was stuff. I got the last digital file and I was moving things. Oh my gosh. I’m like, that chapter’s not supposed to be there. She would tack things on wherever she could because she wanted to tell more stories, but she didn’t know how to put them.

Megan North (34:54)
Wow.

I don’t know.

Carolyn Wilman (35:07)
I know. So I fixed it. And now here’s a good story real quick. When you think something is going downhill fast, it could be a massive door opening.

So I am maintain… you know, I am blessed with maintaining her legacy. So my goal is to keep her legacy alive to the best degree possible. So I’m maintaining her stuff.

And I get an email from KDP, which is where you publish on Amazon, and it says the copyright page in The Name It and Claim It Game is wrong, and if you don’t fix it in five business days, we’re going to pull the book.

Okay. And they don’t tell you what’s wrong. They just say, go here and read our rules. So you have to figure it out.

Megan North (35:59)
Ha ha.

Carolyn Wilman (36:20)
So I say, I hold the copyright, and they go, we know, go read the rules. So meanwhile I’m panicked, thinking maybe somebody else still holds some copyright. So I reach out to her first publisher, and they sent me a letter right away.

Now the second publisher for the second edition was a little harder to find, and I figured out it was a company called Top of the Mountain Publishing. Then I figured out it was owned by Tag Powell. And then I was like, that name sounds familiar.

Well, earlier that year I had gone down to her house in Texas and took the remains of her library and business files to maintain her legacy. And one of the books I took was called The Silva Method of Mind Mastery by Tag Powell. And he was a Silva instructor.

And then I was like, oh, she knew Tag because she was Jose Silva’s assistant, and he was famous for creating the Silva Method. There were so many, like, little…

So then I find random addresses for this man online. I send out letters, the old-fashioned… wrote letters, mailed them off. One day he phoned me. He was still alive. He’d had a stroke and he had COPD, but he was still here.

And so I mailed him a set of her books. While publishing in his day in the 80s and publishing now is like night and day, he was blown away with, you know, the technology now. And I realised he had written an entire slew of books, and so did his wife. And it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know he wasn’t long for the world with his health conditions.

So I said to him, I’m getting more courage. I never would have asked this in the past, but the further along I go, the more courage I have, because you don’t lose anything by asking. So I said, “Who’s maintaining your legacy?” And he said, “No one.”

So I bought the rights to his works and his wife’s works. And then while we were down there, he said, “Take a look at my library, see what you want to take.” I found the audio series, so we added them into the contract, and he just gave them to me. He just added them in because I had gone down, because I’m Canadian, he’s American, I took down a money order so I couldn’t add anything. And he’s like, “Yeah, I don’t care.”

Megan North (38:04)
You.

Carolyn Wilman (38:16)
He knew. He just wanted to make sure his legacy was, you know, still around, and he trusted I would do a good job. So he’s like, yeah.

And so I remember when we added it in, he just winked at me like, it’s okay, kiddo. I know. It was fun. I wish I’d known him in his heyday. Boy, he would have been fun. Unfortunately, the illness really took a big wind out of him, you know.

Megan North (38:20)
Yeah.

Aww, that’s beautiful.

Carolyn Wilman (38:43)
And he was a little bit Swiss cheesy. I’d hoped to interview him, but the stroke really hurt his memory and I wasn’t going to embarrass him because he’d been a grand man. Yeah. So I thought, that’s too bad.

But he was so happy that he knew that I would take care of him. And unfortunately, I couldn’t get a book finished in time. He did pass away like 10 months after I had bought the rights to his stuff.

Megan North (38:53)
Yeah.

Carolyn Wilman (39:11)
But I did get the website up, so he did get to see that and he was really excited about it. So it was good. He knew it was in good hands.

And so there my panic… oh, and I didn’t figure it out in five days, Amazon. But you got to remember, here I am panicking, thinking I’m going to ruin Helene’s legacy. Like, she trusted me with it. I better figure this out. Oh my gosh, this is terrible. To now I have 10 more books to do.

Megan North (39:23)
Mm.

So I really need to figure it out.

Carolyn Wilman (39:43)
I mean, yeah, I really need to figure it out.

I figured it out, and then actually what I did was I went back and actually updated all my books, even my really old ones. I updated the copyright pages to match the format to make sure that they were all right and nothing else would happen. So I have a very robust copyright page in every single book. Most of my books, it’s from top to bottom and it has everything that you could possibly imagine in there.

And then when I do the translations, I leave it and then I add in a line about the… you know, the Italian edition is out this year. But I’ve had… I know we were talking about that. I love to set insane goals for myself. I think a lot of people do that. They go with New Year’s, I’m going to do this.

And so a couple of years ago I thought, I wonder how many books I can publish. And I said, I’m going to publish a book a month. And I got out four. That’s okay, not too bad.

Megan North (40:40)
Yeah.

Carolyn Wilman (40:43)
Then I said, okay, let’s try it again for last year. I got out one. Terrible, terrible. I decided to do it again this year. And I’m actually on track. I’ve already done one book. I published the Italian edition of The Name It and Claim It Game.

So that’s the other thing. Helene’s goal was she wanted audiobooks. She wanted translations. She wanted to be in bookstores. Now, I’m not in bookstores yet, but I have gotten her books all in audio. I have gotten them translated. They’re all in Spanish. The Italian one’s out. I’m working on French. I’ve got German being edited. I’ve got Turkish to do. Thankfully, it’s the Latin version, not the Cyrillic version. I don’t speak these. I really trust the translators and the editors because I just do the layout at that point and just pray that it’s right.

Megan North (41:40)
Yeah.

Carolyn Wilman (41:43)
Because I don’t know Turkish. Yeah. Sometimes you have to trust. But so far, so good this year. So let’s see if I can reach that crazy goal.

And you know what? I don’t feel like I failed. Like, okay, I didn’t reach it. But, you know, that would say what? Shoot for the stars, you’ll hit the moon. So why not? I’ll see if I can do it. I don’t know. Maybe I will this year. So far I’ve already hit the… I hit January, and you never know. It’s kind of outrageous and audacious goals for yourself. Who calls them big fat hairy goals? Who says that? Set a big fat hairy goal for yourself and see what happens.

But you have to do something on it every day. You can’t just let it sit.

Megan North (42:04)
Yeah.

Maybe.

Be anxious.

Yeah.

I don’t know.

Yeah.

Yes.

Carolyn Wilman (42:37)
Because this is what I teach people with sweepstaking. They say, “How do you win so much?” I go, enter every day. They go, “I don’t have time for that.” I go, “Well, then you don’t have time to win.”

If you wanted to get fit, if you said to me, “Carolyn, I’m going to run a marathon,” and you just got up the day of the marathon and tried to run, you would have fallen on your face by, you know, mile five or whatever. You would not succeed at all.

Megan North (42:46)
Exactly.

Yep.

Carolyn Wilman (43:05)
But if you said, “Hey, in November I’m running this marathon,” and you got up every morning and started practising, right? It’s the same thing with contesting or with writing, right? A book, if you do a little bit on it every day, it’s consistency over time equals results. It’s not rocket science, and people don’t like to hear that.

Megan North (43:19)
Yeah.

Yes.

Yes, yeah, because it’s that instant gratification, right? It’s like, what? I’ve got to work at this? Like, I can’t just enter the lotto once and win it? Like, really?

Carolyn Wilman (43:35)
Yeah, sorry.

My gosh, we had somebody… that happened to somebody here. The youngest lottery winner in Ontario history, because just like you guys have states in Australia, we have provinces. And so the lottery corporation, each province has their own lottery corporation. I’m assuming it’s the same down in Australia. Each state has its own. So the lottery corporation from Ontario, you can’t buy lottery tickets until you’re 18.

Megan North (43:52)
Yep.

Yeah.

Carolyn Wilman (44:10)
And there was a girl that turned 18 and her grandpa said, “We go buy a lottery ticket now.” So she went and got a quick pick, and she won $48 million on her very first lottery ticket. And she’s 18, and now she can afford to go to medical school. Everyone’s like, “I’ve been playing my numbers for 20 years.”

Megan North (44:20)
Wow.

Wow.

Yeah, yeah, just one of those.

Carolyn Wilman (44:34)
Sometimes it’s destiny. If you’re gonna win, you’re gonna win.

Megan North (44:37)
Exactly, exactly.

So I’m really curious. So all of this stuff that you’ve got going on, like all of these goals, these big hairy audacious goals, and all of these things you’ve done over your lifetime, what about mental health? Like, how do you look after your mental health while you’re trying to prioritise your passion and your purpose? What sort of things do you do for yourself that kind of brings you back into the room and keeps you on track?

Carolyn Wilman (45:09)
Well, I do lots of different things. One, I love reading. Okay? And I think that’s what made me a writer, is I like to read. I think you find that most writers are readers.

This Helene Hadsall journey, because she worked with Jose Silva and Tag wrote a Silva Method-based book, I actually took the Silva Method and took the instructor training and have been assisting…

Megan North (45:22)
Yes, yes.

Carolyn Wilman (45:37)
…with the Silva Method, which is like what Helene used to do. And I’ve done a lot of that.

And so sometimes I find when things are going awry, I sit and meditate, even if it’s for five minutes, because what I used to do is go and, like, eat chips or something. Those are really good. I think you call them crisps. They’re such a good solution sometimes.

Megan North (45:41)
You.

Carolyn Wilman (46:06)
I have the sense to use a very small bowl instead of just holding the bag because we know how that goes. I have the sense to use a little bowl and I put the chips in that because I know that that’s going to keep it down to a dull roar.

That, or cups of tea. I would get cups of tea. I do different things, but the meditating seems to work really well. And then I go to the gym. Just moving your body helps.

Megan North (46:13)
Yes.

Yes.

Carolyn Wilman (46:35)
Yeah. And when it’s summer here and warm, I like to go out in the garden. There’s something about… and I do it with my shoes off. I take my flip-flops off. I’ll go out to the garden, you know, I’ll walk down the path and everything with my flip-flops on. But once I get to the grass, I take my flip-flops off and I walk around in bare feet because it’s extremely grounding. It’s earthing, right?

Megan North (47:04)
Yes.

Carolyn Wilman (47:06)
Oh, as soon as it’s going to be warm here, I can hardly wait to go outside without any shoes on. Oh yeah, lucky you. You get to go out after this and go put your feet on the ground. And the beach is nothing. I could do that all day.

I’m like, this winter, unfortunately, we couldn’t take a holiday, like go on vacation.

Megan North (47:11)
Unless…

Exactly.

Carolyn Wilman (47:29)
Last winter we were able to, and just up and down the beach for hours, just walking. Something about Mother Nature and I talk to the water and I sea-shell hunt for hours.

If I was back… and I went, like I said to you, I did live in Australia when I was younger and I lived there for a year, and it was an amazing year. The proximity to the ocean is phenomenal. And I think because all your cities, they kind of ring the…

Not all of them, but overall they tend to ring the edge of the country. And so most cities have access to water. So lucky.

Megan North (48:06)
Yeah, yeah, really beautiful, really beautiful.

Just back to your saying getting in the garden. So I read once that apparently there’s something, a molecule or something in dirt that actually is a natural antidepressant. And so that’s why a lot of psychologists and doctors and things for people with mental health issues or if they’re really stressed and…

Carolyn Wilman (48:26)
I heard that too!

Megan North (48:36)
…anxious, they suggest gardening because there’s something in it that, when you’re obviously also too, you’ve said, you know, that earthing, that grounding, love that, that’s so important. But yeah, apparently there’s something in the dirt. So it’s interesting that you’ve heard that too.

Carolyn Wilman (48:51)
Yeah, I’m bad sometimes, though, because I’ll put gardening gloves on. Like, not now, but once in a while I’ll go to the salon and get my nails done. And then, of course, I don’t want to wreck it. So I put the gloves on.

And then I’m thinking, I do that little flip-flop we have, that I’m like, well, I shouldn’t have my gloves on because I’m not going to get that molecule. But then I don’t want to wreck the beautiful job I just had done. So, you know, I think that’s also partly why I leave the shoes off, because then I’m not so concerned and I know that I’m at least… and I talk to the earth and I talk to the plants. I don’t know if anybody else does.

I remember one time I’m trimming something and I broke a… oh, I’m so sorry. Yeah.

Megan North (49:30)
Yeah, definitely.

Absolutely. Yes, there’s been experiments done where people have spoken to a plant really kindly and then horribly, and one dies and one thrives. So yeah, there’s definitely something in that.

Carolyn Wilman (49:40)
All off.

Yeah, Lynne McTaggart wrote a book called The Field. And she talks about that experiment and how the aura… it’s crazy. The auric field we have around us, they show plants and they cut a piece of the leaf off, but when they photograph it they still see the aura of where the leaf is.

That’s why people who’ve lost limbs, they still feel them, because the auric… I bet you if we took auric pictures of those people, we’d still see the full shape.

Megan North (49:55)
Yes, yes.

Carolyn Wilman (50:21)
Even without the limb.

Megan North (50:22)
Hmm, interesting, interesting.

Carolyn Wilman (50:25)
I’ve never seen a study on that, but somebody should go dig it up and send it to you.

Megan North (50:29)
Yeah, definitely.

Okay, so I’m not surprised how quickly our conversation’s gone. We’ve actually only got a couple of minutes left. Look, we could speak for hours. You’ll have to come back.

Carolyn Wilman (50:41)
Think I’m going.

I need to come down to West Australia and hang out with person, and then we could just do a live stream for hours.

Megan North (50:49)
Exactly.

So I’m going to ask you the same question that I love to ask all of my guests before we finish our conversation. So what is one lesson or truth that you’ve learned on your journey that you wish you had known earlier?

Carolyn Wilman (51:03)
And I tell everybody this: listen to that little voice because it’s always right.

Like when I was guided to set up my second business, the marketing business, I was standing in the office with the paperwork, because now it’s all online, but at the time I had to go into the government office and do it. And I knew there’s a third business. And I remember thinking…

And when I bought Helene’s books, I put some of her books on my marketing site and my friends are like, they don’t belong there. I’m like, I know. And I knew I needed the author site, but I didn’t want to do it because it’s a lot of work. And after I bought Tag’s books, I thought, all right, okay, I’ll do it.

But I knew 10 years prior that there was another business coming.

Megan North (51:46)
Hmm.

Carolyn Wilman (52:00)
I didn’t know what it was. I just knew, oh, there’s a third business. And when I put the books on the wrong website, I knew it was going to be an author website, but I delayed it as long as I possibly could. And I finally did it a couple of years ago. And yeah, so you kind of get guidance, and sometimes it takes a long time to manifest, but it wasn’t wrong. There’s a third business.

I thankfully have no other hits on a fourth business, so this is it.

Megan North (52:36)
You’re amazing. Thank you. I’m so grateful that I’ve spent this time with you today, and just for sharing your story and all your little tidbits and everything. You’re just such a beautiful person, and I’m really grateful that you’re in my life.

Carolyn Wilman (52:54)
Oh yeah, my goal is to come to Sydney one winter and hang out, right, and avoid the winter here and enjoy the summer there. It’s definitely… yeah, I’ve made myself portable. So it’s a goal. And when I do, you better believe you’re going to get a knock on your door. Right.

Megan North (53:13)
Can’t wait.

Thank you so much. Thank you again. And I’d like to thank all of my amazing and dedicated audience, my supporters, and again, the sponsors of the show. I hope that everybody has a wonderful rest of the week, and I look forward to seeing everyone again next week.

And again, thank you so much, Carolyn.

Carolyn Wilman (53:34)
Thank you.

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