JULIE'S BIO
IN BRIEF:-
-
ADVENTURER, FREE SPIRIT & LOVER OF LIFE
-
Director & CEO TASTE OF LIFE PTY LTD
-
NEW BOOK: 'Seagulls on the Ganges'
-
International best-selling author 'Taste of Life' series. Twenty three books. 2.2 million copies sold world-wide.
-
International inspirational and motivational speaker. More than 1500 presentations. Audience sizes between 5 and 5000.
-
Entrepreneur
-
Property Developer
-
Artist
-
Philanthropist
-
Writer/Blogger
-
Photographer
-
Australian Businesswomen Hall of Fame
-
Governor Fiona Elsey Cancer Research Institute (for services to cancer research)
-
Board Director Fiona Elsey Cancer Research Institute
-
Board Director Asbestos Diseases Society Victoria Inc
-
Board Director Committee for Ballarat
-
Chair Ballarat Advantage Inc
-
Chair Ballarat Tourism Advisory Board
-
Avon Spirit of Achievement Business Award Winner 1998 (a most prestigious award for women recognizing individuals of outstanding skills and contributions)
-
Victorian Telstra Business Woman's Awards finalist in the category of Business Owner 1998
IN DETAIL:-
Julie Stafford is best known for changing a generation's eating habits through the 80’s and 90’s with her 'Taste of Life' healthy-eating cookbooks. Her life-changing direction from art teacher and farmer's wife to healthy-eating guru began after husband Bruce, age 30, was diagnosed with life-threatening Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Julie researched the link between diet and disease and how diet could rebuild Bruce's immune system. Her research became Australia's biggest and fastest-selling cookbook. Her first book, 'Taste of Life', sold a record 1.2 million copies in Australia, New Zealand, UK and USA. Over the next 18 years, Julie wrote 22 more cookbooks (all best-sellers). Best of all, a little over a year after his diagnosis, Bruce beat his cancer odds, living unaffected by his brush with life-threatening cancer for more than 22 years. The couple have two children, Timothy and Cais.
Julie became a much sought after presenter at national food and lifestyle exhibitions; and was a regular television presenter, teaching healthy eating. She also pioneered, with food and appliance manufacturers, new food products and kitchen appliances for a new health conscious audience.
Easily stepping from cookbook writing to motivation, Julie's best-selling motivational title, 'Stepping Out' put her on the lucrative speaker's circuit where she fast earned a reputation for challenging audiences to embrace change, pursue passions, and to not let a life be defined by circumstance. A respected communicator, her audiences have been as large as five thousand and as intimate as five.
In 2006, the unimaginable happened. Bruce lost his battle from a second, totally unrelated cancer to his first. This time it was mesothelioma (asbestos cancer). To heal from her great loss, Julie chose to embrace the challenges of travel, travelling thousands of kilometers across several continents to explore who she could become, in a solo woman capacity, in the next chapter of her life. For thirty years she had lived an extraordinary love story. Her wounded heart begged her not to let her life become anything less extraordinary.
Along the way, Julie journaled her experiences, and recently released a fictionalised account of her autobiography. Titled, ‘Seagulls on the Ganges’, Julie self-published her book with a rising, self-publishing house in India, Notion Press; and she is proactively seeking a traditional publisher to expand her readership, hoping for several translations, so as many women as possible get to feel the inspiration of her journey.
In 2017-2018 Julie produced the screenplay adaption of ‘Seagulls on the Ganges’ along with a Hollywood screenplay writer and producer. The movie has been budgeted at US$18,000,000 and Julie is actively seeking investors for seed capital to get the movie to the big screen.
Julie recently traveled to Varanasi, India, to sit with the seagulls on the famous Ganges and explore the story line of ‘Seagulls on the Ganges’. What she discovered there was the story line for the sequel to her story. She hopes the sequel will be completed and ready to present to publishers in 2020.
When she's not traveling, writing, cooking, or behind the lens of her camera, Julie is painting, having recently returned to her artist roots, focusing predominantly on seagulls that convey the message of her ‘Seagulls on the Ganges’. Her mediums are dramatic photography and acrylic on large canvases. Already, Julie has achieved two successful exhibitions and she is currently working on a third exhibition.
Passionate about cancer research, more than a decade of Julie's fundraising and Board contribution has supported the development of the Fiona Elsey Cancer Research Institute, in regional Australia, where a cancer laboratory is dedicated in Bruce’s name. In 2013, Julie was awarded Governor of the Institute for her services to cancer research.
A major contributor to several board positions (Board Director Fiona Elsey Cancer Research Institute/Board Director Asbestos Diseases Society Victoria Inc/Board Director Committee for Ballarat/Chair Ballarat Advantage Inc/Chair Ballarat Tourism Advisory Board), Julie is also an Australian Businesswomen Hall of Fame inductee and was Avon Spirit of Achievement Business Award Winner 1998 (a most prestigious award for women recognizing individuals of outstanding skills and contributions), and Victorian Telstra Business Woman's Awards finalist in the category of Business Owner 1998.
Julie Stafford is Director & CEO TASTE OF LIFE PTY LTD
INSTAGRAM: juliestaffordtravels
SPEAKER ENQUIRY