Ever wanted to change your life? This woman went from a "glamorous" life on Wall Street to hunting on the Great Plains

October 24, 2014

Writer

Georgia Pelligrini had a cushy job in finance - but one day she needed to make a change. What was the pivot point that led her from the skyscrapers of New York City to sleeping under a tablecloth in a rundown house in France? Glenn sat down with the woman who has become a modern day pioneer and talked to her about living off the land and getting back in touch with the things that really matter in life.

"I realized at some point that I had a college degree, but I don’t know how to fix my own toilet. And it’s sort of like why not face those vulnerabilities? Not because we shouldn’t be vulnerable, but because there’s something really satisfying about sort of pushing through that and learning," Pelligrini told Glenn.

"I actually went to culinary school in New York, and then I cooked at a restaurant, a Michelin restaurant in the south of France, and I literally, I slept in a sort of rundown house under a tablecloth I had stolen from the restaurant. I had three green frogs living in my bathroom, and it couldn’t have been further away from that sort of glamorous life or, “glamorous,” in quotes, I should say," she continued.

"I loved it so much it didn’t feel like work. And I knew that’s why it was right. And while I was there, that’s when Lehman Brothers collapsed, and I just knew in that moment it was the best decision I could’ve made because I felt like I was alive again. I was feeding my soul. I wasn’t feeding my bank account, but I was feeding my soul."

What made her decide to Lehman and change her life?

"I just think it was one of those nights when I was just sitting there really late into the night at my cubicle and the fluorescent glow of the computer screen, I just thought to myself this can’t be the answer, you know? This can’t be the rest of my life. And I realized that the longer I stayed in it, the harder it was going to be to leave. You know, I think we get used to sort of these creature comforts, and I was looking at the people that were older than me that were sort of stuck. And then look what happened. They lost all their money."

Below is a transcript of the full interview

Glenn: Georgia is here, and we’re thrilled to have her because she is somebody who has been to the top of one field, left, and climbed up to the top of another field. And she is an empowered woman and believes in empowering other women. Also, she is just one of the best chefs out there. I don’t know what you think you can do with—

Georgia: I’m excited for the challenge.

Glenn: Yeah, I know. I’m on this crazy diet. We were talking before we went on. I’m on this crazy diet, and it’s not a diet. My body was breaking down, and I think we are poisoning ourselves with food.

Georgia: I agree with you completely.

Glenn: I don’t think people really understand. You know, people always say what happened to peanut allergies? You can’t bring peanut butter in. That didn’t happen…well, there’s a reason for that. Everything we’re doing.

Georgia: It’s true. And when you think about our grandparents’ generation, they just took pure ingredients and let them speak for themselves. It was very simple, pure food, and now there’s weird things in everything that we’re eating, corn, and, you know, we are poisoning ourselves, absolutely.

Glenn: Everybody I know is having some sort of problem, and the last thing we look is at our food, and I think it’s because it’s not convenient, and it’s really expensive now.

Georgia: And we don’t really know how to make anything anymore. We don’t know how to make anything basic with just a few simple ingredients. We’re used to just sort of a quick fix because we’re so starved for time.

Glenn: Right, and our body is not reacting well to it.

Georgia: Right.

Glenn: Tell me about leaving Lehman Brothers.

Georgia: Best decision I made, but it was also really scary.

Glenn: Had to be terrifying.

Georgia: Yeah, it was. You know, it was the path of least resistance coming out of college. You know, poor college student, when you’re sort of offered money, and it’s very alluring, you just sort of go for it, the path of least resistance.

Glenn: Was it a thing where you said I don’t like what we’re doing here or was it just you just weren’t fulfilled?

Georgia: You know, sort of as I sat there and watched the cafeteria dinner cart roll by night after night and had the glow of the Excel spreadsheet, I just was looking for something to feed my soul again. You know, I had grown up on the same land that my great-grandfather lived on. I was lucky in a sense that I really had a deep connection to my roots to where I come from. You know, I grew up using crushed berries and grass as my ink in painting and hanging from vines until they fell and making wreaths. And so I was looking for a way to sort of get back to my roots and sort of that DIY improvisational spirit of our grandparents’ generation.

Glenn: My daughter said…she came over. She’s been making apple butter with my wife…and she had a baby. She was a New Yorker, you know, just loves it, always wanted to live there. Moved down here, and she had a baby, and she said, “Dad, I just need to know how to can. I need to know how to make things from scratch”—total change but a natural change.

Georgia: Absolutely. It’s sort of a natural human instinct. You know, we all used to know how to…our grandparents, at least, used to know how to weed and dig and, you know, preserve and can. It was sort of just a way of life. It’s, you know, what I call manual literacy, and I think we live in a culture now where we’re surfing that information highway, you know, living in a virtual reality where it’s sort of everything is fast-paced. We’re not really connecting on a human level, and I think the more that we get back in touch with that, I think the more grounded we are, the more satisfying it is. We’re better to one another. We’re better to the land around us, I think.

Glenn: I find it interesting that we are…I just bought an old from the 70s, and it’s nothing special. It was just original engine with no computers on it at all. And I want to learn with my sons how to fix…I’m not handy at all. I have no idea.

Georgia: I love it. That’s great.

Glenn: But we laid underneath the car. It’s an old Toyota Land Cruiser, and we laid underneath it, and all of us just underneath and just looking up and going “I have no idea what that is,” just trying to figure out what things were.

Georgia: How fun is that to learn? I mean, it’s so satisfying. I realized at some point that I had a college degree, but I don’t know how to fix my own toilet. And it’s sort of like why not face those vulnerabilities? Not because we shouldn’t be vulnerable, but because there’s something really satisfying about sort of pushing through that and learning.

Glenn: I would imagine that a lot of people thought you were crazy for leaving, right?

Georgia: Yeah. I mean, I had spent all that money on an education, and I just sort of said I’m leaving it all.

Glenn: And then you went to France for another education.

Georgia: Yeah.

Glenn: Le Cordon Bleu?

Georgia: I actually went to culinary school in New York, and then I cooked at a restaurant, a Michelin restaurant in the south of France, and I literally, I slept in a sort of rundown house under a tablecloth I had stolen from the restaurant. I had three green frogs living in my bathroom, and it couldn’t have been further away from that sort of glamorous life or, “glamorous,” in quotes, I should say.

Glenn: Did you ever regret it at that time?

Georgia: I loved it. I loved it so much it didn’t feel like work. And I knew that’s why it was right. And while I was there, that’s when Lehman Brothers collapsed, and I just knew in that moment it was the best decision I could’ve made because I felt like I was alive again. I was feeding my soul. I wasn’t feeding my bank account, but I was feeding my soul.

Glenn: What was your pivot point? What was the thing where you hit and you said you know what, this is not who I am?

Georgia: I just think it was one of those nights when I was just sitting there really late into the night at my cubicle and the fluorescent glow of the computer screen, I just thought to myself this can’t be the answer, you know? This can’t be the rest of my life. And I realized that the longer I stayed in it, the harder it was going to be to leave. You know, I think we get used to sort of these creature comforts, and I was looking at the people that were older than me that were sort of stuck. And then look what happened. They lost all their money.

Glenn: So you were on with Dana, what, a couple weeks ago?

Georgia: Yeah.

Glenn: Yeah, you were on with Dana, and you had a women’s event where, you know, you invited people to come out and learn to be you. And we were talking before we went on the air. Tell me about the people you met.

Georgia: So one of the sort of unlikely things that happened when I started doing what I do is that I started getting e-mails from women around the world, and they were sort of…a lot of them were saying I think you can help me, and that really surprised me. And they would share their stories of vulnerability, things they were going through in life, cancer, major life traumas, and they asked if they could go on an adventure with me. And I was sort of surprised at first. I thought why me? But I realized that in a sense they could relate to me because I had lived that corporate life. I didn’t grow up living off the land always. I didn’t live that life currently.

Glenn: Scary for people who don’t—

Georgia: Yeah, and so I basically just started what I call “adventure getaways” for women, and they’re around the country. I host them a few times a year, and it’s one of the most amazing things that I get to do because I meet these women who really are there to roll up their sleeves and experience life more viscerally, step outside their comfort zone and face those vulnerabilities.

I just had one woman come who told me that she’d actually died for 45 minutes, and she came back to life. And when she came back to life, it took a while to recover fully, but it just changed the way that she wanted to live her life. It changed her perspective on what was important, and she was there to face more fears, to do things that she’d never done before. And that’s just so special and empowering to see those women doing that.

Glenn: How fantastic of an experience for you.

Georgia: Yeah, it’s totally a blessing that I get to do that and especially a blessing when I hear from parents about their young daughters looking up to me or realizing…I had one I’ll never forget. An uncle wrote to me and said that his daughter was no longer depressed, and it was because she realized that there was nothing that girls couldn’t do, and I had made her realize that. And I think that’s what makes me hop out of bed every morning, you know, thinking that so many young women especially don’t have role models these days and don’t get to—

Glenn: Not good role models. I’m tired of people saying that they’re feminists and, you know, this girl power and stuff, but they’re eviscerating what it is to be a woman.

Georgia: You can be distinctly feminine and still roll up your sleeves in the world.

Glenn: Right, and you don’t have to hate men, and you don’t have to be against things.

Georgia: It doesn’t have to be an angry thing.

Glenn: No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t. Okay, when we come back, I gave a challenge of…I can’t have tomatoes. I can’t have pasta. I can’t have bread. I can’t have anything. I can’t have anything, and so you said, “What do you miss?” And because I live with an Italian woman, I said pasta, pasta. Make that without any of the ingredients.

Georgia: Game on. I accept your challenge.

Watch the cooking challenge take place below:

You can get the recipe for Wild Boar Bolognese below*:

Ingredients

1 stalk celery

1 small white onion

1 carrot, peeled

2 tablespoons grapeseed oil

2 pounds ground wild boar

Salt and pepper

1 tablespoon tomato paste

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 bay leaf

½ cup red wine

¼ cup marsala

4 cups crushed tomatoes

1 pound pasta, cooked according to package instructions

6 fresh basil leaves, torn

1 tablespoon fresh oregano leaves

Instructions

In a food processor, combine the celery, onion and carrot and blend finely. Set aside.

In a large heavy bottomed pot over medium flame, heat the oil. Add the meat and brown it for about 10 minutes until cooked and releasing its juices. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Add the vegetable mixture and sweat further until softened, about another 10 minutes.

Add the tomato paste, garlic, and bay leaf, and stir.

Deglaze the pan with red wine and Marsala. scrape up the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon to distribute the flavor.

Add the crushed tomatoes and bay leaf, stir and partly cover. Let simmer over low heat for 30 minutes.

Serve over your favorite pasta or rice and garnish with fresh basil and oregano leaves.

*For Glenn's crazy diet version:

Substitute the tomatoes with roasted beets and carrots and Acorn Squash.

Substitute the red wine and marsala with chicken stalk and coconut milk

Substitute the pasta with spaghetti squash and zucchini

Breaking point: Will America stand up to the mob?

Jeff J Mitchell / Staff | Getty Images

The mob rises where men of courage fall silent. The lesson from Portland, Chicago, and other blue cities is simple: Appeasing radicals doesn’t buy peace — it only rents humiliation.

Parts of America, like Portland and Chicago, now resemble occupied territory. Progressive city governments have surrendered control to street militias, leaving citizens, journalists, and even federal officers to face violent anarchists without protection.

Take Portland, where Antifa has terrorized the city for more than 100 consecutive nights. Federal officers trying to keep order face nightly assaults while local officials do nothing. Independent journalists, such as Nick Sortor, have even been arrested for documenting the chaos. Sortor and Blaze News reporter Julio Rosas later testified at the White House about Antifa’s violence — testimony that corporate media outlets buried.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened.

Chicago offers the same grim picture. Federal agents have been stalked, ambushed, and denied backup from local police while under siege from mobs. Calls for help went unanswered, putting lives in danger. This is more than disorder; it is open defiance of federal authority and a violation of the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.

A history of violence

For years, the legacy media and left-wing think tanks have portrayed Antifa as “decentralized” and “leaderless.” The opposite is true. Antifa is organized, disciplined, and well-funded. Groups like Rose City Antifa in Oregon, the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club in Texas, and Jane’s Revenge operate as coordinated street militias. Legal fronts such as the National Lawyers Guild provide protection, while crowdfunding networks and international supporters funnel money directly to the movement.

The claim that Antifa lacks structure is a convenient myth — one that’s cost Americans dearly.

History reminds us what happens when mobs go unchecked. The French Revolution, Weimar Germany, Mao’s Red Guards — every one began with chaos on the streets. But it wasn’t random. Today’s radicals follow the same playbook: Exploit disorder, intimidate opponents, and seize moral power while the state looks away.

Dismember the dragon

The Trump administration’s decision to designate Antifa a domestic terrorist organization was long overdue. The label finally acknowledged what citizens already knew: Antifa functions as a militant enterprise, recruiting and radicalizing youth for coordinated violence nationwide.

But naming the threat isn’t enough. The movement’s financiers, organizers, and enablers must also face justice. Every dollar that funds Antifa’s destruction should be traced, seized, and exposed.

AFP Contributor / Contributor | Getty Images

This fight transcends party lines. It’s not about left versus right; it’s about civilization versus anarchy. When politicians and judges excuse or ignore mob violence, they imperil the republic itself. Americans must reject silence and cowardice while street militias operate with impunity.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened. The violence in Portland and Chicago is deliberate, not spontaneous. If America fails to confront it decisively, the price won’t just be broken cities — it will be the erosion of the republic itself.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

URGENT: Supreme Court case could redefine religious liberty

Drew Angerer / Staff | Getty Images

The state is effectively silencing professionals who dare speak truths about gender and sexuality, redefining faith-guided speech as illegal.

This week, free speech is once again on the line before the U.S. Supreme Court. At stake is whether Americans still have the right to talk about faith, morality, and truth in their private practice without the government’s permission.

The case comes out of Colorado, where lawmakers in 2019 passed a ban on what they call “conversion therapy.” The law prohibits licensed counselors from trying to change a minor’s gender identity or sexual orientation, including their behaviors or gender expression. The law specifically targets Christian counselors who serve clients attempting to overcome gender dysphoria and not fall prey to the transgender ideology.

The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The law does include one convenient exception. Counselors are free to “assist” a person who wants to transition genders but not someone who wants to affirm their biological sex. In other words, you can help a child move in one direction — one that is in line with the state’s progressive ideology — but not the other.

Think about that for a moment. The state is saying that a counselor can’t even discuss changing behavior with a client. Isn’t that the whole point of counseling?

One‑sided freedom

Kaley Chiles, a licensed professional counselor in Colorado Springs, has been one of the victims of this blatant attack on the First Amendment. Chiles has dedicated her practice to helping clients dealing with addiction, trauma, sexuality struggles, and gender dysphoria. She’s also a Christian who serves patients seeking guidance rooted in biblical teaching.

Before 2019, she could counsel minors according to her faith. She could talk about biblical morality, identity, and the path to wholeness. When the state outlawed that speech, she stopped. She followed the law — and then she sued.

Her case, Chiles v. Salazar, is now before the Supreme Court. Justices heard oral arguments on Tuesday. The question: Is counseling a form of speech or merely a government‑regulated service?

If the court rules the wrong way, it won’t just silence therapists. It could muzzle pastors, teachers, parents — anyone who believes in truth grounded in something higher than the state.

Censored belief

I believe marriage between a man and a woman is ordained by God. I believe that family — mother, father, child — is central to His design for humanity.

I believe that men and women are created in God’s image, with divine purpose and eternal worth. Gender isn’t an accessory; it’s part of who we are.

I believe the command to “be fruitful and multiply” still stands, that the power to create life is sacred, and that it belongs within marriage between a man and a woman.

And I believe that when we abandon these principles — when we treat sex as recreation, when we dissolve families, when we forget our vows — society fractures.

Are those statements controversial now? Maybe. But if this case goes against Chiles, those statements and others could soon be illegal to say aloud in public.

Faith on trial

In Colorado today, a counselor cannot sit down with a 15‑year‑old who’s struggling with gender identity and say, “You were made in God’s image, and He does not make mistakes.” That is now considered hate speech.

That’s the “freedom” the modern left is offering — freedom to affirm, but never to question. Freedom to comply, but never to dissent. The same movement that claims to champion tolerance now demands silence from anyone who disagrees. The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The real test

No matter what happens at the Supreme Court, we cannot stop speaking the truth. These beliefs aren’t political slogans. For me, they are the product of years of wrestling, searching, and learning through pain and grace what actually leads to peace. For us, they are the fundamental principles that lead to a flourishing life. We cannot balk at standing for truth.

Maybe that’s why God allows these moments — moments when believers are pushed to the wall. They force us to ask hard questions: What is true? What is worth standing for? What is worth dying for — and living for?

If we answer those questions honestly, we’ll find not just truth, but freedom.

The state doesn’t grant real freedom — and it certainly isn’t defined by Colorado legislators. Real freedom comes from God. And the day we forget that, the First Amendment will mean nothing at all.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Glenn Beck joins Megyn Kelly LIVE — One night ONLY in Fort Worth!

Get ready for sparks to fly. For the first time in years, Glenn will come face-to-face with Megyn Kelly — and this time, he’s the one in the hot seat. On October 25, 2025, at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas, Glenn joins Megyn on her “Megyn Kelly Live Tour” for a no-holds-barred conversation that promises laughs, surprises, and maybe even a few uncomfortable questions.

What will happen when two of America’s sharpest voices collide under the spotlight? Will Glenn finally reveal the major announcement he’s been teasing on the radio for weeks? You’ll have to be there to find out.

This promises to be more than just an interview — it’s a live showdown packed with wit, honesty, and the kind of energy you can only feel if you are in the room. Tickets are selling fast, so don’t miss your chance to see Glenn like you’ve never seen him before.

Get your tickets NOW at www.MegynKelly.com before they’re gone!

What our response to Israel reveals about us

JOSEPH PREZIOSO / Contributor | Getty Images

I have been honored to receive the Defender of Israel Award from Prime Minister Netanyahu.

The Jerusalem Post recently named me one of the strongest Christian voices in support of Israel.

And yet, my support is not blind loyalty. It’s not a rubber stamp for any government or policy. I support Israel because I believe it is my duty — first as a Christian, but even if I weren’t a believer, I would still support her as a man of reason, morality, and common sense.

Because faith isn’t required to understand this: Israel’s existence is not just about one nation’s survival — it is about the survival of Western civilization itself.

It is a lone beacon of shared values in the Middle East. It is a bulwark standing against radical Islam — the same evil that seeks to dismantle our own nation from within.

And my support is not rooted in politics. It is rooted in something simpler and older than politics: a people’s moral and historical right to their homeland, and their right to live in peace.

Israel has that right — and the right to defend herself against those who openly, repeatedly vow her destruction.

Let’s make it personal: if someone told me again and again that they wanted to kill me and my entire family — and then acted on that threat — would I not defend myself? Wouldn’t you? If Hamas were Canada, and we were Israel, and they did to us what Hamas has done to them, there wouldn’t be a single building left standing north of our border. That’s not a question of morality.

That’s just the truth. All people — every people — have a God-given right to protect themselves. And Israel is doing exactly that.

My support for Israel’s right to finish the fight against Hamas comes after eighty years of rejected peace offers and failed two-state solutions. Hamas has never hidden its mission — the eradication of Israel. That’s not a political disagreement.

That’s not a land dispute. That is an annihilationist ideology. And while I do not believe this is America’s war to fight, I do believe — with every fiber of my being — that it is Israel’s right, and moral duty, to defend her people.

Criticism of military tactics is fair. That’s not antisemitism. But denying Israel’s right to exist, or excusing — even celebrating — the barbarity of Hamas? That’s something far darker.

We saw it on October 7th — the face of evil itself. Women and children slaughtered. Babies burned alive. Innocent people raped and dragged through the streets. And now, to see our own fellow citizens march in defense of that evil… that is nothing short of a moral collapse.

If the chants in our streets were, “Hamas, return the hostages — Israel, stop the bombing,” we could have a conversation.

But that’s not what we hear.

What we hear is open sympathy for genocidal hatred. And that is a chasm — not just from decency, but from humanity itself. And here lies the danger: that same hatred is taking root here — in Dearborn, in London, in Paris — not as horror, but as heroism. If we are not vigilant, the enemy Israel faces today will be the enemy the free world faces tomorrow.

This isn’t about politics. It’s about truth. It’s about the courage to call evil by its name and to say “Never again” — and mean it.

And you don’t have to open a Bible to understand this. But if you do — if you are a believer — then this issue cuts even deeper. Because the question becomes: what did God promise, and does He keep His word?

He told Abraham, “I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you.” He promised to make Abraham the father of many nations and to give him “the whole land of Canaan.” And though Abraham had other sons, God reaffirmed that promise through Isaac. And then again through Isaac’s son, Jacob — Israel — saying: “The land I gave to Abraham and Isaac I give to you and to your descendants after you.”

That’s an everlasting promise.

And from those descendants came a child — born in Bethlehem — who claimed to be the Savior of the world. Jesus never rejected His title as “son of David,” the great King of Israel.

He said plainly that He came “for the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” And when He returns, Scripture says He will return as “the Lion of the tribe of Judah.” And where do you think He will go? Back to His homeland — Israel.

Tamir Kalifa / Stringer | Getty Images

And what will He find when He gets there? His brothers — or his brothers’ enemies? Will the roads where He once walked be preserved? Or will they lie in rubble, as Gaza does today? If what He finds looks like the aftermath of October 7th, then tell me — what will be my defense as a Christian?

Some Christians argue that God’s promises to Israel have been transferred exclusively to the Church. I don’t believe that. But even if you do, then ask yourself this: if we’ve inherited the promises, do we not also inherit the land? Can we claim the birthright and then, like Esau, treat it as worthless when the world tries to steal it?

So, when terrorists come to slaughter Israelis simply for living in the land promised to Abraham, will we stand by? Or will we step forward — into the line of fire — and say,

“Take me instead”?

Because this is not just about Israel’s right to exist.

It’s about whether we still know the difference between good and evil.

It’s about whether we still have the courage to stand where God stands.

And if we cannot — if we will not — then maybe the question isn’t whether Israel will survive. Maybe the question is whether we will.

Glenn's Show Prep