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Ep 1: Discerning God's Will & Your Leadership Gifts · CEO Kingdom Seekers

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hey y'all.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the first episode of C Sweet Kingdom Seekers.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to start off with a prayer for both of us.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Dear God, thank you so much for bringing us here together on this podcast today.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for helping me to record.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for helping this, whoever this listener is, to really just be present and to hear what you want to say through me to them.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Help us really have this beautiful conversation around discerning your will for our leadership roles.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Help us to get further clarity into how you inspire us to follow the callings that you place upon our hearts, how we are able to better discern your wisdom and your vision and what you desire for us to do in marketplaces, in entrepreneurship, in boardrooms, in our leadership roles and our mentoring roles, and in our personal lives as well.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: And help us understand how we can strategically seek your kingdom first, love others as we love ourselves, follow those commandments in a way that really leads us to steward the resources that you give us, assets and the tools and the gifts and the talents that you give us in a way that is in accordance with your will and your word.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: In your name we pray.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: All right, let's get into it.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so excited you're here.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Some of you have come over from our Becoming Trauma Informed podcast, which was a former podcast I ran through 2024 and had several seasons of that.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Some of you have come from social media, some of you have come from referrals from friends, some of you have just found this.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like this is divinely dropped into your lap or your ears, so to speak.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever way you found us, I'm so glad you're here.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so grateful you're here.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: It is an absolute honor and a blessing to get to talk to you about these topics that I am so excited about.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: And today we're gonna be talking a little bit about my testimony.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna be talking through those things that we just prayed about around divine inspiration and vision and strategy, and really how we discern what God wills for us.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: I want to go into just a little bit of my story to start because this part of my story is one that I haven't talked about a lot up until recently.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: The devil got close to winning on this one.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I am persevering.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: This is a scary thing to do.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: I think many of you who are listening can maybe understand how it can feel to completely shift, not necessarily internally, but externally, to allowing people to see more of you, allowing people to get closer and understand you better as a leader.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: I think so oftentimes, as leaders, whether that's in business or that's in our careers, that's in our homes, in our lives in general, we're oftentimes taught not to let people see us.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: We are taught to hide pieces and parts of ourselves.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I have been sitting here for the last several weeks asking myself, how am I going to record this part of my testimony?
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: How am I going to share, without talking for an hour, and also without just summing it up super quickly, why this is so important to me, why I started See Sweet Kingdom Seekers.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people, if we've been connected, particularly through social media, Jesus, God, not somebody that I talked about often.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: While my faith was a big part of my life, especially when my children were younger, up until like 2018, 2019, it wasn't something that I publicly talked about a lot.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: And in 2018, 2019, that's when I really plugged into the more spiritual development, personal development, business development communities that honestly were not very Christian friendly.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like people did not like that I was Catholic.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of people were very progressive, very liberal, which was interesting because I was very progressive, very liberal at the time from a political perspective.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember I was teaching parish school religion, fifth graders through our church.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: I was like really trying to connect more deeply with God because I didn't feel him all the time, but I knew he existed and I really wanted to be connected to God.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I was doing a lot in the church.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: My husband was working at a Catholic museum.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like we were pretty immersed in that setting.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: And in my business life, I had to hide a lot of that.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: I had to hide a lot of it because a lot of people in the spaces I were in, they were very uncomfortable with my Christianity.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: They were very uncomfortable with especially my Catholicism.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember even joining a business mastermind that I was paying a significant amount of money for and having the leader say, Yeah, you absolutely get to be here.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: But like some people are uncomfortable with the fact that you are Catholic, that like you and your husband aren't super, super progressive, which was really interesting to me because I felt like I aligned a lot more with the values of the people in that space than they thought I did.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: And at the time I didn't have enough of a connection with God.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't have enough like fortitude and enough discernment to go, yeah, okay, you know what?
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't the right space for me.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: If these people want me to hide my faith, if these people don't want me to talk about this at all, if in fact they don't like Christianity, they might say that they're Christian, they might say that they care about those things, but like they don't act like they actually like Jesus, they don't act like they actually follow or care about Christians.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: They're saying they're tolerant, and that's not really what I'm seeing.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't have enough discernment at the time to go, okay, maybe this isn't the right space for me.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted so badly to be successful at business.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted so intently to stop working 80 hours a week at my nurse practitioner job and my professor job.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to be home with my babies.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to spend more time with my family.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to heal from my own stuff because I knew I had a lot of really deep-seated trauma and like past painful experiences at that time.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted more.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I truly believe that God put me in that scenario as a way to like test me and as a way to really humble me, to bring me back to him.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because a few short years later, I was very disconnected from God.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: I was very disconnected from my faith.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't even know if Jesus existed, if he was really real.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: I was experiencing a lot of like discord in my marriage with my husband because he obviously was like, I think God's real.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think Jesus is real.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: So we were having a lot of internal strife at home.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: And the business was doing really well.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: We were making$20,000,$25,000,$30,000 a month.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: We were having our best year ever.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, like I was getting further and further away from God and practicing a lot of things that I knew like deep in my heart weren't really connected to my faith and weren't bringing me closer to God.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I could not like turn the ship around, so to speak.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I truly believe that all happened for a reason, as painful and awful as it was, because it took me to a point where all of a sudden, like, okay, everything's starting to fall apart.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like the money lasted for a little while, things were working for a good amount, and then okay, clients are falling off, like contracts are getting broken, things aren't working, like I'm trying to fix things constantly.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: There's more fighting, there's more discord, there's more stress, there's more uncertainty, there's more of all of these things.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: And it got to the point that things got really bad.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like, really bad in a bunch of different ways.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: I was really sick.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: I had gotten what seemed to be lupus-like symptoms.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: I was having fevers every day.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: I was having immense body pain.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: I was having brain fog, fatigue, like all of these things were coming up.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: And the business is continuing to just like slowly struggle into more and more stressful situations.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it got to the point that one day I just came up to our room after another really stressful conversation, and I was so like distraught and bereft and just so frustrated with how everything in my life had gone to that point.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm 36 years old, I've got these three beautiful kids, I've got this man that I absolutely love.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm in this amazing house, and nothing feels like it's working.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember just dropping to my knees and crying, like crying out to God, like, if you exist, I think you exist.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: If you exist, Jesus, if you are real, I need you now.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: I need you now.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I cannot continue to do this my way.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: I cannot continue to lead and try to show up and like mastermind things and make it all work and put all the puzzle pieces into place and be the arranger and the scheduler and the fixer and the handler of everything.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I can't, I just my way is not working.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: My way is not working, God.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I need you.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: And what happened to me in that moment is something that I can't truly describe in words.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm actually sitting in the place right now that I was my chair was in that I like hit my knees in front of and leaned over.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: But I just felt for 30 straight minutes a wrapping of an angel's wings like around my shoulders.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: I can still sense it.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: Just I felt these angel wings wrap around, and I just heard Jesus like in my right ear, just talking to me.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it still gets me choked up even to this day, like just talking to me, and I can't remember the exact words, but it was just this profound sense of I've got you.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: You're not alone.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: You get to have my peace.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you don't have to do this by yourself anymore.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need to struggle and stress and constantly feel like everything is on your shoulders.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you are not a burden, you are a blessing.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I am here with you, I am here to help you, I am here to hold you, receive me into your heart.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember at the end of that being just so 1,000% crystal clear, like, okay, God exists, Jesus exists, and they love me, and I have the Holy Spirit inside of me, and they want to help me, they want to will my good.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I can't keep doing this this way.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I at that time was so blessed to have a dear friend Ruthie, who was a successful business coach and leadership coach, and she was running a program at the time called God led.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: And what was so beautiful about that program was it was really about her coming back and allowing God to lead her, just as much as it was about her helping other people step into that space too.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: So it was truly like this beautiful collaboration of people.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I joined it, and I went, okay, I've gotta, I've gotta come back to God.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, how do I do this?
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I think what was so fascinating was I thought up until that point that I knew God, like I understood God, I thought I understood Jesus.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: But again, even looking back, I'm like, that's hilarious that I thought I knew God and I thought I understood Jesus because I was questioning if Jesus was even real.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: But what happened was I went, okay, who do I think God is and who do I think Jesus is?
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: And it turns out that I thought a lot of things about them that weren't real, that weren't true.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: And even though I'd been teaching parish school religion, even though I'd been doing a lot of these things, I didn't actually know Jesus or God.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like I did not know them.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: I did not have a healthy fear of God.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: I did not respect him, I did not revere him, I did not honor him, I did not understand Jesus, I did not understand his place in the Trinity.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like I didn't get it.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so during that program in God led, it was like, okay, I'm gonna, I'm going to start reading my Bible.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to start going back to church.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to start really getting to know God and understanding God's way of doing things.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to study Jesus because I get to understand him better.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so that kicked off what has now been an 18, 19 month experience of reading the Bible nearly every day, of praying every day, of really starting to soften my heart and draw closer to God and really understand him and be in intimate relationship with him.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I used to write this in my journal every day: like, help me draw closer to you, help me draw closer to you, help me discern your wisdom, help me follow your will, not mine.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Help me decrease so you can increase.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: I kept writing those sorts of things over and over.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: And every day, bit by bit, God really just started talking to me.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: He started talking to me, sharing impressions through the Holy Spirit.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I started really seeing and understanding and perceiving the world in an entirely different way, especially in business.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I share all of that part with you because I think it's important to understand for what I'm going to share about divine inspiration and divine strategy, because everybody wants to know for sure that the way in which they decide to lead, the business that they decide to run, the role that they decide to take, the you know, offers that they decide to create, the people they decide to hire, the way in which they decide to show up in the world and use their gifts and their talents, and even like decide and discern what their gifts and talents are.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: Every leader wants that.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: They want to make sure that they are as successful as possible.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: And it is really hard to do that if you think you know God and you think you know Jesus, and you are actually not in relationship with them.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: I heard this really beautiful example, and I cannot remember who shared it.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: So if somebody remembers, like write into me, y'all, and tell me what it who it was.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: But there was this interview I saw once where somebody said, Yeah, there are a lot of people who knew of Michael Jackson, but like who really knew Michael Jackson, right?
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: All of us have this idea of who he is.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: And if we really like were able to understand Michael Jackson at his fullest, every bit and piece about him, if we were actually able to step into his shoes and see the world through his eyes and go through all the experiences he did, we would realize how little we knew Michael Jackson.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: We just knew of Michael Jackson.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought about that.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how often do we think we know people?
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: How often do we think we know even ourselves?
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then when we really step back and reflect and practice self-awareness, or we have somebody kind of show us things from a different perspective, we go, hmm, maybe I didn't know that person as well as I thought I did, maybe I don't even know myself as well as I thought I did.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: So that plays into discerning God's will for our businesses, for our leadership roles, because if you don't know yourself, because you don't know what God sees when he looks at you, because you don't understand God, then it's gonna be pretty hard to discern.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: So my encouragement to you is like if you are not personally having a conversation with God on a daily basis, if you are not praying and like the Lord's prayer, great.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: And like if you're not talking to him, if you're not in conversation with him, if you are not asking Jesus for guidance, if you are not reading your Bible on a consistent basis, if you are not going to church and being around other people who are practicing discernment and gaining and developing wisdom as well, and being in the presence of God, if you're not doing those things, then it's going to make it more difficult for you to get to know God, and it's gonna make it more difficult for you to get to know yourself because you're not gonna be able to see yourself clearly because God's the one who determines our identities, right?
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: So when we think about divine inspiration, that word literally means to like breathe in.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: So God gave us breath, right?
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: He breathed into us.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: So when God breathes into us, he is giving us life, he is giving us ideas, he is giving us wisdom, he is giving us what we need in order to be able to live and live in a way that he desires us to live.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so we use that word inspiration a lot of times to think of ideas or to think of knowing what it is that we should do.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: And in reality, this is a very physical practice.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: Inspiration isn't this mental thing that we ascribe it to.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: Inspiration is a physical thing, it is us being physically connected and spiritually connected and us allowing God to help us breathe in new life into what we are doing.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: We receive inspiration when we slow down and we take some breaths and we pause and we allow ourselves to receive the ideas and the wisdom and the discernment.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that this is something that can be really difficult for us as leaders because we're always go, go, go, go, go.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: Oftentimes we're trying to get the next thing done, check the next task off the task list.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like we're trying to do a bunch of things, and we forget that our breath is where God's ideas come in.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: The receptivity, our ability to receive.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of times we hold our breath.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: We are really tense and tight.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: There's this saying in the trauma world, trauma equals tension.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: When we go through past painful experiences and we do not take those to God, we do not lay those burdens down at his feet, we do not process those with him.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of times we end up having a lot of tension in our body, and that makes it more difficult for us to breathe, which makes it more difficult for us to receive that inspiration.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: We call God at regulated roots, we call him the chief inspiration officer because he is the one who gives us the ideas.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: He is the one who gives us the ideas.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: This podcast was an inspiration.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: Regulated Roots was an inspiration.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of these things came when we slowed down and we paused and we asked ourselves, what do we want to do next?
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing that I think is so helpful for us as leaders, business owners, executives, like to understand is that oftentimes God's gonna give you the ideas, like you are going to receive the ideas from him in a way that is in accordance with your gifts and talents.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: So if you are somebody who is really gifted at speaking, then it's pretty likely you're going to get your inspiration as you talk things out with somebody that you trust or as you externally process.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: If you are somebody who is like me, and when you hear yourself say things, like there's so many times I am on a podcast, like I'm recording a podcast, and I hear myself say something, and I'm like, oh, I gotta go back and listen to that later.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because that was for me as much as it was for the listener.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: I know that the more I speak and the more that I write, which are two of my gifts that God gave me, the more that I do those two things, especially when I'm feeling unsure, that is going to really, really benefit me in receiving inspiration and understanding the strategy, the tactics for what I need to do next, because I'm going to process it through and come up with a plan.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: So being able to use that gift of writing and of speaking in a way that allows me to receive that inspiration is so beneficial because then it's going to set me up for the next two pieces.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to set me up for being able to then see the vision.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it's going to set me up for figuring out, okay, what do I do with my hands from a task perspective?
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: If I start where my hands are and I don't have a vision and I haven't received the inspiration, yeah, I might build something really beautiful and then I'm going to ask God to bless it when that's not what He wanted me to build in the first place.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: So you might have a gift or a talent of sight.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: You might be somebody who you can see things.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: You might be somebody who can hear things and really discern.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: Again, hearing is a big one for me too.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: So speaking and hearing, like if I can speak and then also listen, very beneficial.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: If I can hear myself say the thing, very beneficial.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: You might be somebody who actually your gift is with your hands.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: So you might need to go play.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: You might need to go put something together or take something apart.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: You might need to go fishing.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: You might need to go like exercise.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: You might need to go do something where you are creating with your hands or where you are doing something with your physicality because that is one of your gifts and your strengths.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: One of your gifts might be the ability to really feel.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: You might be somebody who is very good at feeling feelings.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, then you're probably going to need to practice feeling your feelings in accordance with God's will, the same way that I practice speaking in accordance with God's will.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: I practice hearing in accordance with God's will, the way the same way that somebody else with a gift or Talent with their hands might need to practice or build or deconstruct something in accordance with God's will.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: For some people, it's smell.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: For some people, it's taste.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe you want to go cook something, or you want to go pause and take some really deep breaths through your nose and just practice like noticing what comes up for you.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's really helpful for us to think about how do we receive information?
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: What's our most gifted way of doing that?
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: Some of us, our gifts and talents are outside of those sorts of sensory perceptions.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: But I think inspiration is so helpful when we think about it because when we take a breath, there is a noise component to it, there is a smell component to it, there is a taste component to it, there is a sight component to it, there is a physicality of the movement of your chest.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: There is a component to when we take that breath in.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: And that is what then leads to the vision, right?
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: And we use the word vision a lot because we think about sight.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: And when we envision something, it's not just necessarily about what we see, it's also about what we experience.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: Visions are really powerful because they evoke an experience.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of the visions that you read about in the Bible, and I am not sitting here pretending to be a biblical scholar at all, but as somebody who's been reading the entire Bible over the last year, I will say that reading these prophetic visions that people have, they evoke a sense of a full experience.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: When you read them, you can really see and also imagine what it would feel like to be in that.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: So the vision that we receive through that inspiration that gets birthed through that inspiration is something that we can go, oh, okay, I can imagine what this experience would be like.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: And it's something that I desire.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's something that I desire to create for others.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's something I desire to experience myself and bring forth through my gifts.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: Discerning your leadership role is often so tough because the very thing that you are gifted at doing for others, you struggle to do for yourself.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: You might be so good at discerning when somebody is in a struggle or figuring out exactly where somebody needs to strategically change something so that they will be good.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: And you may not be able to see that for yourself at all.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: And this is something that I think is so amazing that God does because our gifts are not for us.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: Our gifts are meant to be things that are given through us for other people.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so so often leaders will take themselves out.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: They will tell themselves that they are unqualified, they will tell themselves that they shouldn't be allowed to lead or to run a business or to sell or to create or to talk or to do whatever it is that God is calling them to do because they're like, well, I can't do that for myself.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's not your gift, it's not a gift for you, it's a gift for other people that comes through you.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: So you're not necessarily supposed to be able to apply it to yourself.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, you might be very bad at applying it to yourself.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't mean bad in the sense of good or right or wrong.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: I mean bad in like you may not be able to apply it well to your own situations.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: You might need somebody else to support you with that.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like, it is one of my skills to be able to discern things in specific places for people and to help them with strategy.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, I am not able to do that for myself because it is a gift that is for other people.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: It is not for me.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: So the strategic piece that comes out of this vision, that comes out of this experiencing, the strategy around this, I think, is the simplest part.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: And yet it is the part that so often does not work for leaders and does not work for entrepreneurs because people try to create a strategy that requires them to show up in ways that are not their strengths, that are not their gifts.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: So here's a beautiful example.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: I, for the longest time, whenever I would create a business, it would be based on my ideas, it would be based on my learning and my strategy and my consulting.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: But a lot of times it would then get to okay, but what can I do for this person?
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: What can I physically create for this person?
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: What tangible outcomes can I promise to this person?
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: I would create a business that was based on my hands.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: It was based on what I could physically do to help people.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: And something I've realized just by talking to people who are dearly close to me, who also love Jesus and really desire to live in accordance with God's will.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: Something that's come through with several of these humans over the last several months that is just really landing for me is Lee, your gift, the thing that you are so good at doing for other people, is helping them get clear.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: You're really good at talking, and you're really good at teaching, and you're really good at sharing ideas that are complex and taking them and making them simple and practical for people to be able to then go apply.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: You're also really good at reading between the lines when you are talking to somebody.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: So when somebody says, hey, this is my idea and this is what I think and this is what I'm gonna do, you're really good at going, hold on.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: I just heard the word you said, I just heard the language you used, I just heard the tone of voice that you just used there.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: Is that true?
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: Is that what you want to be doing?
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: Is that the best use of your time?
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: You just said that you're super excited about this thing, and then you also said, and it's gonna be such a pain in the butt.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: And you, I don't even think you realize that you said that.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: And people stop and they go, Oh my gosh, you're right.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't hear myself.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't think about that.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't realize the words I was choosing.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like that is a gift of mine.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: That is where my talent lies.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: That is where I am called to do things.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: I am called to create a podcast.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: I am called to coach people in that way and teach people in that way.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: That is where my zone of genius is.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: That is where my God-given gifts are.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: And strategically executing on that doesn't feel like it's enough.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: Just, quote unquote, just creating a podcast doesn't feel like it's enough.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: Just doing a weekly call where I coach people doesn't feel like it's enough.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because what the world has taught me is that doing things with your hand and delivering tangible outcomes and like needing to be able to show people that you've done something, that's what the world has taught me is important.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: So if I listen to the world who says, you can't get paid just for helping people have ideas.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: You can't get paid for just doing these things.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: You're you were trained as a nurse, you were trained as a babysitter and a caretaker, you're trained as a mom, you're trained in as a trauma teacher, you're trained in all of these roles where people expect you to do something for them rather than just share ideas.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: So that's been something I've really had to wrap my mind around recently is going, okay, that gift and that talent is not for me.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: I can't figure out for myself without somebody else really listening and talking to me.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: I can't do that for myself.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: And what the world has taught me is that I need to add more to that in order for it to be valuable.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: Except in reality, that's not what the world has taught me.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's where a lot of the past painful experiences and the jobs I landed in and the people I talked to, like that's where the devil came in.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's where he taught me that I needed to be doing more than what I am currently doing right now.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really required me, again, being in God's word each and every day, softening my heart and inviting in the Holy Spirit and asking for discernment, asking for wisdom, and asking for guidance and praying to God, your will, not mine, decrease me, increase you, doing those sorts of things to have God really show me and put on my heart, like if I wanted you to do things with your hands, I would not have made you the way that you are.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, you can do things with your hands.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, you can play music, yes, you can create things really beautifully.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not telling you not to do those things, I'm telling you that when you add those things in as a, oh, they won't want my voice, they won't want my words, they won't want my ideas unless I also give them these tangible pieces and parts.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: When you do that, you are not doing it God's way, you're doing it your way.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think that there's so many leaders out there that are like me who the world has taught them two things.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: The world has taught them number one, you can't live your faith boldly and unashamedly and externally in society today, and that is not true.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: And when you aren't willing to live your faith out loud, you don't have to be yelled at it, but when you aren't willing to stand firm in your faith, then that takes you away from God.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't say that to shame anybody or judge anybody.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: Some of y'all can't see my shirt, I'm wearing my no shame in my game shirt.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying that to shame you, I'm saying that because like God wants all of you.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: God doesn't want you denying he exists just because you're at work.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: God doesn't want you getting fired necessarily.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: I can't tell you what he does or he doesn't want.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, you going around and talking about it all day, every day, and making that your entire personality, I don't know, you pray about it.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's probably not what God wants.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: And God doesn't want you not following Jesus and fearing him while you're out at work.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's not being close with him.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: And the world also is gonna teach you that your gifts are problems.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: The world's gonna tell you that your gift is actually a burden.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: The world's gonna tell you that your gift is not enough in a lot of ways.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: And this is why so many leaders like end up very, very unhappy and unsettled and restless because they know that there's a calling.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: They know that when they feel inspired, they get this big vision and this this the strategy just like lands in their lap.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then they hear either internally from past voices or they hear it in real time in the space they're in.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: Nope, you can't do that.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's not enough.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's not right, this isn't okay.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so my invitation to whoever is feeling like really, you know, convicted or or touched by this is ask yourself these two questions.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, am I allowing myself to receive that inspiration?
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: Am I allowing myself to receive that inspiration?
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: Am I connecting with God in a way that allows me to draw closer to him and allows him to talk to me?
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: Am I reading his words and his word?
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: Am I following Jesus?
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the first one.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: There's a couple questions, but like that's the first big question.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: The second big thing is am I allowing the world to scare me to the point that I don't continue doing number one?
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: Because you're not gonna be able to discern the role that God really wants you in.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: You're not gonna be able to be assigned to that position until you are willing to even accept the assignment.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: And you're not gonna be willing to accept the assignment until you understand and accept the gift that He's given you to do that assignment.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: And you're not gonna be able to discern the gift until you're connected, until you seek God first above all else, and then you love others as you love yourself.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: And loving yourself means willing your own good, which means you're not gonna keep putting yourself in situations where people don't value your gifts and your talents.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because unless God specifically tells you to be there, again, I'm not Him, I can't tell you what He's telling you.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's on you to pray about.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: But unless you are getting a specific direction, stay here in this space where you are not using your gifts and your talents for a reason, because that happens sometimes.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes God tells us to stay in places that we're like, I'm not using my gifts and my talents.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like, why am I staying here?
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes that happens.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, He knows I don't.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: Unless you're getting that specific message, invitation to really ask yourself Am I trying to do this my way?
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: Have I decided that I'm only gonna be able to get a job here?
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: Have I decided that this is the only type of leadership role I'm actually allowed to be in?
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: Have I decided this?
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because if I decided and God didn't decide, well, maybe then I am following what I think I know about God.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not actually knowing Him.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: The last piece I will say is if you can answer yes to both of those questions, like if you can go, yeah, okay, I'm seeking God first, I'm practicing connecting with Him on a consistent basis, and I am not fearing the world more than I fear and respect him, if you're doing those two things, then it's all right, as he starts assigning me places that I'm supposed to use my gifts and my talents.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: Am I doing it?
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: Am I being obedient?
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: Am I following through?
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: And as somebody who really struggles to be obedient often, um, that this is so tough.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's so tough.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: And it is the most like worth it thing that I've been doing.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: It is so worth it to obey and to really listen and to follow the strategy.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like, y'all, this podcast almost didn't happen because a lot of things happened in life that came up, and I was like, well, maybe I just won't record it.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: No, God told me to record the podcast, God told me to launch the podcast today.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: Are all six episodes that I planned on coming out today gonna come out?
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: Probably not.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: But is this episode gonna come out?
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's not an all or nothing thing.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: Life is not an all or nothing thing.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: God didn't tell me to put out six episodes.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: I decided to put out six episodes.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: God just told me to put out the podcast.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what I'm gonna do.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: And even though I might disappoint myself in not putting out all six episodes to start, even though I might disappoint somebody else who's like super excited for it, that is okay.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: That is something that I will continue to work on to be an integrity around, and I'm obeying.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm obeying.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm doing the thing he told me to do, and I'm noticing that I keep adding extra on because again, this is what the world has taught me to do.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm actually fully obeying by putting out one episode and not six.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because he didn't tell me to put out six, he told me to start it.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: So my invitation to you is to really reflect on that last bit and go, are there places that I'm not starting because I'm making it more complicated?
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: Are there gifts and talents that I have that I could like start using right now in my leadership role?
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: Are there places I could go?
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: Is there a next step I could take that he's been leading me towards for a hot minute that I am not taking?
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: Because I've convinced myself I need to do more because that's what the world taught me.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: But that's not what he he's saying.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what he's telling me to do.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's just the extra that I put on top to try to make it better.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: But God is good and his way is good.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: There's no making it better.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe listen.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_00: I love you all.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: I hope that this has touched and helped you in a multitude of ways.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I am always so excited to hear back from y'all.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: So please feel free to leave comments if you're watching this on YouTube.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: If you're listening to this on the podcast, email us at hello at regulatedroots.com.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: We'd love to hear from you.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: The next several weeks, we're going to be putting out some amazing content more about entrepreneurship and leadership and business.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: And thank you for allowing me to just share a little bit of my story with you today.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure that there will be more threads that come out as we move on.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I am genuinely just so grateful for all of you who are here, for all of you who are tuning in, all of you who are allowing me the space and the ability to use this gift in the way that God is calling me to do so.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: It means the world to me.