Latest / The Wholehearted Enneagram Podcast / Your Message Matters |a conversation with Anne Watson

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Your Message Matters |a conversation with Anne Watson · The Wholehearted Enneagram Podcast

0:01
SPEAKER_01: Hi friends, welcome back to the Simply Wholehearted podcast.
0:05
SPEAKER_01: It means so much to have you choose to take our conversation along with you today.
0:10
SPEAKER_01: I'm Amy Wicks, your host, and here at Simply Wholehearted, we provide simple plans for life's most creative endeavors.
0:17
SPEAKER_01: The culture around us lulls us to complacency, half awake to her purpose, and more often than not, it seems as if everyone around us celebrates mediocrity.
0:26
SPEAKER_01: But we believe there is more to your story.
0:30
SPEAKER_01: Awaken your heart with extraordinary tales of the ordinary.
0:33
SPEAKER_01: Find encouragement as you discover your creative purpose and be empowered to create your unique masterpiece in life, family, and community.
0:42
SPEAKER_01: If you tuned in to yesterday's bonus episode, you heard me introduce Ann Watson as one of my Voxer friends.
0:49
SPEAKER_01: We met at Declare a couple years ago, and after last year's conference, we decided we needed to continue the conversation via Voxer.
0:56
SPEAKER_01: She is truly fun and feisty, and she is passionate about helping women believe they are enough right now, as they are, because God doesn't make mistakes.
1:06
SPEAKER_01: She recently turned her hobby of helping all her girlfriends market their passions into sway ology.
1:13
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that a fun word?
1:15
SPEAKER_01: Well, I think she's pretty brilliant, and she is also helping those who want to create and communicate better, articulate and share their brilliance with others.
1:24
SPEAKER_01: So even if you don't think you're ready to launch into a business, you might decide you want to after hearing this conversation and her simple plans to get you started.
1:33
SPEAKER_01: Anne's got some great stories about her journey with Jesus and how she is unapologetic about her authenticity.
1:40
SPEAKER_01: And I think she might like the Enneagram as much as I do.
1:43
SPEAKER_01: I had to cut our Enneagram chat short, but I kept plenty of it for you to listen in on.
1:50
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
1:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I know.
1:52
SPEAKER_01: It's amazing.
1:52
SPEAKER_01: I mean the Enneagram is just exploding.
1:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, we talk a lot about it.
1:57
SPEAKER_00: Um Blake said the Enneagram is having a moment.
2:00
SPEAKER_01: It is, it's having its moment in glory.
2:02
SPEAKER_01: And yeah, I I mean, I for one am hugely benefiting from it.
2:07
SPEAKER_01: And um Oh, same.
2:08
SPEAKER_01: And you know, I'm an Enneagram coach, like officially.
2:11
SPEAKER_01: That's something I do.
2:13
SPEAKER_00: So what do you do with that?
2:14
SPEAKER_01: Well, it's a couple things.
2:16
SPEAKER_01: One, you don't ever, I don't ever type people, but I help others who I encourage them to go ahead and either read a book or take a test, which I'm not a big fan of tests, but I say take those lightly, read it lightly, try to narrow it down to maybe two to three numbers that you think you might be resonating with.
2:35
SPEAKER_01: And then we have a we begin a conversation.
2:38
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it starts off with like a free, you know, consultation and just kind of outline what I do.
2:42
SPEAKER_01: But then we take it through of really discovering more about their number, um, the shadow side, the light side for sure, um, maybe you know, guided conversation of how they how they are beginning to realize how their how their unique um type is affecting their maybe marriage, career, parenting.
3:02
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, looking into the it's best if you look into one area at a time.
3:06
SPEAKER_01: And so it's more about then discovering the number and then moving forward is then discovering your best self and moving maybe forward in one of those areas where just kind of like life coaching, um, but using the knowledge of the Enneagram to help facilitate the conversation and the understanding along the way.
3:23
SPEAKER_00: So anyway.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: That's kind of cool.
3:25
SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm but one of the things that I've been toying with is Enneagram because it is having its moment because so many Christian, you know, communicators are using it.
3:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
3:35
SPEAKER_00: And so it might be fun to have you on the podcast and just talk about, you know, how the Enneagram helps and hurts you in your communication.
3:44
SPEAKER_01: Oh, totally.
3:45
SPEAKER_01: I mean, yeah, we could have a couple hour conversation about that.
3:48
SPEAKER_01: Right.
3:49
SPEAKER_00: We'd have to like shrink it down.
3:50
SPEAKER_00: Like I'd have to be like, okay, give me your top three, you know, kind of totally, totally.
3:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because I we're I'm uh speaking at a marriage conference in a a couple months here, and uh they have two different workshops lined up for me, and they're both an hour and they're supposed to be the same.
4:05
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, I'm supposed to tell these couples the power of the Anne Graham in under an hour, you've got to be kidding me.
4:10
SPEAKER_01: And it's supposed to be interactive and all this sort of stuff, which I'm like, that's great, but they need to, I mean, they need to have some knowledge coming in.
4:17
SPEAKER_01: So it it could be really interesting uh for sure.
4:19
SPEAKER_01: I mean I'm excited because I love talking about it, but uh me too.
4:24
SPEAKER_00: I can talk about it all day.
4:25
SPEAKER_00: In fact, Blake and I got into just a little bit something that I've been having fun with with the Enneagram.
4:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because for some reason, like I've taken Strength Finders, Disc, Myers Briggs, all those things.
4:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, nothing has clicked with my brain like the Enneagram has.
4:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like it's something that I feel like I just understand.
4:43
SPEAKER_00: And that is such a breath of fresh air for me because you know, there's just I don't know, I just get it.
4:49
SPEAKER_00: But I've been having a lot of fun trying to guess what Enneagram types disciples would have been.
4:53
SPEAKER_01: Yes, I love it.
4:55
SPEAKER_01: So what do you think?
4:56
SPEAKER_01: What do you think?
4:56
SPEAKER_01: I want to hear.
4:57
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think Paul is a challenger.
4:59
SPEAKER_00: Oh, for sure.
5:00
SPEAKER_01: So an eight.
5:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no doubt, hands down.
5:03
SPEAKER_00: Um the one I identify with the most is Peter.
5:05
SPEAKER_00: I think that he was a two.
5:07
SPEAKER_00: He's a helper.
5:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
5:09
SPEAKER_00: Like he just so badly wanted to help and he just really wanted to do it well, but he was often motivated by the desire to have recognition, which I think sometimes was his downfall.
5:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, or even the like need to be needed and the overwhelming desire to help, maybe where help wasn't always wanted.
5:29
SPEAKER_00: Exactly, exactly.
5:30
SPEAKER_00: That's totally Peter.
5:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think James and John must have been threes.
5:34
SPEAKER_00: Either that or their mom was, because she wanted them to sit on either side of Jesus, you know.
5:41
SPEAKER_01: Yes, it's so true.
5:43
SPEAKER_01: That's a good one.
5:44
SPEAKER_01: I know.
5:47
SPEAKER_01: Oh, for sure.
5:48
SPEAKER_01: So a six, right?
5:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, that's a loyalist.
5:51
SPEAKER_00: Um, Abigail would have been a nine up.
5:53
SPEAKER_00: Nine nine nine.
5:54
SPEAKER_00: You're right, you're right.
5:54
SPEAKER_01: Because I was just thinking, I was just thinking how James and John could have been nines, but their mom is a three, and they were just willing to go along with whatever they want.
6:03
SPEAKER_00: So it's it's possible they were nines, yeah, because they just went with it and they didn't know.
6:07
SPEAKER_01: Sixes and loyalists, right?
6:08
SPEAKER_01: Exactly, exactly.
6:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
6:10
SPEAKER_01: That's good.
6:11
SPEAKER_00: Just you know, just it's just fun to try and guess what they are.
6:15
SPEAKER_00: I have a girlfriend, she's like, you need to write a blog post about that or a series.
6:19
unknown: Yeah.
6:21
SPEAKER_01: It is super fun.
6:22
SPEAKER_01: It is, it's just really interesting because I think out of you you listed all the different personality, you know, type tests and discussions and books, and they're they're very helpful.
6:32
SPEAKER_01: But they I find that the reason why it can only go so far is it's about what you do, it's behavior, which you can change behavior.
6:41
SPEAKER_01: But that's part of the problem, is because then there's a mask to your true self and to your real self.
6:48
SPEAKER_01: And that's actually what the Lord is wanting to work on and what he created, and he loves and and wants us to figure out our healthiest and best to why we do what we do, not what we do.
7:01
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's outward action again, right?
7:03
SPEAKER_01: When the in-word is what counts.
7:05
SPEAKER_00: And we talked about that yesterday.
7:07
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna love this episode.
7:08
SPEAKER_00: But we talked about, like I said, my favorite thing about the Enneagram is that it lets it it's not just about what you do, but it's about, you know, what you look like healthy, what you look like average, and what you look like unhealthy.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: Right.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: And then the the things that happened in your past that shaped you into this number because nobody is born a dominant number, you know, that understanding the core of why you believe the way you do is probably the best thing that's going to move you to healthy.
7:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
7:37
SPEAKER_01: Well, and I I actually fall on the side where I think nature um is actually plays a lot into it.
7:44
SPEAKER_01: The problem is the nurture is what often develops the shadow side.
7:49
SPEAKER_01: Because oh yeah, because the the beauty of the Aneagram, once you discover it, it's like the choose your own adventure thing.
7:57
SPEAKER_01: You you are on this whether you wanted to be on this path or not, but suddenly with the knowledge of the Aneagram, you can start writing a different story.
8:06
SPEAKER_01: You can begin to tell yourself a different narrative, and you can you can begin to change the trajectory of your life.
8:12
SPEAKER_01: Just because that's where you started your adventure and that's who you are.
8:15
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to continue in how life, you know, nurture maybe shaped you.
8:21
SPEAKER_01: Um, and you can tap into the best side of the nature, the the the part that the Lord gave you that, you know, brings him glory throughout it all.
8:29
SPEAKER_00: You know, have you ever thought about doing uh an Enneagram coaching podcast?
8:35
SPEAKER_01: I yes, I have.
8:36
SPEAKER_01: I've been, you know, it's one of those things that I tag it, I've been tagging it on, like a answering your Enneagram questions, because I've opened it up to my audience to like, you know, what are your questions?
8:47
SPEAKER_01: And whereas I'm talking with friends, they're like, hey, what about this?
8:50
SPEAKER_01: What about that?
8:51
SPEAKER_01: And so I have a segment at the end of my shows about the Anneagram.
8:55
SPEAKER_01: Um, I or I should say the season, um, Christmas season and the season before that.
9:00
SPEAKER_01: And so now this season, I'm trying to figure out what that looks like mostly because I've been getting to talk about it more in the show, in the conversation itself.
9:11
SPEAKER_01: Um, so yeah, I have been I've been trying to figure that out, you know, as I've been speaking on it too, going, okay, how does, you know, what does this look like?
9:18
SPEAKER_01: And and also just knowing my coaching business, I can only take on so many individual clients as you are, you know, looking at that too.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
9:26
SPEAKER_01: So how can I do this with bigger groups?
9:29
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, leadership of churches, um, business, you know, leadership, you know, kind of all those like, you know, whole mom's group at a time, you know, just that sort of thing.
9:38
SPEAKER_01: So I'm still working on it.
9:40
SPEAKER_01: And this is part of the like well.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: If you ever want to help brainstorm it, I'll, you know, I'm your girl.
9:44
SPEAKER_00: So that'd be.
9:46
SPEAKER_00: But I think we could spend all day doing this, and we're already like 17 minutes past 10.
9:51
SPEAKER_00: I know.
9:52
SPEAKER_01: Um, so anyway, we want to dive into more about what is Ann Watson up to?
9:58
SPEAKER_01: Who is she?
10:00
SPEAKER_01: The amazingness.
10:00
SPEAKER_01: Now you and I, you and I get to talk via Voxa, which is really fun.
10:04
SPEAKER_01: So we've gotten to know each other.
10:06
SPEAKER_01: We met at Declare a couple years ago, and then I got to come last year and I met up with somebody else that was awesome, and we got to talk briefly.
10:14
SPEAKER_01: But the thing is, you can't talk during the conference.
10:16
SPEAKER_01: Like you're so busy.
10:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you really can't, especially if you're one of the hosts.
10:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
10:21
SPEAKER_01: So you stumbled on podcasting yourself as you joined up with Declair.
10:25
SPEAKER_01: You want to just share a little bit about that?
10:27
SPEAKER_01: Because it's I love talking to other podcasters, and I think other people feel the same.
10:31
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's actually kind of a funny story to me because uh we had had two different women who were hosting the podcast for us, and it was, you know, they would just do who our speakers were for a couple of weeks before the conference.
10:44
SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
10:45
SPEAKER_00: And one of them actually because it was really short.
10:48
SPEAKER_01: I remember that.
10:49
SPEAKER_01: Like it was just before they were short and quick.
10:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
10:52
SPEAKER_00: And one of them was uh actually running her own podcast at the same time.
10:56
SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
10:57
SPEAKER_00: And so when we finished that season, she told us that she wasn't gonna be able to do it anymore because juggling two podcasts was just too much.
11:05
SPEAKER_00: And we totally get that.
11:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: So we're sitting around uh having a meeting and we're talking about well, who can we get to host the podcast?
11:14
SPEAKER_00: And I said, I'll do it.
11:15
SPEAKER_00: And then I kind of looked behind me like, who said that?
11:19
SPEAKER_01: Oh shoot, did I just say that?
11:21
SPEAKER_00: It was so funny because I literally knew nothing about podcasting.
11:25
SPEAKER_00: I owned no equipment, I had never done it.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: I think I'd been a guest maybe one time.
11:30
SPEAKER_00: That's hilarious.
11:31
SPEAKER_00: And and I was like, I'll do it.
11:33
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know, I just felt very peaceful about it.
11:37
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
11:37
SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that I did was I, you know, did a bunch of research.
11:42
SPEAKER_00: I figured out how it works.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: Um, I actually asked the woman who was hosting it before to come to my house and kind of train me, which she did.
11:49
SPEAKER_00: Oh, good.
11:50
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then Joy of Joys, my then like 18-year-old daughter was like, Mom, there's an easier way to edit that.
11:56
SPEAKER_00: Let me show you.
11:57
SPEAKER_00: Oh no, so she trained me on Garage Band.
12:00
SPEAKER_00: God bless teenagers.
12:01
SPEAKER_01: Thank goodness for Garage Band, right?
12:02
SPEAKER_01: I can use it.
12:03
SPEAKER_01: So that tells you.
12:05
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: I love Garage Band.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
12:07
SPEAKER_00: But um I just decided that I was gonna take this over.
12:11
SPEAKER_00: And immediately I wanted to make it a resource that our community could access year-round.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: Because one of the things that I love, love, love about conferences is that it's you get stuck in a rut, you feel a little stale.
12:27
SPEAKER_00: And when you go to a conference, it's like getting a shot of adrenaline.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
12:31
unknown: That's right.
12:32
SPEAKER_00: Suddenly you feel better, you're pumped up, you're motivated, you're ready to go.
12:35
SPEAKER_00: You got direction.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: If you right, if you wait a year in between, eventually you're gonna kind of fall back into that place of rut, stuck, unmotivated, that kind of thing.
12:46
SPEAKER_00: And so what we need is like a vitamin, right?
12:49
SPEAKER_00: We need something that we can do on a more regular basis to help us keep that momentum going.
12:55
SPEAKER_00: And that's what I loved about what a podcast could do.
12:58
SPEAKER_00: So the first thing I did was make it year-round.
13:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, which I loved.
13:02
SPEAKER_01: I noticed I stumbled upon you guys.
13:05
SPEAKER_01: Well, I had been listening to it before because of Sarah and she had shared those a couple, you know, times.
13:10
SPEAKER_01: And then I noticed, oh yeah, this is like getting consistent.
13:12
SPEAKER_01: I can count on, you know, I want to subscribe to this.
13:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was great.
13:17
SPEAKER_00: Well, and that was it too.
13:18
SPEAKER_00: I wanted our people to be able to count on it.
13:20
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, we've been getting a really good response, and we are gonna hit our 100th episode here in a couple of months or weeks, yeah.
13:29
SPEAKER_00: Which is really exciting.
13:31
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
13:32
SPEAKER_00: And uh, I'm actually starting to get letters now from authors uh from their publishing companies who are like, would you consider having so-and-so on as a guest?
13:40
SPEAKER_00: So fun.
13:41
SPEAKER_00: And it's cracking me up, especially because they're like, Can I have your address so I can send you an advanced copy of their book?
13:46
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, sure.
13:47
SPEAKER_00: Um inside I'm like, oh my god, so cool.
13:52
SPEAKER_01: It's like Christmas when you get those free books in the mail.
13:55
SPEAKER_01: It really is, because I, you know, I'm such a book nerd.
13:57
SPEAKER_01: I don't have as much time as I would like, but send me a book anytime you want.
14:03
SPEAKER_00: Exactly, exactly.
14:04
SPEAKER_00: So it's been a lot of fun learning that.
14:06
SPEAKER_00: And uh I feel like the podcast has been getting better and the way that I do it has been getting better.
14:12
SPEAKER_00: And I guess, you know, for anybody out there that's thinking about starting a podcast, man, I just want you to know I had no idea what I was doing.
14:19
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
14:19
SPEAKER_00: And I'm I just I just started and and that's unusual for me.
14:24
SPEAKER_00: I don't always approach things like that.
14:25
SPEAKER_00: Okay, but this one has worked out really well.
14:28
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so yeah, we haven't even talked about what's your Anneagram number, because I think that's always fun to talk about, uh, especially when you attach it to what you're doing, your ministry, what do you feel the Lord's calling you to?
14:40
SPEAKER_00: Uh well, I'm a two.
14:42
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
14:42
SPEAKER_00: And I did take a test.
14:44
SPEAKER_00: I know you're not a fan of tests, but I took a test.
14:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
14:47
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, but it was a it was a test I paid for, so maybe that makes it more legit.
14:50
SPEAKER_01: It was the ready one, because that one is pretty yes, yeah, yes.
14:53
SPEAKER_00: That one's really in depth.
14:55
SPEAKER_01: I think that's the best of all of them.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm a two, which is the helper.
14:59
SPEAKER_01: And when I first discovered, there's that we love twos, they're so great.
15:04
SPEAKER_00: Um, when I first read it though, I was like, ew, no, I don't want to be a two.
15:09
SPEAKER_00: That's gross.
15:10
SPEAKER_00: Because I was like, a helper, like, oh, I don't like volunteering in kids' ministry.
15:16
SPEAKER_00: That cannot be me.
15:17
SPEAKER_00: Like, no, don't put me in a box.
15:20
SPEAKER_00: Right, exactly.
15:21
SPEAKER_00: But then as I read it more, I started to understand, you know, that helpers just they really want to help other people be successful.
15:29
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
15:30
SPEAKER_00: And they don't expect much in return, but a hey, that was great, thank you.
15:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
15:37
SPEAKER_00: But they can easily get into an unhealthy place if they're not getting that.
15:41
SPEAKER_00: So when they start to when they start to be a helper in order to influence the opinion of someone else, then that's an unhealthy thing.
15:50
SPEAKER_00: And I kind of recognized myself in that.
15:53
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
15:54
SPEAKER_00: The number of times that I wanted somebody to think better of me, that I was pouring into them, giving to them, providing them resources, and basically not having healthy boundaries.
16:06
SPEAKER_00: Right, totally.
16:08
SPEAKER_00: And that was such a huge light bulb moment for me.
16:11
SPEAKER_00: And I have been obsessed with the Enneagram ever since.
16:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a powerful moment when you begin to unpack why you're doing what you're doing.
16:18
SPEAKER_01: I mean, when I hear specific transformation stories sometimes that are just really startling, where even if they had mistyped and then they figure out their number, and suddenly their whole life makes sense and they're like, What?
16:31
SPEAKER_01: Right, the whole life.
16:33
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
16:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the last 40 years or whatever, however long, you know, many years they've been alive, it just suddenly all begins to click of why you've done what you've done.
16:41
SPEAKER_00: And oh, a million percent.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: And and what's really cool about that is that in and of itself is a type of freedom.
16:50
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: Like understanding why you've done what you've done and why you've made these decisions or had this pattern of thinking, yeah, is really, I think, what you need in order to overcome anything that isn't serving you well.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: Right.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
17:04
SPEAKER_00: I love it.
17:05
SPEAKER_01: Now, okay, besides a podcaster, you do a lot of other things and you work with Declare, which is an amazing conference that anyone who is interested in some sort of Christian communicating and wanting to even figure out where their place is, you gotta go to Declare.
17:20
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you want to.
17:21
SPEAKER_01: It's I almost actually don't want to advertise it because I don't want it to get much bigger.
17:25
SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's not gonna get bigger.
17:27
SPEAKER_00: One of our values is we want to keep it small on purpose because we like that community feel.
17:32
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it's not gonna get bigger.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: But what may end up happening is it may get be harder to get tickets.
17:38
SPEAKER_01: Yes, which yeah, so get your tickets early.
17:40
SPEAKER_01: But that's what I love about it is that it feels like family and the speakers and the publicists and the publishers and the literary agents, they sit among you and with you, and you're you know, getting people at the very beginning of the journey and people who've been doing this for like 20 plus years, and it's just so great.
17:57
SPEAKER_01: You learn from one another, you learn from the speakers, it's just really super.
18:00
SPEAKER_01: So everyone should go, but um, make sure you don't take my ticket.
18:06
SPEAKER_00: Right, right, right.
18:07
SPEAKER_01: And so, but there's there's more to you than that, which is amazing.
18:10
SPEAKER_01: I don't know how you have time to do all these things, but share us a little bit more, just this idea that you were talking yesterday about, you know, trading services and um just kind of what you're moving into and expanding your story and how you want to help other women using your natural giftings to help others and how that looks.
18:28
SPEAKER_01: I think it's so great.
18:30
SPEAKER_00: Oh, well, you're really sweet.
18:32
SPEAKER_00: And as far as how do I have time to do all this, two words empty nest.
18:36
SPEAKER_01: Oh, hey, there that's legit.
18:38
SPEAKER_01: Well, you still have my home.
18:40
SPEAKER_00: My teenager that lives at home might be offended by that.
18:43
SPEAKER_00: But uh, you know, it's just it's different.
18:45
SPEAKER_00: Some it's a little bit different because I do have chunks of time during the day that I can get some stuff done.
18:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but I will say that this has always been a passion of mine.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: I have always found a way to make it work.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: Um, and one thing that has always stuck in my head is that time is a statement of priority, not fact.
19:04
SPEAKER_00: That's so good and so when people say, you know, how do you find the time?
19:08
SPEAKER_00: It's I just I do because it's what I care about the most.
19:12
SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
19:13
SPEAKER_01: So um great perspective as we figure out, you know, we're always talking about how do we how do we dictate our calendar instead of our calendar dictating our time?
19:22
SPEAKER_01: And you just kind of named a great mindset.
19:24
SPEAKER_00: Well, sure.
19:25
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not perfect at it.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I can, you know, chase a squirrel or a shiny thing as, you know, with the best of all.
19:32
SPEAKER_00: Right.
19:33
SPEAKER_00: But you know, it's it's the willingness to let something else go in order to do something that you really want to do.
19:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
19:39
SPEAKER_00: And we do it every single day, right?
19:42
SPEAKER_00: Like we let dishes go so we can watch our favorite TV show or whatever.
19:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
19:46
SPEAKER_00: It's just applying that to what you're trying to do for, you know, your passion or your work.
19:52
SPEAKER_00: And you asked me about where that comes from for me.
19:55
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I've actually spent a lot of time thinking about this over the last several years because I actually grew up in a home that was not really encouraging.
20:05
SPEAKER_00: And I think it would qualify under verbally, mentally, and emotionally abusive.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: Although I will say that I I believe that my family was well intentioned.
20:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
20:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
20:20
SPEAKER_00: You know, I think that their brokenness was a result of their own childhoods, whatever that is.
20:24
SPEAKER_00: So I'm not like angry with my family, but it was very highly critical.
20:29
SPEAKER_00: It was, you know, if you don't do what I say, you're gonna starve to death.
20:32
SPEAKER_00: It was your career choice is stupid.
20:35
SPEAKER_00: It was all these things.
20:36
SPEAKER_00: And so I kind of grew up not really believing very good things about myself, and then ended up as a sophomore in high school being really severely bullied by my peers.
20:49
SPEAKER_00: Oh, wow.
20:49
SPEAKER_00: And uh that ended when I was 15 years old and I had plastic surgery.
20:54
SPEAKER_01: Oh my god.
20:55
SPEAKER_01: I have no idea.
20:56
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
20:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I had plastic surgery to reduce the size of my nose in order to stop the bullying.
21:03
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and that kind of unintentionally started me on a path of changing myself to please other people.
21:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
21:10
SPEAKER_00: Right.
21:11
SPEAKER_00: You know, that I could influence the way other people thought of me if I was just perfect enough, if my nose was small enough, if I picked the right career.
21:19
SPEAKER_00: You know, I wanted to stop all the negativism in my life.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: And so I started trying to adapt to what other people said I should do or be.
21:28
SPEAKER_00: And I ended up really struggling with a lot of perfectionism and hiding myself because I was too afraid of failure and not like living into my giftedness or my strengths or my passions, just predetermining that my passions were terrible.
21:44
SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
21:45
SPEAKER_01: Because that's what the world was telling you.
21:47
SPEAKER_01: And those who were supposed to be cheering you on were reinforcing the lies.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
21:53
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
21:54
SPEAKER_00: And in the meantime, I was also beginning to struggle with an autoimmune disease.
21:58
SPEAKER_00: I was uh I have celiac disease, but There was 21 years where I was symptomatic but undiagnosed.
22:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
22:04
SPEAKER_00: And every time I went to a doctor, a doctor would tell me that, you know, it was all in my head.
22:10
SPEAKER_01: Because the Wouldn't you like to go back and talk to those doctors?
22:13
SPEAKER_01: I have a few of those in my life.
22:15
SPEAKER_01: Be like, oh yeah.
22:16
SPEAKER_00: I wish.
22:17
SPEAKER_00: But you know, at the time, I mean my husband is a doctor.
22:19
SPEAKER_00: So he will tell you that when he was in medical school, they told him that if you saw one case of celiac disease in your life, that'd be a lot.
22:26
SPEAKER_00: Really?
22:27
SPEAKER_01: So doctors were brained to look for that.
22:30
SPEAKER_00: So that's part of the reason that it took so long.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: But so I was dealing with uh anxiety and I wasn't feeling well.
22:37
SPEAKER_00: And I was just convinced all around that I was like this big failure.
22:41
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
22:43
SPEAKER_00: And that that was just really hard for me.
22:45
SPEAKER_00: But then in my mid-30s, I kind of found Jesus.
22:49
SPEAKER_00: Now I have to say that I I'd always known about him.
22:53
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
22:54
SPEAKER_01: And she said, kind of found Jesus.
22:56
SPEAKER_00: So right.
22:58
SPEAKER_00: I I kind of always known about him, you know.
23:00
SPEAKER_00: My mom would talk about him every now and again.
23:02
SPEAKER_00: She was raised Christian scientist, though.
23:05
SPEAKER_00: And that was um, it's a religion founded by a woman in Boston.
23:09
SPEAKER_00: And so I always wondered why my mom would refer to the Lord as God.
23:14
SPEAKER_00: Like my mom had no accent.
23:18
SPEAKER_00: But when she said his name, she said God.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: And I always thought that was so funny.
23:22
SPEAKER_00: And so get it now.
23:23
SPEAKER_00: It's that Bostonian thing.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: God.
23:27
SPEAKER_00: Um, but so I'd kind of always known about him.
23:29
SPEAKER_00: But you know, my mom was Christian scientist, my dad was Catholic.
23:33
SPEAKER_00: They kind of agreed not to disagree.
23:35
SPEAKER_00: We never went to church.
23:36
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
23:37
SPEAKER_00: And for the most part, when we would come across religious people or people who went to church, my mom would call them a Bible thumper.
23:44
SPEAKER_00: So this was like another criticism that made me think I should not, could not go to church.
23:50
SPEAKER_00: And somewhere along the way, I kind of developed this idea that um I would have to change everything that I am if I wanted to go to church because I wasn't even holy enough to go in the front door and that I would get kicked out.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: And so I really I just sort of wrote it off as a possibility for me until one day uh I was at a preschool event with one of my kids, and there was a woman there who I knew was a pastor's wife, and she started singing lyrics to a pop culture rap song that did not really have great words in it.
24:29
SPEAKER_00: And so I walked up to her and I was like, Explain.
24:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like I know you're this, but what about this?
24:36
SPEAKER_00: Right.
24:36
SPEAKER_00: Like, you're a pastor's wife.
24:38
SPEAKER_00: Shouldn't you be wearing a cardigan and praying and like gentle spoken and not even know that bad words exist?
24:44
SPEAKER_00: Right.
24:45
SPEAKER_00: And she just laughed at me and she was like, Oh, honey, I am nothing if not the woman God created me to be.
24:51
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, huh.
24:53
SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
24:53
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I have this all wrong.
24:55
SPEAKER_00: And so I started going to church, to the church that she and her husband were over, and it changed my life completely.
25:04
SPEAKER_01: That's amazing.
25:04
SPEAKER_00: And so I started, you know, kind of chasing Jesus a little bit, which is different from following him.
25:10
SPEAKER_00: I found out later.
25:11
SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes.
25:11
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then we moved to, we were in South Carolina, we moved to Texas, and I got invited by a girlfriend to go to a women's ministry event, which the church that I had been attending was so small they didn't have that.
25:23
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
25:24
SPEAKER_00: But so I go to this women's ministry event, and I'm sitting there watching just there were about 500 women in this room, and everybody was hugging everybody and encouraging everybody and ooing and awing over everybody's babies.
25:37
SPEAKER_00: And then this one woman got up on the stage, she was the director, and she just like gave this talk that was so encouraging and inspiring and empowering.
25:47
SPEAKER_00: And I just I sat there the whole time, like my heart racing, because I think I I thought I want to do that.
25:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, wow, that's amazing.
25:58
SPEAKER_01: So you're you're really a baby Christian, and you're totally to this faith stuff, still figuring out what following Jesus is, and you're it not only impacted by the people up there, but it it touches something in you of how God designed you and created you and awakens that that's pretty powerful.
26:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was a really pivotal moment in my life.
26:18
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I can still picture where I was, what I was wearing, who I was with, the pictures that we took.
26:24
SPEAKER_00: I can I remember what that woman said as part of her story.
26:28
SPEAKER_00: Like it was that important in my life.
26:31
SPEAKER_00: But I, you know, then I had no idea what to do with that information.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: Like, what do you do with it, right?
26:36
SPEAKER_01: Like, oh, that's nice.
26:37
SPEAKER_01: Now what?
26:39
SPEAKER_00: So the the funny story, I'll try to give you the short version, is that I was actually I was doing women's ministry at my friend's church, but I was attending a different church.
26:47
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: That did not have a women's ministry, which was crazy because it was like over 8,000 people.
26:52
SPEAKER_00: Oh, no kidding.
26:53
SPEAKER_00: That is crazy.
26:54
SPEAKER_00: And I had a it is, it's crazy.
26:56
SPEAKER_00: So I had a friend who was on staff and I mentioned it to her, and she said, Yeah, I wish they did.
27:01
SPEAKER_00: She said, Why don't you write a business proposal and convince them why it's important?
27:08
SPEAKER_00: And she did that because we had one dog in my family, and my kids wanted a second dog, and my husband said no.
27:16
SPEAKER_00: So I said to them, He's a businessman, write him a business proposal about why we should get the dog, how we're gonna pay for it, how you know what the drawbacks are.
27:25
SPEAKER_00: And so they did that.
27:26
SPEAKER_00: It was cute as anything.
27:27
SPEAKER_00: I had a bit of that.
27:29
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's precious.
27:30
SPEAKER_00: And we got a second dog.
27:32
SPEAKER_00: And so my friend was like, do that to the church.
27:36
SPEAKER_00: So I'm sitting there one day and I'm praying to God, probably for the first time ever.
27:41
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, God, if this is something you want me to do, then I want to do it, but I have no idea how.
27:46
SPEAKER_00: So if you could send help, that'd be so great.
27:50
SPEAKER_00: Okay, thanks.
27:51
SPEAKER_00: Bye.
27:53
SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's so great.
27:54
SPEAKER_00: And I went to lunch uh later that day with my mother-in-law.
27:58
SPEAKER_00: It was later in the afternoon, it was like two or three.
28:00
SPEAKER_00: The restaurant was not busy.
28:01
SPEAKER_00: I walked in, and you know, I'm in the Houston area, and the only other two people in the restaurant were Beth Moore and her daughter.
28:09
SPEAKER_00: What?
28:10
SPEAKER_00: So I knew who Beth Moore was.
28:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
28:12
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I kind of did the fangirl thing to my mother-in-law.
28:17
SPEAKER_00: And then I thought, okay, God, I just asked you for help like two hours ago.
28:21
SPEAKER_00: Right.
28:22
SPEAKER_00: So I put my big girl panties on and I walked over to her and I told her, you know, what I had been asked to do.
28:27
SPEAKER_00: She was the sweetest thing ever.
28:28
SPEAKER_00: She spent like 30 minutes with me.
28:30
SPEAKER_00: Oh, she connected me to her women's ministry director who met me for coffee and gave me like 15 books.
28:37
SPEAKER_00: And uh over the course of a couple of months, I wrote this proposal, which involved me Googling scripture verses because I had never heard them all.
28:48
SPEAKER_00: I didn't know what the Bible said about it.
28:49
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, surely it says something.
28:51
SPEAKER_00: Like typing into Google, what does the Bible say about women's ministry?
28:55
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, you don't find a lot there, you know.
28:58
SPEAKER_00: But um the whole time that I was doing it, I just kind of had this impression in my mind, which I now feel like was maybe the Holy Spirit, that I was planting seeds.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: That thought just kept popping into my head.
29:12
SPEAKER_00: And so I thought, well, that's fine.
29:13
SPEAKER_00: I I took that to mean I'm gonna give this proposal to them, they're gonna reject it, but it's okay because I was obedient to God.
29:20
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
29:20
SPEAKER_00: Check that off the bucket list and move on with my life.
29:24
SPEAKER_00: Well, then we moved.
29:26
SPEAKER_00: The church did reject it, by the way.
29:28
SPEAKER_00: They did, they didn't want anything to do with women's ministry.
29:31
SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
29:31
SPEAKER_00: But we moved.
29:32
SPEAKER_00: I found a church that had women's ministry.
29:34
SPEAKER_00: I signed up for everything.
29:36
SPEAKER_00: And I was sitting with my small group like three or four weeks in, and I was telling them my funny I met Beth Moore story, which obviously includes this proposal for women's ministry.
29:47
SPEAKER_00: And what I didn't know at the time was that my leader was actually the daughter-in-law of the senior pastor.
29:53
SPEAKER_00: And she knew the women's director was pregnant and about to leave the job.
29:58
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
29:59
SPEAKER_00: So she goes home and tells him that he needs to talk to me.
30:03
SPEAKER_00: And the, you know, short story is that uh four months and seven interviews later, while scratching their heads, they said, All right, we're gonna give you a shot.
30:12
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna hire you.
30:13
SPEAKER_01: And that's crazy.
30:14
SPEAKER_00: So I got hired as the women's ministry director at a large church in the Dallas area without ever having read the Bible.
30:21
SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, within a couple of months, they had me move from interim to permanent, and then a couple months later from, you know, the director to a pastor, and then a couple of months after that to full time.
30:37
SPEAKER_00: And there was always this great pressure in me that I needed to catch up.
30:41
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
30:42
SPEAKER_00: So there were two things that were really critical during that time for me.
30:45
SPEAKER_00: The first one was I gotta figure out the whole Jesus Bible thing because I'm responsible for the spiritual development of these women.
30:53
SPEAKER_00: So that's thing.
30:54
SPEAKER_00: That's a thing.
30:55
SPEAKER_00: And then the other thing that happened was I was developing relationships with each of these women and discovering over and over and over again how women feel like they're too much or they're not enough, or they don't measure up, or if they made too many mistakes, or God would never want them to, or their dreams don't matter, or their passions aren't important.
31:17
SPEAKER_00: And it really kind of started this fire in me.
31:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
31:21
SPEAKER_00: So I was wrestling with this idea of my passions and dreams and theirs, right?
31:27
SPEAKER_00: And the fact that I ne I never felt holy enough to do it.
31:31
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, part of me kind of went back to that little girl who wanted to change myself to meet the expectation of others.
31:38
SPEAKER_00: And I did that for a long time.
31:40
SPEAKER_00: I really tried to do that, and I can just say it is exhausting.
31:44
SPEAKER_00: And it's it's the best way to kill your dreams, right?
31:49
SPEAKER_00: Yep, is to try and fit it into someone else's box.
31:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
31:53
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, there are a couple other like events that happened during that timeline.
31:57
SPEAKER_00: And um, I ended up getting some good Christian counseling, which I cannot recommend enough to anybody.
32:02
SPEAKER_00: Yes, and everybody.
32:04
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we all need it.
32:06
SPEAKER_00: It's the bomb.
32:07
SPEAKER_00: Um, and by the way, just stigma-wise, counseling is what healthy people do.
32:12
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
32:12
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
32:13
SPEAKER_00: If if you are not in counseling, then you are not concerned about getting healthy.
32:18
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
32:19
SPEAKER_00: I'm not judging, I'm just saying.
32:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
32:22
SPEAKER_00: I love it.
32:23
SPEAKER_00: But you know, through that, I kind of started to discover that who God created me to be, flaws and all, is not a surprise to him.
32:32
SPEAKER_00: And I started to consider what if I stopped looking at these things as flaws or drawbacks or failures, and I started thinking about how the things that I think aren't good about me might be used for the kingdom of God.
32:45
SPEAKER_00: Right.
32:46
SPEAKER_00: And I started just kind of experimenting with the idea of just being my true self, which I'm just gonna be honest with you, Amy, um, includes not great language.
32:55
SPEAKER_01: Well, I already knew that about you, but but come on, all of us, all of us in the end, when we're being when we're our most comfortable, when we are with those that we know love us no matter what, it happens.
33:09
SPEAKER_01: Those those words come out, and sometimes they are just the best description for the situation.
33:15
SPEAKER_00: And well, yeah, absolutely.
33:17
SPEAKER_00: And I think sometimes, especially for Christian women, that when you use some of those words, it kind of like shocks them out of the thought pattern they're on.
33:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, it's like true, it arrests what they're thinking and it makes them kind of sit back and go, wait a second.
33:33
SPEAKER_00: Right.
33:34
SPEAKER_00: That's not what I was expecting.
33:35
SPEAKER_00: What is different?
33:36
SPEAKER_00: And and they begin to think in another way.
33:39
SPEAKER_00: But it was really powerful for me because there was one night that I went to uh an anniversary party for my aunt, and my mom had passed away like a decade before, and all of her friends were there at this anniversary party, and they were just gushing about how I was a pastor, how it was the greatest thing ever.
33:58
SPEAKER_00: And there was one man there at the table that I knew was not a believer and had been struggling with demons of his own, and he sort of crossed his arms akimbo at this gushing, and he was like, you know, just disgust, right?
34:11
SPEAKER_00: And so I looked at him and I said, Oh no, no, no, don't start thinking I'm too holy.
34:14
SPEAKER_00: As soon as somebody thinks I'm too holy, I just drop up, beep, on him, and we're good.
34:19
SPEAKER_00: Except I didn't say beep.
34:21
SPEAKER_00: And it was really funny because he threw his head back and he laughed, you know, huge laugh.
34:26
SPEAKER_00: And all my mom's friends looked like they just ate something sour.
34:29
SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
34:30
SPEAKER_00: And I just, you know, I was like, I I just felt okay about it.
34:34
SPEAKER_00: But later that night, as he was getting ready to leave, he came up to me and he gave me the biggest bear hug of my life.
34:40
SPEAKER_00: He picked me up off the ground and he whispered into my ear, that was the first time I thought maybe God was real.
34:48
SPEAKER_00: Whoa.
34:48
SPEAKER_00: It was so shocking to me.
34:50
SPEAKER_00: It was absolutely shocking.
34:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but I also loved it.
34:54
SPEAKER_00: And that was, I think, the encouragement that I needed from God that who I was and what makes me me is not only good enough, but also the very thing that He's gonna use to change the kingdom.
35:07
SPEAKER_00: And so I started joking a lot that I'm unholier than thou.
35:13
SPEAKER_00: And I love it.
35:14
SPEAKER_00: Like I'm unholier than everybody else, but I'm okay with it.
35:16
SPEAKER_00: I'm good with that because Jesus is good with that, you know.
35:19
SPEAKER_01: Well, and it's and it's not us who makes us holy.
35:22
SPEAKER_01: Like, could we just get that through our heads?
35:24
SPEAKER_01: It's nothing that we do.
35:26
SPEAKER_01: It has everything to do with like we are not enough, we are not holy enough, we can't, we can't be wholehearted or get our souls together.
35:33
SPEAKER_01: It's Christ in us who accomplishes that work.
35:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think that women, maybe the the one small tweak that where they get it wrong, or the the one thing where we get a little confused, is that God says that we are to be transformed into his image.
35:49
SPEAKER_00: And so we take that as an item on our to-do list.
35:52
SPEAKER_00: Right, right, that we need to work to transform ourselves to become more like him.
35:58
SPEAKER_00: And what we're forgetting is that it's not our job to become holy.
36:04
SPEAKER_00: Right.
36:05
SPEAKER_00: That's the spirit's job, that's God's job.
36:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's our job to be who God created us to be, and to say yes, to sign just kind of like you did all those years ago.
36:16
SPEAKER_01: You said yes, you signed up to the process, you were obedient with reading the books and creating the business plan and submitting it, even though it was rejected, you know, and how the Lord beautifully turned that around and used it.
36:29
SPEAKER_01: And even again, when you said yes to a position that you really had no idea what to do or how to read the Bible, the Lord takes just the willingness, and he's the one who does the work.
36:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he really does.
36:41
SPEAKER_00: And you know, it's interesting that you said when I took the position, because I did wrestle with it a lot because I was really struggling with feeling like a fraud.
36:49
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
36:50
SPEAKER_00: You know, uh getting found out.
36:52
SPEAKER_01: I mean, how many of us do some of so many different things, right?
36:55
SPEAKER_01: We're all sure that, you know, imposter syndrome, right?
36:58
SPEAKER_01: I think it's called.
36:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's exactly what it's called.
37:01
SPEAKER_00: But you know, the opportunity for failure in front of a huge community of people that you have to live among as a very scary thing.
37:11
SPEAKER_00: You know, I have gotten very good at hiding and not putting myself front and center.
37:16
SPEAKER_00: And here I was about to expose my weaknesses, like for the whole world to judge.
37:23
SPEAKER_00: That was very, very scary.
37:25
SPEAKER_00: But I had a weird piece about it, and I remember praying to God about it and saying, Listen, God, if this is what you have in mind for me, then I will say yes, but I am terrified.
37:36
SPEAKER_00: And therefore, if you open this door, I'm gonna make a deal with you.
37:41
SPEAKER_00: If you will equip me with what I need, then every time it gets hard and I am tempted to doubt myself, I will remember this conversation and this deal that we made that you will be enough to sustain me.
37:55
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's a good thing.
37:56
SPEAKER_00: And I don't think I probably use those words that some Christianese that like snuck in there.
37:59
SPEAKER_01: But over the years, you know, but that was the basics developed.
38:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
38:04
SPEAKER_00: Well, and it and you know, I don't usually speak to God like that, but you know, yeah, uh but in the written, you know, format it sounded pretty.
38:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but I had but I had to come, I cannot tell you the number of times I had to come back to that conversation.
38:17
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
38:17
SPEAKER_00: Where I'm like, okay, God, I believe you opened this door.
38:21
SPEAKER_00: So I will believe you will make this work.
38:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
38:24
SPEAKER_00: Even when it's hard, even when I feel like a failure or a fraud or like I've disappointed somebody, I am going to believe that it's you in control, not me.
38:33
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
38:33
SPEAKER_00: And that changed everything for me.
38:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
38:36
SPEAKER_00: Because it gave me the permission to really pursue being the very best women's ministry leader that I could.
38:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
38:45
SPEAKER_00: Um, but after a couple of years, I ended up leaving that job and hooking up with Declare, which is just my favorite thing, because it is all about uh encouraging women to pursue their passions and their dreams, overcome their self-doubt and their fears, and achieve not just success, but the true abundant life that Jesus promised.
39:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
39:07
unknown: Yeah.
39:07
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's that's the bottom, that's what we're about, is helping women love their dreams and achieve them in the name of the Lord and forgive themselves for their failures and give themselves grace when they mess up.
39:22
SPEAKER_00: And that we're all in this together and we just love each other.
39:25
SPEAKER_00: And it's such an amazing group of encouragers.
39:27
SPEAKER_00: I just cannot gush about them enough.
39:30
SPEAKER_00: And I've been with them now like five years.
39:32
SPEAKER_00: Oh, wow.
39:33
SPEAKER_00: And every year I I can say that more strongly than the year before.
39:38
SPEAKER_01: It's so important and invaluable.
39:40
SPEAKER_01: So it's the simple plans.
39:41
SPEAKER_01: And I I you touched on a couple of these because I know a lot of women listening to this podcast, they they come here for inspiration.
39:49
SPEAKER_01: They want to find a community where wholeheartedness is celebrated.
39:53
SPEAKER_01: They want to, they want to find stories that will inspire them as they go along the way.
39:57
SPEAKER_01: And a lot of them are saying yes in their season to that, whether it's mom of littles or you know, a career, maybe hope um or newly married or hope hope to be married.
40:09
SPEAKER_01: Um, just all the different different ways they're saying yes.
40:13
SPEAKER_01: And so for you, you personally, I mean, declare is doing an awesome ministry, but you personally as well.
40:19
SPEAKER_01: What what does the woman who is saying yes to being willing to discover more of their gifts and their callings and they're looking for some help along the way?
40:29
SPEAKER_01: What what are some practical things that they could do and how could you help them?
40:36
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think it's a really wide scope question because the first thing is there's not just one right answer for everyone.
40:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
40:45
SPEAKER_00: You know, everybody has to kind of find their own way.
40:47
SPEAKER_00: But I would say that there's a couple of things that women need to do.
40:50
SPEAKER_00: I mean, and and I'm a list maker, I tend to write things down.
40:55
SPEAKER_00: And so the first thing that I would write down uh about just kind of finding your purpose, your passion is what are the things that you believe about yourself that would keep you from doing it?
41:09
SPEAKER_00: They're limiting beliefs.
41:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
41:11
SPEAKER_00: So if you want to become a financial planner, a limiting belief might be you'll never make enough money at this because your parents told you you would starve to death, whatever it is.
41:21
SPEAKER_00: You know, really it's a mindset shift, right?
41:24
SPEAKER_00: Right.
41:24
SPEAKER_00: It's just it's writing down what are those limiting beliefs.
41:27
SPEAKER_00: That's the first step because you need to know what has the potential to hold you back.
41:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's good.
41:33
SPEAKER_00: Then the second thing I would write down is, and I mean to do this as honestly as possible.
41:40
SPEAKER_00: What do you love to do?
41:43
SPEAKER_00: Now I've seen this a million times over, right?
41:47
SPEAKER_00: Like people are always saying, What are your passions?
41:51
SPEAKER_00: What are your dreams?
41:51
SPEAKER_00: What could you talk about endlessly for hours on end?
41:54
SPEAKER_00: All that kind of stuff.
41:55
SPEAKER_00: And it's never really clicked with me because I was way too much in the mindset of, well, how do I answer that in a way that is pleasing to my audience?
42:03
SPEAKER_01: Sure, right.
42:04
SPEAKER_01: And all of the Anneagrams, right?
42:05
SPEAKER_01: We all will answer that question based on our shadow side instead of exactly, exactly.
42:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
42:11
SPEAKER_00: And so I just really want to encourage people to get honest.
42:16
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you need to write it all down and then set the paper on fire and throw it in your fireplace, do that.
42:22
SPEAKER_00: Like so nobody will ever write it.
42:24
SPEAKER_00: But get get in your head those things that you truly love to do.
42:29
SPEAKER_00: So when I was like in the seventh grade, uh, I decided that I was in a junior achievement class and I decided I wanted to do advertising as a career and got a lot of pushback from my parents that I would starve to death and they wanted me to do economics or something.
42:47
SPEAKER_00: And so I tried doing all these other things and changed my major four times, hated all of it, wasn't good at any of it, secretly applied to the School of Advertising and got in and graduated with that degree.
43:00
SPEAKER_00: Um, but then even ultimately then didn't end up doing that as a career because I was still too concerned with what other people would think.
43:09
SPEAKER_00: And now in my 40s here, I am starting a consulting and a marketing business because communication and marketing are truly passions of mine.
43:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
43:21
SPEAKER_00: That I never gave any weight or credit to, but that is something that I have loved since the seventh grade.
43:28
SPEAKER_00: And so go back to your seventh grade self.
43:31
SPEAKER_00: Like, what did you dream about doing then?
43:33
SPEAKER_00: What did you spend hours doing when you were like alone in your room?
43:36
SPEAKER_00: I mean, right?
43:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
43:39
SPEAKER_00: Like, what what did you dream about doing one day?
43:41
SPEAKER_00: Now, like if you wanted to be an astronaut and you are like blind as a bat without your glasses, you know?
43:47
SPEAKER_00: What was plan B?
43:48
SPEAKER_00: Let's move on.
43:49
SPEAKER_00: Like yeah, let's think about some other things.
43:51
SPEAKER_00: But what it's but what the exercise is meant to do is just sort of trigger in you what are those things that you maybe were built to do?
44:00
SPEAKER_00: And that is thinking about them when you were a child without the filter of other people's opinions.
44:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
44:07
SPEAKER_00: So just get real, real honest about those things.
44:10
SPEAKER_01: And can I just say I had this conversation, very conversation with someone this week on Boxer.
44:16
SPEAKER_01: That might take you a little while.
44:18
SPEAKER_01: Like we're talking weeks.
44:20
SPEAKER_01: It is not something that sometimes we can or we answer, but then we realize as we continue to mull that question over, we didn't answer it on honestly.
44:29
SPEAKER_00: It's well, and I think it's a fluid process.
44:32
SPEAKER_00: I think it's a fluid process.
44:33
SPEAKER_00: I think that you know, we our lives are all shaped of millions of experiences that will come to mind in the coming years, you know.
44:41
SPEAKER_00: So that that can be a fluid document and should be.
44:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
44:47
SPEAKER_00: But the the key to it uh after you start is then you make a list of the things in this world that really make you mad.
44:57
SPEAKER_00: Oh.
44:58
SPEAKER_00: So I was talking to someone who was trying to figure out what kind of business she wanted to start.
45:05
SPEAKER_00: And she knew that her her gifts and her talents were in fitness and nutrition, but she just didn't know what kind of business to start.
45:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
45:14
SPEAKER_00: And so I said, Well, so let's back into what you're gonna do.
45:18
SPEAKER_00: You know what your gifts are and you know what your passions are.
45:23
SPEAKER_00: What makes you mad in this world?
45:26
SPEAKER_00: Like what just ticks you off?
45:28
SPEAKER_00: And she was like, What makes you want to cuss?
45:31
SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
45:32
SPEAKER_00: And she's like, Oh, like nutritionists that make it seem so complicated, and people who don't give themselves credit for doing five minutes of exercise in a day.
45:40
SPEAKER_00: And she just, I mean, it was easy.
45:42
SPEAKER_00: She just rattled it off.
45:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
45:44
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Okay, so what what I'm hearing you say is that you want to start a fish uh fitness and nutrition business to help women make it easy and effective who have been believing that it's not up until now.
45:59
SPEAKER_00: Dang, you're good.
46:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's it.
46:04
SPEAKER_00: So this is the marketing and consulting that I'm doing.
46:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's like brand identification.
46:09
SPEAKER_01: Natural gift for you.
46:10
SPEAKER_01: Man, I love it.
46:11
SPEAKER_00: You know what?
46:12
SPEAKER_00: It's something that I have been doing for free for my whole life.
46:16
SPEAKER_00: I do it in every job that I've had, whether it's a marketing-based job or not.
46:20
SPEAKER_00: It's just something that comes naturally.
46:22
SPEAKER_00: And honestly, what ticks me off is how long I ignored that in my life.
46:28
SPEAKER_00: Right.
46:29
SPEAKER_00: And I don't want other women to be ignoring that stuff.
46:33
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm gonna start using what God gave me to help women use what God gave them.
46:38
SPEAKER_01: Totally.
46:38
SPEAKER_01: It's such a gift, too, because people can spend years trying to articulate that very thing, and you just boom, were able to see it and articulate it and spell it out and give the aha moment to your friend to go, yes, that's it.
46:52
SPEAKER_01: I mean, how empowering.
46:54
SPEAKER_00: And so she she is starting a consulting business and I think a podcast or something that's gonna make fitness and nutrition accessible for the everyday woman.
47:03
SPEAKER_00: And I mean, I personally can't wait for that because I need more of that, you know.
47:07
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
47:08
SPEAKER_00: So I just feel like women should look at your limiting beliefs, like what is holding you back, and then look at what are your strengths and your passions, your gifts, and then look at what makes you angry in the world.
47:23
SPEAKER_00: And so once you've made those three lists, you just sort of look at okay, given what my strengths and my gifts are, how can I make a positive difference in these things that make me angry?
47:36
SPEAKER_00: And you kind of like brainstorm a few ideas, then go back and look at your limiting beliefs and you tell yourself, I am not going to let this hold me back this time.
47:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, good.
47:49
SPEAKER_00: Jesus take the wheel.
47:50
SPEAKER_00: That's right, that's right.
47:52
SPEAKER_00: And so to that end, actually, I have been working on um creating a worksheet manifesto for people.
47:58
SPEAKER_00: Oh, awesome.
47:59
SPEAKER_00: So that they can do that very thing, so that they can have a worksheet to help them work through that.
48:04
SPEAKER_00: Oh, this is so good.
48:05
SPEAKER_00: And then they can have uh a manifesto that's fill in the blank for themselves that uh, you know, is gonna look pretty.
48:12
SPEAKER_00: And then they just print that out and they can put it like on their computer, use it as their iPhone wallpaper, or put it on their bathroom mirror, yeah.
48:20
SPEAKER_00: And look at that every day to remind themselves why they're doing this, for who, and why it is ordained by God.
48:32
SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's awesome.
48:33
SPEAKER_01: I love that.
48:34
SPEAKER_01: I want that resource too.
48:36
SPEAKER_01: Print that off out there.
48:37
SPEAKER_01: It's so important to keep it in front of us.
48:38
SPEAKER_01: And we had talked about that about, you know, write, write it down.
48:42
SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's beautiful how you articulated that.
48:44
SPEAKER_01: And I think it's like working your way backwards into your passion, just kind of that third step there.
48:48
SPEAKER_01: That that's that's what makes sense.
48:50
SPEAKER_01: Because the whole like passion, what are we supposed to be passionate about?
48:53
SPEAKER_01: What am I?
48:53
SPEAKER_01: I'm passionate about all the things.
48:55
SPEAKER_01: But working your way backwards into going, what you know, fires you up.
48:59
SPEAKER_00: That's so if you look at my story just a little bit, you know, my limiting were beliefs were I'm not smart enough, I'm not enough, I'm too much, I'm all the things, right?
49:07
SPEAKER_00: And then my strengths and my giftedness were I can really see how um women can use those their passions to affect the world.
49:16
SPEAKER_00: So I can help with branding and marketing.
49:18
SPEAKER_00: I'm just good at that kind of a thing.
49:20
SPEAKER_00: And then what makes me angry is women who are holding themselves back or believe that for some reason they don't have what it takes.
49:29
SPEAKER_00: Um, in the Christian world, women who believe they're just not holy enough to take this on, you know, whether that's because, you know, they haven't memorized scripture, they haven't read the Bible, that they, you know, they love to watch R-rated movies, that they, you know, whatever that is, whatever they consider to make them kind of unholy, it's not a defined thing.
49:49
SPEAKER_00: Right.
49:50
SPEAKER_00: Like so, so I looked at I I get really mad about women holding themselves back, but I can really help them define their dreams.
49:59
SPEAKER_00: And my limiting beliefs were thinking I'm not enough, which is interestingly tying into what I'm angry about in the world.
50:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
50:07
SPEAKER_00: And just not allowing myself to have those toxic thoughts.
50:12
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I love it.
50:12
SPEAKER_01: It's so good.
50:13
SPEAKER_01: And you're gonna do so much good for so many women hearing this here.
50:17
SPEAKER_01: I know it's good gonna be something they mull over.
50:20
SPEAKER_01: And I'm really excited for those who want to take that next step, not only download this great manifesto that you've put together, but um, but maybe follow up too with just kind of what you're offering for coaching to you know, keep the conversation going because this is just like the first of it.
50:38
SPEAKER_01: And for most of us, we need a little bit more help along the way to walk out what it is that the Lord has put in our hearts.
50:45
SPEAKER_00: A million percent.
50:46
SPEAKER_00: Because I just had this conversation with a friend yesterday.
50:49
SPEAKER_00: I am so great at editing everybody else's stuff, it's so hard to look at my own stuff and do the same thing.
50:57
SPEAKER_00: So sometimes all you need is just a fresh perspective, a fresh set of eyes.
51:01
SPEAKER_01: Because I don't know, it's just hard to edit your own stuff.
51:04
SPEAKER_01: It is, yeah, absolutely.
51:06
SPEAKER_01: Because then those limiting beliefs creep in and we need someone to be like, hey, no, girl, you got this.
51:12
SPEAKER_01: Right.
51:12
SPEAKER_01: We need to bar.
51:13
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
51:14
SPEAKER_01: I love this.
51:15
SPEAKER_01: Uh well, I'm excited.
51:17
SPEAKER_01: I get to continue the conversation with you via Voxer, and I am excited for my friends to continue the conversation.
51:24
SPEAKER_01: Follow you on Instagram and all the places and your website.
51:27
SPEAKER_01: We'll put all the links in our show notes for sure.
51:29
SPEAKER_01: So you're fantastic.
51:31
SPEAKER_00: I'm excited too, also.
51:33
SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
51:37
SPEAKER_01: Isn't she fun?
51:39
SPEAKER_01: Anne is someone you will want to follow, so be sure and check out her Instagram, both as Swayologist and Ann Watson.
51:46
SPEAKER_01: She also has a really informative free guide for creating the one thing your brand can't live without.
51:52
SPEAKER_01: And if you are a creative Christian communicator, you will also want to join a small group of like-minded women at the Declare conference in Dallas, Texas this fall.
52:02
SPEAKER_01: Dates are going to be announced soon, and you'll want to get on their list for early bird pricing announcements.
52:07
SPEAKER_01: I am personally planning on attending again this year and I can't wait.
52:11
SPEAKER_01: If you didn't catch our bonus episode yesterday with Barbara Rainey, you'll want to tune in as we begin lent.
52:17
SPEAKER_01: And by the way, she is offering a special code for the beautiful items in the EverThine home shop.
52:22
SPEAKER_01: Use Easter 10 for a discount.
52:25
SPEAKER_01: And you can share this when you invite your friends and family to join the wholehearted community.
52:29
SPEAKER_01: Invite them to tune in with you as we continue to pursue perspective, purpose, and plans for a simply wholehearted life.