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Ep 37: When Being Useful Becomes Your Identity with Latonya Flood (Galatians 1:10) · CEO Kingdom Seekers

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hello everyone.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to CEO Kingdom Seekers.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: I am your host, Dr.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Lee C.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Cordell.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: And y'all, today's guest is likely going to say some things that are going to hit a little close to home for a lot of us, as they already did for me as I was just preparing for this episode.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: We spend so much time on this podcast talking about how we can build businesses God's way, about gifts and calling and discernment.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: And the thing of it is that you can't build from a God-given identity if you have actually subtly over time lost track of who you actually are.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I know for so many of us, especially the high-achieving, faith-driven women in this audience, I know, never you, right?
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: But we have been doing exactly that, not because we're lazy or we're unfaithful, but because somewhere along the way we start confusing being useful with having an identity.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: To let us keep making that mistake and believing that lie.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: So my guest today is Latanya Flood.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: She is a licensed life coach, author, and faith-driven entrepreneur.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: And she's here to help us really dive into this, wake us up, call us in without shame, and help us get back into the alignment of who God tells us we are.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: So, Latanya, welcome to the show.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, thank you so much.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: What a wonderful way to be welcomed.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I'm so glad.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, y'all, I already know you're gonna love this episode.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: We've been vibing before we even started.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: So on your website, as I was prepping, you said something that legit stopped me that you were not tired from doing too much, but your exhaustion came from not being intentional about who you were becoming.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd love to just hear a little bit more about you and your story in the context of that statement.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: So let's start by with the vision.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: One day I'm gonna be able to track down exactly the day.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: I want to be what one of those people that say on July 2nd, 1998.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: I was standing in my kitchen doing the dishes, and this was like the first time I feel like God snatched me outside of myself and put me into this reality that I didn't even know, like a whole nother world.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I was building a house.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: I had my beer hands and I had my bricks, and I'm stacking them bricks, and I'm enjoying it.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'm enjoying every moment of it.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then my family, friends, neighbors would walk by and they'd be like, excuse me, do you have two bricks?
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, oh my gosh, I have so much, not a problem.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm passing out the bricks.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: And throughout the course of the evening, people kept coming.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: I kept passing out bricks, and I turned around, Dr.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: Lee, and I looked at the neighborhood, and there were so many beautiful houses.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I felt good knowing, oh man, I had a hand in building all these houses.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, I can't wait to turn around to see my house.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I turned around and I didn't even have enough bricks to set the foundation of my house.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then immediately I was back in my kitchen that never had been before.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: I felt like I was building.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't like I was sleeping and I was doing all the things.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: And in that moment, the Lord revealed to me, or the Holy Spirit revealed to me, I'm always doing the most and trying to help everybody and please everybody and extend myself, working hard because I don't have a problem working, I don't have a problem giving, but I was neglecting my own responsibilities, which is to make sure that me and my house is good first.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: And then he told me that I was called to be a leader, but you cannot lead if your house isn't good.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm having a moment already.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, am I gonna cry?
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Do I have words?
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: What's God is so good, and I always say he's funny, and I don't mean that in a uh disrespectful way.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: I know our senses of humor come from his, right?
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, you just described, I think, and pardon the pun, but the foundational issue of every person who walks through our academy and agency's door, and they've either already addressed it, and it's something that they have to keep coming back to and being reminded, or they're there for that and they know it.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Or the third one, and this is actually the most common, is they come in the middle of giving everybody else bricks and because it feels like they're scaling, right?
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: Feels like they're growing, it feels like they're building their own thing.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then I'm like, hey, so can we turn around?
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, What do you mean?
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: I was just laughing because I was sharing with you before we started the enemies just been like in my ear this last week as we are launching a new iteration of our regulated Roots Academy online, and it requires me to be on camera and speaking and doing that a lot more publicly.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: And the live I ended up doing this morning was by the grace of God, because I was like, God, I've been so in my head, I don't have anything to prepare.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what I'm gonna say.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I just know this was a topic we were gonna talk about, so let's go.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's all you just use me.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: And what we talked about was this exact topic was that people's spiritual gifts are designed for them to give to other people and waiting and craving the opportunity to give whatever we're gifted in to us.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: But we think that we either don't deserve it, so we don't ask for it from him, or we think we're supposed to get it from other people.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: And we're like, why am I doing this for everyone else?
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not getting it back.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, well, because you were supposed to get it from God first.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't typically go off on a tangent like that within two minutes of asking a guest a question, but I just was like, that is so wild sharing that because just to show how applicable it is to everyone who's listening, and also I'm so excited for this because I feel like I'm about to learn a lot too.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: What happened next?
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: You would think that after being snatched until my took you out of time and space, and then you yeah, yeah.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: That that I would just start walking in obedience.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: Think that such an experience.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that was two houses ago.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: That was at least six years ago, and I am finally like I am confidently boldly right now and can say I have finally started walking in alignment about eight weeks ago.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, it was the beginning of a turn for me.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: God is so faithful, right?
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so merciful.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like we even go on and on about his attributes, like how great he is to us because of our disobedience.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: He still shows up and he still continues to speak.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: I got things like that for days.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: One day I was driving, I wasn't out a re He didn't snatch me because I was driving.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: He kept you safe.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, I'm not gonna pull you to the day, I'm just gonna talk to you a little bit.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: But then what I felt like I saw in the spiritual realm is me leading sideways.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: I would be so excited to learn something new that the first thing I did instead of implementing it for myself, was pick up the phone and call my friends, my mom.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, you need to do this.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: This is what God told me, or this is what I learned, even if it wasn't a biblical principle, even if it was something practical to do in your business, if it was a new app to use.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: I was just so excited about sharing the information because I thought for some reason, if I kept it to myself, then I would look selfish, kind of only cares about herself.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: And those are like furthest from the truth.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I thought I was supposed to do these things, and what I would see is other people's businesses based on the information I told them would start flourishing.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: And then again, mine just like limp.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm hearing two core spiritual gifts in here that I want to pull out for our listeners.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, we have an assignment, it's called the stage diagnostic.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's the spiritual assessment of gifts for entrepreneurs, and it's this thing that you can take to figure out not just like where you are at currently in relationship to your the seven gifts that St.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: Paul talks about, but also to identify your primary motivational gift, like the one that makes you the most excited.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: And as you're telling that story, I'm going, Oh my gosh.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: Her steward gift was really distorted.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: And it was because you were operating as if your primary gift was stewardship.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: And just off the little bit that I've known you, I can already tell I'm like, that's not her primary gift.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: And the steward gift is the one that's tied to being useful, right?
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you think about it, it's all about assets and resources.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: So why do you think and I I see this in men too, but I think today I want to have this conversation about women specifically.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: We don't normally do that, but I'm feeling that.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you think it's so both common for women to get stuck in this identity trap of the importance of being useful?
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: And also, like, why do you think it's dangerous?
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's good.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: My opinion would be we're like the nurturers.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: We feel as though me being a wife and a mom, I gotta make sure everybody's good.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: Gotta make sure everybody's good.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: And there's this whole stigmatism that if a wife or a mom, my God, take off to get a massage instead of cooking dinner that day, it's like, oh, right.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: She abandoned her post.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: We cannot do that.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's not a burden because it's a gift to be a nurturer.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: But I feel like sometimes the enemy would like us to believe that it's a burden so that if we're not taking care of ourselves, if we're not resting in God and allowing God to care for us the way that He wants to, then we get bombarded with all these chores and stuff and we neglect ourselves.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: We sabotage.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think you're absolutely right.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: And what popped into my head as you were saying this is a conversation that I've had with my husband a lot, because he and I have had issues on flip sides of this.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: God's a source and we are resources, right?
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: We are not assets.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the world teaches a lot of women that they are assets.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because I always think about it this way: like when I am in alignment with who I truly believe God has created me to be, like that identity, he and I are working together, like we're co-creating.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I call it a partnership.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: It is a partnership, and it is like I am in full obedience to him, and also I know how much he cares about what I desire and what I want.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like that's what also we've been cultivating in our marriage of like we are partners to the point that we don't see each other as assets, we see each other as resources.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm thinking back to all of the points of my life before I understood that was God's design, and I turned myself into an asset constantly.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: And if I couldn't make myself quote unquote useful, it really messed with like my sense of worth, like my sense of self.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: Do you see that in the humans that you work with?
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, absolutely.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: I literally had a coaching session today, and one of the young ladies was talking about God wants her to go live, and she's afraid because what if nobody comes, right?
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: Because in her head, if nobody comes, then either she believes she's doing something wrong or she missed her God.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: So then I challenge her with when God told you to go live.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: Did He also tell you that people were gonna come?
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: Or did you put that pressure about yourself?
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: Because it could be a season of patience, it could be a season of just being obedient and just showing up consistently before he does a thing.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: We have no way of knowing because God, his thoughts, we can't comprehend them.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: I call them spiderweb thoughts.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: It could be a hundred to a thousand reasons why he asked you to do one thing, but you could probably only come up with three reasons for why it could happen.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we don't know why God is calling you to go live.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: We just know you're supposed to have faith and obedience and do it.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: But we tend to measure the response, and then we equate that to our value, and that is so not good.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: And extremely dangerous because then we welcome depression, we welcome second guessing, we welcome confusion, and the enemy, I feel like in those times, he's just dancing, he was like, Oh, got her identity, oh, she don't know who she is, she's second guessing herself.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I have this dear friend and client, her name's Ida, and she used to do TikToks where she had this character named Mama Aji, and it was an amalgamation of some of her older relatives from Africa.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: And she would always make me laugh because Mama Aji would say, If you are minding my business, and if I am minding my business, who is minding yours?
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I think about that with God.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think about God saying that to me.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: If I'm minding my business and you are minding my business, who's minding yours, Lee?
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's this idea of okay, well, if I'm an asset, then that's I'm to be used.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I so I I should then produce a specific outcome every time I'm used.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we believe.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not a hammer.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like God's telling me to use these assets in a specific way.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: My responsibility is not what happens on the other side of that.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: My responsibility is I use the assets he gives me in the way he tells me to use them.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, period.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's where it ends.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think it's just this like fundamental misunderstanding of who God is and what he is responsible for.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then we go, okay, that's not God's responsibility.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I have to pick up the slack here.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: And again, I just laugh thinking about him being like, that is not what I meant.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like he was like, Oh my gosh, that's not what I said.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's not what I said in my word.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: That's not what I told you.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: At this point, you guys are just making it up.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: Are you responsible for any like little humans?
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have your kids or auntie or anything like that?
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: I have three children, 21, 10, and 7.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: So you have had the full experience to this point.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: I still have my my oldest is 16.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: So we still there's some years we're going through, right?
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: Call me later.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: Adulting.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: We're already in this scenario right now where there's places that we she's doing things, and I'm like, let go.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, God, I've taught her.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see how it goes.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I think about my little ones when they were just, I want to do it myself.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I also want you to be able to do it yourself.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: And if I let you do it yourself right now, bad things will happen because you don't understand enough.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have context, you don't have experience, you don't have wisdom.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: So if I let you do this, we used to joke, one of our little ones, whenever she'd do something like, and that really scared her, she goes, I almost death myself.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, Yeah, you're going to death yourself, and I don't want that to happen.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I have to think about him watching us being like, I want what you want.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to be able to do what you can do on your own.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to have so much of my wisdom instilled and embodied inside of you that you trust fully.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: Not only am I here with you and you can call me at any time, but you don't need to because you've got it.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I also want you to always depend on me.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: Always know that if something happens, I'm right there.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want you to try to clean up the mess on your own or do it in your own strength, do any of that.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: I've got these infinite assets for you that I want to give to you, like strength and peace.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: And there's parts of this that are yours that you don't know how to do yet that I need to shepherd you through.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's parts of this that are never going to be yours, and I need you to stop picking those up.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, absolutely.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know what helped me so much, especially I think I'll say within the last six to eight months, is I started recognizing God's voice when I discipline my children.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: I make it a point after I discipline them.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it happens simultaneously.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going in and I hear God saying the exact same things to me.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: I like to say, I was being a mom.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't think that was a moment for me to be a child.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: I can't do both.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like what is this?
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, Yes, you can.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, you can.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, you can do both.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: I know you can.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I'm saying it to you right now.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly, exactly.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes it's not hitting simultaneously like that.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: I go back and think about the words that I say and it never fails.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: Recently, I told my kids, hey, mommy's gonna go get dressed.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: I can't remember the exact time.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, at 5 20, I need y'all to have your karate uniforms on.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: So when I come out the bathroom, we could just leave.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: Soon as I open the door, my seven-year-old is standing there with no pants, no shoes.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: His gi top is open, and I was like, What are you doing?
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: He said, I was waiting on you because I needed help tying my belt.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: Without even thinking, I said, I gave you an assignment.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: Even if you couldn't keep going with your gi, there's other things you could have been doing while you were waiting.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: So when it's time to go, I just have to do that last thing.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: But now you're hindering us because you just stopped.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: And immediately the Holy Spirit was like, ma'am, the you don't you do that?
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: When I tell you to wait on something, you just stop.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: There's other things you could be doing during the waiting so that when I give you the time to go, you won't be trying to catch up.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: Oof.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's how rude.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: See, now you know why we say, sir.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: We used to call that one of my our former employees when we had our trauma institute would say, Thanks, I hate it.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: And that's conviction to me, is that it's like thanks, I hate it.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: That was so helpful, and also I really don't like that.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: I I love parenting with him now because at the beginning, when my kids were really little, like I wasn't nearly as close with the Lord as I am now.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I love how often he uses them as examples.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'll be coaching a client in a mentorship session, and I say something to them about their business and the exact same thing.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, Oh, are you gonna do what you're telling them to do?
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, are you going to actually walk your talk because you just gave them advice that?
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, Oh, okay.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why I tell people a lot of times, like, they'll read my posts and they're like, ma'am, you were calling us in.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I wasn't calling you in, I was calling me in.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's a conversation that God and I just had an hour ago.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Oh, let me go share that with other people because again, it's a way for me to process it, it's a way for me to make sense of it.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: And also, I'm like, I know if I'm doing it, then other people are doing it too.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: What are the signs that somebody is going back to that vision that you had?
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody is laying bricks in other people's houses, giving their utility away and not using it for what God is calling them toward.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of times there's outward signs, like there's actual physical manifestations of that in our businesses or in our lives.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I also know that there's emotions and thoughts.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: So, like anything that you can bring.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: One of the easiest ways that I would like to explain is if you feel as though like you're highly successful, whether you own your own business or you're like a CEO somewhere and you're climbing a ladder and everybody at work appreciates and applause you, and you can pop your collar.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: But then when you get home, you just feel depleted.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: You don't feel fulfilled.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: You feel like there's a part of you that's just not okay, is unsatisfied.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like that is a strong indication that you're not in alignment with your purposes and who you are.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: Because what I've learned is when you are actively doing what God has called you to do, you're fully energized.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: Because every time I coach, I don't care if it's late at night because the client can't reach till 8 a.m., even if I'm tired.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: After I'm coaching, I'm usually on fire.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just energized.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: I am born, I can't even express this enough.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: Leading and helping people and organizing their thoughts.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's a gift, man.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: And every time I have an opportunity to serve in that capacity, as I'm pouring out, God is filling me right back.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're feeling depleted all the time, is because you're constantly pouring, you're not being filled.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think this is like a two-part issue.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: And again, I think it's like very worldly because that makes so much sense what you're saying.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's the I need other people to pour into me, right?
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna be useful so other people will be useful to me, right?
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna pour into you so that you pour into me.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I use this word with love that is manipulative.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: That is conditional.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: And we all know love is not conditional, right?
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: If you are doing something so that someone else feels an obligation to do something back, that doesn't have the element of free will, which God tells us is necessary for love.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I see people get very bitter and resentful because they're like, I handed out all my bricks and none of you are going to help me build my house.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, well, okay, but did you give them the sense that you had enough bricks?
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: Because a lot of these people wouldn't have taken bricks from you if they'd known that you didn't have that many.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: And also a lot of people would have still taken them, but trusted you to let them know if you then needed some in return later.
• 22:49
  unknown: Yes.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're not willing to be honest with people, and by the way, when I'm saying bricks, I mean your capacity, right?
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: If you're not going to be honest with people about your capacity at the beginning, and if you're not going to be honest with people about your capacity when you get to that depleted state, then that's not a loving relationship.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then I think the other piece is, and I think Satan's so good at this, is he says, yeah, guess what?
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: That sort of relationship you have with humans, that's also how God operates.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: So you've got to give all your bricks away for him to give you more.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: Come on, man.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I've had to work on this a lot.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the prayers I've been praying, I think I might have shared this on here, but one of the prayers I've been praying lately is Jesus handle everything and let me know if you need my help.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: I feel that.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: God, I trust you to handle everything, and you're gonna let me know if there's a place I should step in.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm also praying that prayer on top of, I think this is an important distinction.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm praying that prayer on top of being in my word every day.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm praying that prayer on top of being surrounded by other very faithful and obedient and people who are striving for righteousness.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm praying that prayer after really putting my heart posture in a place of being willing to do whatever it is he calls me to do, even if it hurts, even if it's a sacrifice.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not a prayer from this place of, I'm lazy, God, just handle it all.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: Or I give up, God, you just take care of it.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: I think that distinction is important because I see a lot of women go to that prayer once they're exhausted, once they're bitter, once they're depleted, once they're resentful, and they're like, Jesus, just handle it.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, What I don't want to do is only come in here and help you clean up messes.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm willing to do that.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: I died for that.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: Don't get me wrong, and I'm being silly, but he wants us so far before that.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, I don't want you to always get to the depleted state and then be like, oh, I ran out of my own strength.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: God, like, give me yours.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: Now I'm gonna tap you in.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he's like, I wanted to be here the entire time.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what I'm finding that's so gorgeous.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: It almost brings me to tears.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to do way bigger and more miraculous things for you than you let me.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: That is so true.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm thinking of your vision.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen him for some women who are just so faithful and who just really lean on him for everything.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: I have seen him build mansions for them and then say, okay, now that you are so fully supported, turn around, and here's a big old pile of bricks, and now it's a never-ending pile of bricks.
• 26:11
  unknown: Yes.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: Just you aren't gonna be able to hand these out fast enough.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I think about that, what if that could be the testimony instead?
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so it goes back to what you were saying of we all have these spiritual gifts that when we operate from that place, your storehouses are gonna be more than full.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: They're gonna overflow.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I need you to operate there and trust me to provide for you there.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: You said that there's been a pretty significant transformation over the last eight weeks.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: I would love to hear about that.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the one thing that freed me was I understood my alignment.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: I got over all of the not all of them, but the ones that were brought to my attention, some lies that I was believing about myself that made me keep offering the counterfeit version of myself and stuff created me to be.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: So I got through those lies, and I'm hearing creativity and my level of thinking is clear and I'm being able to implement stuff, but there was a small part of me that was still attached to the monetary and the response.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: So by planning a coaching event, if nobody's coming, then I felt myself shrinking again, not because I didn't think I was supposed to do it, but because I felt like I should see monetary value to what I'm doing.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: So I was asking guys, how can I separate the idea?
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: If I put something out there, like my book, people gotta buy it.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: And if they're not buying it, then I don't want that anxiety.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: I just want to be free and I just want to talk about the services, and I know that the people are attached to me, God will just allow me to serve them in the way they're supposed to be serving, and He'll support me however he chooses.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: If nobody ever buys a book, if nobody ever partnered with me in coaching, I need to know that God is still gonna provide regardless.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: So, how do I detach from that?
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: So, what did I do?
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Lord, you need A, you need to help me.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: Because when I go on these live coaching, I don't care who comes, I don't care who hearts or screens, send a gift.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: I just want to be useful.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: I just want to do what you created me to do.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: And the Lord told me, this is what he told Tanya, that when you do things, all I want you to do is focus on planting.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_01: Just look at everything as a seed.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: When I'm coaching, it's a seed.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: If I'm advising, if I'm talking to somebody, it's a seed.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: If I'm sharing information about my book, everything I do is a seed.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: I don't get to know how and when it's going to be harvested.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: I just know what the word says.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: There's seed time, there's harvest time.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I know that the word will never return back void.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: So that literally lifted so much pressure.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_01: So now I just focus on showing up, and every morning I pray and I ask God to help me stay focused on planting, and I go about my happy day, and whatever I do, I'm just planting seeds.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: Man, that's beautiful.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: We use a lot of the farming language, like the planting and the growth and the rooting.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: We use a lot of that in our business just because when I decided I was going to read the Bible from front to back, cover to cover, Genesis.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: I just kept coming back to that.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, man, you could spend a year in the first chapter of Genesis, like legit.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I've spent so much time there.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: I would say that the two chapters of the Bible I have spent, I don't even know how much time in over the last year and a half are Romans chapter 12, because that's where he talks about spiritual gifts and Genesis 1.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: And just understanding like who he designed us to be and how he designed us to operate in terms of in relationship with him, in relationship with each other, and in relationship with all of creation.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then also understanding how he designed us individually, and how then again, it's so cool how these themes overlay, how he designed us with these gifts that he's given us by his grace in this unique way, and how we get to use those in relationship with him and in relationship with others and in relationship with creation.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it is so simple and so beautiful.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, as a person who loves a good plan, like a good this is these are the steps, it's such an orderly and efficient and effective plan.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I have to remind myself a lot that anything that takes me out of that, you know, some people say God stands for good orderly direction, like anything that takes me out of those two understandings is a lie.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: And when I look at people who are in that phase of really starting to understand what their gifts are and who God is designed them to be and how they operate best, it's all identity, spiritual warfare.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's all like, did God really say that's who you are?
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: Did God really say that's who they are?
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: Did God really say that's who he is?
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: Did God really say that's what the world is?
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: And when I have enough capacity to step back and look at it, I'm like, oh, of course.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I think sometimes what we do is we go, oh, well, and this is for me as somebody who has the primary motivational gift of professor.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: So it's understanding, it's learning and teaching.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: I've got to remind myself that just because I understand something doesn't bypass me going through it.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's good.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: So that's been one of the things God's been working on with me a lot.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm hearing you in terms of the planting, and I wanted to pull that out because you're saying I'm planting seeds.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, also, God's planting seeds in you that need to take time to grow.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I think a lot of times we can go, oh, okay, I understand what's happening.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: I understand he's planting seeds in me, and I'm planting seeds out here.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: And my job is to just focus on the seeds, and this is great, and this is wonderful.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then, like you said, like a week later, you're like, What am I doing?
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: What's going on?
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we make ourselves wrong for that.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: I was just thinking about at the beginning when you said, and you would think that right after that vision, this is what I did.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't say it at the time, but I was like, I wouldn't think that.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't think that because I always go back to the story of Moses leading two million people through the freaking Red Sea.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like, people again, I just don't think we have an understanding of how absolutely insane that is.
• 33:25
  unknown: Yes.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then they get to the other side, and two weeks later, they're like, This sucks.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: We want to go home.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like, did you not just see you walked in between one wall of the sea and the other wall of the sea?
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then when you got to the other side, you turned around and watched God close the waters.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, in case anyone's like, that's an allegorical story, they've actually found chariot wheels at the bottom of the Red Sea in the middle, just so y'all know.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's wild.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm like, that's how we are designed.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: We're designed to forget.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my God.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_01: I literally just said that on my live today.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: I said, that's why I believe that it's so important that he says that we should seek him daily.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's so easy to forget.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: And that's it.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: Is when we stay in the word and when we seek relationship, like personal relationship with him on a daily basis and relationship with other people who are also seeking him and who prioritize that, those are seeds.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so, yes, we want to be planting seeds out here.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: And but this is my clients laugh, our agency clients.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: Whenever they come to me and they have an issue or they're like struggling with something, I'm like, when's the last time you read your Bible?
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, I'm like, yeah, okay, so here's what's gonna happen.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to do that together now?
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: Or do you want to go take a minute and do that and then we can like get back together?
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: And they think I'm kidding.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, look, there is no point.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: You and I can sit here and have this conversation right now.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: And if you want to read it together or you want me to give you some scripture, like you want to do that right here, that's cool.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: But unless we get you grounded back in what he says and the truth, then you and I could sit here planning your business out every way from Sunday, and it's not gonna make a difference.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because right now you're building your way, and you're not putting him first.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: We're not in alignment with the first commandment, and that's not something to be ashamed of, and it is something to go fix, right?
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: Man, I wanted to say something earlier when you mentioned studying Genesis for years.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: So the Lord convicted me.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was towards the end of January.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_01: He was like, Leno Latanya, all these years you've been reading the Bible, but you haven't been studying it.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god, sir?
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: He was like, Yeah, I remember that year you did the cover to cover.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_01: You're like, oh, I want to be one of those Christians who can say you can read the whole Bible.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: And he was like, But did you read for understanding?
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, okay, so tell me how you want me to study because I thought I was doing that, highlighting it all.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: What are you saying?
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: He told me literally, I want you to take it one verse at a time.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: Don't go any further.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I started studying and I had to stop and I kept going back because I still wasn't going deep enough.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: So then to make sure that I'm accountable, I know he did, I know you did that.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_01: He told me to start Bible study.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not telling you to do it, but if anybody go to my YouTube channel, you will see that I restarted Bible study so many times because I was preparing all these things.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_01: And he was like, What are you doing?
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: What how are you teaching Bible study?
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: You barely understand the word yourself.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, So, what am I supposed to be doing?
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: So finally, it's me and a couple of friends.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_01: We go live and we just break down together one verse at a time.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: We go to the context, like who wrote it, what was going on around this period?
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: What is the language?
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_01: So we've been doing this for a couple of weeks, and we're just now in we did Genesis chapter one, verse, I think 16 and 17 last week.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna be in Genesis for years, like good, yeah, but that's it.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, you gotta bite-sized understanding.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: He told me, don't understand a word, don't move forward until you understand what I'm trying to say.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you don't understand the story that's being told, and how could you apply it to your life today?
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: And that if you don't understand who he designed you to be and how he designed you to be, and who he is, how can you understand your identity?
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's impossible.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not remembering the name of the Instagram account.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'll see if I can find it and put it in the show notes in case anyone's curious.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: But they do this whole series on the difference between how we approach a relationship with God when we look at it like we are an orphan versus we look at it like we are a son or a daughter.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's good, and there's a big difference, huge, and there's a really beautiful context.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_00: And this took me a while to understand that we are all creatures and we are all creations of God, but we are not all children of God.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: You can renounce your relationship with Him.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: The same way that a child can disown their parent, we can disown God.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: And it's I created you, but you don't claim me.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so I legally do not have the ability to say that I am your parent.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: I can say that I birthed you, I can say that I created you, but I can't say that I'm in relationship with you.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of us, especially if we've had parents who in ways maybe did not meet the needs that we had, which I don't think that there's a single human parent that meets every one of their kids' needs.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: I tell my children this all the time.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, when you get older and you find all the ways that I didn't meet your needs, please tell me.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: So that as we move into adulthood together, I want to know all of the ways that the way I parented you did not support you.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because as we become adults, I want to be friends.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, okay, mom.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, no, I mean it.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's gonna be points where you're gonna be like, wow, that really hurt.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to know.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm saying that because I think we can take that relationship that we have with our parents, and then we can think, particularly if we've had really like very, very negative relationships or no relationship with one of our parents or both of our parents, and you can take that orphaned identity or that disowned state, and you can go, okay, well, that's how God is too.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_00: This is how fathers are, this is how mothers are, this is how parents are, this is how I need to approach him because this is how I had to approach my earthly parents.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_00: I think church is a wonderful place for this.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_00: And the issue with church is that, and again, please hear me.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_00: I volunteer at church, we're there multiple times a week.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_00: I think church is amazing.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_00: Church is also led by humans, correct.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_00: So you being in connection and prayer and asking God to show you how He wants to parent you.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_00: Asking God to show you in the word, like as you're reading.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_00: I forget to do this sometimes, and then I go back.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, God, I didn't pray beforehand to have you reveal to me what you want me to understand.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_00: What you want me to understand?
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_01: Literally, teach my 10-year-old right now, he has to read a chapter every day.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_01: I just don't want him to read for understanding.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, okay, now go back and talk to him and ask him, what did he want you to stand from that message?
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: And then you write it down because when you get older, when things are being challenged and people come to you, I don't want you to say, My mama said, Yeah, I want you to know what God told you.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's gorgeous.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_00: I love the generation of parents that I'm getting to watch parent their kids.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_00: I love being in it, of watching them teach their kids how to both respect God and love him because I feel like a lot of us got either the love or the respect.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_00: My husband and I talk about this a lot.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, you are really good at respecting him, and I'm really good at loving him, and I'm working on the respect and the reverence, and you're working on the love.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Yeah, right.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_00: Or not loving him, receiving his love, excuse me.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm really, yeah, yeah.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_01: I understood exactly what you meant.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like he's a loving and an all-powerful parent.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's cool to watch their identities be much more firmly founded in understanding who Christ is and who God is, and how the Holy Spirit lives in their hearts, and how their identity in Christ gets to be like a central part of their life.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_00: Because I didn't have that, and I know a lot of my the yeah, coming back to this idea of faith and identity, because there's one more thing I wanted to bring into this.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of women in the world, especially those who are Christian, I actually see this in more in women who are Christian than women who are not.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_00: They confuse humility with hiding.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_00: So they think that putting themselves last is what faithful women do, or shrinking or pretending that they're smaller than they are, not going on podcasts and speaking.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of women I know they have these amazing speaking gifts.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_00: Their judge gift or their professor gift, their coach gift, they're so strong and they're quieting themselves.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_00: How do you personally help someone see the difference between biblical humility and self-diminishing, like erasure almost?
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll just share how God helped me.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_01: I used to think being in the spotlight was bad because the people that I saw in the spotlight, they weren't using it correctly.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_01: They were drawing attention to themselves.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_01: So therefore, I thought that translated across the board.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_01: And it's actually one of the things I talk about in my book.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_01: I got that level of understanding, partly because when I was in fifth grade, my female friends wanted to fight me.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_01: My best friends, they wanted to gang me.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_01: And they were telling everybody they wanted to fight me.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_01: And when I asked why, so innocent, like, why are you guys gonna fight me?
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: They're like, because you think you're all that.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_01: That moment, even though it was done subconsciously, in that moment, I realized what I accepted as truth, even though it wasn't, that if I fully show up how God created me to be, people will have a problem with it.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_01: People will be offended.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I cannot do that.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know that's what was happening, but over 20 years I realized I was shrinking and going further and further, further back from how God created me to be.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_01: But God told me one day, He was like, Tanya, I felt like that was one of those days he was like, Oh, he was like, sweetie, I need the light to shine on you so that they can see me and you.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_01: Oh.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_01: Oh.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, okay.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_00: That put me on the right path.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's a journey, it's a process, and it's a battle, you know?
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's one of those things that sometimes is when we go, oh, I figured it out.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm never gonna struggle with this again.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_00: I finally got to the point that I was like, I have heard myself say several times over the last several months, I thought I was done with this.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then I went, okay, Lee, what if you're never done with this?
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_00: What if we're not trying to handle this so that we never have to handle it again?
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_00: What if that's actually what makes it keep coming back?
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_00: Is that you're not looking at this like this is just gonna be a battle.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_00: Can you just surrender to the fact that this is a way that the devil loves to come after you because it works?
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so can we start thinking about long-term protection rather than a one-time conquer, right?
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that's really helped because I think that was one of the ways he was getting me to was like he'd surrender and make it look like it was done, and then he'd come right back.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, oh, that what if we just know he's always gonna be there?
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_00: Is that okay?
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_00: Can you just trust God's got you?
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_00: But I always think of Psalm 23, where he's talking about walking through the valley, the shadow, and then where he talks about how God prepares a feast for you in the presence of your enemies.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, oh man, even when there's abundance, the enemies are still around.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, good to know.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_00: Good to know.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm thinking about that with your friends, like your well, I'm not I'm using the term friends.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_00: If you're watching the video, there's quotation marks.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm using that term very loosely.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_00: As somebody who also has again that speaking gift as my primary gift, being big is scary.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_00: Being seen as thinking you're all that, or people misinterpreting your conviction for arrogance.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's scary.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_00: And the thing that I have realized throughout my life is when I'm passionate about something and I talk about it, I rile people up.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, me too.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_00: So if that's never changed, what if I stop trying to get it to change?
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_00: What if I just trust that me using my voice the way that he's called me to use it will lead to me dining in the presence of my enemies?
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_01: And it goes back to what we were saying earlier.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_01: We don't have control on how they receive it.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_01: And oh yeah.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_01: Usually when I'm coaching, I'm usually telling people if somebody's offended by something you're saying, it's only because there's areas that they have insecurities of.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't have anything to do with you.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_01: So as long as you're walking in faith and obedience and you just be who God created you to be, that's top tier.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_01: We don't get to control how people receive us.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_00: I have realized that I get more negative comments, negative responses when I'm trying to control the outcome to just like tie this back to what you were saying.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_00: When I am so worried about how this is going to be perceived, and I start going, what other people think about this matters more to me than what God is telling me to do.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_00: That is a surefire way for things to not go well.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_00: I, in the last 18 months, had some really gnarly things happen on social media that I've talked about on the podcast before.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_00: And what's been fascinating is ever since I was like, okay, God, if you want me to talk, I will.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I need your strength.
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_00: I need you to tell me what you want me to talk about.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_00: I want your guidance.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_00: I want your wisdom.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want a single word coming out of my mouth that you don't ordain.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because I know I'm talking about you and I know the way I represent you matters.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I haven't been perfect.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think anybody can.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I being way more intentional about that.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, when people do have something to say, I don't really care anymore, which is interesting.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_00: I keep checking in with myself and going, okay, that comment would have really hurt before.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't feel anything right now.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_00: I it's weird.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_01: To me, it's funny.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like, oh my god, that would have bothered me.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like last week.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's odd.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_00: I almost get a little taken aback sometimes because I'm like, oh wow, that didn't even land.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of strange because for me, I feel I've been so attached to that feeling and that response for so long that now I'm responding differently.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of a little mediocre out-of-body experience like that.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like, not at all.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like I'm reacting to the lack of a reaction.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's actually what it is.
• 49:36
  unknown: Yes.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I am so grateful for this conversation because you just helped kind of click a piece of wisdom in there.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_00: I think the reason that those don't bother me anymore is because one of the things that I ask God, and this is another prayer that I've been praying a lot, is I'm like, God, help me love what you love and hate what you hate and want what you want.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things He showed me was, Lee, you plant all these seeds, and then you get so focused on the weeds and where the negative stuff is happening, that you completely forget to water all of the things that would grow if you just gave them a little bit of attention.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so I've been paying so much more attention to the positive comments.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_00: And in the past, I wouldn't do that.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_00: There'd be 30 people who wanted to have a conversation.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_00: Then I'd be over here arguing with the one person.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, why would you water a weed?
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_01: You're that's what you're nurturing.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I get it.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_00: Some people are like, you're not trying to water it, you're trying to pull it out.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, no.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_00: But I mean, whether I was trying to do that or not, I was watering it because my attention is water.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_00: So what if I just talk to the people who want to talk to me more?
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I think this goes back to the identity of really understanding who I am now as a child of God, of like I deserve.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, not I deserve.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_00: I don't deserve, none of us deserve anything that we get.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_00: And when I took the deserving or the worthiness out of my identity, when he's like, I love you because I love you, not because you did anything.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's it.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_00: I went, oh.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_00: So all of these people who are liking what I'm saying, it's not based on what I'm doing.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's based on the fact that they just they like it because, like you said, I'm reflecting something that they're resonating with.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_00: So if I just stop making this about me, I'm getting to have all these really fun conversations.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_01: And let me go a little step further.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_01: The humility thing.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_01: So I used to get so nervous.
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, sweaty under my arm, heart beating before I would do these podcasts.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_01: And one day I was like, Lord, make it stop.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to be nervous.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_01: And he was like, What are you afraid of?
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Because I'm representing you.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Aren't you always you're not nervous when you go to the grocery store?
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_00: Why are you nervous for this?
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, I hear you.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think you and I probably have very similar gift profiles, which is why I was like, immediate vibe, right?
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_00: But that is really amazing when you start understanding that you are representing him at all times.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_01: All times.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_00: And also, also, we're reflecting him when we choose to be like him.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_00: When we choose to not be like him, we're not reflecting him.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I've had to, this was the last thing I wanted to say.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_00: Because you were talking about the thing that he said that just kind of made it click for you.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_00: The thing that made it click for me, and that I've keep grounding back into is I remember I was right when we were shifting from a more secular business model to a really faith-centered one.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_00: And our topic, our conversations were going from nervous system regulation without Jesus to nervous system regulation, scaling, sustaining with Jesus.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_00: I was so afraid.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because I said, I am so scared to lead people astray.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_00: And this goes back to that professor gift.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_00: I taught and led people in a way before that truly did cause issues and cause harm.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm so scared to do that again.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember my husband said to me, he said, babe, you know, you and I always talk about that moment after we die and how much we want to hear, well done, good and faithful servant, and how that's not about how useful we were, but it's about how we love people, right?
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Yeah.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes, you know, at the end of your life, you're gonna get to see all the people that drew closer to Jesus because of what you said and what you did and how you showed up.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Do you think that that number will be higher or lower if you don't speak?
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_01: Good job, Hobby.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, now here's the thing: the people who got led away, that number might also be higher.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_00: And we talk about this all the time.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, when you have 10,000 social media followers, you typically have about a hundred haters.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_00: When you got a million social media followers, you got about 10,000 haters.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_00: Those numbers increase in proportion.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that feels scary, but those numbers also increase in proportion.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes, And you believe that God can use anything that is done for evil for good.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_00: So if your intention is good, then even if he's like, What's so gorgeous is you've heard from people that said you started going down the wrong path, I started going down the wrong path, and then I met Jesus.
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, So even then, he's like, He's like, Can you just right?
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_00: He was like, Can you just trust him?
• 55:11
  unknown: Yeah, that's good.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I wanted to share that too with anyone who's like afraid to step out and be bold, too, because I think what you said is so beautiful around like you're representing him always.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_00: And also, what does using your gifts in this world look like in order to be able to hear?
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well done, good and faithful servant.
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_00: And again, to know that it was done from this place of receiving what God has for you and pouring out from there, not from treating yourself as an asset.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_00: I just looked at the time.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_00: I could talk to you forever.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a book and there's a website.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_00: If people would like to connect with you further, because I'm sure they're gonna want to, and also you and I need to connect on social media so I can watch these lives.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_00: But where do you love to live that people can come find you?
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the easiest is a website, which is just my name, latanya reneflood.com.
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_00: And if there was one thing that you wanted the women or anyone really in our audience to walk away from this conversation knowing about her identity and her gifts and the life that God designed her for.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think God wants them to know through you?
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I'm about to cry.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know, that was weird.
• 56:23
  SPEAKER_01: I was praying asking God what he wanted me to say while you were talking.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's just like the way that he created you, you like you already have what you need.
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like, oh my gosh.
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_01: You scared me a little bit.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_01: Just a little bit.
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry.
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_00: No, now I'm gonna cry.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, we'll just cry together.
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_00: On the live this morning, I was talking about how so often people come to me because they're looking for an answer.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I love as a professor to ask a bunch of questions.
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, But a lot of times I ask you all those questions to just take everything you tell me and hand it back to you and show you that you already had it.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like he already gave it to you.
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I think you're absolutely right.
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_00: When he lives in your heart, you already have everything you need.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_01: Everything.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_01: Everything.
• 57:21
  SPEAKER_00: All right, y'all.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm gonna go process for the next several hours everything we said here.
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_00: Please go follow Latanya on social and go check out her book.
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_00: Go to her website.
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_00: If you have anything that you'd like us to share with her, you know, we always love when you respond to our emails when we share out our podcasts.
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_00: We love when you respond and tell us what you took away from things.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_00: I promise I will share those with her.
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, Latanya, thank you just so much for joining me today.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm glad we both decided to do this.
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_00: We were both having doubts about doing this, y'all, a little bit beforehand.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_00: And we both prayed on it and went, no, let's do it.
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then, of course.
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_00: So, all right, we will catch you all next week.