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Ep 2// Shifting from “Self Absorbed” to “Servant” My Story of Surrender

Updated: Oct 10, 2021



Last episode, I shared my reflections and perspective from 2020 in a candid interview with a fellow mompreneur.


Looking back... I’m so stinking proud of how far I’ve come! But I also know that there is so much more ahead and a shift has taken place. God is calling me to do things differently and I’d love nothing more than for you to walk with me in this season.


In this episode, I simply want to share my story... if we’re going to be friends and hang out in this space, I need you to trust me. I want you to know my heart and my intentions towards you. I want you to know what God is doing in me...well, a most recent piece of it at least.


Grab your coffee and sit down with me so we can catch up!



Full Episode Transcription:

0:04

Hey friends, so last episode I shared my reflections, my perspective from 2020, and a candid interview with a fellow mompreneur. You know, looking back, I am so stinking proud of how far I've come, but I also know that there's so much more ahead and a major shift is taking place in my heart. God has been calling me to do things differently, and I love nothing more than for you to walk with me in this season. In this episode, I simply want to share with you my story, if we're going to be friends and hang out in this space, I need you to trust me. I want you to know my heart and my intentions towards you, I want you to know what God's doing in me. Well, the most recent piece at least, so grab your coffee and sit down with me so we can catch up.


0:40

Welcome back to the Nourishing Mompreneur Podcast, where we get encouraged and empowered as we pursue our greatest potential within the walls of our home. My name is Michelle, and I'm so thankful you're here. Do you feel like your life is good, but something, in you feels unfulfilled? Do you feel stuck in the trenches of motherhood, exhausted and working so hard but feeling like you're getting nowhere? Do you have big dreams, you're holding in your heart, but you've been living small? Are you motivated for more, but don't have the clarity or the courage to do anything about it? Do you want to discover God's best, and see if it's really possible to be an excellent wife, an intentional mother and be successful in business, all for the glory of God? As a wife of 16 years, a homeschooling mom of five, and an entrepreneur, I know exactly how you feel. Every bit of it.


1:34

I truly believe that the most important thing you will ever do is within the walls of your home, and that there is a purpose in everything. If you are a fellow business minded, with a heart for home and the love for Jesus, let's process this journey and grow together.


1:48

I will never forget the day that I listened to this conversation back, conversation as is in episode one- that candid conversation with Brittany Jones. You know I'm a big believer in the quote, "The only reason to look back is to see how far you've come," and I felt so thankful and so proud of how I showed up in 2020. It was a really hard year and I worked like I never had before. For me, life just sped up, all while being, you know, juggling being a wife, a mom, and all the other hats that we wear. I want to cultivate a relationship with you here on this podcast space I want you to know where I've been, my headspace, my heart space, that way you can kind of see the shift and what God's done in me from 2020 to 2021 and kind of that space in between here, this podcast project or as I like to call it PURPOSE project, it's been brewing for quite some time in my heart, but now that it's finally here, it's hard to know exactly where to start. I'll first say that I've been married for 16 years, I've lived in three states, I've had five kids along the way and I'm at almost and I say almost 12 house moves. So, let's just say I've got a lot and a lot has taken place. I just want to fill you in on why I'm sitting here today talking to you on this mic, doing the hard thing doing the uncomfortable thing, once again, and just a little bit of how I got here and what you can expect on this podcast. Let me first go back to the beginning of my entrepreneurship journey which started seven years ago, but before that I have to say, you know, all I ever was shown, and all I had ever known, was a mom that was just a mom, and that's all I ever wanted. All I ever wanted my whole life was just to be a wife and a mom that was the deepest desire of my heart.


I'll never forget when I was in middle school, we had a career day and we were supposed to dress up as what we wanted to be when we grew up. Well, my best friend and I were dreaming and we're like, we just want to get married and have babies and take walks and drink Starbucks and like that was the life of our dreams so that's what we did. We showed up to class, dressed up as pregnant women with Starbucks cups in our hands, and the look of horror on my elderly male, Bible teacher's face was like the most priceless thing ever. So, it's just a funny memory, but that was it like that was always me.


But I found myself, at this time living in Nashville, Tennessee. I had three children and life was pretty settled in a good spot but we were really needing some extra funds, and that's probably why most of you listening, have ever even thought about doing another business or doing a side hustle or doing another thing. Most of you started because, like hey, we can really use extra money or how can I help my husband and support him? That's where we were at, I was like man, I can do something, I can help and I wanted to. I love work, I love doing things and I just always had this desire for more and I was like I can, I can help here and we really, really needed it.


So I didn't want to just do anything. I remember scrolling online looking at lists and lists of things that you can do from home and you know I didn't want to just do anything, it had to resonate with me, I know that at the end of the day, even if you're doing what you're most passionate about, it's still work, and it's still a grind, but it had to just make sense and fit me. I'm looking at lists I'm looking at all these ideas and I just could not find anything that felt right. One day, we had just pulled in the driveway I'm sitting in the truck with my husband and I was just frustrated inside I'm like, God just show me something, give me something, give me an idea and immediately he dropped the name of my business into my mind and it was called The Nourishing Cupcake. So that was the first business that I started, and that's kind of a whole other conversation with that. It's basically totally healthy, delicious cupcakes that started out of my son having a gluten sensitivity but through the years and through motherhood, you know, it evolves because I think that when you start a business, you always want it to serve your family, you always want it to support the vision of your family in a good way, and I always want it to be a blessing and not a burden and so that was always something that was important to me.


2:57

Anyways, it evolved a lot. Let's just say that it started out I was selling in the parking lot with like a local farmer kind of under the radar and then I ended up almost in like a big box, whole food type store there in Nashville. Then when I was pregnant, we had just moved a pregnant baby number four I should say, we ended up moving to Florida unexpectedly shut the business down came down to Florida, ended up doing a large caring job for a family member for a wedding. That started the business back up again, and then found myself again in pregnancy number five, and about halfway through the pregnancy with that, I was like this is it like, I'm done here. I just physically could not keep up with the business or the demand. I couldn't stand on my feet that long. And like I mentioned what had started as a blessing for my family, I could see was becoming a burden because it was just too much. I know that if any of you guys run a business from scratch, traditional style, you understand that you wear like 12 different hats. There's more than that actually probably but there's just so many aspects and dynamics to business, it's just a lot, add that into motherhood, which is already complex and you can get spread really thin, very quickly and so it was just too much and I grieved that so hard I'm halfway through my pregnancy with baby number five we had just moved again. Here I am letting this business go and this kind of dream die, as I thought, but one of the things that the Lord showed me at that moment because I tend to be more of an all or nothing type of person is, it doesn't have to be all or nothing. It was just a no for now like this is a not right now thing so I was like, Okay, God, I can, I can handle that.


4:37

So, I took that business and set it aside, and that was that I had five children now I'm homeschooling them. Life is full, and everything is just, it's going good, I'm not looking to add anything else to my plate for sure. So now my daughter is seven months old, and I was starting to not feel so well, and I stumbled upon a product and opportunity that I just felt like I could not not get involved, so I kind of fell into a network marketing model, business, and one of the things that I loved about that is that it was just simple and sustainable compared to the cupcakes I was like okay I can grab this I can run with this, I can do it on my own terms, I'm like wow, this is an amazing company. This industry is second to none. This product is so helpful it aligned with who I am, just always wanting to support other people provide products that are that are making you healthy make you happy and then empower you, and it just fit everything that I was about and I really felt compelled to join this, but the cool thing about it is, this is true of any business but specifically in the network marketing industry. One of the things is, you know, self. Network marketing is a self-development program or a personal growth journey with a compensation plan attached. That's true of any business because, in business, you cannot grow a business without growing as a person, your business, it will catch up to you you have to continue to grow, and your business will grow along with you but that is certainly the truth so I basically just jumped into this course of a couple of years of self-development, and it was one of the most beautiful things it's been amazing, just growing and learning, learning to be courageous, learning to do the hard things, learning to get comfortable being uncomfortable learning to talk to people, learning to listen, just learning in my voice, all the things, and just a valuable process but the cool thing about it too is I also was like, I'm making money I'm building a business but I'm also in business school because it's just this kind of a low-risk opportunity to learn the ropes of entrepreneurship and business and so I just was ready to learn, ready to go and fully embracing that process.


6:56

So, then in stepped 2020 and COVID came so I was already in a working season. My kids were in a pretty good sweet spot, you know, I had some older ones, some younger ones we really worked together as a team, everything at home was an order and I always want to say that like, In order for me to do business as a mom like home has to be an order I have to be able to keep my priorities because my greatest success is to my family first and if things are not right in my marriage with my children or at home, nothing else matters and so that is always like the basis for, can I do this thing that I want to do, but I was in the sweet spot with, with being able to pursue business in this working season on this deep self-development personal growth journey, and loving every bit of it, and then like I said, COVID came and put us in a situation where, you know, my husband's an entrepreneur and as small business owners and entrepreneurs we were shocked and we were like oh my gosh, what are we going to do we really need to work harder and push ahead. And so out of that necessity, I started another business so I typically wouldn't recommend that I'm a big believer in, you know, pick one thing and go all in, I think there's a lot of power and focus and not getting too distracted or too many irons in the fire, but in this situation, I started running and actively developing to businesses and so it was intense. Life just sped up for me. And I feel like last year I pretty much was like a workaholic, in a huge way. It was crazy. But again, it was just God gives you grace for each season and that is the most important thing is that you are walking in alignment with the season that you're in. But what ended up happening is by the end of 2020, I found myself juggling all three of my businesses, I was like you know what this has been a hard year for everybody. Cupcakes make people happy they spark joy, why not, like, let's just do this this will be fun. I love it. It was my first baby. It just makes me happy it makes others happy and this has been a heck of a year, let's do this.


9:02

All that to say by the end of the year I found myself juggling three businesses and pretty exhausted, now I knew that I would not and could not keep up that kind of pace. That was just the season that I was in and I could fully embrace the hustle of that year because I knew it was okay there was a grace for it, but I knew it wasn't going to be a forever thing.


9:22

One of the things that helped me protect my sanity last year was just walking and running on the treadmill, it was kind of an outlet to reduce my stress just clear my mind and I would always get on there, walk, pray, and in my conversation in my thoughts, I would use it as a time to reset and realign myself often I would review my goals review my plans, but I was always seeking the Lord and checking in to make sure I was on the right track, and just trying to get re-centered on the path that I felt like he had for me, always wanting to do the next right thing. By the end of the summer I started asking about okay God, what is the next year look like what is 2021 going to look like. He actually gave me the word for the year. I have to be honest I wasn't super excited about it. It wasn't anything nearly as exciting as my word for 2020, but I understood what He meant and it really resonated with me, and that word was mission, and it was just meaning that like "this is time to focus on the mission that I've created you for, the real, the main thing, not the business growth and the goals, but the main thing and getting to the heart of the matter." I just knew that some big changes were going to be made, I didn't know how that was going to transition but I was on board with that. As I continue to take steps through the fall of the year, you know, clarity, more clarity came and clarity always comes as you go you know as you move in that direction, you get more and more clear on what to do. I began slowing down towards the end of the year, I began setting myself up to make some necessary changes but the more I slowed down, the more I realized just how exhausted I was, I had to slow down because you know when you're driving a car down a highway, you don't drive 90 miles per hour and then like screech turn the corner to New Year, let's just do things differently. It doesn't work like that like you have to slow that car down before you make that turn and so as the fall of 2020 came I began slowing down to make the shifts to make the changes in obedience and I was being led to do, but as I did that I realized just how tired and exhausted I was like, like so tired, I was up late one night baking cupcakes and I actually was listening to an audiobook. And he said something to the effect that badass is one step away from burnout and I was like, Um, yes I'm raising both hands over here like I feel like I was totally walking the line of complete burnout and I probably just totally crashed and burned by the end of the year, but all I can say is I made it through, and I was running on fumes just gasping to get to January, I could not wait for January because I had planned months ahead that this was going to be the month this is going to be the month that I was going to renew. I was going to get refreshed I was going to rest this was going to be a time for me it was going to be almost like a me-time where I could just rest and unplug from everything and just, you know, read regenerate rejuvenate, all the things that I was just so desperately needing, you know, we always look for that mealtime that mom time and so I kind of thought that's what it's gonna be like. And, yeah, I was completely wrong in that. God said, No baby this is, This is my time, and this is a sacred time where you're going to consecrate yourself to me. And so, a week into the first month of January 2021 He called me to join my husband and do a 21 day fast. So yeah, that's pretty crazy I typically I don't like to do extreme things I would normally do that for myself but it was honestly me just walking in obedience, it was me doing it for him and he gave me the strength and the grace to get through that it was really challenging and I'll have to do a whole other talk about that tell you about what it was like what I learned, because that's a whole other episode but he revealed a whole lot. I had a whole list of things that I was praying for during that fast but one of the biggest things that I realized was really looking back, just how self-absorbed, I had been on this self-development journey and I think that's the challenge with self-development is "self" is the keyword. You're looking to yourself for answers, you're looking to yourself to be stronger, to yourself for courage, for all of those things and there's nothing wrong with that, I think it's amazing, but it has to be in order, it has to be under the authority of the Lord. I had grown so strong I had grown so much as a person competent and worked on my skills, and my gifts, and my talents, and grown my business and all of it but, God was like no, I don't want you to be strong in yourself, I want you to be strong in me.


14:11

You know the Bible says, "Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might," and that was one of the biggest shifts that, that he was just doing and me as I humbled myself in January, as I fasted as I prayed, he was just taking all of me and being like, "No, no, it's not your strength, it's my strength and you need me one 110%, like it's all in me." You know even looking back it's interesting, just to see that, you know as you show up on social media I know as a mom when you're working from home. Social media is an amazing platform to build a business but it can get tricky, because even with your best intentions of showing up of serving others. There's still so much focus on you because it's all that meets the eyes.


15:04

I just felt like I got sucked into a little bit of like the highlight reel like pointing to myself like I don't want to be putting so much attention on me I really ultimately want to be bringing glory to God in what I do. It just has to be in order and in alignment. All I'm trying to say like anytime the focus is more looking inward to yourself, more than looking to God, then things are out of order. Anytime you're consuming more self-development, and just immersed into listening to other people and personal growth stuff, then you are in the Scripture and in the Word, things are out of line. Anytime you're highlighting yourself more and putting more attention on yourself, then you are pointing others to the Lord, then things can get out of order and I recognize that and I felt like, "oh man, like that's totally me" I just, I don't want that to be my focus. So, I surrendered. In that place, God has just been doing so much. I can't even put it into words, but the one thing, one of the biggest shifts is just surrender that could be my word for the year, as well as trust. The mantra for this year is just been like God like I want to do things your way, in your time, and so I've been quiet. I've been listening, I've been growing, and of course I've been wrestling and uncomfortable every step of the way. I think it takes way more courage to slow down, at least for me than it does to speed up, but I don't want to live my life, self-absorbed and so focused on me and my goals and those things I really want to live a life surrendered. I really want to be a servant leader in all that I do.


16:41

That is, honestly, just the biggest reason why I'm showing up here. I kind of want to be off that highlight reel more of social media, and just be the most authentic and vulnerable with you. This is a place where I can use my voice to serve you. This is a place, whether it's just even a word of encouragement or a simple strategy to hack your Mompreneur journey, whatever that looks like. That's what I'm here for and that's what I was showing up for because I'm a verbal processor and it helps me so much to talk things out, and it also helps me so much just to feel like I'm not alone, I get a lot of clarity from talking things through and just feeling the support of knowing, okay there's another mom that gets it too, and so on this podcast, you're just going to hear it, we're gonna talk more about entrepreneurship and work from home strategies, we're gonna talk about motherhood and family and we're going to talk about the growth of course self-development, but the foundation of everything is our faith in God, and of course you'll hear nuggets of inspired thoughts and encouragement all along the way. That's why I'm showing up for you.


17:42

I'm really excited to see what God's gonna do, I'm pressing into what's possible and I just want to be clear too, by the way, if you are not a mom in business, if you don't have that thing, if you're home and you're just raising those babies, this is completely your space. This is really a place for a mom that has a heart for more. This is a place for a mom that just wants to grow and pursue her greatest potential within the walls of her home, while you're raising the babies, while you're being an excellent wife like I said an intentional mother, this is the place for you to pursue more and for us to just work together and process life together so I hope you stick around with me. Let's see what's possible and I just pray that I can serve you well and really be a friend to you and whatever season that you're in.


18:34

Hey Mama, real quick before you run off and do all the things. If you found value in today's conversation, it would mean the world to me if you left a review and subscribe to my podcast. I know, you know, how precious time is. The biggest thing that you can give me for taking the time to share on this podcast, is to leave a written review. This helps me on my mission to encourage and empower others who are pursuing their greatest potential from home. So head over to iTunes and scroll down to the bottom of the Nourishing Mompreneur Podcast to rate, and leave a super quick review, to let me know what spoke to your heart. If you're feeling a little extra today, take a screenshot of today's episode and tag me on social. I value your time so much and appreciate you connecting with me, find me at NourishingMichelle.com/connect.



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