Creating a Community for Writers, with Brandy Wallner of Hope*Writers

Creating a Community for Writers, with Brandy Wallner of Hope*Writers

Brandy is a community writer for Hope*Writers, tasked with building community and keeping members on track.

Community - ep 56

I sat down with Brandy Wallner to talk about three things writers and creatives need to succeed.

  1. A guide
  2. Good, fresh information
  3. Community

Do you dream of publishing your writing but you’re not sure what to do next (or where to start)? Check out this free quiz to help you identify where you are on the writing path.

Hope*Writers is a community of working writers dedicated to helping you make progress as you learn to balance the art of writing with the business of publishing.

For more about Hope*Writers
https://lifeandmission.com/hope

I am a HopeWriter affiliate, which means if you become a member of the HopeWriter community, I get paid. That helps keep this podcast going. Thank you!

About

Brandy is a community writer at Hope*Writers, and a freelance content writer and ghostwriter. She’s passionate about helping people connect with one another as mutual image bearers of Christ. You can connect with her at BrandyWallner.com or on Instagram at @brandywallner.

Let’s Connect

Lessons for Life and Ministry with Tom Lane

Lessons for Life and Ministry with Tom Lane

Tom Lane is the apostolic senior pastor at Gateway Church and author of Tested and Approved: 21 Lessons for Life and Ministry

Tom Lane

About

Tom Lane is the apostolic senior pastor at Gateway Church in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. As an elder, he provides spiritual governance for Gateway’s ministries. As a pastor to pastors, Tom is a long-term, trusted Christian leader. Tom has written many books including Heritage: A Father’s Influence to the Generations, Foundations of Healthy Church Government, and he coauthored Strong Women and the Men Who Love Them with his wife, Jan.

Get the book and the guide: https://gatewaypublishing.com/products/tested-and-approved

Let’s Connect

Replay: Chickening IN with JJ Gutierrez

Replay: Chickening IN with JJ Gutierrez

We recorded this episode back in February 2020, and first published it in March. In just those few weeks, the entire world changed. I thought we could all use a reminder of JJ’s timely message to an uncertain world.

How many times have you “chickened out”? Chickening IN is an invitation to a lifestyle of courage and faith.

Sometimes a single word or phrase has the power to change the course of our lives, and “Chickening IN” is that word for JJ Gutierrez. This little twist on a familiar phrase launched JJ into a transformational journey from fear to faith. Her book, Chickening IN: From Fear to Courageous Faith, 8 Pillars of Transformation, is a practical guide to defeating fear and doubt. I spoke with JJ in February, but we especially need her message today.

Overcoming fear is a process. One step follows another, with small, sometimes imperceptible forward movement. That first step of faith, saying “God, I’m terrified,” invites Him into the conversation. As He speaks truth, we can take those practical steps we need to take.

Links

JJ Gutierrez, Courage Challenger and Mentor. chickeningin.com
Get the book (affiliate link): Chickening IN: From Fear to Courageous Faith, 8 Pillars of Transformation
Find JJ on Instagram and Facebook

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Redefining Success in Light of the Assignment

Redefining Success in Light of the Assignment

How do you define success? Is it financial? Family? Creative or business achievements? Or does it have to do with something else? 

Tim Winders - episode 52

Tim Winders is a performance coach for executive teams. He’s had a few ideas about what it means to be successful, but, as his story shows, those things we usually consider as “success” can be gone in a moment. In this interview, Tim invites us to look at success in light of our assignment–whatever God has given us to do in a particular moment, or season.

[02:00] Life in an RV
[07:59] Who needs a coach?
[14:47] Assignments
[19:14] Defining success
[30:00] Quiet time
[34:21] Business & ministry
[47:48] Books

Links

Tim Winders is a Performance Coach and author who specializes in helping Executive Teams and Entrepreneurial Leaders maximize their potential by looking beyond traditional “cookie-cutter” methods that often limit the creative process. A lifelong student, he thrives on helping people discover how to live outside of the box and walk out their unique God-given calling. In his own life, he has frequently taken the road less traveled, and found great satisfaction off the beaten path. As host of the SeekGoCreate podcast, Tim goes to the out of the way places to bring you people who redefine success and impact our world in remarkable ways as dreamers, movers, strategists, and connectors.

Tim’s SeekGoCreate Podcast
@SeekGoCreate

The Gift of Doubt

The Gift of Doubt

We rarely see doubt as a good thing. It’s been called a dream-killer. Something to overcome or push through. And certainly, doubt can be destructive. But I propose we take another look at the gift of doubt.

Doubt can be hard to define but it plays out in indecision, hesitation, busywork, loss of enthusiasm, etc.
When we encounter doubt, the first response is often fear. Panic can set in.

Sometimes you start something and find it’s a completely different animal than what you prepared for. In 2006, I co-founded a non-profit, and by 2012 I was desperate to leave it. The ONLY reason I stayed was because I knew God had called me into this. I couldn’t leave. In my case, the presumptions I had at the beginning were not adequate for the task at hand. I had to check my assumptions. Today, that ministry is radically different from anything we imagined when we launched. And I feel privileged to be a part of what God is doing through it.

How is doubt a gift?

I say doubt is a gift because it alerts us when something’s amiss. There’s an inconsistency somewhere. Something differs from our understanding. Doubt calls us to examine things more closely.

It’s normal and okay to have doubts, especially when you are in unfamiliar territory, or when you’re doing something new to you, or new to the world.

In the Bible, the disciples didn’t believe the women who came back and reported Jesus was no longer in the grave. It was a new thing. Nobody had walked out of a grave before.

Thomas, or “Doubting” Thomas, gets a bad rep for asking for proof of the resurrected Christ, but Jesus doesn’t rebuke him for it. Instead, he invites Thomas to test and see. He didn’t push Thomas away; Jesus invited Thomas to come closer.

How we respond to doubt is important.

If we fear doubt, we push it away or ignore it. We cover it with platitudes and affirmations. So there’s this big monster doubt over in the corner, and we start moving around it, avoiding it, tip-toeing past so we don’t wake it up. We leave larger and larger chunks of our lives unexplored, masked, and dangerous.

If we give it freedom to roam about unchecked, it steals from us. It nags and worries. It criticizes. Like a raging fire, destroying everything in its path.

Like fire, if we set boundaries and engage doubt with respect, it can work for us. It can be a good thing, when properly contained.

Think for a moment about a beef brisket. It’s tough. It comes from an unglamorous part of the cow. But if you apply a slow, gentle fire, that meat turns into something tender that melts in your mouth. It becomes memorable, rich, and flavorful. And what about sugar? It has one flavor. Sweet. Just sweet. Nothing but sweet. It has no aroma, it’s only one-dimensional. But when you apply heat, it browns and caramelizes and it develops over 100 flavor compounds.

That process is permanent. Fire (heat) forever changes that food. You cook something, and it never goes back to the way it was.

If doubt is like fire, then it can help us engage our ideas at a deeper level. Look at things from different angles, check our assumptions. And, properly engaged, that can lead to innovation, growth, breakthrough, and discovery.

How to engage doubt without getting burned:

Get the right people in the kitchen. Relationships help us see truth. Explore the doubt with people you can trust. Not the people who will tell you they never believed in your dream, anyway. They could’ve told you it would never work. That’s like throwing gasoline on the fire, and somebody will get burned.

But you also don’t want to go to the people who just tell you how great you are and how it’ll all work out. They’ll make you feel better, but it will not be helpful. You won’t get that rich flavor profile because they won’t let the fire burn hot enough.

And please, don’t let people in your kitchen who don’t know anything about cooking!

You need people with the knowledge and stamina to stay in a hot kitchen long enough to help you draw all the flavor out of this thing. You might need an expert in your field, or someone with more experience, or you may just need a great coach.
Are there missing ingredients? Are you using the wrong tools? Do you need to adjust your systems? Are you basing decisions on dependable information?

These people can help you sort truth from fiction: culture, assumptions & misconceptions. Exploring these things demands honesty and vulnerability. If your perceptions or assumptions turn out to be wrong, then changing them can take courage. You may actually benefit from the false assumption, but that false assumption is still leading you down the wrong path. If that’s the case, change is even more difficult, and you’ll need help to face it.

Facing doubt? Ask yourself, How must I change to hold truth?
Are you facing doubt? Don’t fear it.
There are still new frontiers—new discoveries ahead.
Are you called? Yes.
Stuck and doubting? Engage.
Fire-tested? You were made for this!

Building Empty Nest Empires with Tami Romani

Building Empty Nest Empires with Tami Romani

If you’ve got a message of any kind, you’ll need to find some level of comfort stepping in front of the camera or speaking into a microphone. Tami’s been helping entrepreneurs voice their brands, and now she’s helping a generation build Empty Nest Empires.

Tami goes beyond tips and techniques, right into the heart of why we do what we do.

Tami shared her experience starting her online groups, Building Empty Next Empires, and the Empire Builder Society, and a little about something else she’s got up her sleeve.

Key Takeaways

  • We’re all building empires, of finance, family, faith, fun, and fitness.
  • Small things can have big impact.
  • We can be intentional about building great memories.
  • Different seasons of life look different, and that’s okay!
  • Empty nester? You’ve still got a lot to give!
  • We have to be purposeful about building community.

Resources

tamiromani.com
Faithfullygrand.com
Here’s an earlier interview with Tami, where we talked about ways to improve the sound of our voices, and the way our voice affects how others see us.

Tap the “+” below to open the transcript

Transcript

[00:00:00] Kay: well, hello, Tammy is so good to have you back. How have you been and what you’ve been up to?

[00:00:07] Tami: Hi. Kay. It’s always good to hear your voice. What have I been up to my goodness? Last time I was on your podcast, we were talking about the voice and the importance of your voice, right? Yeah. So, I’ve been a long time voice actor. I still am, an audio book that I just recorded released today. So I still do different things like that.

[00:00:30]But yeah, God has led me into some new, really interesting areas. So I don’t know, but you want to dive into, I still do help people become a more confident speaker. I have a small little course online called a confident voice and, people can reach out to me if they’re interested in that. And, so I love doing that because I love seeing people.

[00:00:52] If they feel called to speak to a group or to speak on their social media. I love seeing them do that with some confidence.

[00:01:01] Kay: Yes. Yes. And that’s a good course to, I’ve been in it and, and, and you’re just, you know, you teach it. Amazing how much, you know, breathing does for you and just drink enough water. I mean, kind of if you get those two back, but then you have a lot of really cool tricks that you teach that can just help you be and confident it’s such a big change when you can be more confident when you speak that adds so much.

[00:01:28] Tami: Yeah, it makes your listeners notice. I mean, there are actually studies. I think we probably talked about this last time. There are studies out there that say you’re being judged by your voice almost immediately, unfortunately, and people will either turn off your message or they’ll lean in to listen.

[00:01:44] So that’s why the voice is really important. But God has led me into some new areas based on my stage of life.

[00:01:52] Kay: Yeah. Tell us about that. What, what are you doing now?

[00:01:55] Tami: Well, You know, it’s a funny thing. So I have been teaching, you know, doing my voiceover work and teaching and just feeling like there’s more for me. And one of the things that I’ve noticed is that I, when I came into social media, let’s say I joined Facebook, kicking and screaming.

[00:02:15] I only joined Facebook so I could see what my son was doing while he was studying abroad in London. Literally, that was my motivation. I had no idea about it, but here I am on this platform and I’m seeing people use it for business in really unique ways. And that captured my attention, and I started studying it.

[00:02:35] I just started studying it. And I think we’re talking eight years. Eight years of studying social media. I love it. I love the impact you can have. I love those people I’ve met, who have had a big impact who have then taught me. And it’s not about the numbers. It’s about you actually can develop relationships.

[00:02:55] And there are so many examples of. Relationships that have happened with DMs. People on, on Instagram. And so I don’t want to go into that, but because I’m an empty nester and I have this podcast called voicing your brand. And the funny thing is at about the same time, I also have an idea for a second podcast called emptiness to empires. And the idea of being that we build empires. Or a legacy if you will, that is left for generations. Whether we know it or not, now it can be a good legacy or it can be a bad legacy. And we build them in more areas than finances. We always see, you know, leave a financial legacy, build a financial empire. But what if we’re also building empires of faith that we leave behind for our family?

[00:03:51] What if we’re building empires of fun? Where they have these memories of just having fall down. Laughter with us. What if, what if we’re leaving, an empire of the fitness that our body is in; that how we took care of ourselves mattered? What if we leave an empire for our family? I mean, so I, so I came up with these five, five pillars, if you will, all starting with F, uniquely.

[00:04:18] And I thought, wow, Empire Builder. That’s really unique. Okay. Building Empty Nest Empires. Okay. Let’s test this out. So I started a free Facebook group called Building Empty Nest Empires. And in one weekend I had 200 women join.

[00:04:35] Kay: All right.

[00:04:36] Tami: just from finding they’re searching the word emptiness and I still every week yet.

[00:04:41] Several new people. I don’t advertise it. I don’t put it out there. Women in the empty nest years want connection. They want ideas. They want to know what’s next. So I did a live in there, you know, let’s, let’s explore what’s next for me. You know, I wrote some notes and it just kind of grew out of that, that I then created a membership.

[00:05:04] We’re called Empire Builders Society, which you have been a part of where we it’s a very small price. It’s less than a dollar a day. And we honestly, this is where you’ll get the resources. So the way to find out, I mean, I could talk for hours on this because here I am in my sixties now, and I hear women in their forties saying, Oh, it’s too late for me.

[00:05:29] I’m too old. I’m too old to try something new, too old to do through all, to learn something new tool, to do something new and I’m thinking, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. This is, this is your prime. This is better than all the years before.

[00:05:45] Kay: Yeah. I’ll echo down.

[00:05:48] Tami: you have life experience that people need to hear and learn from.

[00:05:55] So that’s where my heart is now. I’m. It’s still evolving. The funny thing was, is when I have mentioned before I started Empty Nest Empires. Now we’ve been on hiatus for a couple of months because life kind of turned upside down during the COVID-19. but I am bringing it back now, but when I started talking about it too, and various networking groups and business groups, I would say, Oh, I’ve got these two ideas for podcasts voicing your brand because I want to tell people it’s okay to be your voice of your own brand and then Empty Nest Empires.

[00:06:32] And people would have a physical reaction to that phrase, Empty Nest Empire. I had people go, Oh, you know, and, and, and like goosebumps on my arms right now. And I’m like, okay, God, definitely. You want me to go ahead with that?

[00:06:46] Kay: Yeah, that sounds good.

[00:06:48] Tami: I really felt like I, I had to do it. It makes sense. It’s not hard for me to have a podcast.

[00:06:53] Obviously I talk, I have a microphone; I have a space. And so it’s just, it’s still, and I feel like for the rest of my life, what I’m doing is going to be a work in progress. And I feel like those women who have said to me, I’m too old or what is my purpose now? You know, my kids are gone. What is my purpose now?

[00:07:18] Or now I’m a grandma. How can I help them? I feel like, what you’re doing now is going to be different than what you’re doing five years from now.

[00:07:28] Kay: Yeah.

[00:07:29] Tami: I love that we all are evolving. I mean, we need to pick one to focus on for sure. Make some money. And then maybe it morphs into something else, or maybe you find a group of people that, you know, you can really help. It’s an experiment. Life is an experiment.

[00:07:46] Kay: it is, you know, and I think it’s so easy, not so easy life isn’t easy, but that’s not what I’m saying, but it’s, it’s so much easier when. You can take that pressure off and say I’m choosing one thing, but it’s not necessarily the one thing, the only thing, you know, had, had, Ronnie rock on a couple episodes ago talking about her book and,

[00:08:14]That was the same message. It looked so different at different times of life, for people in different, different seasons, different places, different. And, and we, I think can really hurt ourselves if we think it’s only one thing. And it’s always just one thing,

[00:08:29] Tami: Yeah, for sure. We limit ourselves and God has no limits.

[00:08:34] Kay: right.

[00:08:35] Tami: He has no limits for his vision for your life. So I w you know, just open it up, open up yourself, and instead of telling yourself, I’m done, I’m over. Ask yourself. What’s next?

[00:08:50] Kay: Yeah.

[00:08:50] Tami: And just go on a journey of discovery and the way I tell people to start that is go back before you ever had kids, or if you never had kids go back to your college days, go back to what brought you joy back then.

[00:09:08] And I did that, and I wrote this big, long list and I thought, Oh, there’s two or three things on there that I could revisit. That could bring me joy again and might be something that someone else is interested in. If you’re interested in doing a business now, because I I’m that way I am a strategist. And so I’m always going to think in terms of how can you monetize this?

[00:09:35] Honestly, I, we had. We went to someone’s house. The other night, we had a very social distancing evening where we brought our own or d’oeuvres and we sat and watched the sunset from their backyard and they have a big long table in that one couple set on one end. And my husband and I sat on the other end.

[00:09:54]And he’s a computer programmer. And we were talking about how difficult it is to order groceries, especially at the beginning of COVID. I said, I put on Instacart and it took me seven days to get a date for delivery. And she just says, Oh yeah, well, my husband wrote a program, and we installed it in my computer and it just pings when a time comes up.

[00:10:16] So then I know whichever, you know, and it checks like three or four different apps. And my first thought was, and you didn’t monetize that and become a millionaire in the last two months.

[00:10:26] Kay: Seriously.

[00:10:28] Tami: Because I would have bought that app.

[00:10:30]Kay: uh huh.

[00:10:30] Tami: Right. I would have bought that app

[00:10:33] Kay: Oh yeah.

[00:10:33] Tami: So I’m always, I’m always strategizing my brain is just wired that way and I can see things in people that.

[00:10:43] And opportunities and possibilities for people that they don’t seem to see in themselves. And that’s just how God wired me. That’s what I base my membership group on, which is called Empire Builder’s Society is that we have a brainstorming session where people just go, well, here’s my idea. And then we all pour into that, like, okay, what if you tried this?

[00:11:03] What if you tried that maybe you could make some money at it doing this and that? And I see opportunity everywhere. So if anyone wants to book an hour with me and just, you know, we can do that too. I just, I just.

[00:11:14] Kay: yeah. Do it.

[00:11:16] Tami: I love strategy. So, I don’t want to waste that if, if I, if I can help 20 people, 30 people, 50 people, 500 people.

[00:11:25] Aye. That it brings me so much joy because it opens up doors for others. And I, I just really believe that we are called to be light in this world and we are called to teach others based on what we have learned, what God has taught us.

[00:11:45] Kay: Yeah, I think we discount sometimes the things that we know, because it doesn’t maybe look exactly like somebody else’s thing that they know, or it doesn’t look like what we think it should look like. And we, and we miss this thing that other people really think is amazing that they would pay for.

[00:12:07] Tami: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, of course all this stuff is also available on the internet for free, but who has that kind of time?

[00:12:17] Kay: Right.

[00:12:18] Tami: So we don’t all have time to. Explore and search. I have purchased so many courses because I really, I just want it laid out for me. I am a researcher, but I can go down the rabbit hole with the best of them and waste hours and hours.

[00:12:33] Where if somebody has already done that and figured it out, yes, I will pay you for your time. Just tell me what you know,

[00:12:41] Kay: Exactly.

[00:12:42] Tami: whole idea behind I have something I can teach you. You’re going to pay me for it, but I’ve spent decades or hours, you know, months, years figuring this out. And so you don’t want to do that. You want to know what’s the endgame here. And that’s the whole concept behind even having a course online or teaching anything online, even doing one-on-one coaching online, obviously everything’s online now. So. Why not? Honestly, I would honestly just ask you, what are you good at? If you know how to make jewelry, create a jewelry making class, even if it’s make your own fun earrings, charged $10 for it, you do that right there.

[00:13:30] That could make you an extra hundreds of dollars a week. Something as simple as that. So we all have something. I really believe that we all have something, or when we open up again, you could teach it to a mops group, you know, teach the moms a little skill that gets them out of there. Oh my gosh, I have a toddler and that is my life now.

[00:13:54] Kay: Okay. Right. Okay. Yeah. And you just adjust it for whatever group that, you know, every group is going to have its own needs and its own kind of trends and things. And if you’re in that group, if that, if those are your people, you’re going to be in tune with that. And, and you just. Make the adjustments that you need to make.

[00:14:14] And I want to touch on, on the one, one of the things that you were saying there, you know, about, there’s always something that, you know, somebody else is willing to, to learn from that experience that you have. And also, I would say the thing that. Is uniquely you like sometimes, okay. There may be 20 other people teaching the same material, but you’re the one that’s going to connect with that person.

[00:14:40] And so there’s, there are people that are gonna be your people. You just have to find them.

[00:14:47] Tami: And that is often a roadblock that people have is they say, well, I know this thing and I could teach it, but there’s that guy doing it too. I had that. I went through that. I, I w especially when I’m a voice actor and friends started coming to me saying, Oh, you know, my, my, one of them was an author.

[00:15:08] My book agent says that I’ve got to start doing live on Facebook. And I hate my voice. How can I like my voice? And I could have said, Oh, there’s this guy in Hollywood named Roger Love. Yeah. You know, he’ll teach you he’s that guy. Or I could have said, I can do it because you, you like me, you know, me, maybe she doesn’t relate to him, the famous voice guy, you know, which he still is the famous voice guy, but he mostly deals with singers.

[00:15:41]but he also has a speaking course that, of course I’m sure is my direct competition, but is it really, we are so different.

[00:15:49] Kay: There you go.

[00:15:50] Tami: And the interesting thing is, I think you have to think in terms of abundance here; I had an experience where I was at a conference and. One of the first things that the host of the conference did was he got up, and he said, Oh my goodness, here’s a guy you’ve got to meet.

[00:16:08] He teaches you how to speak, basically what I do, how, how to speak with confidence. So if you want to go live and you’re not sure how to do it, connect with this guy and he named this name and the guy waved to San. Well, he was like two rows behind me. And so at the break, I went straight over to, over to him, stuck up my hand and said, hi, it’s so great to meet you.

[00:16:28] And he, at first he was really smiley and chatty and I said, I do exactly what you do. Isn’t that great? And I could see the wall just, he immediately shut down, immediately shut down, cut me off and walked away.

[00:16:42] Kay: Oh, wow.

[00:16:43] Tami: he was, a guy with a Swedish accent. So he’s from Sweden. And then I said, and I’m half Swedish.

[00:16:51] I told I went the whole distance. Hey, I’m half Swedish. That’s so great. I just looked at your website. That’s amazing that you’re doing that. I help people with the same thing and he just went, boom, you know, completely his whole countenance changed. And I thought. Wow. If that is not a lesson in scarcity right there, no one that I deal with would ever be attracted to him, to work with him.

[00:17:19] Kay: Yeah,

[00:17:20] Tami: And we’re totally different personalities. I’m not ever going to be. And, and people who work with him, aren’t going to like me. I’ve never.

[00:17:28] Kay: that’s how it is.

[00:17:29] Tami: this guy. Never going to take business from this guy. So what an odd thing to happen, but I’m glad it did because it really illustrated to me. It’s okay to be doing the same thing, someone else’s, and it’s okay if people don’t like you.

[00:17:46] Kay: Yeah, that’s so true. And there’s always going to be, you know, somebody, but, you know, we, we learned that in kindergarten.

[00:17:54] Tami: yeah. Yeah.

[00:17:55] Kay: we can,

[00:17:56] Tami: Did we though? I don’t think we did.

[00:17:58] Kay: yeah, I know

[00:17:59] Tami: think it stuck.

[00:18:00] Kay: even still staying that’s for sure. You know, and, and they can, they can, there’s some real kind of cruelty edges, you know, to some of that too, but, but, you know, there’s always going to, you’ve got something to offer.

[00:18:15] Tami: And everyone does. Everyone does not. Everyone wants to offer it, not everyone. And like I said, not everyone has to have an online business. Not everyone has to create courses to sell. Not everyone has to do on one-to-one coaching or group coaching online, but maybe it’s something you do. Mm. Maybe you can lead a small group of women at your church.

[00:18:40] Kay: Right.

[00:18:41] Tami: Maybe, maybe you are a leader in that way where you can share your story and help someone in that way. And that’s just as valuable. Yeah. It’s just as valuable.

[00:18:57] Kay: Yeah. Influence. We all influence somebody or a group of somebody that’s really what leadership is.

[00:19:06] Tami: Yeah. Yeah. So when you were, you can tell me now, what, why did you change your podcast to life and mission?

[00:19:14] Kay: Well, I changed it; you know? Yeah. It was the Your Voice Podcast, which of course we really connected over that title. But I never really liked that name and it was confusing. There was another podcast that actually wasn’t producing episodes that had a very similar name. There were a couple of other kind of groups that had a very different message and it was just.

[00:19:41] Okay. I thought confusing. It was hard to find people weren’t necessarily searching for it kind of thing. And it was awkward to say it doesn’t really kind of flow. And I was driving around and I had said, because it went on hiatus and I said, I’m not bringing it back until I have a better name.

[00:20:01] Tami: Okay.

[00:20:02]Kay: and it’s still, I use the same tagline.

[00:20:04] Find your voice, tell your story, change the world. It’s the same idea. But I said, what, what is that? And, and I was just playing with words one day while I was driving around and I just came up with life and mission and I thought this, they sound really good. Together. And it’s really what I’m about because it’s not just your work.

[00:20:23] It’s not just your ministry or your organization or the thing you do, the vocation itself. It’s the calling, which permeates your whole life. Every aspect of your life. We can talk about anything on this podcast, but,

[00:20:37] Tami: I love it.

[00:20:38] Kay: you know, that’s it,

[00:20:40] Tami: Yeah. And, and what a perfect example, what a perfect, yeah. And the name was available. Perfect example. You are okay. It’s okay to change. It’s okay. To grow and morph and add to its. Okay. Like if you’re, if you’re like me, I’m 61 and what, how, I don’t know how that happened,

[00:21:04] Kay: I’m I’m close.

[00:21:05] Tami: yeah. And, And here I am.

[00:21:08] I’ve been a voice actor for decades. I mean, like over 40 years and here I am being called into this new space. I’m a, I’m a pastor’s daughter. My mother was the preacher. I was never called to ministry, but here I am with this new mission that I’m so excited about, and that is, you know, to help, to help people with build their empires by my podcast, Empty Nest Empires, all the things that we leave behind, I really was inspired by my mom. And then also, you know, you said I’m doing so many things. I do know that you need to focus on one thing. So I have started an Instagram account and I have not launched anything, but God gave me another idea. And that is that grandmas need to.

[00:22:00] Pour into their grandkids or overflow from themselves into their grandkids to leave that legacy of faith of fun of all the things. But I felt like, my mother did that so well. And now my kids are adults in their late twenties and thirties, and I still see the impact she had. And so I want to be that now during COVID I’ve got my grandkids living here, so I bought a five-year-old and an 18-month-old.

[00:22:31] And I think about my mom and how good she was at pouring into them, into my own kids. Yeah. And I, and her faith was so strong. My daughter just recently wrote a book called, God you’ve never met who is the Holy spirit and. She basically went through a lot of my mother’s notes and says, you know, and dedicated it to her grandma

[00:23:00] Kay: Oh,

[00:23:01] Tami: who was such a giant in the faith.

[00:23:03] And I think. I want to leave that kind of, of a faith empire for my grandkids. I want to be so filled with face. So what does that take? I saw my mom constantly studying the word, calm in prayer, praying for everyone. And I just felt this calling almost a new calling that grandma’s need to be built up in their faith.

[00:23:29] So that they can overflow to their grandchildren. And so I don’t know what will come of it. I’m calling it faithfully Grande. And that is the name of the Instagram. It has one post, and that’s all, but you can go to faithfully grande.com and get on my email list for updates. I don’t know what that’s going to look like.

[00:23:52] I don’t know if it’s going to be a monthly Bible study. I think so. I think it will be, a private group where we can do monthly Bible study. And maybe even if we get enough, people create some small groups in there. I just have this. Paul inside of me to suddenly go into ministry for grandmas. Isn’t that the thing, and to just, To just show them the legacy that they can leave? And, you know, it kind of correlates with my Empty Nest Empires and, and like I said, it’s just been so evident to me. my, my parents died over 10 years ago and to see their impact still. 10 years later. And then when I think back on my kids were in college when they passed away.

[00:24:39] And I remember having that yard sale,

[00:24:43] Kay: Yeah.

[00:24:44] Tami: you know, that you take what you want, and then you’ve got mugs and for 50 cents each, and, you know, just the crazy little things. And I had all the kids look at everything that was left in the house and they each just chose one thing. And my daughter chose a little, a replica is made of cast iron, a replica of an antique stove.

[00:25:09] So, you know, you can picture it’s cast iron. It’s very old fashioned like settler 18 hundreds. And her comment was, I said, Oh, why’d you pick that? And she said, Oh, grandma. And I used to make food out of play dough and pretend we’re cooking it on this little stove.

[00:25:26] Kay: Well fun.

[00:25:28] Tami: And I said, Oh my goodness, I would not have known that.

[00:25:31] Or if I saw it, it was, you know, Hey, great. Mom’s playing with Nikki so I can do other things. And then my son picked these cute little. Dessert bowls that I think were milk glass. So very antique little dessert bowls. And there, I think there was four of them left. They’d been broken, and he grabbed those.

[00:25:51] And I was like, Oh wow. I would not have guessed that. That’s what you want. And his comment was, Oh yeah, grandma used to give me ice cream in these bowls.

[00:26:00]Kay:

[00:26:00]Tami: I never knew that.

[00:26:01] Kay: they had these great memories.

[00:26:03] Tami: They had those memories, and she was so intentional with them and I thought, wow. Oh, That’s a beautiful thing. So learning to be intentional with the grandkids is what I am teaching myself based on my memories of my mother.

[00:26:19] She was so good at it and she inspires me and I want to pour that into grandma’s too and give them ideas. And like I said, my grandson’s with me, he’s five the other night. He said he wanted to drink from a fancy cup. And so I just took him over to my China cabinet and let him pick whatever he wanted. I don’t care if it breaks, you know, how I’ve got like 50 pieces of stemware in there at least that we never use, but what fun it was for him to eat his old chicken nuggets and drink his water.

[00:26:52] And he, and he was like, and I’m going to hold it like this then, you know, and he was, it was just so cute. And I thought, this is it. This is it.

[00:27:02] Kay: Oh, man, those smiles. Yeah. Those moments.

[00:27:07] Tami: Yeah. And none of those, Oh, you can’t use that. It might get broken. None of that. I mean, really, if it chips or breaks, my heart is not going to be broken.

[00:27:16] There’s another one in there. And I, and I just think placing so much value on their little lives, over our things.

[00:27:27] Kay: Yes.

[00:27:30] Tami: You know, that that creates a legacy. And then also just being the faith giant, that you’re the one that they come to for prayer. And you’re the one that they come to for grandma. What do you think the Bible says about this? Or, I’m really struggling with that?

[00:27:45] Would you pray with me? I think that’s what grandma’s need. And so I don’t know where that’s going. It’s way in the infancy stages. I’m hoping to get some help with it. But I I’ve just created the Instagram for now and a landingPage@faithfullygrande.com. And we’ll see, I don’t talk about it much yet because I really, like I said, I don’t have a direction, but God gives you an idea. You write it down and you ask him for more what’s the next step?

[00:28:16] Kay: Yeah, step at a time and that’s what you’ve done. You start to lay the groundwork. It can take shape as you move. Sometimes it won’t take shape until you’re taking those steps.

[00:28:27] Tami: Yeah. And that’s honestly why I created the Empire Builders Society, because I want people to have a roadmap to see what are the steps I take. Wow. I’ve got this idea now, what do I do?

[00:28:41] Kay: Yeah, and I love it. I, and I would tell people if you’re interested in either one of these to connect with Tammy, because even as she’s, I mean, when she’s learning something entirely new, she’s going to bring you along for the ride and it’s fun, right. She’s really cool person to be around. And, and, you know, but you learn and you share what, you know, And you grow and then everybody gets figure out.

[00:29:11] Tami: Yeah,

[00:29:12] Kay: Yeah. And she’s already smart about a lot of things, so it’s not like you’re starting from square one, so she’s still going to be ahead, you know, a good deal. So it’s really, I love, I love what you’re doing.

[00:29:25] Tami: Great. Yeah. It’s very fun for me and I love seeing results.

[00:29:30] Kay: Yeah.

[00:29:30] Tami: I love seeing results. I love having people, just see and be encouraged by, Oh wow. You know, I, I made a sale today, or I got 30 people on my email list or, you know, anything like that, it just lights me on fire.

[00:29:46] Kay: Yeah, and we need, we need each other to celebrate each other too. And it’s like, you were talking about that scarcity mindset versus more of a generous kind of thing. It’s a, it’s a community where we can be generous to one another. We may be using these tools in different ways. We can encourage each other and, and, share you need people cheering you on.

[00:30:07] Tami: Yeah. Oh, you do. We do. And especially now we’re, we’re also isolated, you know, I talked about just meeting up with those friends and sitting across a very long table with them. I left there going, that was so refreshing. Just to have in person conversation and air hugging across the yard. I mean, we did, we didn’t get close at all because they are, they’re very much quarantined.

[00:30:33] They haven’t even been to stores yet or anything because they have an app to tell them when, to order food. But, you know, but they are doing this, which I thought was so wonderful. And we do need the connection. We do need connection.

[00:30:50] Kay: Yeah, we do. And the other thing about these, these groups, you know, on online, these communities, whether it’s a mastermind or, or, a Facebook group or a membership. When do you, cause the encouragement you don’t always get that from the people that are around you, like your friends and family that have known you for years.

[00:31:11] And they all, a lot of times they know you as such and such, who does such so-and-so so-and-so, who does such-and-such. And that’s the box that you’re in and, and you might be forever in the, in that box, you.

[00:31:27] Tami: Oh, no one, no one in my family understands me. No one,

[00:31:32] Kay: And I think that’s really common with. Yeah. Yeah. I asked, I asked on my personal Facebook feed for people to tell me, you know, what, if I were to teach a class, what would you want me to teach? And I was really surprised at some of the.

[00:31:50] Tami: What did they say?

[00:31:51] Kay: of the answers because, there were a couple that wanted me to teach video production and, and I did that years ago, I used to have a video production business, but it’s been 20 years.

[00:32:03] Tami: It’s a little different now.

[00:32:05] Kay: And like the whole thing has changed. Like all the technology’s changed, everything’s changed. And, yeah, you know, it’s just kind of, you know, people, again, people that have known me for years, but they haven’t really seen the change that they remember the part when maybe when we were closer. It’s just, and we’re all like that.

[00:32:25] We do that to the people we know as well. It’s, it’s just, we’re in different parts of our lives kind of run in different Orbitz. Yes.

[00:32:35] Tami: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, a lot of my friends are like, why are you doing all this? And I, I mean, I need a Plan B for retirement, I suppose, but also I can’t not do it.

[00:32:49] Kay: Yeah. Oh, that’s, that’s great. When you’re doing the thing you can’t not do.

[00:32:53] Tami: Yeah, I can’t, I, I just, it would make me crazy to see so many people who need help and not be able to help them.

[00:33:03] Kay: Yeah. Yeah, that’s cool.

[00:33:05] Tami: So,

[00:33:06] Kay: Alright, well, we will have all the links to connect with Tammy and all these great things that she’s doing online. And I will also have the link to our earlier interview back on the old podcasts,

[00:33:21]Tami: huh.

[00:33:21] Kay: great, we had talked about voice and how to speak confidently and breathe properly.

[00:33:27] And if you’ve listened to that, other to the earlier interview with Tammy, you will. Already at the end of that 40 minutes, you will already be a better speaker. You gave us some really useful tips, so good stuff. Thank you so much, friend, for being on the show.

[00:33:44] Tami: Oh, you’re welcome. Kay. It’s my pleasure.