3 Life Lessons Isolation and a Pandemic Have Taught Me!

Friends,

In this special episode, I reveal three unexpected life lessons a global pandemic and living in semi-isolation has taught me. These lessons will help you find the good in our situation and hopefully bring some light into the darkness of the world.

God makes good of every situation, and this one is no different. I know that through the hard, overwhelming, and frustrating situations He is able to bring us closer to him and reveal how our trials can become our testimonies.

Grab a cup of joe and snuggle in, this is a good one for the soul, sis.

I pray this blesses you!

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION:

(00:00):
Hey friends. Okay, full disclosure. I’m totally doing laundry recording this episode from my phone. So have fun with that. But I figured I may as well kill two birds with one stone. I was just thinking about what I want to talk about and why not do it while I sit here and do laundry?

(00:25):
You guys, that is why I love podcasting so much because I can podcast while I do life. As you guys have heard me so often during this quarantine time record episodes from my patio record episodes in the living room next to my kiddos. Y’all, it’s flexible. You don’t have to show up on video. You can be yourself and it can work around your life.

(00:52):
That is why I’m such a huge advocate of using podcasting as a way to grow your own business. As a way for you to connect with your audience and a way for you to grow an organic following.

(01:07):
I started this podcast about a year and a half ago and what it has done for my business, it blows my mind. I was just sharing on Instagram the other day that I lost 1,800 Instagram followers in the past 10 months. Yeah, you heard 1,800. I’ve lost.

(01:30):
However, I still am growing a hugely profitable business without having to show up on Instagram 24/7, to be on Facebook every day, and to show up on Instagram stories 20 times a day. How? This podcast. I have keywords, SEO, and strategy behind what this show was about. I’ve got all the secrets for you in my course, as how this show, this exact podcast, has grown my revenue by over 1,600% in that same 10 month period.

(02:07):
What? You heard right. Revenue as in money in the bank girl, 1600% growth in just 10 months, all from podcasting paired with organic growth strategies like Pinterest and like my Facebook group.

(02:25):
Holy smokes. That’s right. So inside of Podcast Pro University, my course, I talk about how to launch your podcast. Start your podcast, grow it, all the things you need from the tech to everything and beyond. To getting guests on your show, having your show just explode, and work for you.

(02:44):
I also talk about how to grow your show using organic strategies like Facebook blogging and Pinterest. Everything for under $500, you guys join me in Podcast Pro University. It’s time for you to start your own show and have the same type of success over the next year and a half that I’ve had with mine because I’m passing along every secret to you.

(03:09):
It’s at podcastprouniversity.com. You also, for a limited time, I am going to start charging for this eventually you guys. Get the membership group for free. You are grandfathered in for free.

(03:21):
I go live in there every week. I answer questions. There are a couple hundred people in there to support you, to help you to leave podcast swaps with you, to do reviews with you. It is the most incredible community of podcasting Christian mompreneurs.

(03:36):
Plus, we got a couple guys, a couple of dadpreneurs in there too, that you could ever expect. Don’t delay. It’s your time. It’s now. We’re quarantined. I mean, what else are we going to do? Let’s launch a podcast! Podcastprouniversity.com.

(03:52):
Okay. Enough about that. What is today’s podcast episode about? I was sitting here actually. I was driving today to get my hair cut. First haircut in three months because I quarantine cut my own hair and it was a hot mess express, totally uneven. But I was driving and thinking, is there anything I need to say to my gals? Because got a light week, as far as clients are concerned, and I figure I wanted to give you guys a bonus episode.

(04:21):
The one thing that kept coming through for me as I drove was the things that I’ve learned or the things that have made the greatest impact on me during this quarantine time. Because here we are in this moment, in this space and time that we’ve never been in before. This moment in space and time where everything stopped moving. Our businesses, our lives, motherhood, school, I mean the gym, my workout regime.

(04:54):
Can anybody give me an amen up here on a Tuesday? That’s with me?

(05:03):
Okay. Life stopped. We were able to use that and we are still able to use that for our benefit or for our detriment. So today I’m going to go through with you the three things, my three biggest lessons that three months in “quarantine” or isolation has taught me that I think every single one of you need to pray over, think about, and maybe see if these three things are impacting you in your life in a positive way.

(05:59):
Thing one, thing two for you. Okay. What is the number one thing that I’ve learned during quarantine? I have learned. Okay. Let’s start with this. I, as a human being, an Enneagram three, a control freak. Y’all as a recovering control freak, I’m doing a lot better. I don’t like change.

(06:50):
You know, humans. We don’t like change in general, but when you talk about Stefanie Gass and like all the things that I am naturally, change is not something for me that I’m like, yeah, I love that. Let’s totally try something new today. Let’s totally, you know, go and do this new thing that we’ve never done or buy this new thing or try this new thing or hire this new person.

(07:14):
I am a crazy loyalist. When I find something that I like when I find someone that I want to work with. When I find that I like marketing in a certain way, I don’t want to change. I am the most resistant human you might not ever meet, but one of them, when it comes to change.

(07:34):
Why? Because I like to feel in control. I love to feel accomplished. I also really value peace, happiness, sanity, and having a semblance of normalcy brings me those feelings. It makes me feel calm, collected, and in control.

(07:55):
How about you? If you were to say on an, on a scale of one to 10, where you’re at when it comes to resisting change, where would you fall? I would say I’m a seven or eight. Really don’t like it.

(08:09):
So three months ago here comes Coronavirus COVID-19 and everything stops. In a matter of days, schools had shut down, people were panicking. Businesses were being closed. We were required to stay home. There was a run on toilet paper for goodness sake. I mean, y’all life got crazy.

(08:30):
With that craziness brought so much change. My husband and I had to stay home and distance learn our children. Try to work our schedules around each other. We couldn’t go to church and we chose not to see our family at first. We are now, but at first we weren’t and we were just alone. Everything was disrupted. Okay.

(08:57):
So here’s where I was at. I really resisted it at first. What happened when I resisted it got harder, I got more snappy, more exhausted. I ate my feelings. Thank you COVID 10 pounder. It’s like, instead of saying like the freshmen 15, we can say the COVID 10, right?

(09:20):
Anyway, it got really rough for me and I took it out on everyone. Right? I took it out on myself. I ate too much and really just dug into carbs, which are a comfort food for me. Snapped at the husband. The kids short of patience with them. I was resisting change, which created a lot of negativity in my life.

(09:47):
So here, three months later, I’m thinking about, gosh, I feel so at peace and everything’s flowing and my life just feels so beautiful. I’m taking all this time to soak up time with God. The past week I’ve gotten my health back on track. I feel so good. My husband and I are closer than ever. I love coworking with him. I thought he was going to drive me crazy.

(10:12):
One thing I used to always say, my husband can never retire because I couldn’t handle him being home 24/7. Now I don’t want him to go back to work. He’s the biggest blessing I could have ever imagined. I’m like, where did the flip come in? When did the narrative get switched from this is a mess and this is bad and everything’s falling apart, to this is working. This feels great. I can do this.

(10:40):
Then now I’m seeing provision come in. My business is growing even bigger than it’s ever been. My life feels so in alignment. Here’s the secret. Here’s what happened for me about a month into COVID/isolation/all the things, I stopped resisting change.

(11:00):
So here it is, write it down. Resisting change causes friction. So when we are faced with change, that is not our choice because we are going to face change in our lifetimes a couple of times a year, if not more. We have to be adaptable, willing to pivot, transition, and accommodate.

(11:34):
So here’s what I did is I stopped resisting change and I started to open up to change. To things looking different, to my kids being home, to my husband being home, to figuring out a different health strategy that was going to work for me. I just opened my heart and I brought God in right there. Said, Lord God helped me things feel out of my control and I don’t like it. Lord God, I need you now.

(11:59):
Show me how to stay healthy during this time, work this business with my husband, have more patience with my kids, and continue to foster this business when everything feels hopeless. And when I asked God to come in and take the seat at the head of my table, he told me to stop resisting change and I let it flow.

(12:28):
When I let it flow through God as the top of my life, as the Holy Spirit, that allowed me to find a solution. Everything worked and it’s working.

(12:47):
So that’s the thing. Number one, resisting change causes friction. Let it go, let it flow. Let God be the beacon of light as you navigate how to change and pivot and shift, which brings me to number two.

(13:00):
There is a solution to every single problem. I have learned this more vividly in this three months of being in isolation/quarantine/COVID life/black lives matter movement/what’s going to happen in the fall. My kids aren’t going to go back to school and life is over. Okay, listen, there’s a solution to every problem.

(13:27):
This is the second thing I’ve really learned in these three months, we can get all bent out of shape. We can go all crazy. We can get all freaked out about all the things that could happen. That kind of are happening in the world. We can panic, cry, freak out, and prophesize over what the fall is going to look like with our kids. Or we can simply say, look, let me chill for a second. Just objectively remove myself emotionally from what’s going on and think about a solution.

(14:07):
Sister friend, I don’t care what problem you are facing right now today. Imminently, it feels crushing. It feels like you can’t escape. There is a solution to every single problem in your life.

(14:25):
Okay. Let me just give you a couple of examples. The first solution that we had to talk about was how do we co-work with kids? At first it was rocky and bumpy because I was resisting it, right? I was resisting change. I was focused on the problem instead of the solution.

(14:43):
When I shifted my view from, it’s too busy and I can’t turn on the distance learning with Miles. I said, how do I navigate this? There was a quick solution right in front of my face, which was to create a schedule with my husband every two weeks and figure out when he needed the office. When he was working, when my son had the distance learning stuff going on, and then I plugged in because my business is so flexible I took the open slots for clients, for coaching, for my mastermind stuff, to record podcasts.

(15:21):
I needed to just step away and say, I am not the only one here. I am not the priority. Making a seamless schedule where everybody gets, what they need is the priority. I discovered that mine is the most flexible. So that was one thing. Now every two weeks my husband and I sit down, we jam on our schedules, done son, easy.

(15:44):
Number two, I was gaining the 10 pound quarantine comfort food situation. I don’t know how many of you have gained a couple, but I was eating like a grown man or maybe an 18 year old boy, I don’t know. But I was eating all the things guys. I was having the fast food, the pizzas, the burgers.

(16:02):
Here’s what I did. I just was focused again on the problem. Oh, gaining weight. Well, I’m in quarantine, I can’t go to the gym, there’s no daycare for my kids. Blah, blah, blah. Then finally I remembered, there’s a solution to every problem when I stop fixating on the problem and making excuses as to why I can’t change something.

(16:32):
I flow with the change and open the doors to what needs to happen. Again, I prayed Lord, show me how to recommit to my health. Help me find a plan that will work for our current situation. I just woke up one day and I was ready to recommit and knew for me what that plan was. My husband and I ended up getting mountain bikes and we’ve been mountain biking at least twice a week. All the things fell into place.

(17:03):
There was a solution there and it just looked a lot different from what I was used to. I was used to go into a gym that had a daycare, right? I was resisting something different and making excuses as to why I couldn’t work out from home. Why that wasn’t going to work for me.

(17:19):
That is a lack mindset. That is a mindset of a weak person. Now believe me. I mean, all of us have that mindset when it comes to something, especially when things are changing all around us at the pace at which they are, it’s totally normal and almost expected that we’re going to have those moments of resistance. We’re going to have all of these moments of I can’t do this this way. This isn’t working this way.

(17:49):
Let me remind you just as I reminded myself, there is a solution to every problem. Think outside the box.

(17:56):
Let me think of another example. My son, my older son Miles, he’s going into first grade and we were totally panicking over this whole learning stuff. Distance learning was horrific. Not because the teachers didn’t do a great job, but because I am not cut out for homeschooling, can we just get that straight, real quick?

(18:17):
Husband and I are both working it’s chaos. Okay. Also, he doesn’t listen to us the way he listens to a teacher, having other students in the class that are exactly his age, all of those things. Then lastly, he doesn’t really learn because it’s on an iPad. Instead of having like a tangible thing he can touch to learn math or science.

(18:39):
So I started to panic. I started to freak out. What are we going to do? I remembered, there’s a solution to every problem. If he can’t go back to school, maybe he could do private schools because they don’t go by the same rules. Maybe we could get a tutor. So we started exploring all of those options. Instead of panicking, I just came up with a few backup plans based on what happens in August.

(19:08):
So now we know, and we’ve got some plans in our back pocket. So again, panic, doesn’t bring you any closer to resolution. Digging into the change resistance just brings you more resistance, more negativity. That’s what the enemy wants from you is to freak is to focus on the worldly problems.

(19:28):
What God wants to hand you is a solution. Every time I’ve asked and brought God into my problem, he has the solution readily waiting and available for me. I know he has that for you.

(19:41):
So that brings me to number three, the final thing I’ve really learned, and I want to remind all of you of is that we’ve got to lean into God and Jesus and scripture right now, more than we ever have before. Now is the time that God wants us to grow closer to him. We have a couple choices, right?

(20:07):
We can choose to lean on the world and lean on the world’s solution, or we can lean on Jesus. Look, we are grateful for this world. I am grateful for this world, for this life, for my babies, for my relationships, for my friendships, for this business, for the impact God has allowed me to make, for this show, for the words that God gifts me every time I show up for you guys.

(20:36):
But here’s the thing while I’m grateful to be on the planet. This isn’t my home. This isn’t my home. Okay. In this fleeting time on earth, I am choosing to live above the fray of sin. Above the fray of condemnation and judgment and all the political battles and all the fake news. Because if you watch the news, you know, that that is not based on truth, on biblical truth. It is sensationalized entertainment. Okay? So just know that.

(21:15):
I choose to live above lies, idolatry, blame, and hate. It’s a choice. We all have the choice. We can either let the world dictate our emotions, let the world dictate the way that we react. Let the world cause us pain and struggle and defeat. Or we can lean into our true home, which is with Jesus Christ and with our savior, with our father.

(21:51):
Our father lives in heaven and we get to go be with him and go home. I’m so excited and grateful that there is a space and a place for all of us, where there is no more pain and struggle and fighting and anger and judgment and hate and fake this and fake that and idols everywhere you look. Nothing but beauty and peace and love and the people that we so cherish. Paradise, that’s my home.

(22:30):
I needed to be reminded of that. I think what God truly showed me in this past 90 days of quarantine and isolation is that even God himself rested on the seventh day of creation. Rest is part of the biblical plan. So he called us to rest. When I started to rest, the lies of the world started to be revealed to me at a deeper level, right?

(22:59):
Instagram as an idol. Social media as an idol. Different coaches and people that I was following, not godly servants, not the right people for me. The truth has been revealed in a lot of different areas. It’s also shown me the truth about myself and some of the weaknesses that I have that I need to work on. Right?

(23:28):
So when we rest, we can hear. When we silence the noise, we allow God to speak truth into us and to tell us what we need to do, what we need to change. So what I’ve learned is to stop leaning on the world, stop leaning on my own understanding and start leaning, pouring into God.

(23:51):
Start looking for answers in scripture, instead of the Google search bar. Stop phoning a friend for help and start phoning Jesus. Get to your knees more often and pray and call out to him. Let him lead your choices, business, life, finances, relationships, motherhood, and patients. Let him see your weaknesses and ask him to make you whole and make you better and stronger and more Christ-like.

(24:19):
Every day. Sisters, I choose Jesus, biblical truth, prayer, soaking up the hugs and the little precious moments that God has gifted me in this time. This time is not for not. God wastes nothing. This time of quiet, kind of. Worldly quiet, household chaos, is beautiful.

(24:47):
It’s given me a closeness with my kids and my husband that I would have never had otherwise, shown me how to serve you guys more deeply, but in a more authentic way. It’s shown me that Instagram and social media is not something that I really want to be part of. If it wasn’t part of my business, guys, I would just delete it. But I’m showing up there. I’m still doing it, but I’m doing it God’s way.

(25:14):
I’m done doing it the world’s way. I am living my life worry free. I am discerning truth daily. I’m not worrying because I know God’s got this. God’s got me and God’s got you. But the truth must be analyzed every day right now. Don’t believe what you see on social and the news.

(25:39):
Go to God for the truth. He’ll show you. If he will reveal so much to me in such a short amount of time, I challenge you to sit down with a journal, get quiet, pray. You know, fast from coffee for a couple of days. You guys remember when I did that? Do what you need to do to hear him.

(26:00):
Then write down all the miracles that you’ve experienced in this time. Write down all the beauty God has shown you. Stop focusing on the problems. Start focusing on the solutions, on the provision, on the miracles that he is so desperately trying to give us. We are blocking it. We got to open our hearts, souls, and minds to the beauty that he has in store.

(26:25):
Love you so much. Keep your eyes on him. I just hope that this helped you just felt led to chat with you guys today. Missed ya. Get into my DMs. Say what’s up. I want to hear from you guys. Come join the Facebook group. It’s under Mompreneur Mastermind on Facebook. I go live there all the time. Answer questions. I’m here for you, whatever you need.

(26:47):
Even if you just need a prayer, send me your prayer request. I’m so grateful that you’re here. Let me be here for you. I’m so grateful for each and every one of you. Love you guys. I will see you back here pretty soon. Love and light, Stef.