Hello and welcome to the Hope Unlocked podcast . I'm your host , kristen Kurtz , and I'm also the founder of New Wings Coaching , where I empower and unlock women to soar in their calling and roar with their voices . If you're curious to learn more about how coaching can help you unlock your potential , be sure to explore the show notes for ways to connect with me further . Get ready to dive in as we uncover empowering keys and insights in this episode . So tune in and let's unlock hope together . Hello , happy Tuesday . I am wearing my hope t shirt . I just got it . It's like my uniform , for I think I'm gonna wear this every Tuesday , because most Tuesdays I do podcast interviewing , and I thought I would just share a little bit about the Hope Unlocked story with you guys if you want to hear it and I really want to first of all point you to listen to the podcast episode that I just released today . It's episode 74 . It's again . My podcast is called Hope Unlocked , which is the title of this Facebook Live , and I really wanted to just point you to that because a lot of things that I post on the socials get suppressed , so we're just kind of pushing things through in other ways . So if you happen to be hearing this , go check out the episode with my sweet friend , dr Michelle Bankson . She shares an incredible she just shares amazing hope-filled perspectives , which is actually her podcast . But she just released a new book today , so it's her book Book Birthday Today and the name of her book is Sacred Scars . I'm just reading the rest of it , so don't mess it up . Resting in God's promise that your past is not wasted . So I actually ordered a couple books , one for myself and one for somebody in my life who I won't mention . But I just wanted to come on and just share a little bit about the journey to Hope Unlocked and a little bit of the journey to , I would say , becoming a Hope Igniter .
Speaker 1So a lot of you maybe grew up with really challenging childhoods , maybe challenging teenhoods , maybe challenging young adulthoods . That was a lot of my story , just a lot of challenges , and it's 414 here for such a time as this . So I actually grew up , I would actually say , pretty hopeless . Honestly , I had a lot of things going on in my life that just seemed hopeless and I won't get into all the story there . A big part of my life was moving a lot . I mean a lot in a four-year period of time . We left California when I was 10 . We went from California to Vermont , to California , to Vermont , to California , to Illinois , to Virginia , and then I went back to Virginia or to Illinois by myself in eighth grade . Then I went back to Virginia and then to Minnesota . So it was a lot of moving , a lot of moving in the very crucial years between 10 and 14 . So my life was ? It just felt really hopeless .
Speaker 1And looking back at those times of my life and then finally moving here to Minnesota when I was a freshman in high school , it was a lot to bear . It was a lot to bear and I did not grow up in church , so I didn't have the Lord in my life . I was kind of walking aimlessly through life and ended up getting into alcohol and drugs and just really didn't care about life at all . To be honest with you , I ended up just living a very Russian roulette kind of life . And I look back and I say like I literally should not be sitting here talking to you right now . There's so many situations that I literally just shouldn't even be here Because I was so down such a dark pathway , down such a dark pathway and life just literally felt hopeless . I didn't have any direction , I just was just doing the things to barely get by and to make this really short , to make this really long story a little bit shorter , because I tend to share stories story a little bit shorter because I tend to share stories and it takes me a while . So I'm going to try to make this short .
Speaker 1The Lord rescued me when I was 25 , a year after I got married . My husband and I have been together since we were 18 , since we were end of senior year in high school and I literally , like I said I should not be sitting here talking to you , but I am , and he rescued me . He rescued me when I was 25 . I had a very quick deliverance of . I had no more desire for alcohol , drugs . I quit smoking right away . I mean , it was just like straight up miracle , right , and anyways , I started learning that there was there's , there's hope , there's actually joy to be had , there's peace . Um , that was probably the the hardest , longest , um , I guess fruit of the spirit that took hold of me Because life just didn't feel peaceful .
Speaker 1Like I said , many years of being hopeless , very lost . But my hope started stirring up , especially after I had two miracle boys . Doctors told me I couldn't have babies and I had two miracle boys who are 19 this week and 16 next month , which is crazy . But I had two miscarriages right after I got saved . So I was just like , huh , what ? What is this now ?
Speaker 1So I've had a lot of trials and a lot of tribulations and a lot of trauma throughout my life and I think , because of the massive amount of those things that I've walked through and I know everybody has their stories and much of what I've walked through maybe isn't as maybe horrible as you walk through . I'm not trying to compare here , we all have our stories but because of that , I've just always been like an empath and I've really felt other people's like what they're feeling , people's like what they're feeling and I've always wanted to just stir up hope in others . Even when I was like hopeless growing up , I wanted to be a good friend to others . I wanted to be , um , you know , I've always been one who was like kind of the counselor . People would come to me with their things and I was like a safe place , because I don't . I just never wanted to hurt people , you know , because in the ways that I was hurt .
Speaker 1So , um , all that , to say , part of my journey , um was like my voice felt really locked up and I really didn't feel like I could speak well . I felt like I just had like a speech impediment . Almost there was this lie that I had a speech problem , that I couldn't speak well , that you know , I said um , all the time . There was all these little things that came for me Um , um , so , say it now , which , whatever you guys so if'm is like holding you back from speaking . I just want to release you today to just go say um , as much as you want . Okay , so there was this um moment back in 2017 . And part of why I share I'm sharing this today is because it kind of goes along with my posts I did earlier today .
Speaker 1I went through Christian Coach Institute to become a coach and I was just floored because I was like this is what I was created to do . This is literally what I was created to do , but it took a little while to get like in alignment with , like truly how I was to operate as a coach , because it is different . So I I ended up starting to coach women , but I was also still working full time , ended up being freed and released from the corporate side of health care . I like to say I retired early because I was tired . I was tired of working in the system . I couldn't even take money from the system anymore . I knew that I needed to break free because I've just I literally have always been kind of a wild one , one who doesn't fit in , fit in the lines and , honestly , you guys , nobody is supposed to , let me just tell you that . I'm just going to tell you that . But I especially , like I am like a free bird . I need to have space to free roam , to be cage free , to be like a chicken that is out of the coop . Although I'm not a chicken , I'm an eagle , let's just put it that way .
Speaker 1So one of my biggest things was the voice . My voice was . I felt like there was a chokehold on my voice . I felt like Moses . Now I'm going to tell you that is actually a stronghold that had to be broken . That is kind of a generational thing , right ? So when the Lord was showing me in 2020 to start a podcast , I actually laughed . I thought it was funny because I was just like uh , I think you got the wrong one . There is no way that I will ever do that and I just kind of put it on the shelf . Now it started coming back around the bend again and I'll just speed it up .
Speaker 1So last year 2023 , I just kept hearing my spirit that it was going to be the year of the stretch with my voice , because part of what I'm called to do in my coaching is to help unlock and release women's voices . I was kind of like the stagehand right . So if there was a woman that was called to be a speaker , I was in the background behind the stage calling her up , you know , helping her get her herself up to the microphone . So he did a little switcheroo with me last year and was like not only are you going to be helping women to to come out and do their speaking , but you're also going to be doing that as well . And I was just like okay , okay , whatever .
Speaker 1So he gave me the name of the podcast , hope Unlocked , and it just it resonated . And not only was that part of it , but the verse that is the anchoring verse for Hope Unlocked is Romans 6 . He showed me that it's not a podcast . For me personally , that it's not a podcast . I'm always hearing different words , seeing different words , flipping the script , I heard in my spirit that it's a seed cast . How cool is that ? A pod is like it's in a pod , it's kind of stuck in there , a seed , like a seed goes out and it multiplies . So that's when he showed me the name of the podcast , hope Unlocked the verse Romans 15 , 13 , and that my podcast was not going to be a podcast , it was going to be a seed cast . I said yes because I knew that when we were called to do something , we can either like put it on the shelf and say no , which I don't believe we're called to do somebody hearing me , um , but we're also called to do things differently .
Speaker 1I I actually the biggest like potential hang up for me was like oh my gosh , I don't know how to do the tech for a podcast . So what I did was like you know what some people would do is you go do a little research ? And I googled like how to do a podcast and I ended up finding a girl who had like a free PDF how to get your podcast launched , and it was just so complicated and it was like this whole launch plan and I'm looking at it . I'm like Lord , this is . This is too much . And he said yours is going to be different , you don't need that . And as far as the tech goes , I said , okay , lord , I've got a computer , show me what's in my hands and how I can get this thing up and running . And within five minutes I was shown , very supernaturally , how to get this podcast up and going . So I just wanted to share that story today and also share my new shirt .
Speaker 1Um , this was actually created from a company called Dear Heart out of Texas and , um , I think I can't remember I think her name is Nicole . I'm pretty sure her name is Nicole , but she has an amazing , amazing story entrepreneurial story journey . I'm hoping to have her on the podcast sometime soon , because that's who I'm highlighting right now is women who are pioneering . They're they're pioneering different . They're not willing to like get in the stream with where everybody's going . They're kind of the salmon that's swimming upstream and doing the hard things , because that's what we're kind of called to right . Um , it's definitely not an easy journey .
Speaker 1So I just wanted to come on here , kind of share a little bit more of my background , of going from hopeless to being a hope igniter , because God can use anything . He can use the hardest parts of our stories to encourage others . And , like I said , I shouldn't be sitting here talking to you right now , literally , if you saw me back in the day when I was living the wildlife . I'm living the wildlife in a different way now , but if you saw me back then , um , you probably wouldn't have hope for me either . So I want to encourage you today Go listen to the podcast that I shared . It just launched at three o'clock today with Dr Michelle um Bankson . She has a new book called um sacred . I mean , I'm going to read the whole thing because I don't want to jack it up . Um sacred scars resting in God's promise that your past is not wasted . So if your past is holding you back , I want to encourage you that that's not now .
Speaker 1Take today and move on . It's time to move on . It's time to grab onto that thing that the Lord's calling you to do . It's time for you to do it different . It's time for you to stop looking to everybody else's blueprints and ask him like what is it Lord ? What am I called to do in this season ? Because he was showing me I think it was yesterday that I'm a bodybuilder , not in the sense of , like you know , weightlifting . But I'm a bodybuilder , I'm called to help the body be built up , and you are too .
Speaker 1So get out there , go do some resistance training . You're going to need to resist a lot in this season . You're going to need to stay really focused in this season and if you need somebody to come alongside you , you know where I am , I'm on here , new Wings Coaching . I would be happy to jump on a call with you . See what you're up to . We may not be a good fit , but I might know somebody who can help you in your journey , because we're not called to do this thing alone . I can't even imagine my journey on my own . Oh my gosh . I mean , yes , of course we have the Lord with us , but he didn't call the disciples out by themselves . They went two by two . So , um would be happy to be one of your two by two-ers , um , so that we can get out in four by four in the wild terrain . So , all right . Well , that's a little bit about my Hope Unlocked story going from hopeless to hope-filled and abounding in hope . Romans 15
, 13 .
Speaker 1So this is a shirt from Dear Heart , that company I told you about . I'll link it in the comments . I will also link my discovery call calendar below if you want to reach out , you don't have to . I just put it out there because it's good stuff . You can go read testimonies . I'm just here doing the work that the Lord's called me to do and , like the question I asked earlier today , are you anointed in the work that you're doing ? Are you just doing the work for the money ? That was a Holy Spirit coaching Kristen question . Take care Bye .