Flamingo Lessons: Embracing Uniquely you to Create Joy & Impact with Katie Horner

"Coffee Chat with Amber & Lisa" welcomes Katie Horner, an author of 90 books and a powerhouse speaker and coach, to discuss faith-driven entrepreneurship. Katie shares her inspiring journey from ministry to business and how she’s helping others discover their God-given purpose while balancing faith, family, and impact. Don’t miss her practical tips on time management, goal-setting, and being a light in the world.

Find out more about Katie at KatieHorner.com.

Thank you for taking the time to like, subscribe, share, and comment. Visit leadingladies.life to find out more. Also, follow @leadingladieslife on social. Amber & Lisa are authors of the multi-award-winning book, Leading Ladies: Discover Your God-Grown Strategy for Success, which dives into the power of community and empowering women of faith to rise up and make a difference, using our gifts and faith to shine brightly in the world. Watch the Facebook Live edition on our YouTube Channel @coffeechatladies .

Transcript

The content of this meeting is being sent to a third party. I am so glad that we are being sent to third parties, maybe fourth, fifth, sixth, If you're out there today, say hi. Good morning. It is another edition of Coffee Chat with Amber and Lisa and our lovely flamingo lady guest, Katie Horner. Thank you for being with us today.

I'm so excited to be here. And partially for me is our mutual love of flamingos. I brought my flamingo cup today. How many flamingos do you have in your immediate area? Would you say? I've got probably a dozen sitting around me here in the office, but there's many more.

I get them all the time. I have clients whose husbands find flamingos and they're like, Katie needs that. Oh my gosh. It's so funny. The other day, I think it was like last Halloween season, I saw flamingo skeletons. That is crazy. That takes an ultimate flamingo love to even go to the anatomy of flamingos.

Wow. And the segue to that is Lisa. I do not have a flamingo cap because today is our Kansas City Chiefs. We're playing those Texans today. So sorry ladies, I had to go with the Chiefs red today. We're all going to be tuning in 3. 30. Where are you, Katie?

Yeah, where in the world are you? I'm in Campeche, Mexico, down at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. Wow. What time is it there? We're on central time right now. Perfect! I worried for a minute that for some reason we had you at some crazy hour. Oh yeah, it's like 3. 30 in the morning. No. Ah, yeah, wow. Oh my goodness.

That's really nice of you to show up so wide awake if that's the case, right? No, so tell me, tell us all a little bit about yourself. You are married. You have Children. Tell us all about the crowd. My husband, Tappan, I've been married for 21, almost 22 years. We have five Children from 11.

Actually, she's turning 11 next week, all the way up to 19 and in college. It is a busy house and a happy house. And we have homeschooled because we've lived in Mexico all these years. And lots of great family conversations and learning experiences and the kids are their own best friends and we just have a fabulous time together.

I as well have five children. So I understand that there, when you say a happy life, full house. That dynamic, even when they age, continues to be even more so because they gather people with them. And it sounds to me like you're I'm a few years ahead of you in that. season. That just means I'm old.

That's all that we talk about. We talk about this extensively about our aging bodies. Yes. Yes. I'm old. Amber comes as is rolling out of bed. I have to get up and put eyebrows on or you don't see, I have eyes anymore. So yeah. That's how we handle that. I tell my kids I'm gonna be 40 forever until I lived to 136 and then there you go.

a good, that is a good, I am up for saying 60 is the new 20, there you go. I'll take that. I'm going for that. I'm hitting for 20 when I get there. So I guess I'm a teenager right now. That could explain a whole lot. I don't even know. Katie, while you have, Lisa always has the roster.

I am so amazed by this, by Katie. Katie, you have an amazing bio and I don't know, How you look so young because you should be like 70 years old. I know it. But it's just, I'm just blown away when I saw this woman and I saw what she does and I saw her influence and I see how many people have talked about you and hear you say I'm a mom and this is this, and it's unassuming. Do you know how big you are? I may not.

No, it's so cool. And to see your influence in the business world. Lisa, can you give us a little, I just want you to read the beauty of who Katie is I think that what we found most impressive is just some of the stuff on her bio that jumped out to us.

Number one, you are a international business owner. You are a 12 time bestselling author of the Flamingo Advantage with more than 70 books. That in and of itself blows my mind. And the bio is a little old. So there's probably more. What's the tally now? We have 14 bestsellers now and 90 books.

I just released number 90 this week. So do you sleep? I'm just asking for a friend. Sleep is overrated. That's right. You've been featured on platforms like TEDx, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox. You've earned praise for empowering insights, your mission to help others align their work with their God given purpose, which is something Amber and I feel really strongly about getting people to understand, God.

designed you specifically for what he has you doing with your signature flamingo inspired wisdom, you share how to embrace uniqueness and how it can lead to greater joy. I know there's a whole lot more about you. Once again, if you go to Katie's website, there's a list of accolades as long as she's quite profound.

I think the thing that really amazes us is. We see this woman of faith based upon, some of the book themes that we read about, but you are really involved in the secular business world and I'm intrigued to know how in the world did you gain That type of reputation as an entrepreneur, being a person of faith, because, a lot of times when it comes to being a person of faith, we talk about how maybe people want to accept us in the big girl, big boy world out there.

If we've launched our Christianity, or if people know that we are Christ followers, how did you get to that space? It sounds like you did it. Of course with the Lord, but it just sounds like you did it very successfully and not all of us are so successful. Yeah. Thank you ladies for having me here.

First of all I think it's important for the audience to know that I wasn't always in business. My dad was an entrepreneur, but I was always going to be in ministry. And the business came, didn't come until 2011. When we started doing business, we had already been in ministry for quite some years.

We continued to do formal ministry, traditional ministry alongside of the business for several more years. It's only been just recently that our business has become our ministry. And we have been able to, ask those who supported us at one time as missionaries to send that support to someone who needs it because God's providing for us through our business and the things he's got going now, and so coming from a ministry background, I knew that God had a reason for each of us here. And I knew that it was a bigger than just me. This is bigger than just Katie. There's got to be something bigger than just this little world that I live in. And Lord, what do you want me to do? Where do you want me to make an impact?

And just looking for the needs around me, I wasn't looking secular or sacred necessarily. I was just looking for like, where do you want me to make an impact? What's my purpose for being here? And how are you going to take care of my family through this? Because being in ministry supported by donations we had a real financial need.

That's why we started our business because we weren't getting enough through donation support to do what we believed God had called us to do. And so how is God going to provide for this? God called us to this. God brought us to Mexico. God put us here. He put us in this situation of needing financial funds.

So Lord, what are you going to do about this? And he was the one that gave the first idea for the business. He's the one that has sustained us through growing the business and. What I realized is that every one of us is called to be missionaries in whatever God has gifted you to do. This evangelism is not just for a pastor behind a pulpit.

Evangelism is for every single one of us who knows Jesus as, or knows God as our Father and Jesus as our Savior, to go out into the world and preach the gospel, not just and not only through words, but through the way that we live our lives. 1st Timothy 4. 12 talks about being an example of the believers in word, in conversation, which is lifestyle, in charity, in spirit, in your attitude, in faith, in your purity, all of those things.

You just living like someone who knows Jesus is a witness to the world. And then in Isaiah, he talks about us being set specifically as a light to the Gentiles, right? How are you going to be a light to the Gentiles if you never interact with them? How are you going to shine that light if you're so scared of getting yourself dirty with the world that you're never we're called to be in the world, not of the world, but lights in the world.

And Jesus said I'm not asking that you take them out of the world, but that them being in the world, that you would protect them from the evil one. And those are the promises that we claim as we walk into board rooms and conference rooms and interact with billionaires and paupers, right?

Wherever we are, the question is, Lord, what is my purpose here today? What does the person on the other side of this conversation need to hear from me? And sometimes that is the gospel in words. And sometimes that is a listening ear. Sometimes that is a business strategy that will be helpful to them.

Sometimes that is a gift or a hug or whatever it is, but you don't have to flaunt anything to be a light for God, wherever he put you. And that's really where I'm passionate is that we need more Christians who are willing to just be like Jesus in the world. And just being, without saying, without doing, without hitting anybody over the head with your scriptures, you can have an amazing influence for Christ.

While these scriptures have been around for a long time, and we've read them over and over about being, a light to the Gentiles we also have this persona in the church that I think we're starting to move into a different way of thinking that we shouldn't be too showy. We shouldn't show off too much what we are and who we are because that would be too proud.

And that would be elevating ourself over the one who has put those things in us. But you are talking about this aspect of letting that shine letting all the stuff he put in you dazzle out there. The facets of the jewels sparkle so that people see that light and you are able to let them know where it truly comes from.

Yeah. And I think that's an important distinction that you brought up because we also got accused of being prideful at the beginning when we started marketing. How do you tell people what you do without telling people what you do? And don't be so prideful. Don't tell people how you can help them.

That's just pride speaking. Is it, or are you just stating the truth of what God can do through you? When you see God as the owner of your business, when you see him as having designed you specifically for the purpose of helping these people get whatever transformation that your business gives, then it's not prideful to tell them what God can do for them through you.

The pride comes when it's all about me and what I can do. But when you refocus it and you reframe it as God's given us these talents so that we can help you do this. And then you will have what you need to go and do what God called you to do. That's reflecting all the glory back to him. And that's the way Christian marketing should be done.

And that is not prideful at all. It's never prideful to state the truth of what God can do. Exactly. Exactly. And I think it's important. You said that in a very delicate, but very understandable way. It's one thing to put ourself on display and to talk about look what I did. Look at all of these books or look at what I did with this project.

You can still do it in a way that you are elevating what God did with those things rather than yourself. And it isn't prideful in that way because you are lifting him up. I love that. I think it's the same when we talk about our stories. A lot of us have been through traumas and hurts and things.

And like when I've had people ask me, when is the right time to share my story? And the answer is the same. When you can share your story in a way that reflects the glory back to him, not the, Oh, I'm so sorry for you. That's the time that you're healed enough to share your story. Amen. That is a great thing to be able to tell people because oftentimes when we go through trauma, we say, okay, there has to be a purpose for this.

There has to be a purpose and I've got to find what it is because this is going to help me live through what just happened. And the reality is that's making it about me again. And we may not know. We've been through ministry betrayal. We've been through personal hurts. We've been through all kinds of things.

And sometimes it's 10 and 12 years later that God has brought someone back into our life and revealed to us why that happened because, Oh, now I get it. Because now I'm healed. Now I've seen what you can do through this, and now I get to talk to so and help them walk through this same thing in a way that gives you glory.

I had, I, and you brought up a point like the idea that we cannot, when we move forward, we can't be so hurt by the past that we don't allow God to shine through that hurt. And it does take a while to traverse through healing, but God gives us those painful moments, not so we are shamed by them, but so he shines through them.

And I just feel that has been a key to me moving forward and understanding my worth. And, we talked a little bit before one of the feelings of, I don't know, jadedness or I don't know, being pushed down being pushed down by the man as the woman who wants to serve, who has value.

I ended up feeling less valued or not valuing myself because I was in a man's world of even ministry. And that's even complex. You work in a ministry that is a business that is influencing everybody. How did you get to the point to, to value yourself so much that when you entered the room, you didn't like, okay, there's all these guys here?

And I have to prove myself, as worth listening to. I don't know that I personally really ever felt the male female thing so much as I just felt the intimidation of people that have been doing this for their whole life kind of thing. And a lot of that I think is presumption on my part.

I really don't know their stories. I don't know how long they've done this. I think mentors and coaches are super important. I believe every coach out there should have a coach or they're not worth their salt, right? We should all be learning from someone ahead of us.

But I had a mentor once who really sat me down and he said, Katie, I don't think you realize what God has done through you. You moved to another country, you learned another language, you pioneered a homeschool method that didn't exist in your second language. You built a business while living off of donation support.

I don't think you realize what you've done. I don't think you're giving yourself enough credit. I don't think you're giving God enough credit. And once you start, and there again there's the pride or the God's glory. But once you can stop and you can look at things like what is the truth, and this has been huge in our business and personal growth over the last 10 to 15 years too, is to learn what is the truth.

Because the truth doesn't change. The truth is not what you think it is and what I think it is and anything goes. There is an absolute truth in every situation. And when I'm thinking on the truth, then I can say things in a way that give God glory and doesn't come across as prideful. And when I'm, I can state this, it's the facts.

The facts are we did move to Mexico. We did learn a second language. We did pioneer this homeschool method in Spanish. We did all of those things and that no one else has done that. And so I have a different right, but just as much right at the table as any of these other people.

And I have things to give perspectives to share that those people don't have. Again, what do they need from me? I am there to give as much as I'm there to receive, right? And this is not my business. This is where God has placed me as the CEO of His business to look for networking opportunities, to look for ways to grow our influence, and to look for ways to grow our audience and our clientele, to look for people that will be connections and resources, and people that will help us get God's message out there bigger, that you don't have to be ashamed of your faith to do what God has called you to do.

And so I can walk in there with every confidence that God knew what he was doing when he put me in this position. And he was confident that I either had it or he could give me what I needed to do the job that he put me there to do regardless of who else is at the table. That is amazing. I wanted to ask you about, as I listened to you tell this story I also hear you say, saying things.

What about when you've gone through that hurt and you get to the point where you can not be ashamed anymore and you can state the facts. What if those facts might hurt someone else? What do you feel? you need to do to be truthful and factual, but also when we start to be factual, we can be very blunt.

We can maybe cause more harm than good. So how do you weigh that as you walk through it? Again, I think that We are called to be, to have wisdom to walk circumspectly in the world. We are told that, that we should not do anything that would bring shame to the name of Christ, right?

Give them no reason to blaspheme God's name because of us. And so you have to choose your words carefully. And that's also wisdom. If you're not walking with God, you're not gonna have the words to do that but if you're relying on him and you're, you're in that constant relationship with him Lord, what am I going to say here?

And again, thinking about the other person doesn't need all the nitty gritty details. What's going to be the most helpful for them? This is not about you. It's not about getting back or getting even or vindicating yourself. It's what does that person need to hear? And I can say that I've been through ministry betrayal without stating who the ministry was, who the people were, any of those circumstances, and anyone who's ever been through something like that immediately connects with that.

And so it's being wise about, again, is this going to glorify God? Can I share this in a way that brings him glory? It's not about my story. It's really about him getting glory from this. Using wisdom helps us to not create more trauma when we are talking about our story, because that's something that we're starting to become more aware of with mental health, that sometimes just mentioning our facts can trigger someone else to a point of harm.

And so that even lends itself to being helpful in that area. Yeah. And even there, back to the truth, right? There's lots of truths in scripture that are not easy to swallow or easy to read. The Bible includes all, it talks about sex. It talks about unwedded sex. It talks about fornication and adultery and murder and all of those things.

And we don't say, Oh, I'm not going to read the Bible because it might trigger someone. Like it's there and there are truths and there are lessons to be learned from it. And so sometimes our truths are hard truths that still need to be shared even though it's going to bring up something for someone because we don't know what God's doing in that.

I've talked about my mental health journey in the book as well as a new book that I've been working on and it's more of a humorous approach to mental health. And my journey that I'm talking to the truth of my journey. And I know I had to, one of the things I had to say, if this is going to hurt you to walk through this moment with me go to the next section because some people aren't willing to see that right now.

And I don't want them to see that. I think that there's a point in everybody's life where they need to know that there's, their capacity is only right here. And I'm not pushing them to go past that because God's not pushing them right now. But I completely understand because when you're dealing with something in a way that God has wired you to deal with someone in, it can cause a lot of friction.

And just knowing how To verbalize that and to be wise about that. I've had to pray a lot about that, cause I don't want to hurt people. My end goal is not to hurt people. My end goal is to move people to hope in Christ. And if I can't do that, if I want to encourage people, okay, I need to talk about this.

If you can't, if you don't go with me, if you're not ready I'm not And that's what I pray constantly, even for situations where I've dealt with personal trauma and it's involved people that are close to me, family, friends. One of the things that I heard in a class about memoirs is even when you're talking about trauma, remember even those people who you're talking about as your offenders.

So I think it's important to give them honor in your story, not just not honor praise, but talk about them in the way that, or talk about the situation in a way that would not tear down and or seek to destroy. We're not seeking to destroy the enemy, seeking to destroy, seeking to build, and I really appreciate that whole idea.

But Katie, I am very interested in how you made the transition. You said you got the wisdom that you've gleaned in ministry and starting your own business. How did that open the door? Where was the first place that opened the door to you speaking into businesses like you are? We, our very first business was the Spanish homeschool business.

We created a full preschool, kindergarten, first through sixth grade materials in the, as a literature based method in Spanish for Spanish homeschool families. And as we were trying to grow that business we were the first ones to host an online conference for Spanish speaking homeschoolers.

And so that sort of kicked off the speaking side of it. I'd also hosted some women's retreats and women's conferences and our ministry and things, I'd been speaking and teaching my degree is in teaching. All of that just, it kept building upon itself. And so then once our business got off the ground and we started getting some traction, I started having people say could you teach me how to do that?

How did you do this? How do I. Whatever. And so that naturally led into coaching because if I can, I'm a teacher and if I learned it, I can teach it. And so then in 2014, we started coaching. And then when we got to pandemic years, there was a couple of things that happened that ended up closing that Spanish Mexican business.

During COVID and lockdown, everything a lot of our publishers went out of print. A lot of the people that we relied on for our materials shipping around the world got much more expensive and a lot less dependable. And if somebody didn't get their materials that they ordered, it was on us to replace them.

So that hurts. And then also a lot more materials came online, both in English and in the Spanish world. And so those homeschoolers now had a lot more materials available online. And so all of that combined ended up with us closing the business. In 21 and really being able to shift our focus completely onto our business coaching.

I also, in 2020, I started working with a mentor in the event strategy space. And so over the last five years and working under her and learning from her, putting it into practice in my own business, helping my own clients. I'm now in this last year, I've been doing consulting for event hosts.

Who sell high ticket offers at their events and how to have more joy sales and impact from this event, getting everyone on board from a strategy, big picture perspective so that you can sell more people into your program and make a bigger impact in the world through a bigger clientele. And, plus the writing on the side, a lot of those 90 titles were originally part of that homeschool curriculum or around that homeschool curriculum. And the Lord has just been good and growing us little by little through the years. And, we, there was church planting ministry in there and the homeschool ministry and that we still speak at homeschool events.

And now we get to keynote and speak at bigger business events as well. Very cool. That is amazing. That is so amazing. And I love it. How that just brings everything back around the teaching, the homeschooling and allowing those gifts to be pushed into a new level and a new season of re imagining what it was like.

So take me back to those moments in the COVID years. Where things look like they were falling apart or things could have been very negative and you probably experienced the pinch, just like everybody else. How did you go into the flexibility of reimagining what God could do with you in that season of peril, and I have a habit of periodically taking an evaluation of our business. And so I encourage people to do this quarterly I have an assessment that I've hodgepodge from lots of different places. The ones that have helped me most and created this thing that I go through literally like every quarter in our business.

And it asks questions about all the different areas of our life. How am I doing in this area? In business is there something that I need? Is there a gap there or something that I, a skill I need to learn from, is there someone I need to hire? Is there a new tool that I need?

Something like that. And I think in those hardest moments where you just feel stuck and despondent, it's going back to the truth of where we are. And, okay, here's where we are. This is not what I'm fearing, not what I'm worried about, not what I think might happen. This is where we actually are.

This is what we've done so far, and this is where I believe God is taking me. James four talks about if you lack wisdom, ask of God, he gives it liberally. He doesn't reprimand you for asking. And so then we, Lord, where do you want us to invest our resources next? This is what we have to work with.

Is there a coach? Is there a training? Is there a class? Is there a certification? Is there a new hire I need to make? And really looking at that sort of on a quarter by quarter basis for how do I need to grow next? In what area do I need to grow next? And There's been some really hard times.

There is in anyone's journey. But if we didn't have those, we would have nothing to celebrate. We would have nothing to praise the Lord for, and we would have nothing to show us that if God got me through that, he can get me through the next thing. Oh, wow. So true. So true. Now love to know.

We're going to put everything all the connections with Katie and the show notes, but you talked about that evaluation. Do you have that? Yeah, I can give you a link. I don't know if they sent it over for you or not, but I can give you the clarity assessment. That would be great. I want to print that out.

I want to print that out. Anybody listening that I want to print that out and do an evaluation right now. It's a great time to do it. It's January. Perfect. Yeah. So I'm excited about that and I'm excited about sharing that link because, that's the job. Challenge. I think we all get to is like we get so many years go by bang.

And it's a year later. And we've not checked in. We've not checked in to where we're going where things are taking us. I think that is one of the brilliant things. And when you said quarterly, I was like, Oh, that seems like really, but really, honestly, if you're going to file your taxes quarterly, you better check in with your growth quarterly, how you feel like, and prayerfully.

Checking in with your growth. Prayerfully, and it is about business is also about personal. But I, to keep me on track in between those times I'm a big planner person and, being a teacher that having a large family, like all of the, everything has to be planned and organized.

And so I couldn't find a planner that I really loved and I ended up, Being like, I really like that from that one. I don't like this. I really like that, over here. And then I read the 12 week year by Brian Moran. And started implementing that. And so what I ended up doing was creating my own business planner.

And this is one of our books that's on Amazon and this is the new version that just released this year. That's the smaller size. We had an eight and a half by 11 to begin with, and this is smaller. But this goes through three months at a time undated, and it helps me to have those yearly goals.

quarterly goals, monthly goals, and then weekly to check in with, how did I do this week? And what are my goals for next week? And to be able to keep that on track throughout. And then I do the big evaluation at the end of the quarter, at the end of the year to really have a sit down time. And, some people wonder about planning too.

And so I'll just give you a real quick tip. If you have your own business or you and your spouse have a business, have an off site, like out of the house, away from your normal, off site business meeting once a month. And if you can get away once a quarter for an overnight together, Go overnight somewhere and do your quarterly planning.

Because getting away from you're not at the kitchen table, you're not in the bedroom, there's no kids or distractions or dishes or phone call, away from all of that normal stuff so that you can just focus on the family and the business and make the decisions that need to make, get on track with your calendars for the next month and all of those things. And then quarterly doing that deep dive together in a space where you're undistracted is super, super helpful. And that's awesome because, really getting away to do business, you, if you are a, self employed business, you can take that as a tax deduction when you are seriously, discussing business and that makes it a little bit more freeing.

And also it compartmentalizes that you're not always bringing business into your personal space. I think that's one of the things that my husband and I had challenges with I'm, here working from home. My home is my work. And, I can bring my laptop into my bedroom and just did it.

And that's a challenge to turn off business mode. How do you turn off business mode, Katie. I haven't always been good at it. I'll just be honest. But I think sometimes we have to just put our big girl panties on and act like the adult that we are and set our own boundaries to do what we know we need to do.

And so one of the things that has helped me, especially in the last couple of years is to have my kids. Who are at home as well also hold me accountable. And so at a certain time of day, if I'm not already out in the family space, I have a child who knocks on my door and says, Mom, it's five o'clock.

Are you coming? And then I shut down and go do that. Now at night, If they're having movie night with daddy and that's their bonding time, sometimes I'll come back into my office and work on a project, but I've been able to keep some boundaries of time differently.

The other thing is I try to bulk my tasks on different days. So I will try, today's obviously an exception, but I will try to do client calls and interviews on a certain day a week, try to do my teaching on a certain day a week, try to program my trainings that I take personally for myself on a certain day a week or studies that need to be done.

And that way, I usually end up with most of my Monday free, most of my Friday free that becomes family time as well. And I'm able to walk away and do that, or I'm able to say, Hey, I got a big book project that needs to come out. I need Friday and Saturday to get this done. And to be able to put that on the calendar and just shut myself away and work on something.

Yeah. So good. Such good. What do you do when and this is something that some of us, I'm not pointing any fingers at anybody, but what does this, I understand what all that means for being accountable and setting those personal boundaries, but what happens when you have way more on your plate?

then really you should be humanly trying to work and maybe there's a need for that. Maybe there's bills that have to be paid, maybe there are goals that you're trying to meet that are necessary. What do you do about, how do you know when enough is enough? I think time is both a gift of God and one of the biggest things the enemy has used against Christians and in our lifetime.

Time is an earthly construct. There is no time in heaven. It was created for us here on earth. And God gave us dominion over the earth. So he gave us dominion over our time, just like our money and our resources and everything else. And so I get to tell my time what it's going to do. I don't get to be ruled by my time.

I don't get to be ruled by somebody else's time. I get to decide how I'm going to spend my time, and then I give it back to God, and I ask for God's blessing over how I plan to spend this time, and I let him expand. He can make the sun stand still if he wants to. He's done it before. We hear those stories in the Old Testament. It's the same God today. And so I just trust that if this is what God's called me to, he's promised to help me do it. He's given me the time and the resources and given me dominion over how to use that. And so I'm going to trust that I have the wisdom to put those in place, to set the boundaries, to put my head down and get the work done.

And then, if I gave it to God and I said, still didn't get it done, but I have to walk away for a different responsibility, then I have to trust that he didn't want that done today. And I just regroup tomorrow and say, okay, Lord, what's on the docket for today? And really just taking that back to him like I would if I had a boss of my company.

What's the most important things for us to do today and focus in and get them done as if it was my real job because it is. I really appreciate what you say, because, especially this time of the year everybody looks at a new year and they say, okay, these are the things I didn't do so well last year.

These are the troubles I got into because of it this year. I'm going to start off on top of this. I'm going to be ABC. I'm going to be clicking those things off the list. And you can even see that in people all of a sudden. They come with this fresh bigger and you're like, Oh, they're on the ball today, but the reality is maybe what we're doing is taking it in this big span of a year and that quarterly approach might keep us a little more tied into the necessity of understanding Once again, how do we steward what God's given us?

And so I really appreciate this quarterly mindset. It sounds really simple, but in all reality, if it was that simple, we'd all be doing it. And sometimes we just need the wisdom to take something we've never tried before and reevaluate just maybe the way we've always done it. I really appreciate that.

Thanks for sharing. That's amazing. And I'm going to go download that planner because I think that is going to be a useful tool I always say, it's a challenge for me because I battle the ADHD mindset for myself and also the demands of everybody else.

How do you deal with the demands of the people around you or the requests of the people around you when you're trying to stay focused on tasks. I think it comes back to asking those questions of, is this something that God has called me to do? Is this something that is a responsibility based on the positions that God has put me in?

Or is this something I'm taking on because of fear of not wanting to let people down or because I want to do it. And then having to decide from those options, which one should be my priority right now, Lord. And, having the grace to let the others go and saying no to people doesn't have to be a no forever.

It means a no for right now. And talking about like the men in the room if you're married, God has given you a husband as part of a protection system for you. And so if you need to, there's been times where I've gone to my husband and said, look, so and so wants me to do this. I don't feel like I've got the time on my plate right now.

Can you please just say, Katie, you cannot do that. And then I go back to that person and I can say, I'm sorry, I would love to help you. I can't do it right now. My husband says I don't have time to do that. He doesn't want me to participate right now. And that takes the load off of you. a little bit, right?

And you're still being truthful. You're using that protection system that God put around you. But there's always a way for you to kindly and truthfully get out of an obligation that should not be yours. I think that all begins from the minute you're introduced with the idea and the invitation to take it on.

We have to figure out how to evaluate in that moment. Is this something I'm supposed to pick up and carry for right now or is it not? And knowing what goals you have right now and what you're committed to doing will help you filter that. Does that fit in with the goals for this quarter or this month?

Do I have time to take that on in advance? And if it's something I want to do I have time around what I've already committed to? Okay. To still be able to do it, right? Yeah. And I like that. The whole idea of if you evaluate your goals quarterly, then you will be less likely to accept something that outside of the goals.

And you can be very purpose when you're communicating that to people this is not in my present schedule load to take this on. And it may never be in that present schedule load to take it on because it, God likes us. People, the world likes us to be distracted and God wants us to be focused personally on him and to hear in obedience and walk in obedience to what he's called us to do.

And not all the voices that are around us. And be drawn in by, Oh, I'm going to disappoint this person by that. Because as I said, and you've said, are we listening to the voices? Are we letting fear drive us fear of discouraging still of disappointing people fear that we might miss out on something and drive us.

So we really do. I love that. Quarterly evaluations. Ladies, if you've not taken anything away from this, except the quarterly evaluation, you need to download from Katie Warner. com. We will put it in the show notes. We will make sure that you know about that. Lisa, do you have any final wrapping reconnecting thoughts that you wanted to.

I'm telling you, I have. I have pages of notes here. I just want to add one thing to that last conversation, if I can real quickly, is that sometimes don't be so stuck on your goals that you don't let God change the goal if he wants to, because sometimes we can set those yearly goals and those quarterly goals, and then that becomes a pride issue for us.

I have to meet this because I set this goal, or then I don't keep my word. And that's part of the evaluation regularly as well as, Lord, is this still the goal? Or do you want me looking at a different goal? And allow him to change that when he brings it up as a time to change. Sometimes you don't see the next step until you take the first one.

And once you get to that. then all these new things open up that he wants you to see. And so be sensitive to that. If you're walking with him, I believe you will be. And you said that just for me, Katie, pointing back at me. I feel like you said that for a lot of people, I joked around, we, our last broadcast was just Amber and I in December at the time, both of our households were just overwhelmed with sickness.

I think I was sick from before Thanksgiving. I'm still battling today, but I think I'm almost better. But I remember we were talking about just end of the year and new year and, we're talking about what things do we want to leave behind in 2024? What things do we want to bring with us to 2025?

And as you're sitting here talking about these goals and even quarterly goals, i'm like Goodness gracious, my goals are going to be the same every quarter because how am I ever going to pull off my goals one quarter to the next and then to hear you give freedom again and saying, wait a minute, God can change the goals and he does, I just appreciate the freedom in that.

When we started this broadcast, we weren't quite sure. And this is the way Holy Spirit always does. We're not always sure what we're going to talk about where we're going to go. He's such a good God to give us that Holy Spirit to lead us and guide us. This is a perfect message for the new year. And you put things in ways that will help us.

Find perspective. So I thank you for that. I am so grateful for that as well. Like I said, I have too many notes here, so I can't go through all of them, but I do want people to, before we go to prayer and I would you pray with us, Katie, pray for those women who are maybe going through the very thing you just, The nail right here in the forehead for Amber and I am sure, but I just want people to recognize God is, he's not mad at you if you don't check off your list every day.

He's not mad at you. He loves you. He gives you the capacity to make a list. Acknowledge things that need to be put on the list and also to give you the time factor that you need to complete those tasks. Like you said, he is in all of that. He's given us dominion over it. Maybe we weren't supposed to handle that today.

We feel huge disappointment that we didn't get it done. Sometimes shame. We've let people down. But the reality is God can come in and he can fill up in all those spaces where we lack. Just pray for us today, would you? Sure. Lord, thank you so much for your goodness, for bringing us together to, to have these kinds of conversations.

Pray that you would bring us back to truth in everything that we would. Know you first and know what you say about us and what you say about business and our responsibilities to the world. I pray that you would give us the dominion over the time. Give us clarity around the tasks that you want us to handle.

Give us assurance. Just like first Thessalonians 5 24 says that if you've called us to this, that you will do it through us. Help us to depend on that and not our own strength. Pray that you would just continue to bless the efforts of these ladies and their podcasts, the people that they're reaching.

Lord, we pray for the women listening. And maybe even the men, Lord that you would just continue to work in their hearts and help them to devise their plans and then submit them back to you so that you can direct their steps for your glory in Jesus name. We pray. Amen. Amen. Any closing thing?

We want you to reiterate where they can connect with you and your Flamingo Advantage book. There's some wealth of resources with that Katie has. Katie Horner, H O R N O R. com is my speaker website. And then theflamingoadvantage. com is our other website where the books and everything are.

I'm on most of all the social medias. I have a YouTube channel, a TED talk out there. Just Google flamingos and Katie Horner and you'll find me. Oh, wow. We'll get you the links for the clarity assessment and things like that as well. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Thank you so much for being with us today.

We have some exciting things coming as well for leading ladies and coffee chat. We'll be talking about that in the near future. And we also want you guys to make sure that you like, subscribe, share. Coffee chat is on all the podcast platforms as well as our YouTube channel, where you find the exciting blooper reels from this episode and more, you don't want to miss 

those reels. Amber sets those up perfectly. Yes. Yes. And the last thing we want to say as we close this podcast is. Go team! Bye bye, thank you guys. See you later. Take care!