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Graced to Lead
The Graced to Lead Podcast is an empowering space dedicated to women, designed to inspire, equip, and nurture their leadership abilities in every aspect of life. We are here to remind you of the extraordinary God-grace you possess to lead with confidence and Biblical wisdom, whether in your professional endeavors, at home, in your business, or within your ministry.
Join us weekly for a journey of personal growth and empowerment. Each episode and post is crafted to challenge and inspire you, providing insights and tools that propel you forward in your leadership path. Graced to Lead is more than a podcast; it's a call to embrace God's grace to lead, even if you feel unqualified. Here, we believe in your power to gracefully, boldly, and effectively lead God’s way!
What to expect: solo episodes, conversations with guests, and even a few giveaways.
Graced to Lead
S2E16 - Pause and Pivot: Finding God's Strategy for Your Leadership Journey
What happens when you completely stop your business activities and only do what God specifically tells you to do? Well, it happened to me! I felt a divine nudge to pause everything – the social media posts, the marketing efforts, the constant activity that defined my days. This wasn't a sabbatical; it was a complete surrender of strategy.
The journey that has followed in not just changing my business but my entire approach to leadership. Initially, the silence was deafening. I felt unproductive, worried about losing momentum, and anxious about what wasn't happening. But as I settled into this sacred pause, something remarkable occurred: my perspective shifted dramatically. Like stepping from a noisy conference into a quiet courtyard, I could suddenly see and hear what had been there all along.
This approach has now extended beyond my business to how I lead in my corporate role, my family relationships, and every area of influence. I'm inviting you to experiment with this counter-cultural approach to leadership. Set aside time to specifically ask, "Lord, what would you have me do today?" in your leadership contexts. Be prepared for initial discomfort, but know that clarity, direction, and supernatural provision await on the other side of surrender.
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Welcome to the Grace to Lead podcast. I am Belinda Gaston, your host, and listen. Today's episode is going to be quick. I want to share with you what's been happening with me and hopefully give you some encouragement on your own leadership journey. So many of you know, if you listen to the last episode, that God shifted some things for me. Right, he shifted some things for me.
Speaker 1:I ended up having to stop some things that I was doing because God kind of gave me a moment where I realized that, with Grace to Lead, though, god gave me the vision I was doing some things that really were kind of man's best practices and not necessarily the strategies from God, and so I made a commitment that I would stop and reassess things, and so I said, okay, I'm going to go into prayer and I only am going to do in my business what you tell me to do, lord, about a few days into my commitment to only do what God wants me to, let me just tell you what I mean by that. There are some things that you have to do in your business. Right, if a customer orders something, you have to make sure you fulfill that order. If there is some kind of accounting or something that you have to do, you have to make sure you fulfill that order. If there is some kind of accounting or something that you have to do, you have to do those things right. But where it came to my social media presence, my online presence, my website, even some of my offerings, I gave those things back over to God and I really did stop and say, okay, lord, what is it that you would have me to do? And so that's what I mean by pause. And I had been on my social media channels posting content regularly, thanks to help from the helpers that came along beside me. I had revamped the website, again thanks to the helpers at Chatty Hosting. Mill and Kamari did a great job with that.
Speaker 1:But I just heard stop, stop. Just stop for a moment and get with me. And so what I began to do was I began to put some dedicated time with God in my schedule. Now, I already had dedicated time with God in my schedule for my own personal growth. So you know, prayer time with God, reading my Bible, studying the word, those were all part of my. That's all part of my. What do you call it? My kind of regular God time, for lack of a better phrase, but what I hadn't been doing has specifically praying for my business and asking God's guidance, and so about three days into this process, the first thing I heard was stop, and then I started making. What would happen is in my prayer, god would say make a video about this, I do that, or post this, I do that, or send a note to this client that you coached, send this note. So those are the kinds of things that were happening. So about three, I mean it probably was about, I would say, three to five days.
Speaker 1:I can't remember now the timeline, but into this process I saw a challenge by Kendra Toll, the Less Hustle Tribe, where she was challenging people for 30 days to only do the content that God had shared, and so her challenge is called so Grace Greater Than Cell. I can't remember the title of it, but it is a 30 day challenge and I'll put the link for that here, and Kendra doesn't know that I've even mentioned this. She probably doesn't even know I'm in the challenge, but I will put the note in for Less Hustle Tribe in the show's notes. So she started this thing and she is a content creator. Her primary, I think, platform is Instagram, so I took that as a sign, like, okay, lord, that you really want me to do this.
Speaker 1:A couple of things happened. Is what I want to share with you is what happened, what has been happening in this process, what I've learned, and I also wanna give you some tips, because, though this is my business, this also applies in other places that I lead, and I'm gonna share a little bit about that. So I want you to listen to this if you're in the place where maybe you feel stuck, maybe you feel like, well, you know God, I'm doing what you told me to do, but it's not quite working, or you've hit a certain kind of plateau in your business or in your leadership journey, and if you're in corporate America and you are working, for instance, and you're in a space of influence because, remember, that's what I kind of define leadership as the influence you have in the space that you're in, where you get to make decisions or people kind of lean into what you say, right, that's influence. And so if you're in that space, in the corporate space, you may have kind of been given a vision of a particular promotion, a particular type of job, a particular type of task that you might have. It may not be happening the way you think it should happen, or you put yourself in a position so you thought to have these things happen as you believe in your heart and it's not going that way. And so, if that is you, the first thing I'm going to do is encourage you to take the pause, really take a pause. Take a pause not just for the sake of pausing, but for the sake of asking God to give you direction, because I honestly believe that God does not give vision without strategy.
Speaker 1:If you read the Bible he has given, he gave lots of leaders, women and men instructions he gave. He would give them a dream, or he would give them a word, or he would say this is what's going to happen, and it may not have necessarily been the total vision, but he gives you. He gave those people something, and then it was followed by instructions go and do this thing, tell the people this thing, do this particular activity right. It was always followed by instructions, and if we believe that the Bible is the word of God, then we can say that if God gives the vision, he gives instructions, and some of those instructions, if you read them, I mean when you look at, for instance, jeremiah or Hosea. Hosea is a great one. If you look at Hosea and the things that God told them to do, those things don't make sense, right, but they're for a greater good.
Speaker 1:And I believe that the things that we lead, god gives us those vision. He gives us the vision. He gives you, you know, the book idea. He gives you the business idea, the nonprofit organization idea. He gives you the idea of you know you're going to be at this level, you're going to be the next VP, you're going to be the next director or senior program or whatever it is. He gives that to you. You're going to be a wife, you're going to be a mother. He gives it to you. But then we take it sometimes and we run with it.
Speaker 1:Right, yes, okay, so God told me that I need to. I'm going to write this book, so then I'm going to go take this class, I'm going to start writing every day for 30 minutes. I'm going to whatever it is, and sometimes we forget to go back to God and say thank you for the vision. I've written it down. Because that's what we should do. We should write it down and then say then pray, continue to pray, lord. How do you want me to do this, because sometimes God will give you instructions that doesn't go with what the world says, simply so that he can get the glory and others can be brought to him. And so that's the process that I've been going through. I really have been praying over grace to lead and what God wants me to do the grace to lead.
Speaker 1:And so the first thing that God told me to do was to stop posting every day, and I was like what do you mean? I mean I was just starting to get some momentum. I had gained a few followers. You're supposed to post on social media and you're supposed to do that so many times a day. And so when God told me to stop and I had to go back to those people who were supporting me and say listen, I got to pause for a second. It didn't feel good, it didn't feel comfortable, right?
Speaker 1:The other thing he told me to do is to only release episodes. When he told me to Many of us, batch record our content for particularly for interviews you know I may have two or three interviews in the same day and then release them on different days, and so I had gotten to the point where I was out of content and I was like, okay, we're at the end of the season. So I had gotten to the point where I was out of content and I was like, okay, we're at the end of the season. Technically, this is supposed to be the last episode, but God has given me one more. So our season finale episode will be next week and I have some special guests that are going to be joining me. But I was like, okay, good, you don't want me to release any episodes right now, that's great. And so it was all these things.
Speaker 1:But it was still uncomfortable. And here's why I felt like if I wasn't busy in my Grace to Lead business, if I wasn't doing all the things, then the business would not go well. Grace to Lead is a combination of business and ministry, so there's a ministry component to Grace to Lead that doesn't make any money or anything like that. Then there is the business of Grace to Lead that's also tied to Grace to Lead Consulting, right and so the thought of not doing activities that generate the income to me felt like, well, how is the income going to be made? Now, lord, you told me this vision.
Speaker 1:So it was very uncomfortable to stop and to sit. So it was very uncomfortable to stop and to sit, but it was necessary for me to stop and to sit. The first thing I'll say to you is, if you decide to take this, take this challenge I'm going to call it a challenge, for lack of a better term but to take a moment to really pray to God about what you lead and ask God to give you strategy for that. Be prepared to be uncomfortable, be prepared to Feel unproductive, be prepared to feel as if you're missing out or falling behind. That's the first thing I felt, honestly. But as I began to sit in the space of pause, then some other things began to happen, and so let me talk to you about the space of the pause. We in our society are, you know, often told that you have to hustle, go hard, you have to keep doing all these things. Consistency is key, all of that right, but when you pause, something begins to happen. When you pause, you become more aware of yourself and also your surroundings. I'll give you this example I was recently at a professional conference and there were probably over 600, 700 people there, and in this large space, there was a lot of noise.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of activity. There's a lot of activity, there's a lot of energy because people are in person, and it was just that kind of energetic vibe. And so we were in a location, a hotel space, that was really quite beautiful, but we were in the midst of the networking and the learning and all of that and I love that. But I stepped outside for a moment and I believe I had kind of like a headache or something. I just kind of stepped out to get some fresh air. And when I stepped out it took a minute. The noise stopped. There was nobody really around, it's just me kind of standing there. And that's when I realized, oh, my goodness, this courtyard is beautiful. It was a courtyard that had like a waterfall and flowers and things like that. It had been there Now this conference. I had been there for three days. This setting had been there this whole time, but because I had not paused to pay attention to it, I didn't even notice it.
Speaker 1:The other thing is, when I stepped out I also was able to hear differently, realize that there was like birds and stuff. There were literally birds chirping and you know, it was just a very beautiful moment. I had a thought about something that I heard in the conference and I kind of quickly sat down and wrote it down. So in that pause for me in the conference one, I was able to still myself and really get capture my thoughts. My headache went away but I was also able to see the space differently.
Speaker 1:That's what the pause does in our lives. Sometimes we have to take a pause so that we can see things differently, so that we can hear things differently, so that our minds and our bodies can kind of become aligned. And that pause is not a place where there's pressure to you pause only to keep going, but you pause in the moment and be comfortable. In that pause some things begin to happen, and so I'll tell you that first it's uncomfortable, first it's uncomfortable. But if you can get comfortable, at least embrace the pause, your perspective of how you lead, what you're leading can change and how you hear God can change. The strategies will come. And so in my pause, that's what began to happen. I began to see grace, to lead differently.
Speaker 1:I actually had a moment to receive a few phone calls of people who had been calling me, but I was too busy and one of those conversations provided clarity, so it was almost like the person had shared with me something that they had been trying to tell me for weeks. They had this idea they were trying to tell me for weeks, and I know it was a God thing, but I was too busy. I was too busy to listen, I was too busy to hear them, and so I was able to sit and listen and kind of begin to build on that. This is what I've been trying to tell you. This is what I've been trying to get to you. The vision that you had was the one thing that I gave you, but there are other things. There are strategies here that I need for you to do, not just to grow grace, to lead, but because I need you to help this woman, or I need this to be a blueprint for something else, right, and so there is power in the pause, and so I want to tell you upfront that you're going to feel uncomfortable.
Speaker 1:But here are a couple other things, and I'm looking at my notes. The other thing is that I had to get okay with nothing happening. So there's one thing to embrace the pause, because in the pause, your perspective changes. You're hearing, you hear things differently, you feel differently, but also, if you're not doing anything, nothing sometimes happens Nothing was happening. So when I stopped, you know, there were a couple of times where I posted some videos I'm not great with videos, I don't like to be on camera, but I posted some videos, or I made a post about something, and and then after that there was nothing. It wasn't a failure of my leadership, it wasn't a failure of my business, it was just I wasn't released to do anything, which brings me to the next thing. Interestingly enough, while I was doing nothing, things were happening that I didn't realize.
Speaker 1:So, you know, in the Bible, where it talks about God is working, we see often God working on behalf of people where they're given a task, and God will say when you go, this will happen. As you go, these things will happen. It's the idea that, though we aren't working, god is working. God never stops working for the visions that he's given us. I mean, if it's a God vision, then he's already started working it out. He knew, before we even got the assignment, what the assignment was, how it was going to go about and what was going to happen as a result of it. And so just because we aren't working, we aren't doing anything, necessarily doesn't mean that God isn't doing anything. So here's my example.
Speaker 1:One of the things that I do as a part of Grace to Lead Consulting is I facilitate spaces. I am really good God's given me a gift of creating safe spaces, of helping people get to strategic resolve, of facilitating spaces where people feel as if they're with teams, where they can come to a consensus and come to a plan. Strategic planning is something that I'm really good at, and so one of the things that God talked to me about was that facilitation piece. I kind of been ignoring it because I was really focused on the podcast, I was focused on the book, I was focused on the coaching cohort, like all of these things that were also a part of the vision. I'm also trying to get speaking engagements. I believe that God called me to speak, but I was hitting a block. I mean, I have a ministry event coming up in a few weeks, but it just wasn't happening. So when I started to do nothing which is what God instructed me to do except to pray and to continue to study he moved on my behalf. I got two facilitation contracts and I didn't do anything. I didn't change the website content, I didn't post a post about hey, contact me if you need a facilitation need. These were people who reached out that God put me on their mind and they reached out and said hey, can you do this for me, god? So I want to tell you it's okay to do nothing if that's what God instructs you to do, because he is working on your behalf.
Speaker 1:The other thing that I wanted to point out in this process how much stress there is attached to the busyness of leadership. I will say that again I did not realize how much stress there is attached to the busyness of leadership. Whether you're leading people, whether you're leading organizations, whether you're leading in spaces, whether you're leading in home, there are some things that make you busy in your leadership. Some of these things are necessary. It's important for leaders to strategize and to plan. It's important for leaders to help prioritize things. It's important for leaders to connect with the people that they're leading. If you're leading people and you're not connecting with those people, then you're not being a great leader.
Speaker 1:But there are other things that we get caught up in doing that creates busyness for us. Busyness for us Phone calls, emails, scrolling social media, looking at websites even in our strategy, like taking time to think about the next big thing can create busyness, and you can go, go, go, go, go and never stop, and what begins to happen is in that busyness you can lose sight of how busy you really are and that busyness can turn to stress, because as you become busier you take on the burden of busyness. I know this feels really deep. I'm really not trying to make it deep, I'm trying to figure out how to make it simple, but our busyness becomes a burden. It's like a merry-go-round. So you get on the merry-go-round and you're going round and round and you don't realize how long you've been going round and round, until you get dizzy. Right, I don't know, this is old school. I don't know if they even still have merry go rounds on playgrounds right now, but if you know about a merry go round back in the day when I was a kid, on the merry go round, you could go, go, go. You can go fast, fast, fast. It's great, great, great, until you start to feel dizzy and then it's like I need to get off of here.
Speaker 1:Right, and that's what happens with the busyness in our lives. Right, we can be so caught up in doing all the things that we don't even realize that it's the doing of all the things that's created a burden for us, that has us feeling stressed, that has us feeling tired, that has us feeling cranky or angry or frustrated or whatever it is. And what I realize is, though and this is a particularly difficult if you love what you do, particularly difficult if you love what you do. So I love what I do with Grace to Lead. I absolutely love it, and so getting caught in that kind of regular busyness felt great because I was doing all these things, and it was amazing.
Speaker 1:But what I didn't realize is I also was tired. I also was burdened. I began to take on the responsibility for the success of Grace to Lead as a personal thing. I have to make this work. I lost sight of the fact that this was a God-given vision and God is responsible for the success and my praying and being intentional about Lord, what is it that you'd have me to do in my business? What would you have me to do as a leader? Gave me permission to rest.
Speaker 1:The stress I didn't even realize I had began to melt away. I don't know who this is for, but somebody right now is so stressed out you don't even realize it, but your body is aching, you're having back pain and shoulder pain. You're getting short with people. You don't understand why people are so frustrated. Sometimes it's not the people that are peopling, it's our response to the situations that are occurring with the people. Because we're not properly rested, because we're not properly, we're not, we don't, we are carrying burdens we shouldn't carry. And so, in this process, I have less stress because of a couple of things.
Speaker 1:One I am confident now that the success of Grace to Lead is partially on my obedience, of course, to God. But it lies in the hands of God, and what success looks like in God's view may be different than my thought of success. It may not be that I'll ever have millions and millions of downloads on the podcast or millions of books sold or, you know, huge corporate contracts. That may never be it, even though that's my idea of success. That may never be what God wants from this. Maybe God just meant for some one person to experience whatever the message was that day. Maybe it was for one person to read the book and see themselves and realize that, yes, even though you've been through these things, there's a plan for your life and God can help you lead. It may be that it's just the one place that I go to speak or facilitate. That brings people together and they see God. There's no more pressure, right? And I know what you're saying, belinda.
Speaker 1:If I started a business, I did this to make money, especially if you're an entrepreneur and you're not working a corporate job or you're not working a job, you're just. Your business is your primary source of income. I get that, but I also believe that God, one of them, first of all, god is a provider, and the word says that never have I seen the righteous forsaken or his seed begging bread, which means that as a child of God, as a believer, right, god will provide for your needs. That's the first thing. The second thing is that if God gave you the business, then God will give you the strategy for the income that you need, and this is easier said than done. I am walking this thing out with you, but I am telling you two contracts so far that I didn't solicit, I didn't market to them, I didn't post X number of posts on social media and have a huge following, y'all gracefully, my Instagram page has like a little over 400 followers.
Speaker 1:My children have more followers than me, right? But God provided he knew what I needed and he worked on my behalf. I wanted to share that I am less stressed, I am less pressured, because I'm following him. All the pressure is on him. Well, lord, you told me to do this, so now what? And the last thing that I will say is a big lesson for me in this time of asking God for strategy, with the vision he gave me, is that he will give you strategy. I may not have all of it, I don't think I have all of it, but I know the next two or three things that I should be doing, and each day it requires a level of commitment, it requires a level of obedience for me. So if God says to post a reel about this topic, I can't not post the reel.
Speaker 1:If I'm asking for, if that's the part of the strategy, then okay, lord, here I am, and if you go through this process, I guarantee you he will answer your prayers. He's also clarifying some things to me. There are some things that I thought that grace to lead was about. That it's not, and so I want to encourage you that, if this is resonating at all with you, that you have a vision that God has given you and you want to know the strategy, to take a dedicated amount of time and every day, pray, god. What would you have me to do? It doesn't have to be, you know, it could be a couple of days, it could be a week, it could be two weeks, but set aside time and pray specifically about what you lead right, and know that you're going to be uncomfortable at first, but know there is beauty in the pause. Know that he will provide for you, know that he will give you strategy, but that strategy will require obedience, even if it's somewhat uncomfortable for you. I want you to do it and then I want you to let me know how it goes, because I believe that this shift for me is changing my business and it's changing my leadership. It's changing how I lead others and it's expanding beyond grace to lead.
Speaker 1:I'm finding that I'm praying even in my corporate job, every day. Lord, what would you have me to do on my job today? I'll tell you what that's done. It's changed how I relate to people. It has. I have more patience, I'm more flexible and I think I've always been pretty flexible. But it's different because I know that the God priorities of the day are the God priorities of the day. I've also started doing this with my family. God, what would you have me to do with my family? Is there something I'm supposed to do or say to my husband today? Is there something I'm supposed to do or say to my children today and I'm in transition right now my son has moved on campus and so now I have two college students and one middle schooler. The dynamics has shifted right. But, lord, what would you, would you have me text today to my college kids? What would you have me say today to my middle schooler? What action would you have me do today for my husband? I am telling you that if you go with a process and you can get past the discomfort of not knowing because that's a whole control thing, which is a different episode altogether but if you can, if you can go with it, I guarantee you that God's going to meet you and show you what he has for you, what he wants you to do, but he'll also kind of show you yourself.
Speaker 1:There's some areas I had to repent in, quite frankly. There's some areas I had to repent in as a leader, complaining, complaining about the blessing, the blessings of God. You know, god gave me a job. Why would I? Why am I complaining about what he blessed me with? What's that about? Instead of saying God, how should I lead in this workspace Complaining about the work that has to be done for my business instead of Lord? What would you have me do today?
Speaker 1:So, if you do it, let me know. You can reach out to me. You can send me a text message. It comes directly to me and I'll respond. You can send me an email or, if you're watching this on a platform, you can put it in the comments. But I want to know if you're going to take this challenge, if you're going to do this, so that I can pray for you as you go through the process. That's all for today on today's Grace to Lead podcast. Thank you for joining. I don't take your listening lightly because you could. There's so many podcasts you can be listening to anything you want. Come back next week with my special guests for our finale for season two and remember to share the podcast. Follow us and share with somebody who you think might find it interesting or helpful. And until you hear me again next week, remember you are indeed graced to lead. Bye-bye.
