Season 2: Episode 33 - The Power of an Unlabeled Life

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Welcome to the Joy-Inspired Podcast. I'm Nikki Cruz, and I'm thrilled to explore with you what it means to walk in a faith-infused business. This is your space to find powerful tools and insights, to build with resilience, and to create impact through your unique purpose. Discovering a joy that only God can provide. Together, let's embrace a business journey anchored in faith and empowered by joy. Let's jump in. Well, hello, hello, hello, my friends. How are you all this week? I am so excited to be back with you. And in case you're wondering who this crazy lady is, it's me, Nikki Cruz, the Joy Junkie, your greatest cheerleader, and here to show you that joy isn't what you get at the end of everything. It's the strength that gets you through everything. And I'm super excited today as we look at how the joy of the Lord can sustain us. We have a really special guest. This lady is a new friend of mine who I am excited to share with you. Because as we create kingdom impact, we get to constantly lean into things that are sometimes a little challenging and sometimes very challenging. And I've been so looking forward to this because she's an entrepreneur, a keynote speaker, an author, an AI app creator. She's done so much. But you know what I like most about her? Behind all the titles, there's this beautiful heart, there's this passion for the Lord. And she's someone whose life really reflects that. And she reflects what happens when we truly believe in what God says about us instead of the labels the world gives us. So today's episode is titled, What Happens? Let me get this absolutely right, the power of an unlabeled life. And I love this because my TEDx talk was about releasing the labels. Because you know what? The world doesn't stick those labels on us. You may have heard me say that before. So I am super excited to introduce you to my friend Sydney. Welcome, Sydney.

SPEAKER_00 2:54

Nikki, thank you so much for having me on. I'm so excited to be here.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

And I always love starting with something fun. Of course, this is the Joy Inspired Podcast. So if your life right now had a soundtrack, what song would be playing?

SPEAKER_00 3:11

Oh man. It's called Talk to a Friend by Rain City Drive. And it's um it's funny because usually I've got a bunch that I would just pull from, but it's really just about talking to yourself in a way that you would talk to someone that you care deeply about and just being really aware of that internal talk track that you have with yourself. We tend to be our own worst critics, and that song is a really healthy reminder for me right now.

SPEAKER_01 3:39

Oh, I love that. And you know, if someone knew nothing about you and they spent one whole day following you around, what do you think would surprise them the most?

SPEAKER_00 3:52

Um, probably how much I talk to myself. It's like if they were just a fly on the wall, if they were with me, I would obviously be talking to them. But maybe how much I do in a day that's totally unrelated to the other things. I feel like a lot of people that I know, anyways, my perception of their life and perception isn't everything I could be wrong, but I would follow them likely to their work, and then I would likely follow them to maybe the errands that they have to run, and then I would maybe follow them home. But because I have three different businesses that absolutely have nothing to do with one another, I think they'd be like, Am I following one person or like five different people?

SPEAKER_01 4:32

And I can certainly believe that. I know you are a busy bee. So I would really love to meet the woman behind all the titles. Tell us a little about yourself. Who is Sydney away from the stage and away from business?

SPEAKER_00 4:53

I am someone that is deeply convicted about sharing who our identity in Christ is, because I spent so much of my life that being built by names and titles that I believed were part of who I was as a person, and it shaped some very defining moments in my life that ultimately affected the entire trajectory of my life. If I had instead been rooted in my identity in Christ, my life today would look a lot different. And that's not a bad thing because God can turn anything into something for his glory. And I am hopefully getting to witness him do that now in my life with the decisions I've made in my past. But my my true conviction is compassion for people and allowing them to know who they really are in the Lord rather than in the world.

SPEAKER_01 5:50

And I you you said something that I think is so important there, and that is that you have the compassion for people because it's very easy to sit on the sidelines and criticize people, but when you love them, you help them find that transformation. Right. And you chose the title for today's episode, The Power of an Unlabeled Life. What labels did you spend years believing yourself? Tell us a little bit about that story.

SPEAKER_00 6:25

So the biggest one was mental illness or chemical imbalance. Um, those two terminologies were tossed around a lot in my life growing up. I lost my mother to suicide when I was 12, turning 13. And I my father specifically, I think really wanted a reason why that happened. And most people in their pain look for a reason. That's a very normal human reaction. But what that led to was this rabbit hole being that I was the only girl in the family anymore, of I think him wanting to protect me from what he maybe perceived he couldn't protect my mother from. And those labels trickled down to me. So even though she was no longer here, it got this well, genetically, maybe Sydney struggles with these things. And how then, therefore, can I prevent that from affecting her life? And so everything was explained to me as well, you do this because you suffer from bipolar or ADHD or borderline was another one that was tossed around. Uh, the only one that is still on my medical charts anymore is ADHD. I think that ADHD is a superpower now, but I don't, I'm not medicated for anything anymore, including ADHD. I I've just chosen to believe that we all struggle with things as people. We all have a thorn that we carry, so to speak. And it doesn't have to be something that defines you. It can be something that you learn and grow through. Because the greatest prison that I ever lived in wasn't built by the trauma that I had been through. It was by the labels that I carried.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

Oh wow. Wow, wow, wow. And just in those few things you've said there, there is so much power. Labels are trauma in themselves, they create trauma, and you're so right, they create that cage. For me, those labels of being crippled, of being disabled, of never walking again became my wheelchair. And I often say to people, you know, what is crippling your mind? And very often it's the labels that we have heard put on us. And we look around and we go, oh, yeah, that makes perfect sense. Because we're looking to understand such a powerful truth. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for sharing honestly. And more importantly, congratulations on overcoming being medicated on all those things.

SPEAKER_00 9:06

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

You know, it's so important to celebrate that because you have won a victory there. And the fact that you share it means other people can win that same victory. So if you're listening right now and you know somebody who doesn't believe it can ever be any different, share this with them. They get to share this. I was gonna say right from the horse's mouth, but I daren't call you a horse.

SPEAKER_00 9:34

I would have understood the intent, but it's true, you know, the enemy doesn't have to destroy your purpose. Sometimes he just has to convince you to introduce yourself by your wounds. And this was really, I mean, it's all over the Bible, I think. Of the predominant ones that pop into my mind is the woman at the well and the woman who believed that if she could just touch the robe of Jesus, that she would be healed. But like it was such a realization to not just hear, but to understand that God never calls people by their diagnoses, whether those are medical or in the psychological world, he calls us by our identity in him. And he just calls us his children. And that changed everything.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

And the same with the woman who was about to be stoned. She didn't have a medical diagnosis, but think of the emotional trauma she was going through there, being told she was useless, worthless, she should be stoned. So if you face difficulties, if you faced anything and you think I'm not worth it for any reason, I want you to listen here today. I want you to let the Holy Spirit reach out and touch you right now. And I want you to throw away the world's definitions and receive what God has for you right now. Because just as Sydney shared, she had so many labels, but not all of those labels were spoken over you, were they? Some of them were, but not all of them were.

SPEAKER_00 11:10

That's correct. Yeah, no, identity is not something that you invent, it's something that you receive. But the further that I got from God's definition of me, the more labels that I needed to be able to explain myself.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

Yeah, yeah. And I've recently started saying something which kind of throws people a little, and that's what God says about you is not what defines you. Because in scripture, God says it, He tells us who we are, and if that defined us, we would all be magnificent. It's what you believe about what God says about you that defines you. So when did you first begin believing that those labels weren't God's truth? When did that breakthrough begin to happen?

SPEAKER_00 12:04

It first started after I placed my oldest daughter for adoption, but more so after having my second daughter that I raise in my home. And it was this really bizarre concept of how contorted the world takes things that can originate from God and makes them not what God intended for them to be. And this is with so many things, but I believe that adoption is one of them now being through it myself. Now that's not to say that I believe adoption is collectively bad by any stretch of the imagination, because I'm not somebody that paints everything with one brush. But in my particular situation, I was being told that I wasn't healed enough to be a mother to my daughter. I was being told that I was going to be just like my mother, that my diagnoses that turned out to not even be accurate diagnoses, let alone my actual identity, would inhibit me from being the mother that my daughter deserved, that my relationship wasn't what she deserved, just all of those things. And, you know, the world tells you to discover yourself and encourages this very, very egotistical stance on self-discovery and development. But scripture tells us to die to ourselves so that Christ can show us who we really are in him. And that is where things really changed. There's an author, and I wish I remembered her name. I'll I'll send it to you so that we can link it in the comments so that she gets the credit that she is due. But it was that she didn't truly understand the love of Christ until she was separated from her baby in an unnatural way. She said she believes from her perspective that the closest thing that you can endure to the pain of what God did for us is to believe that is adoption, is to place your child with faith that there is something bigger. And the way that she words it is so graceful, and so I don't want to butcher it, but it's true. God was separated from his son, he betrayed the nature of the Trinity so that we might just have the opportunity for a relationship with him. It's not a guarantee that we will choose to come home to him. And adoption is very similar. I did at the time what I thought was best with the resources that I had, and I've changed my changed my mind on that very quickly after, and there was nothing that I could do about it. But besides that point, I did what I believed was best for her in that moment, knowing that there was a chance that she could grow up one day and still not want a relationship with me.

SPEAKER_01 14:53

Yeah. Yeah. And wow, you know, when you put a parallel like that with the way the father loves, that's powerful. That's powerful. When you think how selflessly God put Christ in the world. Wow. Sorry, I had to take a moment to digest that one.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

It's an it's a heavy, it's a heavy thing, and it's not by any means to be some people might hear that and think that it's a you know self-sacrifice sort of ego boot. Anything can be taken the wrong way. And I and I truly don't mean it that way. It's just that that was the light bulb moment for me where it was like, wow, like now that I'm living in this separation and the pain of this separation when all I want is my baby, to know that God went through that for the chance of having a relationship with me as his daughter, it I can understand that on such a much deeper and more intimate level now.

SPEAKER_01 15:52

And I think uh from a totally different point of view, from somebody's perspective who cannot perhaps relate it to adoption, it's about counting the cost and are you prepared to make that sacrifice? And every entrepreneur has that. And you know, that's what brings the joy. Because in Hebrews it says he counted it all joy going to the cross. Well, I can tell you right now, Jesus didn't rush there singing and dancing to the cross, but he counted it joy for what it would bring, the redemption it would bring for us. And that is counting the cost and being prepared to pay the price. Amen. And in a different sense, that's what we get as entrepreneurs. Are you ready to go the distance? And then will you stand in the joy for the transformation? You will get to bring other people. So this message is for everybody. Don't stop and say this doesn't apply to me. Keep your ears open and keep asking, how does this apply to me? What is God saying to you? And you know what you've shared with us that defining moment, but from there, was it a process? Was there a particular scripture God used? Tell us the story.

SPEAKER_00 17:24

It is still a process to this day, and I think that it always will be. It's somewhere in Mark, I want to say chapter nine. It but it says, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. And I used to think I would outgrow that feeling, but eventually it would just be that I have this, I'm on fire for Christ all the time. And that's what we want as believers, right? Like we go through these cycles where like we're just on fire for the Lord, and we want to share the what he's done for us and his love for us, and we want to bring people to the kingdom. And then we just go through these seasons where the enemy attacks, like I said earlier. And even in times where he's not attacking, sometimes complacency in and of itself is also a form of an attack where Satan doesn't have to do anything. The enemy doesn't have to attack because we've gotten lazy in our faith and in our relationship with the Father. And so it's a journey every single day, and making sure that my motives and my intentions are truly aligned with what I'm doing, that I'm reflecting that in my business relationships, that I don't have a scarcity mindset because that's not this calling. And you know what it is. It's just every single day is where's my heart at? What do I need to be focused on? What do I need to be praying for? Who do I need to be connecting with or reaching out to? And that's every day.

SPEAKER_01 18:52

I love that everything you say reflects three things: your thinking, your faith, and your actions. So what changed first? The thinking, the actions, or the faith?

SPEAKER_00 19:08

The faith.

unknown 19:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

And I think that it had to because if you don't have something to have hope for, then how do you change your thinking and how do you change your actions? There would be it would be a very dark world if we didn't have faith of some kind. Now, not everybody ascribes their faith to the faith that you and I know is the one true faith, but everybody looks for something bigger than their their selves more often than not to ascribe their meaning and their life purpose to. For me, it was the scripture: I will restore the years that the locusts have eaten away. Because I just have this just empty pit in my stomach that I have to depend on God for every every single day of not having one of my babies with me because I didn't know who I was in him. Not because I was incapable, certainly not because I didn't love her, but because I don't have a choice but to trust him now and to know that there's this significant period of time in her life that I'm going to miss out on because of the hollowness that existed in me and the fear that existed into me prior to my relationship with him. I have no choice but to have faith. That's all that I have, actually. And when that happened, it was this light bulb moment where the Holy Spirit said, now try again, this time with me. And that led to the thinking, and the thinking therefore led to the actions.

SPEAKER_01 20:44

Oh, yeah. And you know, we've been speaking about very personal things, but that's worked into your businesses.

SPEAKER_00 20:53

It has.

SPEAKER_01 20:54

Most people I can say your business. With you, I can say your business is because you have many of them. And it's come into your confidence, your decision making, your boundaries, your peace, your leadership, everything. And I want to personally say I celebrate that in you and with you. Congratulations because you stand so firm in that. And you've built multiple businesses. So now let's get to know a little bit about the business woman. Tell us about your businesses, the AI stuff, all of it.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

Yeah, so there are three of them. Technically, we've consolidated it. Used to be more than that. And I was like, this is a lot of bookkeeping that my bookkeeper was having to do. So we've condensed them down to three. Um, I have always been in sales my whole life. It's my it's my background. I actually dropped out of college. I was pursuing a degree in psychology, which I have uh partially completed, but I probably won't go back for I have a very solid understanding, and that was instrumental in my. Sales career just because of understanding people and all these really fun and wonderful things. But I was like, why would I go into debt when I am one of the most ferocious sales individuals that I've that I've ever met? And that's a compliment that I, and I don't say that to be cocky, but that's just a compliment that I've gotten from people light years ahead of me in sales. It's a natural gift that I've been given. And I want to use that for good, not in the used car sales kind of way. So my first business is a home and auto restoration brokerage. I just do storm restoration. I live in the Midwest. We get a lot of storms out here that will damage people's property and their auto, uh, their vehicles. And I do the restoration end of that from a brokerage perspective. So I've partnered with some really amazing companies and I just do that. That was the first one, and it's been good to me. But my passion, like I have said, resides in helping people not only know who they are, but just to like really break free of the chains that the world tends to put on us. And so that led to my next two. Um, the first one is Seven Crowns Studios, and Seven Crown Studios, all of these are biblically inspired names. Uh Iron Arch group, uh, arch is A-R-C-H-E, and that means beginning. And so that business means strong beginnings, and that's based on scripture. Seven Crown Studios. Um, have you ever heard of the Seven Crowns you can inherit in the Kingdom of Heaven? So that's where that one comes from. And Seven Crown Studios is what we're doing right now. I've published now three books. One of them has won an award. Uh, two of them are a set, so I guess I should say two rather. Um, and the books run through there. I've written two songs that run through there. I do podcasting and street interviews. I just like connecting with good people that have a story and to help them through whatever it is that is the roadblock in their life to the next thing. So that's the studio's one. And the most recent one is the AI application that I've shared with you. And the name of that is Lev AI. Lev is Hebrew for connection between heart and mind. And this is a mobile application that is going to be used in the public education system, and it will function sort of as a mentor for kids that don't have one in their life. But furthermore, it's got an incentive program. We've partnered with a bunch of wonderful retail locations. Kids get real items for doing the things that they're already supposed to do, and schools get grant money for it.

SPEAKER_01 24:36

Wow. What a vision. What a visionary. And you know, I know your heart goes out so strongly to these kids. Very much so. The bullying, the mindset shifting that they get spoken to. I know in previous conversations we've had, I felt that passion from you. And I love that you are so determined to make a difference in the lives of these kids.

unknown 25:06

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 25:07

Do you guys see why I absolutely adore her and I love her energy and we giggle together? And you know, this podcast is all about building with God rather than simply building for God. How has your relationship with Jesus shaped the opportunities you've accepted? Who and the opportunities you've walked away from?

SPEAKER_00 25:37

Yeah. Yeah, that's such a good question. Um, you know, I didn't find God because life magically got easier, that all of this pain went away and everything was resolved. I found him because I was finally out of places to run. And I had to change my perspective about there's a lot of people that dwell in this area of why me, right? Um, why are bad things happening to me? I'm a good person. Or uh, if God is so loving or good, this is specifically for non-believers, they tend to say, then why do all these bad things happen in the world just collectively? God never promised me a pain-free life. He just promised that he wouldn't waste my pain. And I think it was just going back to your previous question about was it faith, thinking, or actions that changed first? Having the lens of faith that I can put on what ultimately affects all of the decisions that I make. So when a door closes, I'm either gonna come back and buy the whole building or that door was meant to close.

SPEAKER_01 26:47

Yeah. Oh, I love that. I'll either come back and buy the whole building or leave the door closed. Yeah, like and you've got to use wisdom and discernment with that decision because there is always this tug of Lord, is it you closing the door or are you wanting me to push harder? And I know many entrepreneurs fall into that, but just a reminder for all of us we fight for victory from victory. You know, we're not fighting a losing battle, we're on the victory side, but we've got to make those decisions with wisdom and discernment. So looking back, what was God teaching you in one of those moments or one of those seasons where you stopped and you looked and just said, Okay, God, this is a closed door. I wonder if I can actually keep going. Because we all as entrepreneurs have that.

SPEAKER_00 27:53

Yeah, yes, we sure do. And it it is hard to know when to lean in or when to back off. And faith isn't believing that God's just going to give you what you want, though. It's trusting him when he doesn't, because and that's just been so apparent in in my personal life on so many things. It usually goes back to my daughter, but I was promised an open adoption and her adoptive parents later closed that adoption against my will, against agency advice, against social worker advice. They they have legal authority and that's what they chose to do. And so I had to get to a place where I just trusted him. And when you trust God with something as precious as your child, it gets really easy to trust him with something as fleeting and evanescent as finances. Business opportunities are gonna come and they're gonna go. I recently just lost a business partner of mine. Just we were not seeing eye to eye on the direction of our business. And it was a huge bummer for me and has been a little stressful in some ways because of the way that that relationship ended. But I have to have faith that when God, especially when he puts such an abrupt end to something, that there's a plan that I don't understand or see. And it causes me to lean in to okay, what can I control? Because if I can't control that this relationship is ending, then there's got to be somewhere else that I can put that anxious energy. So many entrepreneurs that I know they want to have control over it so bad that they just grip it like white knuckled. And that will cause you to lose opportunity. That scarcity mindset will cause you to lose the job offers that you want or the business relationships that you want. It's like a bar of soap, is what Michael always says to me is the harder you squeeze it, the more likely it is to slip out of your hands. And so it's just this like, I don't need to have control. I'm gonna work towards this. And if doors close, we're just gonna keep working our way through it. It's very much like in the Rockies, anyways, like hiking, you know, like you can go on a trail, but if there's something in your way, you're just gonna have to redirect and you're gonna keep going up, but it's not gonna be a linear up. There's gonna be these dips and divots and valves and hill valleys and hills that you have to work through and you're gonna get there eventually, but you don't need to panic every time you want run into something that wants to stop you.

SPEAKER_01 30:04

Yeah, and for those of you who've who've heard this before, I'm gonna say it again. When you keep your hand closed holding on to something, there's nowhere for God to put new things. When you open up to surrender it to Him, it's there to receive what He wants to put in it. So that keep that in mind, folks, because when you open up and surrender something, God is not going to remove what He intended for to be in your hand in the first place. Right. So it's back to the faith. Okay, let's have some more fun here. Okay, complete these sentences in your own words.

SPEAKER_00 30:48

Joy is Success is Perspective. Leadership is being willing to do the hard things so that others know that you're not just asking something of them that you wouldn't also do.

SPEAKER_01 31:23

If you could tell your youngest self one thing.

SPEAKER_00 31:32

Know your identity in Christ above all else.

SPEAKER_01 31:38

My favorite way to spend the Sabbath is hiking, out in God's creation.

SPEAKER_00 31:46

Coffee or tea? Coffee a hundred percent of the time.

SPEAKER_01 31:51

Morning or night?

SPEAKER_00 31:52

Both.

SPEAKER_01 31:54

Oh, I like that. One book every entrepreneur should read.

SPEAKER_00 32:00

Oh my goodness, that is such a hard one. You know what? You're gonna have to let me pull it up because it is really a crucial one, and I read so many of these darn things that the name's just gonna escape me if I don't. And again, we gotta do these authors justice because they're just so darn good at what they do. Let's see here. I'm gonna go ahead with Chop Wood Carry Water by Joshua Medcal.

SPEAKER_01 32:32

Nice. Chop Wood Carry Water. And if you see how dynamic. Yeah, if you see the dynamic nature of this lady, you're gonna rush out and go for that book. So, one of the questions you suggested on our forms was what belief did you have to let die before you could become the woman God created you to be?

SPEAKER_00 33:06

That my sin was somehow greater than other people's sin. I held this belief so tightly, what I mean when I say that, that I had to earn God's love in a different way than other people, because my sin was somehow less forgivable than the next person's. And that was also rooted in a self-worth thing. But what people fail to realize is that believing that your sin is somehow greater in any capacity is also pride, because when God said it is finished, he meant it.

SPEAKER_01 33:41

Yeah, and it's his final word, and you might be sitting there thinking, okay, but how do I stop believing that? So what replaced that belief for you?

SPEAKER_00 33:58

Oh, it was that this culture has such a sense of entitlement in oh, we deserve this or this isn't fair. When the reality is what we deserved was the cross, and everything else is a blessing. And when you look at life through that lens of what I deserved was the cross, but somebody loved me enough to send his perfect son so that I might just have the opportunity to choose to be in relationship with the person with the the God who sent his son to die for me, for me, and that if I was the only person, he would have done it for me alone. That is what really replaced that belief. Because when you let go of that and view everything else as a blessing, life gets a whole lot easier.

SPEAKER_01 34:53

Oh, so beautiful. And you know, this next question, we're all entrepreneurs. Well, a lot of us are entrepreneurs who are listening here, and I know this question is going to touch somebody deeply who's listening today. Because entrepreneurs in particular have such an image they feel they need to portray of holding it all together. But my question is if you could say one thing to the person today who believes they are too broken or too damaged or too far gone for God to use them, what would it be? What would you say to them?

SPEAKER_00 35:41

My prayer for you isn't that you leave this conversation with fewer scars, it's that you leave with fewer labels because scars tell the story of where you've been, but labels try to tell you where you will always stay. Jesus never came to erase your story, he came to redeem it, and so redeemed people don't introduce themselves by what happened to them.

SPEAKER_01 36:08

You know, that's so true, and our identity isn't just what we think, it's how we behave, it's how we carry ourselves, it's our actions, and it's those thought processes. Yes, you know, we're called the joy-inspired podcast because we believe that joy has that role, and when you are carrying labels that don't belong to you, because we've got some pretty cool labels God gave us, but when you're carrying the labels that don't belong to you, it's heavy, it's weighty. So you know, it's a process. The labels don't just disappear overnight, and I've heard Sidney saying that so clearly today. It's an ongoing process. You don't suddenly decide I'm going to be somebody else. And we were talking, I was talking about this with somebody the other day about being the new man. You don't become a new man, you become the new creation, and I believe that's the creation that God initially created you to be, but in development. You are still the person He created you to be. You are Batman, but you are a new creation, washed clean in him, and I see a huge difference in that. So, Sydney, being in this process, what's next for you?

SPEAKER_00 37:52

Um to dedicate a lot of my time and energy into further developing my next book that is going to accompany the entire concept of my mobile application. It is called Unlabeled. Um it's this concept taken on by extreme ownership is really what it is. It's called the ownership method. And uh that's another book. It was written by a former U.S. Navy SEAL, and it gives people a lot of freedom to be able to control the controllables in their life. I talk about that a lot, specifically in the context of being unlabeled from anything that society wants to put a label on you for. So developing that book and developing this mobile application and getting it in the door with these schools.

SPEAKER_01 38:48

And I think there's a bit of a reversal here. Very often there are things that we as adults have access to, and research are going, this should be being taught in schools. Can we get our hands on this app? Is it available for everybody else as well?

SPEAKER_00 39:06

It will be eventually, yes. So we're gonna pilot this with the schools first because my heart is really with these kids. And then I'm going to start looking at ways to integrate this in people's workplace so it will not be exclusive to schools. But I don't think that I'm going to put my mobile application on just the it will be on the app store, but you won't be able to use it to its full function unless it's in relationship with the businesses or the uh public education systems that we are in network with. So it'll be there, but it's not really going to be just for somebody that's doom scrolling at night per se.

SPEAKER_01 39:42

I love that. And I love the intention behind that. And what are you excited to build next beyond that in your own personal life? Hmm. That's the business girl. What about the personal girl? Where is she going? What is she doing? Do you have a vacation planned? Do you have yeah?

SPEAKER_00 40:07

So I do get to take the kiddos. My my middle daughter is starting her first year of full-time kindergarten, and she's been begging to go on a trip. So we're going to take her to a cabin in the mountains with our little son, our youngest, and take them horseback riding and do the aerial tramway and to just have fun for a week and not think about everything that's left over here. Um, on a deeper personal level, I think that it's more self-discovery and development because just because I've I know my identity in Christ now, that's still an ongoing development and ongoing process. And like I said, it always will be. But there's this sign that I have in my office, and it says, pray like Nehemiah, obey like Daniel, lead like Moses, serve like Martha, believe like Mary, fight like David, educate like Paul, build like Noah, and love like Jesus. And that's my inspiration every day and reminder to get in the Word to hear those people's testimonies, is that that's what those are, is testimonies of how people lived for Jesus. And that's who I want to become.

SPEAKER_01 41:21

Yeah. Yep. Beautiful. And you know, we're called to joy in all of it, whether it's good or bad. And you certainly reflect that. And joy isn't bouncing off the walls all happy every day. Joy is trusting and knowing that God is in control. True joy takes faith. And I thank you for sharing so much of your story with us.

SPEAKER_00 41:50

Thank you for having me. It's been wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 41:53

I just want to finish with this. Imagine every listener could hear listener could hear just one sentence from you before they turn this episode off. What would you want every person listening to remember?

SPEAKER_00 42:15

Before God changes your circumstances, he almost always changes your identity. So like you said earlier, open your hands because he can't work when you're white-knuckling your way through life.

SPEAKER_01 42:30

Thank you so much for that. Folks, if this inspired you, even if you felt this was heavy, but it it hit you in the gut somewhere, because that's how God often gets your attention. I want to encourage you to comment, like, and share this podcast with somebody who you know it will touch. Because we all know people who are carrying the weight of labels. Not the light, beautiful labels, the heavy ones that don't belong. So ask yourself, what is the message from this that you could be sharing with somebody else? And we are gonna be dropping all of Sydney's details in the comments, in the chat, so she can connect with you. But if you want to rush ahead, what is your website called?

SPEAKER_00 43:29

You can find me at my first and last name. That's www.sydnycurtain.com, Sydney like Australia. Curtin is c u r t-in.com.

SPEAKER_01 43:42

And there you have it. Sydney, thank you so much for being here. What a powerful episode. And boy, you and I have many more conversations to go. And I look forward to having you back.

SPEAKER_00 43:55

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 43:56

Blessings all. We will see you next week. And don't forget, in the meantime, remember that there is joy found when you find your identity in Christ because that's what he created you for, to have that identity in him. So, blessings all, till next week. Bye for now. Thank you so much for joining me on the Joy Inspired Podcast at www.joyinspiredpodcast.com. Make sure you hit that subscribe button so that you can get this and every other episode that comes out. We have lots of great stuff coming, and you don't want to miss it. So make sure to hit that subscribe. I am so grateful for all the reviews and comments, and I look forward to serving you in next week's episode.