How To Embrace The BRUTIFUL Season With Heather Shriver Burns
When we look at social media, we think people have it completely going on. However, when you start to peel back the layers, you discover that everyone has their own battle to face behind closed doors. In this episode, host Stefanie Peters interviews entrepreneur Heather Shriver Burns about how she lost a $14-million business and her keys to success to get out of that pit. Heather is a faith-driven life and business coach. Today, she opens up about her career story and shares how she embraced the brutiful life seasons and realized the real valuable things in life.
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Listen to the podcast here:
How To Embrace The BRUTIFUL Season With Heather Shriver Burns
I am so looking forward to having you connect with one of my dear friends, Heather. Her schedule is through the roof so crazy and we finally nailed down a time. The thing that I love the most about her is her heart and her authenticity to help people succeed in business, in life and to watch her as she has created massive action in her own life and she's done such a great job on diving right into the pivot. You are going to be so inspired by this interview. Let me give you a little bit of background. She's a multi-passionate entrepreneur who lives in Pittsburgh with her own prince charming and their three kiddos and they are adorable. She jumped into network marketing years ago when she was desperately looking for what her options were. She dialed into her zone of genius. She built a multiple million-dollar network marketing organization and then she did it again.
As she made the leap to that next business, it's been so fun to watch her. She's been a top recruiter. She's personally sponsored over 500 people. She travels all over. She speaks on stages and a lot of times when you think of a bio like that, you're like, "She's got everything going on for herself." She truly does. When you would meet her, you wouldn't know that she is so humble. She cares so deeply. She created a faith-based apparel line, which I'm obsessed with, but she's putting that on the back burner for now, which I respect on another level. I can't wait to dive into that.
Now, she's an identity culture, faith-driven businesswoman. She went through an extremely dark season and I want to dial into that because when we look at social media, we think people have it completely going on. When you start to peel back the layers, you can tell that everyone has their own battle to face behind closed doors. She lost a $14 million business. I am looking forward to have her share her keys to success to get out of that. One of her keys is forgiveness. Without further ado, Heather Shriver Burns, thank you for joining.
That is humbling to hear all of those things because like you said, it's so easy to see the highlight reel, but when you're in the real reel, you don't always remember the highlights. Thank you for that. Thank you for sharing all those fun things that sometimes we often forget, especially in the dark seasons.
Thank you so much for being so authentic on social because we get so caught up in the crazy and you share what is going on in your heart. There have been moments where you've had to heal before you shared those moments. When it comes full circle, you truly do share it. Let's start from where you jumped out in faith and started in the network marketing arena and hit your stride and then what that first bump was.
Thank you so much for having me and for allowing me to share this story. I discovered network marketing as a passion when I was a brand-new mom. I was super corporate-driven, had zero desires to be a stay-at-home mom. Even all throughout my pregnancy, people can ask me, “Are you going to quit?” I'm like, “Absolutely not.” Kudos to you if you are a stay-at-home mom and that is what God purposed you to be. That is not how He wired me, so much to where I didn't even think I wanted kids, but we got married and eight weeks later, we were pregnant and we're like, “This is part of the plan.” I was looking for alternatives once I was coming up to the end of my maternity leave. I saw other people with this flexible job and working from home in your pajamas, all the things that you and I talked about in the profession. I was like, “I want that because I want to be able to be home with my son. I also want to be able to have a career.”
When you decided that you wanted to dial into that, did you jump in with a mentor right away? Did you know what you were doing? Did you have this whole game plan? What did that look like?
I had no clue what I was doing. I had seen other people doing it and I felt like, “If she can, so can I.” That was the mentality that I went into it with. I'm watching all of these other people doing this, “If she can, so can I.” I was ignorance on fire because my heart was hurting so bad when I had to put my baby into the sitter's arms when I had to go to work. That's another piece to it. The thing that kept me going was that I did have to go back to work. We were a dual-income family. I even had a management level position within my company. It wasn't like I could quit and stay at home. I did have to do the whole balancing act of learning how to become a new mom, going back to work full-time and then building this thing on the side that I desired so badly to be my full-time thing. I had no clue what I was doing at all. It's so funny because I love memories and then the Timehop that I used to look at all the time and to go back and see some of these posts, I crack up at myself and think, “There's been so much growth.” I had no clue what I was doing.
You sure did a great job of figuring it out very quickly. What did that transition look like from corporate to being a full-time network marketer while being a stay-at-home mom?
I had this goal in mind and it wasn't even about becoming a six-figure earner or seven-figure earner. It was about making enough money to where I could contribute to my portion of the bills and still be able to have that freedom and flexibility. It took about a year to do that and I sacrificed a lot that first year. In this season in my life, which is a completely different season, I'm not in a hustle season, I'm in a resting season. I'm in a restoration season. I remember sacrificing nights out with friends, sacrificing weekends, doing things with family, and some of those things were worth the sacrifice. Some of those things probably weren't worth the sacrifice. Anyways, it took about a year to do that.
The transition was interesting because it's not like you wake up one day and then everything's perfect again. You're still working toward that next goal. The goal was to quit my corporate job and I was able to give my notice and that was wonderful. I was like, “Now, this is real." Now, the rubber meets the road. There was no cushion of a corporate salary or your commissions or whatever. It was, "You have to do this." Next year after that, it took a lot of adjusting to my time management. You wanted to be home with your baby, but you also need to work. How are you going to fit this in the nooks and crannies of your life? Depending on your goals, are the nooks and crannies enough? I had to work through that and navigate through that and figure out how much time is too much? How much time is not enough? Do I need help? All of those things that were helping me reach that next goal. I am forever grateful for the profession and for opening up my eyes to know that there are alternatives. You don't have to be stuck in a place that you are not happy.
What is neat about your story is you never let network marketing define your mission. You knew it was a vehicle to help you to reach your goals, but it wasn't the end-all be-all. Making the impact and being purposeful and being mission-driven to your higher purpose was always what you kept in the forefront of your mind. Even at the beginning of my network marketing career, when I jumped out in faith, I always was saying, “Short-term sacrifice for long-term gain.” When I look back at that season, I don't regret the sacrifices that I made but I didn't want to live my life that way forever.
That's such a great way of putting it. I do. Now that I have three kids, I look back and I'm like, “How did I ever do that? How did I hustle so hard?” I think when it's a desire of our heart and when God's behind it, He blesses it and He sustains us and He gives us the energy and the ability to do it.
You built a massive business in that first company. What prompted you to make the shift to the next company?
I wouldn't say massive. There are all kinds of terms within the profession but I was within the top 3% of the company, but I was not in the top ten as far as the top ten people per se. It was a full-time salary, at one point, making six-figure type income, which is phenomenal. That took three years to get there. Oftentimes we see people's success and we think it happened for them overnight. The success of my second and third business were the results from the seeds that I planted and the discipline that I created and the consistent behaviors over time that I did, the compound effect. It's what I did everyday consistently in those first three years that started to reap the benefits and my harvest in the fourth, fifth and then even now sixth year.
I'm glad that you brought that up because I've seen even people come into the company that I'm with right now. To see so many people run up those ranks like nobody's business and so many of the people that have been around for a while, they’re like, “How did they get there?” You didn't see them in the first company, in the second company that they were a part of it. You don't know the massive grind that they put in what they did prior. That's encouraging to the average person that's just starting out if they're in network marketing or if they're an entrepreneur in general. It's so important to know that you come into the table with certain skills. Everybody's got their own journey, everybody's got their own pace. Not to compare to the other people out in the field. To go back to the question, what prompted you to make the shift to the next company?
I was out of place, so I'm going to be completely blunt about this. I get the three-year itch and I had noticed this pattern in my life. I tell my husband, we have now been together for eight years, dating and marriage total and six years married. I'm like, “Babe, you're rare because I get sick of things. I get bored, I get tired.” I just love him, I could never live without him. It was part of that. There were some things going on within the company and I started seeing some other leaders shifting and making some changes. I felt like I was ready to challenge myself in a different way. I also felt like what I was doing was a little bit more of a heavy topic. I wanted something a little more lighthearted and there was nothing wrong with that. It changed my life and I still use the products from that first company because they were phenomenal.
I felt like for a career long-term, even some of the models, we focused on one specific product and I want to talk with people about a lot of things and make it a little bit lighter. It was a culmination of things together that I was ready to take on the next challenge. I started praying about it because who does that? Who spends three years of their life building something? How does their desire shift or their heart shift? You start thinking, “Maybe this isn't my end all be all. Maybe this isn't the thing that I want.” I prayed and prayed and then God opened the door for something else and I went through the door.
Embracing Life Seasons: You do not have to defend yourself. God is your defender. He has gone before you and has been fighting the battle before you.
I love that because even when I hit 30, I was talking to a friend about this, the desire of my heart shifted in a way that I can't even put into words to date. We can get so stuck in the identity of, “This is what I'm defined like, this is what I'm good at, this is where I've had a lot of success.” A lot of people can't step beyond that and keep living by default because maybe the money is there or the identity is there or all of the things that give them comfort. Truly, I believe that especially for A-players like ourselves and a lot of the people that are reading this podcast, when you are an A-player, one of the greatest enemies of us is comfort. We have to think about what is our higher calling versus being comfortable in, "This isn't a great life but it's a good life,” and settle. That's neat that you had the courage to say, "I don't care what people think. I'm doing me, I'm performing for an audience of one."
That has played itself out multiple times over the last years. That's so much of that because people don't understand and especially those who want what you have and then you're willing to give it up. It doesn't make sense to the human mind. I've been sharing so much with women that I mentor that when we're kingdom-led, you're going to be faced with things that don't make sense to the human mind. They might not even make sense to your mind but when your heart is not happy any longer and you do not have joy in what you're doing, then it's time to make a change. It's time to seek your higher calling and your bigger purposes in life. That goes back to what you said in the very beginning. I never lost sight of that. For me, it doesn't matter what company I partner with or what products I'm using. I even have my own businesses outside of the network marketing profession, but I still have the same mission. It transfers to everything. If you're building a business around your purpose and your message and not so much a product or a business opportunity, that opens the doors to endless possibilities of ways that God can use you.
That is so good. I've always taught to build a brand around you and what lights you up and what your calling is and then figure out the other income streams that can revolve around that so that you can be in your zone of joy and your zone of genius. Otherwise, even financially, you can be in an amazing place and absolutely hate your life. I've even coached people out of the corporate arena because they make super good money, but they hate their life. It's so neat that you're like, “I'm making the shift.” You made the shift to the next company and then let's fast forward to what happened there and how you made that next transition and a lot of the lessons that you learn because that's where I've tuned into your social media presence. It’s the heartache that you have gone through and how you have overcome that.
My overnight success was three years in the making. It seemed like to everybody else, everything literally exploded. Over eighteen months, I built a $14 million business. I was making what I would consider stupid money. I was like, “This is fantastic, but I don't even need all this.” What's funny is that through that success, it happened so fast. Month after month was crazy after crazy. There were so many things going on and my team was growing and the money was growing and this has to be of God. I do believe He used that as a blessing and to show me what He's capable of. I also found that I lost joy. I had all these Earthly things in the success that a lot of people were chasing and a lot of people were desiring and I even desire in myself, but he gave it all to me to show me that that wasn't what my heart was truly seeking. That wasn't what was going to fill me with true, endless joy.
Over time, some things were happening and they were making some decisions that didn't align with my marketing philosophy, didn't align with some different things. At the end of the day, I was like, “Here I am again.” I have this crazy successful business that nobody is going to believe that I'm not happy because on paper I looked like I had the car, I had the trips, I had the stage, I had the title, I was number two in the company like crazy. I had a lot to lose. I prayed on it over and I couldn't understand why God would give me all of that success and let me taste his goodness in that way, but not let me be satisfied. I know now why. I started reading all the ins and outs of the company. How can I not throw this away? Because in my former company, I closed it down, I emailed the corporate, but if there's a way that I can keep both, if there's a way that I can keep the income, support my team, sell to my customers who I already have, but not continue to grow it in that way. I had this whole perfect plan in my head of what was going to happen.
It's funny they say that when you have a plan, tell it to God and let Him laugh. I made all the steps according to the policies and procedures to be able to move forward and do other things. I woke up one morning and all of my plans shattered. God used this situation to show me where true joy and true success in life is. I believe He wants to give us both success of the world and success of Him simultaneously, He allowed me to be stripped of all the success of the world in this season. I woke up and my $14 million business was gone. With that comes a lot of rumors, comes a lot of misunderstanding, all the things people were asking questions and then I got super defensive because I'm like, “Wait a second.” Without getting into the whole story, I went into this, “What just happened?”
I had this perfect plan and that did not happen. Because of that, I have been spending this last year healing, which is what you originally had talked about. It’s about the forgiveness of a lot of people, a lot of things, myself, all of the things. This year has been such a healing restoration season of God giving me and showing me a taste and giving me a glimpse of what kind of abundance that He truly has for his children but making sure that I know that's not it. That's not the thing. He is the thing. If we can find our satisfaction in Him first, all the other stuff is like the icing on the cake.
I want to go into the day after you get the news that it's completely gone. What is going through your head and how do you even pick yourself up and even start to think about, "What's my next step?" and let the Lord lead you and guide you to that next step when you are maybe in panic mode or maybe you weren't? I would love to hear what those emotions were. I know, I went through a transition in my career where my business partner in one day, from one day to the next day, their guns-a-blazing were gone. It was devastating to me internally. Getting over that, I have lots of different things that I did, but I'd love to hear how you walked yourself through that next season.
That next morning, I will never forget, I had a text message from someone, it was very foreshadowing. I don't remember her exact words. I thought that's so weird. The text messages started flooding and this was a Sunday morning. Mind you, I left this out but I was about 27 weeks pregnant with my third child. I had this massively successful business in my head. I thought I'm going to enjoy this maternity. I'm going to enjoy the rest of my pregnancy. I'm going to enjoy my maternity leaves, take some time off because I have this business. It's self-sustaining. I'll put in a little bit of effort there while I'm able to build any other business that I want because that's the company policy that I can do other stuff outside of it.
I woke up that morning and was like, “Wait, what?” Something in me was like, “There’s something wrong, something deeply is wrong here.” Others are text messages and others are messages on my social media platforms. I'm like, “Wait a second. Something happened overnight that I'm not even aware of.” I was excited for this new season like sad and mourning that I was going to let this other business naturally die out and so I was like, “What is going on?” As the deeper I dug in, the more messages I was reading, I was like, “What just happened? There's a big misunderstanding here. Somebody else didn't follow the directions of the company and the policies."
Unfortunately, I was wrapped into that because the other people were making moves and things. I just thought, “God, you're going to take care of this. I don't really know how, but you're going to take care of this. There's got to be a way to fix this.” There's got to be a way to talk to them and say, “No, that was not my heart. I didn't do that.” I attempted to do that. Obviously, I got an attorney because I thought this sounds horrible. This isn't me and this was not how I planned this all out. Unfortunately, the company was not open to speaking. They ignored my emails and didn't respond to my very last one. I was in a place where I'm like, “I am super pregnant. I'm about to bring my third baby into the world. I am the bread-winner of our family.”
We retired my husband from the corporate world so he could pursue his dream career. That wasn't quite up and running yet. It was one of those do or die. I could focus my energy on trying to fix something or I could focus my energy on the new thing. While it was never in my desire necessarily to build another $1 million network marketing business, by the grace of God, I did. I did it in a very short amount of time because I had to provide for our families. Waking up that next morning was like, what just happened? What is going on? I went into this major defense mode because I thought nobody knows my story and what's going on. It was chaos.
One of the biggest lessons that God has taught me in this season is that I do not have to defend myself. He is my defender, He has gone before me, He was fighting the battle before me. Because I was defending and spending so much energy trying to explain myself, I ended up digging a deeper hole and getting more confusion around everything. God has taught me that there's a time to be the lion and be on the roar but there's also a time to be the lamb. It’s to know that you can surrender and you don't have to fight. That was one of the biggest things that He taught me after I was the lion.
I was going at it. I'm like, I'm a mama bear, I've got three babies, I have a family at home and I'm angry. I'm not only hurt and bitter, but I'm angry that this is all happening. I feel so misunderstood and no one's listening to the ins and outs of everything. It was a really hard season because it wasn't a loss of money. Money is great. I believe that's nothing to God. He's like, “Girl that was a little teeny tiny glimpse of what I have for you and your future.” It was mourning the loss of friendships, mourning the loss of title, mourning the loss of a platform, mourning the loss of purpose. It was a lot of loss all at once and it was definitely a hard-refining season.
You even told me, which blew me away on our last conversation is you even went to a couple of people that you asked for forgiveness. In my opinion, you didn't mean to do that, but you did anyway. Even when you were in the right. I would say people would vote that hands down. Where did you find it inside yourself to forgive all parties involved? I know that you had even said you had to forgive yourself. Explain what that means a little bit more.
That's another thing because in this kind of a setting and even that, there are so many details to every story. There are all these different sides to it. I had to take a step back and God allowed me over the last year to heal from the hurt of others, the rejection, the gossip, all the things and all of that. After I was healed from that, He then started to show me where I could have handled things better, where I could have been more like Jesus, where I could have maybe bit my tongue or maybe not have said that or maybe not listened to the gossip myself about somebody else. For me, this season is all about pride. Why did I want to defend myself? Because I wanted people to know that I'm not like that. At the end of the day, God knows my heart. He knew all the details of everything.
Forgiveness for me started with forgiving other people, people who were not sorry and still are not sorry and don't even know the impact that it made on my life. I had to give that up. One thing that God taught me in this season is that forgiveness is not a feeling because I was fighting it. I wanted to feel that I forgive and God showed me that forgiveness is not a feeling. Forgiveness is obedience and we have to forgive others because He forgives us. That blew my mind because I stopped searching for the feeling and I started submitting my own pride and my own hurt to Him and saying, "I'm going to forgive them because you forgive me for all the things that I do."
After I got to that next healing phase, He then started showing me where my heart was a little bit dirty, where I had all these in places. I refer to this season as my renovation season. It's like He came in with a wrecking ball and He came in on this big old thing and He wrecked my world that one morning that you asked about. He got rid of a lot of things that I even wanted to get rid of because I was in a stressful place in my life. I was not really happy. He started showing me the nooks and crannies of where I needed to renovate my own heart, where I needed to clean out the cobwebs and make sure that my heart is postured in the right place.
Embracing Life Seasons: Forgiveness is not a feeling; it is obedience. We have to forgive others because He forgives us.
It then turned into me asking for forgiveness from some people who I never intended to hurt, but I also feel like you don't get to choose whether you hurt somebody or not. If it hurt them, it hurt them. It was taking ownership of where I could have been more like Jesus in the situation, even though it’s like the lion and the lamb, I needed to know that in some ways I should have surrendered it to the Lord and let Him fight my battle and me, not have to fight it. I asked for forgiveness from one person in particular. I knew going into it that it might not be received well. I knew that I might not hear back from them. As I was writing the apology, I even thought she was the enemy. She's judging me. She thinks that I don't feel this or I'm doing this for whatever.
I had to give that to God and say, “God, I'm sorry I hurt this person and I need to apologize. However they receive it, you know my heart is postured in the right place," which then is the next level of forgiveness, which is of myself because I'm a perfectionist. Once God started showing me where I could have been better, where I could have handled things differently, I was really upset with myself. Why did you let people get to you? Why did you forget your identity? Why did you forget who you are and who you are in the midst of the crazy? I had to forgive myself. I had to say, “We all make mistakes.”
Lastly, I had to ask God for forgiveness, for not trusting Him in this situation and not letting Him fight my battles. I have Him fight my battles for me and a bunch of other things that He has shown me. One way that you can wreck your world is to ask God to create a new, clean heart. You ask Him to show you where you fall short and where you can find wholeness again. He's been showing me so many things but in that, there's so much freedom. There are lots of people to forgive. It's been such a journey, but I know that this is all preparing me for the next season that He's leading me into.
Even what you've shared on social of this has been a brutaful season, the combination of the beautiful and brutal. I've been going through an interesting season myself with the shift in my career and so many of those things that defined me and so many of those things that I held onto for identity. When God strips those in a way in a hot second, there's nothing else that you can do except you could get bitter about it, but that wouldn't be the right choice which we all go through those emotions. When you get stripped down to your core, that's where God can truly get ahold of your heart and He can take you to that next level when you're like, "I don't need any of that. I don't need that person. I don't need that business. I don't need any of that." My rock and my foundation is solely in me. As you said, that gives you so much freedom and it's so hard, but it's such a beautiful gift when you can't let go and release the expectations too.
That's where I'm at because the identity piece is where He has shown me that I thought I knew who I was and I thought I had this strong foundation. Then when the words of other people hurt me so bad and when the loss of that identity left me empty, I realized that I didn't have that strong of a foundation or at least not strong enough to take me where he wants to take me. That's been the cry of my heart. Satisfy my soul, satisfy me. Now, I'm in this place of feeling empty. It's funny because He's even asked me to empty myself of even more.
I have multiple businesses and I've been in this season of emptying it all and it's been very surreal. I am cleaning out everything. I'm cleaning out closets. I'm making space for Him to fill. It took a while to get there to be okay with that, to even want more space for Him to fill up because it's so easy to be full of worldly things and things that are temporary satisfaction. I am very much in that season of satisfying me wholeheartedly with who you are and who you designed me to be. Once we get that in place, show me all the other stuff and I believe there's both and I struggle with that too. I talk a lot about God-sized dreams on social media and chasing those. I'm also in this place of knowing that we have to find our satisfaction in Him first and have a solid foundation. Otherwise, we crumble. We crumble at the words of others or the loss of things or people or whatever.
Let's go into the season that you're in right now. I know that it was pressed on your heart. You're still maintaining your network marketing business but you made the decision. I bought some of the things from your boutique and I'm like, "It's going for a season." Tell me what prompted you to put the baseball tee on hold and what does this next season look like for you and explain that a little bit more.
That started out as a hobby and I was making myself fun graphic tees that I loved and that I of course would share them on social. People were like, "Where did you get that?" My entrepreneurial mind was like, "I should have a business with this stuff." It's been a super fun adventure but God's also showing me that not every passion needs to turn into profit. With that being said, the whole mission behind the Living On A Prayer Apparel was to help women share their stories, which is why I love network marketing, because network marketing is a storytelling business. When you start to learn how to share your story, the who you were, who you are and who you're becoming, that's where the magic happens with showing other people how they can transform their lives too.
My mission for that was to help women wear something for them to be able to share their stories and share what they've gone through or whatever. With that, every single piece I've designed has a story behind it. Every piece has a purpose. For me, a lot of those pieces are tied to the last years. A lot of that is stuff that I have already laid at the cross and that I've already given that up. Not that those messages are bad, it's the chapter before and I'm moving into the next chapter. I'm sick of seeing them even though they're all special and they have really great messages and I believe that they'll have a 2.0 of it.
I've been so busy in the last years. I've had three children. I have built multiple network marketing business. I have built a coaching and an apparel business and then added a boutique to it. People are like, “You're always so busy.” I'm like, “Yes. I'm so sick of it.” I'm not going to wear busy as a badge of honor anymore. I've been calling this going out of busy-ness because I'm like, "I don't want to be busy anymore." I love business but I am allowing God to empty me of the things that I thought were the things all the callings and allowing Him to redefine that for me. All the t-shirts are slashed down and we're dwindling down to a couple of here and there, which is fun to see. Even as I look at that dash, I feel the weight of that season more and more lifted off of my shoulders in so many ways.
There's that. I've closed that. I put my coaching business on hold for the last year-and-a-half. I’ve only accepted people who came to me on their own and who even knew that I did it. I was in such a dark place that I felt I didn't have the capability of leading someone else into the light. I knew that God wanted me to focus solely on myself and my heart and my mind and really bring me to a resting place. Psalm 23 is just something I've really rested in so much in this season. I had been praying because as that entrepreneurial spirit and that go-getter, I was like, "That didn't work. What else do you have for me?" He's like, "Not yet. I want to fix you. I want to renovate you a little bit more. I want to redefine you and find you first. I will do give you that next thing that I'm calling you into. You're going to have a solid foundation."
It has been a season of emptying my hands of everything that He has blessed me with in order to be able to receive the bigger blessing that He has coming in. I stand on that and believe that with my whole heart. It is truly the only thing that keeps me going because in nobody's mind does this make sense. In my mind it doesn't even make sense but I am so expectant for what He has coming and leaning into His promises like never before. I’m excited to see what the next day even brings because day-to-day I'm like, "God, what are you doing?" I tried to take back the control a little bit and I'm like, "I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that." He just whispered so softly, "No, not yet." I surrender, I'm like, "Okay, not yet." I’m trusting that it's coming.
With us type-As, Heather, my hat goes off to you for being so courageous to say, "I'm going to let God refine me to be the best version of myself to when God puts that next thing in my path, I'm ready. He's preparing me and He's preparing my heart." What an amazing Proverbs 31 woman that you truly are, that you're willing to take a back seat to all of the things in order for Him to cultivate you, to be able to rise up when He calls you to. That as a servant leader on another level. I am so grateful to watch that unfold in front of my eyes. Thank you so much for being such an inspiration to so many women. Most women would just say, "I'm going to hustle into the next thing and we'll let the chips fall where they may." Now, they're a hot mess and the next thing and then they can't get it together and they wonder why it's not working out. It’s because you're trying to get in front of God's timing.
I would encourage you, if you are in somewhat of a season of trying to figure this out, go read Psalms 23, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” He stripped me of the desires of wanting the success of the world. Desiring the successes of Him and the abundance of Him fully so that then He can get me ready for what's coming but it is not been easy at all. I want to encourage anyone listening to this that there are brighter days coming. I lived daily and because my life is so public, I have been sharing authentically for years and I had to heal in public. Even with you in this season that you're in, healing in public is hard. I remember going into Target. I needed to get away from my three kids at one time and I needed like alone time. Part of that was to heal especially mothers to show up every day as a strong mother, but be hurting and being so broken that you don't want them to see that side. You don't want them to know you're hurting has been so hard. I remember walking into Target and I didn't want to look in anybody's eyes because I didn't want them to see my strong self-hurting.
I didn't want people to see that I was broken. I promise you there are better days coming because I feel it and it's so good and it took me a very long time to get here. I can truly say it has all been worth it. The pruning season is so hard and even though it doesn't make sense, sometimes why people aren't in our lives or what things aren't in our lives. I truly believe it so that we can have our branches, our vines, our prune so that the better fruit can come. I am saying that to myself, preaching that to myself daily because I have to believe that when I do feel empty. It's not like I have a lot of those people back or that business back or some of those things that I enjoyed in that season in my life. I don't necessarily have all of that stuff right now, but I'm more satisfied than ever before. That’s truly what I want to share with women is that it's so easy to chase the things that look shiny and sexy and unfulfilling. Those things are fun and those are gifts. I've been trying to focus on storing the treasures in heaven and not so much of the feeling I have to have everything here on earth.
Being so cognizant of how this too shall pass, this season, coming into the best is yet to come. I acknowledge you for that, Heather. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for sharing that. I can feel you.
Thank you. I haven't talked about this openly in public with people. I feel like I have my little communities where I've been vulnerable but I truly believe that this is part of what God wants me to share with women. I'm going to boldly go forward and do that regardless of what other people underthink or understand and all of that. Thank you for allowing me to share what He has put on my heart to help women seek the fullness of Him, their identity in Him and who He has called all of us to be.
I usually have a whole list of questions that I ask lady bosses or the man bosses a lot in the show, but now I didn't ask any of the questions, I just flowed with it. There are two questions at the end that I do like to ask to put a bow on it. In the end, I would love for you to share all the handles where people can tune into your beautiful message. If someone met you and said, "Heather, I want to become my own boss and call the shots, what is my first step?"
Embracing Life Seasons: One way that you can rock your world is asking God to create a new, clean heart. Ask him to show you where you fall short and where you can find wholeness again.
Years ago, I would have said one thing, even a year ago, I maybe would have said something else. The identity piece is so crucial. That is what He is just speaking to me over and over again, it’s this identity which is why I am in the process of rebranding my coaching business and identify myself as an identity coach because I want to help women do two things. The one who doesn't have the business, like the woman that you are speaking of or a man, they know that they're made for something more, but they're not sure what that looks like. I love helping people identify what that is and I believe that has to do with your identity in Christ and who you are in Him and what has happened in your life, who were you? Where are you now and where are you going? It’s digging deep into that identity peak of talking about their history and what does that look like. The other piece of that is that it's totally possible.
If God's put that desire on your heart to be your own boss, that there is a way. There are a million, you are a great example of how many Dave Ramsey, seven streams of income. There are so many different ways that we can make an income and make an impact. I feel like the impact, our identity and the impact has to come first before focusing so much on the income because I have made income in places that were not fulfilling. It’s about honing in on your identity and the kind of impact that you want to make. From there, the possibilities are endless. I mean that by endless, you and I were great examples of how we have taken this brand of who we are, our identity and our purpose. We have put it into a bunch of different things that are helping people. There's my short answer to that.
The last question, what is your definition of a boss?
These are tough because I feel like I revert back to the hustle mode and the grind. You had the God-sized dreamer. I'm going to be authentic and share where my heart is in this season. It could be different. There are seasons for everything. Maybe you're not quite resonating with this, but I'm going to be authentic to who I am. A true boss is surrendering to God and allowing Him to be the CEO of your life. It’s taking direction from Him because we can all create our own rules, our own definitions and our own set of boundaries, so to speak, and what that looks like. Yes, we can even find and create success in that. Going back, there's no wholeness in that. There's no fullness in that if we're not truly fully surrendered to Him and His will and that whole idea of dying to self. I've done a lot of studying around that.
It is hard, but a true boss who is going to make an impact and who's going to help so many people as somebody who is so fully surrendered to His will and His calling that everything flows once you give it to Him. You're tapped in and tuned into what He's calling you to do, what He's calling you to share, where He's calling you to walk and go and be and all the things. That is my answer for this season of my life because that's where I'm at and I have to humble myself because I have been “known” in all these things. He's stripping me of the desire to be known as this girl boss, this mom boss, this entrepreneur. Even though those things are great but He's showing me that, He is the thing, the thing that I want to be identified as first and then all the other stuff can fall into place.
Heather, that’s such beautiful, authentic answers and such a gift. Heather, share all the handles of where people can connect with you. I know that there's even a lot of people even in my tribe that just sometimes get confused with their who, who they are in Christ. What they do as an entrepreneur and they lose themselves in the hustle and the grind. You can help course-correct that, shed light on being purposeful, making an impact, but also making a paycheck. I would love for my tribe to connect with you on that heart level. Share it all, girlfriend.
I will tell you this has been such a roadblock for me this last year because as I've gone through this identity crisis, I shut down my website. I was like, “I don't want to speak that message anymore. He's redefining me.” I do have a website that I feel I'm right on the edge of showing it again. That literally is just my name, HeatherShriverBurns.com. If you go there right now, it's going to say it's under construction because He's still renovating me a little bit. That's a simple one. Social media, I'm on Facebook. I have a business page, I have Heather Shriver Burns, which is my personal page and then I have Instagram. The community that I have for faith-driven entrepreneurs, it's called Soul Sisters with God-Sized Dreams. It's a closed community. It's the place where I've been the rawest and vulnerable over the last year. It's a space for faith-driven entrepreneurs that have these God-sized dreams but we're committed to keeping ourselves grounded in who we are and who we are first and foremost and being satisfied in that first and then taking that out into the world. Where I'm most active right now minus my Facebook page would be the Soul Sisters With God-sized Dreams.
I am a part of that and I'm so blessed every time that I'm scrolling through Facebook and seeing her beautiful posts come through. Heather, I acknowledge you for what a gift you are to the world and being able to truly go after God and let everything else fall to the wayside. Thank you for being you. Thank you for showing us the way. Thank you for blazing a trail and you're such a beautiful example in my life. I appreciate you. I love you and I'm so thankful for your friendship.
Thank you so incredibly much. Thank you for being a friend and for sitting in the dirt with me. There's the story about Job sitting in the dirt and you were a friend that sat in the dirt with me and you maybe didn't have the perfect words to say, but you just sat there and you prayed for me. To see us on the other side of this now is truly humbling. Thank you for allowing me to share a little bit of my story. Even though I despised it for so long, I know that there's a purpose for it and no tear will be wasted. I appreciate you for the invitation and I love you and I love seeing what you do. Thank you. I cannot wait to see all the goodness to come.
As I say at the end of every podcast, it is your time to fire your fear, build your faith and become the boss of your own life. Get after it. Let's make it happen and do it for Him.
Important Links:
Facebook- Heather Shriver Burns
Instagram- Heather Shriver Burns
Heather Shriver Burns - personal Facebook page
Soul Sisters with God-Sized Dreams Facebook page
About Heather Burns
Heather is a multi-passionate entrepreneur who currently lives in Pittsburgh, PA with her very own prince charming and three children (all under the age of 5). She discovered the entrepreneur life through the network marketing profession nearly six years ago when she was desperately searching for a career with flexibility as a new mom. By the grace of God and a lot of mistakes along the way, she’s built multiple million-dollar network marketing organizations and has been able to retire her husband from the corporate world so he can pursue his passions. Heather has been recognized as a top recruiter within the profession and has personally sponsored over 500 people. In addition to teaching her own team and clients within the profession, Heather’s had the privilege of traveling and speaking on stages all over the country training others how to build businesses through authenticity, vulnerability, and recognizing the deeper calling God has on each of our lives.
Heather knew network marketing was not her only calling and in addition, she’s also created a faith-based apparel company, ran a successful online boutique, and currently is an Identity Coach for faith-driven businesswomen.
Most recently, Heather has walked through the most difficult season of her life losing what felt like everything including a $14M business. Going from being on “top of the world” to the deepest darkest valley, Heather’s learned to praise Him through it all because His ways are higher and His plans are higher. She’s also learned how to forgive others who aren’t sorry, how to ask for forgiveness from people she has hurt, how to forgive herself as a recovering perfectionist, and most importantly why asking God for forgiveness is the key to getting out of the valley and moving on toward God’s bigger plans.