Living Free

Good morning, good morning. Good morning! Hello! I'm gonna turn the music down. Good morning, good morning, good morning! Thumbs up if you can hear me. Good morning, good morning, good morning! She said it's party time. It's party time! Good morning, happy Fourth of July. You like my Fourth of July pajama slash outfit? This is called pajama slash outfit. I believe, I'm a firm believer in wear clothes that can double as pajamas. Hi, Mrs. Maddox, how are you? Glad to see you, happy Fourth of July. I see y'all have already been busy in the comments saying hello to each other. That's awesome. Um, hi, hey CeCe, um, hey Yolanda, good morning, good morning. You know, if you're in the Inner Circle, drop the circle. If you don't know where to find it, just start typing circle, yellow circle, in your text messages and it'll pop up. You like my festive outfit. Teresa says, glad you can hear me. Good morning. Hi, Miss Regina Cotton. Good morning. Thanks for the compliments on my pajamas outfit. I see some of y'all Inner Circle girls are already here. Hey Sharon, y'all. Hey Bridget. Hey Sabrina White. Mignon. Hi Mama Nina. Good morning. Good morning. Yay, I'm so glad to see y'all Okay, so for right now, I said this started with me kind of going live everywhere, and, and I said, you know, I'm gonna get back to doing that. I'm gonna get back to going live everywhere once a month. In Texas, there is a— in East Texas, there's a thing called First Mondays. It is a flea market, and that flea market, uh, you have to remember First Mondays. So the first Monday of the month, it's not on that first Monday, it's on whatever the weekend is before. So let's say July, on Friday, let's say it's like, you know, February the 28th. Well, that's still First Monday weekend because you go by the first Monday. So First Mondays is easy for me to remember. And so I said I would start going live everywhere on First Mondays, and it just so happens that this first Monday is July the 4th. Come on, Sabine. Bonjour, Chrystal Hurst. I think I've mixed in some French and some Spanish there, but whatever. All right. Hi, Sharita, it's your first live. Travia said first Mondays. So the good news is that we are here, one, celebrating our first Monday of July, 2, we are celebrating the first week of July, of which is my birthday. Woo woo! Oh, listen, I need to throw on some— let's see, Party Maker. Listen. Mm-hmm. Make sure y'all can hear that. Can y'all hear that? Oh no, you can't hear that because this is still playing. Stop this. Turn this up, Chrystal Hurst. Party Noisemaker. Yes. Come on, applause. Yes. Yes. All right, so my birthday's on Thursday. I'll talk a little bit about that later because people have been saying, what are you doing for your birthday? I actually don't know. That's not completely true. I do know that I'm gonna skydive. I do know that much. And I do know that I'm celebrating I'm really just choosing to celebrate the whole year, honestly. And I've already done a few things that I have been very grateful and, um, honored to have the opportunity to do. I went to Hawaii by myself. That was back in March. Um, last month in June, I went to San Francisco. I biked the bridge. So I've done that 50th run. If you're following me anywhere on social media, you probably already know that. Um, and so I'm kind of just choosing to like give myself a pass for the year. I love that. K Leo said welcome to the fifth floor. Oh, I grabbed the wrong one. Hold on, let me get it up. Welcome to the fifth floor. There it is. Welcome to the fifth floor. So, um, yeah, I just kind of feel like whatever I want to do this year, within reason, like within I have a husband and children. Um, and within reason, like, you know, I have a job and within reason, like I want to be committed to the things I do at my church, you know, just kind of do whatever I want. So when I kind of get the gumption to do something, I'm doing it. Now we have had, and here, and here's the hard part. I was— I have so many things to tell you today before I even talk about Free Girl Summer, which is what this is supposed to be about. Let me show y'all where my notes are. This is, this is where my notes are this morning. This is mail that came from my son, and it was, it was what was on the table, so that's where my notes are. I just pulled it up and just started writing. So that's what y'all gonna get today. Y'all gonna get the overflow of what came out of my brain a couple hours ago. I also, I also, um, just have to tell you, and so let me, let me— I'm a little, I'm a little scatterbrained today because there's so many things I want to talk about, uh, so much fun and foolery before I get to the serious part. And why does this seem low? Because I'm sitting back, but I'm trying to, trying to do all the things this morning. I'm trying to sit close so the sound is good, but then it's kind of sort of cutting off my head. But if I sit back, then y'all can see all the fun and foolery with the microphone, you know? And it's just, it's not pretty. It's like messy today. Don't, don't get me to trip and I'll have to buy one of those low-profile boom stands. Like I need anything else in my life. Any other— trying to be, trying to be my best self. Anyway, I'm also trying to not get cut off. All right. So this morning, actually for weeks, y'all, I've been trying to read this book. Book so that I could start this thing. And this is called, um, and I'll put a link to it in the chat in just a minute. So this is called The Artist's Way. Anybody ever heard of this? Ever done this? I've been hearing about this book for years, for years, um, like, like 7, 8 years. So So I, um, started reading it. I was told that it's— it has this concept called morning pages where you get up every morning and you write pages. So y'all, I got up this morning and I was supposed to start it yesterday, and then yesterday I was late for church, so it didn't happen. But literally 3 pages, 3 pages of long-form writing Um, and the point is not to let your subconscious or your consciousness get in the way. You just write for 3 pages. So it was like a 30-minute exercise. And she said in the book, she said to take— wake up 30 minutes earlier and do it. I wake up most mornings pretty early anyway, but I wake up normally, I wake up and I start doing things like whatever got left over the night before, or or maybe work. I know you're not supposed to look at your phone first thing in the morning, but I do. Um, and so, you know, I'll get up in the morning, um, typically go make myself a cup of tea, and then I just get going. So this is supposed to slow me down, y'all. I was like, this is supposed to go for 12 weeks. 12 weeks. I was like, when I was writing this morning, I was just like Oh my gosh, Lord, am I still writing? And then it says you're not supposed to look at them. Nobody's supposed to look at them. You're not even supposed to look at them at first. You're supposed to just throw up on paper. So I did. And as I was writing, this is what I was thinking: girl, are you crazy? Like, seriously, do you have— are— do you have some mental issues? Do you need to go see somebody? Because I was just writing like whatever came to mind. And part of the, the point of this is, the point of this is to unblock your creativity. Um, so like literally the— it says a spiritual path to higher creativity. Yeah, it's thrown up on paper. Now I already do that a little bit. I already throw up on paper. So this is my black notebook that goes with me everywhere. Um, I used to try to keep different notebooks for different things. I would have like a notebook for church and a notebook for my to-dos and a notebook for little things I want to remember. That was too much, it was too cumbersome. So I just— this is just my brain dump book. I have used composition journals in the past. I'm just— whatever feels good in my hands right now. This is a Moleskine, um, and, um, once, once I'm finished with the live, I'll put a link to The Artist's Way and this Moleskine in the, in the chat or in the underneath the video because I could do it now, but that would be really multitasking. So anyway, so I started, but literally, y'all, it's— this is me every day of my life, like, just throwing up. So it functions as my to-do list too. Um, I'll write down everything I have to do, just get it out of my head. And typically when I talk about a brain dump, that's what I'm talking about— all the things I need to do, getting it out of my head. This, however, was not a brain dump of the things to do— this was a brain dump of who I am, what I'm thinking about, what is right here in the front of my brain that has nothing to do with what, what I have to do. There were some feelings in here, there were some— and again, you're not supposed to read them and share them, but from memory I can tell you I wrote down, girl, are you okay? Do you need to go see somebody? What is this that just came out of your head? Um, so I've started morning pages. I do feel, uh, I do feel clean, if that's a word that you can use for your head. Is that a word I can use for my head? I do feel clean. I feel, uh, um, purged. I feel— I also feel not finished. I feel like, wow, I had a lot to say and I will probably have more to say tomorrow, which is scary because I literally like kept writing and it's like, uh, is there more where that came from? This is really not great. Um, so yeah, so anyway, I do feel purged, but I, I used to feel that way journal writing, but I think journal writing is my commentary on my life that I actually want to remember. And I think what morning pages are, are I'm not thinking about what I want to remember. I'm literally just throwing up on paper. So I think 3 pages is a lot. That's what she says to do. It did take a long time. She said set up 30 minutes ahead. It took me— I was writing for like 40 minutes. Like I had writer's cramp. I was like, am I going to be able to actually keep this? Up for every day for 12 weeks. I said I wasn't gonna look for the link, but I am because, you know, I'm a glutton for punishment. Let's see here, The Artist's Way. And then I'm gonna give you my Moleskine book too. Okay, here you go, here you go. Let's find the book. Here's the paperback because I want y'all to be blessed indeed. How about blessed indeed? All right, let me go get that link and then let me throw it in the chat. Will this let me— this will not even let me throw it in the chat. Y'all see this nonsense? Oh, okay, I'm gonna go over here and throw it in the chat. This is why I shouldn't be doing the most, y'all. One day I'm gonna have I'm gonna have a whole— listen, I'm gonna speak this thing into existence. How about that? One of these days I'm gonna have like a studio and I'm gonna have a production assistant that sits here at 7 o'clock in the morning with me and does this stuff. That way I don't have to. Look at God. Look at God bringing dreams and visions to the people. I just— listen, y'all should see how many windows I have open right now. There you go, done. There you go, done. So anyway, I want to encourage you. Here's what I want to encourage you to do. Um, I have always been a journaler. I have not been a consistent journaler in the last 20 years of my life. I was super consistent consistent up to 30, pretty fairly consistent. And then, you know, kids and babies and all that kind of stuff came along. And then, you know, and then some of the stuff you're like, you don't even want to write down. You don't want to admit that this is how you're feeling, you know. Like, if I— and I think that's a part of it, actually. I think that a part of the whole point of, uh, morning pages is that you don't judge yourself. You don't judge what is good or bad or ugly. You don't, you don't decide what is, um, okay or not okay. You're thinking nobody's going to read this, including me. I might not even read this again. And sometimes it's not about other people judging you. If you're like me, it's, it's you judging you. I am a horrible judge of myself. Myself horrible, um, because I wanna— I wanna be a good person, you know. I want to be a good person. I want to do the right thing. I want to make sure that I'm, um, that I'm living my life well. And sometimes, if I'm telling the truth, uh, I, I get in my own way of just being honest with how I'm feeling, you know. So I think there has to be a safe space. So the good thing about about having a therapist, which I have friends right now who are probably laughing at me because they're constantly encouraging me to do the things that I need to do in my life. Um, but the, but the thing is, uh, you, you know, having a non-judgmental space is important, and giving yourself the gift of non-judgmental spaces is important. So even if you're a journaler and you're thinking, you know, one day I'm going to pass this on to my daughter, guess what? Or you're thinking, what if, you know, what if one random day I die in some freak accident and then I didn't put my journals up, I didn't burn them in advance? You're self-editing probably as you journal. So I was literally starting this, these morning pages, and thinking Okay, when I finish this, am I going to keep this or am I going to burn it? Because it is pure, pure, pure, like uninhibited, not self-conscious, not self-judgment writing. You got to have a space to do that, whether you're writing or you're talking. I have been known to write in— I mean, journal out loud. I will— if I like— I've been known to talk to myself in the car. Does anybody talk to themselves in car. I talk to myself in the car. I will— if I really, really want to get it out and hear my thoughts later, like what was really on my mind, then I will, um, I will journal out loud verbally and turn on my voice memo. So I will listen to myself, um, later if I want to. Or sometimes I throw it up, get it out of my system, and delete it. Okay, great, I'm not the only crazy person that exists. Exists. So I want you to know we all have our own kind of crazy. We all do. And you have to give yourself permission to be whatever kind of crazy you need. Come on, somebody! Whatever kind of crazy you need. I feel like this is not the right— this is not 8.5 by 11. This is like 8 by 10. I'm really trying hard to find my, my soft cover Moleskine notebook for you. Okay, I'm going to put one in the chat that's not quite classic notebook. It's XL, it's not XXL because I don't like the big, big ones. Uh-huh. Where are you? There you go. There you go. And you're an Amazon Choice too. So anyway, Um, and we'll again, we'll put these— you don't have to grab it now, we'll put them in the chat later or in the, um, underneath the video. There you go, that's the Moleskine notebook. All right, Chrystal, get back to talking, stop shopping. All right, so yeah, so the thing is I think that uninhibited honesty is crucial for your health and well-being, and it doesn't really matter where you, uh, it doesn't really matter. All right, let me close this. It doesn't really matter where you're honest. You could be honest in your beautiful journal because maybe you don't care. I mean, I've been honest in earlier journals, but as we live, we learn to self-edit. We learn what is acceptable, we learn what is not acceptable, we learn to be afraid of what if somebody picks up my journal and reads it. Um, Tippy said it is easier to talk to yourself in public while wearing a mask, and then they done taken the mask away, girl. Um, you can talk to yourself in a morning pages situation like what I did today. Um, you can talk to yourself and record it with a voice memo, or you can talk out loud in a non-judgmental space with a friend friend or the counselor or therapist, somebody who is— doesn't really care about your life. They're not in your life, you know. But I think you have to talk to yourself and be honest about really where you're at, what's on your mind. You need to give yourself space. Um, one of the things, y'all, we have been working on the new, um, Full Circle— I say it's a Full Circle planner, it's like a Full Circle journal It's, um, it's plenty of room for you to plan your week, but also plenty of room for you to dump your brain. Because I'm a firm believer that if all you write down are the things you have to do, but you're not paying attention to who you are, where you are, how you're feeling, it's an incomplete picture of your life. Like, I need to notice when— how I'm feeling each day. I need to notice where I am with my habits. I need to notice where I am with the things that are important to me. And so anyway, it's beautiful. I'm really excited about it. We were hoping to have it ready for July launch, but it'll be ready for fall launch so that you can get your planner for 2023. And the good news is, is that those who are in the Inner Circle, you'll get PDF versions of that to utilize for our 90 days. So you'll get all the beautiful things and get to see it in advance of everybody else. All right, so speaking of Inner Circle, good morning, happy 4th! If you just got here, I'm glad you're here. Normally I can see how many people are on these, but I can't see my Everything is acting up. I'm doing all kinds of weird things this morning. Y'all listen, I have this rhythm of the things that I do to go live. And because we're in a new home, that rhythm has changed. So this morning I was like, y'all should have seen me. You should have seen me trying to make sure that the email went out to the people that are on the new home and that the email went out to the people that were on the old home. And then to make sure that the new home had the post ready. I mean, just chaos, chaos. Oh, thank you for the count, that's fun. Oh yeah, speaking of which, I forgot to go live on Instagram. I cannot do all the things, you know, I just cannot. Oh well, they missed that part. They'll have to catch up with that part later. All right, so I'll fix that in a minute, but here is Here's what I want to tell you. First of all, y'all, if you are in the Inner Circle and you are still on Patreon, if you got an email from Patreon this morning, quit tripping. What are you doing? Move already. I'm sending you the emails, you have your instructions, and your legacy pricing will not last forever. Like, you gotta, you gotta— so the thing is, if you were in the Inner Circle before. So if you were in April, May, June, if you came in in the second quarter of last year, um, then you had— you get legacy pricing. You were in before we moved. Okay, so claim that. We have given you instructions for how to do that. Here's the good news for everybody else. If you were not in the Inner Circle before now, then the good news is that you can still take advantage of special promotional pricing until Thursday. My birthday is Thursday, 7/7. The Promotional price ends at 7:00 PM. All right. So like everything else in the world, pricing has gone up for the Inner Circle. We are giving way more, way more than what we initially even planned to give at our initial pricing. So it's been, we've been overdue for that, but we want to make sure because gas is stupid and because I want to be sensitive and because it's my birthday that we created a space for promotional pricing. We'll be trying an always open model. We'll see how this works. I'm willing to try it. So if you don't get in by Thursday, you can still get in. Like, we're not going to close it. But if you want the promotional pricing, like, you need to get you there for ASAP, over there right now. Okay. Some of the levels have limits. So our connection level, which is— don't get me to lying about the prices. I'll just say connection. The connection level has a limit. The coffee level has a limit. The community level does not have a limit. Um, so you want to get over there and get over there now. So I'm so excited that you all, uh, for those of you all have moved over, I would love for you in the comments right now to talk about the site. Like, do you like it? Are you enjoying it? Um, and we just like, this is like move in, we just closed, we just got the keys. Chrystal Hurst's Inner Circle 101. So be looking for things to get updated and change. Changed. Um, and then, uh, to add features, um, like I have— let me tell you about my big vision. Let me tell you about my big vision. This is my big vision. Y'all ready for this? Why don't I have a charger for my phone in here? Is my phone gonna last? We'll see. I'm gonna, I'm gonna go live on Instagram and then they gonna get what they gonna get because I don't have a charger in here for my phone. But I'll do it. I'll do it. Okay, so here's my big— here's my big dream. My big dream. And this is— I'm talking about my big dream. The Lord has not necessarily sanctioned this already, so I'm gonna wait on him. But this is what's in my head. This is what has been forming in my head. So all of my life, all of my life, I have been gathering women. All of life. I mean, back to the playground in the second grade, I was the one who wanted to break up the fight and for everybody to be welcome in the circle. I didn't call it the circle then, but on the playground I didn't want anybody to be left out. In my teenage years, I was the girl who, um, started a Bible study with the preteens. Um, in my 20s, I started a Bible study in my home. In my 30s, I started a Yahoo group. Does anybody remember Yahoo group, Yahoo groups for moms at home. And I said, I wish I had a bunch of moms who were in the same season of life as I am, and I wish we were all next door and I could go over the— across the street and get a cup of sugar, but I couldn't. And so we created an online space for that. So oftentimes— and I'm not going to start preaching quite yet, but I will say this— oftentimes what you are looking for God to do in your life, he's already doing doing. Like, he's already been doing it. You, you're gonna catch up with what he's been— you're gonna catch up. You're gonna get the memo. You are. But a lot of times what God is doing in our lives, he's already been doing, okay? You— he's just been littering breadcrumbs along the way. He's been littering breadcrumbs. And what happens in life is you got to pay attention so that you start seeing what he's been giving you the whole time. It just takes us a minute to catch up. Okay, so, um, now we had— we had— y'all, I started, and I'm— I wish I was more strategic. I'm working on it. I'm reading a book right now on visionary leadership. I'm working on the vision statement and the mission statement and all that, um, the values, all of that, the boundaries of our team, what we can and can't do, expectations. Decisions, all that, all that, all that. I'm growing a lot right now as a leader, as a manager of people. Listen, for those of y'all who manage people, managing people is not for punks. That's a whole thing, right? But here's the thing. The thing is, I didn't start this. Like, I didn't, I didn't start this. I started with the things that came as they came, and now here we are. So I wish I could show you, but my whole setup this morning is not cooperating. Normally I can flip over and show you my screen, but that must mean I'm not supposed to get distracted by showing y'all stuff. Um, the Inner Circle— so let me back up. So those are the things, those are the breadcrumbs. Let me go live on Instagram because they're waiting on me. It's like, hi Instagram, I almost forgot about you, but here we are. Yay, you're here. I'm live with everybody else. Um, so if Instagram is your, is your place of choice, then you're good, you're good. We're here together. I'm so glad you're here. All right, so, um, everything that God has already been doing in my life has said, Chrystal, you gather people, you gather women, but you gather people. Most of the time it's women, sometimes it's people. Of all gender varieties. So here's what happens. What happens is I knew, and actually at the prompting of a friend, um, she was like, why don't you start a membership? You, you podcast all the time. And people would say, because they look at me and they say, Chrystal, you know, I want to contribute towards your ministry. And I'm not thinking ministry, I'm just thinking this is what I do, right? So I didn't have a place for that. And she said, why don't you start a Patreon? That's easier than like starting a nonprofit and doing all that. So I started a Patreon. It's $5 $10 a month. Then people wanted more and I gave more. So then we created a $25 a month level. And then people said we wanted courses, but Patreon didn't do that. That was my home. So we went over to Teachable and we created courses. And then people said, well, we want you to create shirts and stuff. How do you plan your life? Oh, we created a planner. Well, we need a store for that. So we went over to Shopify and we created a store for that. And then of course we wanted community. So we had a Facebook community. So we had built our home in 4 different places. Okay, some of y'all feel like that, right? You move into a place that's supposed to be temporary, so you don't unpack the boxes, and then every time you move, you move the boxes. So you're not really in the home that's the right home. You just keep moving your boxes from place to place. That's what we were doing, moving our boxes from place to place. So the dream was back in 2017 to have a place online called the Sister Circle, which is why there's a Facebook group called the circle. But the sister circle is broad. If you are a believer, you understand the principle of Titus 2. Titus 2:5 says that the older women should teach the younger women. And the older women teaching the younger women does not mean older in age. It can mean that. It can mean that you know something that another woman in your life needs to know. I consider that, um, Miss Johnson, who was my mentor when I had one of my internships in school, that she was a a— she was a part of my Sister Circle in that season. She met with me every week on a Monday and just asked me how I was doing as a young Black girl working in a big corporation and having that experience. And that, at that season, that was my Sister Circle. I have had women in seasons where I was raising toddlers and we were— we would meet at the park and have playdates and we would say, what book are you reading? And we would swap toys. In that season, that was my Sister Circle. I've had women who I've read books with in book clubs. That's my sister circle. I've gone to Bible studies for years, so whatever group I was in that year, that is my sister circle. I serve in a ministry at church, that is my sister circle. The women in my family, that is my sister circle. So what you need to understand is that we all have sister circles. The question is, are you being intentional with the circles you have? Can you speak into someone's life Can you speak into someone's life? Can they speak into yours? Can they be honest and tell you, listen, that's not— you're going to regret that later, you know? Can they say, this is something that I've learned, can you learn from me? Okay, we all have them. The whole point of the inner circle, the point of the inner circle is that you want a greater level of intentionality. You want more from me. Me. You want more from other women in my Sister Circle who teach, who preach, who share, who encourage, whatever. You want to have ongoing accountability in community for whatever the goals are that you set for your life. And you want to learn by watching me or watching other women how to be better in your own Sister Circle. We want to create tools in the Inner Circle that we use together, that we use to make our lives better. And then I want you to take those tools however you get them. Some of you are going to get them because you're in the Inner Circle. Some of you are going to get them because you are, um, um, you are, uh, uh, you're gonna buy a course and then you're gonna do it with friends. Some of you are going to get them because we create like a 21-day journey and you're gonna, you're gonna grab that. You're not going to be in the membership, but you're gonna, you're gonna buy that when we start making those for sale. And you're gonna say with your friends, we're going to do a 21-day journey on habits, or we're going to do a 90-day journey of thriving in our lives. So we're going to create the content. The Inner Circle gets to use it. They get to do it live. The courses and the content are created in live experiences, and we do that together so that we benefit, so that we benefit from each other, and so that the girls who want more from me are getting that from me live, all the live things that we do. And then later, what we're going to do is package that up and say, now here, this was born out of what Chrystal Hurst created for the Inner Circle. Use this with your sister. Circle. Some of them will be Bible studies, some of them will be book studies, some of them will be courses, some of them will be journeys, some of them— I mean, like, you know, the whole point is it's a trickle-down effect, right? Have you ever been to a party and, um, if you've— hey Shawna, thanks for the, for the dibs there. Have you ever been to a party and had like a chocolate, like it's a chocolate fountain, right? And the chocolate comes out of the top But then it pools in the first level. And after it pools in the first level, it flows to the second level. And after it flows to the second level, then it flows to the third level, right? And it doesn't matter. Here's the good news. Why does my illustration have to be about chocolate? But it is. The good news is it doesn't matter what level you dip your strawberry in because every level has the chocolate, but you do get to choose which level you dip in. Into. So the Inner Circle is here if you want to dip into the top layer when it's fresh out of the origin, when it's fresh out of Chrystal Hurst's mouth, when you're seeing the mistakes and you're seeing the fixes and you're seeing all that, but you're also getting the first fruits of the, the delivery of the content. That's what the Inner Circle is for. So I want to invite you all to come on in, come on in. Now, um, for those of y'all who are wondering, we will still continue to have, uh, that beginning $5 level. It'll still exist over at Patreon. We're not going to shut that down right away. I realize that some people— listen, that's all you have and you want to be a blessing, and we're grateful. Um, and so, you know, buy our team a coffee, buy me a coffee, that's what that's for. So we'll leave that there and we'll open that up after we're done with this, after my birthday. But for right now, um, the Inner Circle, the primary location of the Inner Circle— and here's the good news y'all. When I had this idea about the Sister Circle, I mentioned this last time, I bought the Sister Circle domain. It was stupid expensive. Like, I was like, I don't have this, um, but I'm gonna talk a little bit about this in just a minute. Sometimes in order to do the next thing, you have to, uh, you have to make an investment, right? You have to make an investment. So I bought the domain. I had no idea what I wanted to do with with it. So the Inner Circle, we, we started with taking the podcast. Some of y'all know we took the podcast and we renamed it. It's no longer Chrystal Hurst Chronicles. It is the Sister Circle podcast, and I'm hosting it. Why? Because I'm hosting it. And maybe one day I won't be the only person who hosts it. Maybe the Sister Circle is not just about me. I don't even know. I don't even know. I don't know who it is. I don't know when it is. I just know we're better together. So we took that first step. It's still just me right now, but maybe it will not always be. Okay, now the next step is we had the sistercircle.com. We owned it. And now the Inner Circle, guess where it lives? The sistercircle.com. So You know, you just got to start somewhere. You got to start somewhere. So for some of us that's listening to the podcast, for some of us that's watching the videos, for some of us that is reading the book, which, you know, I'm supposed to have my books behind me. Do I? I do. That's what they say. You know, when you put up a camera, you're like, you're supposed to have your stuff behind you. So yeah, we are doing that. But you also sometimes have to step out and say, I don't even know where I'm going yet, so let's just go. Let's just go. Um, so the inner circle is me just going. But here's what I really, really, really, really, really, really want to get excited about, and this is what I want to tell you. I kind of sort of know where we're going, and I don't. I don't. So I keep making this up as I go along. So here's my big dream. I said all that to say what my big dream is. My big dream is that, um, the Sister Circle— one day everything for the Sister Circle lives on the Sister Circle, meaning that it's not just the home for the Inner Circle, it's not just the home for the courses, it's not just the home for the product, it's the home for a blog, I get the opportunity, mainly through our internship, to run across so many talented writers. Okay? I would love to give these talented writers a place to share. Not just, not just, I mean, I feel this way for a variety of reasons. Number one, I want to give women of color a place to share. There are a lot of places in the world to share. We don't always get dibs. Number 2, I want to give a place for all women of any color to share because they're women of faith at varying levels. I don't want to only have women of faith sharing who like have it all buttoned up and all together. I want raw, I want real, um, but I want a place where really good writers can come and share and we can all learn, right? Like practical. I believe in Bible studies, y'all teach the Bible, but I also believe that we also have to figure out how to like do the the thing? Like, how can I— how can we do the thing? Um, I also want the Sister Circle to be there so that there's a free space and that there's the paid space, but it's all one space. We're all together. Um, okay, here's another one of my dreams. I'm just— if I can just dream out loud for a little bit, I would love to— um, so sometimes there are women who have great content and— but they don't know how. They, they did— listen, y'all, it took me— I don't know, how, how long was it when I bought my first camera? I bought that first camera, gotta be almost 10 years ago. Um, I bought a second camera, was it last year? Okay, so I got a good camera with a great lens. The lens is everything. Okay. And I dropped some money on that lens. So when I run into women who say to me, I have, I have this content, right? But I don't, I don't know how to do the video editing. I don't know how to make it look good. I don't know how to stage myself behind. I would love to have a production company so that when we're producing content for— oh, I just got chills up my spine, probably because I said it out loud. So that when we're producing content, whether it's for Chrystal Hurst or for anyone else, that it goes for the inner circle first. You know, the chocolate comes down, um, and then anybody in the world who considers themselves a sister, meaning you're a woman of faith, um, that you can take this content and learn and grow from it, right? That I can take a woman who said— who has great content, who can present her information, who has lived life, gotten a degree, developed a skill, has years of experience, but who doesn't know how to work a camera or do it herself to say, no problem, okay, come to Dallas, we will set up a studio for you, we'll record it. And then for women who say, uh, Shawna said count you in for the production company, okay. Uh, then for the woman who says, okay, maybe, maybe I couldn't produce it myself, or maybe I could, but I don't have a large platform. And I don't have the biggest platform, I don't have 2 million followers. However, the platform that I do have, like, y'all are here. Y'all are here. Hi Jackson, I love you so much. Y'all are here for it. And if I say to my platform, y'all, um, this girl is going to teach you how to get your house in order and how to get a rhythm for cleaning your house that works, or this woman is going to teach you how to develop how she orients her whole life to make room for working on her doctorate degree while she's still raising her kids and while she's still holding down a job. Learn from her about how to balance your time. Or if I say to this other person, listen, this woman is 70 years old. She's never been married. She has no children. And yet she feels like her life is full and she's been able to develop relationships that have filled up her life and she's learned to live successfully as a single woman. You go listen to her. What I can do, what I can do with the platform that I have is tell my people, go listen to her so that women who maybe don't have the platform or that don't have a desire to market or don't have the juice to market. Listen, that I can say, here, here, here is a place. The Sister Circle is a place where we all get better together. We're better together. Chrystal Hurst has information, but I do not have all of it. I don't. So my goal, yes, is to create a great space. Miss Brenda said it out loud, where we get to network, where you get to network with other women who are like you and also learn from other women who are who you want to be. You got chills too, Alicia? I got chills. I got chills. And you want to know why? You want to know why I'm getting chills? And here's the thing: when God wants to do something in your life, he will always dream something bigger than what you can do. What I can tell you is I can't do all that now. But I can tell you, I cannot do all that now. One of the reasons why I don't— I feel better about promoting the Inner Circle and telling y'all join and say— let me tell I tell you why is because the membership is what funds all this. Like, the reason why we can, um, create content, the reason why I can, um— I mean, I have a sweet girl who comes in here every Friday and makes sure that my camera and everything is set up, and she makes sure that when I sit down on Monday morning, I have notes. So I didn't have to type these up on Sunday night. The reason why that girl exists, sweet Emily, and also Miss Ke'Andrea, they're here, is because the Inner Circle exists. So the production company will come, but it's gonna come because we grow slowly, and I hate growing slowly. I hate it. I want to do it yesterday. I want to create it yesterday. But I will tell you, like, you know, I mean, I wish, I wish you could see all the things I have. I mean, you can't even see, but I'm gonna show you. Listen, I have Cloudlifter for the things, and I have motus. Look at this, all this stuff I have. I have all this stuff. But I'll never forget, y'all, I was in church, uh, I was in my 20s. This had to be 25 years ago at least. This woman walked up to me and she said, um, she said Have you ever thought about being a producer? I said, what? She said, a producer. I said, what? She said, the way you hear music, like you don't just hear the music, you interpret the music. As a singer, as a choir director, as a pianist, you don't, you don't just play. There's a soulishness involved in that. You hear things other people don't hear. So here's the thing, as leading worship at church, I don't like talking in between songs because I don't want to interrupt the flow of what the Spirit is doing. And sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes if a worship leader talks too much, they interrupt. Like, if I was entering the inner courts, if I was thinking about the courts like in the Old Testament, right? You have the outer court, you have the inner court. So you're in the outer court with worship. Some of y'all worshipers will understand what what I mean. And you are headed into the inner courts, right? And if somebody starts talking, like, it interrupts your flow, right? So I've never wanted to be the worship leader who talks. I was just like, I'm just so— but I also didn't want to have to end, end a song and begin a song. So what I would do is stitch the songs together. I would make sure that I could sing like 3 songs in a row that were stitched together. And so they would just flow from one to the other so that we could just keep going inside, further inside, further inside, until you are at a sweet place of communion with the Lord, right? That, that does not happen if you keep getting interrupted, right? It's like being a mother and trying to finish a project, and your kids keep coming in the room and saying, but Mom, but Mom, but Mom, but Mom. And you're just like, what? What? I'm trying my best to finish some You know, I mean, I could really be crass and talk about something else that if somebody interrupts you when you're on your way, it's the worst ever. But I'm not going to be crass this morning. It's too close to my birthday. But somebody say, let me go all the way. Some of y'all are so sweet, you're not gonna know what I'm talking about. All right, it's the Sister Circle. Somebody said they love it when it flows, but sometimes I have to be careful about where I flow to. No pun intended. I'm gonna stop. Stop, Chrystal, stop. Okay. Oh my goodness, I'm not doing it, y'all. Y'all not gonna have me be out of the Holy Ghost on today. All right, I had a friend tell me one time— so this is one of my friends of the lighter hue. She's one of the most smart marketing people, um, I've ever met. Um, and, uh, she said to me— I'm going to come back to the production thing in just a minute— she said to me, Chrystal Hurst, I just need you to teach me. And I'm looking at her like, her husband's some bigwig for some major company, you know, just they're, they're very well to do. And I looked at her and I said, my sweet friend Courtney, teach you what? Uh, and she said, how to boil an egg. I said, what? She said, the thing is, there are so many basic things, so many basic things that for me or my friend friends. She said, there are people in your life and you're talking about like deep spiritual things, and we need that. I also need you to teach me how to boil an egg. And what she was saying is, no, my mother didn't teach me how to cook. My mother didn't teach me how to run a house. My mother, my mother didn't teach me, um, how to prepare in advance to have a Sunday dinner. She said, I know how to cater it. I know how to cater it, but I don't know how to do it myself. Um, she said, teach me like the basics. And I am amazed at how many of us, we— that we, we will do a Bible study all day long, but we don't know the basics. Like, we don't know the basics for how to talk to our men. We don't know the basic— my husband might argue you don't know how to either, but anyway, we don't know the basics for how to manage our time. We don't know the basics basics for how to, um, like, listen, y'all, I, I like, I'm serious. We don't know the basics for how we get the stuff we want to have at work. We don't know the basics, like, seriously. So let me, let me, okay, so let me, so back to the production, and then I'm going to talk to you about the pool. Uh, so the, the production, she told me this, what she was basically telling me when I was in my 20s is you see things other people don't see. You hear things other people don't hear. Okay, I can teach anybody to edit a podcast. I actually love teaching it, right? I'm not a podcast teacher. I have a friend, Angie Elkins. She taught— she coached on that. She's a brilliant podcast person. Um, she can— she can teach the course. I don't know if I want to teach the course. I'll let her teach the course, right? But I love teaching people that come to work here, like, how do I do it. But there's a thing, there's a nuance, and not everybody has the nuance. Like, someone that's musical typically has the nuance. They can kind of see like this, they hear things other people don't hear. And what that lady was telling me is, you see things people don't see, you hear things that other people don't hear, you should produce. You should learn how to produce. Now what's funny is, it dawned on me the other day as I was in GarageBand and working on iMovie, and you know, we use Adobe Premiere and all these things, and I've got my Ecamm Live and my Restream and all these different things. What dawned on me the other day is I'm doing what she said. Like, I'm sitting here and I'm, um, like, y'all, if y'all listen to the podcast, you know right now when I do interviews, I'm using music that makes me think of the person. You know what I'm using when I do that? I'm using my production skill. I go, or one of the girls actually is going, Miss Carson is going, one of our interns, and she's selecting music for every person. She gives me 3 or 4 to choose from, and then I say, this sounds like the person, and then I bring it in. Or when I add a shoo as a transition, that's me timing, that's me, that's production. And it dawned on me the other day when I was creating the podcast, when I was finalizing the steps, that when I used to watch my husband who worked for Kirk Franklin for years, when we would go into the studio and I would watch their sound engineer edit. Now they were using Pro Tools. They were using something way more intricate than I'll ever use, but it was the same thing. He was punching in and punching out. He was editing in and editing out. He was working on the volume control. He was mixing. Guess what I'm doing when I'm editing a podcast in a very simple way, but Still, I'm mixing. I'm a producer. She called something out in my life that I didn't see, and now I'm like, oh wait, I've been doing this the whole time. So you know what? I'm a producer. I produce my own content. And as we continue to grow and as the finances are continuing to, to develop, then what we do is I don't just produce me, I produce other people, right? Because the gift that we you have— going back to chocolate— should flow out of the original source, and then it pools, and then it flows, and then it pools, and then it flows, and then it pools. And different people at different levels get to benefit from your gifting. Different seasons of your life get to benefit from your gifting. But it only does that— here's the kicker. Oh, I feel it, I feel it right now. Here is the kicker. You hear this? You ready for this? The key is the original source has to be flowing. The original— if there is no flow, if the flow— hey Susan, I need you, honey, to come and talk about real estate and homeschooling and all the things. You are on my list, honey. You are on my list. Not that you need me, honey, but you on my list. The thing is, you have to be a source that's flowing. You don't get to flow to other levels. You don't get to see the development of concentric circles if you yourself are not flowing in your gift. Yes, Sheila Murray said, it's a fountain of life. That is right. So as long as you're breathing, you should have something flowing out of you. It doesn't have to be perfect, but what happens is, as you continue— and here's what happens with the chocolate thing, oh my gosh— if that thing starts flowing, do you know what happens to the chocolate? It starts congealing and it starts clogging up the thing. It's no longer good for you. Right? We hate those little things where they don't continue flowing, right? So you have to continue flowing. What does that mean? You have to continue, you have to continue, right, doing whatever it takes for you to flow. You have to do whatever it takes for you to flow. And this is the, this is the pathway of learning and growing and developing. This is what it means to live, is that I keep scouring my environment, I keep looking around and saying, what do I need to be the best I can be? Do I need the degree? Do I need the experience? Do I need the friendship? Do I need the circle? Do I need the time? What do I need to be the person I'm supposed to be? Because I gotta keep flowing. What happens in life though is we get stuck. We get stuck. We get stuck raising these kids. We get stuck on this job. We get stuck in our finances. We get stuck in that marriage. We get stuck at the same location, even though we'll say over and over and over again, I should have left this house, this neighborhood, a long time ago. I've been saying to myself I was supposed to move to New York my whole life. Or maybe you're saying I'm supposed to be traveling over here. I'm supposed to be engaging in this group. And the things that you say to yourself over and over again, that is deep calling unto deep. That is God, the Spirit of God that is in you, saying, come with me, sweet girl. Come with me. Come with me and let me show you who you are. And if you don't answer, you'll get stuck being comfortable. You can be stuck in a job that's making six fingers if that's not what you're supposed to be doing with life. Listen, and I am here for stick with the job. Like, so many people bail too early on the job. Listen, y'all, you, you can do that. And I, I realize, I realize that some— I realize that seasons are different. I'm not telling you to stay at your job 30 years. What I'm telling you is there are some things you don't get good until you commit to that second year or that third year. Listen, quit leaving early. You 3 and a half years in, stay until you're vested. Oh my Goodness, get everything. Squeeze the blood out of the turnip. Get everything you're supposed to get. You're— get everything you're supposed to get from every season. Don't go to the next season and say, I didn't learn that lesson. Here I am learning that lesson again. You want to flow in who you're supposed to be, you need to be scouring and looking for the opportunities that God is providing for you. And don't bail on one opportunity, one commitment, because you see because you see something that you want, it doesn't mean that you bail. Sometimes it means it's and, or sometimes it means when, or sometimes it means later. But you should be looking, looking, looking. You want to know why we get stuck? We get stuck because we stop looking. We get stuck because we stop looking. But looking does not mean action. Looking means vision board. Looking means dreams. It means goals. Looking means by the By the time I'm 40, I would like to have— by the time I'm 30, I would like to have— I listened to, um, I was with a girl recently, uh, who was in her early 30s. She owned multiple businesses. And I was, I was, I was traveling, um, with my friend, and I went to this, this event. My friend did not go with me, so I came back to the room and I told my friend about this, this woman who was 31 and owned multiple businesses. I said, what? I said, what am I doing with my life? And she said, she said, I can tell you exactly why. She has multiple businesses. I said, why? She said, because nobody told her she couldn't. Nobody told her she couldn't. We absorb so many of the things we can't do. And I think that it's generational, especially if you're a woman of color. I think our grandparents, right, were They were born in a time when they remember, they remember the white fountain, no colored can drink here. We are children of our parents who are the first generation for many in our family to get degrees or to break out, to do great things, to be doctors and lawyers. And they built their lives on the backs of their parents, our grandparents. So we heard those stories. We're third generation, right? We're third generation. So we remember our grandparents, we remember our parents, we remember the stories. Struggle, right? So we know that there's a struggle. Let me tell you what our children don't know. They don't know that there's a struggle. My child— my, my children, I literally told them, this is where generational provision begins or ends. Because you remember your great-grandfather, that's a blessing. You remember your grandparents. That's a blessing. But you didn't live with your grandparents. You didn't see the struggle firsthand. So you've gotten the overflow of every blessing that has come to you from your parents, your grandparents, your great-grandparents. You're just dipping your strawberry in chocolate and going, this is great, this is awesome. So all you're practicing is dipping your strawberry in chocolate. Let me tell you what you're not practicing. You're not practicing being an original source. You are not scouring and looking about for every opportunity. You're not hungry. You're not willing to do whatever it takes. But here's the good side of that. Here's the good side of that. If you are under the age of 40, especially if you're under the age of 30— in fact, if you're here under the age of 30, give me a, give me a fist bump because I love knowing when you're here. I love knowing that you're here getting the wisdom. Listen, here's the beauty of being that age. You're just dipping your strawberry in chocolate. Nobody told you that it had to come down 3 and 4 levels to get to you. Like, you didn't have to go through the flow of that. You just get to dip your strawberry in chocolate, and nobody's told you what you can or can't do. I see you, Tati. Tiana, I see you, Mrs. B Note, I see you, Christine Lucy, I see y'all, Jasmine, I see you, Jasmine, I see you, MVZ, I see you, K Jack, I see y'all, I see you, Brianna. So the beauty of where you are is nobody's told you what you can't do. Nobody's told you that you can't make 6 figures by the time you're 25. Nobody's told you that you can't own multiple businesses by the time that you're 30. Nobody's told you these things. Are y'all looking for me? No, I was just like, why are you awake? Because I woke up. Um, come say hi. I woke up at 8:00 for 2 weeks straight. Come here, just say hi. Lean in so they can see you. Hello. All right, it's still Monday, it's still oatmeal. Alright. So, uh, nobody told you. So whatever is in your heart to do, do it. In a world that's not colorblind, but it's certainly in seeing color, is making attempts in multiple pockets to honor everybody of every color of every age. Nobody's telling you you can't. So you can. But while you can, don't forget that every opportunity that you have, black, yellow, red, or white, to dip your strawberry in the chocolate came because somebody was an original source. And we are growing up, y'all. We are operating in a world of copycats. All we're doing, we take a reel off of Instagram and we literally look for the reel that's trending. We don't pick the reel we like. We don't pick the music we like. We pick the reel that's trending. Trending because we have to copy what's trending in order to have a reel that's trending too. Like, you know, I'm not mad at that. Like, do what you gotta do to get the whatever you're trying to do. I'm just bringing to your attention that we're all copying. Who else is in here? Oh, is it still you? And I'm telling you, it doesn't flow from copies. I'm, I'm telling you it doesn't flow from copies. You want to know how you can be true to your original self? And, and let me back up. I'm not saying that you can't copy people. We all are copying. When we, when we become mothers and we want to be a good mother, we, we look at what our mother did and we say, I'm going to copy that, I'm not going to copy that. We look at our grandmother and say, I'm going to copy that, I'm not going to copy that. Like, you get to pick and choose. But I'm saying operating out of your own originality and then deciding deciding what you take from other people in this world to build your life on. Okay, right. So you need to, um, be scouring, scouring and saying, what am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to be doing with my life? The reason why the Inner Circle exists is because we typically don't do a good job of that. We typically wake up at 50 and we go, what have I done with life. I've had 5 jobs, 7 jobs. I haven't built anything. I've had the same job for 30 years and I have, I have, I have doused my own dreams because I was too afraid to try something new. We typically get to a number and go, what am I doing with my life? Most of us don't do a good job paying attention to our lives. And the point of the Inner Circle is to help you do that. That's the point. It's the point. It— me showing up here every day, I literally— one of the things I did write down in my morning pages this morning, I literally said, why do I go live every Monday and share a stream of consciousness with total strangers? Who knows? Who knows? What I know is, is that like, um, Eric Liddell, he's a runner, a missionary, and he ran and people would get down on him because he— they would say, why are you entering that race? The work of God is over here. And he said— and he entered races and he won, and he Olympics, the whole nine yards. Google him, Eric Liddell, L-I-D-D-E-L-L. I read— there was a season where I read a lot of missionary stories to kids. Thanks for capturing that, Shawna. You should email me that. But he said, I feel the wind of God when I run. I feel the breath of God when I run. I feel the energy of the spirit running underneath me when I run. I feel the pleasure of God when I run. There are things— ah, there are things that you do in your life and you know it. You know, when I do this, when I try this, when I go outside of my comfort zone and experience this. I feel the pleasure of God when I— what is that? What is that? That could be your children when you're reading to your babies. That could be when you go for a walk in the morning. That could be when you are studying for a test and you get a grade and you know, this is— I do good at school, I should get as much education as I can. You should know this, that when you are fighting a case because you're a lawyer, when you are serving somebody because you're a nurse and you're, you're in the ER serving— I know this, my friend Michelle was here with me last night and she said, I know I'm doing what I'm supposed to do when I come home and I was able to minister or share with somebody. Leave that open because it gets hot in here. What are you doing? Great, open the door. Thank you. You should know, she was here with me last night and she's just like, I love my I love my job. I love my— she may sometimes want to change which hospital she works at. She may sometimes want to be a traveling nurse, but she knows, I feel the pleasure of God when I'm serving the least of these, when I can make them comfortable, when I can take away their pain, when I can stabilize their blood pressure. Listen, where do you feel the pleasure of God? And here's the thing, if you don't know, that's okay. Just look. Just keep looking. You know what, let's, let's share that in the comments because I see some of y'all already starting to do it. Um, Jen Manswell, she said, I can feel the breath of God when I write, direct, and produce. Tell me, where do you feel the breath of God? Renee Smith said, I can relate. I feel God when I'm walking. Best relaxation and exhilaration at the same time. Where do you feel the pleasure of God? Rhonda said, I feel it when I'm nursing. Jessica said, I don't know. Guess what? That's okay. That's why you look. That's why you look. That's why you try stuff. That's why you try stuff. Kim said, I feel the pleasure of God by serving people or building someone else. Ordinary Girl said, I feel the pleasure of God when I write and encourage young women. T said, I feel the pleasure of God when I work with my students and their family. Real Food and Drinks said, I feel the pleasure of God when I'm cooking and eating healthy food. I feel the pleasure of God, Kendra Brown says, when I'm praying for someone. I feel the pleasure of God when I'm serving others. I feel the pleasure of God when I'm serving in my community. I feel the pleasure of God when I'm teaching. I feel the pleasure of God when I'm encouraging others. Listen, it doesn't have to be tied to your income. It doesn't have to be tied to your family. It doesn't have to be tied to your education. It doesn't have to be tied to your work. It's just— you know it when you feel it. I feel the pleasure of God when I teach students with autism. I feel the pleasure of God, um, when I— with family members, when I'm speaking to family members in the military in South Korea. I feel the pleasure of God when I am helping women prepare for advanced age and end of life. Oh my goodness, oh my goodness. I feel the pleasure of God when I'm studying the word with someone. I feel the pleasure of God when I'm in stillness and serving others. I feel the pleasure of God when I am worshiping God in my me time. I feel the breath of God when I can make an unexpected miracle happen for someone else less I feel that I'm the pleasure of God when I am with women and I'm writing. Here's the good news. If you don't know where you feel the pleasure of God, you are still breathing, you are alive, you are here. Keep looking. Keep looking. There's a verse. Let me find it. Hold on, let me find it. I love the Bible. I love the Bible because I love Jesus. I also love the Bible because even people who don't love Jesus can understand and recognize this is one of the greatest books of wisdom wisdom and principled living that you will ever read. 2 Corinthians 16:19 says, for the eyes of the Lord run. They don't just walk, they don't just mosey, they run to and fro throughout the whole earth to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless towards him. Here's the good news. While you're looking, what brings me pleasure, God? What brings you pleasure? How can I feel the breath of God on my life as I run, as I walk, as I move, as I have my being? Do you know what the good news is? Here's the good news: he is looking for you. He's looking for you. He's looking for you. Let me tell you who else is looking for you. 1 Peter 5:8: Be sober, be vigilant. Vigilant because your adversary, the devil, walks around like a roaring lion seeking who he may devour. Be sober, be serious about the fact that you have an enemy who is looking for you. Let me tell you why you're getting stuck. It is to the enemy's advantage to keep you fearful, but God has not given you a spirit of fear, to keep you thinking that you are alone, but God did not spare his own son but gave his own son up for you so that you could be saved and spend eternity with him. It is to the enemy's advantage for you to feel stuck and not to remember that you can do all things through the power of God who lives in you. It is to your disadvantage that the devil wants to convince you that there's nothing special about you, but Psalm 139 says you were created and stitched together in your mother's womb. There is no one like you. It is to the devil's advantage to convince you that things will never change, but the Bible says everything works out for the good, for the good of those who, those who love the Lord, Romans 8:28. 28. So the question is just, who are you looking for? Because you got two people looking for you. When my babies— my babies, my grandchildren— when babies, any babies, when they are in a situation where they fall down, what do they do? They look up. Why do they look up? Because they're looking to you to tell them that they're okay. Am I okay or not? If it's a stumble. Now, if it's like, if they fall off and break their arm, they don't look up, they, you know, but if they stumble and they're learning to walk and they stumble, the first thing that they do is they hit the floor and then they look up. And you know what they're looking for? They're looking for you to tell them how they are. Am I okay? And what do we do? We've learned as parents, as moms, as aunties, as big sisters, we've learned to say, you're okay. Okay, or we'll say, good job, because we're like, if we can convince them that that fall wasn't the end of their living, then we know they'll keep going, right? We know they'll keep going. So the child has the discipline of stumbling and looking up. Now, sometimes I've been around a family member and the child stumbles and looks up and the other family be like, oh my God, and they freak the kid out. They transfer their fear and their freaking out to that kid, and then the kid hollers louder, they freak out more, and those are not the people I want around me. I'm like, shh, shh, shh. Shh! Stop! You'll freak her out. You'll freak him out.' The baby looks up— 'You're just a baby.' Can I tell you? I'm about to turn 50, and I've had so many women when they say, 'You're turning 50?' And I say yes, and then they're older than me and they say, 'Oh, you're just a baby!' I don't care how old you are. You're just a baby. And when you stumble, when you fall, when you feel lost, when you feel overwhelmed, you're just a baby. Look up, look up, and decide that you're looking to the one who really, really is looking to and fro for you. His eyes are running around the earth looking for you to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless, to those who are looking for him, who— for those who want to be obedient, for those who want to pick up their Bible and learn how to live. The problem with age— and yeah, somebody said it, I was serious, I came home, took that right out— the problem with age is you start to think that by this age I should have, by this age I could I could have, by this age I wanted to have. And those things may be true, but after you stumble over yourself about the coulda, wouldas, and shouldas, are you looking up? Because he's looking for you. He wants to support you. He wants you to operate in the places and spaces where you feel the pleasure, his pleasure running underneath you, his breath behind you, the wind of God in front of you, making a way for who you're supposed to be in this world. And listen, I can tell you because I wrote 3 doggone pages in this morning thing. There is a bunch of crap going on on the inside of me. And if all I do is look at the crap, if all I do is look at the mess, if all I do is look at what's happening in my brain, and if I look at it and I judge myself or I cut myself off or I say this person should not have this or this person can't have done this, if I say to myself, girl, by 50, are you just now getting to just not getting to the point where you've built your own website? Are you just not getting to the point where you're actually able to have your own business, to manage people and develop? Are you just not getting to the point where you haven't yet created your vision statement and you're just now doing that? If I start doing that to myself, do you know who I'm looking at? I'm not looking at God. I'm not looking at God. I'm looking at the enemy who wants to give me all of the reasons why what I've done is not enough, why all the things I've thought are terribly bad, why the people who really know me in fullness and integrity would never love me just the way I am. I'm looking for him. I'm looking for the toxicity that he is willing to dole out if I'm willing to take it in, instead of saying, no, my child, you're exactly where I want you to be. And even if you were late, don't worry. I, with the breath of that I pour out through the Spirit of God in you, I have the power to move you along where exactly where I needed you to be. Even if you wasted time, I have a way to catch you up. Even if you have regrets, I have a way for you to make good on those regrets so that they pay off and overflow and benefit other people to come. Even if your life has not taken the path that you wanted to take. It doesn't matter because I work all things out for your good. You had no idea what I was creating in you when you were the little girl excluded on the playground, and you knew how that felt, so you wanted to gather other women together. When you're 50 years old, the website that you created, the inner circle that you created, and all the dreams that you have for including women who have experience and skills and education and life journey to share with other women— all you're doing is gathering women together on the playground. And you want to know what? That's exactly what I allowed to to happen. So this would be exactly the mission that you would be on in exactly the time for such a time as this. You're looking at everything that's gone wrong in your life and saying, because this is wrong, I can't, I can't do, I can't have, I'm too late, I'm too behind. And God is looking at you, and when you're on the floor and crying over the fact that you thought you could walk and you couldn't walk far enough and you couldn't walk fast enough and you couldn't do near enough. You're crying about that, and God is saying, oh no, honey, that's because I needed you to learn that lesson. I needed you to learn that lesson. So I hate marketing. I hate sales. I, I totally— there's a whole group of posts that y'all didn't see on social media yesterday. Because even when I do sell, and I know we have to do stuff, we have to send the emails, we have to put stuff up on social media, I know all that. I hate doing it. Um, and even when I do, y'all, I don't even like doing it on Sunday. If I do anything on Sunday, it's later in the day. I don't want to be distracting them. They need to be focusing on church. Go to church, hear the word of the Lord, marinate on that after church, take your Sunday nap. Don't let me interrupt any of that. But one of the things that has— that helps me, um, and I still don't like it, but one of the things that helps me is when you know, when you believe that the thing that you have actually helps somebody, you're not marketing, you're not selling, you're making sure they know. They can choose whether they do it or not, you're making sure they know. I literally was at an event recently with my dad, my sister. He received an award in DC. Um, why am I sticky? Because I forgot to put on deodorant. Just sticky. Okay, so, and this lady came up to me. I've met her before. This is the third time I've run into her. She said, when are you coming out with your next book? I said, I'm working on it. She said, you've been working on it for a while now, haven't you? I said, yeah, I have. She leaned into me, she leaned into me, and she said, you realize you're holding up my blessing, right? While you're trying to figure out what you're trying to do and why you are wrestling with the thing. I said, it's really, it's a really hard book to write. She said, okay, I I understand that, but why you taking forever? You do understand that I learned from you? Do you understand that I've read She's Still There like 3 times? You do understand that it has helped me to look at my life, help me to fight for my life, help me to develop my life, help me to coach myself? You do realize that, don't you? I said, I've had a lot of people tell me that it's been a blessing to them. She said, yes. So whatever is boiling in your heart to do, why are you taking so long? Because my life— not, not that she can't do God's word, not, not that that doesn't— she just said, God allows me to learn from you. And when you wait to do what God has put in front of you next, you are holding up what I'm supposed to be learning from you. So then when that book is finished and it's out in the world, if I don't market it, if I don't tell everybody about it, if I don't say, hey, I put blood, sweat, and tears into this, and I did that because I believe that the lessons that I've learned, God wants me to share them so that you can learn not first from me, but learn from him. And then the Bible says in Revelation that we overcome by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of our testimony, right? He puts the blood of Jesus in the same sentence with the word of our testimony. In other words, community and environment and social experience spiritually, these things matter. I have been mentored more by books from people I will never meet than actual people that I've sat down to coffee with. Right? So she said to me, listen. And so if I believe that, if I believe, hey, I'm going to put my time and energy into something and I really believe it can help people. And if I don't tell them, that's what marketing is. Now there's a lot of sleazy marketing and there's a lot of email funnels and, you know, psychological things. That stuff exists. I get that. But also, also there are people who go on Shark Tank, right? And they've spent their life savings creating something that solved a problem for them. And then they realized it solved a problem for a bunch of other people. And then they They realized that I can't grow without additional funding. So they come on Shark Tank to talk to, you know, to talk to all the people about getting some money. And they— and you know what? And we've watched it, the Shark Tanks where they seem a little crazy, you know, they're so hype about their product, like they're so hype about their product, right? And we watched them. And you want to know why they're on Shark Tank? You want to know why they're asking for funding? You want to know why they get up in front of the sharks and tell story? You want to know why they're selling their product, selling themselves, selling their story, selling their inventory, selling their financials? Do you want to know why they've done the work and why they come ready to say, hey, I'll give you a portion of my company if you'll be willing to support it, because this is where we're going? You want to know why they're doing that? Because they believe in their product. They believe in their product. And I have to tell you, there have been seasons where I did not believe in my product. And by my product, what I mean is my book. What I mean is the Inner Circle. I would put out the content because I was just doing it. I was like, okay, I'm supposed to do this, I'm just gonna do it. And then something magical started happening. Women would email me and tell me that they went through a 90-day and that they actually checked their goal off the list. And they'll say, I couldn't have done this if I didn't have you in in my ear every week giving me an assignment, if you didn't give me the tools, the planner, the paper, the downloads to document my dreams, if you didn't make me write things down, if you didn't tell me, Chrystal, a million times to write it down, if you didn't tell me, now go into our community group and share what you've done, share what you've done, even if you didn't finish, put yourself in the light, be willing to be seen, be honest about what you've accomplished. I would not have done this, Chrystal, if you didn't have those kickoffs and those endings, those celebrations. I would not have done this, Chrystal Hurst, if you didn't gather other women and other information from other people to encourage me, for me to know I'm not alone, if I didn't know that in the community I wasn't the only person who forgot to do my thing this week but we're all going to get back on it together, I wouldn't have finished. There was a girl who came to me and she, um, it was a 28-day prayer journey. This was before it was a book. This was when it was on Instagram years ago, okay? She came to me at an event. She brought a photo album, like a little one, like, like little, you know, like half of this, half of this. It's a little plastic and you just put your pictures in there, okay? She said, I want you to know these are my answered— oh, I want you to know these are my answered prayers. 'You did that 28-day journey on social media and encouraged me to pray every day, multiple times a day.' Hey, Dr. Jada. 'And I did. I didn't do it perfectly, but I did. And I wrote down what I wanted God to do in my life. I wrote it down, and one by one, he answered my prayers.' She said, 'One of my prayers was a new car, and I'm not not about— I believe, yes, pray for the car, pray for the money, pray for the increase. Jabez said, Lord, increase my territory. But I'm not just talking about things, I'm talking about emotions and people and to grow deeper in the faith and for God to show you direction. It's, it's seen and unseen. But she gave me this photo album and, and walked me through her answered prayer request. She walked me through the car that she got, down to the color and the price point that she needed. She said, look, it was like he saved— he saved the car for me. Then she went to a picture of her and a family member. We hadn't talked in years. Then she went to a picture— she just kept showing me these pictures. She said, look at this. And she said, the reason why I was able to, to pray consistently is because you showed up every day reminding me to pray. This is back when Instagram was chronological. This is back every day when you reminded me to pray. So if I believe that prayer matters, and if I have a book called The 28-Day Prayer Journey, which I wasn't even trying to write, y'all, I did something on Instagram and then it became a book on accident. If I believe that prayer matters and if I have a book that keeps you praying every day multiple times was a day. Why wouldn't I tell you about it? Well, why wouldn't I tell you about it? So here's, here's the deal. I, I don't really care. Like, I don't care. I mean, I believe in ministry. That's why the podcast and the videos are free. Okay. The Sister Circle is not a nonprofit. It is designed to make money so that we can do a lot of things. Okay. I don't apologize for that. Not that nonprofits can't have money, but y'all understand what I'm saying. The point is, what do we need to do to create a space and place where women can be seen, heard, encouraged, encouraged to live with intention, to look at their lives, to pay attention, to know where they feel the pleasure of God. Where do I need to create a space where other women can come and by virtue of their experience, their skill, their education, they are skilled enough to teach, they're skilled enough to train. And if my friend Angie Elkins, who is a podcaster for a living, has a teaching that she can deliver to teach other women who want to develop podcasts how to get their voices into the world. If that's how she makes a living, then yes, yes, y'all come pay Angie. I'll help Angie market. I'll create a space for her online, but pay Angie. Let her make a living from her skill and her, and her abilities. Absa doggone lutely. I was talking to a publisher recently and they said they— well, they actually asked me if I wanted to be a, an acquisition I was kind of excited about it for a minute. And then I was like, "I don't have time for that." But then she said, "Maybe there's another way that we can connect with you because you do connect with a lot of women. And I'm sure in all of the women that you see as writers or speakers or teachers, that you see women who should have books in the world." I sure do. "Well, maybe we should figure out a way to connect because maybe there's a way for you to make relationship." I sure would love that. We're not there yet. Yet, but I believe it's coming. There's a lot of things coming. I have domains for names I've bought, um, that I haven't used. I have other names, company names, nonprofit and for-profit alike, that are unseen. I have lots of things. And you know, not to be morbid or anything, but Steve Jobs died. He was on his deathbed still spitting out ideas, still spitting out ideas. I believe that when you are connected to God, when you are connected to the Spirit of God, when the Spirit of God lives in you, and I believe that that happens when you believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Let me be clear about that. But the Spirit of God, when the Spirit of God is at work in you, I believe that is the source of the original flow. Now, there is such a thing as spiritual flow. Y'all have heard me talk about that before. There's a video on YouTube, it's The Power of Intuition. And I believe that every person alive is a spiritual being and every person can hear about the flow from somewhere. Now, you may not be hearing about the right flow, Or you may be hearing about the right flow at the wrong time for you. I believe that the Spirit of God is the one who crystallizes and clarifies what is the flow that you're supposed to be walking in, in the right now season. He is also the one that crystallizes and clarifies the flows that are to come. So even before you get there, you know where you're going. I have no idea what's going to become of those other companies, whether they'll come to fruition, when they'll be able to be funded or staffed, when I'll be able to— I have no idea. What I know is that they're in here, and I write them down, right? I just believe that if you will connect yourself to the Spirit of God, that you will connect to yourself, to be quiet, to be still, to go for a walk without something in your ear so that the Spirit of God can speak to you and you can hear it— I believe that what happens is things that you don't even know are in you start to come out. It's original flow. All right, y'all, I don't even know how long I've been on because my Ecamm situation— oh, we're going into the second half hour of the second hour. My word. All right, all right. I'm looking at y'all's comments. I'm getting caught up. Here's what I actually need to say to y'all, and then I'm gonna— I'm gonna go ahead and record. I don't even know if we're gonna take this down, but I'm gonna pretend like we are. Here's some things, um, that I wanted to talk about. That— back to the foolery. Let me stop preaching for a second. I have a bag here because here's another thing that I may do one day. Okay, um, so Anthony and I and Priscilla are friends. More Anthony than, than me, and more Priscilla than me. But Ashley Graham, y'all know the supermodel? She's one of the sweetest women, women alive. Her and her husband are great people. And every time I do anything where my face is close up, she messages Anthony and says, why doesn't she have a skincare line? I'm like, because I don't know how to create a skincare line. But you know what, maybe one day I will. So just because of foolery, I brought a Starbucks bag full of, full of things I use on my face because people always want to know, what do you use on your face? But I'm just going to say this. First of all, back in the day, Oil of Olay, Oil of Olay, And every now and then I still use it because— and this is the original, this is the original version. I don't need the SPF, the extra retinol, retinol, this will keep you from looking old, $40 version. I just need all of Olay, okay? And I used it this morning because I wanted to smell like all of Olay. It's thinner than I would prefer my stuff to be. So, um, here's another one that I have fallen in love with. It's, it's almost empty. This is the Clinique Moisture Surge. It's Moisture Surge. Okay, let me tell you my problem with Clinique Moisture Surge. It's a million dollars. It's a doggone million dollars. I'm about to learn how to make this myself or something, but I love the way it goes on on. And let me back up. Let me tell you why I still use Oil of Olay, okay? Let me tell you why. Because there was this lady that used to be a receptionist at our church, and she was like 60-something years old. It looks like she was 25. And I said, what do you use on your face? She said, people ask me that all the time. Oil of Olay. She's Oil of Olay. So guess what? We not gonna stop using. But I love the way this goes on. It's like a mousse. See, I only have very little left, very little left. It's almost time to go get some. It's like, it's very moussey and it just goes on cool. It just makes me feel great and it smells good. I have decided that most of these places are taking our money because of the way stuff smells, like we like the smell or not. Okay, so here's another thing that I I love. This is, this is Moisture Surge, but it's Moisture Surge Intense. It's like the same thing, but it's a little thicker. Also Clinique, also Clinique, but it's a lot thicker. See, see, it's more milky, it's more milky, it's not as bouncy, but man, it makes your face feel covered. I feel like moisturized to the hilt. Somebody told me that, um, the Moisture Surge, the regular one. It's a great under, under makeup, like a lot of times I forget what they— like a primer. It's a great primer for makeup. I have found that to be true, and it's very, very light underneath your skin. Okay, so I have this because this came from my mother's bathroom. It's called— it's the Roc Multi Correction 5-in-1 Daily Moisturizer. It actually irritates my eyes a little a little bit, so I don't wear it often, but it smells like Mom. It smells like her. I love the way it smells. So I'll use this. What I'll do is I'll moisturize her with— I'll moisturize with this. Usually this is my everyday, and then I'll put this on top of it because it's a little thicker and it smells like my mom. And I'm not gonna lie, sometimes I do— I moisturize with multiple layers of moisture. Okay, okay, now here's my new fave. So y'all, I'm a Young Living person. I mostly get them to diffuse Young Living smells in my house. Hey, Kanan! Okay, I'll do do with that a minute. Anyway, this is, um, the Art Series. It's an intensive moisturizer, Art Intensive Moisturizer. And this is cool, look at this. You push and it just squirts up, just squirts up right here. So this is great. Like, this is equivalent of this, like nice and thick. Um, it also— my eyes don't like it. So I'll go around. Oh my goodness, but when I tell you this thing lasts forever, forever, and you need so very little. Oh, so very little, so very little. So their Art Series, and I didn't bring it up, I only brought moisturizers, I didn't bring my whole face thing. All right, y'all, now this one, some— this came in the mail. Wipe under my nose. Thank you, Shawna. This came in the mail and this is amazing. It's called Amorepacific Time Response Skin Reserve Cream. I don't know how I got this. I don't know who sent it to me. I don't know why I have it. It's this tiny little thing, right? It's this little thing, A-M-O-R-E-P-A-C-I-F-I-C. I actually think this is the best moisturizer moisturizer I, uh, have had. Like, I've never bought it though, it came as a gift. One, I love the smell of it. Two, it's the thickest one. Oh, and it just— I'm gonna be so shiny by the time this is over with. But honestly, y'all, before I even started this morning, I had already put on like 3 layers of moisturizer. And I honestly think that being Highly moisturized is the key. I just think moisture is the key. I cannot stand to be dry. I hate dry skin. So, um, yeah, so, okay, all right. Now those are my moisturizers. I did bring two things that are not moisturizers. This is Clinique Take the Day Off. This is another one of my faves, okay, because— oh, this is— this one, Amore Pacific, is that the one? Amore? It's tiny. I found it on Amazon. I said I was gonna buy more, but it lasts— this little thing lasts so long. So anyway, I'm a moisture fiend. This, this, you like dip it out in your finger. It feels like coconut oil, right? Feels like coconut oil. It makes taking your makeup off so easy, but y'all, it's a million dollars. So let me tell you what I did. I made my own. I'll try to get my videos together. I actually took some videos while I was making it. And, uh, well then, okay, so, so I'm not seeing all the comments, but I did see see this one, so I don't know if it's the The Dica or Tha Dica, but then you want this one. If moisturizer makes you perspire a lot, then this one is super light, this one is super light, the Moisture Surge from Clinique. Where is my SPF? I don't know, do any of these have SPF in it? Who knows? This one has an SPF of 30. I don't know. Does this one have SPF? Girl, I don't know. You know Black people don't burn. Lies, lies. Okay, so I will, um, show some videos next week, y'all. Inner Circle extras. So I made my own, and let me tell you, the beauty of making my own is that I then got to use my Young Living oils to make it smell the way I wanted it to smell. And I love this, I love this. And basically it's just double boiling some shea, some coconut, some beeswax pellets, and then it re-congeals. So we'll see, but I may be, I may be done with this. I love this, but this is a million dollars, so Yes, and coconut oil is great, but it's just— I love, and I know that it works by itself, but I like the— I liked the luxurious feel of this. Like, coconut oil goes on, you know, and it just gets super thin. I love, I love the lotiony— it's not lotiony, but I love the thicker. So I made my own. Yeah, so yeah, so that is the, that is the Tour Day lotions, the Tour Day moisturizer. Uh, okay, I talked about The Artist's Way, gave y'all notes about that earlier. We talked about moisturizer. Plans for the 4th, um, I did the preaching first, y'all. I did the message first. Now I'm gonna come back and give you all the foolery, y'all. We have a pool. Oh my gosh, Lord Jesus, help. We have a pool. I've never had a pool before in my life. Now my face feels all greasy. We've never had a pool before. I don't know what we're doing. So, pause. Yes, JD Rosa, Priscilla and I have a Bible study coming out. We're going to launch it at Desperate for Jesus, our church's women's conference. It is called Stones of Remembrance. We're taking our mother's book and we took it to the next step that she didn't get to do to make it into a Bible study. And so, it'll be coming out in July. So, this is great. Okay, thank you for saying that. Any products for my eyes? No, because I have not been able to find something yet that doesn't bother my eyes. And the Clinique stuff that I put under my, like everything is like puff up your skin. I need to find something. What I need for my eyes is water and sleep. That's what I need. Okay, what was I saying? I was talking about— oh, the pool. So y'all, so we have a pool company that comes and takes care of the pool. I don't want to know about the pool, but the pool company's been a little janky lately. They got bought out, and the company that bought them out, we are bailing ASAP. ASAP, ASAP. But we— it's the Fourth of July, so we're supposed to be swimming, right? Um, so I went to— I called somebody on the phone who told me that they really take joy out of taking care of their pool, ask them what to do. Then that meant I had to go to Leslie's. I went all the way to Leslie's Pool Supplies, and he told me I had to go back home and get a sample of my water. Then I brought it back, I took pictures of the pool. Y'all, I let my pool filter, for those of y'all who know, run. It's been running now for almost 48 hours because the pool was dirty. The pool cleaner doesn't seem to be picking up— the little thing that goes around, the little robot thing that picks— it doesn't seem to be working well. So we went back to the pool store. He told me what was wrong with it, but it has to order a part. I just was out there yesterday, y'all, with the net, like, getting stuff out of the bottom of the pool and thinking, ain't nobody got time for this. I don't have time for this. I don't have time for this. I do not. But here's what I realized, because my friend who likes taking care of her pool, she said, you do realize you can learn, right? I said, but I don't want to. She said, but even if you don't want to, you should learn. She told me that before the pool company got a little janky. You wanna know why she told me that? Why is that? Because there's a day that comes when maybe the pool guy doesn't come and you should know how to do it yourself. You don't have to do it yourself every day, but you should know how to do it yourself. So when we first moved here and I thought, you know, well, the boys are going to do it. And then I realized if the boys do it, they can, but then that still means I had to manage them. I don't want to manage them. But one of the things I said to them was every time the pool people people come. You go out there and you watch and learn. You go out there and you watch and learn. So this weekend, with all the drama and the time that I don't have for taking care of a pool, um, I was like, I should have— and I did watch and learn a little bit, but I was like, I should have been watching and learning because there comes a day when I have to do it myself. I kind of feel like this about my mom, like Sunday dinners. I watched a lot, I learned a lot. There's a lot of things I can cook. I'd never really sat with her and I told her I wanted to do it. I said, I want to sit with you from a Saturday to a Sunday and do everything you do to produce a Sunday dinner for 25 people and still look cute. You know what I was telling you earlier? Look for God because he's looking for you. I really do mean that, because sometimes the season of your life where you have to clean the pool, where you have to make the meal, you have to be the mom, you have to create the business. You have to understand the thing, the way things are done at church. You have to be the leader. You have to be the wife. You have to be the good friend. You have to be the one that starts the Bible study. You will look back and say, I should have been paying attention. I should have been paying attention. And here's the good news. The good news is I got to go to Leslie's. They were so helpful. They were so helpful. And he was trying to explain some stuff to me and I was like, I don't know what you're talking about. You got to break it down for me on the basic level. And he did. And I thought, here I have been avoiding this all this time, thinking that it's harder than it is, thinking that it's going to require more work for me than it does. And all I had to do was look to learn, or had to go down to the place where they'll be helpful. Sometimes we go down to the place, we pick up the book, we pick up the Bible study, we join the membership, we get the mentor, we get the coach, we go to the therapy, we do our morning pages, we do what is required because we weren't paying attention and now we want to double down and focus, right? This is a season for me to double down and focus. I'll be 50 on Thursday, and I'm trying to be very, very clear not only about what I want to do for my birthday, what I want to do for the whole year to celebrate my birthday, but what I want the legacy of my life to be and how I want to pour my time into that or not. So I'm looking, I'm looking at other people who have done it well, and I'm saying, what did I learn from them? I'm going to the store, I'm buying the books, I'm taking the classes, I'm paying for the coaching so that I can learn what I need to do so that I can get busy doing the right thing in this season. And I'm looking for these things because I want to see what original work God is at work creating in me. I want you to do the same. All right, so here are my announcements. Here are my announcements. And then I'm gonna be 50 and give away two $50 gift cards to Amazon, because why not? I'll give away one to an Inner Circle member, and I'll give away one to somebody who's here. Okay, how about that? All right, so here go announcements. Um, one, I already told you the Inner Circle is open. It will remain open. We're going to try the always open model. I don't know if we'll like it, but we're going to try it. So we're going to try it. All right, so you can go to chrystalhurst.com/innercircle and learn about the different levels that are there and decide whether or not you want to be a part. Okay, I love that. Thank you Thank you so much. She said, happy birthday, you have a legacy already and it sounds like you will be adding to it. Thank you for that. What does go away is the special promotional pricing. So if you just got here, then go there by Thursday at 7:00, because like everything else in our lives, the pricing of the Inner Circle goes up. It takes a lot to do what we do, but there's special promotional pricing because I recognize that gas is stupid. So go to chrystalhurst.com/innercircle. Www.christalhurst.com/innercircle. Find out about it. If you can't do it right now, if going to the store to get the information to learn yourself, because you know that you need to take care of your pool, the water, the overflow of your life. I just made that connection. That was pretty good. If you can't do that right now, I get that. I've had seasons of my life where I can't do it either. So that's why the podcasts are free and the videos are free. Okay. So that you're still getting information.. But if you want to get the information for yourself firsthand from me and from those who are in the inner circle with me, if you want the community, the accountability, the opportunity to dig in and dig deep, and if you want to be a part of the inner circle, because the inner circle is how we build things. It's how we build things. That's how we hire people on the team. That's how we do all the things. All right. Uh, Kendra said, how can you upgrade your membership? Well, at this point, what you want to do if you're in the Inner Circle is, first of all, Kendra, move over to the new home. Then once you get settled in there, then you can upgrade. But go ahead and move first. Okay? Yeah, gas is stupid. All right, so, um, if you move over, you'll be the first to experience our new website and our virtual home. When you join, we are starting a— our new live community course. It's what we all do together. It's when we go through a course live, we're experiencing it together. So you can take a course at any time, but if you want to take it while everybody else is taking it, it's like being in class together. Our new 90-day journey, which is called Remembering You, we are basing that on the book She's Still There. So if that is a book which I've heard many of you say, it's a book that, you know, you do the work and then you got to do the work again. If you've never read it or want to read it again, we'll also be offering a book club for those of you who want that extra. But Remembering You takes the bigger tenets of that book and says, hey, let's do the work. Like, you read it, okay, but did it change you? Do the work. Um, on— in addition to that, my publisher has agreed to give us the Bible study teachings from the She's Still There Bible study. So we have 6 Bible studies that you'll be able to watch. They'll only be up individually for a week, and then they'll come down. But if you've never done the Bible study, then you'll have the opportunity to at least watch my teachings as a part of the Inner Circle. So they're gifting that to us, so we're really excited about that. Hey, Isabel, and one of your kids said, you're right, Miss Chrystal, gas is stupid. It cost me $90 to fill up my tank yesterday. I looked at my kids and I was like, we're not going nowhere to merch, and that's it. Okay, the good news about being in the Inner Circle is that when you're in at Community, Connection, or Coffee levels, you get extra discounts. So you can buy the books at a discounted price, or you can buy the courses at a discounted price, or you can buy your shirts at a discounted price if you are in the Inner Circle. Move over. Why? Because if you were already in the Inner Circle right? We have a special shirt for you that says Founding Sister on it, and you have to get in the Inner Circle, um, fill out your form so we know what your size is. You get that when you— we have it all hooked up for you, okay? If you're not yet in the Inner Circle, we will now have an Inner Circle shirt every year. It's something we're going to let our interns, uh, create and develop. But, um, the Founding Sister one goes to the ones who were in it before we opened, like they were in first, and then we'll have a founding sister shirt that we make, um, an Inner Circle shirt that we make available to anybody who's in the Inner Circle so that way we can recognize each other. Y'all, if you have been in the Inner Circle already for a year or more, we have a special gift for you. We're having all the fun. My husband is like, you know the Inner Circle is supposed to generate income, right? You're not supposed to spend it all, right? It's like, yeah, but it's a celebration. Okay, um, okay, so if you're in it, move. If you're not in it, get in it before the promotional rate disappears. Uh, all right, $50. Okay, so here's what I need. I need you to, um, go ahead and just tell me easy peasy what you had to drink this morning. Put it in the comments. If you are an Inner Circle member currently, be sure to put your yellow circle or circles that so that I can recognize you. And then I'm gonna pick one person that is not in the Inner Circle and one person who is for a $50 gift card to Amazon. Why not? Why not? Tell me what you drank. And if you're in the Inner Circle, be sure to put your yellow circle after that. Here's what I need you to know while y'all are dropping your drinks and your Inner Circle circles. Uh, here's the cool thing. Here's what I'm gonna be doing for the month of my birthday. We not gonna kill us, we're not gonna kill ourselves, but we are gonna do a lot. So y'all, a podcast will be released every day, every stinking day. We have a podcast. We're going to be alternating between a solo episode with me and a vid— and an interview podcast with a guest. Today, soon after I get off of live. I will make sure we send out the email, uh, with today's podcast. You will only get one email a week, but it'll be like a magazine that tells you about all of the podcasts that will be released this week. So when we send out the email on Mondays, the first two— because at the beginning of the week we'll do a double header, one with me and one with a guest— the first two will be live and you can go listen. I will show you what else is coming that week so you can decide for your listening pleasure what you want to do. Okay, but here's the only way that you will know when the podcasts come out. You need to be subscribed to the podcast. You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify. But when we put them live, you'll get a notification when they go live. Okay, that will only— because we don't want to send you an email every day. We don't want to that to you. So the way that you know that a podcast has gone live, maybe a podcast you planned on listening to, is if you're subscribed to the podcast. So when you get the email today and you go listen today, okay, um, what I need you to do is whatever podcast player you have, subscribe to, to my podcast. So when the podcast goes live every day during the week, weekdays, then you'll get it. You'll be like, okay, it's live, okay? And if you're like, I thought you said you were going to be going live every day and you didn't send me an email— I'm not sending you an email every day. Subscribe to the podcast, okay? Uh, someone said, are you going to go live on your birthday? I don't know, I don't know, it depends. I don't know. But if I do, the way you'll know is if you're subscribed to YouTube or Facebook, or if you have all of your notifications on on Instagram. Yes, Shauna, subscribing to the podcast is free. Good point. Don't want to miss the listens, you subscribe to the podcast. You don't want to miss the videos, you subscribe to wherever you're watching now. Okay, all right, uh, so today we're dropping a podcast for me and a podcast from Christine Kane. This podcast from Christine Kane is fire. It is fire, y'all. We had— we, we tried to podcast and, uh, we could not get a good connection. And Christine said, she said, I think this is because it's supposed to be an excellent episode. I said, I think you're right. We came back later and did that podcast, recorded that podcast. Total fire, total fire. The name of the podcast is the Sister Circle Podcast. When I tell you, and I've interviewed Christine, I think this is third time. This podcast right here though, this one, this time. Now, how do you make sure that you get the email today? You have to be on my email list. I sent out an email last night. If you did not get the email last night, you not on my email list. How do you get on my email list? Just go to chrystalhurst.com. And right below my picture, there's a box. Put your first name in it and your email and I'll email you. Okay? Okay. So A, make sure you're on my email list because that's how I communicate. B, one day we're going to have text messages for those who opt in, but we're not there yet. That's expensive. 2, uh, make sure if you want to watch anything that I do, I'll send you an email, but it's even better when you just get a notification and YouTube says Chrystal's live, because sometimes I just go live. Okay, Yalitza, this is a good question. If we become patrons, how do we get info? Because I don't have social media. Email. You don't have to have social social media to get the information that you need. If you want to make sure you don't miss the lives, subscribe to YouTube or Facebook or Instagram, but YouTube is probably the best. Number 3, if you want to get the notifications and if you're not on my email list and if you're not on, and if it's not video, if we're talking about audio, subscribe to the podcast. Just say, I want to know anytime Chrystal Hurst puts up a new episode. Okay, Monique says, I always get the bell sound when you're on. Awesome. Red Rubo's tea, honey, that's the winner right there. Keto coffee. All right, did I say all the things I was supposed to say? I think so. I think I said all the things I was supposed to say. Doubleheader podcast, subscribe everywhere. Promos go away, 7/7 at 7 PM. Go right now, chrystalhurst.com/innercircle. Uh, I think I said all the things. I think I said all the things. Oh, here's what's cool, y'all. Here's what's cool. So if you're in the new home for the Inner Circle, you know how you have to click the little button and then the button takes you to YouTube? You know how you have to do that? Okay, so the cool thing is now you can just come to this, to your dashboard. You can go to YouTube if you want, but the video is playing on our site. You don't even have to go to YouTube. You can come to our site. The video is playing and the, and the chat is too. Look, I'm watching myself on our site. It's great. All right, y'all, $50 gift cards. There was a gal, let's see, me find her name. I saw her name. She was early on. I just can't remember. There she is. So Angela Copeland, who is in the inner circle— I'm about to verify that right quick— said she was drinking orange juice. Amen. So I'm about to go verify. Angela Copeland. Oh, Bernadette, you're watching from the site right now. That's amazing. Oh, somebody asked me a question. They said, we used to be charged on the 1st and I haven't been charged yet for the month. When can I— when am I going to be charged? Well, here's the beautiful thing about our site. Our site says, uh, when you sign up on July the 2nd, then you'll be charged on August 2nd. If you signed up on July the, you know, the 3rd at 2:10 PM, you're going to be charged on August 3rd at 2:10 PM. So it's cool. I'm searching, I'm searching. It says no matches. Are you in here like as your name? Ah, there you are. I found you. I found you. Angela Copeland is in the inner circle and there she is. There she is. Is. She is at the connection level. There you are. All right, Angela, guess what? Because you're a member and because you were already in here, guess what I already have? I already have your address, so you don't even have to send me an email. Okay, Angela Copeland. All right, she said, that's me, that's me. Thank you. I got charged on the All right, let's see who else is drinking a thing or two. Uh-huh. All right, Miss Sylvia Stevens. Miss Sylvia Stevens, you don't show that you're in the Inner Circle, so how about a $50 Amazon gift card for you too? But because I don't know who you are and I don't know your name and your address, you will have to email us to give us your information. So you can do that by going to sending an email to hello@chrystalevanshurst.com. All right, I was supposed to talk about freedom on my notes, on my piece of paper here, but I feel like I, I mean, we've been on now for like, you know, a full 2 hours, so I feel like I don't know if I should do it or not. I'm going to attempt to do it, that way we have it, Miss Chrystal Hurst, if we need it. And then if we don't need it, then we can just take this down and later. All right, congratulations Angela and Sylvia! I'll be giving away a few more of those throughout the week. I said I don't know if I did Freedom. Dessit, yes, she did, because I'm free. I'm feeling free. Can the new site be saved on the phone? Okay, so here's the good news. You ready for this good news? The good news is the reason why we chose this site— we actually had some other options that would have given us some other features faster. This is— we, you know, you can buy the cookie cutter house or you can build a custom. We went for the custom, so site, believe it or not, in 2023, this is a goal for 2023, we will build our own app. So can you put this on your phone? You can. Uh, we'll actually probably create a little tutorial for you to show you how to do it. But if you're somewhat savvy, all you have to do is when you go to the website on your phone, and when you're a member, you can go to thesistercircle.com/dashboard. That's kind of where I would want to onland, then right— if you're on an iPhone, right below, you can, um, you click the little square with the up arrow and you can save it to your home screen. And it'll basically save, uh, it'll look like an app, but it just takes you straight to the website. And the website is very mobile freedom— I mean, very mobile freedom— it's very mobile friendly. So it's not quite an app, but you can use it mobily. And that's how I would do, but we'll, we'll do that for Android and Apple users, show you how to do that so you can quickly get there. Yes, I understand tech is not everybody's talent. That's so fine. That's fine. Yes, we're going to work on our own app. That's what we're going to do, because anything that else we would have done, we could have done Mighty Networks, we could have done Circle. I love Circle, by the way. We could have done a lot of things, but we would have outgrown it, and we could have— we already saw how in 2 years we would grown it, how there is a, uh, something that we want to do that that site doesn't do. So we said instead of going and then having to move again, this is it. I hope you've enjoyed this. If you have, be sure and subscribe to the YouTube channel, follow me on Facebook. If you want to listen to this again in motion, know that this will be very soon an audio version of this video, uh, broadcast. And if it's been helpful, be sure, grab that share link and share the video with a friend. And then know that I'll be here next Sunday night, most Sunday nights, with more content that is ready for you. All right, now go be, be free. The free you is the best you that there is, and I am rooting for the free girl in you. All right, see you next week. But I'm Bop. All right, all right, y'all, I gotta go clean up because these people are coming over here and I need to act like I care. Today's the day I may jump in the pool. I, I always tell the babies when they come over, they know Aunt Chrissy's a little crazy, and, um, sometimes I just jump in in the pool, like fully clothed. And they, they love it every now and then. All right, y'all, so get ye therefore to your day. Enjoy your barbecue, enjoy your chicken, or whatever you're going to do with your life. Don't eat too much, don't go too far, but enjoy the day of freedom. Remember that the freedom was purchased for you. And also, uh, um, be thankful for those people who created a freedom that you get to experience. Thankful for the people on Earth and thankful for your God in heaven. And if you are not yet in the Inner Circle, don't forget, 77 at 7 PM, the promotional rates go away. All right, y'all, talk to you later. Oh, how do I end this? My button is not here. Ah, how do I end this? My— oh, here we go. I have to do it