The Secret to Success with Chrystal Evans Hurst

My name is Chrystal Hurst, and I'm a writer and a speaker and an encourager and a big sister and a mama and all the things. And what I like to do is to come on and just to share, um, a couple things that I think will help you to gain a new perspective on your life, your very unique one precious life, and to live with intentionality today. So, um, inner circle, if you're here, go ahead and give me a wave. I'd love to know that you're you're here. Um, and I would also like to know if you're here and you are under 35, if you're under 35, just give me a fist bump. So if you're in the Inner Circle, give me a wave. If you are under 35, give me a fist bump only because I like to know that people who, uh, can benefit long-term from the wisdom that they receive early on in life, that you're here. Um, so I like to know those two things. Hey, Inner Circle. Thanks for joining me today. I'm so glad to see you all. I didn't cut the music yet. Okay. There you go. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. So I see my waves, my fist bumps. Um, some of us are giving waves and fist bumps. I see you, Amanda. So, um, I'm so glad to be with you this morning for a couple of reasons. The inner circle, um, has been my secret for success. I have had all of my life in different seasons, different people, who have formed a cocoon of friendship or accountability or partnership. And because of those connections, I've been able to move mountains in my life. And not because I have, um, a bunch of muscle. It's because there have been people in my life who encouraged me, who were working with me, and that has changed in different seasons. And so when people ask me, Chrystal Hurst, how do you— that is the question I get about everything all the time. How do you? There are different answers to that question depending on what I'm being asked. How do you go live? How do you raise your kids? How do you study the word? How do you, uh, stay motivated? You know, how do you get things done? How do you write a book? Okay. Those all have very specific helps. However, there is one thing that is always the same, no matter what.. And that is that there are people around me. Sometimes they're my friends, sometimes they're my church people, sometimes they are professional peers, sometimes they are paid coaches, but there are people around me who speak into my life, give me insight, give me direction, and keep me moving. And so what I decided to create, because people were asking me all the time, how do you, how do you, is to create the Inner Circle so that there's an opportunity to go deeper, to create community, to allow us to engage with one another. And we change up what we do in the Inner Circle to hit the different pain points. But if you are not in there and you need community, you need encouragement, you need direction, you need access— more access than what I do with the blogs and the podcast— that's what the Inner Circle is for. And the reason why I wanted to go live is A, to remind you of that, but B, to tell you something else. Here's what I want to tell you: the secret to success, y'all. It's a secret, but it's not really. So here's what happened. I took my son on a college visit in Virginia. That was not the plan. I asked him, did he want to go to college this year? He probably— I always give all my kids an option to do a gap year. You got to stay in school. You can work, but hey, we have a family that travels a lot. And most of my family, we work for ourselves. And so there's an opportunity for you to apprentice and learn some things and try some things out before you spend a million dollars going to college. And I'm not against them going straight to college if they want to, but he was kind of, "Mm-hmm." And then through a series of events, he decided that he wanted to go to visit this college in Virginia. First of all, Virginia. That's right, I gave it an extra syllable, Virginia. Because I'm like, maybe you're gonna go you know, a couple of hours, 2 to 3 hours from home, somewhere I can easily drive to when you get homesick and you want to come home. Virginia. Okay. And y'all, this is my son who, um, who is extremely introverted. He really doesn't want to be around people that much. Uh, he wouldn't say— he has great grades, but he wouldn't say he loves school. Um, you know, he, he's a— he likes to be home. And I ask him before we started talking about the specific schools that we were going to apply to, I told him, I think you need to go away. Okay, I'm telling you a story and it's going somewhere. I think you need to go away. Like, let's find an art school in Georgia. Let's find a mechanical engineering school, you know, on the West Coast. Let me, let me broaden your horizons. Like, I've been working on him, you know. We've done the SAT studies. We've, uh, done the We haven't done any college visits. We have attempted to do some virtual college visits the last year and a half. Also, I have talked to him about getting 5 people in his life who he can ask questions, which he's still gonna have to do that. He made a list of the people he was gonna talk to because I believe that a part of being prepared to go to school is doing your homework. It's not just about continuing to take classes. It's about doing your homework and thinking through What is important for you to know? What does this person like about their job? How did they get there? What does this person not like about their job? How are they going to work to change that? Like, think about these things before you get there. It's not just about the degree, it's about your life. So these are the things we've been talking about, and I've been pushing him and pushing him and trying to tell him, get out Dodge, dude, get out of Dodge. Okay, now I have no problem with this. Virginia's a little far. We— I had to have some real talks with him. I said, listen, I think this is great. It's going to explore your horizons and all that. Let me tell you about some things I want you to think about in advance. But let me tell you why. Let me tell you why I'm all right. This is, this is, this is where it's about to get good. Let me tell you why I'm all right. Because out of 5 children so far, I can tell you for each child at least one thing that has worried me or still worries me. With each one, I can tell you something I didn't think was going to turn all the way over. I can tell you something that I didn't think was gonna bloom properly or on time. I could tell you thoughts that I had about what they're never going to get. And how I'm always going to have to. And lo, Lord, how are they ever going to stand on their own? Let me tell you this weekend what I realized. The seed is sprouting. That's what I realized. The seed is sprouting. And I don't even know why every single time I doubt that it will. Or I wonder, or I question, or I get nervous, or I get all wigged out about things. I don't even know why. We're 3 for 3 now. Now, that does not mean that there's not trouble or struggles or lessons to learn, but what I'm telling you is that I looked at him this weekend and thought, oh, there you are, there you are, it's good to see you. I thought I lost you. You're coming back. This is amazing. And then I thought back to all the things that I have been planting and watering and nurturing and praying over and reading books about and seeking counsel and asking my inner circle to pray for me, intervene on for me, help me think this through, help listen to me talk it out. And I said, ah, There it is. Now, here's what I'm not gonna tell you. I am not gonna tell you that my kids are perfect. They're not. I'm not gonna tell you that they get everything right. They do not. I'm not gonna tell you that they don't make some dumb decisions. I believe between 15 and 25, most kids are dumb and they just don't know it. Their frontal lobe is not developed and they just don't think things through. But here's what I can tell you. What I can tell you is that the secret to success in getting your children to move forward in life— you can't control it, but there is something that you can do to put input into that direction— is to keep sowing seed. And the secret to your success in any way in your life is to keep sowing seed. If you're in the financial industry, you have heard the financial industry, you've heard of the rule of 72. It is a rule that describes— you should just look it up. I'm not going to get into the details, but I have a financial background— investment money manager, stock picker, analyst, all that. Listen, it is a rule that just basically gives you some quick math to figure out how long it's going to take you to double your money. But here's the assumption. The assumption is, is that if you keep investing, if you keep saving, if you, if you if you put in and you don't take out, if you do it consistently. And some of you all have, you know this, you've got mutual funds on your job, or you have, you've saved long enough to see the compounding value of interest, or money management, or you've, you've used dollar cost averaging to, to save slowly, and you haven't jumped in and out of the, of the market when you freak out. You just kept putting your money in, just kept putting your money in. You were smart about it. Then over time, you stop working for your money so hard and your money starts working for you. Okay, there's another rule. It's called the Rule of Seven. The Rule of Seven says that if I want you to see something, I need to market it to you at least 7 times. Now, that may have changed now. Some marketing people may say it's actually not 7, it's more like 17, because there's so much noise in the world. But here's the bottom line: If I want you to see it, if I want you to remember it, if I want you to take action on it as a marketer, I need you to see that thing 7 times, which means I need to give you a graphic. I mean, I need to send you an email. I need to do a story. I need to do all these different things, right? I need to text you. I need to whatever. And that's why you are getting barraged and Facebook is reading your mind because marketers are like, we have to get in front of them, right? That's why Instagram's like, I was just talking about that. And then an ad shows up. It's really scary. But the reality is, is there's a rule. And the rule says, if I just keep at it, if I just keep planting seed, if I just keep marketing the product, if I just keep marketing the content, if I just keep investing the money, if I just keep saving, if I just keep living on less than what I make, if I just stay faithful in my finances, if I just keep teaching my kids the word, if I just keep helping them with their homework, if I just keep being available when they need to talk to me, if I just keep making sure that they have what they need, if I just keep being an example with what I do, not just with what I say, if I just keep doing these things, there will be a harvest somewhere. Some of y'all are getting down in the mouth about whether or not you've been able to experience success in your life, and there are problems with that because, one, you either haven't sown any seed, two, you started and you stopped, or three, you, uh, you are doing it but you are not enjoying the process because you're worried and anxious the whole way. Let me just give you a tip. The secret— I hope I'm not talking too loud because I feel like I'm preaching and I feel like the Holy Ghost is coming on me and I feel like I have a fire shut up in my bones and I feel like I need to be careful about what I say because I'm on fire, y'all. This is what happens when I need to tell y'all something and there are no notes in front of me. It's just coming on out. Listen, when you realize that Betty Sue, okay, and Shaquita Monet, either one of them, that neither one of them have something that you don't have. They don't. They don't have an edge on you. Okay, sure, maybe somebody grew up on the other side of the town, of the town. All right, maybe generational income and generational wealth is a situation. It is. Okay, yes, I understand. Two-parent household or not, I got it. I understand that you didn't have people who modeled educational prowess in front of you. Nobody taught you about your money. You don't know how to raise your kids. You don't know how to be disciplined because nobody in your life was disciplined. I got it. But once you finish talking about all the reasons why you can't, let me tell you why you can. Okay, the reason why you can is because you get to decide to get up every stinking day and either put a seed in the ground, weed out the stuff that wants to choke that seed out of the ground, or water it every stinking day. Every day. Hey there, I hope you're enjoying this content, and I hope that you are learning and growing as you sit and watch, or walk and watch, or whatever it is that you're doing when this content comes out. I want to make sure that you know about 3 things. Count them, 1, 2, 3. 3 things. Number 1, mark your calendar for January the 5th and 6th. I'm hosting The Sister Circle Live. It's going to be a combo of worship and also live podcast recordings and also networking. It's going to be amazing. You can go right now to thesistercircle.com/live for more information or to register. Number 2, if you are trying to get your whole life together, did you know I created a planner? It is the Full Circle Planner, and it is a quarterly planner because I believe in 90-day sprints. You can buy one quarter, or you can buy all, all 4 quarters with. They're all different. We even have a set of yellow bound book special edition, limited edition, that's available for a bundle of 4. But they're going fast and I want to make sure you get yours. So if you are interested in actually moving the needle forward and having some built-in accountability, get my planner. Not only is it a planner, but it's a coaching journal as well. You have a lot of quotes and questions for me to get you to thinking. Here's the third thing I need you to know about. The Inner Circle is amazing and it is open, but it's not going to stay open. On January the 8th, the doors are going to close for our community. Coffee and connection level guests. So if you are interested in the Inner Circle or you want to know more about it, go to thesisterscircle.com/innercircle. I would love to have you in there because this year we're going to have a growth plan and a development plan where every month, you know what we're teaching. It's emotional health and getting rid of anxiety. It's relational health. It's financial freedom. It's spiritual growth. It is looking at the areas of your life and saying, How can I build a life that will last and that will be steady in the midst of chaos? Because sometimes life is chaos. So I don't want you to forget about these 3 things. The event in January, the Sister Circle Live, January 5th and 6th. The planner, get yours while they last. And then the 3rd thing is the Inner Circle. If you want to be committed to growth this year, then I want to be committed to you. You can go to thesistercircle.com. /innercircle for more info. Well, anyway, I didn't want to take up too much of your time, but I wanted to make sure you knew what was happening. So now that you know what is happening, as Fred Sanford would say, let's get back to our regularly scheduled programming. Here is, my dear, my friend, my love, my sister, here is the secret of your success in anything, anything. It's simple So it's really not a secret, but everybody thinks that, that if somebody else has been able to be successful in their marriage or with their kids or with their job or with their finances or with their gifting or with their passion, they got something I don't have. It just ain't true. The secret of success is have good seed, consistently put it in the ground, consistently take away anything ruthlessly that's going to keep it from growing, consistently water it and nurture it and watch over it. And the key is to do that consistently. Let me tell you, there have been times when I talk to my kids about the Bible and I am making them learn scripture and they're cutting up and doing weird things and I just want to jump across the table and strangle them over Jesus. That's what I want to do. I want to jump across the table and literally blow their lights out because they won't listen to Jesus. It's just a whole disrespectful thing and they know how to push my buttons. And then you just think, is there any point to this? Really? Like, really? I've thought that as a homeschool mom. Really? I am doing doggone chemistry again for the 79th time. I know this. Why don't y'all? Have I done algebra yet again? I, I, I can— what do I need to open up a tutoring service? Like what is happening here? And I'm doing it and they're struggling and they're, they're not focused. And, and, you know, I think about that with, with so many things, but practice really does make progress. Quit being addicted to perfection and just keep showing up and choosing progress. When I look back over the things that I'm seeing in my oldest son, and he's just getting going, and who knows, tomorrow he may change his mind. He's entitled. But the point is this: What I saw, I got a glimpse of something rising up. And this is what happens when you are, when you are sowing seed and being consistent. Sometimes you'll get a glimpse of something trying to rise up and you'll get excited. Listen, I grew tomatoes one time in my backyard. I literally hid some pipes because I'm in a suburban neighborhood and You know, you're not supposed to dig that deep in a suburban neighborhood, but I was trying. And I had laid everything out and did all the things. And y'all, it was so much work, so much work to haul the dirt in and put the frame up with the brick and the cement blocks and buying the plant and amending the soil and doing all this stuff. But I want to tell you something, when I saw that first little green thing coming up, I was so doggone excited. And I didn't even have fruit coming off of it yet. I didn't have the bell pepper yet. I didn't have the tomato yet. I did not have the jalapeños yet because I was going to make a salsa garden. I didn't have it. But you want to know what I did get excited about? Something. Something. You want to know what the other secret to your success is? Show up. Nurture that seed. And when you see anything, anything, you better smile about that thing. You better smile. You better celebrate. You better pat yourself on the back or, or acknowledge that you've done something good. You better sit at the end of the day and take your journal and write 2 or 3 sentences that says something good happened today in my life. Plant the seed. And when it starts to come up, celebrate the seed. And then listen, any person who has any kind of understanding about how vegetation and plantation stuff works— not plantation stuff, plants on the land— how that works, because y'all, in this day and age, we just got to be so very careful about what we say. Lord have mercy. All right, the point is this: you know that when it grows, it bears new seed. So you want to plant it, nurture it, water it, be ruthless about whatever's around it. You want to celebrate whatever little thing you see coming up, because if you are going to berate the length of time that it's taken, or you're going to berate, oh, that's just a little thing, I've been working this hard, you will kill your seed. You will, you will debase the, the wonderful thing that's coming, and you will stop showing up for it, and you will kill it. See, people who are successful, they not only show up consistently, but they know how to celebrate the seed, the little bit of fruit they see coming up from the ground, okay? And then when that thing grows, they know when to pick it. They know when to say, this is far enough. They know when to release it because inside of the thing you've nurtured is more seed. More seed for you to share, more seed for you to put back, and it's a principle of multiplication. The secret of your success is showing up, being consistent, knowing when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em, knowing when to walk away and when to walk into.. And then knowing that every time you level up, every time you see the fruit of your labor, every time you take something for yourself, that you plant a seed somewhere else. It's, it's a, it's a cycle. That is why I'm giving you this talk, because I have seed coming up. I looked at my son this weekend and thought, oh, there you are. And I needed to tell some of you who are currently right now right now, not showing up consistently for your seed, not watering your seed, not weeding your seed. You are not, uh, you are not celebrating your seed. You're just berating how long it's taking, and you're comparing yourself to everybody else. You're killing your seed. And then some of y'all who have been growing that thing, and it's time to move. It's time to move. It's time to shift locations. It's time to make some changes with the way you manage your finances. It's time to move. It's time to get some of that clutter out of your house. It's time to get some of that weight off of your body. It's time to move. It's time to, to take something that you know, you understand it, you've been dealing with it, and then say, okay, this is what I'm going to take to invest in me, and this is what I'm going to take and share with others to invest in them. The secret to success is to keep showing up, which brings me to this point. If you think that everything I've ever done to plant seeds for my kids has felt good, or that I've been excited about it, or that I have been feeling like this is the thing I ought to do today, if you think that it has been roses the whole way, you are so very wrong. I have looked at my kids many times and thought, oh my gosh, I'm screwing them up as a parent or as a homeschool mom, just as a Christian. Like, well, they didn't learn about Jesus from me today. Many times I've thought, oh, I'm, I'm not doing this right. Do you know that if you let weed come up around a seed, if you miss a day or two or three, it doesn't die immediately. It's when you don't come back. You have to talk yourself into coming back to the thing you left on the table. You gotta go back and finish that degree. You gotta go back and forgive that person. You gotta go back and get back on that rhythm that you had when you were eating right and losing weight. You've gotta go back and get in church, not just online church now that churches are starting to go back, You need to go back and get engaged and involved. You quit that Bible study, you need to go back and do that again. You need to go back and honor your parents. You need to go back and start memorizing scripture again. You need to go back and apply yourself with excellence on the job because you got lazy. You need to go back and start doing what you knew to do in the first place. The only problem comes when you don't go back. Now, will it be more work when you go back? Oh yeah, because weeds that have grown up are a lot harder to pull than the ones that have been there for a while. But if you don't go back, you have no seed. If you have no seed, you have no success. So I would love for you to tell me in the comments, What is the thing that you need to be consistent with, pay attention to, celebrate, go back to, or share? You know what it is. Pick that one thing, because here's where the pedal meets the metal, okay? This is it right here. I need to know your one thing. What is that one thing that you need to stick with? You know, you know that, you know that the seed will come up eventually, but you sure are tired. What is the thing you need to stick with? Show up for, be consistent with? I want you to tell me because I'm going to call you out. Devotions with my kiddos, budgeting, my writing. There you go. There you go. My weight loss journey. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I see another writing. Moving forward since my husband's death. Hi, I'm gonna buy Macy's, uh, Clinique. Thank you so much for telling me about the sales. And yes, take it slow, take it easy, but keep planting seed. Setting boundaries, my spiritual journey. Mm-hmm. Yes, organizing my schedule, studying the word. Listen, Lucretia says, I, uh, need to— I was so discouraged with starting my lingerie business from so much stress with starting it. Let me tell you something, there is some woman in the world who needs you, ma'am, to get back to your lingerie business because her husband will be very grateful that you do. When you plant seed and you show up and you decide to nurture the seed, guess what you're doing? What you're planting to harvest is not just for you. The secret is simple, y'all. Show up, keep showing up, and keep showing up again and again. That's it. That's it. It's do whatever you knew to do last until God tells you to do something else next. And until then, you keep showing up consistently as best you can. It doesn't mean you're perfect, but you are making progress. If you keep showing up, you'll learn what works in your soil. Let me tell you what I didn't like about gardening and what I don't like about parenting. I wish I could have figured it out with the first one. And then we just, you know, we had it after that, but each one is different. Now I'm more confident in my parenting. I'm more confident in money management. I'm more confident in speaking to you live. I'm more confident in writing books. Well, Maybe not this current one, but I'm gonna get there. I'm more confident in speaking on a stage. I'm more confident in leading a women's ministry, leading business, leading a team. I'm getting more competent and comfortable in all of these things. But let me tell you what you do learn. You do kind of learn the lay of the land. It may not be exact, but you start seeing the patterns that show up over and over and over and over again. Listen, and when you learn it, then it's not as much work the next time around. One of the things I don't like about gardening is you have to learn your soil, your soil. So I can talk to 5 and 6 and 7 different people about what they did in their soil in Virginia or California or 3 hours away from me in Texas. But what I need to know is what works in the soil I have in my backyard. And you want to know how I'm going to discover that? The only way I'm going to discover that is by planting stuff and seeing what sticks and seeing what works and seeing what yields the kind of fruit I'm looking forward to. I don't know, raising kids, what's gonna stick. Heck, half the time that I'm doing ministry stuff and business stuff, the girls can tell you, I'll just be throwing stuff at the wall. I'm like, I'm motivated to do this today, let's, let's try this. In fact, the Inner Circle is one of those very things. We were like, let's try this. And here we are close to a couple thousand women in there. And this was me going, I think I'm supposed to plant a seed. Did I know what I was doing with a membership? Nope. Did I know what I was doing with going live? Nope. Did I know what I was doing with a lot of the things that I have going on? Nope. But let me tell you something, YouTube is good fertilizer. Coaches are wonderful inputs. Uh, wonderful people who love me and pray for me are good nurturers, but I still have to show up and learn my soil. But here's the great thing: the more I show up to plant seed in my soil consistently with a celebrative attitude, pulling up what I see when it's ready for me, the more I show up and do that I learned the rhythms. I learned my playing field. I learned my personality. I learned my passion. I learned my playbook. I learned about the problems that God wants me to solve, the projects that he wants me to embark upon, and the solutions, the, the, the, the pathways that he wants me to provide for other people, for me and for others. And I only learned that when I show up until my soil. And when I go to Home Depot or I go to the gardener, the nursery, and I tell them about my soil, they say, well, you might try a little bit of this, or you might try a little bit of this, or you might try a little bit— here are some things you can try— because they don't have my soil. Nobody has your secret. Nobody has your recipe. Nobody has it. You want to know why? Because it's your soil. So you have to show up and plant certain things that you know are right. You know you need to get an education. You know you need to study God's word. You know you need to pray with your kids. You know you need to honor your husband. You know you need to get to work on time. You know you need to put down that french fry— put down those french fries. You know you need to do some things. Those are your seeds. But your rhythm and how you move through your field will be determined by your soil. And the more you show up for your life the better you will get at tilling your soil. And people will say, how in the world have you grown such a great garden? How in the world have you experienced such a great marriage? How in the world did you have such a great career? How in the world have you been faithful in your ministry, in your neighborhood, or at your church for 30 years? How in the world have you memorized so much scripture? How in the world have you been so positive for so long? Or kept your weight off long term? How in the world have you been able to have such great success in this area of your life? And you're going to tell them the same thing I'm telling you, because y'all, there's nothing new under the sun, and Google tells us all the things. You're going to tell them, well, here's what worked for me. I'm going to give them some ideas, but the bottom line is you're going to say, and then this is what I did consistently, and I stopped treating myself like I was my enemy. I started treating myself like I was my own best friend. I started celebrating my wins, and then I started recognizing when something was done and I needed to move into a new season. I started moving forward in my life one step at a time. So the secret of success, my friend, is do you consistently do the hard thing consistently. Show up Consistently. Even if the weather is bad, consistently. When you don't feel like it, consistently. When people talk about you, consistently. When you're looking across the other fields and see what's going on over there, don't pay attention, consistently. Show up and then celebrate and watch your seed grow. And know that you won't know your soil really well the first time. You're gonna be out there figuring it out, and that's okay. In hindsight, everything's clear. 20/20 gives you great vision. But when you're moving forward, you just do what you can with the seed that's in your hand. I think I just rhymed again. Anyway, you all, I hope this has blessed you. Inner Circle, I will see you next Monday, just us. If you would like to have more information about me or the Inner Circle, go to chrystalhurtz.com/innercircle. I would love to have you join us. You have everything that you need to live the life that God has planned for you to live. And when you do the small things, planting them in the soil of your life, here's what I believe. In fact, here's what I know to be true. You will find success. The Bible says Seek and you will find. He didn't say know the answers and you will find. He didn't say be the best and you will find. He said show up and seek. And if you do what you can with what you have in your hand, that's exactly what you're doing. All right, y'all, make sure you subscribe to my YouTube channel. That way you'll know whenever I do anything else. Subscribe to my Facebook page or follow me on my Facebook page, but better yet, make sure you're on my email list and then that covers all your bases. I love you with my life. Y'all have a great day. Talk to you later. Bye!