Heidi St. John Intro

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Today on the Servant Leadership Podcast, we welcome Heidi St. John. Heidi's story is one of healing, grit, and grace.

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She's a best-selling author, national speaker, and longtime podcaster whose show has reached tens of millions. She

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founded a homeschool resource center in the Pacific Northwest and even ran for Congress, driven by a simple mantra, see

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a problem and serve. In this conversation, Heidi opens up about the seasons of a woman's life and why

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priorities matter. Heidi shares about the courage it takes to speak truth in love and why servant leadership often

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looks like quiet daily sacrifice. Join us to hear practical wisdom on setting boundaries, building resilient families,

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and leading with conviction without being ruled by fear. Heidi, thank you so much for joining our servant leadership

Welcome Heidi St. John

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podcast. You're welcome. Thank you for having me. You have done a lot. The more I've

Heidi’s Journey - Broken Teen To Speaker, Author, And Leader

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gotten to know your background, it's been amazing. Even seeing that you've ran for Congress, written books, you're

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speaking everywhere, you're a mom of a huge family. What has this journey looked like for

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you becoming such an amazing servant leader? Well, I think that the the most

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important thing when people ask me, you know, kind of where I where, you know, my journey, it really does start from

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when I was a child and uh I grew up in a in a very unhappy home, a Christian home, but a very unhappy home. My

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parents divorced when I was 18 years old. I met my husband when I was seven,

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seven, almost 18 and we got married at 19. And I always tell people, you know, when I married my husband at 19 years

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old, I was about as broken as a 19-year-old girl could be. I think I was broken in just about every way. And the

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Lord in his mercy over the last, let's see, 36 years, D and I are going to celebrate our 36th anniversary uh

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actually today when we're recording or tomorrow. It'll be tomorrow, September 30th. And uh the Lord has done just a

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healing in my life and a miraculous healing. He has given us seven beautiful

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children. Now we have eight grandchildren. And I never set out to be an author. I never set out to be a

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speaker, which is kind of my full-time job. Uh never set out to be an entrepreneur, but then the Lord put a

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vision in our heart. And so we started the homeschool resource center. I never set out to be a politician, but I

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noticed that the uh the area that I love so much here in the Pacific Northwest is

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um just dying for lack of good leadership. So I ran for Congress. I think my life is a story of see a

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problem and fix it. And really I I have just an a tremendous gratitude uh for

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the people that the Lord's brought around us and for my husband who is just he saw a gift in me a long time ago. I

Heidi’s Foray Into Speaking And Writing

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actually this is a funny story Chris. I was running a state organization for homeschooling probably almost 20 years

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ago and the woman that I had invited to be the keynote for the ladies lunchon.

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So there's maybe 400 women at this lunchon. She got sick and at the last minute she couldn't show up. And my

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husband said, "You should do it." And I was like, "Oh, no, no, no. I am the name tag girl. Your girl's got a registration

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system going on. I'm not doing that." And he said, "No, I think you could do it. You should totally do it." And we

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only had like, you know, 30 minutes to figure it out. And so I wrote a couple

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of bullet points down on an index card because there was a a dear member of my

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family was in the middle of a divorce and it was really just rocking our world. Of course, my parents had been

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divorced. Uh the legacy of divorce in my family is generational in nature and I

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wanted to talk about it. And so I took that little half an hour and I went down

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that bullet point list on an index card and two weeks later someone called and

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said, "I heard you speak. I didn't know you could do that." I said, "I didn't know I could do it either." She said,

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"Would you come to Idaho?" And I went to Idaho. And before you knew it, I was going to Arizona. And that was And then

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a few years later, I signed a seven book deal with Tindale. Um, and I've written six now of the seven books for that um

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wonderful publishing company. and so sort of started this sort of speaking and writing career that I never never

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thought that I would have. So my my life is like a series of providential accidents. I'm like the Bob Ross of

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writers, like a happy little accident, you know. Well, your your content actually has

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probably impacted millions of people now, which is unbelievable. As you think through what is going on in

The Lie Of “We Can Have Everything”

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the world, especially with women, you are talking to a lot of women. What are

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you seeing are some trends that especially as leaders of their household, leaders in the workplace,

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leaders in all areas of life are happening? What are those trends? Well, I think that the main one is we've

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seen a gigantic shift, especially for women, as it relates to what's really

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important. And we I I tell women and I believe this with all my heart. I think the feminist movement has lied to women

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and told us that we can have everything. And really women live uh in in a series

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of seasons and cycles. And for women uh we have we have given away I think in

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many cases the best years of our lives pursuing career and then waiting until we're 39 40 to try and have families.

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And I always tell women, you know, you can have everything. You just can't have it all at once. We are not men. We're

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not meant to function that way. We have a different role to play in the culture. And I think even inside of our homes and

The Blessing Of Family

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and I have been uh I'm very very glad that I focused the first part of my

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life. I had our first daughter at 21 uh and our last daughter at 41. So there's a 20ear span between my oldest and my

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youngest. And I'm very very glad that I spent those very young years of my life,

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those formative years of my uh life as a woman focusing on my family and raising

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children. And now I'm 55 years old and I uh am really just getting started. I'm

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traveling all over the country. I speak uh at conferences and and major events almost every weekend. And I don't look

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back at my life and wish that I had started a family because we did do that. But unfortunately, if you look at what's

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uh at the feminist movement, we're kind of on what I would call thirdwave feminism now. And women are losing so

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much in the name of feminism and pursuing a career. And if you'll notice

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the hardcore feminists and the feminist movement, it never includes children. It never includes a family. And the best

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part about my life, I mean, I love writing. I certainly love speaking. Um, it's my jam. I love podcasting. I've

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been doing it for a long time now. Coming up on 25 or 30, I can't remember. A million downloads. So, I've been doing

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that for about 10 years. I I would trade all of it if it meant losing my family.

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And I think um we're seeing women are starting to ask those questions now. I think we see a resurgence of women

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saying, "I want to stay home and be with my children and uh maybe go back into the workforce or enter the workforce or

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work from home uh when they're a little bit older." And realizing how precious it really is and how fleeting the time.

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Uh women have a very limited window of time in which we can have children and

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we you put it off and put it off and put it off and it's like everyone's heard the saying you know nobody ever dies and

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on their tombstone you don't read you know here lies you know uh Joe Brown he wishes he spent more time at the office.

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No I mean when we when we uh get to the end of our lives the things that are really going to matter are going to be the people standing around that bedside

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uh and the legacy we leave behind. And I think I'm seeing many more women embrace

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the idea of motherhood and really trying to, you know, balance those things. It's a it's a juggling act for sure. Not

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easy. But I'm very very happy to see the conversation coming to the front. And we're talking about the value and the

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preciousness of family and faith and patriotism. So seeing a lot of these things come back to the forefront of

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conversation, I'm thankful for it. Well, there's a lot of pressure being put on women uh all around so many

Prioritizing Faith First

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areas, work, family, personal. Uh how do you help people think through priorities

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and what their calling really is when everyone else seems to have an opinion for what they should do?

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Okay, that is one of my favorite questions, Chris, and I'm so glad you asked it. So I'm I'm a Christian. So I I

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view the world through the lens of my faith. And I have noted as I have walked

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with the Lord and been reading God's word for a long time that priorities are really important in life. And so my

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priorities as I as I have seen them and this is how we have based our life both me and my husband and this is how we view our ministry and our business. The

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very first priority in my life is my relationship with my creator. And so I'll spend time every morning reading

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God's word and being in prayer by myself, even if it's just 10 minutes. Uh I want to center my life around the the

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principles that I know to be true. And out of an overflow what happens between me and the Lord in that private time, I

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then pour into my marriage. That's the first relationship that I pour into. And so it's connecting with my husband. It's

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making sure and he with me, you know, making sure that our our priorities are right, that um I'm meeting his needs and

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he wants to be sure that he's meeting my needs. And out of an overflow of an abundance that happens inside the

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marriage relationship, then we pour into our children. And out of an overflow of that healthy home, then we pour into our ministry,

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our business, um my speaking or writing or my husband's software design or whatever it is he's doing. But th those

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priorities are very very important. And I have spent quite a bit of time I have a best-selling book now with uh with

The Importance Of Knowing Your Priorities

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Tinddale. I've spent quite a bit of time in the author space and I can tell you

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that when we get those priorities wrong, I have watched women especially men too

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sacrifice the very best things in this life for platform and platform not going to bring you a

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lasagna when you're when you're down, right? uh we have to we have to pay attention

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to those things in our lives that are the most important and you can't pay attention to them if you don't know what

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they are. And so I've spent a I spend quite a bit of time um I teach master

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classes to people about how to take a book from a concept to market. And uh

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one of the things I always teach is you have to have your priorities in order. And so I like to tell people take a step

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back. You know, how is my spiritual life? How is how is my my soul, my heart doing? How is my if I'm married, how's

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my marriage doing? If I'm married and I have children, how are they doing? And then once those things are secure,

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that's when the foundation is set to be truly successful in life in other in

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other areas. And so I love that you brought up the question of priorities. I think that is probably the foundational

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question that needs to be answered before we pursue any anything that is of interest to us. Anything whether it's in

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the marketplace uh the marketplace of ideas whether it's uh trying to grow a business those foundational pieces I

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think for true success and to be at peace in my heart and have success in my family those are the things that I think

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we start with. Wow. you alluded to when you were earlier in your career, uh, you were

Social Media’s Negative Impact On This Generation

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dealing with a lot of brokenness and I think especially these days and we hear

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about it all the time, social media and the the downsides and effects it has on

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girls, especially teenagers. How do you think that plays into somebody who's coming into their career

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now not knowing their priorities because of conditioning let's say or just the

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world and culture around them and how do you help encourage parents to step into

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those situations with kids or I know a lot of teens have listened to your content as well uh and benefited from

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it. How do you engage that space? Well, social media is a dumpster fire.

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And as much as I love it, I mean, I have, you know, I don't know, 100,000 people that follow me on Instagram and

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like 420,000 people that follow me on Facebook. Uh, I I always tell people,

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you know, you got to know who you are before you can engage in social media. I

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think it has done in many cases more harm than good, especially to the younger generation. to the rising generation. You know, I I came into, you

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know, I started a Facebook account to keep an eye on my daughter. That was the only reason I even did it. I was like, what is this stupid thing? You know

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what? You know, I guess I'll make an account. And it's actually turned out to be really helpful for me like in a

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career and building um a platform and and having a space to say what I think

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is important and what might be good for people or or edifying for somebody else. But also uh you can't take your identity

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from that. And and I think our young people are absolutely doing that. I mean, I have a 35-year-old daughter and

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a 15year-old daughter. And I am raising my 15-year-old daughter in a vastly different world than I raised my

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35-year-old daughter in. And uh had I known the dark places that the internet

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would go or the dark places that social media would go or the addictive nature,

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we didn't know. I mean, back in, you know, 1999, you know, early 2000s, nobody knew that you get on Facebook and

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Instagram, and of course, there was no such thing as Tik Tok. You know, I'm like the OGs. Like, we remember, you

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know, MySpace and stupid places like that. Like, we remember all those things. We didn't realize the dopamine

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triggers that it was h the effect that it was having on the brain and the

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effect it was having on developing brains in particular of young people. And so I think parents have an

Restricting Social Media Access For Your Kids

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obligation to I think greatly restrict and

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absolutely monitor their children when they're online. Uh our daughter who's 15

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does not have an Instagram account. She does not have a Facebook account and she will not until she's 18. She doesn't

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need it. She doesn't need it. She's got enough self-esteem issues going on with her girlfriends at the homeschool co-op.

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I don't need, you know, 7,000 other opinions coming at her from Facebook every day. she doesn't need that. And I

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wish that I had understood that with some of my older children, but we didn't understand the dangers of social media. I think now we do. And so, um, and even

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for me, I mean, I don't know if you do this, Chris, but I mean, I'll sit in bed on, you know, if I don't have anything to do. I mean, I always have things to

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do, but if I'm tired, I mean, I could pick up my phone and doom scroll with the rest with the best of you. I mean, I could, you know, three hours and I'm

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just like, what just happened? Like, I wanted to make a menu for tomorrow. I wanted to work on a chapter of my book

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or I wanted to spend some time with my husband or maybe I just wanted to watch a movie but I wasted the whole evening

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listening to stupid people tell me stupid things on a stupid platform. I'm not really sure why I did that. It's

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addicting and it requires self-control. And so I think it's, you know, I I am

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not a fan of social media for for young people really very much at all. I think it's done more harm than good. I also

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think that there is a good side to social media if you've got the maturity and the wisdom to steward it well.

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It's a good thing, but man, we've given a megaphone to a bunch of bad people with a bunch of bad ideas and bad

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intentions. And so for that, you know, we really need discernment. Um there's a

Charles Spurgeon’s Definition Of Discernment

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great theologian uh Charles Spurgeon once said that discernment is not knowing the difference between right and

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wrong. It's knowing the difference between right and almost right. And that

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is the space I think that parents need to live in with regard to social media. It's the difference between right and

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almost right because that little that little nuance can make or break you

Heidi’s Willingness To Step Into The Controversial

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from afar. Uh I've started to get into some of your content as I've learned

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more about you. And one of the things that I've appreciated just from the outside is your willingness to bring

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wisdom into some pretty uh controversial or significant cultural conversations

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and you've got a lot of wisdom to bring. Where do you think that boldness came from where you're willing to have

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conversations that it feels like most people are not willing to have even if they're thinking some of the same

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things? Well, I mean, I don't I don't know for sure. right? This is the way God made

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me. Um, you know, I I grew up kind of a scrapper

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for for a lack of a better word, kind of fighting for my life and uh and it matters to me. Like I I am I've always

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been very passionate um about the the area that I live in and passionate about

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the cultural issues that I think in many cases are tearing our country apart. Um

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I grew up, you know, in the 70s. Um, my grandfather was a a pastor of a little

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tiny church and a little evangelical church in uh in Oregon. And my granddad

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took me campaigning, you know, for Ronald Reagan, right, when I was a kid. And he he just was like, Heidi, you need

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to care about what's happening around you. Politics is really important. Politics determines policy, and policy

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shapes nations and communities. And if you look around us, Chris, we've had some devastating policies shaping our

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nation and our communities in very devastating ways. One of the things that I I started speaking out about uh eight

A Cultural Era Against Objective Truth

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it's probably been 10 years ago now, I think I might have been one of the very first to talk about transgenderism and

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why I thought it was such a devastating idea that we would tell people that you can that your gender is that your sex is

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malleable. Like that's a bold-faced lie right on its face. It's just a lie. And

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we got to be able to have conversations about truth that there is such a thing.

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There are things that are objectively true. And when we when we sacri there's lots of things we can disagree about and

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certainly things that that we could go, okay, well, you know, I can see how you might feel it. But when you're talking

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about something as important as DNA, there's no room for disagreement. Uh you're either a man or a woman. And it

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doesn't matter how many surgeries, how many hormones. And we have we have allowed this devastating lie to take

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root in the culture. And and I believe, you know, mental illness, I'm not here

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to make fun of anybody. I actually think I I actually believe in gender dysphoria. I've talked to many people who have suffered from it. I actually

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had a guy on my podcast whose name is Walt Hyire who lived as a woman for many

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years. He's in his 80s now, but he lived as a woman for many years. He got the surgeries, did the whole thing. You guys

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should listen to his show. If you Google Heidi St. John and Walt hire. It'll bring tears to your eyes. What happened

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to this man? And we have normalized instead of helping people by telling

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them the truth, we've normalized this mental illness. You would never uh I had

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a really good friend in in the 80s who suffered from anorexia. And when she looked in the mirror, she literally saw

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a 400 lb woman. And my friend was maybe 87 pounds soaking wet. and she was

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killing herself because what she saw in the mirror didn't reflect reality. Well, we didn't lie to her. It would have been

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unkind. It would have been unkind for me to say this is who you say that you are, who you feel that you are because she

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felt that she was overweight. She felt that she needed to lose weight. She felt that she should stop eating. It would have been unkind for us to say, you know

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what, you do you. If that's who you feel that you are, then we're going to support you in it. If we would have done

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that, Chris, she'd be dead right now. But instead, we checked her into a hospital and she didn't want to be

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there. We checked her into a hospital. We told her, "We love you and we're going to help you get through this." And

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guess what? She's a mother of five today. And she's doing great. She'd be dead if we lied to her. And we're lying to people in the name of m

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of in the name of their feelings and helping them feel like what they see in the mirror is actually true. And we know

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in our heart that it isn't. And so I am a I I I love people. Uh, and uh, I want

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to see our people and communities thrive. And I think that starts at the very least it starts with truth. Uh, at

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the very least. And so I'm a defender of truth and a defender of children. You

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know, people that have known me my whole life would be like, "Oh, yeah. We saw that coming."

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Maybe maybe my audience isn't so much, but but anybody who's known me for any length of time would say, "Oh, yeah. That's that's that's Heidi. She she was

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going to go there anyway." We talk a ton on this podcast about

How To Engage In Uncomfortable Conversations Correctly

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servant leadership and one of the things that you're talking about is your ability to step into some of these tough

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conversations and be bold, right? And part of being a great servant leader has

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to do with being able to step into some uncomfortable situations sometimes and really for the benefit of others even if

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they don't see it. How would you recommend somebody even take the first step in engaging in an uncomfortable

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conversation about a topic that they feel really strongly about, but they don't even know what to do because they're afraid that they'll lose

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friends, they'll lose family, they'll lose whatever, but for the sake of something that they know and feel in

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their heart is the right thing. Boy, that is such I don't know who's writing your questions for you, but give

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them a race. That is a great question. Uh, listen, there's a couple of things that's such a good question. I think the

Discernment - Reading The Room

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God's word says that right words spoken in the right time are like apples of gold in the silver setting. In other

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words, you can say the right thing at the wrong time and get a a a result that

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you don't want. So, for example, uh when my husband comes home from work at the end of the evening and he walks in the

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door and he's tired, that is the wrong time for me to say, "Hey, let's sit down and go over the checkbook." Or, "I just

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noted this came in the mail and you know, I've had it." It's the wrong time. The right time is after you've had

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dinner and he's had a glass of wine and we've all kind of chilled out for the evening and then I can say, "Hey," and

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it's the same conversation just at a different time. So, I think that's the first thing we have to, you know, there

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we have to, you have to be able to read the room, right? And so, that's discernment. That's a discernment issue.

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That's knowing the difference between right and almost right. And the other thing I think is our our our

Commitment To The Truth Requires Courage

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desire, it kind of goes back to what I said a few minutes ago. I think we need to see a commitment to the truth and in

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the culture today that literally requires courage. It it it just does. It

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requires courage. And we see a lot of cowardice in the culture right now. We

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see a lot of people just, well, I don't want to engage in that because I'm going to lose friends. Well, guess what? The truth is going to cost you. The truth

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will cost you friends. And so, you have to just determine what's more important. Well, I think it's more important that I

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live in reality than I live in a fake reality with fake friends because they're not really my friends if I tell

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the truth and now they're not my friend anymore. Well, then you never were my friend in the first place. And that's what we've told our children. It

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requires courage to stand in the gap right now and to speak the truth. If you see somebody

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going down the freeway at 80 miles an hour and you know that the road up ahead

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is washed out, but you don't want to tell them, "Hey, slow down. The road ahead's washed out." because you know

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they just hate it when you criticize their driving. But you know that if they don't slow down, they're going to hit this spot in

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the road and they're they're they're likely going to lose their life at the very least. They're going to get in an accident. If you really love them,

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you're going to make that phone call and you're going to say, "Hey, I'm just letting you know, I love you. The road ahead is washed out. I heard it on the

24:00
news. Uh at the very least, you need to slow down." Now, if that person gets mad at you and says, "What are you

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criticizing my driving for?" you know, I don't I don't care what you say. Well, at least you're not going to go to bed

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at night with knowing that you knew something that could have helped and you didn't do it because you were too

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afraid, too afraid of the of the consequence. The same thing is true in relationship. It's like it's like the

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story I just told you a moment ago about my friend with anorexia. I could have lied to her. It certainly would have been easier

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as it played out. I took a fair amount of abuse from her. I'll never forget, you know, me saying to her, "Honey, what

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you see isn't it isn't real and and I love you." And she's screaming at me at

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one point, hitting me, you know, uh really upset, felt like I was judging her. But guess what? She's a healthy

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whole woman today in her late 40s with five beautiful children. And if we had

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lied to her, she wouldn't be there. And so this commitment, the other thing I think is really important is that commitment to you have to have courage.

Fear Is Not An Emotion, It Is A Spirit

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You have to also understand that fear is not an emotion. This is maybe important for your listeners. Fear is not an emotion. Fear is a spirit.

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And it isn't a good spirit. It's not from the Lord. There's a healthy fear like I I have a healthy fear of my uh of

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my stove and I want my grandchild. I want my grandson to have a healthy fear of the fireplace, right? But there's an

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unhealthy fear. And the unhealthy fear is the fear of what people think of you. Uh the fear of what the consequence

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would be if you did the right thing. We should be afraid of a consequence for a wrong thing, right? You drink and drive.

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Well, the consequence of that could be that you kill somebody with your car. There's a healthy fear. But the

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unhealthy fear is a spirit. And the Bible teaches us that we haven't been

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given a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind. And when you

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have when the spirit of fear comes over you, and it isn't the good kind of fear,

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what happens? You lose your power, you lose your love, and you lose your soundness of mind. It's because fear is

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not an emotion. and fear is a spirit. And so, uh, I think it's really important that we understand that. And

You Can Do Anything If You’re Willing To Do It Afraid

26:03
my grandmother used to tell me a long long time ago back when dinosaurs ruled roam the earth, you know, uh, my grandma

26:09
used to say, Heidi, you can do anything if you're just willing to do it afraid.

26:15
And it was a powerful lesson that has really shaped my life. And I live out

26:21
here in the Pacific Northwest around a lot of people that just that I that we disagree with each other. And uh

26:30
I still feel an obligation to tell the truth. And I think that comes first. Knowing what's right and living your

26:37
life in the pursuit of what you know to be true is really important. And once you understand that um and you and you

26:43
believe as I do that my days have been numbered for me before I took a single breath. I think my days have been

26:49
ordained for me and because I believe that it takes the fear out of things

26:55
like running for Congress. Uh because I I don't believe I've had my life threatened. Anyone who who speaks for

27:01
the things that I do uh knows like Charlie Kirk did that you're taking a risk when you enter into engage uh on

27:09
the battlefield of ideas because ideas have consequences and ideas uh words

27:15
mean things and they go places. And so you have to believe, you know, just I I

27:21
just know deep down in my knower, right, that my days have been ordained for me and that I have an obligation, a

27:28
responsibility if I love people the way I say I do and the way God would have me love them. I start with truth and it's

27:34
rooted in the belief that my days are ordained for me. And I'm not going home

27:40
a single day before the Lord of heaven's armies has declared that it is so. And knowing that takes the fear out of that

27:47
obedience. It doesn't mean I'm not afraid. It just means that I'm not going to be ruled by the spirit of fear, if

27:55
that makes any sense. Yeah, that's so good. And you've alluded to this kind of throughout this whole

Servant Leadership - Motherhood

28:03
podcast, but specifically for moms, when you hear servant leadership, what do you

28:09
think through as what it looks like to be a great servant leader as a mom? And

28:15
I know it's different universally, but what are the things that you think are just overall true and what comes to

28:20
mind? Oh, man. I think the main thing um motherhood is servant is is it's being a

28:26
servant and it's it's putting the needs of your children uh at the forefront of

28:32
your mind all the time which means I'm telling my children the truth I'm disciplining them when they need it

28:39
right um and I am concerned with the well-being of my children at the front

28:45
of almost everything that I think of and want to do in my life one thing we told our children and we've raised seven

28:51
children. Uh, actually the juryy's out on one. Six of our seven are grown now.

28:57
Our youngest is uh 15. And what we've always told our children, who are, by

29:02
the way, just doing great now. They're parents and entrepreneurs and uh and they're just doing great. And we've said

A Parent’s Main Responsibility

29:10
to our kids that one of our main responsibilities as your parents is to get you to adulthood with as little

29:16
regret as possible. In other words, when you look back over your life growing up, you're not going to go, "Oh, shoot. I

29:23
wish I hadn't gone to that event or I wish my parents had told me about that, or I wished I hadn't done, you know, ABC

29:29
and C." As much as it depended on us, we wanted to say, "Oh, hey, yeah, you're

29:35
not going to that overnighter because we know that kid and no, you're not doing it." Or we could say, "This is a good

29:42
environment for you." And kind of help as our kids got older now, we sort of set the stage for be discerning. Is this

29:48
is this a place that you want to be? Is this going to yield a good result at the end of the night? And help our kids

29:53
think through those critical choices because really, we're raising our children in an environment that does not

29:59
take very many prisoners. And you have to be willing to do hard things for your

30:04
children. You have to be willing to make sacrifices for them. For many, many years, I worked the night shift uh at

30:11
the hospital so that my husband uh so I could stay home with my kids during the day when my husband was at work. I

30:17
thought my kids were worth it. I still do. And I the culture would say, you

30:23
know, this is my time. Focus on me. No, I had children. And once I had children, my focus shifted from me to them. It

30:30
doesn't mean I don't take care of myself. It doesn't mean that I don't um spend time and just try to refresh my

30:36
spirit, but raising children is a sacred responsibility and we only get one shot

You Don’t Get A “Do-Over” When Raising Your Children

30:43
at it. You don't get a doover. Uh it's the reason why I chose to pull my daughter out of public school when she

30:48
was in second grade and we started this crazy journey of homeschooling. All seven of our kids have been

30:53
homeschooled. If you'd have told me, you know, at 19 years old when I got married if I was going to homeschool my kids,

30:59
I'd been like, "Oh, no, no, no." Like I couldn't think of I could not understand

31:04
why a woman in her right mind would want to stay home with her children all day when a yellow bus come take them away

31:09
for free. But as it turned out the schools are really taking and this is a whole other

31:15
podcast but the schools are taking away from parents. The one thing that is the most precious that we have that we will

31:21
never get back and that is the gift of time. You don't get it back. And so if we're going to send our kids away to be

31:27
educated, we better know who's educating them and we better know the ideas that are being taught to our children and we

31:34
better have an outcome in mind. And so my husband and I had an outcome in mind for our kids. We wanted them to be

31:40
healthy and whole and we wanted them to value the things in this life that are really important. We wanted them to

31:46
value relationship with God, their creator. We wanted them to love each other as brothers and sisters and and

31:53
really value family and then pass that on to their family. And then we wanted

31:58
them to love the country and value the freedom that we've been given in this extraordinary place that we call home

32:04
that is full of so much opportunity. And so we thought, well, the best way to do that is to do it ourselves, right? Mom

32:12
always said, if you want something done right, do it yourself. And so, uh, we we took our kids home to homeschool them.

32:18
And I think it's important that we live in a culture that just says, you know, just throw your kids into school and

32:24
then pick them up and feed them lunch and the next day throw them right back in school. And really, somebody else is raising your kid and that's your

32:30
responsibility. And so, I think take joy in it, you be thankful. Uh, lots of

32:37
years, Chris, when I was like surrounded by I mean, literally surrounded by kids, right? It was I was like crock-pots and

32:43
curriculum from, you know, sun up to sun down for so many years. And I remember going in the grocery store one day and

32:48
I'm pretty sure I had a baby like strapped to the front of me and a baby in the cart. Some kid walking along this side of me and another one on the other

32:54
side. And some older mom, that's me now, right? Some older mom came around the corner and she looked at me and she

33:01
stopped and she sighed and she was like, "H, enjoy it." And I was like, "You enjoy

33:09
it." Like I am not having fun. Like I am exhausted. I've had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches 17 days in a row now. I

33:15
haven't had, you know, I haven't seen my husband in 15 years. I was tired.

33:21
But she was right. She was right. She said, "It's going to it's going to go by fast. It's going to go by fast and you

33:27
never get a chance to do it again. So lean into it. It's a season that you're

33:33
in and it's worth investing in." Wow. That's so good. And that does make

33:39
me think I might have to hit you up again to come back and literally just talk homeschooling too because that's a

33:45
whole another world that I am curious about too. So, uh I want to finish this

Ten Rapid-Fire Questions

33:50
with 10 rapid fire questions though where you just answer with the first

33:56
thing that comes to mind and there's no wrong answer. Uh oh. Okay,

34:01
let's go. Who's the first person you think of when I say servant leadership? My husband.

34:07
All right. Five words that most describe you. Fierce, bold. I don't know. Fierce and

34:14
bold come to my mind. Courageous probably. I hope loving. I hope that

34:20
comes to mind. And I hope uh Christ follower. Yeah. Love it.

34:25
Mom. And mom. Yes. Favorite book?

34:30
The Bible. All right. Favorite food?

34:35
Oh, man. I love all kinds of your girl likes to eat. Uh uh curry.

34:41
Oh, okay. Spicy. Favorite thing to do in your free time. I love to be home.

34:47
If if I'm not traveling, my if I got free time, I'm going to put a fire in the fireplace and uh sit down and and

34:54
read a book or I'd love to be home. So, making sourdough, that's what I'd be doing.

34:59
That's time consuming. What is a surprising fact about you? I

35:05
am one of six sisters and their names all start with H. I'm the oldest. So Heidi, Heather, Holly, Haley, Hope,

35:11
Hillary, and all of our kids start with S's. Savannah, Sierra, Skyler, Spencer, Summer, Sydney, Sailor.

35:17
Wow. I love that. I love alliteration.

35:23
Favorite place you've been? Oh, um, honestly, Chris, this is I'm so

35:30
boring. I I love it right here. I love the Pacific Northwest. I've been all

35:35
over the I've been all over the world and around the country. I love the United States. You can take me almost anywhere. Um, and I love it here. Jay

35:42
and I are getting ready to go to Hawaii for our 36th anniversary. We're going to be going on the Big Island. I love

35:47
Hawaii. Um, but I love the mountains. I'm a mountain girl and we are surrounded by them here in the Pacific

35:53
Northwest and uh, it's where my heart is. Is there anywhere you want to go that you haven't been?

36:00
Yes. And I'm going to go there. Um, next year in November, I will be taking a

36:06
group of people. In fact, people can come with me, but I will be taking a group of people to visit the seven churches in Asia Minor, the seven

36:14
churches in Revelation. And so, we're going to be going over I've never been uh going to go to Greece. We're going to see um yeah, going to it's it's going to

36:21
be amazing. We're going to see uh Philadelphia and Thotyra and Ephesus. and I've never been and I am happier

36:29
than a bird uh with a French fry when I think about it. So, I'm really really looking forward to that. Wow, that's awesome. All right, last

36:36
two. What's the best advice you've ever received? Well, it was kind of what I gave your

36:41
listeners today was to get my priorities straight. That that the marriage was the most important relationship in the home.

36:47
I think a lot of mothers especially, they just think, oh, it's the children, you know, the children, that's the most

36:52
important relationship. But I'm telling you right now, uh, it's not it's your marriage.

Importance Of A Servant Leadership Podcast

36:59
All right. And finally, why do you think a podcast on servant leadership would be helpful? Maybe for moms specifically.

37:06
Well, because if you get into a position of leadership and you don't know what it means to be a servant, you're not going

37:12
to have a fulfilling role as a leader. The best leaders are servant leaders. The most successful leaders are servant

37:18
leaders. And the ones that leave the greatest legacy are people who learn to lead and serve.

Closing

37:24
Wow. Well, Heidi, thank you for taking the time and sharing your wisdom with our audience. I am so thankful for you.

37:32
You're welcome. Thank you for having me. This was a hoot and holler and good time and hopefully we will have you back into a homeschooling conversation in the

37:38
future. Let's do it. I'd love it. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Servant Leadership Podcast. If

37:45
you enjoyed what you heard, please give it a thumbs up and leave a comment below. Don't forget to subscribe and hit

37:52
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37:58
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