Authenticity and Divine Calling with Alexa Kolbe

Have you ever questioned what it truly means to follow your heart? Alexa Kolbe, a former career-driven professional turned writer and stay-at-home mom, joins us to share her remarkable transformation. She opens up about facing adversity, including a traumatic brain injury that shifted her life's direction and the subsequent steps she took to share her voice with the world. Discover Alexa's raw insights on the jolt of sudden viral fame and how she overcame the daunting battle with imposter syndrome.

This episode is a testament to the undeniable power of authenticity in our lives. I recount an epiphany that transcended the conventional image of homemaking and resonated with a global audience, igniting a discourse on the importance of answering one's calling. We address the challenges of maintaining genuineness in an online space that often rewards vanity metrics and discuss how 2020 underscored the public's hunger for true, heartfelt connections. Alexa and I unpack the courage it takes to align one's actions with their innermost intentions and the rewards that come from such an alignment.

Navigating the intricate dance of identity, passion, and everyday life, Alexa and I reflect on the entrepreneurial spirit that drives us to pursue our God-given talents. We explore the importance of listening to our intuition, the guiding whispers of the Holy Spirit, and how embracing our natural gifts not only leads to personal fulfillment but also contributes to the tapestry of our communities. Join us as we explore these themes and invite you to engage with Alexa's profound insights, reminding you that by honoring our unique abilities, we each play a part in crafting a more harmonious world.


Links

Alexa Kolbe
alexakolbe.com
Instagram
instagram.com/alexakolbe
Facebook
facebook.com/itsalexakolbe
Pinterest
pinterest.com/alexadaniellekolbe

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome to the Bite Size podcast. I'm your host, lorraine Michaels, former EMT and nursing assistant, now business owner and wild entrepreneur. I walked away from over 15 years in medicine to pursue my passion and my God-given talents. Now I get the honor of helping other women discover their passions and purpose. If you're feeling stuck in life, unsure where to go or what to do, welcome. If you're exactly where you want to be great, you're welcome here too. If you have faced any kind of hardship or setback, you have found a safe place here. In other words, no matter who you are or what you've been through or what you're going through, this is the space for you. On the Bite Size podcast, we'll discuss life, business and faith. There's something for everyone. So grab a cup of coffee and something to take notes with, because there will definitely be things you won't want to forget MUSIC. Hey friends, welcome back to the Bite Size podcast.

Speaker 1: 1:11

I'm your host, lorraine Michaels, and today I'm so excited for this guest. I've been wanting to have her on my podcast for a long time now. I've been following her, watching all the things she does of homemaking and just her journey, and the way she shows up on social media. I absolutely love, and so I am so excited for you guys to get to know Miss Alexa Colby. I'll tell you a little bit about her, but then I'll let her introduce herself. So she's a wife, a mama and a writer and she's a podcast host. She's got two podcasts. One is called Women Make sure to go follow that and also, honey, I'm Homemaking. She loves to talk about the real and raw of every day and she loves to inspire others to use their God-given gifts to fuel their purpose. So if you know me and what I talk about, you absolutely will know and understand why I'm so drawn to Alexa. So, friends, welcome Alexa to the show.

Speaker 2: 2:21

Thank you for having me on, you're so welcome.

Speaker 1: 2:27

So, my girl, this is going to be a good one. So tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got to where you are. What led you on this journey to where you are today?

Speaker 2: 2:42

Well, as you covered, I'm a wife and a mom. That's pretty much my main priority in life right now, but I became a stay-at-home mom in September of 2022. And so I've just always been kind of wanting to pursue entrepreneurship for a long time, just trying to get my voice out there. I've been a writer since I was. I guess I've been a writer my whole life. I've written songs. I call myself a closet writer because I would always just nobody ever knew that I wrote, so I would write songs. I've written plays for church and whatnot. And in 2016, I had a traumatic brain injury and after that I had a sub-demol hematoma, so I had brain bleed pretty much, and so after that I was off of work for a month. I couldn't wake up in the morning without wanting to vomit and everything. So concussions are not fun, especially TBI's.

Speaker 2: 3:50

But after that in 2016,. I was like I just want to do something more with my life and I just want to start sharing my writing, and so I created a Facebook page and from there I just started kind of doing what I'm doing now, just started writing to women and I just writing about everyday life, because I don't think there's a specific thing that I talk about. I just think there's so many different aspects about the way that we feel and why we feel the way that we do, and I did that for about four years and in 2020, I had a post that I talked about my weight gain. That was very. Nobody could explain why I had it.

Speaker 2: 4:37

I went on birth control and after I went on birth control for probably a couple months after that, I got an IUD. I gained 40 pounds out of the blue In mind you. I went to school for dietetics and I was heavy into weightlifting and running, and so I was in that year as well, I was getting married. I'm sorry, let's back this up. This was in 2019. I got the IUD and I gained weight and it was really hard for me, especially as someone who was very much into the health field and just I mean not saying you have to look a certain way, but in that moment in time that's how I felt and that I had to look a certain way, to look the part to become a dietitian and whatnot.

Speaker 2: 5:30

And so about a year later after that, in 2020, I had wrote about my weight gain and how it's not always just you're sitting around being lazy Sometimes. The quote that I put on there was sometimes weight gain could be a reflection of the weight life brings, and that post had gone viral very much. So this day I think it has over. I have over 125,000 shares. It's had over 50 million views. Yeah, it went super viral. Wow yeah.

Speaker 2: 6:11

At that time it was I was getting. I got a few million views at that time. Every year it goes viral again. It's so crazy to watch. But I was like, okay, this is it, this is what I was wanting, this was my chance. You know that I finally had a post-go viral and sharing what I love, and people loved it and now they knew who I was and I was so excited about it and little did I know. I was not prepared to go viral and I was not prepared for the imposter syndrome that was about to take over my life. Oh, wow, yeah, wow.

Speaker 1: 6:51

So, tadji, you talked to me a little bit about that. What happened?

Speaker 2: 6:55

Well I was. I put too much pressure on myself right away and I was like, okay, I gotta come out with posts every single day, I have to come out with a course. I've gotta do all these things that all these big people were doing where, as for me, as a writer, I wrote only when I was inspired to write, and so what I mean by that is I really feel like this is my like, writing is my gift that God has given me, but I don't. That gift doesn't come every single day.

Speaker 2: 7:28

And what I was expecting of myself was for me to just keep, like, keep, just write every day like it just came naturally. All the time it does come naturally, but you can't force something that isn't there as well. I feel like with writing or with anything creative, it's the heart behind it that really determines how. I guess, like people can tell your heart when you post something and they know if it's trying to 100%, yeah.

Speaker 2: 7:58

Post something to get something out there, or if you're wanting to like what you're saying truly is what you wanted to say that day and you truly mean what you say. And so, along with, even though my posts for gaining weight had gone viral, I was still very much had a very bad relationship with my own body and every time I took a picture, like when you write, you take a picture of yourself, or now, with Reels, you take a video of yourself. You know, at that time we were still taking pictures and every time I took a picture every time we took a picture.

Speaker 2: 8:39

I just hated the way that I looked and I was like nobody's gonna wanna hear from me, like I'm not stylish, like all of these things. I was just very hard on myself and on top of that, I expected too much of myself. So I just kind of slid under the radar and just didn't write for a long time. And during that time in my life this was I didn't start writing again until 2023, which we'll get to, but it was I felt like I kept searching over and over again in other things. So 2020 came, covid was here. I don't write in the homesteading, just like everybody else did, or almost everybody else did.

Speaker 1: 9:22

And I just thought like okay, this is my purpose.

Speaker 2: 9:25

That's me tried. I do have farm animals, but it's still trial and error over here. But yeah, I was like okay, so like I just tried to make other things that weren't my gifts, my passion, they are my purpose, I should say I had passions. This is like where it gets confusing, cause people are like you should go after what you're passionate about. And I have so many passions, though, like I love makeup, I love bread, I love cooking, I love organizing.

Speaker 2: 10:07

I'm going to tell you right now, I've tried all those things, to make them into a job, make them become my entrepreneurial journey, and they never clicked because they weren't for me, and so that's where it gets you.

Speaker 2: 10:23

gotta be careful when you say, like anybody just saying that, make your passions your purpose, because there's you can have multiple passions. I'm a multi-passionate person, but anyways, I just started trying to make other things that I now look back, that were for me in a way that grew me but weren't for me to teach others or wasn't my gift to use to in this world.

Speaker 1: 10:52

How did you figure out? Because, being a multi-faceted person, a multi-passionate person, I'm the same way. Lots of things excite me and I'm like, ooh, this is fun and ooh, I'm good at this. And then I kinda it's a flash in the pan like it'll be fun for a minute, but then I and I put that pressure on myself, whereas I'm an entrepreneur and I wanna do this, this and this and I wanna have multiple streams of income and I like leadership and I like talking and encouraging and blah, blah, blah, and I have 15 years history of working in medicine.

Speaker 1: 11:28

So it's like I kinda, I still have a heart for that, but that's more of a heart for helping people. And now, since 2020, medicine took a very different turn, and so I stepped out of it because I was like, whoa, this is not what I, why I got into it. This is taken on a whole new. So then that led me to diving into holistic healing and natural stuff and biohacking, and then getting into like homesteading and growing your own food and all those things. So how did you figure out where your lane was? How did you figure out what was it how you were supposed to show up, what God was calling you to do and help others in? How did you figure that out?

Speaker 2: 12:27

Well, I won't say that I figured it out. I will say it was. I feel like God just like, was like either you do it this way or it's never gonna work, because and why I say that is because for this beginning of this year so for 2020 to 2023, I had kind of dipped in and out of social media. I got pregnant and so with our first child and I was sick the whole time and every time I'd come back in I'd shared something like home making or homesteading wise, and it just wasn't. You get really passionate about things when you first do them, I think, cause it's new and you love it.

Speaker 2: 13:08

And then You're just like oh my gosh, I did this. I can share this with another person. That's how I am. That's not how everybody is, but that's how I am. I'm just like I wanna share it with the world and come to find out, as I do it, more and more I love it from it starts to not become fun anymore because I'm doing it.

Speaker 2: 13:30

It's no longer for me. I think a lot of us like to take our hobbies and things that we like to do for ourselves and we wanna share it with the world because it makes us feel good. But what we don't realize is that we need some fun in our life that we can just keep for ourselves. But anyways, in 2023, beginning this year I started a YouTube channel, which I'm starting my YouTube channel back up again now Yay, good. But I stopped in May because I was like okay, I'm going to teach others how to cook from scratch and I love cooking from scratch, it's like one of my favorite things. And I was like, okay, I'm going to.

Speaker 2: 14:11

And every time I made a video, I just hated it. It's not that I hated the way that I looked or anything, because I've kind of worked through that If we have time, we can go over that as well but it's just I did not enjoy making the video. It almost became a chore for me and I won't lie, anything entrepreneurship-wise can become a chore very quickly, but I think really, you have to enjoy what you do. So in March of this year, I was getting ready to post a recipe on Instagram again and I was like I don't want to post this, I don't want to post this, I don't want to post this recipe, another recipe again, and it's not because I wasn't getting, you know, the traction I wanted. I mean, we all want to grow online. Let's be honest here.

Speaker 2: 15:09

We all feel that need, that we have to have a certain amount of followers to prove that we're, that we've made it, you know, on this platform, even though that's not like we shouldn't focus on that, but it's hard not to you know and to hear about everybody going viral at the time and I just wanted to share something from my heart for the first time in a long time and it had. I don't know why I wanted to share it, I just wanted to and I just the real that it was was talking about how I just opened up, about how I didn't want to share my face online for a while because I didn't like the way that I looked pretty much. And the last portion of it I put because I was talking about home making, because as home makers, I feel a lot of people don't know that they're a homemaker and they just view people who wear the pretty prairie dresses and make the pretty breads and wear the apron. That's a homemaker.

Speaker 2: 16:16

But, actually, if you tend to, at home, any place that you live, if you tend to it, even if it's a cardboard box, if you tend to it, you're a homemaker. Because you're, it's the making of a home and I put on that last line of that reel that homemaking is a look, not a. Homemaking is a purpose, not a look.

Speaker 1: 16:35

And from there you come up with these one liners that are just like wow, mic, drop right there. I'm like what?

Speaker 2: 16:44

That's not me, that's not me. That's all, god. You know. I really, and from there I will, okay, like I went viral. I was literally just sharing it. I wasn't. I wonder why I just like boom and I like went off. I got, I think, like 14,000 followers within a week. It was crazy Like yeah, and it's not to complain followers, not to compare followers. I just say like in general, you know?

Speaker 1: 17:16

I mean the number.

Speaker 2: 17:17

it does matter in a sense, you know if you want to get paid for things, but like it just right there I was like, oh my gosh. It was just my realization that, like for the first time in three years, I've shared something that was on my heart. And this is the response I got yeah, yeah. And I'm just like why am I always holding back from this? Why?

Speaker 2: 17:38

am I always just trying to run away from what I'm called to do. That I know I'm called to do, that I've known for years and I have been so frustrated with myself over these past two years that I've thrown in the towel and it wasn't an easy transition, I should say, because I was like do I really want to get into this all over again? Do I really want to put myself down this road? But I feel like as much as I was mad at myself in 2020, I feel like 2020 taught me, when you do blow up, all people are looking for is just you. They're looking for that person they saw in the real.

Speaker 2: 18:19

They're not looking for somebody to come on and be different.

Speaker 1: 18:22

So yeah, that's amazing.

Speaker 1: 18:25

I love it. Oh my gosh, it just so in man. We could go on forever. Yeah, I love.

Speaker 1: 18:33

First of all, I love that, your heart in it, the posture of your heart and I think that's what is so honoring to God is that you weren't coming on to like it wasn't your intention to go viral, it wasn't your intention to make millions and to get all these followers. That was never your heart's desire, that was never your intention. You were just doing it and, like you had said, it was something that you loved and you're like I love this, I want to share it, and so it was very much an authentic heart posture. And that is what is so attractive in the world.

Speaker 1: 19:17

Is that just everyone, we all crave community, we all crave connection. That's what God created us for was connection and community, and we weren't supposed to do stuff alone. And so when you share that vulnerability, whether it's how you feel about yourself or your appearance or your role, it's just that's what opens up other people and we want that connection. But I love, I also love the obedience and how. Again, the posture of your heart is towards God and it's just okay. God, is this what you want?

Speaker 1: 20:02

for me Is, this where I need to be Is this, where I need to be obedient and walk this path, knowing that it's not gonna be easy, knowing that God doesn't call us to comfort and God doesn't call us to easy. The path is narrow, right, we're supposed to walk that narrow path and it's not easy. But I can also understand, on the other side of it, how we want to reach many people because and it's not again, you gotta check your heart. What is the reason for it? Are we wanting to reach many people to get money? Or are we wanting to reach many people because we have a message that needs to be heard?

Speaker 1: 20:44

And so, having that heart posture of I want everyone to hear this because, like for me personally, my mission is I want everybody to know and love Jesus. I want everybody to know the love of Jesus and to experience that and to know that they were divinely created and to live in their purpose. And so I just love meeting other women especially who are living their purpose and walking in their purpose, just like you, and who are really just chasing after God and what they're called to do. So I really, I really want to encourage you in that and congratulate you in that, on the obedience and just your journey and where you've gone with it.

Speaker 2: 21:37

Yeah, I'll be honest, though. I was an obedient for so long, and that's what that? Is it uncontentment or discontentment? Like I was not content with my life, Like that's where that came from for a while.

Speaker 1: 21:51

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 21:52

And so, yeah, like I, the obedience came with almost frustration that like, okay, fine, I'll just do it you know, like here, here it is. And then it was like, oh, okay, now I see, because I can use these words to reach other people, in a way, I just my biggest. Why I started writing a long time ago, back in 2016, was because I always said I never want another person to feel the way I did for so long.

Speaker 2: 22:25

And that was alone, and it's like what I was feeling was not normal, or it was unexplained, or nobody felt like this, you know, because a lot of people don't portray the negative feelings that they have in their life. And they don't, we don't know, and I just wanted to be a voice that, even though you didn't want to come out and say it, you read it and you're like okay, I feel, I feel seen, I feel heard, yeah.

Speaker 2: 22:56

And so yeah, obedience and not. I would say that obedience is a it's not given, it's learned and you learn it so much all the time. I mean, there are days when I'm still not obedient. And I'm just like no, not doing this, you know.

Speaker 1: 23:15

But, yeah, 100%. So what would you say then? What are you? How are you connecting? Is it? Are you showing up and you're connecting with the homemaking? Is that where your focus is, or is it still the writing Do are you? Is it a blog that you have? Because I see your videos and I see a lot of the homemaking and you're like the what you write. The copy that you write is talking about your journey, but it's also while you're doing your cooking. So I just I love both aspects of it because I'm like, yes, with the cooking, and I can learn from you, but, yes, the real and rawness, how you're walking this journey. So it's like two fold for me because I love it. But where? What is it that you're focusing on?

Speaker 2: 24:03

Well, I do. I just try to make it kind of like on my, especially on Instagram. I like to reflect this is what I'm thinking while I'm using my hands and cooking. This is how I yeah, like this is how I work through things and whatever I'm going through. So there could be, yeah, while I'm, while you're seeing me doing the homemaking tasks, like obviously it's like just a video of me just making bread or making or cutting something up or whatever. That's what I'm doing all the time. I'm literally cooking all day long, and throughout those pockets of time that I'm cooking, I have these thoughts that radiate through my head that I'm feeling. You know, I had shared something about how I didn't like to post videos because my house didn't have good lighting.

Speaker 1: 24:55

And even though there's a window behind me, even though there's a window behind me, and everybody was like just use the window.

Speaker 2: 25:01

It's that's. I'm at my island, so my drawers are on the side where the window is behind me. But anyways, not to get into that. So now I switch the other side to appease, appease the people, even though you don't see. All the times I forget the measuring cup and I gotta go all the way back around pause the video all the way back around. Y'all don't see that. Yeah, oh man, but I I just kind of want to. I post what's on my heart for that day.

Speaker 2: 25:36

And so I liked it. I want to touch on homemaking, but homemaking is just another. It's just another title for me. It's not my only title and it I just kind of like showcase my little writings through Instagram, and I haven't started blogging again. I want, I want to. It's just finding the time between podcasting but, and now YouTube, but anyways, I I don't know. I just want to bring in people, as if they're in my kitchen and we're having a conversation, cause that's, if you were at my home, that's more unlikely what we would be doing. I'm always cooking.

Speaker 1: 26:17

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 26:17

And I'm always when people come over, I'm always making food for them, so we always be conversing in that area around my island. I'll probably be on the opposite side, not with the video, but yeah, I love it. Just saying I won't have good lighting, but yeah.

Speaker 1: 26:41

I just like to talk about the real, raw life, like anything in life. It doesn't matter.

Speaker 2: 26:48

And right now I've been focusing on talking about more of my entrepreneurial journey, but that's just where I'm at. Right now. I'm in the be I don't want to say beginning stages, but also the beginning stages where I'm trying to figure out exactly what I want to do. And I know that there's other people out there that are also wanting to figure that out, and maybe they don't want to be an entrepreneur with it, but maybe they want to just make a little. I mean, I guess it's being an entrepreneur but just make a side income. Or maybe they're just trying to figure out, well, what do I actually like to do? Or actually, what does Alexa like? You know, I had to come to that realization too, because my husband he's such a good man. He just I'll be like oh, I'm gonna try this, oh, I'm gonna try that, oh, I'm gonna try this. And he's just like mm-hmm. And I'm like why do you not sound excited? He goes. I just want you to pick something. I just want you to pick something that you love.

Speaker 2: 27:48

And I like I said I'm multi-passionate. But what he's saying is is I just keep dipping my toes into different ponds and never being okay with any of the temperature of the waters, Like I need to find what I like and just stick with it and go from there. And it's because of me running away from that gift for so long that that's why I could never be satisfied with what I was doing, or I would throw in the towel too quickly because it was not for me even though I was trying to make it, you know you can

Speaker 2: 28:24

try to put your. You can be great at, you can love putting your hands to the clay, you can love it and you can work at it and work at it, and work at it. But if it's not for you one, it's just not gonna work out. And how it's not gonna work out is you're gonna make excuses for everything else in life, why you can't go to the go do it, why you can't commit to it. And I was finding through my whole journey that I kept making excuses for all these things like, oh, I'm too tired to record that YouTube video. Or oh, I don't want the lighting's terrible, so I can't record my video on here. Or oh, I'm not gonna post this week because I got too much going on. And those excuses, they're not. Listen to them. Why are you having them? Because if you were actually truly in love with what you were doing, those excuses wouldn't be there. Yeah, and so yeah.

Speaker 1: 29:27

A lot of times there's something deeper than that it's like. Is there something deeper of are you? Is it a obstacle or a mindset block or a limiting belief about yourself or how you?

Speaker 1: 29:41

show up or what it is? Are you struggling with perfection, like it has to be perfect, but we know like if you show up authentically, if you show up and do what God laid on your heart, it's not gonna matter because that authenticity is gonna show through it. Yeah, so that kind of brings me to the whole, like the turning points of it. So sometimes God turns us. We're going one direction and we think that that's our lane, and then there's a turning point and he sets us on a new path. Is there a time where you were going in one direction and God just was like nope, we're gonna shift over to here.

Speaker 2: 30:28

I think it was back in March where I was like I was literally posting recipes all the time on Instagram and I just I just fell out of love for it. And then, when I posted that one reel, like that's where yeah, that's where I felt the shift. And then the other shift that I felt was with my podcast women. I just woke up as I was meditating one day. I was like, okay, I just felt, had this feeling like okay, it's good, you need to start a podcast, and I was like, okay, that's weird. I mean, it's not like you heard God's voice, it's just like this feeling, you know.

Speaker 1: 31:04

Yeah, I gotta start a podcast.

Speaker 2: 31:07

I didn't know what it was gonna be about, and I mean I knew I wanted to have women on to tell their stories, but I didn't know what it was gonna be called. I should say and. I was, like you know, I was just coming up with different names and unfortunately there were other people who had those names and I was like okay, like you know, I was thinking of like a podcast called Do it. Anyway, you know, and I'm sorry.

Speaker 2: 31:34

I gotta open up my Bible, because I always forget the full name of this, but I was just really frustrated and I didn't know what it was going to be. So my feeling when things don't go right is frustration. That's why you'll hear frustration out of me, because I'm learning that about myself is that I get really frustrated very easily when things are not aligned with me. And anyways, I felt this need to call it women and I was like, oh no, no, no, no, that term is abuse.

Speaker 2: 32:06

These days, there are people who can't even define a woman, which is ridiculous and I was like I'm just not going down to the political rabbit hole, god, like I'm not doing it, you know. And for a couple of days I just couldn't think of anything else and I was just kind of like, okay, I don't know, I really don't know what you want me to call it. And when you're wrestling during that time of prayer with God and you know it's good when you're wrestling with God, in a way I think it's our human thing I don't know the word our human reaction. There we go to retract God and what he wants from us. I mean, look at it in the Bible. How many times people are like, oh no, oh no. Like Jonah, he was like, no, I am not going there and preaching the word of.

Speaker 1: 33:05

God.

Speaker 2: 33:05

And he ended up getting eaten by a will. Thank God that didn't happen to me, but I'm just saying it's true. But I was praying one morning and I was like, okay, I was so frustrated I was like if you want this to be called women, you better you gotta tell, not say I'm telling God what to do. But I'm like you need to tell me plain as day that this is what it needs to be called.

Speaker 2: 33:34

And I was reading my Bible. I read I just go through like a chapter a day. But I opened my Bible to my next chapter, luke, chapter eight, and the title of the chapter was Many Women Support Christ's Work and I was just like okay, okay, God. Got it and then I just cried Cause it's really nerve wracking. I feel, in a way to just it is scary to listen to what God really wants you to do.

Speaker 2: 34:09

It's not easy, it doesn't come naturally. I'm the person who runs and I have been for so long and, yeah, that was like my big thing with God. And even though women women to me has become, I found my podcast has become more of a platform that I didn't know I needed as well.

Speaker 2: 34:32

I didn't know I needed to hear the stories of these women in my life that were in my life or now are in my life, that have just changed me and made me look at things very differently and just on different topics, you know, and just have inspired me. And even though the platform is for other listeners to come and listen to and be inspired by or empowered by, or just feel heard, seen or heard like I didn't know God was gonna bless me in so many ways, like I've had a few people who, like they're small business owners or who've literally I've messaged them and said, hey, you wanna be on my podcast? You know, yada, yada, yada, just asking them and they're just they had told me when they came on to came onto the podcast that they were literally about to throw in the towel.

Speaker 1: 35:25

Wow.

Speaker 2: 35:26

Yeah, like them saying that they didn't know if they should keep going or not and me asking them to come on, just inspire them. And it's not me, it's God, and he works that way.

Speaker 1: 35:39

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 35:40

And if we really truly? I guess what I wanna say is if we really truly listen to what he's trying to tell us, and listening requires us to be quiet, which I'm not good at, so I gotta.

Speaker 2: 35:53

Girl saying I talk way too much and it does not come easy for me. So don't think that I'm just this like steward of a Christ follower, because it does not come easy. You just have to be quiet and listen to what he's trying to say and actually follow through when he does nudge you. I've always I've always been big on the Holy Spirit, because that is a gift to us. And if the Holy Spirit is literally even down to like, if you feel like you shouldn't go right, don't go right, go straight.

Speaker 1: 36:33

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 36:33

Like it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. God doesn't give us the Holy Spirit to just do the big things in life, it's the little things as well, and really learning how to listen to that little nudge of I shouldn't do this or you should do this, you know those are the baby steps.

Speaker 1: 36:55

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 36:56

I'm also big on building a trust within yourself. Cause ultimately we build trust with ourselves Like we're building that trust with God.

Speaker 1: 37:05

Because I've for so long I was.

Speaker 2: 37:08

I was like, oh my gosh, like I just don't know why I can't follow through with things and my friend had mentioned. She said you don't trust yourself. And I'm like what do you mean? And she's like you don't trust who you are, like everything that you, every move you make, you second guess it. And it just opened up my eyes to a lot of things and what I realized throughout this whole journey was I couldn't trust myself to follow through with a lot and because of that I was telling God, like the girl you made, she's not enough. That's what I'm telling God and that is just. It's not okay. It's not okay to say that because, for one, god made us and he made us perfectly the way that he wanted us to.

Speaker 1: 37:56

Yeah, and his image.

Speaker 2: 37:58

Now we're not perfect at all, Right, but he created us and he gave us these gifts. And if we choose not to dab into it, if we choose not to go after those things because we're scared or afraid of what other people will say or we don't like the way that we look, all the problems that I had we're literally telling God hey, I'm not enough for you, I'm not enough for this, even though he made us to be that yeah.

Speaker 1: 38:26

Yeah. Yeah yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 38:28

And so it's a whole circle.

Speaker 1: 38:30

I say that I love that you said so. There's three things that you said that I wanna circle back to One with the self-doubt that your friend was calling you up.

Speaker 1: 38:43

She wasn't calling you out, but she was calling you up and saying Alexa, you're doubting yourself and you shouldn't, because that's your gifting, and I had just I think it was yesterday.

Speaker 1: 38:55

My podcast yesterday was talking about self-doubt and getting over self-doubt and how to and how to recognize it and how to boost your confidence and whatnot, and that was one of the things that I was talking about is, so often we doubt ourself and what we're called to do, and a lot of times it's fear, fear of failure, fear of success and fear of what other people think, and I personally have to remind myself or ask myself the posture of my heart. Is this something, is it a fleshly desire that I'm going after, or is this something that God's calling me to God's will? And so I really have to pray about that and really be honest with myself of what is driving this which leads to the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit promptings, and I was just listening to a podcast. It was Lindsay Schwartz's podcast, and she was touching on it. She wasn't really calling it the Holy Spirit, though, but when I hear things and people are like, oh, you're higher power, I'm like, okay, god.

Speaker 2: 40:07

Or they're like oh, the universe, Exactly.

Speaker 1: 40:09

Yes, I insert you know, yeah, and so one of the things when she was talking about intuition or your gut feeling, and I'm like, okay, the Holy Spirit, and when the Holy Spirit is prompting you or leading you to something and you don't do it and you don't lean into it and you don't respond to it, eventually you become callous to it and it's harder and harder to hear those promptings.

Speaker 1: 40:41

Conversely, when you do lean into it and you do follow it, it gets easier and easier to hear and louder and louder and pretty soon you're like you know you're walking with God step by step, and you walk in that confidence and that assurance of that you are making the right decision Because you have this, you know, symbiotic relationship with God and the Holy Spirit and you know that you're walking and you're gifting and talking about gifting.

Speaker 1: 41:10

That's why I am so passionate about calling people up and really speaking into them and helping them realize their God given talents, because God gave us those gifts and he divinely created us for a divine purpose and we're all here to live out that calling to operate in our gifting, because our gift is a gift to others but it glorifies God. Right, and if we're all operating in our gifting, then like we're just it sounds so hokey, like the world would be a better place. But, honest to goodness, if we're operating in our gifting, like everyone is feeding off of one another and lifting each other up and it's just this whole harmonious thing, sounds like a perfect world. But trust me people, if you do it, yeah you know yeah, and God created the world.

Speaker 1: 42:11

I love seeing people Good, no, go ahead.

Speaker 2: 42:14

When God created the world, he created the world perfectly, and it wasn't until we sinned that it didn't go so well. But God has still he still made that. You know he still he wanted us to all be in community with one another. And like you're saying, like when you're not using your gift, like you're going around and you're trying to be filled, like people call it the God shaped hole, like you're trying to be filled with other things yeah, you know, mmm, the hole is for God, but God also needs us to.

Speaker 2: 42:45

I mean, he gave us hands for a reason Not everybody can use their hands, and I understand that but he also gave us a voice as well, to talk and to yeah, where that's we're meant to be in community, and in that community we're meant to use the gifts that were given to us. And you're right, it would be that's how you know it would be a better place. You know, I feel like that's why this world is going the direction that it is is because people are searching for other things that can fill them, rather than just tapping into who God made them to be and realizing that, in general, we'll fulfill you.

Speaker 1: 43:31

Yeah, yeah, oh, my goodness. Okay, I do want to wrap up. I could go on forever with you, no sorry. It was so long no it's okay, I love it. Oh, I love it, I love it, I love it. What is something that? Well, okay, first of all, where can people find you? I'm sure, if I'm sure, everybody that follows me is definitely following you, but where could people find you on Instagram?

Speaker 2: 43:59

They can find me at Alexa Colby, so I'll send you the correct spelling, because everybody spells my last name wrong. Okay, all right.

Speaker 1: 44:09

We'll make sure. We'll put that in the show notes, your Instagram, your.

Speaker 2: 44:13

YouTube for sure. Yeah, that's under Alexa Colby, and what are you?

Speaker 1: 44:17

and then, what are you working on? Is there something that are you? Are you working on a something new coming out? What's going on?

Speaker 2: 44:25

Well, I'm actually working on creating what I've always wanted to create, but I couldn't ever. So my husband works two weeks out of every month away from the home and so I don't and I'm gonna say, at home, mom, so I don't have a sitter. So for a while, I wanted to make just videos. You know those homemaking videos where they're just like cleaning their home and cooking and Tendent to all the things and but they do voiceovers. Yeah, that's what I wanted to do. Yeah, but you cannot trust a one year old with a $2,000 lens and camera. I'll tell you that right now. So I need to find a sitter, someone I can trust because I'm very, very particular and who watches my daughter.

Speaker 2: 45:08

But all my family, they all work full time, so I needed to find a sitter throughout the day to be able to and this is a long explanation, but anyways, finally, back on the YouTube game and I'm making homemaking videos where I will just talk about what I'm doing but also try to. I just want it to be another way to inspire others throughout the day. So just with anything in life, not just talking about homemaking, like we're talking about anything. So, yeah, yeah, I'm excited for it, okay, but, and then I also have two podcasts.

Speaker 2: 45:43

Instagram and YouTube, mm, hmm, yep. And then I have two podcasts. One is, honey, I'm homemaking. That is with a one of my best friends, so we just talk about homemaking. It's really fun over there. And then the other podcasts that I have is what we've talked about on here is called women. So it's women the podcast. The tagline is every woman has a story and every story of that woman can inspire another woman.

Speaker 1: 46:12

So, mm, I'm also looking for people to come on, so if you're interested, Awesome, yeah, okay, we will have all those things in the show notes then, so everyone can find a way to connect with you. It's been amazing. I could, like I said, I could go on forever talking to you.

Speaker 1: 46:34

I know we can go back and forth. It's been so good. So, friends, if, um, like I said, I'm sure you're already fine following Alexa, because she is just a gift and she's amazing. So if you're not, I will leave everything in the show notes and if this episode has helped you, inspired you or someone you know needs to hear it, please, please, please, send it to them. Tag us. We would love to connect with you and, as always, remember you were divinely created for divine purpose and there was no mistake in you. We'll see you on the next episode.