Listening to God’s Call on Your Life with Bianca Olthoff Episode 324

Listening to God’s Call on Your Life

Let’s talk about God’s call on your life, so today, we are bringing back a favorite Smart Girl Summer episode with the wonderful Bianca Olthoff. She is a favorite of mine, and she’s a favorite on the show. She’s been on many times, and today, she is sharing about her behind-the-scenes. 

Bianca Juarez Olthoff is the best-selling author of Play With Fire and How To Have Your Life Not Suck and host of the We’re Going There podcast. She is a passionate Jesus-loving, Bible-teaching, book-writing MexiRican who loves to help people navigate life, connect in the community, and live significantly.

In her book, Grit Don’t Quit: Developing Resilience and Faith When Giving Up Isn’t an Option, Bianca helps us cultivate perseverance when giving up isn’t an option. Perseverance requires hope rooted in the One who can go beyond our wildest dreams to accomplish more than we could ever imagine.

Let’s dive in. 

How Bianca Has Navigated God’s Call on Her Life

Bianca does everything with such excellence: Instagram, podcasting, having her own business, etc., so I asked her how it is behind the scenes. Is it easy and simple because she’s walking on God’s call in her life? And she said this. She said she’s very organized; she sets reminders and timers to keep her on track, and right before she had to record the podcast episode, her laptop decided to update, and that’s like the metaphor of her life. 

You plan everything out and think it’s going to go one way, and then out of nowhere, something happens that wasn’t expected, whether for better or worse, but you weren’t expecting it. Many times, we see people from afar and think that they have their lives together, and if anyone is thinking about that about Bianca, she says it’s a ton of organization and a lot of grit. 

Questions to Ponder if You Aren’t Sure God’s Call on Your Life

Growing up, Bianca wanted to be a pediatric doctor and realized she loved business. So, she thought she would start a business or open a restaurant. Then, in college, she double majored in business and art, so her goal was to open an art gallery in downtown LA to represent contemporary and underrepresented artists. After grad school, she had a plan, but God stopped her, and she realized as she was serving in her local church that it wasn’t just about showing up on Sundays. It was more of serving the people of God in a new and profound way. 

So, if anyone is reading this and feels like they just don’t know what God’s call on your life is, here are a few questions Bianca says to ponder. 

1. What are the things that make you feel alive? 
2. What are the things that you’re passionate about?
3. What are the things that keep you up at night?
4. What are things that you may have solutions for?

And take a step towards that. 

Moving Forward After Failures 

As you know, the primary purpose of Smart Girl Summer is to share the behind-the-scenes that no one talks about, and a lot of people may think that speaking, writing, ministry, etc., is always so simple and easy, but it isn’t, and failures are part of the journey. This is why I asked Bianca to share one of her failures. 

She shares the story of when they decided to do an in-person event in Texas after the COVID lockdown. Bianca delegated the process of getting this event together to someone else, and they decided to try Austin, Texas. However, venues were still limited, so they found a place 40 minutes outside Austin. There were about 50 people in total who showed up; 40 of them were from Dallas, and it was pouring rain. 

This is to show that failures are part of the journey, and this is how you learn and grow and continue God’s call on your life. Thank you, Bianca, so much for being willing to share this story with us. 

Now, let’s jump into coaching. 

Coaching This Week: Boosting Your Mood 

Imagine a day when you wake up and you already feel overwhelmed. You sit and try to brainstorm ways to fix the issues that will come up in the day, but nothing comes to mind, and you feel worse, and your self-talk starts, and you’re like, I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m going to mess up today. I don’t know how to fix this situation. This is because you started the day in a bad mood and tried to plan or strategize things to improve your day.

It didn’t work. It’s not your fault that it didn’t work, but it didn’t work because you were only seeing the problems. The secret is to boost your body first. I want you to think about your body chemistry. If you have yet to boost your body first, your brain will follow your body’s lead, and if your body feels tired, you’re not rested, or you just haven’t been taking care of yourself. 

Your brain will follow how your body feels because of biochemistry. But when you change your body’s chemicals, you’re more likely to believe the best and tell yourself a positive story about the day. Only then can you think of strategies and options instead of seeing dead ends.

Listen or Watch now:

iTunes.

Spotify.

YouTube.

Favorite Quotes: 

“If the Lord is asking you to lay this down, it’s because it’s not yours to carry, and when you pick this backup, it will be with even greater strength.”

14:29

“Right now, we have access to every amazing biblical communicator across the globe. What happens is that we are prone to emulate the voice and the sound of other people we admire. That’s great to be inspired by. It’s dangerous to be influenced by.”

29:23

“You have to discover your voice, be disciplined, and really do the work.”

30:12

“It is going to take sacrifice, and it is going to take work. So whether you feel called inside the church or outside the church to communicate, you’re going to have to work.”

32:27

Links to Great Things We Discussed:

• Bianca Olthoff Website
• Bianca Olthoff Instagram
• Grit Don’t Quit: Developing Resilience and Faith When Giving Up Isn’t an Option
• First Class – Jack Harlow
• Top Gun: Maverick
• Keeping Up with the Kardashians
• Charlotte Tilbury Flawless Filter
• Stracciatella
• The Father’s House OC on YouTube
• Little Things Studio
• Proverbs Tea Towel
• Apply for Alli’s Free Coaching
• Create a Course
• Alli on YouTube
• Remaining You While Raising Them

Order your copy of Remaining You While Raising Them here.

Hope you loved this episode!  Be sure to subscribe in iTunes and slap some stars on a review! 🙂

xo,

Alli