326: How to Embrace Your Faith and Trust God’s Plan as a Woman in Business with Erin Harrigan: Fan Favorite Replay

Hi there. You’re listening to the Leading Lady podcast. I’m your host, Alison Loftus, and I’m a certified professional coach specializing in leadership and work-life balance. I work with clients to shift their limiting beliefs, insecurities, and self-doubt. This podcast will be filled with tools and strategies to help high-achieving women like you feel connected, empowered, and in the lead of your life, both personally and professionally. Let’s transform your life, starting now. Lead yourself. The rest will follow.

Hi there, leading ladies, and welcome to today’s episode. I am joined by my dear friend and leading lady, Ambassador Erin Harrigan. Erin is a Christian wife, a mom, an international coach and speaker, and she helps women tune out the world, tune in to God’s truth, and turn up focus, and redefine hustle and pursue success God’s way. Erin, thank you for being my guest today. Welcome.

Erin: It is always awesome to chat with you. I always feel like we’re just sitting over a cup of something and having a conversation, and I love it.

Alison: Yes, yes, yes. So, you know, I really love the messaging that you give, and so many of the women in the Leading Lady community, they talk to me about faith. They talk to me about their need to feel grounded in their faith and how to align their business with their faith. And it can be a little scary to be so open about being a woman of faith in your business.

And even as I’m transitioning into that and trying to be more vocal and be a testament of how God moves in my life, it can feel very vulnerable and a little scary to put yourself out there that way.

So for today’s episode, we’re going to talk about how you work with women to understand that God has a different definition of success, and He’s waiting for us to embrace it and align to His assignment.

Yeah, that sounds so powerful and scary. So talk to us about that.

Showing Up With Faith in Your Business

Erin: So it is both because I just want to address something that you said a minute ago, coming forward and being open with your faith.

Ladies, as you’re listening to this, please know that doesn’t mean that your business only serves women of faith. Mine happens to. It doesn’t mean that you have to be, you know, wearing your Jesus freak T-shirt or waving your Jesus flag, or my friend Avery says that you don’t have to be wearing your “Jesus Is My Homeboy” T-shirt.

Know that as a woman of faith, you’re going to show up reflecting His light, reflecting His peace and His calm. And that doesn’t mean that you have to infuse the work that you’re doing.

Let’s say you’re a copywriter, right? And you’re working with people who don’t believe the same thing as you. It doesn’t mean that you’re supposed to be moving their words to match the Bible or any… No, that’s not what that means.

So first and foremost, that peace can be scary. So I want to alleviate those fears that you don’t have to show up talking to Jesus all day long.

So, that’s the first thing. It is very powerful to come to a place where you realize you don’t have to do this alone, and you’re not supposed to. And that the definition, especially as women, that we’ve been sold of what success means and what it means to hustle, because that’s like a whole other topic I work with, which is redefining hustle, that we don’t have to be so self-reliant and we don’t have to be so, like, white-knuckle controlling everything, that the Lord is here to do that with us.

And when we realize that He has given us, all of us, very specific gifts and talents and very specific fruit to yield, right, there is a sense of freedom that I see in women because suddenly that fear of, “Well, people are going to think I’m crazy,” and, “Wait a minute, but the world says that success has to be measured by the math and the sales.”

And all of that is true.

Alison: To a point.

Erin: Yeah. Yeah, to a point, right? But when they begin to understand that, they unchain their identity from those definitions and they anchor it in Him. There’s a sense of relief that comes.

That said, there is fear around it. And know that as long as we’re on this side of heaven, we will always battle that, right? But the fear is mostly, “What if He slows me down? What if He redirects me? What if He moves me to some other business? Or what if He gives me some massive vision that I don’t even know that I am equipped to do, right? What if the results don’t look the way I want and not in the time I want?”

And those are the fears that really come up for leading ladies who desire to be led.

Alison: But it’s a little scary letting go, right? Especially as high-achieving women. I’m a recovering perfectionist. I don’t like to feel out of control. I spend so much of my time leading myself to feel in control of what I’m doing.

Erin: That’s right.

Alison: And so it’s like, “But wait, I’m supposed to hand this over to God? I’m supposed to let go here,” right?

Erin: Right. And that letting go very often, because of sort of how we’ve been conditioned by the world’s noise and chaos, as I like to say it. That’s why I say helping women to tune out the world and tune in to God and really turn up their focus.

That letting go does not mean stopping. It does not mean laying around and just going, “I’m just going to leave it all to the Lord.” No, no, no. We have a responsibility.

I think it was Christine Caine, who is a pastor and advocate of fighting human trafficking in Australia. Well, I think she lives in the U.S. now. I believe it was her. I read something that she wrote that says, yes, the Holy Spirit qualifies and equips us, like those of us who have given our life to Christ.

But certainly, if you believe, you know, what your faith is, whatever that looks like, that while we have those gifts and talents and we’ve been equipped to do the work, that we can’t just sit back and do nothing. I mean, we do have to do work.

And the world puts this spin on it that says, “Well, what do you mean you’re leaving it up to God, so you’re just not going to do anything?”

And then the enemy, Satan, is in her ear like, “Oh, you’re lazy. Oh, you’re not willing. Oh, you don’t want it badly enough. Oh, you’re not working hard,” right?

So please. No. I mean, there is work for us to do.

And part of that fear of letting go, that “What if He slows me down?” You know, also, like, “What if people think I’m not doing anything? What if people think I’m lazy, right? Or what if I’m not doing enough?”

But there is work for us to do. We get tangled up in overachieving because we think that that’s how we get everything done.

Alison: So how do we embrace Him and align ourselves to His assignment?

Erin: Yeah.

The Four Keys to Aligning With God’s Assignment

Erin: So I work with my clients in what I call the Four Keys Framework. And this will be a free download that everybody can go get.

And what that looks like is, if you’re familiar in business with the idea of a closed loop, we make the plan, we execute the plan, we learn, we put that information back in so that the next time we do it, we get better, right?

So if you were watching me live, you’d see me sort of drawing this circle, because that’s really what this framework is.

The way that we embrace it and align to it starts with the first key, which is define.

We’ve got to understand that no one else defines us. The world doesn’t define us. We are not defined by our accomplishments, our achievements, our roles, our titles, our money.

He defines us. He made us. He knit us together. He knows every hair on our head. We are His workmanship. Throughout Scripture, it tells us this.

So the first way is understanding that He defines us and that His definition of success doesn’t look like the numbers. His definition of success ultimately is having an intimate relationship with us and us administering the gifts and talents that He’s given us and being a good steward of that.

Right? So it starts there, like that definition piece and breaking that stronghold of having our identity anchored to the world, if you will.

That is the biggest piece that women experience, that relief and that peace, right? Because now they go, “Okay, well, hold on a second. I’m His.”

And let me kind of take us back to Scripture a little bit. The very last thing that the Lord created was woman. We are the crown jewel of creation. And it was only after He created us, after He created Eve, that He said it was very good. Like, not just good, very good.

So if you think about it that way, you may have seen memes that say, like, “Remember who you are and straighten your crown.” Like, we are princesses. We are His daughters, right?

So therefore, when we realize He defines us, He defines what success means. And that, yes, we can set our goals and there are ways to do that, and surrendering it to Him. But that’s the first piece we have to embrace.

And then the alignment to His assignment, like really walking that out, takes using that key of define to unlock that clarity and then allowing Him, with the second key, to direct us.

So that’s hard for us as high-achieving women, because you just said you spent so much time in your life creating your boundaries of control and you being in charge, right? And many of us have experienced that, whether we’ve come from corporate or, you know, maybe we’ve been moms and now we have a business and we need to create our sphere of control.

And so it’s challenging to allow Him to direct us.

So that second key is all about giving us the clarity of the path ahead. What is the next right step? It’s defining what that action may look like, right?

We begin to embrace and align to His assignment really with those first two keys.

And then the third key is we’ve got to take the action. And we talked about this earlier because we can’t just let go like, yes, let go, let God, but know that you have a part in that.

You are His co-laborer, His ambassador. And so that discipline, this is where that me helping women tune up the turn, turn up the focus comes from, because we’ve got to establish a daily discipline to incorporate Him.

I say the bookends of our day, starting with Him, ending with Him. But a lot of times what we do is, one, we hit the ground running, we pick up our phone and we start reading the emails and whatever, right before we even have prayer time with Him.

By the way, I was so guilty of that this morning because I’m only, like, maybe half a step ahead of some people.

But the second thing that we do is we make our to-do list, but we don’t always allow Him to have the list in His hand, right?

We say, “Okay, here’s my list. Just bless it,” versus like, “Lord, what do You want me to get done today?”

And if we’re spending that time with Him and we’re quiet, we’ll get a sense of what that is. But often we’re putting things on our to-do list that really don’t move our mission forward. Some of it’s busy work, some of it’s things we think we have to do, right?

So that discipline piece is about establishing a daily discipline that moves that mission He’s given us forward, right?

And there’s all kinds of things that I can tell you to do with a to-do list, but that’s really the discipline. And that discipline begins to unlock serenity, and it begins to break the chains of overachievement and overwhelm with these three keys.

Right? And then the last key is develop.

And in our embracing and our aligning to what He has for us and His definition of success, listen, it’s not going to happen overnight, right? Like, we’re constantly developing, we’re constantly taking that information in and putting it back.

And how can I do this better?

You know, I spent the better part of the month of January really just in this funk, which is kind of crazy because I started January with a week in Jamaica with my husband, which was amazing, but it was like, I just couldn’t get myself going for the year. And I’ve talked to a lot of women who felt that way.

Embracing Imperfection and Giving God Room to Lead

Erin: I don’t know what it was about this January, but for me, as I look back, what I realized is I was defining it and I was directing it, and I was putting the discipline in place.

And I wasn’t really, while I was in prayer and in the Word, I wasn’t really allowing it to be God’s and allowing Him to lead me, right?

And I share that with you vulnerably, because this is what I coach, and yet I still struggle.

And so that development is about allowing ourselves the space and the grace to continue learning and evolving.

And as we do that, we’re more, more, more open, we’re more welcoming, we’re less fearful. I wouldn’t say, obviously, it goes away completely, but those four keys really help us to embrace and align to His assignment and understand that His definition is different.

And the last thing that I will tell you is when I see women do this, the results that they have may not look the way they thought they would, but it’s incredible to see God move because of their obedience and then their booking work or clients or whatever that looks like in their business that seemingly came out of nowhere.

Or this connection led to that connection. Like, this is the way He blesses and honors our obedience as we let Him lead us.

Alison: Right. And thank you so much for sharing that. You’re right. Like, nobody’s perfect at this, right? The discipline doesn’t equal perfection.

Erin: No, we’re constantly learning.

Alison: And so can we talk about celebrating being perfectly imperfect?

Erin: Absolutely. Yes. You know, it’s funny about what you just said, Alison, is discipline does not equal perfection.

And you know what, ladies? We don’t want to be perfect. I mean, we think we want to be perfect, right? First of all, there is no perfection, period.

Alison: Full stop.

Erin: What you see, right. Full stop. Drop the mic.

What you see others share on social media or whatever, I mean, I, and I cannot, forgive me, I cannot remember her name. The young woman who just committed suicide, that she was a Miss USA and she was a news anchor or what have you. And many people shared this.

If you looked at her social media, you would think, “My gosh, she has it all,” right? There is no perfection. And it’s good that there’s no perfection because if we were perfect, we wouldn’t need God.

And by the way, what we create outside of His will, we have to maintain outside of His will. And trust me, I’ve been there. It is not fun or easy. Like, zero stars, do not recommend.

So this embracing and celebrating our perfect imperfections. I know Brené Brown talks about this and other authors, that when we show up authentically and vulnerably, and sometimes that’s a little bit overused, but I believe it’s how we’re able to allow people to see Christ’s light shine through our cracks.

I can’t remember, there’s that Japanese artwork that takes broken pieces.

Alison: Kintsugi. That is like my favorite thing ever, is, right?

Erin: Yes.

So if you imagine yourself like that broken piece of pottery, that you are not perfect, but if you were, you would not need God.

And in our imperfections, we relate to each other, right? We relate as mom to mom and, you know, high achiever to high achiever and woman to woman.

And I was recently on a networking group that I’m in, and every single woman and a couple guys, but mostly the women, when they were sharing vulnerably, you know, here’s what they’re facing or here’s what they’re struggling with or whatever it was, like, everybody was like, “Oh my gosh, I totally understand,” right?

So we’ve got to celebrate those perfect imperfections because there are things that I bring to the table that help you and things that you bring to the table that help me.

And how can we do that if we are perfect? Like, we don’t live in some, you know, dystopian bubble around us where, like, everything is awesome and it can’t be.

And I know that’s hard because our world today is in such upheaval. But I assure you that no one is perfect.

And if we can celebrate those imperfections, it allows us, I believe, to love each other better, which really is ultimately our purpose, is to love. Love Jesus and love people.

And it allows Him margin to work on us.

Alison: Yeah. Thank you so much for, for, like I said, being my guest today and sharing your passion and your purpose. Are there any parting words that you would like to leave with our listeners today?

Erin: Know that you are His. You are the daughter of the Most High King. That makes you a princess.

That doesn’t mean that you go around, you know, with your princess wand, like banishing people or whatever. But just know that you are His and know that His definition of success is so different than the world’s noise, and you’re already a success.

Just by getting up and taking the first step, you’re already a success.

So powerful. Thank you, Erin. And until next time, ladies, take the lead.

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