What’s the first thing that will come to your mind when you heard the word pivot? When people hear “pivot”, they might think of changing direction in their personal or work life. Business is full of surprises and hurdles, so knowing how to pivot your business can help you handle them smoothly and confidently.

In this interview, we’re joined by Stefanie Gass, one of my coaches. She shares her personal story of pivoting in her business, and we can learn a lot from her experience.  Stefanie is an amazing coach who has helped me grow my business by tapping into what God has in store for me. It wasn’t easy for me to trust her at first, but when I finally surrendered, my business took off.

Listen to the full episode:

How to face the what-ifs of your life and business?

According to Stefanie, it’s important for women, especially those who want to start their own businesses, to have a conversation about pivoting. Fear is inevitable when trying to make a business work, and our brains are wired to keep us in our comfort zones, so fear of failure, judgment, or the unknown is natural. She shares her journey of pivoting over ten years as a full-time entrepreneur, starting in network marketing and then shifting to coaching faith-led women to build profitable online businesses with God at the center. 

The biggest lesson she learned was that pushing through fear and discomfort expanded her capacity for discomfort and shut down fear receptors. When fear comes at her now, she knows that it’s smaller than it seems, and conquering fear is crucial to show yourself that you can do it. To magnify fear, she suggests asking yourself why you’re holding onto it and writing out the worst-case scenario. Action is the only way to rewire our thoughts and create outcomes, which bust through fear anchors and the lies that fear tells us.

From Corporate to Building Her Own Business

Stefanie believes that as you grow more mature in your calling, fear becomes less and less. She remembers feeling fear when she left a six-figure corporate career in finance and accounting to start a network marketing business from Ground Zero. The fear came from the worry that people would judge her. She heard people saying it was a scam and that she should just get a job. 

But now she looks back and thinks it’s hilarious because no one even cared. It was all in her head. She had this fear based on other people’s narratives that she made up. She chose to be afraid based on an imaginary story she created.  She now understands that failure is a training ground for who God has you serve later. She had to walk through the hard parts of her life to equip others and free them from their prisons. In 2016, she had a moment where she sat broken down, and all her costumes burned up, leaving her with the question of who am I behind the costumes? She sat there for a year, panicking, and started making Amazon merch T-shirts. Her friend eventually made her realize she was distracting herself from her calling. 

She finally turned to God and asked Him who He was calling her to be, who she had always been, who she was called to serve, and how she was called to give to them. Stefanie heard whispers to turn into the pivot, and she started taking action. She went live in Facebook groups and started serving women she knew she could help. Taking action was the best thing she could have done, and now she believes she is the woman God created her to be.

Trusting God and Pivoting Your Business

Stefanie shared a difficult time in her life when her network marketing business had fallen apart in 2016. She had been living a lifestyle of overspending and relying solely on the business for income. However, when the money dried up, she realized she had lost control of her financial situation. She had to borrow money from her son’s savings account and her husband sold his Harley Davidson to cover their expenses. 

During this time, Stefanie struggled with her identity and purpose, and it took her a while to surrender and turn to God for guidance. Eventually, she realized that she needed to be in control of her own income streams and not rely solely on someone else’s business. She surrendered her life to God and began taking action towards rebuilding her life, one step at a time. 

Through obedience, consistency, and guidance from God, she was able to start a podcast and build a successful business, with a team of women, 1000 students, and 20 recurring clients. She acknowledges that this success is not something she could have achieved alone, and she gives glory to God for leading her on this path.

The Wake Up Call

Stefanie had to borrow money from her son’s account when the network marketing business she was in crumbled in 2016. This experience taught her that putting all her eggs in someone else’s basket was a bad idea, and that she needed to be in control of what she had built or have a few income streams that were completely hers. She realized that the lifestyle she was living, which included spending a lot of money on luxury items and constantly posting about them on social media to appear successful, was not sustainable. When her bank accounts dried up, she hit rock bottom and had to borrow money from her son’s savings account and sell her husband’s motorcycle to pay the bills.

This experience was a wake-up call for Stefanie, and she realized that her worth was not tied to her business or her possessions. She surrendered everything to God and started showing up, taking care of her body, pouring into her marriage, and asking for guidance on how to serve others. Through obedience and consistency, she started a podcast and built a half-a-million-dollar business over three years, which allowed her to give back and help others. Her experience taught her the importance of pushing through uncomfortable moments and never giving up, even when everything seems to be against you.

Words to remember from Stefanie

“What popped into my heart just now is the word ‘hope’. I heard the other day that all hope means is excited anticipation of the unknown. And so, if there’s one thing that I can tell you, it’s that the journey is uncomfortable. It’s going to be hard before it’s fruitful. You’re going to weed your garden for a long time before you have the beautiful flowers and the beautiful bloom, and the favor in your business. But it’s worth it. Grab onto hope. What hope means is that you show up, dirty, messy, and uncomfortable in your fear, and you have excited anticipation of the unknown. You show up even though you’re unsure of the when, the how, and the what. Just show up and do your best today, and through the Holy Spirit, you’ll have the strength and the confidence to do it.”

To learn more about Stefanie Gass, feel free to visit here: https://stefaniegass.com/