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Grit ‘n’ Grace — The Podcast

Episode #275: Fresh Starts & New Adventures

Cheri Gregory

Hey friend, it’s Cheri Gregory.

And you’re listening to Grit ‘n’ Grace — THE PODCAST that equips you to LOSE who you’re NOT, LOVE who you ARE, live your ONE life well.

This is the last of the episodes that we recorded way back in July 2023.

Now, I’ve already shared with you how close I came to just deleting these files …
And I’m so glad that instead, I reached out to a friend who told me about a podcasting coach who specializes in working with people like me.

My gut reaction (kinda around age 5): “I don’t need help! I can do it myself!”

To which a more mature part of me promptly replied, “Yeah, ’cause that plan’s been working so well for the last 14 months, right?” 😂

So that’s when I asked The Question: “What do I stand to lose?”

And I signed up for coaching.

Fast forward a few sessions with my new podcasting coach, and suddenly we were in the midst of a stealth re-launch of Grit ‘n’ Grace—THE PODCAST that surprised even me!

Here are a few of the answers I’ve found to The Question “What do I stand to lose?”

When you get help from a coach who gets you, you stand to lose:
• Confusion
• Rumination
• Ignorance
• All-or-Nothing thinking
• Guilt
• Black-and-White thinking
• Rigidity
• Embarrassment
• Blinders
• Shame
• Tunnel Vision
• Self-Limiting Beliefs
• Fatalistic self-talk
• Fear
• Your Inner Critic
And when you lose even a few off this list, it’s amazing how quickly you can get unstuck and get going again!
Well, in this week’s episode, Amy and I discuss several ways we’ve gotten “unstuck” as we process together what we learned from our interview with Kathi Lipp.

Cheri Gregory
All right, Amy, I don’t know which we like better, interviews or convos. Maybe it’s a tie.

Amy Carroll
No, I mean, because our interviews this time, Kathi and Michelle –

Cheri Gregory
I know!

Amy Carroll
But then this is so great, too. Because I have a million thoughts running around as Kathi’s talking to us. So now we get to talk about that. Here we go!

Cheri Gregory
Excellent. Excellent. Alright. Sounds good. So, alright. Is there anything off the top of your head that you just are dying to, like, let out first?

Amy Carroll
No, I mean, like, just more gushing. Honestly, like the photographs in this book are giving me life. You know, I’m such a visual person. And so I just sat there, and I looked at them, and I made Barry look at them with me last night, too. But the beautiful chicken pictures and then all the happy pictures of Kathi and Roger. The best. The BEST!

Cheri Gregory
Well and you know what’s fun for me is that Daniel and I went to San Jose and actually had dinner with Kathi and Roger right after they had put a bid on a house. And then somebody else had bought it, and they were really sad. But then they came back from going out and looking again, and they wanted to show us pictures of this red house that they had found that had a lot more acreage. Where we were at, they couldn’t quite get cell service, so Kathi had like 100 photos she wanted to show us, but they kept doing the spinning beach ball thing. And finally, like one picture finally surfaced and Daniel I both gasped. And you know, it’s just such an iconic – I looked at her and I said “That house is a brand.” I said, “That is the one.”

Amy Carroll
The Red House!

Cheri Gregory
Yes! It’s amazing. So you know the all those pictures – I’ve been there. And it is it is even more beautiful — even more beautiful and more peaceful than the pictures make it make it look.

Amy Carroll
Well, I started scheming as we were talking ‘cause I’ve got a speaking event in March in Washington state –

Cheri Gregory
Well, girlfriend!

Amy Carroll
– and I’m thinking all of us need to meet at Kathi’s house and I’ll bring dinner or something. I don’t know.

Cheri Gregory
Ok, so we should use this episode to make plans and then we will inform Kathi about them and let her know what’s happening. I love this idea.

Amy Carroll
The amazing thing is we know Kathi would be not only okay with that, she would actually be excited about it. She’s “the hostess with the most-ess”. Me, not so much. But yeah. Have to have a plan ahead of time.

Cheri Gregory
I love this plan. And I will be putting this on my calendar, so.

Well one of the things that really hit me is – and I didn’t realize it until I was listening to her. I mean, I’m not a homemaker, let alone a homesteader. Okay. Like my mother was a Home Ec major, she loved – I think I’ve told you before, like when she passed, we found her senior scrapbook of all of her homemade things. And there’s this whole section on how to stage a corner. And I remember staring at that for like 10 minutes, like what is this even about? Why would anyone spend time staging a corner, let alone anything? So like, this is just not me. Okay.

But I realized, and Kathi and I have talked a little bit about this, she’s had some real trickle-down inspiration to me that I’m just now realizing I need to call her up and thank her for, because with all the renovation of the house – and you heard me complain about the mess and the dust and everything – but it was a great opportunity for us to reevaluate Space, Time, Energy and Money. And since we had to do a lot of moving things from one room to another, it just made sense to evaluate before putting them back or, or that sort of thing. And so I made two really big decisions that I don’t know if I’ve talked to you or our friends who are listening about, but I made two big decisions and I’ve now labeled them as decisions that this “obstinate, headstrong girl” made.

Amy Carroll
Yes, let’s hear it for all the obstinate, headstrong girls.

Cheri Gregory
And they both have to do with space, okay. So the first one was that I will no longer store anybody’s else’s stuff in my space.

Amy Carroll
Oh, yes girl.

Cheri Gregory
And this goes back to the fact that – and I won’t go into the details – but for like over a decade, I stored Annemarie’s bedroom furniture in my office because somebody might need it some day, right? And it was not useful in any way shape or form, like, it could not be modified. I had to work … literally work around it. And then there was also a blue silk chair that my aunt had given us and it was probably a very nice chair in its day. But I’m just going to delicately say it had accumulated cat stains and it was no longer a nice chair and it made my office a not nice place to be.

And so I finally, a number of months ago, gained the courage – or maybe I just channeled that Lizzie Bennet, that “obstinate, headstrong girl” – and without telling anybody or asking anybody what they thought, and knowing that it was not going to be popular, I stuffed a bunch of – well, first of all, I gave away all the bedroom furniture to somebody on the Next Door app over a year ago. But then there was just a bunch of other stuff that I actually took to the dump. And that took me time, it even took money, like, it’s not fun to pay, but oh my goodness, I got rid of the chair. And there were just other things that were in the garage that were cluttering and that sort of thing.

And I came home and Amy, it felt so good, it felt so good to be rid of that stuff. And not to be thinking “Waste not want not, we might need this someday, we could re-upholster that chair,” you know, all that kind of thinking. And it went against so much of the grain. I know you and I have talked about coming from teachers’ families, you know, budget always seems to be the thing that rises to the top.

And so to prioritize space: to go ahead and use some money, to use some energy, to use up some time to free up space, that’s kind of a new thing for me to think about. And then I did it again. And so this is my second new rule in my life. And that is “I could fix that” now has a shelf life of 30 days. Because there’s an unnamed person in my life who for years, in fact, pretty soon it’ll be 35 years, would alway say, “Keep that, I could fix that. Keep that, I could fix that.” And my brain went, “Okay, I could fix that means I will fix it soon.” It meant nothing of the sort. It turns out, it meant “I could fix that, so you should keep it until I have time.” And in all these years, there has been no time.

And since – go back to rule number one, I am no longer storing other people’s stuff in my space – all the shelves of ‘I could fix that’ things are gone. I recycled them, I took them to donation centers where people actually will fix them. And it was not a popular choice for me to make. But you know what, there’s been a great deal of relief, and I think it’s felt by everybody. I think the pressure of things that “could be fixed” when there’s not enough time to actually do it, actually, by clearing up the space (and I’m just realizing this, as I’m saying it) I think it took some of the time pressure off.

Because as long as they were sitting there, like mocking, like “You should be able to fix me, you know, you have the capability, so why aren’t you doing it?” and now somebody else can handle them. And we don’t have to think about them anymore.

Amy Carroll
Here’s how I’m processing it. I think what we have to ask ourselves about our resources is “Is this a resource, or is this a weight?”

Cheri Gregory
Oh, oh, that’s so good!

Amy Carroll
Or maybe is it an anchor? Like dead weight.

Cheri Gregory
A millstone. An albatross.

Amy Carroll
Right. And, you know, I kind of swing to the other direction to a fault. I am a de-clutterer to the point – I’m not very sentimental. I know – I have a person that I love in my life, a family member who keeps a lot because she’s very sentimental. And these things mean something to her. Stuff – my people mean everything to me, but stuff does not mean much to me. And different people are different on that. So no shade towards people that are sentimental about things. But my boys came home from college one time and they’re like, where’s the Lord of the Rings trilogy, mom? And I said, Goodwill.

Cheri Gregory
You didn’t. Oh my goodness!

Amy Carroll
I said “It’s been in that drawer for years and years. I literally gave it away, like a month ago.” And also you can stream that.

Cheri Gregory
Yep. Yep.

Amy Carroll
I do have a little regret about that. So now I’m better about at least asking the people that actually care about these things, if they would like to take them into their space –

Cheri Gregory
See? See?

Amy Carroll
– or whether I could pass them on to Goodwill for them.

Cheri Gregory
Yes. And that was my deciding factor. When I realized that the person who wanted me to keep the blue chair that had cat stains on it, that person has five separate offices: one in the house, one at the church and three at the school, and did not want to take the chair and store at in any of those offices. And I was like, you know what? I think it’s okay for me to make decisions about my space.

Amy Carroll
That’s not a resource! That is a weight.

Cheri Gregory
That’s right. It was a weight. It was an albatross. It was a stinky albatross.

Amy Carroll
That’s a good question, though, and we can extend that. So we’re talking about space. But we can also extend that to time.

Cheri Gregory
Yes.

Amy Carroll
Is this a resource or a weight? Is this a calling or a burden, an obligation? How about our energy? Is this a resource or is this a weight? Is this a drain on my energy? Our money. Is this a resource or is this a weight? Do I own my stuff or does it own me?

Cheri Gregory
Preach!

Amy Carroll
I mean, it could be extended to all of that.

Cheri Gregory
I love it.

So what I’ve done here – for our friends who are listening is – Amy can now see what I’ve done with my space, ignore the tables. But I brought all my books in here, I set up as a library. I’m not done yet. Those Post-it Notes are all my categories. And I even –

Amy Carroll
It looks amazing, Cheri!

Cheri Gregory
– I even got an app on my phone, I scan the barcodes, I now know every book I have, I know where it is. I found 12 duplicates. Books I had bought, because I couldn’t find the first copy I had.

Amy Carroll
Resources you can share!

Cheri Gregory
Exactly. I’m going to be sharing. But here’s the thing, okay. For some people, they don’t ever want to own physical books, let alone put them on shelves. There are no words for how happy this makes me. There are no words for how much I love being in my not just office, but in my personal library and knowing where my books are, and being able to grab them. And by the way, there’s a shelf, I’m gonna be putting a little label, it says “Books by my friends” and I have your books there.

Amy Carroll
Oh, thank you! Gosh, that makes me feel good. Well, and Cheri, I know you, and your books will be a resource. I mean, on the regular when we’re talking personal things, you’ll pull a book out or pull a quote out from a book. Really, really helps me. And so those things for you are a resource. It is an interesting observation, though, because what is a resource for one person might be a weight for someone else. So we don’t get judge-y about the way resources work.

Cheri Gregory
I love how you’re turning this into a principle. And yes, my example here is not that “Oh, everybody should, you know, declutter so they can put up their books.” It is, you know, being – my books give me the kind of joy that Kathi’s beautiful hand-painted tiles in her kitchen and her chickens give her. And giving myself permission to get rid of the things that were in the way, to reallocate the space away from cluttery things that were based on somebody else’s values, and use the space in a way that express my values, that was the key thing here.

Amy Carroll
I just see the overflow in both of those. That literally, you’re going to share and resource quotes. Kathi is going to share eggs, and she’s going to have meals for people in that beautiful kitchen. You know, I love that. It’s beautiful.

Cheri Gregory
Alrighty. So Kathi also talked about learning self-grace, and mutual grace, and then also community grace. And that piece of community grace really touched on something for you. Talk about that.

Amy Carroll
It really did. She said something that I thought was mind-blowing. She said that this place that she has developed that she’s living with people who believe and see the world differently than she does, and yet she is building this foundation of love – you can hear it in the way that she talks about people. And she said that these relationships have literally saved her life. Like we know that this neighbor dug her out of the snow. They were trapped in their house for how long, Cheri?

Cheri Gregory
Days. Days with no power whatsoever and Snowmageddon coming down on them.

Amy Carroll
Yes, I mean, it was crazy. And he got them out. And she said he’s the firefighter who saved their house.

But it reminded me of years ago – and I’ve written about my friend Linda in all my books, and her husband is coming to visit us soon and her boys; but my friend Linda who died when our littles were three. And she said to me one time, “Amy, everyone should be given six months to live.” What she meant was, you know, every minute of every day had purpose and meaning for her and she lived so intentionally.

But what if we used that idea for community grace too? What if we all saw living with people who believe and see the world differently than us as a life-saving necessity? Because it totally is. I mean, all the science that we can tap into says that people are healthier, and live longer – so it is life-saving, literally – who live in community.

And church is high up in that in the statistics. And so a faith community is so important. And so many of us are struggling with church, and yet it’s worth the struggle to see that this community grace that we are trying to establish, maybe, is for us, too. It is a life-saving necessity in every single way God made us for it.

And it was just, you know, we were reading in the news of this big shift that’s happening, the blue people are moving to the blue states and the red people are moving to the red states. And there’s more and more division and physical even separateness, and what if we start to reverse that in our own communities? And we see it as for our community, but also for our own souls. I just thought it was profound.

Cheri Gregory
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, and you know, just – I think you and I can both agree from our own personal experience that when – well, I’ll just speak for myself. When I’m with people who agree with me, it feels good in the moment, but I can become that echo chamber. I can become so used to not being challenged, I can be so used to everybody being so like-minded, that I become a narrower and narrower version of myself, rather than somebody who is being challenged to ask more questions and listen better and think new thoughts and see things from other perspectives and learn and grow.

Amy Carroll
Learn and grow.

Cheri Gregory
Yeah, exactly, exactly. And it’s not necessarily that I’m going to suddenly change my mind or join the other side, which isn’t even the point. The point is to recognize that life is complex. And there are many extraordinarily valid perspectives. And when I mean, I’ll admit, it’s been easy to just kind of hide for the last few years and kind of put my head down and just kind of stay where I’m comfortable. And, you know, I am finding God really pushing me out of my comfort zone in ways that are really, really healthy to expand my comfort zone to expand that sense of community grace, and yeah, because it’s good for everybody.

Amy Carroll
I just thought it was profound. I love all three of these.

How about you with self-grace?

Cheri Gregory
You know, self-grace has been such a huge thing for me for the last year, I call it self-compassion, but it has just been mind-blowing. And I just continue to recognize that even – you know, we always talk about grace being a gift, it’s a gift, it’s a gift, it’s a gift, I grew up in the church. And so certain things just became – but I recognize even – I think I thought self-compassion was something, since it had the word ‘self’ to it, I still had some aspect where I had to do something, like, it takes at least some effort on my part.

And I’m becoming even more aware that even the ability to have compassion for myself is a gift. God’s grace is a gift and the ability to receive it and apply it to myself is a gift. It just does not come naturally, especially to those of us who have some reforming perfectionism and legalism in us.

So and then I love the way that she expressed that mutual grace about, you know, if she and Roger might be exhausted at the same time, and she said, “I see couples turn on each other in such circumstances.” There was this really short Brene Brown clip that made the rounds; did you see it where she was talking about that marriage isn’t 50/50? I’ll put it in the show notes –

Amy Carroll
I have seen it, I think, but tell us about it.

Cheri Gregory
Yeah. She said basically, she said it’s important for couples to communicate where they’re actually at, instead of this ideal that “No, marriage isn’t 50/50, it’s 100/100!” Okay, whatever. You know, these are lovely things we put on cards that we teach in marriage seminars, but in real life, what she was saying is at the end of the day, she and her husband report in and one of them might be saying, “Look, I’m at 20% today” and that’s in terms of energy, kindness, patience, whatever. And if they’re kind of in a reasonably healthy space, the other spouse might say, “Well, I’m at 80%, so I’ll cover you today.”

And that alone has so much grace to it the recognition that one person I mean, that’s biblical, right? If one person falls down, the other is there to lift them up. But then she said, there are times – and she said, in this case, her mother had been ill — where they’re both at low ebb. And so she reported in that she was at 10% and her husband was at a solid 25%. Well, that’s nowhere near 100. But this is what really got me: she said, anytime we’re less than 100, we sit down and make a plan of kindness. When both of you just have 20%, you have to make a plan not to hurt each other.

Amy Carroll
Ooh, so good.

Cheri Gregory
Like, where is that in the marriage counseling, you know, and we’re so starry-eyed thinking “Everything’s going to work, it’s going to be 100/100, or at least 50/50.” But the idea that, “Hey, when we check in and realistically assess that we are both way low, the number one priority is how are we going to not hurt each other? How are we going to make that plan for kindness?”

So that just Kathi saying that she sees couples turn on each other when both people are low on energy really made me think of that.

Amy Carroll
That’s beautiful. And I think that as people of faith, we can also say, this is where God’s Spirit flows and fill the gaps and also empowers us to be better. I’ll just say it about me, empowers me to be better than I generally would be at 15%. Not so awesome at 15%. And Barry and I have been seeing a lot of this, his job is really hard right now. And you know, I’ve been just really, actually wallowing in some things. And I was sitting in my feelings, but I realized yesterday, I’ve moved into wallowing and I’ve got a plan to get out of that. But I said to Barry, one day, I was like, “I just am so actually needy right now.” And he just died laughing because he was like “You are the most independent, needy person I’ve ever met in my life.”

Amy Carroll
Yeah, which was great. But he’s right. However, because there’s this push and pull with me, like, I had to confess that I was needy, because I was like “Babe …” whereas usually I’m independent, and I’m like, “Nah, I can do this myself,” like at three years old, that’s kind of been my mantra my whole life, I’m like, “… no, I actually need you just to be really tiptoe around me a little bit. I feel really easy to shatter at the moment.”

But that that goes back where I’m at today. I had a little turning point yesterday. And I thought “I have gone from sitting in my feelings to wallowing in them. And I have to do some things to get out.” And this is where some self-grace coming in, which is I need to get out and leverage the endorphins that God gave me. And so I set my alarm. I walked yesterday and today because walking, being outside, it brings me joy, but then we know physically it does good things for us. So some of the self-grace is intentionally doing things. Listening to some worship music, taking my Vitamin D, getting my checkup because I know my thyroid’s out of whack. That’s – so all of these are tied together, right? Because then the community grace is my doctors are gonna help me out.

Cheri Gregory
Yep.

Amy Carroll
And, you know, so none of these is a stand-alone, we all need all three: self-grace, mutual grace and community grace. It’s just so beautiful.

Cheri Gregory
I love how you integrated them all. Love that.

Well, and then in her wrap up, Kathi gave us this rousing speech on educating ourselves. And, you know, pointed out that for so long, women especially were denied education, and now, like there’s almost nothing that we can’t learn to do, whether it’s a large topic that we learn with our head, or it’s something we learn how to do with our hands by – you know, we had the time change not too long ago. And every time there’s a YouTube video that I look up, so I know how to change the clock on my little 2009 Honda Civic because I can’t remember it. But in one minute and 29 seconds, I’m reminded.

So you had some thoughts about this whole moving forward with educating, especially maybe for those of us who are no longer spring chicks.

Amy Carroll
Oh, yeah, that’s true. I love how Kathi – it was funny, she talked about her friends that are so highly educated. We know Susy is working in seminary, and I have a friend that’s actually in school with Susy and she’s learning all the wonderful things and that’s amazing. But then she also included YouTube. Well, that’s the full spectrum if we’ve ever heard it. And I just love this, I’ve always loved the idea – you and I are both former teachers. And I made a commitment early on partially because I love it and partially because I think it’s good to be a lifetime learner.

And suddenly the other day, I hinted in the conversation with Kathi that I’m on this new adventure and I’m learning about real estate. And I’ll share more about that over time. But this is something I have never done before. And yesterday, I had the thought, like, why am I doing this again? You know, I remember when Breaking Up With Perfect came out and the learning curve of my first book, I thought, it really almost killed me. I was like, and here I am doing a random thing that I know nothing about again. Why would I do this to myself? And I’d say the primary reason is a sense of calling to it. But also, there is this love of learning. And I am finding that learning something new – and maybe our listeners, our friends, can really relate to this – is energizing! It really is energizing me to do something new.

Now, it can exhaust me. And I’m learning that trusting God in what I don’t know – and this like self-grace, that I’m a beginner and I will be better, like Kathi said. The growth mindset in our education is so, so important.

Okay, you’re like the education girl, talk to us about education.

Cheri Gregory
Well, you know, I’m the one who’s kind of the – this is where obstinate, headstrong girl comes in again, the stubborn, like, I’ve been in school as long as you’ve known me, and I’m still not done with this degree. So this is the year that I am committed to finish it and you know –

Amy Carroll
Perseverance, sister. It’s called perseverance.

Cheri Gregory
Yeah. Well, and you know, and it comes back to me realizing that resilience is not what I used to think it was. I used to think resilient people were those who could bounce back super fast. And that, you know, they they were like the Weebles who wobble and don’t fall down, but boom, they’re right back up again. And I think, I think the thing I’m starting to really value is – you know, Kathi even alluded to those of us who start things and don’t finish them, you know, one of the things I’m realizing about myself is I get to about the 90% mark of things, and I’m tired, I’m depleted, and I pause to rest. And then I just don’t get going again, because other things, you know, other things happen or I don’t recognize that I need a team. That it’s going to take me more than just me bucking up and sucking up buttercup, and you know, somehow forcing myself. That last 10% is often the steepest part.

This is one of the things I’m learning about myself this year, is I need to keep iterating, I need to keep coming back and coming back and coming back, my old habit of stopping and then waiting till a good time to finish it all at once is, it doesn’t work, it’s never worked well. But if I can just keep moving the playing piece on the game board forward just one bit at a time. It’s the don’t be all or nothing, it’s the just keep it in front of me.

And then for me, making sure that I’m leaving myself enough notes. I’m always, I’ve always been one who if I put something away for too long, then getting started again feels like I’m starting over from scratch. And it’s not true. You know, once I’m into it, I really can regain the momentum. But leaving myself notes, leaving myself even questions. And I’ll leave myself a checklist: next time I pick this up… and I leave myself reminders, and then what my next few steps are. And I’m very clear. I don’t leave myself code. I like spell it out in words that future me will understand and it won’t rely on any memory cells functioning. But then the process of doing those things will bring me back up to speed.

And then also I’ve got several coaches I’m working with through my program. I’ve got my methodologist, and we meet every week. And I’ve got a learning coach, a leadership and learning coach, that I meet with every week. And Amy Carroll, I cannot tell you how badly I want to cancel almost every single week because I feel like I haven’t made enough progress. And what I’m learning is even meeting with them for 10 or 15 minutes to discuss why I haven’t made the progress, or what I was hoping to do, or what the obstacle is, almost always turns into some notes that actually produce forward momentum.

And so this idea of lifelong learning, part of it is knowing how we learn best and maybe revisiting what have been some of the obstacles in the past.

Because my mother was very much “You’re always starting and never are finishing.” And to be truthful, some of the things I started weren’t worth finishing. Like, I tried just enough to discover it nope, not interested in that one.

For this, this one’s worth finishing. And it’s worth discovering my learning style, whether it’s always been my learning style, or this is my learning style at this stage of life, and then having the team to help keep me going and the accountability of these incremental appointments makes a big difference.

Amy Carroll
Fantastic. Yeah, having a deadline, and somebody else who is holding that deadline, always helps me along too. So really good thoughts about learning something new. I particularly like the idea of writing the notes to 2024 Cheri, or whatever date is in the future to write notes for yourself when you – because inevitably, something will come up or you have to take a break and come back to it. Fantastic.

Cheri Gregory
Yep. Taking good care of our future self.

Amy Carroll
Mmm.

Cheri Gregory
So what we’ve discussed here doesn’t really have anything to do with homesteading, but I think we have taken some of the principles that Kathi gave us and applied them to the various – in my case, I kind of look back at hang on a second, I have this office set up the way I like because I have been following the same principles that Kathi has. She at her Red House homesteading, me here getting rid of stuff and setting up an office that serves me well and brings me joy.

And you are off on this adventure. Is there anything Kathi – I know you don’t want to share any particular details yet, of this new adventure you’re on, but was there anything that she said or anything from the book that you’re finding is kind of giving you a little boost in this new adventure that you’re on?

Amy Carroll
Yeah, I mean, one of the things that has really encouraged me just about the book, and the conversation, is Kathi talks a lot about age. And you know, I think we hit – we’re in our mid-50s, heading towards our late 50s. And there is something – our culture is youth-driven. And I think it’s hard to fight against that mindset of over-the-hill, irrelevant, too late — all of those messages that our culture actually speaks very loudly to people our age, and to say, “No, I’m still doing new things. And God is going to have me on an adventure with Him until I die. And so let’s go. Let’s do this! Let’s not use age as an excuse.”

It was great because I have a coach helping me too. And I said, “Oh, I’m starting too late,” you know, I’m 56. And she told me a story about a woman in her 80s that started on this same adventure. And she’s like, “She’s doing so great. She’s killing it.” And I’m like, okay, come on Amy Carroll, you can do this. And so just the idea of we’re never, it’s never too late. We’re not too old to learn and implement new ideas and do new things.

Cheri Gregory
You know, and that’s super encouraging to me, because there’s a part of me that’s embarrassed that I’m still not done with my degree because I wanted it done by 50. Like that was it. 5-0. And I’m, like you said – I don’t know why you had to say that we’re pushing the late 50s, but okay, speak for yourself there.

And so there’s a part of me that’s like, you know, I don’t want to, when it gets done, I just, I’ll just hang the plaque on the wall and just be glad, you know, finally finished, you know; and yet, I know from experience that every year since then, I have learned things I needed to learn and those are being wrapped into the overall program. And I don’t want to say I have no regrets. But like, it’s artificial for me to be like, “Oh, it would have been so much better if I’d been done by 50.” Why?

Amy Carroll
Nothing wasted.

Cheri Gregory
Nothing wasted. Thank you.

Amy Carroll
Much gained by perseverance.

Cheri Gregory
Yeah. I love the idea that it’s never too late. It’s never too late –

Amy Carroll
And we’re going to have a big party. I mean, we’re just gonna schedule a big party.

Cheri Gregory
Well, I love – you said it’s never too late to start, and I want – so let’s make this our kind of our closing thing for our friends who are listening:

It’s never too late to start and it’s never too late to finish.

Amy Carroll
Amen.

Cheri Gregory
We hope you’ve enjoyed Episode #275 of Grit ‘n’ Grace — THE PODCAST!

Check out the webpage for this week’s episode at Grit N Grace The Podcast DOT Com Backslash episode 275

There you’ll find a transcript, along with information about the coaching options I offer Highly Sensitive Persons & to writers who are HSPs … to help them get “unstuck” so they can start something new or finally get something finished up.

And be sure to tune in next week for a BRAND NEW “catch-up convo” that Amy and I recorded just a few weeks ago!

For today, grow your grit …

… embrace God’s grace …

… keep asking yourself, “Is this a resource or a weight?”

And reminding yourself, “It’s never too late.”