Episode 29 / Britnie Turner
The Episode Every Entrepreneur Needs to Hear: Britnie Turner’s Insights on Mission-Driven Leadership
This episode is for you if you’ve ever wondered:
How to balance personal and professional aspirations while navigating different life stages.
The importance of understanding the "why" behind your actions and how it can drive success.
Strategies for overcoming imposter syndrome and insecurities, especially in a male-dominated industry.
The role of profit in enabling positive change and creating a lasting impact.
The significance of self-compassion and self-love in combating negative self-talk and fostering genuine connections.
About Britnie
Britnie Turner founded Aerial at the age of 21 with the mission of elevating people and places. Britnie has since formed multiple companies under the Aerial brand, all accelerating the mission of empowering people, sustaining the planet, and utilizing capitalism as a force for good. Through the success of her companies, Britnie is resetting the standard for what is possible for women and young people around the globe and has won several national and international awards for speed of growth, innovation, and trajectory. Aerial’s commitment to a triple bottom line approach is proving that force for good business is not only viable but the way of the future.
“When I realized I could not live in a world where this was happening and I do nothing. That's when I decided to start being a leader.”
Britnie Turner
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Lindsey Epperly [00:00:00]:
You, Brittany, I am so excited to have you on today. Thanks for coming.
Britnie Turner [00:00:06]:
Thank you for having me.
Lindsey Epperly [00:00:07]:
Yes. Okay, so we talk a lot in the show about that moment. You kind of looked yourself in the mirror and you said, I'm doing it. It's me. I'm going to be a leader. And I feel like you took control of your own life at such a tender age. Right? You're 21. When you.
Lindsey Epperly [00:00:22]:
When you founded Ariel, what? Us? What was that moment like for you? How did you know? I am capable of leading and moving people and motivating people. What did that look like?
Britnie Turner [00:00:34]:
Well, I'll tell you right now, there's no moment. You make it sound a lot fancier than it was because it was this big moment where I'm starting this great thing. I was an abysmal failure for three years before that, just desperately trying to learn anything about the real estate industry, starting at 18 years old during the greatest recession ever as a female in the south with no network, no background, no education. And I wanted to do it all so that I could stop kids from being sex trafficked. And that was really big deal to me, that I would be able to gain the resources, gain the influence, gain the money to be able to do something about it. And I want to encourage your listeners that if you don't have a powerful why, it's going to be really hard to be in business and or do anything great. I think, at least in my path, I've always done things before. It was cool.
Britnie Turner [00:01:38]:
I've always been one of the only women I've done, only male dominated industries, and I've always done things with such a different spin that the world wasn't quite ready for it yet. And the only way you can survive the obstacles that come with trying to be a force for good, it is to know that why. And so weaving that in has been the best decision I've ever been able to make. And keeping that forefront has been huge. And a lot of you have, I would say, tasted your why a lot of times. Your why will make you cry. It's not some big thing up in the clouds that the angels write on a blackboard saying, this is it. This is your only calling.
Britnie Turner [00:02:24]:
It's not always that clear, and you do have multiple purposes in your lifetime. But if your why will make you cry. Think through the things that really move you. Think through the things that take you to heightened levels of anger or sadness. And that is going to be moving you physically because it's part of what you're supposed to do in this lifetime, in my experience. And so start asking yourself, well, what can I do about it? It's so overwhelming. I can't really make an impact. Does it not matter if you impacted one? Does it really not matter if I worked my whole life and I helped rescue one kid from being trafficked every day? Does that matter?
Lindsey Epperly [00:03:11]:
Yeah.
Britnie Turner [00:03:13]:
You're not going to get a lot of donations that way towards your nonprofit, but that doesn't matter. You do it for the one. You do it because it matters to you. And so anyway, I just want to clarify. There's not been some big, beautiful shining moment where I walked out on stage looking great. It's been a lot of calamity, a lot of pain, a lot of trying to figure it out, a lot of insecurity, and it looks great later. But I'm sharing this level of vulnerability with you guys because I don't want you to think it's a shining moment. And if you don't have a shining moment, you're not doing it right.
Britnie Turner [00:03:48]:
Like, no, it feels horrible most of the time. And so that's just life. You're figuring it out, learning how to walk.
Lindsey Epperly [00:03:58]:
Yeah. And you know what? That's a really good distinction to make because you're right. No one actually has that moment of like, and this is it. I am the boss. I am the leader. But it's more of you knew you had a reason to lead. So tell us more about how did you come to that? Why and how did you come to the knowledge that it is me, I will lead in some way that I can actually help and make that impact, even if it is just on one.
Britnie Turner [00:04:24]:
Yeah. I met a little girl. I wanted to be a missionary since I was twelve, and I went on mission trips every single summer. I'd worked five jobs at a time just to be able to have the funds to go serve. And then at 17, I met a little girl that was so horrifically abused that she couldn't even physically speak. So I was livid after hearing the story about what happened to her. So mad and so sad and so just nothing else in my life matters except for doing something about this. I went back to my tent in Costa Rica and I got on my knees and I said, God, whatever it looks like, please use me.
Britnie Turner [00:05:05]:
And I heard loud and clear, I'm going to take you out of the mission field and put you in business. And I was like, no. Immediately. First time I actually started hearing voice. No. Anything but that. And I want to encourage you, like a lot of times when you commit to doing something, the path is going to probably be different. And so instead of being mad about it like I was for a long time, it's better to view things as an adventure and to know that if you don't forget your calling, it won't go away.
Britnie Turner [00:05:37]:
Life is not always the instagram highlight reel of, like, just doing the amazing parts every single day. No, a lot of it's not going to be your favorite or the funnest, and it still rolls up to having an amazing life of impact. And your experience is going to have a lot to do with your attitude and your gratitude. And if you can put a positive attitude and that gratitude on, then you've got a better filter. Then as you experience life, you're going to be filtering it more positively. And so I was the one to lead. As you word still sounds fancier to me than I experienced it. When I realized I could not live in a world where this was happening and I do nothing.
Britnie Turner [00:06:23]:
That's when I decided to start being a leader. Because my mom, I'm one of six kids and my mom's like, oh, yeah, no, Brittany's the goofy one. She was the messy one. I can't believe she turned out to be the one that was so successful. And that's also an encouragement to our listeners. Is doesn't matter what your personality test says, if you want to do something in your life, adapt. You're always going to be able to be limited by whatever you choose to hold on to. The world's not going to push you to be in your optimal state or to reach your potential.
Britnie Turner [00:07:03]:
You are the only limitation on your life. And so if you're an introvert and you need to be more extroverted, suck it up. If you are just not good at that, learn. I've got a five month old baby right now, and he sucks at almost everything, but he doesn't care. He's so cute. He just sits there and trying to sit up and he can't sit up, but he's so cute. He keeps trying until he does. He doesn't even know he sucks at it.
Britnie Turner [00:07:30]:
He just keeps trying. And it's adorable. And he does it all with a smile. And so I've been trying to give myself more grace at the things I'm new at, more like him, because he's just.
Lindsey Epperly [00:07:43]:
And we are going to get to motherhood. I cannot wait to ask you all the questions about having sweet baby, but tell me when you just touched on the whole beginner's mindset. And I think that that is oftentimes where we have this breeding ground of insecurity and of impostor syndrome. And that's something we talk a lot on this show about, is this idea of, like, gosh, if people knew, they're going to find me out. And I am so curious to talk to you about that because I've heard you open up about it on your own podcast on broke to woke. Interestingly enough, when I met you was my greatest season of imposter syndrome, personally, right? I did a whole episode about this, about how we had that insane private island experience of it getting closed down due to COVID and how this whole time I'm battling these insecurities because my business was failing at the time because of the pandemic. And then I meet you, who owns the island next door, and I'm like, oh, my God, she's so intimidating. But you're so not.
Lindsey Epperly [00:08:41]:
You're so approachable. You're so willing to share your full story with people. And I think it's important for everyone to know that success for you was not linear. It was not a big, shiny glory moment. It has been filled with those ups and downs. And I would love for you to spend a few minutes telling us about how you have tactically battled those insecurities. Like, what does that look like? What has imposter syndrome looked like for you? How do you bat it away? Or how do you use it for your advantage?
Britnie Turner [00:09:08]:
Great question. I think waking up as a female, you just have this wonderful gift of insecurity, unlike so many men. It's really annoying. One of my good girlfriends, she gave me this little hand knit thing. It goes on your wall, and it says, carry yourself with the confidence of a mediocre white male. So stupid. And again, I'm not being mean or sexist, but it's like, God bless. They do just have way more confidence naturally.
Britnie Turner [00:09:44]:
And I don't know why. I don't know if that's societal. I don't know if it's part of being female, but it's wrong. It does feel wrong, and it's super annoying to deal with. So I've created a lot of systems around myself to keep myself awake. And when I say awake, my podcast is called broke to woke. And I hate the word woke. Dang it.
Britnie Turner [00:10:07]:
I had it first. But what we mean by woke is to be awake to your calling, to be conscious, to be aware of how much your life matters and that you do have purpose. And when I was 17, I went to this leadership missionary training school. And this guy said one day, he said, today we're going to write your eulogy. And I was like. And he said, it's the story they read about you when you die. And I was like, that's really morbid. And he's like, we're doing it.
Britnie Turner [00:10:41]:
All right, fine. So I wrote it. And I remember just busting into tears because though I was a really good kid, because I knew I wanted to be missionary since I was twelve. So it's like, you can't get away with anything. So I never drank, smoked, kissed any boys, or like, I was a very good kid. Never even cussed before. And though I was a good person on paper, I was not doing anything in my life to make that story true. Essentially was getting by, being good versus being intentional.
Britnie Turner [00:11:18]:
And that day I woke up and I said, I have to live an intentional life. I want to live an intentional life. I get to live an intentional life. And so, if I could encourage you all to get past your insecurity and your impostor syndrome. Impostor syndrome. Quick and dirty. Everybody sucks at everything, most of the time, and we're all learning. Bottom line, that was my biggest awakening as an adult, is like, nobody knows what they're doing.
Britnie Turner [00:11:46]:
They're all just making it up. And as technology changes, everything can always be better all the time. So just be kind to yourself. Know that you're figuring it out and so is everybody else. We're dealing with all kind of, like, childhood trauma. I didn't have coffee. Your hormones are off. Like, we're all dealing with all these things, so just do your best, all right? So that's impostor syndrome and then insecurity.
Britnie Turner [00:12:12]:
You got to please write this down. It is that you serve no one by playing small.
Lindsey Epperly [00:12:20]:
Yeah. Tell me more.
Britnie Turner [00:12:22]:
You're helping the world by beating yourself up all day. I'm too fat. I'm too this. I suck. I'm not good enough. Shut up, shut up. Shut up. There are kids trapped under buildings right now in an earthquake somewhere in the world.
Britnie Turner [00:12:36]:
There are people being blown up in freaking Ukraine. There are fires happening somewhere, car accidents. Like, the world needs you to suck it up, get over yourself, and go do something that matters versus waste all this energy just being mean to myself. Shut up. Shut up. God. So I want you to hear my voice saying that to you when you start thinking those negative thoughts, because that's a really piss poor investment. Okay? You have so much more you could focus on.
Britnie Turner [00:13:07]:
Stop being so dang selfish. Don't feel passionate about this or anything. So by writing your eulogy, you can have what I call the aerial perspective on your life, knowing that I do matter. I have stuff that I need to do, and therefore I got to get over this little bull crap and start focusing on stuff that matters to make this story true, because I'm here for a reason. There is a divine calling that I am part of, that I get to be a blessing to somebody out there who needs me, and therefore, I should start activating versus self destructing. So that eulogy exercise is the most powerful thing you could ever do.
Lindsey Epperly [00:13:52]:
Is there a kinder way we go about talking to ourselves, though? Is the voice in your head ever that critic? That's also kind of fueling the, hey, wake up. Snap out of it. Like the tough love side or what does that? Is it always tough love for you, or is there room for self compassion?
Britnie Turner [00:14:11]:
Of course there's self compassion. But the tough love stops you from basically wakes. You wake up and realize it's a waste. Yeah, you realize it's a waste, then you're automatically going to be kind to yourself. So the point is, if you can beat up the attacker, so therefore, you know that by being kind to yourself, by being loving towards yourself, by having grace, you can't give what you don't have. Mother Teresa. So how can you have a pure, authentic love connection to your child or your husband or your friends or the world if you don't love yourself?
Lindsey Epperly [00:14:53]:
Right?
Britnie Turner [00:14:56]:
My husband is a green beret, and he describes this really well. He says, I must view those thoughts as the enemy, and I destroy my enemy. So he taps into his inner warrior. So again, I'm not at all telling you to beat yourself up more. When I word things that way, I'm saying destroy the enemy because there's enough outside forces that are going to give you a hard time in life trying to do there's evil, there's darkness, there's the fact it's just never been done before, or nobody's ever seen someone who looks like you do it before. Because your age, gender, race, whatever, you get to be the first one. So there's enough meanness on the outside. You do not have time to waste being mean to yourself.
Britnie Turner [00:15:42]:
Does that make sense a little clearer?
Lindsey Epperly [00:15:44]:
Absolutely. Yes. Well, and the way you just phrased that, of you've got to beat up the attacker, right. That's actually making the impostor syndrome or the insecurity another versus being part of who we are and how we're designed as humans. And I completely, completely agree with that. I think it's wise to study it like a scientist. It's wise to give it its own name. It's wise to say, all right, that one's showing up again.
Lindsey Epperly [00:16:07]:
How are we going to combat that today? And when you do that with tough love, that makes perfect sense to me.
Britnie Turner [00:16:13]:
Yeah. I just want to say one more thing to the moms out there. You are not blessing your children by constantly putting yourself down. They're watching you. They're listening to you. And when you deflect compliments and constantly push yourself down, then they're going to think, the person I respect and look up to and love, they do this. So therefore, that is the way. You're also not doing yourself a service by staying in abusive relationships.
Britnie Turner [00:16:39]:
That's not better than not having a dad around, for example. Well, it's best if they have a dad. No, it's not best if they have an abusive dad. It's not. You're not helping them. And I know that's a side note, but it's super important that you show them what the standard is. You show them what to tolerate. You show them what love is.
Britnie Turner [00:17:00]:
Because especially if you are a wonderful, loving mother, then you are their example forever. And you're also the example to little boys. Like, in order to attract a wonderful, loving mother to my children, I must treat them this way. Just be aware of what you're tolerating on the inside and on the outside.
Lindsey Epperly [00:17:21]:
Right. I'm so curious, talking about what we tolerate and kind of the things that life throws at us. Right. And how we choose to overcome those. And actually, on this show, I talk a lot about the monsters that save us. And that story is actually inspired by the story of Jonah and the whale and this idea that it was actually the whale swallowing him whole that led him to the shores of where he was supposed to be. And I feel so often that we have those moments in life, right, that we are just in the belly of the beast, and we think, how am I ever going to overcome this? How am I going to get out of these circumstances? And we don't realize that the beast is actually taking us to where we need to be, right? Like, this is our redemption story that's being written. And I feel like knowing so many facets of your story.
Lindsey Epperly [00:18:04]:
And you told me at the beginning, of course, it would take you 3 hours to tell the full story. So let's just pull out a little piece of it. Was living in your car a monster that saved you? Tell me about that how you journeyed within seven years from being homeless to being on? Was it the Forbes list of the six fastest growing woman owned companies in the. I mean, like, that is a significant turnaround. And I'm curious to talk about that as the challenge that it was and how you turned that into an opportunity.
Britnie Turner [00:18:32]:
Yeah, it didn't feel good in the time. It was full of, like, wow, you really are an absolute abysmal failure. The thoughts are true, Brittany. The fears that you have, these insecurities, the projections, especially as women, we try to stabilize, we try to create a safeness to build stuff off of. I think it's our nature. And you took too many risks. You don't. Blah, blah, blah.
Britnie Turner [00:18:58]:
All those thoughts, they must be right because you freaking live in your car. Here's your proof that you were looking for. And then again, I've trained, and I'm continuing to train. How do you get rid of those negative thoughts? How do you not give them space in your world to destroy, to help, to let you quit? Because I've wanted to quit a lot. And in that moment, I thought about that little girl, and I remembered that deep sadness and brokenness in her eyes, that she would always be somebody's plaything, essentially. I mean, her life was hell. And I thought she would give anything for somebody to care about her situation, and she'd give anything that somebody that lives in the most abundant nation, that could harness those opportunities if they just tried, instead of just playing video games or going and partying their life away, they actually tried to apply this resource to solving problems in the world. If I just tried, I can figure this out.
Britnie Turner [00:20:10]:
I just live in a place that this is possible. And so when you're really down, I want you to just ask yourself, what is even possible, even if it's never been done before, is it possible? And that opens up a different part of your brain to help you start connecting to, in my experience, divine, which allows you to have different sets of plans. And again, it's not that this is probable or likely, and I'm going to risk assess. No. Just ask yourself, is it possible? And so I went from writing my eulogy at 17, buying a house at 18, trying to get into real estate, investing. The world crashes and burns. I'm trying to find somebody to learn from, because I don't teach this stuff in college to found somebody to learn from in Nashville, Tennessee, move up there to work for them, get fired. Now I'm living in my car.
Britnie Turner [00:21:02]:
I can't tell my family because they told me I was going to be a loser forever because they didn't go to college, because they don't teach real estate investing in college. And I'm sitting there thinking, I want to quit. And then I remember that little girl. So again, that why is super powerful and believing and knowing that you are capable, even if you don't feel like a leader or a boss girl, blah, blah, or whatever, it doesn't matter if you feel it. It's possible. And so I found somebody I could learn from, even though I was fired from that guy, because nobody was investing in real estate and he didn't need to pay my salary, I found somebody else to learn from. And so I worked for free for them. I lived in my car, and I found a way to create value by finding them deals, managing projects, design.
Britnie Turner [00:21:47]:
I didn't know how to do any of that stuff, but I asked really good questions and I took really good notes. And nine months later they said, all right, after I made them $400,000. All right, you're ready to do this on your own. And so I started again, flopping around like a dying fish, trying to figure it out. And that next year, because I had worked to learn, not just worked to earn, I had it all up here. And then I started actually applying it and blew up. And it's really because I was a 21, 22 year old girl that nobody believed in that forced me to be so excellent. I was undeniably excellent.
Britnie Turner [00:22:29]:
I don't believe in the word perfect, but I had to be really on it, even though I was a sloppy kid, figured out how to be not sloppy, because I had to have my crap together, because you look at me and you're like, I'm not investing in this chick.
Lindsey Epperly [00:22:43]:
Yeah.
Britnie Turner [00:22:45]:
Nobody wanted to work with me because I was so young and they'd never seen a girl do it. And so I just worked my butt off. And then, yeah, ended up scaling the crap out of it. And not only got on Forbes six fastest growing woman owned company in the world, and woman led, but I ended up asking, God, how do I go from being able to. It started off as like, wanting to make the cash flow to then be able to live in Africa without having to ask people for money. The more missions I did in Africa and the more stuff we built over there, I realized when we build even an orphanage site, we were creating so much opportunity and jobs that parents stopped selling their kids into sex trafficking. I met those families that sold their little boys for $25.
Lindsey Epperly [00:23:38]:
Oh, my God.
Britnie Turner [00:23:39]:
Come through those villages every three months. And it's like, all nine of your kids are going to die, or you can have enough to buy a cow and feed them. It's just crazy, the desperation that these people deal with that hopefully nobody on this podcast listening has ever had to deal with. And so when we would develop these things, it would create hope in hopeless places. Other businesses moved in, and these regions started to flourish. So I shifted my model to just creating cash flow to shifting regions, practicing in my own backyard so I could do it at scale overseas. And then I said, God, how do I go from doing this in my own backyard of America, overseas? Like, what's the bridge? And I heard loud and clear, start on islands. And I was like, islands.
Britnie Turner [00:24:23]:
And so, crazy enough, I did my very first deal by myself outside of working with the guys that I'd worked for for free. January 2011, and I contracted the island. December 2016.
Lindsey Epperly [00:24:37]:
Incredible.
Britnie Turner [00:24:38]:
And I did hundreds of projects in between. Really involved. It was just very fast scaling because I had that.
Lindsey Epperly [00:24:49]:
Why, yes. And listeners, Brittany's talking about aerial island, which is an incredible place to check out. Talk to your travel advisor, of course, about your next corporate getaway or your next vacation or your next island retreat. And you're doing really incredible things with Ariel now.
Britnie Turner [00:25:05]:
Thank you. Yeah, it's been a really beautiful merger of my passion for healing and elevating people and my real estate expertise of revitalizing regions and not just revitalizing the spot, but the actual real estate tangible asset, a blessing to all who interact with it, both in the space and surrounding communities and nations, by layers of intentionality and impact. And so it's been really fun because the kind of entrepreneurs that I study are like Steve Jobs. I'm sure he could have had a better attitude, but I'm just saying, what did he do for the world? He took his passion for human touch and his obsession with hands and physiology of how the body works and his passion for technology, and he put the two together to where we have the ability physically interact with technology in a less. Like a computer takes up a whole room, and it's really only for engineers. He made it really accessible, and so that was his passion. And then if you know the story of Wynwood walls, the family that bought up, it's one of the top tourist destinations in the world. Now it's in Miami.
Britnie Turner [00:26:29]:
This is a family that was really passionate about real estate and really passionate about art. And they put the two together and basically created, like an Instagram phenomenon. Of all these really hideous block buildings, have the most beautiful murals all over them. And they created their own little city of murals and art and just creative spaces. And then not only did the real estate value go up, but it created this tourist destination. So I love meeting entrepreneurs that take two completely, almost completely different passions and put them together. And so the island, it's called the BVI, it's located on Buck island, is a space of healing. And really this vision came to me through going on my mission trips.
Britnie Turner [00:27:18]:
I go on all these different trips all over the world, and every single time I would just get really upset because I'm meeting children who are starving to death, dying of something as simple as diarrhea, waterborne illness, abuse out the wazoo, desperation, no jobs, no trees. The list goes on and on of the problems that exist that we've already solved somewhere in the world. And so I really ask God, there's so many needs. I obviously can only do so much in my lifetime. What's the real solution for this? And what I've been guided into is understanding that there are so many amazing, capable, wonderful human beings that have all this access and are living a life just drifting. How do you wake them up to a force for good that they're called to be, where. That's where they find their joy, their love, their passion, their fulfillment. Anyway, is when they start actually knowing who they are, why they matter, and start doing the thing they're called to do.
Britnie Turner [00:28:29]:
And that is what the purpose of the island is. Yes. It's got the blue water, it's beautiful. You'll probably see whales. It's on the cliffside. You're going to be moved, just interacting with nature. We've been so intentional to help you heal and find yourself, because if you find you, then you start to actually like you, which is what we're talking about earlier. We need to like you, because when you like you and you start aligning with your purpose, then you can think about more than just yourself and your problems.
Britnie Turner [00:29:03]:
Yeah, that's critical, I think, for what the world needs right now.
Lindsey Epperly [00:29:09]:
It is. And what's so interesting, knowing you and knowing your journey is in the past few years, because we're going to go from very, very macro to very, very micro now to talk about the fact that in the past few years, you found your person, you fell in love, you got married, and very recently you had a baby. And when we talk about knowing your purpose and knowing your identity and all the things that happen in an individual's life, I feel like that journey into motherhood is such a profound shift. And I want to talk about that and what that has done for you and for your purpose, but also for your relationship with what success looks like. What has this. These last. How old is Baronos? He. Four months, three months?
Britnie Turner [00:29:47]:
Five months. Five months.
Lindsey Epperly [00:29:48]:
Five months old. What has this know, half year look like for you?
Britnie Turner [00:29:54]:
It's been fun. I mean, he's said earlier he's teaching me how to operate from a place of joy that I had kind of gotten away from. My pregnancy was extremely, abysmally, freaking miserable, and I hate every single second of it. And I'm sharing that because a lot of women don't. And you can still be a wonderful, amazing mother and have a horrible, miserable pregnancy. I threw up 30 to 60 times a day for months. And a couple of times I threw up over 200 times a day. My body hated it.
Britnie Turner [00:30:36]:
It was one of the darkest seasons of my entire life. And again, loved my baby. Loved my baby the whole time. The pregnancy and the baby weren't necessarily in the same world. I didn't have to associate the two. So getting past that and trying to rebuild my life after such a hard year. Yeah, that was hard. I can't believe women do this all the time.
Britnie Turner [00:31:10]:
I am impressed. We do this for free.
Lindsey Epperly [00:31:15]:
Yeah, totally. That's why I'm so curious. What did this do to your mission? What did this do to your relationship with success? The ways in which it derails you, that you never expect?
Britnie Turner [00:31:25]:
It just sucked. Honestly, it just sucked. And that's okay to say. And more people can say that without being like, no, you should be crying. Yes, of course I'm grateful for my baby, but I can still say that part was really hard. And I didn't stop working. I didn't even take one nap. I didn't slave myself.
Britnie Turner [00:31:47]:
There's only so much I could do. I'd lay down all day long and do my Zoom calls like this, but I still led my events and I still crushed it, but it was just harder. So what did it do for me with success is I think it's super important to define all the things that you're going for in life. One of my siblings said when I told her, the day I told her I was pregnant, she said, welcome to feeling guilty for the rest of your life. And I was like, God bless.
Lindsey Epperly [00:32:23]:
Yeah, right. No, thanks.
Britnie Turner [00:32:25]:
And I was like, why? And they said, because you're always going to feel like you're not a good enough mom, or you could be doing this, or you should be doing that. And I was like, I reject that. And what I found is this is just a part of my life. And I don't know if it's because I'm homeschooled or I just decided this early on, but I decided to constantly be defining things. So, like to Brittany freaking Turner, what does success look like mean? And how is it defined? As a business person, as a wife, as a mother? I actually have written out the definition and the picture of what that looks like and is for me. I am not going to play by what the world's rules are because all of that is just a bunch of marketing for sales. And so they're going to change their rules every other year. I need to live by my own rules and what I feel accountable to God.
Britnie Turner [00:33:22]:
My child is obviously my number one priority, but he is not my only thing in life. He is going to get focused, amazing amounts of present attention when I'm not on my phone every single day for x amount of hours, undisturbed. But he doesn't get all hours. And I had to define with all the other things going on with all of our rescues, my nonprofit has now rescued over 8000 people in 24 months, all by veterans that were suicidal, that we helped heal and repurpose. And so that work can't stop. It's still really important. So how do I do both? And so I just want to challenge you all, start defining things. Obviously, my world is different, my day is different.
Britnie Turner [00:34:10]:
But am I a wonderful mother to my son to where he feels it? If I do all the dishes every single time, does that make me a better mother? Or is there a better use of my time and I can create an opportunity for somebody to come in and clean my house x amount of times a week as a wonderful mother because I did all the laundry, because I did all the sweeping of these weird centipedes that are breeding in my house. I don't know why we have centipedes right now. What defines it to a five month old? How do I be the best mom to him? And it's going to keep changing as he gets older, wants and needs are going to change and so I get to keep defining those things. But under no circumstances is he my only world. And that's really important to me and my husband is that we say, obviously, God first, our relationship, our son, mission, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I don't want to give him the tired. I'm texting, I'm on calls, bouncing him on my legs. Does that make sense? I'm trying to talk about the part that I think would be most effective for you ladies, because I can talk for hours about how adorable his freaking giggle is and how he laughs at.
Britnie Turner [00:35:24]:
He loves when I talk about his middle name being danger, which it really is. His legal middle name is Danger, which is hilarious to us. He's going to use that for the rest of his life. But for some reason, when we talk about it, he just giggles the day away. And he's got the cutest little gummy smile. And he's changed my whole world. Yes, but it's important when you know your calling, like, how can you have it all? How can you have it all? Normally just takes having a vision for these different areas of your life, your relationships, all the important ones, your health, your finances, your impact, your lifestyle. Like, everything needs you to take the time to think through what you really want and then start creating a plan for that.
Britnie Turner [00:36:09]:
I literally created a course for this because I realized I was doing something a lot of people don't ever take the time to do. I'm like, you just wake up and think it's going to go well. You just hope life just goes well with no plan. And the plan never is executed perfectly, but at least there's a dang direction, right?
Lindsey Epperly [00:36:34]:
Well, I think what you touched on at the very beginning of that in terms of, like, you have this baby, you have motherhood, this is extremely important. But you also have this mission, you have this creation, multiple creations for you that are fulfilling really important work in the world. And I think no matter whether we're saving individuals or we're simply living out our calling, it's really important work, no matter what scale that is. But for yours, it's legitimately life or death. And so that cannot stop. And so how do you, I think balance is a total myth and a ridiculous word that's thrown around way too often, but how do you honor all parts of you and then you as a model, right? You're modeling to your child what a mother is capable of versus martyring for everything and saying, like, oh, but I must sacrifice what's important and what I'm called to. And I think that was what I was so curious about for you because you have this beautiful calling that you have been so very open about and you've shared so passionately today. And so how do you pursue it? How do you do that and honor all pieces? And that was a really great answer to that.
Britnie Turner [00:37:40]:
Yes, I love that. And I think that's exactly it is. If you are losing yourself, then you have nothing to give.
Lindsey Epperly [00:37:49]:
Yeah. Right. So how do we keep ourselves from losing ourself, especially when there's a big identity shift on the horizon, whether we are about to have a baby or maybe that baby is about to go to preschool, or maybe that all the things that we tie ourself, or maybe the business is entering into another season that you never saw coming. I mean, for me, I remember having a shift when the business started succeeding in ways that I never imagined. And now I'm going, well, wait a minute. I've tied my success and my self worth to that. We've got to separate those things.
Britnie Turner [00:38:17]:
You have to, because you can lose it all in 2 seconds. Yes, really can. And that identity start exactly like she's saying, because if you don't, you're going to have a lot of crisis. So I had to determine early on I am the same valuable enough daughter of the God of the universe and just as valuable when I lived in my car as when I own an island. I really am the same Brittany Turner, and humans will come in and out of my life and use me for different things based on what I have and don't have, whatever. But I have to know that I'm just as valuable with it all and with nothing on paper. And we think we serve enough in disaster zones to watch it all go away and to see what matters most to people. I always ask them, what matters to you now? That didn't matter before.
Britnie Turner [00:39:13]:
And they said, the breath in my lungs, the fact my kid is just alive, even if he leaves his clothes out or gives me an attitude every now and then, the fact he's just alive. There's just a different level of gratitude when you lose it all. And I don't want you all to have to go through that, to walk in that gratitude.
Lindsey Epperly [00:39:32]:
Yeah. You've brought today just a really great perspective shift and perspective leveling, right. That you have seen a lot and you've experienced a lot that most people have not or do not on a regular basis because of the work that you do and because you are living out your life's calling and your mission. So I know that listeners will want to learn more and will want to follow along and dive into all things Brittany Turner, maybe even take the course that you're talking about. If you've got that available, can you tell us more about how they can find you and how they can follow your work?
Britnie Turner [00:40:03]:
Yeah, brittanyturner.com is probably the best place to find all the different resources. Brittany is spelled weird because my parents thought they made it up. So it's Brenie Turner.com. And the course is called GeForce entrepreneurs. It's twelve weeks where I personally walk a group through how to go from vision to execution and how that infiltrates into every single thing you do, including the way in which you make money. So it could be streams of income or your business, whatever that looks like. How do you start having a life of compounding impact and fulfillment? Because a lot of people are walking around miserable.
Lindsey Epperly [00:40:47]:
Yeah.
Britnie Turner [00:40:49]:
And they're just wasting their time. And I don't think that is right. I know that's not right. And if you want a different life, you got to do different actions. I've come up with a few that I've figured out, honestly, because I'm just not a driven person.
Lindsey Epperly [00:41:07]:
You're not?
Britnie Turner [00:41:08]:
Really not. I became a multimillionaire at, like, 23 years old from nothing. But I'm not a driven person, naturally, at all. I don't do things, I just do them. I have to know why the heck it matters. I was a very annoying kid about, like, why? And so how do I keep my why in front of me to drive me to get up and do all those hard things and the fun.
Lindsey Epperly [00:41:34]:
Right.
Britnie Turner [00:41:34]:
I've just kind of created an amazing system on how to remember that stuff, how to stay organized, how to have vision, clarity. And then I finally realized a lot of people kept asking about it, so I made it a course, which.
Lindsey Epperly [00:41:46]:
Yes. Well, and you talk a lot about the reason we need the resources. Right. It's not apologizing for making a profit. It's making a profit so that we can do good with the resources that we're creating and how to steward that on a worldwide basis. And that is really important work. Okay. Talking about walking around miserable, you definitely don't do that.
Lindsey Epperly [00:42:06]:
And one of the questions that I always like to ask my guests is a question we ask at our dinner table. My three year old has changed it from what made you smile today to what was your happy today? She now asks that question every night because it's a way of cultivating gratitude. And so I like to know that. What was your smile today? What was your happy today? Brittany Turner.
Britnie Turner [00:42:26]:
Oh, man. I have this after the show. I have this little. I call it the babysitter. It's this little thing that my playing in, and we've had it in our life for two days, and he is just losing his mind, and he's just, like, doing this little thing. And my sister messaged me and said, please put this video to the song two step.
Lindsey Epperly [00:42:51]:
Yes.
Britnie Turner [00:42:52]:
So I put him to a rap song and just watched him with his little loud feet to two step. And that was my smile today.
Lindsey Epperly [00:43:02]:
That's a good smile. Bear bringing the smiles. Often and always, bear is bringing the smiles. I love it. Thank you so much for your time today. It was an awesome conversation. We really appreciate you coming on the show, having me.