You're listening to Women Infused Radio, where women in the marketplace connect with purpose and spirit, where the conversation covers all things women, business, and fascinating faith. And now, your host, Christy Lynn Olson. Hello, and welcome to the Women Infused Radio podcast. I'm so glad you're joining me today.
In today's podcast, episode 24, I continue my interview series with the co-authors of our Women Infused book, entitled, We Walk by Faith and Not by Sight, Women of Faith in the Marketplace, which, by the way, is now a two-volume book series available on Amazon.com. My guest today is Brenne Olson. Full disclaimer, no relation to me. She spells her name O-L-S-E-N, and my husband insists that we spell our name O-L-S-O-N.
So, lots of discussion there about who's right, who's wrong. Brenne and I originally met through another organization, and then quickly realized we were kindred spirits waiting on God for our next move of God. And yes, I put next in air quotes. If you were watching me, you'd see me do that.
We got together, and we just thought we knew God was doing something, but we weren't sure what the next thing was. And so we prayed, we did a book study together, we just got to know each other better, totally random strangers, connected, and now it's just been such a blessing in my life. Brenne has served in the church as a women's ministry director, and I'm so glad that I get to introduce her to you today. She has also worked in the marketplace as an office manager, a precious metals buyer, a salon and spa manager, and is currently working in retail administration.
She has an incredible gift for building and encouraging teams, as well as coaching and encouraging women to be all they can be, and on how to find hope in the process. Brenne has experienced some extremely personal and life-altering circumstances in the church, at work, and in her family life that have shaped and molded who she is today. These experiences birthed her desire to spread the message of being freed from that which chains us. One of her favorite verses is Joel 2, 25, which says, To restore all the years that the swarming locust has eaten, she is an encourager and a beacon of truth, and totally tuned in to what the Spirit of God is saying to her.
She loves challenges and innovative opportunities, which is probably what has led her to work where she does today. Listen in to my chat with Brenne and hear about her biggest challenges in life and in the workplace as she lives out who she is, a Jesus girl who is whole, transparent, and full of life and energy, ready to help other women achieve the same freedom through Christ. She is a whole new Brenne, which, by the way, happens to be the new website that she has, so make sure you check that out, wholenewbrenne.com. And now, here's our interview, episode 24 with Brenne Olson.
Well, today my guest is Brenne Olson, and Brenne, it is such a treat for me to welcome you here to Women Infused Radio. I'm so glad that you're here with us today. Thank you, Christy. Thanks for having me.
I'm excited to share some time together. Well, this has just been, talk about walk by faith. This whole book project has literally been a walk by faith by all of us who have been involved with it. And, you know, actually, you're one of those, I just want to share with our audience, one of those, what I call God girlfriends, who we kind of recently met, we were doing a book study together, and we wanted some accountability.
And actually, the book we did was, I just pulled it out again, it's called Breaking Busy and How to Find Peace and Purpose in a World of Crazy. How did you like that book? I know we're going to talk about our book, but when we did that together, that's how we initially met. Was there anything that really struck you in that process that we did together with the book?
Well, I remember when we started this book, we both had so many things going on that were focusing, or taking our attention away, and we just realized we wanted and needed to focus on our relationship with God. And that began and encouraged me to just keep pushing out other ideas that I had to be doing all these other things that were creating business, and just sit back and relax and let him speak to me and walk through the season that he had for me. That was the biggest takeaway for me. That's great.
And same for me. I think it was almost a catalyst where we were obedient to kind of take the time, and now God has done some amazing things in each of our lives. You know, one thing that struck me with the title is How to Find Peace in a World of Crazy. You know, you mentioned in the book that you are the youngest of five children.
Now, talk about a world full of crazy. That's what I kept thinking when I read that. You know, and you learned to be kind of a team player. How has learning from such a young age and how to be a team player really helped you in your career journey?
Well, not only was I the youngest of five, the oldest was 11 years older than me. So what I had was each of these individuals that had different gifts and talents. My oldest brother was a state wrestling champion. Two of my siblings were choral champions.
People were involved in sports, creative things, all of that. And being the youngest, I got to watch all of those gifts and talents and the acceptedness of everybody was different. Everybody was good at something, though. So we were cheerleaders for each other and watch everybody just make mistakes.
Nobody made a big deal out of it. I tell my brothers and sisters, I thank them for their encouragement because they were really a huge part, like second, third, fourth, fifth parents for me, of just taking me and showing me what it meant to be loved, accepted, and encouraged. So I think if I decided I wanted to be like a state champion ping pong player, they would say, yes, go for it. You can do it.
You know, even to this day, they're my biggest cheerleaders. So that really set the stage for confidence and character and being able to dream, dream. Wow. You know, I love the fact that you could be a cheerleader with your siblings and that age range is there's a lot of difference there.
So, you know, one thing you also mentioned with your gifts and abilities, you said God gives each of us our own blend and portion of giftedness. And I thought that was so insightful because as you describe your different siblings, you all did have kind of a unique blend. And so if you could recognize that at a young age, as you grow up now, you're building teams, you're in a team environment, you can kind of intuitively see what that unique blend is of each team member maybe, or kind of decide who would fit where. Has that really kind of helped you then as you've been building teams or been a part of maybe a team in your career?
Yes. And another thing I should mention is me being the youngest, my siblings realized early on that I definitely was a leader. My sister described the story of how I came downstairs and announced to everybody that we were supposed to be hugging and kissing each other before we went to bed every night. So this is going to be what we're going to do.
And so they let me do that. And even as an adult, we all just fit into our roles. We know what each other is good at. So when we have a project, everybody just fits into the role.
So with me being the youngest, but being a leader type, they let me do that. And so now I feel like God has enabled me to look at people and see their potential, see their strength. And age doesn't matter to me. And it doesn't always matter about the experience.
It's who they are and what I'm looking at right in front of me. So I've made some decisions that maybe other people didn't always understand or see it the same way that I did. And in the end, they saw, oh my gosh, this really is what should be happening. So that was a huge part.
Oh, absolutely. I keep asking everyone who's done this interview with me about their strengths and their Strength Finder 2.0 assessment, if they took that. It's an awesome assessment. And you said your top strengths were strategic, futuristic, individualization, and relator.
Those are your top four, actually. I'm wondering, what strength do you think has helped you the most kind of navigate both life and work? I think that being strategic is one of the biggest assets that I see. It just seems like it comes to me easily to tackle an issue, tackle a problem, tackle whatever is put before me.
I can see ahead for what's going to happen. I've looked on teams of leaders where they've said, you're always ahead of us. You're always just a little bit ahead of us. And thankfully, embrace that and let me do that.
And let me give vision and cast vision, per se, and to just be strategic on how to get from one step to the other in a quick, efficient way. And sometimes people get bogged down, but I just didn't go, I see the end. Let's keep going. Let's keep going.
Next step, next step. So very strategic. And I'm thinking, you know, you mentioned not everybody can see that future or can see the possibility. And so probably also that comes into play is your ability to relate and be a relator, that you can help explain the vision and bring them along as opposed to saying, well, I know this is how it is, so you just need to do it.
You know, because you can get resistance. People can't see the vision. So how has it helped you to kind of be able to communicate a vision, maybe in a team that doesn't quite see what you see? I think being a relator has a big part of it.
And I would have to say the futuristic part and the Holy Spirit giving us our gift of being able to communicate. And that seems to be my portion of being a good communicator. If I can communicate in a way that people understand and step by step, then they can see it better for themselves. Even if they don't understand it, they can see it and trust that God gave that to me.
Well, and it is step by step. So I think that's a great way to approach any new venture that you're working on. And so being a relator, being a good communicator has also put you in this place as a Christian and a Christian woman in the marketplace to be that salt and light. So maybe you're explaining a new path or you're building a new team.
I loved how you mentioned in the book that you see going out into the world is kind of like sprinkling holy flavor around. You have such a unique way of sharing that. I'm like, oh, I totally get that. And you felt like you were a field guide with a salt shaker and a flashlight.
And to me, I love visuals. And so give us an example of how can we kind of shake salt on a situation at work? And how has that worked for you? What does that really look like in practical application?
For me, automatically, a couple of things came to mind. For me, the ability to see a situation and see the positive side of it is huge in the marketplace. So when there's a bunch of negativity about a situation, I can usually shake some salt on, but hey, don't miss out on this. Did you see, you know, sometimes a lot of it's worse.
Somebody said this or somebody said that, but they miss the positive part of the encouragement of how we were moving forward in the process. So I like to think that rather than just having a humdrum meeting or a humdrum meal where people are just kind of talking and everybody leaves the table going, okay, whatever, I like to highlight the positive part and the moving forward and encourage people on what they've done well or, hey, I really appreciated that. So that's how I see the salt in the light in meetings and projects. Well, that's such a great attitude to have.
And I can feel the love that you have for people in the process. And another part of that is praying. And we pray for each other. We pray for people we work with.
And you have mentioned that to me, it seems so simple, yet it's really profound, probably the most effective way to be that salt in light. Sometimes it's just offering up a prayer for that person. Have you ever, do you always see the impact of those prayers or maybe you don't, but how important is it for you just to know if nothing else, I know I can simply offer up a prayer on this person. Well, very early on in my walk, God just showed me that what I have to offer is him.
And so prayer is ushering. I feel like just like when we're in church and someone ushers us to our feet, I want to usher people into the presence of God because I know that he can say or do anything way better than I can. So people tend to talk about what's going on in their life and sometimes negative or hurtful things. And I can usually tell if this is a good moment for me and that they are trusting of me and know who I am, that I can just say, can I just pray for you?
And I will ask them if it's someone I don't know, a family member or so forth. I'll say, what's their name? Well, I'm going to be praying for them. And I do.
I take that to heart. I pray. I pray for my coworkers. I pray for their families or whatever situation is before them because I feel like that is the first step of ushering them into a walk and to know what Jesus means to me and who I am depending on.
Well, it sounds like it's kind of the first line of, I was going to say offense. I don't know if it's offense or defense, but you know, to use a sports terminology probably incorrectly, but if nothing else, our go-to could always be prayer. Like the first thing is to surrender this whole concept to God, whatever it is, if it's a work-related issue or a team personality issue. We're taking ourselves out of the picture because I think sometimes as leaders, that's when this thing called pride can creep in, especially if we're really good and driven and successful at our job.
It can be a prideful place to be, but we kind of eliminate that. I think, would you agree if we just go to the Lord in prayer and surrender it to him? Yes, because you're right. That is the first thing, just surrendering it and knowing that he, we put ourselves in position of him being in control.
I talk about position all the time, whether it's sports, whether it's a job or anything. My faith is the same way, putting myself in a position to let him do it. And that's a very powerful position to be in and it gives him the power. So, you know, it's really important for us to learn that early on in our careers.
You know, I know you've tried to balance, not tried, you have, you've effectively balanced children and family and work and church and life and all those things that come at us. When we're structuring our time, we as women can give to everybody else. We can lose ourselves in the process. You know, how did you find balance between work and home?
And what was the answer? I think you had kind of an aha moment that I want to share with you about what the answer was for your family about balancing those two issues. For me, I distinctly, whenever this comes up, I remember being in my laundry room and a big pile of laundry and I just kind of sunk down by it and started crying like, really? Oh, you know, this just never ends.
Where am I going to find the energy? Where am I going to, you know, keep doing all these things that I'm trying to juggle? And I realized that I was getting my best in other places and not, is this the moment you're talking about? Yeah.
And I realized that I was coming home a different person than when I left the house and that hurt me. And nobody really said anything. That's the Holy Spirit from me asking me to take a look at, you know, what's going on. And I realized that something's got to change.
This isn't, you know, God gives us our family first and I have this job for a short amount of time to be a parent to these children and I want them to show them Jesus. I don't want to show them a tired, crabby, grouchy mom. And so I really got down on my knees and said, Lord, and seriously, that was my prayer. I remember it like it was yesterday.
Please show me how to change and to change the distance and the difference between who I am and I'm doing my best at work and what does it look like doing my best at home? And I had to learn to say no to a lot of things and had to reprioritize and rethink and look at my gifts and my talents and focus on them and try not to spread myself to things, trying to do everything. Life changer there. And I love that.
What you said also is it wasn't just about reprioritizing your activities, but discovering and embracing your identity and purpose. And I think that's the key, especially for a lot of listeners today, a lot of women who may be feeling unbalanced or maybe feeling like you did. They're giving the best at work and their family gets the leftovers. But you were able to say, no, if I look at my identity, my purpose, then I have the freedom almost to concentrate on what I'm good at and I don't have to be all things to all people.
And it brings up the conversation about superwomen. You know, can we really have it all? I don't know what you think, but how has that worked out in your life? Can women have it all if we're working and have family?
And, you know, give us some maybe tips, practical tips and tricks of what you've done, maybe things you've made as non-negotiables for your family while you were working or, you know, something that you as a family have decided we will or will not do this. How has that worked for you? Well, for me, I had to redefine what having it all means. And sometimes I think we get stuck on comparing ourselves to other women and we lose ourselves and then we take little bits and pieces of other women and put that into a puzzle.
Thank you. Thank you. thinks that when all those pieces are together that becomes who we are and that's our all so if you take those little pieces break them back up give them back to where they belong because there are other people and just say lord give me the pieces what are the pieces of my all and figure out what those little pieces are and who you want to be to your family and to your friends in the workplace and to yourself and as a child of god and don't have big pieces of paper about this you know just have one word what you want that to be don't make your pieces so big and so when god defines your all you'll look at it and it's so much smaller and it's so much more doable because they're yours and they're authentic and it's his plan so once you do that then you can start taking that to your planner to what you say yes to does this fit into this puzzle that i decided was my all is this part of the plan and so it makes it so much easier to just say no to the things that don't get into the plan and your planner and your time and your happiness all that's going to improve it can't help us do that yeah brent i think that is really profound and i even wrote i take notes every time i do these interviews and i wrote down the pieces of my all i think that is so where the brilliance lies apart from having our identity in christian understanding where we stand spiritually this thing about whose pieces are you trying to hold but if i look at the pieces of my all that god has given me it does make it more manageable and it does seem like okay i can really own this now because it makes sense to me and my family and maybe some simple things like i know um even though i was a single mom i made eating dinner together mandatory like we could do anything else apart but we were always going to have dinner together sitting down at the table not in the car not going through a drive-thru i know sometimes we have to do that but i really strove to make sure that one non-negotiable was eating dinner together so are there other things that you as a family decided if nothing else happens today this is the one thing that is going to happen yeah we are to say we're a big sports family our kids played a lot of sports we were on the go all the time but having dinner together was important it's where we connected where we focus where we encourage so yeah that was a big thing for us too another one was just um finding out what people's love languages are yeah finding out what people need from each other um my son likes his mother's cooking so every you know meals are important and every morning i took him a full breakfast and it was a way that i took care of him he needed it he wanted it my daughter she was like throw me some cereal in a bag or a pop-tart and i don't want a lot of conversation you know in the morning so figuring out what people want and what they need that that was big and so we spent a lot of time doing that and thankfully our family likes to be around each other in a group we laugh we don't know why we have furniture because we don't sit on it we sit on the floor together we still do to the same my oldest is going to be 30 this year we still sit on the floor together and people laugh like what is going on but it's a way that i don't know just a language that we speak we roll around we roll house and we do it with the grandchildren now too um let's just figure out what makes people happy what makes them fit how can you encourage and build i guess it goes back to i wanted to build a family i wanted to build a life i wanted to build these things that would give god glory and raise children and have a marriage that gave him honor and glory so when you still figure out again kind of like letters what your building blocks are it goes much easier wow i love that thanks for sharing that i can just picture the whole olson family and fyi we're not related even though we do have i love that you've tapped into what makes your family unique and the dynamics and i think that's such a powerful lesson it's just find out what your kids like or don't like find out what your spouse likes and it doesn't mean you have to turn cartwheels to entertain them it just means you're being sensitive to how god wired you how god wired them and how can we make in your language how can we make this puzzle all fit together in a way that makes sense and so i think you've really been successful in that and that's how you kind of integrated your biblical and spiritual principles into family hey it's christy and i want to make sure you don't miss the chance to listen to the rest of my interview with bren olson we talk about what it looks like to take a sabbath rest and bren shares a whole new concept about when doing more might just be the answer to rest seriously she has totally opened my eyes to what sabbath rest might just look like from a unique kingdom-minded perspective it's pure genius and pure purposeful living so go on over to the women infuse app on your phone or mobile device and listen into the full uncut version of our extended interview what bren has to say about this might just rock your world it sure did mine the women infuse app is available as a free download available wherever you download apps for your apple or android device get the app today and become part of the conversation it's an interactive community broadcast network where we have a goal to reach one million marketplace women around the globe and to teach you what you need to know about living out your calling at the highest level we want to teach you biblical principles on how to do just that you're not alone so we're here to walk that journey out with you as a sisterhood of spirit filled women of influence and impact i also have a free gift for you when you download the women infuse app it's a free ebook entitled love notes of encouragement for women of faith in the marketplace it's a combination of a devotional and prayer journal all in one with inspiring love notes from our co-authors of the book series we walk by faith and not by sight women of faith in the marketplace all you have to do is download the women of views app and then go to our podcast channel and click on episode 24 there you will find a link for your free download so be a part of the conversation and download the app today and thank you for listening into the podcast and for being a part of the sisterhood my passion is to see god's daughters take back territory stolen by the enemy and empower you to live healed and whole in every area of your life remember alone you are significant but together we are amazing this has been women infused radio connecting women around the globe with purpose and spirit and we want to connect with you get your free gift unveiled voices six things you need to do to define your value voice and vision for more information on the free gift and links to join the conversation on social media visit us at christianolson.com