114 Living Intentionally with Shunta Grant

The Savvy Sauce

114. Living Intentionality with Shunta Grant

**Transcription Below**

John 15: 10+11 (ESV) “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.”

In a world telling women to “do it all,” Shunta Grant teaches women to joyfully decline a life filled with the overwhelm, tension and discontentment brought on by a constant state of busy-ness. Shunta helps women live life (and build businesses) on the OTHER side of busy. Shunta is the creator of the Best Today™ Brand which equips women with resources to be proactive and intentional with their time. Her signature product, the Best Today™ Guide, helps women get clear on what they want and provides a simple three-step process to guide women toward their vision for the future one today at a time. Shunta also teaches business owners and leaders through her coaching program, Peace Pace Progress. To learn more about Shunta and how she can help you on your journey visit shuntagrant.com/meetshunta.

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Gospel Scripture: (all NIV)

Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

Romans 3:24 “and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”

Romans 3:25 (a) “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.”

Hebrews 9:22 (b) “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”

Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Romans 5:11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Romans 10:9 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

Luke 15:10 says “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”

Ephesians 1:13–14 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession- to the praise of his glory.”

Ephesians 1:15–23 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”

Ephesians 2:8–10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God‘s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.“

Ephesians 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.“

Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

**Transcription**

[00:00:00]

Laura Dugger: Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, where we have practical chats for intentional living. I'm your host, Laura Dugger, and I'm so glad you're here.

[00:00:18]

Laura Dugger: The principles of honesty and integrity that Sam Leman founded his business on continue today, over 55 years later, at Sam Leman Chevrolet Buick in Eureka. Owned and operated by the Bertschi Family, Sam Leman in Eureka appreciates the support they've received from their customers all over Central Illinois and beyond. Visit them today at LemanGM.com.

Shunta Grant is our guest today, and I expect you to end this chat feeling empowered to step into something more significant than yourself through choosing a life of intentionality, which begins by abiding in Christ.

Shunta is going to break down and get really practical in ways to do this.

Here's our chat.

Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, Shunta.

Shunta Grant: Thank you so much for having me. I am so thrilled to chat with you. [00:01:18]

Laura Dugger: Well, would you just mind first sharing a sliver of your story with us?

Shunta Grant: Absolutely. So I'm Shunta. I am, among many things, a mom, a wife, a business owner. I started out my adult career as a business litigator, an attorney in private practice, and shifted from that into entrepreneurship in 2015.

I started with one company because of Zoe Designs, which was named after and inspired by my daughter. And over time, just that slowly shifted and opened so many other doors for me. It has led me to be able to work with business owners, train corporate teams, and now doing work that I truly believe I have been gifted to do.

My heart has always been, always, as long as I can remember, for women and girls. So this March, I launched a new company, Best Today Brand, where our mission is to equip women with resources to be proactive and intentional with their time so they can show up as their best one today at a time. [00:02:18]

And that work... just thinking about it right now, I have a smile on my face. And that is what I spend a lot of my time doing right now for work, is growing the Best Today Brand and just really on a mission to help women to be proactive and intentional with their time.

Laura Dugger: And you are gifted like no other in this area. It's been incredible to sit under your teaching. I know that you and I do share a faith in Jesus. And so do you remember about what age you were when that became real for you?

Shunta Grant: I knew about Jesus as a young child. I believed everything that I was taught. I had no reason not to. And then as I just grew and watched my mom, particularly in the early years of my life, and started really believing and hearing it for myself, it was more than just knowing what I'd heard. It was like, Oh, this is something I can have a relationship with Jesus Christ even as a child. And that just grew all of my life.

I think in college in particular, that was my first time being away from home. [00:03:19] I was in Georgia my entire life, and I went to college in South Carolina. That was an opportunity that I had to create whatever identity I wanted. I didn't know anybody there.

I remember one of the first things I wanted to do was to find a church home, to find a place to plug into. And that led to deepening my relationship in a way that it's just who I am. It's not even like, Oh, this is a thing I do or a thing I believe. It's who I am.

I always say He is the picture and I am the frame. That's just how I live my life. You can't separate Shunta and Jesus. This was something that was personal. My mom introduced me to Christ, but at the end of the day, the relationship was dependent on me.

Laura Dugger: I wonder how does that faith fuel some of your work as you inspire others to live their best day today?

Shunta Grant: Oh, it's everything. I have such a strong feeling about it. I could get emotional about it, just thinking about it. First of all, that this is like work that I get to do. [00:04:20] I actually, just right before this, got off a call ending our month-long workshop and listening to women talk about the journey we've taken over the last month and hearing them just talk about how for the first time in their life they've been consistent or they've added routine or how it's affecting their daughters who are watching them make choices. And their daughters are now saying, Mom, I want to learn more about routine.

I listened to that and I'm like, Lord, this is you. Because I thought I had a plan for my life. I thought I was going to be a lawyer and then maybe a judge. And that was that. And I thought that was using, quote-unquote, my gifts, my talents. But I see that this is who He created me to be.

This love and this passion, desire to see women win and support one another and just show up as their best, it's so embedded in who I am that I know I am using my gifts that he has given me. I'm using the way in which He made me, my personality, exactly as I am and perfectly to help other women.

I can't think that that has anything to do with me because I had a completely different plan for my life. [00:05:22] And this one, as is when you allow the Lord to be the one in control, this one is way better than I could have imagined.

Laura Dugger: And so even from a young age, were you always intentional in your approach to life or was that a learned process over time?

Shunta Grant: Yes. My mom tells me about it all the time. I was the young child, even in elementary school, who when we went out in the car on rides, I made a checklist like this is what we're doing. This is what we're bringing on the trip. I played our family plays that we did every year at holiday break. I have just been intentional when I didn't know that that's what the word... you know, that's what it was. You can look back... It's so interesting. I try to keep that in mind now with my own children, like watching who they really are.

My mom tells me so many stories about how I have just always said, "This is what I'm going to do." And if Shunta says she's going to do something, she is going to do it. So I've just been a person who really believed in myself and my abilities, thanks to my mom, who always told me, you know, you can do anything. [00:06:22]

But also, I think I've just been a person who's liked lists, who likes order, and who likes some semblance of predictability. And I think that kind of played out in what I chose for a career and somehow still ended me here. But I think I've always been a list maker and a person who's tried to be really intentional and make a plan about the things that I do.

Laura Dugger: So what are some of your most intentional practices?

Shunta Grant: I'm a routine person. So, you know, every morning I do almost the exact same thing. I get up and the first thing I take care of is what's most important to me. And that is my relationship with God. So I turn on this little teeny tiny light that I keep on my desk and my journal and my Bible is always on my desk because I know that's the first thing I'm going to do.

And so I begin with, you know, reading scripture, prayer, journaling, thinking, whatever it is I feel like I need in that moment in the morning. That's my time to talk with Him, to hear from Him, to study just whatever it is that I need in that day or He wants to tell me or communicate with me, I try to make that quiet space one because it's one of the few times in my house that it's quiet early in the morning. [00:07:38]

For me, that helps set the tone for my day. It helps if a child wakes up, I always know at least I got that part in. So that's for me really intentional to have a morning routine. And that's the first part of it. But our morning routine as a whole, that fuels my mental, emotional, and physical health. I make sure I do something every morning. I try to do something physically challenging whether that's running. I'm a runner.

I just try to make sure my first hour, one to two hours in the day, is taking care of me so that I can then show up to take care of others.

Laura Dugger: Something that you've released during a crazy season, I mean, March of 2020 was your Best Today Guide. So will you tell us more about the three-step process in there?

Shunta Grant: Yes. And let me say this about the Best Today Guide. You know, I actually joked, I said, Lord, you knew that we're going to launch this on March 16th, 2020. You could have told me that was going to be the first day of a nationwide school shutdown, job loss, and a pandemic. I would have changed the date. [00:08:45]

I was telling my friends, I was like, "I think He did that to show me something, to show me that launching this brand new product and really brand new company in the middle of something that you haven't seen in your lifetime and a lot of your peers haven't, I want to show you how this can still bring so much good and so much glory in what looks to you, looks to me as like the worst time. So that's been really fun. I will say.

The Best Today Guide today guide is a paper product. It is fantastic. It helps women get clear on what they want. And then it teaches you a three-step process that I use every single day. That first step of the process is to preview your week every single week.

So every Sunday evening, I sit down, I clear my mind. There's a page for that. And then I look at my week, my appointments, calls, meetings, deadlines. And then I define what is the most important thing that I'm focused on this week. And all of this is laid out in the Best Today Guide on one page when you're previewing your week. [00:09:42]

So this way, before you even start your week, you now have a roadmap of what's happening this week, what's going on, what days have this in it, what days are empty, which days may feel full.

Then step two is every night you plan the next day. You never planned your day the day of. So step two, you open up the page where at night you plan what time you're going to wake up in the morning, what your morning routine will be, what you're going to do for your mental, emotional, and physical health.

By the end of the day, the one most important thing, the one most important thing, I think it's so hard for people to just focus and be okay with one thing being the main thing. So I teach you to do that every single day. And then the remainder are your results and outcomes for the day.

I intentionally did not call this a to-do list because I believe a to-do list is more of a wishlist, things you would do if you had all the time in the world, all the resources in the world, and then you're disappointed when the end of the day comes and nothing gets completed. [00:10:40] So I like people to think in terms of like, what are the outcomes I need today? What are the results I need today? That's step two.

Then step three, every morning you begin with the best today process, which ask yourself, what does my best look like today? What are the self-destructing things that I need to avoid today and my vision for the future? These three questions are so important when you're starting your day. First and foremost, like, what does your best look like? So that you give yourself this standard to rise to. But again, it's your best. So it's not what do you think the world thinks your best looks like today or what is your sister's best today. It is what is your best.

Then I think it's very unwise to think about your best without actually acknowledging the things that you do to take away from that, the things that rob you from that. That's why immediately I have you, and I do this every morning, to acknowledge your self-destructing habits that really rob the good things that we try to do.

Lastly, I believe vision is so important. Without a vision, people will perish. [00:11:41] And so I have a section where every morning I write out my vision for the future so that I can see it clear as day where I'm headed, where I'm going.

The last step is one thing you're doing today that progresses you toward that vision for the future. And you do that every morning. This may sound like a lot, but I can do all of these things. I can plan my next day in three minutes flat. The nighttime, the morning. Nothing takes a lot of time.

It's just teaching you how to stop and be really intentional. Like if you're not thinking about your vision for the future, what are you doing every day? Because that in a way guides what you're doing. You know, there's nothing I don't do in my day that's not directly linked to something that I have in my vision for the future. And I don't think a lot of people can say that, but I want to help them to be able to.

Laura Dugger: If it's okay to kind of put you on the spot, are you comfortable sharing your answers to those questions? Like if you look at today's entry, what did you write? [00:12:40]

Shunta Grant: Yes. So today my best looks like celebrating my son. Today is my son's birthday, but it's also a work day. But I want to make sure that when work is over, work is over and that he gets all of my attention. He's two. He doesn't even realize today is his birthday, but really celebrating him.

Another thing my best looks like showing up well for all of my calls. So this is the day I do all of my calls. So I have been on call since 10 this morning, back to back to back to back. That can be a little draining, but I want to give every person as if they didn't know I've been on another call. Like this is the only thing I had to do today. So showing up well for each and every call that I had today is on my what does my best look like today.

Other days, I mean, there'll be things like, you know, praise and Thanksgiving, abiding. That's kind of like my... I have a word on my arm. It's like a little bracelet that has a word on it. My intent and my word is abide. I write that every day because I think for me, it's the word that captures so much of what I want to do.

If you really look at the definition of that word or what it really means to abide in Christ, it really... for me, I just look at that all day long because it's a word that gives me so much in one little word. [00:13:49] So abide. I need to abide if I want to show up as my best today.

For self-destructing today it's my phone in my hand. Today's the day with calls, so I don't need my phone. If I have my phone in my hand, I am either distracted between calls. I'm distracted on a call. I'm not showing up as my best. So my phone in my hand is the self-destructing thing that I need to avoid today.

My vision for the future, I write the same thing almost every day. Some of those include being a healthy runner, running with Zoe and Liam. Those are my children. I envision when they're older, I can see us with our numbers on, running in a race, having that time to share something I love with them, maybe later grandchildren running with them.

Having a close and individual relationship with both Zoe and Liam is another thing I write down. That really matters to me. When they are older and they have questions and they need life advice, they can turn to their mom because they know that she's a person who has wisdom, that they know they can trust me, that they can come to me when they feel like they've done something that I may not have agreed with. [00:14:49]

I want to have a close, real relationship with each of my children individually so they know that I love them for exactly who they are and it's not like they're a unit together, right? I know Zoe and I know Liam because they are two different human beings who God is going to use in different ways. So that's really important to me.

Having a clean, calm, and organized home is something I write down every day. Also, I want our home to be a place of rest where we can breathe deeper and laugh louder. The way we can do that is by keeping it clutter-free and making it a place we can put memories that imprint on my children's heart. Those are things that really matter to me.

I also have things related to work about having a very loyal, dedicated team as we continue to grow. But every day, the first things that I write about really tie back a lot to my children and how close I want to make sure that I am with them.

That, of course, informs the decision I make today. I can't wait till they're 18 to want to start building a relationship with them. So if that's something I'm writing every day [00:15:49] When I'm with them and I also have my phone in my hand, I'm going to put it down because how can I have a relationship with someone I'm not making time solely for? And so it really does inform the things that I do.

Laura Dugger: That's incredibly helpful to hear that example. And just listening, you're invested in your husband. You're invested in your children. You're invested in your team and your personal health. You have a full plate. So I know when other people tell you that they're busy, how do you respond to them?

Shunta Grant: Oh, I once was there. I have a hate-hate relationship with the word "busy". I think it is a 34-letter word. I think we have allowed the word busy to just become a thing that we're okay with identifying as. And I was that.

The reason I have such strong feelings about it is I remember the day I caught myself for the last time saying, I'm just so busy. Someone was asking me how things were going and before I even let my brain think about the answer, my mouth had already said, "Oh, I'm just, it's just so busy. It's just so busy." [00:16:53]

And I remember sitting in my car and it's almost like I stepped outside of myself and I was like, Why is that always my go-to answer? What am I really saying? I think if we really took the time to say what the word means, we'd stop saying it so much.

So I always invite people, the next time you want to tell someone you're busy, why don't you just tell them the truth and say, I am unintentional. I lack vision and I'm not clear on what it is I want out of my life. And so I'm doing a little bit of everything.

Now, if you start saying that, you'll probably stop wanting to answer that question. But that is exactly what you're saying when you're saying you're busy. I am so without focus that I'm doing a little bit of everything and I don't know if any of it is actually tied to a vision for my life. That's what I take busy to mean. It's I'm not intentional.

Now, your life can be full, today was a full day, but it's not busy. Everything that we have planned and on the calendar was intentionally planned. We can connect it to our mission here in our company. It was intentional. It wasn't just a lot of this and that. That's what I was doing before. [00:17:55] Just a little bit of everything. But nothing was really tied and connected to a mission or a vision. It was just stuff to do. And that's what busy is to me.

Laura Dugger: And so if we start equating busy with unintentional, then what are some ways that we can overcome busyness or choosing to be unintentional?

Shunta Grant: I think the first question I always lead with and anyone who's heard me speak anywhere, I will ask you, start with what do you want? What is it that you actually want? To some that may be a really big question, to some that may be a simple question. But what is it that you want? What is your vision for your life or your future? Who are you? Who are you independent of your human relationships? Is what I always say. Because a lot of times people will say, Oh, I'm a mom. Oh, I'm a wife. Oh, I'm a friend. Oh, I'm a daughter.

But before you are any of those things, who are you? If you were ripped of all those human relationships, do you know you? Who are you? What do you like? What do you want? What is your vision? [00:19:02]

Just really getting clear on who you are and what you want, I think is the first place to begin because those things inform what we want to do with our time. They inform what we will allow and what we won't allow. They set boundaries. They make decision-making so much easier. And it helps you to then set a vision for your life. What are the things that you see that you want to do?

You know, another thing I have a vision of is not only us living debt-free, but ensuring that my children and my children's children and my children's children's children can live life debt-free and be way smarter and wiser than I was. I can't do that. I can't make choices today if I don't know that that's where I want for my future generations.

Vision goes beyond you. But vision, I think, helps you to be intentional because now you have somewhere you're trying to go. I was just saying this this morning in another call that everything we do is taking us somewhere. You just don't want to wake up and end up somewhere you had no intention. [00:20:02] You don't want to wake up in Des Moines, Iowa if you were headed for Disney.

But that's what a lot of people are doing. They don't realize that everything we do or don't do is taking us somewhere. You may as well be intentional and go to the place that you desire.

Laura Dugger: And now a brief message from our sponsor.

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Your car buying process doesn't have to be something you dread, so come see for yourself at Sam Leman Chevrolet Buick in Eureka. Sam and Stephen would love to see you and they appreciate your business. Learn more at their website, LemanEureka.com or visit them on Facebook by searching for Sam Leman Eureka. You can also call them at [phone]. Thanks for your sponsorship.

Laura Dugger: Do you think there's kind of a myth that intentionality takes too much time and I'm too busy to fit this in when in reality we probably waste more time when we're simply being reactive?

Shunta Grant: Absolutely. I know that for a fact. It's 100% fact that if you were to get intentional with your time, if you were to introduce routine into your life, if you were to even just start planning every day the night before, I know this because I've challenged women to do it for one week and the results are just unanimous. Like this makes a difference. You find time that you thought you never had. [00:22:17] I actually don't believe the sentence "I don't have time for [insert anything]". We do. We just get to choose.

We get to choose what we want to prioritize. Now, the truth may be I choose not to prioritize this right now. That could be a true statement. But I don't have time for, I don't have time to. We have time. It's just, if you allocate when you first sat still trying to make a decision, sitting in indecision, that's eating time, scrolling on your phone or anything on your phone for the most part, for that matter, you know, sitting and numbing yourself with television, not saying anything's bad with television, but like when you're just doing these things, because they're just the thing that your mind has been trained to do, but then in this next breath, you say you don't have time to read a book. Like, I don't believe you.

So you actually find time to do the things you want when you're actually intentional. If you're not intentional, you're just existing. You're treading water. You're floating from second to second throughout the day until you go to sleep and repeat and do it all over again. [00:23:15]

Laura Dugger: I think you're familiar with Laura Vanderkam's work as well, where she just brings to light we have 168 hours in a week and she unpacks that. And one of her practical takeaways is to track your time. Is that a practice that you've ever done personally?

Shunta Grant: You know, I did that a few times when I was curious about how long it took me to do certain things. I do use timers some days, like when my schedule is pretty tight. I don't do that as a daily practice, but I, one, do use timers on certain days.

And two, I have done tracking in the past when I wanted to just get an idea of, okay, can I get this thing done in two hours or something like that? I have done that before.

Laura Dugger: What are some of the best lessons you've learned in life and business as it relates to joy? Because that's what you're all about.

Shunta Grant: Yeah, Joy is one of my core values. My podcast is Business Life and Joy. I feel like you have to insert it in there. I think that joy is a choice. Sometimes it's really easy to find. It's the big elephant in the room. And sometimes it's like the needle in the haystack, but it's there. I think it's a choice. [00:24:23]

For me, one of the reasons why I actually love the word "abide" so much is that Scripture promises that if you abide in Him, His joy would be full in you. Actually, that's one of the reasons that caught my attention, the word "abide" caught my attention so much was that it was tied and connected to joy. And not my joy. His joy is full within me. You can't beat that.

For me, it's also knowing that the source of my joy can't be shaken because a pandemic can hit or you could suffer great loss. Anything can happen. We just don't know. But there's nothing that can happen that can steal joy from me. I like controllables. That's something that I can stand on. It's something that I can be confident in.

And because of that, I think that's part of the reason why it kind of oozes out of me is because I realized some days it may be really hard, but it's a choice that I still have because it's something that no circumstance, condition, no loss, no hurt, no pain can steal from me and can remove from my life. [00:25:33] I'm in control of that by my choice to abide in Him.

Laura Dugger: For you, what does abiding look like?

Shunta Grant: It is knowing that I can hold fast to His word and His promises and I can find safety there, like abiding, like residence, you know, like your humble abode, like that means abide, like find residence, take residence in Him to find shelter and peace no matter what else is going on.

I think that's part of the reason why I'm so unshakable or it's very, very hard for it to shake me because nothing can change the solidness of Him. And if I have that, I'm good.

Laura Dugger: So I've listened to many of your teachings on business and you seem enthusiastic about the impact of mission statements. So I would love to know what is your personal mission statement?

Shunta Grant: Wow. I actually keep on my wall. I have it right here the mission statement for each one of my companies and then I have my personal statement. [00:26:35] And so mine says... I'm just going to read it verbatim. It just says, "My life is found in Jesus Christ and His word. I was created to worship and glorify Him with all that I am. My talent, time, and resources are from Him, and I use them to be a help to others for His glory. Because He is with me, I have no need to fear or be weighed down by the cares of this world. He has overcome the world and conquered death. And through Him, I live, I move, and have my being. By abiding in Him daily, His joy rests fully within me and my life. This equips me to show up for myself and others daily."

I keep that right here at my desk because I want to be reminded because being a business owner, it can be really hard. There are some days that are very discouraging. But if I have something to go back to just to remind me that I don't have to be weighed down by the cares of this world and that I have no need to fear. If I can just be reminded of that truth, I always get to kind of bounce back from the blows that come sometimes with being a business owner. [00:27:33]

Laura Dugger: And if someone's interested in crafting their own mission statement, do you have any questions that you recommend they start with?

Shunta Grant: Actually, I have a full podcast episode. I don't know which number it is. I can get that to you. But I have an episode that talks about crafting your own life statement, mission statement. And it's also over on the Best Today blog.

But really, it just goes into going back to like, who are you? So for me, I thought about that. Notice, I don't mention being a mom in there. I don't mention being a wife. I don't mention being a sister or daughter. I am thinking about like, Who am I? And again, void of any other human relationship. So I like to start there and thinking like, who are you and what are the truths that you know that you want to do?

Some mission statements talk more so about like what you want to do. For me, I chose to do something just to remind me of who I am and where my foundation is. For me, that was really helpful because you can forget that sometimes, particularly in the business world, or at least I could if you're looking at other things. I wanted something that would remind me to keep my eye on what is. [00:28:34]

But asking yourself questions about like, who are you? What really matters to you? What are the things you want to do here in this earth? Like when you're not here, what do you want to be true of you? How do you want to be remembered? What do you want to be said of the things that you did? Those are some questions that you can start asking yourself.

Laura Dugger: So what are your overall priorities in life?

Shunta Grant: For me, my priority is glorifying God, using what He's given me to use it in this earth the best I can to love people really well. Starting with me first, because I think a lot of times we forget that I am my priority. That is why I start my day with me. I am not ashamed of that.

And I remove any guilt from any woman out there or any mother out there listening who thinks that you have to be a martyr to be a good mother. In my opinion, you're a good mother when you can show that you can take care of yourself, you care for yourself, you love yourself, you do what you need for your mental, physical, spiritual health. [00:29:32]

So I am my priority and loving people well. And those people are God, myself, my family, my extended family, my audience, my customers. I pray. I love the women in my audience. I think of them often. I try to create things that I think will help them. But those are my priorities. Glorifying God, loving others well, starting with myself, and doing something in this earth that is not superficial, something that's bigger than myself. I believe that's the work we're doing. It's something that's bigger than me.

Laura Dugger: I would love to camp out here for a little while because that is a fresh take of loving God, then loving yourself so that you can love others well. How did you arrive at that truth?

Shunta Grant: I kept saying, I don't have time to. That thing I said wasn't true. I said I don't have time to exercise. I don't have time to read my Bible the way I used to when I was single or when we were newlyweds. Oh, my goodness, when we were newlyweds, we had time to do all the things together. [00:30:33] And I just kept saying, I don't have time. I don't have time. And then I felt like this is making me a good mom because I am using all of my energy and resources for her.

And then I realized, I just kept saying it over and over and over. It's kind of like that busy thing. And I once finally hurt myself and I said, "This doesn't make any sense. I don't have time to open a book. I don't have time to read more than one scripture. And I'm saying, because I am such a good mom, because I am doing this, because I am cleaning this. No. I realized it was an excuse and it wasn't true. I wasn't making it a priority.

And then I had to actually ask myself, what matters to me? And I realized I have to matter to me because no one was saying, Hey, no, go take care of yourself. And if you don't say that for yourself, who's going to? So I had to realize that the way I can best love others is to love me.

And what does loving me mean? It means taking care of my health, the things that I need. I need time for quiet. [00:31:38] I really need time for quiet. The mornings where I don't get it, I am a completely different person. So that means some mornings I hear my son's crying in the crib, but I'm still in the middle of my morning time. He's safe. He's in his room. Either I will get him when I'm done or my husband will come in and get him. But I am in, and they know I am in my time. And my husband has the same thing for himself. You know, we know when he's downstairs praying, we are not bothering him.

So it's just realizing that I needed to put that boundary up and I needed to say for myself, you need time for you. It's been the best thing because it's opened up so many other areas, I think, to realize where I just wasn't hitting the mark. But yeah, I think it was just slowly realizing I kept saying I didn't have time for things and I thought that was making me look good. Like, oh, look at me. You know, I don't have time to do that. Who does things for themselves when you're such a fantastic mom. No, like that doesn't make sense.

Also, one day she's going to live somewhere else. What does that leave me? You know, 18 years of not knowing who I am. [00:32:40] So just doing that led to not only prioritizing myself, but getting to know me. Like I said, independent of relationships. That's where that came from. I was like, what do I like? You know, what do I like that I don't like because I do it with her or do it with him? Like, what do I like? Like really getting to know me. And that just I think is some of the best exploration you can do is with yourself.

Laura Dugger: Hey everyone. The Bible frequently advices us to put into action what we are learning. That is one of our prayers behind The Savvy Sauce podcast, that each of us would experience transformation as we walk in step with the spirit to apply the knowledge we've learned.

One way to do that is by taking these conversations one step further and using the resources that partner with each of these episodes. If you are going to purchase any of these resources, we invite you to do that through our show notes. It costs you nothing extra, but it does provide a tiny kickback to help fund our efforts at The Savvy Sauce. [00:33:39]

Our team personally does this and we hope that you will too by visiting TheSavvySauce.com and clicking either on today's episode title to access the show notes or visit our Resources tab to find all recommended resources. We hope you find these books and products to be beneficial to your life.

Okay, so your businesses have also been thriving for years. So what are some of your secrets?

Shunta Grant: I don't try to do everything. There is a list of things that I wish we could do yesterday that just are not getting done. And I'm okay with that. I wasn't always. So one of my secrets, not so secret secrets, is you can't do it all.

We are slowly growing. We are actually bringing in HR to start growing and adding employees to our team. But I just can't do it all. Right now, I work two days a week. Next month, it'll be moving to three days a week.

So it's learning how to prioritize, just like in life, and say, okay, what's the best business decision we can make right now? [00:34:39] What can we give our focus that's going to reach the most people and have the most impact and allow us to have impact and be generous? Because generosity is also a personal value and a business value. We want to be generous people. But we can't be generous if we don't have profit. So we need profit.

So making decisions based on, again, your mission. Everything that we do has to go back to be mission-minded. If you don't know whose problem you're solving, go back to that. That's where we start, right? I'm very clear on the woman that we serve. And I'm very clear that I am talking to women.

You know, if a man buys one of our products, sure, fine. But I want to be very clear I know exactly who I'm speaking to. I'm speaking to a particular type of woman who craves being proactive and intentional with her time, who knows that that can make a difference in her life for herself first, and then for her family and friends and all the other people she loves and who love her.

So I think for me, being really clear and really being obsessed and in love with the women that I create for is a secret that I think a lot... I'm not thinking about, first, the dollar. [00:35:44] I'm thinking about the life because the dollars are connected to the lives.

For me, that is where I've seen the most success is when our focus is on the person and how we are going to solve her problem and how we are very clear about the problem she's experiencing, the feeling she has, and how we can create something that can help relieve that.

Laura Dugger: And backing that up then, how do you even start to identify those problems?

Shunta Grant: Yeah. So, for me, this journey has been so organic but very linear. I started with a hairbow company, and then I started getting invitations to come and teach about business. And I found myself, even early on when I would start doing some business teachings, I always leaned toward working with women. And I found myself always wanting to ask them about their lives first.

Someone wants to talk about their business, but I want to know, like, okay, tell me what your hours look like. How much time do you have to work? What are the things that matter to you? That mattered to me because I always say, I want to help you get your life, and then you figure out what kind of business fits within that. [00:36:43]

We don't want to set up a business and then find the holes and poke your life in the little spaces that are left. That's the wrong way. That's why I called my podcast Business Life and Joy, because you can't talk about one without the other.

So I just found myself really interested in hearing women talk about their lives. And I found they were even like, you should be a life coach. I realized I can talk to you about business, but what I really loved was this life part of it, like really helping people figure out, like, I'm not spending enough time with my children. Can you please help..? How do I do that? And that's what we would do.

We would set up their business in a way that allowed it to grow but also gave them the time that they thought they didn't have to be with their family. And that's, you know, years ago, I said, at some point, I think my business is going to go beyond being for business owners. Because while I love that, there's so many other women who are not business owners who I want to reach.

And so this year really is the fruit of the vision I had to create something that reached women beyond. But I had to do each little thing along the way to get there. And now I feel like I'm really sitting in what I've really, really been meant to do. [00:37:50] I think all those things were to lead me here.

Laura Dugger: And with this most recent business, because we've talked about personal mission statements, could you also read your business statement?

Shunta Grant: Yes. So for the Best Today brand as a whole, we have... we know that the modern woman feels pressure to do it all, which results in a life of busyness. We help women get what they want in life by equipping them with resources to be proactive and intentional with their time so they can show up as their best today and every day.

Then we actually have a mission for every product we create also. So for the Best Today guide, we write, we know that the modern woman feels pressure to do it all, which results in a life filled with busyness and discontentment. That's the problem. The Best Today guide helps women get clear on what they want and provides a simple three-step process to guide them toward their vision for the future, one today at a time.

And so we do that because everything we create is mission-minded. We don't want to ever forget this one product has a mission in this world. [00:38:53] So we have our global, and then we also have, you know, everything has a mission statement that we create as well.

Laura Dugger: So you definitely know your intentional why. But with all of these values and priorities, how do you keep them top of mind?

Shunta Grant: I think they just become part of who I am. It's almost like, how do you remember your children's name? Like they're part of your life. You know, writing out my vision every day. I think that's been one of the most important things I could ever do because it just keeps getting me back to like... If you look at it... like I'm looking at my vision for the future from this morning. I talk about being generous. I talk about being healthy. I talk about my relationships. I talk about my business, the things I want us to be able to do. I talk about my home. These are the things that matter to me. And so I'm writing about them every single morning in the Best Today Guide. So that helps.

But really, I think your priorities, whether you have stated them or not, if you look at how you're using your time and your resources, there are your priorities. [00:39:53] They may not be what you want them to be, but look at how you spend your resources, that's your time, your energy, your money, and then you will find where your priorities are. So it's a part of all of us.

Laura Dugger: I wonder if this conversation is going to spur some people on to pursue their own personal growth. And are there any other ways, Shunta, that you cultivate personal growth in your own life?

Shunta Grant: I have a very small but close-knit circle of friends who can be honest with me and who I trust. I think that and really just doing the work on myself, like really challenging my thoughts, like why? But why? You know, I always try to ask myself four times, why? But why? But why? Like, why did you think that way? Especially if it's something that I don't think is helpful. I question my emotions. What can I learn from this emotion that I feel right now? That's a great question to always ask ourselves, whether the emotion is extreme gladness or frustration, anger, jealousy, whatever it is. Like ask yourself, what can I learn about myself from what I feel right now? [00:40:54] And I try to dig into that.

Laura Dugger: And the four whys, are you saying kind of four levels deep when you ask yourself why and you come up with your answer, then you ask why for that one?

Shunta Grant: Yeah. Like, why were you upset about that? Because he shouldn't have said it that way. Well, why are you mad that he said it that way? Well, because, you know... so you're asking to really... because usually it takes that many questions to get to the real root of why you are feeling that way. And that's the thing you need to deal with

Most people just deal with the top level, but until you pull out the roots, it's going to keep growing. It's going to happen again.

Laura Dugger: Oh, that is so true. If everyone wants to learn more practical things like this and all of your other teachings, where would you direct them to go online?

Shunta Grant: So a great place to start would be bestadayguide.com. That is where you can learn more about the Best Today brand and the Best Today Guide. [00:41:44] And right now, our most popular program is called Right Now Routine, which helps you to create realistic routine right where you are. And you can learn more about that at rightnowroutine.com.

We just released Clean One Room, which teaches you how to stop cleaning your whole house, but instead clean one room at a time and build a routine around it. I think those are the areas that really are helping a lot of the women in our audience. And so you can find all of those things at those respective places.

Laura Dugger: Fantastic. We will link to all of that in both our show notes and on our resources tab. You may be aware that we're called The Savvy Sauce because "savvy" is synonymous with practical knowledge. And we want to know how to apply some beneficial best practices from your life. So as my final question for you today, what is your savvy sauce?

Shunta Grant: I think any wisdom that I can glean from the Word of God. It really is. That's what I always can go back to. And I think even scripture tells us that is what gives us health to our bones. It's what prolongs our life. [00:42:48] It really is the thing that does all the things that I really need in my life that allow me to show up and do the things that I want to do.

Laura Dugger: Shunta, I enjoy being a student of yours. And today was no exception. Thank you for the joy that you infuse in all your teaching and all the generosity you offer in sharing your ideas and insights. You're definitely an inspiration to me. And I loved hosting you as my guest today.

Shunta Grant: Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

Laura Dugger: One more thing before you go. Have you heard the term "gospel" before? It simply means good news. And I want to share the best news with you. But it starts with the bad news. Every single one of us were born sinners and God is perfect and holy, so He cannot be in the presence of sin. Therefore, we're separated from Him.

This means there's absolutely no chance we can make it to heaven on our own. So for you and for me, it means we deserve death and we can never pay back the sacrifice we owe to be saved. [00:43:51] We need a savior. But God loved us so much, He made a way for His only Son to willingly die in our place as the perfect substitute.

This gives us hope of life forever in right relationship with Him. That is good news. Jesus lived the perfect life we could never live and died in our place for our sin. This was God's plan to make a way to reconcile with us so that God can look at us and see Jesus.

We can be covered and justified through the work Jesus finished if we choose to receive what He has done for us. Romans 10:9 says that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.

So would you pray with me now? Heavenly, Father, thank You for sending Jesus to take our place. I pray someone today right now is touched and chooses to turn their life over to You. [00:44:52] Will You clearly guide them and help them take their next step in faith to declare You as Lord of their life? We trust You to work and change their lives now for eternity. In Jesus name, we pray, amen.

If you prayed that prayer, you are declaring Him for me, so me for Him, you get the opportunity to live your life for Him.

At this podcast, we are called Savvy for a reason. We want to give you practical tools to implement the knowledge you have learned. So you're ready to get started?

First, tell someone. Say it out loud. Get a Bible. The first day I made this decision my parents took me to Barnes and Noble to get the Quest NIV Bible and I love it. Start by reading the book of John.

Get connected locally, which basically means just tell someone who is part of the church in your community that you made a decision to follow Christ. I'm assuming they will be thrilled to talk with you about further steps such as going to church and getting connected to other believers to encourage you. [00:45:55]

We want to celebrate with you too. So feel free to leave a comment for us if you made a decision for Christ. We also have show notes included where you can read Scripture that describes this process.

Finally, be encouraged. Luke 15:10 says, "In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." The heavens are praising with you for your decision today.

If you've already received this good news, I pray that you have someone else to share it with today. You are loved and I look forward to meeting you here next time.