Live Like a Champion With Lori Brazier

Maren:

All right, Lori. Well, I am so glad you’re here and bless you that you are recording right now, because for those of you who are listening, by the time you listen to this, Lori will have her second child coming. She is literally any day now, any moment.

So if all of a sudden this podcast gets interrupted, you know why. But anyway, my friend, I appreciate you being here, and we’re going to have so much fun today, folks. We’re going to hit on so many different topics because Lori wears a lot of hats in her life.

But one of the things I really want to start with, being a professional athlete and a lifelong athlete myself, I want you to hear from Lori about her experience as a competitive gymnast playing collegiate sports in college. And, yes, she had such an amazing experience, she actually wrote a book about it.

So we’re going to talk about that as well. But also because this is the if you know, you know podcast, and we like to talk about all the things happening in the world. We definitely want to touch on women in sports and how it is being just completely we’re getting backed into a corner, female athletes, and I’m sure you can guess why.

So, Lori, why don’t you dive into who you are and a little bit about yourself and your background?

Transition from gymnastics to track, successful career, team championships, writing a book.

Lori:

Well, I am so excited to be here with you. Thank you. Yes. So hopefully in the next few days, we have baby number two here. I’m ready. I’m ready. But I have been a lifelong athlete, started three years old in gymnastics and went all the way through 16. So I competed at levels one through ten. It’s like right before the elite.

I was obviously a sophomore in high school at 16. So the prior year to that, I had a ton of injuries. I broke my foot, broke my ankle, tore my tendons and ligaments in my arm, broke my hand, because I grew seven inches in a year, which as a gymnast is really detrimental.

So I went from five foot to five, seven, totally tried to come back, take another year, and I competed. But if I can’t do something to the best of my ability, it’s time for me to move on.
Which sucks, but as an athlete, you know that because you always want to give your best. And so I compete another year. And then I was like, all right, here we go. Something else. But I always knew I would move to track and field. It seemed like a very natural transition. A lot of previous gymnasts had done it and stuff like that.

So I was like, here we go. Mind you, I knew nothing about track at all. I didn’t know how it worked. I can run really fast and I can jump really good. And so I was like, cool, let’s try this out. I’m going to do broad jump. And they’re like, yeah, that’s not a thing. It’s actually a long jump.

And you run and you jump. It’s not just like a standing long jump. And I was like, oh, okay. Sure. Great. Let’s do that. And then they’re like, oh, you’re actually really good at this. We’re going to teach you triple jump. And I’m like, what is triple jump?

So in high school, I did long jump and triple jump and then the short sprints. So one sometimes a two, but the four x one relay, and those were like my typical events. And then in college, it was mainly long jump and triple jump. Like that was my specialty. I occasionally got thrown into relays and stuff like that at meets, but those were my things.

When I started college, we sucked. We were like, I don’t know, 6th or 7th in conference as a team, never in the hunt, like men and women alike. And then my junior year, our men won for the first time. It was like, we can do this, actually. This is amazing.

And then my senior year, we won indoor and outdoor on the women’s side. And so I got my team championships that I wanted, which was super exciting, but it was just a really incredible career in sports and all these life lessons that I’ve learned.

And I’ve always truly believed in the lessons and opportunities that come from sports because it just teaches you so incredibly much. And so after I finished all of that, I just really got to the point where I was like, okay, I’m going to just write myself a 30 for 30.

30 things I learned from sports in 30 years. And so I just started writing. And it was not for anybody. It was strictly for me. And so then I just kept running into former athletes. And I also was like a volunteer coach. I also was a student athlete mentor. I was captain for a couple of years.

So I was very involved with everything. And I was, like, hearing the same things from all these people that I would run into. Nobody told me that. I wish someone would have given me a heads up. There’s nothing for athletes after you graduate because they’re literally like, hey, good job. Bye. That’s it.

And they literally kick you out. And so I was like, yeah, I mean, you’re right. But then I was like, I’ve already started writing a whole bunch of stuff pretty much like this. Now I would just have to share it with people. So then I was like, all right, babe, I’m going to write a book. And he was like, okay, awesome. Super supportive from the beginning. But this was in 2017. This was years ago.

And there was a whole thing I just kept writing, obviously, and had the outline, got everything together, put together a really good book proposal, went to a business conference with it, specifically to find an editor and publisher because I had no clue what to do on that side of things.

I’m really good about knowing what I know and what I don’t know, right? And I was like, I need someone to handle this for me because I have zero clue what to do. And so I ended up meeting my editor and publisher there, a total God meeting.

And so we were like, okay, this will come out, like, the end of 20, maybe beginning of 21. And then the front of 20 happened, and things just obviously went sideways with everything.

Took a long time off of writing, actually about a year and a half, because everything that I was learning I wanted to put in somehow, but I didn’t know how. That’s a lot.

And so I was like, all right, how do I do this, God? How do I go about this? And if you’ve heard me before, you’ll hear it again. If God puts it on my heart and it’s easy to write, it comes out, it goes on paper.

And so I finally figured out a way to incorporate everything I wanted to incorporate. There’s a ton of Godly principles in it, just because they make sense, you know what I mean? It’s the good standards and everything like that. But I have a chapter on faith that I absolutely love.

It all still connects back to he’s the ultimate champion. It took me the next couple of years to round everything out and get everything figured out. But it is here. It is published. I actually have it.

Maren:

So what’s funny is, even though we did different sports, obviously me in golf and then you in gymnastics and then track and field, in a way they’re similar because they were an individual sport 100%, yet you could also go for the team win. 

I just want to talk about that for a quick second because you kept saying how you were checking these boxes when it came to your personal PRS and things like that, but you really wanted the team win. 

And I can appreciate that so much because both as the athlete and then when I was the head coach, yeah, you could have the one rock star, but ultimately you wanted everyone to rise up because let’s be real, folks, sometimes that can cause animosity, it can cause jealousy within the team. 

So if you can think back about what were some of the things that you did, obviously you were the leader within your team because you were crushing all these benchmarks. But what did you guys do to be able to rise up together and come together versus because you could have very easily just taken all your wins and said, see you later, folks. So how did you rise up together? 

Because you are a community person to a core. So how does that translate now? Obviously as an adult, too.

Lori:

So my coach is actually a super solid Christian, and she’s incredible, and she cultivated a really strong team atmosphere. And so she got there a couple of years before I did. And it was a hard transition because we had you know what high school track is like. Hundreds of people go out and they’re like, let me get a tan. You’re like, out of here.

Coming from a super competitive gymnastic background, I had very high expectations of people. I have high standards. If you’re out here, you perform, you do what you’re supposed to, you take care of business. 

And then when I got to track in high school, I was like, oh my gosh, seriously, there’s so many people that just don’t care. And they were so lazy. And so that was really hard for me, actually, mentally, to be like, okay, I guess not everybody just has the same standards and levels here. 

And then when I got to, it was still probably within my sophomore year, we still had people like that on the team in college. And so those got weeded out junior and senior year. 

Like junior year, they were gone. They got weeded out and we had a really good, cultivated team atmosphere of like, this is all of us. Yeah, you can be good and you have to be successful yourself for the team to be successful. But this is all of us. And so clearly within a couple of years we had a radical change to where we were able to have multiple team championships and then even after I was gone, so we started the legacy. 

They went on to win like 17-18 championships after. So it was like an incredible, incredible program to be a part of. But within that, as a captain, you’re constantly encouraging people and I mean, track is very different, obviously, because you’re not all doing the same events. 

You have sprinters, you have throwers, you have jumpers, you have all these other people and everybody has their own little groups per se. So the distance guys and girls, totally different vibe than the throwers. It’s just the way it is. But you have to find a way to get everybody together. And so for big meets and rivalry meets and conferences and stuff like that, I would always have the locker rooms decorated.

There were always motivational quotes. Everybody got their own thing that was specific to them. I made Christmas presents for everybody. I did the first year book basically and everybody got to sign it and then we just gave it to all the seniors and stuff. 

But it was just like making sure that everybody knew like, hey, we are a community, we are a team and you can’t accomplish this by yourself. You might be good by yourself, but you can’t accomplish the team championship anywhere close by yourself.

Maren:

I love that and I think this is great for people. Obviously we’re athletes, so this is innate to us. But there are probably a lot of people listening that what we’re talking about today can be applied to your children, right? 

Maybe you didn’t grow up playing sports, but you want your children too. And you can take some of these tools and resources that we’re going to talk about, but also say you don’t have children or that phase of life is over, you’ve done that. You can take these and they’re applicable to your career and your job. 

Because I know for me, when I went in for job interviews as a student athlete, I was in finance. So golf and finance kind of go hand in hand. But I would go into interviews and they cared more about talking golf with me than anything else. Basically I felt as though granted, there were opportunities that were presented to me because of relationships through my dad and his friends. 

But ultimately they loved that I was a student athlete because they knew I was a team player. They knew that I was going to be able to vibe with everyone and I had these strengths. Now, you mentioned for me, I can really appreciate this because I graduated in 2008 as a finance major. So my sport was gone, like you said, like, Bye, see you later. Good luck. 

Now I’m fortunate that my sport is something that I’ve obviously turned into a career. Right. But some people who are playing certain sports and they aren’t going to a professional level, it definitely is very challenging. 

But on top of that, I was a finance major, so I couldn’t even get a job because the market was tanking. So now I’m, like, really in the recession.

Maren:

I love how you’ve created this resource for people, because if people aren’t familiar, I know that this topic really started to come about with mental health and Olympians, because Olympians gosh, granted, they get sponsorships as long as they’re competing, but these are people who they go wholeheartedly into their sport. 

They’re representing their countries, and then, God forbid, they age out, get injured, whatever it may be. They literally have no career. And it’s hard because how old did you say you were? Three. You started gymnastics. So decades and decades of being an athlete, and then it’s gone.

Lori:

The name of the book is Live Like a Champion. But the subtitle is take a winning mentality from the athletic field to the workplace because what I really wanted to do was show them. 

And I mean, it goes beyond life and stuff, too, but I really wanted to make the work connections because it is such a drastically different world that you walk into. You’re not working out 25 hours a week anymore. 

If you were on scholarship, you were literally getting paid to work out and to sweat, and you don’t need to live in spandex anymore. And they sit you at a desk for 8 hours, and you’re like, I despise this. What is this? 

And you feel totally lost, and you have no direction, you have no weight room to go to anymore. You have no team to practice with. It’s literally a 180. And they just like, Great job. Thanks for being here.

Maren:

The NCAA has no problem using your notoriety.

Lori:

You sign your life away literally every year. You have this fat stack of papers at the beginning of the year, and you just initial and sign away. All of it.

Maren:

Just yep, there it goes. And in this book, Lori, is it just your perspective when it comes to living like a champion, or do you have other people in it.

Live Like A Champion:
27 chapters, 15-18 interviews, diverse experiences

Lori:

So actually, when I first decided I wanted to make it a book and turn it into something more than just like me writing this really long blog, I was like, I want other people’s perspectives in this. I want other people’s experiences, and made this giant list of people. 

And I was like, I’m just going to ask them if like, hey, can I interview you for my book? 

And so there’s 27 chapters in the book, and I think there’s 15 to 18 different interviews in there. And so there’s college athletes, there’s coaches, there’s gold medal Olympians, there’s actually three Olympians in there, which is kind of insane. 

And then there’s Admin, like athletic Admin, and then there’s other people that have been successful athletes that have gone on to be really successful in the entrepreneurial world, in the business world. 

And so having all of their different stories and experiences. I love the way that the interviews turned out, and so I’m super happy with those because it just gives people some other background for stuff like, look, you might have been a gold medal Olympian. 

You went through some of these same things, you had some of these same feelings, like, okay, I’m kind of off on my own now. I’m by myself. Where do I go? How do I do all these things? 

And one of the most important things, I think, that either the athletes or the parents of athletes or the coaches and Admin need to realize is, like, your team has been decimated. You had this support system. You had all these people literally pretty much at your beck and call to help to do all these things, and you now have no support system. 

You might have a couple of friends or boyfriend, girlfriend. You might still stay in the same area, but you have to create your own team. And that was a huge thing for people. You’re creating your own team and finding out all these people now that are going to help you in the next phase of life, and you have to do it by yourself. And that’s a lot. 

But then there’s also the whole identity side. You are not your sport. No, it’s a huge part of your story, and it’s a huge part of your life, but you are not your sport. You’re so much more than that because God has made you for so much more than that. And so that’s a huge part of one of the chapters, too. And just having other people’s experiences, though, really made me happy to be able to share those.

Maren:

So while we’re on this, because I’m just curious about your perspective and opinion on it, how do you feel about athletes getting paid now?

Lori:

I despise it. Personally, I think that’s something for a professional level, I think it creates a lot of animosity. I think it’s going to create a lot of problems and issues. And I don’t think you should be in collegiate sports for the money. 

I think it’s for the love of the game. And if you’re good enough, then you go professional, and that’s part of your avenue. But I think it’s going to create a lot more issues than benefit. And I get it. There’s a lot of people that all these huge football teams that are on ESPN and they get aired and they have huge stuff. 

So part of me understands having them have the benefit of like, I do see that, I see both sides, but in the long run, I think it’s going to create more problems than anything else.

Maren:

Yeah, I agree, because I feel as though –  take the money out of it. Just think about what I know for me, as a head coach, I tried to keep everything across the board fair, especially in golf, it’s your score, right? 

So I had certain rules… I would take the top three finishers from the previous tournament and they were guaranteed to go into the next one. And then people were qualifying because we had five players at a time, so five players would compete on the team, and then once in a while, depending on where the event was, I could bring an individual. 

So the next two, sometimes three players would be qualifying during practice for their spot and then say number one in that next event tanks. Well, they go back into the pool and they have to qualify again. It was never guaranteed, oh, just because you’re a senior, or oh, just because you’re nice. 

Listen, I do not hand out participation trophies on my team.

Lori:

And that’s been so frustrating to see the last chunk of time. Like, I literally have a whole chapter on winners and losers and how winning is earned in sports. And that’s the best part of it. You’re literally trying to figure out who’s the best. And it’s based on that day. Your PR means nothing coming into it. Your rank, your status, nothing matters when you go into it that day. It is all about that specific competition 100%.

College money creates false idols for teenagers

Maren:

And so think about you and I both know the drama can come up about who’s going, who’s not. Now, imagine you throw dollars and thousands, yes, thousands have cars, this and that. It really creates an issue. 

I know in golf right now, there’s the 16 year old who ‘s turned professional and she’s playing in the LPGA. Now, golf has the ability to compete in professional events. 16 years old, like, God bless you. 

If you can compete and win, go for it. Because in my mind, while I wholeheartedly listen, I had four years as a student athlete and I had eight years as a head coach. So I have over a decade of experience within D one sports. But with that being said, I also understand how life happens, injuries happen. 

So if someone has the talent at 16 to play professionally and earn an income, go for it. You can always go back to college. I’m not saying you will not have the same experience that, say, like Lori and I had, but you will be able to get a degree to that point, but they allow them to do that. 

And then in golf, say, this young girl, when she’s 30, whatever, she wants to settle down, have a family, she can relinquish her professional status, and then she can go play in amateur events. 

But the money piece, once you start bringing that into college sports and then how do you determine, how do you determine what someone’s worth is at 18? And to me, you’re automatically creating this idol for these 18 year olds, this false idol of income.

And you and I both know that in college, they don’t teach us about unless you are a finance major, but they’re not teaching you how to save, they’re not teaching you how to what taxes are or things like that. 

So you’re throwing all this money at kids who, let’s be real folks, a lot of them don’t have that money to begin with, right? So they’re coming into it and like that, it can be gone, or they’re doling it out to all their friends and families, or they’re buying diamonds and cars and all these fancy things, and it’s just creating. 

The brain does not finish developing until you’re 27 years old. And now you’re throwing all of these things at kids. Yeah, you could vote, but you’re still a kid.

Lori:

And the thing is, this doesn’t even just apply to college athletes. This happens in Pros 24/7. You could have had a full collegiate career and then gone on to pro and you get a signing bonus and you get this huge contract and you get all these things and you still have no clue how to manage it. 

And you hear these stories all the time, like you’re like you had a multimillion dollar contract. How are you going bankrupt? How are you losing your house? How are you losing your car? Oh. Because people came out of the woodwork to get a PC or contract and you have no ability to manage it and to deal with it properly. 

So it’s not just college athletes that have a problem with this. It just amplifies. It’s because they’re younger and they’re surrounded by their peers. Professional athletes have the same exact problem. It’s just crazy.

Men competing against women: unfair and infuriating

Lori:

Also? I loved having a coed team. That was something that I really wanted. I like the mix of guys and girls. Coming from a gymnastics background, for 13 years, it was all girls. But my best friends in real life were all guys. They’re just super easy. I just love them, and we’re still friends to this day. 

So when I switched to track and was, like, looking at colleges, I was like, it has to be coed. I can’t do just girls anymore. I just needed the mix, and I personally loved it. It was a blast. 

My husband and I actually met on the team. He was a decathlete, and so I’ll get into that in a little bit. But we all trained together. If you were a jumper, you were a jumper at your practice time. Men and women together, and we constantly helped each other out. We’re in the weight room together, lifting together. They will help you, no problem.

We have incredibly different bodies. Incredibly different. There’s zero way to get around it. 

My husband, as a decathlete, had a long jump as part of his ten events that he did. He has ten events that he has to be really good at. I basically had two that I had to be really good at. Long jumping one of them. He will still go out there and beat me. 

Even though I practice it all the time. It is my thing. He’s still better at it. There’s zero way to get around it. He never triple jumped, ever. But I could guarantee you messing around, he would still triple jump farther than me. We’re built entirely differently. Our bodies are made different because God made them that way, and he made them that way on purpose. 

Even in gymnastics, all women rotate around their hips. All men rotate around their shoulders. It’s the way it is. It’s the way we’re built. They are so incredibly different. I think it’s like, I’m sure you touched on some of this in your other podcast that you did, but it’s like if scientists find a skull, 97% of the time, they will be able to accurately tell you if it’s male or female. Just a skull. 

Because the cranium is larger, the brow bridge is larger, the jawline is different, and that’s just a head. Imagine the rest of the body, like the shoulders on guys. Like, you’re a straight up V. You have no hips. Women have hips.

Women have a Q angle in their upper thighs. Everything is different. Guys have longer arms. They have larger hands. There’s no getting around the fact that we are so incredibly different. 

But God made it that way on purpose. Like Genesis one, literally in the beginning, verse 27, God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. I mean, it’s so specific. Not once has there ever been, like, a difference of gender and sex in the Bible, you know what I mean?

And then a few chapters later in chapter five, he says, this is the book of the genealogy of Adam in the day that God created man. He made him in the likeness of God. He created them, male and female. 

It’s specific and it’s repeated, and it doesn’t even just happen physically. We are wired entirely differently. Entirely different. And that’s a great thing. We’re supposed to complement each other.

Yeah, but when you have I mean, even if you just take the example of my husband and I, if you have a guy who’s not that great in his sport, and he decides, you know what, I think I’m actually going to go compete with the girls. 

Think of the fact that he has had all those years of training, and that’s all he does, and then he goes, of course he’s going to crush every female in the field. My husband hardly practices it at all. And he would still be me, even though that’s all I do. 

So if you think of all the years and all the practice specifically on that one thing, of course they’re going to crush it. And it is so infuriating and so appalling to see people just bend over and accept it, because it’s not fair to the women who have worked so hard at what they do.

And I know if this was a thing when we were in college, I would have 100% sat out. I would have had a huge deal with this.

Maren:

We have literally over 30 years of time and money, like I said, sweat equity dumped into our sports. And how do you tell these parents, oh, it’s know, it’s okay if Susie came in second, she still gets to stand on a podium because, you know no, because think about all the money that you’ve dumped into getting your kid to be at the highest at their sport, because now they’re losing out on obviously winning, which is important. 

I don’t care what anyone says. Winning is important. They’re losing out on potential endorsement opportunities 100%. And sometimes I can’t figure out if the people who are so pro this movement. Honestly, I really would love to sit down and say, did you ever play sports at this level? 

Lori:

And back to your point about how your employers would want to hire student athletes. I talk about that, too, in the book, because it’s so incredibly true. They know that not only are you, like, team related, but you have this X factor, literally. 

You have drive, you have motivation, you have determination, you have so many different layers that you’ve accumulated because you were a championship athlete. Like, you worked hard, you wanted something. And so to have that just, like, stripped away because someone doesn’t want to hurt somebody’s feelings blows my mind.

Maren:

Right. Well, and I think it’s very selfish. I think those people are so self serving. And to me, if I’m an employer, I don’t want someone like that because I want the athlete that knows how. 

Because when you’re playing in college sports, folks, you are the brand, you’re the school. You have to represent it in a proper way. 

Frustrating growth, seeking truth, biblical perspectives shared

Maren:

That’s why God made us as men and women, and he just gave us unique talents because some of us are blessed with that, and then those of us, like myself and Lori are not. 

Now, all of these skills and talents that you’ve acquired and been gifted by God and had experience with in college, you’ve taken them and you took the step to write your own book. Obviously, that’s a huge entrepreneurial leap. But you also own your own business. 

Now, in your business, do you have a team of people that work for you too?

Lori:

​​I used to work for somebody, and then two weeks before I was supposed to go back to work from maternity leave, when I had Jackson, I got told I no longer had a job to go back to. And so that was just an interesting time for everything.

And so I started my own business immediately. My husband was super supportive of it, always trusted me, and knew I could do it. And so I literally started my own business with a two and a half month old, like, chilling next to me while I was literally up all the time. 

I built my own website. I did all my everything ground up and so this is actually my fifth year entrepreneurial wise on that side of things. But yeah, I do have my own business and I actually just hired my mom a year ago because I was like, I need help, I can’t do this all on my own.

And so she takes care of a lot of the admin and tracking, managing side of things for me so that I can actually design and do what I do with clients. I’m an interior designer, that’s my actual job.

Maren:

But that’s what it’s about, outsourcing things that someone else can do so that you can lean into your talent. And I’m sure as it grows, you will have more of a team and I’m sure that you will use all of the skills that you’ve acquired along the way. 

But I just thought it was funny because I had a feeling that because like me, I’m the same way. I like to control what I feel like I can control. I don’t like depending on other people to pay my bills, so to speak. I know how hard I work, right? So I know that I can control that. 

But it does come to a point where you obviously need to outsource certain things so that you can lean into your talents and skills. But I was laughing because I had a feeling that your former employer was definitely not a team player. But with that being said, you have found a way to have community because you’ve built this online presence. 

So why don’t we talk about that a little bit? How you’ve built this instagram following and this faith based community. Now we have talked to your better half in that venture, Jenny Meyer, but I want to hear your perspective too on what it’s done for you and obviously how people can get plugged in. But why don’t you talk a little about how you’ve built up that space in the last few years.

Biblical Dives and Finding Truth:
“I know that there’s only one truth and it’s God’s truth. And so you match everything up to God’s word. So it doesn’t really matter what the world says, let God be true and every man a liar.”

Lori Brazier

Lori:

As a Christian, I know that there’s only one truth and it’s God’s truth. And so you match everything up to God’s word. So it doesn’t really matter what the world says, let God be true and every man a liar. This is it. 

And so a lot of it started out probably in 2021, was a lot of the rabbit hole stuff, but there was always a biblical side to it and perspective of things. And then you get to the point where you’re like, okay, I’ve done all of this.

I don’t need to keep going through all this. And so it turned into more of the biblical dives, which were super fascinating to me because there were so many things I grew up in the church completely, but there were so many things that I had not been taught. 

I’m like, these are all the interesting things. You guys are missing out. Like, this is right, this is the fun stuff. This is so cool. And so I just started sharing a lot of that. And then Jenny and I met, I think it was like December of 21.

She had followed me, I guess, for a while. And so then I found her and started following her, but I never saw any of her stuff. Just because we were all so shadow banned and stuff.

Maren:

It’s a miracle we’re all still connected, literally. It literally shows how strong our bonds are because we are like glue. We always know how to find one another. I forget I remember that your accounts would disappear and I would have to go hunting for you. But then you always feel so grateful, like, oh, you’re still with us again.

Lori:

But we were like, all right, let’s do this. And then it just turned into this whole other thing that neither of us had ever expected it to be. The women that were in the study have been so incredible and so encouraging and supportive and just amazing that they were like, so you’re going to do more, you’re going to put together a community. 

How do we all stay connected? Basically, because we actually found our people. And so that was just a process of putting everything together and working on the back end. And Jenny did a phenomenal job with all of that.

Maren:

Um, and now you guys are getting ready to host a conference.

Lori:

Yeah. We’ve had two retreats already that were much more intimate, and those were such great weekends, like, to see God move, and they’ve just been incredible. And so we decided to open it up to a little bit larger scale. Basically, we just are saying yes, and we’re stepping out in faith because this isn’t something that either of us had ever planned. 

And it’s just been literally God timing and God confirmation through the entire thing since we met. And I mean, that’s the only way to do it. It’s been really cool because we both consider this like a divine partnership. You put us together, you can’t just write with someone. 

It just doesn’t work like that. It honestly doesn’t. And you don’t just happen to have somebody who has super similar beliefs and thoughts and theories about all these different things that neither of us were taught. And the fact that we can literally do those things is only through him.

Maren:

Agreed. And I love how you’ve created a resource for people and we’ll have this all in the show notes too, how you can get involved with the rooted truth app. But I love how people are finding one another through it as well because in the last few years, people have felt very isolated, very alone. 

I said this has been one big social experiment, but I always encourage people to continue to stay, no pun intended, rooted in your truth, because there are more people like you out there and communities like yours show that full stop. 

The fact that you’re going from these mini retreats to a conference is massive. And it’s not a conference, folks, that like, oh yeah, your typical big entrepreneur gathers all these girl bosses together. 

No, these are women who are rooted in faith and want to walk like Christ as best as we can and just learn too and grow and evolve. Now, one of the things that you said that I really want to leave the listeners with, because you and I both, we were like in 2020, when all of this was hitting the fan, we went down the rabbit holes.

And so I feel like there’s become this shift with content creators like ourselves where it’s not that we don’t know that these things are going on in the world. They obviously are. And we also understand that we can’t just dig our heads in the sand anymore and say, oh, well, I tried, but there needs to be some sort of balance. 

Because once you do go down the rabbit hole and if you let it consume you and your spirit, you can’t focus on the light and the hope and the faith that really is there for you, ultimately, in the end. So how would you encourage folks to obviously be informed but also have boundaries with it?

Lori:

Well, and this was one thing that I had said even in 20 when I was going down the rabbit holes and sharing all this stuff, I 100% had rules for myself. None of this stuff got looked up at night.

None of it got looked up before bed. I wouldn’t even do it when it was dark outside. It was daytime only. And that way there was none of that going into bed, none of that going into dreams, all that sort of stuff. So I always put that disclosure and disclaimer out and I can’t tell you how many people sinked me for it.

Maren:

Because you have to be like, rebuking the enemy.

Lori:

It’s so evil and it’s so intense and it’s like always like, pray before, pray after, put on the armor. You have to do these things because otherwise it’s going to seep in. Just because your eyes are gates, your ears are gates, things come in that way, and so you have to protect yourself. 

And so once I got more shifted out of that sort of stuff, it was still, this is just so incredibly evil that I pray now that everybody that is seeing the evil for the first time realizes, okay, if this stuff is actually true and actually happening, if there’s an evil, there has to be a good. 

If there is a Satan, there has to be a God. So let’s point you to that. Let’s get you the hope, let’s get you the light and have that be your new reality of how you come about things. Because I’m sure you’ve heard the same stories.

How many people came back to Christ? How many lukewarm Christians were like, okay. And they’ve totally shifted. But it took seeing the actual evil that happens for them to fully wake up. Because otherwise how are you going to wake up if you don’t know there’s a problem? If you don’t even know you’re asleep to it, you can’t wake up.

Protect yourself from evil and seek God

Seek truth and make informed choices: In a world filled with noise and conflicting voices, it’s crucial to seek the truth and align our decisions with a higher will. 

Maren:

Sleep paralysis is real. I’ve experienced it. I’ve never talked about it here, but I’ve talked about it with friends. Where I’ll never forget. I was at the PGA Show with my husband, and we were staying at this is like when we were broke as a joke, folks. So we were staying at this ratchet hotel, okay? It was a motel. It wasn’t even a hotel, okay? It was a motel. Let’s be real.

Yeah, so you want to talk about portals? There was like, you might as well just had a welcome sign. But anyway, I remember the hotel being under construction, which from experience of people who have had in my life, who have had paranormal activity in their home, happens a lot because the spirits are disturbed, because their environment, so to speak, is disturbed. 

So anyway, I digress, but I’ll never forget laying there, and they were like tiny beds. So we weren’t even sleeping in the same bed because I was like, I need space. This wasn’t like even queens or kings.

There were two double beds, and he’s in the bed on the left, and I’m in the bed on the right, and I will never, ever forget this. I remember laying there, and I remember feeling like someone was staring at me. And then I felt the bed. I felt someone sitting on the bed.

And now my eyes are open, but I can’t see anything. But I can feel it, and I can feel coldness come over me. I’m getting chills thinking about it. Coldness came over me. And I’m wide awake. And I started saying Nick. 

Nick, someone’s here. Someone’s here. And he’s dead asleep. And he’s what? What are you talking about? And I immediately, immediately, folks, and I cannot say this enough, and I know Lori will attest this I immediately started praying to Jesus, I rebuked the enemy in Jesus’ Name. 

And, like, that gone.

All of a sudden, the coldness left me and everything was back to normal. I have chills like goosebumps right now, thinking about yeah. But it is very real. So anytime you are opening yourself up to this, you’re inviting that evilness to come in.

I don’t care whether it’s you going down a rabbit hole and researching certain things about children or this or that, or even if you’re watching a horror movie.

Lori:

I’m very protective of what comes in through TV or movies or shows. And, I mean, there’s, like, hardly anything we watch anymore, but music is another huge one. Got to be mindful.

Maren:

I am so grateful that you’re here and that you sat down with us. I can’t wait to read your book, and I can’t wait for everyone else to read it. And like I said, I think it’s something that is a terrific resource for everyone, whether you are an athlete or know. 

I believe that we can all take these lessons and filter them into our space, our home, our workplace, if you are a parent, things that you can be doing with your children. Because I’m sure, like me and Nick, you and your husband are going to be training little athletes because it’s so much more than the sport.

It’s so much more than that. You get so much out of it. And I can’t wait to see your new little bundle.

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