Intentionally or unintentionally, sometimes we can hide parts of ourselves that others would really like to see. If you follow me on social media or any of the other places my brand shows up to the world, it might be easy to assume that I always live some perfect curated life. The truth is, we all have things about ourselves that might surprise other people. On today’s episode, I’m here to share some things about myself that I’ve never openly talked about. I’m sure that this episode will turn some people off and that’s fine. today’s all about releasing things that you’ve been suppressing and shifting into the truest version of yourself.
Intentionally or unintentionally, sometimes we can hide parts of ourselves that others would really like to see. If you follow me on social media or any of the other places my brand shows up to the world, it might be easy to assume that I always live some perfect curated life. The truth is, we all have things about ourselves that might surprise other people. On today’s episode, I’m here to share some things about myself that I’ve never openly talked about. I’m sure that this episode will turn some people off and that’s fine. today’s all about releasing things that you’ve been suppressing and shifting into the truest version of yourself.
Welcome to the old fashioned on purpose podcasts. So this is a different sort of episode. I'm veering away ever so slightly today from my typical homestead topics because I have been doing a lot of reflection and soul searching here as we're ending 2019 and starting a new decade. And I have decided that I will be showing up a little bit differently for you in the coming years and beyond. So I'm going to tell you what that means. Some of you may love it, some of you may not. And if I'm being super honest, I'm a little bit nervous to record today's episode, but here we go. I'm your host Jill winger and for the last 10 years I've been helping people just like you who feel disenchanted by conventional life. I'll show you how you can leave the rat race and create the life you really want by learning how to grow your own food and master old fashioned skills no matter where you live. So I tend to follow that as kind of a common trend, I guess now of choosing a word for the year. I find that that's a little more effective for me than going with the whole new year's resolution thing. I d on't, I just don't think those usually w ork o ut for most people. So I like a word that's going to define how I'm going to grow and learn and mature through the upcoming year. So generally these words just kind of come to me. And this year was no different. So the word that kept coming to me was bold and I've been thinking a lot about what that means and what that means for me. And that might be a surprising word for those of you who are listening, you might want may wonder why that resonated with me and you're going to hear that here if you keep on listening. But here's the deal guys. I have realized, and I assure you this has not been intentional, but as we spend a lot of time on social media, especially someone like me who has a business that is related to social media, and I'm always producing content there, and I'm showing up as a public sort of person, it's really, really easy for people to only see parts of your life. I mean, there's obviously things that I'm just not going to share on Instagram or Facebook because it's not related to my niche or my topic and it's just not coming to interest people. So I just omit it. And it can make things a little bit lopsided sometimes. Sometimes that's intentional. We all know the stories of people on social media who have led like double lives, but a lot of the times it's not intentional. It just happens and people end up developing perceptions of you that aren't true. And again, it's not because we're trying to put on this persona, but just because they don't get to really know who you are as much as they think they do when they're watching your life in videos. And on little squares on their phone. So I've noticed that it's happened. It felt like more and more here lately. Maybe it's just because I have been more active and more public the last year than ever before in my business with all of the projects we launched in the cookbook and the traveling. But I wanted to make sure moving forward that you as a reader, listener, member of the Prairie homestead tribe, I want you to know who I really am, for lack of a better word. Um, and it's, I don't hide these parts of myself. If you know me in real life or if you know me locally, like my local friends will probably not find any of these things surprising. But for those of you who only quote unquote know me through the computer or through your podcast app or through social media, I wanna make sure that you have the full picture. And this is part of my shift for 2020 and being bold and being unapologetic and making sure that I'm showing up as I really am. And that will make a little bit more sense as I kind of go through my list, but I'm just going to kind of give you the behind the scenes today and give you some little tidbits about me that maybe you didn't know. Maybe these will surprise you. Maybe these will offend you and maybe you'll want to unsubscribe and that's okay. But I'm tired of feeling like that kind of unintentionally, there are parts of my life that aren't out there. And I don't want that to feel like that to me anymore. So, here we go and I'm a little nervous, like I said in the beginning. I don't know what the reception will be to this episode, but I'm bold this year, right? That's my, my goal and I'm just gonna do it anyway. So here goes nothing. Number one, my life is not homesteading, 24-seven, and probably some of you figured that out, but I feel like there's this idea because you always see me doing videos in the garden or with the cow or in the kitchen. I have folks who come up to me and assume that I literally live a little house on the Prairie life every day of the week, 24 hours a day. And that's just not true. There are lots of other pieces to our life. Obviously, you know, things like homeschooling. But we also, you know, do things like horse shows and we travel frequently and we don't just sit around the farm all day, although sometimes that sounds like all I want to do, but it doesn't always work. It often doesn't work like that. So, we have the homestead life, we live the homestead life, but sometimes we step out or you know, we take off our homesteader hat and we put on a different hat and I just want people to know that so they, cause I think sometimes people think I'm literally there with my garden basket and my milk bucket just toodling around the farm all day. And sometimes I am, those are the best days usually, but there are other times when I'm acting in other roles. So, there you go. Number two pictures are deceiving. And this is kind of true, not just for my own life, but this is social media. And the more I'm on social media or rather, the longer I'm on it, as the years go by and maybe I'm just growing up more and maturing. But man, guys, sometimes Instagram and, and I think Instagram is the worst. They all can be bad, but it just drives me nuts. It is so curated and I'll take responsibility too. We're all trying to make our little grid and those little squares give off a certain perception. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it can get toxic. And I sometimes see different accounts on Instagram and they're so beautiful, but they're so overdone. And I'm not trying to sound judgemental in saying that, but if that's your art form, that's awesome. But like sometimes it just makes me tired and maybe you can relate to that. But I know that when I post a picture on social, obviously I'm going to probably pick the picture that is the prettiest. It's the most beautiful shot. It's the most flattering shot. But I want you to know that my life is not perfectly curated. Like if you came over to our house, you would see all the things that you see on Instagram, but you would also see portions of my house in my yard and my barn that just aren't beautiful yet. I mean, maybe they will be in the future, maybe they'll never be beautiful. But we all have a tendency as humans to obviously want to put our best foot forward. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but just for my own sanity, I want you to know that not every part of my life is perfectly branded and curated and primped as it looks like sometimes on Instagram. And sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes I put out the behind the scenes pictures and you see what it looks like. But here's an example. And I always think of this every single time I open my drawer. If you've seen the picture of my sink, I have a really nice farmhouse sink. I have a knife strip on the wall above the sink and I have all these cool old vintage knives with the cool wooden handles in there. All patina done. They just look awesome. Really homesteader really vintage, really old fashioned. But if you open the drawer over by my refrigerator, that's where all the ugly knives live. That's where the red handled plastic KitchenAid knives that I got as a wedding present. They're all in there. I still use them and I haven't been able to really justify getting rid of them because they still are functional. And there's a few that I just still like how they feel, but you can bet I'm not putting them up on the wall. Those are in the drawer. But I think that really symbolizes a lot of our lives and maybe there are those influencers out there who really are just as beautiful in homes and in their clothes and in their makeup, like 24-seven as they are in Instagram. But I know that's the case, not the case for me. And I just don't want you to ever compare yourself to me or anyone else and feel less than, because here's the deal guys. Most of social media is not real. I love it. Most of the time. Maybe a love hate relationship is a better description but it's often not real. So I want you to know if you come to my house, you open the drawer, there's some ugly names in there. There's parts of my yard that aren't beautiful. There's definitely parts of my garden that aren't beautiful. Um, yeah, it's just real life and it's okay. Okay. Number three. This is something that people get really, really angry at me about whenever I allude to this online. So much so that I have actually, I just stopped talking about it a lot recently, which isn't good cause I just got tired of the nastiness. But, anyway, here we go. People often ask how we've been able to build our homestead, how we've been able to remodel our house, build our shops, buy our tractors, you know, get all the things we have that make our homesteader really, really functional and nice because Christian does not work outside of the home. I did not work outside of the home and people are always like, hold on, how did you do this? And here is the truth. You guys, doTERRA, the network marketing essential oil company is and was the fuel for us to build everything we have. And people do not like it when I say that they want me to have said something else but I can't because that is the truth. That is what fuels our homestead life. And it allows us to buy the cows and buy the skid loader and build the shop and it's work and it's a business. Um, but you know, everyone hates on network marketing and when it's done right, it is magical. And I'm sorry if your brother's cousin's girlfriend has hassled you about joining her makeup company or her Tupperware company or whatever and you have a bad taste in your mouth about network marketing. But it has worked beautifully for us. It literally changed our life. Um, not just the, the oils themselves and all the things I do with the oils, but the business model and that is how we built our homestead and continue to support our homestead. And yes, we have other income streams like the cookbook and you know, the courses that I create and I do business coaching now we have all of those income streams, but doTERRA is still the bulk of that. Even more so than the cookbook. My cookbook has done extremely well and it is dwarfed by what doTERRA actually produces. So I just got to say it, cause sometimes I feel like squeamish to talk about it because people get so grumpy. Um, but it's the truth. So there you have it. That's how we built our homestead. Okay. What are, what are we at number four? One, two, three, four. Okay. Number four. So I used to be a major rule follower in every area of my life when I was younger, kind of young adults. If there was a rule, I was there following it to a T like always a teacher's pet, always the one who was doing everything the right way. But as I've matured, and there's a couple other factors involved there, but I'm a little bit more of a rule breaker now. I tend to be a little bit more unorthodox. Sometimes I cuss, I don't fit into tame, domesticated cultural boxes very well, especially in regards to, what is expected of a typical mom these days. And so I feel like a little bit like the rebel. And I don't know if I always am true to that. When I show up online, I feel like sometimes people think I'm, I'm a little bit different. I just want to put that out there. Like I can be pretty unorthodox and I don't always like to follow the rules. So, I will go into that a little bit more in the future. I'm going to leave it a little more elusive for now because there are some pieces of that that I want to be respectful of other people in my life. Um, I'm okay with airing my dirty laundry. I'm not out to air anyone else's dirty laundry, so I'm just gonna leave that a little bit vague for the time being. But I'm not always, um, Pollyanna Susie sunshine, I guess in regular real life, if that makes sense. Maybe it doesn't. But anyway, there we are. Okay. Um, number five, this may come as a shock to some of you. I will drink a Coke, AKA Coca-Cola about once a month. I don't buy it or I guess I do buy it. I don't steal it. Obviously I don't buy it and bring it home. Let me clarify that. But if I'm at a restaurant about once a month I'll have a Coke with my hamburger or whatever. And yes, I do brew my own kombucha and I buy sometimes, not all the time, but we'll get like the Stevia sweetened natural sodas and those are awesome. But at the end of the day, I still like Coke once in awhile. I don't drink it every day. I don't even drink it every week. I like the taste of it. I know it's bad for me. I know why it's bad for me and I still have it on occasion. So there you go. And kind of on that same note, you know, like there's no question that I am obsessed with good food and homegrown food and healthy food and from scratch and all of that. But, I'll still eat junk food on occasion and if I go to someone's house and it's a less than ideal option, um, we don't have a lot of food allergies, so I don't, I don't make a stink over it. I don't make a fuss. We just eat it. I don't worry about it. Um, and we go back to eating our from scratch homegrown stuff. But, I just don't get too worked up. And I know that's different if someone has food allergies, but that's just me and how I roll. And sometimes I've actually had people be really surprised when they're like, Oh my gosh, Jill, you're eating the Velveeta cheese that's in the dip and you know what that is, right? And I'm like, yes, but it's at someone else's house and it's not going to kill me to have at once and it's fine. And I feel like not stressing about that because I don't have to is a good thing for me. So if you ever see me eating junk food on occasion, not every day, uh, don't be surprised. Okay, this is one. What is this, seven? I dunno, we've lost count. It doesn't matter. Anyway. Uh, I'm an intense person and I feel like sometimes that's not always visible when you see me on my videos because I, I've had to hide that for a lot of my life. And maybe one of you listening or several of you listening can relate to this. I'm not, I was born that way, but I've, I've been told many, many times that I'm too much or I'm too intense, or Jill, you need to tone it down. Or Jill, you don't need to care that much. And some of that came from just mentors in my life. Some of that was due to the church that I grew up in. It had zero tolerance for women with strong personalities. So I felt like I had to hide myself in order to be acceptable in that church environment. So I've struggled with that a lot in my life. And sometimes people who know me well will, will see me in different environments and they're like, Jill, you seemed really chill when I know you didn't want to be chill. So why did you show up as chill in that scenario? And it's just constantly the side of myself wanting to let the intensity out, but also feeling like I shouldn't or I can't. So again, the older I get, the better I'm getting at being intense in public. Cause usually I'm just intense in private, which sounds so silly. But if you've ever been shamed for being too much, especially as a woman, I know you can relate to that. So anyway, I'm just here proclaiming to the world. So, you know, I am a crazy intense person. I am the type A of type A's and I'm not ashamed of it at all. I am really proud of that actually. Cause it's an allowed me to create a lot in my life, accomplished a lot in my life and that's not a bad thing. So I am intense. I don't always show that on video, but I am. And if you know me in real life, you know that I'm a little bit crazy and I think it's a good thing. It's kinda my superpower. So there you have it. Okay. Lastly, this may or may not be a surprise maybe to some of you, but I freaking love business. I love it. And I feel like sometimes there's this obligation and this is probably a totally false obligation that I put on myself or expectation would be a better word. That I have to like only like the garden and the cows and the chickens and I love all those things. But you guys, I love business. Probably even more than that. I think about it 24-seven I think about business ideas when I'm going to bed, when I wake up, I dream about it. I love it. I love what goes in it. I love being an entrepreneur. I love marketing and branding and concrete content creation. I love coaching other entrepreneurs like it is my jam. And so I just want you to know that just because I love the cows. I love the simple life. I love the peace that comes living in the country and growing my own food. And I love meeting bread and all those simple homespun things. Man, if you give me a good marketing book, I am all over it. So kind of a paradox, but I kinda like that part of myself. It's a juxtaposition, right? I've got the simple and the more complex and the slow and then the more fast paced. And for some reason it works for me. And when business is feeling overwhelming, I kind of can escape to the homestead life. And when I'm in the homestead stuff and I need a little more stimulation than I can focus on the business. So it just works. But anyway, there you have it. My friends, all of my deepest, darkest confessions, I feel better. I'm glad I got all of that out there. Maybe some of you are surprised. Maybe you are going to be unsubscribing because you didn't like some of the things you heard or it kind of caught you off guard. But that's okay. It's totally fine. No hard feelings. I know that I am not for everyone. Maybe in the past I thought I should be and I'm not for everyone and neither are you. Not everyone will get you. You will not be everyone's cup of tea. And that is okay. so I know that was a lot about me because this was kind of a different sort of episode. But just as we wrap up here, I want to, you know, give you a little bit of a takeaway for something you can ruminate on in your life, but I'm gonna ask you, what parts of yourself do you suppress sometimes. And maybe you don't suppress them all the time. Maybe you suppress them just with different groups, right? In this group, you show up this way. In this group, you show up that way. I just would invite you to analyze where that came from, why that happening, if you like, how that feels. And if you don't, how you can shift that in your own life. And I would love if you are comfortable sharing your revelations, feel free to shoot me a private message on Instagram or Facebook or shoot me an email. I'd love to hear what you come up with and how that shifts things for you. So anyway, that's, that's it for today. Thanks so much for listening. I appreciate you sticking with me. I appreciate you being here and I'm excited for what is going to come in 2020 all the things we'll create and excited to have you along for the ride. So we'll talk more on the next episode of the old fashioned on purpose podcasts. And in the meantime, happy homesteading friends and happy new year.