We are so excited to have our friend and former client Megan on with us to talk about her journey with us and we’re so welcome, welcome to financial coaching for women.

Thank you. So excited to be here.

You had such an awesome success story and I remember hearing bits and pieces of it along the way as you guys were coaching with Shana. And so we know that your story is going Not only going to impact some of our listeners, but we know it’s going to impact so many more people that maybe they share their, your story with.

So we’re so thankful that you’re coming on here to share it. And hopefully help them out. Yeah. So Megan, tell us just a little bit about your situation, which has recently developed quite a lot. You had, I remember part of our conversation was like, what are you not going to do? What big life thing is not going to happen to you this year?

Can we calm down? Like every single storm mode that we ever have, you guys tried to do. But so tell us a little bit about you and your family.

Is Megan Gephardt and I’m a wife, mom to three crazy boys. I just try to keep up with every day from five to three months old. I am a recently transitioned army veteran. So that was one of the big transitions along with having a baby that happened in the span of time that we worked together.

And now I am primarily an entrepreneur and mom at the same time. So much more part time work than before, but now I do operational strategy for for other mission driven Christian entrepreneurs and and recently co founded an organization called Apostolic Fruit with my best friend.

So we serve now in partnership, which through coaching and consulting. And yeah, it’s a combination of holistic leadership development, leadership coaching, and as well as the business strategy and operational support for those who want to continue to grow their impact, but do so in a more sustainable way and heal from burnout at the same time as that was so much of my story.

Yeah. Yeah. So that can be a lot of everyone’s story. Yeah. For

Yes, absolutely.

really fun to watch your business what you were going to do after you transition evolve and and then praise God. It just magically worked out right. To be. to be with your best friend and be this great opportunity.

Yeah. So tell us with all that going on at the very beginning, what brought you to coaching? What was the nail on the head that was like, I need a change. I need to get my finances in order.

Yeah, absolutely. So we got started as I was looking back at this journey. It was so awesome to reflect back. But we got started back in June of last year. And right at that point, I had just. Decided and we collectively decided to make the transition out of the military in about a year from that point.

And I had connected with you guys through a podcast mastermind program. We were both part of, and I started listening to your podcasts and I was like, Oh my gosh, I need this support. And we, so I was experiencing a lot of different things, but we had been stationed apart, my husband, I both being in military, we had been stationed apart for over half of our.

First five years of our marriage. And so with that, it was like managing two households, the kids just constant transition, lots of unpredictability. We hadn’t even fully merged together our finances at that point, let alone figured out how to manage it together. And so everything felt like a mess and really chaotic.

And, you guys talk about. And making good money and having nothing to show for it. I felt like we were in that place of not even knowing where is our money going and what is it doing and where how we could be more intentional with it and actually work together in our marriage with it.

And so we had, we had tried to do different budgeting in the past and basically what we tried to do up until that point was, let’s do some calculations, figure out where our money’s going and then. Make a plan, and then we didn’t really know what to do with the plan at that point. Like, how do we stay on track?

How do we actually make this a system that works for us? And and so we didn’t really have any kind of organization or budget really. And we conversations we had about it felt either awkward or a little bit stressful, or it was just hard and uncomfortable. And we just were not used to even talking about money.

And so it was just this space where there was so much room for growth and then also wanting to transition more fully into entrepreneurship. I had been doing, I had been running a little bit of a small business on the side, I say a little bit because it was. On the off, off, off side of my army time.

And yeah exactly. Which was already more than full time at the time commitment. And so I was doing coaching on the side, but it was very much a side thing. And I wanted to transition now to something that would be more sustainable for our family and bring in money to support our family while also giving me the flexibility that I needed, which is why I made the transition out of the military in the first place to just be able to be more present for our family.

So I was like, okay, we got lots of room to grow here. And We need some help and support and actual accountability to make progress. And we wanted to also steward our money well. And for us, it’s very much a way to yeah, like the Lord has entrusted us with these gifts and and the income in order to both provide for our family and then also to be generous with our time and our money and all the things in life.

Yeah, I don’t see it as it’s ours to hold and keep it more. So open hands to allow the Lord to work through it.

I just love how you can hear your heart and all that. Yeah. Yes. Yes. We were very blessed to get to work with you guys. Super, super sweet family. And I think what you described though, and you guys your officers in the army, but I’ve, we’ve seen that. in the military is very common, but just in general, very common.

What you’re talking about, we don’t talk about the finances when we do. It’s not the best conversation. It’s not the most productive conversation we’ve ever had. It’s, and it’s not even, it’s not on purpose. It’s just it’s back there. It’s a back burner. Like we’re trying to raise these kids.

We’re trying to, we’re trying to grow in our career and all of this. And then all of a sudden, At some point, like you said, I wake up and I realized I’m making really good money. And I, I don’t feel like I have a handle on it. And now I’m going to grow. I love, I wrote that down, Megan room for growth.

This is the area I’m going to choose to grow in. And actually with you, you’re a coaching connoisseur. Like you’re literally always trying to grow. And and I think that’s a beautiful personality train to have. And so I think that knowing that your transition was coming, knowing that, we need, Being a good steward was really important.

This was like just the perfect time for you to get coaching. I just love, like Shana said, the idea of you knew the value and investing in yourself, like there are a lot of people that haven’t, they’re not there yet. It’s really hard for them to see. It’s like spending money on themselves to do something that they know they have to do.

But the reality is that if you were going to do it, we’d have done it already. And I know that I am super accountable to other people. Like it just is I, that’s how I function. And you have that like Shannon said, that personality to know the worth and the value in investing in coaches.

You are a coach, we’re a coach, like we get it. So it’s so nice to see that you took that step for yourself because a lot of times we’ll, pour out. And then our cup needs to get filled. And so you knew that was important for you.

Yes, absolutely. Yeah. And it was one of those places where I also knew, okay, it’d be a little bit vulnerable, right? Letting somebody into this place that feels really messy. And I think that can be a barrier for a lot of people when it comes to reaching out for any kind of support. We feel shame of I should know how to do this better by now.

I should have figured this out. Like why am I so terrible at this point in life? But I think so many of us, we don’t. We aren’t taught how to manage money from the beginning. And so then we’re just figuring it out as we go. And it’s it can feel very complicated. And we were definitely just moving a million miles an hour and just running by default.

It was like wherever our money was going and whatever it was doing was just what it was doing. And we had no visibility of that or like sense of Yeah. Confidence in that or intentionality.

Yeah. And I, when you guys so a lot of times what we say is people use credit cards as a budget and it’s using that. Limit as a budget. And that’s where we were with you guys. And when we first started was you guys were, like you said, I love how you put that going a hundred miles an hour in two different locations with kids, with full time careers yes, it was like, just swipe it and we’ll pay it off this way.

I don’t have time to figure that out, but we did transition you off of that, which was fun and easy and immediate. No, wait, no, it wasn’t. No, I’m just kidding. There was a lot not only were you guys were absolutely willing to But getting you both in the same room was a challenge all by itself.

And then getting you both in, Oh my gosh, the bank accounts. This was not the most fun that we had with that. But anyway, so we did, and you were the first client that I experienced that you had a credit card that you had to pay off the whole thing, which I think they, they set up as a, this is going to help you stay out of debt.

If I, if we make you pay it off like 8, 000 or whatever it might be every month and Then you’re going to stay good at crediting or something. I don’t know what the reason for it was, but that was a difficult thing. Cause we were like, Hey, this month things are going to have to change. And that’s, that was a hard one for you guys.

Yeah. Okay. So many things that came up around that. Vanessa also said it just, it’s hard to make that investment in yourself. So I think when it comes to something like specifically financial coaching and we talk about this as well with those who serve in business, but you see right away the return on investment.

You’re literally helping us gain money back. That would have just, Disappeared, it would have run off at its own legs, and so that to me is an easy decision to make. And you see the impact right away. So definitely it’s, I think it was a good forcing function for us to evaluate what actually are our habits with spending and start to think about that right away.

So those are some things that shifted it. It allowed us. I remember 1 of the very 1st action steps that you encouraged us to take. And I think this was even. Just from the discovery call was let’s set up two separate accounts, one for the bills to come out of and one for the rest of things.

Let’s just begin there. And Even that was a big change because I mean we had stuff coming out from all over the place and all different accounts. And again, it was like we didn’t even each have access to each other’s accounts yet. And that was like administrative steps that we needed to take. And yeah, it took a lot of time to, To even work through that.

I felt like we were taking all these knots and just like I’m jumbling the knots to begin with and that was part of the process in order to even move towards setting up the system that like worked for us behind the scenes where it takes all the decision fatigue out and it takes the the stress out at the same time.

What would you say to somebody who is hearing that I’m going, I don’t want to change. I like what I’m like, what I have is easy and it’s simple and it may be messy, but whatever, it’s fine. Because it’s really hard. We have people who come into coaching and they’re like, no like literally it’s really hard for them to make those steps because they know it’s a lot of work.

Not necessarily that they’re mad about it, just the amount of work that goes into doing that. But it’s such a short amount of time. So what would you say have gone through it? You guys have gone through it and you’re on the other side of it. . And I love how you said how a system that works for us.

Yeah. Because it’s very unique to your situation. So what would, what do you think?

Yeah, oh, man, this is so true because it can be a barrier when you feel like, okay, I’m already just trying to survive. And now in order to make progress here, I’m going to have to do more work. That doesn’t feel good to anybody. But at the same time, I think what you guys do so well is, we met every other week basically, right?

So two times a month and it would be incremental progress that we’re making. And so I would have like several action steps to take in between each call. And it was like these little things, it was, and I get to celebrate every little step along the way. And that felt good. And at one point in time, I think it was several months before I finally made the transition out of the army.

I actually hit this like critical threshold where I. I don’t know. I must have, things had just shifted to where I actually had this sense of feeling of oh my goodness, I feel confident. And how to manage money. Like I feel a million times different than I felt coming into this. And it was like this almost, it just felt like this this wall I had climbed over in a way.

And that felt so good. And now it’s been, there’s been a lot of complexity and having made the transition out of the army and having a less constant, consistent income. But at the same time, I’m now able to. To make better projections and make better decisions and work towards the predictability that we want to have in our business, literally from learning how to do that in a personal life setting.

So I would say just that encouragement of you’re not going to do all of it overnight and the shift is not going to happen overnight, but you will start to see the progress and you get encouraged by all the little progress along the way, but just taking one little step at a time and that’s what it takes.

And any kind of shifts we want to make in our life, it’s not, it has to be a habit that we develop anyways. And then on the back end of it, when you start to make those changes, then it allows things to work for you. So that’s what you said to Vanessa okay, this is working for me behind the scenes.

And now it’s okay, yeah, I don’t have to make all these decisions. My money is going where it needs to go when it needs to go there. And I just am overseeing that process now. And instead of having to manually do a million things in order to clean up the mess that’s happening. You know what I’m saying?

Yeah. And I actually remember the session that you’re referring to and I, I. I think I remember part of that was you had, I think you had to get tires and then there was like birthday shopping or something that happened and you just knew where the money was coming from. And you didn’t have to consult me or consult your credit card or anything.

You just, you knew where it was coming from. You knew you had set it aside. You had we would always talk about your Starbucks money and you had, so you always had your Starbucks money. And I think I just remember the piece, like you said, I can, it was like shining out of you when you came to that session.

And I would say, You know what it was. And I love how you pointed out it was like little baby steps and it really was. So we have some people that they do it when they get off the call. But you guys were so busy. It was like sprint. And so if we can just knock these little things out, we will make the progress.

It will happen. And you did. But the thing is, it can either be hard now and easy later. And that’s where we’re at. And that’s where we had to get for, get to for you guys, because you were transitioning, you were going to have a new baby. You were getting out of the army like income was changing.

Lives were changing. We needed you to have a system in place that you didn’t have to think about it. You didn’t have to put any stress or any brain calories toward that. Cause you had so much better things to focus on. That’s

then I was super intimidated by money. Like I didn’t really want to look at the numbers, but I knew I should. And now it’s I don’t mind, like I’m friendly with it. That’s so different. And now I know, okay this is here to serve us.

And this system is here to serve us. And I’m not afraid to ask the hard questions or take a hard look at it and have the conversations with my husband or my business partner. Now, like we can talk about money stuff and it’s easier. It’s not so scary. And I think that’s a huge place of peace that I’ll just say, a lot of God’s grace in that and both doing the inner work and then also the external steps that we were taking together around it.

Yeah. And you had talked about Preparing for transitions. I do want to say one of the most beneficial aspects of this too, was not only were able to plan for an income shift going from two income to, full time incomes to now one completely off and then some unpredictability with it.

And at the same time as about to have a baby. So like my army transition was. Almost directly lined up with when my baby was coming. And so the income is going from two jobs to one. And then also I wasn’t going to be fully engaged in business during that immediate transition window either. Cause I was going to be on taking a bit of a maternity leap.

And so that was something we planned and prepared very intentionally for. And we worked to both pay off debt. So we’re working on that as a main goal. And then the other goal is. Preparing for the transition in the form of basically setting aside income savings as a buffer for maternity leave. So we had, by the time that we were pretty much done coaching, we had put aside 3 months worth of income of the baseline income.

We would need to sustain our family. We had reduced a lot of spending and things at that point, leading up to it as well, but that gave so much peace of mind to ease the transition. I wasn’t feeling pressure to like, jump back into everything. So quickly after having a baby, and it’s just been such a beautiful time this time around having the space that I wanted and needed with him.

And I wish I had with all my other kids, but I had to jump in so quick and quick to the army. And so that’s been such a gift is. Being able to do that. And then the other thing that we had worked towards, which is a big expense that we were able to make possible because of the work that we did together was being able to pay more out of pocket for a midwife.

I transitioned care to a midwifery practice so that I could have a home birth. And it was the most beautiful, empowering incredible birth experience. And and that was possible because the work that we did too, and knowing that we could afford that being able to, we actually had started with a payment.

Plan so that we could distribute out that cost over time. And then we ended up paying it almost in full after the 1st month. It was beautiful. And so those are like, huge wins along with I think we ended up paying a. Off about 15, 000 worth of debt during the time together. We’re still rolling on some of it and gonna continue to chip away at others, but we had paid off like several lines of credit, so that was awesome to see.

huge. No, that’s awesome. And I think, remind me, you were not, you did not know yet that y’all were having a baby when you signed up for coaching, right? Yeah.

out in December that we were pregnant with him.

Yeah. So I just love how the Lord was working on you and preparing you for what was coming. And not only were you getting out of the military or yeah, the military, but also, Hey, you’re having a baby.

So it’s like all the steps that needed to happen before you found out any of that. He was taking care of that. I love that. We just, I just went to chapel with my kids and that was, God’s timing is perfect. And and it’s true. And I do want to say that delayed obedience equals delayed blessing, but being obedient Look at where you are now.

Like you you heard, you felt that pull on your heart to take responsibility, take ownership of this. And literally every part of this of Andrew is just, like Tim got to stay home. Praise God for that. But but you didn’t feel rushed to do To go back to business and you got to have that home birth, which, that is just a side note.

You were like we’ll just make the payments. And I was like, girl, no, you’re going to pay that off. We’re not going, we didn’t pay him payments while you’re, when you’re going about to lose an income. But I do think the bigger story there is you guys were bougie on a budget and not really.

I just like to say that word, but you guys were actually. I think I would say like streamline, but when I say bougie, we did a lot of trips, right? You didn’t, the travel budget was always pretty high. Your spending budget was not. Was not low. Okay. It wasn’t super low. It is now, or it did transition because you guys were, you were like, this is worth it.

We’re going to, we’re going to have this baby and everything. So we want to, but in the beginning you guys were paying off debt and you were, we were saving for all the different trips and stuff. And and then you had spending money, like it wasn’t rice and beans or scarcity mindset.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. I want to speak to that more because I think this is really important. We I’m now reaping the benefits of it too. And that like we’re in the Christmas season and we haven’t even spent half of our gifts and Christmas fund. And we’re like almost done, pretty much done with gifts.

And I’m like, this is crazy. Like being able to intentionally save for when you need that money. That was also the case with the travel fund. Like you talked about Shana, I was able to to make a trip out to go visit my best friend, my business partner in Costa Rica back in May. So before I made the army

And I loved

the business.

And it was the most beautiful, incredible gift to be able to spend that time together. And then I recently took Andrew to Guatemala because she was going to try to come out here to visit us for his birth and or baptism. And then she wasn’t able to make it happen, but I was able to go out there with him.

And those Again, came out of our travel fund, so we had the cash available because we had been incrementally saving every single month for those purposes. And then now we’re also contributing towards it because we know my husband is going to want to probably take, we’re going to try to have him take a trip out here when he’s away from us for 3 months for a training course.

And that’s the beauty of it too is like the work that we do month by month then gets the service down the road when we need to take that money out. And there’s no extra stress to the budget during those times. So I’ve just been so grateful for that as well.

So what we’re hearing is that you’ve become your own bank. Yeah. And the thing is you didn’t need to be using credit. Y’all, y’all were making really good money. It was just, that was just the system that you had in place. And now

Yeah, it was just the habit of we’re just spend the money on the credit cards and it’s in our intent. We all have the good intentions here, right? Oh, yeah, we’re going to pay it back that month as if it was just a debit card spending. But the thing is, we psychologically spend more, right? And we sometimes allow that to get out of hand.

And for us, we had a series of about. A year and a half. That was really, it stretched us more financially. We had higher childcare costs because we invested in a pair for that year while my husband, I was stationed apart and I was managing the little kids on my own. And that was definitely a higher investment than the normal daycare costs were for us.

And then we also are managing to. Households, so to rent to all the things and and so it just all added up quickly that year. And before we knew it, we found ourselves in much more debt than we anticipated. And then we had to dig ourselves out of a hole a little bit. And so that was also really helpful.

And just, okay, we can create a plan with both what we’re bringing in from our paycheck towards all these different buckets that we need for both expenses for, longer term savings for the travel for the other things. And then also chip away at this. That, that has been been accumulating more over time.

So that was that was awesome. And I even see it in the decision making process that has shifted now in what we are willing to invest in or the decisions we make, like it will get the car dealership will always be like, Oh, you want to come trade in your car and get a new one?

And blah, blah, blah. And it’s no, like we paid off our car. We don’t need to take on another credit. And there’s no need for that. And so there’s just these different decisions we’re making now. And it’s. I feel like we’re able to now match, like our money is a reflection of our values in a much more a way that’s in much more integrity that once before, even though our intentions were always there is now it’s actually reflecting that.

So I’m grateful for that too. Yeah,

but it’s actually like you said, you’re actually doing it. That’s good. Okay. Before we get to, we want you to tell people a little bit about what you’re doing now that you you have transitioned, you got your, you have your perfect business that you’re a dream business that you’re running now.

Just tell us what you would tell somebody maybe who was thinking about coaching or thinking about doing this. But maybe they’re on the fence a little bit. What would you say? Yes, I

to steward this better. And you know that you need a bit of support in that this is a beautiful step, and it’s, I think it can be that accountability we need when we’ve got so much going on in life, we’re carrying so many things and we’re so busy just to have somebody be able to look at this with you and Shayna, like we would sit together in these sessions, she’d rapid fire, do the calculations.

And it was just incredible to have your mind on this, but then actually figuring out a system that works for you, that can be customized to your life and your needs and your circumstances, whatever else. And then you get accountability and working through those. Those roadblocks that you have.

How many times did I come into the session and be like, we’re having trouble getting me onto the account. It’s like very practical challenges. And we’re able to work through that together and just have somebody who’s cheering you on and in the progress that you want to make and helping you work towards those goals really intentionally.

So that was, it just has given us so much peace of mind and and I, and so much more hope, I think, for Our future and for the kids. And and now, I can’t even tell you how much this is also translating directly into business and not only serving us in our business, but our work with clients.

We’re able to now help them understand how they can budget and understand their money and where it’s going and how their money has a job and, make decisions according to what is going to be sustainable for their business. And none of that would have been possible without Us choosing to do this work.

And it was, I would say to one of the challenges that, that I’ve experienced in this, that many other women will probably experienced too, is maybe you have that urge and you’ve been feeling the call and maybe it’s hard to get your husband on board. For me, it was hard to get a hold of my husband, almost Hey, let’s sit down and talk about money or let’s, Slow down a little bit so that we can do this together, or even just to bring them into the sessions was challenging.

And I had more flexibility in my schedule, but I have become the person to take ownership of this. And now that I’ve transitioned out of the full time job, like I am doing a lot more of the administrative stuff for our family, including being the lead on finances, and that feels really good. And now I feel confident in that.

And I feel like I’m able to like love and serve my family through this, and that has been amazing. And. And it’s been like, it has been just continuing to encourage my husband to come into the fold as well. So if you’re there to I see you and I just want you to know that it is just through those little steps and continuing to have more conversations that gets easier to and the collaborative collaboration becomes really unitive.

And it’s, I think, allowed for a deeper level of intimacy in our marriage in a lot of ways.

absolutely agree with that for sure. Yeah, that’s huge. Thank you so much, Megan. Your wisdom on all of this was amazing. This was such a great call. Thank you for all your good work. Like you had such good words and just wait I know to interpret it. I even told channels that you can totally tell you’re a coach.

Cause you just, the way that you present everything. But I know that it helps somebody out there. So we appreciate you sharing your story. Yeah. So tell tell our listeners where they can find you, what you’re doing and how you might be able to help them.

Yeah, so you can find us on apostolicfruit. com. That’s our primary website. We have, we serve women in several different ways who are either in business or nonprofits, any form of entrepreneurship and or leadership. And so it’s a combination of basically helping you grow and expand your impact, but do it in a more sustainable way.

And Anna and I have very complimentary gifts. I’m much more of a strategist and operational minded. I. I brought a lot of my experience from the military and into bear in this sense. I was yeah, just the operational experience in the military and then also in public relations and marketing and communication strategy.

A lot of high level institutional organizational change and advocacy work when it comes to women’s wellbeing within the military. And so I bring that to bear in coaching and consulting, but we love working with business owners to in a lot of different forms and strategic planning and helping helping you reduce the burnout in your own work life, slow down the pace and come into a much more of a rhythm that actually serves you and your family well.

And I think that’s oftentimes when we start entrepreneurship, we want it to be flexible to serve. Yeah. Serve our families both in supporting our families financially, but also supporting the lifestyle that we want to live in the ways that we want to be present. And I think we sometimes feel a lot of tension there.

And. Yeah, and just the overwhelm and all the things that come with it. And so we really love working alongside our clients in those capacities. And yeah I primarily I’m doing the kind of operational and strategic consulting and 1 of the other, really beautiful gifts that has come from the work that we did in in coaching as well together in finances was I was able to invest in a director of operations certification program.

And I’m going through it right now and I’m almost done. And it’s been a significant significant financial investment, but also has been beautiful in the ways that it’s now able to allow me to serve our clients more deeply and translate all of the skill sets that I had and experiences I had in the military to bear in this way.

Yeah I just want to thank you for that too, because that wouldn’t have been possible had it not been for the work that we did together.

Yeah, more tools in her pocket. Yes, girl. I remember when you were talking about that, I was like, Ooh, let me get the information. But instead we could just come to you and you can tell us how to do all the things. I think that’s a better plan, but so thank you so much for coming on Megan.

Thank you for being a wonderful client. And then, your husband too sometimes when he couldn’t make it. He was always very gracious and very lovely to have and all the boys. You got a house full of boys, but we were very honored and privileged to work with you as everybody can hear you’re, you just have the most beautiful spirit, beautiful heart.

And so that was really fun. And it’s such a blessing to us to know that you’re here. That how it’s playing out even now. So that’s really great. Great. And so we we’re just really grateful that you came on and chatted with us. We got to catch up today. Yeah.

Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. This has been a, an honor working with you and just such a gift to be here today.