When God asked Gloria to sit in her basement and create something, he also asked her to give up caffeine, chocolate, coffee and sugar until it was done. She listened and has created a new game that helps conversations with friends and family create higher levels of connection.
Have you ever noticed how shallow conversations are sometimes? What if there could be a new level of discussion that is about more than the weather or what you did for the day?
The challenge for Gloria now is waiting on those that will open the doors to selling her product. At close to 65 years old, with over 1000 boxes of products sitting in her basement, she knows she’s up to the challenge. She knows this is more than something she wants to do, this is her calling.
Conversation Starter Cards: https://www.amazon.com/Conversation-Starters-Christians-Blue-White/dp/B0B5M9KXD3/ref=sr_1_6?crid=2F5RJDM7BNS16&keywords=conversation+Starters+for+Christians&qid=1669922055&sprefix=conversation+starters+for+christians%2Caps%2C263&sr=8-6
Conversation Starters with God Journal: https://www.amazon.com/Conversation-Starters-Journal-Gloria-Gierach/dp/B09XZCYB27/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1Q18446O9C0T8&keywords=conversation+Starters+with+god&qid=1669922084&sprefix=conversation+starters+with+god%2Caps%2C106&sr=8-1
Conversation Starters with God Book: https://www.amazon.com/Conversation-Starters-God-Just-Questions/dp/B0BHR9JZ7Z/ref=sr_1_4?crid=1Q18446O9C0T8&keywords=conversation+Starters+with+god&qid=1669922103&sprefix=conversation+starters+with+god%2Caps%2C106&sr=8-4
Jaime White 00:00
Hello, and welcome to the Believe Crew Podcast; The Business Is You. I'm Jamie White, Founder of Believe Crew and your host, let's jump right in. Hello, I am here with Gloria Gierach. Did I say that right? I would love for you to tell us more about how you got into the business that you're into today. And the why behind it.
Gloria Gierach 00:23
The business I'm in is, as of the beginning of this year, I became very intentional in writing and putting things on paper that I've been working on for years and just been playing with. And finally the Lord got my attention and said, Okay, it's time to get serious. And so since the beginning of the year, I've published three different things, which is significant. Since I've never published anything before.
Jaime White 00:49
I was just gonna ask, have you publish before?.
Gloria Gierach 00:52
No, no. So, this is all, you know, I turned 65 This year, and I guess this is my year of Jubilee or something? I don't know. Yeah, I started. And so I had been playing around with this stuff, though, for a while. And, and I really my family has always been one who asked questions, we like to dig deeper, we like to know each other better. And because my I have seven children, and my oldest is 19 and a half years older than my youngest. So with there being such a wide age range, they didn't know each other, they didn't grow up really in the same house. Some of them were actually out of the house by the time the other ones were walking. And I found that, you know, because we had changed over the years, they didn't have the same family experience. So when we gathered together, especially as the younger ones got older, we would ask them questions so that they would get to know each other better. Questions like What was your favorite vacation growing up? What is your favorite memory and it just things that they would start, you know, once we got them talking, then there was no stopping them. So we just had to give them a ball rolling. And so we just learned how valuable questions are. That's what kind of sparked this whole thing. I found that most people's conversations stay on a very shallow level surface level. And I really wanted to see them go deeper. So I've been known with my friends to kind of go for the throat right away. And they they've learned that okay, here comes GLORIA And it's in it's a positive thing. But, but I know that I still I tend to ask the deeper questions, the whys, the what's in your heart type of things. So that's what prompted me to do the conversation starters for Christians.
Jaime White 02:25
Yeah, I had picked one up at the event that we were at. And so it's just individual cards, right?
Gloria Gierach 02:32
There's individual cards. So each has a shallow end and a deep end. And so the shallow end is for relationships that you haven't really built very much yet. There's not a lot of trust developed. And the deep end is where you've already built enough trust that you can go a little bit deeper in the relationship. And you can choose, you know, when you pick a card, you can choose between the shallow or deep end depending on what you want to do. But I found that there was no conversation starters for Christians. There was a lot of conversation starters out there, but none that were specific to Christians. And not every question is has a spiritual type of meaning to it, but each of them do have a can be taken that direction. And there are a lot that do so as an example, in the shallow end describe a time when you felt really small in comparison to God's creation. Or another one is did your family do devotionals? Together? Why or why not? But in the deep end is prayer of meaningful part of your life? Why or not? Why not? Describe a time when everything around you was crazy, but you're at peace. Why were you at peace? So there's just the idea of of getting discussion going, the response we've had from people have been really good. My chiropractor bought one. And, and he came back the next time or I came back, I should say, the next time and he said, You know, I didn't know I didn't know my friends that well, until we started going through these questions. And it's like, I found out things about my friends that I've had them for years. And I never knew. You said we even spent some time crying together, it was really significant. So I found that they have been really valuable. They're great for small groups, great for couples, we had a woman who said I bought it. And I took it on vacation with me with my husband because we were going to be driving. And I was going to be alone in the car for a whole month with my husband who doesn't talk. And so I thought I'll try this. I'll just try it. And she said we went through 150 of the questions in that month. She said, My husband talk to me more than he has in all the married life. So it's it's an opportunity to open the doors there. And those are on Amazon, and they're $24.99. So the other two things were conversation starters with God. So they came I have two forms of it. One is in the journal form. And the other one is just the questions for if you want to use your own church, I've always been doing this myself. I've always been asking questions of God and having interaction and discussion with him. But I found that most people don't do that. And they come into their quiet time. They don't know where to begin, and they don't know. And so it's has a beginning chapter that talks but how to hear God how to discern his voice from the enemy's voice or just the world or your own self, and then takes you into questions to learn about, about who God is, and how do I relate to him as they relate to me, and then an aspect and wholeness and working through issues and pain and hurt and wounding, lies, so that you can walk in more freedom. And then finally, the last part is on your self discovery, learning more about yourself and what your identity and calling is.
Jaime White 02:55
Those are the two separate books,
Gloria Gierach 04:51
They're two separate. One is an actual journal, that if you wanted to use it as a journal, the other one is, this one is just the questions. So that if you want to do is your own journal, and pick and choose whatever questions you want. So what led you here? So my heart is I we have a ministry that we started 15 years ago, and it's it's been a lot on helping people walk in their destiny to discover who they are, to walk in freedom. We do hearing God workshops that I've been doing for almost 15 years now to with that, it's just been our heart's desire to help people hear God for themselves to help people get closer and connection and community. So that's just always been on our hearts, and just seemed like a natural thing. I've been playing with this, as I said, for a couple of years. But not really seriously. Until December, right? In December of last year. The Lord woke me up early in the morning, around five in the morning and said, Let's come and talk. So I went to my prayer room, and I was talking with him and, and he said, let's have a little bit of a heart search. And I thought, that doesn't sound like fun. I got a feeling. I know, I need to say yes to this, but I'm not sure I want to. And he said, you've been playing around with this idea long enough. And there's an urgency on it, it's time to get going. So I'm going to help you. And he said, so now I'm going to have you set up a table down in your basement, set up all your computer and stuff down there. You're going to go down there at nine in the morning, and you will not come up until five or 6pm. And to help you no sugar, no chocolate, no coffee until it's at the publishers. And I'm thinking, are you kidding me?! That was definitely incentive. So I did that for four months. And I don't regret it.
Jaime White 07:16
So did you stay off the sugar in the coffee? Or what was the first thing?
Gloria Gierach 07:20
I think the first thing I had was coffee was chocolate. I mean, there's got to be something about. And that was funny to me. I've coffee after that. I'm like, Oh, this doesn't taste that good anymore. What did I think about that?
Jaime White 07:32
Right? Yeah. Right. You're writing as fast as you could for coffee, and I wasn't even as good. So the Lord leads you to this. And what were some of the thoughts that were coming up at that time, some of the doubts where you were like, I mean, did age play into it? Did time available play into it? What were some of the things that were coming up?
Gloria Gierach 07:54
I think age played into it in the sense that I want to leave something here on this earth. Sounds like a good idea. And then aspect, but I think also age played into it in the sense that there's so much to learn in order to do this. And so it was very overwhelming to me in many ways. Learning...
Jaime White 08:11
It's a growth. I mean, you literally knew nothing about how to go to a publisher with your book, How to publish a, how did you create cards that stick in a box,
Gloria Gierach 08:20
and that was a journey in and of itself. Fortunately, I have a son-in-law, who's a graphic designer, photographer, videographer extraordinaire, so he was wonderful. And I still have to pay him. But anyway, he was wonderful. And he designed the cards, he designed the box, I started researching where do I want to get these things printed, I didn't feel comfortable. I didn't feel like I put it, I started to work with somebody a couple that was willing to take my idea and run with it. And I wouldn't have to do anything. But they would own it. And they would change it. And I didn't feel comfortable. I felt like this is something that God had given me to steward. And so I felt like I couldn't just hand it off. I was really had to learn a lot about printing, finding a place that would print the books, I ended up going with Amazon to their Kindle digital publishing, because it just was the most economical.
Jaime White 09:16
It's amazing, now you can print books that don't have to be a certain number of pages. You
Gloria Gierach 09:21
Yeah, and I don't have to have a whole bunch of books in my house. It's print on demand, which is wonderful. The box now that was another story because I there was no place in the United States that I could find that was going to be reasonably priced. It would have been twice the price No way, or at least really three times the price of what I would have to pay somewhere else through so I was told about a place in India. So I ended up going to a printing company in India. They were really wonderful to work with. They did an exceptional job. I think the only thing that you know part of our learning process was when you know we had to order a minute of 1000 boxes. So 1000 boxes come to our house. And we did not, didn't know exactly when they were going to show up. And we did not video the arrival of the boxes. So then boxes that were damaged, it was just our word against UPS. So we learned, and we did have some damaged boxes. And so those we just had to eat, which was unfortunate.
Jaime White 10:27
So you didn't? Did you actually go over to India? Or did you just find a company from India, and then you sent in the information, and then they sent it, but you had to do a minimum of 1000? That is so amazing that you went through that process in that journey of finding?
Gloria Gierach 10:40
Well, I, I talked with them, you know, via email, I never really talked to them on the phone. I just talked to them via email and, and I asked them if they had anybody in the US that they were printing for already. And so they did give me some references. And so I was able to talk to them and find out what kind of experience they had had with them. And, and they all had positive experience. I think I'd still probably go back to that same company. If I have to print more. They were good.
Jaime White 11:03
And what was the difference in price in the end?
Gloria Gierach 11:05
it was a third of the price. And that was with shipping. Now I'm sure shipping is much more expensive. Now my prices, you know, actually the whole thing is right. Since then, because I we put that order in. That was in February or March. So I'm sure the prices have probably maybe even doubled. I don't know. So it yeah,
Jaime White 11:26
yeah. When you think about going on this journey of figuring out where God is leading you to, to write these books and to create cards and to make this investment. And then what is the bigger vision that you're starting to see now?
Gloria Gierach 11:39
Every time I've tried to just knock on the door that I did not know somebody? Nothing happened? Absolutely nothing. So you were at the conference that we were at and one of the speakers have talked about. You never know who your doorman is. That's what we started praying for Lord show us who the doorman are the ones who will open the door for us to come into a bookstore or a company or whatever right now. We have been reviewed by crew Campus Crusade, we have the initial contact with navigators because I feel like this is something that would be so great for small groups and on college campuses. We wish we wish we could just go into a number of different places we do have at a Bethel in Redding, California, Bethel, a bookstore and they've put in for order since May. So they've really it's gone over well. Then we have it also a global awakening, which is Randy Clark's organization. He's in Pennsylvania, and that's gone over well, too. So it's it's happening. What's good is there's no expiration date on it. So I don't have to be in a rush.
Jaime White 12:42
Yeah, that's a very good point. And it's in it's not trendy. You know, it's very timeless. And yeah, that's a really great thing that you're making an investment in something that's not food products. Yes, yeah.
Gloria Gierach 12:59
It's been, it's like, I'm still we're still praying for more doorman. It's really what it is. Yeah. anyplace else. It just doesn't go.
Jaime White 13:09
And so, when you think about that with the doorman, you're saying that, really? You know that he's asking you to find the doorman, and to leave the rest to him.
Gloria Gierach 13:18
Oh, yeah, I found that even in this process of writing it. When I strive, I'm just stressing myself out. And so I could tell when I was writing, if I was striving, it was like, okay, nothing's really happening. I'm not feeling it. And so I would just stop. And I'd worship until I was in that presence with the Lord again, and then I could go back into it and, and it just seemed like it went much better. In the same way. With this. I'm not a fan of marketing. I don't like that whole lot. Like many other people. So I kept on asking the Lord, what is marketing look like when it's flowing through me with my gifts, talents and abilities, and what is Holy Spirit lead marketing looked like. And that's kind of where it led me. We tried a few doors that we didn't have direct connections with. But it just seemed like the only places that we had doors open where we had actually clear connections. Like, even with Campus Crusade, we've been supporting a couple for 46 years in Campus Crusade. And I say Campus Crusade is same as crew now anyway, they, we sent up the products to them and said, Would you look them over and let us know if you think it would be a good fit for crew. And they loved them. And so they got us in touch with the right person to send them to. Otherwise we wouldn't even I mean, we could have send it off but it probably would have gotten lost, right, especially in a large organization. So I was on talking with my son and his wife last week. They had just gotten back from their vacation. And I said, you know, my next I want to really have a connection with InterVarsity or navigators and he goes, Oh, that's interesting. I'm going to a conference at navigators headquarters in Colorado this weekend. I'm like, okay, you know, God you are real. you know, he got the next connection for me and I just sent off that email to see if they're interested. So it's I find it fascinating how God opens the door. He, he directs our steps.
Jaime White 15:12
Yeah, I love what you're saying about that specific to marketing and thinking about anyone that is in business, and there's so much noise out there on this is how to do it. And I talk about that with quite a few on this podcast. And one of the things that it comes back to is realizing that I need to do this business in a way that is through my gifts and talents. And, and it's not about what everybody else says. And so maybe it's gonna look awkward or different to somebody, you know, they're gonna say, well, this isn't the way it's supposed to be. Yeah, but this is the way it's supposed to be done. So how do we navigate take taking advice from others, or considering you know, what advice we're meant to have? And what advice is actually not for us.
Gloria Gierach 16:03
I spent a good amount of time with Lord just really asking about marketing. And because I, you know, I don't need 1000 boxes in my house just sitting here. And so as, as I was really praying, this concept came to my mind, which was called crossfire exchange. And you probably saw that on the card. And basically, it's a community, a community of Christian creatives that network together to market their creations. And so it's basically a website starts out as a website, where each creative would have their products up to 10 products on that website, it's not a website that people would buy from the website, it would be a link to that, that creatives website, so it's not a matter of, we have to deal with money or shipping, or somebody's not shipping their stuff or whatever it's on them. But then, each week, one or two of the creatives will put an ad together of their products, posted on Facebook, posted on Instagram, or whatever means they want, and then it would link it back to the website. So that people then are constantly hopefully, we're constantly having a connection with the website. So they're seeing other creatives. But also it gives us a whole network of numerous other contacts that we wouldn't have otherwise, because everyone has different contexts. So that's the concept, the website is my prospective finish, but it's not really finished well, because that's a whole new area I had to learn to write. But I'm hoping this wrote my son in law to help me a little bit yet the website is is up and going. And you know, I've sent out an email to about 10 creatives that I was familiar with myself that I was friends with, and just said, Are you interested? And so we're in conversation right now as to what that looks like.
Jaime White 17:54
Did you say that the games and the books are available to purchase on Amazon?
Gloria Gierach 17:59
Yes, there.
Jaime White 18:01
So what was that process like for you,
Gloria Gierach 18:03
it wasn't too bad, except for just understanding the jargon, understanding the terminology, the process, you know, learning about ISBN learning about UPCS, learning, all of that sort of stuff that I really didn't know anything about before. And finding out that the UPC symbol on my boxes are too small. So we have to have a sticker that goes on them to make them bigger, we didn't know they had a certain size, and, you know, all that sort of stuff. And then getting the boxes from India and finding out they were, you know, they were already shrink wrapped. But they forgot to put the instruction card inside. So they get the instruction card to us. And so were then having to take all the plastic wrap off, put the instruction card in, get them shrink wrapped again, and you know, it's just those sorts of things that were just a little frustrated, a lot frustrating, but I think you know, so Amazon wasn't, wasn't hard to work with, it was just learning it. Fortunately, we have a friend who has an Amazon business. And so he was very helpful on helping us to understand, okay, this is your, your site, and this is what it looks like, and this is what you need to do. And, oh, don't pay any attention to that email. That's just an advertisement, you know, cuz I didn't know much of it. So we're very thankful to have friends that pulled up beside us. I had some other friends that published through Amazon, and that had, you know, helped a lot and learning how to do it also.
Jaime White 19:21
Yeah, so what I'm hearing from you is that you had this, this calling from God. And so it was such a mission. I mean, this is not like I want to make a certain amount of money. But God is saying this, this is for you. And so the mission and the vision is bigger than some of the things that drive us as entrepreneurs and so then you get into it and you have some mentors along the way or some friends that have been able to mentor you in terms of professionally through some of the The things that you haven't done before you're taking this on this new project. And really, it's a huge growth opportunity for you personally right to be able to be like, Oh, my word, how would I do? And now another opportunity to learn again. And then you're also finding that there were things that were outside of not only your comfort zone, not only your, your outside of your friend, group, your connections, but then this whole nother level of like, okay, Lord, you called me to this. Now? I'm really going into something different. Yeah. And what are some of the personal things that you started to realize about yourself? Like, how long does it take you to recover after finding out that things aren't going the way you want them to? Like, are you very quickly, quick to respond and be like, Okay, that didn't work the way I thought so we're just gonna go a different direction.
Gloria Gierach 20:52
It depends on how many things go wrong at the same time. For the most part, I recover pretty quickly, it depends on how quickly I can get into my prayer room. That's the real clincher for me, if I can get in there, then I can usually get to a place of peace and, and figuring it out. I I know, there were one of the biggest things that was a real stumbling block for me is, you know, Adobe InDesign in order to format the books and to format the, the cards and the box and everything. I just didn't understand that and especially for the books, the cards in the box, we, you know, I had to go through my son in law, because there was just no way I understood any of that. And so he was exceptionally he was amazing. He designed the covers for the books, which was great. The interior the books, though, he's had a bunch of projects, so he couldn't work on them. And I couldn't afford him. And I tried to learn Adobe InDesign. I was going through the tutorials. I just, I don't know, after about four or five days, I thought, I am not getting this at all. It's just totally out of my ballpark. And I went to church and I and I was talking with someone and they said, How's it going? And I said, terrible. I cannot figure this out. I don't know how to do this. And so somebody overheard me talking about Adobe InDesign, he goes, Well, I do that. I said, you do? Because yeah, that's my job. I'll do it for you. You don't even have to even pay me. I'll do it. Are you serious? This is wonderful. So he's been instrumental in in formatting both of the books, he's a gem.
Jaime White 22:18
Yeah, that's amazing. So you made a comment when you said, it's about how quickly I can get into my prayer room. And so I'm assuming what you mean by that is just if the day is already booked with other things, then you don't have that space to be like, Well, I had a problem. So I'm just gonna go deal with that right now.
Gloria Gierach 22:37
Life still goes on, you know, right. And so you don't always have the opportunity to just pull away. I'm one who processes by being alone with the Lord, that is the best way for me to process. So if I can't get that I'm not feeling real good about life, in many ways. So it was great to be able to go downstairs from nine to five, because if I was struggling, I just went into worship or a prayer. And so it was like a prayer room the whole time. You know, I was down here. I've learned, I shouldn't say, Well, I don't know if it's learned or God is impressed upon me. But in the past couple of months, he's like, you know, I really want you to get started earlier in the day and start with. So he I said, Okay, I give you permission, as if he really needed permission. But anyway, I gave you permission to wake me in the morning. And so he wakes me around, around 5am, usually. And so I go, right, like, nobody else is awake. And so I just go into my prayer room until usually around eight, nine to three or four hours, and then then I start my day. So it is wonderful. It really is. Five o'clock comes awfully early.
Jaime White 23:46
Yeah, I had heard of that concept of being able to get up earlier a few years back. And at the time, I had five I wasn't quite even pregnant, I don't think with my six. And so it was like, Okay, I'm going to try this. You know, this is what successful people do. I'm going to try getting up earlier. And I was like, Oh, my word who knew? Who knew that when I had like an extra hour, all of a sudden, I would want two and then I would want three? And so what you said about that space between like five to eight. It in some ways. It seems so counterintuitive, like, well, you're not getting stuff done. But yet it's so important, like more mental capacity and right. Yeah.
Gloria Gierach 24:28
And I think to you know, test your day, so who's in charge, you know, it's him. And so it sets your focus in you know, I even talked to him about what do you want me to do today? What's on your agenda? And so, you know, it helps to know then how I'm going to walk the day out. If I don't get that time, I don't feel as prepared for the day. And and I find to you know, you know, some people said, well, you're just not getting enough sleep because I tend to stay up until about 11/11:30 at night. I just do I can't sleep burlier. So it only gives me about six hours max, you know, more like five and a half or so. And people have said that that's just not enough sleep for anybody. And so when I've complained to the Lord about waking me at five in the morning about being so tired, he says, Don't you think I can take care of your body? Don't you think I can give you the rest that you need inside your body? Whether it's two hours, five hours, 10 hours, it doesn't really matter. If I'm calling you to get up. It's just a matter of obedience. And I thought, okay, yeah, that makes sense. All right. Yeah. So when he says, Come, I'm coming.
Jaime White 25:34
So did you this is going a different direction. But did you have a business before this? And what what ended up happening outside of I mean, when you when you're sitting in the basement from nine to five foot fully focused on this, what happened to the rest of your life? Was it already ready for you to transition? Or was there kind of a,
Gloria Gierach 25:52
my husband retired about three years ago. And so you know, we're empty nesters. And so all of our kids are out of the house. We told our kids, this is what I'm doing. And they were pretty respectful. I think the hardest part was on my husband, because he had just retired. Well, when he retired, then we, he had all these house projects, you know, all these things that I never got to, he gets to them. And then the next year, God directs us that we're going to move, he tells us, I'm going to bring the buyer to you. And so he brings the buyer to us, okay, we're moving. And so then, you know, it's all that hassle of getting prepared to move, and we're in this house. And, and not long after that, I decided to go down here into the basement for, you know, six, eight hours, 10 hours a day. And, and so he was a little frustrated. He said, I feel like I retired from work and you went to work. And I'm feeling abandoned. And so we had to work through that and be a little more intentional in our time together so that he wouldn't feel like he was being neglected. I purposely because I had time because the Lord told me in December, you're going to do this January one, I purposely did not schedule anything for at least three months, because I didn't know how long it was going to take. And figured, okay, we just got to clear the schedule. I had weekends, it was just Monday through Friday, so I could still plan things, weekends or evenings, you know, I put my phone on vibrate or get my phone to Rich and say, Okay, can you handle phone calls for the day?
Jaime White 27:19
It sounds like you have some good boundaries, that you're really intentional about checking in with God and being intentional about your day. And that you have good communication with your husband, even when things aren't going the way that either of you expected. You're communicating and saying, Hey, this is what's coming up for me, how do we navigate this?
Gloria Gierach 27:41
something had to have come from 44 years of marriage.
Jaime White 27:48
Well, it can go the other way too, just as easily. And I like what someone said the other day, I think it was on a podcast. I'm not sure where it'll end up in the lineup. But it was like, if we don't deal with it, it just sort of becomes this open wound or this raw wound versus when we do deal with things. And we do end up learning how to navigate it, it doesn't come up in the same way again, you know, we're really in a different place to be able to deal with it differently. So is there anything that you would love for others to know about this process that you've gone through, or if they were considering doing something themselves,
Gloria Gierach 28:24
there is no such thing as being too old to do something. That's one, I've never expected to do this as 65. But I'm not done. I'm on another writing project already. And that's been something that's been on my heart for a long time to write our life experiences and lessons that we've learned over the years, so that I can hand it down to my children, my grandchildren, because they're not always interested in listening to me now. But they might be in
Jaime White 28:47
Like, you are definitely looking into the future. They're not listening to me now. But one day, one day, and I'll be there,
Gloria Gierach 28:57
you know, it says her children will rise up it doesn't and then call her blessing. You know, we're still at the rise up every once in a while you will get the blessing later. I think that when it's just you're not too old, you can always learn, get help. Don't try to do it all on your own. Find people that have done the same thing that you want to do, and get their input and find out what it looks like. And really listen to the Lord. Because without the Lord you're just going to be striving and you're going to be spinning your wheels and you're really not going to produce something that's really going to last or that is going to advance the kingdom in some way. And that's my heart anyway, I don't I don't want to do anything. It's not going to profit the kingdom.
Jaime White 29:42
I'm really excited because as most people that know me, I love to ask questions and I love to go in deep like if somebody says you know, how are you doing? It's not really a good conversation starter for me. Or what how was your weekend and like weekend I'm in today?
Gloria Gierach 29:56
Yeah. And we just tend to stay on that surface of how are you? What what are you do for a living? How many children? Yeah, are you married, you know, those sort of things, and we never go deeper.
Jaime White 30:04
It's amazing how often that happens. Even in conversations with ministers pastor, you know, it's just, it's been so easy to stay on the surface, and really, maybe more importantly, not know how to go deeper and like what questions are safe? Or what questions to ask. So I love that you've created this opportunity to have those deeper conversations. Because when I leave a conversation, where there's been some depth, there's so much more meaning I'm excited about what God is doing in you and through you and excited for this conversation starter kit to be in so many places that it can have such such an impact.
Gloria Gierach 30:49
That's my hope. Yeah. Yeah, I'm, I'm still learning. Yeah, I hope I never stopped.
Jaime White 30:54
I love that love that perspective as well. And that you're pointing out that age is not the issue because so often I hear I used to ask the question, Are you growing or dying? And they'd say, Well, I'm growing in my mind and dying in my body. And I was like, ahh, doesn't work that way. You know, and they're like, Well, you know, my age and I was like, what? I don't think God made us like that use that. Yeah.
Gloria Gierach 31:16
I started to use it aspects. Yes. I'm 65 Now I can coast now and it's like, Wait a minute.
Jaime White 31:22
Yeah, that's not what he says.
Gloria Gierach 31:23
What God call me. Yeah. If anything, I have more freedom. Now. I am an emptiness. Right. I have the time.
Jaime White 31:30
Well, thank you so much for your time.
Gloria Gierach 31:32
Thank you.