Are you running your business at a pace that's slowly burning you out? You're doing all the right things — following the advice, building the momentum — but something feels off.

You're pushing the boulder uphill now, not watching it roll.

Nannette Foster is a leadership coach based in Kodiak, Alaska, who knows that feeling firsthand.

From burning out as a jewelry artist, to a pandemic-era breaking point as a solo parent of two young kids on an island, Nannette's journey took her from hustle and grind to something she calls "slow to flow" — learning to match her pace with God's pace and build a business that actually holds together.

Join us as Nannette shares her raw, honest story and the practical wisdom she's discovered about slowing down and working with how God uniquely designed you.

Redeem Your Business Today by the Following:

How can we honor God in our business?

Slow down and build your calendar in reverse — rest and family first, then work in the remaining space.

When we stop conforming to the world's hustle and start operating according to how God uniquely designed us, we become more sustainable, more present, and more useful to the people we're called to serve.

One challenge from today: Audit your calendar this week. Are you giving God and family your best hours, or just the scraps? Try blocking rest and family priorities first — then see what space is left for work.

More About Nannette Foster

Website: https://nannettefoster.com/

Book: Amazon.com: Intuitive By Design: Reclaim Your Intuition, Illuminate Your World

More About David Schmidt

Free Resource: What God Says About Business: 5 Uncommon Truths for the Modern Business

Subscribe to the RBT Weekly Newsletter for weekly simple, practical, and Biblical steps to help you build a thriving business in a way that honors God.

Newsletter also comes with Bible verses for business success for you to read, apply, and be inspired by.

Book a call: Get Unstuck and Move Forward

Website: redeemingbusinesstoday.com

LinkedIn

Donate to the Show

Mentioned in this episode:

What God Says About Business: 5 Uncommon Truths for Modern Business

If you want to go deeper in your walk with God and integrate your faith and business this is the tool to make it happen. God has laid out the path to success without the regrets and emptiness that come with success the world's way. Download your FREE pdf resource today. A 10-minute investment of your time will return a lifetime of transformation.

What God Says About Business

Leadership GPS: Christian Business Coaching

Are you looking to integrate your faith and business but don't know where to start, book a time to discover if Christian business coaching and training might be right for you. If you are dissatisfied with your current rate of improvement, desire a clearer vision of what God says about business, or even what those first steps may look like, let's talk.

Initial GPS Coaching Call

In Romans 12, one or two, Paul says, I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God to present your bodies of living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And then he goes on to say, do not be conformed to this world. This is your service. This is what you're supposed to live and do. It's interesting that your reasonable service is to give your body to God as a living sacrifice. And then the do's and don'ts is don't be conformed to the world. Do things God's way and be a light in this world.

It's very interesting because that's similar to what ancient Israel was to do. Going into the land of Canaan, they were supposed to do things God's way and not the Canaanites way. And ⁓ today it's still very similar in the world today. We ought to run our business God's way, not the world's way. And so today I brought on Nanette Foster, who's a leadership coach from Kodiak, Alaska. And we're going to talk about her story about how doing things the world's way. She got burned out.

with the hustle and grind and doing things, all those things, activities and things. And she was taught how to slow down to God's pace. And because in business, you don't need to do things the world's way and you probably should do the things the world's way. So Nanette, thank you very much for coming on the show today with me. And to start off with, what is one way that you have found to honor God in your business that others may not know about?

Well, thank you for having me, David. And I just want to say that ⁓ Romans 12, one and two is one of my favorite passages. And it's just so key to really lean into doing things God's way and not just to automatically follow the patterns, the systems, the way that's set before us, sometimes even the formulas that are handed to us.

as business leaders. So I love what you're doing. And to answer your question, one of the things that I have done to honor God is to actually slow down. You referenced it earlier. You referenced it earlier. ⁓ I am someone who I can be a bit of a high achiever. I am passionate.

Really?

once the ball gets rolling, I just want to keep going with that momentum, even to the point where it's suddenly not suddenly, sometimes a little slowly, I'll start noticing I'm pushing the boulder up the hill now, right? Rather than, hey, this was lighter and easier, not that long ago. And here I am trying to take what I see as, this momentum's built. Now it's my job to take that and keep it going. And actually,

Mm.

Keep it going.

Yeah, so matching my pace with God's pace, just this idea of keeping in step with Holy Spirit and ⁓ doing it in a way that honors how God has uniquely designed me is what I have found is the most honoring thing that I can do in my business. And it helps to make my business sustainable in just a really practical way.

Sure, because you're not burning yourself out. That's interesting. When the things of momentum is going well downhill, then you start going uphill, you're pushing it. Not good. Yeah. Something has gone wrong. You didn't realize it. ⁓ Nanette, so give us a little background how God's led you into what you're doing today. You know, this story of how you were basically burning out because you're doing too much and what happened there.

Let's go! So keep going!

Yeah.

Well, what I actually, so for a while I was a jewelry artist and I still do that as a hobby, but I really, I loved the idea of taking creativity and pairing it with business. And I've always been entrepreneurial. So I just wanted to go all out, all in on this business. And what ended up happening was no matter what I tried, no matter what advice that I took,

I ended up burning out and I had burned out so badly ⁓ this one year and I thought, okay, well I have had the most revenue I've ever had. ⁓ And then when I did my taxes, I broke even. I was so upset. ⁓ ho ho. So upset. Yeah. So, so.

Wow. I can see that.

In my time with God and just being really honest, I felt this call to take a sabbatical. And when I did, I began to have enough space and quiet to pay attention to things that I had missed. At this time, I actually had two kids and one was a newborn. So I had a five-year-old and I had a newborn.

and fear that's going on in the world all at the same time. And I am highly sensitive, but I didn't even really know it at the time. So I had this moment that really got my attention. I was with both of my kids and I was at home.

And I had just been kind of researching some things having to do with the pandemic and things going on there. And I started feeling overwhelmed. Well, my five year old's voice felt like it had crawled inside of my head and he it was like nails on a chalkboard, but inside. And I'm like, my gosh, I can't handle the sound of my kids voice. I'm in the corner, hands over my ears.

Just his voice?

begging him to stop talking. And I thought, what is wrong with me? I had never had anything like this before. It was completely overwhelming and debilitating actually in the moment. And I ended up recovering from that enough to like, my husband came home and kind of relieved some things. And then I went to the doctor and my doctor I'm expecting like, we need to your, you know, she checked my ears, but she was like,

Mm-hmm.

actually, what's going on with you is not physiological. It is psychological. And I was like, what do mean it's psychological? And she said there is a type of sensitivity that will make itself known when your stress level gets really, really high.

Yeah.

It actually makes your brain ends up interpreting sound as if the volume has turned up and it's like super amplified and I had never even heard of anything like this before so that started me on this journey of Okay, so I always knew I was perceptive

and that I was kind of in tune with different things, maybe body language or tone or like just different things going on around me with people. I'll walk in a room and I'll kind of sense like what's going on here. Does it feel heavy or is it like immediately light and joyful? Not because anybody's laughing, but just because I can sense it, right? So that's kind of how I wired in a really positive way. I had never run smack into the disadvantage of being sensitive.

And since I've gone on a deep dive, I understand that there are lots of different types of neurodivergence. Why? Because God creates people differently. And sensitivity is actually a strength, but all strengths need to be understood. They need to be managed. They need to be guided. Right? And so it was imperative that I actually learn how to manage this.

strength so that it didn't become a weakness. But of course, I learned by being in this state where I was already burnt out. And now I've got this pandemic flooding my senses. And here I am in this, know, huddled in the corner with my hands over my ears, unable to talk to my kid, you know.

That was pretty crazy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So

you probably already hit on it, but what was that turning point? Is the whole story your turning point of hustling and bustling to, I got slowed down or was there one particular thing that happened there?

You know.

So that was a turning point to me, like realizing that there was, that what I was doing and how I was functioning wasn't actually working and I wasn't actually functional. So admitting that I was not fully functional and...

really going on an exploration with God. This is not something where I'm like, I'm deviating from God to go like look and find out what's going on. But I'm like, okay, Holy Spirit, please lead me and show me what's going on with me so that I can be present for my family. And I did still have a heart for business. So fast forward, ⁓ maybe just less than a year, actually. And I was led into a different career field.

⁓ which in a lot of ways for me has been very trailblazing, but it's this, ⁓ leadership development space and coaching. And when I first started doing that very quickly, I had a group coaching program, which was great, but I was also learning things on the fly. Like I was learning it as I went, right. Plus I know that I'm highly sensitive. So what ultimately ended up happening is.

I had a whole other part of my story that really drove this home and brought me to the point where I'm like, okay, I have to learn how to thrive as a highly sensitive person and as a business owner. And that was when my husband, who was a commercial fisherman, left to go work on a boat building project in Washington state. So we're in Kodiak, Alaska. We're on an island.

And he was thousands of miles away, which people are like, that's close. It's not close. It is not close. It is two flights and a ferry ride apart. yeah. And initially he was supposed to be gone for a year and ultimately ended up being four and a half years. It was a huge saga. Major, major part of our lives, major challenge in our lives.

Sure.

⁓ at the time that I realized it was not just going to be a year that it was going to roll over until at least another year, I was also feeling led to homeschool my son and it hit me all at once. Like I'm here alone. Our we're in a pandemic. Everybody is isolated.

my support system has dwindled down to next to nothing because of the way every everything was. And I'm here with these two young kids. We have a rental, so I'm a landlord. I've got this business. I have a team. I like all of this stuff is going on. And it could like you add that homeschooling piece, just one kid, right? But you add that one homeschooling piece.

And that was the straw that broke the gills back. I was done. And I threw a massive, like it was kind of a tantrum.

You know, at first it was like, you know, like a little bit of a breakdown and I'm upset. And then I was like, I'm not just upset. I'm mad. You know why? Because God, you actually know how you made me and you know this is too hard for me. Like those were the words that came out of my mouth. You know this is too hard for me. And I threw a towel against the wall. And you know, I heard this whisper in my spirit. You're going to have to do better than that if you're going to throw in the towel.

mad.

You

And I was like, stop using humor on me, I'm mad.

So it was not my finest hour and yet God met me there and I learned the reality is I could not keep going the way I had been.

Mm-hmm.

I had to make changes. There was no other choice unless I wanted to just completely close and give up on my business. And I didn't want to do that. I had people I love who were seeing transformation and here I am losing my mind.

So with all those

things, yeah, say slow down. I can say that. That's really easy for me to say that. How do you slow down without letting things drop? Because maybe you have to shut some things down, but not others. what did that look like? How do you decide which to do and what not to do? Because essentially when you slow down, you just don't do as much. You put a cap on your work and you're done for the day.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. And you can't do that. You can't do that when a huge portion of what you do is on the home front, right? Where it's not just the business, it's actually the whole of it. So for me, I will say I slowly began learning. I became a student.

How do you decide what to not do?

of doing things God's way. And it was also God's way according to my bend. Okay, so you know how in Proverbs 22, six, it's train up a child in the way he should go, right? And then the literal translation is according to his bed.

Okay.

So literally it means the way this child is designed, the way this child is formed already has a bend. And there is a way of working with the way God has originally designed each and every one of us. Now there are patterns of this world that come in and can distort that. You know, we agree with them and then we bend ourselves around that, right? But rather than doing that, when we go back and we're like, okay, God.

Yes, there are over extensions sometimes of how we operate in our gifts and in our design. But what is, what, how have you designed me to be a business owner who can show up in fullness of presence at the right time and also do it in a really sustainable way and do it in a way that honors how you've made me, that honors my family.

and my priorities in life, like the big priorities that go beyond business, like business can be a part of that. Everything is integral, right? I know we live an integrated life, but what are those core priorities? So one of the things that I began doing ⁓ by Holy Spirit's leading is I began planning my calendar in reverse of the way I had done it before.

Okay. So the way I had done it before is God gave me this passion. God gave me this calling. Here's my purpose. I'm putting that first and I'm carving that out and nobody else better and fringe on that. Right. ⁓ and that was the way I, I originally had planned my work time and then my family would get the leftover parts and then I would get the scraps after their leftovers. Okay. So reverse that.

Okay.

in order for me now the only adults. Okay, I don't have a backup. I don't have like if I'm down, I'll tell you what happened. I actually ended up down in my back. I had to hire a babysitter to come watch my kids. I had nobody who was willing to just come pick my kids up at this time. So I absolutely had to make sure that my body was gonna hold out, that my mind was gonna hold out, that I was not gonna end up sick.

So I had to begin prioritizing rest.

So I would start laying down twice a day just to take a break. Because if I wasn't like literally laying down, I was not able to rest. I would have the kids have their quiet time at a set time, sleep when the baby was napping, and I was actively intentionally resting. And that was like the first thing that went on my calendar was take care of my body and rest.

And then of course, make sure everybody else is taking care of their body and resting, right? This is, you you can't leave your kids out. I'm not saying I did. The next thing was, what are those ⁓ really deeply important times, like family fun times, right? The times that you're bonding, the times that you're connecting, ⁓ you know, we're going to church on Sundays, like these things that are like, these are really important.

and then those would go next on my calendar. And then whatever was left over, which was usually a decent amount of time, I would use those to block time for work. And then I would communicate. And even with my kids being little, I could communicate with them. And they began learning, like, this is time for this, and this is time for this. And you get mom's focused attention, fully focused on you during these times. Yes.

This time, yes.

And that way, my attention wasn't going all these different directions, which really doesn't. I personally can do nothing without having focused right in front of me attention. When my attention is split, I am almost useless, which is one of the things I learned about myself. I'm like, oh, this whole work from home thing, I have to compartmentalize it because if I don't, I cannot do anything well. So that's an example.

Ha

Okay.

I think what you said was

very interesting about training up a child in the way he should go in the natural bent and figuring out how God made you and doing business that way. I know in the past, I always looked at other people's like, I wish I could be that person. If was that person, I'd be better. If I was that person, I'd be better. And I stopped and look at myself. I'm a very analytical thinker. I'm very deliberate, slower pace. But it's like, you know what? I do certain things better than they do because I slow down.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

and I look

at all the details and I can plan it better. They're probably looking, I wish I could be him. and, see, that's what the world, yeah, that's what the world does. Yeah, the world says, boom, here's your box you fit in as entrepreneur, do it this way. And he doesn't take into account how God made you. So that's very interesting. And I also like how you put the family first because especially being the solo parent at home for four years.

And isn't this just the body? Yeah, and the body of Christ functions that way too. Yeah.

That's rough. ⁓ Yeah, that's a lot of time. You have to take care of yourself before you take care of your family.

Yeah, and a lot of

times we approach that like it's a luxury and the truth is in order for us to sustain anything, especially, I mean, I don't know about you, but God doesn't usually give me assignments that are things I can just do on my own. I get to learn, I get to grow. And if I am not taking care of my full being, the temple, by the way, then.

what's going to happen is that burnout is going to come and I won't be able to sustain, ⁓ follow through all the way, right? And actually finish the work.

Just as a, not a side note, but yeah, digging into the Bible, can you think of any Bible characters who did things the world's way versus God's way and what the results were?

⁓ you know, it's interesting because I was actually thinking about this almost in the flip side, but I think that I can, I can still, so I love to think about Jesus, right. And his example and, we see Jesus constantly contrasted with the disciples.

So Jesus goes away, you know, oh, he's sleeping on the boat, right? There's an example. He's sleeping on the boat in the middle of the storm. Don't you care that we're all gonna die? You know, and it made absolutely no sense to them that he is there not resting, sleeping in the middle of a storm that he, by the way, told them to go out into, right? Like he's like, go, yeah, go cross over the lake, right?

Yeah, he's sleeping on the boat.

That's a good time.

Yeah, it'll be fun. So and they're just like, I do no idea, right? Jesus comes out walking on the water and and this is, know, Peter actually did it. You know, we give we give Peter a lot of flack for, you know, you have a little faith and all that, you know, but the reality is he was the only one who got his butt out of the boat and

Yes.

What he does.

onto the water. All of the rest of the disciples were like, pretty sure it's still a ghost.

Yep, yeah. My thinking, my thoughts go back to Jeroboam. It was very interesting that the king, because God had appeared to, sent a prophet to him to say, I'm gonna take some of these tribes away from Judah and give it to you. If you just follow me, obey me, everything's gonna fine with you. I'll establish your house. What does he do? He, in his own thinking, is like,

Okay.

You know, if all these people continue going to Jerusalem to sacrifice to the Lord, they're gonna kill me and go back to Rehoboam. I know what I'll do. He makes a golden calf and puts it in Bethel, puts one up in Dan, and he creates his own system of worship, which ends up being a snare to Israel the whole time. He's doing things in his own thinking, what's gonna make his kingdom last. And that's exactly the thing that makes his kingdom end. ⁓ Just trying to do things his way versus.

Mm.

Yes.

God's way and there's so many examples of that in the scriptures.

Yeah.

Yeah. And I love how, and Joseph was actually, Joseph and Daniel were both elevated because they were able to bring insight directly from God, ⁓ what I like to call heaven solutions, heaven sent solutions, right? So it's like things that we won't be able to think of in our natural mind, but when we make ourselves available to God's better way,

having solutions.

then those heaven sent solutions come and it's amazing to see what happens when you have someone who doesn't just do it the usual way.

Yes, absolutely. We're gonna wrap up here soon, but before we do, do you have any final parting words of challenge to inspire my audience today?

I have a couple of phrases that I live by. ⁓ I know normally we live by scripture. No, I'm just kidding. These are, these are scriptural principles. Okay. one of them is slow to flow. All right. So when Jesus shared about Holy spirit coming, right. So Jesus prophesies Holy spirit, and this is in, ⁓ John seven and starts talking about how

Sure, no, not probably.

there is this river of living water welling up from within you and it specifies that he was talking about the Holy Spirit who was to come. And now we have the Holy Spirit and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in us. And when we slow down, we are able to actually detect the pace that God has us at.

And some people call that the pace of peace. Okay, so that's one of the things that when you're, when you start getting anxious, when you start feeling like you're pushing or driven or, or like start getting anxious, sometimes it's actually a pace issue and we've taken the reins or we've put our foot on the gas, right? Where, where as God's like, actually we're going to take a little step back and create some space because creating space

is actually essential for any movement. So that's one of the benefits of slowing down, opening space and watching God move and then stepping in and partnering with the move of God. And it has to happen in space. It can't happen because we are so determined to keep going, keep going, keep going. So slow to flow. And the other is wonder fuels function.

rushing.

you

And this was a phrase that the Holy Spirit gave me that really demonstrates that when we engage in things that are joy-filled, that that actually fills us from the inside and gives us the energy that we need to sustain the work.

So those are just a couple of things that I wanted to leave you with. one last thing, self-awareness is not selfish. It is simply evaluating your unique design that God has designed you uniquely. We have fingerprints that are separate for each of us, if that tells you anything.

You

So becoming more aware of who God has made you to be and then coming into a line with that, that is honoring God.

Yeah, because we are each a special creation. You're absolutely right. ⁓ Was that wonder fuels what? Wonder fuels function, okay.

function.

Wonder

fuels function.

Okay, very good. Well, Nanette, thank you so much for your time and your encouragement and your energy today. I appreciate that. And then friends, if you're looking to go deeper or want to learn more about Nanette and her work, check out the show notes for some links and sites to and contact information to get a hold of her and to learn more about her. And if you've enjoyed this episode, I encourage you to leave a rating and review and subscribe to the show and sign up for the newsletter. And if you do, you get a verse of the week and a challenge as well that comes to your inbox every day.

every week, not every day. And remember, your business represents the great God you serve. So build a business worthy of God's name and in a way that honors Him. Bye for now.