💡 Episode Summary

What happens when God asks you to walk away from everything safe and start over?

In this deeply honest conversation, leadership coach and consultant Shylla Webb joins Jim to share her powerful story of waking up at 3 a.m. with a clear word from God: “Resign.” That single moment launched a journey from burnout and fear to holistic, Spirit-led leadership.

Together, they unpack what it means to integrate faith into your leadership, navigate the unknown with courage, and transform betrayal and heartbreak into gratitude and growth.

If you’ve ever wrestled with fear, burnout, or obedience to your calling—this episode will remind you that God’s direction is always tied to His protection.

🧭 Key Topics

• Hearing and obeying God’s call, even when it doesn’t make sense
• Transitioning from security to surrender
• What holistic leadership really means (beyond buzzwords)
• Healing from betrayal and setting healthy boundaries
• Redefining “protection” and learning discernment
• Using gratitude as a tool for growth
• Daily practices to stay grounded in faith and purpose

📖 Faith Connection

“I don’t know how I’m going to make it through this, but God, I’m committed to making it through.” — Shylla Webb

This episode is a masterclass in faith over fear. Shylla’s story reminds us that the Holy Spirit still speaks, that obedience is costly but worth it, and that miracles often hide inside ordinary moments of surrender.

Scripture echoes her story:

• “Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.” — Proverbs 19:21
• “We walk by faith, not by sight.” — 2 Corinthians 5:7

👩‍💼 Guest Bio – Shylla Webb

Shylla Webb is a leadership coach, consultant, and keynote speaker specializing in holistic leadership and burnout resilience. After two decades in education, she followed God’s prompting to step away from her secure career and start Inner Matter™, a leadership consultancy helping organizations build emotionally intelligent, spiritually grounded cultures. She equips teams to lead with authenticity, compassion, and courage—bridging the gap between professional excellence and personal wholeness.

🌐 Website: innermatter.net

📱 Connect: Facebook

Resources

• Join the Newsletter: www.leadwithjim.com/nl
• Full Episode Show Notes & Transcript: www.leadwithjim.com/podcast

Connect with Jim

• 🌐 Website: www.leadwithjim.com
• 🎙️ Ask a Question: leadwithjim.com/ask
• 📱 Instagram: @leadwithjim
• ▶️ YouTube: Lead with Jim
• Facebook: @leadwithjim

Support & Engage with the Show

✅ Subscribe to The Unshakable Life wherever you listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio

✅ Leave a 5-star review if this episode encouraged your faith.

✅ Connect with Shylla at innermatter.net.

✅ For more faith-driven leadership content, visit leadwithjim.com.

Thanks for listening!

Never miss an episode of The Unshakable Life. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app—and if this resonated, share it with a friend who needs have the tools to develop an unshakable Life!

This is the unshakable life Mindset.

Resilience, action.

No strife.

Break free from the burnout.

Find your true north.

With your guy Jim Burgoon stepping forward.

This is the unshakable life.

Hey, friends.

Welcome back to the show.

I'm excited you're here.

Thank you for listening with us today.

I'm excited to be here with a friend of mine, Isla Webb.

We've known each other for quite a long time, and you're going to be blessed by this episode.

So make sure you grab your paper, maybe whatever beverage you have.

Mine today is a chai latte tea.

So I hope you're going to enjoy the rest of this episode.

And without further ado, welcome to the show, Shaila.

Oh, thank you so much for having me on the show, Jim.

I'm excited to be here.

Hey, why don't you do me a favor, because I don't know if my audience knows you and they should know you, so why don't you take the next 90, 90 seconds and let people know what you do?

Okay.

Well, I'm a leadership coach, and I primarily work as well as a consultant, I primarily work on holistic leadership.

So we have to start recognizing.

I believe that we need to start recognizing our whole selves come into work, as well as what happens at work goes to home.

So I go into organizations, I speak, I give keynotes, I do transformational leadership workshops and various various forms of training along that lines.

I come from a background of education and left as an administrator, woke up in the middle of the night and just felt compelled to resign, to go completely independent so that I could support organizations beyond just the public education system.

So I also focus on burnout, resiliency, and those type of practical tips in which we can do to improve our life, our daily lives.

Thank you for that.

Well, you.

You're on the right podcast because this is what we talk about.

Resilience, burnout, and all the things in between.

I love this.

So I want to unpack this.

So I don't know if you knew this.

I'm actually a former teacher as well.

I was in the education 10 years working with special needs as a behavioral specialist and things.

So I want to start with that because I'm going to dive.

I'm going to go a couple places.

I want to start with, you're resigning, but we're going to also dive into what holistic leadership looks like.

So with you waking up in the.

In the middle of the night and be like, all right, I'm done.

Was there Fear around that, because that's, That's.

That's pretty, Pretty courageous.

So explain to me what you were feeling during that time and.

And the leap you took.

Yeah, absolutely.

Now, one would think, you know, I spent 27 years in education.

I'm probably at the level of burnout like most educators go through, or, you know, education administrators.

It was right before COVID even happened.

And, you know, I was working with my colleagues, and they would say, we know you're only going to be here for a little while, and we're, we're excited to have your expertise while you're here.

Meaning I brought a lot to the district with recognizing emotional intelligence and of course, resiliency and, you know, just things along those lines and understanding behavior a lot more because my background is also working with students with emotional behavioral disorders, autism and learning disabilities.

So.

Yeah, but it was just one of those things.

Like, I just had this deeper calling within me that just finally came out.

That's all I can say because I would tell my colleagues, like, no, I'm here for at least 10.

10 years.

Without a doubt.

I'm definitely here, you know, for at least 10 years.

And then all of a sudden, I woke up in the middle of the night and I literally heard.

And I know people think like, you're crazy, but it was so loud and clear that it was just like, you need to resign.

It's time to resign.

And I remember, like.

But I was so inspired by Matt.

I actually came down here to my office to type out the letter of resignation, and I printed it out.

This is like at 3 o' clock in the morning.

I printed it out, put it in a folder and sat with it for a couple days.

And I thought, have I lost my.

My mind?

This is a great job.

I worked.

I had.

Yeah, I love the people that I worked with.

I love the district I was in.

But there was something in me that.

It was almost like the bird that needs to leave the nest and soar and fly.

And so a couple days later, I handed it in.

Nice.

I bet you that was a great feeling because I remember when I handed my resignation in, it was awesome.

So this brings up a great question.

Or actually just my mind is bubbling with questions.

Like, for instance, you're like, I finally accepted my calling.

I did it.

I woke up in the middle of the night.

And first and foremost, you're not crazy.

We have the Holy Spirit.

So to our listener, to you who are listening, if you are a Christian, we have the Holy Spirit.

And the Holy Spirit does impress upon us speak through dreams and things like that.

So how long were you sitting on this calling before the dream that woke you up and the voices that he spoke to you?

Good question.

Probably a couple years.

I had dove deep into mindfulness and how to bring it into the education system.

I dove deep into yoga practices and really also with my church and just learning to sit in silence.

Right.

In prayer and contemplation and all of that.

And with that, there was something that just kept unlocking inside me almost like a higher inspirational self and feeling levels of joy at a much deeper level than I had ever experienced.

And.

And yeah, and I just got deeper into my own religion, which is Christianity, that practice and understanding.

And I felt like every time I just got closer to God.

And so the next thing I knew, I was being asked.

I was an administrator, but the teachers within the district were hiring me on the side to do their professional development in the way that I believe in a very interactive, immersive, like, experience, not just a sit and get model.

I also see myself as one of them, even though I was considered, you know, at a higher, like, ranking wise.

Right.

If we look at, like the tier structure within an organization, which I kind of roll my eye that.

And so it was just what I was finding was I was getting deeper connections that I was then being asked to go and work with sales teams in the summer and other teams, and it just kept expanding.

And so it finally got to this point of working 50, 60 hours as an administrator but doing these side jobs.

That's where I left feeling lit up and just fulfilled and just so deeply connected with the people that I was working with and doing trainings with that I think that's what led to there.

I don't, you know, it's hard to even pinpoint to be exact.

Yeah.

So then this brings up a wonderful question.

Did you feel that you were like, like not accepting your calling, running from it, or did you feel like it was more, you need it to grow and mature before you can actually accept it?

Like, what does that look like?

I would say probably grow and mature.

Like, can I really make a living doing this?

Was the question.

I'm a single mom, head of household, have a mortgage.

I don't have anyone that I can fall back on.

And left a really, really good salary.

A salary that provided financial, you know, responsibility and stability for me.

Like, really, if you're good in education, you're not going to be fired or anything like that.

And so I think it was just more maturity and all of a Sudden, this need and desire to continue because I felt like in what I was doing on the side was change.

I could see that it was changing people's lives and they were getting back to me a year later.

And that was happening in education too.

Like, I've had parents, I'll still have parents.

Twenty years ago, I worked with their kid and they'll, they'll message me still today and just say, thank you for the impact that you made on my child.

And this is where they're at now and I just want you to know, or this is what they send.

I remember you used to say that to them, you know, and it's changing their lives and things like that.

So it was just all of a sudden it was like I couldn't hold myself back.

It just all of a sudden the momentum got going and it was just time to go and leave.

It was, it was bittersweet.

It was truly bittersweet because I had conditioned self saying, don't do that.

You have this great salary, something you can count on going into the unknown.

Right.

It was totally a leap of faith, all I can say.

So being a single mom, which number one we honor for that.

My mother was a single mother, so very much honor that.

Did you invite.

I don't know if your kids were old enough at the time, but did you invite them into the process saying, hey, we're about to move into something God has for us, but it's going to be hard for a little while, or it was just something you're like, we'll figure it out as we go, like, what?

How did you navigate those conversations?

Well, they were 2 and 3 when I suddenly became a single mom.

And so at this point, I want to say they were about 4 and 5, 5 and 6.

Okay.

And so no, there wasn't to invite them into that conversation.

They were so young.

But I will say in my own conversations with myself and God, in that, in those moments of silence, they were the focus and a lot of my beliefs and how to be a mom and what kind of mom I wanted to be and how I wanted them to remember me, they were the focus of those conversations, those higher level spiritual conversations.

Wonderful.

Yeah.

With them being that young.

Mine are a little older, so.

Yeah, I get you.

But I was always curious because I've heard both sides.

You know, whether people invite their children into these big steps or they just kind of do it when they're that young, I totally get it.

So, so then let's, let's circle back around because I want to go into the conversation of holistic leadership, because holistic is a word that's thrown out around there nowadays a lot.

Holistic nutrition and holistic this and.

But holistic leadership, how did you come to that particular title, like that niche?

What was the process for that?

I think at first it was more just the essential leadership practices.

Right.

High performance, go with the grind.

This is what you need to do.

Be efficient.

This and.

And what I found, the more that I would push that of myself and I saw my colleagues do, actually, the more burnt out we were getting.

Right.

It was working against us completely.

And so.

And I know, like, from mindfulness, there's just so much and so many benefits to just being completely locked into the present moment as it is.

Being in full acceptance and surrender as it is.

Right.

And just being able.

The ability to pause or see outside of ourselves as the moment or the events are happening, the experiences of life are happening.

And so in that journey, like I said, I just became.

I felt like I was getting closer to God and with God and really developing a life around what God is asking me to do and starting to take steps that way.

And so with education, we are to teach everything.

Public education specifically, everything needs to be secular.

But the reality is, is there's a piece of us.

We are spiritual beings.

To me, I believe in a human body, and I'm not here to push that agenda on anyone.

But there was a spiritual component of our world in education that we were dismissing.

And to me, it just felt like we were really hurting as, you know, as the humans.

And I don't know your age, but I'm 47.

And so when I first started in the work, emotions were not allowed in the workplace.

You left them at home.

Well, how do you do that?

If I'm happy at work, the emotions there with me, you know, it doesn't matter.

But what they really meant is the negative emotions don't happen at work or shouldn't happen at work.

But then it was like I was ignoring a big part of myself or if I look at, like, the everyday miracles that happen in our world, I was dismissing that too, because I couldn't talk about it.

Yeah.

And so that's when where it came to, like, we do have to talk about our spiritual sides, whatever that is for each individual.

That's wonderful.

I am also 47, so I totally get the context.

We were growing up.

I grew up in Philadelphia, so it was kind of like, don't show emotions because emotions was weakness.

Like, that's what you're Programmed with.

Yeah, we know that now that that's a bad program.

Yes.

So with this being the Unshakable Life podcast, Right.

I want to hear some things.

I'm going to dive some deeper into this.

So let's pull back some curtains.

What were some of your, what are some of your biggest challenges in what you do, how you do it, or even just everyday life?

And in those challenges, how do you protect yourself from giving up or how do you protect yourself from burnout?

That's a good question.

So I would say what I do and the challenge is not everyone's a big believer.

And the work that I do, not everyone, not every leader, they, they come to me because they see the results that other people have had experience from working with me.

Right.

But then they come to me and they don't want to talk about the spiritual self.

They don't want to talk about the side to them, the, you know, the spiritual side of life, or they're not quite believers.

And the miracles that are happening all around us, right.

The miracles that they believe in are the ones that people talk about that everyday humans rarely ever experience.

Right.

In a bad car accident, you see the light, all of that, all of a sudden you're healed, type of that, type of real big miraculous.

But I believe big miracles are happening in our simple everyday life as long as we're willing to open up to that.

So I get a lot of pushback from the condition self.

Like people, you know, it's their conditioned ways, not willing to even dive into the unconscious.

I also have to use a lot of discernment as far as like who I share and what parts I share of what I work with.

So not everyone's ready to have these deep level spiritual conversations right away, right?

Absolutely.

Go ahead, continue.

I was gonna say this.

And so then the second part comes in.

How do you protect yourself from the burnout, from all of that?

Yeah.

So I stopped looking at protection in the same way in which I did once upon a time.

So to me, protection used to come from a very fear based place, place I needed protection.

I needed to keep people at a distance.

And now when I look at protection, it is how am I going to guide this journey or this person and how to be healthy relation, like in our healthy relationship with me.

That's what protection is more about.

How am I going to preserve myself in this situation right.

As it is, as it's showing up instead of keeping away.

So I want to just be super clear on how I see protection now.

I also look at it.

Like the more, the closer I am with God and the more driven I am by my relationship with God and all that I do and being directly connected there and here, that is what that just allows a natural protection.

I don't have to worry so much as anymore in the way that I used that younger self, had to worry or felt like that's the story I was telling myself anyhow.

So then, you know, I, I like what you're saying.

I love the way you, you contact protection and reframe that.

That's a beautiful reframe.

But you're talking about fear based and keeping people at a distance.

How have you overcome that mistrust that you kept people at a distance to where you pull people in now?

Like, what were some of the things that you did in order to heal from that?

Yeah, it takes work into the heart over and over again.

You know, allowing the heart, I think, to crack wide open from a broken heart.

Right.

Gives us openness to the light and the light of God to be with us every single time, each time going within.

Like, how did I create that?

Because there were so many times, Jim, where I was mad at other people, angry at other people for betraying me.

But the reality is I betrayed myself.

Oh yeah.

That's where all of a sudden the reckoning really happened.

I had to own that I allowed this person.

I know they treat people this way.

I know that they've done it, they've done it to me before.

Three other times.

I allowed it again over and over.

And so I had to start taking ownership of my own life and the people.

Not everyone gets close access to me.

Right.

I really value relationships and hold them as sacred relationships.

And if it's not sacred relationship, then that to me already determines what level access they have to me and my world now.

Not to say that they don't get access to me, but it's.

They're not going to get as much time, Right.

As much into my deep inner self.

Right.

That full vulnerability, full disclosure of my world as someone that has shown me over time that they do hold things sacred.

They're loyal, they're trustworthy of just some of the basic characteristics.

So you bring up some really good things here and I appreciate the conversation of where the direction is because you talk about.

I was angry at everybody, but then I realized I was angry at myself.

What have you done with all of that anger?

I rumbled with it.

I rumbled with myself.

I did.

You know, in, in therapy there's the skill of catharsis where you Just go in and you're in a private room and you just yell it all out, right?

And you get it all out.

There's a lot.

I am one that once I build, I will just release and cry like a full cry.

And so I sat with myself, I cried, I journaled, I dug in.

What is this about?

And I think the healthiest way is to not be in a place of judgment, but just stay in a place of curiosity.

I keep pulling back each layer, and I think there's also this fine line of not going down the rabbit hole in the way that we make ourselves feel worse, right?

Bring us to a threshold in which we can't even handle anymore of.

Of how unhealthy things feel, right?

And how deep and intense it gets is.

It is more from a place of curiosity.

As an outsider looking at it like, huh, I wonder why.

Oh, I see now the connection.

How can I now, instead of going back to mom and dad, like, why did you do this?

Right?

This set me up for this in life.

None of that.

They did the very best that they could with what they had.

It is now, okay, now that I see this, awesome.

I celebrate it.

And this is the intentional change that I'm going to take as an adult to prevent this from happening.

So rumble with yourself is the first time I've ever heard that term.

And I love that.

I absolutely love that term.

So switching going into the.

Still going down this line.

All right, so you had mentioned there were a couple people that over and over betrayed you, and you got that anger which says lack of boundaries, right?

How did you decide?

How did you have the.

With it all to notice that you don't have any boundaries?

And then what did you do to start actually putting.

Putting boundaries into your life?

The very first thing I did with one of the people that hurt me the most was I privately wrote him a thank you letter.

Interesting.

And maybe it was from mindfulness practice, the act of gratitude that came forward in that moment, but I just thought, oh, shoot.

Thank you for helping me see what I haven't been seeing.

Thank you for helping me see I didn't have much of a backbone, right?

An artbone that I had.

I wasn't using.

I wasn't taking a stand for myself.

Thank you.

Because now, now that I see it, I can change it.

I can't do anything with it if I'm unconscious about it and willing to see it.

So to me, it was like, oh, my gosh, all of a sudden, it just unlocked.

What a gift.

Now I have something to work with that I can see within myself some of that.

Then I went and sought feedback from the people that I'm closest with and those that are trained in the area.

Right.

I'm not going to just ask some average person, right.

Their advice on this.

I went to the people that know me really, really well.

Tell me what my weaknesses are.

Tell me what my strengths are.

Help me see what I'm not seeing so that I don't repeat this mistake ever again.

I went into therapy as well.

I looked at places like, I started really watching and being an observer of my own thoughts around everything.

Right.

Was I being a victim here or did I sound empowered?

And as soon as I was being a victim and I could hear myself victimizing, right.

Like my own self with the situation, I said, okay, I gotta pause.

How can I empower myself?

And I'd give myself five, ten minutes sometimes to get it all out.

But what a victim I really am, you know, that I believe that I am and stomp my feet and whatever I had to do.

And then from there on out, I committed to myself.

I'm moving forward in a healthier way.

And what is it that I need to take on and do in order to feel more empowered and then become more empowered?

That's the biggest thing.

You know, they say we're human.

We're not human doings, we're human beings.

And so when I be it, I'm going to be it everywhere in my life.

Whether I'm at the hockey game, watching my boys play, whether I'm with friends, oh, doing a fun activity, or with I.

Whether I'm with my family.

Is that a characteristic or a boundary in which I can uphold all across the board, workplace, everything?

And if the answer is yes, then it made it quite easy for me what to do next.

I have like.

Yeah, so that's actually really good.

And for you, the listener who's still with us, that is a great reframe.

You know, I was grateful the one who hurt me to.

Because they showed me where I needed to grow.

I'm like, man.

And.

And I'm going to actually make sure that my wife listens to this episode because she struggles with some of this, and now she's one of my biggest fans.

She.

I think she listens to almost every episode, but because that's something I think would be really helpful for a lot of people, including her, is to reframe it.

Thank you for showing me where I miss it so that I can grow.

And it takes a lot of courage and I want to.

I want to acknowledge the courage in that for you and just what you're doing, because what you're doing is impacting people based off of your challenges and your own traumas that you flip the script to where now you're holistically leading and helping people lead where before you were just kind of the victim.

I love it.

It's an incredible transformation.

Which now brings me to one of my last questions for.

For this particular episode is what lesson or lessons have been the most valuable for you over the years?

What lessons?

Oh, there's so many.

So the most valuable.

Okay.

We always have a choice to get ourselves unstuck.

There are always many, many choices available to us.

And never ever discount that in situations, some life situations will cause us to feel quite stuck.

I was left without money to access to my joint bank accounts.

I was responsible for a mortgage and didn't even have enough money coming in to take care of all of that.

And I led with faith every single time.

And I would just say, I don't know how I'm going to make it through this, but, God, I'm committed to making it through.

And the next thing I knew is the answer came to me.

So to me, to stay humble and just say, I don't know how I'm gonna get through.

I'm committed to seeing this through is one of the best gifts that we can give ourselves.

Because when I say I don't know or we'll see, I stay very, very open to possibilities, possibilities that I can't even possibly fathom are available and that I might have access to.

So I would say, though, along this journey, that's probably the best advice.

The other thing that I start is I start every morning in silence and with an intention.

And I will simply ask God, what will you have me do today?

Who do I need to reach out to?

Who do I need to connect with?

And I will write down one or two of those things that came through and I will follow up with it.

And it has opened so many doors for me.

That's powerful.

Thank you for sharing.

So if somebody wants to find you and find and work with you, how do they view those things?

I think the best way you can visit my website, which is inner matter.net and just fill out a contact form and it will come directly to me and I'll get back to you.

Otherwise, you can reach out to me on social media.

I'm mostly active on Facebook and LinkedIn, so those are the two places in which you can follow me.

Just to get more, you know, I throw up posts or anything like that.

Or you can send me a direct message on either of those platforms as well.

And for you, the listener, we will put all of that in the show notes because we want to make it as easy as possible for you to find and connect with the guest.

And today we're so grateful for you to be here.

Shiloh.

I could probably talk another couple hours with you because this was a very rich conversation and one that I probably will have a part two of at some point.

Looking forward to it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I love it.

So thanks so much for hanging out and just having a great conversation around this.

Oh, thank you so much for having this platform and having me on as a guest.

It's such a pleasure to talk with you every time.

Yes.

And and and to you, the listener, thanks for hanging out.

You know what to do.

We'll see you on the next episode.

Thank you for spending this time with me on the Unshakable Life podcast.

My prayer is that today's conversation helps you to build resilience, reclaim peace and step with courage into your God given calling.

If this episode has encouraged you to challenged you or impacted you in any way, could you do me a favor?

Share it with a friend, leave a review and hit the follow so you don't miss what's next.

And if you want more tools and encouragement for your journey, head over to leadwithjim.com you'll find resources to help you grow as a healthy, authentic Christian leader, entrepreneur and creator.

And until next time, remember your foundation is Christ.

Your calling is unshakable and and your life can make eternal impact.

This is the Unshakable Life Mindset Resilience Action no strife Break free from the burnout.

Find your true north with your God.

Jim Burn.

Stepping forward this is the Unshakable Life.