Many people are skeptical about taking their faith into their business. Some say it is detrimental to success and may affect their relationships and connections. Can entrepreneurs be truly successful by leaving out a part of who they are? Teri Johnson, the Founder of Keeping It Personal, LLC found out that it is impossible. The foundation of entrepreneurship is authenticity and the source of everything we have comes from God. By eliminating Him in the equation, there is a high possibility of failure. Tune in as Robin and Teri share how to overcome the fear that stops you from bringing your faith into everything you love to do!
“The impact that we’re having in the lives of women, the connections that are being made, the authenticity of the conversations, and the strength that gets us through the good, the bad, the ugly, and the beautiful, comes from Him.” -Teri Johnson
Highlights:
01:45 Can Faith and Business Combine?
06:44 An Opportunity to Rethink
Can faith and business combine? Tune in as Robin and Keeping It Personal, LLC founder, @Teri_Johnson share how to make this union a success! #realtalk #podcast #faith #business #entrepreneurship #entrepreneurialjourney Share on X
Quotes:
03:28 “The impact that we’re having in the lives of women, the connections that are being made, the authenticity of the conversations, and the strength that gets us through the good, the bad, the ugly, and the beautiful, comes from Him.” -Teri Johnson
Meet Teri:
Teri Johnson is the President and Founder of Keeping It Personal, LLC a national Christian faith-based organization that comes alongside women entrepreneurs, business owners, and sales professionals helping them strategically grow their businesses. With over 25 years of professional experience in operations management, sales, and marketing in a variety of industries. Teri’s knowledge base can be adapted to any business model, whether you’re starting out or looking to scale. She’s a sought-after personal growth expert, a business development strategist, the founder of the Refine Community, and author of the book, Overcoming the Nevers. Her unique approach has helped transform the lives of her clients, guiding and motivating them to achieve their most deeply desired goals personally and professionally.
Transcriptions:
Robin Edgar Welcome to Real Talk with Robin, where grace and business sense come together to help you live an abundant life. I am so excited today to introduce to you one of my most fave people out there in the world, Teri Johnson. Teri is the founder and CEO of Refine and Keeping It Personal, an organization that I’ve been affiliated with since its start. And I’m really a proud founding member. Teri’s had this vision of helping women combine their faith and their business and realizing it’s not one or the other, it’s really our entire life and what we’re doing together. And so Teri, thank you so much for joining me today and I really, really appreciate the fact that you would take time to be on one of my inaugural podcasts here.
Teri Johnson Thank you so much, Robin. I am beyond thrilled to be here and super excited for what you’re doing in the world and the impact that you’re making. So thank you for having me.
Robin Edgar Yes. Well, let’s talk a little bit about why you started Refine, kind of your personal drive, and what happened in your life to cause you to realize that women being able to combine faith, their faith and their beliefs with their business, and how powerful that can be.
“The impact that we’re having in the lives of women, the connections that are being made, the authenticity of the conversations, and the strength that gets us through the good, the bad, the ugly, and the beautiful, comes from Him.” -Teri Johnson
Teri Johnson Yeah. When I started my company, Keeping It Personal back in 2009, I knew I was serving women, but it wasn’t that we were weaving faith into what we were doing. I wanted to serve women help them personally, professionally, but at that time, I didn’t weave it all together. And as I was networking and growing and connecting with different women at events and having great meaningful conversations, I realized that I couldn’t separate the two. So it’s just almost like impossible for me to– when I’m helping them grow and scale and take their business to the next level, it’s really hard for me to edge God out of that equation, because he is such a big piece of everything that I’ve done in my life. And so as I was mentoring, and coaching and consulting with others, I realized, like, I need to step into this space, right? Like, I need to just be like, this is work for me, this is my truth and if I’m going to lead you and guide you, I need to share with you what I believe is a powerful source to tap into, not only for our personal lives, but also for our businesses. And so I started my company 2009. And then it wasn’t until 2015 that I really stepped into that space, where I started to lead with that as like, “Hey, we’re gonna grow ourselves or our businesses, but we’re gonna weave faith into everything that we do. We don’t have to wear it on our sleeves. But that’s the foundation of what we’re building upon.” And so yeah, that’s just kind of been my angle. And it served me really well and I’m super glad. Because the impact that we’re having in the lives of women, the connections that are being made, the authenticity of the conversations, and the strength that gets us through the good, the bad, the ugly, and the beautiful, I believe, comes from him. So it has been really great. Yeah.
Robin Edgar And to think back to that initial meeting, when you started really bringing women together, physically together, was so powerful, because I think it helped us really realize that we weren’t alone, because so many of us have, for years, obviously been true believers, and know that all of our source and power and getting us to where we are comes from God. And that for us to come together in a large group and look around at the women and say, Oh my goodness, there’s so many more people just like me that feel the way I do that it’s not, you know, I put that on Sundays when I go to church, and I don’t really think about it or talk about it other than on that day. It’s just not real world. It’s not real life. And it’s not how, how many of us feel and we were finally emboldened to really step up and say, you know, I can share with people that and a lot of times it’s just through what I say and how I do things during the day that that can make a big difference for people.
Teri Johnson Yeah. Absolutely. So what I found and the reason why I started the refined community, which also was the Refined gatherings and they are weekly, monthly, in person, now virtual, but hopefully going back to in person events that we would do. So we would bring women, business owners, entrepreneurs and sales professionals together, where we’re going to talk about building our businesses, but we’re also going to be able to pray for one another, share like, any challenges that we have, talk about our God sized dreams in a non judgmental place. And yeah, it’s really unique. So it’s networking with like minded women where there’s no judgement, there’s no fear of talking about everything, including our faith and weaving that into it. So.
Robin Edgar [inaudible] blessing in my life. You know, attending the live events, when we could, all of us were so busy, a lot of women just don’t take the time to just mentally decompress. And that’s really what Refine has done for me is one or two days a month where I can take that couple hours, and just journal and be present, and not be thinking about all of the other things as women, wife, mothers, entrepreneurs that we need to do, has been a game changer for me. And last year going virtual, you hit the ground running, who basically changed to all virtual events and it’s allowed me to meet people from all over the United States. And those people have been good connections for me. And I’ve been able to help other people and just meet people from all over. So tell us a little bit about how that’s going and what you envision for the Refined community going forward once we get to the new normal whatever that is.
Teri Johnson Yeah. It’s interesting, because having, obviously, the opportunity I look at is an opportunity to rethink how we’re doing things because we were forced to pivot has been a huge blessing for us. Like you said, it has expanded our territory more on a national level and the connections that are being made across the country are phenomenal. But I do think that there is extreme value in getting together in person. So when the time is right, we definitely want to get back into in person, but in the meantime, we’re just going to keep doing it this way and then once we feel the time is right, we’ll do some more in person. It’s gonna look a little different. I don’t think we’re gonna do monthly, I think we’re gonna do more quarterly but and make them more big, like bigger events, as opposed to just a little shorter. So yeah, I’m excited to see what the future holds. But in the meantime, I feel like God is blessing the socks off of all of us as we’re holding our plans loosely, right? We’re moving forward but we’re just taking it day by day and the connections and the collaborations and the successes that these women are having has been really amazing. So
Robin Edgar It is really amazing. And I want to thank you so much for your leadership. I know you are a phenomenal coach, you’ve been coaching people for years. And my podcast is called Real Talk with Robin but I only have people on this podcast that are real talkers. And I really– thank you for what you’ve done for so many women, because you are straight, you are to the point, you are real talk and you’re helping women successfully pivot and move into that next level. And I just would encourage anyone that’s listening that really needs some coaching and some mentoring, feels that calling that they want to work with someone that really has that faith based that Teri is just a splendid, splendid coach, and has helped me in my business phenomenally. So thank you so much, Teri for being here. How do they get ahold of you if someone’s interested in reaching out to you to find more about Keeping It Personal or Refine?
Teri Johnson Yeah. So if you just go to https://keepingitpersonal.com/ keepingitpersonal.com, it’s a pretty easy site to navigate through and there’s a contact tab, I would love to hear from anybody. You can fill that out or just browse around and see what might resonate with you. But yeah, keepingitpersonal.com is my website.
Robin Edgar Thank you so much Teri for being here. It’s meant a lot to have you on one of my first podcast shows. You’ve been a huge mentor for me and just a huge blessing for how you’ve let me really talk about my faith and bring my faith more forefront into everything I do every day all day long. Thank you so much.
Teri Johnson Thank you, Robin. Right back at you. I am inspired by you every time I have the opportunity to talk with you. So thank you. I’m excited for the impact that you’re making as well.
Robin Edgar Thank you so much. And thank you for joining us today on Real Talk with Robin. I hope you’ll check out Teri’s website and come back and listen to my next podcast. Have a great day.
