SPEAKER_01 0:00

Her business, it wasn't working for her. And she was so aligned to what she had started that it was hard for her to see her way through. So from a transformational lens, one of the things that I helped her do was ask herself the hard questions. And one of the questions for her, you know, not put in this language, but if I was to bring it down was, is she enough for herself?

SPEAKER_00 0:29

That is a snippet of our podcast today. Hey there, Maureen Cherna here, founder of the MindSight Academy, neuro coach to executives, leaders, entrepreneurs, and a neuroleadership trainer using insights from neuroscience to help you deliver results by learning to work smarter, be in control of your brain, manage yours and others' emotions, change behaviors, flourish and exceed expectations. Welcome back to another episode of Lead2 Excel Podcast. I am so thrilled to be with you today because we have a special guest. But before we get into that, remember to subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to it. Because it will help other people find it and give them the opportunity to understand how they can rewire their own brain to enable them to achieve their goals. So without wasting any more time, grab your cup of coffee or your drink or whatever that might be. Put your feet up and listen in. Welcome back to another episode of Lead to Excel Podcast. Wow, wow, wow. We have with us today a sister, a friend. Oh gosh, where do I start? I am just so honored to have Reverend Denise Gilliard with us today. It's amazing. I'm going to introduce Denise in a second. But you know when you meet people and you just click. This is the story of Denise and I. We met at Elevate Network and we just literally clicked. And I remember someone actually telling me about you and saying, you've got to meet her, you've got to meet her. Um, it was just amazing. And when we did, it's just been great. Um, Denise and I have been covering and running some workshops on courage. And if you've not, if you missed our first one, you'd really need to pay attention to this podcast and make sure you and you register to attend our next one, which is coming up soon. But we're going to go into it in a second. So I'm just going to introduce Denise. If authentic, collaborative, and resourceful were an equation, Reverend Denise Gilliard would be the correct answer. She's a master builder of leaders, a pastor, a professional certified coach, a business advisor, and a successful entrepreneur. Reverend Denise focuses on supporting and activating healthy, impactful, and accountable leaders, individuals who serve as change agents in our world. Her unwavering commitment to uplift and empower people of African descent is often described as impressive. She fervently invests in the development of members in this community and supports individuals on their journey to success. She's an inclusive leader coach who has always been intentional about contributing and inspiring people of all creeds, faiths, and cultures to reach beyond their perceived limitations. Denise, it's such an honor, a pleasure, a joy. I'm just so excited to have you on Lead to Excel podcasts.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

Well, thank you so much for having me. I am the one who's honored. And I must say that there were many hard things about the pandemic, but the fact that the world opened up and you could meet people all over the world. I remember when I first saw you at one of our meetings, there was lots of people. I was so just I was attracted to the smile and the warmth you exuded without even saying a word. And I am just so thankful that we were in that meeting and we met. We're sisters for life, you know, and um I'm honored to be a part of your show. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

Oh, thank you so much for being here. So I've I've kind of read your bio, you know, um, talked about what you do, which is a lot. So I want us to go a bit more into Denise herself. When I saw Reverend in your name, the first thing I went is, oh, wow, that's interesting. So tell us, how did you become a Reverend? What made you take that step? I just I'm just so curious.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

Yeah, we've never talked about that. Well, first of all, I will tell you that when I was young, there's there were elders in my life who identified that, but they didn't say it out loud because it would have seemed quite impossible in a way. You know, I was born in Oakville, Ontario, Canada. My father was Jamaican, he's passed away now. My mother is Nova Scotian black. That's a long, you know, a lot of history, long story. Grew up in a town where there was very few black families at the time. We were one. Um, some were related to us. It was, Maureen, it was so sparse that if people saw somebody of color, they would say, Oh, is that your relative? I would say, no, even if it was, which it often was, just because I didn't want the thing all black people were related. So I grew up in that town in this little Baptist church, uh, a very good church, uh, but conservative, no women pastors, no women were allowed, women leaders, but very subdued. So it would seem impossible, but from an early stage, people around me, as they talked later, they identified it. I became a pastor kicking and screaming, though. It's not my plan for my life. You know, at first, when I was young, I thought I would be a scientist because I wanted to find the cure for sickle cell amania. And then I wasn't so good at science, though. I was okay at biology. That wouldn't work then. It didn't work, you know. As soon as I hit physics and higher levels of biology, not for me. And then I thought I would want to be a social worker. But my father, who was very empowering, but he put his foot down, he said that no, that's what all you know smart black women were becoming, so he wouldn't allow me to be that. Then I thought I would be a journalist because I do write and I loved writing, and I excelled in my journalism class and course, but then I realized how politicized it was. And I realized that just because I wanted to write about something or I wrote, by the time the editor got it and crossed out all kinds of things, so that wasn't for me. And I went through a series of things where um I would get to the second highest position wherever I went. I rose to the top, but then I would get there and I'm like, oh, I don't want to do this for the rest of my life. And I heard the call of God on my life at a church in downtown Toronto. I'm in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. And I remember the preacher was the Reverend Rosetta O'Neill. And she preached a powerful sermon where she called for a response that were we just gonna sit in our seats as things happen, or were we gonna step up? And I don't know how I ended up at the front. I just when I looked, I'm at the front of the, you know, we would call it the altar in a Baptist church when you go up to the city. So what was this call a call to give your life to Christ, or was it to say my life to Christ when I was like five, like a young, young girl? My mom used to run what we called backyard Bible clubs, where you'd invite the neighborhood children in and you would tell them the stories and you would give them snacks. So I received the Lord as my savior at an early life. I don't even know what she was calling for. I think the call was to, you know, use your gifts for God or something. Honestly, Maureen, I I just looked and I was there. Now, the one thing that had happened was as a young woman, I recognized that there were so many young mothers, whether single mothers or mothers and new marriages at our church, and there was nothing happening that could grow them. So a cousin Linda and I, we decided to start a group for young mothers and young women. Linda at that time, she wasn't married or she was engaged, can't remember, but she had no children. And then I was married, but my husband at that time was a non-Christian, and I had little, little kids, and we were just in church, but we were floundering. So we had started this ministry for women, and we thought, oh, there'll be six. Oh, Maureen, I remember looking around, and there were so many women. It was like 50 and the strollers, and I lived in an apartment above a store, and they were just filling the whole, we couldn't even fit in one room. They were going down the hallway and into this middle room. And you know, I was I really moved in leadership. My cousin and I worked together, but it seemed that a lot of the responsibility did start to come on me, and which was fine. We worked together until the old older women of the church began to recognize my gifts, and they said, Man, she's she's got some gifts that God wants to use. But they began to ask questions I couldn't understand. So when the call came, I found myself at the front. And next thing you know, I was in Bible school because those senior ladies paid for me to go. My first courses in in Bible college at that time, they called it, were paid by these senior women who saw what God saw. And certainly I didn't see. So that's how it began.

SPEAKER_00 10:44

That is that is amazing. I love that. I love that. It's interesting though, and I think what you've just described just really shows how God can use anyone he wants to to get us to where he wants us to be. So I'm gonna um let's go back a bit into your childhood because you said that right from when you were young, you were brought up in a Christian way, you know, as a Christian. So tell us a bit about that, because I think that will then lead to, you know, how you actually were there any time. I think I'm curious to know where did you ever, you know, kind of move away from the church at some point? Yeah, so tell us about that because we've all been there. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 11:30

My parents, I mean, I'm so thankful. I was brought raised in a Christian home that was full of love and full of just just now as we grow, and all of my siblings and I, and as we look around and as we begin to understand, and as I do ministry and different things, we were rich. Um, my my parents were authentic. They were not perfect, they were authentic. And I need to say that at the age of what do you mean? What do I mean? They lived what they said. It wasn't do as I say and not as I do. It was they lived what they believed, what they said, they were consistent and they were seen as leaders in the community, not even seen, they were leaders in the community. Uh, my father was a mechanic and he worked for um like a Ford, Ford Motor Company mechanic place, Oakland Mercury, but he stepped out into his own business, right? So he's an entrepreneur. And my parents actually owned the first Caribbean store in Oakville. And at that time it was just unheard of. You wouldn't, you know, all tropical fair and variety. So they were entrepreneurs, they were business people. My mother, um, amazing woman of God, she was always the Christian education director. And when you have a mother who's a Christian education director, you are voluntole. So at a young age, we were leading, we were singing, we were talking. And this was in an environment where we were minoritized. Like there, we were the one black family in our whole church. And so my parents used to do something that was quite brilliant. Um, they would take us into the city to attend the black church every so often to make sure we had a sense of, I'm gonna call it soul. And that's our upbringing. We also had the opportunity to attend something that back then we called black school. So we went to something called black school on Saturdays where we um were taught culture, we did African drum and dance, we did arts and crafts, we were taught our history. And it wasn't um necessarily that um the teachers or everything were Christian. Sometimes they were, you know, they had different faiths or they were pan-African and they didn't believe this or that, but we were exposed to our culture, and that had a profound effect on me. My mother's family are civil rights leaders in Canada, like they were, so I was exposed to the talk of you know, this kind of movement of 70s of civil rights leaders. And I'm the eldest in my family, and it it was something that was deeply ingrained in me. So I had faith and I had civil rights and just exposure to the culture. So we were brought up in a time where everything about the motherland, about the African continent shown was negative. We were brought up in an environment where we saw way the positives, way more than maybe a typical um person who was growing up in Canada who was black would be exposed. So we were, we I was in love with the motherland. I I love, and it's it's just ingrained in the world. We've got to go back. I'm I'm in love with Africa. I'm a child. We had, you know, we had maps in our household, and then we were told that the way that the map was drawn of the African continent, it made it look small or equal to the other continents, but it's actually bigger. So there's things that we were taught. But at the age of five, my parents had company one day, and um, the company came and they were watching something on TV. And a little five to six year old, they say I was about five to six, I got up and I was so disgusted that I turned off the TV with all these adults watching. I just turned it off. Now that could be big trouble in a Jamaican Nova Scotia. You don't disrespect your elder. And I said something like, Oh, do they think they're the only people in the world? And I turned off the TV because of course everything on the TV was white, white. And my parents could have crushed me because you don't do that, that's rude. But my mom, you know, she it was her role to deal with it when my father apologized and put the TV back on. But my parents together said, Wow, what kind of kid is this? And so my mother did say, Well, honey, that wasn't that was rude. You don't do that, but then she processed with me, well, what was going on, and I was able to articulate at a young age, Mommy, they're not the only people in the world. We're here.

SPEAKER_00 16:25

What did you mean?

SPEAKER_01 16:27

Well, everything on the TV was white people, white everything, white commercial, white show, white, white, white, white, white. And I just knew at five that that's not the truth. I'm here, and so my parents said they really thought, what kind of child is this? And instead of crushing that, they kept encouraging me to explore and to think. And but at the age of about, I can tell you, it was just before I went to college, you were asking if I always um I had two major crises. I was 16 actually. One was that a cousin of mine who I adored had joined the Peace Corps, and she was stationed in Tanzania, Tanzania, sorry. And um, she had come home, and she had come home with this boyfriend, and my aunt had a dinner party for her, and I was the only special guest. I met him before the rest of the family. And we were sitting on around this table, and this guy said that I was only a Christian and I was following the white Jesus because I was brainwashed. So, of course, in my 16-year-old way, I stood up for the gospel, I stood up for God, but it planted a seed of doubt. And I was like, what? Yeah, maybe I am. And the second thing that happened at the same time, you know, the devil is a liar, was that the church that I did go to was predominantly white. It was only us who wasn't. But I was the um president of the youth group, along with the pastor's son who was white, and we were tight, we were besties, we were friends, and he was a very handsome kind of a handsome boy that all the girls loved, but I didn't love him. We were friends, we were colleagues, we worked together. And one day I was just turning a corner in the church and I heard my beloved pastor and my uh beloved deacon talking about, and they were having this conversation, and they were saying how we were getting so close that they were worried that what if we started dating? What would people think? And I was hearing this, you know, right, and then they were also talking about, they were talking about a lot of things that had to do for me racism, classism, all of these things. And I was brokenhearted. Number one, the young man did not have a chance because he was my friend, and I didn't think he was all that and a bag of chips, right? We were friends, but number two, I was thinking, but what if we did? Yeah, you know, what would be and so those two things were a crisis. So I turned I I tried to turn my back on God, and what I did was I began to look for black friends in my community. And um, at that time in Oakville, there was a few people moving into the town, but they weren't Christian, so I started making friends kind of outside of the face. All Christian, black community, yeah. And then I started clubbing because girl, I could really dance. I was so good, by the way, that I didn't have to pay to get in places. I would bypass the line with my posse, with my friends, and the the bouncers would let us in free. And we were underage, right? So I started going to why because we could bounce. I could dance, girl. What? I was uh and I we were just the group that I hang out with. We were, I guess, cute, we were energetic, we were the life of the party, we would come like six girls. We would just go in and um the same leadership skills were where you know it's it doesn't leadership is in any sphere. So my posse and I would just go places and you know, I wasn't um a drug person, I wasn't a drinking person. We would buy one drink and we would guard each other's drink because we didn't want anyone to put anything in it, and all night you'd have the same drink and just keep putting ice in it. So we weren't drinking, we weren't taking drugs, we were having a good time. We were we were part, we were dancing, we would go all over the place. My father was a mechanic, so I had the car, and I'd be dry, you know. Girl, I went to Buffalo, I went all over Toronto, and I just had this time, but every so often the Holy Spirit would break through and say, Denise, where are you at? And I said, Oh, I'm here, I'm having a good time. And the Lord would just say, Okay. And he's le you know, it was like this visitation and a department and a departure. And um, you know, you go down those roads, and even though you're not being uh quote unquote a bad girl, you start to align yourself with values that are not aligned with the word or how you were raised. And I found myself in a marriage to a nice guy, nice guy, but he didn't know the Lord, and things just began to go downhill, downhill. And by the time that part of my journey was over, I was a brokenhearted woman whose every cent was taken out of the bank, but one dollar. Wow, how long did that last for? I would say that probably the 16 was the crisis. So I would say probably from the age of 17, my son was born at 23, then my daughter. I would tell you that. Wow, I'm so glad you asked this question. It was about a 10 year journey.

SPEAKER_00 22:29

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 22:29

A 10 year journey. And how long were you married for? I was married. Oh gosh, now you're gonna make me. It seems like such a past. I would say that I was probably married on paper for about eight years. Okay, well. Yeah, I have to ask my my ex, we're friends to now, right? We're friends now. We're grown folk and we're friends. Man, I can tell you about the power of God to make peace, right? So he'll he'll probably remember. I'm I'm not very, you know, some women they remember all their anniversary, this, that. I'm not that girl. I have to go to the guy guy and say, what, what, when? But I think it was about a 10-year period of being disconnected from my faith and probably eight years of marriage, although you know, maybe half of that time we weren't together. And then um the call of God came on my life when I was messy. Hallelujah. So, was that when you were still married? When I was still married to my first husband, because I am remarried now, the call of God came. Let's say the marriage had broken up. It doesn't make sense to people who think you're supposed to be perfect. Come on, somebody. The call of God came when I was a single mom with two children, recreating life. I had started this group for women at church, um, for single moms, for moms with my cousin, for people who were newly married for women. That's when the call of God came, when I was a messiest. As a matter of fact, when that marriage broke up, I was in Bible college because I kept moving forward.

SPEAKER_00 24:12

Wow. So at what point did you then oh at what point did you then go back to God in a way, turn back? And what made you make that turn?

SPEAKER_01 24:25

I remember, wow, I want to thank you for asking me these questions. You know, you can leave God, but God doesn't leave you.

SPEAKER_00 24:33

That's absolutely true. And I'm so thankful for that.

SPEAKER_01 24:37

In the times of my desperation, in really wanting the marriage to be repaired, right? Really wanting my husband to be saved. Really, I uh um some things were happening that were really terrible. Um, he had another woman pregnant and just some horrific things. I really turned to the source. I said, Lord, you know, I turned back to the Lord and the Lord said, Listen, I never left you. But I remember um I was actually teaching on fasting and praying just this past Monday, and I was telling them a story of how I had fasted, and I didn't even know what fasting really was. I just heard about it. I wasn't nurtured to fast and pray, but I had heard about it, so I just said, Okay, that's what I'm gonna do. And I remember during that time, my first husband had actually gone forward to receive the Lord at church because he would come every blue moon, but then he from his own mouth said, I didn't mean it. I and he recanted, and then things really went downhill. And um it didn't take me long, like when we think about that 10-year journey. So 16 was the crisis. My son was born at 23. Um, the marriage seemed to be okay, but it really wasn't. I just had to catch up with that. But at 23, I realized that my son needed to go to church because you're, you know, and this is how I formed it in my mind. I want my son to be a good man. So he needs to go to church. I never thought about my relationship with God. I just needed him to go to church because he needed to grow up to be a good man. Plus, I had enjoyed Sunday school and I could talk, I could read, I could, you know, all of the skill sets that the church gives you beyond school, I needed my son to have those. So I went back to church because my son was born. And so, really, at that stage at 23, um, that was my journey back. So when I went in the church, I went back to a church. I went to a church downtown, the church where I ended up hearing the call of God on my life. But when I went during the church service where the adults were upstairs and great things were happening, there was a million kids running around downstairs with nobody doing anything with them. And I remember we had the big cell phone then. I date myself, you know, that huge cell phone. I called my mom and I said, This is so terrible. The kids are running around. And my mom said, Well, do something about it. You know what to do. So I wasn't even rededicated. And I said to the pastor, okay, can I help with the kid? Sure. And then I ended up doing this big junior church and teaching because it was in me, but I wasn't rededicated yet.

SPEAKER_00 27:33

Because I really need to focus on this, because what you saw in a child gets wired in their brain, and it's there. You see, it's and it's so amazing that even if you go away, do other stuff, it's there. The seed is there, and that's what the word says.

SPEAKER_01 27:56

Train up a child in the way he or she exactly, you can't help it, it's so good. Exactly. So glad.

SPEAKER_00 28:03

So even though you had gone off, created new wiring, that was still dead, and you kept going back to it, and that's why it remained because even in times of struggle, you are still praying, you still remembered 100%. There's something here. I love that. I love that 100%.

SPEAKER_01 28:25

I'm so thankful for that. And then when you think about the brain work, and I mean, you know, I want to say to every person who's listening, right? Don't give up on your children and take responsibility for what goes into their wiring. Um, my parents did their job, and it was my life saver. Because when I look around at I'm not the only woman in my circles who experienced the trauma of marital distress, right? Um, but I was able to hear the voice of God and go back to what I knew. And transformation is my word, right? And and be transformed. And that is my message, even to this day. Transformation starts from where you're at. That's my you know, tagline or motto. And when I'm working, whether I'm coaching women, coaching businesses or consulting, whether I'm pastor, I wear so many hats. Um, but it all I know that transformation starts from wherever a person's at. And I so appreciate, I think that's why we work so well together as courage coaches, because when you take that idea of rewiring your brain for courage for whatever it is you need, there's so much hope in that, Maureen. There's so much hope. So I'm evidence of that, yeah. I and and that God will use the foolish things of this world to come the wise because yeah, I don't fit into those typical of the pastor's box or this or that. No, you don't at all. I'm so done with that. I I've reached a good stage of life where I don't apologize, I just do what God calls me to do. Absolutely. Watch the evidence. Let me be the evidence for you.

SPEAKER_00 30:32

Exactly. And I love that, I love what you say. Transformation starts from where you're at, and that's true. So it doesn't matter where you're at, that starts. That's the key. You said something really important because I've had quite a few women. I did a masterclass, no, it wasn't the mascot, I did a talk to a group of women recently, and um, a lot have reached out to me, and it's really on how they raise their children. And it's really interesting because a lot of them were really struggling. And these are young kids who they, in a way, they're feeling they're losing control. And when we started digging deep, we found that it's what they say to the children that's causing the problem. It's what they're sowing into the children. Yeah, that's what's causing the problem. And I'm glad I'm glad you said what you did because being able to sow positive greatness, blessings into a child is what gets wired in them, and that's exactly the behavior pattern they develop, and that's who they become. So it's crucial. Yes, absolutely. Because you see, you've described how you were raised, what your mom did, you know, how she raised you. And in a way, you saw her be a leader, you saw your parents be leaders, and you've then become it's your life. You anywhere you go, you're leading, you know, and it's amazing how what you're doing now, with all the hats that Denise has, the core is that leadership. It's really helping people. So I just love that. So you've become you become you became you went to Bible school.

SPEAKER_01 32:22

I did. I went to college, I did my master's. I I'm now I'm working. What? Did I tell you I'm doing my doctorate? People are like, how are you doing all of those things? I don't. It's a God. We give God the yeah. So what was your master's in? So my master's was in divinity. So I did specialize in um Christian theology and thought and ethics. And um my love, my secret love in study is church history. And um, I wanted I I just I I I believe that we know where we're going by being very cognizant of where we come from. Oh, I love it. And so history is kind of my side gig, though, because it's my love, but God keeps saying, Yeah, yeah, I know you love it, and I'll give you these opportunities. So I get these really cool opportunities, but mostly God leads me somewhere else. So right now I am back to a deep study of theology and leadership. So my major in my doctoral program is around leadership. And Maureen, until you said it just a minute ago, I didn't even think of the thread from throughout my life, which is you one would say hello. Um, but I it's just as you say it now. The thread is the leadership thread. And I want to really, you know, I give God the glory and I'm so thankful for my parents. Um, I am the eldest daughter, I have two brothers and one sister. There's four of us. And from day one, my family, I was a lead. And, you know, they would ask things like, okay, Denise, what happened? Well, there's the other ones, but it was my responsibility. There was a baby that died before me. And I think, you know, from all intents and purposes, I hear, or at least I feel it was a boy who died before I was born. And the doctors had said that my parents wouldn't have any more. And my mom prayed. Wow. And she said, Lord, please open up my wound and I will give you back the first one. Whoa. So I'm here, so I can't, even if I tried to move away. You're not going anywhere.

SPEAKER_00 34:43

You belong to me. You're not going anywhere. Wow. So, how many children did she go on to have then? She had a total of four of us, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:54

And this is by faith because she had lost some along the way. If you want to talk to someone who's awesome, my mother is awesome. I'm I I I always say I went to Bible college to learn the things that were in the book and how to handle it. But trust me, most of what I learned came from my mother and my father. My father passed away young though. He was 53. He was 53, so we lost him early. But such an honor to have um an authentic man of God. Very Jamaican, you know. Um, very um, you know, people, he was harder on the boys or on one boy, because the other one was the baby. The baby got the best of everybody, but um, harder on my brother, um, my younger brother in some ways than I, but very much a man and a man's man. I I know what it is to live with a man, to to work with men because of my father. Whereas some women were struggling to kind of figure that out. No, I had a dad, and and um my dad, I learned much from my dad. My dad, though, was uh interestingly empowering sexist who said, You can be anything you want to be in the world, except for what I tell you not to be. That was my dad. I was not allowed to be a social worker, yeah, not at all. And then when I went into ministry, he said, um, make sure you don't starve. He was concerned about being starving. I'm stunned. Yeah, he was concerned about that. And he said, Oh, you're still kind of doing the social work thing, but you're not a social worker. And you know, love and blessings to all the social workers listening. I think for him, it was just that um black women who were smart were either streamed into social work or nursing. I didn't want to be a nursing.

SPEAKER_00 36:48

He was trying to be breaking stereotype, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:51

Definitely. But much respect to the social workers, love them, partner with them.

SPEAKER_00 36:59

Absolutely. Yeah, no, that's awesome. So let's now go come come to closer to where we are now. So then you go to Bible school, you've gone through, you've become a reverend, you're now in ministry. How did you then get into really being a um, I would say coaching? Yes. And you know, how what was what was that like? Because you also you don't just work in the church, you work in corporate, you do, you do a lot. So, how did you manage and tell us what you do actually, because that would be helpful. Oh, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 37:37

Well, um, first of all, I would say that I'm a transformational and spiritual and then life coach. You know, it depends on where I am, and then I I specialize on besides individuals, leaders, I also specialize in supporting um nonprofit organizations and their development or NPO leaders, and I'm particularly passionate about black female leaders. I mean, I have clients from all walks of life, but I'm particularly passionate about black female corporate leaders. Why? Because I had to go through all of it on my own to some degree. Yes, I found supporters and mentors of different backgrounds and so forth, but there are some particular um challenges and barriers that weigh heavily on black female leaders, no matter what our cultural background is. And it I don't want, you know, originally I ended up doing this because uh people were coming to me anyways. But my my point was that I didn't want other women to go through what I went through. Yeah. Um, when if I could coach and partner with them, I could help them to quickly transition or transform through just things that I went through, navigate, have that support because I did not. Yeah, I did not. Yeah, no, I love it. And it's our time for leadership, it's just our time. So we must live, we must live and move and have our being. When so many of us get to these positions and the job is already messed up, like often we we come into a place of so-called power when the organization or the structures are at their messiest, and then we're expected to lead the way through this big mess. So I love serving as a thinking partner. I'm not, I don't pretend to be an expert at everything, but I am an excellent thinking partner, and so you know, I understand myself as a leader of all leaders, and I understand myself as a holistic leader of leaders. So even in the church ministry that I'm doing now, it is not about me as the superstar pastor leading a flock, but rather how do I empower those leaders that I'm working with to live out the call of God on their lives? That's where I'm at at this stage. And it's an exciting stage because it also means that I'm not doing all the work. So I can do other things.

SPEAKER_00 40:29

That's true. So that means that you don't pastor in a church at the moment.

SPEAKER_01 40:35

No, I have a I'm it sounds so funny. I in December I resigned from the church that I was pastoring as a senior pastor, and currently I'm in the process of planting a new church, that's what we call it, or starting a new ministry. Um, and the people who are uh involved in that process with me, I'm seeing them as leaders, living out their call. So it's not like the pastor who's doing all the work or doing all the preaching and all, no, no, no, no, no. We're we're more functioning, what with I would say is a basic New Testament model. So it's a lot of a lot of work in the context of uh the other things I'm doing. It makes sense. So as this leader, senior leader pastor, I'm coaching the other leaders to live out their call in the context of community. Yeah, the ecclesia.

SPEAKER_02 41:32

That's great.

SPEAKER_00 41:32

Yeah. Yeah. So let's I want us to talk about how you work with people now. Um, Ishali leaders, female leaders, how do you actually support them? What do you do? What does it look like? Give us an example of um someone you've worked with and how it's what you know, I think the question is, what does it look like? I'm curious. Yeah, wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 41:58

Well, there's different models that I work with, whether I'm working with the female leader herself, or maybe the female leader and her team. Um, and I believe leadership happens in many spheres, by the way. So it's not just a leader of an organization or a corporation. There's also people who are leading in their own business as entrepreneurs. You know, I've recently taken a position with the Canadian Black Chamber of Commerce as a business advisor, coaching entrepreneurs.

SPEAKER_00 42:30

So you are one busy lady, definitely.

SPEAKER_01 42:34

As long as it fits in under the mantle of leading leaders, yeah. If it fits in that and my values align and I can do it, I love to do that.

SPEAKER_00 42:45

That's important though. What you've just said is very important. If it fits within this, if not, you find that some people just kind of say yes, yes, yes, yes, and they're just pulling themselves. But you talk about what you do, and it's you're quite busy, but because it's all fitting into that mold, you know, model of what you do, you talk about it with so much passion and joy. And I know you are busy, but it's it's a different kind of, you know, it's it's fun, if I put it that way. It's effortless.

SPEAKER_01 43:17

When you're living out your call or what you're meant to do in this world, it's it's energizing. However, you always have to take stock. I'm currently in the process of streamlining my services too. So you're always transforming, you're always in movement, you don't stay stagnant. So I uh in terms of this conversation, though, I'm picturing this one leader, and I'm just excited for her now because right now she's not even in the country, she's somewhere else and exploring these amazing business opportunities. I tell you, girlfriend is set and ready. She's calling me from overseas, and we're connecting. And but when I think of her as a leader, and in terms of my work with her, which all can be summed up as transformation, part of the work that I did with her was to help her to ask the necessary questions that she needed to ask to make changes. Um, her life, her business, it wasn't working for her. And she was so aligned to what she had started that it was hard for her to see her way through. So from a transformation. One of the things that I helped her do was ask herself the hard questions. And one of the questions for her, you know, not put in this language, but if I was to bring it down was, is she enough for herself? You know, can she see herself as a real leader? And, you know, your work in terms of rewiring the brain, the reason why, Maureen, your work excites me so much. Um, and and the reason why I myself as a coach am prepared to learn from the work that you do so that I can be a better coach is that I've done a lot of work on mindset. And um, whatever we think we are, that's what we live out of. And so sometimes we have to defragment our thoughts because we're not even hearing what we think. We're so busy trying to survive as leaders, as female leaders. We just got to get this done. And there's our to-do list, and then the pressure on us, and then we're facing opposition because there's always some enemy in the camp trying to destroy you or take what's yours, that you haven't even stopped to think. What self-fulfilling prophecies are you living out of? Yeah, and the cycles of thought, like you're saying, oh, this person isn't dealing with me up front. Well, you know, what are you, what are you contributing to that? And how are you reinforcing this behavior through your own behaviors? And so when I think about that leader, and when I think about the models of transformation that I use when I'm coaching my clients, I remember the day that the lights just went on for her. And man, she just was like, you know what? I need to stop doing these things, and it often is about what do we need to stop? What do we need to start? How you know who on the journey can help us think through that, and um getting our women at every economic level to understand that investing in your own self-development is worth its weight in gold because I'm telling you, yes, this sister, the contracts that she's now negotiating, the financial value of those are so high that I'm like, girlfriend, look at you. Whereas before her self-limitation had her stuck in a pattern of disrespect, really. She was experiencing a lot of disrespect, but then she had to deal with her own respect for herself. Once, you know, so I I get excited.

SPEAKER_00 47:27

Um, so I would I I mean, I hope that answers your question. That answers the question perfectly, actually, it really does, because what you described is real transformation, you know, how she went from just not even respecting herself, because what you get is what you put out. Um, but no coming to where she is now, where she's made that full transformation, and you see the great things that are coming her way. Before she wouldn't even have been able to see it, and you know, because I I would say the mind or the subconscious brain goes to where we send it, it's the questions we ask it that it gives us the answers to. So that's that's a great example. Thank you so much. It's honestly, it's just we could go on and on with these conversations, but um, I know we've got to bring it to a close soon. So, Denise, if people want to work with you, if you just tell our listeners who you work with, how they can find you, that would be awesome.

SPEAKER_01 48:33

Well, what a privilege to do that, and I thank you for that opportunity. So, number one, I love to work with women who are leaders in any sphere. Leader, it can be in your home. I also um adore working with nonprofit leaders and organizations and their teams. So those seem to be my areas of specialty. They do not have to be Christian organizations. I love working with faith-based communities because often um faith-based communities may be a little bit behind in terms of how we're thinking, um, but they do not have to be. And I've worked with young entrepreneurs as well as um uh senior leaders who just need to make changes. To reach me, I'm easy to get by email. My company has a unique name, My Divine Appointment. That's my company name. I remember when I early named it, people were saying, Oh, what kind of name is that? But I believe we have to make those appointments with ourselves, we have to connect with who we are. So they can reach me at D Galard, my last name, D for Denise, Galard, G-I-L-L-A-R-D, at mydivineappointment.ca. I'm in Canada. I work with people all over the world. You can also find me Denise Galard on Facebook. You can Google me. My granddaughter the other day was Googling and saying, love grandmother's you. I'm I'm pretty easy to find. I'm on Instagram, you know, all of those social medias, LinkedIn. And of course, I can be reached by phone at 647-239-1702. So lots of places to reach me. But if you Google me, I think there's only a couple of us in the world with that name. So um blessings to those uh sisters, but um, I'm not too hard to find.

SPEAKER_00 50:31

Yeah, that's awesome. Thank you so much. And I'm just going to end it by talking about this uh courage um masterclass or um 10-day challenge that we're doing. Yeah. Because it's just so exciting. Can you just talk briefly about it?

SPEAKER_01 50:47

Yeah, well, what we've put together as coaches, I I'm excited. So we we're doing a 10-day uh challenge, mastermind class and challenge, and it is geared towards women. And we've recognized with all of the things going on in the world that in order for many of us to step out or step to the next level, we have a lot of rewiring to do. We have to conquer fear, we have to bolster our courage. And so we have developed a quick way, it's really quick, uh, that women can really tune into that. So we do a masterclass together, and secretly we don't advertise it, we actually do two once you're in the program. And then the next 10 days are self-directed, where we take you through a series of self-directed exercises. So you can do one every day, you can spread it out longer if you want. Um, and Maureen, guess what? I have a we have a woman who from our last um time we did it in December. In December. She still keeps emailing me because she's still working through stuff and she sends me insights and she's all excited. And then anyone who participates in that gets access to a special um package that Maureen and I are tag teaming together to coach women one-on-one with this special, very accessible package that they can get once they've done that 10-day challenge and been in our mastermind class. So we have to get the word out. It is accessible, it is affordable. We're practically giving it away. We are um we're very excited for that.

SPEAKER_00 52:34

Yeah, it's it's it's really just such a blessing to be able to do this for people because it's so needed. Just understanding yourself and understanding what to do, or knowing that you can actually do something, you've got a choice, makes a huge difference. And I'm I'm really pleased you said that somebody, you know, one of the ladies keeps emailing you. Because the fact is that what you get from the um from these masterclasses, you can always you keep using, and the more you use it, the more you're wiring what you want. And it will help you in different aspects of your life. I always say, see, the brain, you've got one brain. That brain that you use at work is the same brain you use at home. So the information and knowledge you're getting to build this courage, you will use in every aspect of your life. You will totally be transformed, and that's the key. And it's interesting that um, Denise, in fact, I just realized that your your key is transformation and mine, my framework, the last part of it is it ends with transform and excel.

SPEAKER_01 53:43

Come on, come on. We were this this is a divine appointment. It really is. We were meant to be together. I was thinking too about what you were talking about, mothers that people are asking about raising their children. Well, if you're a mother and you're listening, if you work on your courage, if you work on yourself, you will automatically transfer that to your children. And my goodness, look at the times that we're living in. Exactly. We need to get these things into our children. If we do our work, it's gonna come through to our kids. That's so true.

SPEAKER_00 54:21

Powerful, that's so true. And I'm glad you really um pointed that out because our kids need it, they need it. Yeah. Oh gosh, Denise, thank you so much for coming onto this podcast. It's just it's it's always a joy to chat with you, and um I just you know uh can't I'm looking forward to what God has in store for us to do. You know, I'm just so excited. So thank you very much. We're gonna bring this to an end. I'm gonna put all the links in the um description. And one of the things you talked about, actually, I'm gonna say this last is um my divine appointment, actually, I love that name because it really comes to the core of who you are. It's really helping people discover themselves. What is your what is your divine appointment? I love that. So, can you just finish with one last word of advice for our listeners?

SPEAKER_01 55:21

Well, as I said, my motto is transformation starts from where you're at. So I want to talk to listeners who may feel stuck, right? The secret to breaking out of feeling stuck is simply putting one foot in front of the other. So just start, just make a decision today that you are going to change, that you are going to grow, and just invest in that. And um, yeah, that's all I want to say. Just start from where you're at. Don't worry about who says what or what you think yourself. Just say, from this day, I want change and get moving, and you'll see what amazing things can happen in your life, your business, your ministry, your family. Just start.

SPEAKER_00 56:17

Thank you so much. It's really been a joy having you. Thank you very much. Okay, three things before we finish today. Have you subscribed to this podcast? If you haven't, make sure you click that subscribe button wherever you listen to this podcast. Because once you subscribe, you will not miss an episode. And as usual, if you have a topic you would love me to speak about or bring a guest on, do let me know by leaving a review. Finally, do have a fantastic week and remember that you are limitless. So I look forward to seeing you in our next episode. Bye for now.