In this engaging episode of The Good News with Angie Austin, Angie welcomes back guest speaker Katie Millar-Wierig, discussing the whirlwind of back-to-school preparations and family vacations. Drawing from personal anecdotes, Angie and Katie delve into the importance of choosing the right company and how ‘birds of a feather flock together’ can influence our future more than we realize. Despite busy schedules, they emphasize the long-term impact of our daily habits and friendships on achieving personal goals.
Welcome to The Good News with Angie Austin. Now, with The Good News, here’s Angie.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hey there, friend. It is Angie Austin with The Good News also joining us. We haven’t talked for a couple of weeks. Katie Millar-Wierig, you can find her on Instagram at The Balanced Mind Project, and she is the author of The Parenting Machine and the creator of the Anxiety Healing Program. Welcome back, Katie.
SPEAKER 06 :
Thanks. So happy to be back.
SPEAKER 04 :
So you’ve been busy with your kids starting school and doing all the things you do when you kind of buy the school supplies, get the physicals and all of that?
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes. Oh, my goodness. Well, we took a big family vacation before school started and then came back and got right into the swing of things, as I’m sure many other people are feeling the same stress as the new schedules all come to play.
SPEAKER 04 :
Now, where did you guys go, your family go on vacation?
SPEAKER 06 :
We went to Florida. We did a beach trip in the Gulf side of Florida. It was so fun.
SPEAKER 04 :
I do love Florida. It’s a little hot for me now, but when you’re at the coast, you get the nice breeze anyway. So yeah, I’m a big, huge fan of Florida. Okay. You and I both have kids. We’re in the middle of it. And one thing I’ve been speaking to them a lot about lately is the whole birds of a feather flock together. Now, my kids really hadn’t dated. My son kind of had a friend. He’s an 18-year-old senior. And my 16-year-old junior… a boy from the local lutheran private school they met at a fair and they’ve been you know hanging out shall we say it’s funny because i watch them on the camera and they they hug you know and um yeah they were gonna watch a movie and i’m like who’s gonna be there and my daughter goes oh please mom you know we’re not like that i go i know i know but we always have to have an adult around. So I like this boy because he can speak to adults. He pays for their outings. He opens the car door for her. He always walks to the door. He’s a straight A student. He’s a really good athlete. And I like all of these things because I do believe birds of a feather flock together. And so I do want my kids to hang around with a certain type of kid, you know. And I noticed on your Instagram page, and this is why I brought up this topic today, you have, quote, “…the person you will be in five years depends largely on the books you read, the people you spend time with, the food you eat, the habits you adopt, and the conversations you engage in today.” Choose wisely. And I would include that in the gossip category. I’m talking about that, about choosing wisely with your words. So let’s talk about that, Katie.
SPEAKER 06 :
I think you’re absolutely right. And I think as our kids especially start this new school year, that’s something, a conversation that parents should be having with their kids is that. You know, it doesn’t make sense if someone says to me, I want to be a professional basketball player. And I say, oh, that’s great. What are you doing to play basketball? I say, oh, I haven’t started yet. And I don’t really play basketball, but I’m hoping in the next five years to be a professional basketball player. We’d all look at them and think you’re crazy. But our kids do this often with their friends and we do it with ourselves. We think, oh, in five years, I’ll be this person or I’m going to have these sorts of goals accomplished. But the people that they’re hanging out with, the way their lifestyle is, their habits, their mindset is. has not put them on that path, and it just is impossible, really, to accomplish those goals without understanding that it is the tiny things that we do each day that help us to accomplish those goals.
SPEAKER 04 :
Absolutely. I guess I was listening to some athlete. I love these little inspirational clips you’ll find on Instagram or wherever that say, look, I wasn’t necessarily an extraordinary athlete. What I did every day was extraordinary. What I did every day was I did twice, double the workouts or whatever. just doing things over and over and over again, investing in the time. One guy specifically said, and he was an older athlete, maybe somebody from the 70s who was big then. He said something to the effect of, my junior year, no one was interested in me. And I told my coach I wanted to play college and pro ball. And he’s like, I love you, dude, but you’re just not on track for that. And to have that honesty from his coach who loved him, he was very close to, he just took another turn And he, by the time he was a senior, he was wanted all over the country. He was highly sought after and he ended up becoming a professional ball player. And of course, I regret that I don’t know his name because he was someone that I didn’t watch and wasn’t familiar with, but I recognized his face. So I thought, well, I’m going to listen to this clip. And that really impressed me because he made such big changes in that one year that he became a totally different caliber player that everyone wanted.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, exactly. And I think something’s you can go from, there’s a lot of ways to get to these types of goals. But I think one of the things that I was actually talking to my daughter about last night, my daughter, she’s 15 and she’s a highly competitive person and she’s on track right now to, you know, have her associate’s degree by the time she graduates high school. And she’s very driven in these sorts of ways. And often in her drive, she can become a little openly competitive with other people. And at times that will make you unlikable. And I said, okay, Let’s pretend, let’s say that I saw your future and I already know that in three years you’re going to be the valedictorian of your class. You’re going to get the scholarship you want. You’re going to major in the thing you want. You know, you’re going to have everything that you desire. I said, if you know that that outcome is already guaranteed. how is that going to change today how you’re going to treat the people at school? I said, could you just become a cheerleader and someone who roots for others and uplifts others so that when, if you ever do get that accolade or that award, will you get a standing ovation of people saying, oh, she so deserves it? Or are you going to be one that everyone whispers when you walk up to get that? And I think you can go from two ways. You can say, if you knew that you could become this amazing person, And you knew that this outcome was very reasonable for you. Will it change the way that you act today? One, will it change the way you change, like we talked about, your habits and the people you hang out with? But will it also change the way you treat people and the way you stress about it and the way that you get there? Because I think that that’s another really good thing we need to talk to our kids about is that in our panic of sometimes reaching these goals, like you’re talking about with this pandemic, a competitive athlete who, you know, is being told this by his coaches. He believed that he had this future in him and he believed that he could do it. It just was reliant on his hard work and his decisions. And because of that, that changed the way he treated others, changed the way he acted. And now he’s a respected athlete and he got everything that he wanted. And it really is just this perspective game. And it’s really hard, especially with teenagers, to develop that perspective because there’s a lot of panic on the part of the parent and the child and and you know we always are worried that things aren’t going to go their way and so I think if we can have that type of mentality that everything’s attainable to me with hard work as long as I stay on this right path towards my goal but that also I don’t want to do anything wrong on this path that’s going to hurt my future opportunity or hurt the way that people look at me that might you know, change the way that if I do get that award or if I do get that prestige, is it going to, you know, ruin friendships?
SPEAKER 04 :
I love the way that you said that, like, let me just like you can fulfill all of these goals in the same manner without being so competitive that you make others feel less than or that you gossip about others on the team. And that was something that one of my kids came into contact recently, and I just told her, you’ve got to walk away when you hear that gossip, because if you’re standing in that group, you will be held accountable and it always gets back to the person you’re talking about. And I did interview her the other day on the show because she’s so encouraging and positive. I said, why do you try to avoid gossip? And she said, well, because whatever you say, it always gets back to the person. So you need to think about your words and only say what you would say in front of them. And so I’ve told her that a lot. So it’s obviously getting through. Now, I wonder if you’ve learned this lesson because I hope you don’t mind my saying, but, you know, you’re very attractive. and you were a beauty queen right you were in the beauty queen you know like you you were known for your looks and your talent did you have to humble yourself because maybe people didn’t like you because that’s a very competitive arena you know there is a lot of that and and uh i i experienced more of an ugly duckling upbringing so i you know the this whole environment was very new to me but that was something that i learned while in this arena
SPEAKER 06 :
On the whole, I would say that the participants in like the Miss America program were incredibly uplifting, encouraging and wonderful women. But there is. There is always going to be people who because and what I’ve learned, it’s because of insecurity that you feel that you need to step on the backs of others to get where you need to be. If you are secure in yourself, then belittling someone else, you know, that doesn’t change your worth. Them falling does not change where you stood. And so that’s something, too. I love what you’re doing with your daughter, because, yes, we all I think girls, especially teenage girls. tend to feel like there’s a scarcity of value, a scarcity of beauty, a scarcity of brains and of talent. And so in so doing, they feel like they need to take away from the other person in order to make themselves more. And that is something that we need to ingrain in our daughters and our sons and in ourselves, that this this worth that we have is rooted in God and it’s not rooted in anything else. And there’s no scarcity. There’s a full abundance. And when we think that way, then it’s like you take nothing away from anyone else by complimenting them, by uplifting them. And I love what you said about having your daughter walk away from the conversations because you’re absolutely right. Whether or not it gets back to the person, it’s toxic to our own souls when we view other people that way. And yeah, especially in the competitive environment, whether it’s a beauty pageant or sports, It is so tempting to feel like, well, if I just bring them down, it will elevate me. But as we’ve learned over and over again, that’s never the answer.
SPEAKER 04 :
I love the way you describe it, that it’s toxic to our souls. And it does eat away or rot a little bit of our goodness away when we are involved in that. And some other things, I follow your Instagram page now. And if people want to find you, they can, the Balanced Mind Project. And you have this picture and it says, well, two things that it’s not a pie, you know, and our girls are teenagers in general thinking that, oh, if this really great basketball player has a quarter of the pie that’s taking away from me. No, there’s endless pie and you can each be a whole pie. You can each be. amazing and outstanding. And something else that I read that really resonated with me, you said why you should be gentle with people. And it’s a picture and it shows a continuum and someone’s life. And let’s say someone’s life is a mile long. And then you show what we know about it is like an inch long. So, here, we don’t know all that’s going on behind the scenes. And I often do tell my kids when they tell me about some jerk at school. You know, it’s just a jerk. I’m like, you have no idea what’s going on in their home. Like, you have to try to be compassionate with these people and not react and lash back out at them. Because you’ve got parents at home. You have grandparents that love you. You’ve got such a stable environment. And you have… things poured onto you, club sports and the clothes that you feel comfortable wearing and that you weren’t embarrassed about and the nice shoes and all of things I didn’t have as a kid. And so I know the difference. And so I’m like, you just have to realize that what’s going on at home for these kids could be really horrible. And that’s why they are acting the way they’re acting.
SPEAKER 06 :
Absolutely. And what you learn when you delve more into psychology and the brain is that even like the most extremes of circumstances, someone who’s maybe a narcissist, you know, which is a very selfish and rude person. Usually the reason and 99 percent of cases, the reason the person developed those types of coping characteristics is because of something traumatic that made them incredibly insecure in themselves. Now, that’s not to say that you need to have a relationship with that person. But when we understand that the root of most of the mistreatment we get from others is an insecurity or is an unhappiness or the hate for themselves or their situation, then it can allow you to realize that the way that people treat you, it’s less about you and more about what is a reflection of what’s going on in their soul. And it can help you to be more gentle with them and also more gentle with yourself when you get those kind of critiques. And recognizing this is a reflection on them, not a reflection on me. I need to be, you know, strong in who I am on my own and independently. And I think that’s especially hard when you’re living in a, like, Lord of the Flies situation like the kids do at school, where everyone’s just trying to find their own place and assert themselves and find their own value. And often it comes at the cost of hurting each other. And so that’s why in my book and in my practice, I hope that parents will make their homes a safe place for their children because they need a place to recharge, to find their worth, to gain self-esteem. So that we aren’t put in those situations. They won’t feel the need to bring down others, but instead can just rely on that internal truth.
SPEAKER 04 :
I love it. All right, Katie, give us your website.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes, you can meet me at the Anxiety Healing Program. There’s a lot of resources there. And then also follow me on Instagram on the Balanced Mind Project.
SPEAKER 04 :
Thank you, Katie.
SPEAKER 06 :
Thank you, Andy. So it’s good talking to you.
SPEAKER 02 :
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SPEAKER 06 :
Edgewater is tuned to the mighty 670 KLT.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hey there, Angie Austin, Beatrice Bruno, and Michelle Ron here with the good news with Angie Austin and friends. A couple of my good news gals, my longtime pals joining us as they do weekly. Good morning, drill, or afternoon, drill sergeant of life, Beatrice Bruno.
SPEAKER 03 :
Good morning, afternoon, evening, okay? Wherever they’re listening from. Hey, you know, Angie, I was just thinking, how long have we been doing the good news with you?
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh. It’s 11 years now I’ve been doing it. And I knew Michelle when I was in TV and I met you soon. In fact, I had started my radio show and I saw you at an event. I’m like, oh, she would be so good on the radio. And so I think I approached you that day.
SPEAKER 03 :
Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah, you did. Yeah. We’ve been together all that time since then. And I mean, you know, I just really enjoy what you do, because with all the bad news that’s going on in the world, Lord knows we need some good news. I’m just saying.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, it’s so great because I have this cast of characters, you know, and another blessing besides the drill sergeant, of course, our retired teacher and speaker. and singer and extraordinaire Michelle Rahn, who is also Miss Senior America 2004. And every week she does a little study plan, and she comes up with a word of the week for us, kind of a lesson of the week, right, Michelle?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, I just pray that God takes over. I’m a vessel, so I love what he puts into my little… little brain for words, and you give us the opportunity to express our love for him and his kingdom. And what more can we ask? That’s fabulous.
SPEAKER 04 :
And, you know, it’s been so cool, too, because Beatrice just kind of started doing this morning prayer thing where long before most people are up.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, my gosh, yeah.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah. Long before most people. Make sure your phone, if you’re friends with Beatrice, that it’s on silent because she is up.
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s exactly right. Yeah.
SPEAKER 04 :
very early so by the time michelle and i wake up we already have a prayer from beatrice and usually there’s like a really pretty picture with some scripture and then she writes up a little prayer and maybe a little message for us so it’s just a really neat thing that we have every day and some days it really you know hits the spot they knew i had a pretty just weird weekend let’s put it that way with sports and i didn’t even mention to you guys and beatrice i’ll tell you uh tonight because uh My brother went to the United States Military Academy, and Beatrice was a drill sergeant, and my brother’s in town, so he’s like a chef, so I invited her over for some homemade pizza. So I’ll tell her, since she was a basketball player, over the weekend they were in Las Vegas, and I already told my friends here listening on the radio, but… They almost got kicked out of the tournament because some parents were getting in a, you know, in a fight. And one of the dads has been kicked out multiple times that, you know, dads of one of the girls on our team. And the girls all get along great. So Faith comes home and she said, Mom, the players, my friends, they played together for many. She’s going into high school and they’ve been playing some of them together since grade school. And she said, the players, you know, my teammates, we love each other. We have fun. We don’t trash talk each other. She goes, but the parents are a problem.
SPEAKER 03 :
Mm hmm. Mm hmm. And see, I don’t understand because it’s not even about the parents. It’s about the kids. So parents, if y’all act crazy, stop it. Sit down and shut up somewhere. OK, and just let your kids get out there and do what they need to do on those basketball court or the football field or whatever. Stop all that mess, because that’s so foolish. It really is.
SPEAKER 04 :
And let’s be a good example for these kids, you know. And my daughter said that three of the parents were yelling out, like, who she should pass to and this, that, and the other. And yesterday, my good friend Jim Stovall said the late, great Coach Wooden, who’s like probably the best coach, basketball college coach of all time, said to his players, don’t ever take advice from somebody who had to buy a ticket to get into this game.
SPEAKER 03 :
Come on now. See, come on. That’s the truth right there.
SPEAKER 1 :
That’s good.
SPEAKER 04 :
So, yeah, so my point to all of that was that Beatrice had said a prayer that really was like, turn the other cheek, you know, treat others as you like to be treated, you know, and that, you know, the power of God that, you know, you don’t pay back evil for evil, but always try to do good to each other and all people from First Thessalonians. And I’m like, well, isn’t that a timely message? So sometimes her prayers just really hit the spot for me and Michelle when they’re, you know, there’s something going on.
SPEAKER 05 :
Correct.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah. Yeah. And speaking of which, your word of the week often hits the spot. So I never ask Michelle what it is. So it’s like, it’s just a surprise each week for me and Beatrice. And it’s fun to discuss it when we just are off the cuff and we have no idea what she’s going to talk about. So what’s the word of the week and lesson this week, Michelle?
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay. Well, the word today is quench. Quench. It means to satisfy a desire or extinguish or to stifle or to suppress a feeling. And this week, I’m just going to jump right in here. A dear friend of mine had a truly difficult experience with another parent and their child, which in turn strongly affected the entire family. Now, being a parent, gosh, has always been hard, but I tend to believe that parents today are faced with more in-your-face confrontations than my generation. Just the stress of my friend and the child is powerful. And I know that one’s first reaction, at least it would surely be mine, would be to strike back with damaging words. And in James, we’re told how words can be terrible weapons. And we’ve learned that. She learned that this week. And these words can’t be taken back. And responding with hurtful words would indeed quench my friend’s desire to strike back. But she didn’t. She didn’t. Instead, she stifled her desire to do so and decided to just be kind. And I’ve shared before my story of Mary Carol when I was growing up of Whatever she told me to do, I did it because I was afraid of her. And my mom once told me when she learned about all this, she said, just be nice to her, Mickey. Just be nice, and she won’t know what to do with it. And it was true. It was definitely true. So as a Christian, we are faced with situations daily that truly require our faith. These situations, we have to have the faith. And it’s not easy. Never am I telling you it’s easy, but that Christ will take over, that he will provide strength, that he will hold us and he will pour love into us. But our responsibility is to turn to him, to turn that entire situation over to him and always that heart and then let it go. I’m going to lay it at the cross, Jesus. And I read once about, I love the Christian writer. I can’t even say his or her name. But it was, he would throw an egg at the tree out in his backyard. And it would be, that would be his cross. Here’s, I’m letting this go, God. I’m putting this at the bottom of your cross. Easy? Nope. Not in the slightest. But doing that, letting God take over, will quench our thirst. in the long run and we know that each of us are accountable and that’s that’s the mantra that in my mind I have to keep thinking we all meet our maker someday we all will show me what to do that’s right father and help me because I’m really going to say something that I shouldn’t so put the words in my mouth or don’t put the words in my mouth but I’m giving it to you that’s it I love I love the visual of laying it at the cross Beatrice what are your thoughts
SPEAKER 03 :
You know, I’ve got two scriptures for that. One is, let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, for thou art my strength and my redeemer. That’s one, because the words that we say, let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart, we speak what’s in our hearts. OK, so if we can control what’s in our hearts, then what comes out of our mouths will be something that will be pleasing to God. Ephesians 4 and 29 says, let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying that it may minister grace unto the hearers. Now, you know, as parents, as as people, period. We will always face a time in which people will come to us and they will try to their very best to draw the worst out of us. They will say something. They know they’re saying it so that they can get the very worst out of us. OK. And sometimes if our hearts are not pointed to God, we will let that stuff come through our lips and it will destroy our reputation. It will destroy our witness to God. It will destroy everything. But if we will allow God to order our steps, first of all, and if we will allow him to put the words in our mouths and in our hearts that he needs for us to speak, how much grace will that give to the hearer? so that that person may be, I mean, just lambasting us, you know, just going at us with the tooth and nail and just going for it. You know, but when we speak those words of grace, then how much will that person step back and say, well, wait a minute, they’re not cursing me out the way I’m cursing them out. They’re not talking, they’re not dogging me out the way I’m dogging them out. What’s wrong with that person? You know, and even though they may say, what’s wrong with that person? They’ll be looking at themselves and saying, Why exactly am I saying all this stuff? Because, see, I’ve been in situations when I before I was a born again Christian. Oh, Lord have mercy. I could curse to the point where it make you cry. I could, you know. But once I received Jesus Christ as my personal savior, all those words disappeared because then I found that scripture. Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable to In your sight, Lord, for you are my strength and my redeemer. And if I was going to be a representative of him, then I couldn’t use those words anymore. I couldn’t say those things that would. Oh, gosh, that would glorify me, but would take away from him and the words that we speak right now. You know, when when Michelle talks about the word quench to satisfy or extinguish. OK, can you imagine what some of the words that we say? Well, not necessarily our group, but as parents, the parents have said to their children that has quenched their desire to be anything in life. I remember as a child, I want to be an attorney. But when I was told that you will never be anything in life because I got pregnant at the age of 16. And had a baby, you know, when I was 16, I was told that I would never be anything in life because I had ruined my life. The words that they said to me quenched my desire at that moment to become an attorney or to become more than than what I had ever been before in my life. You know, and then I went into the military and the military quenched. In other words, they satisfied my desire to be something bigger than than what I was. And so that word quench, it can either stifle or it can satisfy. And when we say words that can go either way, we can either satisfy the person with the words or we can stifle them or extinguish their desire to be even more than what they are. And so I love that word and I look at how we as a people, how we can either quench in a good way or quench in a negative way. by the things that we say to other people around us. So if that was a good word, Mimi, it really was.
SPEAKER 05 :
It’s all Him. It’s all Him. Believe me.
SPEAKER 04 :
You know, laying it at the cross is such a great visual, as I mentioned. Beatrice, as you both know me for years, Beatrice has kind of gotten to know my kids a little bit over the years, and they really love her. Faith plays basketball like Beatrice did. You never told us you wanted to be an attorney. I knew author, and I knew that you’d been a truck driver and a hairstylist and a drill sergeant and all these other things, but that’s what Faith wants to be as well. I’ve always thought you two are kind of kindred spirits. She really wants to be an attorney, but I think about the difference in how We’re handling her desire to be an attorney compared to how you were handled with your desire to be an attorney and how you can speak life into someone or you can speak really just crumbling death and dryness and drought into someone.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, yeah, and that’s – wow, that’s interesting that she wants to be an attorney. And now that I know that, I’m going to speak into her concerning that, maybe to give her some encouragement to go for it. Oh, she’s good.
SPEAKER 04 :
And I love the way – We’re out of time, but I can’t wait to talk to you again next week. And you’re coming over tonight, so we’ll get to talk tonight as well. Drill Sergeant of Life and also MichelleARon.com. Thanks, gals. God bless y’all.
SPEAKER 03 :
Thank you. Bye-bye.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you for listening to The Good News with Angie Austin on AM670 KLTT.
