Episodes
Monday Apr 20, 2020
100 The Story of Six Sisters' Stuff with Lauren Walker
Monday Apr 20, 2020
Monday Apr 20, 2020
100. The Story of Six Sisters’ Stuff with Lauren Walker
**Transcription Below**
Proverbs 16:9 (NIV) “In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.”
Lauren Walker is the second youngest sister in the family that runs the blog Six Sisters' Stuff. She grew up in Utah and graduated from Utah State University where she studied Family Science, and went on to run the public relations and create content online with her sisters and their company. She married her best friend and moved out to Sacramento to start a new adventure with her husband and dog before welcoming their first baby last year. She loves working with her sisters, but her favorite thing to do at the end of the day is curl up on the couch with her husband and sweet baby boy, drink a diet coke, and binge watch Boy Meets World!
At The Savvy Sauce, we will only recommend resources we believe in! We also want you to be aware: We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.
Six Sisters’ Menu Planning Website (Use Code SISTERS20 to get 20% Off)
Connect on You Tube, Instagram, and Facebook: @sixsistersstuff
Cookbooks by Six Sisters’ Stuff:
Six Ingredients With Six Sisters’ Stuff
Copycat Cooking With Six Sisters’ Stuff
Dinner Made Easy With Six Sisters’ Stuff
A Year With Six Sisters’ Stuff
Healthy Eats With Six Sisters’ Stuff
Six Sisters' Stuff 30 Minute Recipes
Six Sisters' Stuff Simple One-Pan Dishes
Six Sisters' Stuff: Family Recipes, Fun Crafts, and So Much More
12 Days of Christmas With Six Sisters’ Stuff
Sweets & Treats With Six Sisters’ Stuff
Celebrate Every Season With Six Sisters’ Stuff
Book Mentioned: Letters to a Young Therapist by Mary Pipher
Recommended Recipes and Links from Six Sisters Stuff:
Thank You to Our Sponsor: Equip for Health
Connect with The Savvy Sauce on Facebook or Instagram or Our Website
Please help us out by sharing this episode with a friend, leaving a 5-star rating and review, and subscribing to this podcast!
Gospel Scripture: (all NIV)
Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”
Romans 3:24 “and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”
Romans 3:25 (a) “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.”
Hebrews 9:22 (b) “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”
Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Romans 5:11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”
John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Romans 10:9 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
Luke 15:10 says “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”
Ephesians 1:13–14 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession- to the praise of his glory.”
Ephesians 1:15–23 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”
Ephesians 2:8–10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God‘s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.“
Ephesians 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.“
Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
**Transcription**
[00:00:00] <music>
Laura Dugger: Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, where we have practical chats for intentional living. I'm your host Laura Dugger, and I'm so glad you're here.
[00:00:18] <music>
Laura Dugger: Equip for Health is a health and wellness company that works with anyone who wants to achieve great health through simple, sustainable daily changes.
They are passionate about improving health from the inside out and having a health journey that is both result-driven and enjoyable at the same time. Check them out today at EquipForHealth.com, and make sure you use the code SAVVY at checkout to save 10% on their online course.
Lauren Walker is my guest today, and she is one of the six sisters who started the blog, Six Sisters' Stuff, almost 10 years ago.
She's going to share how this cost-effective way to stay in touch with her family turned into a thriving business that now employs all of the sisters. You will also hear about a specific recipe you should try this week because it's so easy. [00:01:18]
Lauren and I grew up in different states with differing backgrounds and faith, and I learned so much from her down-to-earth approach and kindness during our time together.
Here's our chat.
Welcome to the Savvy Sauce, Lauren.
Lauren Walker: Thank you. I'm so happy to be here.
Laura Dugger: I'd love to just start off by learning a little bit more about you.
Lauren Walker: Okay. I am number five of all of the six sisters, which is a blog that I have with all my sisters and my mom. I have been married to my sweetheart for two years, and we live out in Sacramento, California.
We have one baby boy. He's 10 months old, and I am just living out here, just working. My husband's job brought us out here, so we're living away from our family, but we're loving it.
Right now, I'm just working. I work on the blog with my sisters, and I'm just trying to juggle being a new mom.
Laura Dugger: Just to gain a bit more context, what was it like growing up as one of six sisters? [00:02:24]
Lauren Walker: Probably just as you're imagining it. It was a lot of fun. There's 12 years between the oldest and the youngest sister, so we're all pretty close in age. At least now it feels like that. Growing up, it was a little bit different having sisters that were way older. It seemed so old being a senior in high school when I was eight years old and my younger sister was only six.
Now that we're all in the same stage of life, it's a lot nicer. We feel a lot closer But growing up, it was just as you think it would be in a house of girls. We fought over the regular clothes and bathroom time and all of those things, but we all pretty much got along for the most part. It was a lot of fun.
Our dad didn't have any sons, so he put us all in sports and tried to push us to be athletic and to be a little bit competitive. It was just a fun childhood.
Our parents were just amazing and they did their best to keep us as a close family, which I think helped us a lot more than they would realize when we ended up all working together. [00:03:28] Now that we're all married and have kids, it's so fun to relate to each other and have people to reach out to for mom advice, making sure we're doing the right thing.
I think I call my sisters like six times a day of like, Is it normal that my baby's only eating bananas or things like that? It's kind of fun to have just these built-in best friends and these best girlfriends to always talk to.
Laura Dugger: I love hearing that and how close you are as adults. That's incredible. Looking back, how do you think your parents were intentional, both in their marriage, because they were raising six kids, and then also in their parenting?
Lauren Walker: As far as their marriage, they were always so, so good at doing date night. I never realized how difficult that was probably for them getting everything arranged for six girls to be babysat or to be left home alone. [00:04:26]
Every Friday, they were going out on their date and leave us with a treat and a babysitter. Once my oldest sister was old enough, they would leave us home with her. They were always so good at just making sure they had that alone time.
Then as far as our family and the parenting, they were just always so good at talking to us. There was always an open communication. We could talk to them about anything. Every day, we'd come home from school, and our mom would just be in the kitchen waiting for us.
There were six seats around my parents' kitchen counter. We'd all just kind of sit on the counter, and our mom would start on dinner, or we would eat cookies and just talk to her. We were able to get to know each other and get to know our mom and be really open about things that were going on.
I think that's where we grew the closest was just those conversations around the counter, which is so funny. Our parents just barely moved out of the house we grew up in. We went to their new house a couple of months ago, and we were like, "Where are we supposed to sit? [00:05:27] Where are we supposed to go? There's no counter."
It was funny because even as adults, we would always go back and just sit around the counter and talk to our mom and just let our husbands and kids go do their own thing. That's kind of where we'd always end up. We grew up in the kitchen. We grew up watching our mom cook, and that's how we became so close.
I'm not sure if it was really intentional, but they did a great job getting us to talk and open up. Now as a parent, I'm just like, "How did they do that?" Especially the date night, I'm like, "How did you get out every weekend?" They did a great job. They're the best.
Laura Dugger: That is so fascinating to hear how that sweet time around the table was so impactful for each of you. Now it's turned into a business that employs each of you. I just think God is always up to something around the table.
It reminds me of this book I read in grad school. It was written by Mary Piper. I think it was called Letters to a Young Therapist. [00:06:29] She talks about the three things that most likely you will remember from your childhood. Your memories often are centered around playing outside, family vacations, and dinner around the table. Thanks for sharing that that was such a value of yours. It's neat to see what it turned into.
Now we can jump to a later part of your story. Where did the idea for a blog originate?
Lauren Walker: Yes, for sure. It was 2011. So back before the times of unlimited text messages and unlimited minutes and all of the luxuries that we live with today.
For the first time, all of us were kind of moving apart from each other. Sisters were getting married and having kids and following their husbands to medical school or jobs and things like that and others were going off to college.
My little sister and I were still at home. We were a senior and a sophomore in high school. [00:07:29] We were just all of a sudden within a year completely separated, which was so crazy and hard for us.
At the beginning, we tried keeping in contact with texting and things. You can imagine those bills piling up very, very quickly. One of my sisters had the idea to start a blog. She had seen some floating around the internet. We knew that anyone could ride on it if you were a part of it. We decided to start one so that we could keep in touch with each other.
That's where we started sharing how much we missed each other and how much we wish we could all be back in Utah. Just kind of like the mushy, gushy stuff. Eventually, my older sisters, who were starting to have kids, started putting on my mom's brownie recipe or my mom's best slow cooker chicken recipe.
They would share those recipes with each other because my mom either had them written down or they were just in my mom's mind. [00:08:28] Because she was amazing and always just knew what she was doing in the kitchen.
Eventually, we started seeing people coming. We had this little thing on the side of our blog that would show us where people were viewing our website from. We saw people coming from New Jersey and New York. I think we saw one all the way over in Australia or something. And we're just this little family from Utah. Of course, we're like, "Oh my gosh, someone in New York. This is crazy." We definitely don't have any family there. We definitely don't have any cousins.
We realized people were searching or Googling mom's slow cooker chicken or super chocolate brownies and things like that and our blog was showing up because at that time, there were not a lot of other food blogs out there or a lot of people sharing recipes online like that.
And so we started posting more recipes. We eventually took off all of the love notes you might say to each other about how hard it is being a new mom and how much we missed each other. [00:09:30]
We took those off and we went to our dad who was this really computer-savvy guy, and we just said, "Is it possible to make money from something like this?" So he researched and did some stuff for us and ended up putting some ads up there so that we could make money off of people coming.
I think we made, in the first month, like 25 cents. Our big dream, our big goal was one day we're going to take our whole family on a cruise. It was going to be this big miracle thing. But we just had no idea back then how much our lives were really about to change. It just kind of snowballed from there.
We jumped on board when Pinterest started. We were one of the first users of Pinterest and grew up. Our Pinterest were pretty big and grew our Facebook and just kept working.
But it's been a lot of fun. It's definitely not anything any of us expected to happen, but it's something that we work really hard at. We love it and we love working together. It's so fun to get to talk, to have an excuse to talk every single day. [00:10:33]
Laura Dugger: That's incredible. I think stories are so powerful. I'd love to know as we fast forward, two questions. First, did you all get to go on your cruise? And second, what is everyone up to now?
Lauren Walker: We were speaking at an event a couple of months ago and telling kind of our origin story and things like this, and none of my sisters said the goal we had of taking someone on a cruise. And we were all standing up there and we looked at each other and we were like, "You guys, we forgot to go on a cruise. Like we totally spaced it. We just never went." So next year, hopefully, is the goal. But now it's so crazy to think of where we started to now.
We employ all of us, all six of us, and we've hired on our mom. She actually works on the blog just as much as the rest of us do. She just doesn't take any credit. Bless her heart. She's just the best. So she posts just as much as we do. [00:11:30]
We have one sister's husband that's working with us. We have a manager and then a few employees just helping us with our social media and kind of those mundane tasks that are a lot harder for us to manage.
So for the most part, it's just us. We create all of the recipes. We film all of the videos. We kind of just do it all. We still are putting up two to three new recipes each week. We do videos every week. We're posting multiple times a day to all of our social media outlets.
We've also started a subscription service. So we write up menu plans, healthy menu plans, gluten-free menu plans, and we send those out to all of our subscribers. It's just a lot of fun.
We meet once a week over Skype, which is just the best. Every Wednesday night, we have like a two-hour Skype call. And about 30 minutes of it is work, and the rest of it is showing the kids real fast in the camera and talking. And it's just a lot of fun. [00:12:31]
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Laura Dugger: Lauren, you're talking about where you guys have been and where you're at now, and all of you have families. So for you personally, what does that look like with your balance between work and being a mom? How does that actually play out week to week?
Lauren Walker: Oh my goodness. I wish I could tell you that it was so easy, and I was really good at keeping this scheduled, but it is so, so difficult. [00:14:32] And I'm sure you understand this. There's definitely a lot of mom guilt that goes into it, but I think the easiest thing that I've tried is to have set hours that I am working so that I can focus the rest of my time on a family.
Obviously, with a baby, those set hours are changing day to day because who knows when he's actually going to take a nap. But for the most part, I plan out my weeks based on all of the things that I need to get done and then try and block out a certain amount of time, even if it's just a few hours during a nap or at night when my husband's home and can put the baby down that I'm just focused on work.
I think one of the hardest things to balance being a mom and someone who's working from home or trying to get a business going is knowing when to shut off work and to turn on mom mode or whatever you want to call it. Because oftentimes I'll be sitting in front of the TV and feel like if I'm just sitting here, I should be working. Or if I'm just doing folding the laundry, then I should at least be listening to a podcast about how I can build my business or something like that. [00:15:43]
And so I think knowing when to turn that off and making sure that you still have that time that you are sitting on the ground and playing with your kids or being a wife and making sure you're totally present when you're in those mom and wife moments will make all the difference. Because if you're just constantly working on your project, then I think it's really hard to separate those.
So it's been a doozy trying to figure out and it's still hard. I still have to remind myself, Okay, it's okay that I need to work for this amount of time. It's totally fine. The baby's okay for like 20 minutes in this crib while I do this or, you know, when he's sleeping.
But it's hard. And everyone's different. If you were to interview or talk to any of my other sisters, their answers would be totally different. You just got to find what works for you. But I think separating the work and the mom life is the most important and making sure if those do cross over that... even neither one of them is taking a hit. [00:16:50]
Laura Dugger: Thank you for sharing that. I think you make a great point there, too, that for every sister and then even everyone listening, it may look different. But some of our listeners may have their own side hustle going on and maybe they're parent as well. So are you willing to share how you actually generate income from your blog?
Lauren Walker: Yes, of course. There are a lot of different ways to generate income from a blog. Our main ways of generating income on Six Sisters' Stuff are ads on our website, which you'll see through most blogs while you're just scrolling through.
We also have ads on our YouTube channel. We sell and write cookbooks. We are finishing up our 10th cookbook this spring, which is so crazy. So that'll be launching next fall.
We also have a couple of different eBooks that we sell on our website. We have the subscription program, and then we also do paid partnerships with different companies that we enjoy working with. So grocery stores or certain brands of food, since that's kind of our niche. [00:17:55]
Laura Dugger: Did you sisters have to go out and pursue that or did you have some of these advertisers approach you?
Lauren Walker: Kind of both. We've had advertisers approach us. We have a lot of people approach us that are brands that we are personally not passionate about.
We try and only share things that we would really actually use or things that we're already using in recipes and things that we're already feeding our families. We get a lot of people reaching out.
We are Christians and we don't drink alcohol or do those types of things. And so when those brands reach out to us, obviously those are really easy to turn down. But it's harder when a hair care company wants to talk to us and we're like, "Oh, we love hair products and things, but we are a food blog." And so I think it's cool.
But there have been some that we've reached out to ourselves and that we are all passionate about and we wanted to work with them. And so we reached out to them and got even writing free content for them. We just want them to know, like, "We love your product. We're going to look at these blog posts we wrote about your ingredients in this recipe and kind of helped us get a few paid things that we are interested in. [00:19:07]
Laura Dugger: That's helpful to hear one process. Also, how do you market Six Sisters' stuff?
Lauren Walker: Our biggest marketing comes from all of our social media outlets. There are a lot of things that we found work for us and things that we haven't worked. But something that we know will always work for us is advertising on our own social media because the people that follow us there are interested in what we're sharing on our blog.
And so we share all the content that we put on our blog onto our Pinterest channel, our YouTube channel, our Instagram account, our Facebook account. Honestly, I would say that's where 99% of our marketing comes from is just from social media.
Laura Dugger: Who would you say is your typical reader?
Lauren Walker: Our readers are actually, probably not surprising, 95% women and they're all in the age group of 25 to 45. So honestly, we're just writing to ourselves. [00:20:10] It's just us. Our audience is us, which is exactly what we want. Because I think when we're authentic, then our audience feels comfortable being their authentic selves too.
So when we share that we burned dinner tonight, another mom somewhere can relate to us, realizes that we are real people. And so they are more inclined to follow along and to get more recipes and things from us.
Laura Dugger: Well, and I'm sure that you've gotten so many responses from your readers over the years. But what is the best feedback that you've received from your audience?
Lauren Walker: It just honestly means so much to us when we get messages from people thanking us for inspiring them to sit down with their families. Or maybe it's a new mom who just came across some of our freezer meals and they're saving her postpartum, things like that.
It's so comforting to know that all of the hard work that we're really putting in and the sacrifices that we're making are helping someone else. It just makes it worth all of the sleepless nights. [00:21:14] Yeah, it's awesome.
Laura Dugger: Even for you, you said that 10 months ago, you became a first-time mom, but your sisters had had kids. What was it like to go back to your own blog after becoming a mom yourself?
Lauren Walker: I was surprised at the kind of recipes I was looking up before I had a baby. I was probably a much better way than was making homemade enchiladas and delicious soups and things like that. And now I'm like, Okay, slow cooker dump-and-go recipe or something really easy, like a 15-minute chicken recipe or something that I can do a lot faster.
So it's interesting to kind of go from being not in our demographic to being in our demographic and seeing, Oh, my gosh, these really are perfect for a new mom, or these really are perfect for someone who's trying to get dinner out really quick or someone who's not that good at cooking sometimes. You know, it's just comforting to know that the things I'm putting out there really are of value because I'm using them and they're helping me. [00:22:23]
Laura Dugger: Well, I'm also passionate about freezer meals. And I think since becoming a mom, that has become such a priority because it saves time and money and just allows that hour of cooking dinner when it can be kind of crazy with all the kids. It actually makes it much more enjoyable when I've prepared ahead of time. Any tips for me or for any other listeners for best recommendations with freezer meals?
Lauren Walker: Oh, my goodness. I think the thing that's been the easiest for me is... and we eat a lot of chicken just because it seems to be the easiest. But I will just go to Costco and buy one of those big bags of chicken breasts. I think it comes with like 30 chicken breasts in there. And that is awesome. And then you just need a couple of other ingredients.
We actually have a ton on our website that I can send you links to using that big bag of chicken for all of your meals. [00:23:21] We'll stretch it so much because freezer meals, as easy and as nice as they are, they can add up pretty fast because it's buying a lot of food at one time.
And so that's been a way that we've been able to kind of budget our freezer meals is to get one kind of meat in bulk and make a bunch of those. Or if you want to do ground beef ones, browning a ton of ground beef to put into your freezer meals at first so that you're not in the kitchen forever. We have a few different resources on our blog. But the goal for us is to make eight freezer meals in one hour. We totally believe it's possible. You can stack them up in your freezer and be done with dinner for a couple of weeks.
Laura Dugger: I love this idea and this topic. So let's just do a segment of favorites or most popular ideas. So overall, what would you say have been a few of your most popular menu items?
Lauren Walker: The most popular recipe on our website for the past probably four or five years has been our slow cooker Ritz chicken. [00:24:24] I can attest that it is honestly one of the most delicious chicken recipes. My husband begs for it every Sunday.
And it's as easy as sour cream and a can of cream of chicken to mix together. Pour it over some chicken and then you top it with Ritz crackers. And it's so good. It's been the most popular for years. Always our number one viewed recipe.
Laura Dugger: That sounds delicious. Is it if we do post this in our show notes and our resources tab?
Lauren Walker: Yes, of course.
Laura Dugger: Any others that you would recommend? If somebody hasn't been to your blog before and they want to go today and check it out? Any other recipes that you would direct them toward?
Lauren Walker: Over the last year or two, we've really built up our collection of instant pot recipes. We all got instant pots last year and we're all a little bit skeptical. But we had one sister who was really passionate about them and she showed us how amazing they really could be. [00:25:26]
So we have turned a lot of our slow cooker recipes, which were already great to start with, into instant pot recipes. So if you are just starting out with an instant pot or if you're passionate about a slow cooker, I would head to the website because we have some really, really good ones. Chicken, ground beef soups. We have everything you can think of.
We even have a little key on our website to help you convert your own slow cooker recipes into instant pot recipes in case we don't have it on there already.
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We invite you to sign up today by visiting thesavvysauce.com and clicking the patron tab. Thanks for your consideration.
How do you and your sisters apply this love of cooking for others to your lives, especially as you're all in different seasons with your own families?
Lauren Walker: I think just the habit that our mom and dad instilled in us about the importance of eating together as a family. I think we do that with our own families. And because we're so passionate about doing that with our own families, it makes it so much easier to keep working and to keep encouraging other families to do that, too.
Because we know how important it is, especially in today's world, it's just so important to have a safe place for our kids to gather together and to be together. And so seeing how much it's impacted our own lives, seeing how cooking really... anyone can do it. [00:27:36]
That's the thing is, a lot of people maybe think we're these professional cookers or we're really good at throwing ingredients together, but we're not. None of us have had any type of professional training. I mean, a few of us graduated from college, but it wasn't like family and consumer science or elementary education.
I mean, we're not professional cooks by any means. And so kind of our whole thing that we want to pound into people's minds is we can do it. You have no problem doing it because I mean, it's so easy to do it. You just have to sit down and plan it out and do it. And so I think being in that stage of realizing how busy these moms really are and seeing how much really is going on. If we can do it, you can do it.
Laura Dugger: I love that encouragement. We've talked about some of your most popular recipes. What's been overall your most popular blog posts? [00:28:43]
Lauren Walker: Surprisingly, the most popular blog posts almost ever on our website, which is crazy because if you look at our website right now, it's just recipes. But back in like 2013, we did a blog post of 30 stay-at-home date ideas. And for some reason, that is the blog post that people always come back to. And we have not revamped it. We haven't gone and updated it, but it's still one of our biggest sources of traffic.
People just find it and they come or they're looking for date ideas at home. That's definitely been the most popular aside from any of our recipes that we put on there.
Laura Dugger: Oh, that's hilarious, because I remember reading that. I bet you're right. It probably was 2013. It was years ago. Any interest in going down that route or have you all decided "food is where it's at? We're all passionate about this. This is our jam." [00:29:42]
Lauren Walker: We have pretty much just been focusing on food. We've gone back and redone a lot of our old posts, all of our mom's recipes that were the first ones on there. We've gone and made those posts a little bit more appealing to look at. But we haven't even talked about going back and fixing those, which maybe we should. I'll have to take it back to the group and see what they think.
Laura Dugger: There you go. Not to put something else on your plate. It's doing great what you've got going on.
Well, Lauren, you are so approachable and I've really enjoyed this chat so far. But if listeners want to check out your blog or learn more about you, where can they find you online?
Lauren Walker: Oh, thank you. It's been so fun to be here with you. You can find us on any social media outlet at Six Sisters' Stuff or just at SixSistersStuff.com.
If you're interested in those meal plans that I was talking about, I forgot to tell you, I created a promo code for anyone listening to this podcast. [00:30:41] So if you want to try them out, you can go to SixSistersMenuPlan.com and then use the code Sisters20. You can get 20% off of any of our menu plans.
We have plans for if you have a big family or a small family, if you're gluten-free, if you're trying to be healthy, we kind of have everything for everyone. And we'll send you a shopping list each week and your meals all planned out. So it's a great deal and totally worth it. I use it every single week, so I can attest that it is a great thing.
Laura Dugger: We will absolutely link to that in our show notes and in our resources tab of our website. And you said the code is Sisters20. Is that right?
Lauren Walker: Yes.
Laura Dugger: Perfect. Okay, well, Lauren, I just have one final question for you today. We are called The Savvy Sauce because savvy is synonymous with practical knowledge. And so as my final question for you, what is your savvy sauce? [00:31:43]
Lauren Walker: I think my savvy sauce or my kind of my tip to anyone listening, especially if you're someone who's starting to try something up or someone, even just a mom, don't compare where you are now to where someone is ahead of you, because it's totally different.
Whether you're viewing them on social media or whether you're seeing a blogger or an influencer getting all these great brand deals or making a lot of money, don't compare their success to where you are right now, because there's a lot more that goes into it than it looks like. And you just keep doing you and you're going to do great.
I think that's my savvy sauce. Just focus on yourself, focus on your family, and focus on your passions. And whatever you set your mind to, you can do it and you can be successful. If you're passionate about it, someone else is passionate about it, too.
Laura Dugger: Lauren, you are so genuinely kind, and it has been so easy just to chat with you today. [00:32:45] Clearly, God has blessed your business. I'm so grateful for the work that you and your sisters and your mom and your team do. So thank you for sharing your journey with us today.
Lauren Walker: Thank you so much for having me. It's been so fun.
Laura Dugger: One more thing before you go. Have you heard the term "gospel" before? It simply means good news. And I want to share the best news with you. But it starts with the bad news. Every single one of us were born sinners and God is perfect and holy, so He cannot be in the presence of sin. Therefore, we're separated from Him.
This means there's absolutely no chance we can make it to heaven on our own. So for you and for me, it means we deserve death and we can never pay back the sacrifice we owe to be saved. We need a savior. But God loved us so much, He made a way for His only Son to willingly die in our place as the perfect substitute. [00:33:46]
This gives us hope of life forever in right relationship with Him. That is good news. Jesus lived the perfect life we could never live and died in our place for our sin. This was God's plan to make a way to reconcile with us so that God can look at us and see Jesus.
We can be covered and justified through the work Jesus finished if we choose to receive what He has done for us. Romans 10:9 says that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
So would you pray with me now? Heavenly, Father, thank You for sending Jesus to take our place. I pray someone today right now is touched and chooses to turn their life over to You. Will You clearly guide them and help them take their next step in faith to declare You as Lord of their life? [00:34:45] We trust You to work and change their lives now for eternity. In Jesus name, we pray, amen.
If you prayed that prayer, you are declaring Him for me, so me for Him, you get the opportunity to live your life for Him.
At this podcast, we are called Savvy for a reason. We want to give you practical tools to implement the knowledge you have learned. So you're ready to get started?
First, tell someone. Say it out loud. Get a Bible. The first day I made this decision my parents took me to Barnes and Noble to get the Quest NIV Bible and I love it. Start by reading the book of John.
Get connected locally, which basically means just tell someone who is part of the church in your community that you made a decision to follow Christ. I'm assuming they will be thrilled to talk with you about further steps such as going to church and getting connected to other believers to encourage you.
We want to celebrate with you too. So feel free to leave a comment for us if you made a decision for Christ. [00:35:46] We also have show notes included where you can read Scripture that describes this process.
Finally, be encouraged. Luke 15:10 says, "In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." The heavens are praising with you for your decision today.
If you've already received this good news, I pray that you have someone else to share it with today. You are loved and I look forward to meeting you here next time.
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