DISCOVER THE BEST WAY TO BUILD STRENGTH AND RESILIENCE AFTER HEALTH CHALLENGES SHATTER YOUR WORLD!

I am so excited to have a special guest with us today. Holly Bertone helps women view their chronic illness as a gift and unwrap their resilience. Using a proven method to build fortitude with gratitude. Holly is also a breast cancer and hashed Mito survivor. And her passion is to help women view their chronic illness as a gift in her free time.

She loves to garden, hit the flea markets and yards. I can’t wait to dig into this episode with Holly to share her story with you, how she overcame her illnesses to build a successful, profitable, and impactful online business, where she gets to pour her heart and soul into serving those she’s called to serve.

do you know you have a bigger purpose than that? Nine to five? Yes. Yes. You do. Welcome to the abundant Christian preneur podcast. I am your host, Kristin crunchy. I am a wife and mom who loves you. And I’ve also been known to bust a few moves to some old school rock and roll. Right now, you are joined by other faith women who are using their commute to redefine their life, change their mindset and turn their passions, knowledge, life experiences.

Or even their hobbies into a powerful online business that allows them to have the freedom to do what they love. My goal is to inspire you, to take a step of faith and transition from that employee mindset to the Christian CEO and creator. Powerful profitable and impactful business that has been on your heart.

This is your show to learn from me and other Christian preneurs tactical tips that will empower you to bring that dream to life. If you’re ready to live your life by design, make an impact and have the financial and time freedom to do what you want. When you want, then crank up that volume and let’s do this.

Holly. Welcome to the abundant Christian prenuer. I’m so excited. You’re able to join us today. Thank you so much, Kristen. I am so excited to be here. I mean, I just, I love your mission and love your podcast and I’m just, I’m so excited. Thank you, perhaps. You are welcome. And I am so excited to connect with you today because just getting to know you, it seems like we have a Latin common we’re both step-mom’s, um, we both have been in a corporate career and you have transitioned out of it, transitioned out of the corporate career and now doing what you love and helping those that you just love to help.

And that is what this podcast is all about. Taking your knowledge, your experience, or even a trauma or a health issue and creating something from that in order to help and serve others. So you can eventually transition out of that nine to five that either drains you or just doesn’t align with who God created you to be.

So Holly, share with us a little bit about your background story, your health challenges, and building a successful career. And this is very interesting at a three letter government agency they make TV shows about and how you had to take a step back with your breast cancer diagnosis. And years later, being forced to resign.

When your health hit rock bottom. So share us a little bit about all of that. I’m so excited to dig in. Oh my goodness. I know, like I could spend three hours just talking about my backstory. Um, but you know, I was one of those. I was one of those people. I just like from college on, I just put my head down and I worked hard.

And I just, I actually never had to look for a job in 20 years. I always got recruited to the next position. Like I was just super successful. I worked really hard and got rewarded and I just thought that that’s how life was supposed to be. You work hard, you get rewarded. And, um, yeah, it was, it was crazy.

After nine 11, I was very blessed with an opportunity to serve for one of our country’s three-letter federal government agencies for 13 years. And, um, just an absolute blessing, um, to be able to be of service to my country in what little way that I could. And, um, you know, and I thought life was perfect. I was actually promoted to a chief of staff position.

Um, basically as high as you can go prior to getting to executive, um, executive service, um, which was just a huge honor. Um, but at the same time, all of this happened, um, I was diagnosed with breast cancer on my 39th birthday, and then two days later, my then boyfriend proposed. So it was, you have breast cancer and will you marry me and, you know, inheriting a young guy.

I mean, I think. Seven when we got married. Um, so, you know, I went through, uh, surgery, chemo, radiation, try to be, you know, a fiance and got married after treatment ended, you know, a new step-mom juggling this, you know, high level management career. And I was like, I can’t, I can’t do it. I am not super woman.

So, um, I took a step back to more of an analyst role and, um, ended up a year later was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease. Hashimoto’s. So in the span of about seven years, my health kind of was up and down and all over the place. Um, to the point where in 2017, just absolutely crashed with debilitating chronic fatigue.

And, um, my, you know, management during breast cancer was amazing. Um, obviously, you know, switched positions, you know, at that 0.7 years later, um, the new management team were a bunch of meetings. And my health tanked. I had a legally approved, um, FMLA, which is your, um, you know, your legal, uh, any employer in the United States, over 50 employees.

Um, you have your FMLA, which is your, um, legal leave that you can take to care for yourself or a family member. Um, you know, if someone gets. And they actually blocked any move to transfer and rescinded, illegally rescinded my FMLA. So I’m in a place where I have basically debilitating chronic fatigue. I mean, to the point where I was praying, literally praying, driving home every day, um, that I would make it home safe without falling asleep at the wheel.

And, you know, we live outside of Washington DC, a very expensive part of the country. And looking at literally going from a six-figure a very, you know, comfortable six figure salary to zero. And it was just that place of being in the stairwell of my office in absolute, just like not tears like that, like convulsing, booboo, crocodile, you know, that kind of tears, um, you know, hitting rock bottom with cancer, hitting rock bottom with the Hashimoto’s diagnosis and then hitting rock bottom.

Being forced out like that, you 📍 know, when, when my health tanked and, um, it was, uh, it was a pretty rough situation. Um, but you know, an absolute blessing in disguise and it gave me a chance to the first few months I just kind of took off and just focused on my health. Um, I then wrote a, uh, Amazon bestselling book, thriving in the workplace with autoimmune disease to help other women who have gone through this.

Situation and was able to focus on really building and growing my company picked pink fortitude and, you know, kind of being able to, you know, work, um, work shorter hours, focused on my health and focus on my family and take it to where it is today. So that’s the, that’s the short of the long story. I love that.

I think. What I love most about that is you’re not ashamed to say I hit rock bottom because of this, this, and this, and being an overachiever. Like it was like a pretty much a three-time rock bottom, because once it wasn’t enough. Yes. And I know a lot of our listeners can relate to that. Whether they’ve hit rock bottom in their career, because it just drains them or they hit rock bottom.

And just not even knowing who they are anymore, because they lost themselves and being a mom. That mom or, you know, um, a tragedy or a auto-immune disease or something that has happened to them. Every listener can relate by saying yes, I’ve had a rock bottom moment. And you mentioned that your back-to-back health challenges and having to resign from your dream job, we’re all gifts and a blessing from God.

Can you relate or can you kind of elaborate? Okay. Oh, sure. And you know, I mean, breast cancer is no laughing matter. Obviously. Um, there was a lot there’s about a month of just really big boo-boos when I was dying noticed. And, um, about a month into it, I just felt this peace over me. I mean, you know, obviously God’s peace because, you know, he’s the man.

Um, and I just, I don’t know. I felt like this was God’s gift. Like I, I was diagnosed on my 39th birthday. So, you know, I kind of joked about breast cancer, you know, like most girls get flowers or earrings and, you know, I got breast cancer and kinda joking. And then it just hit me one day. Like this piece, like this actually was my gift.

Like this was my gift from God. And you know, it, it, it, I didn’t know what that meant. I sat on it. I prayed about it, but I didn’t know what that meant. And then, you know, the Hashimoto’s happened and throughout this whole thing, I kept going back to. When I was growing up, my mother was actually diagnosed with, um, Addison’s disease, which is a very rare adrenal disorder when she was pregnant with me and my entire life, she kept saying it builds fortitude.

It builds fortitude. And I just thought it meant like the tough times, like going through the tough times builds fortitude. And it does, it’s kind of a PS that we’ll get into in a little bit. Um, You know, later in the interview. Um, but that’s really what I hung my hat on was that, you know what God has given me the strength and I can, you know, I can do all things through him.

And, you know, every single challenge that was thrown my way, I was able to turn it and say, okay, what can I make out of this? You know? And especially the last one that hit the hardest. You know, and especially, you know, financially, obviously for my family, I’m like, you know what, this is a chance for me to take this mission and to build a business and to share, you know, this inspiration of, of fortitude, you know, with, with women everywhere.

I love that that is such an inspirational comment. There you are showing others that it can be done. You can pick yourself up from rock bottom. You can take what you’ve learned, your experience that you’ve gone through and you can build and create a powerful, profitable and impact. Digital online or brick and mortar business from that, I love that so much.

So Holly, you said that it’s your passion to help women view their chronic illness as a gift and unwrap resilience, using a proven method to build fortitude with gratitude. So what are some of your biggest challenges? With transitioning from that corporate career, that success that you had into building your own business.

So you can let onto that passion. So, you know, I, like I said, like I was the overachiever, you know, I was, I was that straight a student in school. Like I, someone, if someone told me to do something, I always have my hand raise and I always did it. And I always got a hundred percent. Like, that’s just me. And now I’ve got this blank sheet of paper called pink fortitude and I’m like, all right.

So I started, I mean, I was all over the place and the first few years building this company, like, you know, being, you know, blogging and then building courses and. I don’t know, like I didn’t have a game plan. I didn’t have any focus. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. You know, and I’m looking at my pedigree.

I’m like, okay, I have a master’s degree. I a successful career. Like I should be doing better than I do. You know? And I think just not, you know, not knowing what I was doing and not having that game plan, but also, you know, those, especially those first few years, like, You know, building a business with that type of fatigue.

I really had to prioritize and you know, really the, the Stephen Covey first things first, like every single day I had to get the big stuff done first because I just didn’t know how much. You know, I wouldn’t have on any given day. And, um, you know, so, so that was, you know, that was it just really overcoming those challenges and figuring out that, you know, what I, um, you know, building a business isn’t about being everywhere.

You know, it’s about niching down. It’s about, you know, finding your, you know, your true alignment. Um, you know, part of that is your alignment with, with God and his gifts and what he’s given you and bless you to, to be with. And, you know, I really had to sit with that for a while and it took me a while to, to get to that place where I, I actually found that alignment.

And once I was there, you know, that’s when the magic started to happen. Yes, that is so encouraging because I think as women, um, who want to make an impact and make income and just do what is on their heart, their passion and all that good stuff. I think we are really hard on ourselves. We tend to, like you said, we’re all over the.

But we want it to kind of, to happen now and we’re not quite sure what it’s going to look like. So we have to give ourselves some grace and realize. We need to take messy action and just create something and start taking the steps forward because God’s going to unveil the path and bring us to our future destiny and what he’s called us to do.

So I absolutely love that. And one thing that I love is that we can learn from others. We can learn from other entrepreneurs who are doing what we want to do. So, Holly, what is one thing that looking back you would have done differently? I would have niched right away. Absolutely. Yep. Yeah. Perfect. Great answer.

They say the riches are in the niches. Yes, definitely. Huge. So how does gratitude fit into all of this? So remember when I told you that my mom always said that it builds fortitude and I always thought she meant the Tufts. But looking at her life. And I actually didn’t realize this until she passed that when she said it builds for, to teach, she actually meant it was the gratitude and everything that she taught me through the years.

She never specifically said it as gratitude, but following how she showed up during those times of crisis, um, I realized that it, you know, it is about gratitude and just being grateful for every single day. And taking all of those, you know, negative situations between the breast cancer, the Hashimoto’s, and then, you know, being forced to resign and seeing the, seeing how grateful I was for it and making that transition and the rewiring in your brain.

After you’re in a place of gratitude is, I mean, it is, it is such a beautiful place to be. And, you know, we are wired for negativity, you know, it, it, it just, that’s just the way our brains are wired and, you know, to, to wake up in a place. You know, rather than waking up in a place from overwhelm and frustration to wake up in a place where you’ve got that song in your heart and you can’t wait to get out of bed and your heart is happy, you know, that is a place of gratitude and it is a God blessed place to be in.

And you know, the more you’re in that place of gratitude, gratitude, isn’t, I mean, you can do your three things you’re grateful for, and it’s a great place to start. But gratitude. Isn’t what you do. It’s who you are. And to walk in that place and put it together to put that puzzle together, the gratitude is what builds fortitude.

Gratitude is what makes you stronger gratitude is what helps you overcome the challenges that life gives you on any given day? Like that’s just, that’s just magic, you know, that’s that’s so it’s such a beautiful place. It is, it definitely is. And I always tell my children that, um, you can’t be angry and happy at the same time, be, you know, negative and positive at the same time.

So when you’re in that state and have that attitude of gratitude, it just makes every situation 100% better. Yes. So tell us a little bit more. And this is how we got connected, which I’m super excited that you have a online summit coming up called gratitude builds fortitude summit. So tell us a little bit about that and how our listeners can hop on this summit.

Oh, yes, absolutely. And I’m so excited to have you as a speaker on the, on the summit and, um, yeah, it is a free summit and it is, um, it’s really targeted towards women specifically who have an autoimmune disease or chronic illness that being said. Um, there are 30 all women speakers. We have an all women’s speaker panel, which is just phenomenal.

They are amazing. And I tell you what, just, you know, going and going back and re listening to the interviews while I’m uploading. They are so powerful. I think anyone is going to get inspiration from this and, um, and really quick. So each day has a theme. Again, the summit is free and I’m sure you’ll, you’ll have the share the link that everyone can can jump on.

Um, but day one is all about building your attitude to graduate. Day two revealing why gratitude is more than mindset. Day three risks rediscover your passion for food, family and fun. And, oh, I missed one. I’m sorry. Day two is eliminate the blocks to true healing and self-worth and then day five is unleash your inner fortitude and resilience.

So every day has a theme. The speakers are amazing. And what also, I think is so beautiful about this stuff. Is, I mean, obviously this is, you know, a, a Christian based podcast. I’m a Christian myself. Um, we have an not necessarily like they share publicly, but more privately behind the scenes. Um, at least seven, if not eight different faiths represented.

And you know what that means. The gratitude is universal. You know, all the faiths, all the cultures, all the different backgrounds of the, of the women that are on this summit. I mean, gratitude is universal and in a society today that we are so divided, you know, we can come together in gratitude, you know, it’s just, it’s such a beautiful place to be.

It is. And I got goosebumps when you said that I was so excited to participate in the summit and I did go through to learn more about the speakers and you are right. It is a phenomenal lineup and no matter what your faith, no matter what you’re dealing with, no matter if you have an auto-immune disease or not, you are going to get something amazing from this summit.

So I’m super excited. Yeah, I’m so glad. So Holly, tell our listeners I’ll have that linked in the show notes below, but tell our listeners, because I know there are people that are going to want to connect with you, where can they find you? Oh, sure. And I know you didn’t ask, but before I do that, can I share my favorite Bible verse?

Yes, I would live there. Aren’t a lot of podcasts that I can do that. So my life verse is, um, is Deuteronomy 31 8, and I know it’s like several times throughout. Um, that span, but it’s, um, you know, God is, God will go before you. He is with you. He will not fail you. He will not forsake you. He is with you. And it’s such a beautiful verse.

It’s been my life first since I became a Christian many, many, many years ago. So. Thank you for bringing that up. I mean, that’s going to bless someone that’s listening. I know it very, yeah. And, and, and little did I know back in the day when like that just kind of was, you know, that was the verse I hung my hat on little.

Did I know? Yeah, that was a, that was a strong hall. Yes. We all have that one verse for sure. I love that. Well, thank you so much. Sure. So, um, yeah. My website is pink fortitude.com. And um, also for, to, to.academy. So you can find me on both of those places. Yay. Thank you. I will have those linked in the show notes as well.

So one last question, which I did not, um, put this in for you, but I know you’re going to have an amazing answer. What does making an impact mean to you? Oh my goodness. You know? And, and here’s the thing. And, and again, my, my community is a lot of women, you know, with, with chronic illness. And when you get to that place, everything else doesn’t matter.

The only thing that you focus on is your health. Like everything else gets pushed to the side. And, you know, really, I feel like, you know, my impact with pink fortitude is helping women. Just kind of say, you know what? My identity is not my chronic illness. And again, listening, it can be whatever’s going on in your world.

Right? My identities, not my chronic illness. My identity is, you know, who I am and God, what kind of person I am inside, you know, what, what value I bring to this world? And you know, that is the impact is, you know, just helping someone get from that place of rock bottom. To not just, you know, feeling that they have that impact themselves in their own lives, but then being able to give back to others and, and to really fulfill that ripple effect.

I love it. Amazing. Well, Holly, thank you so much. I know that you added so much value to our listeners today. Oh, thank you, Chris. And thanks so much for having me on that’s it for today, friends. It’s your time to step into the role of the abundant Christian manure and put to use the gifts God has given you.

There is only one you and you are the expert. Someone is out there waiting to hear. I want you to know this, feel this, and most importantly, the, this never underestimate the impact and power you have. And Hey, real quick, before you go, do you want to win a free private coaching call with me? Take a screenshot of an episode and post it on your IgE stories.

And tag me at Kristen. Turangi using the hashtag. Christian preneur. And if you feel extra daring share one of your biggest takeaways, that is how you will get entered into the monthly drawing. And if you found value in today’s episode, I would love it. If you would subscribe, leave a review and rate the show.

This not only helps me bring you more expert guests to learn from, but it also spreads the message to those who need to hear it. Thank you so much for taking the time out of your day and spending it here with me. I appreciate you and see you next episode.