SNS 189: Saturday Night Special - Interview with Professional Speaker and Radio Host Valerie Howe

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Welcome to tonight's Saturday Night special episode 189.

[00:00:07] Valerie Howe: Hey, I'm Valerie Howe, and I'm challenging you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent, and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to find the way to love yourself is key, and one way to be inspired to do just that is to listen to.

[00:00:30] The Inspired Stewardship podcast with my friend Scott Maderer,

[00:00:43] and I began to dig into the Psalms, and when I did the psalms, the radio show took off because there were so many hurting people. I wasn't exactly saying the exact thing that. But how it lived out in my life and I had no idea how many hurting people [00:01:00] there were, and it began to add value to those people and it began to build me up too.

[00:01:07] Scott Maderer: Welcome and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true. In the Inspired Stewardship podcast, you'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others, and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

[00:01:38] And tonight's Saturday Night Special I interview Valerie. Valerie shares how she became both a professional speaker, a radio host, and a small business. I also ask Valerie about her advice to you to get better at communication, and Valerie shares with you how her faith intersected and affected her journey as well.

[00:01:59] One area that [00:02:00] a lot of folks need some help with is around the area of productivity. Getting not just more things done, but actually getting the right things done can be really, I've got a course called Productivity for Your Passion that's designed to help you do this and then to hold you accountable and walk with you so that you can tailor productivity, not just to be getting more done, but actually getting the right things done.

[00:02:32] What's more, we take the approach of looking at your personality and how you actually look at things in the world and tailor the productivity system to your personality. Because the truth is, a lot of the systems that are out there are written really well for somebody with a particular personality type.

[00:02:50] But if you have a different approach to things, they just don't work. But there's tools and techniques and approaches that you can take that will work for anyone, [00:03:00] and we help you do that and productivity for your passion. Check it out over@inspiredstewardship.com slash launch. Valerie, how is a fast-paced and witty keynote speaker?

[00:03:13] Seminar teacher and Arthur with hours of training in education, discipleship coursework, and bible study. In addition, she hosts a daily radio segment entitled, seriously, on 75 Stations. In many different parts of the world, she's held local and state level positions within women's organizations in the Missouri Baptist Convention, and Valerie absolutely loves helping others grow physically, mentally, and emotionally and spiritually.

[00:03:40] Through her presentations, her wit and practicality inspire her audiences to action. The individuals involved learn to dream big and take risks to be everything they aspire. Her goal is for the audience to apply what they learn and she follows up to make sure implementation has occurred.[00:04:00]

[00:04:03] Welcome to the show, Valerie.

[00:04:04] Valerie Howe: How are you, sir? I'm glad to be here.

[00:04:07] Doing well. Doing well, and we're glad to have you. So can you share a little bit about your journey to what led you to where you are today? You own a boutique you work around funeral homes, you're a professional speaker, do a lot of different things.

[00:04:23] What led you to this?

[00:04:25] When I was first married, I married into the funeral home, so that's how I got to be a funeral. Home owner, my husband has we're not really partners in it. I wouldn't say it like that exactly, because it had, it was his family business and he and my son run it most of the time and sometimes I work And we have visitations here still in Missouri, so I worked some of the visitations and but how I got started speaking was I was about 28, 29 years.

[00:04:53] Wanted to speak, felt led that God was calling me that way through a scripture verse, the one on Abraham [00:05:00] where he calls him out. And so anyway, I made 45 minute talk and I had 45 pages of materials. Okay. How hysterical. And I got it up there, but as God would have it, the people were so nice that were training.

[00:05:15] And it was a, it was called the family ministry team of the Missouri Baptist Convention. And so what they did, they said, oh, you need to switch these two subjects. And it ended up, long story short Baptist Sunday School Board, which was now lifeway. Published it in a book and that's how I got started on most of my speaking.

[00:05:36] And then I served with the Women's Missionary Union and the women's Ministry Division at the Missouri Baddest Convention. And then I just, wow. It just, God took off,

[00:05:45] Scott Maderer: so when did you start

[00:05:46] Valerie Howe: your. I was like 29 and I'm 60 now. So that'll give you a clue. . I can you even believe that? I 31 years.

[00:05:54] I'm glad you can't see me cuz I really look young. .

[00:05:56] Scott Maderer: Absolutely. You look wonderful. I, you mentioned in there you [00:06:00] felt a calling from God and one of the things we like to talk about on the show is how our faith journey intersects with our journey in terms of our career and our life and our family.

[00:06:11] So how did your faith journey influence all of how you became a speaker and why you felt called to that and that direction?

[00:06:19] Valerie Howe: The Lord knows I talk a lot. Okay. And so probably one of the things about speaking is I've had to learn to hone my words. And and so the way that, like I said, the way my faith came in, I wanted to speak about the truth.

[00:06:32] I wanted to speak about things of God more than anything. And I think God puts that desire in your heart, and then what I think you're talking about journey though, was it was so clear to. With the Abraham Passage, I believe it's Genesis 20 something, but how he calls him to go, just go, he doesn't know where he is going or whatever.

[00:06:52] And what I've found is in this 31 years, that he. He's honed me and he's made it real to [00:07:00] other people. And then one thing I do is I try to use some comedy, and I'll talk about that in a minute, but I try to use some comedy. Some subjects are harder than other sin or truth or something like that, but if you can make it palatable And truthful then God has really helped me in that.

[00:07:14] That's where my faith journeys come in. And I have been a Christian since I was five years old and so I had a scriptural foundation and that's really guided me. , the whole way. So that's happy. Yeah.

[00:07:27] Scott Maderer: So for folks though that are maybe struggling some with their faith journey or, hearing this and maybe they haven't felt any sort of clear call and things what advice or what as you speak about these topics what would you share with them?

[00:07:39] Valerie Howe: I think that if you're, if you have a desire for speaking, if that's really what if it's God-given, he puts those desires in your heart and I would check that out. Maybe it's the Abraham versus, or maybe it's just verses on God's will. And it's so easy nowadays cuz you can get on your phone and you can Google or you can Google God's will however you wanna.[00:08:00]

[00:08:00] and then you can just ask him and talk to him about his will and his purpose for your life. And there's verses in Jeremiah about he has purpose for your life and se lots of verses on God's will. And I think that if you'll check that out what I've found is it's written in the scripture.

[00:08:16] It, it is written. That's what we gotta live our life by. And so that would be my advice to, look and see what God has for you because only you can know. And and he might not tell you everything all at once. He probably won't cuz you wouldn't wanna do it if he did .

[00:08:30] Scott Maderer: You also do a radio program as well and have been doing that for a while.

[00:08:34] What, how does that fit into your messaging and your ministry? It

[00:08:38] Valerie Howe: absolutely, it all goes together. And if I could show you what we've done is in 2016, I had no idea the ride I was gonna go on. And the, some, they asked me to do this short radio. It's a, it's called Seriously. And what we do is we give a scripture verse and then I say, seriously, [00:09:00] and then we give a little.

[00:09:01] This is how you might live that out. And at the end we always say, and there you go. It was one radio station and I've now grown to 90 who had thought, in seven years. It's just unbelievable. We're all over the state of Missouri, and that's where I live. And then right around the fringes.

[00:09:16] And I would love for this message to go out farther, but what's really humbling to me, one, at first God said, I want you to write down every verse that even if I didn't know the whole thing. Every verse I knew and I knew didn't know it, but I knew about 117 verses or so. And so that got me through a lot of radio shows and they meant something to me that way.

[00:09:37] But then I I experienced so. Really hurtful. Several things really hurtful, and I began to dig into the Psalms, and when I did the Psalms, the radio show took off because there were so many hurting people. I wasn't exactly saying the exact thing that hurt me, but how it lived out in my life.

[00:09:55] And I had no idea how many hurting people there were. And it began to [00:10:00] add value to those people and it began to build me up too, and so it was good. And then, so the other way this works is now I produce books out of the radio shows. And so what I do is we've got perseverance.

[00:10:14] Seriously, that's been the bestseller. Really love and forgiveness seriously. And we're coming out with worship seriously. And. All of it goes together because I write all the radio shows, so therefore they can, it's just an easy transition. So we're loving that. We're loving

[00:10:29] Scott Maderer: that. Where did the idea for the show come from and the title and the way you structure it?

[00:10:33] Valerie Howe: When I started recording we were talking about it. The guy that records, it's also a lay pastor. So anyway, he's great. And Don said, you say seriously all the. And he said, we need to say seriously. And I go, yeah, but I want it to be like oh I can't think. And the rest of the story, what's his name?

[00:10:50] . . I wanted it to be like that Paul, you're talking about Paul Harvey. Paul Harvey, yes. And so I said, I want this to be at like, something like that at the end. And so we all said, and there you go. [00:11:00] And it caught on. And literally people would come up to me and go, seriously, and they wanted me to say, and there you go,

[00:11:05] So it's been he really came up with the. . And it just stuck. And it's we built this seriously, sisterhood out of it. So I've got t-shirts and things like that there. I'm not saying that for a plug, I'm saying that it's just unbelievable. And I remember one day when we were recording, he said, Valerie, do you know this is going to China?

[00:11:23] And it was so humbling because I thought I got in the car and I cried cuz I was like, God, what would I have to say to Chinese Christians or suffering or whatever. And God said, you can. You just, you can say it. So wow. What a medium we have here. Podcast or radio. It's unbelievable.

[00:11:41] Scott Maderer: Yeah. This is downloaded in China as well. And actually in India and a lot of other places in the world, not just here in the United States where we are. So when somebody, you, y'all, let's circle back. You mentioned earlier if somebody kind has the call on their heart to.

[00:11:54] A speaker and I've heard you drop a couple of nuggets already but I want you to unpack 'em a little bit.[00:12:00] A lot of folks have the opposite thing, which is, I don't like to speak, I don't wanna speak. I don't, I struggle with communication. And yet obviously communication and speaking is part of our everyday life.

[00:12:12] You're at a family reunion, you gotta talk , that kind of thing. Not necessarily standing on a stage, but it still doesn't matter. It's part of what we do as human beings. So what advice do you have for folks when they're wanting to be a better communicator, but struggling with that idea?

[00:12:26] Valerie Howe: One thing I did and you wouldn't have to do this, but I, it was amazing. I was on John Maxwell team, which I, it's now called Maxwell Leadership Team, and I joined that. So Roddy Galrith helped me one of the things, and that was, I'd already been speaking for quite a while, that here's what they said.

[00:12:43] This is advice I'd give. Number one, if you're speaking, it should add value to other people. So in other words, if you're speaking and the audience isn't into it, you're just talking to yourself. And that's not what the goal is of speaking. You're, you want to influence somehow, and that's what [00:13:00] leader is it's influence.

[00:13:01] Nothing more, nothing less. That's what it is. And then the other thing he taught me was prepare. Okay, so here's the thing, like I've got a keynote address and I was thinking about this this earlier this morning. I haven't given it for six months, but I went over it. I wrote it, I edited it. I put got in the mirror and I gave the, that's another thing.

[00:13:22] Get in the mirror. Look at yourself. Watch your gestures and you can even get like some downloads of what you don't gesture. You don't wanna stand there with your hands folded. There's all kinds of things if you're making a point, move forward, all kinds of things. But here's the thing, I had a three minute talk on the John Maxwell stage with 25,000 people.

[00:13:41] Now, to me, that was the joy of my life to get a microphone in four jumbotrons. But, if you're scared, and there were several that were, cuz we had to try out. He made us do that talk. He honed mine 17 times. I couldn't have forgotten it if I wanted to, it had to be three minutes.

[00:13:59] And [00:14:00] that's another thing, never go over your time limit. Don't do that. That's a no-no. They won't ask you back and you're gonna lose 'em at 20 minutes anyway if you don't have short stories. But that's another thing. Write down on index cards. Funny stories or stories that have meant something to you.

[00:14:17] You can't forget those. And so some people think you memorized your talk. Yeah, because they're my stories. It's not that hard, but what I do is, what they taught me is, Three to five minute stories. Seven if you're lucky, and just make your points off of those stories. And you can't go wrong.

[00:14:32] But like I said, I haven't looked at that for six months, but I know I could still give it cuz I know the points. And I know the stories and it, it's not rocket science, but if you're scared, preparation. Preparation is. You have to do that. I have one friend that she, I think she said she did it 75 times before she, now I don't know if you need to do it that many times, but hey, it can't hurt anything, but that's really the key. And adding value means that when I walked [00:15:00] off the stage, even though I'd been a speaker for 27 years, at that point, some of the people went and that was it for me. There. They got it and it meant something to 'em. I never wanna get out, I never wanna speak again. That does not happen because it's not about Valerie.

[00:15:18] I thought it wasn't about me, but I realized at that point that was a whole different ballgame. . Yeah. I hope that helps.

[00:15:25] Scott Maderer: Sure. So I've got a few questions that I like to ask all my guests, but before I go there, is there anything else about the radio show, the books the speaking that you do that you'd like to share with the.

[00:15:35] Valerie Howe: I think, for me I'm really busy cuz you know, I have this boutique, we lo I love it. But that's something else. I do Facebook live every day here. And you just can't be afraid to look stupid. If you're on Facebook Live, you're going to mess up, it just is gonna happen, but that's okay because that people like that.

[00:15:54] It makes you human. But that helps me practice every day, number one. I feel [00:16:00] god is really I don't, again, I use the word home cuz I feel like I've been prune, but I'm getting better. Another one that I, another thing I did and I didn't say, this is the Speaker's Lab. Very great organization.

[00:16:11] They helped me get keynote addressed together and They don't, I'm not getting paid to have a plug here. Okay. I'm just telling you the keynote address, that the way they added me structure, it was absolutely phenomenal. And it's, it was so different because it was a longer talk, than what I did on John Nexel team.

[00:16:30] But as far as that goes, the ra the beautiful thing about what I'm doing is if I write a radio show and I can put it in a. Then I, I got smarter. It worked smarter, not harder. I was just here and there with my radio show. So then we had to categorize 'em. So now worship can be one month and then I can put it directly into the book and self-publish.

[00:16:55] We self-publish it since, and then that way I can and can take it [00:17:00] with me to my events. And so that works out really well for me. But that's how it all goes together. And it works really. , because at least I'm not having to reinvent the wheel every time. So if you can do that use your writing with your speaking, then it's just, it, why not? Why would you not do that? And also, if you are speaking, having a book table is like invaluable. And here's the thing, the reason I say that with my t-shirts and stuff, I didn't know how to do. It's expensive to do radio. It depends on what you do. Some of them don't charge, but it's like $1,700 a month to put on the show.

[00:17:39] And so the reason I say that is I didn't know how to do that. Everything, I, everything I get this is to work together, is to go back into the radio shows, and so that way you don't have a, you're just not double. It's all working together. Does that make sense? ? Yeah. . Yeah.

[00:17:58] Scott Maderer: So you mentioned, [00:18:00] leadership earlier in a definition of leadership, and my brand has inspired stewardship and over the years I've found stewardship, like leadership is a word that people hear it, but a lot of times they have different understandings of what it means.

[00:18:12] So for you, when you hear the word stewardship what does it mean to you and what has its impact been on your.

[00:18:16] Valerie Howe: I think just what I said there you've gotta make your time work for you. You gotta re we're redeeming the time and so in other words, if I do have those right, and like right now, if I am in a season where I can't write a bunch more, we've got a thousand.

[00:18:31] So it's, you know what I mean? They can still go out and it's still okay. The beauty of it for me is stewardship is it's not just your money. It's not just your, it's your time, it's your talents, it's how you invest and how it inspires other people. Just like we were talking if I'm going to, I need to give to the things that I feel like God wants me to give two instead of just willy-nilly.

[00:18:55] Like my mother has Alzheimer's and she used to get like letters. [00:19:00] All kinds of things. And then when one would find out, say she's pro-life and so she would get 16 things from any pro-life. You can't give to all of it, but she thought she should because she had Osmo.

[00:19:11] So what I'm saying is there's an example of you need to ask God what he wants you to do, and then given that direction , not just willy-nilly. What speaks to you? Lots of ministries need. But I also think that tithing to your local church is huge because, I need my local church, I need it, and I need the people around me.

[00:19:32] And I think that my stewardship there is important too. I need to be some kind of servant there. And I, but I still think, and I said that before, but just having it all work together because I am a very busy person. But if you. Monitor your time, what's gonna happen? You're gonna fall apart and you're gonna get burned out.

[00:19:53] And I don't wanna get burned out. And I will say one thing, I'm 60, I said that [00:20:00] before, but it's really got me to thinking since I've been 60, if I've 25 more years on this planet, what am I gonna do with my time? And I told my husband the other day, I'm dying with my boots on. . And, I wanna, I think that's Steward.

[00:20:14] You need to think about your life. It's fleeting. It is so short, and I did hear a sermon about that lately about instead of vanity of vanities and Ecclesiastes, it is actually should be vapor of vapors. In other words, life is fleeting. It's not meaningless, it's fleeting. So any season I'm in, how that helps me is if I'm in a really bad.

[00:20:38] it's gonna be fleeting. Your whole life's fleeting, but it's gonna be over. So therefore I can rejoice in it because I know something good's gonna come out of it. Their stewardship. That's what I think it is.

[00:20:48] Scott Maderer: Awesome. Thank you. So this is my favorite question. Imagine I invented this magic machine.

[00:20:55] And I was able to pluck you from where you are today and transport you into the future, maybe a hundred fifty, [00:21:00] two hundred fifty years. And through the power of this machine, you were able to look back on your entire life and see all of the impacts, all of the ripples, all of the connections that you've left behind.

[00:21:09] What impact do you hope you've left in the world?

[00:21:11] Valerie Howe: I want him to know that Jesus was the way to go in my life, that I loved him, and I wanted to serve him more than. But not just for me. I want my grandkids to know this is what you need. And I hope, and my kids too, I want my kids, my grandkids. I want them at the end of the day, go, Gigi love me more than anything in this life.

[00:21:36] And she knew if I wanted to see her again. And I need to have a relationship with Christ. And there's nothing better than that. And I want other people too. . Like I was talking about my mom was, is very loved still. She has a huge amount of visitors because she's loved. And even though she's got Alzheimer's, she still has a So think about the legacy of that.

[00:21:56] If people love you and it doesn't just have [00:22:00] to be your family, you , it shouldn't just be your family. We should love other people. And one last thing on that topic. I hate this new. I don't like this toxic stuff that's going around I don't agree with you and so therefore you're toxic.

[00:22:16] Just cuz I don't agree with you doesn't make you toxic. And then it, then we always have to qualify all the time. If it's abusive or something, that should just be a given. If it's abusive, you're out, but toxic, all of us would be toxic at some point, right? And so I, that, that is a real pet peeve of mine in this culture.

[00:22:33] And so I wanna eliminate that. Maybe that's part of what I wanna do, is, the truth is we're all sinners, we're all human, and we're all gonna mess up. And just because you disagree with somebody does not mean that they're toxic. So I don't know if that goes along with that exactly, but I think.

[00:22:51] Something in, in what I wanna leave in a legacy is everybody's important in some way and we've [00:23:00] gotta figure out what it is maybe that they're hurting at or something like that. Cuz usually it's not against you, it's something inside of them. Same way with us. Same thing. .

[00:23:09] Scott Maderer: So what's coming next for you as you continue on this journey?

[00:23:12] What's on the roadmap for the rest of the year?

[00:23:13] Valerie Howe: I have, I've started doing comedy and I found that this clean comedy, I'm, I. I was amazed. I just put on Facebook one day, Hey, I'm thinking about doing comedy. And five people said, oh, can you come to our place? So I was like, oh, if I'm gonna do comedy, I'll here.

[00:23:28] Get ready, huh. Anyway, but it was just that's something that's on her horizon. I have several speaking events. We just redid my website and so it's val how.com and. Just we're we wanna, I want to how do you say that? Enhance my seriously sisterhood because what I'd like to do, and you're gonna laugh at me, I'd like to get a VW bus, one of those, the old-fashioned kind and have a thing that's the seriously tour bus and go out and do that.

[00:23:59] So [00:24:00] I, I have several speaking events coming up in the spring and I have one at the summer coming up in a couple in the fall already but I try to I just wanna do that, I wanna do that, but if you wanna find out anything that's happening I have a virtual assistant, she's amazing.

[00:24:14] And my Facebook page is Code Red Ministries. So that kind of tells what we're doing there. And then you can find it also on the website. So that's one of, oh and worship seriously should be out within a couple months here.

[00:24:27] Scott Maderer: Awesome. So it's Valerie just mentioned, you can find out more about Valerie over on Facebook or on Instagram under Code Red Ministries.

[00:24:36] She's also on LinkedIn as Valerie Howell, and Twitter is Val Howell underscore five kids. That's the number five. Of course, I'll have links to all of those over in the show notes, or the simplest way to find out everything about what she's doing and everything is just check her out on her website@valhow.com.

[00:24:54] That's V A L H O W e.com. Of course I'll have links to all of that as [00:25:00] well. Is there anything else you'd like to share with the listener?

[00:25:03] Valerie Howe: You know what, I so appreciate you doing this, and it's just such a good time. I I love doing it and I think that you are doing an amazing job here too, so I, let's get the word out.

[00:25:14] That's, I think that's the main thing, so thanks for having me. You're very

[00:25:19] Scott Maderer: welcome, and thanks for being here.

[00:25:29] Thanks so much for listening to the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoyed this please do us a favor. Go over to inspired stewardship.com/itunes.

[00:25:54] Rate all one word, iTunes rate. It'll take you [00:26:00] through how to leave a rating and review and how to make sure you're subscribed to the podcast so that you can get every episode as it comes out in. Until next time, invest your time, your talent, and your treasures. Develop your influence and impact the world.