In February, I had the pleasure of “sitting down” across zoom with Lindsey Roman, co-founder of The Heart University and the Heart & Hustle Podcast. She is a photographer, entrepreneur, and mommy to two adorable little girls. She is passionate for the Lord and for helping business owners embrace their God-given creativity and purpose.

In this interview we covered faith, business, balancing social media, embracing motherhood, and embracing new vision. For the woman standing on the edge of new dreams, Lindsey has words of encouragement that will inspire you to take your plunge and to ultimately trust God with the rest.

Q: Briefly, how would you summarize or highlight your testimony?

Lindsey: “I grew up in a Christian home; I joke with my mom that I accepted Christ when I was 3 years old. She tells the story of me getting down on my knees, and I don’t know how I knew cognitively what I was doing, but I did. She just made sure to raise me in a Christian home from the beginning.

So I almost  feel disqualified from having a good testimony because I don’t have this dramatic, ‘I was doing drugs,’ or  the Lord really transforming your life in a dramatic way. But I feel that [makes my story] almost more relatable — that I grew up going to youth group, I was the ‘good kid.’ If you had asked me, I think I would have said, ‘I have a deep relationship with the Lord.’  But then when I got to college, I did the typical college thing where I didn’t necessarily go to church, at least not my freshman year.

I did the whole party scene. It was like I had morals, but not really. I was trying to live the Christian life but dip my toe in the world. My sophomore year, I was a theater major, and one of the girls in my theater class invited me to her church. I had been kind of cherry picking  because it was college. So I went there and I got plugged in, and I think it was what I was needing in terms of getting plugged in to really good community that grew and stretched you. Before I got plugged in, I would have told you, ‘I want to go off and be an actress in Hollywood.’ My ideal life was to be famous, to be on stages or in front of cameras, and I think the surface of it was, ‘I want to bring God’s light to Hollywood’ which, [is] a huge undertaking. That would have been rough. I’m just really blessed at how the Lord took my vision and my dream for my life and just completely flipped it upside down. 

“So I started getting plugged in with the church and the Lord, and I started diving deeper into the actual gospel and realized my mission for my life wasn’t just to live a golden happy life and do what I want and talk about Jesus occasionally. It was really to bring Him into my heart, transform everything. Again, it’s not like I wasn’t a Christian before,  but I wasn’t truly living it. Once that happened, I started viewing every job I got [as an opportunity]  in every sphere of life, whether it’s Hollywood, whether it’s business, whether it’s waitressing, and truly do that for the glory of the Lord, for the Kingdom. So, I started growing in my faith more. 

“At the same time that I was graduating college, I wanted to go off and make it in Hollywood, and when I got to college graduation, the same church that I was plugged into had offered me an internship, and I took it. At that time, I was like, ‘Well, I don’t feel called to L.A. immediately,’ which was weird because the whole time I was in college, I wanted to be an actress. It just didn’t feel right to jet set off to L.A. I wanted to pursue the Lord for that year and really dive into my faith more. In that year I was waitressing at a brewery in my college town, I was on staff with my campus ministry at my church, and simultaneously I was starting to explore the world of entrepreneurship. I started playing around with my DSLR camera, and I started taking an Instagram course. It was just when Instagram was picking up a little bit in 2015 when people started using it as more of a brand and platform. I started diving into that creativity, and I realized there is a whole world of entrepreneurship out there that I started falling in love with. Since I was really good with photography, I started diving into that and what the photography business is. It started very casually, just taking a few photos here and there.

I started my photography business,  and as that started growing, I started getting questions: ‘How are you doing this?’ — not just photography but business and marketing questions. From that, I partnered up with a friend, another photographer, and we started doing photography workshops. We started realizing there’s a lot of people wanting to come to these things — let’s do something online as well. We pivoted and created some online courses for photographers and creative business owners, which led to a podcast (Heart & Hustle Podcast), which led to owning a creative business company, which is primarily what I do now. I do photography a lot less because this and motherhood fill up my life.

Right now I co-own the Heart University, I am a co-podcast host with the Heart & Hustle Podcast where we talk about business, marketing, life and faith, and I also do photos on the side and have a personal brand under me. I wanted to be an actress — I thought that was the only way I could be creative or have that lane. What’s funny is that I gave that decision to the Lord, and I said, ‘I don’t feel called to go to L.A. right now. I don’t know what’s in my future, but I want to explore where I am in faith.’ And I feel like He took the passions and talents I already had and brought them into what I’m doing now. I never would have envisioned my life doing this. But it’s so cool being able to impact a lot of people, not only for business but also for the Lord and to share my faith through what I do. I know we’ll probably get into that, but it’s such a blessing to have a platform and a business where I can empower people both in faith and business.” 

Q: Where have you witnessed the Lord’s hand the most prominently in your business? 

“I think I’ve seen it more in my education business than photography. There’s been times in photography where I’ve been shooting a wedding, and I can just feel the presence of the Lord at the ceremony, and that’s amazing. I think the biggest ones have been when I meet any of my students from my education business, sharing either my heart or the Lord or even empowering them in their business to do what God created them to do. Seeing them be completely filled up and understand their worth in Jesus and what he created them to do: empowering beautiful things. I think that’s where I’ve seen the Lord work the most  — just seeing lives transformed. I see students of mine that are making six figures after my course, and it’s not even about the number, it’s seeing them achieve financial freedom while doing what they love. It’s what I think is so cool, and I see the Lord using my talents to help other people, and I really love that.”

Q: What have been the most surprising challenges of being a Christian business owner that you’ve encountered? 

“I think the most surprising challenge is standing firm in your faith, standing firm in convictions, in a world and culture that typically goes against them. I get asked this a lot: ‘How do you stand for the Lord publicly and still get clients who aren’t Christians? How do you market to people who aren’t Christians?’ I think it’s sharing my faith, yes boldly, but also having the discernment with the Holy Spirit of knowing when it’s appropriate to say something and not, when it’s too much or [will] rub someone the wrong way. So, having discernment.” 

Q: How do you balance being self-employed with your family time and quiet time? 

“That is THE question, for sure. It’s hard. It’s doable, but it’s hard. I’m very blessed to have my husband, who takes so much off my plate, it’s not even funny. I could not do it without him. But, I think, having systems in place, a good work flow, and also having a good productivity mindset — in the sense of boundaries when work stops and when family time starts — and having really strict boundaries around phone times and email checking.

I think when I had my first kid, I was definitely working all the time. Before my first kid, I was working 15 to 17 hour days; my work-life balance was not good. Then when I had my first baby, I realized something has to change here. So I started implementing systems, having a really strict start and stop time for work. Then just giving myself grace. I think that’s the biggest thing with balancing both of them. You cannot do both at 100% capacity. One thing has to give. It’s like having two cups full of water and you pour them into each other at different seasons of life. One season your motherhood cup might be more full than your business cup and other seasons vice versa, and that’s how I’ve gotten through it personally, and also, I have my rockstar husband who quit his job, so I could do what I love. God bless him.” 

Q: How do you address and approach social media, both as your business platform and as your personal space? What are the challenges of putting your life out there, particularly as you’ve grown in followers? Has it changed how you decided what content to share?

“I think that’s so hard because what does the best on social media is personal content. So if you’re trying to view social media as strictly business, which I try to because, for our kids, we don’t want phones in their face always; we don’t want them on phones. So it feels hypocritical of me to have my phone on in front of them when I’m not letting them have it. The way we make sense of it in our brains is that phones are for work. Anything on social media is 100% work, but that does get hard when personal stuff does the best on Instagram, and when I’m trying to incorporate my family and my personal brand. If work ends at 5, and my husband and I go to the park or beach, if I want to [Instagram] story something — we have to be really good at communicating, ‘Is this 100% family time? Or do you mind if I story this?’ 

I think as I’ve had more kids, it’s become stricter of a boundary. I do story them, but I’ve been a little more strict in being aware of what I’m storying, what I’m posting and putting up a boundary if it is too much. In terms of content, I’m really open. I think it’s less of what content I share and [more of] how much. What’s the boundary in my heart?”

Q: What are some of the markers for that? What’s the balance? 

“I did a podcast episode on this a long time ago. When you’re in a pit, and you’re in the middle of whatever you’re going through, I try not to share from the pit. I wait until I have some experience to share. Say something really tragic happened, or even just a hard day, and instead of sharing from that place of stuck and sadness, I try to get some victory in it. So following the imagery of climbing up the ladder, if I’m halfway up, I can offer some piece of inspiration from halfway or all the way up the ladder. Being up the ladder and reaching down saying, ‘I’ve accomplished this, I’ve been through this too — here’s what helped me.’

“I always approach social media with a perspective to serve. How can I help someone? How can I serve someone? No matter what content I put out, I want to encourage and inspire and make people better. If any of my content sucks people down, I’m not going to post it. Usually if I’m in the pit of suck, I don’t want to share something because I don’t have victory in my own life with that situation.” 

Q: What were the most helpful steps you took in arranging your schedule with little ones and your business? 

“When my first kid, Eloise, was a baby, before she could walk or crawl, I would 100% multitask. She could just sit there, and I would be on a meeting or conference call. The only thing I couldn’t do at the same time was a podcast interview. Once she began crawling, and it demanded more attention on her solely, I was like, ‘OK, I can no longer multitask. I got really strict on work hours and mom hours. I said that before, but basically having really strict work hours — working in a way that’s smarter not harder. Maybe I work in the morning and take the afternoon off, knowing I don’t have to work the whole time. I only take meetings and interviews and coaching calls on Thursday. That’s why we’re doing this on Thursday. That’s my way to have all the other days of the week be free, whether that means creative deep diving in my business or focusing time on my kids. Implementing strict boundaries actually gives you more freedom in your life.” 

Q: What have been the deepest challenges of motherhood, postpartum and toddler raising, and how has the Lord met you in the middle of those?

“Oh man, that is a deep question. I used to never want kids. I always put off the idea of kids into the future. I really had to give that to God, and I think I really made having no kids and focusing on my career an idol. But if you asked me, ‘Where do you see yourself in five to ten years?’ kids were always in the picture. But, I was selfish and never wanted to release control of what I wanted [my life] to look like. I grew up as an only child, so maybe that affected it a little bit. I think I looked at suburban moms as the pinnacle of death. I think that goes along with the fact I wanted to be an actress in Hollywood. I would look at suburban moms with their soccer vans and snotty noses and think, ‘Oh, so sad for you.’ That was my mindset. I think as I’ve released that control of having kids and having the Lord work in my life through that. I could talk about this topic forever.

Honestly, I think what challenges me the most is truly finding balance. Which I know is what we’re talking about, but making sure the reason that I chose to still do my job and not quit and be a full-time mom is I want to show my daughters that you don’t have to submit to a life that you don’t love or a job that you hate. That you were made and created to go off and create incredible things. That doesn’t always look like entrepreneurship, but I think a lot of the world ignores that, or thinks it’s not an option. I love being an example to my daughters: ‘No, you can go off and do incredible things and make money doing it, so you can empower the world, serve other people and give it away.’”

Q: Have there been older women in your life that have been mentors in the faith for you? Who have been the most influential people in your life in your faith?

“I think [there are many] older women [who have been mentors in the faith to me], whether they are a year older or years older than me, [like] all the women in my church. Our church is really, really big on discipleship and pouring into other people and truly following the message of the gospel, which is to go out and make disciples. They’re really good at that, and it’s been a huge blessing in my church community: getting poured into and being encouraged to pour into others. Our church prioritizes fellowship and getting together in women’s groups. I would say a couple ladies in my church have been the biggest influential people in terms of that. 

Q: What encouragement would you give young women in regards to launching a business dream or starting motherhood as a business owner? 

“I would encourage them that God created them for a purpose. I see so many women second guess themselves, get down on themselves, think they’re worthless basically, and that they’re not worth going after their dreams or whatever God’s put on their heart. They sit in that place of sadness and self-loathing. I think when you do that we look at our Creator and say, ‘You made a mistake with me.’ He did not make a mistake in you. If He put a dream in your heart, give it to the Lord. Let Him be your co-CEO if it’s a business, and truly let Him dream with you. Don’t just say, ‘I’m stuck in these circumstances that I’ve been given.’ Life’s unfair; we all have circumstances that are sucky at times. I think truly giving your dreams and goals to the Lord and saying, ‘God, I want to bless you and serve you,’ and realizing you can do that in any sphere of life: as a banker, entrepreneur, a nurse — no matter what is in your life. But if it is entrepreneurship, or motherhood, go for that, and trust that God has that. Start exploring the talents God has for you, and lean into that and ask Him to come along with you.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mia Grace loves sunflowers, words, old hardcover books, and fountain pens. She adores Jesus Christ, and seeks to listen and obey him in her life. Her life verse is Isaiah 52:7, and her prayer is for every girl to grasp the height, weight, depth, width, and power of Christ's love for them.