Today we’re talking with Jill Martin of Strong Hearts, Strong Women. Jill and her husband Sean live in Texas and are parents to 13 kids: 11 at home and 2 who live in heaven. Their family has been built by birth and adoption, and includes several kids with special needs. Strong Hearts, Strong Women is an online community that Jill has built over the last year. I’m so excited to chat with this amazing woman about how she’s grown her business over the last year and how she’s used her planner to juggle everything and live intentionally. You will absolutely LOVE how Jill has gotten her kids involved in planning too! It’s a unique focus that will probably surprise you! Listen Now   1:15 - From Stay at Home Mama to Encourager and Community-Builder Strong Hearts, Strong Women started almost a year ago, when Jill originally wanted to coordinate fitness and nutrition groups. It’s a passion of hers and something she already does in her free time. A fitness coach friend of Jill’s encouraged her to give it a go, so she did! Thirty women signed up for a one-month Facebook group, and when she looked at the makeup of the group, Jill felt like the women would be best served by the addition of a Bible study. In Jill’s mind, “No matter how many push-ups you do, if your insides aren’t right you’re still not going to be happy with your life.” Jill’s first group was so successful that ladies were begging her to do it again! These groups, that initially began as month-long groups, kept going for months after. Well into the New Year, Jill hosted a group every single month, with between 30-40 new women in each group. From these groups, Strong Hearts, Strong Women was born. Jill put together a 3-week test group with women she knew where they talked about common struggles they experience. Together, the group tackled fitness and nutrition issues, but also self-image, forgiveness, or feeling that part of your life was a mistake. (They dug really deep!) Shortly after this beta test group, Jill’s daughter had a big surgery. During that time, when Jill was using Facebook live to talk about her daughter’s recovery, a lot of people really connected with Jill and asked her to keep Strong Hearts, Strong Women going.  Jill was grateful for that interest, but had a lot on her plate! What should she do next? In July, she was finally ready to reopen the group. Currently the Strong Hearts, Strong Women community is at 260 members! She sees herself as a community leader -- helping women to focus on character qualities, growing strong in heart, mind, and life. In short, it’s a safe place to be honest about hard things. 5:35 - Using a Word of the Year Encouragement is Jill’s word of the year for 2017. (Let us know if you chose a word of the year, too!) And though encouraging others was a big goal of Jill’s, she found that she was the one getting encouragement in return. 6:20 - Family Goal Setting Jill has always been a big goal setter and she’s introduced the practice to her kids. Each year between Christmas and New Years, the entire family picks areas of life to focus on and decides what they want to learn and spend time on. All together, they brainstorm the next year and lay out their goals. One year, Jill’s daughter wanted to make homemade bread, so they chose a new recipe to try each month and wrote it at the top of the month on her calendar. Isn’t that so fun!? 7:25 - Using the Brilliant Life Planner Calendars have always been important to Jill since she loves scheduling and plotting things out. The Brilliant Life Planner came her way at the perfect time last year and she especially loves the visual planning tools, like the Big Goal Mind-Mapping page. The way Jill uses these pages is that her kids will choose one character quality to write in the center as their big goal. For example, they may choose kindness or diligence. One of Jill’s daughters, Joanna, has given us permission to use her worksheets as an example. (Thanks, Joanna!!!) Joanna chose kindness for th