Molly Stillman is the founder and creator of Still Being Molly, a life and style blog started in 2007, and the host of the Business with Purpose podcast.
Her true passion lies in helping inspire women to know that they were created on purpose, with a purpose, and for a purpose.
Molly has had the honor of collaborating with brands such as Stitch Fix, Target, Elegantees, The Root Collective, Sseko Designs, Noonday Collection, and more.
She is honored to have been featured in such publications and media as US News & World Report, Scary Mommy, The 700 Club, Cary Magazine, and was named as one of “the Carolina’s 75 Most Stylish People” by Carolina STYLE Magazine.
She is a wife to John, mama to Lilly and Amos, dog mom to Tater and Audrey, a loud laugher, lover of Jesus, Diet Coke and all of the Chipotle burritos. You can find her on the internets at stillbeingmolly.com.
Molly and I begin our conversation discussing her faith journey and how after years of being “burned” by Christians she finally heard, understood, and accepted the grace of Jesus. We discuss how she grieved the loss of her mother in an unhealthy way vs. how she clung to Jesus when grieving the loss of her 2 baby boys. We also discuss how her passion for ethical fashion ignited, which has led to her podcast, Business with Purpose.
3:47 Molly begins sharing how her faith journey with Jesus began.
4:43 Molly shares about her best friend “breaking up” with her
She said, “She couldn’t be my friend anymore, because I wasn’t Christian enough for her.”
“I would dabble in church here and there, but I just never had a clear concept of the gospel.”
8:54 Molly begins sharing about her mom’s illness and decline during her childhood before passing away her senior year of high school.
Molly shares about how she did not deal with the grief well. She says one of the hardest things she had to do was pick out a casket for her mother.
13:00 “A lot of people when they go through grief and they shut it out, they medicate with things like alcohol or drugs or whatever. For me, it was spending money.”
19:19 Molly begins sharing about “the guy” she worked with and how he was different from every other guy she met.
22:37 “I went to church that day. I walked in and it felt like I was home. I was like this is what church can be like, where people smile and welcome you and there’s an incredible message (that I understand) and music that is incredible. It was the first time I really began to understand what the gospel was that all these people were talking about and I never missed a Sunday after that.”
“There was a day when God brought me to my knees. I just said, ‘Alright God, I have been trying to do things my way for a really long time and look at where it got me and I am going to try to do things Your way and the rest is history. And life has not been easy since then, by any stretch of the imagination, but God has shown me every single day that He is good and He has had a plan this entire time’.”
Molly’s mother’s book: Home Before Morning by Lynda Van DeVanter
26:59 Molly begins sharing about her journey with ethical fashion and how that lead to her podcast. Business with Purpose.
“The #1 way to alleviate poverty in the world is by providing jobs.”
“By providing a woman a job in a developing nation you can change the trajectory of an entire community, an entire country.”
Molly recommends the documentary: The True Cost
Molly comes at ethical fashion from an empowerment narrative vs. a shaming narrative.
For example: “I don’t say, ‘I don’t shop at Old Navy because they have slave labor in their supply chains.’ I say, ‘I love supporting Noonday Collection, because their products are beautiful and unique and well-made and I love knowing my purchase is supporting an artisian in a developing nation who is able to feed her family and send her kids to school.’ It’s not a pity purchase, because I’m buying the product because it is beautiful and I love it, but it also has this incredible story attached to it.”
“There are so many amazing brands and companies that are doing good in the world that aren’t necessarily a fair trade or ethical fashion brand, but it’s showing people you can change the world with whatever gift or talent God has given you.”
“What is that fire God has placed in your heart? He’s placed it there for a reason.”
Business with Purpose Ethical Brand Directory
37:07 Molly begins discussing 2018 and the loss of her two baby boys during the 2nd trimester of pregnancy.
In Memory of Elijah and Malachi
40:35 “I had a choice. I could’ve made the excuse that I couldn’t, that this was not the year [regarding reading the Bible in one year], but God said, ‘NOPE! I am here and I am going to walk with you and you’re going to walk through it with me by reading My Word.’ I had two choices to make. I could run from God. I could blame Him. I could be angry. I could say this is all His fault. Why would He do this to me? Why does He allow me to suffer like this? Why did He allow me to lose my mom and now to lose these babies? Why did He allow all of these terrible things? I could have done that. I could have run from Him. OR He said, ‘How about this time you run towards me?’ And I did that. I ran as fast as I could towards Jesus.”
“I ended up reading my Bible in a year, which was one of the most transformative things I have ever done….I just got hungry for God’s Word.”
41:51 “I just became infatuated with His Word, because I had just begun, not even scratch the surface of the depth and detail and beauty of this love letter to us. This is our love letter from God Himself.”
45:00 “We live in a culture, in a world that tells us we have to do everything ourselves. We have to pick ourselves up by our own bootstraps. We have to rely on our own strength….We’re filled with excuses…I think it is a nice, pretty saying to put on a mug or a t-shirt, but we hear these things all the time that say, ‘I am enough. I am enough. I am enough.’ And sometimes y’all I am not enough. But guess who is? Jesus.”
James 2:14-16 Faith without works is dead.