Called out with Brenda Joy: Comfortable Isn't the Same as Called

At 55, Brenda Joy sold a chocolate business she'd built over 21 years, moved her husband and four kids from Iowa to Florida, and walked straight into a season she didn't have a plan for. What followed wasn't the clean pivot her online bio makes it sound like — it was a second business that never felt aligned, a job she took for the money and got fired from within days, and a community she had to walk away from with no promise of what would replace it. In this conversation, Brenda breaks down what it actually cost her to keep listening past the point where the outcome made sense — the friendships that didn't survive the move, the identity she had to let go of as a lifelong "task-oriented, striving" entrepreneur, and the discomfort of being told to just be still when stillness wasn't in her nature. We get into how she learned to tell the difference between fear talking and God directing, why comparison is the thing quietly disqualifying midlife women online before culture ever gets the chance to, and what it actually looks like to stay in your lane when everyone around you is building in someone else's. This is a conversation about obedience without the finished version of the story — what it looks like while you're still walking it out, not after you've landed on the other side. * * * **About the host:** Whitney Kay is a content & sales strategist in brand partnerships with 15+ years as an entrepreneur and 6+ years leading discipleship and small group ministry. Called + Convicted is her show on discerning calling and defending conviction — for anyone caught between what culture's selling and what God's asking. **Listen and follow:** Instagram @heywhitneykay | TikTok @calledandconvicted