About Jill
Speaker, Author, Storyteller & GG
Founder, Manners of the Heart
What about me?
I’ve struggled with how to introduce myself. With humor? With gut-wrenching honesty? How about a little bit of both.
You can see from the picture I’m a blue-eyed Southerner. I never knew I had a southern drawl, until I lived in New York City, and couldn’t say “Good Morning” without someone asking if I was from Texas (which is a twang, not a drawl), Alabama, Louisiana, South Carolina, Mississippi, Tennessee, or Georgia.
Like E. F. Hutton, when we talk, people listen. (Or, at least, we think you do!)
We take a five-minute story and turn it into a half-hour, spellbinding, sit-on-the-end-of-your-chair tale that leaves you exhausted and ready for a glass of our finest sweet tea. We really can’t help it. We feel a compulsion to entertain with a purpose.
If it will help you feel better, we’ll share the intimate details of our lives. (Most of us are open books, just waiting to be read.) We’ll help you find reasons to keep on keeping on, no matter how much your heart is aching.
I do believe that’s the reason why I’m doing this at this time in my life. I’ve lived long enough to have gone through enough to have learned enough that I might be able to keep you from feeling that enough is enough. (Only a true Southerner could have written that sentence.)
I’ll share lessons I’ve learned the hard way, the easy way and the ugly way.
For me, life began in a playpen in the back corner booth of the “Help Yourself” diner in the town of Vicksburg while Mother worked us out of poverty.
Today, I’m GG to seven, from six to eighteen. I’m married to a terribly handsome man with a remarkably kind heart. It took a lot to get here. Much more than I can tell in one sitting. Hang around long enough and you might just hear the whole story.
I hope I can make you feel better about life, love, parenting and being a woman, ‘cause I really do want to bless your heart.
With a nod to my most favored biblical heroine, Esther,
For such a time as this,
Jill
“We rarely find what we’re looking for until we stop looking around and look up.”
- JILL GARNER
From a spark to a flame
Jill is an accomplished author, speaker, and founder of nonprofit, Manners of the Heart, seeking to reawaken respect in our society for the sake of the next generation.
In 1992, a volunteer project at her twin sons’ elementary school sparked a flame in her heart that continues to burn mightily. When schools inquired about the manners and respect program she had created, Jill accepted the challenge to compile the lessons for others to use. Manners of the Heart, a respect-based Heart Education curriculum for elementary schools was published in 1999. As demand grew, so did the curriculum, now known as HeartED. To date, the curriculum has been used in hundreds of elementary schools in the US and abroad. Jill has become a recognized authority in Heart Education.
Manners of the Heart has received countless awards for its curriculum, professional development, and success in parental engagement, including the 2022 Champion of Respect for Parents & Families from Character.org.
Changing the world one heart at a time
OFFICIAL BIO OF JILL GARNER
Jill speaks to educators, parents, and women’s groups on topics from respect to humility. She has appeared on the CBS Early Show, CNN, Focus on the Family, Family Life Today, and over 500 radio shows and podcasts. She hosts “HeartBeats”, a daily radio broadcast, heard on iHeart stations.
Jill’s parenting books, the 2024 Parenting Book of the Year from the Golden Scroll Awards, Raising Respectful Children in a Disrespectful World, and Raising Unselfish Children in a Self-Absorbed World have sold more than 125,000 copies. Hot off the press from Moody Publishers is Jill’s newest title for parents, StrongHeart: Cultivating humility, respect, and resiliency in your child, now available wherever books are sold.
Known for her “unending energy and outrageous passion,” this wife, mother and GG to seven, has a powerful calling to deliver a life-giving message to this generation. Jill’s contagious obsession to change the world one heart at a time will fill your soul, ignite your passion, and get you in touch with the beat of the Savior’s heart.
Memberships & Organizations
“Whether you believe the God of the Holy Bible reigns supreme over His creation or not, you’ll come to know He is near, even when you don’t see Him.”
Offering a fresh perspective on life and living, Jill will deliver a powerful message from her heart to yours.