The year is ending, and it’s high time you start preparing for 2023. In this episode, Julia and Travis Gentry bring two different lanes to the conversation around how you need to think about 2023. They start by discussing financial opportunities and downfalls to expect in the coming year. Only 49% of people will set a New Year’s resolution, and only 9% of those will see their goals through the end of the year. Listen to what they have to say and get motivated to start setting up a financial cushion for your business, yourself, and your loved ones. Julia and Travis also discuss the importance of focusing on your physical wellness and mental health in achieving clarity. This episode is going to be extremely helpful, not just as you consider the new year but as you are living the following year as well. Take advantage of the valuable nuggets of wisdom from today’s episode by tuning in!

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How To Prepare For 2023

I have my partner, Travis Gentry. It’s so good to have you here.

Thank you for inviting me.

I’m really glad to be having this conversation with you.

Me too. I’m excited to be here with you.

Have you ever wondered that people say that all the time? “I’m so excited.” Is that a filler?

Yes, for sure.

I hate it now. I notice it all the time. People say this on Instagram videos, promo videos, conferences, workshops, “On today’s podcast, we are so excited.” What were we supposed to say? “I am not looking forward to this episode. I don’t want to be here. This feels inauthentic. I’m glad that you’re talking and not me.”

We could go down the rabbit hole on that one.

We are excited and the reason we’re excited is we’re going to talk about 2023, ready or not. Whether you’re reading this mid-December 2022 or in February 2023, we think this episode will be extremely valuable, not just as you consider the new year, but as you are living the next year.

Buckle up, buttercup. Get ready because 2023 is going to be a new, exciting, different year, no matter what. If some of the things that we are seeing that are happening now don’t come to fruition, it’s still going to be a new, exciting year.

Part of why it’s important to be having this conversation on our show is for many reasons. This is generally the time of year that people are setting New Year’s resolutions, goals, thinking about the New Year, and setting intentions. When you lean in, it’s pathetic how horribly we do this, people.

We’re going to be real and honest as much as possible.

The fact is that only 49% of people will set a New Year’s resolution, which means 51% of people don’t even do it. They don’t have a goal, a New Year’s resolution, or a mantra. Of you 49% that are going to do this, 80% of you have quit by mid-February. Only 9% of the 49% will see their goals in New Year’s through the end of the year.

Being in the fitness industry a long time ago, I would see that, whether it was gym memberships or fitness equipment, that was the best time of the whole year. People Gung ho and ready. I don’t know what happens on January 1st, but all of a sudden, people are like, “I’m going to wait until that day and this year, then I’m going to take action.” We’re November now as opposed to saying maybe December 1st, Monday, tomorrow, or right now.

I’ve started to kind loop this and look at my own life. We’re not here to judge everybody, though. We will do a good job of that. What happens for a lot of people is that when I go to set a New Year’s resolution, think about the new year, or how to prepare all of these things, the moment does make me feel good because I’m thinking about, “I’m going to lose the 30 pounds. I’m going to write the book. I’m going to start the business. I’m going to do the things,” and as you’re considering these goals, you’re like, “This feels good. I feel like I’m on cloud nine already. I’m feeling the momentum of achievement.” “I’m 30 pounds lighter just thinking about it.” You then start to do all of those things and realize that these goals are not designed to make me feel good.

They’re simple and hard.

They don’t feel good losing weight and writing a book. Speaking to those of us who are not huge New Year’s goals or resolution people, or let’s think of a mantra for the new year, I get it. I understand how hard that can be. It doesn’t mean that it’s doesn’t work, goals aren’t important, and that vision important. However, we’re not talking about that.

We’ve done that and we did it with alcohol. It would always be, “We’ll stop drinking on Monday, on the first, or after the holidays.” It took some time years for us to truly commit to it because knowing we would go a week, a month, three months, at a time and not drink, and then you slowly go back and you’re like, “Just once,” or, “This party’s coming up, so I’ll do it until then,” which you already set yourself up for failure at that point. We’ve experienced that in our own life. As we joke around and have fun with some of these things, it is real and we 100% understand. That was a big thing for us with drinking and it took years for us to commit to it because it’s so prevalent in the world around us.

Here is what this episode is not about. This is not about helping you come up with better goals for 2023. It is not your typical, “Let’s set a vision and mantra for the new year. That makes us feel good.” In this episode, we’re going to get down into the weeds a little bit. We’re going to jump into the deep end of the pool. We are going to talk a little bit about our perspective as we consider 2023.

You and I have put a lot of time and attention into understanding mentally, emotionally, and tactically what’s going on in the world around us. You’ve taken your lane and I’ve taken mine. I will speak to that. I am excited to talk about that because we’re both bringing two different lanes to this conversation around how we as people need to be thinking about 2023.

Some of the things that we see happening now we believe will affect 2023. Give us the analogy that we were talking about because it sets up the conversation from the beginning to the end.

No matter where you are in regards to what you think of 2023, all of us could already start to feel a little bit, depending on what industry we’re in, “We can sense that things are happening.” There are others that are like, “I don’t understand the question. What are we talking about here? I’m not aware of anything.” Regardless of what your potential position is right now in 2023. What Travis and I are considering this next year to look like is a wave. What we’re talking about is a wave of the ocean. In theory, the best analogy for this is in the movie Soul Surfer, which is our kids’ favorite movie. In fact, the only part that they love to watch is the shark attack.

This is a movie about Bethany Hamilton, which if you know the movie, she’s a surfer and she’s the one that gets her arm bit off, and then it’s her story to basically healing mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and getting on the board and writing again. There’s a scene towards the end where she has repositioned herself and wants to be a surfer again with one arm, and she’s out there competing.

They’ve got 30 seconds on the clock and basically, someone needs to catch a wave in order to win. All of the surfers are lined up and Bethany has to catch this wave. Everybody on the sidelines is like, “There are no more waves. She’s not going to win. There’s no way.” All of a sudden, the video shows that Bethany got her hand on the ocean waves and her dad says, “She senses something. She feels something,” and she starts paddling beyond where you’re going to catch a wave. It gives me goosebumps thinking about it.

The audience is watching this girl go way past where she, “should be.” They see nothing. Bethany doesn’t even see anything, but she’s super connected and can feel that something is coming. Long story short, she positions herself to ride the wave that didn’t land where everybody thought it was going to land. It came up way further out, but she caught the wave because she could feel it and was able to ride it, which implied the people who thought where the wave was going to be were too late to catch it.

What we’re going to be talking about is the wave. There is a wave coming. We will both speak to different perspectives of, “We can feel and sense it,” and you’re going to speak to a ton of legit tactics around it’s coming, but we’re going to speak a little bit about this wave. We’re also going to talk about how to ride the wave and how to position yourself as Bethany Hamilton did to catch the wave as opposed to being under the wave.

There is a wave coming. You could either get clobbered by the wave, you can miss the wave, or you can ride the wave. Click To Tweet

You could either get clobbered by the wave, miss the wave, or ride the wave. That also looks like you’re not necessarily doing what everybody else is doing. For anybody who doesn’t know our backstory, we’ve been in real estate for several years. We got in 2008 when the market was at the bottom. We are now looking back, and what we’ve seen over the last couple of years is historic in a sense of the prices and how high and how quickly they have jumped over the last couple of years.

Interest rates are low and everything that has happened, and now, we’re starting to see another shift. What I’m seeing right now, and some of this you may have heard about. It’s like a puzzle and there are different pieces. Once you connect the pieces and you look at it in a frame, you’re like, “This is not great.”

“This is not normal.”

Something’s going on. Some of the things that we’re hearing or seeing right now are that student loans got extended again for people on their student loans not having to make payments. That gets kicked down the road a little bit longer. It started in 2020. They keep saying it was going to take effect again, where people would have to make their loan payments in January.

That got postponed again because of the whole process of Biden trying to pass a bill. I don’t care what side you’re on, but passing a bill to forgive a certain amount of $10,000 a student loan per individual and there are different stipulations that go along with that and that’s getting caught up in court now. They’re extending those payments.

What does that tell us about what could potentially be coming?

Let me give you a couple more examples. Credit card debt in the US hits an all-time high of $930 billion. Auto repossessions are on the rise substantially. Inflation is at a 40-year high. Fed is increasing the interest rates at a historic rate as far as how fast. In the ’80s, when we had high inflation and they increased the interest rates, it was from like 13%, 14% to 18%. We went from like 0% and we’re going up to 4.5% to 5%. If you look at it and then you look at the cost of living in general and housing, that’s substantial. You can feel it and see it. It’s in the media as far as what’s happening.

We have a lot of connections in the real estate market. You’re starting to see inventory rise and some price drops because of the interest rates doubling from last year. They were 2.75% to 3%, and now they’ve jumped up over 7% and under 7%. They’re fluctuating around that. You’re buying power from going from 3% to 7% interest rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage is substantial. That’s huge.

We’re seeing all these things happen along with big companies in different sectors announcing layoffs. HP, Amazon, Peloton, Wells Fargo, Tesla, Redfin, Nordstrom, Gap, Warner Brothers, Ford, Apple, Groupon, Shopify, Walmart, RE/MAX, and Carvana. It’s not isolated to one sector. You’re starting to see the dominoes in these different sectors and how deep is it going to go? How wide is it going to go?

These are our 10:30 PM conversations after we’ve put the kids to bed. You had made this comment that these aren’t even seasonal jobs. These are corporate positions.

These are corporate jobs like Walmart corporate jobs and Wells Fargo. Within the lending sector, you’re starting to see big layoffs like Redfin and Zillow backing out of their iBuying program. Redfin is backing away from its buying program. Zillow saw what was going to happen and they got out in 2020. I believe they were able to sell all of them to a big hedge fund.

I appreciate the hours you have spent here, and then you start dissecting it for me. What is that telling us when we see all of those pieces?

Let’s isolate a couple of them. If you look at student loans, if the economy was that good and people were financially in a good place, there should be no reason not to have people start making their loan payments again.

This is implying that we’re not good.

They were not as good as being projected as far as where we’re at. Most people probably don’t, but if you listen to Jerome Powell and his Fed meetings, he says he’s looking at unemployment. Our employment has been strong as far as the work available for people, so he’s looking at that. He’s looking for unemployment to go up. He said in his last meeting that he’s looking for a correction in real estate. He’s pressing into the interest rates to have real estate pull back.

We’re going to talk in general. You have to look at your market. It’s a national, but then you have state and submarkets in those states. Some are going to do okay. Some are not going to do good at all. They will have a 15%, 20%, and 25% pullback in price. If you think about people that bought a house the last couple of years, and if they didn’t put any money down and did an FHA loan at 3.5% or a 5% conventional loan, where they put minimal down, and the market pulls back 10%, they’re underwater in their mortgage.

The big topic of conversation is inventory is low. It was low and it’s on the rise. Most people that don’t need to sell won’t sell because they don’t have to. Most people refinanced or bought the house and weather the storm so they don’t need to sell. As you have unemployment rise, what’s going to happen? You will have people who need to sell because they don’t have a job anymore. With that, then it becomes a race to the bottom or a race to price.

What about the thought process around, “We’re readjusting to pre-COVID covid numbers?” We did see over these last couple of years, sectors have shot up an area. We’re closest to the real estate market, so we have seen that. People are trying to keep up with the level of growth and momentum. You hear some are like, “We’re readjusting to get back to where we were before.” What are all these things tell you in relation to a statement like that?

There are market cycles. There are real estate market and stock market cycles. You have to look at it like what the Fed said, inflation is transitory. It wasn’t transitory. Now, it’s out of control. It’s at a 40-year high. The stock market gets excited. We did peak out a couple of months ago and the last CPI print came out at 7.7% and the stock market rallied because it’s excited because what the Fed is doing is working to a certain extent. They’re trying to curve demand. It’s supply and demand. When you have less demand for products, those prices naturally are going to come down.

If you’re sitting here reading this and you have 1 of 2 thought processes that go through your head, I want to affirm that you are not alone in this. One is he’s dumbing this down well, so I can understand it. If you’re sitting there going, “I feel like I can understand an industry that I’ve never understood before.” Me too, because you do that. Something that I hear you say that and I’m like, “You’re making it sound way simpler than it is.” You do a good job of dumbing it down.

I told you this as we’re rehearsing all the things you’ve seen and are noticing, and I asked, “What does that mean for me?” The person that’s like, “I totally hear you,” and I’m not suggesting that we’re done looking at all of the pieces that you’re talking about, but for me, raising babies, building my business, trying to make some decisions based upon the future, and trying to get out of the hole of 2020. What does that mean for me? What am I supposed to do next?

It can mean so many different things. Backing up, it’s a pendulum. I don’t believe it’s going to correct or stop. It was transitory and the inflation was up, and then it’s going to come back down and level out and everything is going to be the way it was. You are going to have some swing to the other side. You’re starting to see it. That’s why we bring this up. It’s being aware and prepared and not scared in the context of like you’re going to start to hear more and more things on the media, which can be confusing and create fear inside of you. That’s what we’re ultimately talking about and what we’re doing in preparation to ride the wave.

Let’s now start breaking some of this down. Based upon all the things that you and I see happening, whether it’s on a global scale or to your point, in certain markets, things are shifting, times are changing, whether we’re defining our equilibrium, going to see the next recession, or anywhere in between, the idea here is that we want to equip you with the tools to ride the wave.

To the point at the beginning of this, when we talked about riding the wave, Bethany Hamilton, we want you to be able to ride the wave with confidence because you, you’re aware and prepared. That’s the goal here. It’s to be aware and be prepared because, like us, we didn’t know it at the time, but we built our first business at the beginning of the recession.

It was 2008. We were too stupid to know anything different. We were already broke. At some level, we’re like, “Let’s give it a try.” Everyone’s like, “What are you doing getting into real estate?” We hit the market spot on and there’s story after story, whether it’s Airbnb, Warby Parker, Netflix, or companies who found their niche in recession.

That speaks to the fact that there’s always potential. You’ve said this, “Money is never leaving. It’s exchanging hands.” It’s just moving. Our goal with this is 1) we want to create some awareness of what’s going on behind the scenes, whether people are showcasing this, mentioning it, or putting the pieces together, but then 2) to start to speak to how you be prepared.

Money is never leaving, it's just exchanging hands. Click To Tweet

A disclaimer, none of this is financial advice. We’re talking about what we’re seeing and what we’re doing. You need to do your own due diligence and research, but hopefully, we will help you to maybe rethink things that did work and start to see maybe that aren’t working or see the shift and start taking action now. You have time to either reposition yourself in the same industry or gain a new skill so that next year, you can utilize the new market conditions that are going to present themselves.

What we’re speaking to when we think about the wave is that there are a lot of sectors and industries where we see that’s crumbling. We’ve got student loans, credit cards, auto, inflation, interest rates, layoffs, and housing. It is a perfect storm of a lot of different sectors that are starting to come to the surface that we’re not feeling now, but it’s happening.

It’s shifting. You got to look at it again, like Bethany and the wave analogy. You got to start to move before you see it because sometimes it is too late. Now, it’s time to get educated and this is a market cycle. It’s one of them. They don’t repeat themselves but they tend to rhyme. There are different things that you can look at.

Look at the stock market. The stock market started to fall in January and has slowly fallen and had these decent size rallies and then fallen further, and then a little bit more of a rally. We’re at the end of November 2022 and we are in a little bit of a rally. You can call it a dead cat bounce or relief rally, but we’re waiting on the CPI for December and for the Fed to say what they’re going to do, but historically the market doesn’t bottom when the Fed is still tightening.

They’re increasing interest rates. What they did in 2020 was called QE, which is quantitative easing. They were putting money in the system. That’s why you saw dropping interest rates. That’s why you saw everything explode. The stock market was at an all-time high and housing blew up because the interest rates were so low. Money was cheap and easy to get.

Now, they’re taking money out of the system, QT, quantitative tightening, and increasing interest rates. The stock market will go down more. It’s a matter of time. You can make money when the stock market goes down or up. In real estate, you have to change your strategy or your approach. If we do enter into a time where some people aren’t going to have the equity to be able to sell, there are different creative strategies that you can use to buy and sell houses, even in a market that is starting to be upside down.

Can we speak a little bit about how we position ourselves? Some of these things, if you’re reading this, you’re immediately like, “I could be impacted for the good or the bad.” Some people I can envision, “I’m not in the stock market and I’m not in real estate. I’m barely getting by as is. I’m trying to keep up with my monthly expenses.” There’s this whole range of where people might be as they read this. Now that we foresee a wave coming, what does that mean? What do we think? What do you think? How are we approaching this year?

We’ve been doing it for quite some time. These are some of the strategies that we have implemented as a defensive, and then you have your offense. Some of the things we do as an offense is staying out of debt like credit card debt and other debt tied to interest rates. Credit card debt is at an all-time high. Those interest rates are variable tied to what’s going on with interest rates increasing. Some of these individuals with these are going to be 20% plus just on interest. What we do is try to stay out of debt, have a cash reserve, and then once you have some cash reserve for an emergency fund, and have some gold and silver.

Our kids run around the house saying, “God’s money.”

I took that from Robert Kiyosaki, but it is. It’s been money since the beginning of time. Silver right now is cheap relative to gold. It’s easy to buy a few coins, but first, to have some cash. The other thing that we do is have some food and water for 1 to 3 months as a backup. I’m not saying doom and gloom and it’s going to be horrific and awful, but we also didn’t know what the end of 2019 into 2020 was going to look like either. We’re taking the approach of, “How do we have a certain amount of defense in place that no matter what happens, we can sit back and look at it and say, “We have a little bit of time to figure out what’s going on?”

It was Bob Harrison that says, “It’s the offense that sells the tickets, but the defense wins the game.” That’s true. If I look back on our marriage, you have been knocking on the door of our defense game and I love offense. You like to travel and adventure and I’m not saying that it’s all that. I love the game of offense. I love to take risks. I love to go there which I’m going to talk a little bit about what is coming for 2023, which is super offensive. I loved when we finally went, “Both,” so what we’re speaking of is we are not doom and gloom. Travis and I are not preppers. Be aware and be prepared. In theory, the defense will win the game, but the offense is going to sell the tickets. These things that we do are in alignment with our defense part of the game.

One thing we’re big on is mental and physical health. What are you doing or have been doing for quite some time that you shouldn’t be doing or you shouldn’t be eating? As we were joking around at the beginning as far as New Year’s resolutions, now’s the time to start. Don’t wait until after December or after the holidays. Start moving your body now and start working towards whatever those goals you have, if you have them. If you don’t, you are already fit, eat well, and all that, then great. You’re there.

As I was reflecting on this point, I have been on the side of needing alcohol. I’ve also been on the side of excessive working out if my intake of sugar was higher. I’ve been on both sides of this equation and have spent hours and a lot of money learning what fuels my body. Much of our mental crisis, but not all, is tied up in what we’re eating. It’s unreal.

You’ve seen me with my nutritionist and learning what is making my brain jump wires and making my emotions out of whack. It has come down to two things, my supplements and my food. I am a huge proponent of saying that though this doesn’t seem like a big deal when you’re on the other side of mental clarity, physically feeling good, and strong at a sustainable level, it does wonders for your day-to-day. It wonders for your parenting and business. You don’t know what you’re missing until you’re on the other side of clarity.

When you're on the other side of mental clarity and physically feeling good and strong at a sustainable level, it does wonders for your day-to-day, your parenting, and your business. You don't know what you're missing until you're on the other side of… Click To Tweet

I see it in real-time when we have a baby and you’re breastfeeding because what you put in your body is being broken down and given to our children. You see that with other parents and their drinking coke, eating fast food, or whatever, their babies’ stomachs are upset or not sleeping through the night. You are the source. You do it, not necessarily when we have babies, but I can see that. Thank God, because of the way you eat, none of our babies have those problems.

I remember a week four after having Roxy, some people go, “You were probably feeling postpartum,” and that was a huge component, but I literally felt like there’s no way I’m going to be able to sustain this. My brain felt like it was twisting. It felt like an emotional rollercoaster, then you’re watching what people are putting on social media and the mental crisis in the world. In my head, I’m like, “I have postpartum,” and I started to spin for a couple of days and I’m looking at five kids, the business, all of the things for next year, huge investment in our business with hiring and all these things, and I’m thinking, “I’m going to lose my mind like everybody else.”

When I sat down with my nutritionist, she walked me through what was going on and what I would need to do and take away and supplement. I didn’t change anything else on paper, how much levels of to-dos, the business, the kids, you, or anything, I changed what I was eating and the supplements I was taking. After a few weeks, the level of clarity, strength, and momentum was completely back. The clarity was unreal.

At this point, it seems too simple to work. It is that simple to work. That’s a huge part of approaching your day with such a level of clarity that your emotions aren’t tied to what’s happening around us. It’s not tied to because of the food intake that I’m either eating too much, not enough, or all the things. It’s a game-changer.

I could hear some people saying, “It’s hard. I don’t know. It’s confusing. I don’t have the resources. I don’t have the money.” We understand that and we didn’t either. It’s little steps at a time. We know people that go to the extreme, from not eating healthy and doing some things, not working out, and then to the extreme of something for a certain amount of time. When you put a timeframe on a workout program, it’s not a lifestyle change.

You’ve got to look at it as, “Here are the goals I want to get and here are the things I’m going to start to do. I’m going to do them. I’m not going to do 30 days or 90 days,” because you’ll go all out for the 30 or 90-day workout program. That’s why especially New Year’s resolutions in the fitness realm die off. It’s not sustainable.

What I want to say on that specifically is to do a self-audit. We talk about this quite a bit. Do a food audit. “What do I eat? How do I feel? Are there certain things that I don’t sit very well where I feel jittery or my stomach?” Do a Google search of the foods you eat and see potentially the side effects and link them to how you’re feeling. Do another Google search on different foods that you can eat that are cost-effective. That will feed your body and nourish it. If you read the labels when you go to a grocery store, half of them you can’t pronounce. If you buy the box based on the marketing and it’s saying like, “Nutritionist and sugar-free,” what are they putting in there to make it taste so good?

It’s a cancer bar.

Don’t make it more complicated. That’s what I’m saying. Get started with one action that you can start to do if any of these resonate with you. A few other things, one is protection. That can mean different things to different people. A community is huge at a time, whether it’s thriving or not. Being in a good solid community with like-minded people can not only encourage you but challenge you. You’ve got to have those people around you. Not going into 2023 but in general.

To your point, all of these things stay out of debt, cash reserve, food and water, mental and physical health, protection, or community, just start. If all you can do is kick the debt on one card, so kick it. If all you can do is stock up for one month of extra food, then stock. Start a little bit. If all you can do when you’re ordering from Costco is add a few additional things to your cart, start there. If all you have is one person in your community, then lean in harder.

The idea is to let that compound effect take over. Are we prepping for something? No, we’re being prepared because we did watch 2020 hurt too many people unexpectedly. If most people had these things in place, we probably wouldn’t have felt this volatility and complete freakout mode because, in theory, I’m prepared to let things fall where they may. That’s what we’re suggesting. Once you have the defense in place, then you get to play offense.

This is where you get to ride the way. The idea is there’s this awareness where you look up and you see all the pieces, what Travis is talking about. You’re like, “This is interesting. The energy is building. Things are shifting. The market looks different. People are wanting different things.” You can tell the energy is moving and shifting. We’re going to ride out and start getting prepared. We’re going to do what most people won’t so we can have what most people can’t. We then get to ride the wave.

If nothing happens, you’re in a better spot. There’s a lag time. That’s why we’re talking about it. The things that we shared at the beginning of what we’re seeing is there’s a lag time to when it hits the economy. In 2020, you didn’t see the skyrocket in home prices right off the bat. It took a while then they peaked at the end of 2021-ish.

You saw that back in 2008. Things were happening in 2006 and 2007, and as you and I even stepped into it in 2008, that’s we started to start seeing it, but things were happening leading up to 2008 and 2009 when it was the worst of the worst.

I watched the movie again, The Big Short, and that’s exactly what it is. When the mainstream media and everyone knows about something, sometimes it’s too late. If you put these pieces together and say, “If this gets worse, what could happen? If some of these things play out in the past, similar to what is happening now, what industries, marketplace, or people going to need? What skill could I have to bring to the marketplace to go and serve more people?”

This is where we start playing offense. There is money to be made, opportunity, value to give, hope to bring, and new businesses in every market. The opportunity here is ripe, in my opinion. I had a theme for what I was talking about and midway through my video and I talk about what I thought was happening in 2023. 2023 is the year of the dream, which basically means it’s going to be the year where the people who are aware and prepared are going to start to see something so much deeper within them or they’re going to have a belief in a business, an industry, a model, or a value play to this world. Those are going to be the people that will soar and catch the wave. 

There is money to be made in any market. There is opportunity in every market. There is value to give in every market. There is hope to bring in every market. There are new businesses in every market. The opportunity here is ripe. Click To Tweet

It’s not because we see what’s going on around us like the fear, the student loan payments, or the credit card, all those things are real. They are happening. It’s like Netflix after Blockbuster. There’s never going to be movies played again in our lifetime. Netflix said, “I wonder if there’s a better way to do this.”

What’s happening in my mind is that it’s positioning us as dreamers to stand up and be accounted for around this idea that does not look at the past. Don’t even look at what’s going on around us or what the mainstream is saying. I want you to start building a world based upon revelation, potential, what God’s called you to do, or the skills he’s placed within you, that is what 2023 is all about. People who are resolved, convicted and connected to the dream or something so much bigger that it pulls them through the eye of the needle and allows them to ride the wave.

How do they do that? You can say the word and it can mean a lot of different things to different people. You’ve shared it before as far as what the interpretation is when you say it’s the year of the dream. A lot of people dream but don’t do anything with it.

In the book, I write this definition. Dreaming is not what you think it is. It’s the ability to go so deep, almost to a totally different level of awareness, you’re able to bring a world that you don’t see with your physical eye, get in touch with that world, and bring it to the world around us. What I mean is that this isn’t going to be something that’s going to make you feel good. It’s the thing that’s going to make you good. It’s the thing that you were purposed for from the very beginning of time to do, to be, to give, and to have in this lifetime. It is our job to bring that to the world.

All of us have different visions, ideas, or strategies. This isn’t about the, “I’m not that creative.” No, we all have different dreams and they come to us in very different ways. You see strategy, I see the big picture. They’re both dreams. You see strategy around how a business could look, feel, and run differently. I see a vision of how the world could look different for people. Those are the dreams.

For instance, if you’re seeing something that’s not working at a micro or macro level, then what I would tell you is lean in. You are part of the solution. If you’re seeing a problem within your church, the industry, how emails are being sent, the education system, credit card, loan payments, auto, or inflation, you are part of the solution.

If you can then take that dream, start building strategy, get people around you, understand the pieces you don’t understand, start putting chips on the table, and go, “I’m all in for this. This is something that the world’s going to need.” That’s where you start to play offense, even though the world might say one thing and you go, “No, I can do this.” That’s what this year is going to be about. Airbnb, Netflix, Trader Joe’s, and the guy on The Big Short were the same thing. The rest of the world would’ve said, “What are you doing?”

“It’s time to pull back and hunker down.”

“Why are you getting into real estate in 2008?” Nobody does this. For Netflix, blockbusters going out don’t know that this is the right thing to do. For Bethany Hamilton, “Why are you riding out? There are no waves out there ever,” and the girl’s like, “You couldn’t convince me because I’m so in touch with something else. I’m not looking around at the world to give me something that God’s already put on the inside of me. I can catch the wave because I can see it before seeing it.”

If you’re one of the people that potentially are going to lose your job, it could be a perfect setup because there are so many people that don’t love what they do anyway. This could be one of the best opportunities for you to reset the trajectory of your life. If they’re offering you a severance package and you choose now as opposed to maybe getting laid off later, look at that and say, “I don’t even like this industry. I don’t like this job. This could give me a runway to change my life in the future.”

This is why I encourage you to go back and read some of these last episodes because we were talking so much about this mental resiliency because so much of this is going to be the mindset and it’s also going to be, “What am I paying attention to?” Fear in my mind is misguided faith. That’s all that it is. I’m putting my attention on the wrong thing. “I could lose my job tomorrow,” as you always say, “Is this happening to me or is this happening for me?” That’s a mindset and a choice. “Is the world falling apart or is it falling into place?” It’s a matter of perspective and what I’m putting my faith in versus my fear.

Fear is just misguided faith. That's all that it is. Click To Tweet

Ultimately, we have to remember that God knows from the beginning to the end. He is not in control of all things but is in charge of all things. When we start to look at that and go, “This is an opportunity. Things are changing and that doesn’t have to be bad. Markets are crumbling and changing, and that doesn’t have to be bad. Am I positioned on the defense? Am I in tune and aware of the energy? Am I ready to go on my offensive strategy?”

Now, more than ever before, the world needs people who are prepared and ready on the offense to bring heaven to earth, to make the world a better place, to do something different in all of these markets, to stand up and be accounted for, and to do the things that God has put in their hearts that we put on the shelf because we were busy or disappointment or we had to pay the bills. Now is the time to tap back into each and every one of those dreams and to go, “If not now, when? If not me, who?”

There are two things that are guaranteed, death and That’s a fact. For taxes, there are strategies that you can get around that. We only have so much time that we always put it off. We have been there in the past. “When we get there, then we’ll do that,” and then we get there and we’re like, “There’s no perfect time.” Maybe you have an awesome and stable job, but you want to do something else. Maybe now is the time to prepare. If something happens, you’re already prepared, but if nothing happens, then you’re prepared and you can go into your employer and say, “I quit.”

When you go back to the point of the community, Travis and I are on checks and balances right now of we will look in every conversation, we’re talking defense and offense. We’ll talk about, “Here’s what we think is coming,” and then, are we prepared enough right to continue to ride that wave? Worst case scenario, if this industry, these things, or anything that could totally impact our mental, emotional, and financial house, we’re constantly going, “Is our defensive game on point? What else offensively can we be doing? What is the world going to need? What is the message that we have? What are the resources? What are our talents? What is our business position to do? What is our family’s position to do?”

In closing, the wave is coming. We’re not here to speculate on how big or when or any of the things, but as things shift and change, our hope in this episode is that you are positioning yourself to have a greater level of awareness. Be prepared defensively, get on the offense and put some chips on the table, and take some risks towards the things that God has given you to run unapologetically towards the dreams that you have to see your family, career, and community a better place. Now is equally just as much of a time to be doing that. This is why we were excited that you guys joined us for this epic long, deep, rich, and scratching-the-surface conversation,

We’ll do a series on it.

We’ll break that up a little bit for you, but in the meantime, we hope that this finds you well. Living big, dreaming real, and we’ll see you next time.