For something so universal, the way we treat time is so different. While some people feel that there is not enough of it, there are others who feel like there is too much, killing time and wasting it. In this episode, Julia Gentry and Travis Gentry reflect on the value of time in the concept of old age, procrastinating, and living out one’s life purpose. Recognizing that one’s time on earth is finite, they then share some great advice and insight to help you come alive, thrive, and go after what we want. Julia and Travis then take us across the experiences that helped them realize the importance of time, especially now amidst the uncertainties. 

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The Value Of Time

How are you doing?

Travis and I were having this conversation about what’s the best way to start this thing because we just often go so deep and fast.

Let’s get to the point. Let’s keep it going. We are doing this in a cemetery for a very specific reason.

We don’t want to be talking about the weather.

We’re not good at that small talk and what did that sports team do.

I don’t know that I care, but the good news is, what I care about is what we’re talking about in this episode, which is valuing time. Even after our last episode, we talked a lot about time. “I don’t have enough time. I’m wasting time.” I think that it resonated for both of us to talk about time and the value of time. There’s no better visual representation of that than a cemetery here.

That’s funny you say that because me and Malachi went to the motorcycle shop. From someone else’s perception, we could be just killing time. We were walking around looking at motorcycles. We went upstairs and we were checking out clothes and looking at the kids’ stuff. Malachi was like, “Look at the helmet, the gloves,” and all that. That’s why he came home and he was like, “I want this and this.” To me, it’s like going out and seeing what is new out there, but the lady came up to us and she was like, “How are you guys? Doing good?” We’re like, “We’re good.” She’s like, “Are you guys looking for anything particular?” I’m like, “No, I’m just checking things out and seeing what’s new and what’s out here. We have a meeting that we’re going to go to right after and you guys were really close.” She was like, “Just killing time.”

You’re like, “You need to tune in to Dream On!. Do you know who you’re talking to?”

I was like, “I’m not just killing time. I want to see what’s new and maybe it gets me excited and I’ll put it on my vision or dream board that I want this new ATV or UTV.”

Did you say that?

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No, it caught me off guard. I was laughing on the inside because of the fact that we’re talking about that. People use it so loosely. There are probably a lot of people that do just waste time. We had an hour and I try to make that intentional. I was like, “We have an hour. One, I want to be with my son. Two, I love dirt bikes, motorcycles and all that stuff. There’s a shop. Let’s go check it out. I haven’t been to one in a while. Let’s see what’s new.” There was some cool stuff, but to be like, “I’m wasting an hour and a half of my life.”

I was doing a little bit of research and I was like, “Let’s make sure we bring this into perspective.” I knew that we were going to a cemetery. I was like, “What is the average lifespan here?” For males, it’s 76, for women, it’s 81 in North America. North America has the highest average. Even if we think about that and I know we alluded to this in our last episode Jesse Itzler talking about like, “I have to see my parents again. I’ve got to go do Thanksgiving dinner one more time.” In theory, according to those statistics, if your dad is 76 years old, you only get six more Thanksgivings. You only get six more summers or whatever it is. You had said this going into this whole conversation, which is we as people have two things in common.

We’re going to be born and we’re going to die no matter what. I’ve heard this from other people and people we like to listen and watch to. Those two dates from when you’re born, when you die and the dash in between is the most important. What are you doing in that dash? What value are you giving? What are you learning? What are you experiencing? Did you leave it all out on the table?

Let’s talk about this. I’d like to unpack if that’s true that we all are going to die because it’s true. I’m almost 35 and you’re going to be 40, which means in theory you have 36 more years. We both have 40 years left. That means 40 summers, 40 Thanksgivings, 40 Christmas. Why do we not get that?

Why do we not take that seriously? Even us too. When you put it in that perspective or you look at that and you’re like, “Half of my life is over.” How many times throughout the year or the week, do you ever stop and think about that, most people? You never think about that of like, “I turned 52 and I’ve got this amount left.” It’s almost like when Christmas for little kids, do you remember putting those rings altogether and you hang it up and you rip one off every year. That makes it real. Thirty-five is not that much. I’m going to live longer than that. Most people never stopped to look at that and say, “If that is true that on average I’m going to live this long, which I could die sooner or I could live longer. Am I doing everything that I want to be doing?”

There are many different ways that we could go with this. I remember talking about this before Zion was born and I was in a conversation with someone who said, “I’m just a procrastinator.” I would say that I have a tendency that I can procrastinate certain things, but I don’t know that I personally identify with being a procrastinator. I could be other things. I’ve identified with being a controller. I’ve identified with being judgmental but procrastination is not one of those things. I probably do too many things too fast too quickly without thinking I’m not on the other side. Either way, it was like, “She doesn’t understand the value of time.” If we’re procrastinating, it’s putting something off. If I’m saying, “I’ll do it tomorrow, next month, next year. I’ll do it when I’m 77.” As a guy, the year on average, I’m going to be dead. I’m not valuing my time because I keep putting it off. I’ve disvalued the only resource that is slipping through my fingers. I keep putting it off and putting it off. I’m not valuing the time that I’m giving and then I’m chalking it up as procrastinating or I’m a procrastinator.

The flip side to that is I’ve heard people say, “Now I’m too old.” It’s like you procrastinate and then all of a sudden, I’m too old. I’m 57 some, I’m 60 some and I can’t now. Maybe physically there’s something that you wanted to do. Yes, you can. More than likely, there are many things that you still want to do that now you use that as the excuse or the crutch not to pursue whatever it is, whether it’s leaving your career or job, starting a business, traveling the world, or whatever it may be. It’s that tipping point. You’re going in the grind and going after it, you’re making money, you’re buying all the stuff in the house, having a family, and doing life. Then you get to that point and from your perception looking out you said, “I can’t because I have a mortgage, I have kids, I have a career and I have bills. I’m too old now.”

It’s all the things. It’s the ABCs of not living your dreams, which is avoidance. We avoid it for long enough then we become busy and we’re completely preoccupied with something else and then we start comparing. I’m comparing my life to someone else’s and then now I’m doubting that it’s even possible. I look for the easy path. I’m in a spirit of fear. I’m writing the children’s book and it’s all-around relating parents to kids and this whole concept. I’m like, “That’s what we do.” All of a sudden, I devalued my life and I’m putting my value more on paying my bills or doing what everybody else is doing. I flipped the value scale and I care more about what other people think they’re getting the most out of my dash. I care more about avoiding the hard conversations than I care about how I’m spending my time on this planet. I care about more external things than I care about the internal things.

We could go in so many ways on this because as you say that, a few thoughts popped up for me. We as a society because we’re a consumer society, we spend our future constantly. A house, a car, all this stuff and you put it on credit cards, which is ultimately spending your future because you have to pay that back, but you don’t have the money in the bank so you have to work. Most often it’s working and doing something you don’t even love.

When you come to a conversation like this with us, you’re like, “Travis and Julia, you don’t understand. I have a house, I have a car, I have this job and I have to do all of these things.” You’re like stacking the deck against yourself.

You’re making the wall so big that you can’t see over it and around it.

You’re mad. We’re angry, resentful, and all the things. Now we’re not even bringing to this life. You had said this before about Myles Munroe, which was one of our favorites before he passed, he said, “How many songs aren’t sung? How many books aren’t written? How many businesses haven’t been started that is in the graveyard?” Not because they died too early, but because they died without manifesting what only they could bring. It’s one thing when we’re talking about people who are seventeen and under whose lives were cut too short, or any age. When you’re talking about people who have lived an average life expectancy because I was starting to stack the deck against myself, and then I was justifying the deck that I stacked, I was a victim.

We’ve been there. We were there years ago, worked our way up, have the car and the house, and was starting to have the kids. It’s so easy to start saying, “We can’t because,” and then all of a sudden we came to the realization and the midlife awakening of what we call it and saying, “No, this is not everything that we want. If we stay here for another 15 or 20 years and raise our family, that’s great and fine.” It wasn’t for us. We were like, “We have to do something intentionally and purposefully.” That’s when we rented our house intentionally and jumped in the RV because we did procrastinate on a dream that we had, which was traveling in the RV. We put it off and put it off and when we get there, then never comes until you make a conscious effort. We get it. It’s not saying this is everybody else. We’ve never been there. We’ve been there and you have to get so sick and tired of your life, your results, and how you feel before you take action but you have to hate the circumstances that you’ve created for yourself so much.

I love the analogy of that. The day that you’re born, the day that you die, and the dash in between. The question now becomes, “What do I do with the dash in between? It’s my dash, nobody else’s dash.” It’s not my friend on social media. It’s not my dad. It’s not my mom. It’s not my sister. It’s my dash. Whether I’m statistically speaking halfway through my dash or twenty years until my dash is up or whatever it is, it’s this mindset of going, “It’s still my responsibility. It is what it is, but what do I want it to be moving forward?” I was reading, The Rhythm of Life by Matthew Kelly.

His whole thing around purpose and how you figure out what your purpose on the planet is you becoming the best version of you. That’s his whole theory and whole synopsis of, if you could wrap that big question of what is my purpose and why am I on the planet? His answer is, “Just look at yourself in the mirror and go, ‘Am I living the best version of me?’” He believes that somewhere inside you know that answer. Most of us would look at our dash and we would go, “No, I’m not living the best version of me for these reasons,” but now it’s going, “What am I going to do with my dash to be the best version of me and to make my dash on this planet count?” What song is in me? What book is in me? What business is in me? What nonprofit is in me? What family is in me?

That’s exactly why we started doing this because most people go through a season of life of me, me, me. “I’m making money for me. I’m buying a house, I’m buying a car, I’m buying stuff for me,” but then you get to a point where you’re like, Tony Robbins says it, “Success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure.” We hit that point and you’re like, “There’s got to be more.” We even procrastinated on doing the show too. We started and stopped and not pressing into it. It became that pain for both of us of like, “We have to because we want what’s inside of us, the message, the experiences.” Everything to how we’ve lived and how we continue to live, we want to share that with people because we know that there are other people that are in the same situation that we were in.

That to me is that ultimate shift of life. I’m going to do something greater than just what can I get as opposed to all of these experiences and all these ups, downs, and everything. How do we share that? How do we build a community that people want to come alive, thrive, and go after what they want and recognize?” It’s like, “You may not be in the spot that you want to go and you don’t know the first step, but it’s possible. I need to be around people that are doing it.”

If you look at Maslow’s hierarchy, which in and of itself could be another episode. Maslow’s hierarchy says we have these core fundamental needs as humans. We need safety, security, stability. Then above that starts to become success and enlightenment. What happens is that we get so focused on safety, security, stability, and rightfully so, some people now, especially in COVID are struggling to afford the things that they weren’t thinking about like paying for your bills, putting food on the table, making sure you’re safe, making sure you’re secure. We get so focused on that in life that then we stop looking to this bigger part.

I’m not trying to just focus on safety, security, stability needs, but if we could flip Maslow’s hierarchy and go, “What is that enlightenment piece?” As I start to build my life, ensure that my safety, security, stability needs are met, but then I’m running towards a greater picture, a greater vision. People without a vision perish. I have found that it is so imperative in my life and the things that got us to do simple, stupid, hard things like this show to when we finally changed the dash in between of where we are. It’s like, “Let’s do something different.” I was talking to someone and he said, “Julia, this is simple, stupid, hard.” I was like, “I’m going to coin that. Maybe #SimpleStupidHard,” because it’s simple and it is stupid and hard to do because it’s the thing that matters most to you.

Most often the thing that matters the most to you is the hardest because if you get rejected or if it doesn’t work out, it means way more staying in a familiar hell of a job, relationship or whatever that may look like and stepping out and going like, “This is what I want.” If you fail at that, it means so much more.

That is where enlightenment, that’s where we become the best version of ourselves. It’s those areas that I feel like that’s when our song starts to come out. That’s when the words, the thing that we’re supposed to bring to this planet, that’s when it comes out. It’s that heart palpitation when you know you’re alive. All that safety, security, stability is a muted way to live. I’m not saying that we don’t need those things, but if we’re only focused on them and only want those, then the dash in between is going to be underwhelmed, anxious, unimpressed, unmotivated, depleted, all the things that we’ve been. Even when I have days that I’m getting there, I’m like, “What am I procrastinated?” What is the thing that I’m procrastinating? Because I can feel my lack of motivation. I’m pursuing bottom barrel things because my heart is not in it. My heart is not singing. I’m not trying to say that everything needs to make your heart sing unless it does. If I get 81 years, I want to move through things that make my heart go, “I’m here.”

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There are many thoughts running through my head.

Let me say this because I feel like some of us think that we, our song, our imprint, our thumbprint won’t matter. I have a great limiting belief that says, “I’m not important.” A lot of these limiting beliefs that say, “I’m not worthy. I’m not valuable.” We play this out in our heads. One day, I was talking to the lady, the artist on my book cover, and that story will share a different time when the book is ready to come out. I found her online. She’s a beautiful painter. You could tell she’s got heart, soul and she’s got the most amazing British accent. The first time I talked to her, I was like, “I could put you in the back pocket.”

She’s probably in the mid-50s, mid-60s. I said, “Thank you for your gift. Now my book, my song, and my words are going to be seen by even more people because of your gift.” She says, “I appreciate you saying that because five years ago, I’ve picked up the paintbrush again. When I was seven years old, my dad took the paintbrush out of my hand and told me, ‘You will never paint again. You will be a struggling artist. You will not make the living. You cannot do this as an adult. There is no career here for you.’” She said that her complete dream, everything, even at 7, 8 years old, that she wanted to do, she shut it down for however many years. It was until she finally hit a point in her life that she looked at her husband and she said, “I’m dying in the life that I’m living.”

It’s going through life as opposed to living and thriving.

I thought that it was interesting that she said that. She was like, “I’m dying in this life.”

We’ve talked about that, and we’ll probably do a whole episode on limiting beliefs. You get these beliefs through experience and then you created the interpretation and you start to live out a certain way based off of that experience. It could be when you’re 7, 4, or 15. The power is amazing that those situations have on you. If you’re not consciously thinking about how to change that and start to say, “This experience happened, it made me feel this way. I’m starting to act in this manner. I want this though. This is what brings me joy. This is what brings me happiness. This is what my skills and talents and what I feel like God put in me to go serve to the world around me. I have to do this or I’m going to die.”

You have to understand that the resistance is there and you have to deal with it. You can’t just wake up and you go the other way. Because in that case, it’s been 40 years or whatever and she’s been living a certain way. Consciously you have those moments. Most often you hear about this and there are movies on them too. Something happens to someone and then it makes them wake up. Then they start to live out their passion, their dreams, their desires. Our whole intention behind this show and The Dream Factory and Co. is to help you so you don’t have to have one of those experiences that life alters you, someone passes away that means a ton to you. You can awaken that without having to go through something traumatic happen. You can wake up and start to consciously rethink a bunch of areas of your life and be like, “This is okay, but how do I make it great?”

That’s what you have to catch the signals. I thought what this artist said was interesting. She said, “I felt like I was dying in my own life.” The visual around that is huge. Even though you’re living, you’re like, “I am not alive. I am not shining. My soul is not turned on. I feel like I am dying from the inside out.” That’s a sign, but it doesn’t mean it has to stay that way. I feel like that’s the greatest thing. I know it sounds so simple, but I think we have to realize that when that signal, when our soul, when the thing on the inside of us is like, “This is not turned on. I am not turned on by my life. I do not feel like I’m shining my light. I do not feel like even in the Bible, I’m not salty.” That is information that I have to go, “I’ve got to make a change because I will end up here.” It’s inevitable. It’s not like a scare tactic unless it is because the two greatest motivators in life is pain and pleasure. Pain is getting here with that “song” on the inside of you, the book still in you, the business idea, that love, the passion and the zest for life. With that thing, that would be the place of regret.

Which one will you regret more? Not taking the lead or staying in the comfortable, familiar hell that you’ve created for yourself in certain situations. Hopefully, you look at it differently. You rethink it and be like, “Where am I showing up halfheartedly or not at all? What dream did I have? Why did I let it go by the wayside?” Now having kids, we have four kids. The greatest thing that I want to give to our kids is that I want to show you. I don’t want to just tell you. I want you to see me going after my dreams no matter how hard it is and when I fail. As they get a little bit older to communicate to them like, “This isn’t easy.” Some of the things that we’re doing are not easy. There’s resistance. It’s hard. I don’t have all these great days, but this is what I choose. Pick your hard. This is the hard I choose. It hasn’t been easy. To be honest, COVID has totally disrupted us financially. You lost 90% of your clients within a matter of a week. I remember you were saying, “This client just called me.”

They were clients that were doing $5 million to $10 million a year. These were big clients.

Their industry and their businesses got destroyed. Some of them will never come back. Some of them, as a blessing in disguise, not now, it doesn’t look like that but knowing that they weren’t fulfilled or happy. I say that because it’s like, we’re not standing here saying, “Look at us, look what we’ve done.” It’s hard doing some of the things. Me and Julia, we’re talking about this even before we started this episode of the challenges I’m facing. As I get back and start to do different things and figure out which direction I’m going because we have been on the move, traveling and doing a lot of different things. It’s forced us into doing this show. It’s forced us to put the things online so we can reach a bigger audience and more people because what we want to do with our events and everything in the future, this is the best way to do it. We put it off for too many years.

What were you going to say about just COVID and the impact financially?

How it’s made such an impact on so many people and us too. It made a big impact on us financially too. It’s helped us to rethink, it helped us to press into and step into what we’ve been talking about for a while, starting and stopping.

This is the one thing that gives us kudos and props too. Why I’m heightening up in my encouragement with people to do this is because in these last several months, probably daily, I have said, “This is happening for us. What’s the opportunity here daily?” If not, I’m going to freak out too. To your point, losing 90% of my clients, then you have a fourth baby, then COVID hits. You’re restructuring all the things with your business. There are many different things that we could be like, “This is happening to me.” You’re hearing that suicide rates are going up. You’re hearing that domestic abuse is going up. Drug and alcohol abuse is going up.

The ripple effect of what COVID is doing is beyond what I think anyone could have planned. In theory, it’s worst than the virus itself. The only thing that I can attest to in all of this is grasping some of the things that we’re talking about. Not that we’ve perfected it because I don’t even like perfect. I was in a conversation one time and he goes, “If I had had this conversation with you, it was ugly.” I was like, “You don’t know me very well. I actually prefer ugly over pretty.” Don’t give me a politically correct answer. Give me your answer and then let’s rumble. Let’s do this. For me it has been, what is the opportunity here?

Valuing our time. The only thing that we have, which is our ability to look at what is, and to bring my whole heart to the situation, to the conversation, to bring my most aligned state by going, “If this is happening for me, what’s the opportunity here?” Anyone can go, “I value my time because I have to look for the opportunity here. I have to look for the upgrade. I have to look at how to be the best version of me in this situation, because otherwise, then I’m just going to plant seeds.” Remember we talk about decision management. I’m going to plant a seed right now in fear, worry, doubt, anxiety. I’m going to make a decision. Then in 3 days or 30 days or 3 months, that sucker is going to come up and I’ve got to deal with it.

Comfort kills dreams. It’s easy to live comfortably for most people. Once you get a good-paying job, you have your home and everything, it’s easy to be comfortable. I forget who says it, but if you choose to live life easy, your life will be hard. If you choose to go after the hard, your life will be easy. Especially financially, if you choose to go after and learn the things that are not taught in school, and you do the opposite of what 90%, 95% of people do, it is hard. Once you get to a tipping point, it will be easier financially. It is hard when you have a job for 30 or 40 years, retire, expect a pension and a retirement and that company goes belly up, which I had a friend, his dad that happened. You look at that and he put all his energy effort into this and worked for those years and then his retirement. I don’t know the exact number, but I know it was hugely affected. Don’t just live for the comfortable life. One, you don’t know when you’re going to die. Two, if you’re miserable or you’re just getting by for 40 years, that in itself sounds miserable. Living for pride isn’t some of the things that we’ve talked about.

My input on that statement would sound very different several months ago than it will now. I would love to know anyone now that is comfortable just because of how our world globally got flipped upside down. In 2008, that was a United States recession. That was us. Now, it’s a global thing. It would probably be rare to find someone that feels comfortable. It’s still out there, but here’s my point. I think that now what’s happened is that people have gotten ruffled. There’s a lot of uncertainty. There’s a lot of unknown. There’s a lot of big question marks. Nobody can plan Q2, Q3, Q4, 2021. How would you plan anything?

You don’t know the industry. You don’t know sports. You don’t know real estate. Nobody can plan anything. The levels of uncertainty are hypersensitive. I feel like this why in the road for all of us, this is our two options to your point of comfort. You’re either going to go to stress or you’re going to go to growth. Anytime that there is a moment of this tension of the great unknown, uncertainty, nobody knows for the first time ever, I’m either going to lean into stress and I’m going to be stressed out, anxious, worried, fearful and depleted, which means I’m going to show up that way in my life or I’m going to lean into growth. I’m going to lean into the best version of me. I’m going to lean into knowing something more, learning something more, actualizing a little bit more.

It’s almost a fight or flight. I’m here to fight and I’m going to fight through this, figure this out, grow, get better and challenge myself. I’m going to bounce, tap out, or hide.

The only thing that I think that we have of, I get that stress could trigger not valuing life. I get that fear can trigger not valuing life. I get that our past could keep us from our future. I get that all the logic and analytics. There’s so much that could keep us from valuing time. There’s a laundry list of things that we could say, “This is why I can’t value my time. This is why I don’t value my time. These are the things that have happened to me. These are the things that are happening to me.” There are still those pivotal moments that you’re going to have to pick either stress or growth. Am I going to grow in this? Am I going to become better at this? Am I going to move towards progress? Am I going to go to stress? Am I going to do all the things that stress does, which is shut, pull back, avoid, retreat and get angry? It’s one or the other.

Love and passion are the zest for life. Share on X

One thing I would say to be conscious of, and maybe rethink is who you spend time with. That could be friends. It could be family, it could be coworkers, but I would say most often they are the ones that kill your dreams. I remember a long time ago, you get excited about something. I couldn’t tell you a specific moment, but I remember it internally. It’s almost like going to a workshop and you’re all jazzed up, “I’m going to do this and all this.” They said, “I could do this, this and this.” You share it and if the other person wasn’t there to experience it, and they’re still in their own thought process, which is the same several years ago, they’re not going to jump on board and be like, “That’s so awesome. You can do it.”

They’re going to try to poke holes in it immediately. I remember one of my family members said as far as renting houses, when we first started, I think it was one of the houses we rented, it got back to me that they said, “Slumlords, huh?” When we rented the house. We were becoming slumlords. Have they ever rented a house? No. It’s like one of those things. Be cautious of who you share your dreams with. Be cautious of the energy that you allow other people to affect you. I’m not saying guard it and don’t share it, but be very aware of who you’re sharing it with. If they don’t have the fruit in their life, I would probably suggest not sharing and going to tell them what you’re going to do. Whether it’s financially or let’s say most of your family is overweight and obese and you come to them and say, “I’m going to lose 50 pounds, 100 pounds.” I guarantee they’re not going to be that excited. They’re not going to want to adjust their food based off of your new goal of losing weight because you’re not going to be able to eat the same things as them.

A good analogy around this is like a seed. If our vision for what we want is like a seed. I have this idea, I have this dream. I have this business idea, the song, this book or whatever. I want to lose weight and I’m going to plant my seed. If I come and tell someone too soon, who should not be in the inner circle, who doesn’t have the fruit in their life, who’s not against me but they’re not working for me. It’s almost like, even when the Bible talks about it. It’s throwing that seed and getting uprooted too quickly. Because it hasn’t taken root, you haven’t built conviction around it. You haven’t started moving on it. You haven’t started changing your own habits. You haven’t changed your mind to grab hold of that thing. It’s going to uproot even the strongest people. If you share something too soon or too prematurely, when that seed, vision, dream hasn’t taken root, that sucker is going to come right back again.

If you do it one time or you step out one time, you fail and you told someone, that other person will be like, “I told you it didn’t work.”

I hired one time and I can’t depend on anyone. I think we do that.

We’ve done it too in the past. We’re very aware of it now. It’s easy to do that. You share a goal, an idea or something. You’re excited about it. You go out, you try it, you fail and you chalk it up like it’s a literal forever thing. This is the way it is. No one can do it. What I would say to that is if someone else has done it, it’s possible. Just like the four-minute mile, no one ran it. Roger Bannister ran the four-minute mile and then the year after twenty-some people. It opens up possibilities. If someone else has done it, it’s possible. Whatever workshop, classes or whatever, there are a lot of people selling stuff that aren’t doing everything. I would also say, if there is one person that’s done it, then it’s possible for you to do it. Surround yourself with a community that supports you, encourages you, and challenges you because just like with anything, you’re going to fail. You’re going to look stupid. You’re going to have to go through this process to evolve, get stronger and more competent in whatever you’re trying to do. It’s going to look sloppy and messy.

That’s the heart around why we did the Dream Factory and Co. This ability that it can be lonely to figure out how to manifest your dream in a world where people aren’t. We are busy. Our schedule is packed. We’re doing what we’ve always done. We’re in the same career. We’re following the herd as opposed to going against the grain in our own life. It can be lonely, which is why we wanted to do the Dream Factory and Co. is to provide that community for people. I think that we aren’t setting ourselves up for success and thinking that we should be strong enough to do it on our own. I don’t think to your point, if you can do your dream in your own power, in your own way, in your own might, it’s not big enough. If it only impacts you, it’s not big enough.

A totally random thought, a song from Macklemore. In one of his songs, he talks about you die twice and he says, “When you die, you go to the grave. The second time you die is the last time someone mentions your name.” It’s one of those things also to me to have a greater legacy, to do something outside of just for myself, but to do something that lasts way longer. We have ideas of nonprofit or different things to be able to plant seeds, to have something outlive.

It’s not just when you die and there are people that have passed away and no one will ever know them. They died once they went to the grave, as opposed to the last time someone says your name. Whether it’s a book that they wrote or a song, or they started a nonprofit, or they had some land for a charity. Whatever it may be, those dreams and desires are supposed to be lived out, and you’re supposed to be a part of something that lives past you.

I’ll speak to my own area of vulnerability writing this book. The process of getting this book from the insight of me to the day that I will finally physically hold this has been probably the most vulnerable thing I’ve ever done. I remember when I first talked to Bobby, my editor and he said, “Julia, here’s what you have to understand. Being a writer is like standing up on stage naked. It’s the loneliest thing first because you just write by yourself. You write and you write. You have to deal with loneliness, sadness, and anger. You deal with a lot,” which was very true in my experience. He says, “Then you put it out there and it’s like getting up on stage naked.” I do want to be a voice of encouragement and reminder. I get what it feels like the beautiful idea of leaving your thumbprint on the world and how vulnerable it is to actually leave the thumbprint on the world. How hard that is, and yet the day that it happens will be like, “I was born for this.”

It’s almost like there’s nothing there. You don’t see results. You’re writing and you’re going back and forth to the editor, and then all of a sudden you start to see, “Here are the second edits,” and you’re like, “It’s becoming a little bit more real. Here are a couple of potentials for the book cover.”

 

It feels like more and more. My experience is every step I take, it’s like one more part of me is out. You’re like, “I didn’t realize all this time I wasn’t putting that much of me out there.” We’ve done a lot of things. I’m a good shooter. I’m getting a lot of different stuff out there, but I didn’t realize how much of me I wasn’t putting into the world until I started doing this. I’m not doing this for the applause of men or women. I’m doing this because I can’t not. It’s the song I’m born to sing. The more you study artists or creatives, they’re like, “I don’t paint for the audience. I paint because it’s what God created me to do. Some of the audience likes it. Some of the audience doesn’t. That’s not why I paint.” It’s like the gift that you give you, you can’t not.

If you impact 1 person or 10 people, it’s the multiplier effect of what you can. Now having kids, to me, it’s become even more important to leave our thoughts, perspective, desires and then show them even more. There have been a couple of times, even with our oldest telling him to do something and I can see he has fear and reservation and then I’m like, “Where am I not pressing into certain things? Where am I not doing that?” I have my own fears, doubts or limitations. There are certain things that I’m starting to do that I stopped doing.

Do you know what I correct Malachi for? What I heard you say is, “I start doing something and then I stopped doing it.” He’s starting and stopping so many things. It’s mind-boggling to me. He has projects all over the house that he’s starting and stopping halfway through legitimately. It’s funny that you’re saying this, because I looked at him and I said, “Malachi, you can’t start something if you’re not willing to finish it. Do we need to slow you down in what you’re choosing to start? Do we need to look at quitting the wrong things, or do we need to work on helping you finish and learn how to finish?”

There was a whole episode on that.

It made me look at myself and go, “Where am I doing that?” I honestly said, “Malachi, I want you to think about it.” He’s six. Kids are probably like, “My parents used to drop bombs on me. My parents just wanted to know my favorite food. My mom wants to know, am I starting too soon? Am I finishing too late?” I was like, “I’m going to go think about this too.” I want you to think about this and then let’s come back and talk about it because I see this now becoming a habit. This isn’t like a one-off. This is a habit.

This is part of his journey too. As you talk about it, as you teach, you learn too. There are certain things that I have take ownership started and stopped that was good. It put me in a different direction, which was good. There are probably certain things that I started and stopped out of fear or doubt that were not good. Now I’m looking back at it and we were just talking about it on the car ride over here of like, “I’m going to press into this again and not allow fear to prohibit what I know is possible that I’m capable of doing.”

Thank you for going with us, the audience, on our journey of time that we just did. If we could summarize this though, can you try to repeat what I heard you say?

From what part?

If you said, “I’m going to go after what’s on the inside of me without fear and doubt and be the best version of me with not allowing the fear and doubt to stop me from moving forward knowing that the things that I want in that context, I want to live out and be the best because I know what’s possible.” That is if we could summarize the value of time, it’s that commitment. It’s to go, “Here’s the day that I’m born. I don’t know the day that I’m going to die, but I do know that I can do my best to bring the best of me in my dash. How am I using the dash?” Which is exactly what you said. It’s this ability to say, “I’m going to be the best version of me, go after what’s on the inside of me, regardless of the fear, worry and doubt.” Because that’s going to be par for the course. We’re humans.

It’s like looping around and going, “I’m going to give it my all. I’m going to chase what’s in me. I’m going to go after the song. I’m going to do the dance. I’m going to write the book. I’m going to do the business. I’m going to have the merits.” It’s doing a full loop that says, “I’m going to be the best version of me for the things that I want most that are on the inside of me to bring to this world.” That would tell you, you value time. Because then you also know that at the end of your life, John Bevere said this and it struck me, “I believe we stand before God. He simply asks us, did you do right or wrong?” Which was nice for me to hear because I always thought I was going to make the wrong choice. He isn’t going to be this guy that’s like, “Did you do all the right things and all the wrong things?” He knows we’re human. He knows that we have errors. It’s like, “Did you do what I called you to do?”

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Within that, what I would add to it that I’ve had to do for myself is have forgiveness, grace and mercy. You have to be aware of that because if you look at that and you’re like, “I started and stopped. I’m a failure. I started and I stopped. I let fear get in the way. I fell short or someone did this, or this happened to me.” You can play the victim. You can play like it was my fault so I’m never going to be good at it. All the things that go on in your head to say, “No, I’m going to get back up again and I’m going to move forward.”

Forgiving yourself and forgiving others, having grace on yourself and grace on others, having mercy on yourself and mercy on others.

Knowing you get a 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th chance, whatever it is knowing that it’s a part of the journey and the process as long as you learn from it.

Here’s how I say that you know that you have another chance, even if you’re like, “Julia, I’ve had 50 chances. I don’t deserve any more.” I saw it coming into this cemetery. It says, “You honor the dead by helping the living.” I was like, “That is profound.” If you were alive and reading this, it tells me you get another chance. I remember the day that Mallory died and still to this day, it brings me to tears because I think I get another chance. Mallory doesn’t get another chance. These people don’t get another chance. The whole world has fallen around me, I still get another chance. I’m breathing. I have another day, which tells me that all these things could happen to me. The world could be crumbling around. If you are alive, you have another chance. You get to do this. You get to finish your dash, being the best version of you, putting it all out there. Using the value of your time.

No matter how old or how young, no matter what’s happened to you, no matter what you’ve done, no matter what’s been done to you, you get another opportunity, another chance. That’s why we’re here. Even being here for me, looking back at this, looking back at the cemetery, it puts life into perspective. Maybe it’s something like going to the cemetery once a month and walk the cemetery knowing like, “Thank you, God, that I am still here and I still have a purpose. I have something to give to the world around me.” You may not know what it is 100%, but I’m still here. There’s still something for me to do and to give.

We leave you with an encouragement to start, get up again, try again. To value your life, to value your time, and to serve those who have gone before us by simply helping yourself so you can help more people.

If it’s not our community, join a community that supports you, challenges you, loves you knowing that whatever those dreams and desires that are within you, they are possible. That’s why this show is called Dream On!. Keep dreaming. There’s still more of you left to give out there but join us. Either go to The Dream Factory and Co. and get involved in our community or get involved in a community that supports you. You have to have both. You have to have someone that challenges you to whether you need to get back up or just get up for the first time.

You need someone that goes, “I love you and.”

You still need to get up and do something about what you’re talking about because just talking will never have anything in life come to fruition.

Go value your dash. We’ll leave you with that. Dash in between. Make the most of it.

Dream on.

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