We’ve probably all had to take a few leaps of faith in our lives, but what does it mean to walk in faith throughout the whole journey? Imagine that leap of faith extending for the whole course of your life. Imagine it taking over and becoming the theme for your personal journey. It’s not like closing your eyes and letting go for a moment. It’s more like stepping into a dark room by yourself, knowing that everything will work out. Faith is the ultimate surrender, the very definition of trust. But faith is also action, and it is up to us to take that first step and the next, because God can only meet us somewhere along the way. Join Julia Gentry and Travis Gentry as they share this enlightening conversation from their darkened room – the perfect visual metaphor for the walk of faith that they have spent all their lives on.

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The Walk Of Faith To Greater Things

We are so excited to talk about the Walk of Faith.

We were wrestling with this conversation, knowing that we’re going to be fighting with it.

Let’s be real, raw and honest because that is what this show is about. Right now, more so than ever, we are walking by faith. We know that in general, people throughout the world or the country are walking by the faith of what’s going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month and next year. We’re on a different journey in where we’re at, the decisions we’re making, believing and going after. It looked different. We’re living full-time traveling the country, renting a house for 4 to 6 weeks with four kids. Both of us pressing into our businesses, launching the show, you finishing your book, me investing in real estate in not 1 but 2 different markets, why not look for a third market and figuring all of that out. Where do we go next? What is our next move? We wanted to talk about this because we’re in the trenches of walking by faith. Not only that, but I have it tattooed on my arm, “Freedom by faith.”

That’s the whole point. Be careful what you wish for because then you get the opportunity to learn the lesson. I think back to that whole idea of even wrestling with myself about what faith looks like and how I show up in walking by faith. How any of us show up in walking by faith? I should know better now than when I’m starting to wrestle with something, it’s like, “I’m wanting new revelation. What got me to where I am about any given topic? Is it taking me to where I want to be?” It’s wrestle with myself and truth and you weigh the waters of why’s to find the truth.

You have to almost turn the light on in the dark closets, your belief systems, patterns, habits and routines. When I did that, it was like, “If I could come to my definition of what it means to walk by faith, sometimes we think that this storm the gates and going guns blazing this walk by faith.” To me, it’s an act of surrender. It’s the definition of trust. It’s such a groundedness and a surrendered state of being that you can trust yourself, trust God and trust the next step. That it’s not as big and fiery that we often think. It’s a change in faith.

 

Since we’re in a dark room, we’ve got some shadowing and the side of the white, gray and black. I’m going to go on the opposite side and challenge that because sometimes it is a huge leap. For example, when we put all of our stuff in storage, we didn’t sell everything this time. We jumped in our car with a 5×10 trailer to then go to another state, live there for six weeks and then go to another state. That’s a huge right turn. I believe there are some examples, but sometimes you have to make that hard right.

I’m saying that faith to me is a being and a doing because faith is trust in action. Faith is like we walk by faith hence the name of this show. I’m not saying that it is a surrendered state that I’m not doing anything. I’m saying that emotionally, it comes from such a groundedness and a state that when you make that leap because it is a leap, it’s a walk. It is a step-by-step. I don’t know the next step. All I know is this step right here, right now, even when people asked us, “What is your guys’ plan?” I honestly looked at them dumbfounded, like, “We pack the house. I don’t know the in-between.” They’re like, “What’s your plan? Don’t you have laid out of where you are going, what you are doing, and who you are talking to?” In my head, logic was like, “I should, I could and we need to. All I know is the next step,” which to me is learning to be at such a surrendered state of being conscious to the next step that then you’re able to take the big leap.

Sometimes, you do have it mapped out. We didn’t have it mapped out. We had an idea. I would say we had an idea of the places we were going to go and then stopped to we are rethinking that plan. I agree with you where you have the end in mind and you have the 1st or 2nd step, but you don’t have to have everything mapped out. It’s the same thing I’m doing in real estate. I had the first few steps mapped out yet. I don’t have everything mapped out. I know the end of mine, my goals and what I want to accomplish but all the in-between, I’m seeing, “This leads to step two. I thought it was going to be this way, but now it’s this way.”

That’s the whole point, though. What happens is if we’re not careful, if I want all of the steps mapped out, then it doesn’t require any faith so now we’re talking about a different conversation. The magic is in the in-between of going, “I don’t want this to look the way that I think it should. I want it to be what it could be.” Even the Bible verse says, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen.” That proves that exact point. Faith is a substance of things hoped for. It’s my end game like what I want most. Thinking about this conversation of whether it’s a 2021 goal, getting through this COVID-19 process, starting a new business, or the connection in your marriage. Whatever that end goal would be, it’s the substance of things hoped for.

Faith is trust in action. Share on X

The substance is like, “I can taste it. I want it bad enough. It is clear enough to me. It’s captivating me. I’m resolved that this is what’s important to me,” and then it’s the evidence of things not seen. Now it’s okay where I am and where I want to be. I can’t let that gap terrify me. I have to let it inspire me. I have to get into a different mode and state of being so that I take it one step at a time to go where I’ve never gone and to do what I’ve never done. It’s shifting you into a different mode.

It’s conscious faith as opposed to the unconscious. If you think about it, there’s a couple of points I want to make on this one because we pulled back. In 2020, you had to look on the inside more than ever. That’s why the addiction, divorce, and violence all of it is up because you had your quieter. You couldn’t even go to the bars, restaurants, and stuff if you wanted to if that was your habit and pattern. You were then stuck with yourself and you’re consciously making decisions from a different place because you were forced to but we live by faith. If you think about how much we live by faith, getting in the car, driving down the highway, and the car to the right is not going to swerve to me. I have faith that they’re going to stay in their lane and I’m going to stay in my lane.

I just want to say this so people don’t think this is a spiritualized concept because what you’re about to say creates so many entry points for anyone. What happens is too many of us think that we could spiritualize faith when the principles of faith are what we’re after. There is a mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual relatability factor when we’re talking about faith. I think that this is a perfect example to share that this is not just spiritual. This is a tactical, emotional, mental, real-world have to understand how this works to leverage the principle.

I was going to give a couple of more examples specifically on that like going to a restaurant. You have faith that they’re going to cook your food. If you’re getting meat, it’s cooked. You go to the gym, lift weights, you’re doing dumbbell curls, and you’re doing 30 that week. You go back next week and you’re doing 35, and you don’t see any changes in your body, then you go back the next week and then you’re going to do a little bit more or 40 pounds. It’s faith. You don’t see it. It takes a while before you see the external results physically when you’re working out but you feel better. You get stronger. Every day we’re living by faith in general. It’s conscious faith of like, “I don’t want to keep doing what I’ve done. I want new results. I want a different life. I want to make more money. I want to be fitter, happier and my marriage better.” Consciously, you have to make changes of, “I’m going to start to do this and that’s going to get me those results.” Now, you’re practicing and it’s going against everything that you have been doing.

 

That is why you feel like you’re in a dark room, similar to the one that we’re in which before, you felt like you could see everything and then you get into a walk of faith going where you’ve never gone doing what you’ve never done. It’s such a transition to now recognize what feels like you’re in a dark room with one step at a time. All you get to see is one foot in front of the other, just like at Indiana Jones. I love that scene where he’s getting ready to cross, he comes to that edge of the cliff, he looks over and he sees where he wants to be. He knows he’s going to have to walk by faith and as soon as he believes, all of a sudden, it’s as though the steps appear.

I’m curious as to the benefit of living by faith. We know that there are a lot of benefits. To all of your points, if we get it as simple as what you’re saying. The benefit of living by faith is that we get to drive around town from point A to point B in our car. We have great dinner options at restaurants or I go to the gym, I stick with it long enough, and I get the body that I want. If we know that there is a benefit, why are we not doing it more? The magic of going from where and to where you want to be, trusting the process and going one foot in front of the other, if the benefit is so good, why do we not do it enough?

It’s because comfort kills progress. When you’re comfortable, it kills progress so you get into that habit loop or pattern of doing the same thing. In 2020, it disrupted everything that you were doing daily, from dropping the kids off at school, going into work and going out to the restaurant.

Do you know what’s interesting even as I ask that question? My answer just landed. I had someone say to me. She’s a girl that’s writing a book. I was chatting with her about what’s working and what’s not. She’s getting ready to market and launch the whole thing. She said, “Julia, the question that I asked that I would encourage you is, what do you have to surrender so that you can pick up something better?” I wonder what that means but I’m going to figure that out. I am a recovering controller so it’s my control that stops me from living by faith because if I live by faith, I know I can’t control anything. If I can be in scenarios, control relationships, plan, outcome, and A through Z, then I can keep protecting myself. I can compartmentalize my life and my world so that I don’t feel all the feels and do all the things. I get to control it.

 

If I’m controlling it all, I’m not living by faith. As I’m looking at life that you and I are creating, I feel like I’m in a Y in the road that our life is requiring me to choose not just in this one decision but a lifetime of new decisions that are available to me is, “Julia, are you going to still control or are you going to finally walk by faith because I don’t get to do both.”

I want to dive into this because it’s perfect for what we’re talking about and our both a-has and awareness that we had was you tend to do things and you’re running and I tend to do things that I’m searching for. I intentionally stopped doing something that works because I’m searching. My progress, I get results and then I backed down because it’s working and I take a hard left. We’re talking about that specifically in our travel. We’re both super passionate about what we want to create within our businesses.

For the first time ever, both of us want to put more effort, energy and time into what real estate building that out. I’ve got a couple of people working for me. That means a lot to me to lead them and to teach them everything I know. Your book, online and everything that you’re doing and our capacity, we’ve got to choose. This travel has been way harder than it has in the past. It made us stop and have that conversation of like, “Why do we feel the way we are right now in the midst of we want to travel?”

The question that had left that has stimulated both of us and is the question for anyone who’s reading is, “If I let go of my control, then what? If you let go of your searching, then what? If I let go of my running, then what? If we dropped our fear, then what? If I stopped worrying and doubting myself and everything, then what?” That is such an interesting deep, profound, simple yet eye-opening question that all of us sat with it for a second. If I wasn’t so worried about all of these things, doubting myself in any way, running or searching, fill in the blank, then what? You sit with this chasm of everything.

If I wasn’t running, my answer to that is I would have such profound peace. I would be grounded. I would probably hear what God’s been trying to say all along. I would slow down enough to smell the roses and be able to implement the simple good ideas that I’ve been given. I wouldn’t be so consumed by trying to control all of them that I would see the next step. It creates this huge worldview change of, “What the heck would I do if I walked by faith?”

What does that mean? There’s even more value and opportunity to connect with people that are reading as far as for us running. We have been on the go for years from moving to different houses to different States to traveling in our RV to Vrbo living. It’s interesting and it has some correlation but you lived in 28 houses growing up?

Let me be very clear. I’ve been running my entire life. Once my parents got divorced at five, emotionally and spiritually, I’ve been running. At twenty, I have been in many houses. It’s been 27 homes in 35 years. I’ve never not run. Talk about emotional, mental, spiritual and literal tactical pattern interrupt for me. I’ve even thought, “Yes, this is a big decision of you and I are deciding what is next, where is God leading us, what’s the next step, where are we traveling, how are we traveling and are we looking for a home base and all of these things. All of us have huge decisions in front of us but it’s not always just the thing. It’s the thing under the thing and so on. For me, I’m looking at, “It’s not just this decision. It is a big one for us and our family. It’s a lifetime of running.”

Looking at it in a different way, for both of us, it was like, “Wow.” How I grew up, I moved around when I was little. I don’t remember any of that. Once I did start to remember stuff, I lived in two houses.

That is why you’re searching because you’re looking for something better. You found me because I’m running and you’re like, “I’m going to go wherever she’s going. That girl’s running.” I’m like, “He’s searching so we fit in great.” That’s hysterical. You’re starting creating these patterns of searching because you were in the same spot, seeing the same neighborhood, doing the same things, having the same dinners. Poor Travis was like, “Get me out of here.”

Faith without action is dead. Share on X

I started to practice that habit. Once I got out of college, I was on the move. When I graduated high school and then going up to Colorado Mountain College, I was always moving. I’d sign a lease and then I sublet it. I moved to the Virgin Islands, Chicago and Milwaukee. I was happy to do that because I wanted to see more. Once I got more, I was like, “There is more.” I’ve practiced that so long for many years and it’s now become very clear to me. That’s exhausting and that’s not the life I want. Not only for me but for the kids and the family. Do we want to travel? Do we want to see new things? Absolutely.

There’s a difference between adventure and searching. I think you are such an adventurer. You love that but there’s a difference. It’s a subtle yet huge difference between adventure and searching or longing. One is achievable, one is not. This is a whole concept of what it means to walk by faith. It’s a total change of pace. It’s a Y in the road moment of continuing those habits, cycles and ways to protect ourselves mentally, emotionally, literally and spiritually, and choosing to go a different way changing the pace, tone and surrendering. That’s why I use the word surrender not because it’s this white flag, sit back on the couch, and just let God do it. No, I’m not talking about that. Faith is faith without action, it’s dead.

 

Even the Bible is so clear about this isn’t one without the other. It is action. It is a verb. It’s understanding that it is such a change in pace. That surrender would mean saying “yes.” Control, fear, worry and doubt, all say no. We’re saying no at all times. Whereas surrender to me is this like active participation in your life that you’re saying yes to everything that God is bringing you one step at a time especially when logic isn’t there. There’s no reason to know the logic that this makes any sense and yet there’s this piece in you that’s like, “I have to do this. This is the thing that God has given me.” The next step, boldness, faith, even though I don’t see all the pieces building the business and it’s never been done doing the thing that no one has been done. If you see activism at its finest, it’s people in action about the things that matter most. It’s such a different change of pace and that that creates a pattern interrupt.

As I said, you’re switching from consciously head down, “This is my life, this is the way it is, this is how my spouse is, my job is, this is what I do on a daily, weekly basis. I get a couple of vacations a year and this is what my retirement is going to be. I’ve got to put in the time and all the things.” Now, that’s getting disrupted and you have two choices. It’s to look at it, deal with it and take it head-on. Unfortunately, a lot of people are still burying their head a little bit and hoping it passes or it goes back to what it was. It’s not going back to what it was.

Let’s unpack this next analogy because where we are at now, a lot of people are like, “I’m at the gym day one, feeling good about the goal.” “I’m going to work on my marriage this year,” whatever that thing is. Day 1 turns into day 7 to day 27 and “I’m not seeing the results yet.” How do you trust? Now, you’re walking in faith. How do you crank into the trust zone that keeps at it even though you don’t see the results yet? Day-in and day-out to not be so frustrated or disheartened by it “not working” that you stick with it long enough until it does.

We’re so short-term minded in such instant gratification, we can have anything we want with a click of a button whenever we wanted. We see all the instant fame, instant money, and I want it when I want it. How do you stick with connection in your marriage when you don’t see it on day 360? How do we stick with this process when the fruit isn’t there yet? The idea that the day you plant the seed and the day that it’s harvest isn’t the same day. You’re like, “That sounds awesome.” “I get that.” You eat it and you’re like, “It’s not good. I don’t like this.”

We live in an Instagram society. You look and the perception that people put out on social platforms, all the ads of make money and be fitter quicker, it can be true because success does leave clues. Getting a mentor in your life and we’ve talked about this too. Whatever results you want, someone already has it, so seek them out and model them. If you want a better marriage, go around people that have the marriage that you would say, “What are you guys doing?” If you’re raising kids or do you look at kids, you’re like, “They’re well-behaved. They look healthy. They don’t look obese at ten. What are their parents doing? “

If we’re talking about a change in pace, faith is a change in pace. It’s the difference between, “Am I building this for fast?” To your point, I want it fast. I want to be fitter faster. I want more money quicker. Am I doing this for speed or am I building this to last? Am I building this for the sake of fast or am I building this to last? That’s what faith feels like to me. You and I, of all people, are quick. We talk fast, we move fast and we’re on things fast. It’s been convicting to me because though I believe in it, like get moving and figure it out as you go and I appreciate all of that.

 

When you move into faith and you were starting to go where you’ve never gone, you’re starting to do things that you’ve never done, and you’re moving into that consciously incompetent phase, building strength and building trust, you asked me the question of what would make you the proudest? It’s the thing, “I’m going to build this to last,” that’s what will make me proud. I’m going to write a book that changes lives forever. I’m going to parent my kids in a way that they carry our same values. I’m going to love you eternally. I want to do the things that last. That’s more important to me than faster, knee-jerk, or instant. That’s what’s going to make me proud, which means I need to slow down in my communication with the kids and manage my emotions because everything I speak to them and over them will last. It’s going to cause me to slow down in my decisions because I don’t want a quick knee-jerk reaction. I want something that is going to stand the test of time.

That was the huge awareness that we had as far as how we’re living. Is it conducive? Is it the right model? Is it the right way that now having this awareness, we’re responsible for it or we can just let it eat us alive or bury it? That’s ultimately like, “Knowing what the business and the book, you want it to last?” Especially with the kids, slowing down and being present with all the other things, we have to look at it and say, “These are the important things that are going to get a majority of my time, my patients and my energy.” I can’t have these other things because they take up time and energy and I need to stop doing it. That’s been the conversation for us of, do we keep traveling? Do we want the way we’re doing it because what is important to us now has changed even over the last few months?

It’s funny because when you asked me that question we said, “We’re not that convicted by traveling.” It’s not the travel for the sake of the travel for me. I know that this travel is leading us to what I want. It’s a home. In the last couple of days when I finally landed on that, “I don’t want just another house. I want our home.” I’ve seen it in my mind’s eye and it’s created this space to go, “It’s the opportunity of this travel. It’s a way to find where our home is going to be. Do we have to travel to do that? No.

Not necessarily because we narrow it down based on where we want to be.

That’s what I’m saying. What it’s done is it’s helped me get clear on what I want. When you’re clear on that outcome or what you want, it makes that faith walk and that change of pace manageable. It keeps circling in my being, which is the way that you do the faith walk well, all of us right now is you have to recognize it is a change of pace. I got to get grounded. I got to slow down. I have to be more aware of where I’m at. It’s a moment-by-moment, decision-by-decision way of living where we’re used to being reacted on our to-do lists, laundry lists, schedules, here, there and everywhere, it’s so reacted. Faith is like, “I am responsible for what I know I’m supposed to do in the lane that I’m in and the thing that’s in front of me of doing that well.” It’s a different pace.

We have been having this conversation and it’s getting clearer for us. It’s up to us to make the decision. That decision may go against what we initially set out or what we thought it was. We took action. We got to step one and step two. Step three is starting to look different than we thought it was going to.

This is so priceless. When we started out, we set and if you go to our website, we’re traveling the country to awake a dream that is everywhere of what’s possible. That was the end game. We didn’t say we’re going to go out and travel every single month. We’re going to all these spots. We even said, “We didn’t have all this booked out ahead of time.” How did that have been going to a new spot every month and here are all the spots that were going? We would have booked all of that out at the very beginning. Intuitively, that would have married what we were trying to do. The end game for us has been impacting, adventure, building wealth, something to last and what’s in us to do.

This whole idea of faith is that we know the outcome and I have to let go of my attachment to how I get there. I have to let go of my attachment. My attachments to and my control around the way that it “is supposed to look” is going to keep me from what it could be. I believe that God has a bigger plan that would wow our socks off if we would trust Him with our plans. Our plans are good, don’t get me wrong. The things that come to us and all that but I feel like we have a God that’s like, “Can I wow you? Can I shock you? Can I blow your mind?” I don’t want to create cool plans and then navigate them perfectly, I want my mind to be blown. Even in this book club, they were talking about time and time again of this dreamwork is blowing people’s minds of I couldn’t have even thought that up if I tried.

God has a bigger plan that would wow your socks off if you would just trust Him with your plans. Share on X

We’ve said it in multiple shows. Now it’s practicing those new muscles and habits. You can’t just stop. You can but it’s like going to the gym for six weeks and then stopping and expecting more growth.

Where we’re at is where we are living what it means to have the faith walk which is when we set out, we knew that we were called to go. We knew that our end game was a little bit more ambiguous, but it was these things and what was most important to us. As we’re traveling, we’ve got to let go of our attachment to the in-between so that we get the greatest outcome that we want most.

What I’m taking away from what you’re saying is a little bit different than what I had heard of it’s becoming clearer for me because it’s not about travel. We’re going to travel whether we get an RV or Vrbo, we’ll travel for the rest of our life. How do we be more impactful, instead of the shotgun or rifle approach, on what we’re trying to do? What I’m trying to do in real estate, not being too many markets too fast before I have the systems to handle the two markets I’m in right now. Your book, the clubs and everything that you’re learning, there again, less is more. Doing fewer things and being more productive and impactful on those things.

It’s our attachments and our expectations that I start to kill our faith. What happens is we even start with enough of a game plan of where we want to end up and the things that are most important to us. We start moving in that direction and we’ve created these conscious and unconscious expectations and attachments around what’s supposed to happen and when it will happen. When they don’t, then we get triggered, revert back, we shifted a fear, worry, doubt and all the old mindset habits.

We’ve been in conversations with people that are in brand new chapters of their lives. The coolest thing whether they’re starting their business, working on their marriage, or whatever that is and they’re bringing the old new. They’re bringing the old patterns of their old jobs into their new ones, bringing in their old relationships into the new ones. It’s easy looking at someone else because you’re like, “You’re doing this. You’re bringing your old habits and patterns of thought and literal day-to-day into these new things.”

Our attachments and expectations around that almost slapped the face of where we’re going, and then we shut down our walk of faith, which then only a self-fulfilling prophecy that proves it wasn’t possible. We no longer trust ourselves and step out in faith. We’re creating these cycles of “I told you” as opposed to going, “I can’t slap the faith in the face by stopping or bringing old habits and patterns with me.” I have to stay the course and walk by faith without the attachments and expectations and let room for God to allow me and my ability to trust myself to wow me.

The other side for me is making it bigger than it is. If you’re trying to lose 100 pounds, you don’t start because you have 100 pounds to lose. As opposed, I need to lose 5 pounds. Specifically, with my real estate, I don’t have to have all the systems, VA, training, modules and everything created that I know I can and will have, but I’m not prepared. I’m not equipped yet because I haven’t gone through the process to know. I can’t build step eight because I don’t even have steps 2 and 3 done.

What causes anxiety is you start thinking about 100 pounds and you start thinking about all the things that you have to do and then you end up not doing any of it because a confused mind doesn’t know. A confused mind is like, “I don’t know where to start. I don’t know where to go from here. I’m just going to say no.” I was talking to a friend who knows she’s supposed to get sober. She knows that her life depends on her no longer drinking. She said, “Doesn’t that seem so overwhelming to you that you could never drink again? No Christmas, not on your birthday, Friday or as people walk by at 4:00 on your porch?” She went on and on. I looked at her and go, “You’re causing me to feel overwhelmed right now with this moment. If you think about the rest of your life never being able to have it? Yes.” She said, “That’s not where I started. I started with it now and I continued. I’m not drinking now.” “What about tomorrow?” “I don’t know. It isn’t tomorrow.”

 

It’s one step at a time, “How the heck am I supposed to have the most connected, beautiful, passionate marriage when we’re not even talking to each other?” Start with looking at each other. Start with a simple, “Hi.” Start now. That is faith. It’s the next step with the courage to look up and go, “That’s where I’m going. That’s where I want to be.” One step after another builds trust, faith and consistency. Every step I take is building the strength to get me there.

The thing we hear the most is, “I don’t know how. I don’t know where to start.” Just start with something like a Google search a book or a counselor. There’s always something you can do there again, if you make it too big and like, ‘I don’t even know.” If you did know, if your life depended on it right now, I had a gun to your head and I said, “You have to know how to make your marriage better. What’s one thing you would do?”

If you know that your kids are listening to you, because even Aslan said, “Mommy, when can we go get me a new toothbrush?” I said, “I don’t know.” She looks at me and she goes, “But if you did know.” I was like, “You’re drinking my Kool-Aid.” She had this big smile because we say that all the time, “What if you didn’t know?” We always do know. I looked at her and I was like, “Touché, baby girl.” I was doing this on Facebook Live. We were talking about clarity. There are always three reasons that we don’t want to be clear. When we say, “I don’t know,” is number one. I don’t want to take responsibility for my answer. Number two is I want to stay uncomfortable. Number three, I’d rather be right about my worldview, right about whatever it is I believe. Those are the three things that if we can go, “Am I not wanting to be clear on here like with Aslan because I don’t want to take responsibility when I’m going to buy her a toothbrush.” I looked at her, I go, “Aslan, in the next couple of days, could I say that?” She was, “That’s a good answer.” I was like, “Great, there’s my answer.”

Malachi on that topic because I’ve said, “In a few minutes.” “How many?” or “In the next few days.” “What day?”

I say that lot to him of like, “Give me a second.” He goes, “Is it a literal second mom or is it like a few minutes?” It gets me going like, “I think I say in the second and the second is like ten minutes. I’m telling you one second and I don’t mean one second.

I appreciate them asking the clarity because it needs to be clearer because it is vague. We throw out vagueness to not be clear.

Let’s bring that one home. When you find yourself saying, “I don’t know,” That vagueness, that ambiguity, it is a barrier you’ve created. You don’t have to be responsible, you’re going to have to get out of your comfortability, you don’t have to be right or don’t have to be wrong. We always know. I don’t need you to know all the 100 steps on how to get there. I need you to take responsibility for the first one. When you take responsibility for the first step, you will show yourself what you can do with the second one. Then, you’ll show that God meets you on the third. He’s always been there on the fourth, you’re much more capable on the fifth, and you trust yourself on the sixth. The way you’re waiting for the magic is in all of those steps. “I want to feel more confident.” Move in faith. “I want to trust myself more.” Take some steps towards what you want most. It’s in the action. It’s in the walk of faith that we get that.

Take responsibility for the first step. God will meet you along the way. Share on X

It’s almost like when people say, “Working out.” If you haven’t worked out in 10 or 20 years or haven’t been to a gym, I love the gym. I know my way around the gym very well. There are certain movements or powerlifting, that’s not my thing so I wouldn’t go and start to act as though I know that. As far as the gym in itself, I feel very confident, but I could imagine that what goes through people’s heads, especially if you’ve YouTube it at all, you see these people that go to the gyms, they’re doing stuff on machines that are not created for what they’re doing, people are laughing and taking videos of them. It’s posted now on the internet. Get a coach or mentor. The story comes up where it’s like, “I’m 40 years old and I should know how to use this equipment.” You don’t get a coach and get clarity. As you’re saying, you’ll build your confidence because you have someone go alongside and show you how to do it. The more you do it, the more you get confident and then you start looking at other equipment and you’re like, “It connects, I don’t know how to use this.”

You said this to Malachi because sometimes he or I in that homeschooling moment of the day wrestle with this a little bit. You said something while we were driving, teaching him about telling time because we’re efficient homeschooling parents. Even traveling across the country, we are efficient homeschooling parents. He was getting frustrated in the car. I was feeding into that frustration a little bit on that too. All of a sudden, you looked up in the rear-view mirror and it stuck with me when you said, “Malachi, you are not supposed to know this. You are learning it, buddy. Have some fun and give yourself some grace.” I feel that should be the voice in the back of all of our heads when we start to do something new that we’ve never done. When we start to take steps of faith, find the communication in our marriage, go for the business, start to write the book or start to get to the gym and lose weight.

That’s where my action. I have taken more action than I ever have in real estate. It’s because I’m telling myself that. I know a lot about real estate but there are those few little connecting pieces. Those few things, confident builders. I got a mentor, I got two like, “I’m going all-in because I’m not afraid anymore.” Going after it and knowing I shouldn’t know this, I don’t need to know this. That’s why you hire a coach and a mentor to help you to see what you can and get you further faster. We’ve said it on the show, and I’ll say it again, go to the YouTube channel. Get connected to our community or someone else’s community because if you don’t know it, there’s a reason why you don’t know it, but someone else does know it and surround yourself with them. Don’t put so much pressure and anxiety on yourself as though you should know it, whether you’re 30, 40 or 60 and just because a twenty-year-old knows it, it’s okay.

This is what the walk of faith is, it’s like, “I don’t know every step. I don’t know all the pieces.” That’s what creates space for other people. This is where contribution and connection happened because now all of a sudden, people can come around you. What you don’t know, someone else might know. It starts to bring people together. It’s unity, connectedness and collectiveness. It creates purpose in the lives of other people because we allow the space for someone to come in and help us. It allows us to get closer to God because we realize that God isn’t just this religious thing or spiritual matter. It makes sense to let Him meet you and wow you because we’re dependent on Him like, “I need you, God, to do what I can’t do. I’m moving, walking, and showing You with my actions that I believe. Give me an Indiana Jones effect. Give me one more step.” He does.

What you’re seeking is seeking you. If you knock, the door will be opened but you got to knock and you got to move. Sometimes, it takes the most courage to put it out of your body and into the world of what you’re truly looking for. It’s amazing when you do. Someone that you run into or when you see a post or something, you’re like, “I was looking for this.” All of a sudden, it’s there.

It’s the ability to, as you’re seeking, find. You knock on the door, it will be opened. All these biblical principles are letting go of the expectation or your way so that the way can show up. Not being so attached to every step in the all the controlled plan and the whole thing. Let it go and let it be better. That room for a left-hand turn. Take a different way. Let someone who need the most unlikely person or thing amplify where you’re going.

Have the grace for yourself of, it’s not going to look perfect. No matter what you do, just know. Once you get through it, it’s so much easier to look back and say, “The joy was in the journey, not just the destination.” That’s the whole point. Get a black belt in Jujitsu. The whole point is to go through the process, not to get your black belt. You can go on the internet and go buy a black belt.

 

This is so classic. You could go online and buy a black belt and post that on Instagram, #ImABlackBelt. That’s not the joy of it. The joy is in the journey of everything.

It is in knowing that you put in the work, the effort, the energy and you have that skillset. Whatever it may be, that is where true life is. Once you can start to embrace that, it’s hard but as you start to get traction, little momentum, and see progress. That’s when it starts to be even more exhilarating, fun, life-giving, and it makes you want to do more.

That’s what makes us proud. That question stuck with me, “What would make me the proudest?” My answer is to build something that would last. I encourage everybody in this faith walk. We are all in a faith walk. We always have them but it’s the invitation into a conscious walk of faith that is surrendered and unattached, bold and saying yes, continuing to show up and to go for it, and earn the black belt. Earn it and join us in walking by faith.

Until next time.

Thank you for joining us.

Dream on.

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