This audio is a portion of my keynote at the Re-Creation Retreat, a residential program and school treating personality disorders, trauma and abuse, adoption issues and other life controlling issues. It is an all-girl dual-diagnosis treatment facility, a less costly therapeutic boarding school (up to 50% less than most such programs) offering girls (age 13-17) a journey of self-discovery and self-empowerment. Re-Creation Retreat helps girls overcome and emerge from troubling behavior as emotionally intelligent and self-confident individuals who are ready for a second chance. They lead them to a deeper understanding of their worth, their strengths, and the principles of success in life. Click here to learn more about Re-Creation Retreat.
Here is a letter I received from one of the girls who listened to my presentation at the Re-Creation Retreat’s 10-year anniversary celebration:
Hey, my name is Amanda. I recently graduated from the Re-Creation Retreat. … I just wanted to thank you for all that you have taught me, my family at home, and my family at RCR. We all still talk about your speech … in almost every group. I just wanted to let you know that you are so very appreciated and I personally look up to you a lot. You are seriously someone that has helped me so much in just a few hours. I have struggled a lot in my short 16 years of life (obviously since I was at RCR). I grew up with sexual abuse all throughout my elementary school years. I have a stepbrother who used to violently molest me and I have had a lot of anger and pain from that. I had also been raped when I was 7 by my someone who was in my Mom’s home when I was there. My Mother now doesn’t talk to me as she struggles with bipolar disorder and basic denial of everything that happened to me under her watch. I was called a liar for finally coming out about my stepbrother so I didn’t come out about my rape either until I went to RCR. Many of the girls at RCR have stories like mine and we all have had to work hard just to keep going. I and We all have so much pain, but I will never forget the spider story. I have been able to reconnect with my pain even more in order to see how it really has moved me to greater things. I am now home with my dad and stepmom, but even more, I am home within myself again. For so long I avoided myself in order to try and run from that pain. I was always running from anything that seemed like it might be good because I was afraid of having good. I didn’t think I was worth any good, so I hid and I gave up. Then I went to RCR and I started seeing all of my spiders for what they were. I saw that they were just these little things in my life that hurt a little, but that didn’t mean I always had to be with them waiting to get bitten again. I learned to see my spiders first before I learned how to move away from them in order to reach higher and make more out of my life. You helped me to realize that I could move away from them. Yea, I have pain. Everyone does. You helped me to realize that the pain isn’t me and I can easily step out of that seat and move away from it because I deserve more. Thank you Leslie, I will never forget the lessons you have taught me. With love and sincerity, Amanda Q. (16)
PS. I also wanted to share my story with any of your subscribers who may need help. I want to help anyone I can with what I know now. Thank you.
The Clicker
Here is a picture of the exact clicker I talked about in the audio:
If you find one of these (with or without packaging), I want to buy it!
Here is a television set similar to the one I had growing up. When you pushed the button on the mechanical clicker and pointed it at the TV, the channel knob would make a clunking noise and rotate one notch:
I could not find a picture of the inside of my particular one-button clicker model, but I found an image of a similar model that had a few extra buttons. Check this out:
The outside:
The inside – no battery, just metal rods balancing on a center point and activated by a spring-loaded mechanical button:
I found a 4-button clicker on Ebay and bought two, so I can demonstrate it in future presentations. 🙂
TRANSCRIPT:
Host:
Welcome to the Rare Faith Podcast where the solution to every problem is only an idea away and where the same activity with just a little more awareness always yield better results. Award-winning, best-selling author Leslie Householder bring some of her best information to this inspiring series of life-changing episodes that you won’t want to miss. Show notes for this episode can be found at ararekindoffaith.com
[Music]
Wow. Oh man. So I am really really honored to be here and I think it’s interesting that Randy would share his goals with you. That he would share what his decisions had been twenty ten years ago what he wanted to create. If it’s made an impact in your life would you give him a round of applause? I’m nervous to be with you because I know that what you’ve experienced here at this retreat has been powerful and has really given you some insight into what you can do with your life and that no matter what happens to you, no matter what hardships you face, that you have a choice what you can do with it. And I was most empowered by the idea. It’s been almost 20 years now when the lights went on for me and I realized oh my goodness my thoughts do have an effect on my experience. They do make things happen. They do have an effect. And when I realized that one of the principles was that there is a law, a law of polarity that is that if something is a little bit bad, a little bit difficult, then there is contained in it the seed with something equal or greater as a benefit. So if it’s a little bit bad, there’s a little bit of a good benefit to it. So if something is horrific, what does that mean? Something really really really amazing is contained in it. And that’s the promise. I had a mentor years ago who was teaching me this principle and he shared his experience. He was in his life at a time he was broke, sick, addicted, had a life that he was not very proud of and his mentor was teaching him. He was in a group of people and this mentor looked out at the audience and pointed at him and said “Bob, you are the luckiest man in this room.” And he looked around and he saw people who were doing way better than he was and he thought “I am the luckiest man is this room?” What could he possibly mean? And his mentor said “Because you have the greatest opportunity.” He was the worst off which means he had the greatest opportunity. And so who was the luckiest person? He or she who has it the hardest. Oh! That kind of messes with our brains a little bit. Wow! That is a big screen! Well okay, a little bit about me. I was born at a very young age and I decided when I was probably around ten or twelve, I was the youngest of four children and my older siblings were just amazing people. And I looked up to them, they weren’t always nice to me but I thought they were pretty cool. And I thought I had it the worst because I would look in the mirror and I think “Ugh. I got this red hair.” which is not cool in the 70s. Alright you might think it’s cool now, it wasn’t cool in the 70s. Nowadays, you try to be different to be cool. But back then if you were even the littlest bit different you were the target of all persecution. So I decided, and I was telling some people this is a dinner tonight, but when I was looking for a husband, I was looking for someone who was very dark haired because I thought that was my best shot at having no children with red hair. For their sake because I didn’t want them to suffer as I had. But anyway, I decided when I was about 10 or 12 that I would be the sister with personality. Because that’s all I had, you know, going for me. But when I married, I had all kinds of dreams for my future. I was going to have children… I could not wait to be a mom. Just could not wait to be a mom. What did I know about motherhood? Next to nothing. I didn’t babysit hardly. My family moved around a lot and at the time I was babysitting age we lived overseas and if you don’t speak the language, foreigners don’t trust you as much. So I didn’t babysit, I was the youngest, I didn’t have cousins nearby, and so I had like no experience with children. But I couldn’t wait to be a mom. And so when I married, we had our first child and this image of motherhood, you know we talked about it. We talked about dreams and having a vision for your future. Right? Nod your heads if that’s something we’ve been talking about. Good. So I had visions that motherhood was going to be joyous. And we married. Do I have a clicker? Or do I just say “Click” and somebody pushes the button?
Tech: You know what? I can do that.
Leslie: We have done that before. Trevan knows how to do that really good. That’s my husband. Wave at my husband!
[Applause]
Leslie: While they’re getting that ready… what was I saying? I don’t remember.
Tech: You said, do you have a clicker?
Leslie: Motherhood! Motherhood. Thank you! Any of you have a new baby brother or sister at home? A few of you.
What’s that like having a new baby home? Just joyous? They take up a lot of attention, don’t they? Yes they do.
Yeah.
Audience: There’s a lot of waking up at 3am.
Leslie: If you get to go to bed at all in the first place. Right?
Audience: I have four siblings that are all under the age of six and I’m seventeen. So that’s an awesome age range. But I’ve been up with them in the middle of the night my entire life. NO… not fun. It’s hectic, everyone screams at each other because the baby is screaming…
Leslie: So what’s this joy they keep talking about?
[Laughter]
Audience: Whenever they’re happy they’re actually like really cute.
Leslie: When they’re happy and content, they’re cute. Is that the payoff? Well that’s one of the payoffs. It’s hard. It’s hard and my mom lives in Ohio and I was in Utah. And so my first baby and I didn’t have family nearby, it was just a little bit of a shock to my system. But on top of that and many of you are too young to have this to worry about, but we could not afford to live. So we have the bills to worry about also. I thought, “Well and okay…” I had these dreams of life being joyful and this is not feeling very joyful. And I slipped into a depression and I started to wonder. You know, I’ve been raised to believe there was a God and I began to wonder if there really was one. Because I felt a little bit abandoned. A lot abandoned. And the reason that I’m excited that the Greatest Showman is the theme for this event, let me tell me a little bit about why. There’s a scene in the greatest showmen and those I think you’ve all seen now, at the beginning he is putting on that greatest show. And the lights are going, and the fire is blasting, and the horses are clopping, and the girls are spinning, and it’s just this big big deal. Right? And then what happens?
Audience: It all fades out and then he’s standing in front of a tailor shop and he’s looking into the window and he can see his reflection and he like looks down because he’s poor.
Leslie: That’s right. So he’s living this experience and when we’re watching the movie we don’t know it’s not real. We don’t know it’s not real. I want you to hold onto that thought for a second. Because he is living it in full color and all the emotions… his head throws back and he’s interacting with the audience. They’re their just chanting and clapping with him and they’re just having such a great time and he feels it all. And then just like she said, it all starts to fade away. And he turns around and now he is this little boy looking at the suit in the window and his image is just projected onto it and he kind of snaps out of his dream and he looks down and he realizes that he is poor. And then his dad yanks him along and says “Come on, let’s go.” Right? I love that scene but I wish they could play it backwards. I wish I could play it backwards because we all have times in our life where we feel like that little boy. Like “Here I am. This is, this is my life, this is what I get to live. It’s not what I’m imagining.” That’s kind of how I felt. My husband and I experienced that, those kinds of struggles for about seven years. We had two more children at that time, my second baby that was born, his delivery it was so difficult that I feel like by the time he came I was so snapped, disconnected, and angry and I thought I was going to die. It was, it was really hard but instead of then bonding with my sweet, sweet newborn, the nurse comes to me and says there’s a problem. And and I just kinda out of it a little bit and I sit up and I listen and she said “He has turned blue, we don’t know why, so he is in a helicopter on his way to Primary Children’s.” And still numb. Still feeling a little bit out of my head for I had just been through and now worrying about him. And then there’s medical bills, but he’s fine now. He is now strong and 23 years old. But at the time we didn’t know he was going to make it. He had had a heart surgery. We find out at 3 months old that a child with his condition usually doesn’t live past three months old. So that and the stresses that we were already under and the depression it was just a lot to handle. Seven years of this put me in a place of- have you ever met someone like this, let me ask you, where a little thing goes wrong and they blow up big? Do you know anybody like that? In my situation, I was in an apartment and they have a picture of this. Okay clicker man. So I’m telling you about the hole in my shoe. Okay that’s a metaphor. What’s the metaphor about? Yeah?
Audience: In the movie he like looks down at his feet and he sees them coming through.
Leslie: Yeah he looks at his feet, his feet are sticking out of his shoe, he’s got this awful life. So now I’m talking about the hole in my shoe. And as I’m going through this, I want you to think about the hole in your shoe. What is the hole in your shoe? In fact take a second, I want you to identify what the holding of shoe would be if I were to ask you. I’m not going to but I want you to identify what that is. If you can condense it into a few words, like something is a certain way in my life that I don’t like. Or something happened to me that I am still trying to make sense out of. Or my relationship with so-and-so is broken and I want it fixed. Whatever that hole in your shoe is, think about what that is. So this is when we got married. Oh someone just went “Aww!”
[Laughter]
Leslie: It’s so romantic right? Go to the next slide. Now you know why there’s a black cover on it. That was our getaway car. But it was paid for… No just kidding, it was given to me. My parents let us use that car because we were so desperate for something. And that was our getaway car. We got married in June in Arizona. June in Arizona. Anybody been there? In June. You’re from there! Anybody else from there? Okay so you know June in Arizona. Probably about 113 degrees. This car did not have AC. Not only that but if you know how these old cars work, the heater is just a hose that kind of runs over the engine and then it gets popped out into the back under the seats through this hose so the hot air comes in. Ours was stuck open. In Arizona. For our wedding. So we’re sitting looking outside of this super hot car but it’s romantic, isn’t it? We really didn’t care, we were in love. We were in love. Next. Alright so we’ve been married seven years, were living in this apartment now. Teeny little thing. There is some grass behind that wall, it’s about that big. Like that. So we have a grass spot in our front yard. But it was at this apartment that I was just, this is not my life. This is not what I pictured. I had big dreams. I had big dreams. I came outside of this apartment, out that door, I walked around that wall and noticed that my broom had been broken in half. Some neighbor kid had broken in half and left it on the ground. Now, I asked you you know somebody that has a little problem that responds bigley. I a big way. If you don’t know my story already and want to guess, what did I do?
Audience: You got angry.
Leslie: I got angry. I did get angry. What did I do?
Audience: Freaked out.
Leslie: I freaked out. How does that look? What does it look like to freak out if you’re me?
Audience: Red faced yelling…
Leslie: What’s that?
Audience: Red faced yelling.
Leslie: Oh I was calmer than that.
Audience: Oh I was gonna say hit someone with the end of the broom.
Leslie: No, call the police.
[Laughter]
Leslie: I did! I called the police! Do you know someone like me?
[Laughter]
Leslie: That’s where my head was at. Do you understand that how your life looks tomorrow depends on how you face your challenges today? I didn’t really understand that. I was just mad. I was just mad. I didn’t have seven dollars to replace the broom and that made me mad. I’ll tell you a little thing that sometimes I don’t share, but go ahead and click through. That’s another inspiring view of our neighborhood.
[Laughter]
Leslie: Next. All right so at this time my husband and I, we started attending events kind of like this event. That was giving us, that were, grammar thank you. That were giving us nuggets of principles and things that would teach us how to think better. Because we had some friends who saw how I was responding to my challenges and said “Why don’t you come with us to these events?” We started attending these. We went to no less than 100 events and I just wasn’t getting it. I am kinda thick up here when it comes to emotional problems. Alright. So at those events and I should’ve said this, but they kept saying dream big and picture what you want. Have you heard that before?
Audience: Mmmmhhhmmm
Leslie: If you’re hearing it for seven years, a hundred times and you haven’t changed anything yet, you’re like “Got it! Yeah so tell me the real secret!” Right? And the whole time I’m like “Yeah, yeah, yeah! Dream big! I got it! I know what my dreams are, got it. But what do I do? How do I speak to the prospect? How do I sell this widget? How do I get the better job? How does he get the better job? How do, how do we you know tactical ‘how to do this, do that?’” answers were what I was looking for. And they just kept saying “Dream big! Picture what you want!” So at this point in that quest house, I finally said “FineI will. I’m going to go dream big and picture what I want. I’m going to go big.” I’m just going to close my eyes and “lalalalala!” I can’t be happy in real life, I’m just going to pretend like I have a home of my own. I can pretend like we’ve got enough money for groceries that are decent. There’ve been big times where I’ve gone to the fridge looking for what I’m going to feed my kids and have almost nothing but condiments in it. I know what that’s like. I also know what it’s like, my husband and I before like in the early years, we were custodians at night and we would go around cleaning office buildings and sometimes I’d find food in the trash and I’d eat it. This is where we were coming from. And you go long enough and that really starts to wear on your self-esteem, it wears on your faith, it wears, it just wears you down. You’re not nourished, nourishment is so important. But we did have hope that one day we’d figure it out. So at that time I you know, I’m going to go bed, I’m going to check out, I’m going to stay and just picture what I want, I’m gonna see myself in a house. What would that feel like in a house of my own? What would it feel like to come home from shopping and open the door you know my kids running up beside me, and I’ve got my arms full of groceries, and they run this way, oh and the house is gonna have a run around because my mom said that’s very important when you’re raising kids. To have places they can run in circles. And I’m trying to answer the question “What would that feel like? What would that feel like?” Because I could see it but I had a hard time feeling it. So I’m gonna just pretend like it’s real and see if I can feel it. “Oh! It’s kinda nice being here.” And I start living it in my head. And then it was time to get back to life and fix dinner and whatever. What I didn’t know is that that changed something in my life. It wasn’t just changing me, it wasn’t just calming me down. It’s like a nuclear blast went out from me and started affecting the world around me. And I didn’t know I had done anything. I didn’t know. But a year later we are living in our very first home. My husband, he through a friend got a job, a temporary job at a company that suddenly they have so many in their California office that quit and they needed someone to help kind of fill that role for just a short time while they hired somebody. And they sent him out to do that and then that turned into a permanent job. And we had benefits and we were being moved out on their bill. They let us go eat at Denny’s on their dollar! And then we were in this house! I pictured grass, but I didn’t think I needed to because I thought that was kinda a given. It was our own. It was our own. Now the thing is is since I didn’t know that what I’ve done that day had any effect on this, I just thought things were going better for us. But if you start to trace your thoughts to your experiences you will start to see a connection. And the more you start tracing that connection the more you can start doing it deliberately. This house, I think the next slide. Go ahead and switch it. Eventually ended up being this as we continued to consciously apply the principles. Now it wasn’t the last house that we went to another event because actually we were in that house and things were going better but then we got strapped again financially because we were still in the same head space. We didn’t know what we had done and so we didn’t keep doing it. And things got tight again, things got hard, and it was like living the same life just to a higher level. So we went to another event and it was at this other event that the speaker said “There are laws that govern everything.” There are natural laws that govern the universe and as we learn these laws and start to live in harmony, things just go better. And honestly it was the most boring talk I had ever been to in seminars. And I didn’t listen. I was busy talking with my friend next to me most of the time. But when it was over and there was thousands of people in this room, when it was over the room was abuzz with “Oh my goodness did you just hear that? Oh my goodness that changes everything!” And they’re all just in a buzz about this and I’m just like “What’d I miss? Oh shoot I missed it! Honey what’d I miss?” And he’s like “How do I sum that up? I can’t just sum that up for you.” And so I’m like “Oh man. This was gonna be my last seminar. I decided I’ll go to one more but that’s all because I can’t justify these things anymore. It’s not changing anything. But I missed it. Well thankfully that speaker was brought in a few months later and he was given the whole weekend instead of just a couple hours. And so my husband I went to this and we decided we are going to hang on to every word. We’re gonna sit at the edge of our seats. We’re gonna take notes on everything and we’re going to find out what it was that everybody is still talking about months later from that one event. I mean you can go to an event it can be awesome amazing but it’s rare if hundreds of people are still talking about it months later. That’s rare. And it was the boring one that made a difference. I was just like “How could I miss it?” well it’s because it was boring. I’m gonna listen. So we listened and we came away from that event, I remember he showed us a diagram. I’m gonna show you the diagram. He showed us this diagram and when we were done we looked at each other, our mouths dropped open and we’re like “That’s all it is?” And we went home and tripled our income in three months. After seven years of just beating our heads against the walls, we tripled our income in three months and ended up in this home and I’m living the dream! I’m like “That was so simple!” It was so simple! And I finally understood what those speakers were saying all those years “Picture what you want. Dream big.” Okay well I can say the same thing to you and you could be like “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I got it but what do I do?” Because I’ve been there! I know it. This is my greatest show. The house it was awesome. We don’t live there now. We’ve downsized. Those material things are temporary. What matters the most are your relationships. And who remembers what my dream was when I was a kid? You’ve all forgotten?
Audience: To be a mom.
Leslie: To be a mom. Right. To be a mom and to find those joys that I hear are promised for mothering. Well I wanted that and this is my greatest show now. I told you what my holes in my shoe was. Those challenges. This is my greatest show. This is my opening scene of The Greatest Showman. If you were to imagine life in my family, that’s my greatest show that I’m singing about. And that’s what I feel.
[Applause]
The way I did back then. Because I’ve learned that I have more control in my thoughts than I thought I did. It’s taken 25 years of practice but I saw enough successes along the way that it kept me going. And that’s not to say that there aren’t times that we don’t need help. We do need help sometimes. But the power of our thoughts are
greater than any of us realize. Even now they are greater than I even understand. And so, next slide. This story wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t also tell you about Marnie. So I’m gonna give you something. A timeline just to keep my own story straight. In the year 2000 when we attended that event that was so boring and that’s the year that we also tripled our income. That’s so long ago! That’s before some of you were born huh. Wow. I’ve never said that before. It seems like yesterday. So that was in the year 2000. Well at the same time, at the same time we were learning these things, I was going through a very very difficult situation. Very hard, very traumatic, trying to forgive someone for something that had happened. And it was consuming me. Eating at me. I didn’t want to be so angry. I didn’t want to be so bitter. I didn’t want those feelings but I couldn’t get rid of them. And again depression. It was about eight years that I suffered with that and periodic counseling and help to get through that. But during that time when that first happened I was learning these principles. The contrast between these two experiences happening in my life at the same time. So as I was trying to learn how to forgive so that I could feel better, I was afraid of the Internet. It was kind of new and I had heard that you end up in bad places on the internet, things that you didn’t want to see, so I was afraid to go there. It was new okay?
[Laughter]
Leslie: But I had already exhausted my church leaders, my friends, my family, and I had talked their ears off trying to work through it. And it just wasn’t better. And since I felt like I was a burden on everybody else, I thought “Okay I’m going to go on the internet. I’m so scared!” And so I thought “Okay where can I go on the internet that I know will be safe? I’ll put forgiveness, Christian, women…” Because I thought whatever comes up it will probably be clean. So what pops up is a website called shelovesgod.com. And I thought “Oh this is interesting!” So I start reading articles and it had a place where you could post your own, it’s kind of like a you have a story you want to post share yours or whatever. And I got on their mailing list. And one day I get this email from this website about forgiveness. I’m like “Oh!” So I open it up and I’m reading it. I’m like “I already know all this. I already know all this. I already tried all this. It’s just not working.” and so I thought “Well I don’t know who owns this site but maybe I could talk their ear off.” And so I wrote back and I said “Probably won’t have time to read this but if you, oh I’d love your insight on something.” And she wrote back! And this is who it was, Marnie. She wrote back and she said “Well I’d be happy to talk to you if I can be of help.” And she said “You probably figured that I wrote this article because I was struggling with forgiveness too huh.” I’m like, never crossed my mind I was going to self consume with my own problems. I didn’t meet that maybe she would write that article because she was struggling and trying to learn how to overcome some forgiveness challenges herself. And I I said “No actually I didn’t realize that. What’s your experience?” And she was trying to forgive situation where she and her husband had worked really really hard to get out of debt and her husband wrapped up all the credit-card again. And she was just having a hard time forgiving. And I said “Well money problem? I could help with that.” Because I just learned these principles right. Well she started giving me something else to think about. Notice them. Did my problem go away? My problem wasn’t gone but it gave me something else to focus on. And so I am talking with her and sending her stuff in the mail and things that I had learned, and sharing with her. And she’s like “Oh my goodness this is huge. This is, this is amazing!” And her websites, she had a few. At the time they’re making about two thousand dollars a month. Well the next month she’s applying these principles they brought in $4,000. The month after that it was $8,000. She’s like “Leslie you have got to write some articles for my readers on these principles.” I’m like “I’d be happy to!” So for the next eight weeks I would write about one principle per week and send it to her. And then in October of that year she’s like “And you need to get online and be part of this Women’s Conference and teach people what you’ve learned.” and then she’s like “Well but then people would wanna know more about you. You need a website!” So she threw up a website for me. And then she’s like “And you really oughta write a book!” And so we took those articles, turned them into a book and that became my first book which was “Hidden Treasures Heaven’s Astonishing Help with your Money Matters” And she had written all kinds of books. She was a romance novelist. Clean, Christian romance novels that she’d write about. And she had learned how to publish on her own and she taught me how to publish. And then she started using these principles in other ways. And I’m gonna, I want you to notice these experiences and look for the common thread. Next slide. Because of Marnie she showed me how to write and market a book and Jackrabbit Factor became a best-seller thanks to Marnie. Next. And I just want you to notice that what I was looking for was help learning how to forgive. And look where it brought me. It’s that law of polarity that things are so so bad, there’s a seed of equal or greater benefit in it. And had I not been seeking for solutions to how to get rid of these angry angry awful feelings, looking for a solution to my problems led me to a solution to hers. To be a solution to hers. Which led her to be a solution to mine. Now she lives on a property that’s acres. And one thing she really wanted was a fence around her property so she could have horses. But Trevan, remind me how many acres it was? I would say maybe 20 acres or something.
Trevan: Ah it could’ve been.
Leslie: It was very large and to get a fence on a property like that was very expensive. So she applied the principles. She imagined it, she felt it, and then one day someone calls her up and says “Hey Marnie, you’ve got all this land. If we were to put the fence up on your land could we board our horses there?” Couple other pictures of her property. It’s huge. One day as she’s driving into her property, a long dirt road, and not just once but she started imagining gravel on it. Very expensive for the length that it was. Didn’t matter. She just imagined it. She imagined it and when she would drive, should would go about five miles an hour because it’s bumpy. But she would imagine the crackle of the gravel under her tires. And one day she goes out there and a quarter of that lane had gravel on it. And she has no idea where it came from. The next day she goes out and it’s half way graveled. She finally found out it was a neighbor who sometimes would go to her lane to harvest sod of the sides and thought that since he was using her sod, he would pave her lane for her. Next slide. This house. This is the house on that property. It’s very beautiful. We visited that house back in 2002 I think when he went out to teach, teach some classes for her friends. But she had some rough times. That marriage that she was in ended in divorce and she married again and just as her mother was dying, that husband kicked her out and said he wanted a divorce. And so she just felt broken. But she never let go of the dream she had for her property that it would one day hold retreats. Well as a result of the first divorce, this home went into foreclosure and she lost the home. But she’s hung onto her dreams. In the last year or so she met a man who had dreams of retreats and was looking for a property. And he came and bought her property and then asked her to marry him. So she’s back in her same house now doing retreats. Next slide. There he is. This is 20 years later. I think about the transformation that she’s experienced. We’ve all seen as we apply these principles we’ve all seen success, we’ve had failures. We’ve had success, we’ve had failures. We learn that the failures are nothing but seeds for the next success. Truly. So are these unique? In the years that we have had our books and as we’ve been teaching these principles, we’ve started to collect stories from our readers. And this is a place that you could even come share your stories. You’ll see hundreds of success stories as people use these principles. It’s not just for a few people, it’s for anybody who wants to start to apply them. So how does it happen? Again like I said, there are natural laws that govern the universe and we don’t align or misalign ourselves with the laws by the way we think. And as we learn them and align with them, things go better. Next. So we’re gonna see if you can do this. Here we go. I’m going to give you a minute to find the numbers 1 through 60 in sequential sequential order. Ready? Oh Honey! I don’t have a second hand. You’re going to need to be the guy.
Trevan: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, go.
Leslie: Stop. Okay how far did we get? Okay raise your hand if you got to 10. Uh keep em up if you got to 20. 30? 40? Have you guys done this before? Sorta? How far did you get? 42? 48? Anybody beat 48? What did you get?
Audience: 42.
Leslie: 42. Alright. Very good, very good. Okay next slide. I want you to notice that there are four quadrants. Did any of you notice that? Have you seen this before?
Audience: I’ve done a smaller version of it. We just had paper and I don’t think it was at the same speed. But we had to circle it in order.
Leslie: Okay. Okay. So now number one is in this quadrant, number two is in this quadrant, three, and it goes clockwise. We’re gonna to do it again. Get ready. Trevan tell us when to start.
Trevan: Okay four seconds, three, two, one, go.
[Laughter]
Trevan: Oh! Wait, wait, wait!
Leslie: For those of you who weren’t jumping the gun.
Trevan: Where is it? Where is it? Back to the previous one?
Leslie: You’re right where you’re supposed to be.
Trevan: Okay. All right give me a second. Alright, go!
Leslie: Go. Stop. Alright, what I want to know is who did better the second time? Very good. Now I want you to notice is it because… why do did you do better?
Audience: Because you know where to look.
Leslie: You know where to look.
Audience: Because you knew where the general area is.
Leslie: Yep. Yeah good. Good. I had somebody answer once they say “Because there’s a pattern!” There was always a pattern. There was always a pattern. What’s the real difference?
Audience: You knew that there’s a pattern.
Leslie: You knew that there’s a pattern. Your awareness of the pattern.
Audience: It’s more defined.
Leslie: It’s more defined. So same activity. Now I want you to burn this into your brain forever. Same activity with a higher awareness is better results. Next slide. That’s what’s next one says. Yeah same activity with a higher awareness yields better results. Same activity! Imagine if you could go back to your life next week, live like, like you always have, live it with higher awareness, and suddenly you start seeing better results. Woah! Mindblown, right? You think you have to do something so different to get different results. Sometimes all you have to do is think different. Sometimes all you have to do is start noticing the patterns in life that give you some rhythm. That help you know “Oh here’s a step back. Awesome I can go gratitude. I can go to gratitude when things are hard.” How can I be grateful with things are hard? It doesn’t matter. You don’t even have to like it. You can still choose gratitude. You know what I look like when I choose gratitude? I go like this. Something is really hard and ugly and I go like “Uh!” Wait a second. That was just a response to what happened. What happened is just what it is. I can choose how to feel so I’m going to let myself “Uh!” for two seconds. Sometimes it’s three days but as soon as I remember the pattern, then I go from here “Uh.” to “Uh, okay you know what, there is a law that says every adversity is a seed of equal or greater benefit. So there’s something really awesome in this because this is, this just stinks. So there’s something really awesome in here, thank you. And I pray to God. I’ll say “Thank you for this awful thing. I have no idea why it’s good for me, but you do. And I’m grateful for it because if nothing else this helps me know a good day when I have one.” And you know things don’t change exactly right then when I do that,
but things flip over much faster and sometimes the benefit shows up a lot quicker and I recognize it. So what I want you to do is I want you to believe that there is unseen help for your life. That there is unseen help for your life. The gridlines on that number search were invisible too but just knowing that they’re there made all the difference. You know what? Maybe there is no unseen help. Maybe there is. But I have learned that by choosing to believe that it’s there, things go better. Things go better when I choose to believe. I want to give you an example. So there was a day in my motherhood joys when I was having a really bad day. And I was cranky and I was mad at the kids and honestly I was mad at our dog because he was always in my way. We had a basset hound that was just low and solid and always at my feet. And I’d turn around and just about fall over regularly. And the kids weren’t cleaning up after and they promised they’d keep things picked up. And slobbered. He digested a hole in our leather couch. I’m not kidding. He would sit there when he wasn’t supposed to, when we didn’t know, and he just he would drool in the same spot. And eventually ate a hole in our couch. It was not my favorite pet. My kids are mad at me for not being an animal lover on that particular pet. I’m working through it. So I had decided that he needed a better home because he needed a home that loved him more.
[Laughter]
Leslie: Anyways I put an ad in the paper for him. And this wasn’t the first time that I had done that.
[Laughter]
Leslie: That day I, I was done. I, I just had it. And so I put the ad in the paper and my son comes in and he sees me and he’s like “What are you doing mom?!” I’m like “Putting an ad in the paper for Charlie.” He’s like, and he fell apart. He was mad! He just, He couldn’t, he just had enough of me so and he got on his bike and he just left. He was just broken hearted and left. And I’m like “Well nobody cares how I feel.” And so I had a bad day and it sent my son away. How old was he? Do you remember? Maybe 12. Nathan. I think he was about 12. What I didn’t know was at that same time on the other side of the neighbourhood, a corner of the neighborhood we don’t have reason to go to, my younger son who at the time was I think six-ish somewhere in there, had been riding his bike and got his pant leg caught on the spokes for the chain and couldn’t get free. So he’s on the ground wrestling with his pant leg, can’t get out, and he’s alone, and doesn’t have help he needs. Well along comes my 12 year old son just escaping mom showing up in a part of the neighborhood that neither one of them ever go to hardly for any reason. He shows up and is able to help his brother home. Every adversity has to seed of equal or greater benefit. Every adversity. Why did I need to have a bad day? If you believe in God or a higher power, I think it’s okay that we have bad days sometimes because He could do something good with it. He can do something good with it. So think back to that first scene in The Greatest Showman. What if you could see your future, the future you want with that kind of clarity, that kind of passion, that kind of feeling. What if you could do that? Picture a nuclear blast coming out of you and going out and changing the world. And what it does is it lines up the things you need. Everything starts to get orchestrated for you so you’ll have what you need to accomplish it. Now I have a video I’d like to click over to. You’re not going to be able to hear this very because there’s really no sound. But it’s the mechanism of a jukebox. Do any of you know what a jukebox is? Thank you, okay. What I want you to notice is before we play this, there’s three things I want you to know about this process. Number one is you’ve gotta see it on the screen of your mind. Gotta picture what you want. And I don’t mean okay, maybe you want to have a family so you see a picture of a family out there. No. I’m saying close your eyes and imagine the family around you pulling your hair or whatever it’s gonna be. Be in it. Live it. Number two, feel it. Answer the question “How would that feel?” Answer the question. The only way you’ll feel it is if you trick yourself into thinking it’s real for even a few minutes. But number three is don’t kick it out. Don’t doubt. The Greatest Showman had giant passion for what he wanted. Giant, huge passion for it. It doesn’t have to be that big for it to work. It can be little like a mustard seed. Teeny tiny. The clue, the key factor is that you just don’t have doubt. And I dare you to test it on something this week. And I’m gonna have you practice it here in a few minutes. But what this is, this is the inside of the jukebox. And I want you to notice when she pushes the button, she’s making a choice. That’s like choosing what you want your future to look like. Choosing something about your future. I asked you what the hole in your shoe was. Can you think of what that was? Raise your hand if you remember what your hole in your shoe is. Okay. Can you think of now what your greatest show is going to be? Raise your hand if you know what that’s gonna be. Some of you didn’t raise your hand. Because you haven’t decided yet? Pick something. Maybe it’s being healthy when you’re in your 70s. That could be a good one. Okay so this is a girl that’s decided what she wants but I want you to notice that with the jukebox the old-fashioned ones it takes time for that disk to get in place and start playing. You push the button and it’s not instantaneous. Now I was actually looking for a video of how a jukebox works, so that you could think, all right pushing the button means what you are selecting. Paying the money means feeling.
You could think about what you want all day long but until you feel it, the coin hasn’t dropped. Okay and so now whenever you think about something, you’re pushing a button. When you let yourself feel it, you’re dropping the coin. And then the gears start to move. Life’s gears start to move. I want you to picture that somewhere in the world something just moved for you. And if you ever want a reminder this, go look up jukebox mechanism or something and listen to it again. And anchor that. So I want you to notice about, about this one though because as I was looking for a video to show you how a jukebox works, she intercepts it before it has a chance to do its thing. She keeps changing her mind. Go ahead.
[Video Playing]
Leslie: Changed her mind.
[Video Continues]
Leslie: And never gets it. So I, I think of how many of you have smartphones. What if it took that long for you to play the song you’re trying to get to?
[Laughter]
Leslie: Push the button, you’re waiting, and waiting, and you’re waiting, you change you’re mind. Well it was on its way. So I want you to think about your dreams like that okay they’re not smartphone instantaneous. They’re more like an old-fashioned jukebox. Those gears are turning, you see it, you’ve made the selection, you feel it, you’ve paid the money, and it’s starting to churn. Things are starting to churn and as long as you believe that it is, it continues to do so. And every time you take a step towards your dream, it takes a step towards you. I used to think I’d have to go the distance and be the marathon runner, or be the Olympian, or be this superhuman person to achieve something great and I realized no, all I have to do is… say it.
Audience: See it, feel it.
Leslie: And don’t doubt. Just let it come. Back to our slideshow. Okay believe in unseen help. Want to hear another story, a really cool one? So I have a daughter who’s serving a mission right now for the LDS Church and there was another missionary some time ago who, he was at an airport. I think he was coming home? I can’t remember what his situation was. All I know is he was at an airport and as he’s sitting at the airport he thought “You know, I oughta go plug my phone into a kiosk somewhere so it can be charging.” It wasn’t dead yet, it wasn’t close to dead but he thought “Go find a kiosk.” So he starts walking up and down the hallway looking for an open one, but they were all being used. So he kept walking and it was getting farther and farther away from his terminal or from his gate. And so finally he walked far enough and found an open kiosk with the plug for his, for charging his phone. So he plugs it in, he sits down, and he’s just waiting because he’s got a delay and he notices up at the desk nearby that this woman is standing there trying to talk to the clerk and speaking this strange language but she keeps saying the word Mongolian. And the person at the desk is like “I don’t know how to help you.” Trying to figure it out, gestures in sign language and whatnot, but couldn’t figure it out. And he remembered that he had a friend who had served a mission in Mongolia. And so he gets on his phone and he calls him up and says” I think there’s someone here that is trying to speak Mongolian, but they can’t communicate. Could you maybe help them out?” He’s like “Sure no problem.” So he takes the phone over to the girl and he nudges her, gets her attention, and he says “Mongolian!” She picks it up and she realizes she’s got a translator. And so she tells him what the problem is and gives the phone to the, to the agent and is able to get her problems solved. And then she takes the phone back and she’s talking some more, and then she bursts into tears. And he’s like “What’s going on?” She was just talking to my friend and she’s now crying. And so she gives the phone back to the owner of the phone and he gets on there with his friend, and his friend has burst into tears. He was like “Dude, what’s going on?” And it turns out his friend who had served in Mongolia had taught a family out there and she was in that family. And now she is on, at the airport trying to get herself to the Missionary Training Center because she’s about to go serve a mission. But she couldn’t communicate. What are the odds. What are the odds that number one, he would have this thought to go plug his phone in when he didn’t need to, but he did. Unseen help. He goes and plugs in his phone, he helps her, and not only that but it’s a really sweet message from the universe that says “Dear girl, you are special. You are known. You are important. The help you need is here for you.” And in such a sweet way. I’m sure there’s more than just one person in the world that knows Mongolian. But it was the one that was meaningful to her. How does this help? How does this help? About cell phones, has it ever blown your mind to think that you can take your cell phone and punch in a series of numbers and have it ring one specific person somewhere in the world. Let that sink in for a minute. Through the air. Are there cell phone signals flying through the air right now, in here? This one’s going to someone, that one’s going to someone. It’s all a very specific all very specific. Those cell phones have a unique identifier that when the vibrations in the air or however it works, I don’t even know. When whatever it it hits that cell phone, it makes it buzz. That one. Doesn’t make all the other ones nearby buzz. That one will buzz. So what you want, that vision of what you want to create in your life, is like a cell phone. It’s unique. The way you design it in your head is very unique. And how do you make it buzz?
Audience: You see it and you feel it.
Leslie: Everybody, come on!
Audience: See it! Feel it! Don’t doubt it!
Leslie: See it, feel it, don’t doubt it. When you do, when you see it and you feel it, you just made something buzz. You made something buzz in the world that is unique and needed for you to accomplish that purpose. Next slide. Next time you face a dilemma, okay try this one. Next time you’re at school and you need to come up with something for a project, or you need to answer a question, or you need to understand how something works, a math problem or whatever. Okay this could help with your learning too. Imagine how it would feel to understand it. You don’t have to understand it, but imagine how it would feel if you did. Do you think that changes something in you? It does. It brings your awareness of, did you know that the solution to every problem, math or life, the solution to every problem is only an idea away. Think about that. The solution to every problem is only an idea away. The cure for cancer, it’s only an idea away. How to get that job that pays what you need it to pay is only an idea away. It might be a, go flip this page open to see what that classified ad says. Or maybe, go do this search on the internet that you didn’t think to do before. It’s only an idea away. And if you didn’t think that was mind blowing, that idea is already in this room! Like a radio broadcast, like a cell phone signal. It’s already there. It’s already there. You are like radio. What’s your favorite kind of music somebody? Raise your hand. Yeah?
Audience: Country.
Leslie: Country.
Audience: I was gonna say country or pop.
Leslie: Country or pop. Yeah.
Audience: Rap.
Leslie: Rap. Awesome. Everybody’s got their favorite. So is rap in this room right now?
Audience: Uhuh. Probably on somebody’s phone. Actually no, probably not.
Leslie: Okay. Now what do I mean by that? What do I mean by that, it being in this room?
Audience: Somebody’s probably thinking of rap in their head.
Leslie: Thinking of rap in their head. What if I had a radio. Okay the old fashioned kind of radio. Think of what’s like in your car. All right there’s a radio in this room. I have one right here. And I turn it on to, what’s a station in Kanab?
Audience: 99.9
Leslie: 99.9. What kind of music is that? Country. So I’m going to tune the station to 99.9. And I turn it on and I turn up the volume what are we going to hear?
Audience: Country.
Leslie: Country. Where was the country music before I turned on the radio?
Audience: Same place it was before you turned it on.
Leslie: Right, which is where?
Audience: In the room probably.
Leslie: It’s in the room. Who’s seen Willy Wonka? Remember when she, when that kid gets put through the TV waves? Those waves are in the room. In this room right now is country music and the radio just makes it audible. That radio didn’t suck music into the room. It didn’t have to download it. It didn’t have to download anything. What are you feeling?
Audience: It’s just so crazy! Like it’s so incomprehendable! It’s like, it’s always there but you just like press a button and you can hear it.
Leslie: Oh! Okay, I know! I know!
Audience: Like on the computer you can search up anything! And you can play any type of, anything, any sound you want from that computer. It is there this entire time! But just what we are typing in and pressing the button is making it audible. That’s so crazy.
Leslie: You know, here’s the thing. Here’s the thing. I, okay say you got a smartphone and you download a song. That’s a file that is on the phone, right? That’s a file. But with the radio have you ever opened up a radio?
Audience: No.
Leslie: There’s no hard drive in a radio. There’s no hard drive in a radio and some electronics that just picks up on this stuff that’s going on in the air right now. It just makes it audible. Okay. Here’s this, I wasn’t going to share this. Do we have time? I’ll be quick. You guys think you have it so cool with technology nowadays. I’m telling you what. What we had in the 70’s would’ve blown your mind. Okay? I had this clicker. A television clicker. First of all, a television had seven stations. Seven. And the TV dial, okay what’s a dial. The TV did not have buttons. It had a dial. A thing you would twist, kinda like your, maybe your washing machine at home. You would twist it and hear the click, click, click, click, depending on the number it was pointing at. Okay. So if you wanted channel three, you would turn the dial until it pointed at three. And somehow, it had those bunny ears on top of the TV that was picking up on what? These things going through the air. But this clicker. Okay so we had, I had this silver, silver rectangular tube clicker. It had a black button on the top that was fully mechanical. Not even electronic. Mechanical. Boom, boom. Boom, boom. And I thought, and in the front it had this mesh metal screen so you could totally see what was inside. And I looked inside and there was this metal, are you looking for a picture of it Trevan? This metal rod. Get this. Oh my gosh this still blows my mind today. I thought, I want to know how those things work, this thing works. Because what I would do is I would push that button. Gun, gunk. And the TV channel would go “plck”.
Audience: What?
Leslie: It wasn’t even electronic. It would just “eck”. The dial would twist every time I push that button. And that’s how I would select my channel is by how many times I would click it, it would just go around and around.
Trevan: No batteries needed.
Leslie: No batteries. No batteries. And so I opened it up one time thinking “How does this work? What kind of voodoo is this?” And I opened it up, oh I wish I had prepared. I had not planned on telling you this. But I took the top off and inside, here’s the lower case and in the middle is like this little miniature wall. That’s not it.
Trevan: Closer than what they’re used to though. I’ll keep looking.
Leslie: Keep looking on Google. I know it’s there somewhere. So it had this, oh gosh. A little wall, halfway in the middle of this channel, right. Channel meaning, it was like a boat. In the middle of the boat was this wall. In the wall was a notch. On the notch was metal rod. And there was a spring. And I would push the button and the spring would make the rod go “vv” kinda like zaps, not zaps. Like a percussion instrument. Just hit, it would hit the rod. And by hitting the rod, that rod would send some kind of invisible signal to the TV and the turn thing would go “ch”.
Audience: Aw… That’s actually a real thing?
Leslie: True! True story!
Audience: How?
Leslie: Pull up some images for me to choose from Trevan. I want to see which one it is.
Trevan: I haven’t found one.
Leslie: I have found it before. I will find it again.
[Laughter]
[Applause]
Leslie: It was a Zenith, I do remember that. Oh 70’s, do that. 1970’s. Images. Can you see what I’m looking at?
Trevan: Not yet.
Leslie: That’s the one! Okay pull it up. Here we go. Oh don’t tell me it’s a Pinterest thing. I can never find the image I was looking for on Pinterest. Oh there it is. You see that?
Trevan: Top left.
Leslie: This one. That’s it. Pinterest is my nemesis. Yeah?
Audience: Okay would that just work with your TV or would it work with any TV?
Leslie: Any Zenith TV.
Trevan: The old kind that were designed for it. Not the new ones.
Leslie: I don’t really understand how it works. It has something to do with the size of the rod, and what it was made of would physics. It was physics.
Audience: Wait so if you found like a TV like that and a clicker like that would it still work?
Leslie: Not today’s Zenith but if we found two old vintage ones, yeah it would still work.
Audience: Did you have to point it directly at the TV when you used the button?
Leslie: No, you have to point it out to make the wave go at it. Yeah? We used to point it ourselves and wonder what it was doing.
[Laughter]
Leslie: Someday I’m gonna find a picture of the inside of it. Because really there’s nothing to it, it was just that wall and a spring, and the rod balancing on the wall. Crazy. Craziness! So if a rod can do that, do you think your brain could do something? What’s that?
Audience: With the right dental work.
Leslie: As according to Gilligan. I saw that episode. With the right dental work you can get stations. Alright. So let’s see what the slides say. Okay! Alright. So what this is, this is about believing in something that hasn’t happened yet. Believing in something you can’t see with your physical eyes. Okay. This quote, I love this quote. Boyd K. Packer said that there are two kinds of faith. One of them functions ordinarily in the life of every soul. It is the kind of faith born by experience. It gives us certainty that a new day will dawn. It is the kind of faith that relates us with confidence to that which is scheduled to happen. We’re all familiar with that kind of faith. You believe you’re going to see your family soon when the retreat is over, right? But there is another kind of faith, rare indeed. This is why I call my blog “Rare Faith”. Rarefaith.org. That’s where you’ll see a lot of stories. I share a lot of my crazy mom stories there. I talk about Charlie, almost selling him. Anyway. And also if we have time will someone remind me to tell you the spider story? It’s one of my favorites. Okay so there’s another kind of faith rare indeed. This is the kind of faith that causes things to happen. Clicker, right? It is the kind of thing that calls forth things that otherwise would not be. Do you think this retreat would have been created if Randy hadn’t put some of this and some of this into it? And what if he had doubted? Would you be here? Thank you Randy for not doubting.
[Applause]
Leslie: We’re going to doubt sometimes. But let me give you a little tip. So you’ve seen it, and you’ve felt it, and you aren’t doubting it, and you know it’s gonna work, and things are gonna be good, and then suddenly life it looks like everything opposite of what you decided you wanted. Okay in that moment you might doubt and that’s human. Here’s what, here’s what you do next. Either you’re going to say “Oh man I doubt it so it’s not going to work.” or you say “Oh man I doubted. Well that was a hiccup. I believe it’s still on its way.” I do that because I’m human and sometimes I have my bad days. And you know what. On those doubting days, you can just say “Thank you for this hard day because it helps me know a good one when I get it.” You can flip anything around. You can flip anything around. Back to the quote. “It is the kind of faith that calls for things that otherwise would not be. The kind of faith that sometimes moves people.” Like that guy at the airport looking for a place to plug in his phone. Something knew he had a solution for that girl. Something knew and moved him. “It’s the kind of faith that sometimes moves things. It comes by gradual growth. It is a marvelous, even a transcendent power.” A power as real and as invisible as electricity or a mechanical clicker. “Directed a channel, it has great effect.” So “the significant problems we face in life”, this is by Einstein “cannot be solved with the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.” Oh wait a second. What did he just say? Now I’m not gonna say we create our own problems but sometimes we do. Sometimes we do. Sometimes we’re in a mess and you try to solve that problem without first:
Audience: Seeing.
Leslie: Seeing and feeling something different. Sometimes we’re spending all kinds of time seeing where we are right now and the things we hate about it and feeling upset about where we’re at right now. What does that do? What could that do?
Audience: Is there a connection to like the hole in the shoe thing that you were talking about?
Leslie: Oh hole in the shoe? Yes! Either, thank you for bringing that back! I meant to bring that back! Either, we’re spending our time thinking about our shoe, the hole in the shoe, or we’re dreaming about where we’re going. Either or. Yeah?
Audience: It kinda reminds me of Law of Attraction. Like what you focus on you’re gonna attract to yourself. So if you’re just focusing on the negative things in your life, like that’s all that’s gonna come to you. But if you focus on the positive then…
Leslie: Absolutely. Absolutely. And if what you’re doing isn’t helping, isn’t changing things, maybe you’re trying to change something about your life and every time you try, it just doesn’t work. It could be because you’re trying to solve it on a radio broadcast of ideas that just gets you more of that. Instead if you take a minute to see and feel something up here instead, you tune your little radio station up to 103.4. And suddenly, suddenly you get different ideas on how to solve it than what you were getting at 99.9. Basically we are, okay. How many of you had chemistry, a chemistry class? Alright what if we could look at atoms and molecules under a microscope. Would they be just like this? What would they be doing? They’re just buzzing. Causing a commotion and just bumping around. And it’s through atoms and molecules that signals are transferred as they bump into each other. Okay? And so we are made up of atoms and molecules too. Right? And so on a molecular level we are vibrating. And as we change what we see and what we feel, we change our vibration. Have you ever gone into a room and just known that person was angry without them saying a word? Yeah. You say “What’s wrong?” “Nothing’s wrong.” “Well the dog knows something is wrong.” You can say one thing. You can tell someone a lie. Words are noise but the vibrations never lie. They never lie. You want to know how’s your vibration? What is your vibration? Whatever you think and feel most often is going to control that vibration. And depending on what you think and feel, most often is going to emanate like that nuclear blast. It’s going to do this around the world and it’s gonna make something buzz that resonates with your vision. So that when you’re walking down the hallway at school and you’ve got this idea for a club that’s gonna help someone. We’re gonna make a club that is a maybe a sit with us at lunch club kind of a thing. Something that helps inspire or uplift others who are struggling. Maybe that’s your idea. You needed to find someone who will help you do this while you’re walking down the hallway. What’s gonna determine if you happen to smile and say hi at that person passing by or not? It might be how they’re vibrating. It might be how you’re vibrating. And whether or not there’s a vibratory match. If we want to be scientific about it. Okay so you see this guy? He’s got a problem. He was, he’s trying to put something in that circle goal but all he’s got is a square and a triangle. A pyramid. His solution is up on a whole different level of thinking. If you were him how would you come up with that idea? I never asked this before. Yeah?
Audience: Climb.
Leslie: Okay these are levels of thinking. How are we going to climb? It’s a great idea though. That is a great idea. You know what? I’m gonna ask you something. What would it look like if this problem were solved?
Audience: Um… he would have that circle thing in his hand.
Leslie: In his hand? Or where would it be if it were totally solved?
Audience: On the other side of the thing.
Leslie: On the other side? Okay. Yeah or if he’s trying, I’ve never thought if we’re trying to push something through or make a wall. I’m gonna say, let’s say that we’re making a wall. So if his problem were solved, he would have a solid wall. So what is he going to picture on the screen of his mind? Everybody.
Audience: A solid wall.
Leslie: A solid wall. And what’s he gonna feel?
Audience: A solid wall.
Leslie: What does that mean to “feel a solid wall”? Is he going to be doing this? No. It’s going to be an emotional experience. He’s gonna be feeling “I did it! It’s a solid wall.” It’s kinda a stretch. Yeah?
Audience: I was gonna say like similar to what she said. Like raise your awareness of thinking. Right now he can only see the wall as well as the square and the pyramid. However, if you were to climb above it he would see that there is also a circle and then he can figure out from there by raising his awareness how to fix his problem.
Leslie: Yeah and you know what? If he were to think of climbing that wall or climbing those levels it’s because he would have already seen the wall compete. If all he sees is his square and triangle and the hole and he’s thinking problem, he’s thinking of the whole issue. In order to even know even to know to climb. Even to know. Even to, it won’t even cross his mind until he sees the wall complete. It’s on the screen of his mind. And feel how he’s gonna feel when it is.
Audience: So it’s sort of like having the belief that you know it’s gonna be there because then you’re gonna take action.
Leslie: Exactly. And you’ll take the right action after you believe. You might be taking the wrong action before you, if you don’t believe. Your actions, who knows what they’re gonna get you. All those years that we were attending events, they were saying “Be positive! Dream big!” And I used to think that they were trying to get me motivated to just go do something hard. That if I could get excited enough about what it is then I would just have the energy and endurance to do the hard thing. When I found out that it is so much more than that, that just by:
Audience: Seeing it, feeling it…
Leslie: Changed something in my world. I was more motivated to do it. You know it wasn’t just “Okay there’s this huge mountain that I have to climb to get that goal. Alright, just imagine how it’s gonna feel to get it. Okay then I’ll go climb it.” No it was like if I see it and feel it, along comes the transport. It’s gonna feed me along the way. I mean it’s, it’s support to get you there. Yeah?
Audience: So this actually reminds me of something I told my mom a few months ago where he is too busy looking at that hole in the wall and focusing and he’s kinda putting all his energy towards that hole in the wall. The pyramid won’t fit. He’s focusing on the hole in the shoe. And all you have to do is take a step back, look at the bigger picture, and if he took a step back, he’d be able to see that.
Leslie: Oh! I just got the chills!
Audience: Yeah! And it’s like once you take a step back from that problem you’re having, you’re able to see the solution and imagining it yourself instead of dwelling on the problem. And it really just reminded me of that.
Leslie: Do you guys see how powerful you are? Do you realize, do you realize how powerful you are? I, I had a word come to my brain this week. And I’ve been chewing on it a little bit. You know I’ve been telling people for years see it and feel it. If you say it enough and it starts to sound just as cliche as dream big, picture what you want. And just starts that sound the same. And so this word came to my mind. I want you to take a minute. Close your eyes, imagine yourself outside under the stars somewhere out away from the city so there’s no light pollution. And it’s a clear sky, and there’s no moon so the stars are brilliant and you can see the Milky Way. And you’re laying on your back and you’re looking up at all of this and you realize “Wait a minute, the Milky Way.” That’s just looking at our galaxy from the side. You know what a galaxy looks like, it’s a spiral. And we are on that spiral. We’re on a planet and one of the outer rings of that spiral. And as we look at the Milky Way, we’re just looking at the sideways view of that spiral. How. Can you try to comprehend the size of that Milky Way, of that galaxy that we are in? Can you comprehended how giant it is when you look at it? That every one of those is a sun like our sun. Some bigger, some smaller. But the Milky Way is just full of giant suns. I have a hard time finding words for this but open your eyes for a second. What does it mean? How do you know when you’ve comprehended it just a little. This is a hard question. How do you know in yourself that “Okay I’m trying to comprehend this.” What has changed from something say this “Oh. I almost got it. I almost comprehended that.” It’s a hard question. I’m not sure what the answer is supposed to sound like. But I kind of have a concept. Yeah?
Audience: I feel like you just have this feeling inside that just connects like the vibration.
Leslie: Bam! She said you have this feeling inside of you that just connects. So you’ve got this concept of the Milky Way and you see it every night. It’s out there every night. But you take a minute to look at it and let it sink in how small we are and how big and beautiful the universe is and how someone like me could have unseen help. Just even trying to comprehend the galaxy, when you have that connection, in that moment you have this feeling. There’s a feeling there. That’s what I’m talking about to think or to see on screen your mind is number one. Number two, another word for feeling is to comprehend. To comprehend. If I were to ask you to comprehend what it’s going to be like to live that life you’re creating. What’s that going to feel like? When you take the time to comprehend it, a feeling will come over you and you’ll have that connection. And that’s dropping the coin in the jukebox. Does that make sense? Yeah.
Audience: I think what’s also interesting is kind of finding a way to bring your heart into it.
Leslie: Bringing your heart into it. Yes. Yes. I think the heart is where that vibration emanates from. When we want something in our world to change. I tell you, here’s, here’s one. I had something go sideways in the relationship a few years back and everything I tried to do to make it right just wouldn’t work or it would make it worse. And I couldn’t understand what happened. And this person wasn’t talking to me and they wouldn’t explain what happened and I was in the, I was just totally dark. And I had no idea what I had done or how to fix it because they wouldn’t talk to me about it. And I had tried everything I could think of. And then I remembered this little thing. I thought “Okay, what’s it going to feel like when it’s fixed? What’s it going to feel like when this relationship is repaired?” And I allow myself to imagine it and I allowed myself to comprehend it and feel it just for a moment. Drop the coin in the jukebox. And it was out of my hands anyway and so I just left that alone. And about five, six months later I got an email. “Hey can we talk?” “Sure of course.” Got on the phone “I am so sorry.” ‘It’s okay.” Something I believe, something from my heart went out and started changing someone else’s heart. Didn’t have to make it happen, it’s more about allowing. It’s making it so that you are not the limiting factor in what positive things can happen in your life. It may or may not change a person. That’s not our job to control anyone. It’s not our job. But we can fix us. We can put ourselves in a place that is in harmonious vibration with that experience we hope to have. Oh that’s deep. Quick questions.
Audience: Spider thing.
Leslie: Spider thing. Randy where are you?
Randy: I’m right here.
Leslie: Have time for a spider?
Randy: Yep. We got time if you’ve got time.
Leslie: We okay? Okay so the visual aid that I was going to show you that changed everything for us, it’s at my blog. You can just go watch the whole video and it’s great. But the spider. My daughter was in orchestra. And she was really struggling because she didn’t feel like she had any friends. And every time she went to orchestra, she go sit down and everybody sat away from her and she felt very alone. I said “Kayli, let’s do a little exercise. I want you to imagine what it would be like to have friends. How’s that going to feel?” It was hard! It was hard to, to get that image clear enough to comprehend. Because sometimes you have to really work with the image of it before you feel it here. Here’s another tip. If you can’t get it by thinking about it and feeling it, you can do the same thing by repetition. And let me tell you how that works and I’ll get to the spider story. If it was “I am so happy and grateful now that I have an abundance of friends, of good friends that have lift each other. I might not be able to see what that looks like. It might be hard for me. But I can write that down ‘I am so happy grateful now that I have an abundance of good friends that uplift each other.’” And I write that down and I read that every day. Maybe I say it out loud several times a day. Or when things look especially bleak in the friend department, I go into my car and I scream it a few times. Repetition. If you, if your subconscious mind hears something often enough it will start to believe it and then you’ll feel it. So that’s a trick. But so with my daughter I took her through this exercise to try to imagine what it would be like to have friends in orchestra. And she was willing to give it a try. And so she went to the class that next day and she was nervous. And being, having thought of it, seeing it done, and feeling what it would feel like, she had a new thought. Not surprising. It will give you a new thought. You’re tuning your station to a different broadcast of ideas that are already in this room. And the thought was to go sit in a different chair that she normally sits in. She’s usually over in the corner. And so she went to the classroom and she saw the chair that she thought she should sit in instead, and she chickened out. She went and sat in her regular chair. Does that ever happen? Do we ever chicken out? Of course. So she sat in her chair, she’s like “Oh.” Then she sees this spider on her stand. She’s like “Woah! Uh!” And she brushes it off and it flies this way and it lands on her somewhere. She doesn’t know where so she jumps up and she’s freaking out and she doesn’t know where it went. So she thought it might be safer to go sit in that chair that she originally belonged in. And so when I picked her, oh and by the way she’s sitting there in comes two other girls and they flank her on either side. And when I picked her up that day she came out saying, she said “Mom! Mom! It worked! It worked! I mean, kinda. But it did, it did!” And she says “I just didn’t think that God would answer my prayer with a spider.
[Laughter]
Leslie: Think about that. What’s the spider in your life? I know we had talked at dinner. Randy shared with us more about why he does, why he created this organization. There was a spider in his life that moved him too. Can we be grateful for the spiders in our life? They move us. Every one of them. Every single spider in our life moves us. And that is why we can be grateful for them. Because as long as you have had or choose to have an image on the screen of your mind and have allowed yourself to comprehend and feel what that might be like, then every spider in your life is moving you to that vision. So can you be grateful for things when they go backwards instead of forwards? When things get worse before they get better? I’m going to end with, there’s a slide coming up. And I’m just going to find it. Click through until you find it. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Oh right in the eye. Wait, go back to that real quick. Just a reminder. Which one gets your energy, the hole in your shoe or the dream in your head? Next one. Okay this is it! This is how your thoughts affect future. “Your life conditions are that orange line. Maybe sometimes it feels like they’re going downhill. And if your thoughts are constantly looking at they’re going downhill without intercepting it, giving it something else to think about, then your life is going to continue to follow those thoughts. But look at this next slide. This is what you’re doing when you’re dreaming. You’re allowing yourself, your life conditions might stink for a while and they might even get worse for a while, but if you are persistent on the screen of your mind and in your heart with where you’re going and it is your choice. It is your choice what you do with your life. You take the time to write down what that last day of your life is gonna look like and how you’re gonna feel. “I’m so amazed and grateful that I accomplished-” and list everything that you want to accomplish in life. And write it as though it’s already happened. Write it as thought it has already happened. Eventually your life is going to start to respond because what’s going on between there and there, the jukebox, it’s working. And you’re just waiting for it catch up. So I just encourage you all to keep dreaming, keep believing. Look at the spiders in your life and be grateful for them. Pay attention to where they move you. And make sure that where your life has taken you is where you chose for it to take you.
[Applause]
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This concludes today’s episode of the Rare Faith podcast. You’ve been listening to Leslie Householder author of the Jackrabbit Factor, Portal to Genius, and Hidden Treasures Heaven’s Astonishing Help with your Money Matters. All three books can be downloaded free at ararekindoffaith.com. So tell your friends and join Leslie again next time as she goes even deeper into the principles that will help you change your life.
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