In preparation for the “You Got This” Interfaith Women’s Conference Saturday, March 23, 2019, I was interviewed about my breakout session titled, “Rising Above Financial Stress”. Listen now for insights that can help increase your faith today.
Show notes for this episode:
Share your (Background) Story.
*What was your crisis or challenge?
*What was the catalyst that caused you to seek “more”?
How you use faith and connection now.
*What was the catalyst for this change in your life?
*It’s up to you what you share, get as vulnerable as you want
*Get personal, because that is what connects people to you!
Introduction of your Breakout Presentation
*Juicy Tidbit you might want to share
*Your go to self-reminder
*If there was one thing the listeners can do now, what can they do?
Rising above financial stress – to fulfill a mission
“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, that spring will come, that growth will take place. It is the kind of faith that relates us with confidence to that which is scheduled to happen. …
“There is another kind of faith, rare indeed. This is the kind of faith that causes things to happen. It is the kind of faith that is worthy and prepared and unyielding, and it calls forth things that otherwise would not be. It is the kind of faith that moves people. It is 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. Directed and channeled, it has great effect.” – Boyd K. Packer
TRANSCRIPT:
Announcer: 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 brings 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.
Wendy: Welcome to the You Got This Women Podcast. My name is Wendy Bunnel and in the studio is a beautiful Leslie Householder. And I’m gonna take a little bit more time introducing her than I would normally because she really has been a special part of my life. I was in a place that I was really living a life of mediocrity for a long time and it was constant paycheck to paycheck type living, scarcity mindset. And therefore I was stressed about money all the time. Literally I would stay up in the middle of the night counting the dollars and the cents and the things that we’re gonna go through and realizing half the time “Oh my gosh my bank account is overdrawn again. Again.” And I had stepped out into the world of being an entrepreneur and thought I had done everything responsible and the rug was just swept out from under me. And my husband lost his job, we, we at one of the lowest points in my life were on food stamps. And we were getting help from our ecclesiastical leader to pay our mortgage. And I felt very broken. Very defeated. And you know fast-forward a little bit there and Leslie Householder, her books come into my life and her audios. And I I couldn’t get enough of Leslie Householder and of course if it was Jackrabbit Factor that started, then I went to the Portal to Genius, and then Hidden Treasures which is one of my all-time favorite books.
And when I speak on stages now I almost, when I’m talking about the greats that I’ve learned from Leslie Householder’s name is always in that segment of the authors and the thought leaders that have been able to resonate. And with her help, I got out of the mindset of scarcity and I understood the principles of financial abundance. Abundance in all areas of life, but financial abundance quite honestly. And also to be able to connect with my higher power in a much more personal way and listen to that intuition and take action. And here I am you know six, seven years later and I’m living a life that we used to be in my dreams and now is reality. Even last spring when we were putting our first conference together I was so incredibly busy with the nuts and the bolts and all the little details of the conference that my other financial endeavors had to be put on hold. And the Lord continued to bless me. In fact my best month of my entire career was May of last year and we had our conference in April. How does that happen without the Lord blessing? But I was such a, I have this dam that just continued to prevent those blessings from actually entering into my life because of my mindset and my thoughts and and those types of things. And so Leslie, I am honored, I’m absolutely honored that you are on the podcast, that you’re going to be a part of this conference. That is so meaningful to me and so many others. So I know that was a really really really long introduction but I just wanted to once again thank you from the bottom of my heart that you were the one that led me to the truth of really what the Lord wanted to bless me.
Leslie: I’m really really grateful to be here and I have been so blessed by your work and what you’ve done and what you’ve organized and the book that you put out and all the projects that you do are so inspired. And it inspires me. We all have ups and downs and so I look to my friends like you Wendy who are on that path of being God’s hands on the earth, you know to help others and inspire and lift and serve. So I’m grateful to be here too. Thank you so much.
Wendy: Oh absolutely. And you know, one of the things that you’re gonna be teaching at this conference is rising above financial stress. And as you just heard, I remember in those moments where we literally had nothing in the account and we still had to provide food to our children. We still had to have a roof over their head. How incredibly stressful that was and when you’re living in a life of absolute stress and anxiety, you cannot be living up to your true and higher self. You can’t be, show it, you don’t show up in the world and bless lives when you’re in a state of absolute panic. Right? And so I believe, we felt like this was going to be just such an incredible discussion to have at the conference. Because if we are so off kilter with our finances, it is really hard to use our spiritual gifts to impact the world in a big way. You agree with that?
Leslie: I do. I do. I think that the finances are a distraction. They’re just a distraction. We spend so much time worrying about them, focusing on them. It’s why we all have jobs. When we have jobs, it’s why we build businesses. When we have businesses, it’s, it’s, it consumes so much time and energy and because it’s a distraction. And it, it’s not that there isn’t work to do. But things change when our purpose for doing that work shifts. And it can shift when the financial thing is handled. But most people think that handling the financial thing means “I have to have a bunch of money. I have to have a lot of money before I can have that settled and not on my mind all the time.” And there are principles that as we learn them and as we practice them and test them and put them to the test, we find out that even that’s a distraction. Even that’s a distraction. There’s a better way and it’s joyful.
Wendy: Mmm. So where did you learn these principles Leslie? Is this something you have learned personally and that’s how, how you’ve been able to share with them? Like, tell me your story.
Leslie: Well it started out when we first married all I wanted to be was a stay-at-home mom. I planned on raising a family and I just wanted to be that mom. I, I had heard that that’s where some of the greatest joys in life can be had and I looked forward to that. And my husband wanted that for me and his family also. And so we were united on that desire. But as we married, we married young, we were still going to school, we were working multiple jobs, we didn’t have the money, we couldn’t afford for me to stay at home. But when baby number one came along, we decided to go on faith believing this is what God wanted for us. He wanted us to be able to focus on our mission and I felt like my mission at that time was to be that focused mom. And I really did believe he wanted that for us so therefore of course He’ll give it to us, right? And so I quit my job when the baby came without knowing how it was going to work out. And that kind of started a snowball of problems that escalated and grew and you know overdrafts and credit cards and I mean it just it just started to snowball. But we were trying to live by faith. Well of course this is what He would want for us so we’re just doing it. And we were young, not super wise, but trying to apply faith as we understood it. And a year later my husband lost his job and I was forced back to work. And went through a total of about seven years really feeling sad, stressed, anxious, depressed, constantly thinking about the money, constantly worrying about the money, constantly angry that things weren’t the way we thought they should be. And not just uncomfortably, but to the point where I called the cops on a kid who broke my broom. That’s how wound tight I was. Okay? You’ve ever had that neighbor?
Wendy: You’re like “I am done!”
Leslie: That was it. That was the last straw. Well so we were searching for a way. There had to be a way. There had to be with a way without an education, without connections. We were both away from where we’d grown up and so we didn’t have contacts that can help us get two jobs. We were in a college town so everybody’s looking for the same thing. And finally, we met someone in the grocery store actually who invited us to hear a presentation. It turned out to be a business opportunity and we were looking. And so we started going to these meetings on how to build a business. And in time I mean it wasn’t a business that we were super excited about the product necessarily, but the personal development we were gaining from it, the meetings where they would teach us to have a positive attitude, how to build a business, how to think right. Over time we could tell that there was some things about our thinking that needed tweaking. And so it was just a long process of gathering nuggets. Gathering nuggets knowing there was something to this. But the results weren’t showing. The results weren’t happening. Until finally a guest speaker was brought in by the name of Bob Proctor. I really connected with the way he taught the principles because they weren’t hypie with him. When he spoke to us, he actually quoted a verse from scripture that I believed in and he is not of my faith. And so he had my attention because here he was gathering truth wherever he found it. And truth is everywhere and as we gather it, we can put the pieces together. But the lights went on when I heard it from him and my husband as well. And within three months we tripled our income. And this was after being so destitute and so desperate and realizing that it would, really was a matter of changing the way I was thinking.
And as you change the way you think, the world around you starts to respond differently to you. And it’s fascinating. But what has happened, that was 18 years ago and since then I have made a practice of testing the principles and experimenting with them in different situations. And through that process I’ve kind of come to some conclusions that are my own. And it has helped me fine-tune what, you know I don’t talk about the law of attraction anymore. I call it now “Rare Faith” because it’s, there’s a difference between an intention to just attract things into your life for comfort, for enjoyment, for luxury, for whatever these things are that you want. And I, we kind of did that for a while, right up until the recession. And we yeah, we were making good money, we were leveraging a lot, but we invested a lot in real estate at the top of the market and the rug came out from under us. And at the same time, I’m building this business where I’m teaching these principles, we’re helping people all over the world, and all of a sudden things are looking really bad. Everything’s falling apart. People who owe us money aren’t paying and they’re going bankrupt and it’s just this ripple effect. And it really caused me to question what I, what I knew and look at it at a different level. Because what used to work wasn’t working anymore. And I thought “There’s something more for me to know.”
Which by the way Jackrabbit Factor was the book I wrote after learning the principles the first time and Portal to genius is the book I wrote after the recession hit us. And so we learned so much through those setbacks. And it’s this rare faith concept that I have is more centered around the idea that money and those things are a distraction and if we can figure out what we’re here to do, how we can serve others, what our mission is, and that mission can you know change over time. It will change it maybe just within your family for this time that you’ve got a mission to fulfill with that child, you know? There is something next to be done and it may be just within your family, it may be outside of your family. But it will evolve over our lives. And if we can get to the place where the financial stresses aren’t holding us back from that and we learn to trust the principles, those principles work infinitely better and infinitely more dependably than when they are just used for our own self gratification. And so that’s my focus and that, that’s what I have turned my attention to and made my life’s work about. And I get the phrase from a quote that I heard by Boyd K Packer if I can share it with you to get some context around it?
Wendy: Yes please!
Leslie: He 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, that spring will come, that growth will take place. It is the kind of faith that relates us with confidence to that which is scheduled to happen. But there is another kind of faith, rare indeed. This is the kind of faith that causes things to happen. It is the kind of faith that is worthy and prepared and unyielding and it calls forth things that otherwise would not be. It is the kind of faith that moves people. It is 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. Directed and channeled, it has great effect.” And that’s, that is rare faith. It’s, it’s not just believing in God, but it is having the faith that allows you to partner with God to make things happen that He wants happening. I knew that He wanted us to not be stressed about finances and so we applied this rare faith to trust Him, to show that we trust Him. And the difference it makes I think about those days when we would stress about money. There have been days even recently where we’ve had reason to stress about money. But I know what to do with that now.
Wendy: Hmm.
Leslie: It’s not because there’s giant piles of money in the bank that we can just rest easy, it’s a flow. It’s a flow. And I have experienced a lot of money and been fearful, and I’ve experienced very little money and been fearful. The amount of money is not the determining factor whether we’re going to have fear. People think that “Oh if I just had all this money, I could be at peace. I could have faith that things will work out.” It’s a, that’s not a true principle. It is not a true principle. But as we partner with God and learn to trust Him and trust in His promises, and His promises are glorious. But as we learn to trust it, and it is a, it is a switch. It is a switch. We feel the fear and we go to that switch and we need to flip the switch. And we choose faith as we do. As we choose faith, the things we need are there. And in the beginning when we begin to practice this, when we begin to test it, it’s terrifying. It is terrifying. Because in the, in our mind we’re thinking “Well what if it doesn’t work? What if it doesn’t work? What if it fails? What if it fails?” Alright well I am excited to share at this conference tools and tips and mantras and things that help remind me what I need to know so I can flip that switch and endure that trial of my faith. Because as you do, it is dependable.
Wendy: Leslie this is so beautiful and I feel compelled to share a little secret about something that happened at our last conference if that’s okay. You know part of the story but I’m going to tell a little bit more about this story. So I told you last May was my most successful month of my career and since then it’s just continued to do well. Not as well as May, but still very well. So January of last year at the download of this conference comes to Connie, myself, and Amanda. And we did have a podcast about the miracles behind the movement, okay? So I don’t really have to go into that too much. But let’s just say as I was absolutely experiencing one of my very first opportunities of rare faith with the Lord, right? And partnering with Him on a level I have never partnered with him before, and of course my life lessons and previous experience with trusting Him, I was in a place of trusting the Lord so much I just said “Okay. Alright if you’re going to do this, I know not save the Lord commanded me. I almost felt like a Nephi of old you know? And okay, alright, we’ll do this. It’s crazy! It’s crazy that we’re gonna put this together in three months, but I know miracles happen.
So as we’re going through this and as we’re doing it, we don’t even know if a soul is gonna show up, okay? There’s always this underlying thing with conferences of “Who’s going to see that this is any different than any other conference?” Right? So as we’re going through this and we show up at the conference and there’s over 600 women. And it’s glorious and it’s grand and the spirit is so incredible in there and people are praising their higher power with whatever verbiage is meaningful to them. Whether it’s “Lord” or “Allah” or you know “Savior Jesus Christ”. And it was just glorious and I knew it was the Lord’s work. And I want you to know though, financially we went in the hole. I want you to know that. That’s the secret I’m letting out. We did not make ends meet with the financial means. There were some decisions we wouldn’t make again, right? But the Lord, every time we would ask Him “Should we do this?” “Yes. “Should we do this?” “Yes.” “Should we do this?” Okay. And we just trusted in Him. And you know what, in May as that money flowed to me effortlessly. I didn’t have the time to put into my other career, but the money was just flowing. And I wrote those checks with tears streaming down my face knowing that this was the Lord’s money and He provided a way to do this. Sometimes we get this feeling of “Well the Lord will bless me with all the financial resources if I’m doing His work.” And we thought it would come from ticket sales and corporate sponsors and blah blah blah. Guess what. It came from my personal bank account. And I had it.
Leslie: It was there
Wendy: And it was joyful! And I just didn’t even bat an eye of “Here you go, here’s the check.” And, and it wasn’t just my personal bank account. I want to make that very clear. There was a joint effort in this. But the fact that I had it, that was a miracle. It was a miracle. So I understand what you’re saying with rare faith. When you move forward and you’re following your bliss. To me, following the bliss is following your inspiration, following what your spiritual gifts you can share with the world to make it different and to strengthen others so that they can follow their bliss as well, miracles happen. And so I just wanted to share that because it was quite a touching moment. We were very very emotional during that time knowing that this had been absolutely brought into our life so that we could do the Lord’s work.
Leslie: You know and I’ll give you a tip or a key that may sound cliche. It may just sound like another platitude, but one of the most astounding things to me that I had learned as I’ve experimented with it the last eighteen years. I used to think that I had to have intense burning faith for it to work. And there was a lot of energy spent in you know it, to see something done and to feel it and to feel it intensely and often and as long as I was doing that I know it would work out. And and yeah that in a clunky way that facilitates this rare faith, but, but, I’ve also since learned, tested, practiced, proven, again and again and again. And I always invite people and dare them and challenge them to test it. Test it with something small. Get so you know, work that muscle. And as you see it work in small things, you’ll be able to apply it in bigger things. You’re, you’re creating that neural pathway and that, that muscle strengthening it so that it becomes muscle memory that you know how to switch. Flip the switch.
But it is this, to see it done, to feel it once, but the determining factor is no fear. No fear. It can be a tiny tiny tiny little bit of faith, just a smidgen of faith and hope, but if you saw it done in your head, you built that image on the screen of your mind, and you allow yourself to feel what would that feel like if it were to happen and you feel it. You feel it even just for a moment. That changes you. That lifts you to a level where you’re hearing inspiration on a different broadcast. You just dialed in to whole different guidance then was where you were at. When we’re in fear, we’re getting guided by who knows what to end up who knows where. Right? But just tuning into that, choosing to believe, letting yourself feel it, turns the dial. And then no fear. A little bit of faith, zero fear. It’s a small formula. It’s not a giant faith, big feeling, no fear. It’s a little bit, little bit, none. A little bit, a little bit, none. That’s all it is. And so when I was learning this, it resonated with me because it fit my beliefs in how I believe that God operated. “Of course that’s how it works. Of course that’s how it works. Why is it so hard for me? Why is hard for me to apply that?” I’ve learned that the cure for fear is not courage, the cure for fear is knowledge.
Wendy: Hmm.
Leslie: Because when you know what I learned and what I’ve shared in like that Hidden Treasures book which is a free download, I want everybody to read it. But when you know what those principles are and you feel fear in a moment, okay that’s not gonna kill the miracle to feel it in a moment. It’s what you do with it after that. So there’s that little grace period there where you feel it and you have an opportunity to do something with that fear. You go to the knowledge. You go to the principles. “Okay when I feel fear I can remind myself this, this, and this. These things are true. These things are true, therefore I don’t need to fear.” And it can go away like that. And you’re still in the formula. It’s a spiritual process which is why it is so difficult sometimes to put it into words. That’s why millions of people over the, I don’t know if millions but people all over the world for millennia have tried to describe it in words. And we get it sometimes little pieces from different people, but we just got to keep believing, keep gathering that information from people who have come to understand it and who can help build our faith and that’s why this conference is going to be so amazing and powerful. Because it’s going to be a room full of women who are choosing to have feet just like that.
Wendy: Oh thank you so much for all of your incredible wisdom and your knowledge. I am going to be front and center in your class, taking notes because you are just such an inspiration. And the words of wisdom that you’ve shared with me have resonated in my heart, my mind, and have grown. The little seed that was planted has been watered over time and is now firmly planted in my heart, in my mind. And what you said reminds me of my very favorite quote which is “We are in a journey of unlearning fear and remembering love.” And love to me is my higher power, my God, my Lord, my Savior Jesus Christ. And so when we’re in that place, all things can happen. So tell us a little bit about where they can get this Hidden Treasures book for free, you said. And then if they want to brush up on a little Leslie Householder how do they find out more about you?
Leslie: Okay easy. Rarefaith.org is my blog and from there you can find all the free things, even the book Hidden Treasures. There is a website specifically for that book called hiddentreasuresbook.com but there’s a link to that at rarefaith.org. Love to see you at the blog and get the free things. Now Wendy I understand there is a collection of things that your organization is preparing.
Wendy: Yes! I was just gonna bring that up! We are on the same wavelength. So you guys, we have three days where if you purchase a ticket at the $49 early bird price, you will also get a personal development bundle. And Leslie what are you contributing to that?
Leslie: I am so excited about this so your ticket is you said $49 to come to the conference? I am contributing my full eCourse which is the Mindset Fundamentals eCourse. It’s a $37 value.
Wendy: That is fantastic!
Leslie: And you get a ticket to your conference they get the whole thing for free which comes with Jackrabbit Factor. It comes with Hidden Treasures. It comes with 20 extra lessons. It comes with my “Working with the Seven Laws” audio normally that’s over a hundred dollars audio set, but in this program it’s streams so you lose the convenience. You can’t download it but you get to hear the whole thing from within the eCourse. And I’ve given everything in there that will give you what you need to start to practice this rare faith principle.
Wendy: Oh I mean that’s worth it in itself. You know? But not only do they get personal development now, they get inspiration and hope now, then they get to attend the actual conference and get inspiration hope and tools and connection there. And another little secret I’m letting out and this is only for those that are outside of Utah. If you are in Utah, make a concerted effort to be there because a connection is going to be there. We’re also going to offer live streaming for those that truly could not attend in person. And so I’m just throwing that out there. If you live anywhere in the whole world, you have the opportunity to join us in this. So with that being said, thank you so much again Leslie for being on. And we cannot wait to see you March 23rd 2019 at the Utah Cultural Celebration Center in West Valley City 9 to 5. We want to you there. We want you to share this with us. So um, thank you again Leslie.
Leslie: Thank you Wendy. Bye.
[Music]
Announcer: 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.
[Music]
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