I waited 10 years to share this story.
This is the podcast I mentioned during my Facebook Live.
After experiencing success, then tremendous failure, I describe my family’s journey as we tried to put the pieces of our shattered life back together. I reveal details of what it took for us to dare to dream again, and the play-by-play results of my first major experiment meant to regain my confidence.
This audio was recorded at a live event where I was a keynote guest speaker.
Resources mentioned on the audio:
- Quotes available at: rarefaith.org/quotes-from-recent-event
- My free ebooks: www.rarefaith.org (look for Freebies at the bottom, or Free Ebooks at the top)
- Mindset Mastery Program: www.prosperthefamily.com
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.
Leslie: Thank you for welcoming me here. I am a little bit overwhelmed I’m going to be quite honest with you that I am feeling overwhelmed because I have had nearly six months to prepare for today what I want to share with you. Because what I want to share with you I’ve not shared anywhere else before and it’s a big job which is why I haven’t shared it before. Because as I was thinking about what all I really wanted to convey, I’m like “This is too big.” It’s too big, it’s too much. And it might not feel that way to you but it feels that way to me so I’m just, I hope you’ll forgive me since I have so much I want to share and I only have about an hour I think. Right? About an hour? That’s the goal here. I worked really hard to get everything really condensed and lined up and I’m going to try to follow my notes because then I’ll get to the point without leaving ya hanging. You know? Because I don’t want to just tell all the stuff leading up to it and then run out of time. So I’m gonna try to stick to my notes. I didn’t to veer off a lot though. Anybody who has heard me speak before I just kind of go off and it’s because some cool stuff comes to my mind and I want to share it. So we’ll see how this goes. I titled this presentation “Dare to create” because I know what it’s like to be afraid to do it. And I’ll explain why.
To begin, I’d like to just introduce myself. This is my family. Like she said, I have seven children ages 12 to 26 now and I live in Arizona. So what you see here is my dream. This was my dream before I got married. I wanted to just be a mom, I wanted to raise a family and live happily ever after. Why is that so complicated, you know? But to explain why I’m here talking to you about dreaming, I need to back up a little bit. So this is my husband and I on our wedding day in Arizona in June. It was hot, in fact this was our getaway car and it was paid for. Right? So this is our getaway car and it was a little bit broken in some ways. The heater was stuck on. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Volkswagen bugs, but the heater is just like a little vent from the engine and we couldn’t close the vent. So we had the engine heat coming in but we were in love it doesn’t matter. You know how many of you read the book “Charlie” or seen the movie? So I have read that when I was a teenager and I thought “Oh they’re broken newlyweds isn’t that romantic?” And I think I had kind of set myself up that that’s how you start life, just broke and your, your kitchen is in the same room with your showerhead, and just all those fun things that make for a great story. I lived in to it. Our first apartment you couldn’t sit straight on the toilet or your knees were hitting the tub. You know it’s just great stories. But another, here’s another view of that car. This is why I’ve had the bar on the front is to hide that. It’s little Popeye. So we had a rough start and it looked nothing like my dream. In fact it wasn’t even looked like it was headed in that direction.
And so this is six years later, I want you to pay attention to the timeline. I have intentionally put the years at the top of each significance slide so that you can kind of trace. Because what I’m wanting to do is give you a glimpse. How many of you have heard success stories where they’re like “Oh I just dreamed it and believed it and look, here it is!” You’ve heard those? Yes I heard those. I know, I know how you’re feeling. So six years later, we were no closer in fact we were farther from the dream. I did have two children by this time but we were living in this little apartment and a place we were not smokers but there was cigarette smoke coming in through the outlets from our neighbor. And I’m trying to raise these little kids and, and I was, I’m 5’10” and I think I weighed about 125 pounds. Skin and bones trying to grow babies. And I remember getting frustrated and depressed and I started questioning my beliefs. I started questioning what I’ve been raised with. I started questioning everything because I thought really I’m just a good person will prosper why are we not prospering? In fact it was at this location that my mindset was in such a place that I came outside and this kid had broken my broom in half. And so how do you solve that problem? I know some of you have heard my story but if you have not heard my story broom is broken how are you gonna solve that problem?
Audience member: Duct tape.
Leslie: Duct tape never crossed my mind. You know how Eric talks about how if you’re on this thinking level, you don’t have the logic to think up here? Duct tape was up here for me. Didn’t even think of it. What else? How else would you solve that problem if you don’t have money to replace it?
Audience member: Borrow one.
Leslie: Borrow one. Sweep with a what?
Audience member: Sweep with a short broom.
Leslie: Sweep with a short broom…
Audience member: Put a splint.
Leslie: Put a splint. All kind of- none of these crossed my mind. What did I do? Go ahead those of you who know what did I do? Nobody knows? I called the police on the kid who broke my broom! That was where my mentality was. That’s how stressed I was. Have any of you ever felt that stressed or have a neighbor who was like that? I was that neighbor. You know they’re going through something.
Audience member: Yeah.
Leslie: They’re going through something. So I called the police on the kid who broke my broom. And that’s another story for another time. I got a stay on track here. Here we go. Here’s another shot of that inspiring location. We had friends though who were succeeding and I’d look at my friends I’m like “How do they have a camcorder? How do they have a car that starts? How are people doing this? I don’t get it.” You know? So as our friends were succeeding, we started to try to listen to them and they’d invite us to come to events just like this. And because I think they could see that our mentality was having an effect. You know we’d go to these events and they than any we’d hear “Think positive, dream big!” And we’re like “Yeah, yeah got it, got it. But what do we do?” Dream big, think positive. And we’d go home and we’re like “Okay we’re gonna change everything. We’re gonna think positive.” And then the next problem comes along and we’re mad again. And we just could not get out of that psycho didn’t understand why. And so I remember hearing stories like the guy who wanted a yellow sports car, so he cut out a picture from the magazine and put it on his wall. Fast forward and not only did he get a yellow sports car just like the one in the magazine, but he came to realize that he had purchased the very car that had been photographed for that issue. I would hear stories like that and I think “There’s something to this. What is that thing? What, what’s going on that causes those thin threads to cause amazing things to happen?” Every success story you hear has those elements. Where do they come from? How do they happen? And I became so intrigued and so fascinated by the idea of it knowing, knowing deep down that there was something to it. Knowing there was something to it and if I could just figure it out I could make my life anything I wanted it to be. I believed that.
So seven more years, no seven years total, no more than that, about eight years we started going to these events and we were part of an organization that would hold them once a month so we could be fed regularly with positive thinking, business development, personal development, anything to help grow us and elevate our thinking to a higher level. We would go to these things and we were we were using grocery money to go to these things. I sold my wedding dress to go to these things. I sold my young women’s recognition award necklace to go to these. I didn’t know I couldn’t replace it at the local Deseret Book later. I just, I got a position in the young women’s later and my bishop heard my story and he was kind enough to get me another one. But yeah I sold that at a yard sale just so that we could keep learning and hold things together. And one day it finally clicked. One day it finally clicked. I remember my husband and I were sitting an event and this had been “The last one I’m ever going to go to because I can’t ride this roller coaster anymore. I can’t be excited for two weeks and then tank again.” You can’t bend that many times without breaking. You know? And so it clicked and my husband and I looked at each other we’re like “I get it. That’s all it is?” It was so simple and I could look back on those seven years and hear what people were trying to tell us all those years and now I got what they meant by that. I got what they meant by that. I got what they meant by that because my mind finally heard it. And in three months we tripled our income. Now what’s the gestation period for that three months? No seven years plus three months of all that feeding your mind. You know we had to invest in ourselves, we had to give that effort to learn. But it clicked and we eventually ended up in this home. We were living the dream. It was a big difference from that little apartment and we enjoyed raising our kids here. We had a lot of fun growing up here. We were here for nine years.
There’s another shot and it was while I lived here that I finished writing the book “The Jackrabbit Factor” because I wanted to help other people learn it faster. I wanted to take what we’ve learned in seven years and turn it into a story. Because how many books have you read on success bullet points “Do this, do this, do this.” No I got a trick you into learning some things by letting you get lost in a story so that it can get out of your head and into your heart. Because the heart is where that emotion comes from which really activates everything, right? So that’s where this was taking place was writing the book here. 2005.
Are you keeping track of the timeline? We released both “The Jackrabbit Factor” and “Hidden Treasures” almost a year before “The Secret” came out. Bob Proctor from “The Secret” had been our mentor but we got a little cocky. And we didn’t think we were being cocky, we were just excited about the confidence that we gained in understanding the laws of the universe and how to align with them. Because things flow when you do. We just shifted our sights to accelerating our growth. And we had had some success in real estate and so we thought “You know, you can leverage yourself by getting real estate and flipping it or renting it.” Whatever you’re going to do.
And so we’re accelerating our growth because we can. Because we’ve gotten accustomed to overcoming obstacles and beating the odds because we had, we’d seen at work, we’d seen it work, and we kind of knew the formula. We’d, we’d built those neural pathways that says “When you see this when you see this challenge you know what to think about it.” Because if you can think right in any given moment, you’re guaranteeing yourself the best possible outcome on the other side of it. It’s all about “How are you going to think in that moment?” And so if you learn how to think then when something happens you can check your database and “I know how to think about this.” and do it, and then you know you’re going to be okay and thrive and succeed and all those great things.
And so because we were accustomed to overcoming obstacles and beating odds by using the principles, we decided to add some more homes to our real estate investment portfolio and we got to work. At one point we had three transactions underway at the same time and when the underwriters realized it, they started changing the rules on us. Originally they only needed to see X amount in the bank for closing costs and three months worth of payments in reserve, and then that turned into twice that down, and six months in reserves, which eventually turned into 12 months in reserve plus a letter stating that we weren’t accruing more liabilities even though they knew we were. So it finally became impossible to jump through their hoops anymore. And we were using these principles, you know they’d throw up an obstacle and we’re like “Okay see it done, feel it done, get to work. See it done, feel it done, and get to work.” And believe. Believe there’s a way. Believe there’s a way. And we kept knocking out their obstacles that they would put in front of us. And finally it got to the end of all that we could do. And you face that when you’re trying to achieve a goal. A lot of times if it’s stretching you into a whole new world, you’re going to be faced with the end of all you can do. And then what do you do? How do you think in that moment? That’s, that’s where it matters most. And so as we hit that point, a simple thought came to my mind. I still saw it done, I still felt it done, and so what came next was inspiration, right? If you want to call it inspiration we’ll find out if you think it was inspiration. The thought was “We don’t have to do everything they’re asking. We don’t have to jump through that hoop. All this would take is for one person in underwriting to have a change of heart.” And so suddenly it all seemed so simple because it was going to be so much easier for us to envision one person’s heart changing than to find another twenty to forty thousand dollars seasoned, which means it’s already been in your account for a year or two whatever. To show that much money seasoned in our account by the next day with a viable explanation of where it came from. It was impossible. But I could imagine someone’s heart being changed, right? So we let them know and in our last response to them that we would not be providing them proof of the funds they were asking for and that was that. And we let go. The next day our loan officer called and said that they had one simple token request and it would be a done deal. There was no more mention of the large sum of money they’d wanted before and it finally went through. That easy. Right here.
Who knows what this is? At the top of the market. At the top of the market. And so that began a whole new chapter of our life. Napoleon Hill says that “Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit.” And at first I interpreted that to mean that our bad investments which we were upside down it within a matter of months, that our bad investment could somehow turn into a positive investment. But that’s not what we learned. We learned that the seed of equal or greater benefit is sometimes unrelated to the problem that you’re in the middle of. What we learned through this process has become a seed of tremendous benefit which we looking back now would not trade what we went through to learn what we’ve learned. The first half of this story because I’m going to span 20 years before we’re done here. The first half of the story was where we got to the point where I wrote Jackrabbit Factor because we were struggling, struggling, struggling, figured it out, and wrote about it. Ok those first 10 years, those first 10 years taught me how to believe. Taught me how to believe and achieve. The second 10 years taught me how not to fear. How do you learn not to fear unless you’ve got a lot of fear to work through? And what I’ve gained through that experience is plenty of opportunity to test the principles again and again and again in crisis, crisis.
And discover that the key factor, and I’m revealing something that is actually at the end of this presentation but I’m thinking I better say it now in case we don’t get that far. And that is, all of the factors, all the elements that go into a successful goal achieved there’s a number of them, there’s a number of things that if I look back on my life and all the times where it worked, where this thinking feeling thing worked, I can list five or six things that were present in my mentality where it worked. There were times where I did those five or six things and it didn’t work and I choose to attribute that to a gestation thing. Because how you think when it doesn’t work is your choice and how you think determines whether you’re going to stay in that creative mode. But of all those things, those ten years of practicing living in tremendous fear and learning how to let go of it, with no visual or tangible evidence why I should not have to fear, like choosing to be at peace when there’s no reason why you should be at peace, those are some mental gymnastics that really really worked some muscles. But what I learned is that this goal achievement process is simpler than I thought. If I see it and I feel it and I choose not to fear, dependable. Dependable. And so let me kind of break that down for you. The not fear piece is probably the most influential or critical part of the formula. And the cool thing is is that it doesn’t take a lot. It doesn’t take a lot of faith. It just takes zero doubt. Faith can be teeny tiny, but the absence of doubt is the key. So now let’s see where this goes. So I’m gonna let my adversity become your benefit as I break some of this down so that hopefully you don’t have to go through what we went through to learn what I want to share with you. It took us almost 10 years to dare to dream again. And those years, and look where we are we’re in 2019 so do the math. Who remembers when that real-estate thing happened?
Audience: 2008.
Leslie: ‘08? We bought them in, you know we actually bought them at the end of ‘06. Beginning of ‘07. And it was mid ‘07 when we realized what we had done. And what’s sad I think I missed it is that I discovered that you can use these principles to achieve stupid goals. They work for smart goals and they work for stupid goals. And so don’t go saying “Oh god made it happen.” I believe, this is my belief that the laws are in place, that God being all-knowing does all He can to teach us the laws because the laws will carry out the mechanism is in place the mechanism is in place to get you what you need. And through God’s wisdom we learn how to align with it. But I’m not gonna say “Oh God got me that loan.” I’m not gonna blame Him. I just recognize that we use the principles, we aligned with the principles, you see it, you feel it, and you go forward, no doubt. We did all the things. We did all the things and the mechanism was in place to deliver. How many times did they say “Be careful what you pray for ‘cause you just might get it.”? And so it’s good news, it’s good news. I think that we will gain greater happiness and fulfillment in selecting our goals with true principles in mind. If you’re a believer in God, seek goals that would be in alignment with His will because you can make it work for stupid goals. We learned that the hard way. But at the same time, if there is a God up there watching and guiding our lives which I believe there is, He also knew the seed of equal or greater benefit that was going to be in that disaster and He wasn’t worried about us. As bad as it was, He knew what was going to come from it and that it was good and that it was good. And it is so like I said it took us almost ten years to dream again those years taught us some important valuable lessons about using this rare kind of faith that causes the things to happen for achieving goals.
So while we’ve experienced some success, there were in reflecting on our experiences, these are the elements that I recognize in looking back at the times where I was achieving goals sometimes not consciously. Like every one of you have probably experienced times where you’ve achieved a goal that you really didn’t understand how you did it. So I picked words that all ended in “ion” because I thought it would be cool. I’m gonna explain it. “Vision”. That’s the see it done. How will it look? In looking back and analyzing my experiences I realized that each time it worked these were the elements that were in place. “Emotion”. How will it feel? Answering that question. And the answer to that question is not words, it’s a feeling. It’s a feeling. So you answer it with a feeling. You got to let yourself feel it. “Intention”. This is a quality decision to hope and pursue it until the day you die if that’s what it takes. So a lot of people, they’ll see something done, they’ll feel it done, but they won’t have an intention to see it realized. And that’s just, that’s frustration. That’s frustration. There is this little, this, this moment of intensity called “Intention” where you make that decision “I’m going for it. I’m going for it no matter what it takes and how long it takes.” “Conviction” is a synonym for “Faith” which is a synonym for zero doubt. So this is my zero doubt “tion” word t-i-o-n word. There was a, ooh remind me to get to it. It’s too early to tell it you now but remind me when we were in 2018 to tell you about “calm”. Somebody remember. It’s in my notes so just in case it doesn’t come out. Submission. Submission is the part where you’ve seen it, you feel it, you’ve intended it, you are choosing not to doubt.
And that doubt sometimes just gets you and you can’t let go but you can’t get it off of you it’s stuck. So here’s what you do. You just declare it “I choose to believe. I choose to believe.” You might not have control over the feeling in the moment because it’s so overwhelming, but you can speak the words “I choose to believe.” And that is the beginning of taking your power back. Submission is being ready to do your part but being at peace with the idea that it might not happen. The whole reason, the whole reason, and I know that you may be thinking “Oh but you can’t allow yourself that backdoor.” Well let me tell you what I learned during those 10 years after the recession. We were watching our funds diminish, we were watching our credit run out, we were watching all of our resources just evaporate, we were selling off all of our toys, we were getting rid of stuff just trying to hold it together until we could turn things around because we’d seen success before and we were just waiting for the gestation. We were doing what we could to repeat what we’ve done before. And I had a mentor tell me once, we were getting into the end of all we could do and that last year I just had this nagging thought “Well what if the money runs out? What if the money runs out? What if the money runs out?” And it was “I choose to believe. I choose to believe.” And it was just this. It was, it was hard. It was hard. There are some days where my husband and I would just put our heads under the pillow or we’d sit and listen to classical music just to calm ourselves down because we knew that calm energy was going to get us better results than frantic panicked energy. And so we were trying to stay in that place. But I had one mentor give me some very wise advice. He said “Your subconscious mind, its job is to keep you alive. If it perceives that you’re about to die, it’s gonna be like ‘what are you gonna do? What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do?’ and it wants an answer. As long as you refuse to give it an answer it’s gonna keep asking you the question. It’s like ‘for crying out loud give it an answer. Answer the question. What are you gonna do if you run out of money?’” Ah you know we freak out instead of answer and he’s like “Answer it. Answer it unemotional. You’re not creating it if you’re not answering it emotionally. Just answer it.” And so we’re like “Oh whoa. What if we run out of money what will we do? Will we still be teaching these principles? Yeah. We’re just really crappy at using them but they’re true whether or not we’re very good at it.” And we knew it and so we’re just trying to figure it out. “Well would be teaching it out of the back of a van if we don’t have a home? Oh yeah that’s what we do. Okay, alright.” So we’re starting to answer these questions and it calmed us down a little bit. But submission is answering the question, if it doesn’t work here’s the plan B. I know there’s some people are gonna freak out and say “No you can’t have a plan B, you got to burn the boats!” Who knows that story? What story is that? Some war.
Audience member: Yeah they came to shore…
Leslie: They came to shore, they burn the boats so that the only way to come home again is to capture the enemy’s boats. So you gotta burn your boats. Well maybe it’s just cuz of my personality. That way of operating on goals never inspires me, it just stresses me out. And I found out that goal achievement doesn’t have to be stressful. If you’re aligning with the principles it can be simple and without all the drama. The whole point, the whole point in setting a goal, seeing it done, feeling it done, intending it, and getting to work, with that little piece of you that says “It’s okay if it doesn’t happen.” is for the purpose of staying calm which keeps you in alignment. It’s also for the purpose of making sure you’re not the limiting factor in what’s possible. Because I am more interested now than ever in what God thinks of the goals I choose. I would much rather get His wisdom. And a lot of times I don’t feel like I’m being guided so I just do the best I can and trust that as I’m rolling, He’ll steer. Right? That’s my hope. But when I want something really bad and I feel like it’s okay but I’m not sure, I’ll set the intention and I’ll say “I’m gonna do all I can and Lord it’s okay if it doesn’t happen but I’m gonna do my part so that at least if it doesn’t happen, it wasn’t my fault. I’m not going to be the limiting factor in here and I will be at peace.” So I gotta hustle. Here we go. So between 2008 this is when we were holding things together, pulling rabbits out of the hat, week to week just trying to stay afloat, we had giant bills to pay with these real estate properties that weren’t rented and weren’t flipping and I started to realize that as long as we focus on where we were going, as long as we kept the vision of where we were headed, what we could see in the future, then the storm raging around us only propelled us like a wave and a surfer. But what if I’m feeling this turbulence and I turned to say “Stop! Stop being so turbulent!” What’s gonna happen to me? Right? You get caught up and tumble in it. Stay focused on where you’re going and the tube propels you. It really does.
So we were focusing on where we were going until we did run out of everything. We had $200 about approximately, the moment we feared was less than two weeks away, no paycheck in sight, and needing about 15,000 dollars just to hold it together for another two weeks. And so here we are at 2009, it was our anniversary month, who remembers what month? June. June of 2009. Who knows what this location is? Anyone? Macaroni Grill in Arizona. And we had not allowed ourselves to go out to eat for a year because you know that’s frivolous when you’re drowning, right? I’m like “Honey” we were so weary, we’re so tired, our relationship was so strained and I said “Could we just go out to dinner for our anniversary and pretend like everything’s okay for two hours? Could we just do that?” and he’s like “What the heck.” You know, I mean it’s like how much worse could it get? Let’s go eat. And so we went with the intention, with the intention of pretending like everything was okay for two hours. We had no idea how we were gonna get through the week. We had no idea how we were gonna get through the month or the year, but we asked ourselves “Do you think we’ll have it figured out in 10 years?” “Oh sure we’ll have it figured out in 10 years.” “Then let’s talk about that. That’s what we’re going to talk about. What are we doing in 10 years? How old are our kids? What are they going to be doing? What do you picture?” And we built an image of what 2019 would look like. And we got into it. We were feeling it. We were enjoying it. And, and we knew that we were creating because we’ve seen it, we’d had experience with it, and we knew what we were doing. And so it wasn’t creating it and then wonder “I wonder if that did anything.” No. You do it and you know. You choose to know that you just did something. So dinner is over you know we’d been sketching things out on the Macaroni Grill white butcher paper that they cover their tables with, they give you crayons. And we pay the bill. I found that receipt a couple months ago or a couple weeks ago. Found the receipt. Macaroni Grill 2009. I had a $2.00 soup, my husband got salmon. He’s like “What the heck.” He had some good food. We paid the bill and we’re going out to the car. I can still see where we’re parked is about eight cars away from the front of the store and we hear this noise as he’s opening my door. We turn around and it’s the waiter running after us waving a piece of paper. He’s like “Hang on! Hang on! Hang on!” And we’re like “What?” He says “Because it’s your anniversary, the meal’s on us.” Macaroni Grill. I don’t think that’s part of their marketing plan. You know? And I don’t even remember telling them that it was our anniversary. I think they may have just overheard. I don’t remember. But in that moment we turned to each other and we’re like “This is how we stay in the groove. This is how we stay supported. This is how we get everything we need moment to moment to moment.”
I told you those first 10 years was to teach me how to create or to achieve or whatever I said. I don’t remember. The second 10 years was to teach me how to not fear because if I didn’t fear, things kept working. Things kept working. You have all that you need in the moment. And we forget that. We forget that. And that is a great place to start before creating something else. Get to where you remember and recognize “I have what I need right now and I can be grateful for that right now.” And enjoy right now. “I may not have what I need for Tuesday, but it’s not Tuesday.” And like I said, the mechanism is in place already. Universally for all people. God tells us “Do not fear.” because the mechanism is in place. What’s there to fear? Everything you need is already provided for you. Line up. Line up. Here we go. How are we doing on time? I’m out of time. No I’ve got 10 minutes left according to my thing here at least. He’ll pull me off with a cane.
So remember we’re not yet at 2019. You got to see how this plays out. I want you to remember that restaurant moment. That restaurant moment was worked into the sequel to Jackrabbit Factor because Jackrabbit Factor needed a sequel after this mess. It needed an explanation of what do you do when it looks like you’re gonna run out of money? And the Jackrabbit Factor spans 20 years. It backs up and it, it, it has to back up ten years as a prequel to tell you who was that guy on the other side of town who had an amazing idea when Richard and Felicity finally chose to believe? Who was that guy and what was his idea? Back up ten years, we find out who that is. And in the next 10 years is to show you how Richard and Felicity become the success implied in the epilogue. So that’s a 20 year span. I’m showing you our 20 year span. So in 2011 we realized “You know what? This bad investment is not going to turn good. We need to just get back to the basics and build another foundation. Start over and come to peace with that.” And we did. We sold our dream home. My husband went and got a job which was at a pay that was less than what he used to make before he quit his job to do this work with me. Which is humble pie. Right? Piece of humble pie. I remember going to the bishop storehouse to pick up a food order and I’m the Jackrabbit lady and there are people there who knew my books. They’re “Well hi Leslie!” I’m like “Hi.” You know? And I remember standing outside thinking “If I am too proud to go in there and get some help then there is more wrong with me than I thought. And this is good for me. This is good for me.” I went twice and after that I said honey “I think you should take a turn.” He says “That’s the least I should do.” He went, came back is like “That’s the last time we ever go do that. We can, we can create, we can.” So that’s what he needed to wake up. And so I stepped away from our business. We had set up automated systems so that people really didn’t know necessarily that I had stepped away. But I stopped doing events a lot and I stopped showing up places. I was just really trying to get back to my core. What do I believe? What do I know? What do I want? What do I need to fix? What ladder do I want to climb? Because what we found was it was leaning on the wrong ladder and we wanted to get grounded again. We wanted to focus on our family and get it right. We got real strict with our budget and we wanted to build a strong foundation so that we wouldn’t ever find ourselves in that situation again. Now this one I don’t have time to go super deep into this, but I’ll tell you our relationship was in a mess.
Eric: Take your time.
Leslie: Oh okay now I can relax a little. Thank you. So our relationship was strained because we would take turns believing and when I was believing and he wasn’t, I’d be mad at him. “Come on I need your faith.” And when he was believing and I wasn’t, he’d be frustrated with me. He needed my faith. Well that’s life. That’s life. And I’ve seen too many people give up on the relationship because you couldn’t get it right at the same time. Don’t expect that’s gonna be the case. We, we’re human. We have ups and downs. You commit. You commit to the long haul and you figure things out at your own pace. Part of the biggest dilemma was what I brought to the relationship. You know we’re told to develop our talents and to become the best you can be. Well the things that I focused on becoming the best at were the very things that triggered his insecurities. And so in a relationship where I’m trying to bring my best stuff and those best stuffs are the very things that makes life hard for him, we had to figure that out. And a lot of it was stepping back and “How are we gonna deal with this? How are we gonna do this?” And so it was in 2015 I detached. Interestingly enough the picture I chose for that is this couple holding hands because to detach in my mind means I let go of my need for him to do it or be any different.
I decided I knew. I think everyone is eventually going to come to an understanding of these principles whether in this life or in the next. I don’t know. I think these are principles that we learn piece by piece and we gather and we gained to learn how to become the best we can be and to do amazing things. And so I think it’s inevitable that anybody who wants to learn how this works is eventually going to. And my husband wants to and has, and has had experience with it and has had success with it, but the, the recession really beat him up. Really beat him up. And I really beat him up. And when I decided to let go of my need for him to change, I decided “You know, it’s okay if we don’t set goals anymore. The marriage is more important. It’s okay if we don’t achieve anything else. The marriage is more important. It’s okay if we lose everything, we’ve been there and we’re okay. We lived. We’re still here.” You know the marriage is what mattered and so I thought he’s gonna figure it out eventually if it’s important to him. If it matters. But I may not see it happen in our lifetime. And I decided I was okay with that which wasn’t as easy as I just made it sound. I tried that on and it was followed by anger, bitterness, frustration. So mad that I have to give up what I could see for it, the marriage. That made me angry. It made me angry. Especially because I’ve got people looking to me from the books I’ve written as being you know, “Teach us how to do this.” I’m like, I don’t live there anymore because the marriage is more important to me. And I let go and I was, I was angry. And I thought “Well I guess my life doesn’t matter here.” And I let myself live with that bitterness for a while. But I then had a little shift and it said “You’re right. Your life doesn’t matter here.” And I was reminded of “No greater love hath a man than he laid down his life for his brother.” My husband mattered that much even though I was angry, it mattered. And I, I decided I will give up everything for this. And I didn’t do it to make anything happen. I didn’t do it to change him. I remember thinking “You mean I could I just get to love him? It, it’s not attached to what we achieve. It’s not attached to what he accomplishes. It’s not attached to how he thinks. None of it. I just get to love him.” It took a few days or weeks, I can’t remember how long, but I finally came to this place of “Wow this is a cool place to be. We just get to love each other. I don’t have to wait for anything. And dang it if he didn’t start to change.” I ended up writing a big long blog post on my site called “The Hardest Thing I’ve Ever Tried to Write” to explain this, this mental transmutation I went through.
But what happened is as I detached from his outcome and I cleaved to him instead of an outcome, he felt free to figure things out at his own pace. And it wasn’t because he was trying to please me, he just got to figure things out. And so in 2015 he started to become happy and confident again. This is the happiest I’d seen him since the recession. In fact I started to worry that his accelerating ambition would make me feel bad about myself that I wasn’t enthusiastic about goal achievement anymore. But yeah he took up cycling, he lost and lost all the weight that he picked up during the recession, and he started dreaming, he started setting goals. I’m like “Who are you?” You know? And for sake of time I’m going to skip ahead. The next year I was on my facebook in our neighborhood group and I saw someone post this. Now remember this is all tied back to that restaurant moment. We pictured ourselves being and doing certain things in 2019 and everything that I’m showing you between then and up to 2018-19 are part of what issued forth out of that decision, that day dreaming, that dream building session. So in 2016 I see someone posted “I ate too many lemon bars. I’m looking for a walking buddy.” And so I responded. She was a woman from our church and I got to know her. We started walking every morning. And we walked for a year and I didn’t tell her what I do. I didn’t tell her what I do. It wasn’t part of the conversation because remember I’m laying low. I’m like, I’m not sure I’m ready to get back to that. And after about a year she, we’re walking and something happens, and she quotes me. I’m like “You just quoted me.” She goes “I did?” And I said “Yeah.” I said “Do you know what I do?” She goes “Yeah I’m sorry.” And I said “Well how did you know?” And she said that she was with a friend and was telling her friend about how many redheaded friends she has. She says “I have an unusual number of red-headed friends.” And she goes “Oh really? Like how many?” She’s like what was it like 18? 18. “Oh yeah? Well name them.” So she names a friend, then she names Leslie Householder. And the girl says “What you mean the author?” She was like “No I don’t think so. She’s a stay-at-home mom.” She’s like “Well there’s not very many people named Leslie Householder. That’s not a common name.” She’s like “You’re right, it’s not.” So she goes to Google me and she starts “Leslie H” and it populates with my name and she’s like “Well there’s my friend.” And her friend was just busting. “Only you would walk with someone for a year and not know. You must have been doing all the talking.” Anyway, we become really really good friends and I didn’t know everything about her either. And I’m gonna share some things with you about her because she played a significant role in where we’re gonna be in 2019.
2017 I decided in January that my word for the year would be “Praise”. I wanted to just live in gratitude for the year. I thought that’s a good foundational thing to build on. We’ll just start with gratitude to heal and to get back. One of my favorite quotes M Kathryn Thomas says “If you wish to feel the most penetrating power, try the experiment of giving thanks in the moment of disappointment, of tragedy, of the specter of ruin. When you were able to-” Oh and by the way, you don’t need to copy these down. I’m going to point you to where all my quotes are. I’m going to share more quotes with you and I’ll tell you where you can get them all so you don’t have to frantically write. “When you’re able to do it consistently, you will feel as though you have discovered and united with the mystery of life.” And I’d had enough taste with it to know that gratitude is a good place to be. So that was what my word of the year was going to be. Notice the date January 5th. Okay? January 13th. What is that, eight days later. My husband comes home at 10 in the morning. I’m like “What are you doing here?” He had been let go from his job and he had had job losses before and I’d seen him go through job losses before back in the old days, first ten years. And it was always fear, frustration, whatever. But we had learned some things.
Now we’re in 2017 from 2009, that’s a good eight years of experience dealing with fear and choosing gratitude and choosing not to fear, all those things that we’ve been exercised through. So he says “Honey I’ve got some great news.” And I said “Really? What’s that?” He said “We have an amazing opportunity.” And I said “Really.” And I kind of felt it I’m like “Oh here we go.” We had been solo before, we had done just our own business before so we knew we could. Just weren’t sure we were ready for that kind of work yet. So he expressed gratitude. He chose excitement. This is not how he would have responded had he not began to find his own feet when I detached, when I let go. So he chose excitement. And we started to think about “Okay what are we gonna do? What are we gonna do? What are we gonna build?” And he started brainstorming and we did it with excitement. We did it with excitement. We refused to fear. 30 minutes, he gets a phone call. In 30 minutes he gets a phone call and it turns into a job that lets him work three times a week from home that’s better pay. We got severance because he’d been let go so we had severance plus this better job and it has created a foundation for us that is helping our business prepare for scale. So he lost the job, but it was his response to that that was the magic. January 28th same year. I found a note that he and I were brainstorming about “What are we building? How are we going to see 2019 play out?” Because we remembered the restaurant moment and here are the notes just the way it was written about him. “No question this job was a gift with a bigger plan than we understood. God is orchestrating something. My husband got a taste of freedom again because that job didn’t start for about a week. So he had a week where he could just create and he hadn’t had that for a long time. It rekindled the dream. It reminded him that he’s at his best when he’s doing the things that he loves. He said he recognized he was out of harmony in his current role and it brought out the worst in him. He didn’t feel appreciated. How Trevan wants to feel in 2019: he decided he wants to feel on purpose and he wants to feel like he’s making a difference in people’s lives.” That was two years, two years ago.
So 2017 that next month, I started dreaming again and I found this home and it was my new dream home. Can you tell my I’ve changed a little bit? You know I just, I just want something beautiful that I can call my own. I know this doesn’t look super beautiful, the inside was gorgeous. And I thought it’s good. It’s good. I love this home. And we tried to buy it but the seller wouldn’t return our calls. And when we did connect, the seller’s agent would only tell us about all the things that are wrong with it. “And you know it’s going to take a cash offer” and they’re like “There’s nothing in the paperwork that says it has to be a cash offer.” We couldn’t understand why they didn’t want to sell us the home. And finally really let it go. We’re like “You know, there’s probably something better for us.” Because we’ve been renting ever since we sold our home. I’m not going to read this to you but in October of 2017 I decided to finally put some detail on my dream. You see how this process that Eric is teaching you is a process. You hear the stories “I did this and this happened.” That’s because there’s just not usually time to tell you how it all breaks down. Is this helpful to see how these things kind of break down? I got serious about adding detail.
And after I did that and I was feeling it, I had a new thought “It’s time to put up a vision board.” I didn’t put up a vision board to make it happen, I put up a vision board because in deciding what I wanted to happen, that was what I felt like was next to do. I had a vision board before that I ripped off the wall a few years prior because I put it up because I was told I should. But every time I saw it, it was just a reminder of what I don’t have and I got mad and I threw it down. And this little thought says “It’s time put it back up.” So I put it up in November of ‘17. January of ‘18 I decided to focus on one piece of it which was to double our business revenue that year. I hadn’t dared do something because I knew, I knew that that would come with a stretch. I knew that that would stretch me and test me and I wasn’t sure I was ready. But by January of ‘18 I was ready. So there were a lot of things on the board but that’s the one I focused on. 2018 I made a quality decision and I want, this is another quote that I’ll point you to, “Until one is committed there is hesitancy. The chance to draw back always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans. But the moment one definitely commits oneself then Providence moves too.” Now January 2018 I finally dare to initiate and have intention on something definite, measurable. And I’m putting this to the test. We didn’t need to double our income. I don’t set money goals anymore. I don’t set money goals anymore except for a certain case and I’ll tell you what that is. I used to set money goals because I needed money. But I found that I would set a money goal and I could achieve just about every money goal we set, but it would also come with these medical bills and car repairs that I didn’t plan for. And it taught me that it’s not the money. It’s not about the money. You got to see what the money’s for. See that, feel that, because you find out that what you need may not take the money you think it takes. And I’m going to illustrate that. It continues “All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision. Raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets.” I had to look at how to pronounce that. Goethe. Would you have thought? “Whatever you can do or dream, you can begin it. Boldness has genius power and magic in it.”
Another one “There is no chance, no destiny, no fate that can circumvent or hinder or control the firm resolve of a determined soul.” Maybe you’ve seen something you want done and you’ve felt it done, but have you added the determination that you’re going to make sure it happens, that you expect it to happen even if it takes till the day you die? You’re gonna see that done. And one of my favorites: Wallace Wattles’ brilliant from his book “The Science of Getting Rich”, “There is a thinking stuff-” Eric has talked about this “from which all things are made and which in its original state permeates, penetrates, and fills the interspaces of the universe. A thought in this substance.” It’s that intention. “That moment of intention produces the thing that is imaged by the thought. A person can form things in his thought and by impressing his thought upon formless substance can cause the thing he thinks about to be created.” And then lastly the quote that I have just centered my, all my work around: “Now there are two kinds of faith. One of them functions ordinarily in the life of every soul. It is the kind of faith that relates us with confidence to that which is scheduled to happen. There is another kind of faith though, rare indeed, this is the kind of faith that causes things to happen. It is worthy and prepared and unyielding and it calls for 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. Directed and channeled, it has great effect.” it’s Boyd K Packer.
So where we at? January I set that intention. I’m going to fast forward, skip some things. In May my husband decides to take a trip to Europe. It’s a 10-day cycling trip with a mentor of his. This was a leap for him because he had invested so much in me over the years. I found out when Bob Proctor sent out a request “Who would like to learn how to teach what you’ve learned?” and I’m like “Ooh pick me! Pick me!” I didn’t know for 10 years that my husband had been the one to want to do it. But he let me. It was his turn. He went and spent 10 days. This was going to be a mentor with a group of people on this cycling trip. But Trevan’s the only one that showed up, so they had one-on-one the whole time. It’s pretty amazing. And he came home changed. He came home changed. It was after this trip that he decided to create. We had put together a program called “Mindset Mastery” where we take people through two experiments with this idea that your thoughts are connected to what shows up. We walk them through two experiments. One is inconsequential where it’s not tied to inner conflict and then the other one after you experience it with something inconsequential, you’re like “Oh there’s some muscle memory. I know how to do that, I’ll just do that again with this thing that does wrestle with stuff.” And then through that process you can just repeat repeat repeat and keep achieving your next goals. Well I had set it up to be self-directed because I’m raising a family and I’m hiding out and I’m recovering from, you know. And so it was self-paced. But he’s like “Oh honey this is too powerful. I want to create a system where we can take people through it in groups online from wherever they are in the world with an expert guide, lesson by lesson. And it’s not just lessons on what to do but ‘here’s your assignment go do it’ and we come back and report ‘here’s what I did with that experiment’.” So it’s an amazing program and I haven’t had, I haven’t had it in me to do it. This is my husband’s passion and it emerged after I let go. After he found his feet again and after he invested in himself. Don’t be afraid to invest in yourself. After he invested in himself to get his thoughts right where he could come home and live out his passion. So May. That’s May.
August gets crazy. August 10th. How many of you have read “Portal to Genius”? Do you remember when they thought “Maybe it’s time we could get our house?” In and over. They had a dream home and they bought it sight unseen. Remember? And then they go exploring it and they find things that we’re just like “Wow that’s there too? I didn’t know that happened to us.” We bought our home in August of 2018. This is a home that was 20 minutes closer to where we wanted to be than that little one that I was excited about the year before. And when it came up on the market, it wasn’t even on the market, it was a Fizbo and I saw it on Zillow. And like “Honey look at this one! It’s like right across the street from the kid’s school!” Which we thought was too expensive to live in. We were already resigned to having to live a half hour out of town with the way the market was going. And with our comfort level on risk, right? Which has changed. And it was a reasonable price and it was right across from their school, but it was under contract. And he says “Well it’ll either fall out a contract or we’ll find something better.” Next morning it fell out of contract and it said “And there will be an open house tonight.” And I’m like “You don’t need to do an open house.” And we just gave him a full price offer right there without going through it. I’m like “We are living Portal to Genius. We’re living it out. I wrote it ten years ago and we’re living it.” So we moved in and we go exploring. We hoped for, for bedroom/office, you know? I kind of wanted a place where there would be a full bath on the main floor in case we had to have someone come live with us in their old age or something. But it was only a half bath and this would be the office. And so it, we’ll make it work. It’s good enough. You know? We’re excited without it. We’re happy. We would get in there and no it’s a full bath on the main floor. And we just went down a list about I don’t know six or eight things that we had always hoped for, but didn’t think we could ever get again, but we just let go of that and set the intention. And anyway it, it was like this house was meant for us. And we even found out it was the builder my husband always wanted to get a house from. We didn’t know it was that builder until we were already moved in. Little things, tender mercies. August 10th. I think that was a Friday. August 13th.
So this is my friend that I would walk with. This is Cari. August 13th. By this time, fast forward two years she’s gone through my Mindset Mastery course and she is on fire with this work and she tells me “Leslie, God told me to come work for you.” And I’m like “I have no idea how that looks. I can’t afford anybody right now. We’re just still building.” And she said “It’s my calling.” And her husband felt it too. And so she quit her job the same weekend we bought that house. She worked at a university. She gave up a, a good income. And I asked her, I’m like “Cari, I’m thinking about revealing this. What can I say? What can I tell the group?” And she said that, she, she said “Ever since coming to work for you, we have been blessed in other areas so abundantly.” She says “I’m operating on God’s economy.”
And I want to tell you a little bit about her. She’s got her bachelor’s in psychology. I want you to tell me what you think this asset to our work would cost. She was the director of training leadership development and strategic planning at Disney. She was a sales trainer for MCI Siemens Level 3. She’s got a project management certification. She ran camera for Marianne Williamson for four years. She has an MBA in global markets. She was a prayer center supervisor. She was a Bible teacher for women’s halfway houses at three locations. She owned a Growth Coach franchise for business owners and C-Suite executives. She was a senior project manager for the city of Detroit for the 2006 Super Bowl. She was a church project manager. University Business Development Representative. Supervisor over 45 Department leaders and nearly 400 volunteers. University Director for Workforce Development. Launched a professional development company. Specialized in preparing teams for expansion. She got her doctorate in Industrial Organizational Psychology. And… she was a professional clown.
[Laughter]
Leslie: Now I had set an intention for what I needed, what I wanted my business to do. I couldn’t do it alone and I wouldn’t have thought to hire someone of that caliber. It was beyond what I could have thought at this point. But God knew what I needed and He sent someone that’s not costing me six figures. That’s why I say don’t set money, I don’t set money goals. Because it’s not about the money. It’s not about the money.
I’m almost done. September 5th. Look at the time. So August 13th, September 5th. Even in the little things I wrote down in my notes: Wednesday, September 5th “I need a couch set or a sectional for the family room. I want it to seat at least eight people, be in good shape, dark brown.” Scrolling down. “I also need a white dresser for the girls room.” Look at the date. Now look at this date. My sister-in-law texts me “Would you be interested in this? It’s the couch we’re looking to replace it with a grey one.”
So we get this couch for free. And look at the date. September 10th, three days later. “I’m loving this couch, thank you so much.” Trevan used his upholstery skills to reinforce the base. “Yeah I’m so happy. Your girls wouldn’t happen to need a white dresser would they?” So okay fast-forward. December 31st “We reach our goal. We doubled our business income and it turned out to be our best year that we’d ever had in our whole marriage.” Where did it start? It started with that intention in January, but it also started back at that restaurant. It also started back in that restaurant.
I said I would tell you the one case where I might set a money goal, but I never did so I’m inserting it now. This was that case. We didn’t need to double our income but I set the money goal as an experiment to try to regain my confidence. I think this one worked because I was not attached to needing the money. It was a game. I wasn’t going to suffer if it didn’t happen. It was simply a very measurable way to test the principles. To set the intention to practice believing in something that I knew would require rare faith and unseen help and to practice keeping calm and watching what happens. So here’s my definition of expecting success. “It’s not a feeling of entitlement, but it is a knowing. It’s not demanding, but it is allowing. It’s not needing, but it is anticipating. It’s not boastful, but grateful.” And Cari wants me to be sure to emphasize that operating on God’s economy like she described it, it works if God calls you to do something. She’s not going to encourage anyone to go quit their job and do something unless they are, unless they feel it is their calling. Right? That’s a disclaimer for your safety. So again, each time it worked, these elements were there. But fast-forward those 10 years adding to it the wisdom we’ve gained and it makes me wonder, what if you just set an intention and then kept calm and watched what happened?
Because I didn’t, I didn’t share this in the slides but in August before the house, before Cari, before all these things started to come together, I was asked to speak at a conference. And they said “What are you gonna talk on?” And I always try to talk on something a little different just to keep me sharp and to keep me learning new things. But the words that came into my mind, beginning of August “Keep calm and watch what happens.” And I thought “Oh that’s a good title. I wonder what I’ll talk about.”
So I gave him, I submitted that title and then I watched. And what was going on, on in our life was really, was really kind of scary. There’s a lot of changes going on, a lot of big things happening all at once, and it’s easy to go to anxiety. And I just remember “Keep calm and watch what happens.”
Keep calm and watch what happens. Set the intention and do not fear. It is the pulse of energy that sets it all in motion. Constant intention is unsustainable. Constant intention is unsustainable. Intention is a moment thing, but the calm is the lingering, sustaining, constant thing. And that’s the simplicity of it.
So what’s a date for? Why do you set a date? It’s to intensify your intention if you choose to have one. So intention and calm, you know how to do it. I dare you to test it because this is rare faith. Keep calm and watch what happens. So what is your dream? What seeds are you going to plant today? And I encourage you to dare, dare to dream. Dare to create.
Now if you’re ready to let someone hold you by the hand and go through those two guided experiments that I told you about, I invite you to join us in the Mindset Mastery Program. We’ve got the self-paced version still, but if you want to be part of the guided class that my husband has created, we only have 12 seats. We cap them at 12 because they’re small group. We have 12 seats in that. Those quotes I promised you, you’ll find those at rarefaith.org. If you go there in the next few days, it’ll be the very top post. I just say “Quotes from the recent event.” and you’ll be able to get those from there.
And it’s been such a pleasure to be with you today. I hope that something here today has given you another nugget to get you closer to living what you really want to be doing. Don’t be afraid to invest in yourself. Thank you.
Eric: Something she doesn’t know that I want to tell her right now is we’ve been doing Master Creator for about five years. Now this is our 13th Master Creator event. The original Master Creator was based on her book. And so I wanted to let her know that these, everyone here is here because of you.
Leslie: Oh thank you.
Eric: Everything that you see here is actually an off-shoot of Master Creator. And so literally everything here can go back to The Jackrabbit Factor. And what’s interesting is some of my mentors that actually taught us how to do presentations, they also say that Jackrabbit Factor was their inspiration. And their mentors say that the Jackrabbit Factor was their inspiration. And so I think, I think this is like third or fourth generational mentor. Yeah we have what we call our mentor line of influence. And I think it goes back like, like at least four, maybe even five generations. Let’s say that they got started because of The Jackrabbit Factor.
Leslie: I have to say it blows my mind though, because I feel like I’m really bad at it. And bad at this whole creator thing. But well no I’m telling you honestly because how many times did I set a goal, write an intention, make my list, and it didn’t happen. But you keep doing it enough and all you need is that one little story that will feed the next story, that feeds the next story. And so this is just a testament to me that you don’t have to be awesome at it. You just do your little thing. It makes a difference.
Eric: Big round of applause!
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.
Recent Comments