As my husband and I were recovering from the Great Recession of 2008, I felt a compelling need to write a sequel to The Jackrabbit Factor. After all, what is a person supposed to think or do, if all the cool mindset principles from the original book just aren’t quite cutting it anymore?
We had begun asking that question ourselves, when all the success we had been enjoying seemed to turn on its head after the market crash. The tanking economy impacted us so significantly, the problems which had inspired my original search for answers ten years earlier now paled in comparison.
But putting the principles to the test in a much hotter furnace helped me realized that I hadn’t quite gotten everything right in my book The Jackrabbit Factor. Some fine tuning was needed.
In 2009, we found ourselves at the end of our resources, having only about $200 left in the bank, credit maxed, seven kids to feed, a portfolio of bleeding real estate investments, no job, and no paycheck in sight.
But by applying ourselves to our evolving understanding of the mindset principles – and believe me, it was a FIGHT to use them despite the mental and emotional hurricane raging 24/7 – we did ultimately find peace in the storm, and THAT’S when we started seeing miracles again.
It starts with finding PEACE.
Long story short, (full story here), what we learned through that whole ordeal needed to be captured. Thus, Portal to Genius was born.
Fast forward twelve years and I received this email, showing that the books message is still making a difference. It means so much to me to learn that those gut-wrenching hardships were not suffered in vain.
Lisa Welch wrote:
Dear Leslie,
What if I told you that your novel “Portal to Genius” wasn’t just a fictional story, but the actual story of someone’s life, would you believe it?
Well, believe it or not, it’s my story!
I won’t get into all the details here, BUT…
One year ago I attended your … Genius Bootcamp and used almost all of our savings to get there. It made such an impression on me and a difference in my world that 6 months later we sent my husband.
This time we had zero money in our bank account (which is a hilarious story for another time), but we had enough gas in our tank to make it the 6 hours to Phoenix…barely.
So, “jackrabbiting” that the last two oatmeal packets from our pantry would be enough food to cover breakfast and dinner for our three kids, we packed our little family in the car, trusting that God would get us where we knew we needed to be.
Fast forward 6 months later, we live in a huge beautiful home in small town Pratt Kansas, we just received the deed to our new house, I’ve started teaching dance lessons out of my home studio, and my husband’s heart health is doing better than it has in a long time.
We have gone from standing in a food line to being all but debt free in 6 weeks.
And the best part … I wake up every morning with the thrilling feeling in my gut that this story is just beginning.
God is real, God is good, and he has big plans for the future. I’m sure you feel it too!
My best, Lisa Welch
Image credit: Facebook
I replied:
Hi Lisa,
This is amazing! What a fun and joyful story to find in my email. Thank you for taking the time to share your update! It does not surprise me that Portal describes real life, because I have seen quite a bit of evidence of that in several people’s experiences, but I think you may be the first to have a dance studio in the dream home. 🙂
Fun fact – last year I felt strongly impressed to re-read Portal to Genius and I kept dismissing it because I had so many other things I needed to be doing, and it’s not like I hadn’t read it before. It had just been a very long time.
I finally sat down to read it through and was blown away by some of the corporate stories Garrett B. Gunderson had helped me fabricate and how many of them were perfectly mirroring conversations and experiences we were NOW having in our own company after our recent push to scale our business.
I had never personally related to those stories until now, so it was really fun to see how far we had come in our own development over the last 12 years.
I hope you don’t mind me sharing your story with others, it is so inspiring!! Please do keep me posted on your updates and progress at any time. 🙂
Warmly, Leslie
So, dear reader, if YOU’RE ready to see what helped Lisa turn this major corner in her life, read Portal to Genius FREE! It will change you.
We DO still have occasional LIVE 3-day options, where you attend at a resort retreat-style. Join the waiting list here to be notified of our next LIVE event option.
Leslie Householder is the award-winning, international best selling author of The Jackrabbit Factor, Portal to Genius, and Hidden Treasures: Heaven's Astonishing Help With Your Money Matters. Since 2002, she has helped people all over the world discover and apply the Rare Kind of Faith that causes things to happen for powerful life changes. Through story and shifts of perspective, Leslie aims to help her readers crush every challenge, achieve every goal, and vanquish every monster under their beds. Above all, Leslie is a dedicated wife and mother of seven children.
