Dreams: Are You Ready to Pay the Price? I PART 4

Speaker A: 00:00:00

Welcome to the Uphill Community Podcast. Your source of inspiration to gain clarity, elevate your standards and embrace your call to more together.

Choose the uphill climb, pursuing the hard best over the easy good and discovering the extraordinary life waiting to be lived in community. I want to welcome you to the show today. I'm so excited.

We are on part four of talking about dreams and so we went through 1, 2, 3 and 4 obviously sorry, 1, 2 and 3 and you can listen to those parts obviously listen prior to this one and you'll be able to them.

So today's episode, man, I'm so pumped up about it because it's just again it's a continuation on something I believe is very important and that's around our dreams. And it saddens me when I feel people, they don't have one or maybe it's feel like it's lost or it's been broken or who knows many reasons.

But we're going to kind of help hopefully get you to redirect yourself toward the real dreams again. Going back to dreaming again. So thank you for listening to the show. For those of you who listen all the time, thank you so much. I appreciate it.

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Information help me be a little bit better as a human being to live this life a little bit better or hey, I'm just looking for some more clarity. I want to improve my standards and embrace my call to and for more. Let me listen to the Uphill podcast. So hopefully you're doing that.

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Okay, so here we go. Episode four. So the questions that we're looking to answer, right? Each week I've been giving you two basic questions to look at.

And I am not going to. I want to make sure I give Credit to where credit is due. This is inspired by my lifelong mentor, John Maxwell.

And there's a great book I would encourage you to read called Put your dreams to test. And so I run into people all the time. It seems like they don't have many. There's no focus. There's no dream. There's no where am I going?

What am I doing? How am I going to. How am I going to get to where I want to be? Like, is this my dream? You know, did someone.

Am I doing what everybody else wants me to do? It's a great book to read. Okay.

And so what I'm doing is taking that with my experience, things that I've learned, and I'm taking pieces of that and putting it to work for you. And I'm challenging you. And again, I'm not paid by John Maxwell.

I am a certified coach with John Maxwell, but I'm not paid for him to tell you to go buy the book. But I do think it's a book worth purchasing and reading.

There's tremendous value in information that will help you as you're trying to figure out what to do with your life. Another one is Poe Bronson wrote a book, what am I going to do with my Life? You can just read. I think reading will give you some information.

I go deeper than that because I'm a spiritual person and I have a relationship with God, and I have a Lord and savior, Jesus Christ. And so a lot of my purpose comes through humbling myself and then having to seek what he wants to do in my life. And I do that by reading the Word.

I do that by prayer. I do that by meditation. I do that by journaling. I do that by having accountability and counsel.

So these are things that I do to help me with figuring out what to do with my life. So whatever that path is, there is a purpose that you have. And I want to see you not just have a dream, but.

But also understand that it's not just something that you would do. It's not the idea of something. But you were really put on this earth for a reason. Okay? So I'm glad you're back. This is part four of this five parts.

And before I go any further, let me zoom out a minute and just say, so, episode one, we explored the personal ownership. Is the dream you're pursuing really yours? That's what the whole focus was. Episode 2 In this series, um, we built a foundation with strategies, right?

So you need more. More than passion. You've got to have a plan. So passion is great. I'm a very passionate person, but my passion is just passion.

And all it does is just set things on fire and light them up. But I need a plan, okay? And then just last week in episode three, we focused on people.

And there are several episodes that I've done around the people in your life, the inner circle that you have, the in between circle and the outer circle of your life. But your dreams, and your dream needs the right community. Okay?

And so in that topic in the conversation, we broke down the importance of having mentors and peers and supporters and letting go of the people that drain you. So you need mentors, you need peers, you need supporter. But if you've got someone that's draining you, they got to go.

Like, you've got to move away from those people. And I know that can be hard.

But I tell you what, at the end of the day, when you get to the end of your life and you look at it and you go, you do not want the excuse to be, well, I just didn't want to let them go because I didn't want to hurt their feelings. And then you're not fulfilled. Okay? So that's the thing. If my fulfillment counts on other people being happy, that's going to be a problem, okay?

I can't spend my time not hurt, you know, making sure someone's feelings aren't hurt because I'm going to violate my call and my purpose.

No, if they're truly a person that understands that they have a purpose too, just because I don't cater to whatever they say, or I just don't spend time, especially if they're negative, if they're always tearing things down and never building anything up, if they're always just sitting where they staying in the same spot and doing nothing different, and I choose to go in another direction if that hurts their feelings, I mean, that's a necessary ending worth having. All right? So it's not that you're not a bad person, because you do that. So we're going to take a bold turn today.

So what happens when you hit resistance? All right, so we're going to step past this people stuff. We're going to step past the strategy and the plan.

We're going to step past to personal ownership and identifying, because we already know that. So what if your dream, though, that you. That. That it requires more than you expected? What happens when you say, okay, Tim, I've done these things.

I've. I. I realize it's my dream and I have a strategy. I don't just have passion and. And I've looked at my people in my life, okay?

And you say, but, man, now it's. It's more than I thought. Okay? This is where you have to have grit. You have to have. You need grit and growth to show up.

So let's talk about obstacles and how to keep going regardless. All right, so basically, if there was a theme for this episode four, it would be reliance in your adaptability. Right, sorry.

Resilience and adaptability. Not reliance. Resilience and adaptability. So there are two questions that you're going to address. Am I willing to pay the price?

And then how do I handle obstacles? Right. And I want you to think about. Most people are aware of Harry Potter.

Most people are aware of the books Harry Potter series and the movies and in the author, J.K. rowling. So she was rejected. Check this out. By 12 publishers before Harry Potter was published. I want you to think about Michael Jordan, right?

I wear Jordans. I love Jordans. Jordan. There are teams wear Jordan, sports teams. People wear Jordans. Jordan this, Jordan that. Jordan.

LeBron James has a shoe, but it's a Jordan shoe. Like, you got to think about it. Jordan was something. Okay, Now I want you to think about this. He wanted to play basketball.

You know, Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team. Could you imagine being that basketball coach? Okay, I know a lot of coaches like that. I know a lot of people who do that.

They cut people because they don't see what they think they should see. Yeah, it's a mistake, but they're big mistakes. I see leaders do this and I, I pretty much. Maybe I'm going to do a topic on that.

What's the reason why that guy cut Michael Jordan? It's because he couldn't see the potential in him. A lot of people give up on stuff because they don't see the immediate potential on something.

I believe latent potential is more important to look for than the immediate sight of people doing things that seem to have impact and significance. I'm going to do a topic on that one. I'm just. Yeah, I'll have to say that for another day.

So every successful person has faced some sort of rejection and some sort of setback. But here's the difference. The difference is they kept going. So what about you? J.K. rowling kept going.

She didn't stop after 12 publishers, Michael Jordan kept going. He didn't stop after he got cut by his high school basketball team.

So when you pursue your dreams, all right, obstacles are going to come it's not will they? It's no. They will come. And the real question is, are you willing to push through them, though? That is the question.

So what we're going to do is we're going to talk about this resilience and how to handle setbacks and why grit is your greatest asset. All right? Because grit is. Grit is your greatest asset. I love seeing grit.

One of the things I talk to young people about all the time is, where's your grit? What do you have? How do you take it? I mean, I've had people do some horrible things to me, terrible things to me, but it's.

Instead of me sitting there and complaining about it, I just. I understand what grit is. And it's not that I'm going to get them back. It's not revenge. I don't go on revenge tours.

I know people that have just harmed me because they want to get their way. I know people who are. Who just will trash you to the. Just to the bottom. They'll just trash you so that.

Because their feelings are hurt or whatever to get their way. And they will do anything they can to get there. And then it's so funny.

They're the very ones that they'll avoid you, they skirt away from you, they won't talk to you. All the things that they'll do to stay away from you. And the thing is, it's because they know what they've done. They know what they do.

And see, for me, though, I know what they're doing. And I don't need revenge. I don't need a revenge tour. I don't need to do anything. I just need to have the grit.

I need to realize that that's me being cut. That's me being cut from the team. That's me being rejected by the 12th publisher. I need grit. I need to keep moving. And that's what I do.

So let's start with the truth that's not always easy to follow. Every dream is going to have a cost. There's a price to pay. So there's no such thing as a dream without some sort of price tag with it.

So whether it's your time, whether it's money, emotional energy, late nights, whether it's some super learning curve where you have to dig deep and dive deep into some new learning dreams. Ready, friends? Dreams are expensive. And it's not always in. In the dollars, but it's. It's expensive in the discomfort. Okay? If you're.

If you are feeling like. If you're saying you're living your dream and there's no discomfort. That's not a dream.

If your dream is lack of, is the absence of discomfort, I wonder if you're being stretched or challenged at all. Okay, so think about the people you admire. I want you to think about authors, I want you to think about business leaders.

I want you to think about athletes. I want you to think about artists. They didn't just stumble upon their success.

Okay, I want you to think about like I love, like when Eddie Van Halen was alive or when Prince. Like these artists that are great, they didn't just stumble on that greatness and success. They sacrificed.

When everybody else was doing their thing, they were the ones practicing and studying. And see, that's the thing. Most people aren't willing. People want what you have, but they're not willing to do what you've done to get there.

So here's the thing. Don't let your dream just be this idea. It's got to be something that's really tied to your passion, something inside you deeply desired.

And then you turn that into the dream of what that would look like if you pursued it and invested in it, if you lived your purpose, if your head and your heart were in sync. So these people who are successful in those things, they sacrificed, they endured, they gave up temporary comfort for their long term fulfillment.

So that's a big deal. Temporary comfort for long term fulfillment. So here's the real question. What are you willing to trade in exchange for your dream?

Are you willing to wake up earlier? Are you willing to cut back on distractions? Are you willing to take a course, learn something? Are you willing to join a community like what I do?

Are you willing to go find an online through kajabi or teachable or thinkific? Are you willing to go on YouTube and learn and immerse yourself? Are you willing to say no? You ready? Listen to this.

Are you willing to say no to good things so you can say yes to the best things? So I remember a season in my own life where, and this is true, and I mean I'm, I still am making these types of corrections.

I remember a season in my own life where I had to step away from opportunities that looked. They look great. They looked right, they looked, I mean they were shiny.

But you know what, at the end of the day, they were not aligned with my long term dream. They weren't even aligned sometimes with my values. And it's easy for us to get off course like that. And when that happens, guess what, it hurts.

But when I look Back. Those nos created space for me to find the right. Yes. So I want to get you to do the same thing. I want you to reflect on. Here's a question.

I want you to reflect on this. What sacrifices are you willing to make for your dream? What sacrifices are you willing to let go of that would hurt?

That would be an exchange for your dream. Is it a sacrifice of getting up earlier, cutting back on distractions, taking a course? The things that I listed up are those things.

What are you willing to sacrifice? What sacrifices are you going to make in order to get your dream? Because that's what it comes down to.

If you're not going to sacrifice, what's the point? I mean, is it a dream? Listen, if it's worth it, you'll do it. That's the bottom line. I know people who have some problems.

They have addiction problems, they have all kinds of things. But until something becomes worth it, they'll never stop. They'll make excuses. They'll stick with the same thing over and over again.

Or they'll try to manage it. They'll try to do it with willpower. They'll try to do a teeny tiny, itsy little bit, like, okay, I'll just only do a little bit of this.

But not a whole lot. You can't do it. Sometimes you need to just do a clean cut, walk away. And that's what you have to focus on to get to the next level.

So I want you to take a moment, okay? Just take a moment and say it out loud or write it down. What will this dream cost you? And are you still in? What is it going to cost you?

Like so, for instance, you know what? I got to get up earlier. Say it. I got to wake up earlier, man. I got to study more, I got to practice more. I need to research more.

I need to learn more. I need to be more open minded. I need to humble myself and stop being so ego driven. Think about it. Turning your obstacles into fuel.

So the first one that I want to do is every dream has its cost. That's my first point. Second point is you want to turn the obstacles that you're facing into fuel. So here's another uncomfortable truth.

Struggles are not just a stop sign. They're a test of your commitment. So when you're struggling, when you run into adversity, it's not for you to stop.

Adversity will reveal who you truly are and not who you say that you are. So this will test your commitment. And most people stop when it gets too hard.

Not because the dream isn't worth it, but because resistance shows up, and they interpret that resistance as. As some sort of failure or some sort of warning sign. Let's not do that. Let's reframe it. Instead.

Every obstacle, instead, view it as a signpost that it's asking, how bad do you want this thing? Will you. Will you. How bad do you want it? How bad do you think about this? Are you willing to challenge yourself?

Are you willing to take on the challenge? And that will force you to grow into the kind of person who can carry this dream. What will you do in that moment? How bad do you want it?

I want you to think about Thomas Edison. Over 1,000 attempts, it says to invent the light bulb. Okay? That's what the account of his life was. He didn't see those as failures, though.

He said, I just found a thousand ways that didn't work. That's not just a quote. That's what grit looks like in motion. And that's one of the things that I'm doing.

I'm realizing that all the things that I felt like. Because what's happening is some of my dreams. I have a dream of a leadership school in Annapolis, Maryland. You know what's really cool?

I'm going to be working on a leadership school, not in Annapolis, Maryland, but in Maryland. How about that? And it's not something I created. It's. I'm being brought into it and asked to put it together.

I mean, it's crazy, but all the things I've tried to do in my own ability, in my own strength, in my own striving and my own trying to force didn't work. But I didn't give up. I kept adjusting myself. Rather than feeling like that adversity or the struggle was a stop sign.

Instead, it was a test of my commitment. It was, am I willing to humble myself? Am I willing to change some things? Am I willing to allow correction to come in my life?

Am I willing to slow down and think? Am I willing to journey or journal? Am I willing to go ask more questions in people?

Am I willing to admit that even though I've tried everything, guess what? I haven't tried everything. And then by continuing to show up, I was approached about it in a way that I never thought it would ever happen.

But in there, and it's. And it's me to do my dream, they're asking me to put my dream in it. No strings attached. Whoa. Pretty cool. Pretty cool, friends. That's all I can say.

So here's a Reflection question that I would give to you. How do you typically respond when things get hard? Think about it. How do you respond? Do you adapt or do you retreat?

And maybe you've hit an obstacle this week. Maybe today you're listening to this.

Maybe last week, maybe you listen to this podcast because you're looking for anything in your scroll and you saw this, you saw it pop up, you saw the title, and you said, let me listen to this. So here's what I would say to you.

Whether no matter when you hit the obstacle, instead of seeing it as a dead end, why don't you ask yourself, what is this obstacle or this struggle or this thing trying to teach me? That is the biggest lesson I have learned is every time I run into it, what is this trying to teach me?

What do I need to learn in this moment, in this event, at this time, instead of me viewing it as is this, my dream is dead, it'll never work. Right? Going into, you know, the lowest gift of a human being is recognizing there's a problem instead of tapping into.

The highest gift, I believe, given to us from God is to solve problems, problems and to be a part of the solution and also to be able to live a fulfilled life. Ah, so what is that obstacle? What is that struggle? What is that difficulty trying to teach you? So here's the third and final thing.

Developing a resilient mindset. So let's wrap up with this one of the. I believe it's one of the most important shifts that you can make in your journey toward pursuing your dreams.

Okay? And once again, to me, the dream is not a destination. The dream to me is a place I'll get to and I'll live in it.

But I don't reach a dream and it's done.

Okay, My dream could come true now, unless it's just like it's timestamp, like boxers or I jump to be heavyweight champion, they're heavyweight champion of the world. That dream came true. Okay, so I get that there are those marked dreams. I'm talking more about my life living in complete purpose.

Now, if you want to just chase after an accomplishment, great, and that's a dream, and it came true. Do it. You could still apply all this stuff. So I look at that and I do that.

There are things that I'm doing where I check off some of those smaller items, but those feed a larger item for me, a larger picture to where I live, a more fulfilled life beyond the successful thing that I can point to because I just don't want A trophy on my shelf. I want to have a life that is fulfilled and continues to have joy past the happy moments. So to me, joy is the result of a lot of happy. All right?

It's all the happy glued together that makes the joy. It's the thing that remains. So developing a resilient mindset. So we're going to wrap up with this. Resilience is not about ignoring difficulty. Okay?

So I'm talking about struggles. People go, tim, you got to make sure you pay attention. I see the struggles goals. I get it. It's not about ignoring the difficulty.

It's about interpreting it differently. So people who make it, they're not necessarily. Or the ones that are successful, it's not that they're more talented. They just endure longer.

They just are adaptable. They have a growth mindset. They're willing to believe. They understand that hope is not a strategy. They have hope, but then they do something with it.

They ignite that passion. They release the potential, like. And they endure longer. So they don't just stop when progress is slow. Instead, they take the next step.

They continue and then the next step, and then the next step. Because momentum doesn't just start with a leap. You don't just leap out into momentum.

It starts when we lean forward and we take a step, just one simple step forward, and then another one. One of my favorite reminders is a quote, and I don't remember who said it. I should have looked it up. But, you know, progress is still progress.

Even if it's small, it's still progress. That's how dreams are built. It's one faithful step at a time. Faithful step. Committed to it. Take the step. So here's.

Here's a question for you to reflect on. What's one obstacle you're facing right now? What is a challenge and how can you tackle it? What can you do to tackle it? What step can you take today?

I want you to try to be specific about it, though. Don't. Don't just say fear or money or time.

I want you to drill into the root of it and then brainstorm a couple, two, three ways to begin to overcome it. So if it's money, think about the root of it. You know, what is. What's that obstacle? What's the money obstacle? What's the root?

What's the problem in there? If it's time, what's the root? It's because time's not changing. It's 24 hours in a day. I mean, we're the ones that need to Change. We manage ourselves.

We can't change time. You can't manage time. You manage you within the time that you're given. So think about it. So to close out, here's my recap.

Every dream is going to cost you something. Number one, I want you to decide what you're willing to pay. All right? That's important for you to remember. Every dream costs something. You decide.

What are you willing to pay? Second is, obstacles aren't the enemy. They're your training ground. That's it. That's where you train in the obstacle. That is where you get better.

And then third is. Grit isn't a personality trait. You know what grit is? It's a choice. It's a mindset. Mindset. It's a muscle that you build.

And why is all this work important? Because your dream's worth it. But you've got to be willing to do the work when it's hard.

You got to do that work when it's really, really hard, not just when it's easy. So this week, I want you to face one obstacle that you've been avoiding. And I want you to try to reframe it or want you to reframe. Reframe it.

I want you to attack it. I want you to learn from it. Because how you handle resistance determines how far you are going to go and how far your dream can go.

And so next week, I want you to be ready. Because in our final episode around Dreams, we'll talk about what it means to actually activate your dream.

You've clarified, you've planned, you've built a circle and prepared for resistance. Now, are you ready to step into it? And I'll see you there. So until next time. We'll talk soon.