Transparent and Unafraid

Transparent and Unafraid:

I went to church this Sunday and felt compelled to write this post. So after church I went to my favorite restaurant, the Herb Box and sat down to write. I am not intentionally trying to offend anyone, however, I am a person of faith and have woven some of that into the post not to offend, but to be completely transparent and authentic.

I don’t know who needs to read this this morning, but here it goes:

I found myself recently under a cloud/fog of anxiety. Some felt a bit of a disconnect with me and thought maybe I was upset with them. Not at all. This was a ME problem. Having never felt this before other than when my oldest son passed away, I was caught off guard by how much it was affecting me and I didn’t know how to shake it. I couldn’t pin point any one thing, just a lot of things playing on my mind and just almost breath taking anxiety at times. As Rick Warren who wrote the purpose driven life said, life is a dual track, always something good happening and equally bad things happening too. We have family member terminally ill, a struggling child, some struggling team members with personal struggles; and also good things; being nominated for Innovator of the year, being award the number 1 real estate team by the readers of a large newspaper, KCN #44 with Real Trends and Wallstreet Journal. So there is no, “when XX happens all will be well.” There is always a dual track.

So Last Friday morning, I shared how I was feeling with my husband Denny Grimes and he said let me pray for you. His prayer wasn’t anything I didn’t know....but I sure needed reminded. He prayed and reminded me we weren’t built to carry fear, worry, and burdens and that God wants us to give all of that to Him to carry. To turn worry really into worship and gratitude. Within a very short time I felt so much better.

My aha was that if I am feeling some anxiety, worry, fear then there are others too who probably would like to know what to do, and how I was able to shake it. But that’s not the rest of the story, there’s more. I will come back at the end of this and give you a prescription for how to. But first:

Breaking barriers and crossing thresholds:

Are we close enough to whats going on not to miss seeing the movement of God or the movement of change.....because right now most of us are at a place that we have not passed this way before. Instead of seeing the future as an extension of the present, do we see how we are at change...change has now become our ally. Change can give some anxiety. Change doesn’t come when I want things to change, but change comes when the conditions are right. Gary said when we launched expansion in 2014 that it was the 4th time it had been tried. In the past the conditions weren’t right. We as agents weren’t ready. We were sales people, not business people. This time it worked. Just look at the attachment. Our expansion business owners closed more business than all of what compass closed, all of what red fin and all of what Exp closed last year. Do You Get That? It’s a BIG business.

So we need to show up when the conditions are right and not miss it. After God’s people had experienced being in 400 years of captivity, there was a release. Why didn’t it happen sooner....the conditions weren’t right yet. Now it was time to transition . Transitional moments are when WE become everything God has intended us to be. Life is filled with MANY thresholds that we must cross in order to continue our journey.

When we cross what seemed to be an insurmountable barrier in life, we often look back and say, what was I afraid of? So I have to ask you...me....what thresholds are you afraid of crossing right now? Is it getting out of a dead end job? Is it moving into success, or have you been hurt by other agents, brokerages and you are now afraid to cross over into a new opportunity? Have we reduced the decision we need to make in this process to OPTIONAL? We must resist shrinking back in the face of opportunity.

There will be times in your life when you discount the opportunity’s because you have been hurt before, or nothing changed before when you stepped out and you say to yourself, screw that, I’ve been there before. CAUTION. Don’t do that.

Today is a NEW day. The YOU that was facing this opportunity before is not the same YOU, that was facing it before. GO FOR IT. What are you afraid of? Be intentional, make a decision. Maybe it’s just changing a habit, or a relationship that needs to be settled, or maybe a new business opportunity. Make a decision and cross over the Threshold.

Crossing the threshold means the beginning of a new behavior. And change is not easy. You have been the way you are since the last change. Give yourself grace in changing a habit.

Crossing over a threshold means the end of an era and the beginning of a new era. Sometimes we don’t see an immediate result when we change and so we GO BACK. RESIST that. Remember how long it took you to get where you are now. Give it some time AND make the decision you are NEVER going back. There is a lot more ahead of you and you have to cross this threshold first to get to the next one.

Abandon your old ways of thinking and commit to a new journey and for me that means being led by Gary’s vision of building a massive business where ALL of my people get what they want and can do it with and through me and kcn and in a culture where their big why gets fed.

What could God do through us if we were willing to leverage His resources? Gary has set before us an open door and a threshold he wants us to cross over. Lean in. Be transformed and be willing to step over the threshold into your promise land. Let’s break barriers and cross the threshold and be the agents and business of change.

Being a Change agent means not being change resistant.

When is the best time to plant a tree? Yep, Now. When is the best time to make a decision to move across the threshold in your journey? Yep Now. Don’t let fear, anxiety, and worry keep you from it. Start today, the past and what you did or didn’t do doesn’t matter. Make the decision to start. Just start. Engage your community to support your journey.

Habits take time, we all know that from The One Thing. But make the decision to start and the decision to never go back. To use a sports analogy, championships are not won at the beginning of the season. Everything is a habit. And remember you are never worried about the future when you know the outcome. If you DVR’d a sports game and you already know your team won, you have no fear in watching the game. Know that in the end, we win. So how will you move forward knowing that?

So for me the RX was to get out of my own head. To speak gratitude and thankfulness. To pivot from what was to what is and cross the threshold and start fresh today. I made the DECISION last night when I was walking and praying to get up and run this morning and to go to church and exchange my worry for worship. Powerful. So I made the decision to get back to the habit of my miracle morning consistently everyday regardless of travel or Teaching etc. I then took communion as at outward sign of my inward commitment. Denny said he could hear the change in my voice. My aha, is that I have been moving so fast and traveling so much, I hadn’t taken the time to do more giving thanks rather than worrying. That one thing, speaking about what you are grateful for and giving thanks changes everything.

So I know this is unbelievably long, and God compelled my heart to stop and write this so that we all can get to the destination we intend. Don’t look back. And, Without a decision, without crossing the threshold and moving forward in our journey purposefully we end up at a designation we don’t intend to be at. So my hope for you is that you will make a decision, move over the threshold, and just start! Peace and joy be with you.