Raising Faith and Expectations

Tim (: 00:10

Hello and welcome to Blank Pages, the podcast, a podcast for people who appreciate the new beginnings of a clean slate but strive for the courage, willingness, curiosity, and creativity only available on the blank pages of new possibilities. It's the potential to move beyond and move forward where people are willing to make new decisions from fresh perspectives and are ready to write in a much better way. The world is waiting and nothing listens better than a blank piece of paper.

So I'm so glad I'm with you today. I am gonna go ahead and give you my view of where I am today. And you should see, I believe what I see. And if you do, hopefully that brings you some joy as it brings me. I am shooting this podcast remotely and enjoying some time, a little family vacay time, a little break. Not as long

probably had hoped, but it is that way. man, let me turn that back around again. Look at this. You got a guy out here, parasail, is about to come into the scene. I'll leave that up there for a minute while I kind of say thank you for checking out the show and listening to the show and subscribing to the show. As you see, as I'm panning, you're going to see a parasail come into the view over there to the left of the screen. You see him and there's a boat pulling him. But if you haven't subscribed to the show already, please do. If you're listening right now on Apple.

podcast or Spotify podcast or an Amazon music or sub stack or Odyssey or you ready audible all of those places you can find blank pages my podcast the podcast BL space and K space P space GES just drop the a in both words and you will find it quick fast and in a hurry so thanks so much for hopping in I'm gonna go into part two of faith I'm gonna keep this short and sweet today

And I had some people reach out and just talk about the faith that they are trying to work and develop in their life or the things that they've been through. And one of the biggest parts of faith is, well, there are four things of faith that I talked about. And the first one is faith swells. And a lot of times what we do is we create worry and worry is nothing but massive holes in things. Worry is us creating and trying to do things that just aren't meant to expand or fill areas of our life that require us to have faith.

Tim (: 02:35

And faith deals with belief and trust, and that's where we are. So in order to activate that faith and understand why faith is so important is because faith expands and faith swells. And I told you one of my things as a believer is in like in the Bible, Hebrews 11 six. And what you're looking at is you're looking at faith, it's believing, it's something you don't even see, something you don't even know, but it's impossible to please God.

If you don't have faith, and that's my thing. Same thing with life. It's impossible in life to be successful. This is the thing, God made the life. This is God made the earth. So I'm not gonna debate with anyone about that, but anything in life, you can't do it unless you operate within faith. You can't go to the grocery store driving your car if you don't do it in faith. You'll never get anywhere. You have to believe that the thing that you wanna do, you can do. And because of it, your faith expands and swells every single time you start your car.

Every time you go to do the things that you want to do, you are swelling your faith and you are eliminating worry in those areas. The other thing about faith is it needs to be watered. I talked about that in order for it to expand. It's like a dried up sponge, though. You have to put water on it to get it to swell. And in order for you to put water on it and make sure the water is not going to other places, you need to prioritize your faith. And then lastly, you have to remember that faith once again is a requirement.

Number one, faith swells. Number two, it needs to be watered. Number three, you have to prioritize that faith. And then fourthly, it's a requirement. I view faith as a requirement to do anything. For me, it's biblical. I can't please God without it, and I can't do this life without it. And for those of you who don't believe God or whatever, I understand that, but the principle still remains. You're not gonna be able to do life without faith. So my idea was, what I thought about it is like, well, if I'm gonna embrace the principle, why not embrace the person as well?

Right? So that's where I stand when it comes to that faith. I want to get with the one who who's the author who created that, who can teach me better than anyone. So that is my viewpoint. And I share that with you and encourage you. If you're curious, I encourage you to ask questions, to seek out and see if what I'm talking about is actually true and real for you. So moving forward. So here's where I'm at. I want us to stop once again creating the worry. And I want us instead to invest in that small, tiny bit of faith.

Tim (: 04:50

Because if we do that, then what can happen is we can help change the way we do life because our expectations should change. So I'm gonna give you a statement and this is what we're gonna start out with. I want you and I wanna encourage you as well as myself to raise your faith, ready, to the level of your expectations.

So if you have low expectations, it's no wonder your faith is low, faith in people or anything else. You can say, well, I have faith in myself, but not others. Well, then you're only doing partial life because you cannot do life on your own. You have to do life with other people. Therefore, the faith mandate is for you to extend it beyond yourself and into the world of others. You have to be able to do things apart from just your own way of doing it and just the way you want to do

You have to learn to engage other people if you're gonna have a better life and a whole life. the main point is I wanna help you get some strategies. How can you raise your faith to the level of your expectation, right? So if your expectations here, how do I get my faith there, right? Now, if my expectations here, there's nowhere for my faith to go. And that's what I find mostly. Most people doubt. Here's an example. Can I get the job? My question is, do you want the job? Well, I think so. Well, there you go. Already you have a worry.

that is trying to fill a void where faith belongs. Instead, the answer needs to be, yes, I want that job. Then the next question, well, what do you feel like you're qualified? I believe so, yes. Okay, then what do we need to do now? See, we have to start moving in order to get that happen. Here's where everyone gets afraid, but what if I don't get it? Well, that means you want everything to work for you the first time. You want a life of perfection.

You want a life where you don't have to learn and grow. You want a life where everything comes to you and it's easy. We talked about that. Life is not about easy good. Life is about hard best. So if you do hard best well, okay, and you do that well, then you're gonna find out that life can be easier to doing hard things, meaning you have flow now. There's ease. It's like a person that lifts weight. The weight is still heavy, but because they've been exercising the muscle and lifting and lifting, they're able

Tim (: 07:05

push the weight that you're not able to. But it's because they've invested in it to build what's necessary, the foundation, in order for them to fill the void of strength with strength. They don't fill it with can I do it, hoping I can do it, wondering if I can do it, pretending they can do it. They get the weight on the bar and they push. That is the beginning of raising the faith.

to the level of expectation, you have to create it. So let's get into really quick understanding faith expectations. And I want to get into role of belief, some practical steps to strengthen your faith and just simply overcoming your doubt, right? With some strategies. So the first one is I want you to understand like, this is very simple guys. And I think we search so much for the more complex answers because we think it's got to be more complex than that. No, it's real simple. When you're hungry,

If you didn't eat, the best thing to do is eat. It's that simple. Do I have to spend time on a scientific meal? I do not. I just need to know I need to eat. I need fuel. I mean, that's it. If I'm thirsty, if I just got done, I need water. I don't need to think about was it ionized a certain way or did they do a certain distilling? I need water. So at the base level, we need to understand what we're getting at. It's a simple thing. It's a simple thing about faith. So when you plant a seed,

you have faith that the thing that you plant will grow. Even though you can't see the growth happening, it's happening underground. So similarly, it's like expectations are like, how can I put it? It's like the care you would provide to that very seed, such as watering it, remember, and the sunlight to it, which are necessary for it to grow. So the thing is, is when you put that idea into the ground or into the earth, you should have complete and total expectation to do

So I coach sports and I work with a lot of young people and one of the things I tell them is, I want you to have fun, but you want to also compete and your competing puts you in position to win. Now, if you want to play a sport just recreational for fun without winning, you need to find a place where no one keeps score and everybody else is in agreement with you on

Tim (: 09:18

Because if not, most people that play want to compete. Most people that want to compete want to give 100%. Most people that give 100 % want to do it with other people that want to do the same thing. Do you understand what I'm saying? So if you're going to join a team, you're going to need faith that's going to meet that expectation. So if you're not going to come and raise your faith to meet that expectation, you cannot plant the seed of teammate because you will not water it and you will not put sunlight onto it. That's how people are doing life. They do it relationships. They do it with their work and business.

They do it, I mean, just with friendships, it's just crazy that we stick things in the ground and we do it without believing they will grow. Therefore, we do not water. Some people even go as far as watering a seed, but still don't believe it'll grow. It's interesting. So that's number one. So I want you to understand faith and expectations, just like that. Number two, what is the role of belief in faith? Well,

I want you to understand, so think about the foundation of a house. So a strong foundation supports the entire structure. So strong beliefs will support your faith and your expectations. So one of my key goals as a coach is to raise standards. Standards tie with beliefs, standards tie, it goes with morals, ethics, all these things, character. You wanna raise these standards in all these areas. So in order to do that, you have to understand what is supporting the structure that you say you wanna build.

What do you want faith to build? What is the house you're trying to build? What is the thing that you're trying to do? You have to look at what is supporting it. It's like the big buildings that you see. If I look down the coast here, I'm able to see these massive structures on the beach and they're there, but it's interesting because it's not just like they're sitting on a slab on the beach on sand.

No, they are footed deeply down, so almost as equally high as it is deep. So as tall as they wanna go, they have to go that deep to get secure in the earth, to keep that building supported every level that they go up. There's an important role in belief. So if you believe in the thing that you're gonna do, then you will pay attention to your foundation and your structure. And if you don't like it, it's okay. Just like they have these people that can come and fix your foundation, there's advertisements on the radio, on Instagram, everywhere you

Tim (: 11:31

You can find people that deal with faulty foundations and cracks and they can come and repair. So let me tell you something, you don't have to move, you don't have to get out of your body, you don't have to leave your life, you don't have to run from people. You can fix your foundation, the role of belief in your life. The third is practical steps to strengthening your faith. So I just wanna give you a couple of them. Read inspirational books, try to find something that will help you like, what is it, the Four Agreements, that's a good

And it's just simple. It's kind of where you can search. Now, if you really want to get into like really growing and understanding like who you are, I would read a book like, you know, to really get into like stretching my faith. I mean, obviously the Bible would be a simple place to start. Books that you can find on faith, believers faith, things like that. I just encourage you to go look at stuff, even though I'm not a big fan of

You can go read like The Secret, right? Just go read it. It's just to give you positive affirmations. Read, find fiction books if you can that will help you believe for something. Because listen, I'm gonna tell you something. Every like the notebook and all these books you read, these novels, these romance books, listen, these guys are imagining things, but they're real stories that are out there. A lot of people source their books that they're writing from real events that they hear that go on in people's lives. They're real things and then they piece them all together and they make something. A lot of it's

Pure, brilliance and genius in their mind, but we need sources. We need to check our information and verify it. So that's what you're doing. When you're building faith, you need to read things so that you can check and verify it, right? And again, once again, I have mine. I believe in the Bible. I believe, go to the book of Hebrews. I believe in studying about faith, Hebrews 11, but you're gonna, it needs to get.

you need to be connected with people. So try to have faith conversations, talk with people. If you know someone that you feel like they live by faith, if you know that they practice it and they do things to strengthen their faith, go at, tap them on the shoulder and ask, hey, I wanna grow in my faith, right? And if it's a good fit and a good pair, they will work with you, but just make sure that you are not limiting yourself to sit there by yourself and struggle.

Tim (: 13:43

with faith, I will also put up some things about books that you can read around building your faith, okay? The other one's just prayer and practice, right? So gratitude prayers of affirmations work. Start with a day of prayer and affirmation like, you know, I'm capable of achieving goals today. I'm thankful for the way that I was made. I am big enough, I'm tall enough, I'm strong enough, I'm smart enough. I'm gifted enough. I have the ability to enhance and to grow and to improve.

Like begin to speak these things over your life because this is the creative force is your mouth. What comes out of those words that you speak? We were created to speak things into existence. The same thing. I can get something jumping off with what I say. I can say something. They can make a room on a fight. I can say things to make a room on a hug. I can say things to make a room on a flee. I can say, mean, there's all kinds of things. We have the ability to create. So start with yourself and.

And then I want to expose yourself to positive examples too. One of the best that I've seen out there and who has gone through a lot of stuff, whether you like her or not, and I haven't even read her books. I've read about her a lot more than I've read about her stuff altogether. But J .K. Rawlings, what she put up with for believing the way she believes and the things she wants to do. Everybody loved her when her books were there until she started sharing other ideas about how she felt. It's almost like you're allowed to do everything we want until you want to believe different. Listen, you've got to strengthen your faith in the way that you're going to do it and you

Run away from strengthening your faith on your belief system because belief plays a serious role in securing the faith that you need in order to fill the void where you keep creating worry to fill it with. Okay, it's so important you understand you need examples. So go read about people like that, how they stood against voices and tests of time and opposition. Okay, now the fourth one, overcoming

So I just use a guy like Thomas Edison because I feel like every day is meant for us to live and make mistakes. We're supposed to live, we're supposed to learn. And in every day in my life, I live, I move, and I have my being, I believe, under God, my authority, and in this earth that he created as a playground for all of us. Literally is what it is. This is a massive place for us to do life and do it hopefully healthy in a good way, being better human beings.

Tim (: 15:58

I believe of trying and making, I believe in micro failures. believe companies need to allow employees to make mistakes. I believe people should stop being so afraid of things and people are gonna mess up. I feel like what we do is someone makes a mistake and we get them out. We get rid of them before anything else. But no one ever learns and grows. And so we just send people on. We've got to get better at helping people to grow and improve. We have to get better at helping people who may be wounded inside to heal. We need to be able to help. I mean, these are the things that we have to do,

That's just, it's so important that we understand that there are ways to do it by learning from others and in order to overcome our own doubt in those situations and having the courage to do it. And as I mentioned, even with businesses, I encourage you to go look up companies that really work on a more of a restorative approach toward relationship and business and how to help people to grow and improve. And obviously it can get sticky, but at the end of the day, we're still dealing with human beings.

And we live in a very, it's amazing on the news, it's okay for everyone to talk about how the world is all complex and weirded out and all kinds of crazy stuff going on in the world. But yet when it comes to work, we seem to forget about that. That these are the same people that are living in the same crazy world that we're all talking about. But for some reason at work, whatever they're going through is not worth our time or attention. That would help other people overcome doubts as well as yourself.

I digress a little bit with a sign bar, but it's so important that we grab ahold of that. So what were those four things? Number one, understand faith and expectation. Number two, the role of belief in your life. Number three, practical steps to strengthen your faith. And number four, I want you to overcome your doubt. Okay, so how can you do this? What are strategies for understanding and application? What are some things that you can do? Are you ready? Okay, here's an example, right? I'm gonna give you a question, and this is what you're gonna start with. Start with this question, and I'll give you some other things to work

This is your homework. It's a podcast with homework. Here we go. Question one, can you recall a time when your faith helped you achieve something you initially thought was impossible? That's the first thing I want you to do, okay? And if you can get with some folks, I encourage you, maybe find one or two people that wanna grow in faith, three people, and have a conversation around that in a group discussion where the participants will share experiences. That's what I would

Tim (: 18:12

If I'm going to bring people into a faith conversation, I'm going to ask a question like that and get everyone to talk. That's the first thing that you can do, a practical way to understand and apply. Here's a second personal reflection exercise. So, write down three goals, right? You have, and the level of faith you currently have in achieving them. Okay. So here's one for me. I'm about to launch a massive community.

Well, the idea in my mind it will be massive. The way I'm starting it is intentionally precise and granular and specific and I have the faith not I have the faith for the massive Believe it or not I struggle with the faith for the small and specific because it keeps me really into remember I talked about being the idealistic person versus the pragmatic so it forces me remember I told you I'm an idealist right I look out I see this I see every I'm let's go let's

but the pragmatist inside of me, more pragmatic approach is better for me. So that's what I'm working on in that. So I encourage you to sit down. What faith do you have, right? What's your faith and what's the expectation? Do they meet? Do they match? I want you to reflect on what actions that you can take to increase that faith in the area. So the same group of people that you have the first question with, ask the second question, right? Write down the three goals and then what's the faith level you have and the expectation. Talk about it. Here's the third, ready? This is about a faith building activity.

So what I would like you to do is literally gather some folks up, use images, use words, and everyone talks about this vision board. But what I'd like you to do is find magazines, things that are around, things that are already with you. Again, the same group, so you can one, two, three, four with the two, three people. And then you say now we're gonna bring magazines, everybody bring magazines, books, we can print stuff off the internet, and you're gonna make vision boards, and what you want them to do to visually represent.

the goals and the dreams that you have, but also to help you to see where your faith and expectations need to line up. So it's gonna help you find the visual of it. So lastly, you wanna set goals. So you wanna do a smart goal, right? With the folks, hey, how are we gonna accomplish this? Smart, measurable, actionable, relevant, and time -bound, okay? But I like to put ER on the end of it. Exciting and risky. In other words, it's gonna push you and stretch you, okay?

Tim (: 20:33

So this is what you wanna do. You wanna follow, right? Look at your visuals that you have. And then what you wanna do is imagine achieving those goals. You want to start to begin to see those goals. Once they're on your board, you talked about your faith, when has faith worked for you? faith achieved something you initially thought you couldn't do. Number one, second is you wanna look at the level of faith you have

And then you have currently in achieving the goals that you want, do you have the expectation and faith working together? Then you have the activity, right, that you want to put together where everyone comes together and you build faith by making a vision board or something. And then lastly, you want to set a smart goal or a smarter goal with one another. So when you incorporate these types of specific things, you make them, they're lessons that are relatable, but they're also actionable for your individuals, but they also let you walk with others. You can talk with others.

You can share with others. You can believe with others. So I'll lead into that with this. So here's my show and tell today. And by faith, I put this hat on because I never wore cowboy hats before. But this is my new show and tell. And I kind of like it. I kind of like my hat. It's kind of got this stars and strikes thing. So yes, I'm proud to be an American. I'm proud of America. I'm proud of this country that it's a mess, but it's it's where I live. And for me, it's job security.

And I just want to help people get better. I'm part of that job security too, because none of us are perfect. But anyways, I picked this hat up. We were traveling to go on vacation. I found it and I said, I don't have a good beach hat. And so I was like, yeah, I'm going to go ahead and get this hat and I'm going to wear it. And it's what I've done. It's what I'm doing. So yeah, that's it. So on this whole faith and me being remotely and working with you today, I'm so pumped up. I'm so excited.

I can't tell you how grateful I am for each of you to take the time and listen to this podcast each week, but I just, want to tell you that you can do this. You can put your faith to work. You can build your muscles. You can build the faith. You can raise your faith to the level of expectation. You want to lift your expectations by starting with affirmations every single morning. Don't let yourself fall short in that. Encourage others around you, encourage people to walk with you, talk with you, and share with you.

Tim (: 22:56

Be the person that understands that faith and expectation are so important in your life. Be the person that understands the role and belief in your life and be the person that takes practical steps in strengthening your faith. Be the person who will pray. Be the person that wants to overcome doubt. Be the person that you believe that you can be and you were created to be. So keep that in mind and I'm gonna let you take a look at one last time at what I see. As we head on out. And I hope that you have an amazing week. And remember, keep building your faith, raise your faith to the level of your expectations. Until then, we'll talk soon.