TRP104: Have You Lost Your Joy
October 22, 2020
Transcription
Intro:
If you’re looking for honest, real world, no BS advice on how to create income, build wealth, and achieve true freedom with real estate, you’re in the right place. Welcome to another episode of the Real Estate Preacher Podcast show where your host Randy Lawrence shares with you his experiences and strategies from over decades as a successful real estate investor. This episode is sponsored by Prosperity Capital Partners. Learn more at ProsperityCapitalPartners.net. Now onto the show.
Randy L (00:50):
Hey, I want to welcome you to today’s show. Got an exciting episode here today, talking about, and it’s really more of a question, “Have you lost your joy?” A lot of times, what I see is that people are going through life and life is more of a drudgery. So, I want to ask you about that question. What sparked this topic was I was at the gym the other day– thank God I can go back to the gym at least here in Florida. I’d had a tendon injury, so I’d been out even before. It’s not fully healed yet. So, I can’t go all the way, but I was there nonetheless, and it was great to be there, but as I was finishing my modified workout to accommodate the injury and kind of rehab heal and all that good stuff.
Randy L (01:43):
I’m sitting there wrapping up, doing some back exercises and I’m looking out and literally there’s probably only eight people in the gym, but they still had the daycare where one of the gym workers still watches over; you can drop your kids off there. And so there were two kids there, and because there’s only eight people in the whole gym, big brand new gym facility, they’re out by the front desk. And then right by the front desk is a big panel of windows with a bench seating for people to wait. And so, this little boy is running around me. You could just see him. He’s running like he’s Superman, who jumps up on the bench and looks out the window and he’s just bright eyes smiling.
Randy L (02:35):
And then he looks back at the girl that’s standing by the front desk, and he shoots her the finger pointing that is not the middle finger, but the finger pointing at her and he’s smiling big. Like, did you see what I did jumping up here? And then he looks out the window and he sees a car going by and you could see his eyes light up. And you know, you could just see the wonder and the joy and the expression in his face. And then he jumped down any, ran this like little circle. It was only, you know, probably about an eight foot diameter circle, but he, and this a little kid he’s probably, I don’t know, four years old or something like that. He’s small, he’s short little guy he’s running bare with the biggest grin on his face. As he’s running around this circle. And you know, the guy that’s standing there doing the gym check-in stuff, and he’s talking to the girl and he high fives to the kid.
Randy L (03:26):
And the kid was so excited over these little things. And it made me spark to think about this whole concept of how so many times people have lost joy or lost the wonder of life. And then it made me think about my favorite person in the world, talked about how he said that to enter into the kingdom of God. You have to have childlike faith. And I think, it’s so oftentimes I hear it as I’m thinking about this little kid, he’s just a child, but he’s got this joy in the simple things of life and how oftentimes as an adult, have we lost that? And so, have you lost that desire to explore? Like, so this little kid, he was just exploring his surroundings. He’s making the best of it. And so again, I think we need to reengage our desire to explore what we encounter on a day to day basis.
Randy L (04:26):
Do you wake up in the morning with an exploration or more of an idea that, Hey, I’m excited about my day and I’m going to explore the day. And a lot of times people wake up like, ah, crap, man. I got all this stuff to do today. and it’s already the wrong mindset. Or you get the phone call that, Hey, this deal, isn’t going to close on this date, but it’s this date? And looking at it through a different lens, a lens of exploration, right? I thought I saw that kid and man, the wonder that was there. Right. Of just exploring his surroundings and you know, we get immune to it because you grow up and you’re an adult. And, what about the simple joys? The simple excitements of those things, you know what I mean?
Randy L (05:17):
And then, the second thing is, are you excited about the adventure of life? Life is an adventure, right? Some people say, “Oh yeah, it’s something like you had paid taxes, then you die.” That’s not adventurous, but life is an adventure. Every day is different, right? Every day has new nuances and aspects to it, new conversations to be had. That’s the truth, right? You can begin to become excited about the adventure of life and what you’re going to encounter. And you know, you begin to look at the challenges that you face under the lens of an exciting adventure. Well, how is that even possible, Randy? Well, God says that everything’s going to work together for your good, so that being true, even though I’m facing a challenge somehow some way it’s going to work out to my advantage and that being the case now, part of this becomes the opportunity for me to grow because I’m expanding my skill sets, having to deal with this challenge.
Randy L (06:29):
And so even that praise the Lord, it becomes a better perspective and it can be exciting as to how I’m going to solve the problems or the challenge. Right. And then the third thing I would say is, are you content or do you have joy in the small things? Isn’t it so often that it’s gotta be that you have big things to make you happy. I’ll be happy when I get the raise, I’ll be happy when I close my next deal. I’ll be happy when I get the Mercedes or when I buy this house, right? These are giant milestones that people put in front of themselves. And again, what I would say is fine, the ability to have joy in the small things like, so part of my daily practice every morning, dairy ritual is I’m spend time reading the Bible.
Randy L (07:23):
I spend time praying. I spend time meditating and visualizing the outcomes that I want for the things that I’m working on. And then I also spend time in gratitude for the things that have happened in my life. So kind of as a sequence of events, I’ll do a whole teaching on this, but the sequence is what I’m grateful for. I can see my wife walking down the aisle when we got married. That’s a huge moment in my life. That was 21 years ago that just changed my life. I have a picture in my office of when my daughter was born, beautiful little, tiny little baby, and I’m holding my hands. I’m looking at it right now and just bring tears to my eyes. And I visualize that. And just, I’m grateful to the Lord for blessing my life with such a beautiful young girl.
Randy L (08:13):
And then I’m also grateful for a small thing. Maybe it was waking up that morning or maybe it was looking out on the ocean at my house, or maybe it is just being able to breathe right now. Again, that may sound silly to you, but I’m training myself to be grateful for the small things. And then now as I’m traveling through my day and I’m exploring my day and I’m excited about the adventure, I’m all also finding joy and contentment in the small things. I remember one of the instances that stood out greatly to me, I was driving to a meeting about a year and a half ago over Tampa and across this one bridge. And as I’m driving along, you know, 65 miles an hour this Pelican comes down right next to my car right next to the bridge.
Randy L (09:08):
I was in the outside lane right next to the water. And he’s just cruising like right along with me, maybe not at 70 miles an hour, but like I’m catching up to him where he came down in front of me and he’s just floating along gently. It was the coolest thing ever. Right. And it was just a neat experience. And there have been plenty of times in the past I would have just whipped right on by and not even thought anything about it, but it was such a grateful moment to see how cool it was that here it is. I’m able to see that, participate with it, interact with it. And then more importantly, acknowledge God in that moment and be grateful for it. And so that’s where I think finding contentment or finding joy in the small things of life.
Randy L (09:56):
And so I go back to the original question, “have you lost your wonder or have you lost your joy?” I go back to that little boy at the gym and I see his desire to explore his surroundings, the excitement of the adventure of jumping up on a bench and then the joy that he had in the small things, running around in a little circle. And so I want to encourage you to take this moment in reengage to find the joy, find the wonder in your life. Hey, thank you so much. I am so grateful for you and your life. I want to invite you to share the Real Estate Preacher on your social media, invite others to it. We want to make an impact to help inspire other people in their real estate journey and in life.
Randy L (10:42):
Thanks for listening to another episode of the Real Estate Preacher podcast. I hope today that you learned something that you can immediately apply in your life or business. Make sure that you check us out on iTunes or at therealestatepreacher.com for more information. If you want to find out more about partnering together with me personally, on real estate deals, including apartment complexes, go to therealestatepreacher.com and click on the invest with Randy link. I look forward to talking with you personally, have a blessed and victorious week for this is the week God has ordained for you.
