Achieving your dreams is truly a fantastic thought, but the way towards it will not always be smooth and convenient. Therefore, you must always be ready to live off the beaten path if you want to succeed. Julia Gentry and Travis Gentry get inspiration from their family trip to discuss how to face the rocky, gritty, and complicated path every dreamer must go through when chasing after their life goals. They underline the importance of knowing your inner purpose uninfluenced by the pressures of the outside world, why learning to get out of your comfort zone is a vital recipe to success, and being proactive even in times of test.

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Live Off The Beaten Path And Find Your True Life Purpose

Welcome back to another episode of this show.

Can I say that I love being in the desert?

I like it too. It’s different than the Colorado Rockies or Oregon.

We’re not from around here. We’re not in Kansas anymore.

A little bit of cactus behind us here. We’re in the desert. The whole point of this show is to talk about off the beaten path.

We’re off the beaten path.

Why not?

I will say that the UTV ride to me was number one, I fell in love with my husband again and with a new sport. Is it a sport?

I’m sure they race them or do something, but it’s not a sport.

I fell in love with you all over again watching you drive it. I fell in love with that. I enjoyed it. We’ve said every place that we go, we want to be trying something new. I give you props because you made that happen for all of us. We took our sons on a UTV adventure. We surprised them.

Although at one point, Aslan fell asleep. She’s got a helmet, she had goggles on and she’s nodding her head in the back because we’re going over these sand bumps. It makes you feel like you can go anywhere in one of those.

That to me was such a perfect depiction of what we’re talking about. I’m glad that I got the experience of doing the UTV because I had never done it before. I had had my own interpretations of what I thought it was going to be. The actual experience, the grit of it, watching our kids enjoy it, and fall asleep was awesome.

When we’re there, we’re like, “What is there mean?” We’re off the beaten path.

 

Adze did ask that. We’re at the UTV. It was a 3 or 4-hour excursion. I want to say fifteen minutes into it, Aslan goes, “Are we there yet?” I looked at Travis and I was like, “Are we there yet? This is it. We’ve arrived.”

At some point, you said, “For the next four hours, this is what we’re doing.” They were excited about the treats, surprise, and seeing it. They thought there’s more but that was it. It was awesome.

Let’s jump into this whole idea of living and building your life off the beaten path.

Let’s give our own interpretations of what off the beaten path is. Off the beaten path for me is ultimately living what you feel called to live, the voice in your head that’s talking to you, not even me when you wake up.

It’s more of the voice inside your heart.

I would agree with you, it’s not just your head but your whole being. You’re like, “I want to do this, conquer this, start this or stop this deep down inside.” That is the off the beaten path because we start to chameleon to what’s around us, the environment, our friends, the job, or whatever it may be. You start to create your life to fit in as opposed to and it’s not to, “I want to stand out just to stand out.” It’s not like, “I have this calling in my life to go do something else. It doesn’t look like the world around me right now.” It’s been this desire and longing. We’ve started and stopped a few different times of traveling. We feel called to be on the road. That’s our calling. To be on the road, adventure, meet new people and hopefully, inspire other people to go after whatever it is on the inside of you and it’s been a process.

Let me repeat what I hear you say. That’s your definition of off the beaten path, which is living true to that deeper meaning, deeper thing and that calling that’s inside of you is getting after it.

As you said, there are sometimes no words to be able to explain to anybody else. Most of the time, you have to justify what you’re doing and why. It’s always good to get input or perspective, as long as they have the fruit in their life and they’re going after what they feel called to do. When you don’t have an answer, I felt myself in certain situations where you have to have this perfect polished, packaged answer to justify whatever it is you want to do instead of saying, “We’re packing up our stuff and we’re going to travel the country. Here’s what we’re going to do.” We know step one and maybe half of step two. That’s all we know.

People look at you like, “Are you out of your mind?” You’re like, “Yes, I am.” I’m absolutely out of my mind but let’s be honest, if I’m in my mind, then my world looks like everybody else’s, it sounds like everybody else’s and it’s doing what I’ve always been done. If I’m in my own logical mind, I’m going to repeat history and duplicate what I see everybody doing around me. When people start to go, “Are you out of your mind?”

If you’re like, “Yes, I am.” With the off the beaten path, it’s getting so out of the logical rational mind that you were so guided and led by something deeper and more meaningful. To your point, I can’t do it. It’s almost like even your head is going, “Are we doing this?” Every part of you is like, “Yes, we are.” The head is like, “What about this?” The heart is like, “We’re going anyways.” Your friends are like, “What about that?” You’re like, “I know.” It could be an issue but I cannot.

It’s a calculated risk. We looked at it and we said, “What is the worst case?” Especially with four kids and we’re traveling. We only have so much. We’re homeschooling. We’re creating what’s inside of us business-wise, with COVID and everything that’s happening. Things are shutting down. This would look different a year ago as it is to now as far as getting in front of people, being out and networking as we’re in these different towns. It’s also that calculated, worst-case scenario, what happens. We went through that process, “Here are all the things that could go wrong.” If they did go wrong, are we okay with that?

Let’s get there because there’s meat in between this idea and definition of what does the off the beaten path look like all the way to this calculated risk. Let’s hold that for a second and go back to what I heard you say because I’m in alignment with that definition. Off the beaten path is getting so much in alignment with who you are and who God created you to be that you almost positioned yourself to, I cannot do this. In a couple of episodes, we talked about the art of letting go. In order to go where you’ve never gone, you’re going to have to be willing to let go of things to do the things that you’ve never done.

It’s simplistic when you say that. It’s like, “You let go of this and do this.”

It’s simple but so hard.

The courage to start can feel as hard as letting go. Click To Tweet

It’s harder to let go and stop doing something than it is to start doing something.

This is the other interesting part. What I’m finding in this manifesting and getting off the beaten path in our life is it’s from an idea. A lot of times, there are almost these phases of clarifying what you want, we’re not talking about that as much now. Once I know what I want or I get clear on step 1 or 2 or even the finish, Brené Brown says it all the time, “Tell me what it looks like when it’s done,” then it’s starting, getting in the UTV and driving.

I remember that moment with Adze and Em that were like, “Buckle, check. Helmet, check. Glasses, check.” You go, “Let’s go.” The courage to start, to put that first video out, to put the first podcast, and do the first deal. Even for us on this journey, we’ve been traveling before but with the courage and amidst the chaos right now, it took courage to push that button to reserve our first home. The courage to start can feel just as hard as letting go.

We were talking to someone that 90% of it is showing up. It’s not having all the things figured out. The vehicle has to be moving for you to be able to steer it.

You said something, and I feel we should do a show 24/7 because of some of the things that you say. You said, “You will never catch anything if your pole is not in the water, Julia.” I got on my word swag and I quoted you because I was like, “I will never catch anything if I don’t put my pole in the water. I can’t steer a ship if it’s not going. We can’t take the UTV off-roading if I don’t get off the road.” The adventure of UTV even though we went too far one-time, we turned back around a couple of times or when the kids asked us, “Are we there,” a million times. It wasn’t a perfect journey.

I love that you’re saying it isn’t perfect because it wasn’t meant to be like, “We’re on this path. We had a map and we’re going to go to this checkpoint and this checkpoint.” There were other paths that we could take and we did. We went off and then we circled back around. That is what life is all about. Right there is getting started having somewhat of a plan and idea of where you want to go and what you want to accomplish. If you take a left or right, you’ll say, “This is not where I want to go anymore.” You turn around, you get back on the path that you want to be on and keep going.

COVID is giving us the opportunity to look at it. There will be someone, “I will.” How about that someone “will be?” We will write many lessons about all the things that we learned at this time because let’s be honest, this is hard. It’s a game-changer. It can be earth-shattering all the way to aligning and everything in between. One of the biggest game-changers in this is that, prior to all of this, I feel like we all have this misguided perception that we can control our lives. In 2019, we had Q1, Q2, Q3, all the way to our five-year plan and all the things.

Now, more people I’m talking to were like, “I don’t even know how to plan next week. I don’t even know how to plan tomorrow because my kids were in school and now they’re not. I don’t know if I’m going to be at 25% capacity, if I’m going to lose my job or if I’m going to be furloughed.” It’s a day-to-day journey for everybody. It rocks the calculated planning side of who we are. When you decide to live your life true to what’s in you and what God’s positioned you to do, it’s always off the beaten path because there is no you.

There is no Travis Gentry or Julia Gentry. Even though we can model, history repeats itself, we can get mentors and all the things, the way that we start to bring to this world what hasn’t been done is by being true to who we are and what we’re called to be doing. We are positioned to learn a rather simple yet challenging lesson, which is one step at a time, one day at a time, the willingness and obedience to keep going.

You have to recognize this. There are new norms and we are not going back to certain things that used to be in January and February of 2020. Inevitably, you have to adapt and look at it. Some will go back to somewhat normal or what it was. Some will never go back to it. For people that have been disrupted looking at it from a perspective and I was talking to someone at the T-Mobile store getting the new phone and it’s all about the perspective of there are many new opportunities.

Some of the businesses that have been launched because of it was not thriving or even existed in March 2020. You have to adapt, change, look at it, and going back to, “I have this calling.” By no means are we saying get an RV and travel or get in a car and do VRVO lifestyle like what we’re doing? We’re not saying that. This is our path. This is what we felt called to do for a long time.

 

What is it that you feel called to do? Is it switching careers? Is it starting a business? Is it homeschooling your kids because you want to be doing that? Is it stop working, your spouse works, you cut back on your expenses, and decrease your output so you can focus more on your family than what you did in the past? This is such a good opportunity as long as you look at it as something that is not being taken away from me. I’ve been given a good opportunity to refocus on what is important to me.

Let’s speak to all the things that come up. What we’re describing is to live off the beaten path and by definition living off the beaten path is being true to you and what God’s called you to do. It’s almost like you envision even if you look around us, there are so many different paths that you could get up to this mountain. The irony in this is that if we keep thinking, I want to know the way. I have to know every step.

I want it to be the way that it used to be, control it, plan it and all things. That’s not off the beaten path. That’s a routine way of doing your life as opposed to when you shift gears, you get in that UTV or you get in your path, the path isn’t always clear. You make the path. That is scary at first until it’s freeing because all of us want freedom. Many times, we think that freedom is more money. How many people do we know that have more money and they’re not free? Money doesn’t give you freedom. It’s a free person that creates freedom. If you happen to have money, you create more of it.

Freedom isn’t a money thing. Freedom is a state of being that recognizes that if I am on any path, I can create this path and get it to where I want to go even if I have to pivot, adapt and change or COVID happens. This ability to proactively lean into your life and continue to put yourself for me at the feet of God every morning and go number one, I am willing. I trust you, God and I trust me. To many of us, I don’t think it’s always an issue of trusting God. It’s an issue of trusting ourselves too. I trust God but do I trust me that I can trust God?

Not to get in the weeds of that, it’s specifically because of your past.

Look around to make sure that you're on your path, not just following the feet in front of you. Click To Tweet

You’re looking back at all your mistakes, “God, let me tell you all the times I messed up, all the things I should’ve done or all the things that I could have done. It’s learning to trust you.” In my quiet time, I’m always going, “God, I’m willing. I trust you. I’m learning to trust me again.” The second is obedience because obedience means that once I start going and when I hear these ideas, insight, wake up and I have this epiphany or I connect a couple of dots, number, color, strategy or analogy comes to me, will I do something with it? That’s obedience.

We’ve said it before but it’s like, “If you know better, do better.” It’s like driving a car at night when your lights are on and you can see 30 to 40 feet in front of you, you have faith when you’re going 65 miles per hour, that there’s a road continually coming. We don’t do that in our own life of like, “God, you got me. I’m going to take the first step because this is what I feel called to do.” You take that first step but then we lose our faith of like, “What do I do next?” As opposed to you fail before you even start because you won’t allow yourself to start. If you had the faith when you’re driving a car at night, I was like, “I need to know the next 30, 40 feet.” I’m going to change, reroute, go left, come back, I have to turn around, or whatever it may be. It’s having the faith right up front to understand that it’s already in us. It’s the belief that it is possible for you.

We watch all these movies right around superheroes or these war movies that the warrior wins. I believe that we watch these because we relate to this idea of victory, being a warrior and chasing the things that are most important to us. When we look at ourselves in the mirror, we downplay our ability before we even get started.

We’ve done it too in our life. A hundred percent I know that there have been times where I let fear overcome my faith.

Here’s what I think this is. If you let your fear get in your way, me or any of us, then we downplay God. Not only are we saying, “I’m going to mess up again or I’m going to do this again.” Now, we’re even downplaying the power of God. There was this article on safety that blew my mind that’s all around like, “I am focused on my safety security stability that I’m going to give up my freedom.” I am downplaying myself and everything around me including God to fit in this little box that now even God himself can’t set the tone. He knew the beginning from the end. We didn’t and when it went into 2020, I feel like the consensus was in 2020 everyone was like, “This is my year.”

It’s also in line with what you’re saying. There are a lot of people waiting to be taken care of as opposed to taking care of you.

That’s the whole concept of off the beaten path. This doesn’t come and find you.

The way we’re sitting, if we could do a 360 view, it doesn’t come to find you. I hope you enjoy that we’re doing these shows in a bunch of different locations to interpret some of what we’re talking about but absolutely not. We’re in the desert and we’re off the beaten path to do our show.

This didn’t come and find us. We had to go and seek it out because it was in us a few different times. That’s the whole beauty of this. We had to go find it and go be proactive that it’s not going to come and save you. We are creators in this life. We are made in the image of Christ and in the image of God and God created all things. Why would we not have the ability and the potential to create? That’s what it means to live off the beaten path. We have become focused on routine, consistency, safety, security, stability, control, compartmentalization, and comparison that we’ve lost the ability to know how to create, to be relentless, be resolved, warriors and advocates for our own life.

We talked about it like Jim Rohn says, “You’re the sum of the five closest people to you.” A shout-out to my parents because they’ve always supported me in all the crazy ideas that I have, whether I’m moving somewhere, whatever it is. They never said they love me, they don’t want me to move away, or go somewhere especially with the kids now. I know it brings them a joy to watch me go afterlife. Shout-out, mom and dad, for the support of helping me to not live in the box. With that being said, the reason why I bring that up is to make sure you’re around people that support you in not living a status quo because when you start to bring up new ideas and dreams, I guarantee the people that love you the most, they may not understand. They do it at a pure love that they’re going to poke holes in it.

Most of the time, we’ve seen it with other people, they go to their family because they want to whatever it is they’re going to do. They come back to us and they make all the excuses in the world, why they’re not. We say it almost on every show but it’s worth saying get connected whether it’s our community or someone else’s community where people are going after what they want out of life. Their dreams, desires, physically, financially, spiritually and family. Whatever it is that’s on the inside of you, go find people that are doing it. It gives you a little bit of courage and a little bit of hope when you see it. You model a little bit but then you got to go back inside and say, “What does that look for me?”

That’s the interesting thing about it. Even statistics before COVID said that 70% of people were actively disengaged with their life and their career, which is no wonder that we’re not motivated, depressed, depleted, tired, and bored. Pick your heart, do you want to be bored or awake? Even on that UTV, it was handed gripped, up and alert although Alsan had a different agenda. She needed a nap. I felt like I am alive. I don’t know where I’m going, so I need to be paying attention. I don’t know what’s to the right or to the left. My life has all of me. I’m not on social media. I don’t have multiple tabs up. I don’t have a to-do list that’s a mile long. I am here and I am focused on where I am with the end in mind. A little conscious of where I’ve been to get my equilibrium. This is what it feels like to be alive.

To be fully present. I have to be here. If not, my head is going to hit against the cage and I’m going to flop around. It’s good.

I feel that we have to understand what it means to live off the beaten path so when you start moving in that direction, you know what it’s going to look like, feel like and sound like because it is true. These are all analogies. I haven’t jumped out of a plane before but this is what I feel like it would feel like. You’re like, “Let’s go jump out of a plane.” There’s my idea. “Let’s start a business. Let’s travel.” There’s like, “Something came to me. I feel drawn or called to do this.” We get on the plane, excited, buckling up the whole thing then you get up in the butterfly stern. You’re like, “I don’t know if I can do this.”

Now you’re playing on all the stories in your head and you can feel it. Even my heart is pounding because you can feel just about when you get ready to jump out then you jump and you’re fine. There’s this window. Call it a day, week, month, or however long that you go into almost paralysis zone because you know that when you push start, you’re going. Once you push start, you’re like, “I’m here. I’m paying attention. I’m looking at the view. I’m watching where I’m going and all the things.” The biggest point in this is once you have that idea and that willingness to go, then you have to be obedient and you’ve got to start.

To sum that up, what you’re saying is don’t be an #UndercoverDreamer.

There is that space in between. We call it the liminal space of like, “I’m about ready to let go.” To the point of our show or whatever episode that was, I’m going to let go of the art of letting go. I haven’t quite yet grabbed on. I’m right above him. I haven’t jumped out of the plane yet but the minute I jump, everything I’ve ever wanted is waiting for me and not immediately. There’s still the journey but the minute I push start, which is how you get off the beaten path then, you grab onto it.

It’s all the little things that add up. That’s where it’s like. It doesn’t have to be this extreme shift. It could be the little steps each and every day. It’s going to the gym once a week and working out for five hours, it doesn’t work that way. It’s 30 minutes every day, 45 minutes or whatever it is over the course of the week. It’s those little steps and actions that start to compound and build that muscle of faith, knowledge and connection too. We ran into a couple of people and who knows where it goes. They’re further ahead in certain areas than us that they’re going to help share. They were totally open and said, “Come back in.” Julia will go meet with them for an hour or so and they can help us with a few things. You’re one connection, one divine appointment or one conversation away from knowing the next step.

To your point, if I don’t get in the car and drive, I can’t turn it. If I don’t push start, I can’t get going. Once you push start, you’re awake, alert and alive. Your life is going to require that you get into the here and now and that you proactively drive that thing. To trust that God got your back, he’s always had your back. Everything has worked together for the good of those who continue to go, “God, I’ll put you first.” It always works out. When you know that, that’s what builds your hope because if I can trust back then, I can trust now. Now that I’m trusting, I’m going to have more faith to crank it, even more, to go a little bit faster.

 

I noticed that even on the UTV, I knew that you were not playing cool because we had the two littles with us but at the same time, you could tell that there were moments that you could feel that thing whip around. There are times that once you have some hope, you can start to take bigger risks. You put yourself out there, even more, you go for it and you bridge that gap even more. Stop following the feet in front of you, look up and look around to make sure that you’re on your path, not just following the feet in front of you. Talk about right now, there could not be a better lesson because what we were doing is we were following all the feet in front of us. Either doing what we’ve always done, our agenda, the schedule, the Q1, Q2, Q3, what the industry is doing and what we’ve always done.

We could do a whole show on this but your environment, family, and social network are powerful for you not to have to think because you start to talk and circle around the same things. I forget who we were talking about and this may be totally off subject. The individual tells that story to many people that they forget who they even said it too. You start to get conditioned like, “I’m going to tell this story many times as opposed to I don’t have time to rehash the story.”

I hear people say all the time that we’re creatures of habit. Here’s what I think. I don’t think we’re creatures of habit. We’re creatures that were designed to create. A habit creates more habit. We’re not creatures of habit.

We recreated that habit to be the creature of habit.

Money doesn't give you freedom. It's a free person that creates freedom. Click To Tweet

We start to put all these mantras in our heads like, “I’m a controller. I am a doctor.” We have all these agendas that, “I’m a creature of habit. I don’t like uncomfortable.” Get in your box of understanding but as long as you’re in your box of understanding, you’ll never live where you were designed to live because I’m going to sit in my box wondering if I was born for more knowing that it was but then frustrated because I’m not getting anywhere I want to be. As long as I’m in my box, guess what I’m not doing? Creating anything outside of the box.

Especially if you say it and then it’s solidified and confirmed by your environment around you. It was like, “I love pizza, ice cream and all fat kid food.” That’s what you say, eat, your family and what your friends eat so this is what I eat. I can’t lose weight. I can’t get in the best shape of my life because I love that food. Of course, you do because that’s what you speak and then your actions back it up. Specifically on food, if you are in an environment and family that tends to eat the things that are not healthy for you, all of a sudden you say, “I’m going to start eating salads, things that come from the ground and trees. I’m going to take some vitamins and I’m going to work out a little bit.” They’re going to look at you like, “What happened to you? Where did you go?”

“I don’t know you.” There’s no familiarity there which then we start to create judgments and disconnect because now you’re different than me. As opposed to going like, “It’s our differences that make everything better.” We’ve even experienced that before. How many times that even someone in our family or friends have gone, “We don’t know what you’re eating these days.” You’re like, “I don’t know if that’s supposed to offend me.” You can tell the tone. I don’t think they’re consciously trying to offend us unless they are but it’s this tongue-in-cheek of like, “I will, I just don’t know what you guys eat these days.”

My response is, “I know what you’re eating.”

Travis was joking and says, “Do you want to stop at McDonald’s?” She goes, “Dad, you know we don’t eat fake food.” I was like, “That’s awesome.”

That’s a perfect example. Even with the food thing, it’s all these little things. It’s funny but it’s real and raw if you think about it of whether it’s food. We have got that. Are you fasting? Are you guys eating vegan? What are you guys doing? It’s trial and error for us to figure out what gives us the most energy for the goals that we want to accomplish. Sometimes, we don’t even know. We’re like, “For the next 30 days, here’s what I’m trying because the only way I’m going to be better is to do something different than I’ve done before.” I don’t have all the answers. I can’t tell you and back up. You’ve even said this too in one of our friends who is super knowledgeable and you get it at a high level. She tells you to take these supplements and you’re like, “I’ll take it.” I’m like, “Why are you taking that for?” She was like, “Sarah told me to take it.” You’re like, “At least you’re taking it. Do you feel better? Now, let’s know what it does for you if you’re starting to feel better.”

Take it even a step further of how do I go from a place of hearing what I’m hearing Sarah say, doing it, making it feel better, then I tell the kids. Because if I can communicate it to the kids, it’s elementary level. Again, when the kids were like, “Why do I have to eat my veggies first?” “If you’re going to eat a protein, the veggies help you break down the protein because our body doesn’t digest meat products that well.” All of a sudden, I’m in the other room giving myself a fist bump because I’m like, “I communicated to a three-year-old that concept.”

Was it Malachi or Aslan? Didn’t they say that to someone as far as the broccoli? They were saying, “That helps with digestion.”

Malachi is at the park with his other five-year-old friend. They went on a play date and I wasn’t there. This little boy’s mom came back and said, “Malachi got Liam to try a piece of broccoli.” Here’s the kicker. She’s like, “Liam has never had a piece of broccoli.” I said, “What did he say?” She says, “Malachi told him that it would help him to break down his food and he’d be strong like Hulk.” I was like, “Sarah, you could give me.” She’s like, “He hasn’t eaten it since.” I bet if Malachi came back and said the same thing with that conviction and like, “It breaks down the hotdog and you’re Hulk.” Any kids are like, “I’ll do that.” To your point about a community, all Liam needed was a little Malachi who is in his room to disrupt it. This is what we’re doing and suddenly he’s in a “community” that’s like, “I want to digest my hotdog.”

“Is this right for me or not? I don’t care.”

The whole premise around this is everything we’ve ever wanted as people are off the beaten path. It’s not mainstream, herd mentality, not following the feet of the person in front of you or duplicating what you did which none of us are doing anyway. We might as well leverage where we’re at people. If we were in April or May 2020, we’re like, “Let’s pretend that this awkward quarantine will go away.” It’s not going away nor do any of us if we think about it want it to even go back to how it was at the beginning of 2020. The best thing that we can do is use this opportunity to go, “It is my job. I am not a creature of habit. I am a creature of creation. I need to get off the beaten path. I need to go on my path and create what only I can create in my life, family, faith, career, and health. I have to find my path. I need to push start and I let it rain.”

I’m going to ask you a question.

Is this for me or rhetorical that we pause with that awkward silence?

It’s deep. Are you sure you’re ready for this?

Yes.

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I’m summing it up for me. The whole point of we get in this habit loop of living our day a certain way. It takes a while, disruption, or something to happen to change that pattern. If you were to look back at the last week, last month or how you show up on a daily basis? I would say 95% or more is the same. How you wake up, roll out of bed, take a shower, and have coffee. You go through the routine. How would you say for someone to say, “I get what you guys are saying? I want to live the life that I was created to live but I don’t even know where to start. What do I do?” The conclusion years ago when there was a couple of a-ha moments, how did we get from there to where we are at and sharing our journey?

I’m going to say a real high level. The two things are what am I willing to let go of and willing to start? That has sat with me. Malcolm X says, “I have to hate it so much that I’ll change it. If I don’t hate it enough, I won’t change it. I’ll change it for a little bit but I’ll go back.” That concept of being in some pain, mental, emotional and spiritual pain that I’m willing to change. The two things that I keep asking myself are, what am I willing to let go of? What am I willing to start? That whole concept of addiction is I can let go of something but if I don’t fill it with something else, I’m going to go back.

Even at a tactical level for me, what does that mean lately? Stop drinking. That was starting to override things. It was a place that I could hide, I felt was a reward and I could be here but not be here. I could take off the edge, fill in the blank. It was not that I was an alcoholic but it was a predominant staple in my day. The second thing I started doing is a quiet time in the morning. It’s not a quiet time to find the answer.

That’s exactly what I thought you were going to say.

We’ve always done some quiet time in the mornings but I did my quiet time for an answer. I did my quiet time because God gave me the thing I’m going to go do and then I’m going to go do. I’m going to pray for you. I need the answer.

“Here’s what I need. Bless me. Give me wisdom.”

“God, give me the answer. I need an answer.” I wanted the answer more than I wanted God. I love that song by Natalie Grant that says, “I want the healer more than I want the healing.” That’s what I want. When I started to say, “I’m going to go to this quiet time because I want to be aligned with the creator of the universe and my soul because then throughout my day, I take him with me.” It could be in something that Malachi said. It could be that moment with those two guys that you’re like, “Where did they come from?” God gives us answers all day long if we position ourselves to see Him. For me, I have to own it consciously. I’m starting to say, “What do I need to let go of? My anger, control or being right. What do I have to grab on to? Joy, peace and courage.”

How we’ve done that is to create space. That’s the hardest thing because your mind takes off. All the things from the past, to the present and the future.

 

It’s because you busy yourself with drinking, watching TV, and YouTube with the kids. You go, “I have to drop them off, pick them up and do this. I’ve got to go to work and I’ve got to finish this.” It’s all the things, as opposed to like, “I’m going to take a certain amount of time in the morning, evening, throughout the day or whatever that looks like and just be.” It’s still a practice for me personally of not just to pray. It’s being and setting with, “What are those deep-down desires, that head, body, heart connection of what do I want and what do I feel called to do that day?”

I heard someone say, prayer is us talking to God which is great. That’s why we pray. It’s to talk to God. Cast all of our cares, concerns and desires. Meditating is to sit, be still and hear what God has to say.

We sit there often and one-way of communication. We don’t sit there to hear it. If we interpret it and I’m praying to God and I say it. You come back and you’re like, “You missed it. I told you.” You went off with your day and did the same day and week that you did but you didn’t sit here long enough to listen to me.

People are like, “Where is God?” God is like, “Where did you go?” I’ve been here all along. Now that you’re done running your loop, you’ve been wandering in the desert for many years. I haven’t gone anywhere. Sometimes I find myself and this is a new thing that I picture too. I feel that God gives us ideas, downloads, strategies, a person or something. He gives us signs. He even gives signs and wonders. God doesn’t speak in English in this perfect, well-written handwriting for us to go, “Thank you for this perfect strategic plan.” When we get to that moment off the beaten path that we’re like, “I don’t know where to go next.” You go back to what was the last thing God said and that’s what you keep doing. “I need the next step.” No, keep doing what you felt you were supposed to do. The instructions are still the same.

It’s one conversation, email and Google Search to figure out what is then the next step. It’s that one next step.

Back to Travis’ point, if you are there saying, “This calls to me. I believe that I was born to live off the beaten path. This is where I want to be.” Number one, go back and read the episode of The Art of Letting Go. You’ve got to be willing to let go, clean up the house, clear space and create a capacity. This one is push start. Get moving because you can’t steer a ship if it’s not moving. You can’t catch a fish if your pole is not on the water. One day we will find that on Google. It will say, “Travis Gentry, you have to start.” We started. That’s why we’re in the desert.

That’s why we’re doing the show in the desert. This is our path. This is what we want to do. This is what we feel called to do is to do our show at different locations as we travel the country.

We want our kids to see new environments. We want to meet new people. We do feel like as we are in this journey that one thing is going to lead to the next, which is going to lead to the next. It’s outside of our comfort zone and control. It’s such a pattern interrupt for you and my guilty routine and this care about what other people think. Do it the way we’ve always done it. We knew that we needed to pull that rug.

I don’t have that as much as you do.

That is not true.

The routine?

Control.

To a certain level but I don’t love too much routine.

I would agree with that part.

I like getting in the car sometimes and going.

We went to Virginia the long way and he was like, “You’re okay.” I was like, “You’re going the long way to the gym.” He was like, “I’m going the way we’ve never gone before.” I was like, “It’s longer.” He looks at me and goes, “You’re okay.” I was like, “No. I’m okay. We’re okay.” On that note, get off the beaten path and push start.

Go live the life that’s in you. You get surrounded by a community that supports and challenges you and be still. Take the time to sit and be still to understand what is it true that you want, not the things in the world around you that are telling you what you should want. Thank you for joining us. We will see you next time.

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