How to Stop Looking for Evidence That You'll Fail | 49

I only got to see that miracle and witness the presence of God in that experience because I was searching for that magic. My mom used to say, especially to the men in the family. That translates to the person who looks for it will find it. And you know how men are, they never find anything when you ask them to look for something. Well, there's a lot of wisdom in that phrase. If you're looking for something, you will find it. And the same is true in psychology. If you look for evidence that something is true, you will find the evidence that confirms it's true. If you look for evidence that something is not true, is bad, you will find evidence for that too. So, el que busca encuentra. You will always find evidence for what it is that you're looking for. Now the question for you is, what are you looking for? Are you looking for evidence that life is gonna fall apart and life sucks and, you know, the universe is conspiring against you? Or are you searching for evidence that life is great, that the universe is rigged in your favor, that success is inevitable for you, that great things are coming? What are you looking for evidence for? That's what this episode is about. I am gonna share a couple stories of how I was looking for something last month and I found it, and how that can allow you to be intentional about what you're searching for. So are you ready? Let's go! A few weeks ago, I was taking a shower at night. I was ready to wrap up the day. My kids were getting ready to go to sleep, and I'm in the shower, and I'm having ruminating thoughts that were uninvited. I am thinking like, ah, like I Usually at night I do the Examen de Consciencia, which is a reflective meditation where you study your day and you see where you found God, where you failed, and in which ways you're progressing and being a better version of yourself. And for some reason I was doing it in the shower, but not formally. And I wasn't focusing on where God was in my day. More focusing on what I'm not doing perfectly and how I'm still failing. And I had all these thoughts of like, man, I still judge people sometimes. And why am I not kinder in some areas of my life? And why am I still focusing on where I'm not succeeding? And I don't know, like, I was honestly, like, I was experiencing a little bit of shame. And I have a deal with myself that I don't engage with shame because it used to be a very familiar emotion for me. And it doesn't come from God. I know it doesn't come from God. So every time shame shows up uninvited, I'm like, well, hello, there you are. But no, thank you. I'm not talking to you today, right? I don't engage with it. But I was feeling a little vulnerable this particular night, and I am in the shower thinking about ways in which I didn't feel that I was my best self, and I wasn't the person I desired to be. And I couldn't get out of that little hole. Like, I was ruminating about all the reasons why I am not good enough. And that's not familiar for me. Like, I love myself. But I don't know, lately I have been a little vulnerable. And I've been like, yes, I love myself. And I don't love that I am not the way I want to be 100%. So anyhow, I'm having these thoughts in the shower. And I am conscious of the feeling of shame. So I'm telling myself, like, remember, Betsy, we don't do shame anymore. So I was like, okay, like I was trying to be compassionate with myself and asking God, like, you know, God, help me, help me be better in these areas. Help me be the person you created me to be. This is not good. This separates me from you. But so does shame. With compassion, like, can you teach me how to do this better so I can get it right once and for all? And I'm having this whole like conversation. When I get out of the shower, my daughter knocks on the door and she's like, "Mommy, I'm ready for bed." And that means like, you know, she's asking me to go to her room to put her down to sleep. And she just said it from outside. Like she said, "Mommy, I'm ready for bed." I'm like, "Come in." So she comes in, I'm in my towel. She starts singing and dancing, and she comes to me and she holds my face with her two little hands, and she sings to my face. <LYRICS>When I see your face, there's not a thing that I would change, 'cause girl, you're amazing just the way you are.</LYRICS> I know I can't sing, but it doesn't matter. I had to. This girl is just singing to me that when I smile, the whole world stops and stares for a while, 'cause girl, you're amazing just the way you are. I was shaming myself in the shower a few minutes prior, and I was praying to God to help me not feel that shame and just trust that He'll help me. Become better. And when I come out of the shower, immediately after I come out of the shower, God himself, in the form of my 11-year-old at the time daughter, grabs me by my face and, and looks at me with awe and with joy and dancing and singing. When I see your face, there's not a thing that I would change because, girl, you're amazing just the way you are. And when you smile, the whole world stops and stares for a while, 'cause girl, you're amazing just the way you are. I wanna tell you that today as well. Maybe your kids don't come singing and grabbing you, but let me be the person who does that for you today. You are amazing. 'Just the way you are. Are there things that you get to improve and be better at? Yes. Are there things that you must rise above and become a better version of yourself in? Yes. But that doesn't mean that you're not amazing right here, right now.' I wanted to cry when she came and said that. I seriously wanted to cry. Because I was like, oh my gosh, if this is not God, then I don't know what is. So here's why I started today's episode saying that when you look for evidence of something, you're gonna find it. On episode, I think it was 34, back in February of 2026, maybe February 24th, 2026, episode 34, yes, episode 34. I did a whole episode on intention, the power of intention, and how we can set an intention to decide what our day is gonna look like, what our month is gonna look like, what our year is gonna look like. I set an intention for the year. I set an intention for the month of every, you know, every month of the year. And I set an intention daily sometimes. Sometimes I forget. The, like, really. But this is a practice that I learned from my dear friend Caroline de Posada, and she has a group program called The Well that I belong to also. And in this program, she teaches you how to live a life of intention, how to set an intention and how to nurture that intention so that you may manifest the life that you desire to live and so that you may be the producer and director of your movie. So I learned this practice from Caro. I talk about it a little bit in that episode. And last month I set the intention of magic. It was Magic May. And what I imagined that would look like was I wanted to experience miracles and like surprises and like magic. I had been working a lot this year and I had set different intentions like, January was Breath January because I had been working a lot towards the end of the year, so I wanted to take a deep breath, but I also wanted to be out of breath until I did everything and anything in my power for the cohort that was beginning in January. So breath was my theme, my intention. Then in February, I wanted to feel free because I had been trapped in, I create these traps for myself, and I felt like trapped in all the, the work and the responsibilities that I had owned during the last few months. And then March, I wanted to multiply. So I wanted to multiply my efforts. So everything that I was doing in March was to create systems and operations and automations so that I could multiply my time later on. And then April was Apply April. So I had been doing a lot of work in that multiplying mode and intention. And I wanted to now— okay, I've created and built all these systems and automations. Now I'm going to apply it and I'm going to, to enjoy it, to get the fruits of my labor. But, but while continuing to apply the things that I had thought through and created. And then May felt like, okay, like I've been doing a lot of like systematic things. And I wanted a little magic. I wanted surprises and magic and miracles and excitement in my life. So I set the intention of magic. And it's not very magical to be in the shower thinking that you're not good enough. It's not magical, I promise. But it is magical to step out of the shower and be fazed by the most beautiful 11-year-old girl who is singing and dancing late at night, coming to tell you that you're amazing just the way you are. And I was able to see and witness and feel. I wanted to cry. I was so emotional. And I told her, and she got so excited too. So it was really beautiful for her. I only got to see that miracle and witness the presence of God in that experience because I was searching for that magic. When you set an intention, you are constantly looking for it. You're deciding that's how it's gonna be, and you find it self-fulfilling prophecy. You prophesize that this is gonna happen, I'm gonna see magic, but then you create it, you allow it, you welcome it, you're open to it. And that was, That was one of my many experiences of magic. Another small one that is not really so small, but it's not as fun as that one, is we have a frangipani, I think it's called, that plant. We have a tree in front of the house that we planted many months ago, and it was beautiful when we planted it, but I guess when you changed it from the pot it was in to the actual ground, it, I don't know, it lost the flowers and it looked dead. It looked super dead. My husband kept checking to see if it had actually died, but it hadn't. So we kept on waiting and trusting and believing and hoping that it would flourish and give us flowers, like that it would blossom. And one day, like literally like one random day, I get home, I come into the driveway, I look up and it had little flowers. I did a video on social media for that 'cause I was so excited. It had little flowers. And I could have just been like, "Oh, at last, finally it's flourishing." But it was like, "Oh, it has flowers. It didn't have flowers yesterday and it has flowers today." And I just saw it today also, and it has many more flowers and it's just blossoming all over and it's beautiful. It's like white, beautiful flowers. It's unbelievable. It's magical. And I saw it because I looked up, 'cause many times I'm on my freaking phone looking down when I get out of the car. But no, this time I looked up. This time I saw it. I saw the evidence that there's magic and miracles and blessings and excitement all around us. Magical story with my son. My son wrote to me a Mother's Day card, but he never gave it to me. He put it on my pillow for me to find that night,. But I didn't because my husband was sleeping, so the light was off and I never saw it. And it must have gotten lost in the process. And a weekend change later, I don't know what happened that I, I had it in my heart that everybody had done something special for me on Mother's Day except for my son. And I remember my youngest daughter telling me that he had filled out a card. So I stayed with that and I'm like, well, okay. Like, I think it's safe to bring it up because she said that he had, she knew that he had written me a card. So I go to him like a week and change later and I'm like, hey, machito, like, you know, I was so sad. Oh, I also spoke to my husband about it. And my husband's like, oh no, no, I know he wrote you a card because I bought him a card for him to fill out. And he told me that I already did a letter for mom at school. So not only did he do it, he do it before I told him, and he did it on his free time. I thought that was super special. So I'm like, okay, so it is safe to bring it up to him. And I'm like, you know, Gordy, like, I heard, you know, I was super sad that you hadn't even written a card, a note, something for Mother's Day. You know how much I appreciate, like, notes and letters and cards. And I was super sad. But then Papi told me that you had indeed written a card, but I never got it. He's like, what do you mean, Mom? I was wondering why you hadn't told me anything about it. What do you mean? I put it in your pillow for you to see. And I'm like, no, no, I never found that. I don't know where it is. So he explained where he put it. So then I went and I looked for it. And it turns out that The lady that helps me with the house had put it away in my nightstand, so I never saw it. And, you know, I opened it, and boy, was there magic in that card. He wrote me the most beautiful card letter I have ever received from my son. So beautiful, and he was so detailed. He talked about moments, holy moments we had had together, and he's like, You know, even though I'm a teenager, I love to be with you. I love to spend time with you. And I really loved when you went to Orlando and surprised me for my tournament. And I love when you take me to practice. And he said the most beautiful, detailed things. I'm not gonna get into details 'cause he doesn't like when I talk about him or his life, but it was beautiful. And it's interesting because, or it's magical, because the day before we had this conversation and I found the letter and I read it, the day before, we were on our way to his game. And I, you know, when we're alone in the car, like, you know, sometimes I reach for his hand to hold his hand. And I'm on the way there and I'm like, ah, you know, Gabriel, I have to talk to, I've been thinking that I wanna talk to papi to see if I can take you to practice more. 'Cause usually my husband takes him to basketball and I take my daughter to gymnastics. And I'm like, I think I wanna talk to him to see if I can take you to practice so that we can have this time. Because I feel I have this time with your sister in the car every day when I take her to practice, but I don't have enough of this time with you. And I long for it. So I had just told him that, and he mentioned that in the card. So he thought, the day before, he thought that I was referring to his card when I said that, but no, it came from my heart. So it was like alignment and we were in synchronicity. We were like on the same page, and it was so exciting and beautiful. It was magical. But then there was also magic a couple of days later. He had to do a podcast for school, and I'm a podcaster, so I was like, "Oh, I got you, I got you. This is gonna be the best project ever." I was super invested, so I borrowed a couple more microphones, and I borrowed cameras, and I put it together. It took me hours to put it together because I have, I don't even know what they're called, but the thing where you input the microphones to has only two spots. A space for 2, and I had 3 microphones because it was him and 2 other friends. So whatever, I had to ChatGPT my way through setting up all the equipment so that I could be ready when he got home with his friends. And then I did a banner of the podcast with him and his friends wearing a tuxedo. ChatGPT hooked it up, whatever. I did like all these things. I was super excited. Because I was able to help my very independent son who does not need help for homework or school, which I appreciate. I'm not complaining about that. I'm super blessed and grateful for that. But it was an opportunity. And I recognized the opportunity because I was looking for magic. So far from feeling like, oh my goodness, another school project that we have to help this kid with. No, no. I was like, what? Podcast? You had me at podcast. At Hello! Right? So I did it with so much love and excitement and enthusiasm and magic. There was so much magic in the prep of the process alone. There was magic. But when that kid came home and saw— and so this TV, it's a TV. It's not a frame, right? Like, that's why you see that it's different every time. So you change the art. You change it to whatever you want. I put the banner of his podcast and I put his friends here and they were wearing a suit and it was spectacular. When those kids came into the office and they saw all the equipment, all the fanciness of these microphones, the logo with their faces on the back, they were like, "Whoa, this is gonna be the best podcast of the class!" And it was. And I just seen their reaction, seeing my son feel cool and being cool as a mom. 'Cause if you have teenagers, you know that we ain't cool ever. We don't know what we're talking about and doing. And God forbid that we open our mouths or talk to them or touch them. Everything is an embarrassment. Well, I was cool. I was cool this day. It was super, super magical. So, That was my— that's magic. I was looking for magic all around, and I had the opportunity to find it. And then there's the ultimate magical experience. We lent our Keys house. We have a house in the Keys, in the Florida Keys, and we lent our Keys house to a friend who went to celebrate his birthday, and his daughter was staying in the apartment, in the room downstairs. And in the room downstairs, in the bathroom, we have a mirror that resembles like a window of a— it's round and it resembles the window of a cruise or, you know, those submarine windows that have— I don't know, they have like little— I don't even know how to describe it, like thingies to open it. It's like that. It's a mirror that looks like a submarine window. And, you know, it has the— I don't know, the levers or whatever to open. I thought that was just a decoration, right? Like, I had no idea that you could actually open that. No idea. I've had the Keys house for 10 years, so we've had that mirror for 10 years. And It occurred to the daughter to open it, see if it opened, and it did. And when she opened it, she found a letter, message in a bottle style, a letter. It was a 3-page letter, front and back, inside the mirror in a secret porthole. Like, isn't that magical? Isn't that like out of a movie? I didn't even know that thing opened. I bought it myself. I did not know that thing opened, and there was a message for us. And in that letter, I read the story of a grandmother who was 68 years old, and she rented the house to bring her 3 grown kids with her 8 grandchildren and other families to spend Christmas of 2024. And in that Christmas, they saw sharks and they saw, stingrays, and they picked up shells, and all of the grandkids, all 8 of the grandkids found a starfish in the ocean. And much to her dismay, she said, they all wanted to take it home as a souvenir. I mean, she was so detailed in the description of her story and her vacation, and she spoke about the beautiful time that they had sunset and how they rented a boat that was super expensive. And she told us all these stories. And then she said, "I would love it if you send me an email if you find this secret, this letter in the secret porthole. And I put $2 in there for incentive." I thought it was so cute. So I imagine this 68-year-old woman who's there with her husband, her kids, her grandkids, and enjoying like this moment. Mind you, before we bought the house in the Keys, our prayer was for that house to bless many. We wanted it to bless a lot of people. And we've been mindful of like when there was a hurricane in Puerto Rico, Hurricane María, I brought families to live there when there was no electricity. We've had retreats there. We've celebrated weddings, birthdays. My mom's 70th birthday, her entire family came, all her siblings came, and we gathered together and told her how special she was. I mean, that house is full of love. And now I know of a story that, like, where the house was able to create holy moments, be the container that allowed this family to create holy moments. If that's not magical, I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is. It's magical. Message in a bottle. It's like out of a movie. So cool. So of course, I made a video for the lady, and I sent it to her by email. If she responds to me, I'll tell you in another podcast. But the point is that for Magic May, for the month where I set the intention of witnessing, experiencing, and indulging in the magic and the miracles of every day, I received a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of surprises. And I don't know that I would have received them at the time that I did, at the right moment and instant. Think about my daughter, think about this letter that's been there for 2 years, and now is when I'm receiving it. I mean, when you seek, you find. It's biblical too. It's a promise. Ask and thou shall receive. Seek and you will find. You find evidence for anything and everything you're looking for. Now let me give you a tool that I learned from Stacy Bayman. Stacy Bayman coined the term intentional thought creation or intentional thought destruction. And it's founded on this idea that we may find evidence for whatever we're looking for, right? So she says that whenever you are, whenever you're intentional about creating thoughts that are good for you, you're seeking evidence of the positive. So for example, if I'm struggling financially, and I am like, oh my gosh, I'm never gonna be able to pay this debt, or like, you know, it hasn't happened so far, so who's to say it's gonna happen? Or like, what if I fail? What if I cannot make that payment? What if I lose my house? What if, what if it just doesn't work out? What are we looking for in that, in the way we're expressing that question, that concern? What evidence are we looking for? We're looking for evidence that we won't be able to keep the house, that we won't be able to pay the debt, that we won't be able to meet the deadline. When you're expressing yourself in that negative way, your focus, your intention is on proving that it's not possible. It's on finding evidence that you won't make it. So shifting that language to, Well, God always provides for me. I have no idea how this is gonna happen, but I know it is. So like, what if He surprises me with a check on the mail that I wasn't expecting? What if He surprises me with new business that comes that I didn't even know was pending? What if, like, what if the way you express yourself about a situation that you're in is to prove is to find evidence that you will succeed. So intentional thought creation, according to Stacey Beaman, is when we intentionally create thoughts, beliefs ultimately, because we know from previous podcasts that thoughts are just sentences. But when you repeat those sentences a lot, they create and form beliefs. So she speaks about intentionally creating, constructing, building thoughts that are going to give you evidence that you will inevitably succeed. And my friend, if you are a person of faith, which I assume you are if you're listening to this, you can't fail. You cannot fail. God is within her. She cannot fall. She cannot fail. You just can't fail. So then why look for evidence of the possibility of failing? It makes no sense if you think about it, not from a spiritual perspective, not from a faith perspective. So intentional thought creation would look like, okay, and by the way, this has happened to me so many times. This is why I learned so much from other people. It's because I screw up all the time and I make all the mistakes. So you're not alone, sister. Sister or brother. You're— I'm here with you. In fact, most of the times that I speak to you, I've had to speak to myself first. And that's where I get the content from. I must be a case because I like— if you resonate with any of my content, I promise it's because I've had to learn it and live it myself. So going back to finding evidence and intentional thought creation, what Stacy Bayman advocates for in her Betsy Guerra Coaching. She's a, she's a coach who helps coaches. So what she advocates for is instead of asking questions to prove that you can't or you're not good enough or you don't have what it takes or you won't succeed, ask questions to confirm and prove that you will. And that is a way of creating thoughts and beliefs that will serve you and will support you and ultimately lead to the self-fulfilling prophecy that you are meant for greatness, success, and possibilities. So intentional thought creation means we are building, we are creating beliefs that serve us. We're creating beliefs that help us seek evidence of that which is already true by faith. I'm telling you that when I first heard this, I went from asking, what if— like, I remember at the time when I learned this, I was struggling in my business and I was wondering like, oh my gosh, am I gonna make it? Am I gonna get enough students for the Faith-Based Coaching Academy? Like, is this gonna work out or am I gonna have to close this and just stop? Stop doing this. And the questions that I was asking or the ruminations, the thoughts that I was pondering on were, oh my gosh, if I don't get anybody to sign up, then I may have to not do this anymore. And what am I gonna do if I'm not doing this? I already, like, really, like, I've already structured my business and my life around the Faith-Based Coaching Academy. I've left a lot of the other things that I was doing to focus on this. And I, what am I gonna do? Do I have to go back to private practice? Am I gonna make ends meet? Is it gonna work out? Like, I was worrying. And worrying doesn't come from God either. So, and if you know the word worry in Spanish, it comes, it's preocuparse. And preocuparse means what happens before you occupy yourself in something. Like, preocuparte significa que estás Haciendo algo antes de ocuparte. Why waste time in preoccupation? Like preoccupation is what comes before occupying yourself to do the thing. So I was preoccupied, I was worried, I was not focusing on what I can do, but rather what could happen and how bad it can go. And when I listened to Stacey Beaman's Intentional Thought Creation explanation, I was like, ah! Oh my gosh, in my worry, in the way I am crafting my thinking, in the way that I am processing my fears, I am doing intentional thought destruction. I'm destroying the thoughts that I want to believe. I want to believe that I'm going to succeed. I want to believe that I'm capable. I want to believe that, like, like, people are lined up. Waiting for me to launch the next cohort so that they can come join the Faith-Based Coaching Academy. It's what I want to believe, but I'm destroying that belief. I'm destroying that thought through the way that I'm thinking and crafting my sentences in my brain. So what are you focusing on? What are you looking for evidence of? Are you intentionally creating the thoughts that will serve you and manifest the success, the joy, the peace, the possibilities that you desire, or are you going to destroy those thoughts? Intentional thought destruction. I wanna build them. I wanna construct them. I wanna create them, the good thoughts. So ever since, every time I have, anytime I have any concern about anything, I am like, wait, intentional thought creation. What are the questions I need to ask or ponder on or think about so that I can create the belief that success is inevitable for me, that possibilities are waiting, lined up outside my door, that I will triumph? Because hello, my business partner is the Holy Spirit. How could I not? So when you, when you focus on that, this is what it looks like. So instead of me coaching myself, I was like, okay, it's not a big deal. If nobody signs up, then it's okay. You just stop doing it and, and something will come up and you can trust. But no, no, it looks like, okay, so nobody has signed up as of now, but what evidence do I have that people will sign up? Oh, there's been many times in the past, I've been doing this 9 times already. There's been many times in the past that I haven't had a student until weeks before the program starts. And then from 1, I end up getting almost 20, almost 20. That happened once. I had 0 people, it was December, we were starting the January cohort, and 0 people. Zero people were signed up. And the last day of the year, one person signed up. And I have a rule that I honor one how I would honor a thousand. So I was like, it's happening. If one person signed up, it's happening. So then I showed up with belief. I showed up with conviction. And that's attractive. And I ended up having 18 people in that cohort. From 0 to 18, just a week before or so is when I finally got to that number. So I was able to shift from like, "Well, I guess God doesn't want to hook me up in the business, then you know what, I'm doing his work, and if he doesn't want to help me, then I won't do my part." And, you know, I was destroying my belief to that little source of hope that was that person who signed up. Ignited my faith again and reminded me to intentionally build belief. And I went to like, well, one person saw value in it for this cohort, like I can get 17 other one persons to join clearly. And I've struggled in the past and people always show up and God always shows up. And he always provides. And what evidence is there that I can do this? Well, I'm relentless. I am persevering. I am not afraid of doing the work. I show up. What else, you know, what experience in the past can confirm that this is gonna work out this time? Well, every single time that I've had one person sign up for something, I've honored them and I've shown up 300% to make sure that they receive what I promised. I've never returned someone, refunded someone's money because I couldn't create the group program that I promised. Even if I've had to do it for free in the past, I've done it. I've done it to make sure that I honor that person. So I know I'm not gonna not honor a person. It's just, it's not gonna happen. I love people too much. It's one of my core values to show up for people who have believed in themselves and in me, in what I'm offering. So I have evidence of that. What evidence is there that I'm going to be able to make ends meet? How many times have I been broke and haven't known how I'm going to make ends meet? And surprises come up because I believe them, because I trusted. So, so when you're doing intentional thought creation, what you're doing is you're building beliefs by, by asking for evidence, by looking for evidence. Of why it is going to work out just the way you need it to. So my invitation for you today is first explore what you are looking for evidence for, right? Like, pay attention to that. Become a loving observer of your life and see how you think, how you express worry, how you communicate with others, what questions you say out loud or in your mind, and see if they're, if they're building and creating belief or if they're destroying it, the belief that you desire to have. So first, pay attention, become aware, create awareness, and diagnose your situation. And then choose to shift your focus to looking for evidence that you've got this. And look for evidence that there's magic, there are miracles. Look for evidence that abundance is all there is. There's no such thing as scarcity. God came to give life and life to the full. If you don't believe this, please go back to last week's episode. It's so good. It's on abundance, it's on money mindset, it's on all the things. It's so good. So go back to that. Build belief, build belief and find evidence that success is inevitable for you. Because it is, my friend, it is inevitable. If you have God in your life, in your heart, you cannot fail. It's not possible, not possible. So I hope this serves you. I pray that you build belief, that you intentionally create the thoughts that are gonna help you build the belief in yourself because you, my friend, were created to God's image and likeness, and you are amazing just the way you are.