Archive Episode The Journey Principles Radio Show Episode 112 | Embracing Life Gates

Foreign.

Guiding you to become the hero of your own story. This is the Journey Principles radio show where you are the warrior and we are your weapon. Now here are your hosts, Josh Bledsoe, and master life strategist, Steven Scoggins.

Welcome back, everybody, to the JP Radio Show. Man, I'm so excited to have you back because we're going to talk about something that is honestly really kind of earth shattering once you actually understand it. And a lot of times we go through some stuff in life, and the number one question we may ask or we've heard other people ask is why did that happen to me? Stephen definitely has a lot of history of that from his life. If you've read his book or if you've seen anything at all, jp, you kind of understand the backstory of that. What I like about this, we're going to talk about one of the blogs that Steven just recently wrote, something he's been talking about for a little bit after he dove into some other information and pulled out how it interpreted. Interpreted, interpreted to his own life. Something called Life Gates. It's something that he's going to dive into and explain well, but the reason I like it the most is because you've already experienced these guaranteed, hands down, every single person, every single one of us has gone through one of these gates as he's going to talk about. So this applies to everybody. It applies to a lot of areas of your own life. And after he unfolds this and lays it out on the table for you, you're really going to understand what, what's happened and you're going to be better equipped to actually move forward. So with that, Stephen, welcome to the show. Sup, buddy? And let's dive right into the Lifegate. So how did you get, like, exposed to this word Lifegate? Where'd that come from?

You know, Lifegate actually comes from a term by the man by the name of Tom Patterson. Okay. I've referenced him on the show a few times, but it's probably, it's probably one of my top five books when it comes to strategizing life change or strategizing life know how, if you will. Victor Frankl's book, Man Search for Meaning is always a good one. And then this, Tom's book is also awesome. And I'm gonna butcher the name, the, the title of the book just because it's a long title, but it's basically living your best life now. Okay, we'll put it in the show notes and actually give the actual real title name. But it's it's full of strategy. It's. It's full. Most people don't know this, but Tom Patterson himself, he developed a process called Life Plan. Okay. And then another process called Stratop. What I've come to discover is there are only a handful of facilitators of both processes, really, all over the world. Part of the reason is because Tom Patterson is very protective over how the facilitators actually use the content in a way to help people.

As he should be.

Yeah, I mean, we've said it before. Hurt people. Hurt people. And if someone's not ready to facilitate or something like that, they can obviously jump in there. But Tom's book is a really good step in understanding basic life strategy that kind of answers a handful of questions. Where am I now? Where am I going? How will I know when I get there? And some stuff like that. It digs into the DNA. And then there's this process which he moves from a certain level of questionnaires, kind of moving you from things. And the next phase is typically understanding where you've been. So there's a big, huge, huge step in gaining understanding, gaining perspective. Some of the stuff we've talked about numerous times.

Yeah. Because this stuff's important to understand where you're going, not to repeat the same stuff in the back, but it shapes you.

It's part of you. So in the process, what I discovered was I've actually been through my life plan. A good buddy of mine, Chris Licardo, put me through a life plan about three and a half years ago. I actually pulled it out recently just to kind of look over it again. And I think that's what kind of jarred me. If you would. And then I've had some interest in learning how to take my life strategy skills to a whole nother level. So what do you do when you're trying to get that done and you're trying to make that even better? You study the masters? You go find Yoda in that field. Yeah, yeah, right. You know, so that was kind of where it kind of started from. But a life gate, if we were to lay out your life on a large map. Okay. We were to talk about key areas in your life, maybe on the left hand side, but then we're looking at each one of your. Your blocks, if you will.

Yeah.

And how each. Each pivotal time in your life actually changed something in your life. A lot of times what you'll see is, you'll see in certain times, and it's typically mode the Average person has five to 12 life gates in their.

Lifetime, their whole lifespan.

Only five? Yeah. Because a life gate is nothing more than when something changes in your life, it causes a radical change in either your actions, your attitudes, or your results.

Okay.

And it doesn't let you go anywhere else. Well, not that it doesn't. You never can go backwards.

Got it. Okay.

For example, a lot of folks that get married, that's considered a life gate.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, you.

Even if.

Even if the marriage ends in divorce later on, which God forbid that happens to anyone listening.

Sure.

Even if that happens, you still don't get to go backwards. You can't go back to that pre single life because now you've got marriage. Now you've got the things that happen in the marriage and all that kind of stuff.

And that kind of stuff does stick with you.

Death of a child could be a life gate.

Winning a major award that catapults your career could be a lifegate. The reason, if you look at that stuff on a map, a lot of times, if you can fill up if there's something that happened in each one of those buckets, kind of all the way down, you could almost take a highlighter and color it. And that's how you know you went through a life gate.

Okay.

A life gate is nothing more. So there's two really two phases of. There's really two types of life gates. There's. There's the life gate that takes you from learning to acceleration. So in the example I just gave you with somebody kind of winning an award and their career takes off, that's learning to accelerate. It kind of sets up the tone for the next future steps.

Yep.

And then there's the one that we, most of us deal with on a fairly, I'd say, regular basis. It normally happens. Three to everybody, every three to five years. There's no guaranteed time on it. So you can't. You won't be to know that there's no timeline other than you can. You can. It's kind of like when winter gets here and you see the leaves falling.

Yeah.

You know, you know, you're in season, which.

My wife Nikki is all about it. She showed me, she showed me the weather app yesterday. Yeah. I said, look, tomorrow it's warm, and then the next days it's in the 50s and 60s. Like, you're crazy, woman. We're gonna have to put on jackets and like, warm up the car and stuff. Yeah, she. Yeah, she loves the fall. We all love fall.

This fall is here, right?

Yeah.

You know, the Other one is the. Is the part where life, a lifegate takes you, does nothing more. That takes you from the process to the promise.

Okay.

Okay. What I mean by that is certain life gates. I've been through a substantial life gate in the last six, seven months. I've shared some of that through blogs, on a couple radio shows. I even did a Facebook video not long ago, kind of letting everybody know that I am human. I go through the same kind of stuff everybody else goes through. One of the blessings that I have is having some of the experience that I've had and having a God who desperately loves me and shows me a great deal of grace as part of this process. And it's actually, it was actually that that spiritual connection actually drove me back to my own life plan to say, am I far off the mark? Yeah, like, where am I at in my story? Like, what's going on? You know, because, you know, we had gained a lot of ground with the journey principles and the transform you events and stuff like that. We gained a ton of ground. And of course, this last season, up until recently, I haven't had a lot of time to even spend with you guys. Well, part of that life gate, it stuck out in my mind because of the three phases of the life gate. You know, so you basically, you have one life. Great. That kind of, it's not, it's actually. They're all the same life gate. One takes you up, one takes you through a season of process. Okay. So typically what happens is you'll know you're beginning to go through a life gate because in phase one, stress begins to kind of, kind of arrive.

Gotcha.

Or exhilaration.

Yeah.

So in either case, exhilaration, the excitement begins to rise. Yeah. Okay. And then, and then you have this apex of. Yeah, right. The same thing happens with, with, with the first phase of a normal life gate. You're heading towards the life gate. You haven't yet opened it. It's not necessarily opened up for you, but you're walking towards it. It's kind of uncomfortable. You'll see symptoms of stress pick up symptoms, anxiety pick up.

Okay.

Symptoms of fear in some cases pick up.

But you know, it's, it's about to approach.

Well, it becomes like, it's, like I said, a season.

Yeah.

So the average person has no idea what a life gait is. That's why we're talking about it on today's show, is to hopefully give someone some level of expertise or information on a gate. But just because knowing that you're headed Towards a life gate will actually help you deal with going through that life gate in a much better fashion.

Yeah, yeah. If you know what's coming up, you have a much better insight to get ready for it.

Yep. And it's equivalent if you think of it like a mountain. If I was to literally. If we were to draw it on a piece of paper and on a map, if you will.

Okay.

We would see it kind of taper up. You go through the life gate, and then you're kind of like this. Right. So the coming. This. This coming is the. Is the. Is the. Is the hard work. It's the things that are in front of you. It's the. In some cases, adversity that's kind of before you. Yeah, right. It's making it through each one of those next steps and levels. And the gates typically at the top of the hill. So notice with the gate being at the top of the hill typically. Now, I'm talking about your emotional state, your physical state, your spiritual state. I'm talking about these things. So you may not be physically walking up a hill. You could be.

Yeah.

Right. But like the guy, Bear Grylls, he's always walking uphill.

But it feels like you're walking up a hill.

Exactly. It feels like you're walking uphill, especially emotionally. You may be having restless nights. You may be going through a difficult season. A divorce is one of those life gates that is definitely starts out really stressful. It gets a lot worse before it gets better.

Yeah.

Then you go through the life gate, Things begin to change. Notice at the peak of the life gate, typically is when the greatest struggle has to be overcome. And that's where I say the process has now taken you to a promise. Because at the end of. At the end, and actually going through every single life gate, a promise is then found.

Okay. So once they actually push through and they persevere, the promise is found. Is there ever a time where someone may not get to that promise because they stay stuck back here?

It's incredibly easy to actually stay stuck there. One of the things that we like to talk about specifically, and I actually did this myself, so like I said, I'm just as human as anybody else watching or listening. The only difference is I've already been through several life gates, so I have a little more faith to carry me through the next one. And because of that, it's been helpful. Right. But at certain life gates, I had to have guides. I had to have somebody who had already been there, who had already been through that life Gate already been through the door, already shut up behind themselves. That could give me the experience of looking backwards, because you're not going to have the experience of looking forwards as you're progressing to a life gate. So the best thing you could do is find a guide, which is what we've managed to do pretty well to help you see those things they are and not worse than they are.

Yeah. Kind of put things in better perspective. That's kind of what I would picture when you're saying that, you know, I'm an analogy type of person. So when you're talking about walking up a hill, typically our eyes are down to where we make sure that we're not going to step over or trip over any stones, rocks, you know, twigs, whatever. And the guide, someone that has already known the way, they say, step here, don't step there.

Right.

That's a long fall if you go that direction, buddy. All right, so the. There's. You talked about the phases of the life gate. Like, there's a phase that people go through. Can we step through some of those and kind of dive in those?

Well, the third. The third and final phase is actually making it through the life gate.

Okay, so the first one is what again?

The first one is the leading up to the life Gate.

Okay.

Then there's the. Basically approaching the door. You're at the door, in other words, which is the apex, typically, of the struggle or the blessing, depending on what kind of lifegate you're going through. Okay. Okay. So if I'm getting ready to get married and I'm. I'm anxious and I'm excited, and I've been planning my wedding for a year, kind of like mine and Karen was. We were all excited. We did all this extra work, and then you. You get. You get to the stage. My good buddy Chris Pipes, is there to. To say, all right, will you take this woman? Will you take this man? You know, we were like, yeah, that was the apex of that life gate. That was one of those things. And I've been able to live that blessing ever since. Right. However, Conversely, the life gate of having to deal with business struggles or having to, you know, replace a leadership team, for example, that poses a whole different life gate.

Right. That's a bigger. That's a struggle versus, like a victory at the top of that.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah. You know, so I'm trying to give you a pretty good contrast of. Of what kind of life gate you're headed for.

Okay.

Now, because of which you'll notice by your own emotional state and own spiritual state, which area or about where you are in the season. In order to make the Life Gate possible, to get past the Life Gate. I firmly believe that this is. This is my. My belief. I believe that God himself, the father up in heaven, orchestrates every single Life Gate.

Okay.

I believe he sees the end long before the beginning.

Yep.

You know, or actually he sees the end, but he sees the end in the beginning. That's what I should say.

That's a good point to bring up to. Kind of what I talked about, the beginning of the show is that everyone goes through this. And then some people may ask themselves, why did I just. Why does this happen to me?

Yeah.

Right. They almost want to figure out, like, it's not like they want to blame others, someone else, but they just can't believe that something like that would happen to them in their life. But you're going down a. Right. A good path on this. I really kind of want to help people understand that and get that question out of their mind. Because you're talking about, you know, the orchestration of everything.

You gotta remember, I firmly believe that everything comes down to your actions and attitudes. Right?

Yep.

Every choice, every decision, every result essentially comes down to those components. How you deal with moving towards the Life Gate will determine how quickly you get to the Life Gate.

Right.

The question should always be, what can I learn from this? I promise you. I promise you this is one of the hardest seasons I've been through recently. I promise you that. I have burned up my mentor's hotline, burning up the phones. So much so that now keep in mind that you've seen my countenance. Right. You can see some of my peace starting to return to me and things like that. Right. It's obvious I've started, you know, the fact that I wrote a blog, I wrote three, I think wrote three blogs, and for less than 48 hours. Right. So that means it's start flow again. Yeah, starting to flow again. Which also means I'm probably approaching the end of the Life Gate. You know, I'm hopefully getting ready to walk through the Life Gate. But I promise you, my good friend, one of my. One of my, what I call ping pong partners, somebody that holds me accountable, vice versa.

They gave me a word. What they felt like was from God, if you will. And then I questioned it. And then two days later, I sent the person a text. I said, man, I said, your comment really messed me up. I don't know what to do with it. I've got so many irons in the fire right now. And you're telling me to pause on something. Which one?

It wasn't probably 15 minutes later. And this is early in the morning. This is like 7am 15 minutes later, the phone's ringing. I missed the call. I call him right back. It's like, hey, how you doing? Right. And she's like, hi, how you doing? I'm like, I'm good. She goes, let me tell you something. You're gonna hear me this time.

That was, like, drilled down. Right.

You know? And she was basically saying, stay the course. You know.

I know from my heart of hearts, I've done all I can do to move towards the life gate. However, my actions and my attitudes have had to be put in check on more than one occasion to continue moving towards the life gate. Right. Because I'm human just like anybody else is.

They're all going to make mistakes.

So here's. Here's what I've learned from the moral of that particular instance in that story is don't ask, why me? Don't try to figure it all out. Simply ask, what understanding can I get? What can I learn from this? What step should I take? Because sometimes the best step you can take is just the one right in front. Right. Right. With one foot in front of the other.

Right.

I've always been gifted to seeing five years ahead. Horrible at seeing five minutes ahead, you know? So it's incredibly difficult for me. And I'm sure there's some people out there just like me where I'm like, I just want to get to the end. Right. And certain life gates require patience.

Yeah.

Because the inside, the patience is the process.

Yeah. It's.

It's the step by step, by step by step by step.

And I kind of think when you said, don't ask the question, why me? It hit me. It feels like there would be way more energy dedicated into trying to answer that question, why me? Versus the question of what can I learn from this? Because when I've asked myself that question, I've almost immediately come up with, here's a thing you could learn. Here's the thing with that. And if it wasn't immediate, it was pretty close.

Yes, absolutely.

I spent way less time learning from it than sitting there and just stealing, like, why does this happen to me? Right. Way less time, way less energy.

Yeah.

All right. So the guide that you had, they helped you not only put things in better perspective, but.

See things in a way that were, like, past that, like, hurdle you were trying to get over.

Absolutely.

Okay.

You Know, because the third phase of the Lifegate is making it through the door.

Yeah. Getting it.

Now, when you make it through the door, that's when the. That's when the process is over and the promise begins.

Okay.

So it's depending on how God orchestrates it for your life, that could take you up a little further, it could take you sideways, whatever, but he's taking you towards a promise.

Right.

Okay. During the season of the life Gate, during the season of the March, during the season of the climbing the hill, I can promise you some of the quickest way to kind of make it through the door.

Yeah.

Okay. One, if it's a prayer, if it's a patience process. I'm sorry, it's going to take some time. Right. I'm the world's worst with patience. Right. I hate waiting. I hate waiting.

Most people don't really like waiting, especially when talking about some of this.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, but during that. During that. That march, if you will.

Yeah.

Some things that I have done that have helped me specifically to take on the Lifegate march, to try to make it through the other side. So I know I can get to the promise because by understanding all the previous life gates that I've been through, some of the. The. The abuse, if you will, some of the breakdowns, if you will, the homelessness, the. The foundation of a business, all that stuff. Right. Those are previous life gates that I made it through. Right. Experience has taught me that if I would just stay faithful, if I'll just keep marching. Right, that God will show up and he will redeem it. He will replenish it. He will take you through it. Okay. However, during the process, there are a couple of steps that I think work really well. One is constant, constant, constant. I don't know why I got from New York all of a sudden. Constant, constant reflection.

Okay.

Okay. I don't mean isolation.

Yeah.

All right. I don't mean running off by yourself and hiding for weeks on end. I'm talking about light piano music or some kind of music you enjoy. Lightly in the background, you in a notepad, just writing your thoughts.

Okay.

Okay. Reflecting, avoiding questions like, why me? How come this had to happen to me? Because that's. That's all blame. That's all victim.

Yeah.

And you're not a victim. Right.

Pulls you back down.

It does, yeah. And that's part of the battle.

Yeah.

You know, we were. I was talking about this with the team before we went on air. In my mind, I had this. This epiphany. If you Will, this week I was getting ready for the. The speaking event we have in Chicago this week, and I was thinking about, you know, what is this? What does this audience need to hear? Like, God, what. What do you want to say? What do you. What do you want them to hear? I know you're going to put in the seats. Whoever needs to be there. You've already done that. He showed me that many times. I think I'm going for. To go talk to this group. And he ends up. I end up talking to three people. And it does something cool with them, cool with their life. Right. So God set me up here. What do you want me to do? What do you mean? Talk about. And, you know, you've seen me speak before. And sometimes I'll share the story of overcoming the bridge.

Sometimes I'll share the story of moving through the litter box and some other things that, you know, part of my personal testimony. One of the things I have discovered through the process is you've heard me talk about the voices.

Yeah.

Having a voice on your left, a voice on your right. How the voice of failure, condemnation, blame, victimization, all that stuff is almost always screaming and yelling, almost like somebody's pointing a finger in your face. You did this.

Yeah. It's trying to be the loudest.

And there's always this quiet voice. There's always. There's always a polar opposite quiet voice.

Yeah.

And it dawned on me that when Jesus himself was hanging on the cross. Sorry, my son is calling me while we're on air. If he was watching Facebook, he would. No, just kidding.

If. If we take a picture like, so Jesus is on the cross.

He's. He's marched by a thief on his left, a thief on his right. One is challenging him to get off the cross. If he was God, if he was this, he was that. All this kind of stuff. Basically throwing out as much condemnation as hate as the guy could. Yep, I am. I hurt him. Anyway, sorry, guys.

If. See, I lost my train of thought. So, guys on the cross.

Yeah. All right, here we go.

I'm gonna try to get this out.

Yeah.

So Jesus is obviously on the cross. The man's on his left hand. I'm assuming it's on his left hand side. Just because that's where my. Where I go to my. Where I go. That what I call the condemnation voice. And he's telling him, hey, if you're the son of God, get yourself down off the cross. Challenging all this challenging stuff, all this condemnation stuff. Meanwhile, he's got a man who's barely breathing on his right. And he says, lord, Lord, please remember me when I come into your. When I come into the kingdom.

Yeah.

Jesus himself, while hanging on a cross, had a decision to make of what voice he was going to listen to.

That's true. Yeah.

So what we've learned is, is the wrong question will give you the wrong answer every time. Every single time. It is predictable. It's like clockwork.

Yep.

Understand. So by understanding that as part of the process, some of that reflection time will hopefully help you answer better questions.

Okay.

Especially if you're voting, if you're avoiding the victim is what I call victim questions. Well, why me? How come this had to happen to me? No one loves me. No one's here to support me. Those are all certain seasons. Certain seasons we got to walk through a little bit, you know, Another piece is making sure that you are feeding yourself with quality content.

Quality content and quality associations.

Exactly. You know, so I'm gonna start with the content first. Make sure that the things you're watching are not a video on how somebody else is going through the same season and didn't get a breakthrough. Yeah. You know, or, you know, and you see that all the time, like most of the TV and movies nowadays is just horrible junk.

Yeah.

You know, and while we may think.

It'S entertainment, it's actually giving influence. It's actually giving more influence and giving more fire. Firepower to that negative talking voice.

Oh, absolutely.

You know, it's like, see that person didn't do it or see that happened.

Oh, absolutely. I mean, think about it. Think about a TV show or a movie that's. That's bent on people cheating on people.

Okay.

And let's assume your spouse just cheated on you and your marriage isn't. I'm just. I'm using an example here.

Right.

Let's assume that. That that's taking place. The first thing you're going to want to do if you're watching with us. Well, I guess it's okay if I go out and do it, right? No, no, no, no, no, no. You don't understand.

It's being idolized. Like it's an okay.

Exactly. And it's not. So the trick is, is you don't understand the possibility of soul ties. You don't understand the possibility of taking on responsibility or accidentally getting somebody pregnant or a bunch of other things. Right.

Things. Yeah.

You know what I'm saying? So what I'm saying is dig into quality content. Make sure it feeds you. Make sure it feeds your spirit, your soul. I Have been blowing up audio books right now. Have been for a few weeks now. I've been blowing up Pastor Furtick on online. You know, listen to his stuff. You know, I've got a specific playlist at the gym that includes both speaking as well as music. I'm making sure I'm active, I'm staying active. I'm making sure that I'm. Especially at the beginning of the season of this Life Gate, this particular one, I didn't want to eat very much and I had to force myself to take in small amounts of. Of nutrients. Because what goes in your body feeds your mind.

That's true.

So if you're eating a bunch of junk, if you're not feeding your mind, if you're not feeding your body at all, your mind is actually starving for the nutrients it needs to help you think and process poisoning it.

Yeah. And your mind is your biggest muscle that you got, and it's the most supportive one that you got. It's going to do exactly what you tell it to do.

Yeah. I haven't seen anybody yet walking around without a brain. No. No.

And if you're feeding it toxin. Right. If you're not feeding it healthy foods or not feeding it at all, well, no wonder you're having neg negative thoughts. No wonder you're in this kind of dark place. Right. That's exactly why, you know, it could be a very simple yet powerful first step is make sure you're eating and make sure you're eating properly, like you said. And also just taking action. Right.

You know, even if this. Even if the Life Gate's kind of serious, if you haven't been eating just because of the sheer stress and I was. I was there four months ago.

Yeah.

I didn't want to eat. I didn't have the energy to eat. I was stuck in worry and anxiety and fear and all this kind of stuff that we've. You know, it's just interesting that what we've been teaching on, I've had to literally go back and use the very same stuff that I share with the audience all over again.

Right, right.

And. And the fact that I've made it from this part of the Life Gate to this or this, this beginning of the journey, to the almost to hopefully what. What I believe is God showing up at the door.

Yeah.

That I've made it this far shows that the con. The stuff works.

Yeah. It's almost like God said, okay, I see what you've done there, Mr. Scoggins, and transform you online dot com. Let's see if works test button.

Right.

Yeah. And it's, I mean, that's a, it's a good testament to, you know, the, the information that you've put in there and, and you, you've offered up to people very, very easily and readily available. It's just a matter of taking an action and doing well.

Here's the thing. That's why I'm trying to break these things into phases and steps. Yeah, right. Because by breaking it in phases and steps, it's easy to understand.

Yeah.

Me trying to sit here and just explain what a lifegate is. May we could spend an hour on. Me just giving you the theology.

Yeah.

About life gates.

Yeah.

As I understand it from, from some of the mentors and the people that I'm following. Right, right. What I've discovered is if I, if I take their content and simply break it down where I can apply it, I can then give the steps to the audience out there so they can apply it. Yeah. So therefore, in a weird way, in a roundabout way, we're helping each other on our journeys. We're, we're both, we're all headed to various life gates. Whether, whether it be a season of blessing or a season of process, it doesn't matter. Right. You know, I think by doing that and by being vulnerable, I'm hoping that the audience can appreciate that. You know, the other, the third thing that I think that I've utilized heavily in this particular part of the season are the mentors. Right. We talked about mentorship on a long time ago. Our good buddy Doug has a terrific presentation on mentorship. Probably the best I've ever seen. I'd love to steal his content, but that would be bad. I know, Doug. I can't help it. You're awesome, dude. At any rate, in all seriousness, you know, guides you got. Your guide is essentially your mentor. It's the person who has hopefully been there. Actually, a guide is more the person that's been there, has been there, done that, can help you through it. A mentor can kind of add attributes to it. And then your ping pong partners, we've talked about that, your co stars, these are people that, you know. Like that phone call I had Monday, that was fun. You gonna hear me this time?

Buckle up.

Yeah, it was, you know, the funny thing was it wasn't too terribly long ago I was on the phone with her and her spouse and they were doing, they were going through something and it was, it was the, it was the complete reverse conversation. So I know I've got a quality Co star in that just because it was. They can give as better, as good as they can receive, and vice versa.

Yeah, exactly. All right, so the folks now, they understand that what a life kit is, it's a moment in time that's going to change their trajectory in life, hopefully for the better, but sometimes, no, it.

Will change it for the better. What will, what will determine when that change happens is their actions and attitudes.

How they handle it.

Exactly.

Okay. Okay. So. So now they've got this understanding of Lifegate and the phases of it. So now that they're better equipped when they start to approach one, they. They better understand that they need a guide, someone that they can trust, someone that's either been there or has some experience with that, but basically a good trusted person is not going to let them down. And what, what do they do after that? You know, what's the big thing after that? You mentioned reflection earlier. Yeah, but what do they do after that? Once they've gone through the gate.

Once they've gone through the gate, they've already. They. They will have learned what they were supposed to learn in the first place. Okay, I'll give you an example. I've been able to share with people, audiences, whether it be on stage or whether it be on this format or podcast or books or blogs or whatever.

Yeah.

A lot of my wins in life, right. I was, I was able to share with them about becoming a successful business owner and how that promoted me to this. This place and how that allowed me to get to this place.

Yeah.

This new season, I am. I have learned to just be me. To just be me. I am not. My identity is not tied to being a successful business owner or anything.

That's just what you do.

My desires have become abundantly clear. The three, the four greatest things that I miss the most right now are my family. Number one, the ability to do more speaking events because I've been so busy, having able to accept a lot, the ability to write blogs and share content with the journey principles team and then my actual Journey Principles team. So ultimately, when I go back and look at my own life plan and I'm looking at all the life gates, everything I've been through this whole season has given me a perspective shift. Right. It's not about, I'm here because I was a successful business owner. I'm here because God promoted me here and he will take me to the next season, whatever that may be. Right. If he wants me to speak to one, I'll speak to one. If he wants me to speak To a thousand. I'll speak to a thousand. It's his decision. But I think I had to become fully surrendered to that process in order to make that happen. I was also able to see how incredibly talented some of my team members are. You guys, just a lot of times when you have the absence of the entrepreneur, absence of the business owner, all businesses can suffer. Okay. I mean that's typically, that's just what happens. There's almost like there's a fire charge that happens. And it's not just related to me, it's just in business in general. Entrepreneurship in general.

Right, right. The.

They call it the, the quirky brilliance of the founder. I think I've heard. You know, it's.

Everything rises and falls on leadership. So when the leader steps out, it's like, where's it gonna go?

Exactly. You know. And fortunately for me, what's happened for me in both businesses is I've been able to watch leaders rise.

Yeah.

That some of the things that I was able to share with them and hopefully mentor them along the way, they were able to apply in my absence. I can't tell how many times I've even heard this team or the. My Che team tell me. Well, I know not to do that because that's. Stephen, we've had this conversation before. I know that this isn't going to work because of this experience that Steven shared with me or you know, I think we should do this. And I think Stephen. I think Stephen would approve of it. You know, it's not like they need my blessing to kind of move things along, but because they understand my heart, they understand my, My. My desire to help other people, they're able to take decisions on their own and make that. So I've been able to watch. I mean, one of the things I've learned is watching others leaders. Other leaders rise, which will hopefully make me a better leader because I will probably release. Loose the reins a little bit easier.

Yeah.

You know, because before. And this is, this has been a 20 year transition. Used to be hands tied in the reins. No, no, no. You can't touch. To slightly loosen it up to slightly loosen it up to slightly. And, and what you would think with the, with the betrayal that I just went through, you would think that I would be like all grips on.

Right. The normal human thing to do. Right. The tendency.

Exactly. I mean, and I think had. If God was not part of my life, if my relationship with God was not one of the most important things to me, that absolutely would have happened.

Sure. Absolutely.

He has Taught me to trust the process, know that he's behind the process. He's the. He's actually, you know, we think that we're going uphill through a. Through a forest. We can't see anything.

Yeah.

We think that we're the ones over with Machete going.

No, he's been clearing out trees in front of me for the direction he wants me to go.

Yeah. So you can knock down the grass. Exactly. Knock down the trees.

Exactly. And you would think about it. It's funny because, you know, if that tree standing in front of you and he hasn't moved it.

Yeah.

And maybe he's not spoken. Maybe he's not going. He's probably not going to. Right. That means you probably should look to your left and to your right and see if the path is clear. Right. And then take the next step.

Yeah.

You know, I finally learned. The other thing I learned from this recent Lifegate is that there's no such thing as moving the mountain. Okay. There's no such thing as moving the mountain. It's through the mountain that you learn, that you grow, that you mature. So sometimes it's not moving the mountain. Sometimes it's having faith to walk over the mountain.

Okay.

Now, faith is not. Faith is. This season of. I thought. I thought I had a really powerful faith. I really did. Like, I'll be the first one on my knees at a church service with my hands up in the air. I had no problem with that. You can look at me like I'm an idiot. I don't care. That's my God. He's taking. He's taking me this far. This new season has really challenged my faith. Not in the faith of losing my faith altogether, but challenged my faith and like, lord, what are you doing? I don't understand it. And it's almost like the whisper says, you're not trying to understand. It's not about you understanding. It's about. It's about you following and trusting. Yeah, I know it's a long winded answer, but I got a tangent. Sorry.

Very, very good. That kind of wraps it all up, really, in a nice way of kind of just seeing where it comes from. Right. You know, the Lifegate may be a Tom Patterson thing, but Tom Patterson was motivated by something.

Oh, here's the. So I don't really share this with you. I don't think we did in the beginning of the show, but Tom Patterson lost several children.

You did tell me that before.

Yeah, he. He had his own struggles early on.

Yeah.

Cool thing about Tom is Apparently he played a part in vetting the ATM machine, which I discovered after listening to the podcast this week, which I thought was kind of cool, you know. So Tom, the very first life plan that was ever done, Tom did on himself.

Yeah. Which is a notepad, which is pretty.

Which is during the reflection, which is why walking up the life gate, it's.

Just pretty incredible that he created this based on his own personal experience. And I can't imagine losing one child is catastrophe enough. Losing multiple. That's a lot of tough Life Gates.

Oh, absolutely.

Many people don't bounce back from that, but. So Tom wrote a book and life Gates is in there. It's inspired you and you've. You've seen it and you've done the life plan, the life strategy.

Oh, yeah.

And all that for your life. And you. And you can.

And I had it and had a fantastic facilitator.

Go back through it. And now you understand it. Right. You see, okay, this is. I'm still going the right course, which I like that because you can always kind of go back to it. Say, am I going the right direction? And you can literally see it right there. Yep. Everything's still going well. But at the end of it, God's still in control. Yeah, right. Life, gates, plans, books, none of that really matters. But God's still in control. And what you're learning is most important. And folks, that's exactly what's inside the full up blog. I've only got like half it, right. You know, that's. That's what's inside the full blog. And you can get that on JourneyPrinciples.com just click on the link above. You're right there where it says blog. I think I'm pointing the right direction. It's one of the tabs. It says blog. Or if you really want to deep dive down into it, that's simply@transformyouonline.com right at the live event at Transform you Live, Stephen created this sort of map for people to go through, and they're really their own specific miniature life plan. And that's exactly the. That's the application of all this stuff, right? You can read everything that's fantastic out there, you can listen to all the podcasts, but none of it means a hill of beans. Like, there's actually like a hill of beans out there somewhere.

I wish my latest mount was made out of beans.

It's like an old Southern statement. None of it means anything at all unless you can actually apply it in your life. Right. So that's that's my challenge to you. That's my challenge to you is go check out the blog@journeyprinciples.com check out the latest blog from Steven called Lifegates and the other ones that he's got put out. You'll probably find them there very soon. And get into transformyouonline.com absorb the content, study it, apply it, write us back, tell us how it's going exactly for you. Because what may be going exactly for you is not the same thing that's going to happen for Josh.

That's right.

Not the same thing that's going to happen for Steven. But together, there's a community created there.

If I could add one thing, if for some reason you are currently in a season where you think you're headed towards a life gate, meaning the season has been stressful, anxiety, all this kind of stuff, these emotions that you've been trying to clear stuff up. If you feel like that you're in need of a guide, okay. We would love the opportunity to serve you and to help you through that process, to walk with you along that process. We're going to be opening up the calendar here soon to actually take on some new clients or new people, which we haven't done in some time. We want to make sure that you get what you need to help you get through your life gate, because when you get through your life gate, you can help 10 other people. So by helping you, you help us achieve our million man, or million person, if you will, success of trying to change a million lives inside of one year. And we need you to help you do that. And we'd love to partner with you to make that happen.

Awesome. Well, folks, that's all we got today for the Journey Principles radio show. We can't wait to see you guys next week. Have a fantastic week. See you guys.