The Daily Practice That Taught Me to Hear God (Not Just Talk to Him)

There's one powerful Hebrew principle that I want to jump into today that ultimately builds long-term success. It starts with understanding that stillness reveals what motion conceals. Hear that again in your head for just a moment, because if you're the kind of leader who actually built something, who carries the payroll, the pressure, and hundreds of people's expectations on your back, that line probably made you feel a little uncomfortable. And good, because that's the discomfort of the entire video. Here's what nobody's going to tell you when you're scaling. The reality is you can move fast in every single direction and still be hiding from the one thing you most need to face. Motion oftentimes is the illusion of progress rather than the intention of stability. Motion feels like leadership a lot of times, but motion is also the best hiding place ever created. As long as you keep moving, you're never gonna have to sit with what's actually running underneath the hood. The past patterns, the subconscious programs, all these types of things, and ultimately limiting yourself and your organization from scaling to where you're ultimately supposed to carry the organization to begin with. So today I want to give you the rhythm that puts the divided leader back into complete wholeness. That way you can become the same leader at the office, the home, and even at 2 AM when things are getting loud in your mind. Seriously, stick with me for just a couple of minutes because this is the part that most operators want to skip. It's the exact thing they don't need to skip. It's the thing that actually builds things up before the subconscious can break them down. Also, quick context on why I feel like I can share this with you. I built my first real set of companies on the back of a construction truck, trash piles at a construction site, and while sleeping in a borrowed friend's car. No degree, no safety net, no plan B. Only this has to happen just to survive. I went on to scale upwards of 9 figures in annual revenue with several hundred people, multiple states, and I will tell you the truth that most people in my chair won't say out loud. For years, I might have been strong in the room, may have been very ambitious, very driven, very, well, very creation-oriented. But inside my own mind, inside my own chest, something was missing. Oftentimes, the leader my team saw and the family saw were two totally different people. And if I'm honest with you, I wasn't burned out. I was divided. And no amount of hustle was going to fix that because the hustle was the very thing that was covering up in the first place. I sincerely thought I could outwork any adversity in front of me. Not realizing that I was creating some of the adversity in front of me from not doing the internal work first. What the crazy part is, it took me about 40 years to get to this place. It took me 40 years to fully appreciate that the stillness is what actually reveals and allows you to elevate what's been concealing and keeping you from going forward day after day. Ironically, it wasn't in the moments of business crisis. It wasn't in making the payroll. It wasn't in trying to solve the team member issue or solve the client issue. The time it actually started for me to actually clearly see this was after 40+ years of building businesses, leading teams, trying to become a great leader, trying to be a better parent, trying to be great in my relationships and everything. And ironically, you would thought that many of the struggles would have shown itself, or many of the solutions would have shown itself in moments of crisis. Trying to solve payroll, trying to solve a client issue, trying to solve a team member issue, trying to solve an executive team issue. Unfortunately, no, that wasn't the case. Where it actually showed up was at the most unlikeliest of moments. It was actually sitting atop a house that I had acquired once I sold and exited my company in Utah, overlooking about 40 miles of beautiful Lehi. And ironically, what was really sincere about that is I found myself ironically on paper successful, having all the things that you think you should want in life, having access to relationships of people of— in latter words would say they would kill to have, like having the world as your oyster, so to speak, and actually being completely empty on the inside. It was then that I opened a laptop and I began to pour my heart out with keys. Over 2 pages of me just asking God to clearly show up. Please speak to me. Please help me understand where this pattern is coming from. Why am I not happy? Why am I not fulfilled? I have everything that you, you know, that the world says we're supposed to strive for. And in the quietness and the stillness of the moment, I actually changed the font color to blue. And I said, "Please, if there's anything you will share, please share it with me now." I kid you not, I began typing so fast, so fast, and I couldn't read what I was seeing because I was crying so hard. I got to the end of the document and I went back and reread what had been written. Very clearly not my voice. Very clearly, very poignant, very powerful. Things like, "Despise not small beginnings or painful transitions. Don't you know that I'll always remove the pain once the purpose is realized?" And then a blessing over my life. Stephen, I want you to awaken the dead, liberate the captives, and feed those who are hungry. Very broad strokes. And that I would do it in many fields and not just one. This one component is something I've shared from stage many times, even reading huge chunks of this document. But it started something very, very powerful and very, very sincere. It's a process I call "What I Hear You Say Is." You see, I realized that much like a parent does who has a child, The child wants the attention, they want instant gratification, so the child will actually overtalk the parent. And as a result, the child can't hear the parent to begin with. When I began thinking about it, I began thinking about all the times that I went with God with my laundry list of things, my genie in a bottle. God, please do this. Please save this. Please help me with this. Please give me this. Please solve this problem over here. Please, please, please, please, please. And what I didn't fully appreciate and realize is I was so busy overtalking Him. That I couldn't actually hear what he had to say, the things that would have actually transformed me from the inside out. So I began a very committed process on September 21st, 2024, for 6 months straight, every single day, sometimes twice a day, jotting down with an open book journal and saying, "What I hear you say is..." and today's date. And then I just shut up and I listened. I jotted down anything and everything I thought I heard with clarity, not with confusion, but with clarity. I sat down with the intention to hear from God. Ironically, one of the things that was in the blue document that I had totally forgotten about until just this moment, I'm gonna share with you now, is in the same document he says, "I am always talking, but they're seldom listening." I'm always talking, but they're seldom listening. And in my case, I'm always talking and you are seldom listening. Sit with that for just a moment. All the answers and the solutions that we think we need, 9 times out of 10, are not the solutions that we actually need. So the solutions that we want are not equal to the solutions that we need. We only get to the solutions that we need by actually turning an ear to listen rather than speaking and talking. This process has begun to shape people all over the country right now. And people ask me all the time, "Well, how do you know it's from God? How do you know it's this?" I said, "You're focused on the wrong thing. The Divine is wanting to speak. We have to be willing to listen." The Divine will never share something that's not biblical. The Divine will never share something that's gonna be harmful to other people. The Divine is never gonna share something that's not out of direct love. Love, even if it's stern love, much like a parent would correct a child. This What I Hear You Say journaling process began to transform my life from the inside out. It is something I'm adamant that every single individual on the planet needs to do. And the reason is, is because there are certain things that only you can hear if you're actually wanting to listen. Meanwhile, we chase gurus and seminars and all this stuff all over the place to get answers to questions that we have, not realizing that much of the questions that we have can actually come from the inside of us when we're connected to the one who's outside of us. We're going to the wrong source for the solution. And as a result, we get to spin our wheels over and over and over again. Here's the crazy part. I didn't understand this until just recently, but this is actually called hagadah in Hebrew. It's the actual premise of what I'm going to share with you of why this works. But in its most simplistic fashion, I want you to wake up each and every morning. I want you to grab a journal that you can handwrite in. I want you to write at the top of the page, "What I hear you say is," and the date, and I just want you to sit and be quiet. Do it when nobody else is up. Let it be the very first thing that you do before you get into the Bible and read your scriptures and do your meditations. All that stuff is great and it's needed and it should be part of your life. This is a different process altogether. This is Jesus going to the garden. This is David in the cave or David in the field. This is the moment where you're getting away for the intention, the sheer intention of connecting with the heart of the Father, the heart of the Holy Spirit. This is where things begin to shape. I could teach you business strategies all day long. You get leads, get sales, get marketing, build teams, all that stuff. It's all irrelevant if I can't help you get connected to the Father in a way that is deeply personal and deeply meaningful. There are certain things that God will share with you through other people, and there are also certain things that God will only share with you directly. The process of Haggadah, as it merges with what I hear you say as journaling practice, is where the rubber meets the road. And I'm going to walk you through exactly how that works right now. The core principle you've got to understand is you can't hear truth at the speed in which you're running. Imagine if you're running down the road right now, but yet God is sitting on the side of the road and He's trying to yell something to you. You're so busy coming to the yelling or moving away from the yelling, it's hard to hear it clearly. This is why stillness is so powerful. Stillness is the only place we stand still long enough. There's a scripture in the Bible that says, "Be still and know that I am God." And in English, it's not translated with the deeper meaning. Be still and know that I am God in Hebrew actually means let go completely, surrender completely, rest completely. Let me be the embodiment of who I am I am not who you think I am. This moment is so powerful. If you have a chat tool, I literally want you to do this research. I want you to say, please help me understand, please help me understand the deeper meaning behind be still and know that I am God from the original language in which it was written, AKA Hebrew or Paleo-Hebrew, depending on the timeline. It will blow your mind. So as we get into this, let's go ahead and start with the why before the how. The reason leaders feel scattered isn't a time problem, it's a frequency problem. Too much anxious energy is bypassing the aligned energy that comes from the Father. We're running so fast, the only voice we can actually hear is the voice in our own mind. The one in our own mind is actively getting in our way because the ego— ego in so many ways edges God out, as Wayne Dyer used to say, and it limits the frequency in which we can adopt. The next fire, the next decision, the next thing's pulling on you. The quieter voice, the one that actually tells you the truth about your life, can't get a word in edgewise because we're so busy in anxious activity. Hustle culture is full of this. I'm a big believer that the spiritual principality of chaos that we've talked about before on the channel, that I kind of see it that way. The core thing that it does is it makes it impossible to hear the truth. And as a result, we always fall for a lie or we live in a lie, dysfunction, chaos, so on and so forth. The quieter voice, the one that actually tells you the truth about your life, about your business, about your leadership, about your relationships, about your parenting, literally can't get a word in. It's this activity that's in the way. The only way to break the cycle is to actually physically get still with the intention of stillness in the heart and the mind with a paper and a pen. What we don't realize, this is actually fear rearing its ugly head. Because this anxious activity hides fear decisions. It makes it impossible to see clearly. It often hides the fact that we've been chasing external solutions to fix internal issues. And here's the line I really want you to write down: external things can only be fully enjoyed when internal things are fully aligned. When I say internal, I mean your internal world is connected to the eternal world. That one connection Learning how God sees you clearly, fully, allowing that love to radiate through you, not feeling condemned, but feeling joyous in the fact that there is someone who already knows all your wounds, all your scars, all your stuff, and still says, "I love you anyway," just like you would do for your own child. You know your children's blind spots if you have them. You know where they struggle. You know where they stumble. Does your love ever waver? Of course not. Why would we ever think that God's love is any different? So as a result, you can hit revenue goals, you can build teams, you can build systems, you can buy the house, you can get the car, you can buy a freaking airplane, or you can go rent an airplane and stand in front of it like you own it, like the culture does right now. And you'll still be chasing, you'll still be looking for validation, you'll still be looking for self-worth, and you won't find it because those things happen from the inside out. And stillness is how you get there. The next core idea I want to share with you is you have to regulate the body before you reach for the truth. What does that mean? You can't meditate on anything that matters with your nervous system if it's still in execution mode. So the first move is to get anchored, which is why I say at the first part of the day to go literally first thing in the day and go sit down with your paper and your pen in the quiet, in the stillness. Take some deep breaths. We'll get in that in just a second. Take some deep breaths and walk your way through and getting regulated. The beautiful part is the process is simple. 3 to 5 slow, deep breaths. You're gonna hold it for 4 seconds. So let's do it again. Sss. Ahh. And exhale for 6 seconds. Do that 3 to 5 times. In my perfect world, I do it 7-7-7. I breathe in for 7 seconds, I hold for 7 seconds, and I release for 7 seconds. That's what it takes to get my nervous system to react. Now, as you're taking these actual deep breaths, it's vitally important you simply take your right hand, put it across your heart, and simply let your body know with dexterity that something is about to shift. And then say one sentence out loud: I'm here to listen. I'm not to perform. Lord, please speak. And sit there and just wait. Now, I'll be honest with you. When you're going into this practice and you're going with the intention of listening, sometimes it'll happen immediately. Like sometimes it's like, what I hear you say is, and you're writing like crazy. Sometimes you'll sit there for 10 seconds, 15 seconds, a full minute. The interesting thing is, just sit there long enough until you hear. That is part of the obedience process. Lord, I'm so focused on hearing from you today that I'm not leaving this chair until you actually speak. Imagine Jacob in the Bible wrestling the angel. One of the core reasons the Bible says he was blessed is because he refused to let go until the Lord blessed him. Treat this principle, this practice, as something very similar. Refuse to move until you hear. Then you'll find that the words will continue to flow day after day after day. The interesting thing is that the sentence does far more than you actually think. The intention does far more than you think. Because reality is, performing is the divided leader's default setting. And the American culture specifically is full of divided activities that ultimately give us diluted results. You perform for your team, you perform on stage, perform at church, and then you wonder why you feel like a fraud or you feel exhausted, overwhelmed, and burned out. It's because we're living divided. This one practice will help you get centered, which will bring you into more alignment quicker. As a result, you're going to lead into something called anchoring. Anchoring is where you set performance down for just a few minutes. This is the lamb showing up on purpose so the lion doesn't hijack the moment. Strength without stillness just becomes more force. Let's do that again. Strength without stillness just becomes more force. Too much lion, not enough lamb. If you know anything about what we're trying to build and teach you is how to become one part lion and one part lamb in maturity. So you carry strength and surrender equally. Now, the third core idea I want to settle into is this: don't skim the truth. Sit with it. Meditate on it. Here's where the principle of Haggadah actually lives. You see, hagah is the Hebrew word, as I mentioned before, and it doesn't mean quiet, peaceful little times of reflection. It means to growl, to mutter. It's the same word that gets used for a lion over its prey. Now, the process of chewing on something or sitting with something is really twofold. First, read it. Take whatever you're sitting with— a verse, a principle, a hard truth about your own life— and read it 3 times, not once. Read with the intent to understand and not to just simply move forward. First pass, read it for the words. What does it actually say? On the second pass, read it for the weight. What phrase keeps grabbing you and won't let you go? On the third pass, read it for you, not for what it means in general. What it's saying to you right now in your life, right now, your business, your leadership, your organization. Once you've made those three passes, take time to really sit with it. What one phrase that's humming the loudest in and around what you've read and what you've seen? What does it reveal about God before the truth of its application? What does it reveal about you? Where am I aligned and where am I not? What is it exposing that I have been avoiding? Now, please be very honest here, because this is where the constraints live. Fear, insecurity, arrogance, impatience, ignorance, all of them live right here. They live in the areas that we refuse to look at. One of those 5 is usually sitting right underneath the thing that you don't want to look at. That thing that you don't want to look at is actually what's impeding your next level. And finally, what's it inviting you into? It's not a hustle move. What's the align move? What is the practical next step in alignment through listening? What's really interesting is the world will tell you that you have to become to be worthy. What I've discovered is listening precedes being. Being precedes doing, doing precedes becoming. It's the only way it works. That is the biblical assignment category for kingship. Listening, then being, being becomes doing, doing becomes becoming. This is the process. This is the process that actually transforms you from the inside out. Look at Jesus, look at David, look at any major biblical character and actually see the commonality. How much time did they spend listening and then embodying the new being before doing the thing they were called to do. Even Jesus stepped into the Jordan long before he ever preached the first sermon. Why? It's because listening precedes being, being precedes doing, doing precedes becoming. That is the process. And that's the process ahead of you, which is why the first step is always listening in the stillness. So here's the fourth core idea. The part you want to skip is actually the part that really works. Now here's the move that separates leaders who want to change from the ones who just collect more information. After you chewed on it, you stop. You stop writing, you stop processing, you stop trying to be productive, and you just sit with what came up. And in that sitting, you're gonna pause longer than it feels comfortable, because in that sitting is where the truth lies. Everything in you screaming that this is a waste of time is the part of you that's resisting the change in the first place. It's actually the part of you that's holding you back. It's the part of you that's preventing the next level. It's the part of you to bring the next business idea. It's the part of you preventing the next relationship. It's the part of you preventing reconnecting with your children. It's the part of you that's screaming, "Hey, don't forget about me!" And the truth is, that's the divided leader talking. That's the part of you that's so addicted to motion, it can't tell the difference between rest and laziness. Laziness is ignoring what needs to take place Rest is chewing on what needs to take place. Sitting still in quietness is not laziness. It's the most productive thing you'll do all day. Because if you start your day in presence, presence will carry through your day. If you start your day in anxious activity, you will feel nothing but anxiousness in every activity. This is the truth. Think about Saul for a second. When they came to crown him king, they found him hiding in the baggage. The man who looked the most ready on the outside had buried himself in luggage because something inside of him yet wasn't built. Most leaders hide in their businesses the same way Saul hid in the baggage. Motion is today's modern baggage pile. Stillness is what pulls you out of it. If nothing comes immediately in the quiet, that's cool. Don't worry about it. The obedience is the process. The presence is the process. Sitting still is the process. The sitting itself is that, is the anchor. You're rebuilding the muscle tissue and the nervous system that's going to allow you to hear clearer more often and help you expedite through the process. The fifth core idea I want you to sit with is to carry one thing and not seven. Before you close the journal, write one sentence: Today I'm carrying this forward, blank. The one truth, the one application, the one thing you actually walked away with today. Not the seven insights, not a new strategy, the one that really sticks with you. The one that you can't let go of. Because when it comes to the divided leader, being a divided leader, we like to pick everything up and never put anything down. This is to ask you to pick up one thing and set the rest of it to the side for the time being. The process of integration is learning to carry less on purpose so you can carry it well. That's real stewardship. You're not responsible for acting on every single truth you heard in that simp-specific moment. Just the thing that really sticks out to you, the things that really resonates with your soul. You're responsible for that one thing in front of you that day. And if you want to know whether the session actually worked, there's one filter question: Am I leaving here with more clarity or more noise? If it's noise, you were performing again. Go back to do the breathing, go back to the journal. If it's clarity, you were present, and you'll feel a sense of peace with that presentness. As we're getting wrapped up here, I want to send you away with two different truths. The first one is, is you're not the source.. You are the steward. We cannot get those confused. The weight you've been carrying like it all depends on you was never yours to carry alone. Stillness, this practice of stillness, hagah, is where you hand it back. Second one, the leader your business needs next is not a faster version of who got you here. It's the more integrated one. The one who can carry strength and surrender simultaneously. Being the same leader in every room no matter the shape of the room whether it's family, it's business, it's life, it's you sitting with God in a journal. Be the same person across the board. Here's one final question I just want you to sit with. Don't answer it fast. Sit with it. Chew on it. What external thing are you chasing right now that you can't even fully enjoy because something internal hasn't been aligned yet? What external thing are you chasing right now that you can't fully enjoy because something internal isn't fully aligned yet. There's no need to answer it for more comments and more questions. Answer it in the quiet with a pen when nobody's watching. That's where the real work lives. Now, if this has hit something in you and it really resonates, can you do me a favor? Will you please like, share, and subscribe? But more importantly, share this with somebody that you know needs this message. This What I Hear You Say Is journaling process has done wonders for countless people all over the US.. And I love seeing the momentum grow because they are connecting and hearing from God directly on the very things that need to shift. And as a result, they're getting those shifts in a massive way. And if you haven't already done so and you want to check out the One Part Lion, One Part Lamb podcast, do so right here. And if you want more content just like this on a deeper dive, just go ahead and click right here. Until then, God bless you. See you in the next one. God bless. Peace.