Episode 1336: Interview with Julia Gentry Founder of the Dream Factory

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Joining us on episode 1,336 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

[00:00:07] Julia Gentry: I'm Julia Gentry. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent, and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to awaken and live your big dream is key.

[00:00:23] And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the Inspired Stewardship podcast with my friend Scott Maderer,

[00:00:38] right? Perfection is rooted in fear. So anytime I hear that, you're like, no, I just want it to look good. Well, that's in fear because if you follow that thread, Uh, it's because if it's not perfect, I won't be loved. I'll be rejected. I will like, it is actually a bottom of Maslow's hierarchy, safety, security, stability.

[00:00:54] It's an actual fear of rejection. Fear.

[00:00:58] Scott Maderer: Welcome, and thank you for joining us [00:01:00] on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true calling. In the Inspired Stewardship Podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself, invest in others, and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

[00:01:33] In today's podcast episode, I interview Julia Gentry. I asked Julia to share with you what brought her to focus on dreaming and focus on it as a positive thing. I also ask Julia how her faith journey brought her to where she is today. And Julia also gives you what you can do yourself to move towards living the dream.

[00:01:55] One reason I like to bring you great interviews, like the one you're gonna hear today is because [00:02:00] of the power. In learning from others. Another great way to learn from others is through reading books. But if you're like most people today, you find it hard to find the time to sit down and read, and that's why today's podcast is brought to you by Audible.

[00:02:16] Go to inspired stewardship.com/audible to sign up and you can get a 30 day free trial. There's over 180,000 titles to choose from, and instead of reading, you can listen your way to learn from some of the greatest minds out there. That's inspired stewardship.com/audible to get your free trial and listen to great books the same way you're listening to this podcast.

[00:02:43] Julia Gentry is the founder of the Dream Factory and Company and the author of a bestselling book in Christian Leadership Dream. I dare you. Despite starting her professional career in real estate, then being completely burned out in her early thirties, only to experience a midlife [00:03:00] awakening, Julia can say that today she is truly living the dream As a national speaker, Arthur and business owner, growth coach, wife and homeschool mom to five, Julia knows what it takes to bridge the gap.

[00:03:14] The Dream Factory and CO. Was founded on the vision to awaken Dreamers everywhere by giving them the tools to bridge the gap between where they are and where they want to be. Welcome to the show, Julia. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. So I'm excited to have you here and I shared a little bit in the intro, but intros never share the whole story.

[00:03:35] Can you talk a little bit about your journey and why did you start working around this idea of living the dream and doing the dream? Dream, I dare you. Was the book why Dreaming

[00:03:49] Julia Gentry: so fair? It's such a good question and it's actually what I think is the pivotal moment. For most people in their lives is exactly what God walked my husband and I [00:04:00] through about five years ago now, and this was at a time in our life, Scott, where we had really quote unquote pursued the American dream, right?

[00:04:07] We had, we were three ventures in, we had crawled out of a hundred thousand dollars in debt. We had. We had made a lot of mistakes. What I'm about to tell you is proceeded by a lot of mistakes and a lot of life lessons and, but my husband and I had built the quote unquote American Dream.

[00:04:23] So we have the car, the house, the 2.5 kids. We were running our own business. We had done all the things that people said, here's what you do in order to be successful. Yet we were crawling into bed each night asking very simple yet profound question, which is there something more the Bible talks about that, right?

[00:04:40] Like eternity is etched on the inside of all of our hearts. And I think it's one of those big questions that we all need to be asking, but few of us avoid it because it's a big question and then a lot of us aren't actually finding the answer. And so for my husband and I, this was a moment that we were like, We are having a midlife awakening and we joke [00:05:00] because everybody else calls it a midlife crisis, where we were like, no, we're having a midlife awakening.

[00:05:04] And instead of getting a tattoo or buying another car, we decided to sell everything and travel the country in an rv. And as we decided to do this, my husband literally was living his dream. Like he, we had three kids at the time. Traveling the country, having no plan, no agenda, no idea where we were going next was his heaven on Earth.

[00:05:27] For me, Scott was my hell on earth that like my controller came out like my need for safety and security and stability and so I just, that's the time in my life that I just really leaned into God. And I started asking him those big questions and it's when he landed with this vision, truly this open eye vision of.

[00:05:48] I have a message and I chose you to write it. I want you to write this book, and I want you to tell the world what I'm telling you. And after I resisted him for, I don't know, a year and a half it was a hard pass[00:06:00] but it was, it's what got us to where we are today. So it was this vision of unpacking and unlearning.

[00:06:06] What does it mean to dream God's dreams for your life? What does it mean to relentlessly live your life? In pursuit of those dreams. And now here we've built a company and a community a truly a national movement of awakening people to the dreams that God's put on the inside of them, and then giving them the tools to bridge the gap.

[00:06:26] Scott Maderer: So I first off, it's always funny to me that anyone who talks about God laying a book on their heart, the very next sentence is always, and I told him no for this long.

[00:06:39] Julia Gentry: Oh it's almost book like any dream. Here's my synopsis. After working with thousands of people, Anytime we lean into heaven's dreams, like we all have dreams and I'm not suggesting that they're bad like I want a nicer car, or I want a big house, or I wanna travel on an rv.

[00:06:57] Great. I'm not saying don't do [00:07:00] those, but when you really start to lean into what Heaven's dreaming about, You'll, you know it because God will land it in your heart and it seems impossible, too good to be true. Or we do the disqualification of God, do you know who I am? Do you know what I've done?

[00:07:16] Have you looked at my bank account? Do you understand my circumstances? You know how many mistakes I've made? Like we just disqualify ourselves, which is hysterical because when you, God would be like no, I know all of that. Like I'm very well aware of your mistakes and your patterns, and.

[00:07:31] So I just always think, it's so funny when we lean, when God's etching something on our hearts or in our minds, and we just are like, no, you got the wrong person. No. That can't be me. Yeah. It probably is. He knows. He knows you. So How did your faith evolved? You talked about the fact that you're in this RV and it's held to you, but you leaned into God a little bit.

[00:07:55] Scott Maderer: How did your faith journey evolve and intersect with.[00:08:00] The physical journey that you were on? Such a good question because I grew up in the church my parents were divorced when I was five years old. And for my mom, that's where she found God. So I grew up in the church, hands held high and running around and very charismatic.

[00:08:16] Julia Gentry: I knew, quote unquote every Bible verse, right? I did all the right things, said all the right things like that picture perfect upbringing until the age of about 18 years old when I detoured and wandered and I found God again. When I got married I, him and I started to really unpack our journey together.

[00:08:34] But I looked at my faith at this time, Scott, in a way that I think all of us should, which is very simple to growth. And that growth isn't just learning more or learning more about God or acquiring more skillset. Oftentimes it's about unlearning. And Mark Twain says this, but it's not what we know that hurts us.

[00:08:52] It's what we think we know. That just isn't and I think that in any area, but a lot of times in faith, [00:09:00] it's not what we think about God. It's what we think we know That just isn't and so for me, this was a five year and now forever journey that I have to be really mindful to not put God in a box.

[00:09:12] And did not compartmentalize him and did not take my past and throw it on him, and to not take social media quotes and like they're just there's so much that we're just not, we're not conscious to. And so for me, it was the time that I actually just got to unlearn what I thought about God and I just got to learn about.

[00:09:31] Who God really is as a father, as a counselor, as my comforter. And that will blow your mind, right? And that's the goal of God. Like he needs to blow our mind to get after our heart. He wants to get past the intellect and past the logic. And so this was a season in my life that he did that. He did that.

[00:09:49] Scott Maderer: A lot of times too when you, when people use the word dreamer, Or dream, it's got a negative connotation, oh, he's [00:10:00] nothing but a dreamer, which basically is code for, he's not gonna out for anything it's mother-in-law speak for please don't marry him.

[00:10:10] It that's what it is. Even though you're using this term, and I think you're probably using it in a different way than maybe people expect. So when you talk about dreams and dreaming, What do you mean by it and what makes that different than that? Colloquial negative connotation kind

[00:10:28] Julia Gentry: of a hundred percent.

[00:10:30] And I'm glad you asked that because I knew that was gonna be an uphill battle and it was for me. When God, he, I literally saw the word dream in my vision and he said that I want, and I was like, no. Again, no I'm not doing it cuz I. I was a learned controller because of my past.

[00:10:45] So to me, I'm a very prac, I had a very practical approach and I so dreaming and oh, just pray about it and all the things that are true. But it just felt like while you're praying, I'm gonna get stuff done right way while [00:11:00] you're dreaming, I'm gonna actually do the work. I just had a very practical approach.

[00:11:04] And so that began the journey of that unlearning. And so as I leaned in to really understand what does it mean to dream with God? What does it actually mean to be. Quote, unquote dreamer. The definition that I've landed on, and I write about this in my book, is the ability to have such deep focus in a different realm.

[00:11:21] I e heaven, right? My ability to go so deep within me, the voice in me go, that I actually am able to pull from heaven to earth what God is saying, thinking and doing. It's heaven on earth. It's my ability to not look at the world around me and determine my next step. It's my ability to actually take inventory.

[00:11:42] Sure. This is my reality. But you and I as believers, dreamers, we don't make decisions based upon what we see. We make decisions based upon what God is saying, based upon what God is doing. We live from heaven. From Revelation, and so part of this book is actually walking people through a [00:12:00] framework.

[00:12:00] It's a literal journey, a literal framework that helps them to unattach from what they see around them, to walk through limiting beliefs and the lies that the enemy oftentimes is throwing at us. That doesn't sound satanic, right? This is where the enemy gets us. It's not like he's Hey, do wrong and do evil and make bad choices.

[00:12:19] We're too smart for that at some level. He gets us because oftentimes the lies sound like our own voice. I'm not good enough. There will never be enough. I've made too many state mistakes. I can't trust anyone. And so we think it's our own voice right then to this point, that we actually can quiet the noises around us to hear the voice of God within us.

[00:12:40] And bring that into reality to partner with what he's doing and to use our lives as an opportunity to then give him the glory. That's really what it means to dream of God.

[00:12:50] Scott Maderer: We show up someplace and then we ask God to bless it, as opposed to listening first to where does God want us to go? Totally.

[00:12:57] Julia Gentry: And I think people ask me all the time how do you know if it's your [00:13:00] dream or God's dream? Your voice, or God's voice. One of the best things that my mentor said years ago was Julie, learning God's voice is a, it's a journey. And sometimes thinking you hear his voice moving on it and then realizing, oh no, that wasn't his voice.

[00:13:16] That was my ego, that was my fear, that's just as important as actually hearing his voice. Like we are in a journey of him leading us in the path of righteousness. He doesn't expect us to know the right way, and we even in making the wrong choices, he's faithful enough to lead us. And so I think part of this is to go, you know what?

[00:13:36] If you don't a hundred percent know that's your voice or God's voice, move on it. If it's not his voice, repent. Learn the lesson. Don't do it again, but rinse and repeat. Keep leaning in. And so I think that, just knowing that he's full of grace and like Peter, you gotta get outta the boat that's on you.

[00:13:54] But then walking on water, that's on God. And that's where we get to co-labor, get out of the boat, do [00:14:00] the thing, dream, take steps, take actions, give it your whole heart. And then trust. Have faith. His will, his way, his time. That's where miracles come. That's a good

[00:14:10] Scott Maderer: step. And so there's two expressions that come to mind that, that.

[00:14:15] Longtime listeners of the show will have heard me reference before because they come up for me all the time. And when I'm working with people, they literally finish these sentences because they hear it from it's like you've said that 300 times. Scott, I can finish your sentence. It's I know, but it's still I true and it's still important.

[00:14:32] And one is that idea of progress, not perfect. That they it's about moving forward. It's not about getting it. Perfect. Because we'll never get it perfect. Because we're imperfect beings in an imperfect world it's never gonna be 100% perfect, but that's okay. Yeah. It's about the progress.

[00:14:52] And then the other was the idea of living in what I call the both. And as opposed to the either or all too [00:15:00] often we try to put things in buckets. We can either pray or we can do something. But we couldn't possibly do both of those things, and it's no, God wants you to do both.

[00:15:13] God wants you to recognize the dream and lean into it, but God also wants you to do the work and it's both of those. How do those phrases resonate for you and what you're talking

[00:15:24] Julia Gentry: about? I love it. I think some of the two greatest things that I hear from people all the time is this.

[00:15:29] Notion of perfection or people pleasing, right? Like it needs to be perfect. It needs to be the right way. I don't wanna do the wrong thing, or I'm just afraid that I'm gonna hurt someone's feelings. Like I wanna just make sure that everybody's happy. And to me, both are rooted in fear, right?

[00:15:45] Perfection is rooted in fear. So anytime I hear that, people are like, no, I just wanted to look at that's in fear because if you follow that thread, It's because if it's not perfect, I won't be loved. I'll be rejected. I will. It is actually a bottom of [00:16:00] nozzle's, hierarchy, safety, security, stability.

[00:16:01] It's an actual fear of rejection, fear. So to me, when I hear that, it's always a good notice to shine the light on, Hey, you're, youre afraid you're focused on the wrong thing. But then here's the problem in my mind, with perfection and people pleasing, then I actually start to see it as my identity.

[00:16:17] People say I like things perfect, so I am I'm just a perfectionist. Or I just like to make people happy, so I'm a people pleaser, or my term I just I gotta control things, so I must be a controller. And then what happens is now I actually see myself as that. So now I almost tap out and don't take responsibility that it's actually a learned behavior to protect myself.

[00:16:41] So I love that topic and I lo I love that, but to me, I'm like, if people could understand why they're doing it, that it's based in fear, oftentimes the next time you go to do it, you go, oh man, am I doing this from a place of fear? Because if I'm doing it in perfection or people pleasing or control, I'm in fear.

[00:16:59] I'm in the [00:17:00] wrong lane.

[00:17:00] Scott Maderer: And fear is not afraid of the spirit ever. Never, yeah. That that's not how God shows up. Yep. Obedience, yes. Fear, no, they're it's a different feeling. Yeah. When you hear people talk about they come to you and they're like I'm struggling.

[00:17:21] I I can't possibly live my dream. My dream's not realistic or it's not possible. What are some of the things that you actually tell them?

[00:17:31] Julia Gentry: Oh man. Short answer. Either you think you can or you think you can't. And either way, you're right. I think that might be another. Mark Twain. We're just gonna, Henry Ford, mark,

[00:17:42] Scott Maderer: right?

[00:17:43] Henry. Henry Ford.

[00:17:43] Julia Gentry: Henry Ford. That's right. You're right. Henry Ford. So there's that. So at some level there's belief systems. I have three chapters in my book. All around belief systems. There's the difference between thoughts and beliefs. Thoughts come and go. I have thousands and thousands of them a day.

[00:17:56] Conscious and unconscious. Belief systems are actually where [00:18:00] I've taken the thought and I've supercharged it. I've thought about it so many times that now unconsciously I live from that place. So at some level, we're not just addressing behavior modification or even think better thoughts or chant, better mantras or just cool home or scripture.

[00:18:15] Yes, those all could work. But if I have a belief system that I'm layering all of this on top of. It doesn't matter how many things you do or don't do, a faulty belief system will get any faulty results. So for me, I am less fixated on changing your behavior and I'm completely enamored by changing belief systems and identifying the root of those comments.

[00:18:41] So for me, when they say that, I'm like, all right, we gotta get after the root of that. Cause all day long, if I believe that there's not enough time and God doesn't love me, or I'm just gonna fail, it doesn't matter how many pushups they tell you to do. How many strategic plans I give you, how many Bible verses I give you.

[00:18:59] It's like someone [00:19:00] puts earmuffs on their ears and cannot hear it or avail on their eyes. The Bible talks about this, right? A veil on their eyes. Why? Cuz I have a belief system. So we gotta uproot belief systems. That, that's a big topic, but that's generally where I'll start. So you've got a limiting belief.

[00:19:14] We gotta get that out and we gotta start planting new seed. We gotta plant a different belief if you want a different result.

[00:19:19] Scott Maderer: But obviously that's not an easy thing to change either. No that's, that actually takes real work. But here's the idea. So then this is my next step. I say this all the time.

[00:19:33] Julia Gentry: Because I get that people look at me like that's a can of worms and now I have to go back to 30 years of pain or trauma or you don't know my past. That is a huge undertaking. And so I always say to them, both are going to be hard. Holding onto that belief that will be a hard life. Stopping and creating some time in your life, maybe the next year or two that you devote to your belief systems.

[00:19:55] That's gonna be hard, right? It's all hard at some level. So we need to pick the right [00:20:00] kind of hard. We need to pick it based upon where we're going, based upon what God is asking us to do. It's hard to be fit. It's hard to be fat. It's hard to have money. It's hard not to have money. It's hard to be married.

[00:20:10] It's hard to be single. It's hard to be, have one kid, I have five. It's hard to have five turn turns out so my job with people is, all right, it's, let's just say it's all gonna be hard at some level. So what hard do you want most?

[00:20:25] Scott Maderer: And what result do you want? Outta your life in the long run too.

[00:20:33] So a lot of Christians, I think, begin to feel what you're talking about, this call from God, this dream, something being laid on their heart that hey this is the direction you're supposed to go. But I think we often it's related to what you were just talking about.

[00:20:53] We have a hard time trusting that especially when we start on the journey and then it's [00:21:00] inevitably gets bumpy and hard and rough and stuff goes wrong. What about folks that find themselves in that, that in between where they're feeling the call. But it's hard to do that next step, or it's got the pushback's coming.

[00:21:17] Julia Gentry: So good. Okay, so I have a whole chapter about this in my book. It's called Conviction. Who said the Heart is Bad? I know we don't like that, right? But think about it. You and I want, if you and I wanna be the healthiest version of ourselves, we get in the gym and we let it burn. Why do I let it burn?

[00:21:35] Because the pressure is a privilege. It's actually not gonna break me. It's there to make me right. I will lift till failure. Why? Because it's the only way to actually strengthen myself. Is God letting bad things happen to good people? No. Like we, at some level, we need to put that over there. Like we have, there's, we're like wrestling on questions that are not deserving of our energy.

[00:21:54] At some level, as a believer, we have to mature in our way of thinking, and so when the enemy throws that at us, right? [00:22:00] Why is God letting this stop doing that? You are better than that. The idea here, regardless of what's happening around you, could it be that it's not even about the goal, Scott.

[00:22:11] Like it's not about the dream, it's about who you're becoming along the way. We want the dream, we want the acquisition, we want the end goal. God's after our heart. He's after our character. And the reason he's after our character is because when we get the dream, yes we do at any level, right?

[00:22:28] Whether it's a greater level of income, whether it's more kids, whether it's the business or the book, right? He recognizes that the blessing is heavy. And so I need to be able to not only get there, I need to be able to stay there and only character will help you stay there. And so for us, sure.

[00:22:47] We wanna get there for God. He wants us to stay there. He wants his glory to be made manifest in us on this earth. And so he doesn't want us just to get there. He wants us to stay there and have the character that not only shows [00:23:00] people like, Hey, when you do the hard work, you can do this. But let me tell you about a God who was with me every step of the way and has given me the strength and the character to hold the blessing.

[00:23:12] So I think when you're up against some resistance, when you're up against some pressure, I think it's retraining our brain and our hearts to go. The pressure is a privilege. He's there with me. Even in the hard, he's making my character, he's refining my character, so let it burn. And then if you're like, yeah, but I don't want this dream, this is too hard.

[00:23:33] Okay, then don't go back to pick your hard cuz it's gonna be hard to quit and it's gonna be hard to go keep going. It's gonna be hard to stay the course and it's gonna be hard to just go, I'm out, I don't wanna do this anymore. When that moment comes, it's also the moment to go, all right, what do I believe here?

[00:23:52] What do I want most versus what do I want now? And is this dream worth the burn? And if it is [00:24:00] hold fast. Don't go weary. Doing good for the proper time, you will read the reward. Or if you're like, this is not a dream, this is, this was made up. I don't want this, then let it go. Sometimes the best things we could do is quit the wrong things.

[00:24:13] That just takes time

[00:24:15] Scott Maderer: in practice. And again, that's back to I think sometimes and this is always the challenge is it, what was that dream put on by God for me? Or is this my dream that I'm now trying to force on God?

[00:24:32] Julia Gentry: Okay, so let me give a real time example of this. So my husband and I truly today, we stand before you.

[00:24:37] Our lives are a reflection of the dreams that we had seven years ago and. Part of why I wrote this book again, was not because I was like, live the dream and this is awesome and everyone should be doing this. I wrote it because it's really hard. The in between was actually really hard and the refining was hard.

[00:24:52] We've gotten that a hundred thousand dollars out of debt. We've both gotten sober and not because we had this crazy alcohol problem, but because we used it as a place to hide. [00:25:00] We've traveled all across the country. We just, it's, it is, there's just a lot, right? We have five kids. We homeschool.

[00:25:06] Why I say all that is because the last thing on our dream list three years ago was a farm. We always had this idea of living on a farm, idea of living on a farm. My Pinterest board, you should have seen the pictures. They were beautiful. Look at this cute chicken and these cows that just make amazing noises and the farm is beautiful and all the things right.

[00:25:26] So we actually bought a farm in Sarasota, Florida. We and when the RV travels and our travel stopped, we were like let's settle down. Let's get our farm. We bought a farm in Sarasota, Florida. Scott, I liked the idea of a farm. I didn't actually wanna farm and my husband and I did a podcast on this you

[00:25:46] Scott Maderer: should have visited the farm.

[00:25:47] Not lived.

[00:25:49] Julia Gentry: That's what tra So Travis asked me one day, he goes, so what was the lesson in all this that you learned? He's What did you think it was gonna be? And I, so I pulled up my Pinterest account and I started showing him pictures. And it's the beautiful [00:26:00] chickens and the cat and I was like, I don't like being dirty.

[00:26:02] I'm so hot. Like I don't, and I go on about all these things and he was like, Julia, you liked the idea of the farm, you liked the Pinterest version of the farm. You didn't actually wanna do the work of the farm, did you? I give that example because I think that there's those times that you go, oh yeah, no that wasn't a good idea.

[00:26:19] That was a me idea. That was a Pinterest idea. That was the idea. Not, no, I don't wanna do the work of the farm. I just want the farm. Great example there. That's just, that's part of the story, that's part of the chapter. My My grandfather was a dairy farmer for years and had a dairy farm.

[00:26:38] Scott Maderer: And so I can remember going to visit him and getting up at three 30 in the morning, four in the morning to go help him milk the cows and no, farms are work, basic

[00:26:48] Julia Gentry: work. And it's so funny cause when you talk to all of our farmer friends they were like, oh, we love and we love our hands dirty.

[00:26:55] And I'm like, No, I don't like my hands dirty. I don't wanna putts, I wanna write books and speak and be with my [00:27:00] gi No I don't actually wanna do any of that, so good notice.

[00:27:05] Scott Maderer: Right up the road from where I live, there's a dude ranch that you can come camp out on and visit with the chickens and the cows and Great.

[00:27:12] And do all the pretty stuffs.

[00:27:13] Julia Gentry: I will do that. It's called Lamping, Yeah, glam. Yeah, exactly. Glamp there. And they have beautiful cabins and Nice. And they. Charge city people to come be on the farm for a little while, charge us.

[00:27:30] Scott Maderer: Cause I live in the middle of nowhere, so I always tell people I live 45 minutes from the closest Walmart, Starbucks, or McDonald's. So I live out in the country, so Love it. I love it. So I've got a few questions that I like to ask everybody, but before I, I go there, is there anything else you'd kinda like to share with the listener about this message that you share around daring to dream.

[00:27:51] Julia Gentry: Yeah, I think, again, my last point on this is just the two hardest days are number one, the day that you start, [00:28:00] it's today. It's the day that you start. The second hardest day is gonna be the day that you wanna quit. This is afternoon. Okay? It's tomorrow. It's in a month, in a year. We all have those days.

[00:28:11] And so the simple, stupid, hard is one of our favorite hashtags. Simple, stupid, hard is start. And don't stop. So you're never too old, you're never too young, you're never too far behind. You're ne just start and don't stop because the world needs your dreams. God wants to work in and through you. And so it's just the, it's just the mindset and heart set that will start and not stop.

[00:28:37] Scott Maderer: So my brand has inspired stewardship and I kinda run things through that lens of stewardship. That's something that means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. So when you hear the word stewardship, what does that word mean to you and what does the impact of that understanding had on you?

[00:28:55] Julia Gentry: Yeah, I think that to me it means the recognition [00:29:00] that God has chosen me. In everything that he's given me, whether it's my time, my talents. My kids, right? Like he has given, he has chosen me to give me what he's given me, and it's my ability to honor that and to give it back to him. And so I'm always reminded of doing everything with your whole heart.

[00:29:25] So stewardship to me is the recognition of God has given this to me, and now I wanna give it back to him in a place of excellence with my whole heart. So I wanna be a mom with my whole heart. I wanna give of my time with my whole heart. I wanna give of my talents with my whole heart. And so it's just almost like that.

[00:29:40] Namaste. The light in me, honors it acknowledges the light in you. So God, thank you for giving this to me. Now I will live my life back honoring you with what you've given me. I love that. So this is my favorite question. Imagine for a minute I could invent this magic machine and I could pluck you from where you are today and magically transport you into the [00:30:00] future, maybe a hundred fifty, two hundred fifty years.

[00:30:03] Scott Maderer: And through the power of this machine, you were able to look back and see your entire life and see all of the connections, all of the ripples, all of the impacts that you've left behind. What impact do you hope you've left in the world?

[00:30:17] Julia Gentry: So my vision is a world where we create uninhibitedly because we are loved unconditionally.

[00:30:23] And I would love to see, oh man,

[00:30:32] I Scott, I of course, I wanna change the world. I wanna make the world a better place. And now that I have a family and I have a family of five babies, And I just wanna see that for generations that we set up a group of people, we'll call 'em the Gentries and Right. Whatever those name changes are.

[00:30:54] But that it, it created a stage, a mindset, and a heartset for them to [00:31:00] create uninhibited because they know that they are loved unconditionally. And though that's always been true for me in truth. I've had to fight to learn that again. I've had to truly fight these last 29 years to understand that at a heart level in daily, I still have to take that to God, and I'm still unlearning what that means and how to create uninhibitedly and freely and how to be loved and unconditionally and to love and return.

[00:31:31] So my prayer is that if I look back, we saw the ripple effect. Of these lessons in our life and the lessons of our kids. Kids.

[00:31:39] Scott Maderer: So what's on the roadmap? What's coming next for you as you finish out? The second half of this year,

[00:31:49] Julia Gentry: we have launched a mastermind group called Dream Storm, and it is everything that fills my heart up.

[00:31:55] It's everything that fills my cup up. For the last four years, we've truly [00:32:00] watched thousands of people's lives transformed with this book. Again, here I was early on going everyone writes a book and what book's not gonna change lives, and I need to do something more or be better or all the things.

[00:32:11] And we've seen this change lives. And so now we've created a community where people actually get to interact with each other and have the tools and an ongoing basis lifting till failure, leaning in, learning God's voice, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, being equipped. I am in love with this group. I'm in love with this community.

[00:32:31] And so that is on our radar that with our Dare to Dream events, which we are now taking all across the country, east Coast to West Coast those two are, those are my baby projects right now.

[00:32:43] Scott Maderer: Awesome. So you can find out more about Julia and her books and all of the work she does and these groups that she's talking about over@thejuliagentry.com.

[00:32:55] Of course, I'll have a link to that in the show notes as well. Julia, is there anything else you'd like to [00:33:00] share with the listener? If you're interested

[00:33:02] Julia Gentry: in joining us on any of our events or these Dream Storm Mastermind groups, you can also go to Dream Storm with julia.com. My final, Scott is just the world is waiting.

[00:33:13] The world is waiting. An eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed and I encourage you to lean in and to dream on because of the world major dreams.

[00:33:25] Scott Maderer: And of course I'll put a link to that one as well over in the show notes. So thanks for sharing that. Thanks so much for being here today.

[00:33:33] Thanks for having me.

[00:33:40] Thanks so much for listening to the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoyed this episode, Please. Please do us a [00:34:00] favor. Go over to inspired stewardship.com/itunes.

[00:34:06] Rate all one word iTunes rate. It'll take you through how to leave a rating and review, and how to make sure you're subscribed to the podcast so that you can get every episode as it comes out in your feed. Until next time, invest your time. Your talent and your treasures. Develop your influence and impact the world.

[00:34:35] I.