Intro

Welcome to the Freq Show podcast, hosted by Sam Thurmond and Jaclyn Steele Thurmond. Sam is an Air Force Academy graduate and veteran who, after his service and two deployments, escaped the nine-to-five grind by building a real estate investing business that has, to date, accounted for over $50 million in real estate transactions. Jaclyn is an award-winning musician, former owner of boutique branding agency Steele International, and Real estate investor and designer for luxury multi-million dollar homes.

Jaclyn

We are so excited to welcome you to the Freq Show podcast, where we center our content around the frequency of belief.

Sam

Why? Because when we overcome fear and self-doubt, basically by getting out of our own way, we can make the impossible possible.

Jaclyn

And in this podcast, we are going to share our favorite mindset tools and life lessons that have completely transformed our lives and businesses. So without further ado, let's get Freqy. All right, welcome back to The Freq Show. This is episode 19, and today's episode title is All You Have to Do is Pay Attention. And I'm really excited about this episode. I wrote it this morning, actually, and it came straight from the heart. And the summary of this episode, or just a little taste, is that there are signs everywhere, but are we really paying attention to them? And are we taking action when God is showing us it's time to pivot? And the reason this is so timely is because Sam and I have been called to pivot a lot recently. I think of Ross and friends, pivot, pivot, pivot, in that episode where they're trying to fit the couch up the stairwell. And I feel like, though I don't believe God shouts at us, that has been what's happening in our lives. Pivot, pivot, pivot, pivot. And the quote that I would like to open with is from Paolo Coelho. which he's my favorite author in the world. He writes so many spiritual books. Many people know him from The Alchemist, but this particular quote is from a book he wrote called This is Here. And I love it so much. I created a piece of artwork from this quote and put it up above our bed for years, years and years. And the quote is, all you have to do is pay attention. Lessons always arrive when you are ready. And if you can read the signs, you will learn everything you need to know in order to take the next step.

Sam

Love it.

Jaclyn

So I think we start by breaking down this quote a little bit. And the first question that I have is, how does one pay

Sam

attention?

Jaclyn

How does one... Pay attention. Mango, retake. That

Sam

was funny. We just had a studio gaffe there that was... A loud boom. A loud boom. But ask me one more time.

Jaclyn

How does one... pay attention. And this isn't necessarily just a question for you. It's a question for the audience. How do you pay attention to your life in order to know when the lessons are arriving, in order to know when there are signs right in front of you so that you can learn everything you need to know in order to take the next step? And to me, and I'll speak first and then you can add, is that I pay attention through my senses. It's vision. So you can maybe see different things. And I can give an example of that. It's emotional reaction. What's happening within your body? It's sound. Are you overhearing something that is very influential? Or is there a lyric that's coming up that just hits you exactly where it needs to hit you? Is there a smell that takes you somewhere? Is there a taste that takes you somewhere and reminds you of a specific time? I think that God orchestrates things so perfectly. And if we are paying attention, there is often very clear direction. I remember when I was deciding where I wanted to go to college and I had several different options and my heart really wanted to go to Baylor. but I was like, God, I need a sign. And in Iowa, of all places, shortly after I said, I think it was the same day, shortly after I said I needed a sign, I saw a Texas license plate. And so signs can visually be very, very real.

Sam

Yeah. Sorry, I was just looking up a book title.

Jaclyn

I was like, are you checking your text messages while I'm talking? That's so rude. I think that Emotional reaction. I remember when I was doing music full time and it was really a cool opportunity. I was given a private audition for The Voice and they sent me over the contracts and I read them over and I had this visceral reaction like this is not the opportunity for me. Everything within me, it was not a fearful reaction. It was a, this is not the right place. path for me reaction. And I'm so glad I didn't do it, but I had a very emotional reaction. So maybe you pay attention and you see something visually, maybe you're paying attention and your body has a reaction, you know, like if you get back with your boyfriend who's awful to you and then all of a sudden you get physically ill, probably a sign.

Sam

Yeah. I like the lighter, heavy approach. Like, Taking a minute to sit with a decision and truly getting in tune with your body, with the present moment, and then introducing the decision that you're going to make and whether or not it feels heavy or it feels light. And we know the difference. You know that feeling. Yeah. I'm going to buy this house or I'm deciding whether I'm going to buy this house or I'm going to partner with this person or I'm going to go on a date with this person or whatever it is, your consciousness will tell you what that future looks like based on your decision. And I got that from, I was trying to look up the name of the book again. It is... Who's

Jaclyn

it by? Do you remember?

Sam

Dan Heer. Dane here, Dr. Dane here. It's the guy that wrote the book that Jason Drees read that kind of stimulated his Do the Impossible. It's in your audio books. Yeah. And so he talks about allowing your consciousness or whatever, basically, to tell you if something feels light or if it feels heavy. And It's one of those things that's hard to explain, but you

Jaclyn

know what I'm talking about. Yeah, you know what it feels like.

Sam

And it's so true. And it won't—you're going to know—it's not going to lie to you either, and it's not going to let you off the hook. Because if it's something that you don't necessarily want to do because it's going to be hard— but you know that you should do it, you're going to feel that. Like you're going to know it. And so it's just a way, I think, to tap into a higher knowledge

Jaclyn

or God. To see what the frequency is around that thing. Yeah. So how does one pay attention? You can ask yourself, does this feel light? Does this feel heavy? You can look around. and look for visual cues. You can look for emotional reactions, physical reactions that you have. You can pay attention to sound, smell, taste. And then I think the next part that we need to go over within this incredible quote, all you have to do is pay attention, lessons always arrive when you are ready, is how to figure out if you're ready for the lessons. Are you priming the soil? What do you think that means? Lessons arrive when we are ready. What does that mean to you?

Sam

To me, it means that you're going to toil in whatever it is you're struggling with until you gain an awareness of

Jaclyn

Why it is you're toiling.

Sam

Why it is, yeah, that you're toiling or whatever it is that you're, whatever false belief that you're holding on to until you recognize that as such. So ultimately, I think it comes down to perspective. I think when your perspective, when you gain the perspective, that's when you're going to be ready because that's going to enable you to see things the way you that you're intended to see them at the next level?

Jaclyn

In the book, The Disappearance of the Universe by Gary Renard, he talks about how if we were to see the glory of God and the truth of God in all of its fullness, or to see our full human potential in one visual, it would be way too much for our human brains anymore. And so the way that God teaches us is through these levels of consciousness, so to speak. And as we create more awareness through paying attention, like Paolo says, we become more ready for difficult situations. lessons. You know, you don't start with your PhD, you start with your high school diploma. And even from there you have to go to junior high and you have to go to elementary school. So the way that we learn is through sequences, right? Um, and so we have to be willing to put in the work, whether it's letting go, or trying harder or understanding different truths about ourselves, we have to be willing to face all of those things. And until we are kind of like physically standing on the road with our arms wide open going, I'm ready for this next step, we're probably going to be swimming in our own shit for a while.

Sam

And I also think an important thing And this is, I think, ultimately why we're talking about pivoting today is I think one of the major steps is letting go of exactly how you think things are supposed to play out.

Jaclyn

100%.

Sam

And letting... I think I was listening to a podcast the other day where the guy said his mom always said, don't look through the front door. You got to look through the back door too for your opportunity and for your blessings to come. And so when we let go of exactly how we think things need to happen... Which is hard to do because we want to visualize, we want to manifest, we want to feel it, we want to believe it. Yeah,

Jaclyn

and that forms attachments sometimes. Yeah,

Sam

and so we become attached. And so we limit God or the universe or however we think that that is going to manifest in our reality to exactly what we need it to be. But I think when we can release it and not be attached to our own description of or vision of exactly how something is supposed to play out, then we open ourselves up to allowing God to work

Jaclyn

in

Sam

our lives and being open to God's voice or direction or what we're talking about here.

Jaclyn

Which ultimately is the best source of direction. And that is going to get you the most incredible result possible. So going back to the quote, again, breaking this down, all you have to do is pay attention. Lessons always arrive when you are ready. And if you can read the signs, you will learn everything you need to know in order to take the next step. The next question I have is how do you read the signs? And that's a question that you can answer. And I'll add this. Once you have a sign, your job is to take action as quickly as possible. not to wait for the second or third or fourth sign, because this is where faith comes into play. And faith is an essential element to reading and taking action on the signs. It's like that joke where there was a flood and this guy's on top of his house and a guy in a rowboat goes by and he says, no thanks, God's going to save me. And then a person in whatever floats by.

Sam

Happens three times and the guy sends him away.

Jaclyn

Yeah. And then the guy dies and gets to heaven. He goes, God, you said you were going to save me. Why didn't you save me? And God was like, well, I sent you three people to save you and you didn't accept any of them. So when God gives us a sign, an act of faith is to act on that immediately. So going back to my example of seeing the Texas license plate and me feeling like that was a sign that I needed to go to Baylor, I went to Baylor and it ended up being the best college experience I could have possibly asked for. The other sign of having that contract in front of me for the private audition for The Voice and turning it down, I'm so glad that I did to this day, 10 years later. And there have been so many other signs along the way for us that I think you and I have taken action on or I've taken action on that have blessed us. in so many ways. So how do you read the signs? What nugget of wisdom can you share about this? Because I think it's so easy in our world to think of life as being black and white and not allowing God to have a very heavy hand in what we're doing. But when we allow God to have a very heavy hand, the results are tremendous. so much better and so much more mind-blowing than we would ever be able to create on our own.

Sam

Yeah. Yeah, well, I think the light and heavy litmus test is a really good one. I think prayer and meditation are extremely important. And, you know, I always... One thing I've found is in prayer that we are waiting for God to speak to us. We're waiting to hear His voice or whatever that sounds like. I think sometimes it is our own voice speaking back to us because I know me, a lot of times in prayer and meditation, I'll be having a conversation with myself. And I'll be like, I think that's just me talking. That's just me

Jaclyn

talking. But you are part of God. And so there is an element of holiness in you. Right.

Sam

And that's what I'm getting to is that in that conversation, I think a lot of times that's how God speaks to us is you are verbalizing or you're having the... the thoughts that God wants you to have or that you're saying. And, you know, as long as you can then take those and say, does this feel right? Does this, does this feel light or does it feel heavy? And if it feels light, then, you know, you got to, you're talking to, you humbled yourself. You went before God, you talked to God about it. And then you asked yourself on another level, does this feel right? Or is this just me? Is this my ego? So I think it's like listening and, And then taking that step back and saying, do I think this is divine direction or is this my ego talking? You know what I mean? And then just being aware, like you said, it's, I think looking for the signs, actively looking. Being open. Yeah.

Jaclyn

But

Sam

actively looking, like expecting them. That's when you're going to see them. And asking for them, all those

Jaclyn

things. And I'll give some examples of ways that I've seen signs. I've seen number sequences and then looked up what that number sequence means. I will have a book cross my path that is exactly the message that I need to hear. I'll come across a podcast randomly, and I'm saying that in air quotes. I'll have a conversation with someone that is just so clearly divine. Mm-hmm. I'll see a movie. I mean, there are endless ways that God can show up. Endless, endless, endless. And I think the more we open up and the more we literally say like, God, show me the way, God will show us. Yeah. So I think going back to the pivoting point, portion of this, we should talk about why we're talking about pivoting in the first place. And we should humble ourselves and be honest about what's going on in our life right now and why this quote has always been applicable, but is especially applicable right now. And that is because one of the properties that we listed in early May It's Villa Secreta or Villa Secreta, depending on how you pronounce it. We have it all over our social media if you want to look at it. It's this incredible Spanish home that we thought was going to sell immediately. Our expectation was that it was going to sell immediately. And now it is the end of June and it has been on the market for about seven weeks, which is about seven weeks longer than we expected it to be on the market. And so we're learning... that we need to pivot our approach and we've been pivoting for the last few weeks. But I think also what we're learning is that there are so many lessons or relearning. There are so many lessons in struggle. There are so many lessons in risk. not only business lessons and very clear directives on the outside, but also soul lessons. When you ask God, what do I need to learn from this? There are things that will come up that you never even understood were even related that needed to come to the surface to be healed. And so while I don't ever wish struggle on anyone, while I don't ever wish struggle on us, the lessons that we have learned through this process are so rich with wisdom, we could never have paid for these kinds of lessons.

Sam

Yeah, I mean, I think everything we've experienced has been intentional to get us back, get us to that perspective that we need to teach us, show us and teach us the lessons that we need to move forward so that we can apply it moving forward and we can have a deeper understanding of God and of our faith and of all of the above and what's truly important in life and all of those things. It makes all of that richer. And I wanted to mention, you know, we have a lot riding on the sale of this property, but what I wanted It's not like, how do I want to say this? I think we've been listening and paying attention from the beginning.

Jaclyn

And

Sam

what I mean is when we listed the property, when we first started the project, our ARV or after repair value, what we thought the home would sell for was $1.75 million. to $2 million. So a pretty big range, but we thought $2 million at that point in time was the highest what we would be able to get for the house, potentially. We thought it would probably fall between $1.8 and $1.9 million. Then as we progressed in the project, there were a few more sales in the neighborhood that told us that comps might be a little bit higher than that. So we pushed it up to two. We listed it at 2.25. But literally the week that we listed the house, we got a $2 million offer, which was what we would have been ecstatic about. ecstatic about when we originally started the project because that was the highest we thought it could go for. So we did receive that offer, but it didn't feel right.

Jaclyn

No, it didn't, not based on the comps.

Sam

And it didn't, well, it didn't feel right from a gut level, I don't think. I mean, not from a, to me it wasn't a standpoint, it wasn't like a greed standpoint. thing it was one the the home is worth more and two the potential buyers it just didn't feel right with the potential buyer and the communication

Jaclyn

with them way too sticky

Sam

uh yeah so it just didn't feel right but that was a gamble for us you know we could have just taken that and moved forward and been on to the next and not spent the last seven weeks seven weeks you know kind of wringing our hands and just building our faith. But at the end of the day, that's what we had to do. That's what we needed to do. So we made that decision because it felt heavy to take that offer. Yeah, it did. So we decided to turn it down and wait for the right buyer because we truly feel like it's worth more. But this whole, this period has been a bit of a crucible for us because... We've had a ton of traffic at the property. We've had a ton of people look at it and give very, very positive feedback. We just haven't been able to hook the right buyer or the right buyer just hasn't made their way through. This is a period where I think you put us in this seat three years ago we would have been in a mental institution, you know, because the pressure would have been so much. But now we're at the point where, you know, today we looked at things and we had a potential buyer that we really felt was the one. Yeah. It was a family and... They were kind of exactly what you pictured in the home. And it just felt like, okay, we're about to get it. They decided to move to Scottsdale. They're going to make the offer. And then we find out that financially...

Jaclyn

Yeah, they may not be able to procure financing. They may not be able

Sam

to do it. And so they were interested in a lease option or a rent-to-own type of situation. So then we started... So first we were very disappointed. We were very disappointed because we felt like they were going to be the ones to buy it. But then we started running the numbers based off of what we could potentially refinance the property for, hold on to it, what we could rent it for long-term, what we could short-term rent it for, what we could potentially... own or finance it for, sell on contract for deed, all those sorts of things. And it started to look a lot more attractive, whereas when we ran the numbers three months ago, it didn't make as much sense because we thought the value was lower. But we didn't really circle back to it. But now, after running these numbers, gosh, this might be an even better situation. And this might be something we could... do the next deal with and it might be a whole different strategy that we just need to focus on and you know if we don't sell it then we don't have to pay the capital gains tax so we could potentially

Jaclyn

and we can keep this incredible property in our portfolio

Sam

yeah so I think it We're at a point now where it's, you know, if somebody came in and gave us an offer for what we have it listed for, I think, you know, we'd take it. Sure. But it puts us in a position of power to now be pivoting and saying, what are our other options? And it's kind of funny that we haven't done that yet because I feel like I normally know down to the penny, like, how all these scenarios would work out.

Jaclyn

Well, you ran that when we purchased the property, but I think so much has happened, but also I think we needed to go through this crucible because I think we're coming out on the other end, different people in some ways, same hearts, but our understanding of things being very different. And I think, you know, like we talked about two episodes ago about your why, Like we understand our why a lot more clearly now because of this experience.

Sam

Yeah. And not to mention, we won't let the cat out of the bag yet here, but the other two ventures that we're now pursuing

Jaclyn

as a result. Not just two, there's like four.

Sam

Yeah. Yeah. The other four.

Jaclyn

Business pivots that are going to be. There's so much enthusiasm and excitement around that. As a

Sam

result of the house not selling immediately.

Jaclyn

Yeah. And we wouldn't have done that otherwise.

Sam

Yeah. Because we would have just gone on to the next one.

Jaclyn

Yeah.

Sam

Yeah. Yeah.

Jaclyn

God works so beautifully. Yeah. And I'm so grateful because we have so much enthusiasm going around this. So we still don't know how it's going to turn out, but... we are obviously being called to pivot and we are expecting the result to be even better than what we initially imagined. And that's part of the frequency of belief, right? Expecting amazing things to happen. And I want to add before we wrap up that pivoting does not mean failing. We need to take failing out of our vocabularies as if it were a bad thing. Pivoting means you are working with God instead of working against God. Does that make sense? Pivoting is like being in a whitewater raft and working with the current instead of against it. You are going to get to the destination a lot faster and a lot safer than you would if you were working against that current. Paulo Coelho also says, When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it. And the key here is understanding that the final destination may look different than you were expecting. But if this is the case, it will be even better. Do you want to add anything to that before I leave everybody with a question? I

Sam

think that the only thing I'll add is, like you said... Pivoting is a sign of strength. And I think pivoting is taking your, in a lot of ways, taking your power back.

Jaclyn

I was just going to say that.

Sam

Because I think if you are so... I think of it this way. Take selling the house, for example. If we were not open to pivoting, we would just be sitting there putting our fate in... somebody else's hands. Hoping somebody comes, waiting for somebody to come, taking somebody to come by it. But when we can take that power back and say, okay, let's reassess this. What are our other options? Now we're going to go figure it out. And I wouldn't be surprised if as soon as we get financing lined up or somebody's going to come in and pay exactly what they want for it. But That's because now your energy is one of abundance and one of, hey, I got options. I'm in the position of power now. So I think that's how I look at pivoting. It is definitely not failure. It is just figuring out, in many cases, a better way of doing something.

Jaclyn

So I'm going to read the initial quote one more time because it's so beautiful. All you have to do is pay attention. Lessons always arrive when you are ready. And if you can read the signs, you will learn everything you need to know in order to take the next step. And the question I want to end with is, what are you working against the current on? And how can you pivot to work with the current instead? All right, everyone. Thank you for listening. If you haven't already, please leave us a review and we cannot wait to connect with you next week. Thank you so much for listening to The Freq Show with Sam Thurmond and me, Jaclyn Steele Thurmond. We would love to connect with you via our website, beckonliving.com and on social media.

Sam

You can find us on Instagram and TikTok @ beckon living and you can join our email list to receive uplifting messages, podcasts and business updates and discounts on high frequency products just for our Freqy community. Cheers. to high frequency living.