Author: Henry Murphy

Faith and doubt. Two words. Two beliefs.

The first time I really sat with that, it blew my mind because I had never considered doubt a belief. Wow. Even thinking about it now amazes me.

Here’s my point: What if those two words could be powerful enough to change your life? They can either work for you or against you. Used the right way, they can push you toward things you once only imagined but were too afraid to pursue.

That’s why I believe it’s important to be mindful of who we talk to and who we share our ideas and dreams with, especially when we’re still learning to use our faith to move us forward.

Think about it. You share an idea with your best friend or your cousin, and the first thing they ask is, “But what if it doesn’t work?”

Sometimes people miss the point entirely. We never know for certain whether something will work, so why automatically imagine the worst outcome instead of considering the best?

Why not ask, “What if it DOES work?”

One question focuses on an undesirable outcome. The other opens the door to a desirable one.

And you have to ask yourself: What makes us so quick to imagine the things we don’t want to happen?

Think about it. You’re about to board a plane from Atlanta to Los Angeles. Do you sit there thinking, What if this plane crashes? Of course not. You expect to reach your destination.

Yet when it comes to our dreams, our businesses, and the things we want to accomplish, we can spend more time imagining everything that could go wrong than considering what could go right.

And if you’re surrounded by people who constantly encourage you to think that way, you need to challenge that thinking or reconsider how much access you give them to your dreams. You don’t need people reinforcing your doubts when you’re trying to build your faith.

Let me leave you with this.

One of the greatest gifts we have is our imagination. And when you start asking yourself, “What if the very thing I’m imagining actually works?” you give yourself permission to believe it’s possible.

Faith and perseverance will help you keep moving toward it, but it all starts with your mindset.

If you’re anything like me, then you wrestle with words like laziness and ambitious.

I always try to find the middle because if I’m not being productive, I automatically attribute it to laziness. And there are times when I’m so ambitious that I forget to rest.

Maybe that’s my struggle alone.

The thing is, I’m not this way because I’m trying to reach a particular lifestyle or own properties in different countries.

Now, let me say this. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with any of that. One day, I do want to own real estate in different countries, but that’s not my goal.

Those are what I call byproducts.

Meaning, if I can build a business and serve people, and people are willing to pay me for a service that improves their lives, that’s how I make money.

Then, in turn, if I manage that money well through investments and how I live, some of the things I desire can become a reality.

The thing that drives me the most, though, is stewardship.

There’s something about this line:

“Whatever your hands find to do, do it with everything you have in you.”

That’s what you call the written word.

And let’s not even get into the parable of the talents. I just never want to be the wicked and lazy servant.

I always try to have compassion when I’m talking to mentees or people I coach. Because I struggle with that line myself, I try to give them grace.

But I also believe there’s such a thing as too much grace.

Here’s what I mean by that.

If you know you can be more productive, then you need to be more productive. However, don’t become so productive that you forget to take time off or get the rest you need.

But there are zero excuses for doing nothing when you know you’re capable of doing more.

Hold yourself to that standard. Because one day, God will.

So I’m sitting in a coffee shop, minding my business, kind of, and I overhear this conversation between a husband and a wife.

The conversation started with this statement:

“If you say so, I guess you have your priorities straight.”

So the husband, whose name was Kevin.

Based on the conversation, Kevin had been trying to get his wife on board for years about him being an entrepreneur. And it sounded like she had finally agreed.

So Janice tells her husband, Kevin:

“I really think that you’re not locked in like you should be. You’re still trying to do everything you used to do while you were building a business.

“I don’t see you investing in your mindset with books. You barely read.

“I’ve asked you continuously to get a coach to help you navigate, but you always say it’s too expensive.

“But I see you eat out all the time. I see you go to the sports bar and buy wings all the time.

“And I don’t wanna keep naming everything that I see, but you can’t tell me that you want something, then persuade me to have your back, and I do, and then you don’t go all in.”

Kevin just sat there quietly for a while.

At this point, I wanted to peek over the booth because I wanted to see his face and what he was looking like. But, of course, that would’ve been rude, so I just sat patiently and listened.

Kevin finally says:

“You’re right. I don’t have my priorities straight.

“I prayed that I could become an entrepreneur, and I prayed that you would support me.

“I have the opportunity, and I haven’t started it correctly.

“I’m gonna change that immediately.”

When I heard Kevin say those words, I just smiled to myself.

I didn’t even look their way. I didn’t wanna know what they looked like.

I threw my cup in the trash and walked out.

Sometimes, the conversation you overhear is the reminder you may need to have with yourself.

My wife and I would walk past these pink benches every time we went to get pho.

I walked with Wifey the entire first week, trying to get a scope of the land because of my eyes. I need repetition when I go to a new place.

I had to figure this type of thing out in California by myself because, at that time, my wife couldn’t walk.

It’s amazing how life is. Some seasons are so crazy that you don’t even know how you’re going to make it to the next one. Then some seasons are so beautiful that you just enjoy every minute of them.

I said to myself, “This is gonna be my spot.”

This is gonna be the spot where I drink coffee most mornings and write my blogs.

Now, every day when I go to drink coffee and sit on one of these benches, I realize I meet somebody new.

Today started out kind of funny.

This lady walked up to me who wasn’t a native to Vietnam and asked me if I had a cigarette.

When I told her no, I don’t smoke, she looked at me like, “Are you sure you don’t smoke?”

I looked back at her and said, “No, ma’am. I don’t smoke.”

For some reason, she was not convinced. 😂

I said to myself, “Do I look like a smoker?”

So, as I’m people-watching and watching the traffic, this guy walks up to me and says, “I see you here soaking up the sun.”

His accent caught me off guard because he sounded like he was from France.

Then I looked closely and realized he was a Black guy with locs that were just beginning to drop.

He told me he was from a small island next to France and close to Madagascar.

That really piqued my interest, so we started having a conversation.

He asked me what I was doing here and what I did for a living. Once I told him I was an entrepreneur, he started leaning in and asking me a lot of questions.

It was a really amazing conversation.

I got the opportunity to tell him about the freedom of routine. We also talked about why you shouldn’t chase money because it will always elude you.

Instead, create something the marketplace needs so you can serve people. When you focus on creating value and serving people, you put yourself in a position to earn money by doing something that matters.

Anyway, it was an amazing conversation.

And I thought to myself, there are gonna be some very interesting conversations taking place on this pink bench in the future.

Ever since I became an entrepreneur in 2011, there was something I desired even more than making money.

Freedom of time.

Today makes two weeks that I’ve been living abroad in Vietnam.

I feel like I’ve spent a lot of my life in a hurry.

I know there will be seasons when it takes intentionality and dedication, depending on what I’m building in the future.

But there’s something that happens here almost every day in Vietnam that has caught my attention.

People actually take naps during the day.

I mean, they literally stop working and go to sleep. 😂

I’ve been an early riser for a while now. I’m up around 5:30 AM, and I’m either writing, thinking about how to walk a client through a situation, reading a book, or working on content.

I jumped into entrepreneurship for this type of freedom.

I didn’t want to be busy all the time anymore. I wanted to be productive.

I wanted to take time for walks, have conversations, and enjoy creating.

And now, I feel like there are no more strings on me.

I’m not tied to anything.

I still have ambition, but it’s different now.

I don’t have anything to prove. I’m not trying to impress anyone.

I’m realizing that what I do, I can do anywhere in the world.

I can be a founder. I can be a coach. I can be an author.

Anywhere on God’s green earth.

And that’s what I wanted all along.

Not just to make money, but to build a life where I have the freedom to decide how I spend my time.

No more strings on me.

You won’t change, but you want change. Let me explain.

You can find yourself in a good job, living in a nice home, driving a nice car, and loving those things about your life, even though you don’t really love what you do. I’ve been there before.

When you get comfortable in life, there are things you never want to change. Your routines. The things you do on certain days. The commitments you made in the past.

But when you’re trying to build a new future, things have to change.

If you’re one of those people still working a full-time job while trying to jump into entrepreneurship, your intentionality has to be different. Your level of commitment has to be different.

 Your level of investment has to be different.

Everything has to change.

This is what I call one foot in and one foot out. You want change, but at the same time, you want to continue doing the same things you’ve always done.

I’m not saying you have to totally disrupt your life, but you’re going to have to get a little uncomfortable. And you’re going to have to be OK with being uncomfortable.

I feel like a lot of people jumping into entrepreneurship don’t realize the intentionality it takes.

If you have kids, you might not make it to some of their games. If you have commitments at church, you might not make it every Sunday like you used to. If you have a night out with the guys, sorry, you’re not going to make every one of them.

You want something different? 

Then you’re going to have to become a different person.

And you better get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

I woke up this morning thinking about a memory from a long time ago.

My dad has always been a pretty wise person. When I was young, I used to see people come to him for the same thing over and over again. He would give them advice, but they would never take the information he gave them.

I remember eavesdropping from my room, wondering, “Why do they keep coming to him with the same thing?”

He used to get so frustrated, and I really didn’t understand why. It was above me at the time.

Sometimes, Wisdom Comes From Experience

Out of necessity, I’ve built a few skill sets throughout the years. A lot of them came from some crazy mistakes I’ve made in business.

It’s kind of like walking down the road and falling into a pothole that nobody sees until they actually fall into it. Quite naturally, you want everyone else to avoid that pothole.

You want to warn them. You want to tell them what to look out for because you’ve already experienced the consequences of not knowing it was there.

But it took me a long time to understand something: Some people either want to fall into that pothole themselves, or they simply don’t want to listen to you.

They don’t value the person the wisdom is coming from.

I actually had to sit with that, and it was kind of hard for me to digest.

Stop Throwing Your Pearls to Pigs

I was reminded of something Jesus said in Matthew 7:6 about not throwing your pearls to pigs.

And I was like, “I get it now.”

I finally understood that everybody isn’t going to value what you have to offer, and everybody isn’t going to listen to the wisdom you share.

You can have the experience. You can have the knowledge. You can have the answers to the very problems someone is struggling with, and they still might not listen.

That doesn’t mean your wisdom has no value. It means you have to be mindful of who you’re sharing it with.

God Called Me to Serve Entrepreneurs

Now, my goal is to talk to people who will listen.

I know God called me to serve people in the capacity of entrepreneurship. Over the years, I’ve built a toolbox full of lessons, skills, and wisdom that came from both my successes and my mistakes.

And now, I have a toolbox and a bullhorn through social media. I have a voice that can reach people across multiple platforms, through videos, and through blogs.

I don’t have to chase everybody down trying to convince them to listen to me.

I can show up, share what I’ve learned, and trust God to attract the people He has called me to serve.

That’s a different mindset.

Instead of spending my time trying to convince people who aren’t interested, I can focus on helping the people who are ready to learn and grow.

Not Everybody Deserves Access to Your Wisdom

Nowadays, I can tell pretty quickly who the pigs are, and trust me, I don’t waste my time on them anymore.

I’m only sharing my wisdom with people who are willing to listen and actually do something with the information.

That doesn’t mean I think I’m better than anybody. It means I’ve learned that I can’t make people value what I have to offer.

I can share the lesson, but I can’t make someone apply it.

I can point out the pothole, but I can’t make someone walk around it.

And I can give someone the knowledge I had to learn the hard way, but I can’t make them use it.

My responsibility is to share what God has given me. Their responsibility is to decide what they’re going to do with it.

So if you’re an entrepreneur, a coach, or someone who has spent years learning lessons that could help other people, remember this:

You don’t have to convince everybody.

Share your wisdom. Serve the people who are willing to receive it. And stop exhausting yourself trying to get people to value something they have already decided to ignore.

When you use the words “so far” and “not yet,” there’s a mindset shift that takes place.

This title came from Seth Godin’s book, The Practice.

No matter what you aim to do in life, you never put a negative outcome on what you desire to accomplish.

And this is where the words so far and not yet come into play.

The one thing that I love about entrepreneurship is that everyone’s journey is different.

So you should never be comparing yourself to anyone.

But you should always be drawing inspiration from as many people as you can.

I want you to think about it like this.

Let’s say you have a goal to reach 10,000 people with every post that you put out on social media.

The reframe is:

“I’ve only reached 1,000 so far. I haven’t gotten to where I’m trying to go—not yet.”

Would you reframe the whole situation?

The possibility is always there.

There’s always something to work toward.

It also helps you not fall in love with the actual destination, but fall in love with the journey.

Because 10,000 should always be a moving target.

10,000 is just a goal you set for yourself while you work on becoming a better communicator, understanding hooks, and understanding what keeps people’s attention.

Here’s another example.

Let’s say you started writing a book a year ago, and you’re beating yourself up because you haven’t completed it yet.

This is how I want you to look at it:

“I only have three chapters so far. I haven’t finished it—not yet.”

As long as you do a little bit every day toward it, that’s what matters.

We always get better as we’re doing the thing.

As we’re taking action.

So no, you haven’t reached your goal so far.

And you haven’t made it to where you wanted to be not yet.

Keep going.

I heard someone say, “Get better at doing hard things.”

It kind of reminded me of Jim Rohn’s quote:

“Don’t wish it were easier. Wish you were better.”

I believe there are days when life will feel like everything is easy.

But that’s not a place where you stay.

There are hard things that come with life, and the truth is, we do have to get better at doing hard things.

You’ve heard me say it before, and I’ll say it again:

I love the Bible because it shows us patterns.

I think about King David.

We can point to many things in his life to look at, but one in particular is when he returned to Ziklag and discovered that they had taken his wives, his children, and the families of all his men.

The people wept until they couldn’t weep anymore.

And then they wanted to stone David because of it.

But David did something that I think we should make a part of our lives.

He encouraged himself in God.

He reminded himself of God’s faithfulness and who God is.

One thing I like to rest on is that when life is hard, I know that if I let it, it can shape me.

But it can also show me my character.

It can prepare me for the next hard thing in life.

And it can help me navigate difficult seasons.

Every hard thing can make you better.

Just remember to encourage yourself in God.

Remember who He is.

Remember what He’s done.

And remember that you can always lean on His faithfulness.

As I’m sitting here in the room that I primarily do content out of when I’m in the building, I started thinking about what it took to get to this day, this moment.

Weeks before I left Atlanta, Georgia, I told all of my clients that I would be up and running about a week after I got there.

The transition was pretty amazing, but there were some things that were challenging.

The day of the flight, my wife realized that my name was spelled wrong on my eVisa.

So we had to do some research and pay a rush fee to get it done quickly.

That hurt a little bit because it’s free if you do it with a lot of time.

Then we got to the airport, and our bags were too heavy, so we had to dump a few things.

You have to realize we had already condensed our life down to two suitcases each.

Four suitcases, 50 pounds each.

We thought we were at our final decision.

As soon as we touched down in Vietnam, it was storming.

We did do our due diligence and downloaded the Grab app beforehand, but when we went to use it, we realized we didn’t have a card connected.

So when you’re trying to get a Grab with 200 pounds worth of luggage, plus a backpack on your back, you can get a little challenged.

We spent almost 45 minutes trying to figure that out.

The guy who worked for Grab had the air conditioning blasting in the truck.

The airport is in District 1, which is in the heart of Saigon, so it took a while to get where we were going.

You gotta think New York City traffic, busy as can be.

So the chill setting, of course, meant a cold was inevitable.

Also, I didn’t drink a lot of water on the flight just so I didn’t have to get up to use the bathroom a lot.

So that dried my eyes out, which makes my eyes get blurry.

Now, in the scheme of things, that’s about 4% of things that went wrong compared to the 96% that went right.

If you add all that together with two days of traveling, coming here, making sure that the place you picked out was legit, and then learning a whole new culture in seven days just to show up today in this room that I’m sitting in to do content…

It was a journey.

I got here today, and my first call had to be postponed.

But nevertheless, I said I would show up here today.

And by the grace of God, I’m here today.

And I have so much space I don’t even know what to do with it all.

I am excited for this next journey of my life as I continue to build entrepreneurs who build businesses from the ground up.