Welcome
to better today with your host Shawn Maguire and with over 25 years of counseling experience, this is the Christian and premarital counseling in Edmond podcast. It inspires you to create both an amazing family and marriage. This is the Christian and premarital counseling in Edmond podcast. It helps you to navigate the challenges of modern life. In this Christian and premarital counseling in Edmond podcast, you will be given the same tools, techniques, and stories that Sean and his team have used to help thousands of people to transform their lives. If you’re ready to make real progress, that will change your marriage, your family, and your life. Then get ready because better today starts now. Hey, Rashawn. What’s up? Hey, what’s up, Sean?
Building. Good to see you again, man. Super excited to see you too, van. Just over there smiling and grinning. Shawn got some amazing smile and you have it. Look at this guy. He’s got the best smile here. Yeah, right? Yeah. Well guys, welcome to real talk, real walk our Christian and premarital counseling in Edmond podcast where we help you guys discover what better looks like for you. Yes. Give you the tools to walk it out, to walk it out on the streets. Let’s see. Counselor meets the influencer. Woo. It’s going to be fun. I hope you’re ready. I hope you already, because we’re talking about seven proven strategies to walk at your dream. We’ve already gone through by, wow. So if you haven’t listened to the previous three or does it two, three Christian and premarital counseling in Edmond podcasts, go back and listen to them because you’re going to want to have those. They’ll build on this.
It will build on this because we’re going to jump right in. But first I want to say we’re going to be talking about rituals as number six. The sixth thing. It’s good and one of the rituals that I have that I really feel like helps me be a little bit of a superhuman is I get up early every day. I get up early, like when I say early, I mean 4:00 AM early. That’s almost everyday for him, between four to five but mostly about four, four 15 and it really affects the culture of our home. Cause I hear we homeschool our kids. I hear so many other homeschoolers. Yeah, we get up at nine I got my kids sleep until 10 and I think what kind of job do you get where you get to sleep until 10 man, social job, low bid, low bid. Nah, I have to get up really early though too.
Sometimes you have to get up at three in the morning to discipline. Yes Bro. It makes all the difference to you know, devotion wise, spending time with the Lord and then out of the overflow, out of that cup you can focus fat focused time to do you know, things that you may not be able to touch during the day or leisure stuff as well. You will only go so far. And rituals allow, yeah, I mean really your rituals. So for me, one of the rituals as big as they get up every morning, I usually pick my clothes out the night before hanging up there just because in the morning my mind is nowhere near as clear when I first get up as it is before I go to bed. God. So I already have that decision made before I do anything. So I just go in and change, get dressed, go get coffee, sit down and spend time with God till five and then I work on the business and I do whatever those things are that I’ve used to down workwise. Yeah, we’d done for five is about six. Six about six o’clock then around six 20 I head out to the office.
Awesome. See you got it down pat. That’s a ritual brother.
I try. So think about it in your life. What rituals can you use to create a better life? You know, if you look at like a Nick Saban or a bill Bellacheck with the Patriots and they are all about the rituals. They have such a system where people will come in no matter what they are. That’s why like a bellow check and take an average NFL player, which there’s really not as such a thing as an average and a male player. Got It. But he could take them and he can maximize their skills in his system because he gets the most out of each player. Yeah. And then he builds on that and he puts it into his system. Yeah. Cause he has all these rituals of practice of what time you get there of what they do with the day before games. What’s your night before games? And it’s so regimented.
It’s so crazy. It’s crazy you’re talking about this Sean, because I was just thinking about the other day, even when I went from the transition of singleness to marriage, um, literally I had systems in place when I was single that I couldn’t walk out when I was married. Oh, I’ll put my toothbrush down, Wah, somewhere in there. My wife comes in and she grabs it and it’s in another bathroom. And then I’m like, hold on. Like all this stuff is just different. You know, you put, you know the Co, you know, wherever. Yeah. And the stuff in the microwave, you leave it there. There’s good systems and bad systems, right. You’re thinking about it.
Rituals help you take your big goals and break them down into bite sized chunks. Oh, that’s good. So I, so I said from five to six is when I work on my practice. Well, I have a lot of goals with my practice about hiring new therapists that love God, but they’re also amazing with the counseling skills and they’re highly trained and so part of that process is going through the resumes that I get. Ah, part of that process is me building out systems to help people that onboard succeed. Part of that possible is me writing content so that I can feel, you know, something about for me personally that I do so well when I learn and then I communicate that learning to others in a way that I feel like helps them change your life. That’s all. That’s more filling my takeup like part of this is helping me fill my tank up because I feel like it’s helping other people. Yeah. Yeah. God and practical and strategic ways.
So good. So good Shawn. And that helps a lot. Like you said in counseling in your work and your career, you have systems in place and you implement those to see other people, you know, achieve their best. Even your, your, your partners, your coworkers and you know, that’s awesome. I think of the same way. We never would have been to like 10 million and influence our, you know, these large platforms if we didn’t have systems in place. So those systems are valuable. They’re a big con. Yeah.
You know, somebody else you said before was in marriage, like in marriage, it’s a big deal because if you don’t have the system or the rituals in place to spend time with your spouse on a daily basis, yeah. Even if it’s five minutes, even if it’s just a minute prayer or something where you guys have a connection point. Now what happens over time is you start to lose that relationship and there starts to become a gap between you and your spouse. And then what happens is, is the devil gets into those spaces. Wow. And he creates havoc and raises Cain. Oh yeah.
Oh yeah. So what about some of us who sort of put our last bit of energy? Whenever you say for instance, it tends to be though, when my wife wants to have the most conversations, she wants to go deep, deep, deep, uh, and, and just communion, you know, Tom Together. Yeah. It seems to be right when I’m the tiredest getting ready to go to sleep, you know, and that’s like the time where all her, you know, motions want to come out. Sean, what can you say to some of us? What’s a better sister? Maybe she is, cause you know, the wives may should sleep a little bit longer than us as men. Do you want, you know the, you know the guys who have LaGuardia, you know, provide and protect. Yeah.
If your wife stays home then the, she can maybe sleep in. If your wife goes out to work, you might, you may be laid up in the bed once you’re out there hustling. Yeah, true to my bed. Yeah. But I would say one of the things to do is to decide on a bedtime that you’re going to connect God and maybe for you. Like I, I get up really early and I stay up later than my wife. So I have about three, three hours longer, three hours more a day than my does. Okay. Got It. So she’s always in bed when I go to bed, go to bed, and she’s always in bed when I get up. Oh, okay, cool. She’s just a normal person. I’m the one that’s a lot different.
Yes. And I’ll, I’ll feel that way.
I don’t need as much sleep as most people. So one of the things is set a time. Say Hun after, you know, after 10 I, unless it’s an emergency, I need to have all of our deep conversations before 10 or whatever that timeframe is for you. God, I know for my kids as well, it helps to say they have a, they go to the room earlier and we start our bedtime routines earlier so that we have that relationship time to build because they are also really motivated to have lots of conversations when I’m putting them to bed and trying to go on with other things that I need that night. Yeah. And it could be sleep. It could be, I have activities to do before work the next day I want to connect with my lovely wife, Tanja. Yeah. And they’re wanting to engage and they’re wanting to engage in. And then I feel like a terrible dad because I’m not engaging them when they’re really open and emotional. And it sounds like Denise is that way. Yeah. So starting earlier is one and then having a time that you guys talk about in advance of, hey, just, you know, I want to be there for you. I love you so much, I want to connect, but after 10 I’ve just not.
Yeah, for sure. And what I struggle with here, here’s a just a little tidbit that we can touch on real quick. I struggle with this, Sean. I don’t know if you’ve ever struggled with that, if you heard of it throughout your practice. Is that all the a logo? Why so much? When I lean, you know when I’m in bed and I start to flip over the other way to like try to get some Shuteye, you know, at first it seemed like she will struggle like, hey, she took it as like, Hey, I’m rejecting. Or are you like, Hey, I’m not connecting with her. But at the end of the day, you had nothing to do with that. It was more like, hey babe, I’ve been working since like 5:00 AM I’ve been out in the world, like doing all this stuff, you know, carrying the burden of other people and uh, you know, it’s real out there in the real world that you come back home. Uh, and then we spend time together and then, yeah. Yeah. But at night, whenever she sorta wanted to connect, it would be those times. Yeah. Whenever I turn him off it was bad. One of the
things is that’s where the communication in advance will really help you guys out. It God is like you guys have in communication in advance. Yeah. It’s good situation. And just setting expectations rightly, that would really help her to kind of understand that doesn’t mean it will avoid all the conflict or the issues God or what we’ll do is we’ll help you move towards the direction where you can set boundaries that are healthy. That’s good. Good sleep. That’s good. Well, you know, I had, and really we’ve got to think about with our goals and our identity, one of the areas to consider is, uh, just realistic expectations. So I had this, this kid, I remember I worked out early in my career at this boy’s home. It’s called ghost town. What a weird name. Right? Ghost. Interesting. Yeah. And it’s little hydro Oklahoma. Back in the day I drove the head therapists out there.
This boy comes in, he’s about a hundred pounds overweight and he’s, he’s talking about how he’s to play for Notre Dame. That’s a great dream. I’m going, it’s a great dream. There’s only one problem. He dropped out of high school. He was 19 years old, hundred pounds overweight. Didn’t ever even play football in high school, but he said, I just know, I know. Well, how do you know? I just know that I’m going to play football for Notre Dame. I’m a hundred percent confident hour play, but this little, this is we guy. We’re not so little. But this guy, 19 year old kid, he had no ritual assist, support that dream. And so that’s just a hope. That’s just a wish. Wow. I can wish all day the doctor play the guitar, that I could play the piano, that I could jump out of a play and that I could go to Cozumel and scuba dive.
Yeah, I’m gonna have all these wishes, but if I don’t create rituals to make the money to do those things, or the margin to take a vacation, to do those things, then they’re not going to ever happen. They’re just a wish. They’re just something that’s a pipe dream. Yeah. So just speak considerate of a things in your life that God has called you. Sit down and write out the goals. Yeah. And see if you can find and identify specific rituals to start moving in the direction where you can create those for your own life. Ah, wow. That’s a great, no. Yeah. Hey, if you, if you’re not willing to do it well then look, note judgment. Don’t accept shame, but just be honest with yourself so you don’t to live in a perpetual state of what you should do if you’re guilty about it. Yeah.
Just like my kids, they want to, if my daughter wants to, she wants to act and she wants to go to Broadway. She has these great dreams and when we’re having conversations about practice and things like that, and the same with my son for sports. I said, look bud, you can play at these lower level leagues. True. That’s great. We’ll have a great time. You’re good enough. And I, as a parent, we’ll have a great time watching you and coaching you perform. But if you want to go to the next level, then you’re going to have this, you’re going to have to have these daily rituals where you go practice shots, where you run routes, where you practice dribbling, where we watch them at these videos and then you get coaching on the side and there’s just different levels of execution and rituals needed for different levels of dreams. Yeah. But whatever you decide to do, make sure God’s with it. It’s something that God’s calling. Yeah. And if you decide not to do something but don’t live in shame or guilt about it, move on your name calling. Live out of a life of regret. True purpose and significance for him.
That’s good. That’s really good. Just move on guys. Whoever you are listening to this, you may have had so many. What about naysayers? I mean, so many people’s, you know, sort of stop us from progressing towards the promise that God’s laid on our heart, the vision that God has laid on our heart because of the people who’ve come in our life and talked down about us. So what do you got to say about that? Your, um, your, uh, your progression can be, you know, stopped or you can be paralyzed by even the voice in the words of people. How do you gather that mental discipline to actually, you know, stay true to these rituals and stay focused on your dream?
Well, there’s a lot we talked about. If you go back to the first six or first five, one of those, you need to have a vision or dream that’s compelling enough to press you through adversity. The other one is to review it, review it. The viewing. Yeah. Then to have your reasons available of why you’re going forward. Yeah. You know, there’s a about becoming a great dad is one of my greatest dreams. Visions is something that I endured it and dear to do, and I think about the faces of my kids and I review the Times that we’ve had in the past that were good and I feel it and I enjoy it. Reviewing that, and then I, out of my identity, I identify myself with Christ if who he’s called me to become. And out of that it’s strong enough because God, people, family resources are surrounding me with who God says I am. Yeah. When the naysayers come, it just, yeah. Yeah. Breaks through it like a wall. Like the sword of the spirit cuts through the shield of faith is extinguishes the fiery arrows of the enemy. That’s good. And then we can move on.
Wow. That’s really good. And Sean, I’m sitting here thinking about what about those days where you feel anxious are upset or angry because your ritual wasn’t able to be mad or you weren’t able to do those things? I would say right. Connect to the person of God and there’s grace there and a, you know, cause I could easily, easily the moment someone or you know, even being married, you know, throws me off a bit at times on doing, you know, being selfish. Cause at that point it’s not about you, you know, your life is not your own right. We share, we share this life. Uh, so having that understanding between you and your spouse may be, you know, difficult at some points. Like why do you always do this? Why you always do that or [inaudible]. So wrestling with those things, uh, I think is vital. You know, being able to communicate, hey wife, get some understanding in the household and stuff like that. So I don’t know. That’s really what gets the most, yeah. Like honey, this is what gives me life too, you know, because that’s the effect.
Did the communication in advance of the issue. This good. Have an issue. Talk about where she’s at, where you’re at in ways that you feel like honor each other and can move you towards a better outcome. That’s your situation. God, which brings me to the next thing that we’re going to talk about. It’s decided area of life that you want to accomplish. Decided a dream. What? What do you want to change in your life right now? Step back and look at your life. What areas do you want to change? Something about your relationships? Well, that’s a great question, but don’t stop there. See, if you say yes, take out a piece of paper and if you don’t have a piece of paper because you’re driving or whatever, go back and write it down later or listen to this Christian and premarital counseling in Edmond podcast again, think about if you want to change relationships, which relationship?
Your relationship with God, your relationship with your spouse, your relationship with your friends. What about your relationship with your family, your in-laws, your kids, parenting? What about your employee or employer or are you an employer? Are you, do you own a business? Do you work for somebody else? Do you want to change the relationships at your work? Do you want to change your habits? Do you want to change your rituals? Do you eat in a way that fuels your body for greatness? Or do you eat in a way that funds the pharmaceutical companies for drugs? Because you’re going to need a drug to help with your diabetes. Yeah, you’re gonna need a drug to help you with your being overweight. You’re going to get a drug to lower your cholesterol, cholesterol cause you had a a gallon of ice cream.
So settle with a bola cal rather than Taco Bell.
Hey Man, you know what? So a funny story about Taco Bell. I have a buddy, his name is Christian Sangres, a professional photographer. He looks like a dog. Kioti the most interesting man in the world. But he said he was in line at Taco bell and he said it was about 1:00 AM in the morning and this food truck pulls up and they take out this meat and it said, I think great d still edible. Said, he goes, earth peeled, peeled out at the parking lot. He says, I’ve never been back to Taco Bell, so that’s hilarious. What he say, he had an abrupt change of ritual based upon information. Wow. Think about your life if you’re not, if one of those areas of relationships, because life is all about relationships. We are relational beings. Work as a relationship. Tom’s with your kids extra. Wow. They’re all relationships. So if you don’t like one of those relationships or you want to improve one of those relationships, sit down and go back through these and create goals.
Creative vision. Ask The Lord to give you the inspiration, the Holy Spirit, to give you the inspiration to look at these ideas. Yeah. Find ways to start changing them. For example, if you don’t like the way your body looks or the way your body feels, yeah, well you don’t have to go all out and hire a personal trainer, but if you have the resources to do that, you can do that truth. But you can start by removing some sugar. You can, instead of having McDonald’s every day, maybe every Donald’s every other day do the next best thing of where you’re at.
Wow, that’s really good Sean. And the big thing I’m high hearing you highlight is that this takes work. You know, we’re actually going to, to have to, you know, give up things we are going to actually, you know, actually have to the discipline ourselves to do things. Uh, and I think one of the bigger problems with me, that tension that we talked about at one point, but striving for progression, not perfection, you know, in our own strength, you know, we can easily do that in our own history, in our own strength. And I love how you said ask the Holy Spirit for help. That’s so, that’s so important. So he really, he eat that as well
guys. So I’m going to give you steps to do this right to change. So first write down where you’re currently at in all the relationships that you want to work on. Now don’t write a a hundred because it’s going to be really hard to execute, but just write a few that are really important that you want to make effort to change. Don’t write things that other people think you should change. Write down what you’re willing to change. Now the second one is what rituals are keeping you stuck? What rituals are bad ones, right? And then write, write them down. Is eating at McDonald’s is do you have a toxic relationship that you’re a married man and you have a buddy that single, or maybe he’s married but he’s cheating on his wife or he always wants to go to bars or he has humor that is really degrading to women. Wow. If you have somebody like that in your life, you’re going to need to make some adjustments and one of your rituals could be to look for new friends. Yeah. New Church groups to try new family or community groups with your church body. Another thing to consider is where do you want to be? Where do you, where do you want to be in your life? Vision without, without a vision, people perish. That’s our New Vision. Jasleen consulting. [inaudible] said,
wow. He says, write the vision down. Make it plain. Where are we going?
Get really plain. So that’s right. So create, and then the last one is create rituals that support and create and then support and create. So it’s this cycle. Create rituals that will sustain it. So I want my kids to love God. If you said, Sean, what is your number one goal in life? People will disagree, but, but mine is to pass on a legacy of Christ and my kid, there is no greater. There’s no greater heartbeat that I have in my life then for my kids to love the Lord and to serve him forever. That’s it. That’s good. So my rituals need to have that included within them. So I read the Bible, silly, pray for others. So I know that I must ask forgiveness because that’s who Jesus is. He’s humble. He’s a lover. He’s somebody that never made mistakes. And since I’m following him, I will because I’m a human. Yeah. But I have all these rituals in place that helped me reading my Bible, writing in a journal, moving in different kinds of books. Every season I have books going. Yeah, the Lord. Yeah. That inspired me to go on to become even greater in him and lesser in me. Scott.
That’s really good, Sean. Hey Man. Hey man, bro. Hey Man. So you want to run through these seven again? Do, do, do, dude, man,
I’ll do the, we’ll do every other one. I’ll do one. You do too. Okay. The first one is vision. Something compelling that pulls you into it. That’s the first strategy for a proven strategy to, to walk out your dreams
and also number two is reasons. The why behind what you do and what you’re going to do
it that. The third one is review it and feel it. Review it. Go over the vision, go over what you’re seeking to accomplish and then feel the power and see yourself moving in that area.
Number four is raise your standards. Something you must do it. You have to do it
till you are. The fifth is identity. Identify yourself in a new way. You are a new creation in Christ, so anything that doesn’t support you being a new creation or move you in the direction of becoming a new creation, exit out. Wow.
Number six is develop habits. You know, rituals create a ritual to, you know, obtain your goal to develop into the man or woman of God he’s called you to be. Then number seven to do which we got to deal [inaudible] Di di, di, di, di, di Di you funny, you funny
you funny. That’s her. Sean’s new thing. You Fun. So decide an area of your life that you want to change. Decide on an area of life that you want to change, that you want to move out and then start going through and identifying ways and rituals and visions that you can accomplish and put towards that end. Hey man, hey man, real talk, real walk Christian and premarital counseling in Edmond podcasts or the influencer meets the counselor on the influencer in the streets, at least the counselor in the office.
Awesome guys, thank you so much for listening in.
And if you would like, we would love for you to rate and review us on iTunes because what it does is it helps get the word out that you know, we’re real or Gal, we’re real dads are real husbands and we want you to know that there are ways that you can actually improve your life. You know, I think growing up I got stuck and thinking that I had to figure out the Bible on my own and how do I apply half of this to my life and I saw so much hypocrisy, which we all have apoc Racine or life. We all want to be one way and then we, we still like Paul do different things. Yeah. The standard to high mark. So we wanted to help you guys realize that there are really practical ways that you can address these issues that most of us struggle with in some way. Yeah. And we don’t have to stay stuck and we would love you to come to our counseling practice cause we have a team of amazing individuals. True that you can go to our website. Nuvision counseling got lived through two to live, not at work but live all right. But not everybody can come to counseling. And so this Christian and premarital counseling in Edmond podcast is a way for you guys to really get a lot of the practical strategies we use and apply them to your life, to your friends life, to people you love life. It changed them for the better.
Whoa. And also guys, I want to let you know you can come online, go to social media, come online, um, and connect with us even on the social media space. We have so many people who want to connect with you. So we have a group that we started called the real walk, real talk Christian and premarital counseling in Edmond podcast group, which is in Facebook at the page. Real talk, real walk Christian and premarital counseling in Edmond podcast. So make sure you connect there. We’re building communities now and we want you to be engaged and involved on what God’s doing. Come on now. Hey Man.
Hey Man, can I get a it? I’m going to keep preaching but you guys want to hang out with you a little praise break. Go ahead. Go ahead. Like preaching. Oh Sir, that’s not, that’s not, that’s not to DJ. Last week was to d Jukes, TD j this funny. That’s the opposite of TD j as Mr. Rogers was, or, guys, God bless you. Thank you so much for tuning in. Until next time, we’ll see ya. God bless. Bye Bye.