Hidden Power Series, Episode 14 (Phase 9): Touching Lightly

There's one question that decides whether your business survives its next bad month. It's not about money. It's not about marketing. It's not about the algorithm. And most people who love God and are building a business are getting it wrong. Not because they don't have faith, but because they're leaning on the wrong thing.

It's 11 48 at night. You're lying in bed. The phone is six inches away from your face. That little screen is only little light in the room. You open the dashboard. Zero sales today.

You close it. You open it again. Like it's going to change in 10 seconds. Still zero. Your chest gets tight. Your mind starts running.

Maybe I'm not cut out for this. Maybe everybody who said this wouldn't work was right. 12 hours ago, you just made a sale. felt like a genius. Tonight, a number on a screen just told you who you are. So what are you leaning on?

A hundred years ago, a judge named Thomas Troward wrote that your answer to that one question decides your whole life turns into. And then the next half hour, you're going to find out why a wood carver from the 1600s holds the secret to handling pressure without cracking. The question Sophia asked me that could have broken this entire series and she said Jay aren't we just teaching self-worship? Okay four simple steps you can start tomorrow morning before you open a single dashboard so your business stops running you and at the very end I'm gonna ask you three questions so you're gonna want to stay to the very end because the third one has a name for an answer stay with me Because whatever you're leaning on right now, that's what's running your life. But before we go one step further, I want to do something a little different. Lord, this episode is yours.

It's your property, not mine. Every word, every minute, every person who presses play, it belongs to you. Make this a safe place for whoever needs it today. The one who's tired, the one who's scared, the one who is about to quit. and let all the glory go where it belongs, not to a show, not to a host, but to you, Lord. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.

Welcome to the Above and Beyond Affiliate Marketing Podcast, where faith, mindset, and strategy come together to help entrepreneurs, affiliate marketers, and e-commerce builders create something meaningful. I am your host, Jason Reiland. We're continuing our journey within the Hidden Power Series. This is Episode 14, Phase Nine, Touching Lightly, where we take Thomas Troward's teaching over 100 years old and put it to work in real business and real lives today. And always with me is Sophia, and she's here to ask the hard questions. Yeah, for a lot of people, me included.

One question, Troward asked it in the very first line and the whole chapter kind of hangs on it. What is your point of support? Here's how he opens. What is your point of support? Is it in ourselves or outside us? Are we self-poised or does our balance depend on something external?

Now, let me make this simple. Your point of support is the thing you lean on. Picture a ladder leaning against a wall. That ladder only stands as long as the wall stands, right? Move the wall, the ladder falls. Self-poised.

means balanced on your own two feet. Imagine a surfer. The waves move, the board moves, but the surfer's balance is inside the surfer. And Troward says this, whatever you actually believe about that question, not only what you say, what you really believe, that's what your life turns into. The truth is, most of us would say, I lean on God. I lean on myself.

Okay. But watch where your mood goes when the numbers drop. God tells you the real answer. Then he gives us the key to the whole chapter. He says in everything there are two parts. There's the essential, the core, the nucleus, the raison d'etre, which is just a fancy French way of saying the reason it exists.

And then there's the incidental, all the stuff that gathers around that core that takes its shape from it. Think of it like a campfire. The fire is the essential. The smoke, the sparks, the heat on your face, that's incidental. All of it comes from the fire. You will never build a fire by collecting smoke.

And Troward says true knowledge is telling those two apart. and error, every kind of mistake, is mixing them up. The Bible asks the same question a long time before Troward it in Isaiah 26.3. You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast because they trust in you. That word steadfast in the original Hebrew, it means propped up, supported, leaned on. Isaiah was asking, what is your mind leaning on?

2700 years later, Troward asked that exact same thing. So, Troward says in every situation there are two factors. You and the thing you're dealing with. Your business, the offer, the market, the algorithm, the customer. And here's the part that'll really mess with your head in a good way. He says for us the nature of anything is decided by how we think about it.

So it's up to our belief which one of those two is the essential one and whichever one we pick which is the other one automatically becomes incidental. Now the incidental never goes away. You can't do business in a vacuum. There's always a platform, always an economy, always a customer. Something has to be there for your energy to turn into visible results. But the same energy, different conditions, completely different results.

Think about water for a second. Pour in a glass, it takes the shape of the glass. Freeze it, it's ice. Heat it up, it's steam. The water never stopped being water. The conditions changed what it looked like.

In the business version, right, there's two affiliates that promote the same offer. Same week, same traffic source, one makes $3,000 and the other makes $30,000. It's the same offer, it's the same conditions, so the offer can't be the essential factor. That's it. You're the water. The offer is just the glass you got poured into this month.

Now, Troward gets blunt. He says, we can never escape picking. Something is going to be essential and something's always going to be incidental. And if we flip them around, if we make our circumstances the point of support and lean on them, then we stand or fall right along with them. And he says that puts us in a condition of weakness and obsequious waiting. on every kind of outside influence.

obsequious is, that means, I'm probably brutalizing the word, but it means way too eager to please. Bowing and scraping, standing at the door with your hat in your hands. Let me translate that into business. Waiting for the algorithm to like you, waiting for that ad platform to approve you, Waiting for the economy to turn around, waiting for the right client to finally notice you, waiting for permission. Troward says all that waiting is the exact opposite of strength, wisdom, and opulence, which he says are the only real meaning of liberty. Now Jesus told a story about this in Matthew Chapter Seven.

Two men built two houses, one on rock, one on sand. And the rain came, the floods came, the winds blew, and they hit both houses. Same storm. The storm wasn't the difference. The foundation was. They matter.

Troward never says they don't. Remember, the incidental is never absent. And look at the story again. Jesus didn't say the wise man's house never got rained on. It got hit by the same storm. So the question isn't, do conditions matter?

Well, of course they do. The question is, are they your foundation or are they your weather? Whether you deal with it, foundation you stand on it, and the second the weather comes your foundation, you're in trouble because weather never stays the same two days in a row. Bring it! So, Troward asks a common sense question. He says, Where can the center of a man's life be except in himself?

You can't get away from yourself. You're the center of your own universe whether you like it or not. And he says the power that seems to live in your surroundings, you gave it to them. It came from your own mind first. Think about that dashboard I talked about at 11.48 a.m. A number on a screen has zero power.

It's just pixels, you guys. It only gets power when you hand the keys to your mood. That's the right question. And I'm glad you asked it. Because if we get this one wrong, the whole series just goes sideways. Here's the answer.

The center is in you. Yep. But the light flowing through that center isn't yours. It's God's. Now in Colossians 1, Verse 27, Christ in you, the hope of glory. And in Galatians 2, verse 20, as I remember, Christ lives in me.

So when Troward says the center is inside, as a believer, I say amen. Because that's exactly where God chose to live. Not in my circumstances, not in my bank account, not in my follower account, in me. God reminds us that we're glorious in Him. We're powerful the way He really created us to be. I believe that about me and I believe that about you too.

But here's the part that keeps you safe. I'm still gonna need the Lord every single day because my glory is borrowed, okay? It's borrowed. His glory is eternal. Think about a lamp. Right?

A lamp is made to shine. It's supposed to shine. But if I pull the plug, then it's just furniture. Jesus said it in John 15 verse 5. I am the vine, you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit.

Apart from me, you can do nothing. And Philippians 4 verse 13. I can do all this through him who gives me strength. not from me through him. So self-poise? Yes, but it's derived self-poise.

It's not leaning on my circumstances, and I'm not leaning on some self-made version of me either. I'm leaning on the ONE who lives inside me. That's not self-worship. It's just the opposite. It's refusing to worship anything outside of him, including the dashboard. That's it.

That's the whole thing right there. Now, let me share something with you that's kinda been on my heart for a while. Faith, to me, is a Law. Just like gravity. It's built into the system. Gravity doesn't care if you believe in it or not.

If you step off your roof right now, gravity works. Every single time. And I believe God created the world to run on faith the same way. Now think of Hebrews 11 verse 3. faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. And in Hebrews 11 verse 6, without faith it is impossible to please God.

Now here's the blunt part. I think a lot of Christians, especially Christians building a business around their faith aren't getting the benefits of who Jesus really is Not because God's holding back because they're treating faith like a feeling instead of a Law and The Law only works for you when you work with it gravity is always there, but it doesn't get a plane off a ground Think about this, just by existing, right? It'll just sit there. The pilot of that plane has to work with the Laws of speed, the laws of lift, the Laws of thrust. Faith is the same way. You have to act.

In James 2 verse 17, faith by itself is not accompanied by action. It's dead. So if I want God to manifest through me, I have to move. I have to make the step. And when we step out in faith, we're not stepping out alone. Hebrews 1 verse 14 says, the angels are ministering spirits sent to those who inherit salvation.

Heaven moves with you. And here's where it starts. When you ask him, God, what do want me to know? What do you want me to believe? God answers. He puts it in you.

And that's where your point of support comes from. And the title of this episode, it's hiding in the very next line Troward wrote. Now we get to the heart of the chapter, right? Troward says the life flowing into us from the universal life principle is brand new every moment. Undifferentiate, meaning it's raw material, not shaped into anything yet, and it's ours to shape in any form we choose. So he says, lean.

firmly on the center point of your own being and not on anything else. And then here's the title line. Our mistake is in our surroundings too much au grand suru. I hope I'm saying that right. We should touch things more lightly. And what au grand suru, that's kind of a French way of saying things are way too seriously or dead serious or you're white-knuckling it.

And then he says, as soon as we feel that their weight impedes our free handling of them, they are mastering us and not we them. Picture a backpack. No, you're carrying it. Fine. But when that backpack gets so heavy, you can't turn your head. or you can't run, you can't see where you're walking, you're not carrying the backpack anymore.

It's carrying you. So your launch, your ad spend, your one big client, the second it gets so heavy, you can't sleep, can't think straight, can't make a clean decision, it's mastering you. And Jesus offered us the answer before Troward ever wrote a word. In Matthew 11 verse 28 through 30, come to me all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Notice, he didn't say no burden.

He said a light one. A yoke is a work tool. He's not telling you to stop working. He's telling you to stop carrying it like it's all on you. In 1 Peter 5 verse 7, cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. Because God is everywhere, but He doesn't manifest everywhere.

God manifests where He's honored and invited in. Troward calls it undifferentiated light. The power is present, but it hasn't taken shape yet. I put it this way. The power is present everywhere, but the present shows up where it's welcome. Does that make any sense?

So in Revelations 3 verse 20, here I am I stand at the door and knock. He knocks, he doesn't kick the door in. In James 4 verse 8, come near to God and he will come near to you. So if your business feels heavy, ask yourself, did I invite Him into this or did I invite Him in into Sunday morning and leave Him in the church parking lot on Monday? Invite him into the launch. Invite God into the ad budget.

Invite God into the email you're scared to send. That's where the wait starts coming off. That's where you see his presence manifest. Just like I believe his presence is right here in this episode. I'm I actually saw this question coming. Listen to this.

Light handling does not mean weak handling. He says a light torch actually can't happen with a weak grip. Weakness is when the tool is too heavy for the hand, trying to guide it. But a light, even playful, nice touch means a firm grip and a perfect control. Then he gives an example. There was a woodcarver in England in the 1600s.

His name was Gryndling Gibbons. This man took solid blocks of wood and carved flowers, leaves, even lace. So thin, so delicate, people swore they'd move into if they just breathe on them. This is solid wood, you guys, and that look like he that all that stuff is just floating. That only happens in the hands of a master. Hand that same chisel to me, to a beginner, I'll get splinters.

Or think about a golf pro. Watch his grip. It's super relaxed. His smooth swing looks so easy. The ball goes 300 yards. Now watch a beginner strangling the club.

Knuckle, knuckles white and the ball goes into the parking lot. George says, the light yet firm touch tells you not a weakness, but a power held in reserve. And behind whatever power we put out, he says there's a whole reserve in the infinite to back us up. Paul said it in Ephesians 3 verse 20, not a him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power, that is at work within us. That's the reserve. Immeasurably more than you ask, more than you could ever imagine.

And family, that's the heartbeat behind this whole show. Not our power, His power working in us. Care all the way. Just grip with faith, not fear. And let me show you exactly what that looks like when real money disappears overnight. Okay, let's meet Marcus.

Marcus is an affiliate marketer, okay? He's about eight months in. He finally finds an offer that is really converting. He's doing 4,000 a month. He is fired up. Then one Tuesday morning, an email hits.

The offer's been pulled from the network. Gone. And the same week, his ad account gets flagged for review. First version, version one. Marcus with an outside point of support. His whole world was that offer.

So he refreshes the network page all day, emails support six times, stops making content. What's the point? Starts telling people he's thinking about going back to his regular job. Three weeks later, he quits. The offer went away and it took Marcus with it. Okay, second version, version two.

Marcus is an inside point of support. Okay, same Tuesday, same email, and yeah, it stinks. He's human. But Marcus knows the offer was incidental. The essential factor was always Marcus. His skill writing the hooks, the trust he built with his audience, his email list, his work ethic, and God who lives in him.

So it's the same energy, you guys, new conditions. So he prays and he asks, Lord, what do want me to do? What do you want me to know now? And by Thursday, he's testing two new offers in the same niche. His list follows him because they trust him. not the product.

By month two he's climbing back. Now here's one more piece I want to share with you. During that gap cash will get tight. Version two Marcus done panicked. He treats capital the way Gibbons treated his chisel as a tool. Firm grip, light touch, never his foundation, but a tool that can help him build.

And that actually brings me to a good point that I want to share with you guys. Because this is actually a perfect place to talk about something practical, right? So if you're building a business and you guys are out there right now and you've hit that gap and cash flow is tight, I need you to know something really important. Because whether you need inventory or you want to scale what's already working or you just need some breathing room. We at Above and Beyond Affiliate Marketing partnered with Rok Financial for business funding. They do like many alternative business funding sources.

And so you heard me right. Funding is not your point of support though, God is. You are in Him, but capital is a tool, remember? And in the right hands, with a firm grip and the light touch, a tool, can build something beautiful. So head over to the AboveAndBeyondPodcast.com and take that quick funding fit quiz. We'll also have it in a link here to see if your business might qualify for.

And again, full transparency, because we do work with ROK Financial. And let's say you do get funded through them, through that link. Our show benefits from that through algorithms, through commissions and stuff like that. So, but we only point to people that we trust. So, and we want to share that with you. So, okay.

Now let's get back to Troward here for a second, because what he says next explains where the chaos in your business actually comes from. And it's not where you think. Okay? So, think of a juggler now. Okay? Because Troward keeps going on this.

He says, as we come to know this, we start handing things lightly. Okay? We're playing with them as like a juggler does. With his flying knives. Right? Picture that.

Think about that. Just as crazy. Knives, right? They're sharp, man. They're dangerous. But look at the juggler's face for just...

Look them up on YouTube. Look at the juggler's face. They're relaxed. They're smiling even. Why? Because he's not guessing guys.

Every knife, he knows exactly where he sends it. It can't make the slightest move other than the one he assigns it. Think about that. That's the light and firm at the same time. And then Troward says something that honestly flipped a switch for me. He says our control over things is part of the necessary order of the universe.

And the disorder we've had in the past came from never consciously putting our own personal control in the system, right? Like that sink in. The chaos in your past wasn't random. There was this missing piece. And that missing piece was you. What?

You left yourself out? You let the business run you instead of you running the business? Man, we've all done that, especially at the very beginning. But God designed us to tend to things. In Genesis 2, verse 15, God put man in the garden to work it, to take care of it. And in 1 Corinthians 14, verse 33, he says, God is not a God of disorder but of peace.

Disorder the exact word Troward used So if there's disorder in your business don't blame God for it check who's running things You have no plan and if you have no schedule and if you have no system Well, that's just not bad luck, right? That's you not showing up in your own system Right? Yeah, that's it. Now, you guys, I've been doing this well over 15 years now. Dropshipping, e-commerce, Shopify, affiliate marketing. I've built so many businesses over the years, and some of them worked, and a lot of them failed.

And I'm gonna be honest with you, in a lot of those failures, my point of support was in the wrong place. Now I'm gonna tell you, about a launch that I had, this is many years ago, but I was super excited about it. I was working with, I'm just going to say ABC Mouse. If you guys ever seen that kids learning, abcmouse.com, where it helps get kids to start learning and growing, to learn their ABCs, 123, some math and things like that. Well, I also had my young son who's now 16, but when he was like 10 months old, we were doing this ABC mouse thing. thought, I'm an affiliate marketer.

I should be promoting this too, right? So, cause I like this system. I'm gonna show people why they should love this system. So I started building this. It was working great. I mean, I would put like all my eggs in this basket.

Cause I set up a Facebook page for it. I set up a... YouTube wasn't really a big thing like then. I'm sure it was kind of beginning around, but I just kind of just all in on Facebook and just talking about it and things. it changed. Facebook changed an algorithm.

I thought I was doing great. I was making pretty good money doing that. people were asking me questions on Facebook and messaging me and giving me links and I was trying to help them out just like I would. Do with you guys too if you had funding questions and stuff like that, like with ROK Financial or anything like that. So I'm always here for you guys, right? And I'll be honest with you, it blasted me.

There, all of sudden there was a number on my screen that says that Facebook closed my page. Just, it was out, it was done. And then, On top of that, the money that was allocated to me, they took back. And you guys want to know the number? The real, the real number that's going to make you guys go crazy. It was over $9,000.

I was so excited to tell my wife all this money that we were making through this affiliate link and we were sharing and people were sharing. It was just this. It was snowballing, it the thing. It changed overnight. And that money went away too. I kid you not, they never even paid me for it.

I lost money. You could just feel, I'm just saying it, puts me back there. And, and, I didn't know which direction I was going to go, but I knew what I needed to face, right? And that changed everything. Now, I'm going tell you something. I started leaning on not those failures, but I started leaning on the Lord instead of the result and how that changed how I handled business.

right after that. Now I'm not always all the way there, none of us truly are, but I know which direction I'm facing now, and that changes everything. And Troward brings it home, he says, of course I speak of the whole man and not merely a part of them which Walt Whitman says is contained between his hat and his boots. He says the whole man is an infatude. And the part of you people that can see your body, which is the instrument you look through, right, can enjoy everything that belongs to you. You, your own kingdom of the infinite.

Now, here's how I say it. Okay? I'm a body. I'm not defined by my body. I'm defined by my Spirit that lives in this body. So I'm not limited to time and space.

In 2 Corinthians 4 verse 18, So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but what is unseen. Since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. And Troward says once a person finds that true center, he can never give that center spot to anything else again. Everything else takes its place as incidental, and growing day by day, he learns to handle all things lightly, yet firmly, so that grief, fear, and error have less and less room in the world, until at least sorrow and sighing shall flee away in everlasting joy. shall take their place. And here's what I love.

Troward's quoting scripture right there. That's Isaiah 35 verse 10, if I've ever seen it. Those the Lord has rescued will return, they will enter Zion with singing. Everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sigh will be flee away. then he closes the whole chapter with this.

We may have taken only a few steps on the way as yet, but they are in the right direction. And what we have to do now is go on. That is Paul in Philippians 3 forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. I press on toward the goal. You don't have to be finished you guys. You just have to keep going.

So, okay, all right. Here's your homework. You gotta write this down. If you're in your car, just wait till you get home, go back to this episode. You're probably about in part 16 at this point, if you need to rewind or go back. But start with writing down these four things.

One, the point of support audit, okay? Now, These three things that control your mood the most in your business. So next to each one, write essential or incidental. Be honest. If a sales number is sitting in the essential column, you just found your problem, right? Two, the weight test.

Where does something feel so heavy right now that you can't think clearly? That's what's mastering you. Name it. Name it out loud if you have to. Three, invite Him in by name. Every morning this week before you open your dashboard, ask, Lord, what do want me to know today?

What do you want me to believe? Then invite Him into that specific thing that you're doing, whether it's your launch, whether it's your ad, whether it's your email. Know dashboard before prayer. Got it? Now four, put yourself back in the system. Pick one area of your life that's running on chaos, right?

Give it one simple structure this week. A time lock, a checklist, one. That's the juggler learning his first knife. Remember at the very top I told you that I'd ask you three questions and That the third one has a name for an answer Here they are Don't answer fast Let them sit Okay Do you want a blessed life? Do you want the work of your hands to be fruitful? Like in Psalm 90 verse 17, establish the work of our hands for us.

Three, do you want a relationship with someone who sees the future? Who knows the future? And who knows how to get you to the future? Well, that's Jesus Christ of Nazareth. In Isaiah 46 verse 10, God says, I make known the end from the beginning. He already sees where your business ends up.

He already sees where you end up. So if you're leaning on anything else, a dashboard, a platform, an offer, a person, even your own strength, you're leaning on something that can't see past tomorrow. He already sees it. So make him the point of support. And if you've never done that before, you can do it right now, right where you are. Just talk to him.

Tell him you want him at the center. He's been knocking this whole time already. Okay, before you go family, a few quick things. If this episode helped you in any way, please head over to YouTube, hit like, hit subscribe, comment, tap on that bell. I know it sounds small, but every like and every subscribe tells the algorithm this message really matters. And that's how it reaches the next person who's lying awake at 1148, trying to figure this whole thing out.

And please, we also gotta keep the lights on too. So please check out above and beyond podcast.com. We do have merch. We do have some more stuff that we gotta put on there that we do have. We keep adding new pieces. It's becoming really an amazing journey so far.

We're building faster than we can get these episodes out. And we do appreciate all your wonderful feedback and everything. and please grab your two free companion resources while you're there. We have the Desire Audit from the last episode and the 7-Day Mental Diet Journal, because honestly, that Mental Diet Journal really pairs perfectly with today's homework. And it'll help you catch up where your mind is leaning before your mood follows it, if that makes any sense to you guys. Okay, remember, touch things lightly, hold them firmly, lean on Him.

Troward said, we've only taken a few steps, but they're in the right direction. So what do we do now? We go on. And the truth is, everything you want exists on the other side of fear. Now go build it.