We all have an innate miracle mentality within us. It’s only when the people around us become the opposition to our mission by making us doubt ourselves and telling us to “get real” that we lose it. Alicia Dunams’ guest is Tim Storey, the acclaimed author of The Miracle Mentality. In this episode, you’ll get a sneak peek from the author himself on Chapter 3 of the book entitled “Activating the Magical in Your Life.” Tim also shares his story on why he wrote the book, his favorite lessons from it, and his advice for aspiring authors who would also like to share stories of their own. Tune in and be inspired to take back the magic in your life.
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Miracle Mentality With Tim Storey
Welcome to another episode. I have Tim Storey here. He is an acclaimed author, speaker and celebrity life coach known for inspiring and motivating people all over the world, from entertainment executives, celebrities, and athletes to adults and children in the most deprived neighborhoods in the country. Tim has traveled to 75 countries and spoken to millions of people. He often meets privately to counsel high-profile leaders in spiritual capacities. Along with a rigorous speaking career and private life coaching session, Tim regularly appears on nationally syndicated radio and TV shows, including SiriusXM Radio. I believe Oprah. We’re going to be talking about that. You are also a man of the pulpit. You lead the Congregation Church in Placentia, California.
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Tim, it is so wonderful to be with you to talk about your new book The Miracle Mentality.
I’m talking to my friend, everybody. It’s nice to be interviewed by my friend.
It’s so good to have you here. I know that you are influencing and impacting millions through your life, your church, your book, and your messaging. I want to get specific here because there’s a lot of aspiring authors reading. Tim, why did you write this book?
This idea of The Miracle Mentality comes from situations like this. Let’s say I’m in Johannesburg, South Africa, in a Township which I love Johannesburg. I love all of South Africa. I’ve been there 23 times and I was speaking in a Township and the kids were 6 and 7 years of age. I said, “What do you want to be when you get older?” A little girl said, “A ballerina.” Another little boy said, “I want to be the president.” I thought to myself, it’s amazing how even though they’re living in these very difficult situations, they have these miraculous ideas of what they want to become. I began to research something.
That’s my style. I like to research, bring in researchers, and then marinade on a concept. I’ve found that it is a fact that it is innate within people that we have this amazing imagination. That’s why you ask most little kids what they want to be when they’re little. It’s something that’s way out there. I said, “What about if somebody has been raised in a tough family, they’ve been molested, or something bad happened?” The studies find that still, there is magic inside their mindset. The Miracle Mentality is about believing in miracles but also expecting. Many times, we believe but we don’t expect. That’s where it all came from.
What happens where we have this big belief, but then we don’t expect it. How is that a detriment?
I don’t blame people. What happens is they started to expect whether it be a mother, father, grandparents, siblings, and relatives. They didn’t try to confine you and say, “Get real.” A lot of celebrities that I work with talk about how there were people who probably not on purpose or telling them to get real like, “You’re not going to be that guy.” Many times, we have these amazing thoughts and then there becomes what I call opposition to our mission. A lot of that is in the power of words from the people that are around us. We have to realize that it is innate for us to be this way, to have miracle thoughts and believe that it’s for them and then expect them. When you begin to align yourself with that side of you, there’s nothing like it.
I’d love for you to share with our readers what The Miracle Mentality is and what are some of your favorite lessons in the book?
We start off with momentum as we’re talking and then life interruptions come. An interruption is a disturbance. It could be your parents got divorced, you were ill as a child, and something horrific takes place. When a life interruption hits, you are now thinking, “How do I get through this mess? How do I get through the madness?” You have so much mess and madness that there’s almost not too much room for the miraculous. What do you have to do? You have to become awake. Secondly, you take inventory like, “What is my life like?” I deal with a lot of good people who will go through divorces. They’ll say like, “Tim, this is such great teaching because I became awake, but I didn’t take proper inventory. Where’s my life now.” You become awake and take inventory. The number three, you have to partner with the right people. That’s why a lot of people mess up is that many times a partner with whoever’s just closest.
I call that low-hanging fruit.
You’ve got to partner with the right people with The Miracle Mentality who are thinking beyond that you’re not going to live in the land of okay your whole life because you went through something. You partner with the right people, but then you have to find the right principles. A lot of what I’m about is doing things correctly and having the right principles. Out of the principles comes the plan. I would say to people, “Do not try to come up with a plan if you don’t have the right principles and you could. You’re going to come up with something very silly.” You have the right plan. From the plan, you have to be persistent. That’s what me and you are. We know how to fight through difficulties.
Believe in miracles, and also expect that it will happen. Click To Tweet
I love the literation of the mundanity of life. The mundane, the messy, and madness. Throughout your book, you take us through those three and how we can change all three of those into miracle mentality, parenting, and relationships.
One reason the book is doing so well because I break it up into sections. I break it into your finances because many times the messy and madness can get into your finances. I talk about your family, your personal life, and your spiritual life. I break it up into these different areas and how you could have The Miracle Mentality in all areas of your life. As a kid growing up in a cramped and crowded location, we had seven people in a two-bedroom apartment. That’s how we started. There was never a talk of, “Who’s going to Harvard and Yale.” It was like, “Don’t get in trouble.”
It’s living life on the bare minimum versus the outrageous, the miracle.
There are three main ways that we learn. Education, conversation, and observation. As I began to get older, my sixth-grade teacher, one time said, “Tim, can you stay after class?” He said it while the students were still there and they went, “He’s probably in trouble.” I came over. I didn’t know what he was going to say. I thought he’s going to say, “You’re a good dancer,” because I’d won a dance contest, which I should have. I thought he’s going to say, “You’re a good basketball player,” because I noticed he would watch my games. He says, “You are brilliant and because of that, I want to see if you want to check out one of my personal books from my library.”
He is my sixth-grade teacher who labeled me brilliant. He pulled out three books. I don’t remember the other two because I got fixated on a book about the life of Michaelangelo written by Irving Stone. I had seen a documentary on TV that my father had watched about Michaelangelo. I asked my teacher if I could use that book, he said, “Yes, you got two weeks to finish it.” He said, “You got to check it out.” It was like a little library that he had. I checked it out. When I read that book, my mind begins to soar. Could you imagine my teacher labeling me brilliant, but I did not push it away? I just went like this, “Thank you very much.”
That’s the beauty of acknowledgment because when you have acknowledged people, you speak words into them and speak spirit. What it does is when you acknowledge someone for being brilliant, they want to meet you there. That person you spoke into, that’s their new floor. You have established their floor, then they want to improve and go above and beyond that.
Many times, people label us from our current state and a label denotes three things, your value. If it says Christian Louboutin, Louis Vuitton, Prada, Givenchy, and some high brand, we say that’s top. You’re labeled denote your value, but also it denotes your content in your usage. We have to say, “The label that somebody put on me, is it true? If it’s not, am I allowed to change it?” I knew I wasn’t a lower-income kid from Compton. I knew I would shake the world. I decided to and I did. I rose above my tags. That was my choice.
What you said is so powerful because there was something in me that I do not like labels. I know that the human brain wants to label people. It’s a way to organize because the human brain doesn’t like uncertainty. You said three things that the label tells our value, our content, and usage and humans are dynamic. We expand and go above and beyond our labels. When you label people by calling someone something, it shrinks us.
I never used the word shrink, but that’s perfect. I like it. I’m going to quote you on that. If someone says, “She’s big-boned like her mother. He’s hard-headed like his father.” It does shrink you. The sixth-grade teacher expanded me in the way I thought, “I think you’re brilliant.” What he thought about me, it’s like, I took it and I put it on me like a cloak. I’m into the things of God. I also say this, “God’s opinion of you makes man’s opinion irrelevant.” I’m not waiting for the popular vote. “I’m good because God’s good with me and I’m good with God. I decided to rise up and do what I’m supposed to do.”
The Miracle Mentality I’d love for you to share because your book is very well organized where people can go through the finances, the parenting, and the relationships in their life. Some of your deepest lessons to give them a little sampling of the book because everyone goes to Amazon.com to purchase The Miracle Mentality. We want to get a little sneak peek from the author directly.
I’m going to look in it and say something about one of the chapter titles that I like. This whole idea about The Miracle Mentality is so important. In Chapter 3, I talk about Activating the Magical in your Life. A lot of people have been afraid to soar and be the person they’re supposed to be. In life, we go through these stages where we sit, learn, stand in what we’ve learned, and walk out the principles. That’s what most people are. They’re living their lives. They got married, they had two kids, they got a picket fence, or whatever. I find most people are in that walking stage of life, but they know there’s got to be more to life than this.
You felt that before in your life. They sit, stand, and walk it out. To activate the magical or turn the lights on, you have to know that there must be more to life. That more than life is the next phase. You sit, you stand, you walk, but you’re allowed to run. Run is passion. That’s when you get around a Berry Gordy, who was my great friend, who’s 91 years of age and he’s still loving life. You get around Smokey Robinson who just turned 81, who’s loving life and looks amazing. I was with Smokey not so long ago. He’s got a trainer. The guy has ripped at 81 and I hugged him. We’re like real brothers. I hugged him and I felt his muscles and he goes, “Hug me again.” I hugged him again. He goes, “Did you feel that?” You got to go from sitting to standing to walking to activate the magical. You got to know that it’s okay to run. Run is a place of passion, but that’s not it. You can soar. That’s The Miracle Mentality. Once you soar, I am not going back to being regular. We always have to live the mundane. Mundane is I throw out my own trash and go to the DMV like anybody else. I got to get registration tags and put them on. I do mind things, but here’s the key. You’re going to love this. I teach in the book you can master the mundane. I just don’t do the mundane. I master the heck out of it.
It’s all about the intention because when we think it’s mundane, then we act in that way. I believe you mentioned before, like mastering, if you do the dishes or you’re a dishwasher, you master that, you enjoy that, you put everything into that, and then you see the miracles in it. I always come from a place like, “I don’t have to do the dishes. I get to do the dishes.” Show me that you have running water and food, which some people don’t have.
Thank you for bringing up that illustration. When I was a dishwasher for Mr. Anderson and I was 15.5 years of age. He said to me, “Timmy, I’m not supposed to hire you until you’re sixteen. I like you so much. I’m going to hire you at 15.5.” He put me in the back doing dishes. I was like such a machine. My mother who’s Latin. She’s from Spain of SMT to consolidate. She taught us, “Don’t do a halfway job.” I’m mixed. My mother is Spanish and my father’s black. I remember the lazy cook. He used to say to me, “Why are you doing the dishes like you own the place.” He used to call me the owner, joking. Little did he know he was prophesied because someday I will own a lot of stuff.
I continued to do those dishes as though I own the place because I respected Mr. Anderson. I wanted to serve his vision. I’m being serious. The day I turned sixteen, he made me a busboy, and someone says, “That’s not that big of a deal.” It was because I’m going from sitting to standing to walking. Someday I’d run and I’d soar. I like to say it this way. It’s in the book. “If you build your spot, life will put the spotlight on your spot.” I see so many people looking for the spot and the spotlight, “My dream.” Build your spot and life will put the spotlight and your spot.
That’s what you say in the book. People and celebrities are consumed by that. They’re not focusing on their spot. I have a question for you. This is not your first book. Do you recommend that other people write a book?
Yes, I believe we were made in the image of God and he’s pretty creative. Everybody has a story in them, but most people have a book in them. I do a lot of teaching to young people in colleges, in various places where I see young people. Many times, I ask young people, “How many of you are thinking of writing a book?” This is the truth. I would say 90% of the audience goes like that. There are three ways to write a book. One is the old-fashioned way. It’s to hand-write. To get a pencil or pen and you write. There’s a lot of the best writers in the world that still do it that way. The second is you get on these keys and you type away. The third, because me and you are vocal people, I do it on the keys. You could talk about it on your phone or you could be old school getting an old microcassette or a new one and speak it in. I do both.
With The Miracle Mentality book, my guy, Nick Chiles, also teaches at Princeton University. He’s no joke. Nick, you cost a lot of money, but you’re worth it. What he did is he yanked things out of me that I didn’t want to tell. I like to tell somebody else’s story, but I don’t want to tell you mine all the time. He yanked out things about my family, about the pain that I was in, and the pain that I’ve gone through. The first time I talk about the fact that I’d been divorced, which was many years ago, but I don’t ever talk about it. All things out because I felt so mundane when I went through that. I was so messy. That was the first thing that ever happened in a traumatic way as an adult that I felt helped create cost. It may be no part of it. It takes two, but part was my fault. Nick Chiles, my editor, pulled a lot out of me. Should everybody write a book? Everybody should write, that’s for sure. Everybody has a story to tell. Yes, writing is good.
You said everyone has a story to tell. I’d love for you to share one of those stories you tell in the book or one of those stories that your editor coaxed out of you. I know you share a variety of different stories. I’d love to share one that is the most meaningful for you in the book.
I came up too fast. I went to seminary and then I went on and got a Doctorate in World Religion. People found out that I had to give to communicate and not a normal gift but a gift that was very unusual. With that, I became a boy wonder and started speaking in the largest conferences around the world, starting at twenty years of age. I spoke in Nigeria to 13,000 people at twenty. In Indonesia, I had 19,000 there. I spoke for the Catholic church in the Philippines. I had 37,000 people there. I still hold the record of the youngest guy to speak to congress on spiritual issues at a very young age. I was doing all that. I got so busy that my marriage started going like this. In this book, I talk about how I married into a very powerful family. My father-in-law was an advisor to both Bush presidents in Urban Affairs. He’s a very bright man and two doctorates. I asked the guy for his daughter’s hand in marriage and we’re married eleven years.
Eight of them were not great, but we stayed in and then to get divorced. Divorce is a divided force. That was like a ripping because we never used to yell at each other. It wasn’t about that. We were from two different planets, but that was awful. I became a discount version of myself for ten years, but not on the platforms. I was a public success. I was flying 2,000 invitations a year, but inside, I was hurting badly. I share this story in the book for the first time about how I needed to find a way to get through the messy and madness. I did it through the power partnerships. I began to partner with people who cared about me and said, “Tim, come on. We all make mistakes. Fail forward. Follow your teaching. Keep going.” A great therapist who helped save my life, Dr. Helen Mendes, who taught at USC like life brought me people that helped shape me, heal me, and mold me. I’m more empathetic than I’ve ever been since going through that in other things in life.
I appreciate you sharing that story with us. What you are into many people as a spiritual leader from your church to your work in life coaching. There’s a scene in your book where you talk about being invited to Oprah’s house and surrounded by spiritual leaders. There’s a conversation about that. I was thinking, “To be a fly on the wall of that experience.” I’d love to share your book out The Miracle Mentality at this age where we live in 2021 and speak into how we can all be spiritual leaders in our own life.
There’s this rock that Oprah gave us all. This is belief on it. She did a documentary on Belief. I was sitting with everybody. Next to me at my dinner table was Thomas Moore, who wrote an amazing book. He says, “Thank you, Tim, for your genius.” They had all these thought leaders from all over the world and me, being raised in a Christian background because we went to a Christian Church at age four. It was amazing to hear these stories of people who were of Buddhist background, Muslim background, all kinds of different thoughts, religion, shamans and how they would say that they would ask God to come close to them and He would come close to them. This is very interesting to hear different perspectives.
What I’ve found is, it’s amazing when you draw near to God and look for God. He shows up for you in a way that you understand. I’ve had a lot of growth in my life with that. That’s why so many people follow me from all walks of life like, “Do I have a church that is a Christian church?” Yes, we have 15,000 people watching me online that are coming from all walks of life because I’m not judgmental. I’m more into spiritual principles that bring growth and change. That’s been a big part of my life. It helped me to have a miracle mentality in a greater way as well.
Thank you for sharing that. As we get wrapped up on the show, I want you to leave the readers with one piece of advice as they go out on their day and reading this blog. What’s one piece of advice that was significant that’s featured in your book that encompasses The Miracle Mentality?
Do not try to come up with a plan if you don't have the right principles. Click To Tweet
In life, we all have setbacks. A setback is to set, which means to fix, solidify, to hold something. I got divorced and I had that setback. What I did is I sat in the setback and I settled the setback. I’m telling everyone that, “You don’t have to sit or settle or don’t need to cement yourself with a setback.” A lot of people will say, “The Miracle Mentality is not for me. If you only knew what I’ve been through, I’ve been through that and the other.” Please, don’t settle and don’t cement yourself. When you’re feeling the sting of your setback, life is preparing you to come back.
As you know, I’m very close with Robert Downey Jr. When I met Robert in 1999, he was not an Iron Man. He was far from Iron Man. This is very teaching I gave him. To think that he would go from wondering and wandering to being one of the biggest action stars and movie stars in the world. It is not just because of my council, but because of his resolve to get up and have The Miracle Mentality. While you’re feeling the sting of your setback, life is preparing for your comeback. Rise up now and let’s do it with The Miracle Mentality.
Turn your setback into a comeback. Tim, share with us how we can learn more about you and find you online and we can get The Miracle Mentality on Amazon.com and other retailers.
First, I want to say, you’re so good at what you do. You ask great questions and you’re phenomenal with the follow-up question. I want to say that and a wonderful person. I’m at TimStorey.com. You can see everything that we’re doing. We have a large following online and that’s what I do. The Miracle Mentality is so important to me. It’s a movement, so don’t buy it for yourself. Why don’t you sponsor somebody else’s amazing miraculous life? Buy it for somebody who you think needs a miracle in their life.
Tim Storey, thank you so much for being here and sharing your perspective and possibility from the pages in real life. Thank you so much, everyone, for joining us with Authoring Life. Until next time.
Important Links:
- Tim Storey
- The Miracle Mentality
- The Agony and the Ecstasy: A Biographical Novel of Michelangelo – Amazon
- The Miracle Mentality – Amazon
About Tim Storey
Tim Storey is an acclaimed author, speaker, and life coach helping people create the future they desire.
He has inspired people from all walks of life, from entertainment legends to professional athletes… from executives to deprived children throughout the world. Using seasoned foundational principles and humor to get honest with people so they can overcome the obstacles that are holding them back. Tim has traveled to seventy-five countries and spoken to millions of people. He often meets privately to counsel high-profile leaders in various industries.
Tim has partnered with phenomenal organizations to spread love and hope. Spending time with the Fred Jordan Mission in Los Angeles’ Skid Row, Music Unites Day in Los Angeles’ Compton schools, and Kid‘s Haven orphanage in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Tim is featured on nationally syndicated Keep the Faith Radio each weekend, providing short inspirational moments and is featured on Steve Harvey TV Facebook LIVE weekly. He was a featured guest on Oprah’s SuperSoul Sunday, Steve Harvey TV, Grant Cardone’s 10X Growth Con, and many more. Tim has authored multiple books, with the most recent, Comeback & Beyond, being a top seller on Amazon.
Tim has two adult children from his previous marriage and lives in Southern California.
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