1. Conia discusses the concept of expectations forming a “filter” for our lives. How do you think your current expectations are influencing your daily perception of events?
2. The idea of expectations acting as a “magnet” for external opportunities or obstacles is intriguing. Can you recall a situation where your expectations seemingly attracted a specific outcome?
3. How does the analogy of the red glasses help explain the importance of filtering out negative influences in our lives?
4. Conia emphasizes the role of faith in creating positive expectations. How does your personal faith shape your daily mindset and expectations?
5. The story of Conia’s mentor who was compromised by his own negative expectations is a powerful example. Do you have similar experiences where negative expectations led to negative outcomes?
6. The concept of our expectations predicting our futures is quite transformational. What steps can you take to consciously set positive expectations for your future?
7. Conia refers to Philippians 4:13 and 4:8 to underscore the power of positive thinking. How can you apply these verses to tackle current challenges in your life?
8. The example of Henry Ford and the six-cylinder engine illustrates the power of expectations in innovation. Do you agree that strong, positive expectations can drive innovation in your professional life? Why or why not?
9. The story of Carnegie searching for “gold” in people suggests the importance of focusing on the positive traits in others. How does this perspective change your approach to relationships and teamwork?
10. Reflecting on Ephesians 4:23 and the importance of renewing the mind, what practices or habits can you introduce to ensure your mind stays focused on positive and noble thoughts?
Conia [00:00:05]:
. Well, good morning again. It’s so exciting when I get to come and I get to share with you, because what’s exciting for me is usually God’s had something on my heart for a while and it’ll manifest itself through conversations with the kids or the grandkids or the people that we’re coaching. And today I get to talk to you about expectations.
Conia [00:01:15]:
And I probably could, I probably could do a whole series on this, but we’re going to kind of come at it from a really high level today. And then I want you to think about it as we go forward and we’re talking about expectations. And what I want you to know about expectations is that is why God talks to us so much about our faith. Because our faith creates our expectations and our beliefs, and that’s why he focuses so, so much on our faith, because it really sets us up to receive what he has for us. If we have the right expectations, does that make sense? Having the wrong expectations is going to allow other stuff in that God didn’t, quite frankly, he just didn’t authorize, really. And so that negative expectation comes in and usurps what God has for you. And we don’t want to do that. So we want to set our positive expectations.
Conia [00:02:16]:
We want to set our godly expectations so we actually get to live what God has for us. Does that make sense? Good. All right. So your expectations do three things. Okay? First, they’re going to filter the way you see life, okay? And then they’re a magnet for outside things to come to you. Your expectations actually create, like, magnetic force, if you will, for things to come to you. And they’re also a predictor of what will come to you. Your expectations are powerful.
Conia [00:03:00]:
Your faith, your belief is powerful. And this works in the world system just like it works in the faith system. But when you work it in the faith system, we get God’s best for us, and there’s just no point in walking through life and only getting what’s best for the world. Why not get God’s best for your life? So let’s dig in. Are you ready? So Philippians 413 is one of these verses that really actually talks about our expectations, and it says, I can do this through him who gives me strength. That’s an expectation. And knowing that, then you will expect great things. Philippians four eight, right before this.
Conia [00:03:50]:
Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things. So this is where the first part of the expectation and our filter comes in. When you’re thinking on these things, that creates your filter. We all had those little games, and sometimes they come in a sonic wacky pack. You get the little glasses, and the glasses are red, and then you’ve got the the printout, and the printout’s all jumbled. But when you put the red glasses on, what’s on the printout becomes clear. What you’re supposed to see becomes clear because you filtered out the other colors with the red glasses. Your thoughts work exactly the same way.
Conia [00:04:53]:
Your thoughts when you think on these things, as God instructs us to do now you have a filter for your expectations that will filter out all the things that aren’t supposed to be there. We have a worldly system that throws a ton of things at us, most of which are negative. But when we filter out all the negative, we focus on the positive. All we receive is the positive. You can receive a lot of negative messages into your brain every day if you don’t have a good filter. So let your expectations be your filter for what you’re going to receive when you put all the news and all the bad. I mean, we have so much access worldwide to all the things that are happening in this world, man. You could create a negative filter in a hurry, or you could pick up your bible, or you could pick up chicken soup for the soul, and you could create a positive filter for your life.
Conia [00:06:05]:
Okay. All right. They’re also a magnet you will keep in perfect peace, says Isaiah 26 three, those whose minds are steadfast because they trust in you. It’s a magnet for peace, or it can be a magnet for angst. You’re creating a magnet. You’re creating what you want to come to you. I had a mentor whom I loved. But who had these ideas about the world and that he was not going to share certain information.
Conia [00:06:45]:
He wouldn’t share Social Security number with anybody because he was afraid that somebody would get a hold of it and become him, right, and steal his information, impersonate him. He would not give a credit card over the phone to a hotel because he had heard that the credit cards get used to book other hotel rooms by the hotel when there’s big conventions going on. And he would not. He was afraid about his cell phone. There was a time in life when you could actually drive by and you could pick up somebody’s cell phone signal and you could clone it. He was terrified that his cell phone was going to be cloned. Do you know that that man is the only person I have ever known to have his credit cardinal compromised and used by a hotel for booking at another hotel. He finally had to do it.
Conia [00:07:39]:
He was going to this big convention. The hotel that he needed to stay at would not make the reservations without him giving his credit card over the phone. He finally said, I’m going to do it. But ah, he was just so, so sure that it was going to be compromised. And it was. And the same thing happened with his cell phone. Somebody picked up his cell phone, cloned it and went off and made charges on his cell phone back when you could do that. And he’s the only person I’ve ever known.
Conia [00:08:10]:
He was so terrified. He had that filter. He had put that in his brain and he thought on it and it manifested. Well, what we think on and manifest, we can manifest the positive. Two people who become healed and whole with no explanation except God, is that they focused on God’s ability to heal, God’s desire to heal us. Our body’s natural ability to heal, that God put in it. And if you don’t believe in healing, just, just scratch yourself and see what happens. It doesn’t stay an open wound.
Conia [00:08:48]:
It heals eventually. Whether you stitch it up or whether you put a band aid on it or not, it will heal over eventually. Bigger things can happen in your body. We just have to allow them. And what we focus on makes a difference. Joshua one nine says, have I not commanded you be strong and courageous? Do not be afraid, do not be discouraged because the Lord, your God will be with you wherever you go. If your filter is the Lord my God is with me wherever I go. You will be strong, you will be courageous.
Conia [00:09:31]:
But if you don’t have that filter and you don’t have that magnet, then you’re going to be susceptible to the things of the world. We don’t want to be susceptible to those things. We want to be only susceptible to what God has designed for us. So you want to focus on the things of God. You want to focus on the pure, the powerful, the positive. That’s the things. The third thing is that your expectations are a predictor. They will predict what’s to come for you.
Conia [00:10:11]:
One of my favorite stories about this is Henry Ford. He decided that he wanted to have a six cylinder engine. At the time, there were no six cylinder engines. And then engineers came to him and they said, mister Ford, there’s no way. We can’t push enough fuel through this engine. We can’t make it function right. The physics don’t work. To go from a four cylinder to a six cylinder is not a linear process, Mister Ford.
Conia [00:10:38]:
It doesn’t work. It can’t be measured out into a six cylinder engine. And he says, here’s your laboratory. I’ll see you when you have a six cylinder engine. And they said, we just told you there’s no such thing as a six cylinder engine. It can’t be done. And he said, here’s your laboratory. I’ll see you when there’s a six cylinder engine.
Conia [00:11:03]:
And it wasn’t just that he was being a turkey. It was that he truly believed that when they put their minds to it, they could come up with a six cylinder engine. I bet you know that there’s such a thing as a six cylinder engine now. And an eight cylinder and a twelve. There’s a twelve. I was looking at car specs the other day for cars that we’re looking at. There’s a twelve cylinder engine. Do you know that that would probably blow the minds of the engineers in Henry Ford’s factory, in that engineering facility.
Conia [00:11:35]:
There’s things that you’re going to do that will blow the minds of people today. But that only happens if you get in line with God’s will and purpose and you set your expectations. Carnegie, the steel magnate, not Dale Carnegie, who gives us all sorts of positive things, but Carnegie, the steel magnate at the turn of the last century, not this century of the last century. He had in his employ several millionaires. Millionaires at a time when millionaires just weren’t a thing. And he was being interviewed and he was asked by the journalist, Mister Carnegie, how is it that you got all these millionaires to come work for you? And he told how they were not millionaires when he hired them. And so then the question becomes, well then, how did they become millionaires. He said, when you go looking for gold, you have to move a lot of dirt.
Conia [00:12:46]:
He wasn’t looking for the dirt in these people. He was looking for the positive, the gold in them. And when he found the gold, that’s what he focused on. And that allowed them to do better, to do more, to go out into excel and become millionaires. It’s all about what you’re looking for. I recall having an aunt, aunt by marriage. And she, from a time that she was very young, said, I want to live in a high rise apartment complex, and I want to have a rich husband. Now then, her background did not dictate that that would be the case for her.
Conia [00:13:29]:
She came from a small town in a country, and there were no rich people in. In her town. She didn’t even know anybody rich. There was not an atmosphere of quote unquote rich in her mind. Now, we know that rich is more than money, but that was her focus. Do you know that that woman ended up living in one of the first high rise apartment complexes in her whole region, and she was married to a rich, also very nice man. That was her focus from the time she was a little girl. So that is what was attracted to her.
Conia [00:14:05]:
We attract what we expect. So you want to set your expectations on the things of God, because the things of God are so powerful. He has promised us good things. He has promised us that he will always be here with us, that if we will seek him, we will find him. If we will knock, the door will be opened to us. So that’s our job. Our job is to create the expectation that becomes a filter, that becomes a magnet, that becomes now a predictor of what’s to come. Apollo 13.
Conia [00:14:59]:
If you haven’t seen that movie, it’s a great movie. You got to go see it. Everybody knows that Apollo 13 had some issues. Those guys never did land on the moon. Their whole point was getting to the moon. And in the movie, they portray so well what’s going on in this control room. It’s a. It’s a really great trail.
Conia [00:15:19]:
And there’s a. One of the news guys there, and they’re all asking questions, and they’re all trying to figure it out. And all the engineers are standing around trying to just figure out what’s going to happen. And one of them says, this could be the worst disaster in NASA’s history. And I don’t think that necessarily he was wrong. It could have been. But Gene Kranz, the director of flight operations for the whole mission, overheard it, and he looked at the guy and he says, on the contrary. He says, I think this is going to be our finest hour.
Conia [00:15:56]:
He was the leader. He set the tone. He created the filter that said, no, this is going to be our finest hour. We are not going to focus on the fact that this could be our worst nightmare. This could be the worst disaster. We’re not going to focus on that at all. We’re going to focus on the fact that this is going to be our finest hour. We are going to overcome all odds.
Conia [00:16:24]:
And isn’t that what God teaches us to do? Doesn’t he teach us that our faith makes us overcomers and that what looks like despair, what looks like horror, what looks like the depths, that you cannot begin to see, the light at the end of the tunnel, you’re an overcomer. You will take the next step forward. You will be able to shine God’s light, and you will come out the other side victorious. We’re victors. We’re victorious because of our faith in God, who has promised already to us that we can be, if we will seek him, victorious. But you have to believe it. You have to put on your filtered eyeglasses. You have to become the magnet for those things.
Conia [00:17:21]:
And you have to know, even right here and right now, that the prediction is good, that this will be your finest hour. And you know your finest hour isn’t final. It’s your finest hour to date. We have this worldly system that shows us. Oh, I did this for you already. I’m not going to do anything else for you because I already did that for you. That’s not God’s system. God’s system is.
Conia [00:17:51]:
That was your finest hour to date. Guess what we’re gonna do next. Remember, God’s always more and better. How do we get this filter? How do we become this magnet? How do we predict the future? And it really is. It goes back to that. Philippians four, eight, verse. Let’s look at this again. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things.
Conia [00:18:39]:
That’s your key. That’s how you create a filter. That’s how you become a magnet, and that’s how you predict the future, is because you’re focused on those things, and you are now setting your expectations for good. Ephesians 423. You want to be made new in the attitude of your minds. We are supposed to be constantly renewing our minds, even though we put on that filter, there’s things of the world that will try to come against us, and we have to say, no, no, you’re not allowed in. Nehemiah, when he’s on the wall, he’s rebuilding this wall. He’s gone through all kinds of things to try to get there, all kinds of miraculous things.
Conia [00:19:26]:
He had not the provision. He didn’t have the authority. He didn’t have anything that the world would say, nehemiah, you can build this wall. But God said, nehemiah, cup bearer to the kingdom, you can go rebuild this wall. And the king gave his blessing because Nehemiah went to God and said, am I supposed to do this? And God said, yes. And so the king gave his blessing because God made it possible. And the other people joined him because they saw God in Nehemiah. And he’s up on this wall, and he’s building, and they’re building with one hand, and they got a sword in the other hand fighting these people off.
Conia [00:20:07]:
And people come to try to distract him. They’re like, hey, come down here. Let’s talk. Let’s see what you’re doing. Let’s see if we can. Maybe we can help, you know, or maybe let us convince you that this is just a bad idea. And Nehemiah says, I am doing a great work, and I cannot come down your positive thoughts. You’re setting your expectations.
Conia [00:20:31]:
That’s a great work, and you can’t come down from that. If you come down from that now, you allow these outside forces in, they try to take you out, and we’re not supposed to be susceptible to that, but it takes the renewing of our minds. Second Timothy one seven says, for the spirit God gave us does not make us timidity, but it gives us power, love and self discipline. You have the power. You have love within you that helps you create that magnet and that filter, and you have the self discipline that keeps you looking forward to what’s to come. Set your expectations. They are the powerful. Your faith is powerful.
Conia [00:21:29]:
You’ve got Dunamis. You’ve got power. But if you let it get covered up with the world, if you let get it covered up with negative things, if you get covered up with negative expectations, you will not walk in that power that God has for you. I had to take a psychology class, I think I was a sophomore in college. And we had to read this book. And it was called authentic Happiness by a guy named Martin Seligman. And it was a secular book. It really wasn’t a faith based kind of a psychology book at all.
Conia [00:22:02]:
But he did had this study that he referenced, and it was these women, and they did the same demographic, right? So we’ve got socio economic status, you know, you’ve got kind of their background, where they came from, where they lived. And he took two groups of ten women and he said, just wanted to look at their marriages and why they were either happy or sad. Because the first group of ten, the people, identified their marriages as not great. And then you had this other group of ten, and they were identifying their marriages as great. And so he kind of had the basic outside factors, looked pretty close, so he wanted to study them. And so he starts interviewing these people as to why they are, what their outlook was, whether they were happy or not in their marriage. And what it finally came down to after he’s done all this research and all they did looked at the health studies, and they looked at all the things. And the difference between these women and whether they were happy or not in their marriage is their perception of their husbands, their expectation of their husbands.
Conia [00:23:14]:
And the women who expected that their husbands were fabulous, that they did great things, that they were great providers, that they, you know, were great fathers and enjoyed their time together, etcetera. Those women were happy. The expectation of the other women he found was that they were picking all the time. Well, he’s not this, he’s not that, he’s not this, he’s not that. And really, some of the guys in the group where the women thought they were not happy and were kind of picking at their husbands were better providers, were better guys, were better in their community than the guys where the women thought they had a happy marriage or knew they had a happy marriage. Because these women’s expectations was, this is what I have. I have this good thing, and I have other good things coming. Your expectations of what you have and what you have coming define how you walk out your life.
Conia [00:24:17]:
Your angst or your negative expectations are not a result of what’s happening out here. It’s a result of what you filter in and you allow in here. Your angst is internal. What’s out here just highlights it. Your joy is internal. What’s out here just highlights it. And it highlights it because of your filter, because of your magnet, because of your outlook as a predictor of what’s going on. Think about your outlook today.
Conia [00:24:54]:
Think about your focus today. Ask God to show you where you can get a better filter. Seek the word. Search it out. He’ll reveal it to you. He always does. If we really do sit down and seek him regularly. It doesn’t have to be for hours.
Conia [00:25:20]:
It doesn’t have to be for days. It just needs to be goddesse. I acknowledge you. I see that you’re here. I trust that you have my best interests at heart. I need you, Lord, to show me how to make my filter better, to filter out the junk of the world, to set my expectations for more and good and better. Because I want to experience, Lord, all that you have for me. I don’t want to miss any of it.
Conia [00:25:52]:
And when you have that joy of the Lord, now you’re magnetic. And people look and they go, I want what he’s got. I want what she’s got. And it’s not talking about the boat out on the lake or the lake house or the car. It’s talking about that internal peace that passes understanding because you’re filtering out everything that’s not of God. You’re only attractive to everything that is of God. And your prediction of the future is focused solely on what God is going to bring you. Think about this today.
Conia [00:26:34]:
Go look up these verses. Go look them up. Let God speak to you through his word. Word, he loves you. He wants only what’s best for you, but he can only get to you what you will allow in. Set your filter today. Become a magnet for greatness, and your future is predicted to be so wonderful. Father, thank you for this time together.
Conia [00:27:09]:
Lord, thank you for your word that shows us how to become filters of all the negative things and get them out of there. And that we only allow in your positive, that we only expect, Lord, your positive things. And, Lord, it’s just the things that you think are positive, not what the world says. We love you, Lord. We are so grateful that you have such good things for us. We praise you for it, and we thank you in Jesus name. Amen.
