269 | Are You Wasting Your Dash? Gratitude and Contentment in Real Estate

If you’ve been running so hard that you haven’t stopped to breathe, this Thanksgiving message is your reminder: slow down, look around, and ask—how am I spending my dash?

Happy Thanksgiving Faithful Agents! I'm so thankful you're here. In this episode, join me in a moment of quiet reflection and gratitude. Using the powerful idea of “the dash”—the small line representing your entire life between birth and death—let's consider what truly matters and how intentionally we're living each day. Explore Psalm 131 and unpack biblical wisdom about cultivating contentment, calming your spirit, and embracing gratitude in all circumstances.

This episode calls you to pause, breathe, and thank the Lord for His provision, His kindness, and the people entrusted to you. It’s a gentle but challenging reminder that your priorities shape your legacy, and Thanksgiving is the perfect time to realign your heart.

Sign up for Cut the Chaos, Keep the Closings: A 2026 Lead Gen Workshop below!

Takeaways

• Gratitude anchors us—especially in challenging seasons.
• Your “dash” represents your whole life; be intentional with how you live it.
• A calm and quiet spirit reflects trust in God, not striving.
• Scripture calls us to give thanks in all circumstances.
• Contentment grows when we recognize God’s daily kindness.
• Complaining comes naturally; gratitude must be practiced intentionally.
• True intentional living prioritizes relationships over achievement.
• You can win at work without losing at home.
• A gratitude mindset shifts your entire perspective on life.
• Jesus is the ultimate source of both contentment and thankfulness.

Chapters

00:00 — Thanksgiving Reflections and Gratitude
 03:11 — Understanding the Dash of Life
 06:04 — Calmness, Quietness, and Intentional Gratitude
 08:52 — Recognizing God’s Provision
 12:09 — Living with Contentment and Purpose

Cut the Chaos, Keep the Closings: 2026 Lead Gen Workshop - https://www.garrettmaroon.com/plan

⭐️ Rate & Review:
If this episode challenged or encouraged you, leave a 5-star review and share it with another Christian agent who needs to hear this message.

Resources & Opportunities:

📞 Want to be in Business with Garrett and Christian agents around the globe? Schedule a call with Garrett to learn about the 2:10 Collective on the eXp Realty platform
🔗 https://calendly.com/garrettmaroon/210collective

📖 Download The Faithful Agent E-Book: ➡️ Grab it HERE

📩 Join the Movement:
➡️ Order Garrett's Book - The Balanced Breakthrough - HERE

Transcript

0:00

What is up, faithful agents? Happy Thanksgiving. If you're listening on Thanksgiving day, what are you doing? Go hang out with your family. But truly I am thankful for each and every one of you. And I hope this short episode will be a helpful reflection for all of us, myself very much included as we think about how grateful we are for the dash, the dash that represents our life. And we're going to dive into that as we reflect on life's true priorities through the lens of Thanksgiving. through biblical wisdom, drawing from some of the themes, honestly, in the book that I just wrote that launched two days ago, if you're listening to this on Thanksgiving and talking about the intentional living. So just so thankful that you're here. I hope this will be a short and brief, short and blessing. That's a terrible way to say that. That's short blessing for you on this day or whenever you listen to it. But let me start, because it's Thanksgiving and obviously every one of you is thankful for my jokes. uh I'm going to start start there with some Thanksgiving jokes, okay What do you call a turkey who tells jokes a? Comedie hen That's... Okay. What? did the corn go to therapy? It had too many ears listening in. That's not funny. uh Okay. And finally, what do you call a turkey on the day after Thanksgiving? Lucky. Oh, that's good. So, all right, here's the last one. I promise. Why did the cranberry blush? It's all the turkey dressing. uh you don't know how hard it is to be funny to the point to make yourself laugh when you're just sitting here in your office by yourself. It's probably a little bit weird if anybody was watching. So anyways, I am so glad you're here again. If you're listening to this on Thanksgiving, happy Thanksgiving. What a genuinely amazing time to just stop and spend time with family and loved ones and reflect on all the things the Lord has done in your life. Doesn't mean things have been perfect. Doesn't mean everything's easy. but it does mean that we have so much to be thankful for and flooding our minds and reminding ourselves with gratitude, whether you've had an amazing year in business, whether you've had an amazing year in family, whether it's been a struggle in either or both, the Lord still has granted us such kindness and we can reflect and be grateful. So in my book, The Balance Breakthrough, that's now officially out, I'm super excited, you can go grab that anywhere, books are sold. but i talk about the concept of the dash uh... which is the line between your birth year the year birth in the year that you died right so uh... and i will go through the whole story of the book but when you look at somebody's headstone right you see the year they're born the year they died in the dash in the dash represents the entire entirety of their life so as we kinda stop and reflect through uh... thanksgiving And we reflect through this dash idea. Number one, we want to recognize that we only have one dash, that the story has already been written by the Lord. And the question that we need to stop and think about is how am I spending my dash? Right? That that's the entirety of your life. Not, not yet. You're still here. We're still listening. We don't know when the dash is going to end, but that's the entirety of our lives. And so as we stop and we think, through questions, right? If you're listening on Thanksgiving, even if you're not, and you're sitting there thinking, well, I need to get out there. I need to more homes. You're thinking about a deal. You're thinking about whatever. totally get that first of all. But the reality is for you to say, how am I spending my dash? Am I proud of spending my dash by being so consumed by work in comparison and selling more houses, making more money, helping more agents, you know, get loans, whatever your scenario is, if you're mortgage lender, whoever, you know, whatever your scenario. Or am I proud of being able to say, Lord, please help me shut this off so I can just be present, be here with my family, enjoy this time with them, not be so stressed out, not be so anxious around all these things, but really try to figure out, okay, I've got one dash. How do I want to spend that? I want to spend it in pursuit of the Lord and pursuit of what he has for me. And the things I know he has for me are my wife, my kids, right? My relationship with him and yeah, business. I want to do that well, but how do we spend the dash that we have? You can even think of it as each day, right? How am I spending each day? Each day is another chapter in the dash of your life in my life. So as I think through some one 31, right? So many of you have heard me tell my story in January, 2024. had a really big anxiety attack and it led me to some one 31 where we're David who's not quite King. He's actually they believe he's writing this from a cave. He's Saul is chasing him. Right. A great Thanksgiving message, but he says, I do not desire things too great or too marvelous for me, but I have calmed and quieted my soul. And we see this, this posture from David before God and how it mirrors what we should pursue during Thanksgiving, right? Calm and quiet and intentional gratitude. We're not desiring things too great or too marvelous for us. We have calmed and quieted our soul. We're in a spot where we just feel contentment, where we feel gratitude and you might not be there right now. I'm not there that often either, but it's a good time for us to pause and reflect and say, Lord, help me to have a calm and quiet spirit. Help me to have a calm and quiet soul, fully trusting and thankful for your provision. It might not look exactly like I wanted to. fact, it probably doesn't, but Lord, this is what you have given me. You have provided this and so therefore I know it is enough. King David's writing these sitting in a cave under pursuit of Saul who's trying to kill him. And yet his posture of calm and quiet and intentional gratitude, we can reflect on that today. Maybe you want to take a minute and just say, man, there's been so much going on, even in the business of getting ready for Thanksgiving or making the turkey or making the food or all of these things. Maybe just go on a quick walk and say, I'll be right back. You say, Lord, help me to just have intentional gratitude. All the things that You have blessed me with even if it's not what I wanted, even if I feel like the year has been incredibly hard. The Lord is so gracious and he has blessed you in immeasurable ways that we don't deserve. know, first that's Thessalonians 5 18 tells us to give thanks in all circumstances. So in whatever the season is for you agent, whatever the season is for you, mortgage lender or anybody else listening. Yeah, it's been a, it's been a weird year in the market. Totally. But we're acquired and called to give thanks in all circumstances. So my question to you is what can you be thankful for? It's easy for us to complain. You know, I do that. I see that in my kids all the time. They're complaining about this. They're complaining about that. And it's, hold on kiddos. Let's think about what are the things the Lord has graciously given to us? Could be as simple as I woke up today. Could be as simple as I have a car I can drive. Could be as simple as I have a business that I can build. Could be as simple as it's been a hard year, but I'm still here in this business. and the Lord is provided for that let us give thanks in all circumstances and remind ourselves that if we're called to give thanks in all circumstances it means we will always have something to be thankful for in every circumstance You know, as I mentioned earlier, the reality is we're not great at this, right? We are like the Israelites where the Lord brings them out of bondage and he gets them through the Red Sea, destroys the Egyptians behind them, and then literally starts providing water from a rock and then manna from heaven. And they're like, yeah, but what have you done for me? And they start to get frustrated and they start to get angry. They start to get upset and it's like, Lord, why don't we just go back to you? Egypt, right? At we're not going to die there. And they start to complain and they start to uh say the Lord owes them more than what he's giving us when he's literally raining food down from heaven. But the reality is you and I are like that too. In January, 2024, as I mentioned, when I have that anxiety attack, it was not because the Lord wanted me to have an anxiety attack. It was a recognition for me that I was in pursuit of things. that were too great and too marvelous for me. I wasn't sitting there with a calm and quiet spirit like David. I was saying, Lord, I need to do this. I need to do that. I was in pursuit of a speaking business, starting an Amazon business, writing a book that has now come out, right? Writing a book, building a bigger business, building a coaching business, doing all of these things, reinvesting all of my money and changing how we did that. All of that happening all at once. And I felt this anxiety because I was burned out and my priorities were placed in the wrong place. I wasn't trusting the Lord to take care of me. My mom had just died the year before. I was worried that I wasn't going to get enough time with my kids. And I was going through all of these challenges and it was hard and it was uh difficult. And it was one of the scariest moments in my life, if I'm honest, but the shifting of my heart to reclaim this intentionality, which I still fight for, right? Let's be honest. I'm not. perfect at this by any stretch of the imagination. I'm actually more often terrible at this than I am good at it. But the reality is that Psalm 131, Lord, help me not to desire things too great or too marvelous for me, but help me to have a calm and quiet spirit, trusting in whatever it is. Right. He ends that Psalm. It's a very short Psalm, Psalm 131 with, Israel, hope in the Lord now and forevermore. That's what we get to focus on. Right. When we stop shifting, From our circumstances we shift to the Lord's kindness to us it changes what we can be content and thankful for I've told this story before but It's a there's a movie the war of the worlds right that famous radio uh show that that was played I think in the 40s But they made a new video a new video a new movie about it with with Tom Cruise Tom Cruise is not the godly example So don't don't hear me say that but there's this moment, right? It's it's like these aliens are invading earth and You know, they're trying to run away. Well, Tom Cruise is a dad. He's got his older son and he's got his daughter who's, don't know, maybe 12 and they run into this house because the aliens are attacking and everything crazy happens. There's chaos and noise and you don't see what's going on. What finally stops? Well, Tom Cruise leaves the house and he realizes a plane, a literal plane had crashed like in the front yard of this house. Somehow, you know, their, their van wasn't hit or anything like that. And, uh, it's just chaos. And he picks up his daughter. And he says, look only at me. And he carries her to the car. He buckles her in and they drive away safely. That is such a picture of the Lord saying, if you look to the right or left, you'll see the chaos. But if you just look at me, you'll know everything's okay. That's something for us to be grateful for. I challenge all of us to pause, reflect, write down Lord, what are we truly grateful for? Maybe what relationships do you need to invest more in? Maybe even what distractions or pressures are stealing your focus from what matters most. When we think about what we're thankful for, we then get to ask, I spending the time with them that I should? I struggle with that too. So here's the reality, right? The Lord and the Lord's kindness and part of this book, right? But we can win at work without losing at life. We don't have to make sacrifices of family just so we can try to have a business and sacrifice them on the altar of some sort of. Artificial success. encouragement to you is if you're listening on Thanksgiving or after, spend that time present with loved ones, away from the noise of more, more, more, away from the hustle culture, away from the comparison culture that says when I'm sitting here on Thanksgiving, I'm so thankful for my family. But as I scroll through Instagram and I see that that other person made way more money than me, all of a sudden now my heart is discontent and I'm comparing myself and thinking, why am I not good enough to do that? And all these things when your son or daughter sitting next to you is like, wish daddy would just be right here. Stay away from those things. Quiet your soul, be grateful, leave your dash on purpose. We have much to be grateful for. am truly grateful for all of you. I am so thankful that you tune in. I'm so thankful that you reach out. I'm so thankful that many of you have bought the book and supported me in that way. It is truly something that I am humbled by and I'm not a humble person, but humbled by and amazed at your kindness as you all continue to show that to me as I genuinely try to pour my heart out to serve you. If I can help in any way, reach out, shoot me a message on on Instagram. You can text me 804-878-2200. If you text me on Thanksgiving, I'm not going to answer, but you can text me. And ultimately my heart is that as a, as a community of Christians in real estate, we look different than the world. We look like people who are grateful. We look like people who have confidence in the Lord's provision. We look like people who are not sitting there wishing we had more and more and more and more, but we are people who are content. And they come up to us and say, I don't understand. Why are you not hustle struggling? Why are you not all these things? And we say, because I found contentment in the Lord's kindness that he's provided exactly what I need. And I'd love to show you how you can do that too. Let's talk about Jesus. Heavenly fathers, I think about every single person who is listening to the show right now. God, I'm grateful for their hearts. I'm grateful that they're here. I'm grateful in your, in your kindness, the way that you show mercy to them over and over and over again, Lord. I pray that you'd call to mind for each one of us, the immense things we can be grateful for, the immense blessings that you have poured on us, even when we are undeserving. You are beyond. to us. We have so much to be thankful for. Lord, may we be flooded with gratitude. May we be a people who are marked by a heart of gratitude so that others in this industry would say, I don't understand what's different about you. And we can say, let me tell you about Jesus. He's what's different. Father, I pray that you'd be glorified and honored in our lives and our businesses and our pursuit of contentment. God, that we would show up well in our work, we would show up well in our that you would receive the praise and glory above all things whether we sell one house or a thousand houses Lord whether we make a million dollars or ten dollars you can be glorified in it all we love you we thank you in your son's name amen I love you faithful agents I will see you next week