Dream With God and Find A Fresh Vision With Polly Payne

Hey Friend!

This conversation is going to feel like a breath of fresh air. We’re diving deeper into what we’re dreaming about and what God has in store for us. We are getting into the heart-space of our visions and dreams, and the why behind it all. 

When we look at a brand new year full of personal and business goals, we want to focus on what we’re dreaming beneath that goal. We should think about why we’re dreaming what we’re dreaming, and why it matters. Let’s connect from a heart posture on who God calls us to be on this side of heaven and how our dreams bring that to fruition. 

There’s no better way to start this conversation than by bringing on my dear friend and colleague, Polly Payne. She is the founder of Horacio Printing and the creator of a course called Print School. 

Polly was a student of mine in Podcast to Profit, and I encouraged her to teach people how to do what she does best: create beautiful planners, devotionals, and high-quality paper products. She has grown a 7-figure company in less than 3 years using what I teach in Podcast to Profit: monetizing long-form content with an offer that is highly desired. It’s really that simple! 

Polly’s love language is luxurious paper and lots of white space. She is a mama like so many of us, and she is a presence of peace everywhere she goes. 

Her dream is to help Christian women, like you, achieve their dreams by printing a product that’s on their hearts. 

You’ll love this conversation with Polly on dreaming, hope, and crafting your God-led life.

Let’s get into it!  

Stef: I’m hanging out with one of my favorite people in the world today. Polly Payne is here! 

Polly: I am so excited to be here, thanks for having me! 

Dreaming with Polly Payne: Dream Big

Stef: When I think about the people who have helped me the most in my life, you are one of the first people that comes to mind. You bring this presence of hope everywhere you go. You’re so positive and hopeful, and have fire in your heart about dreaming and vision. In the new year, so many people are hungry for that, and I know you’ll breathe life into this for everyone. 

Polly: I’m happy to be your hope dealer! I can’t believe it’s already almost a new year. I have been stewing on the topic of dreaming a lot lately. This year has been a tough one for dreaming, with the election and the way of the world right now.

When our expectations haven’t been met, or we experience the death of a dream, it makes it hard to dream because we don’t want to be let down. I want to encourage you to dream big. God loves when we dream. It’s part of being human; we do it naturally as children, but we tend to lose it in adulthood. 

Dreaming with Polly Payne: Connect Your Hope to God

Polly: If you’re in a position now where you feel hopeless, I would ask you, what is your hope connected to?  If your hope is connected to your bank account, your spouse’s validation, or your launch success, then your focus is probably on the wrong things.

One time I created a business course and no one bought it. I spent many hours creating this course and felt God whisper to me, “Where’s your hope?” Was my hope tied to the success of that launch? I felt Him say, “Put your hope and joy in me.”

When we come back to that place, it’s easy to have hope. When we connect to the overflow of hope, we succeed. Our family members are all malnourished, and we’re seeking nourishment from them, when we all need is to be nourished by God. That’s the biggest takeaway–we could probably end the conversation right there! 

Stef: That’s so powerful! The first thing you mentioned was coming out of a season of hopelessness. I saw 2024 as the enemy’s playground when it comes to distraction and deception. What I struggled with most was constantly getting distracted from the purpose and path God had for me. I feel like I trust God’s plan and am fully in relationship with Him, and yet the world is distracting me from Him and His plan. We’ve been in a hard, heavy season and I know everyone can relate to that. I love that you asked us what our hope was connected to.   

I think so many Christian business owners are afraid to dream. They believe if they allow themselves to dream, they are now leading their own lives versus letting God guide them. Can you speak to that? 

Polly: We have this misunderstanding that we are little worker bees with God as the task master, but that goes against our design. God created us to have desires and curiosities. He made us to dream, rule, and have dominion. That’s why we have this obsession with royals, kings, queens, and stories of princesses. That’s engrained in who we are as daughters of the King.

When we dream big, we’re honoring God. God wants us to dream big. Look at the miracles Jesus performed. He would always ask his disciples where their faith was. Jesus knew the men in the boat could have remained calm in the storm, but they didn’t have faith big enough for it. What if they could have just turned the rain or wind off? They wanted to move the tiny mountain but God wanted them to move the big mountain. 

Dreaming with Polly Payne: It’s All About Heart Health

Polly: God gets glory when you glorify Him in what you do. It honors God when we use our God-given imagination, but we have to know where our heart is. The health of our heart is the health of our dreams. How do we know if its a good dream or a bad dream? Well, we’re all created with the possibility of greatness in us. Some people take that awesomeness and they’re awesomely wicked. Other people take that awesomeness and they’re awesomeley pure. Look at Mother Teresa, for example. She was awesomely good. 

It all comes back to the health of our hearts. We want to ensure we’re dreaming healthy dreams by focusing on our heart health. Look at the dream you have and ask yourself where it came from. Do we covet what someone else has? Is it to prove yourself to someone? We can make ourselves sick over wondering whether something is the will of God or not. 

Dreaming with Polly Payne: Be Free to Play

Polly: I was reading a book by Dallas Willard called, “Hearing the Voice of God.” The author told the story of a father watching his kids playing in the back yard; some on the seesaw, some playing kickball, and others in the sandbox. They were all playing different things, enjoying the creativity of play, and are all in his will. We need to feel the freedom of a father to play. Playing is how you learn, fail and grow. As long as you’re out there playing, you are in His will. Your free will is still inside of His will. 

Stef: Yes! I love this so much. The health of your heart is the health of your dream. That was so powerful! Taking a moment to discern your dream and why you have it: is it a God-led or me-led dream? And I love your story about the father who allows you to play. What a beautiful visual that is! I struggle with play and have to remind myself that it’s okay to play!

For those of you who can relate, God has dreams for you that you may not even allow yourself to explore. Joel 2:28 says, “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions” (NLT). The Holy Spirit is here, alive and well inside of us. We are allowed to dream, to play, and to seek new visions. 

Dreaming with Polly Payne: Be the Best Version of You

Stef: Which brings me to this, Polly, what if we feel dreamless? How do you ignite dreaming when you’ve been in a dry season? 

Polly: That’s an easy place to be, especially for mompreneurs. I start with the most important dream, which is the dream of you being the best you. Let’s say you have a dream of being an author, starting a podcast or building a course. You have to be healthy to carry that dream. You can’t carry a dream if your marriage is struggling or you aren’t sleeping at night. You’re called to it, but you aren’t equipped to carry it.

In my planner, there’s a wheel graphic we use throughout the year. You assess where you are in all areas of your life on the wheel. One of the most impactful is physical health, like sleep! You have to eat well, sleep well, get your steps in–everything you need for your overall health. As you start out, the dream needs to be the dream of you. As you become more healthy and fulfilled spiritually, physically, mentally, and emotionally, you’ll start to become the person in which God can download a dream and you’ll be equipped to carry it. 

Stef: I love how you answered that question. I think back on my journey, that pivotal, bathroom-floor moment, where I broke down. There I was, sobbing into a journal writing down my vision and who God was calling me to become, and I was none of those things yet: sober, present mom and wife, and running a successful business. I wondered how I would ever become that woman. Now I am that woman, and because of that, there’s an opportunity to become more! It starts with you and the core desire to become the whole person God has for you. 

Dreaming with Polly Payne: Make the Time to Dream

Polly: I’ve been leading people through bucket lists and dream planning, and the biggest takeaway is to make the time for it. Maybe it’s at an event, maybe it’s our Dream Planning Essentials course, or maybe a vision board kit to get creative.

I owe so much of my business growth to you, Stef. One of my favorite new ways to dream, I learned from you and one of the trainings you did this year. I love that your core training teaches you to put your head down, get the work done, and quit getting distracted. 

Dreaming starts with your desires. If you want to start today, grab a journal and write down what you want for your life. I did this recently and I teach on my YouTube channel how to do this with AI. 

• What do you want? Be specific about the desires you have for your spiritual life, marriage, finances, and health. 
• Take a step back and see which of these is a goal and which is a prayer. Write out the goals and prayers. 
• Next, write out your routines. What routines can you add into your week that fit nicely into these goals? 

I have really been enjoying that process for dreaming. In the AI version of the activity, you simply ask ChatGPT something like, “Tell me a day in the life of my story when (dream) is real for me.” Then you can add, “Build me a daily schedule of what I need to live like now in order to become (this new version of me).” 

Stef: The dreaming piece has to come from your heart, but the execution with AI can save us a lot of time. Amen to that! What an amazing strategy. It helps us understand the difference between tangible goals tied to the dream, and having the prayer that covers all of it. This keeps our dreams in alignment with God. 

Polly: Ultimately, the prayer is “Thy will be done.” There may be dreams that God has designed us for that we can’t carry yet. In His kindness, he would withhold that for a while. Just like I’m not going to give my daughter the keys to my car just because she wants it. 

Dreaming with Polly Payne: Horacio Printing and Print School

Stef: One of the dreams always on your heart was to create beautifully curated printed products. I’m sure many men and women reading this right now have a similar dream. What did it look like to bring Horacio Printing to life? How did that translate to you teaching thousands of people how to walk in your footsteps? 

Polly: My journey started back in 2014. I had a bathroom-floor-life-is-a-mess moment, too! After reading the book, “The Artisan Soul,” by Erwin Raphael McManus, I realized I had to get my life together. He teaches that your life is your canvas and we’re all artists.

So, from there I made my planner in a short amount of time. I bought 1,000 planners and we sold out. We’ve been going strong for 10 years and have since created bible studies, subscription boxes, notepads, journals, and more.  We teach people how to pursue their God-given dreams and have better intention with their time, which is our greatest gift. 

I never intended to share the secrets of how I created paper products, but the Lord released that from me and asked me to share it all. So in June of 2022, I created Print School. Stef actually helped me name my course! She is the master at naming things.

It has been so fun watching people come into this program with an idea in their head and create something they can hold in their hands. I see things from cross stitch planners, mompreneur planners, prayer warrior journals, and so many more! 

We also created Launch School to help students sell what they’ve created. We also teach people how to design if they want to design. Others hit the “easy button” and hire one of my designers, and that’s what I would do as well. Time is precious! It’s been very fulfilling and scratches my itch to create all the time because I get to enjoy what others have created. 

Stef: You have two facets to your brilliance: one is dreaming and vision and the other is sales strategy. You have such an incredible marketing and sales mind. If you’re dreaming of creating a paper product, there is no one else I’d go to other than Polly Payne. Having a paper product is really special on it’s own, but having one that gets into the hands of people who need it is the other piece of the puzzle. Polly can help you with that. Where can everyone find you and make this vision happen for them?  

Polly: I usually send people to YouTube since it’s a very visual platform. The podcast is called Dream Printing Podcast. You can check us out online, too. Print School is an application-based program, but if you come through Stef’s link, we’re going to expedite your application. You’ll also get $100 off tuition with the code STEF100! 

This is the time to jump in! The printing process is like making a baby–it takes about 9 months. That might sound daunting but there’s a lot of waiting time, too, like when you order your samples. So, if you want to skip the application process, be sure to go through Stef’s link and use the code STEF100. 

Dreaming with Polly Payne: Excellence in Everything

Stef: The products I’ve seen come out of Print School blow me away. Funny story! I created a journal in Canva once called, With God She Rises, and it definitely looks a bit low-quality. There’s a huge difference in slapping something together to save money versus intentionally creating something professional that you’re proud of; something that will end up in the hands of people who need it.

The excellence and professionalism in which you create a product goes a long way, gets shared, gifted, and becomes a business if you want it to. 

Go learn from Polly Payne if you’re dreaming of creating a paper product. She has so many amazing podcasts and YouTube episodes to help you along the way. I personally feel encouraged and know you do too. 

Polly: If you’re interested in seeing my students’ creations, go to our Alumni page. I think if we are Christians, our product should be way better than most products on the market. Sometimes, I think Christian is a good noun but not a good adjective. Sometimes we expect Christian things to be sub-par. I’m a real stickler about excellence, and I know you are too, Stef.  

Stef: Yes, that’s one of our core pillars as a company: excellence. I love that. High five! Thanks for being here, friend.

Polly: Thanks for having me! 

Dreaming with Polly Payne: You Take the Lead

Friends, it’s your turn to take the lead on your dreams. What’s next for you? Here’s what we covered today in a nutshell: 

1. Don’t be afraid to dream big 
2. Be sure your hope is connected to God
3. Check your heart health
4. Allow yourself to play
5. Be the best version of you
6. Make intentional time to dream
7. Invest in a course and strive for excellence

I pray you’re dreaming big with God at the center of it all. I hope you gained clarity today and are ready to take the next step to make your vision come to life! 

APPLE PODCAST | SPOTIFY | YOUTUBE

---

---

LISTEN TO RELATED EPISODES:

Silence the Noise: Overcome Distraction to Hear God’s Call

Is it The Holy Spirit or You? 4 Phases to Know if He is Speaking to You

Does God Want to Fulfill Our Dreams? Study From Psalm 105

---

WATCH RELATED EPISODES:

Is Your Business Aligned With God? 6 Signs Of A Kingdom Business

How To KNOW What God Wants You To Do

How To Start A Successful Podcast: The Checklist

---