Hesed, Happiness Full Stop, Listening To Yourself vs. Talking To Yourself
The Disciple-Leader Newsletter #31 // August 27, 2023.
Discipleship. Leadership. Mental Performance.
DISCIPLESHIP
"Once we make a covenant with God, we leave neutral ground forever. God will not abandon His relationship with those who have forged such a bond with Him. In fact, all those who have made a covenant with God have access to a special kind of love and mercy. In the Hebrew language, that covenantal love is called hesed (חֶסֶד) ... Hesed is a special kind of love and mercy that God feels for and extends to those who have made a covenant with Him."
Russell M. Nelson
God feels and extends a special kind of love for those who've entered into covenant with Him.
We see this play out in The Book of Mormon. Check this out. (These ideas below were heavily influenced by a lecture I attended taught by Joseph Spencer).
Jesus Christ appears to the Nephites and spends multiple days with them. Let's do a little side-by-side comparison of Day 1 vs. Day 2. During both days, Jesus kneels and prays for them. He also administers the sacrament both days. Pay attention to the difference in Day 1 vs. Day 2.
The Administration of The Sacrament
Day 1: And this shall ye do in remembrance of my body, which I have shown unto you. And it shall be a testimony unto the Father that ye do always remember me. And if ye do always remember me ye shall have my Spirit to be with you ... And this shall ye always do to those who repent and are baptized in my name; and ye shall do it in remembrance of my blood, which I have shed for you, that ye may witness unto the Father that ye do always remember me. And if ye do always remember me ye shall have my Spirit to be with you. (3 Nephi 18:7-11)
Day 2: And he said unto them: He that eateth this bread eateth of my body to his soul; and he that drinketh of this wine drinketh of my blood to his soul; and his soul shall never hunger nor thirst, but shall be filled. (3 Nephi 20:8)
Jesus Praying For The Nephites
Day 1: And it came to pass that when they had knelt upon the ground, Jesus groaned within himself, and said: Father, I am troubled because of the wickedness of the people of the house of Israel. And when he had said these words, he himself also knelt upon the earth; and behold he prayed unto the Father, and the things which he prayed cannot be written, and the multitude did bear record who heard him. (3 Nephi 17:14-15)
Day 2: And it came to pass that Jesus departed out of the midst of them, and went a little way off from them and bowed himself to the earth, and he said: Father, I thank thee that thou hast given the Holy Ghost unto these whom I have chosen ... Father, thou hast given them the Holy Ghost because they believe in me ... And now Father, I pray unto thee for them, and also for all those who shall believe on their words, that they may believe in me, that I may be in them as thou, Father, art in me, that we may be one. (3 Nephi 19:19-23)
Can you sense the difference? Jesus on day 2 seems to have a much more intimate tone. Instead of merely partaking in remembrance of Him, He invites you to eat of His body and drink of His blood to your soul. Instead of praying to the Father because he's "troubled because of (their) wickedness", He's praying "that I may be in them ... that we may be one."
A central theme of Jesus on day 2 seems to be His yearning desire to be invited into our souls. To live in us. To enliven us. To be a living, breathing, empowering influence on and through us. To not just be someone we know about. But to be someone we know intimately.
On top of His tone, Jesus spends day 2 treating the Nephites to a commentary on, well, everything: "He did expound all things unto them, both great and small ... and He did expound all things, even from the beginning until the time that He should come in his glory––yea, even all things which should come upon the face of the earth, even until the elements should melt with fervent heat, and the earth should be wrapt together as a scroll, and the heavens and the earth should pass away ... and now there cannot be written in this book even a hundredth part of the things which Jesus did truly teach unto the people."
The Book of Mormon also records, "And now it came to pass that when Jesus had expounded all the scriptures in one, which they had written, he commanded them that they should teach the things which he had expounded unto them."
I love commentaries on scripture. Can you imagine a Book of Mormon commentary taught by Jesus Christ? It's amazing to think about.
So this begs the question. What changed from day 1 to day 2? Why did Jesus' messaging have much more intimate tones? Why did He reveal so much to them?
I believe it's because of what took place in-between day 1 and day 2. "And it came to pass that Nephi went down into the water and was baptized. And he came up out of the water and began to baptize. And he baptized all those whom Jesus had chosen. And it came to pass when they were all baptized and had come up out of the water, the Holy Ghost did fall upon them, and they were filled with the Holy Ghost and with fire." (3 Nephi 19: 11-13)
They had now entered into a covenant relationship with God. Now, God didn't just love them. He had hesed for them.
From my understanding, most likely due to time constraints between day 1 and day 2, only Nephi and the other chosen disciples were able to be physically baptized. But everyone in the multitude mentally had entered into that covenant and just needed to finalize it by actually entering the waters of baptism. The text seems to suggest that Jesus understood this and extended His hesed unto them as if they had been physically baptized as well: "Father, I thank thee that thou hast given the Holy Ghost unto these whom I have chosen (which they received upon being baptized) ... I pray thee that thou wilt give the Holy Ghost unto all them that shall believe in their words." (3 Nephi 19:19-23)
Like these Nephites, if you've entered into a covenant relationship with God, you can be assured that you have this kind of special love from Him. "Once you and I have made a covenant with God, our relationship with Him becomes much closer than before our covenant. Now we are bound together. Because of our covenant with God, He will never tire in His efforts to help us, and we will never exhaust His merciful patience with us. Each of us has a special place in God’s heart. He has high hopes for us." (Russell M. Nelson)
Honor your covenant with Him, and He will honor His with you.
LEADERSHIP
“Happiness is love. Full stop.”
George Vaillant
Many people have now heard of The Harvard Study of Adult Development. It's one of the longest longitudinal studies ever conducted (85 years and still going). The study followed Harvard graduates from 1939-1944 into their 90's, looking at all aspects of their health and well-being. The goal of this decades-long research was to hone in on what really moves the needle when it comes to human happiness and flourishing.
George Vaillant was the principal investigator on this study. He encapsulated their wealth of findings into one crowning principle of happiness: "Happiness is love. Full stop."
If you want to be really happy (and ultimately, a great leader), extend love. When you extend love, love will be reciprocated.
The secret to leadership and happiness sometimes really is that simple. We always seem to overcomplicate it.
MENTAL PERFORMANCE
"Mental performance is the activation of mental skills to achieve a task. So what are mental skills? Mental skills (include) your ability to zoom in and zoom out to gain better perspective, your ability to conduct a pre-mortem, your ability to deploy gratitude in a difficult situation, (as well as) your ability to talk to yourself instead of listen to yourself."
Justin Su'a
(Tampa Bay Rays Mental Performance Coach)
One of the most important skills in life is learning to talk to yourself instead of listening to yourself. Below are some of Justin Su'a's thoughts on it.
Listening To Yourself vs. Talking To Yourself
"As humans we have this constant chatter going in on our in our minds. (We are) constantly thinking, constantly ruminating. We’re getting inputs from our own thoughts, from our interpretations, from what we're reading, from what we think other people are thinking. It's easy to get caught into these traps, to get caught into believing some of these biases that we have, believing some of these thoughts … and these thoughts are closely coupled and tied to our emotions. Our emotions will ultimately impact our body and our physiology, which will ultimately impact our behaviors. So as humans, we need to learn how to look at our thoughts and develop a relationship with them. Understand what is signal and what is noise. It will change from time to time depending on what context and environment you're in.
"What listening to yourself is is looking at your thoughts and attaching truth to all of them and saying, ‘Yep that's true, that's true, that's true’, as opposed to pausing and debating your thoughts.
"(What) we do quite often is i'll have a room full of people, let's say it's a team. I will tell every player to pick a teammate. What you're going to do is something you do all the time: debate. People will debate best food, they will debate best movies, they'll debate what sports are the best, and they're really good at it. So what I have them do, I say “Okay you're going to debate and I give them the topics. You're going to debate hot weather versus cold weather, and you hear them go at it. You're going to debate watching the movie in the theater or watching the movie at home, and they go at it. Then I ask who won the debate, and in a room full of highly competitive individuals, they all raise their hand. Then I ask, 'Okay how did you win the debate what did you do to win'? They say techniques like, ‘I didn't let my opponent talk’ or ‘I listened to what they said and then I poked holes in their reasoning’ or ‘I applied logic and I provided evidence and data against what they were saying.' Then I come with the point. The point is it's interesting how you can sit here and debate a topic like weather, and sport, and food, but you don't pause to apply those same principles to debate yourself. When you start doubting yourself, a lot of times we say, ‘Oh that is true, I’m not smart. Oh that is true, I’m never going to accomplish that. Oh that is true, he or she is better than me’ as opposed to stopping and saying, ‘No, let me look at that differently. Let me apply evidence against it. Let me consider the fault of my reasoning. The faulty judgment that I might be having.’ That's what it means to talk to yourself instead of listen to yourself.”
Stop listening to yourself and start talking to yourself.
Disciple-Leadership: Jesus-led. Lead like Jesus.