Blitz On Our Belief, Passion, Optimism
Newsletter #5 on February 25, 2023.
Discipleship // Leadership // Mental Performance. The best from this week.
DISCIPLESHIP
Once we commit to Christ there will come a time when our emotions will rise up and carry out a blitz on our belief. So we must teach our moods where they get off if we are ever to be a sound Christian.
Paraphrasing C.S. Lewis
Satan is the destroyer. This is true, particularly regarding our spirituality. But his destructive work isn't limited to just our spirituality. One of his greatest tools is what Steven Pressfield refers to as "resistance".
Here are some questions he asks:
Are you a writer who doesn't write?
Are you a painter who doesn't paint?
Are you an entrepreneur who never starts a business?
Then you know what resistance is.
He writes, "Resistance is the most toxic force on the planet. It is the root of more unhappiness than poverty and disease. To yield to Resistance deforms our spirit. It stunts us and makes us less than we are and were born to be. If you believe in God (and I do) you must declare Resistance evil, for it prevents us from achieving the life God intended when He endowed each of us with our own unique genius.”
Resistance (Satan) will relentlessly attack us in many aspects of our lives. According to Pressfield, here are the five activities that most commonly elicit resistance:
The pursuit of any calling in writing, painting, music, film, dance, or any creative art, however marginal or unconventional.
The launching of any entrepreneurial venture or enterprise, for profit or otherwise.
Any diet or health regimen.
Any program of spiritual advancement.
Any course or program designed to overcome an unwholesome habit or addiction.
The ultimate battle of personal advancement is the daily fight to put off the natural man (resistance) and yield to the enticings of the Holy Ghost (the life God intends for us).
If you want to be a sound athlete, a sound writer, a sound creative, a sound leader, a sound Christian (or sound anything), you must develop the ability to withstand the blitz resistance will carry on your beliefs and moods by telling your emotions where they get off.
LEADERSHIP
If the players don’t care, why should the public?
Colin Cowherd
The NBA All-Star game last week was the worst basketball game ever played. That's at least what NBA head coach Michael Malone thought about it. It was unwatchable and disappointing. Nobody played hard. Nobody cared.
As a result, the All-Star game experienced its worst TV ratings in years. It makes sense. If the players don't care, why should anybody else? If they aren't invested, why would they expect a fan to invest their precious time into watching?
It's really hard to convince people to care about a cause. There are so many demands on a person's time. So many competing priorities. The challenge of convincing someone else to care about your cause can seem impossible.
There's one attribute that great leaders possess, however, that has the ability to cut through the layers of competing priorities and capture attention: Passion.
Disinterest is uninteresting. Caring is what captures attention.
Passion is contagious. People want to be led. But we want to be led by someone worth following. We want to be inspired, and passion is what inspires. Passion is the single-most inspiring attribute a leader can possess. It inspires others to move. To care. To take interest. To do something. To believe in something. To change.
The scriptural words for passion are "real intent" and "full purpose of heart". You probably had the experience of going to a class in high school or college where you started the class rather indifferent towards the subject, but after experiencing the passion of a particular teacher, you began to take interest in it. This was me with writing. And now writing is instrumental to who I am.
If you do anything, do it with real intent. Care. Be passionate. Anything you do without real intent will be met by others without real interest. Convincing power is found in just simply caring.
MENTAL PERFORMANCE
Optimism is at the center of mental toughness. If you want to do amazing things in your life, there are hard times coming. There are really hard times coming. Right when you reach those hard moments, what is the condition of your mind? Do you believe, fundamentally believe, and have you conditioned and trained your mind that amazing is about to take place? That something good is about to take place?
Dr. Michael Gervais
This is probably just one among the myriad of reasons why the scriptures repeat certain phrases over and over:
Be of good cheer.
Fear not.
Be not afraid.
Lift up your hearts
There are many variations of this same idea in the scriptures. They are replete with invitations toward faith, hope, belief, and optimism. There are legitimate mental and spiritual blessings associated with optimism. Optimism is an expression of faith in Jesus Christ. Optimism is at the center of mental toughness.
In the 1980s, the insurance company MetLife was in a big hiring phase. The company was adding 5,000 new sales professionals annually and training alone cost around $30,000. MetLife had a high turnover rate and sales #'s they weren't happy with. They wanted to try something new.
They had always screened applicants with an aptitude test. But one year they decided to add an exam that would test for another trait: optimism.
In the first year of this experiment, those who had scored well on the optimism test outsold the others by 8%. The second year? Optimists outsold the others by 31%. MetLife was astounded. So they went a step further. The next year, they tested applicants on both aptitude and optimism (like they'd been doing the past two years) but this time they hired individuals who FAILED the aptitude test but scored very high on the optimism test.
They measured this group of individuals with those who were hired using the typical criteria over a two-year span. The super optimistic group (who had failed the aptitude test) outsold the regular group by 21% after year 1 and 57% after year 2.
Optimism is a serious competitive advantage. And with all the doubt, fear, uncertainty, worry, stress, anxiety, and EVERYTHING that resistance will throw at you (Helaman 5:12), being able to have a relentless optimism will separate you from the "regular" group.
Relentless optimism grounded in a deep faith in Jesus Christ is a formula that will allow you to withstand any adversity and lift you to any height God has designed for you.
3 Questions
1) What battle are you currently losing to Resistance? What needs to change?
2) What % of your week was lived with "full purpose of heart"?
3) What's one thing in your life that you know you should approach with more optimism?
Disciple-Leadership: Jesus-led. Lead like Jesus.
Have an amazing week, friends.
Aaron @ The Disciple-Leader