The Simple Secret, Servant-Centric Leadership, Your Inner Voice
The Disciple-Leader Newsletter #21 // June 17, 2023
Discipleship // Leadership // Mental Performance. The best from this week.
DISCIPLESHIP
"The simple secret is this: put your trust in the Lord, do your best, then leave the rest to Him."
Joseph B. Wirthlin
This circle represents all of us. Whatever it is you are going through, whatever it is you are praying for, whatever it is you are needing ... God is keenly aware. He loves you. He knows you. He knows exactly what you need. Nobody is more invested in your happiness and success than Him.
"The simple secret is this: put your trust in the Lord, do your best, then leave the rest to Him."
LEADERSHIP
1) "You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you."
2) "A person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language."Dale Carnegie
This isn't just good philosophy. It's good science.
Psychologist Ethan Kross wrote the following: "Research shows that the same brain circuitry that becomes active when we are attracted to someone or consume desirable substances (anything from cocaine to chocolate) also activates when we share information about ourselves with others. In a particularly compelling illustration, one study by Harvard neuroscientists published in 2012 showed that people would prefer to share information about themselves with others than receive money. The social high, in other words, is like a neuronal high, a delicious hit for our dopamine receptors."
We love when people care. We want to feel uniquely special to someone. Leadership thrives on reciprocity. When we love, serve, and care for them, they reciprocate.
Perhaps this is one reason why Jesus' leadership model was so servant-centric. Jesus commissioned his disciples: "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."
But He also taught them how to go about it: "Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant:"
True Christlike love has no agenda. You don't serve in the hope that you'll get something out of it. You serve because people deserve to be loved, for the simple fact that they are a child of God. That said, true Christlike love changes hearts and opens minds. The mind of someone loved in this type of way will usually open and become receptive to you as a leader (à la Ammon + King Lamoni).
MENTAL PERFORMANCE
"You are not the voice in your head. You’re the one who hears it."
Zachary Levi
Consider these 2 truths:
"For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he." - Proverbs 23:7
"A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts." - James Allen
It is everlastingly crucial to understand and accept these two truths. You are your thoughts. But there is a real danger in misunderstanding what your thoughts really are.
You are not the voice in your head. You're the one who hears it. Put another way, your thoughts aren't what pops into your mind. Your thoughts are what you keep in your mind.
This has been said in many different ways by many different psychologists. It's a core principle of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT).
Few things are as liberating as coming to an awareness of this truth. We experience a 24/7 stream of chatter in our own heads each day. Around 70,000 thoughts per day, to be exact. Thus, reminding yourself that you are not the voice in your head, but the one who hears it is like throwing a bunch of water on the fire of anxiety running ablaze in your mind. You don't need to be anxious anymore, because you are not responsible for the thoughts that you don't invite to stick around.
Boyd K. Packer, speaking on this subject, taught: "The mind is like a stage ... There is always some act being performed on that stage. It may be a comedy, a tragedy, interesting or dull, good or bad; but always there is some act playing on the stage of your mind. Have you noticed that shady little thoughts may creep in from the wings and attract your attention in the middle of almost any performance and without any real intent on your part? These delinquent thoughts will try to upstage everybody. If you permit them to go on, all thoughts of any virtue will leave the stage. You will be left, because you consented to it, to the influence of unrighteous thoughts. If you yield to them, they will enact for you on the stage of your mind anything to the limits of your toleration. They may enact themes of bitterness, jealousy, or hatred. They may be vulgar, immoral, even depraved. When they have the stage, if you let them, they will devise the most clever persuasions to hold your attention. They can make it interesting all right, even convince you that they are innocent, for they are but thoughts. What do you do at a time like that, when the stage of your mind is commandeered by the imps of unclean thinking, whether they be the gray ones that seem almost clean or the filthy ones that leave no room for doubt? If you can fill your mind with clean and constructive thoughts, then there will be no room for these persistent imps, and they will leave."
Notice the bolded words. Elder Packer was crystal clear that an individual isn't responsible for an unclean or unproductive thought popping in. But if you invite them to stay, that's on you.
So how can you "fill your mind with clean and constructive thoughts" as he instructed?
There are lots of ways. One of my favorite teachings is from Milwaukee Bucks Sport + Performance Psychology consultant, Craig Manning. In his book The Fearless Mind, he writes about the need to spend 15 minutes each day "programming our minds". I like that verbiage. When I program my mind, I dictate what my mind's operating system will be. I dictate what I will feed my mind and what I will reject. I find doing this in the morning works best for me because it sets the tone for my day.
Find what works best for you. Take care of your mind.
“Taking care of your mind should be no more embarrassing than taking care of your teeth. We all need to be proactive. To brush and floss our minds, to root out the lies we tell ourselves and the bad programming that drives so much of our behavior.” - Zachary Levi
Disciple-Leadership: Jesus-led. Lead like Jesus.
Aaron @ The Disciple-Leader