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Observations about the Difference between Successful and Unsuccessful Entrepreneurs

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Winter in Michigan is not for the faint of heart. Bitter biting cold wind. Regular snowfalls. Gray sky from November to April. It can lead many into inactivity through discouragement if they don’t do the right things to combat it. As a Realtor for a tiny brokerage in Michigan, I recall struggling with this in the winters. Real estate slows down to a crawl in the Michigan winters; so if you don’t have a way to combat professional discouragement, you can find yourself having a hard time. And to make matters worse, I was part of a brokerage where I was the only member. I had “partnered” with a real estate broker who only kept the brokerage open to supplement his income. So even he was not full time. And as far as I knew, I was the only active agent he employed. I was on an island. When business was good, the problems caused by being a one-man brokerage were masked and imperceptible. After all, I was actively lead generating and working real estate deals. But when things mostly came to a halt in the winters, there was no escaping inactivity through discouragement. In my current position, my full time work is serving realtors in Eastern North Carolina. I help them take care of their clients with our company product. This means I get a unique perspective traveling hundreds of miles per week engaging with thousands of realtors. This has given me the opportunity to interact with realtors who are very successful and realtors who are struggling to get any business. And I have found there are consistent things that are true about each. One of the biggest differences I have noticed between these two types of realtors is mindset. And one of the biggest contributors to mindset is culture and environment.

When I start a conversation with a realtor, I can often tell within the first minute or so whether they are doing well or struggling. One of the signs of a realtor who is thriving in business is they are in a hurry and have little time to talk. But this is not because they are rude. It is because they have to prioritize their time to be as productive as possible. They are people who I have to be intentional to get in front of. Face time with them is a scarce resource, and it almost never comes spontaneously. Once I do get in front of them for even a few minutes, there is another thing that is often clear. They are opportunists. They are always looking for how they can get ahead and synthesize multiple resources and human connections to create more value around them. They are not content to just have a conversation with me for a few minutes. They look for ways to combine what I am offering them with their network and other resources to optimize the moment. Another way they set themselves up for success is by surrounding themselves with people that are also successful. The most successful realtors have people in their lives who are doing much better than themselves, who are at the same level as themselves, and who are not yet as successful as themselves. This is because they want to have others they are pouring into and inspiring, others who they can compete with and sharpen one another, and others from whom they can learn and who will help them keep a vision of what is possible if they keep working hard. But the key is they are not alone. Show me a realtor who spends most of every day alone, and I will show you a realtor who is probably not going to be a realtor for much longer.

One of the benefits of surrounding yourself with other successful people is that they are regular daily reminders to you that success is possible. The natural order of the world around us is for people to tell others that something difficult can’t be done. In our current economy, the common people are acutely aware and regularly talking about how hard it is to be successful in real estate nowadays. They talk about how no one wants to buy because interest rates are so high. They talk about how no one wants to sell because interest rates are locked in at the old low rates. They talk about the outlook of the economy and the uncertainty of what lies ahead. The unsuccessful realtor listens to these voices, believes these voices, get discouraged, which leads to inactivity, and then gets more discouraged because no business is coming to them. However, I also meet realtors every day who are not listening to the noise, who are going after success with all their might, who are being creative and making connections and networking and thriving. I meet realtors every week who have only been licensed for a year or two years or three years and who are thriving. So what is the difference? Why are some doing well and others not?

It all comes down to mindset. And mindset all comes down to the people with whom you surround yourself. I met a young lady recently who wrote a course for first time home buyers. She wrote material to teach them about the process, and then created regular events inviting people to attend and learn about the first time home buyer process. She recruited her preferred lender and some other key people to attend and holds these classes once per month. She has gotten tons of business from this strategy. I know another realtor who created a YouTube channel to talk about her local area. She records videos and then hires out a video editor for cheap on fiverr to edit her short videos. She has grown her channel to thousands of followers and gets hundreds of leads per week this way.

When you have a campfire, the heat of the fire is sustained through having hot embers at the heart of the fire. Through their close proximity, together these burning embers feed heat to each other, mutually benefitting one another. But if you were to pull a hot coal out of the fire and let it sit alone, it will quickly cool and its heat will quickly fade. This is like me in the Michigan winters. I recall sitting in my basement office on cold gray winter days paralyzed with inactivity through discouragement. I was the ember that had no synergy of other hot embers from which to be sustained and to whom I could contribute my heat. Now, I am in real estate offices regularly. Some of these agencies are ghost towns and have no one there. In other offices agents are swarming. In these busy offices, there is a robust schedule of training opportunities, classes to deepen one’s learning, and organic real relationships built with agents who are sharpening one another. These agents are surrounding themselves with the right people, and in turn they are hearing and believing the right things, and their success is much more highly likely than the lone agent.

The opportunity is out there for the person who chooses to not listen to the naysayers and to surround themselves with the right people. But success does not happen passively. It never comes to you. You have to go out and get it. And that can start with choosing to believe the right things about what you can accomplish. It can start by choosing to surround yourself with the right network of people. And it always has everything to do with mindset and belief.

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From Poverty to Wealth: Quotes from Rich Dad Poor Dad Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Why Teach Financial Literacy

“It’s not how much money you make. It’s how much money you keep.”

“I am concerned that too many people are too focused on money and not on their greatest wealth, their education. If people are prepared to be flexible, keep an open mind and learn, they will grow richer and richer despite tough changes. If they think money will solve problems, they will have a rough ride. Intelligence solves problems and produces money. Money without financial intelligence is money soon gone.”

The point here is not that you don’t need really need money to live but that money is a by-product of something greater, intelligence and wisdom.

“I know so many people who became instant millionaires. And while I am glad some people have become richer and richer, I caution them that in the long run, it’s not how much money you make. It’s how much you keep, and for how many generations you keep it.”

“If you want to be rich, you need to be financially literate.”

These last two quotes from Chapter 2 of Rich Dad Poor Dad are very helpful. It is important to cut costs and live within one’s means for the short term. But when you have the long view (generationally) you also will do more than just cut costs in your monthly budget. You will grow your income-producing assets and limit your expense-heavy liabilities. This is the part of the lesson that I need to take action on. I am good at cutting costs and living a modest life. But I have not been good at increasing assets. Whenever, I think about increasing my income, I always jump straight to thinking about which job I should try to get that would produce more money for me than the one I have now. While there is not anything inherently wrong with that approach, it can tend to place the emphasis on the wrong place. Kiyosaki is saying here that we should work to learn while also becoming financially literate. And then buy assets that produce income.

My son is currently 15 years old and works at a reputable fast food restaurant. I found myself teaching him the poverty mindset without even realizing it. Regarding his relatively low pay he is receiving, I talked to him about it as if he should be seeking to make more money. While that is not bad, what I realized is that if I want to teach him to be rich, then I would be regularly emphasizing to him to learn as much as he can there.

“If you are going to build the Empire State Building, the first thing you need to do is dig a deep hole and pour a strong foundation. If you are going to build a home in the suburbs, all you need to do is pour a six-inch slab of concrete. Most people, in their drive to get rich, are trying to build an Empire State Building on a six-inch slab of concrete.”

“Accounting is possibly the most confusing, boring subject in the world, but if you want to be rich long-term, it could be the most important subject.”

“Rich people acquire assets. The poor and middle-class acquire liabilities that they think are assets.”

Rule #1: You must know the difference between an asset and a liability, and buy assets.”

“An asset puts money into my pocket. A liability takes money out of my pocket.”

“An asset is something that puts money in my pocket whether I work or not. A liability is something that takes money out of my pocket. If you want to be rich, simply spend your life buying or building assets.”

“Illiteracy, both in words and numbers, is the foundation of financial struggle. If people are having difficulties financially, there is something that they don’t understand, either in words or numbers. The rich are rich because they are more literate in different areas than people who struggle financially. So if you want to be rich and maintain your wealth, it’s important to be financially literate, in words as well as numbers.”

“In 80 percent of most families, the financial story paints a picture of hard work to get ahead. However, this effort is for naught because they spend their lives buying liabilities instead of assets.”

“A person can be highly educated, professionally successful, and financially illiterate.”

“All too often, instead of trusting their inner wisdom, that genius inside, most people follow the crowd. They do things because everybody else does them. They conform, rather than question. Often, they mindlessly repeat what they have been told: “Diversify.” “Your home is an asset.” “Your home is your biggest investment.” “You get a tax break for going into debt.” “Get a safe job.” “Don’t make mistakes.” “Don’t take risks.”

“Here was a man that had left school when he was 13 who was now directing instructing, ordering, and asking questions of educated people. They came at his beck and call.”

“Here was a man who had not gone along with the crowd He was a man who did his own thinking and detested the words, ‘We have to do it this way because that’s the way everyone else does it.”

“‘An intelligent person hires people who are more intelligent than he is”‘

“When I want a bigger house, I first buy the assets that will generate the cash flow to pay for the house.”

“The middle class finds itself in a constant state of financial struggle. Their primary income is through their salary. As their wages increase, so do their taxes. Their expenses tend to increase in proportion to their salary increase: hence, the phrase ‘the Rat Race.’ They treat their home as their primary asset, instead of investing in income-producing assets.”

“This pattern o f treating your home as an investment, and the philosophy that a pay raise means you can buy a larger home or spend more, is the foundation of today’s debt-ridden society. Increased spending throws families into greater debt and into more financial uncertainty, even though they may be advancing in their jobs and receiving pay raises. This is high-risk living caused by weak financial education.”

“The real tragedy is that the lack of financial education is what creates the risk faced by average middle-class people. The reason they have to play it safe is because their financial positions are tenuous at best. Their balance sheets are not balanced. Instead, they are loaded with liabilities and have no real assets that generate income. Typically, their only source of income is their paycheck. Their livelihood becomes entirely dependent on their employer. So when genuine ‘deals of a lifetime’ come along, these people can’t take advantage of them because they are working so hard, are taxed to the max, and are loaded with debt.”

~Robert Kiyosaki, Rich Dad Poor Dad

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From Poverty to Wealth: Quotes from Rich Dad Poor Dad

They say if you want to grow to read successful authors and surround yourself with those who are more successful than yourself. I am just about finished with Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. The following are some parts of the book which have impacted me so far. I hope you are helped by these quotes as well.

Chapter 1: The Rich Don’t Work for Money: The poor and the middle class work for money. The rich have money work for them.

“If you can’t make up your mind decisively, then you’ll never learn to make money anyway. Opportunities come and go. Being able to know when to make quick decisions is an important skill.”

“Life pushes all of us around. Some people give up and others fight. A few learn the lesson and move on. They welcome life pushing them around. To these few people, it means they need and want to learn something. They learn and move on. Most quit, and a few…fight….If you learn this lesson, you will grow into a wise, wealthy, and happy young man. If you don’t, you will spend your life blaming a job, low pay, or your boss for your problems. You’ll live life always hoping for that big break that will solve your money problems.”

“Of if you’re the kind of person who has no guts, you just give up every time life pushes you. If you’re that kind of person, you’ll live all of your life playing it safe, doing the right things, saving yourself for some event that never happens. Then you die a boring old man. You’ll have lots of friends who really like you because you were such a nice hardworking guy. But the truth is that you let life push you into submission. Deep down you were terrified of taking risks. You really wanted to win, but the fear of losing was greater than the excitement of winning. Deep inside, you and only you will know you didn’t go for it. You chose to play it safe.”

“You’d best change your point of view. Stop blaming me (everyone and everything else) and thinking I’m (they) the problem. If you think I’m the problem, then you have to change me. If you realize that you’re the problem, then you can change yourself, learn something, and grow wiser. Most people want everyone else in the world to change but themselves. Let me tell you, it’s easier to change yourself than everyone else.”

“I’m glad you got angry about working for 10 cents an hour. If you hadn’t got angry and had simply accepted it, I would have to tell you that I could not teach you. You see, true learning takes energy, passion, and a burning desire. Anger is a big part of that formula, for passion is anger and love combined. When it comes to money, most people want to play it safe and feel secure. So passion does not direct them, Fear does.

“So is that why they’ll take jobs with low pay?’ I asked.

‘Yes’, said rich dad. ‘Some people say I exploit people because I don’t pay as much as the sugar plantation or the government. I say people exploit themselves. It’s their fear, not mine.”

-The above quote is very profound to someone like me who grew up in relative poverty and was never taught to believe I could achieve wealth. Many of the decisions I made in my 20’s and 30’s were because I was exploiting myself out of fear and a subconscious internal belief that I was never capable of making more than $40k or $50k. In fact when I encountered peers who were making more, I was jealous and angry with them for being so much more successful than me. This is something I have had to confess and work through. By God’s grace I now rejoice with my peers who are doing well. What the author is saying here is profound for people like me because he is trying to get us to stop working for money and instead raise our conception of what is possible.

“…it’s easier to learn to work for money, especially if fear is your primary emotion when the subject of money is discussed.”

“It’s fear that keeps most people working at a job: the fear of not paying their bills, the fear of being fired, the fear of not having enough money, and the fear of starting over. That’s the price of studying to learn a profession or trade, and then working for money. Most people become a slave to money–and then get angry at their boss.”

“Learning how to have money work for you is a lifetime study.”

“Most people…want to go to school, learn a profession, have fun at their work, and earn lots of money. One day they wake up with big money problems, and then they can’t stop working. That’s the price of only knowing how to work for money instead of studying how to have money work for you.”

“Be truthful about your emotions and use your mind and emotions in your favor, not against yourself.”

“A job is really a short-term solution to a long term problem.”

“You see, we’re all employees ultimately. We just work at different levels. I just want you boys to have a chance to avoid the trap caused by those two emotions, fear and desire. Use them in your favor, not against you.”

“The main cause of poverty or financial struggle is fear and ignorance, not the economy or the government, or the rich.”

“We will always have emotions of fear and greed. From here on in, it’s imperative for you to use those emotions to your advantage, and for the long term to not let your emotions control your thinking. Most people live their lives chasing paychecks, pay raises, and job security because of the emotions of desire and fear, not really questioning where those emotion-driven thoughts are leading them.”

“…a human’s life is a struggle between ignorance and illumination.”

“Never forget that fear and desire can lead you into life’s biggest trap if you’re not aware of them controlling your thinking. To spend your life living in fear, never exploring your dreams, is cruel. To work hard for money, thinking that it will buy you things that will make you happy is also cruel. To wake up in the middle of the night terrified about paying bills is a horrible way to live. To live a life dictated by the size of a paycheck is not really living a life. Thinking that a job makes you secure is lying to yourself.”

“We learned to make money work for us. By not getting paid for our work at the store, we were forced to use our imaginations to identify an opportunity to make money. By starting our own business, the comic-book library, we were in control of our own finances, not dependent on an employer. The best part was that our business generated money for us, even when we weren’t physically there. Our money worked for us.”

These quotes might make some of my readers bristle a little. The author is not decrying hard work. In the book, he honors hard work, but his main point is that we should work for the right reasons and not out of desperation and fear. His point is that the type of work we do should be dictated by being smart and creative and finding ways to make our money work for us, being free from the trap of living paycheck to paycheck just to barely get by. I pray that in some way, these quotes have been a help to you in your life as much as they are helping me to break free form the poverty mindset in my own.

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Men Pursue Hard Things

I was not a particularly big guy in high school. Playing football at 5 foot 8 inches and 180 pounds, I had to use my quickness to be successful instead of my strength. When I played offensive guard for the JV football team, I relished the opportunity to block the defensive linemen who were bigger than me. I was on a warpath and no opponent who lined up across from me was going to prevent me from completing my assignment. Even I was amazed at my own determination at times. If a big man was lined up across from me so that I couldn’t move him to the place I was assigned, I just decided to take him in the other direction. No matter what, I was going to open the hole for my running back. As a grown man, I could learn a lot from my younger self. Masculinity calls us not to shy away from challenges, but to press in and go after them regardless of how daunting the task may seem.

Throughout Holy Scripture, we see the Lord calling men to impossible tasks-David slaying Goliath; Moses leading Israel out of Egypt; Elijah and the prophets of Baal- just to name a few. In all of these instances the Lord clearly expected the man to walk forward in obedience and faith in His provision. The Lord does not put a task in front of man and then withhold from him the ability and resources to complete it. So why do I so often find myself afraid to move forward when the Lord has placed in front of me a task that seems impossible or unachievable?

If you are like me, you might be acutely aware of all your weaknesses, past failures, and deficiencies. If I am not careful, this awareness paralyzes me. And to make matters worse, I often don’t realize that I am falling victim to this way of thinking unless someone else points it out to me. I love to dialogue with others about biblical masculinity and how being a Christian man should empower us to be willing to dream big and raise our aspirations. After all, we are co-heirs with Christ. We are sons of the Most High God. Our God owns and rules the universe, and we are His. We are His kings of whom He is King. And yet, when my feet hit the ground and I am confronted with real life challenges and tasks, this biblical perspective about my identity in Christ often fails to reach my brain. There is at least one reason for this that I have learned, and it goes back to my awareness of my weaknesses to begin with.

I have always been an introspective person. In high school I would sit in class and write poetry when I was supposed to be working on the lesson for the day. I would often skip school so that I could get away and pray. My first attempt at college only lasted 1 semester before I failed most of my classes and dropped out because instead of going to class, I wanted to escape to the woods and pray and reflect. One time as a young man, a young lady told me that I had a complex. I didn’t know what that meant and was worried it meant something bad. I proceeded to spend the next couple of days trying to figure out what she meant by it (this was before the days of google), only to find out that it means I care too much about what others think of me and am too aware of myself- or something like that (egg on my face). While it is good to be self-aware, I have begun to learn that it can also be unhealthy when taken too far.

Think of a man who has accomplished a seemingly impossible feat. Maybe someone whose achievements are recorded in Holy Scripture. Maybe someone in modern history. Now ask yourself, did this man have any weaknesses? Of course he did. Now ask yourself, would this man have accomplished such great things if he spent a lot of time thinking about how inadequate he was or how insufficient he was for the task confronting him?

Something I am learning about biblical masculinity (and I am far from having mastered this) is that strong, respectable men of God do not waste time worrying about whether they are able to accomplish the task God has given them. They walk forward in obedience with their faith on the Lord, not themselves. They are only able to think this way because they are not particularly introspective. I have learned that introspection, while potentially useful to an extent, can be one of the greatest enemies of godly masculinity. Instead of introspection, strong men go after challenges with their faith placed in God. If they fail, they fail trying with all their efforts spent achieving it. It is ultimately up the Lord to give them success, not themselves. There is something beautifully freeing about grasping this truth.

When we understand this, it frees us to live life to the fullest and pursue hard things. It strengthens our resolve to commit to the task, and reinforces our commitment, enabling us to persevere when the task feels too hard. It is only when we stop looking at ourselves and our weakness, which ALL humans have, and furrow our brow in faith towards the mountain in front of us that we then are able to leave a history of accomplishments for our posterity to enjoy and be proud of. When I lined up across guys bigger than me during a game, I did not pause and fret over the fact that I was smaller than the defensive lineman I was facing. I looked across at them before the play started with an inner smile because I knew I was about to drive them out of the way and there was nothing they could do about it. May we learn to live this way because the resurrected and risen Christ is our King.

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The Benefits of Struggle

It has been said that if you really want something you will find a way to get it. As I have been reading Booker T. Washington’s autobiography entitled Up From Slavery, I have been struck by the amount of struggle he had to endure in order to acquire an education. He tells stories about sleeping under a wooden walkway because he had no money and being black, he was not allowed to stay in a hotel. He talks about working as a janitor while also taking classes at the prestigious school for freed slaves. He had to do his schoolwork late into the night because the only way he could pay for his schooling was to work as the school’s janitor during the day. He would have to get up at 4am and start the fires that would warm the building. He interacted with people with money while he had nothing, but never felt envy or entitlement to what they had. He eventually rose to prominence as a teacher himself, but it never would have happened without the struggles he endured. We live in a country where too much is handed to us. Lack of struggle is destroying us.

I have used the analogy many times as a teacher myself. Without breaking down the muscles during weightlifting, the muscles will never grow in strength and size. It requires struggle and pain and difficulty for muscles to recover even stronger than they were before. The same is true with growth as a person in life. Those who are left to struggle and strive are the ones who progress in life. Rarely will you see a person who was given everything they needed in life living well at the end of their life. And yet as we look around we see a culture of entitled people expecting that they are owed something without ever having to earn it. If you want to grow as a person, be hard on yourself. Don’t accept handouts. Push yourself. It will both lead you to develop strengths and skills that will get you ahead, and also develop strong character within you.

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What Are Your Dams?

We have a beaver that lives in the pond on our property. I was a little surprised at first because I thought beavers always build dams and therefore, always lived along a river or creek. Turns out I was wrong because our beaver lives on our pond and has built no dams. Beaver dams are interesting things. They inhibit the natural flow of water. A beaver dam can affect a lot of what happens downstream. What once was a free flowing stream or creek can be dried up, or have far less water flow. This could be the difference between robust healthy soil for growing and soil deprived of good nutrients. While Dams can be good when used constructively, dams cause a disruption in the flow of life-giving water. Similar to dams, we all have things in our lives which stop up our flow of productivity. If we can accurately identify our productivity dams, the things which gum up our productivity, then we will be able to remove them and increase productivity.

Removing your productivity dams could be more simple than you think . One of the most important ways to identify the things in your life which inhibit your ability to be productive is to engage in self-reflection. While too much self-reflection can be unhealthy, no self-reflection is also unhealthy. One of the most common mistakes we make in our lives is to do things for no other reason beyond that it is the way we have always done it. We assume that because things are a certain way, they should be that way. Consider your goals. What things in your life get in the way from you achieving your goals? Are they things that are unhealthy and need to be removed from your life? These could be things such as overusing social media, watching too much media or sporting events on tv, or staying up too late on a daily basis.

Some things are very good and healthy and it would be wrong for us to remove them from our lives, but maybe we need to better manage how we relate to them. For example, if you work from home, maybe you need to designate an isolated work area during the day and set schedule boundaries for your children so that you can work productively undistracted during work hours. Whether you identify things around which you need to set stronger boundaries, or things that are simply unhelpful and need to be removed, engaging in a little self-reflection will help you be able to identify the things in your life which are damming up your productivity.

Once your have identified the dams through self-reflection, you should spend some time writing down what you are going to do about them. Write down what your dams are and how you plan to remove them or work around them to increase your productivity. Tell a loved one what your plan is and ask them to regularly check on you to see how you are doing at keeping the dam cleared in your life. Recommit yourself to keeping these dams cleared in your life on a weekly basis. Spend time on Saturday or Sunday revising your goals for the week, and plan out how you are going to achieve them, anticipating the dams that could arise this week and planning how you will prevent them from doing so.

The main point I want to encourage you in (and myself) is that you can increase your productivity simply by identifying the things in your life which are operating like productivity dams, and find ways to strategically remove them, thus increasing the flow of productivity. When we remove our dams, it causes much productivity to flow downstream for years to come. Most of us are able to accomplish far more than we ever thought we could. But we need set ourselves up for success. Accomplishing great things for the God’s Kingdom does not come automatically. It happens through hard work, struggle, and commitment. It takes inspiration and resolve. It takes inspired resolve.

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The Fear of Failure

In my previous post, “Obeying Fear is True Failure“, I wrote about how many of us don’t use our God-given gifts because we are afraid. There are many things to fear. One of the most common fears we face is being afraid of failure. If you were asked to answer the question, “What is something you would do in your life if you could do anything at all?” what would you answer? This could be a job you have always dreamed of doing, or maybe it is owning something that you have always felt was unattainable, or maybe it was pursuing a hobby or talent that you long ago decided you “could never” do. Whatever that thing is, why have you not done it. Are you planning to do it one day? If so, what steps are you taking to accomplish it? If you can’t specifically point to any real action steps you are taking, then I would argue that you are not really planning to accomplish it. Why do we so often neglect to pursue the things we long to accomplish? One of the biggest reasons we choose not to pursue our dreams is because deep down, we are afraid to fail.

You may have never realized you are harboring this fear. Many of us spend a lot of time thinking about how great it would be to do the thing we dream of doing but deep down we fear that if we set out to accomplish the dream and fail at it, then we would have no more dreams to hold onto. We would rather have a dream that we hold onto like Schmiegel’s “precious” than to actually try to turn that dream into action and find that the dream has conquered us and we can’t accomplish it. This is a common way of thinking within those who have grown up with a poverty mindset.

The Poverty Mindset

The poverty mindset is a deeply ingrained way of thinking within those who have grown up in a culture of poverty which keeps that person constantly suppressing themselves. For most who have been raised with a poverty mindset, it is so deeply ingrained into their worldview that they can’t even see ways it is impacting them. Those who grow up in poverty typically do not have examples of success around them. They are so underexposed to examples of successful people who take risks that they grow up to be adults who never allow themselves to believe they can accomplish anything great. So they don’t even try. This is one of the saddest and most common ways we see fear of failure play out. Someone stricken with this mindset have learned to settle for low life standards because they harbor fear that they could never be successful at the things which they would ever want to do. So they suppress their dreams and neglect their giftings instead of develop them.

A Change in Mindset

If you are someone who thinks you may be paralyzed by fear of failure, you need to consider the brevity of life. Salman Rushdie once said, “We all owe death a life.” One day you will die. That reality should inform the way you live. One day you will face your last day living this life. On that day, you will take with you the sum total of all you accomplished here. You will have to give an account to Lord for what you did with the gifts He has given you. At that point you will wish you had lived your life to the fullest now. So instead of harboring unfounded, imagined fears of failure, ask yourself the question, “What if I succeed?” Instead of spending your time worrying that you might fail at something that you have never tried, worry that you will die never using the gifts God has given you.

You only have one chance to live this life. You have been given certain personality traits, gifts, and abilities that are unique to you. No one else has been made to be the person God has made you to be. And one day you will stand before the Creator to give an account about how you well you used your gifts. He has called you and redeemed you to do good works that he has prepared beforehand for you to do. You can either fail by inaction or fail by action, or be successful. Be the kind of person who looks the risk of failure head on and seeks to conquer it. And if you fail in the end, then you failed while striving to succeed instead of by being paralyzed by fear.

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Obeying Fear is True Failure

“What have you failed at recently?”

~Dave Ramsey

When I first saw the above question posed on social media, it caught me off guard. As if failing was a good thing! But why would failure be a good thing? The answer is simple: If we are not sometimes failing then we are not taking risks. A risk-free life is a life of unrealized potential. A failed life. Fear is one of our main barriers preventing us from taking risks in life.

Many of us harbor desires and dreams in our own minds and hearts about the kind of work we would do if we could do anything. But few actually take any meaningful steps to accomplish those dreams. The vast majority, even while wishing to be doing something they enjoy, spend their years in merely tolerable jobs, never moving closer to realizing their fullest potential. Most people choose the slow torture of a job they hate, or at best tolerate, continuing to age along in their life.

Why do people choose to suffer in this way? Yes they may gain a sizable retirement account, and there is certainly great value in the daily plodding of faithfulness in one place over many years and decades if that is what the Lord has called you to. But so many of us are hiding behind a mundane job at the costly expense of suppressing the gifting and calling The Lord placed within us. Is there any reason for us to believe that we should enjoy our work? Do the deeply suppressed dreams within ourselves bear any legitimacy? If you love your work then keep crushing! But many of us have given up on the idea that we could do work we enjoy.

Let me be clear. As a Post-millenialist Christian, I believe all work is God-glorifying. I am not saying that working a job you hate is inherently wrong or sinful. In fact, I have spent much of my life struggling through jobs that I did not enjoy but taught me valuable skills. There is a place for that in life, especially when you are a young man. But God has planted within each man a mission, a calling, a set of skills and giftings. And it is our job to work hard to figure out what good works He has planned for us, and boldly step out in faith to accomplish them.

In Ephesians 2:10, when discussing the salvation and work that God has done in us in Christ Jesus, Paul writes, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God has prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” Before I discovered the biblical eschatology of Post-Millenialism- something about which I am still learning- I interpreted Paul’s words to be primarily referring to invisible, spiritual things. But now I believe that the good works which God has prepared for us to walk in should be applied to all of life, including the kind of work we pursue.

Maybe you don’t need to be convinced that the desires, strengths, and giftings within you are from the Lord. But you are still not pursuing them. Why not? What excuses have you prepared to explain why you are neglecting the good works which God has prepared beforehand for you to walk in? I would argue that if we really drilled down deep, most of your reasons could be boiled down to one thing: fear. You are afraid of something. There are a lot of things to be afraid of when considering stepping out and trying to find a way to be productive and glorify God with your gifts. In future posts I will write about each of the possible things we are prone to fear and give some tips about how to overcome those fears. The remainder of this post will address the fear of failing financially.

The Fear of Failing Financially

If you are like most men, you may feel hindered by your fear of financial ruin if you were to leave your current job to pursue a job that better fits your strengths and passions. You may fear that it will require all your hard-earned savings or maybe that the endeavor you pursue will take so long to monetize that it will cause financial ruin while you are pursuing success. All of these are wise things to consider. But they are not without solutions.

Incremental Steps

I often tell my children that when we are afraid of something what is often going on is that we are believing a lie instead of truth. As Christians we truly have nothing to fear because we serve the Living God and King of Kings. He is the sovereign and omnipotent One. Our worse fears pale in comparison to the eternal hope secured for us who are in Christ. However, sometimes we still need practical steps to help guard us against our fears. One approach to guarding against such fear as we move toward pursuing our dreams is to take incremental steps. Instead of leaving your job outright, it can be wise to begin pursuing your dreams as a side hustle, gradually developing it into a growing income that can sustain your family over time. This could take 6 months or it might take 3 years. It all depends on what type of work it is, your vision for it, and how much of your resources you are able to give to the project. This approach will test the genuineness of your interest in such an endeavor without costing you your current career. In his book, Durable Trades (see https://thegrovestead.com), Rory Groves suggests that while we may not be able to drop everything and leave our current job to pursue other interests, we certainly can begin the process of picking one or two interests with our wife and children at our side and begin the process of learning some new skills over time. While this approach may be necessary for many, some people need to consider making a hard break from their current job.

Build Multiple Income Streams

While gradually building your dream job as a side hustle may be a good approach for some, others may feel the need for various reasons to make a hard break away from their current job. If this is you, one way to guard against financial struggles is to set up multiple income streams. By doing this, you are insulating yourself from major problems if one income stream does not work out. There all kinds of ways you can do this. I am doing this right now while I grow my Inspired Resolve motivational business. I teach part time for an online Christian school; I work as a Realtor helping people buy and sell homes (something I have done for the past 8 years); I drive for the Lyft ride-sharing app; and my family and I are working on growing our property into a productive working small farm. We recently purchased 18 chicks that will be laying eggs soon. We hope to sell the eggs for a small profit to our household. Other things I have heard of people doing are running an e-commerce store, tutoring, teaching music lessons, buying and selling things on social media or eBay, editing/proofreading, or building websites for people. If you have multiple income streams flowing into your household that are not too time-consuming, you will be able to be freed up to pursue your dream job around those other projects as well. One word of caution for this approach is to not commit yourself so much to side income streams that you have no time to work on your dream job.

Network

One of the best ways to put yourself in a position of success with your career goals is to talk to people. Find people who have figured things out already and are doing well in the type of work you want to be doing and ask to talk to them. Offer to buy them lunch or a coffee and prepare them that you will be asking them a lot of questions about how they got to where they are today. Bring a notebook and take notes about your conversation. Ask if you can meet them to shadow them or watch them work. I know a man who left a career as a corporate trainer. He had a passion for making useful and beautiful things out of reclaimed wood. He opened a small store front in a growing small town, stocked his store with wood material and things that others and he and his staff have made out of reclaimed wood, installed a wood shop in the store, and hired staff. His business is doing very well. If you have a passion for wood working, you could walk into his store, introduce yourself, and ask to meet for lunch to learn how he got to where he is today. He has paved the way for you. He learned mistakes along the way that often times guys like him are ready and willing to share with others. You will find that most people love sharing their story and the lessons they have learned along the way.

The Key: Move Forward

While there are many reasons one can give to stay where you are and never move to pursue your dreams, we are called to something greater. The Lord created you with a purpose in mind. He carefully and lovingly made you with certain skills, strengths, desires, and passions. We have a responsibility to cultivate those into long term meaningful work that brings glory to God. Take time to pray about and consider how you should move forward to honor God with the gifts He has given you to bring Him honor and glory.

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Being Like a Spider: Living Out Our Fullest Potential

When I stop to enjoy the wonder and beauty of God’s creation around me, I am in awe. I recently discovered a documentary narrated by Gordon Wilson entitled The Riot and the Dance. It is a beautiful and awe-inspiring look into the wonders of God’s creation. When you consider any animal that God created, they are very good at being themselves. He has made snakes that can fly through the air; spiders that can spin intricate and beautiful webs, spinning dolphins that can jump out of the water and spin through the air; beautiful birds that soar; ants that can create astounding and complex colonies underground; and the list is endless of all the variety of beautiful creatures. But as I consider these creatures, one thing stands out to me about all of them–All of these beautiful creatures that God has made are all very good at being themselves. None of them seems to be bad at being what God has made them. He designed them with instincts and knowledge about how to do the things they each are good at doing. And yet, with humans it is not that simple. Or is it? We humans so often fail at being who God designed us to be due to our own self-inflicted limitations we place on ourselves. Of course some animals fail at being themselves. We all can remember seeing a dead baby bird that tried to fly and couldn’t. But even in that failure they failed while fully being who God designed them to be. Much of our struggle as humans is in our inability or subconscious unwillingness to even try due to our internal belief that we “can’t”.

Can you imagine a spider that needs to spin a web, but spends all of its time thinking about how it can’t spin a web because it is so hard and she is not sure if she can do it? Can you imagine a beaver who doesn’t even try to build a dam because he had parents who didn’t teach him how, and so he spends all of his time thinking about his difficult upbringing and doesn’t believe he has the skills to build a dam? God’s creatures bring to glory to Him because they live fully in the essence of what God made them to be? So why do we humans so often struggle? We make the mistake of believing we could never accomplish our dreams, or could never land that job, or could never build a successful business, or could never lose that much weight, or could never, could never, could never…….

Much of our failure to even try can be attributed to our own self-limiting self talk. We have a voice within our own mind that we often don’t even notice. This voice can be a force for good. But I find so often in my life that it ends up being a voice for bad. And the worst part about it is how incredibly subtle and sneaky this voice can be. I can go years without realizing I have been listening to the voice inside me that tells me I can’t do something and that I shouldn’t even try.

Don’t get me wrong; we do have limits that are reasonable. I am almost 40 years old with severe arthritis. I would be a fool to dream about playing football in the NFL. But much of what I have not accomplished in life is due more to subconsciously believing that I can’t and so never trying, more than it is about my inability to do it.

So as you stop and take a moment to appreciate God’s kind and beautiful creation around you, remember that He has also, along with the rest of His created beings, made you to accomplish great things. He has given you so much. So much potential. So much ability. So much intellect. Your lack of using it could be much less due to an inability and much more due to your errant belief that you don’t possess it. Take some time today to pray and thank your Creator for what He has given you within yourself and ask Him to help you to live to your fullest potential for His glory.

What Are Your Dams?

We have a beaver that lives in the pond on our property. I was a little surprised at first because I thought beavers always build dams and therefore, always lived along a river or creek. Turns out I was wrong because our beaver lives on our pond and has built no dams. Beaver dams are interesting things. They inhibit the natural flow of water. A beaver dam can affect a lot of what happens downstream. What once was a free flowing stream or creek can be dried up, or have far less water flow. This could be the difference between robust healthy soil for growing and soil deprived of good nutrients. While Dams can be good when used constructively, dams cause a disruption in the flow of life-giving water. Similar to dams, we all have things in our lives which stop up our flow of productivity. If we can accurately identify our productivity dams, the things which gum up our productivity, then we will be able to remove them and increase productivity.

Removing your productivity dams could be more simple than you think . One of the most important ways to identify the things in your life which inhibit your ability to be productive is to engage in self-reflection. While too much self-reflection can be unhealthy, no self-reflection is also unhealthy. One of the most common mistakes we make in our lives is to do things for no other reason beyond that it is the way we have always done it. We assume that because things are a certain way, they should be that way. Consider your goals. What things in your life get in the way from you achieving your goals? Are they things that are unhealthy and need to be removed from your life? These could be things such as overusing social media, watching too much media or sporting events on tv, or staying up too late on a daily basis.

Some things are very good and healthy and it would be wrong for us to remove them from our lives, but maybe we need to better manage how we relate to them. For example, if you work from home, maybe you need to designate an isolated work area during the day and set schedule boundaries for your children so that you can work productively undistracted during work hours. Whether you identify things around which you need to set stronger boundaries, or things that are simply unhelpful and need to be removed, engaging in a little self-reflection will help you be able to identify the things in your life which are damming up your productivity.

Once your have identified the dams through self-reflection, you should spend some time writing down what you are going to do about them. Write down what your dams are and how you plan to remove them or work around them to increase your productivity. Tell a loved one what your plan is and ask them to regularly check on you to see how you are doing at keeping the dam cleared in your life. Recommit yourself to keeping these dams cleared in your life on a weekly basis. Spend time on Saturday or Sunday revising your goals for the week, and plan out how you are going to achieve them, anticipating the dams that could arise this week and planning how you will prevent them from doing so.

The main point I want to encourage you in (and myself) is that you can increase your productivity simply by identifying the things in your life which are operating like productivity dams, and find ways to strategically remove them, thus increasing the flow of productivity. When we remove our dams, it causes much productivity to flow downstream for years to come. Most of us are able to accomplish far more than we ever thought we could. But we need set ourselves up for success. Accomplishing great things for the God’s Kingdom does not come automatically. It happens through hard work, struggle, and commitment. It takes inspiration and resolve. It takes inspired resolve.

The Fire that Makes Great Men

We shall be thankful for our hard times. For it is in the fire of the daily grind of life in which our characters and our mettle are formed. If we are to have fortitude, it will come through fire. If we are to have strength, it will come through the tearing of our muscles. If we are to have substance, backbone, a constitution, it will be through refining and fire, getting rid of the excess, which is painful.

Trials can destroy us. But they can also strengthen us. When they strengthen us, this happens through living life side by side with other men who are heading in the same direction, through the front lines of daily life, through the battle, fighting together to be good men in the face of evil. Our victory was purchased for us through Christ who went before us in this battle, who endured the struggle and the fire and came out victorious.

In this fire we need one another. We need to be sharpened by one another. We need to be encouraged by one another. We need to be challenged by one another. When we flee to an island of comfort, it won’t be long before we soften, being surrounded by the comforts of modern life. We will begin to compromise, first in little ways, and then in big ones. We will eventually become a different person altogether. We will forget the man we once aspired to be and adopt the world’s value systems and mentalities. But Christian men were saved to be kings. To rule the world for Christ, the King of kings. He purchased us out of the world’s values and idolatry. He purchases us to make us noblemen.

So when you are faced with difficulty, be thankful. Remember your identity in Christ, your Victorious King. Then be near fellow kinsmen, your Christian brothers, who can help strengthen you until you are through the fire. As a practical application, set up your life in the easy times to have the structures in place to strengthen you when the hard times come.

  1. Be committed to an uncompromising, biblical local church full of godly men who encourage you and support you, and who you can encourage and support.
  2. Set up regular times of fellowship with these men and their families.
  3. Be hospitable and build relationships with your church family.
  4. Start (and finish) lofty projects with your brothers in Christ. Build together. Believe together. Aspire together.

Psalm 112

112 Praise[a] the Lord!

Blessed is the man who fears the Lord,
Who delights greatly in His commandments.

2 His descendants will be mighty on earth;
The generation of the upright will be blessed.
3 Wealth and riches will be in his house,
And his righteousness [b]endures forever.
4 Unto the upright there arises light in the darkness;
He is gracious, and full of compassion, and righteous.
5 A good man deals graciously and lends;
He will guide his affairs with discretion.
6 Surely he will never be shaken;
The righteous will be in everlasting remembrance.
7 He will not be afraid of evil tidings;
His heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord.
8 His heart is established;
He will not be afraid,
Until he sees his desire upon his enemies.

9 He has dispersed abroad,
He has given to the poor;
His righteousness endures forever;
His [c]horn will be exalted with honor.
10 The wicked will see it and be grieved;
He will gnash his teeth and melt away;
The desire of the wicked shall perish.”