How Personal Growth Begins with Faith

There are reasons to be hopeful about humanity. There's good news out there. Don't lose your faith and your connection to a more abundant, compelling, healthful and opportunity driven future. It's there. And don't lose your place in that. You still have the destiny potential of achieving greatness. Don't lose that just because you failed. Don't forget it's not narcissism to think that you can have great things in the future. Today's topic is on having faith. Now I'll approach this from four different angles and also disclose my bias here that I am a person of faith in the sense that I do believe in God and have a close, intimate, loving kind of connection with my Creator. And I hope that you do too. But if you are not a person who believes in God, this session will still serve you. Because I like to talk about faith in four different ways. And the first way I'd like to talk about is having faith in yourself. So many people speak so ill of themselves in their heads, their self talk, their internal whispers are constantly calling themselves ugly, inefficient, ineffective, not likable, incapable, unworthy. And so we go throughout the days thinking other people don't like us and we invent these stories about how they hate us. We go throughout the days looking at goals, achievements, possessions of other people and we think, oh well, I can never have that. I'm not quote unquote like them. We tell ourselves that we had this bad trauma, this past history, this situation, or these series of people that have so harmed us that we can never climb out of our despair. Of course all of those things are make believe. It's not that bad things didn't happen. It's not that there weren't bad people, it's not that there aren't bad situations or even current circumstances. Oh believe me, I am not attempting not to see those things. But the outcome of those things is a story we tell ourselves, an assumption we make, right? Lots of people as an example like myself, have had a car accident. The outcome of that for some people was that they decided to cherish life more no matter what their quote unquote injuries were, mentally, internally, physically. Other people took that same incident and they just thought, well I'm lucky I survived. And they went about their life and never changed. The outcome of the situations and circumstances in our life can be different. Some people can have very traumatic experiences as they grow up and choose to do the work, get the help and actively heal. Others sit with that same hurt and they stew in anger for it forever. And they never move on. They never teach themselves to heal. Why? I believe somewhere along the way they lost faith in themselves. They'll often blame others. And by the way, I want to make sure you hear an empathetic tone when I say this. It's true that others sometimes suck, okay? I'm not blind to the fact that there are evil folks out there, that there can be behavior that is terrible, and that we've all been in some ways traumatized by others. However, if we give all of our power over to those past situations and circumstances, we lose faith in ourselves to make choices today. And so having faith in ourselves is somewhat of a reminder to ourselves that we still have capability and choice and personal power today to at least strive to. To improve, to let go, to break free, to forgive, to be better, to heal. It doesn't mean all those things manifest in an instant and we are totally free of our past or the difficult circumstances of this moment. It simply means I believe in my ability to continue on and to figure things out. I have faith in my own intention and abilities and. And even if those are weakened now or have been weak, I can develop them. I can get better. I can improve that faith in yourself to improve. So I just say, God bless you for being here. The second big idea today is to have faith in others. I know, I know. Coming off that previous conversation, you will say, wait, I got this. I had this father, you have no idea, or I've got this husband, you don't understand, or I've got this sibling and they were like this. And I want to take a beat here and say, I get it, I understand. I do want to remind those who don't know my story, but I've been doing personal development and coaching one on one with people now for 20 years. Believe me, I've probably heard the story and understood the situation in the most extreme of situations. I've worked with people and what I. I want to share is those things and your feelings about them are not being invalidated by this conversation. Instead, I want you to be empowered by this conversation, by you saying even though those things are true and your feelings are true about them, that you still have extraordinary choice today and that those individuals did not represent humanity. A constant reminder that the human story is actually much more of a story of oneness than division. Otherwise we would have blown up the entire world by now. There is a tremendous amount of goodwill, kind, compassionate, thoughtful, faithful, supportive human beings in this world. And your job is to find that community, build that community. Select that community and to spend less time with those who lack your values or who lack support of your own humanity. Sure, there are other people who are rude and they've degraded you, downgraded you, made fun of you. Trust me, more people have had that experience than you realize. You are never alone in your suffering others. And the common human story is related to suffering. And if you've lost touch of that, read the spiritual texts and read any great biography. People do pull through and they do find a supportive network. That's the hope, that's the truth. And you can say, sure, well, those people are on the inert bend and they don't know me. Okay, volunteer in your local town. Find them, they're there. Have faith in other people. One of the easiest ways to find open hearted, kind, caring, amazing people is through volunteerism. We've lost that as a cultural value in our society, unfortunately in some circles, but not in mine, and hopefully not in yours. Go out and volunteer. You'll meet the best of the community, the people who really care and give and serve and can look outside themselves to support others. I promise you, it might change your view and your faith in others. Third, have faith in your future. Now, I don't know if you believe in destiny or calling. I don't know if you believe in an ultimate good for your current life or even if you believe in an afterlife where there will be good. Regardless of what your feelings or emotions are or your assumptions are in that department, you can trust that tomorrow does have more possibilities for you. That is something you can have faith in. Why? Because every single day there's advancements. Every single day, the human story progresses. Every single day. Technology progresses. Every single day. There's more ways to earn on the Internet. Every single day. There's more availability of almost every single item and every single service, globally, worldwide, marching on daily development for centuries. Never lose fact of where we're at in this world. One of my friends and buddies is named Dr. Peter Diamandis, and he wrote this book called Abundance. And I asked him why he wrote it, and he said, you know, because most people think the world is going to hell in a handbasket. And that's because they only watch the news, which is incentivized to report bad news. He said, but the reality is the advancements around the world are incredible. The amount of wealth around the world growing is incredible. The technological and medical and healthcare advancements around the world are incredible. It doesn't mean there's still problems with access. It doesn't mean there's still problems. Society doesn't mean there's still racism. It doesn't mean there's still all these terrible things that hold people and groups of people back. But by and large, there is no doubt and there is no question in the incredible advancement of almost every single major thing from human lifespan to childbirth success to education attainment to access to education and healthcare and water all around the world in general. For over a century, you have been part of the most extraordinary growth of an opportunity in the history of the world, compounding year after year now that technology has advanced to such a degree. There's amazing things waiting for you tomorrow. The next chapters have way more opportunities than you had in the last two and three chapters. And that's just a fact. And so I know it's weird to say have faith in that fact, but sometimes we get so down in our trends in life. Oh, Brendan, you don't understand. I've been trending down. Bank account's been going down, business has been going down, My health has been going down. And we believe our individual story is separate than the larger human story. And when we can recombine to the progress of humanity and really connect that, and I mean that in a disciplined way. I don't mean a hopeful, airy fairy way. I mean read the book Abundance. Read the book called Born to Be Good. Read about how our society is progressing in almost every possible way. There are reasons to be hopeful about humanity. There's good news out there. Don't lose your faith and your connection to a more abundant, compelling, healthful and opportunity driven future. It's there. And don't lose your place in that. You still have the destiny potential of achieving greatness. Don't lose that just because you failed. Don't forget, it's not narcissism to think that you can have great things in the future. It's faith in the future and things coming together for you as you need in the future. And listen, some people say, well, Bren, that's nonsensical. You don't understand my life. I go, well, what's the alternative here? Can we just wander around all day thinking the future is going to be terrible? Terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible. Yes, but what does that do to your mental health? What does that do to your motivation? What does that do to your actual contributions today? It limits them. It does not serve you to think that the world's going to be terrible forever. It just does not serve you. It doesn't mean you can't, you know, stock your shelves and prepare for difficult times. But it's an attitude, isn't it? It's an optimism. It's a forward orientation to the good of your future. The fourth idea I want to share with you is one at the spiritual level. And this one is all about your journal today. What does your spiritual beliefs say about life? About who you are, about how you're supposed to experience this world or even the next? If you believe in that today, I'd love for you to spend some time in your journal thinking about what spirit and spirituality means to you, if anything. If it doesn't, just go to your journal and write about why. You can have faith in yourself or other people or the future. But I'd also encourage you. If you do have a sense of spirit or presence, if you do have a religious feeling, sense or upbringing, if you do believe in a higher power or a oneness or a consciousness or whatever your spirituality feels like or comes from in your life, go journal on it today. And then as you're journaling on it, just write down, what do I believe? And after you've written it down, then ask, how am I living my life? These two questions, what do I really believe? And then second, how am I living my life? And making a connection between the two of them is one way that faith is really demonstrated in our lives.