How to Find Hope in ANY Situation

If you consistently struggle to be positive or to be happy or to move forward, what's usually happening is you're using the phrase what if? Followed by a negative statement. If you hear yourself saying what if negative? And it's lack, challenge yourself to balance your thinking. What if she does say yes? What if I can handle it? What if God is guiding me to follow this? What if he will be there? What if he precedes me? What I'm trying to encourage people is a lot of the mindset is the decision to start the journey hoping and trusting and having faith that things turn out well later. Hey guys, it's Brendan. And as you know, I rarely do sit down interviews with anybody. And so this is a special episode. I'm doing a six part series with my friend Pastor Steven Furtick talking about how you can use faith and mindset and high performance to improve your life. This was a rare sit down interview for either of us in our busy lives. We're both New York Times bestselling authors, we both teach millions of people every single week. We have the opportunity of reaching so many people. Me with personal development and high performance training. He of course in ministry in Christianity, in sharing his message as a pastor of faith and how to improve your life through a connection with God. And it was kind of a cool sitting down and coming together of these two worlds to talk about one thing, mindset and how you can become the new you. What? His new book is entitled do the New you. It's a six part series so I hope you'll enjoy it here. It's rare that I put anything like this on my YouTube channel because most of my channel is my keynote presentations or my live cast or replays for my courses. But you're getting an exclusive look right here. In some behind the scenes conversations I get to have in my life all the time. But this time we recorded it. So with no further ado, please enjoy this conversation with myself and and Pastor Steven Furtick, author of the new book do the New youw.

Brendan, what do you feel like as a coach as we talk about focusing on possibility and finding a way forward?

Well, I heard you say that you catastrophize and that sometimes your immediate places to go there and Holly's is different. I'll give you the subconscious that's happening there and it's so easy. Everyone can write this down. If you consistently struggle to be positive or to be happy or to move forward, what's usually happening is you're using the phrase what if followed by a Negative statement. So catastrophizing. Sounds really fancy. What it means is you say, what if? And you add a negative statement. What if she hates me? What if it goes bad? What if they don't like this? What if I'm ruined? What if I'm rejected? So what's happening is you. Your inclination isn't that you just have a mental pattern, that that's where you go first. And what people need to realize is that might not change. Some people, that's just. They're built that way. It's gonna be what if? Followed by negative statement for them. What you have to teach them is be self aware of it. Wow. I keep filling in this negative blank. I keep filling in. In the negative blank. I keep feeling, what if I can balance it out and fill it with a positive blank?

Yeah. Yeah.

What if she does say yes? What if I can handle it? What if God is guiding me to follow this? What if he will be there? What if he precedes me?

Yeah, come on, now.

Once I say, what if he precedes me, tell me I'm not moving forward. Yeah, but if I say, what if no one's there? What if no one believes? What if you're frozen? What if he precedes me? I move differently in the world.

Yeah. It's like fuel. Like, I just had the two words, frozen or fuel. Like, is what if freezing you or is it fueling you?

Yeah.

You know what I'm saying? Like, one makes me go. I can't go down that road because what if. Well, I have so many illustrations in the book about my kids, Right?

Yeah.

And one time I was doing this to Graham, well, what if we show up and, you know, the line's too long, and he goes, well, what if we go home? It's not that big of a deal. And it's good to have that little Graham interrupt in my mind. Well, what if. I also share a lot of examples in the book, and I'm really glad that you brought this up about basically just, what if it works? What if they actually do, like my idea? What if it leads me to something else that was better than the first thing I thought. All of these things, you have to bring them in creatively. So when I'm getting ready to preach a sermon or a songwriting session that we go into, especially if there's other people involved, you always start with the question. And I. I don't mean to use any crass language or anything like that, but sometimes you feel like your idea might suck, and I put in the book, you know, what if this sucks? What if we throw out this idea and everybody in the room goes, yeah, that's really. That's really. No, it's a worse feeling, right? This fear of rejection. And I use it, even though many people are dealing with things much more dire than a song lyric or a creative idea. But I use that creative process to talk about just changing that question a little bit. Like you said, instead of, what if this sucks? What if it succeeds? And then I break down how sometimes something that sucks becomes the seeds of something that actually is going to be great in the future. So it's kind of like an endless, well, what if it doesn't work? But in the process of that failure, I develop some character or learn a lesson that I carry forward. And it's the idea with God, there's always a way, but it won't always be the first way I try. You know, sometimes it will be through the doorway of a. No, the doorway of an embarrassment, the doorway of a disappointment that I actually find what God had for me all along. So for me, the mindset is big because it opens my eyes to know God's doing something. God's using me somehow. God is setting something up because that's who he is. That's what he does. And I just haven't found how yet. And that's a really different starting place.

Yeah, very different. And if you can teach yourself to say, with God there's a way. And you don't say that with God there's a way. And it must be right now, because that's where we get really stuck. Well, it's not right now. And then we get frustrated and we quit. Well, see, he didn't give me the blessing today, so he must not exist. This is what people do. It's like an invasion.

We turn it into Burger King. With God, there's always a way right away. Remember your way right away.

If they don't. Yeah. If it's not right now, right away, they get so frustrated. And part of maturity in life is learning to play the patience game. And realizing what we're doing today may be setting up something extraordinary years from now. Right? A lot of the payoffs in the Bible were decades long, generations long. And when you can realize that and stop being in such a hurry, but be diligent, life gets a lot easier. I think I told you one time we were just jamming on one of our Friday phone calls or something. I said, almost all of disappointment can be removed when you remove time. I love that Almost all of stress can be removed when you remove time. A lot of our feelings are a function of time, like now. And I just always go to my mind, okay, what if this could turn out well in a few years? You know, when I started the podcast or the videos or the blogs or all the stuff that we do, it's like, what if this could turn out well in the future?

Yeah.

And that longer term thinking is what society misses now. Because, you know, if we have to wait for three minutes, we just start scrolling on stuff like we can't even fathom being patient and sitting through difficulty and sitting through challenge. And I think that's a big part of realizing with God there's a way. But that way might emerge over a period of time. And if you can trust in that, that's the stuff of faith.

It's true. Because, you know, James talks about the patience of a farmer when he talks about faith. And I thought that was such an interesting phrase. You know, I said it one time when I was preaching that we have a crock pot God, but we have a microwave mindset. And as we go through this mindset shift of do the new you, I don't want to set an expectation that God's going to make a way right away because he may not. You know, Jeremiah 29:11, he says, I know the plans I have for you. Plans to prosper you, not to harm you, plans to give you hope in the future. But right before that, he says, After 70 years are completed in Babylon, that's a whole generation. And so we do have to think not only with faith, but with patience. I think when you said to me, if you remove the element of time, it takes away disappointment. It took me five minutes to realize how powerful it was, what you said, because think about it, we're going. Well, I thought God was going to make a way, but he didn't. How do you know yet?

Right.

How do you know that wasn't the way?

Right.

You know, we won't stay on the path. We just want to get off on the next exit. And what does that mean? Because again, a metaphor. A metaphor. Well, when I say path and exit, I'm talking about moving forward in the last thing that God spoke to you to do, or continuing to sow seeds in the place God has planted you, whether that means your prayers, your kindness, your showing up, your discipline, your diligence, whatever that means for you, the mindset to get out of this mentality that says, if I don't see the way right away, then I'M going to turn around and try something else. It's the enemy of your faith. And I'm not coming to you on this saying that. I've never done it before. I have. I felt so frustrated. It's a temptation for me to want to judge the success of something based on the immediate impact that it makes, based on the immediate feeling that it gives me or whether I can quantify it. That's why I loved my little corny word play about suck seeds. It's like the seed goes down into the ground, breaks apart, goes through trauma, and comes back up after water and light and fertilizer. And so our faith is like that. That's the way God germinates, the things that he puts in our life.

Yeah. And then what we do is we get in trouble because we start saying, well, what if this turns out and it's negative? And I want to jump back in that because I think we usually add three things that really ruin it for everybody, which is. The first one is associated with our fear of loss, pain. Well, what if I do this and I lose prestige, I lose status, I lose the respect, I lose money, I lose time. And so we start saying, well, what if I do this and I lose this and I lose it now? And it's just. And it's black or white thinking, what if I do it? And it's loss? And they're not thinking, well, what if I do it and it's a gain? What if I do it? And it is planting that seed. What if I do it and it has a positive impact. What if I do it and I gain money, wealth, all the other external things people think that they want, it really does change the brain. So if you hear yourself saying, what if negative? And it's lack, challenge yourself to balance your thinking. This is a lot of. Part of maturity is you learn to balance thinking. And when you're younger, it's black away. And when you get older, you can apply nuance and you can say, oh, what if this turns out terrible? It might. Okay, could I handle it? Well, what if it turns out well? Well, I'd like it. And so the first thing is, we say, what if loss? The second thing is, what if hardship? What if I can't handle this? What if it's years of difficulty? What if, you know, I don't survive this? What if I go through this and it's so painful? And instead say, well, what if I grow through this? What if it's not just hardship? What if it's challenge and character? Building. What if it's strengthening me? What if it's making me sharp? What if it's difficult? But that's the thing that makes me stand out later again with time. And the last one is, what if the outcome is bad? Like, you know, you said to Graham, well, what if there's. What if we drive all this way and it's just a long line and you have to say, what if we drive all this way and it's a short line and you have to change it and flip it, as you said earlier? But also, what if the outcome is good, but it's good in five years? What I'm trying to encourage people is a lot of the mindset is the decision to start the journey hoping and trusting and having faith that things turn out well later.

That's beautiful.

Not on Monday, like, you start lifting. If I start lifting tomorrow, I don't look like him tomorrow. You know what I'm saying? It's like, you have to give yourself this time. And I think that's where a lot of our pain and a lot of our mindset destroys us is we want it so fast that we won't begin the longer journeys that have the bigger payoffs.

We won't begin the longer journeys that have the bigger payoffs.

Yeah.

Because I'm so focused on what's right in front of me, or I'm holding on to something that was. And don't you think a lot of times what keeps us from seeing the way God is making is the way he did it last time.

Right.

And so we're holding on to the way God used to do it. And I'll give an example of this.

Or we thought he did it.

Oh, yeah, we can go there, too. Which one should I go with? Let's see. I like yours better the way that we thought he did it. We have so many misconceptions about what God needs to use to bless us or what we need to move forward. Right. Like, okay, I need a team, someone might say, and then I will start this thing. Or I need somebody to come along and support me or back me or finance me, or I need this perfect church. Or we get all this list of what we think we need for God to do it. Right. And so we're holding on to that. Don't you think that a lot of what keeps us from moving forward is what we won't let go of, our idea of how it should be, our idea of the way we thought God was going to make. I thought I'd be married and I'm 25, and I was planning to get married at 22. Well, that's the way I thought God was going to make. So I love what you said. Like, not only what God did in the past, but what I thought he was supposed to do. And now I can't go forward. Forward. So let's have a little therapeutic coaching. I know you're not an ist, a psychologist, or a nutritionist. You know, I know that you're a coach. So let's coach somebody in faith who won't let go of something that they thought was supposed to happen in order to go forward into the way God is making. They can't even see right now.

Yeah. I think too often our vision becomes myopic on what was and we're operating from here. What we should be operating from is our potential and into our future and the best of who we are. And so I always tell people, never limit your vision for who you can be based on your past stories or your current circumstances. Because every great successful person there was that part of their story where they were broke down and out struggling, and they just didn't choose to live there. They choose to work through it because they believed something good would happen. And so I think the first part is going, where is your vision and where are you operating from? Are you operating from the past time zone or the current struggle time zone? Or are you living into and being the best of who you can be for the future you. Which is what your book is about.

Yeah.

And that's really powerful. Where are you operating and where's your vision? And then we also have to set up these rhythms in our life where we choose to release the tension and the disappointment.

I love that. Rhythms where we choose to release our tension and disappointment.

Yeah. Because what happens is, you know, inevitably stuff builds up and we get disappointed, we get angry, we get hurt. And if we never release that, it's like a pressure cooker. And one day it will release and it will release in a pipe burst. It will release in an inappropriate way for people. That's why therapy is so powerful. You go every week or you talk to a coach, you talk to him every week. It's a place that you go to release your thoughts and your concepts and your frustrations and your plans. But it can't just be releasing. It has to be what I always call you release the tension of that and you set the intention for what's next. So I'm somebody, I have to do this every hour. I'm easily distracted. I'M so enthusiastic. I want to do this, I want to do this, I want to do this. And I know this about myself. So every hour, no matter what's happening, when I'm working at my desk, every hour a little timer goes off. I have it next to my computer, press it, start 55 minutes, stops, and I push back, close my eyes, and I just start breathing. And I release the tension in my body. And I just repeat this little mantra to myself. Release, release, release, release. And I might only do this for two, four, five minutes. Just release, release. Trying to release all thoughts, all feelings, all emotions, intention in my body. Once I feel like I'm in a good place, open my eyes and ask, okay, what's my intention for this next hour? And I learned that in helping a lot of people through grief and trauma. You know, sometimes we think our vision has to be this huge new thing, but when you're really struggling, what's the intention for the next hour? You know what? I'm going to go pick up the kids and I'm gonna share some love with them. That's the intention for the next hour. But I don't wanna go pick up the kids carrying all that stuff. So I always say before every significant interaction with somebody, if you can just release the tension. I teach people all the time, if you're the one who goes to work and you come home to your partner or your spouse or the kids, when you pull up at the house, tell you what, put the chair back, close your eyes, do a release meditation for about five minutes and say, what's my intention? Oh, my intention is go be a good dad, go be a good mom, go be a good provider, go be a good servant, whatever it is. And these little moments that you're just releasing all this frustration and this tension, because people carry a lot of tension and they get lost in the tension unless you release that. You know, you can use the metaphor releasing baggage, but I don't like that metaphor as much. But just releasing the tension and setting intention, it's a constant recalibration into the future and into your faith. And when you can recalibrate into my future, into my faith, then I can survive this moment Now.