How to Stick It Out

Hey, have you ever found yourself in a situation where you just wanted to quit? Well, I'm here today to tell you what you need to do, how you need to think, and who you need to be in order to stick it out. Hi, my name is Chrystal Hurst, and I'm so glad you're joining me for this episode of Coffee with Chrystal that is also going to turn into the Sister Circle Podcast, the audio version of the video version of this delivery right here, right now, today. I am here every week teaching you how to live well. I want you to live with intention. I want you to live with purpose, and I want you to live without regret. And the way that I help you do that is by teaching you what I've learned or what I'm learning. And today I want to talk to you about what it looks like to stick it out. So listen, if you're not already subscribed to the YouTube channel or you don't already follow me on Facebook, you want to do that right now. Right now so that you don't miss any of the content that I deliver, or you don't miss the foolery when I happen to go live everywhere, which does happen on occasion every now and then. I also wanna make sure that you know that these are recorded in my membership, the Inner Circle. If you say, listen, I want more of Chrystal Hurst, because before we got to this part, y'all, there was like 45 minutes of other fun and foolery and teaching where we get to know each other. Consider me your big sister or mentor for living your life well. And if you want more of that or access to courses that will help you to transform your life, check it out, chrystalhurtz.com/innercircle. I'm telling you about that right now because in July we are actually moving our membership to a new home. And when we move, after a hot second, those prices will change. So if you've been thinking about jumping in, now's a good time to do it because in July once we close the doors on our new price plans, you will miss the opportunity that you have. So the doors open July 1st, and that will be the time if you've been thinking about jumping in to jump in. Don't miss it. All right. So I want to jump into teaching you today about a little something that I've been reminded of. You may or may not know already that I have 5 children. They are currently right now ages 30 to 13. And in the middle there is my oldest son who is currently, um, in training for a summer job. He is coming home every day and telling me about how this training for this summer job is difficult and how he feels like he's not doing a good job, how he's being reprimanded for making mistakes, how he doesn't necessarily appreciate how his boss is talking to him. And after 3 days of training, he came and sat down next to me and he said, Mom, as teenage boys do, and it's just the most lovely thing when they just want to be known and seen and they feel safe to come to their mother. I'm a good mother. But anyway, he came and he said, Mom, can I talk to you about something? And I said, sure. He said, I think I want to quit. And I said, why? And he said, because— and he listed the reasons. I don't feel like I'm doing a good job. My boss is not really talking to me the way I feel like I should be talked to. It's just a little ridiculous. I don't feel like I'm learning. And I think there's something that I could do that would make me the same or more money. And also, I wouldn't be struggling right now. And I think I just want to try something else. And I had to give my son the talk that I've had to give all of my children at some point in time when things were hard. And as I was talking to him, I was thinking, these are the things that we all need to know in our lives when we get into hard situations. So I don't know what your hard situation is right now. It may be a difficult relationship. It may also, like my son, be a job. It may be working on your degree in school. It may be saving money to reach your goals. It may be losing the weight. It may be making changes in your life as it relates to moving people out of your life, and you really— it would be easier just to let them stay in. It may be fighting your way up the ladder for the promotion. It may be trying to figure out where you're supposed to be located, maybe trying different ministries of your church, or which church you're actually going to call home. Life is full of opportunities for us to change and grow and learn new things. Life is actually full of opportunities, actually, if you look at it the right way, for you to level up. And when I looked at my son, that's exactly What I told him, what you don't see right now, my dear son, is that this is actually an opportunity for growth. Every difficult situation is, and especially because this is a summer job, it won't last always. Let me encourage you to stick it out. Let me encourage you to stick with the hard thing and let the hard thing have its way with you. Let it teach you what it's gonna teach you, because what I can guarantee you is that you will, if you will allow this hard circumstance to do what it needs to do, you will level up. You may decide that you never want to work in this industry again or do this type of work again, but what I can guarantee you is that if you stick with it, you will grow. The mere fact that it's hard tells me that it's challenging you, and the challenge to you is a good thing. So there are 3 things that I want to tell you about that I told him today, and then give you some examples from my own life about what this looked like, particularly when it was related to work, which is of course what I was talking to my son about. But these are the same principles that apply to you regardless of what your hard is. Number 1, you just have to keep showing up. Sometimes the reason why the work is hard, the relationship is hard, the ministry is hard, the, the education is hard, the losing weight is hard, is because you are learning a new skill. The reason why times tables were hard in school when you showed up and had to start memorizing those for the first time, the reason why algebra was hard, the reason why writing that 5-paragraph paper for the first time was hard, is because you were learning a new skill. The first time you did your first finals of your first semester in school and you were like, I, I just am not gonna make it, uh, you realize now that that was just a part of college and going through the finals and learning how to get through finals well was something you had to learn. Listen, when life gets hard, when life gets challenging and there's something you haven't done before, the reason why you want to give it up and the reason why you think it's too hard is because it is. But what you are discounting is that in the hard thing you You level up when you keep showing up because you give yourself then a new skill set. You learn how to do something that you've never done before. You broaden your territory, you broaden your abilities, you broaden your opportunities because now you are able to run the program. Do you remember that scene in The Matrix where Trinity is on the roof of a house and she needs to fly a helicopter and she's asked, do you know how to fly a helicopter? Neo says, do you know how to fly a helicopter? And she says, Not yet, but I will. And then she calls in and she says, download the program. And she stands there and they download the program and she's like, la la la la la la la la. And then she learns how to fly the plane. Listen, sometimes all you need in life in order to level up, in order to learn how to fly at the next level, is a download. And the way you get that download is by doing the hard thing, learning through taking a class, learning through mentorship, learning by working those 5, 10, 15, 20 years on that job. So if you shortcut the process and you don't show up for the hard thing, then you actually don't get to download the program. We want an easier way. And honestly, sometimes there is no easier way. You just have to keep showing up. And if you show up long enough, you'll learn new tricks, new skills, new abilities, new ways of thinking, new ways of doing things, new ways of relating to people. Keep showing up. When I was in college, I graduated with an accounting degree and I got a job at one of the Big Six at the time, Arthur Andersen. I was very excited to have that job. That job was hard to get and it was a privilege to have that coming out of college. I didn't enjoy it. I didn't last there very long, but I was really excited to get the job because not everybody who applied did get it. But I recall when I went to orientation that one of the gentlemen who was a partner, an African American, he came and talked to a group of us people who were there of brown skin color. And he said, "Let me tell you how I made it here. Every day I would show up to work and it was really hard. It was a season in time when no one had been like me moving up through the ranks and everybody didn't like me moving up through the ranks. And I just had to keep showing up." doing the work, honestly, often doing better than other people to get the same pay. I had to keep showing up, ignoring the slide comments and ignoring what people thought or assumed about my ability. I had to keep showing up and working later and coming earlier than everyone else who said they wanted to do the same job. But I knew what I wanted. And so every day I would sit in the car and I would play Eye of the Tiger from Rocky. And I would sit in the car and I would take 5 minutes and I would hype myself up so that I could simply get out of the car and show up. Because I knew that if I just kept showing up and doing a good job, that I would move forward. And I knew that it would be harder than everybody else. I knew that it may take longer than everybody else. I knew that I may have to endure unfair and inequitable treatment, but I knew what I wanted. I knew I was smart enough to do it, and so I just did whatever it took to show up and do my best and do what I knew I could do in that season of my life. Sometimes in order to show up, you just gotta hype yourself up. You gotta be your— you gotta be your own hype girl, you know. You got to be your own hype boy. You gotta do whatever you gotta do to make sure that you are in the right mindset to keep going to the places and spaces that you need. Listen, I hype myself up every day to just keep showing up as the mom I need to be in my home. I light my candle, I turn on my music. There are certain things in my home that let me show up and maintain my peace regardless of the craziness of my wonderful and crazy teenage children. I have to decide that I'm going to show up and be the mom I'm supposed to be. I have to decide, y'all, in my marriage I'm going to show up how I need to be. Regardless of what my husband is doing today or not doing today. And I have a great husband, y'all. He's great. But I'm saying, if you've been married, you know this is the truth. Sometimes, no matter whether you're the husband or the wife, you have to decide, I'm showing up today. You ever wonder how a woman is so graceful and how a marriage is happily made? I can tell you how it was made. They kept showing up, and they learned how to love one another well over time. Very simple and very true. Whatever you got to do to be the only person, if that's what it takes to hype you up so you can keep showing up. So you want to know what I do with my son? I tell him to hype yourself up. But you know what I also do? I hype him up when he leaves for work. Oh my goodness. Come in here and let me look at you. Look at you dressed up for work. Mm, you look good. You are a good looking young man. Do you hear me? Let me tell you something. I know that your boss may not be making your life easy for you right now, but let me tell you what you can do. You better show up and open your mouth and be that young man that other people want to see. And guess what they will do? Because they want to see a young man succeed, they're going to tip you out the wazoo. So you show up, and even though it's difficult, you make sure you get paid, son. You show up and be you. Open your mouth and don't apologize for the beautiful young man that you are. You are beautiful, boy. You are beautiful. I hype that boy up before he leaves. That's why you need a good friend in your life sometimes to help you and encourage you to keep showing up when you really don't feel like it. Number 2, communicate with humility. I worked at a job one time where my boss used to cuss me out all the time. Y'all, I didn't grow up that way. I didn't, I didn't grow up with people cussing me out, so I didn't know what to do with that. It felt very offensive to me anyway. Um, I told her, but I told her humbly because she was my boss. Sometimes in order to stick with it, you do have to let the people know in your life how to talk to you, how to treat you, what you will stand for, and where your boundaries exist. But you can do this, y'all, with a smile. You can say, like I did to my boss years ago, who was a wonderful woman. She just had a way of communicating. I just said, you know, I am happy to do whatever I need to do to do this job well and to make sure that you're really supported. However, it is very demeaning and demotivating to me when you speak to me that way. I have never been spoken to that way ever in my life. It is actually shocking to me and makes it difficult for me to do my job well. So I'm trying to toughen up, but I also just wanted to let you know that if you could speak to me without the expletives, that would make it so much easier for me to be successful and not unnerved in doing my job. Now I'm sure I didn't say it quite that eloquently, but I did say, please don't speak to me that way. I'm happy to do my job and I really don't need you to to push me hard with those words in order for me to do my best. I really am doing my best. You know what? She stopped cussing. Even when she slipped here and there, she would apologize. Sometimes in order to stick it out, you need to communicate and say to the people in your life what you need in order to do well. So in my son's case, uh, he keeps going to work. And being told that I can't tell you when you're going to get off. And I don't know, I can't tell you what your schedule is this week. I said, you know what? She sounds like a pretty stressed boss to me. She sounds to me like someone who needed your help very badly. And now not only is she overworked, she's overworked and she's training someone. I have been in that situation and I know how hard that is. So here's what I want to tell you to do. Give it a week. You have nothing else to do. Serve well. Now, at the end of this week, if you still don't have a schedule, if you still never know when you're going to get off, that is okay to have a conversation. And I'll help you to have that conversation. But when you communicate with her, I know you're frustrated. You need to communicate with grace, and you need to assume that the reason why she's coming at you that way has nothing to do with you. But communicate, however you do, with humility. But communicate. You have the right, in even in you sticking it out, to say what needs to be said with grace. She is your elder, you are new, so you can say I know that it's really busy around here and I'm really happy to help out. I know that you've taken a lot of time to train me and I'm really grateful for that. Thanks for being patient with me as I learn, but I really do need to have hours so that I can plan. So for next week, can you give me my hours? What I don't want to do is plan something to the best of my ability and then on a given day have to leave earlier than you need me because I didn't know to plan for work. Now that's a lot of words for a 19-year-old boy to say. I'll help him shorten it. But the point is, you get the point. Even in your sticking it out, you can say what needs to be said. Just be humble and clear. It's okay for you to stand up for what God is doing in your life and what he is asking you to do. Okay, what he's asking you to do is show him, do a good job, but he's not asking you to be a mat. When you do it. Number 3, be willing to learn something new. Sticking it out, y'all, is often uncomfortable because we have to learn something new, and it is painful to stretch and grow, as the growing pains that we had when we were children taught us. It's not comfortable. So what do we do? You just have to decide that you're not going to know everything, and learning things is uncomfortable. Learning things means growth. And it's okay to grow. You need to embrace the opportunity to learn a new skill. You need to embrace the opportunity to learn more about people. You need to embrace the opportunity to learn more about yourself. Sticking it out means you probably are uncomfortable because you're learning. But here's what I was telling my son. When you stick it out, you come out on the other side of that experience, that job, that education, that relationship, that experience with something you didn't have going in. A new skill, an understanding of how to talk to and relate to people, and you learn more about you. And this is what I told him: I'm so excited to see you growing. You don't see it, but I see it. Do you remember, maybe some of you, when you were growing up, your mom or your grandmother or your aunt would mark your height on the wall, and you don't feel like you're growing until a few months or a year later, you come back and you mark your height on the wall again. It's not until you have a moment to measure that you see the amount of growth you've experienced, but in the middle of the growth, you don't see it, but you just have to believe it that when you decide to embrace the opportunity for growth, you will also be embracing the opportunity to learn, and you take that growth with you into the next season. And let me tell you, the next season is coming. You don't even know you need that skill. You don't even know you need that relatability with people. You don't even know what you need to know yet about yourself, but the experience that you're in right now that's hard, it'll pay dividends later on. In that same job with that woman who I learned so much from, y'all. It was so hard, but I learned so much from her. There were things that she asked me to do that I still use to this day. Asked me to put together a spreadsheet and model revenue, profit margins, and expenses. Oh, I can do that. Asked me to put together a manual or an SOP so that the person who comes behind me knows how to do the job that I did for 5 years. Oh, I know how to do that. Ask me to sit in a business meeting and talk revenues, growth, profit margins, and models. Ask me to dissect what the stock market price should be and whether this investment is actually a good investment. Oh, I know how to do that. Ask me to talk to people who are millionaires and multimillionaires and billionaires. Ask me to talk to people who are managing millions of dollars for other people and to speak in a way that they can understand and to carry myself in a way that helps them to believe that even though I'm learning, I know enough of what I'm talking about. For you to trust me with that money. You want to know how I learned how to do that? She taught me. She said to me, when I went to my first investors meeting where they serve lobster and steak— oh, I miss those investor meetings. Listen, y'all, they feed these stock market people great. It's like a big sales meeting. It's wonderful. She said, when you go, take copious notes. I didn't even know what the word copious meant. I had to look it up. I went, I took notes, and I enjoyed that lobster and that steak. So good. And I came back with notes. She looked at my notes and she said, I said, copious notes. And I said, I thought I took copious notes. You did not. You write down everything they say. You figure out how to take your own shorthand so you can keep up with what they say. I don't want your summary of what they said. I want to know what they said exactly, which means you have to write fast, type fast, or create your own shorthand. And then she proceeded to give me some examples of words and abbreviations that she would use for words that are commonly used in the industry. You know what I know how to do now? Today I can take copious notes. I know how to not only take great notes, I know how to then summarize, because then she taught me how to summarize from my copious notes what the main idea was. Do you want to know what I do? Week in and week out with the podcast show notes and with the blog posts that I write, or with the things that I say, y'all. Every week I take copious notes on what I want to talk about, that I summarize it to the main points and deliver it to you. You want to know what I do when I have interns, when I have people who are on the team? I want you to watch this video that I did. I want you to listen to this thing that I taught, and I want you to take copious notes. And then I want you to summarize them. And what I'll do is come behind, like my boss used to do to me, and I will edit those and show you how to improve. Did I know that she was teaching me skills that I would need today? People skills, functional skills, financial skills, summarization skills, thinking skills, how to operate in different realms with different people who operate in different planes. Because Lord have mercy, I sure don't have no multimillion dollars, but I sure do know how to talk to people who do. You want to know how I learned those skills? I stuck it out. So what did I tell my son? You're developing, son. Don't cut the season of development short. I don't know how God is going to use the things that you are learning right now. I don't know how you're going to be better from the places that are irritating the mess out of you right now. I don't know what you're going to need with the skills that you are absorbing right now. What I do know is that if you keep showing up, do whatever you have to do to convince yourself to do that. I know if you learn how to communicate with humility, because you do have to communicate, and that's okay. Learning how to do that is okay. Everybody you meet in this world won't be kind or nice or for you. You have to stand up for yourself. That's okay. And if you learn to embrace the opportunity, every opportunity you have to learn something new, here's what I am 110% sure will happen in your life. You will grow, you will develop, and eyes have not seen nor have ears heard how God is going to use the things that seem disconnected for you in your life in the future. Everything you pick up is gold. You just hold it until God tells you how to use it. This is the way life works. So if I could convince you today, in the area and the place that's most difficult for you, to stick it out, learn what you need to learn, communicate how you need to communicate, keep showing up. But yes, hype yourself up. Yes, don't be a mat. Say what needs to be said. And yes, take every opportunity you can to grow. And then trust that everything that happens in your life is a breadcrumb. I talk about this in my book, She's Still There. There are breadcrumbs that they just seem like a scattered mess in your whole life, but then as you move forward, you realize that those breadcrumbs were creating a trail. And you'll look back and you'll say, I thought those were just crumbs, and the whole time God was building your destiny. So don't sweat the small stuff and don't lament the crumbs. Keep showing up, keep moving forward, and trust that God wastes nothing, nothing at all. The bad stuff, the good stuff, all the stuff, he knows how to use it. I hope that's encouraging to you. It was encouraging to my son and it was encouraging to me because I remember when, and I love the season of life that I'm in where I get to see, oh, this is what God was doing. In me. And I'm so glad— not always, and not always perfectly, but sometimes, and enough of the time apparently— I stuck it out. And I want you to do the same. Listen, this video has been helpful to you. I'm glad I was able to show up, mentor you a little bit, and be your big sister. Subscribe to this channel, y'all. Follow me on Facebook if you haven't already. Share this video with a friend. And I would love for you to tell me in the comments where in your life right now— oh my goodness— you are having to stick it out. Where in your life did this message encourage you to do the thing, honey? And also, if you have ever been where I've been and you want to offer a word of encouragement in the comments to someone else, you can say, listen, I'm so glad I stuck it out when— go on and testify in the comments. Tell your story, because telling our stories, y'all, is how we are better together. And don't forget, the doors to the Inner Circle open up on July 1st, and that is the time time to get in, y'all, because things are changing. We're moving. Things are getting better. And I would love for you to decide in that inner circle to stick it out with me. Y'all have a good day now, and I will see you next time.