The Way You Win #alittleQC

Good morning, good morning. I'm still in my closet. Good morning, happy Monday! It is Monday, September the 14th, and it's 7-ish o'clock. Um, I am here this morning, hiding in my closet from the rest of the house. Um, I don't know if the closet is really any better, to be honest with you, but it'll do for now. It'll do for now. Um, good morning Delaware and Florida, South Africa. Um, I think I saw Michigan. Uh, good morning Long Beach, California. Georgia, Tennessee, St. Martin, St. Martin. Hey, Sherry, 5:18 in the morning. I see you all. Good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning. Glad that you're here, and I want to encourage you this morning. If you're new here, give me a thumbs up. Lori said, I actually set my alarm. For Monday mornings. Arkansas, Maryland, Baltimore, my Baltimore people, you're welcome for the prayer book love life lesson. Sunrise, Florida, there we go. Texas, Fortney, Texas. Okay, I see you, Ashley, Ashley, maybe. B Camp, first time. Maya Taylor, Two Tangiers, Diana Melado. Ben's better half. Listen, you better come on with the better half. Carter's love. Welcome, first time. Paulette. Thelma. Oh, thank you. She said my face looks so radiant. Thank you. Because really, you know, we all just trying to make sure we don't look crazy. Uh, Patricia, you said your alarm is set for Monday mornings also. Okay, well, I think Siri just talked to me in my ears. I don't even know if y'all could hear that anyway. The point is, I wanted to encourage you this morning with a couple of things. Good morning, Antoine, first-timer, and you're hiking at Zion National Park. Loretta, come on with the multitasking. So the way you win— Siri, stop talking to me. Hold on, y'all. Siri is for real talking to me and I cannot— I don't know where she is. To shut her off. Hopefully she'll stop talking. Okay. Hi, Shawna. All right, y'all, the way you win— one of the biggest ways that you are able to win in your life is by choosing to celebrate your life. And I want to talk about what that is, how you do it, why it matters, and, um, and encourage you to do some of this in your life. Because when you choose to celebrate your life Every time you choose to show up in your life and to say, you know what, uh, I'm gonna make a big deal about these things in my life, the small things, the small steps, the movement forward, it propagates, it perpetuates more winning, more winning. Before I do that, I wanna tell you about a couple of quick things, um, because you all know that there's always a couple of quick things that I wanna tell you about. Um, let's see here if I can get my act together. The first thing I want to tell you about is many of you over time have asked me about the Inner Circle, and the Inner Circle will be opening up again October 1st. ChrystalEvansHurst.com/InnerCircle. Let me tell you why this matters. It matters because it will not stay open, and the last time I opened it and closed it Then all the people, you know, were like, Chrystal, okay, but I forgot. Can I please? Okay. But see, the reason why we open and close it is because we do stuff in there. And what's really cool is to watch people from all over, girls from all over, get supported, get encouraged, work through their goals, make connections. And that doesn't happen if the door is always open. So ChrystalEvansHurst.com/innercircle. Right now, if you go there, um, there's only one level open and the— it's, um, there are multiple levels and we do stuff at the other levels. This level gives you bonus episodes from the podcast when there are bonus episodes. But the cool thing about being in it now is that when we, um, um, kind of open it up, we kind of send the email to the people that are in it already to say, hey, do you want to move on up? Um, join now because— but you know, so let me tell you what's coming. What's coming in October is, um, you all probably know already that Priscilla and Anthony are holding a Fervent event in October, October the 10th. So the girls that are a part of the Inner Circle will get, we are going to do an inner circle group situation to Fervent, which means you get a group discount. Yeah. So there's that. And then we'll have some opportunities to connect and chat and discuss, basically go as a group for the event virtually. So that's one thing that you want to be aware of. The second thing is I've got some special content coming from special friends with lessons that they've learned in 2020, because here's the deal. If you don't spend the last 90 days of 2020 thinking about the first 90 days of 2021, you won't have a head start. So we are going to get together for, um, the remainder of 2020 to do things that prepare us for 2021. In November, we'll have another 21-day experience. It's, uh, we always add something fresh and exciting to that. If you've never done it, it's a life-changing experience. So I hear. And then in addition to that, that even if you've done it before, there will be some different components to it. And there's a variety of things, and I'll tell you more as we go along. The bottom line is Inner Circle is where it's at, and we'll be doing exciting things in 2020 to prepare for 2021, because you can't get ready without getting ready. So that's the first thing I want to tell you about. The second thing I want to tell you about is if you haven't yet picked up my newest book on prayer, chrystalhurst.com/prayerbook, Pray. If you haven't picked up that book on prayer, I want to encourage you to do that. Even though the pre-order bonuses are no longer available, you can still get the audio prayers where I am reading prayers for you and over you. You can still download those, um, that part of the pre-order bonuses. We left that one up, so you can still download those by going to chrystalevanshurst.com/pray. Regardless of where you bought the book, or when you bought the book, you can go there now and grab the audio prayer. So hopefully, if you bought it, you already grabbed it. But if not, listen, Brenda, I'mma call you out. You said, "Oh my, it's that time. I just can't think of 2021 right now." Okay, so here's the deal. Here's the deal. You're not actually thinking hard about 2021. You're thinking about 2020 so that you are prepared for 2021. Listen, it's already happening. If you've been to the store, if you've been to Costco, if you've been to Michaels, Joann's, Walmart, you know, you already know that, that they know that it's time to think about what's coming. And while it's not something to stress you out, it is something to be intentional about because what happens is you'll wake up It'll be 2021 and you'll start thinking, okay, now I need to, you know, now I need to think about— no, no, no, no, no. It's about evaluating where you are and where you've been so that you have a vision for where you want to go. It's being intentional. I was reading Deuteronomy 6 over my children the Sunday after church because I was telling them it was, it was really— I was reading the scripture to make a point to them. Because I was telling them, um, the scriptures that talk about, um, you know, talking about the scriptures, putting the scriptures above the door, wearing them around your neck, all the things that you need to do as a parent to set the stage in your home for your children being surrounded by the word of God. Because the word of God is life or death, and you have to choose what you're going to do. Because if you don't make a decision about what you're going to do, life will decide for you. And life normally does— does not normally make good decisions on your behalf. You, if you just go with the flow, you end up wherever you go, and that's not how you want to live. You want to decide where you're going to go and feed yourself the information, the tools, the, the, the, the, the, the, the wisdom that you need in order to live the life that you're choosing to live and not however life happens to you. Okay, so I was telling them this, and I was saying, it's my responsibility, it's my responsibility to layer the word of God over you because you don't need to end up in life in a dumb place, in in a dumb pit, in a dumb disaster, simply because you didn't know the answer. If you end up in a dumb pit, it's going to be because you made a dumb decision to make a dumb choice to end up in a dumb pit. And I have responsibility— I have responsibility to make sure you have the information that you need. Now, once you have the information, you got to decide. But I have to decide to layer the word of God over you. That's, that's what my responsibility is. So you have the information. So what we want to do in 2020, what we will be doing in the Inner Circle, is making sure you have the information in a very, very— in fun ways, in guided ways, with community. That's what the Inner Circle is all about. Okay, so Here we go. What do I want to talk about? The way you win. I have notes. See, try to be prepared for y'all. Okay. Like, I literally talk to Monique and sometimes bounce off the interns. All right, y'all, this is kind of what's brewing in my head. And I talk it through and they give me thoughts. We mix it together and it just, it's okay. Cause there are times when I'm like, I don't even know what I want to talk about. So praise God for people on a team that support the messaging, that love y'all. Y'all don't understand, these girls that are on my team love y'all, like for real. They, they, they put in more time than they are obligated to put in. They are brainstorming about ways to serve. They get excited about everything from the graphics to the writing to the administration to the emails and a lot of what I do would not happen if there were not interns. Aren't interns coming up soon too? I have to tell y'all about that because some, some people miss it. So maybe I'll give y'all a pre-announcement about the next time I'm open up the door for interns. Anyway. Okay. So here's what I want to tell you also. We will be sharing a podcast this week. It's very interesting because it's a guy who, uh, his name is David Taylor. We'll be talking about Open and Afraid, using the Psalms as a guide to life. So in this whole theme of prayer, I talked to David Taylor, who is, who grew up like me in a non-denominational church, non-denominational church, who now is an Anglican priest, which I was just like, you sound such like a regular guy, like you don't sound like a priest. I don't know what a priest is supposed to sound like, but he doesn't sound like a priest. It was a great conversation, great, great conversation. And he loves the Psalms, and he loves, um, helping people to understand the beauty of what they bring to your prayer life. So that will be what we're talking about, um, this week. You can look for that to go live tomorrow. Crossing my fingers because y'all, I'm still moving and people are out of town, and I've had some chaos erupt and things bust and life. Okay. Also, as we get ready to talk about what it is to win, okay, the way you win, um, I want to tell you that there's a podcast that you may look up. We'll make sure we put it in this week's email. If you are on my email list, then you will get the link to this podcast, or you could just search it if you're not. But Laughing Through the Ugly Cry by Don Don Barton. This podcast, y'all, was phenomenal. Somebody who's been through some crazy hard times, and she is one of the most joyous people I've ever met. And if you want, after this conversation, you're like, I want more, then check out the podcast Laughing Through the Ugly Cry by Don Barton. And if you're saying, okay, Chrystal, but I'm not on your email list, how do I fix that? Go to chrystalevanshurst.com. Just go to my website and right there you'll see underneath my picture a place for you to sign up. And then you'll get a weekly email from me and anything Everything that I'm gonna do, I tell my email list about first. Well, Inner Circle first if it's super special, and then my email list first. So there's that. So that's what's coming your way, what's available for you. Uh, okay, here's what you need to know. The way you win is that you celebrate in your life. Celebration is what makes life memorable. It's how you look back and go, ooh, I've had a good life. What we remember is what builds the value of how we feel about our life, and those Feelings of value accumulate over time. So when you celebrate little wins, when you decide to show up and celebrate small victories, you start to create a pattern of feeling good about your life. So do you want to have a life that you're happy with? You got to celebrate the small wins in the life that you have. Ooh, let me say that again. Do you want to have a life that you love? Do you want to have a life that you're happy with? You have to celebrate the small wins that you have as you go, and that is what helps you to think about your life as, ooh, I'm living a good life. One of the reasons why I'm a picture-taking fanatic is because it's not until I take all the pictures and then I make time to go back and look at them that I go, oh, that was good. Oh, that was awesome. Oh, that was beautiful. And it's when we go back and we say we celebrate the everyday name, okay, when we celebrate the everyday wins rather, it's that we go, ooh, this was great. And sometimes that's why you journal, that's why you express gratitude, that's why you say thank you for the little things that happen in your life. Because when you do that, you're creating a memory of what's good, and you're saying to yourself, this is good. You're telling yourself, I'm winning. That's what you're telling yourself. And it becomes the way that you view your life. Yes, Kandi, Kandi, Kundi, I see you. You say you struggle with this. Me too. I am not a natural celebrator. I have to decide to say, what was good about this? Like, I have to do this. Chrystal Hurst is really awesome at this. She's a naturally positive, optimistic person. And so sometimes when I call her, like, you know, and I'm just, I'm doing my whole thing where I'm whining and complaining, she'll say, but let's find the bright side. And I'm just like, but it's true. Once you find the thing that's good, even in the thing that's bad, you start to see difficult seasons as seasons where you're winning. You want to have a winning attitude about your life? Well, learn to look at your life with a winning attitude. Finding the thing that's working in the midst of the things that aren't. Finding the thing that's lovely in the midst of things that are ugly. Finding the thing that is glorious in the midst of things that not really that good, but when you choose to look for it, you will find it. So case in point, I have this picture I want to share with y'all. This is a picture of all of us. I put this picture up on Instagram yesterday. If you're on my Instagram fam, then you saw this. I'll show y'all, turn this around so you can see it right here. Y'all saw that picture, okay? This is us choosing to celebrate in the midst of of, you know, what I'm sure for us and for my dad. It's my dad's first birthday, and when we did the drive-by at the church, um, you know, it felt wrong. My mom wasn't there, you know. She's not there. It's my dad's birthday. This is— he's never celebrated a birthday. We've never celebrated a birthday of my dad's without my mom. Sucks. It sucks. But What is the win? What is the win is that there is still a multiplicity of grandchildren who are for him, who are excited about him. There is still a multiplicity of children and opportunity to say 71 is a gift of living. We can choose to laugh and play. And there are moments where I kind of, you know, we would kind of look around and all of us are kind of a little whimsical, like we can't believe we're here without her. But then we look around and there's something to smile about. There's something to be excited about. There's something to have joy about because life if you don't choose to look for the good stuff, it's going to keep happening without you. Life is going to keep happening without you. And the thing is, is you're still here. You are still here, which means you have to keep living. And when I looked at my mother after she lost her mom and after she lost her dad and after she lost her brother, she kept living. And one of the things my mother would always tell me is enjoy your life. Enjoy your life. Slow down. That's what she would tell me. And enjoy your life. So what I want to tell you is, in the midst of the ugly, you have to find the beautiful. In the midst of the hard, you have to find the, the stuff that makes you— that gives you moments of happiness. In the midst of the, the stuff that makes you want to quit, you have to find the stuff that makes you keep going. And you can do that if you look for it, but they are the small They are the small things. They are the small things. When you choose to celebrate your small wins, the small things that say this is good— Ashley, your grandmother used to tell you that too, enjoy your life. It's true, because when you've lived long enough, you realize that every day is a gift. And when you find something good in your everyday, you are winning. And when you find that, then you build this theme of there are some things good in my life. See, Lamb said, I lost my mom last month and it feels out of place to feel good about anything. But let me tell you something, see, Lamb, let me tell you something. I bet you, I bet you that your mother would say, girl, cry over me, but don't let crying over me be the theme of your life. Don't let that be the theme of your life. I bet you she would say to you I live my life, you need to live yours. I bet you she would say to you, there's still something good in your life that is yet to happen. And I bet you she would want you to win in your life by celebrating the small wins. I bet you if you are missing your mother, that's what she would want for you. Okay, I know that it might be a problem because I know right now you may be struggling because it's hard to celebrate in the midst of your financial challenges. It's hard to celebrate in the midst of you working hard because you're working hard at work, you're working hard at momming, you're working hard at schooling, you're working hard at cleaning. I know, believe me, I know. I went to bed really late last night. It may be hard to celebrate because you are carrying guilt or shame and you can't get over the thing that was difficult, the thing that was hard, the thing you shouldn't have done, and you are beating yourself up every day for that one thing you did wrong. Okay, I know that it may be difficult because you haven't learned how to celebrate small victories. Maybe you grew up in a household where you will always be rated for the thing that you're doing wrong, the thing that you can't get right. So you learn the habit of criticizing yourself from people who are criticizing you. I know, I know that you are weighed down by loss and you're not sure how to celebrate in the midst of grief or even a frustration. I understand that. And I understand this too. I understand that it's hard to celebrate when you have blocked emotions, because when you have shut yourself down from celebrating the good stuff, celebration is hard. Because when it starts to bubble up, you have the habit of shutting it down. And I know that you don't feel important enough or valued enough to celebrate you. I understand that these are all hurdles that get in the way of you celebrating, but here's what I'm trying to tell you: if you don't celebrate your life, you are not winning at your life, because you won't feel that. You won't feel that. Have you ever met somebody who is perpetually positive, where no matter what they can find something good about their life? And they're always winning in their mind. They're always winning. They're always like, well, you know, this is my They're always happy. They're always successful. They may not be the most successful, but they are successful because they are choosing to celebrate what's good and that's happening in their life. I have a good friend of mine, her husband and herself, they celebrated their 20th anniversary. They went out to eat, and then she was like, no, that was 20 years. So after the fact, she found a cheap plane ticket. They went to San Francisco. And then she planned this whole visit, this whole situation for them because she was like, 20 years, we're not gonna let 20 years go like that. We're not gonna let 20 years happen like that. We're going to get out and live doggone it because we only hit 20 years once and a lot of people don't make it to 20. They don't make it to 20 for a variety of reasons and we are going to celebrate the mess out of 20. And when she came back, she was kind of, you know, first she was kind of ho-hum, we didn't do anything. When she came back, she was like, it was the best best. I'm so glad. I'm so glad that we went and celebrated, that we did the thing. Sometimes, and I will say this too, her original thought was, ugh, I can't believe that I have to plan the trip, that I have to do the thing, that I have to, you know, that, that wasn't a bigger thought for the two of us beforehand. She could have gotten stuck there. She could have gotten stuck there, but after the fact, she came back and decided to make the celebration memorable and to choose to win. You could get stuck where you are. You could decide that, well, it passed. Let me tell you something, if you celebrated 15 years of marriage 3 years ago, it's not too late to celebrate 15 or 18 You don't have to wait for 20. Just saying. Okay. So I told you about my dad celebrating his birthday. The church did a drive-by. That was awesome. Uh, the boys, their first day of school. I shared that picture in the introduction. I know some of you all may have missed that. Um, but I will share that once again, but here's the thing. When we start the first day of school, y'all, I— let me tell you how I started our tradition for the first day of school. I started our tradition for the first day of school because I missed the first day of school and everybody had those cute little framed signs because we homeschool, you know, they had those framed signs. It's like the first day, my favorite color, my favorite activity and all the stuff and all the Pinterest moms and I missed all that. I was like, I can't do that. So because I missed it, I was like, you know what I can do with my kids? And this was when my son was 6 years old. My oldest son was 6 years old. Old, I took him to Starbucks because, you know, Starbucks is a big deal when you're 6 years old. And we've been spending our first day of school, our whack first day of school, because on that day we go to Starbucks. We normally don't do anything else. I mean, we don't do enough school, but we spent our first day at Starbucks and now it's become a whole thing. It's a whole thing. We go to Starbucks and we get cups and we write the years on them. So this is what we the first day of school. We went to Starbucks with our masks, put the number on the cups, and now they don't even get little kid hot chocolate. So we had to get the drinks that they wanted. And then we got extra empty cups so that we could write their years on there. Now, now my kids say, "Mom, when are we going to go to Starbucks?" And we always go the day after Labor Day. We start school very slowly so that I can find ways to win. And then the day after Labor Day, that week we go full throttle. And that's our first day of school. We go to Starbucks. $20. But it started out because I was a loser mom. No first day of school celebration. And I was like, but I can do something. I can do something that defines this day for me. And I never intended to make it a whole thing, but now it's a memory. It's a memory. You have to find things that you can do that are super, super simple super simple, that say, I'm gonna mark the day, I'm going to say I was here. Okay, uh, like, you know, don't judge, but Beyoncé's song, um, I Was Here is like my theme song, my motto, whatever. Because y'all, I went to San Francisco and, um, I took friends for my 40th birthday. It's almost time for me to plan another birthday trip because You know, some trips need to be big. But for my 40th birthday, I took a bunch of friends, I think at least 8, and at a certain point in the trip, there may have been like 12. My favorite, my favorite place on the planet as of right now, I still haven't been to Australia, but my favorite place on the planet is San Francisco. I have a feeling Australia may give me a run for that money or New Zealand. Because you know, the older you get, the bigger you got to do that thing. When there's no corona. But I took him to San Francisco and I had gone before in my 20s. If you've read She's Still There, you know my, you know my story. But the point is I went y'all and we did all the things. We crossed the Golden Gate Bridge on bikes. We did the go-karts. You know, we went to, we went to, or we saw Alcatraz. We, we did all these different things. Um, yes, we went to Ghirardelli, of course, or at least went past it on our bikes. But when I put, I put a little video montage, a photo montage of that trip together and, um, um, yeah, well, no, that's not when I fell. I didn't fall that time. This was the win when I turned 40. That was a win. Um, but I put this photo montage together and it was to Beyoncé's I Was Here. I was here, I lived, I loved, I was here. That song. Because y'all, what are you gonna do in your life to mark the fact Am I sitting in my closet with my hands on my hips going into— yes, I am. What are you going to do in your life to mark the fact that you're here? Like, you are here and you don't have a dress rehearsal. You get to do this thing one time, one time. And we all don't have the same opportunity, we all don't have the same financial situation, we all don't have the same friend circle, We all don't have the same church. We all don't have the same location. We all don't have the same job, but we all have the opportunity to make the same statement, and that is, I was here, and because I was here, I decided to live. What does it look like for you to live? Let me tell you something. When I had surgery on my foot, the same time that I thought, am I going to be able to keep my foot? Because I had a raging infection. Did you know strep throat, the same thing that causes strep, can live in your body, and then it's the flesh-eating bacteria. I had that 2, 3 years ago, and I'm having surgery on my foot. So when I had to come home, and the first time I could get on my foot, the doctor said, okay, start walking. And it was really, really difficult to walk, but the first time I started walking, and I was like, I'm gonna walk to my front door from the couch in my living room, I'm gonna walk to the front door. And it took everything in me, and it felt like pins and needles were shooting off inside of my leg. And I— and this is what I said to myself, Thank you, God. This is a win. I'm taking a step forward, and all I can do is make it to my front door. But you want to know something? I am walking, and I have both of my feet, and I'm gonna celebrate the fact that I can make it to my front door. And then another time, it looked like I can make it to the mailbox. Now, while other people are outside running and carrying on and training for marathons and driving to work, doing all these things, For me, looking like I was living looked like I could walk to my mailbox. Do you understand what I'm saying? You have to stop judging whether or not you are living, uh, whether you are alive by what everybody else is doing, because everybody else doesn't have your injury. Everybody else doesn't have your story. Everybody else doesn't have your challenges. But what you can do in spite of your challenges, in spite of your story, despite your industry, in —besides your industry, your injury is walk somewhere, live some kind of way, do something. Do you understand what I'm saying? Your wins are not her wins. Your successes are not her successes. Your decisions to celebrate, your celebrations are not hers. They're yours because you know what you're dealing with. And then you keep building on that. So my walk to the door became a walk to the mailbox. That became a walk to the end of my street. That eventually became a walk around my block, and then before you knew it, I was running again. But it started with a small win. You know what I'm saying, Altman? Run your race. You got it, you got it. Run your race. So what am I telling you? I'm telling you, look at your life, look at your life, and decide where you're winning. Do you understand? Look at your life and decide where you're winning. Pick one thing, one small thing, and then say, I did that thing, I did that thing. You have to find something to celebrate. Okay, the 28-day book, uh, the 28-Day Journey. The book that I just released, I wasn't not thinking about celebrating that book at all, at all, because it was just, it was done. It was done. I have crazy great interns every year. I have great interns, but this group of interns, this is the first group of interns that said, oh, we need, okay. So when we have interns, they come to Dallas. That's one of the things they agree to do is come to Dallas. For a week of training. And while they have to get themselves here, once they get here, I take care of them. Okay. Put them up in Airbnb, make sure they eat, you know, all the things. This group of interns said, doggone it, there's no retreat this year. And we would have been able to come back and see each other. So we want to come back though. Go. Even though there's no retreat because of COVID-19, we want to come back. So they said, but we, Chrystal, we know that wasn't your plan to have another intern retreat. So we're going to plan our own retreat. We're going to have an intern-led retreat. We would like you to meet us here for a little bit of the time. I see you, Debbie Mason. We have some things we want to discuss with you, but we're going to meet because we want to see each other. I said, for real? They said, for And when I walked into the Airbnb that first night, y'all, they had a whole celebration for me, a whole celebration really for us. It was a whole celebration for us to say, we launched that book. We launched that book. And it's true. We launched that book. We did. And honestly, without those interns, there would have been no celebration because I wasn't thinking about celebrating. I wasn't. I was thinking, oh good, we're, we're done. We are done. The book is released. And my intern said, oh no, no, no, we have to, we have to, we have to definitely celebrate this. I said, okay, okay. So I want you to know that Celebration matters. And it wasn't until they, um, celebrated that, that I was like, oh yes, celebration matters. And it took them celebrating to remind me of that fact. We had cookies, we had signs, we had a table that was decorated. So what am I saying to you? You have to choose to win. The way you win is by celebrating small things well. Um, if you've ever seen the movie Inside Out, uh, it's a kids movie where it's, um, It's an animated film that talks about the emotions. It's actually really good. And they did a lot of work talking to psychologists to say, okay, how do your emotions actually work together? How, how do your memories actually work? And they work because yes, you remember things by your intellect, but you remember things also with your emotions because you remember the things that gave you moments to remember, the moments that you were happy, the moments you were sad, the moments you were scared, the moments that hurt, the matters the moments that were super, super exciting. Um, emotions are a big tether for your memories, okay? And your memories are a mix of your emotions. So when you choose to win, you create memories, and the memories make you feel like you've lived your life. If you do the same— okay, one of the reasons why we get dissatisfied with our lives, if we're doing the same thing every day, you know what It's like, you know, I don't— life sucks. Well, why does it suck? Because I'm not, I'm not doing anything besides the same thing every day. And there's nothing memorable because we, we feel good about our lives when there's something memorable. But you choose memory, you choose emotion, you choose satisfaction when you choose to win. When you choose to win, because sadness gonna happen. You don't have to invite sadness. You don't have to invite, you know, stress. You don't have to invite difficulty. But you do have to be intentional about gratitude and thanksgiving and celebration so that you look at your life and see the winning. And here's what happens when that first domino— when one little domino of winning, when that falls, it can set off a chain reaction in your life of other things where you're winning. Do you understand what I'm saying? It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. You become a winner because you choose to win in small ways, a little bit at a time, but you become a winner because you choose to win. If you've ever listened to somebody, maybe you've listened to somebody on YouTube, or maybe you've watched, listened to somebody talk at church, maybe you've heard a motivational speaker and they tell you their story, and we love to hear stories, and you always hear stories and you think somebody has something I don't have. They have a business because they have something I don't have. They have a family because they have something I don't have. They have a, you know, they're, they're healthy because they have something I don't have. They've got an extra gene I don't have, which is why they're winning. No, they decided to win. They decided to build a wife, to be the wife that builds their house. They decided to watch what they put in their mouth. They decided to go out for a run. They decided to put in the work to get the degree get the promotion. They decided to win. So the only thing that they have that you don't have is a decision. And a decision is free to us all. Do you understand? Do you understand? A decision is free to us all. It's available to us all. You get to decide. You get to decide. Winning is not measured by what you accomplish as much as it is decided by how you see what you accomplish. When you're satisfied with your life, it really doesn't matter as much what they're doing with theirs. You are jealous. You feel envy because what they have, you want. So then what is the— what are you doing with what you have? And what decisions are you making with what's in your hands? You'll be surprised how much satisfaction in your own life will shut off envy, jealousy, and comparison. And you get satisfied with your own life when you choose to carve out about the way that you win. So how do you do that? Here, how do you do that? How do you choose to win? The first thing is be present. Where are you today? Because life is bittersweet and there is some good stuff and there is some bad stuff, but where are you today? And what in your life right now can you see right this second that's worth celebrating? Because life can be bittersweet and you do have to look at your reality, but once you do that, find something to be grateful for. Something. Call it out. I'm in this messy closet, but thank God that I have clothes. I got choices, y'all. I mean, I like all my choices. Some of my choices may not fit, but praise God, I got some choices. I'm working on saving for a new house. That could be where you are, but you have to tell yourself, I mean, in the house we were in before I used to tell myself, we're going to remember these days with fond memories. In a house that, uh, where we were on top of each other and where there was no privacy, hardly any privacy, we're going to remember this with fun. We're going to miss this, enjoy being close to each other. And in the house we're now in, I'm so glad, I'm so glad we No matter where you went in the house, you could hear the TV because that meant we were all watching TV together. And I was satisfied with that instead of being frustrated with it. I remember when we moved into the house before, and I was actually talking to my dad about it. And I was telling him some of the things that I was concerned about, about moving into that home. And he said, the problem is you see it as, He said, you don't, you don't see it as progress. What will living in this house allow you to do? And I started listing it. We're gonna be able to save money. We're gonna be able to do, I mean, I started listing all these things. He said, okay, so you have to see it differently. You have to see in it what's good and it'll change the way you feel. So be present in your house, be present in your job, be present in your marriage, be present in your parenting, be present in your education. Be present and find— carve the angel out of the marble, carve the beautiful sculpture out of the ice. What is in there? Look for it. Yes, contentment is godliness. That's absolutely right. Be purposeful. Listen, it's going to take your energy. Make the time and space to celebrate. Don't wait for somebody else to create the celebration for you. I'm so grateful my interns created the celebration moment for me. I'm so glad that. But y'all, most of the time in life, that's not what's gonna happen. You're not gonna have a cloud of witnesses around you clapping for you in every moment. You have to be your own cheerleader. You have to show up in your life and reframe— yes, Dana— reframe the situation, because what you frame is what you will remember. Live with passion. Be okay with being on fire about something and not caring what anybody else You love makeup? Play in it. You love a sunset? Watch it. You love shopping? Okay, go look. Don't spend a whole bunch of money, but do it. Enjoy it. Get dressed to the hilt. Celebrate. Have people over as you become comfortable with the ones, the twos, or the threes in your home for a meal. You love cooking? Try some new recipes. You love having a date night with your husband and he hasn't invited you on one in a while? Invite him and have the kind of date night you want to have. Live with passion. Find the small ways that you can say, I am going to win this week. This is what I'm going to do in my current situation. We have the habit of rolling into our normal emotion, the habit of complaining, the habit of discontent, the habit of not being excited, the habit of being sad, the habit of feeling like we're bored. It's a habit. Train yourself in a new habit. By living passionately about the thing that gets you going. What gets you going? Do more of that. Whatever has a little fire in your soul, pour fuel on it and do more of that. And then you realize, I'm winning in my life because I'm doing more of the thing that causes me to feel like I'm winning. Pray continually. Why? Because sometimes you need a God idea for the good idea to win. There's a lot of reasons to pray continually, but one of them is that God can give you good ideas for Okay, life isn't black or white. It isn't all good or bad. And our conversations with God don't have to be either. They don't have to be homogeneous. You don't have to say the same prayer you pray every day. And you can ask God, listen, God, you did not give me this life to be bored to tears. Can you give me a God idea for something that I can do to be passionate about my life? In what small way can I win today? How can I win? Can you give me a God idea for winning today? Guess what? Don't you know that the God of the universe, who is super powerful, super all-knowing, super all everything— when he created Adam and Eve in the garden, he created man and woman in his image, which meant he created us with the power of creativity. And sometimes when we feel a little not creative, he's like, would you just ask me? Because I created you to be creative, and I am actually creative. And if you need a creative God idea, I am here for you. You'd be surprised what happens if you pray to God about anything, and one of those prayers is, Lord, I need a small win today. Can you give me a God idea for how I can show up in my life with a small win? You might be surprised that he's actually in your corner. And preserve your wins and your celebrations through the hard parts. You got to learn how to live with the tension of joy and sorrow And you have to fight for joy. You have to fight to preserve what's good in the midst of the difficulty. There is a juxtaposition. There is a relationship between joy and pain. And if you don't feel the pain, you won't feel the joy. This is the hard part. If you're not gonna cry because you lost your mom and acknowledge that that divorce still hurts, if you're not gonna say that baby that I lost at 19 weeks weeks of gestation was my child, and name him or her if you didn't, and then say, I felt that, then you will not feel to the full throttle— I'm getting chills, y'all— you will not feel to the full throttle the joy that you have from the kids that you have, or the joy that you can have from the kids that you didn't have, but the kids that you pour yourself into at church, or your nieces or your nephews. You won't be able to feel it if you feel full throttle the pain that you tried to shut down because you can't feel joy without feeling pain. And if you shut off the pain, you shut off the joy. And so some of the reasons why you can't celebrate is because you never cried it out. You never said that hurt. You never acknowledged that you had a scar that was cut so deep that you don't— you didn't think— you thought you were going to bleed out. You thought you were never going to win because you were on the floor bleeding out. And then what you did just to keep going is sew up up, but you're still numb. Somebody knows when you have a C-section, there are parts of you, because they cut the nerves, that you will never feel again. But there's a— you feel a lot number initially than you feel later, right? But in order to get that baby out, they had to cut you, they had to numb you. And then as those nerves started to come back alive, you had to feel it. And this is all a part of getting that baby. You want to birth joy in your life, you want to birth winning in your life, you want to birth success in your life, you want to birth victory in your life, you're going to have— you're going to have to acknowledge the places that were painful. You're going to have to say, this was hard, this was terrible, this wasn't fair, God, how could you? And you're going to have to open up your arms to the God who allowed pain in your life. He didn't cause it, but he allowed it because we live in a world that's hard, and he knows that all things can work together for your good. So he allows things because he can turn the things in your life. But if you don't wide open say to God, listen, how could you have let this happen on your watch? If you don't say, this damaged me, this hurt me, this set me back, but I'm opening up to believe that even in my pain that you, oh God, have something good that can come out of this. And I open up to acknowledge my pain but to also receive your overflowing joy. And help me to find it. Help me to see what's happening in my life that's good. Help Help me to see where you're at work in my life. Help me to see how you can turn this thing around. Help me to see where I win. If you don't open up and have those kind of conversations with God, you'll never win because you're not being honest. Do you understand that true winning only happens when you're honest? You got to be honest. So be present. Present where you are. Be purposeful. You got to be intentional about looking for the ways you can celebrate your life. You got to look for passion because that's what brings the fire. Find the fire, pour fuel on it. You gotta pray because talking to God is the way you open yourself up to possibilities that you couldn't come up with on your own. And then you have to preserve the joy through the hard parts. Living with tension and sorrow, joy and grace. Even when things aren't the way you'd like them be. You can celebrate. And when you celebrate the small wins in your life, the small victories in your life, when you look for the small joys in your life, you will find that you will win. What's the way that you win? You celebrate. Find something to throw a party about. Find something to be positive about. Find something to say yay God about. So Stephanie said, this message is on time for my marriage counseling session today. I've gotten to a place where I cannot talk to my husband. You want to know what your win is, Stephanie? You're going to marriage counseling. You're choosing to pour into your marriage, to fight for your marriage. You know why you win today? Because you are celebrating the fact that you made a vow and that you want to honor the vow. By prioritizing that relationship. You win today. You win regardless of how that session goes. You want to know what you did? You actively engage with an important relationship in your life. You win. I saw another lady say earlier, and it went too fast for me to catch the whole thing, but she said, I'm 46 and I'm barren, but I have had all of these children in my life to pour myself into. Uh, here it is. I'm 46 and barren, but God has given me kids in all kinds of ways. Hershey, orphan, disadvantaged youth as house parents, niece, nephew, kid, brother, friends, kids. If I had my own kids, I could not have poured into others. God always has a purpose for our trials. His ways are higher than ours. Do you see how she pulled that win out? Do you see how she pulled that win out? I bet you if you look for it, you can find it. So before I log off, because I got to get kids off to the thing today, today, to their, to their schoolwork today, and for all the things. Okay, Nikki B says she's in line at Starbucks listening to this. You know how you win? You are in line at Starbucks getting your drink. Kristen said, I've got a win because I'm celebrating losing 22 pounds even though I've got a million to go. That's right, there you go. This is what you have. You have 60 seconds to share a small win in the in the comments, a small win in the comments. Okay. Got 60 seconds. Share your wins. And if you don't have a win, look at what everybody else is sharing, because what that will do is prime your pump for you to start thinking about your wins. Okay. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Lavera Manning, you said homeschool awaits me. This has been great fuel for the morning. Homeschool awaits me too. You want to know how you're winning? You are showing up for your kids in this way. And it doesn't matter if you don't get through all the things today. You're giving them you today. You win. Bianca said, I win because we are getting the hang of virtual learning. That's right. This day is better than the last day. Mm-hmm. K. Elio, I have walked every day for 112 straight days. You win. Yvette, you lost 1 pound last week. You win. Uh-huh. Let's see. Maurice Lee Mart said, I have a win because I'm free from my alcoholism. Every day is a win. Look at y'all losing weight. During a pandemic. Felicia said, I'm 27 minutes in on the treadmill. You win, Shawna, you win. You want to know what? Because you are 50, you made it to 50, and yes, you are fabulous. I win, uh, Miles said, I win because my mommy is alive and beat multiple myeloma. There you go, Rachel, you observed the Sabbath, you took a break. Uh-huh, you win. At Lotus, your daughter's boyfriend is going to ask her for her hand in marriage today. You raised a girl who's getting married. You win. Uh, Megan, I love this. You said, I win because I was offered a third interview for a new job. She didn't say, I win because I got the job. I win because I got to the third interview. Yeah, that's worth celebrating. Listen, you're getting the hang of it. Teria, you organized your files. Listen, paper is a whole situation. You win. Absolutely. Um, Let's see, what else could I find here? Zara said, I have paid off $3,600 off my debt. I have a whole lot more to go, but I've gotten that far. That's right, you win 100%. Do you see how this is? There's small wins. You have small, small wins. And when you do this— yes, Dana, to being a— hi, Dana, for being a cancer survivor and coming to my house to bless I love you, Dana. Okay. Uh-huh. Y'all are getting the hang of it. You're getting the hang of it. You gotta do this for yourself. You have to say, self, I am worth celebrating small wins. And I want to encourage you to say out loud, challenge a friend, uh, maybe write in your journal, find something, at least one thing every day to say, I'm celebrating my life. I am winning because— and fill in the blank. I retired, Brenda Dawson, 6/30/2020. Congratulations, you win because you put in the work overtime. Listen, all these wins, it's awesome, it's awesome. Yay, yay, yay, yay, yay. Cleaning is my win today and throwing out junk. That is a win. I self-published my first mini Bible study, Satelia Rogers. Congratulations. I earned my master's degree during COVID Uh-huh. You win. Listen, y'all, you win. I'm so grateful that you joined me today. And the way you win is to choose to show up for your life, to celebrate your small wins. And when you do that for you, you hit that first domino. And what will happen if every day, if you just hit one domino, you will realize that you have a string of wins that creates a mindset in you that you are a winner. And that even though things in life are not exactly the way you want them to be, in total, that there are many things that are. And when you start seeing your life that way, things change. It becomes a self-fulfilling process. Hey, Michelle Carter, I worked out this morning with an injured knee with modification. Uh-huh, you win. One domino, one domino. And here's what I want you to do for somebody else, because this is what we do in the Sister Circle, y'all. This is what we do. As we learn, we teach. As we grow, we reach around us or down or above us and we pull somebody else along. So here's what you need to do. You need to find one person today to say, hey, I'm learning how to celebrate my life. Okay, this is in your real life. Okay, you need to find somebody, text them, call them, whatever, and say, hey Tiffany Johnson, you took a small step toward starting a home-based business. Text me, ma'am, I need to know what that is. Um, you need to find somebody today and say, okay, hey, I'm learning to celebrate my small wins. So here is my win for today, and I want to challenge you to do the same. What's your small win? Because we have to cheer for each other. What is a Sister Circle, y'all? I talk all the time about Sister Circle, and there are lots of ways we do it. There's a Facebook group for the Sister Circle. We have Sister Circle events. But here's the thing, the Sister Circle is you. It's where you are, where you live with your circle. Y'all don't even have to be tight. It's your PTA moms, it's the women on your street, it's the women you're in the texting group with, it's your Bible study girls, it's the people you work with but you see them all the time, at least with some regularity, or you are in relationship with them with some regularity and you are committed to them. You are going to show up for them because they're your girl or girls. You're going to call and text them when you haven't heard from them in a while. You're going to call them when something special is happening in your life. Okay, whoever's coming to your mind right Okay. That's your sister circle. Be intentional about cheerleading her. Today, your job is to call or text her and say, hey, I watched this video with Chrystal Hurst. By the way, share the video so your girls can see it. And then you're going to say, so I'm learning to celebrate my small wins. Here's a small win. I'm challenging you to do the same. What is a small win for you today? And once she says that, you all are now iron sharpening iron. Iron. I see you, Belinda, remodeling your kitchen. That's a major win. It's a lot of work. Y'all got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. I see you. You got it. I'm so glad you have it. Listen, you are winning because you are alive, honey. And every day that you are alive, you get to choose. So choose to celebrate and choose to win. I will see you next week. Bye!