The 4 Primary FEARS That Prevent Action

You have gifts that you've not yet owned. Let's just shift the scene a little bit. Operate from here for progress and power and joy and confidence. You got an army at your back. You got God at your back. You can only win from here. Let's revisit your life. Experience all the suffering and all the challenges and all the difficulties we have. We can still say, I'm here, I'm ready, I go in strength. 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 best selling authors. We both teach millions of people every single week. We have, 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 Pastor Steven Furtick, author of the new book, do the New you.

So let's talk about separating your confidence from your feelings because that can be so dangerous.

Yeah, I imagine when you think about Gideon, you imagine him in this wine press and I'll give you this framework for what's going on in his head. Maybe because we trap ourselves a lot. And I always use this metaphor of we zap our success, which means it's just an acronym, Z A P. We zap our success. And you'll notice your thoughts do this. You have momentum, you feel good and then zap you. It disappears because you're like, what happened to my confidence? What's wrong with me? What happens with zap is Z A P. Z stands for zoom. We Zoom in to a problem, and we catastrophize. We zoom in and we worry if I take action, I'll be ruined. I'll be rejected. I won't be able to handle the responsibility, or I'll regret it. So I'm just gonna stay right here in this wine press because if I go out there, I'm gonna get killed.

I'm gonna slow you down and give us the four Rs again, because I think those are very big. Will you do them again?

Yeah. Our four primary big fears that prevent action. The first one is ruin, which we just believe if I do something that's gonna ruin my reputation, that's gonna ruin my opportunities, that's gonna ruin my ability to get ahead. Then we go, oh, well, I'm worried if I take action, people will reject me. I'll be ostracized, I'll be abandoned. They won't understand. Then we fear responsibility, which is the one most people forget. It's like we're scared of more responsibility. If you give them that responsibility, I'm not gonna be able to handle it. I don't know if myself. I mean, I'll burn out. I'll freak out. I'll have too much anxiety and stress. I don't want the responsibilities. It's too much to bear. And then we fear a regret. Well, if I do take action and it doesn't go well, I'll always regret I made that decision to trust her. I'll always regret I made that decision to try that thing. I'll always regret. And that's the form of catastrophizing that we have in a problem. We just zoom in. Oh, my gosh, there's gonna be ruin. There's gonna be rejection. I can't handle it, and I'll regret it forever. Why would you take action after that? And then a is we attach ourself to it. This problem is me. This circumstance that I don't like is me. I'm the problem. I'm the same. We make our psychology the same as the problem. And we forget that our personhood is bigger than the problem and that the problem is not permanent. The problem is placed there to challenge us to rise above it. And then the p. What we do is. So we've zoomed in and catastrophized. We've attached ourselves to it. So we feel insecure. And now we procrastinate or we pause or we punish. What that means is we say, oh, well, I just don't want to do it, because, you know, and we start telling ourselves all these stories about why we're procrastinating. Well, I don't have enough resources, or this is going on, or that's going on. Then we punish ourselves. It's weird. Like, we're scared because we've catastrophized and we don't feel enough. So now we do all these weird things to punish ourselves. We overeat. We get addicted. We turn to video games all day long. Nothing against video games, but all day long, we go into social media and we scroll because we're uncomfortable. And we're doing these behaviors that are not moving anything forward. And like we talked about in previous sessions, you have to learn to flip that thing. Instead of zooming in and catastrophizing, we zoom in. We ask, what if. What if God actually has my back here and I am being challenged to grow into more of his glory? What if instead of attaching myself to it, I attach spirit to it instead of me taking it personally? What if I recognize it's part of the world and it's part of a plan that I don't understand? And instead of pausing, then I kind of power up in his faith. And I power up and I go, okay. I know that I have been given these tools. I've been given his faith, his words. And he said, did I not command you? Yeah. And so he's saying, did I not command you? This is in front of your life. You didn't want it there, but I put it there.

Yeah. Yeah.

And then you have to go, oh. And it gives you a different edge. And this is what you always have to realize when you're facing a problem in life. And when you're thinking about this, you know, is God fighting for me or not? If you believe God is fighting for you, you have an edge. Just like when you were sitting in the car wondering, are my pants too tight? Am I gonna do a good job in the sermon today? What's happening there is you're going to insecurity.

Yeah.

And I always want you to hear. It's like, am I feeling insecure about something, or do I feel the edge? The edge is like a forward lean. It's a confidence. And the funny thing, it's the same. It's the same acronym. It's still zap. But now I'm zooming into the opportunity.

Now I want to bring up another thing that might be a little difficult to talk about. Maybe if I feel like God is against me, it's because I'm going in the wrong Direction. There will be times in my life where I'll feel like, man, God is against me. And it may just be he's closing a door to something because it's what I want, not what he wants.

Right.

And we have to be so careful in those moments not to mistake the circumstances that are not favorable for the absence of God. I've always liked to say that the presence of problems doesn't prove the absence of God.

Right.

And so now we want to get into what I call non circumstantial confidence, where we can just know that this is always true. God is in it with me. What's it fill in the blank?

Everything. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's so important because you were mentioning earlier about how some people, you know, minimize themselves or shrink themselves. And, you know, a lot of my audience have never heard me speak a whole lot about my faith, other than telling my car accident story where I found my connection with God. But I often have to tell my friends of faith. There's a difference between being receptive of his word and the idea that he might be powerful and responsibility. You can be receptive or you can be responsible. And I think you have to know there's a spectrum there. Right. Some people are very receptive, but they're very passive. And some other people are receptive, but they're responsible. And what I always got from Gideon, and this was a turning point, I think, in our friendship, at least for me. When you told me the story of Gideon, the way you explained it to me was that no matter what's going on around you, it's still, do not be afraid. Be bold and courageous and go in. The strength that you have was so huge to me that I started shouting to my audiences last year. I have them all put their hands up. I'm here. I'm ready. I go in strength. I love that. And this is after we've acknowledged all the suffering and all the challenges and all the difficulties we have, we can still say, I'm here, I'm ready, I go in strength. And I really believe that the huge shift is when we say, I'll go in strength forward. And I think it's very practical for me. Like on Sunday, looking at the calendar this week, if I feel like I'm off course or God is punishing me, or things are going wrong, okay, it's Sunday. Let me recalibrate. Let me recalibrate into my faith. Let me recalibrate into the week. Let me move these blocks around, because you know what? Maybe you are going in the wrong direction. And the truth is, you've been hearing, you've been getting the message.

Yeah.

I always tell people when they crash and burn, when they burn out, when the divorce comes up, it's usually not a huge surprise.

Right.

It might have been a surprising calamity or surprise in the way it was brought up, but usually there were hints, and sometimes we just don't. We don't see them and we don't listen. And we hear that. It's like we hear this faint thing for months or for years. And the thing is, we're receiving the worry or not being responsible for the work to change. And so if you're getting that vibe, I'm like, listen to it. Be receptive to that, too. Because there are warnings, there are moments where that silent voice is saying, maybe this isn't the right thing for me. Maybe I should shift it. And I'm here to say maybe. Listen to that earlier.

I love that.

And then plan your week based on that truth.

So listen to the whisper earlier so that life doesn't have to shout. So that pain sometimes doesn't have to shout. We don't always control what we go through. I want you to get a list of your strengths going, because my favorite line in this mindset, and I shouldn't pick one because kind of makes you want to skip to just that one. But if you read it, you'll see my favorite line. It's. It's a whole chapter. It's called make peace with your strengths. And the reason that I said it that way is because I've preached a lot to people about, hey, we all have a thorn in the flesh. 2 Corinthians 12, 9. Paul had one. You're going to have one. God's not going to take every weakness away. I believe that Jacob walked with a limp, but he was still the patriarch of the nation of Israel.

Yes.

So make peace with your weaknesses, but also make peace with your strength. Because sometimes what you feel is afraid that if I do this. Oh, the responsibility like you said, Brendan, oh, if I do this, if I stretch myself like this, will I have what it takes? Well, here's the good news. As you step, God gives you strength. As you step. Put this in the comments. As I step, God gives me strength. So let's get you thinking today practically about what's one step you can take after this session that will move you toward the strength that you have and whether you're stepping into a pulpit to preach like me. And you're like, is my zipper Down. Did I remember the verse correctly? Is it Deuteronomy 6:9 or Deuteronomy 9:6? Oh, God, don't strike me dead if I say it wrong.

Hey, wait a minute.

Oh, God is not against me. God wants to help me do this. God wants to help me build this business so I can be generous. God wants to help me have this difficult conversation so that the relationship can heal. God wants to help me get my body in shape so I can be around, so I can do it, so I can have energy, so I can move. But it is in the steps that you find the strength. And I think we helped somebody with this session today, man.

Yeah. I want to encourage everybody watching right now is if you could just make a list of five things that have made you successful in the past, like we call them in coaching. These are your success markers. When you do these things, think these things, or be these things, you've tended to have good luck or good success. You had good momentum, good progress. And I actually have my clients keep this next to their computer. It's their success markers. And anytime they're struggling with something or they were unproductive, I say, look back at that list. Out of those five things, on a scale of 1 to 10, how much were you doing each of those things? And what we realized when we do that over and over, we go, oh, wait, I just wasn't coming from a place of my strengths. I forgot the things that made me successful already. I haven't owned my gifts or my goodness yet. So I keep entering every new situation insecure again, every new speech. I get worried again. And what's happening in our psychology is we're just going right with our insecurity, and we're doing zap and we're zapping ourselves right out of success. But one thing to zoom in on is, oh, these are my gifts. These are my strengths. These things have made me successful. He has made me successful. And when you start zooming in on those successful things, this is not positive thinking. It is reminding ourselves of what we're good at. And, you know, it's like when I walked in here yesterday and we were doing these sessions, it's like, at first, it's like, oh, wow, there's more people in here than usually at my, you know, my. My thing. And, oh, am I good at this? And I'm good. And I heard my brain go, am I good? Am I good? I'm like, I've done this a million times. Step into that gift. People have told you, you're Good at this step. Holly said it went great. Step into that, step into people's praise, Step into his promise. Step into the success you've already had before. And remember that. Because that's one thing I love about this book, is it just, it's taking an acknowledgement of the fact that we struggle and sometimes the feeling isn't there and sometimes we don't feel like we're capable or good enough or anyone's fighting for us and it's just reminding you, maybe that is true, but maybe we can shift our mindset into something that's more productive. Yeah, we can shift our mindset into a higher level of responsibility or calling. And I want to tell everybody watching this, you have gifts that you've not yet owned and you are doing the same thing over and over. You're going into that next relationship, can I be loved? If you haven't figured out you can be loved and you're a 40 year old person, let's revisit your life experience, right? If you haven't figured out you're okay at your job, let's revisit how the last three years have gone. Because what's happening is you're zooming into all the things you've done wrong. And you never owned the gifts, you never saw the strengths, you never said, I'm good at this, I'm successful at this. And you never operated from that place. And so a lot of my job as a coach is like, I understand you think this, but I need you to operate from here for progress and power and joy and confidence. Because if you operate from this, we know what happens. You procrastinate, you self punish, you quit. And that didn't get you very far. So let's just shift the scene a little bit.

Yeah, let's shift.

Own those success markers, own that gift that you have. Step into his promise and when you're coming from there. That's why I love that line. Now go in the strength you have because sometimes you don't have much strength, but you can remember the times you did and you can remember his promise. And he's there fighting right along with you. You got an army at your back, you got God at your back. You can only win from.