In this 2015 motivational talk to a group of job seekers, the speaker opens with a prayer and cites Proverbs 23:18 and Philippians 4:13 to frame the session around enthusiasm and divine support. He shares a personal anecdote about teaching golf to a woman with Alzheimer’s, Mrs. Krellenstein, illustrating how a clear need (playing well enough to spend time with her husband) drives consistent action. The speaker then translates that lesson to the job‑search context: identify a specific need (a paying job), set a concrete goal, and take massive, educated action. He diagnoses common pitfalls—procrastination, negative experiences, unfocused daily routines—and explains how they erode confidence. By repeatedly taking right‑action steps, confidence grows, which breeds enthusiasm, which he defines as “having God within.” He links enthusiasm to the biblical promise that Christ strengthens believers, urging listeners to first seek God’s will through prayer and Bible study, then act on the guidance received. The talk emphasizes the role of the workshop leaders (Dave, Linda, etc.) as professional mentors who provide the necessary support and instruction for the job‑search journey.
Chapters
Thank you very much, Dave. Well, good morning everyone. Feeling good today? Yes, sir. Well, I have, uh, as Dave was saying, I've been privileged to come here and speak to this group now. Wow, I guess doing my math, well, this be 7 years. Wow. I mean, I didn't even know that I'd been doing it that long, but I'm glad you brought to my attention because I don't know about you, but I find that, um, when I get this opportunity, I probably get as much from it as the audience does. So hopefully we'll both get some of that today. I like to base whatever I'm gonna talk about— when I plan for these, I kind of go through and I study a little bit and I look for some scripture that inspires me. Last night, for whatever reason, I decided to change what I was going to talk about. I had kind of worked through something And based— it was still based on this particular verse, but it was— I kind of had this Back to the Future theme, and I was going to go through Doc Brown and all of that. And for whatever reason, this morning or last night when I was preparing, I just felt like this morning somebody here needed to hear about enthusiasm instead. So we're going to talk a little bit about that. But for our verse today, it's Proverbs 23:18: For surely you have a future ahead of you. Your hope will not be disappointed. Would you please pray with me this morning? Father God, thank you for these leaders in this room, for the opportunity to be with them, to share with them. And Lord, I would just pray that today would be inspirational, that people would leave enthused and excited about the day ahead, the weeks ahead, and your plans for them. Lord, as we go through today and I speak to these folks, I would pray that it would be your words and your ideas that come through me. And touch these people right where they are in the way they need it, as only you can. Thank you for today. Thank you for these people. Thank you for the families and the lives that they touch and the inspiration they're going to bring. In your name we pray. Amen. So, how many of you are kind of in one of those seasons right now where it's a little bit disappointing? Things aren't going exactly— not going exactly the way you'd hoped. As a matter of fact, you probably were rolling along just fine, and all of a sudden something— it never stops. Disappointment never ends. You're probably rolling along just fine, and all of a sudden you found yourself in a situation that you really weren't planning on. Well, I know for my purposes, whenever I'm in a situation like that and I'm told that the future is great, I just want to know how to get there faster. Now I don't want to get there faster and be older faster, but I want to get to the good stuff faster. How many of you agree with that? Right? Everybody wants to get to the good stuff faster. Well, I had this experience in life and the story that I would tell about all of this information is about a woman named Mrs. Krellenstein who I used to give golf lessons to. I used to be a golf professional and just as a little background information, there's golf professionals And there are professional golfers. Golf professionals teach the game and work at country clubs. Professional golfers play the game and make substantially more money. Um, I didn't get to do that, but I did have the privilege of teaching a lot of folks, and Mrs. Krellenstein was one of those people that I taught. And very early on in my life, I started to wonder, why is it that some people have success and other people don't? And so my whole life I've kind of been studying that and I still am. But Mrs. Krellenstein taught me a very valuable lesson because she would come to take lessons from me and I was a good teacher and I had success with a lot of people but not Mrs. Krellenstein. And the reason I didn't have success with Mrs. Krellenstein is because Mrs. Krellenstein, she had Alzheimer's. I mean, she— She didn't remember much of what we talked about the time before. She didn't remember much about what we talked about the moment before. She would put her club down in front of the ball instead of behind the ball because she couldn't see very— I mean, it was just— it was a— and I was basically babysitting this woman. And one day I said, Mrs. Grellency, why do you keep coming and taking golf lessons? Why is it you keep coming to me? And she said, "I just know that if I were to be able to play, that my husband would spend Saturday afternoon with me instead of the men." And I was moved by that. I was moved to action. And this is some of the things that I learned from Mrs. Krellenstein, put into a very short presentation. You see, there's a lot of change that has to go on if you're going to get to the future faster. Change is one of those things where promised is, is a good thing, but sometimes we don't find it as being a very good thing. And you're gonna have to take charge of your future if you in fact want to get to the future faster. You— I know that God has a plan. How many of you don't like what's going on in his plan right now in your life, right? That happens to us, right? But by the same token, God also calls us to, to take charge of our own lives. That's why he gave us free will. In some senses because he knew that he wanted us to take action in things. Well, as I said, Mrs. Krellenstein had a need. How many of you have a need right now? A job? You need a job, right? I need a job, I need a job, I need a job. Do you really need a job? Really? Okay, so I've got a job for you. I'm not going to pay you anything, but I've got a job for you. Do you really need a job? I'll let you go to work for me right now, no pay. A paying job. Ah, you need a paying job. See, sometimes we have to be clear on what we want. Mrs. Krellenstein was laser-focused on what she wanted. She wanted to be able to play well enough so that her husband would want to play with her instead of the men. Once you have a need, you can go into action. Mrs. Krellenstein needed the feeling of being able to play golf so that she could be with her husband on Saturday afternoons. She was tired of being a golf widow, so she took some action. She started coming and taking lessons. Now here's the good news for you. You've taken some action today, and not only have you taken some action, you've taken some right action. Because if you need a paying job— thank you, Bob— if you need a paying job, you're in the right place, because this is where you learn, just like you would like Mrs. Krellenstein want to learn how to play golf. This is where you learn to effectively take on the task of finding a new job. Because here's the bad news about you job seekers. You're— you now have a job that you have no experience in or very little experience in. Hopefully you haven't been searching for a job over and over and over and over all your life. You have a little experience, but you know what a little experience is, it's dangerous, right? So you have to have some help. You have to have somebody kind of teach you along, and that's what Dave and Linda and the ship's crew are here for, to help you in your journey because they have experience in this. They're the professionals. You go to them for guidance. Once you start taking some action, you're gonna find that you're gonna have some experiences. Now, those of you who have maybe been on the job search a little bit longer and started to find behaviors that you know are counterproductive, like you start out start the day searching Facebook where you're not going to find a job, right? And then, you know, you got to read the paper and there's— coffee is definitely needed, it's involved. And, you know, you might want to just turn on the sports channel because I mean that Deflategate thing, that is fascinating. I mean you got to see what's going on there. And then you're back to Facebook again and then the next thing you know, well, somebody's got to prepare lunch, right? I mean I got to have lunch and since I don't have a job I'm not going out to get lunch. I mean because, you know, I got to save some money. And the next thing you know, it's 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Well, there's no— there's no HR managers in at 3 o'clock. And the whole day is gone because you had a poor plan. But part of that poor plan was some of your experiences were negative. Somebody said no. Somebody said we're not hiring. Somebody actually interviewed you and you didn't get the job. This is where procrastination comes from. We have a negative experience, we start to procrastinate. We start to find ways not to have to have another negative experience. We're not gonna put our hand on the hot stove. But see, if you're gonna get to where you need to be, first of all, you need this group of encouragers. You need this group of professionals. You need to take action. You need to break through that procrastination to where you start to have some confidence. I'll tell you, and I've told this story before here, There were many, many days where I stood in front of a mirror and I just smiled and said, "Somebody's paying for this today. I don't know who, but somebody's paying for this." 'Cause I was confident. I knew that people would pay me to be in my presence, to have what I had. You have skills that no one else can deliver. Somebody needs to be paying you for those and they need to be paying you today. And you need to confidently approach your job search like that. Once you have some confidence, you're gonna find you can be enthusiastic about it. We like to do things we're good at. Now, this is the whole process where I taught golf. I'd find the need of the student. I'd get them to start taking actions, educated actions, over and over, and pretty soon they would have more positive experiences than negative experience. Now, would they really? No, but in their mind they did because they were becoming more proficient than they were before. Then they start to have some confidence, which bred more positive experience, which bred enthusiasm for the task. They started to like to do it. And guess what that meant? They wanted to come back to me over and over and over. It was a perfect way to build my business. What does this mean to you? Well, here's the interesting thing. I don't think this is an accident. Enthusiasm, the core word of it in Greek is having God within. Wouldn't you like to be God-like in your job search? I mean, in every way. I mean, not just God-filled, but God-like too. And I'm a God. Now, I know that sounds a little blasphemous, especially in a house of God, but not that— I mean, think about it. If you felt as powerful as you could, wouldn't you— I mean, nobody could beat you. Right? Nobody could conquer you. Well, here's something interesting that I found when I started searching about enthusiasm and started putting some things together. If enthusiasm is having God within, and then if you take this phrase right here from Philippians 4:13, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me," do you think that's an accident? Do you think it's an accident that enthusiasm says having God within and God says to us, that we can do all things if we have him with us and within us. It's not an accident. It's not an accident. And I can tell you right now that your job search needs to start with a search for God. Now, maybe you're a little frustrated with God right now. He's put you in a place where you don't want to be, or maybe he hasn't delivered. I was thinking this morning, God, give— grant our demands. That's the acronym. Grant our demands. Give me a job. Give me the right job with the right pay and all of those things. You know what happens almost every time when we beg God for something and he gives it to us? We ignore him afterwards. Right? So here's my encouragement for you today. If you want to have more God within, if you want to have more enthusiasm in your job search, there are two things you can do today. Both of them start with number one, take action. Massive action over and over and over. And the two actions you should be taking are number one, first and foremost, seek God's will in your life and work. Spend as much time seeking his will as your will. And then number two, take action. Read the Bible, seek the truth, pray for help and guidance, and then take action based on what you, what you hear from the Lord. I promise you, more action is what you need if you're unemployed right now. Not less. And I know that some of you will say, "Well, it has to be the right action." Absolutely it does. Good news: you're here to learn the right action. So my encouragement to you today is seek God's will, take action, and I assure you, your job search will be shorter if you do these things with these encouraging people. Thanks so much for listening.
