The greatest battles we fight are the ones within us.
Most of us are here not only to learn how to run better organizations. I think most of us have this sense that there is greatness within us that we won’t access.
I’ve had this search for my own identity. I’m not Irish. My family was from El Salvador.
Who am I? Will my life amount to anything? There’s more inside of me than I could actually access.
My step-dad told my son, “Your dad was just average.” He was exaggerating. I was below average.
We’re in danger of learning how to fit, how to conform. We need to be looking at how to be the person we were created to be. How do I break out of the momentum of mediocrity?
2 Kings – conversation between prophet and king – Elisha and Joash – shoot the arrow through the window. Joash strikes arrow three times. Elisha says why did you stop? You’ll only get partial victory.
So many people need permission to get started but no one needs permission to quit.
It’s not a failure, he just quit.
So many of us are settling for a life we weren’t made for.
How many of us are saving ourselves for the next life when we only have this life to live?
Struggled for 7 years to get life insurance – Was diagnosed with cancer. It was high volume cancer; it was advanced stages. Surgery that was suppose to take 2 hours, took 6.5 hours.
I wrote “So I need to tell you before you here it from anyone else, I’m dying.” It was written a year ahead of time when I didn’t know it. The next sentence: “but so are you.” That’s the reality. Most of us live our lives like we will never die.
You don’t get this moment back. You don’t get this day again. You need to live each moment to its fullest.
I decided I was going to be whatever I felt. I never felt bitter because of all I’ve been given. I never felt angry. I never felt afraid. I started wondering if I was a sociopath.
I was driving through ghetto in a yellow Pinto and was afraid. I asked God for something. What I heard was “to live is Christ, to die is gain.”
Death was so last year. For many of you, death is still in front of you so you’re afraid.
Your freedom is on the other side of your fear. Step through your fears into your freedom.
When you’re afraid of death, you’re afraid of rejection, uncertainty. You’re paralyzed with fear.
When you enter into relationship with the creator, He puts death behind you.
Before you’re ever a CEO, General Manager, Pastor, you’re a human. If you don’t deal with the paralyzing effect of fear, you’ll never live the life you were made for.
Leadership is not about living within the confines of your fear. It is about facing them and going through them.
“Great leaders don’t run from the fire. They run into the fire.”
Your greatness is on the other side of your pain.
What you fear has mastery over your life. If you’re afraid of heights, you stay low.
“Perfect love casts out fear.” It’s only God that destroys that fear and sets you free.
We live in a time that can best be described as a mythology of greatness.
You had Michael Jordan who made basketball look easy. You had Gale Sayers and Walter Payton who made football look easy.
Your pain is not the boundary for your limitation. Your pain is the boundary for your greatness.
I am going to get up and walk. If I can stand in this pain, I can face whatever pain is coming. I stood in that moment, hurt so much. They thought I was walking to bathroom but there was no point. I had a catheter (medical term for male humiliation). I kept walking.
We need to learn to walk through pain.
When you don’t know who you are or who you belong to, you have to learn to walk in your pain.
I was walking down the streets of Hollywood with my catheter. Three months after my surgery, I went to play basketball.
Had friend who was atheist. When he found out I had cancer, he sent me a brief email: “F— cancer.” It wasn’ t abbreviated. He later said this might be the only thing that causes him to pray.
Pain was not the limit of their life. You have to be willing to go through the pain to step into your greatness.
For many people, pain will define them. When you live a life of faith, when you connect with the God who created you, when you realize that Jesus took on flesh and blood and was crucified, mocked and humiliated, pain is not the enemy of the story. Even for Jesus, his greatness was on the other side of His pain.
God did not come into human history to give you a way out of pain; He came to give you a way through the pain.
Your future is on the other side of your failure.
Too many people think that their failure is a dead-end.
God does not define by your worst moments. He defines you by His best moments. He sees in you a future that you cannot even imagine.
Failure is not the end of the story.
I started a company about fashion, film, story-telling.
When you’re living in a story greater than your own, failure just makes the story more interesting. It’s a great plot twist. God is getting ready to do something so remarkable and he wants everyone to be amazed by the beauty of what he does.
Business partner took everything. I flew across the country to tell my wife that I had lost everything. She said, “I thought I was your everything.” I couldn’t eat for 30 days. I was in the fetal position, emotionally and sometimes physically. God met me in the midst of my unfaithfulness.
I’m not a person with success after success after success. I’ve had failure after failure, failure. I’ve had heart break, depression. Faith does not make life easier. Faith makes you stronger.
I know I’m speaking as a person of faith. I don’t have another way to speak. 40 years later, I had a life-changing encounter with God. I didn’t care about heaven. I didn’t care about hell. I was terrified that I would drown in my own mediocrity.
There’s a life waiting for you. Your faith is the strength is the fuel to step into your pain, failure.
Take the arrow and strike and strike and strike.
At your last breath, may your quiver be empty and your last arrow in your hand!