[00:00] If you fail, do you doubt? Do you believe that I’m not good enough or not smart enough, or not capable enough? Or do you believe that maybe just, maybe this is part of God’s plan? Let me try again. Let me get up, dust myself off. Learn from my failure and try again. Could it be part of God’s plan? Could this uncertainty be part of God’s plan?

[00:23] Welcome to another episode of Success for the Athletic Minded Man. Real talk on harnessing your athletic drive for clarity, consistency, and focus in business and life. This is your host, Jim Harshaw, Jr. And today I bring you a solo episode. We’re talking about finding confidence through faith. Now, if you are a man of faith, you’re gonna love this episode.

[00:43] If you’re a man of no faith or some faith other than Christian faith, you are gonna love. This episode, here’s why. This whole concept for what I’m about to share with you today has evolved over the past several months because I’ve been going back and doing a lot of study of the books, the Confident Mind.

[01:00] This is by written by Nate Zinger, who I’ve had on the podcast and back in episode number. 3 36. So scroll back to that one. Or you can just grab that out of the action plan. The link will be right there. But Dr. Nate Zinzer was the director of Performance at West Point for about three decades. He wrote an amazing book, the Confident Mind.

[01:17] What I’m gonna share with you today has also come from my research and study and actually conversation with. Jim Murphy, who is the offer author of the book Inner Excellence, and that book was the book that really blew up during the NFL playoffs last year when AJ Brown was caught reading it on the sidelines during a game.

[01:36] It was fascinating. But anyway, I’ve been studying these two books and I’ve just studied this stuff over the years, right? The inner game of tennis and so many other mindset books that are out there that I, I love to read this stuff and if you’re an athletic minded man, you likely enjoy this stuff as well.

[01:49] And kind of getting into the minds of peak performers. And how do they operate? How do they think? And the more I’ve researched this stuff, the more I’ve learned about it over the years, the more I see so many parallels between what I’m reading in these books and hearing on the podcast and YouTube videos, et cetera, and what I’m learning and reading in the Bible.

[02:11] And again, whether or not you believe Jesus Christ is the savior. You can still understand this is a man who we are revering, you know, thousands of years later, even if you’re not a Christian. There’s so many great lessons in there and, and this is obviously a man who, who lived it a to a very high standard, even if you don’t believe he was the son of God, you know that he lived to a very high standard and loved and served others and, and, and we’re still talking about ’em thousands of years later.

[02:38] And so. That’s really what I wanna do today is to compare and contrast some things that I’ve been reading in these types of books and lessons I’ve learned and stories I’ve heard over the years compared to what we’re hearing in the Bible. And there’s so many parallels. It’s fascinating and it’s gonna really help you.

[02:55] Unlock yourself in terms of how you think and how you carry yourself. I’ve helped men do that. I’ve been helping them for years do this and, and overcome their own, you know, doubts and limitations and blind spots and live their lives at a higher level. I have a. Client named Andrew, who after going through my coaching program said, I have clarity.

[03:15] I’m energized, I’m focused. I’m going for things way beyond the stratosphere. Now even beyond my 10 X goals. And here’s another one from one of my clients named Rich. He said, I’m seeing exponential growth. He said, I was on the fence. When I thought about getting a coach and joining this community of, of high performing men, he said, I, I thought to myself, I don’t need coaching.

[03:37] Why pay for extra coaching? Uh, I’ve read the books, I’ve watched the videos. I, I have my own successful practice. Why would I invest in that stuff? Well, now he’s seeing exponential growth. He used to be the owner of one company. Now he is part ownership in five companies, and he’s only a year and a half in.

[03:52] This is the kind, these are the kind of results that, that I’ve been able to get with guys, and this is the kind of thinking that has gone into my program, the kind of conversations that we have on our mastermind calls when I get all these guys together. And so by the end of this episode, when my goal for you here today is to really have a new understanding of confidence and, and how to carry yourself into every situation, whether it’s professional, personal health and fitness, doesn’t matter.

[04:17] How can you carry yourself with confidence? Despite, or sometimes because of failures, self-doubt, fear, uncertainty, all of these things. And so what I’m gonna do is I’m gonna walk you through four different areas, four different topics that I, I actually shared in a recent sermon that I give at my church around.

[04:38] Confidence in finding confidence through faith. And there’s a, a favorite quote of mine that I wanna start out with that is really helps you understand why I wanted to share this with you and why I gave this sermon at my church titled, finding Confidence Through Faith. And it’s a quote by the author Jackson Brown, not the musician, but he said, remember that everyone you meet is afraid of something, loves something, and has lost something.

[05:04] Think about that. Remember, everyone you meet is afraid of something, loves something, and has lost something. So if you are afraid of something you love, something you’ve lost. Something that impacts. Your confidence, right? It brings about fear. It might bring about self-doubt or uncertainty. It might even bring about an unhealthy ego, right?

[05:25] Trying to overcompensate for something or feeling less than, and so therefore our ego can get in the way. And so that’s one understanding we all need to show up here into this episode with is understanding that. We can all grow in our confidence and it will help us be the best version of ourselves. The the version of you that God created, God did not create you to have fear and self-doubt and uncertainty, and to put your ego in front of you.

[05:54] He created you to be the best version of you, confident, and when you show up with confidence. You show up better, whether it’s for the, the sales call or the conversation with your boss, or the tough conversation with your spouse or, you know, endeavoring into that diet to lose that pesky 10 pounds or trying to run a marathon that, that you failed trying before.

[06:17] Like all of those things, we are affected by confidence and so many of us, myself included, get caught up in the how to right how to do something. That’s why we like to listen to Andrew Huberman to tell us, you know, how do we really need to diet or sleep or whatever else it is. What do we really know? I mean, to be honest, we know we’re just not executing as, as, as our best selves, right?

[06:44] We listen to the sales experts and, and, and read the books and all that, and I listen, I do all that stuff. I’m going to continue to do that because it’s all about growth and learning. But we also have to apply the other side, and this is the part that most people miss is the, the confidence side, right?

[06:59] Like when I was wrestling. I did all of the stuff. You name it, I did it. I trained year round. I wrestled the Olympic styles, freestyle and Greco Roman in the summers and the off seasons. Competed all season long, got a ton of matches in, trained at every opportunity I could. I couldn’t possibly run more miles or lift more weights or, or watch more film.

[07:18] There’s not enough hours in the day, but I still wasn’t finding success until I got my confidence, right. That’s what we’re talking about today. Okay, so now four things that I wanna share with you today, right? The rest of my conversation here today is gonna be around these four things. Number one, fear.

[07:34] The fear that you have that’s holding you back. Number two, self-doubt. Number three, uncertainty. And number four, ego. Okay, let’s talk first about fear. Okay? I wanna take you back to 2019. It was the NCAA final, uh, semi-finals UVAs playing Auburn and. UVA was losing UVA basketball was losing by two points and the clock was sticking down.

[07:56] There’s just a few seconds left. Kyle Guy gets the ball in his hands. There’s 1.6 seconds left. He shoots a three pointer. If it goes in, we win. If it goes at, if it doesn’t go in, we lose. Well, it doesn’t go in and, you know, I’m there, I’m in, I’m in the stadium, you know, hands head in my hands, like, oh my gosh, we lost.

[08:16] And you know, there’s, there’s footage of all the, the students at back at Auburn who are watching and they went out and started partying, celebrating in the streets, like instantly. Instant celebration for them. Well, what most of us didn’t realize in that moment when Kyle Guy took that shot, there was a whistle.

[08:33] He got fouled, and so what’s he get? He gets three foul shots. He goes to the line to take three foul shots. Think about that. Of 10 tens of thousands of fans watching in the stadium, millions watching around the world as Kyle Guy has to take three free throws to put his team. For the first ever, first time ever in the history of the program to make it to the national championship finals.

[08:58] So Kyle takes the ball and, and listen. This is something he’s done thousands and thousands of times. Think about you like what, how would you feel in that moment? Would you feel fear, pressure, anxiety. Probably pretty normal. The referee hands the ball to Kyle, bounces it a couple times, takes the first shot, drains it.

[09:17] Now we’re down by one. Bounces it a couple more times, takes a second shot, drains it. Now it’s tied. Unbelievable right now. If he makes this last one, we win like pretty much game over, right? 1.6 seconds left. Takes the next shot. He drains it. He drains all three. And it’s so, it’s so funny on the, if you go back and watch the highlights, the, uh, the, uh, the announcer, as soon as he syncs the third one, the, the broadcaster goes onions.

[09:44] He just like, it takes a set of onions to make that happen. To drain three free throws in that kind of intensity, that kind of environment. Think about the fear. He didn’t have any right. He let go and that is what God wants us to do. And
[10:00] that’s what I read in the books, like the Confident Mind and Inner Excellence.

[10:03] It’s not about me like, like let go. This is not something that you have to be fearful of. There are 1.5 billion people in China who don’t even care if Kyle Guy makes a shot or now you don’t even know. If he’s gonna, he’s taking those shots, right? It’s, it’s irrelevant to billions of people around the world, right?

[10:21] We make things such a big deal in sports psychology. Everything is important. Nothing is special, right? Everything is important. Like everything you do is important, right? From. How you carry yourself and how you talk to, and how you train to, how you take those free throws, right? It’s all important and none of it is special.

[10:38] Right? And, and when we start making things special, that’s when we clam up. We get tense, whether it’s in a, a sales pitch or a conversation with your boss or whatever it might be, that’s when we get tense. But what these books tell us is to let. Go, let go. So I, I referenced AJ Brown earlier, and AJ Brown is the wide Rece, a wide receiver for the Philadelphia Eagles.

[10:59] And it was last year during the playoffs when AJ Brown, he was having a bad game and the camera panned over to him to sort of like reference him. They’re like, you know, AJ Brown’s only been targeted three times all game, and the camera pans over to him and he is sitting on the sidelines on the bench while the defense is out there.

[11:16] He’s sitting there with the rest of the offense and he’s reading a book. Like, oh, he must be angry. He must be upset. He must be pissed at his coaches or whatever, and they interview after, you know, in the locker room, they’re asking him like, Hey, you know what was going on? Why were you reading a book? Were you trying to send a message to your coach that you were upset or whatever?

[11:32] He’s like, no, man. He said this. Here’s this quote. He said, I do it every drive, regardless of whether I score a touchdown or drop a pass. That’s how I refocus. It gives me a sense of peace. Think about that. It gives him a sense of peace. It helps him. Let go, and the more you can let go, the more you can show up as the confident version of you that God created.

[11:52] There’s a great quote in Isaiah in the Bible, Isaiah 41 10. It says, fear not fry with you. Be not dismayed for I am your God. I’ll strengthen you. I will help you. I’ll uphold you with my righteous right hand. There’s another one in Joshua one, nine. Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified. Do not be dismayed for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.

[12:17] Think about that like you can let go. Really, this is not a as big of a deal as you think. Right. Let go do your best. And to be honest, your best requires you to let go anyway. And to focus on a, a, as Jim Murphy talks about in inner excellence, to focus on the pursuit of excellence. Not outcomes, but excellence.

[12:40] Because listen, uh, I’m a Pittsburgh Steelers fan, and the Steelers want a game a couple, a couple weeks ago, and it was terrible. They would not want to replicate that performance, right? They wanna replicate certainly the outcome. That outcome, they, they played terribly. They shouldn’t have not have won the game.

[12:56] They played so poorly. You don’t wanna replicate that, that type of play, right? So you really aren’t focused on the outcome because you can have the outcome you want, but do it. Do a terrible job, terrible performance. You’re not trying to replicate the outcome, you’re trying to replicate the performance.

[13:13] Because when you do your best and you try to replicate that performance, the outcomes take care of themselves. And if you do your best. And, and you lose, then you did your best anyway. You couldn’t have changed that. So the outcome is really, is really irrelevant, right? So that’s the first one. Fear in the antidote is letting go.

[13:34] Now, number two, self-doubt in imposter syndrome, okay? I told you there’s gonna be four. Number one is fear. Number two is self-doubt and imposter syndrome. The imposter syndrome that comes with that. Okay? So think about this. I’m gonna take you back to the 2017 Super Bowl. New England Patriots are playing in Super Bowl against who was the Atlanta Falcons, I think, right?

[13:55] And it was 28 to 3, 28 to three. Late in the game. Patriots are losing. Think about how are you going to feel in that moment? Are you gonna be overwhelmed with self-doubt? Probably be pretty normal to feel that way. We’re probably not gonna win this game. We’re getting outplayed, we’re playing terror. All those things that could go through your head, but Tom Brady and the Patriots.

[14:17] Didn’t go down that path. They thought differently. They chose their thoughts differently and as you, you know, they, they came back and they won 34 to 28, right? They won in overtime. Self-doubt will hold you back. Not believing that you were enough will hold you back. There’s a great interview with Dion Sanders.

[14:37] Actually, it’s referenced in the book, the Confident Mind, where Dion Sanders is, you know, former defensive, defensive back hall of fame defensive back in in the NFL, and he’s now the head coach at University of Colorado, and he’s interviewed, this is years ago, and the interviewer is a guy named Joe Theisman.

[14:53] If you’re a football person, you know, you know who he is, and Joe Eisman asks them a question. He starts asking them a question, he says. When the ball is in the air and Dionne Sanders cuts him off, he says, it’s mine. It is mine. Now, you know as well as I do that the ball put in the air by the quarterback on the opposing team is not sent for Dionne Sanders, but he believes in his mind that it is.

[15:18] He acts as if that ball is for him, right? He’s the db. That ball is in the air for the receiver, not him, but he believes that it’s for him, right? Act as if. So that is the antidote to self-doubt and imposter syndrome Act as if. Proverbs 23 7 says, as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. And there’s a great book as a man Thinketh and this is how you need to think.

[15:46] And here’s a quote from Dr. Bob Rotella. He’s one of the sort of godfathers of performance psychology, coincidentally, he lives here in Charlottesville and and I’ve gotten to interact with him a little bit over the years when I was a student athlete at UVA. And here’s a quote. He would, he said, this is your present way of thinking, consistent.

[16:06] What you want to accomplish. Think about that. Is your present way of thinking right now consistent with what you wanna accomplish? Now recognize that he didn’t say, are your current actions consistent with what you wanna accomplish? He said, is your current way of thinking. Consistent with what you accomplish, like your thinking will determine your actions.

[16:28] I always distinguish between hard work and inspired action. Like hard work is, is just hard work. It sucks. You don’t wanna do it. Inspired action might look like the same thing from the outside looking in, but inspired action is the work that you do. When you’re inspired, when you believe, when you’re acting as if, when your thinking is consistent with what you want to accomplish, then you will do the work.

[16:52] It doesn’t feel like hard work. It feels like inspired action. Mark 1122. This is my favorite verse in the Bible. Have faith in God. Jesus answered truly, I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, go and throw yourself into the sea and does not doubt in their heart, but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them.

[17:11] Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours. Not believe that you’re going to receive it, not hope you know really hard that you might receive it, but do not doubt in your heart and believe what you’re asking for in prayer. Believe you’ve received it and it’ll be yours.

[17:31] That’s acting as if we read this all over and we in these types of books, the Confident Mind and Inner Excellence and Inner Game of Tennis and these mindset books and Relentless, and we read that stuff. But we have to live it out. Like, how, how can you live that out today? How can you act as if, uh, is your present way of thinking consistent with what you wanna accomplish?

[17:54] If it’s not, you don’t have to work on the how to. You don’t have to learn new closing lines for, for sales. You don’t have to, you know, figure out a better way to diet. You gotta work on your thinking. Get that consistent with what you wanna accomplish. You know how to close a sale. Sure keep, keep honing your skills.

[18:14] I’m not saying stop honing your skills. You know how to diet. I’m not saying don’t learn more about diet and nutrition, but you already know how to diet. You know what to eat. You knew in fifth grade when we, back in the day when we learned the, the food guide pyramid, right? It was on the side of labels and stuff like that.

[18:30] We learned to when we were in school like, like we really know it. Of course, a lot of that stuff is kind of like considered outdated, but really. You know what to eat, right? Don’t eat processed foods and eat lots of fruits and vegetables. I mean, we, we know this stuff, but is your present way of thinking consistent with what you wanna accomplish?

[18:48] Right? That’s the second one I told you I was sharing with you. Four topics here. Number one, fear, which we overcome by letting go self-doubt, which we overcome by acting as if, right? Those are the first two. Number three, uncertainty back in COVID whenever. COVID started, I, I remember I had just quit my job, so COVID obviously was early 2020, and in late 2019, I had quit my job and went all in on my business on this business.

[19:16] Right? Coaching and podcasting. Speaking and hosting this. Amazing community of high performing men. And I went all in on this, and here we are six months later and COVID starts, and man, business just started melting away. All the speaking gigs got taken off, taken off the table. Uh, several clients were about to come on coaching clients, and they was like, they were both, both saying, well, you know, I don’t know, you know, might, might lose my job.

[19:39] Right? Everybody thought they were losing their job. And so I was like, oh boy, this, this is, this is bad, right? Money starts just falling off of the table, getting taken off the table. I had a lot of anxiety around this. I remember, I, I’m, I don’t, I’ve always been sort of someone who thought, well, anxiety is for other people.

[19:55] While I’m walking around for like two weeks and I couldn’t eat, I was nauseous. I was telling my wife, Hey, I don’t
[20:00] know, something wrong with my stomach. She’s like, that’s anxiety. I’m like, no, I don’t think so. You know, I think I don’t really have anxiety. She’s like, no, that’s anxiety. And it was one morning I, I, I caught myself and I said, wait a second, Jim, what would you ask one of your clients if they were feeling the same thing?

[20:14] Experiencing what you’re experiencing right now? Tons of uncertainty. I thought to myself, oh, I would say, how could this be potentially the greatest thing that ever happened to you? Sounds absurd. Let’s just sort of suspend belief of reality for a moment and think, what if? What if this were the greatest thing that could have ever happened to you and it happened to your business?

[20:35] And I started, started thinking about that, and I want you to try this too. Like I said, suspend belief. Just allow yourself the freedom to, to believe for a moment that what if. That adversity, setback that you’re facing, that uncertainty is maybe the greatest blessing for you because when you think this way, it opens up a whole different way of thinking.

[20:58] So I started thinking, well, if this were the best thing that could have happened to my business, it would allow me to really reach more people in some way. And I realized to myself, you know, I was using Zoom all the time at that point, and that was kind of a new thing. You know, most people weren’t all that comfortable with it like they are today.

[21:15] And so I, I thought, well, gosh, I could do virtual talks to all these companies. I could offer them at a lower price ’cause I don’t have to travel. I can do ’em from my home and, and I can, you know, inspire people. And they’re having these weekly meetings on Zoom with, you know, remote, everybody’s remote. And instead of just having these boring weekly meetings, they could bring Jim in for a 20 minute talk, half an hour talk.

[21:39] And that’s what I started doing. I did tons of these, dozens and dozens of these, and it opened up an opportunity for me to speak to even more people than before. Reach more people, touch more people, uh, get more people thinking about coaching, get more people into my program, listening to the podcast, all of that.

[21:54] So it turned out to be this amazing opportunity for me, only because I allowed myself to believe that just maybe, maybe. There was something good in this. Proverbs three, five and six says, trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, and always submit to him and he will make your paths straight.

[22:15] Like this is what I did. I had to trust. I had to trust that this could potentially be the greatest thing to that could ever happen to my business. It’s a great story. Uh, a great body of research that came out of Kellogg School of Business, uh, where they studied NIH grants. So grant applications to the NIH and VC companies, right?

[22:36] Companies that were have, uh, venture capital investment. Both of these fail most of the time, right? Most venture backed companies fail most applications, uh, grant applications to the NIH fail. Well, this study. What they did is they wanted to find out, okay, what’s the difference between the people who submit a grant application and fail who eventually.

[22:58] Find success, they eventually submit one that’s successful. And the same thing with the VCs, VC backed companies. Like what’s the difference between the entrepreneurs who who receive venture capital and fail, and the ones who eventually go on to success versus the ones who, who never succeed? Like what is the difference between the ones who eventually find success and the ones who never find success, right?

[23:20] They continue to fail over and over. What’s the difference? What’s the one difference? It was the time between attempts. The faster you get up and try again, the more likely you are to succeed. And so you’ve gotta believe that this uncertainty, this failure, this setback, this self-doubt, this fear, all of this cocktail of negativity.

[23:41] What if, what if this is. Just part of the plan, James one six says, but when you ask, you must believe and not doubt because the one who doubts is like a wave of the, of the sea blown and tossed by the wind. So if you fail, do you doubt? Do you believe that I’m not good enough or not smart enough, or not capable enough?

[24:04] Or do you believe that maybe just, maybe this is part of God’s plan. Let me try again. Let me get up, dust myself off, learn from my failure and try again. Could it be part of God’s plan? Could this uncertainty be part of God’s plan? And that’s the antidote to uncertainty, is trusting in God’s plan. All right?

[24:25] And, and, and listen. Uh, there’s a great quote by Steve Jobs, and he was not a Christian, but he said, we can’t connect the dots in our lives Looking forward, only looking backwards. We can’t connect the dots looking forward. We can only connect the dots in hindsight. And so you don’t know. You don’t know what this, this most recent failure or setback or hurdle.

[24:48] You don’t know what good is going to come of it, but just trust that some good will come of it. If you trust that you will find it. You will find it. If you, and you also believe confirmation bias, right? If you, you also will believe, if you believe that, that this failure is proof that you’re not good enough, you’ll find that also, you’ll absolutely find that.

[25:08] You’ll find evidence of that. You’ll also find evidence of maybe this is the best thing that could happen for me. Depends on which one you look for. It’s up to you. You get to choose. Right. So that’s number three. I told you I was gonna give you four different sort of pillars that we’re talking about here.

[25:24] Fear. The antidote is to let go. Self-doubt. The antidote is to act as if uncertainty. The antidote is to trust in the plan in God’s plan. And number four is ego. So often our ego gets in the way. And what is ego? What is pride? There’s a great example I saw recently. My father-in-law has this epic Jeep, Jeep Wrangler, and it’s like big gnarly tires on it, jacked up.

[25:52] He’s got all the bells and whistles, got extra lights on the front and side, and you know, it’s got all, all the cool stuff, all the cool gear, right? Drive that thing around Charlottesville where I live here, and it’s like, man, this is a, it’s a sweet jeep. It’s like one of the nicest you’re gonna see on the road around here.

[26:05] And he took that to Moab, Utah for Jeep Week, this past year. And when you get to Moab for Jeep Week and you have that, the Jeep that he has, you’re just another Jeep. It’s actually one of the, the smaller kind of cheap, low budget Jeeps when compared to the rigs that some people have out there. I mean, they have the, you know, top of the line.

[26:29] So you’re proud of something. Whenever you have more than others, that’s really when pride runs out. When you have more than others, you feel prideful. But when you’re around others who have bigger, better, more than you don’t have pride, that’s when pride gets in the way. It’s not about having more than others.

[26:51] That is our ego speaking. That is our pride speaking. There’s a great story about a woman who she was dating two men, and you know, both of them knew about each other, so nothing nefarious going on there. But, um, she was dating these two guys. One guy’s named Bob and one guy’s name’s Charlie. And one day Bob called her up and said, Hey, listen, I wanna take you out to a really great dinner.

[27:13] Get your nicest, nicest dress, and I’m gonna take you out to a really fabulous dinner. And he picks her up that evening and they go out to a restaurant and they order their food. And as the, the waiter walks away. Bob stands up from the table, pulls a ring box out of his pocket, takes a knee, opens up the ring box and says, will you marry me?

[27:31] And she thought to herself, oh my gosh, I can’t believe I did not expect this. Like, and she’s like, I don’t know, Bob. I, I, I can’t give you an answer right now. I, I don’t know. I, I have to let you know. I have to think about it. I have to think about it. And so Bob very awkwardly stands up, puts a ring box back in his pocket, they finish their dinner in silence, and he drives her home and drops her off that night.

[27:50] Well, the next day Charlie calls her up and says, listen, I wanna take you out to an amazing dinner. I’m gonna take you out to a really nice place. Get your nicest dress on. It’s gonna be a fabulous dinner. And, and so he swings by and picks her up that night, takes her out to dinner. They get to the restaurant, orders their food, and the waiter walks away.

[28:09] Charlie stands up, pulls a ring box out of his pocket and says to her, will you marry me? Takes a knee and asks her to marry him. And she thinks to herself, oh my goodness, you know, two proposals in two days. I can’t believe this. She’s like, I, ah, you know, Charlie, I, I, I don’t know. I can’t give you an answer right now.

[28:23] I, I have to think about it. And Charlie stands up, puts a ring box back in, his pocket, sits down and they finish their dinner quietly and kind of awkward silence. And he drops her off that evening. And so the woman goes home and she calls her, she calls her grandmother. Who always has wisdom, and she’s a grandmother.

[28:39] You know, I have these two amazing men, Bob and Charlie, who, who, who I’ve known for a long time and dating, and I, I, you know, they both proposed to me. I, I just don’t know how to make the decision. And the grandmother says, here’s what I want you to do. I want you to take out a piece of paper, draw a line down the middle, and write Bob’s name on one side and Charlie’s name on the other, and write down all the amazing things that you think about all the things you love most about each of these guys.

[29:00] So all the, you know, everything about Bob, everything about Charlie, and. After you’re done doing that, she said, I want you to take a deep breath, hold it as long as you can, and when you can’t hold your breath any longer, exhale, and the first name that pops to mind, that’s who you marry. And so she hangs up, hangs up the phone, and she does this right.

[29:17] She takes out the sheet of paper, draws a line down the middle, writes all the things on the left that she loves about Bob. All the things on the right about Charlie holds her breath. And then the first thing that pops into her mind is Charlie. So she calls Bob and breaks the, the bad news to Bob, and she calls Charlie and, and shares the great news with him.

[29:34] And then, and then she calls her, her grandmother and says, grandmother, grandmother, I, I, I made the decision. And, and her grandmother says, well, well, who did you choose? She said, well, I chose Charlie. And she said, well, what were the things, you know, what was it that you, you loved most about Bob? And she said, well.

[29:51] Bob, I think Bob is the most amazing person in the world. She said, well, gosh, if you, if you think Bob is the most amazing person in the world, why? Why
[30:00] did you choose Charlie? And she said, well, because Charlie makes me feel like I am the most amazing person in the world. See, it’s not about you. When your ego gets in the way, when your pride gets in the way.

[30:13] You’re not the best version of yourself. And so the antidote to ego, the antidote to pride, the antidote to getting out of your own way is realizing that it’s not about you serve others. Like before, I’m about to give a speech, I turn my focus outward. My goal is to turn my focus outward, serve others, because that helps me get rid of my nerves and be the best version of Jim for the audience I’m about to speak to.

[30:40] Jesus gave us the example of, of washing the feet of his disciples, including Judas, who, who’s about to betray him. Philippians two, three through five says, do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, rather, in humility, value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests, but each of you to the interest of others in your relationships with one another.

[31:03] Have the same mindset as Christ Jesus. That’s not about you. Proverbs 11, two says, when pride comes, then comes disgrace. But with humility comes wisdom. With humility comes wisdom. So ego, the antidote is it’s not about you, right? So I shared all four. Number one, fear. The antidote is to let go. Self-doubt.

[31:29] The antidote is to act as if uncertainty. Follow God’s plan. Trust in God’s plan. And number four, ego And the antidote is to realize that it’s not about you serve others, turn your focus outwards. And so what do you do with this? What do you do with this? You go back to what I said earlier. Are you taking action on this?

[31:49] Are you working on the how to or are you working on your mindset and your belief and your confidence? Because when you work on that, it allows you to bring all of the how to, all of the knowledge, all of the wisdom, all the experience that you have, that you’ve gained throughout your life, and bring that.

[32:06] To the table to be the best version of you, the best husband, the best father, the best employee, the best entrepreneur, the best coach, the best teacher, the whatever it is. And that only comes when you let go, when you act as if, when you trust in God’s plan and when you realize it’s not about you. You know somebody in your life who needs to hear this, give this episode a share.

[32:30] You can find it on social media. You can find it on whatever platform you’re listening to. There’s a little share button there. Click that little button, share it with somebody you know who needs this. You can let ’em know. It’s episode five 15 of the Success for the Athletic Minded Man Podcast. Thank you in advance for your shares.

[32:49] And for letting others know so I can continue to create these great guests. Just like we had recently, Todd Durkin and Dean King and Ross Bernstein and Anthony Robos, all these great guests we’ve had on recently, and I’ve got some more amazing ones lined up. So stay tuned, take action.

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