Faith-Driven Resilience: Bouncing Back from Setbacks

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If you've ever experienced a setback and you didn't know how you were going to get through it, well, this is going to be the episode for you because we're going to talk about bouncing back from setbacks.

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Welcome to Online Business for Christian Creatives, the show that helps you build a business that honors God, fuels your creativity and actually pays the bills.

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I'm your host, Jim Carregard, leadership coach, Faith first, entrepreneur, and guy who's made just about every mistake.

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So you don't.

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Let's get into it.

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Hey, welcome back to the show.

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I'm your host, Jim.

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I'm grateful that you're here for this conversation.

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So I hope you've grabbed your beverage of choice.

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Mine is a chai tea that I'm sitting here with right now.

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And let's have this conversation around what it means to be set back, because we all experience this, and we've experienced this in some of our finances, in our life, in our health, in our wealth, in our relationships, to where we, instead of moving forward, feel like we've stumbled and stepping back.

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And I heard think you've heard the adage, two steps forward, ten steps back.

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And in these places we have an emotional discharge.

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So now we're disregulated, where we're struggling and we're trying to figure out how to get up, dust ourselves off and move forward.

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And sometimes, and we're just going to acknowledge this, the moving forward part is hard.

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The getting up part is hard.

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Because I don't know about you, but there's been times in my life where I just got knocked down multiple times and I didn't want to get up because it was easier and more comfortable to just stay down.

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And I mean, especially when you get conversations around people saying, hey, you look so strong.

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You look, you're so resilient.

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It doesn't look like life affects you.

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And then when people tell me that, which I hear often, I, I secretly think, well, I tell them, thank you.

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But I secretly think you call it resilience and strength.

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I call it surviving.

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And let's unpack that today because I believe this is going to be a conversation that really helps you, really refrain some stuff and allows you to see, okay, I can get back up, because that's what we're called to.

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Now.

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We may be knocked down a hundred times, but we're going to get up a hundred times because God calls us to do that.

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God gives us the strength.

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God puts us around people to help us get up.

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You will fall down.

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I'm going to tell you that right now.

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But the mandate on our lives is although we fall down, we will not stay down.

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So this sets up the conversation of the weight of a setback and why other people don't see our setbacks.

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So let's start with the why don't other people see it?

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And I'm going to pull this into we're good with masking.

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Matter of fact, we're so good with masking, we've convinced ourselves of things that are true but are really not true.

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That's why you feel it.

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Perfectionism or imposter syndrome or anything that is like fear of rejection, fear of being seen.

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It's because we get into these places where we've lied to ourselves or we've masked at such a high level to convince ourselves or gaslight ourselves into saying this doesn't exist, when in the reality of it is if we would just take the mask off or at least shake it a little bit and acknowledge the challenges we face.

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Acknowledge.

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Maybe you're struggling with some mental illness.

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Maybe like you.

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Like I am struggling with chronic illness.

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Maybe somebody.

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Maybe you're dealing with finance issues or relational issues.

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Whatever it is, maybe it's time to take the mask off a little bit and say, I am struggling.

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And I know even saying that to you probably puts in some tension, because it puts in the tension to me too, when I'm like, oh, wait, shake the mask.

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Because we crave authenticity, but we hide from vulnerability.

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And the reality is you can't have authenticity without vulnerability.

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And we're in the places of vulnerability because we've never been taught to deal with big emotions.

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We've never been taught to deal with trauma, challenges, or even how to be healthy.

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We're taught on how to survive.

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Our parents teach us because they only knew survival.

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They teach us survival, but God wants us to move us into a place of thriving.

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And when we're trying to move into a place of thriving, inevitably we're going to face setbacks.

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So the setback doesn't just drain you.

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It doesn't drain your.

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Just drain your bank account, drain your business, drain your relational, you know, energy and all that stuff.

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It literally hits your identity.

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Especially if you've never been able to deal with the big emotions, if you've never dealt with what it means to be healthy.

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Everybody's out there pontificating, hey, be the best version of yourself.

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But what if I was to tell you to stop being the best version of yourself and be the healthiest version of yourself?

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Because I know based on My own life and my own.

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And I've made a million mistakes to bring to you so that you don't have to.

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That you don't have to be the best version of yourself, because we can't define that anyway.

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You don't know what that is, I don't know what that is.

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But if we learn to be the healthiest version of ourselves, we will be the best version of ourselves.

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But because we live in setback, because we live in the past, we've anchored tense in previous issues and we welded them there and said, this is my identity, this is my life.

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But here's the deal.

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You're not who you were, you're not who they told you you were, and you're not your past mistakes.

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You are the sum total of who God says you are.

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And you are the total of who you.

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What decision you make after the mistake is made.

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And this is where we get into the places of why it's attached to your identity.

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Because we've attached our identity to results.

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We have now said when the result isn't there and we have a setback, I am falling apart.

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And that's actually not the case.

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But the.

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But it comes back to, we've worn so many masks and we've told ourselves so many lies and we're just surviving and not thriving.

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We're really fearful, trying to act courageous.

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And the most courageous step you can take is to shake that mask, is to acknowledge your setback, to acknowledge that you've been through something hard, to acknowledge that there are harder things you're going to be through, go through.

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But that's okay because we're going to get through them together, you and I.

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One of those things in psychology tells us that the like failure, setbacks and things actually activates the same center, the same pain center in your brain as physical injury.

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And that's why it feels like you get gut punched when you, when something flops, when something fails, you feel like you got physical pain.

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Now when we get into the Bible in the midst of this and we understand that there are times when we see all the people in there fail and they had these physical or emotional responses.

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And so we can, like, what was it?

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Elijah, He's.

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He's like depressed and he's in this cave.

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You have so many others in there who are struggling on different levels.

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Abraham is lying and Moses has this fear and this lack of confidence.

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And we see that when God shows up and God and we say yes to God.

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Their lives got changed, their lot.

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They overcame those challenges And I think the same thing should be for us is that if we're going to move forward, that we have to acknowledge the setback not as something that's going to rock us and take us out, but as a natural part of what we're doing.

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So that way when we move forward, we can address it accordingly.

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Because if it failure activates the same thing as pain, then I've got to tell myself that this is not physical pain and failure is only part of success.

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But this means.

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And this is where it's going to get hard, and this is part of the steps to get into thriving is you and I have got to wrestle.

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I mean, wrestle like.

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Like Jacob wrestled with God.

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And at the end of it, which is so interesting, he.

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The hip was destroyed, but his name was changed from Jacob, which means, you know, basically Supplanter.

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But he got changed to Israel.

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His whole identity shifted through the wrestling.

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So we understand that if we get into it and we say, okay, let's not wrestle with failure itself, let's wrestle with the shame of it.

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Because that's really what this conversation gets in.

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We get a setback, we feel shameful, we're guilty, or we feel guilty, and then we allow that toxic shame to attack us in such a way that now we're spiraling from the failure, feeling the pain of it.

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And you know what our nervous system says?

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Let's not do that again.

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And that, my friend, is why you give up on your goals.

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Because they equate to physical pain the moment you hit resistance.

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And because we haven't wrestled with the shame and guilt from not only this situation, but the situations we've grew up with, the situations where people told you you were this or that and it was all negative and you developed this negative mindset or you develop this trauma responses because we haven't dealt with the guilt and shame.

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That's why we quit.

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And I'm going to tell you, we quit too soon.

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And out there in.

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In entrepreneur land and ministry land, they're like, just push through, just pray.

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But it's not as simple as that because your nervous system has said success equals pain, and pain is unsafe.

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So therefore, I will not be successful.

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Secretly, we say that.

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But the reality of what we need to come back to is failure and is only a part of success, and success is where God wants us to live, however you define success.

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So I'm not saying you're going to have a million dollars or 16 cars, although those things are nice and I pray you get those.

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But whatever you Define success at, you're going to have to go through the wall of resistance.

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And to do that, you got to deal with the shame, the guilt associated with that, because these are the anchor points that keep us from moving forward.

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And I've experienced this in such a dynamic way.

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When I was young, I was traumatized in multiple ways by multiple people all the way up into bullying and trying to take my life in fifth, sixth, seventh grade.

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And, you know, I have story after story of everything that came against me and everything I had to do to survive.

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n I became an entrepreneur in: 2017

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I, I say, you know, I don't know if that's the exact number, but it was up there because I went in trying and I went in and failing and I failed.

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And I kept doing that.

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And I'm like, but I have to get this, this is something that I know that God has called me to.

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But I kept failing.

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Why did I keep failing?

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And I, and I came back to this conclusion, it's because I had to be strong.

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So strong for me meant I can power through anything because that's what I've had to do through the bullying, through the physical abuse, the mental emotional abuse, through the neglect, I had to power through that.

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And I developed a hyper independence that said you cannot fall.

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And I white knuckled it through and I was surviving.

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And the problem was when I hit my anointing and God's like, here's what you're made to do.

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I kept failing and failing.

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And there even still is residue of that because it went back to the trauma responses instead of the God responses.

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And I was dealing with shame and I was dealing with guilt.

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And I wasn't like any other entrepreneur because every entrepreneur is a successful one and I'm not.

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That's what I felt, right, because I defined success based on what I saw.

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And I kept switching things based on what people said to me.

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I should have went into just speaking on stages and writing is what I felt the Lord say.

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But I ended up in coaching because somebody said, that's going to be where money is made.

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And I'm a good coach.

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I've done it for years.

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And so I did it and I was like, and I found out that was the wrong place to go.

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As a matter of fact, 18 months in when I was, I made good money for when I was doing it, and then suddenly all of that dried up.

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And Holy Spirit and I had a conversation.

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Holy Spirit was like, you feel empty because you've been building the wrong business.

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Had you listened to me 18 months ago, you would have been building the right business.

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Talk about a gut punch and a setback.

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But I had had a string of that.

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So this was a pattern of mine.

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Because I'm a constant starter, never finisher, because starting things was exciting, it offered variety, but it never.

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I never committed because commitment for me felt literally unsafe.

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Because that's how it was growing up.

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And even as an entrepreneur, the people I committed to came back and used my commitment as weapons and hurt me.

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So commitment felt unsafe.

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So why stay at being a coach or why staying at being a writer or even a podcaster when all of that commitment being is unsafe?

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That's how I felt.

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And here we go.

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Fast forward a year and a half in I've 50.

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This is episode 56.

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I. I can't believe I made it to 56.

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Like, I'm like, wow, I didn't think I was gonna make it past 10.

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And here I am at 56.

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And it just goes to show, when you contend in your faith, when you contend with your shame and guilt, when you contend with those lies that you believe and you start acknowledging it by shaking that mask, you can start accomplishing things and committing to things you never believed possible.

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So if we want to reframe this, and we need to reframe a lot of our story because a lot of times we get stuck.

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If we want to reframe this, we think, rethink this, your setback could possibly be what God needed to set you up for success.

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And I know that sounds challenging to say.

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How can a setback be a setup?

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Maybe the setback, the problem was we were going in a direction that where our business was becoming an idol, your relationship was becoming more important than God.

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Maybe there was a portion of you that said, I can do this all in my own strength.

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Boom.

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Hit the wall, hit the tension.

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Setback.

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For God to say, okay, you have a setback.

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Let's recaliber, let's recalibrate.

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Let's sit there and look at this and say, what do you need to change?

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Who do you need to become in order to do what you're supposed to do?

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And then I'm going to add something.

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What do you need to heal in order for this to not happen the same way?

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And I think we miss that part because we're meant to heal.

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We're meant to make sure.

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Because, you know, God is a Healer God.

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So therefore, what do I need to heal that is damaging my identity and causing these rapid failures or rapid setbacks?

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What needs to be healed?

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And I think if we push into that question, we'll find greater clarity, we'll find greater healing.

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We will actually be the best version.

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Because now you're dealing with the things that makes you the healthiest.

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Version.

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Version.

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So to do that, we're going to do.

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I'm going to give you a couple little thoughts.

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And the first one is you're going to name the loss, like, stop pretending it didn't hurt.

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Call it what it is.

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Lament before God.

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There's a three dollar word for you.

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Lament.

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Right, Lament before God.

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That's biblical resilience.

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You know the book of lamentations, there was a great lament Jesus himself lamented.

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He stood on the hill and he's looking down and he's like, look at you people.

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You're people without a shepherd.

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There was a lamentation there.

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Let's not call this ha, this is just this, you know, this toxic positivity.

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Let's not call this like, this is my road to success.

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And just say that hurt.

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Is it part of your road to success?

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Yes, it's part of your story.

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But you can sit there and say, that hurt that just didn't hurt my, my, my ego.

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That hurt a part of me that I've been hiding my whole life.

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That hurt the part of me that I felt was the imposter.

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That hurt the part of me that felt like I needed to be perfect.

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Acknowledge that.

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Call it, accept it.

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Radical acceptance is a brilliant and beautiful thing.

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And the greater acceptance we live in, the greater your resilience becomes and the greater your ability to overcome the situation.

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The next one is find the lesson, not the label.

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Failure isn't an identity.

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Failure is not something that you should take into yourself and say, this is who I am.

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Because we oftentimes will go.

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If we fail, we go, I am a failure.

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No, you're not.

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You are someone who failed.

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The moment you put I am, it becomes an identity statement.

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Failure is not your identity.

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Shame is not your identity.

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Guilt is not your identity.

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It's data, it's feedback.

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To say, where do I need to change?

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This is where we step up as a leader, as a relational leader, because we're relating to ourselves and we say, okay, here's what the data says.

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It hurt.

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And let's not make it an identity, let's make it a lesson.

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And then instead of trying to go after the major Wins.

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Maybe you want to make six figures this year, but you haven't made one.

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Like you haven't made your first dollar but you want to make six figures.

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Stop listening to the Internet people that tell you you can make six figures in five days or whatever this nonsense is or even in the first couple months and get into the prayer closet with God and say what should be the number I should go after?

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And set it as micro wins.

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Like maybe your first goal is to just make your first dollar.

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After that maybe it's to make your first hundred dollars and then after that it's your first thousand dollar month.

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Then it's your first two thousand dollar month and you just keep incrementing up to your goal.

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Your goal can be six figures, but make it micro wins because micro wins build momentum and, and momentum carries you to the next win, no matter the setback.

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And I, I can't emphasize this enough, but you also need community commute.

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Isolation magnifies shame.

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Community diffuses it because, and I don't mean just get into a group of people that say yes, people that's going to make you feel good about yourself.

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You need to be around truth tellers, but compassionate truth tellers.

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But it'll help you diffuse your shame because if you're stuck in your life cycle, people can slap around and say that's not the case, here's the truth.

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And you can go, oh, okay.

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And you can see the truth instead of believe in the lie that you're believing.

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So we need a good community because sometimes you just need people to believe in you and you need people to tell you the truth.

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And then we have to lean into our faith practices.

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And this I can't emphasize enough if you're not studying the Bible, if you're not prayer, praying, and I don't mean you have to do this all day long every day you do what you need to do to start and build from there.

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But if you're not doing these things and you're.

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And how do you know what God wants from you if you're not in the place where you're speaking to God?

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Let's get back to our prayer practices.

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I do have a YouTube video that I can share with you and I'll do it in the show notes that shows you how to leverage chat GBT in order to do Bible study on a deeper level.

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Start there, go check that out.

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It's in the show notes.

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So I don't want you to think you're not going to be shaken.

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You will be shaken.

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But There's a difference between being shaken and being broken.

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You won't be broken, but you will be shaken.

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Because resilience is about deciding that setbacks don't define you.

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They don't break you, but they are data to help you move forward.

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Your past doesn't disqualify you from your future.

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Your mistakes don't disqualify you from your present.

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You may feel stuck, but stuck is actually a lie.

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You just don't have enough information or direction to make the decision.

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So instead of a setback, it's a setup.

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But instead of being in a failure, you're being reshaped by them.

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With everything you go through good, bad, ugly, all of that, you're being reshaped into the image of God.

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And when we're reshaped into the image of God, we view these things that hold us back as things that are really going to move us forward.

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And with that being all said, I would love for you to jump on my on the newsletter where we have over 4, 400 other Christian entrepreneurs, leaders and creatives.

Speaker A: 00:20:32

It is at www.leadwithjim.com nl for newsletter.

Speaker A: 00:20:39

We'd love to have you there.

Speaker A: 00:20:40

Go ahead and jump that on.

Speaker A: 00:20:41

All of that will be in the show notes and we're going to see you on the next episode.