There is value in the struggle. One can only imagine the resistance Noah faced in his day. God told him to build an ark to prepare for the coming rain. “Rain? What’s that?” It had never rained before. “Build an ark? What’s an ark and who builds one in their back yard?” Imagine the ridicule and the mockery from his neighbors as they would daily hurl their contempt at him. He was the brunt of jokes. His family were the laughing stock of the town. But he never stopped building. He never stopped warning or preaching of the coming judgment. For an entire century he persisted; he labored at this work, both building the ark and calling people to repentance. But none repented, except those of his own household. It’s mental toughness at its best and perhaps there is no greater example than this Old Testament Saint. Now consider the striking contrast between Noah and another Old Testament figure, the prophet Jonah. Jonah was called by God to preach to the people of Nineveh. After a brief stint of rebellion, Jonah forced himself to walk the city preaching repentance and the coming judgment of God. Amazingly, the entire city accepted his warnings and repented in sackcloth and ashes. Here is the point: Noah preached for a hundred years and only seven people were saved. Jonah preached for one day and over a hundred thousand were saved. But which man made it into the Hebrews Hall of Fame? Noah! Why? Because Noah had true faith. He endured. He persisted. He persevered. Noah was a man of extreme mental toughness. The lesson is obvious. God holds more esteem for the man or woman who perseveres than for the one who attracts a crowd. Anyone can be steadfast when the crowd is cheering them on. But one’s true worth is revealed in hardship, when you’re alone, when no one is cheering you on. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross said, “The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.” The next level is not a place for those who are easily wounded and whimper away in the face of disappointment. You will not find them there. Those who have given up when the battle became fierce—those who retreated their advance when friends abandoned and the crowd stopped cheering—they remain with the forgotten, with those who never left a mark or never made a difference, in the graveyard of anonymity. That place we call the next level is for the those who endured. It can only be achieved by an upward climb. John Maxwell said, “Everything worthwhile in your life is uphill—everything.” Why? Because the climb is what makes us better. It’s not winning that improves our character. It’s the fight to win, the will to overcome, the determination to get up and keep going. That’s why Paul used the phrase “more than conquerors.” Conquerors are satisfied only with winning. Those who are more than conquerors understand that the greatest victory is not a winning score, it’s the will to endure. The will to finish strong—to stay in the marathon, even when we’re wounded, even though others have already won, even though the crowd has gone home and no one is there with cheers and awards. True winners—more than conquerors—understand that the real contest is against ourselves. The greatest victory is overcoming that part of us that wants to back down, complain about fairness, and look for an excuse to quit. This is the place where we discover wisdom, we learn character, we develop integrity, and forge humility. To summarize, consider the words of former Navy SEAL, Eric Greitens, “There are a few things that human beings must do to live well: breathe, sleep, drink, eat, and love. To this list I’d add: struggle. We need challenges to master and problems to solve. If we are trapped in a life where everything is provided for us, our minds fail to grow, our relationships atrophy, and our spirits deteriorate.”9 There is value in the struggle. For more practical advice on “Mental Toughness,” check out my newest book, Upward: Taking Your Life to the Next Level. Mentally tough people see adversity differently than most people. It’s “paying your dues,” or “earning your stripes” and anybody “worth their salt” has done it. They don’t whine. They don’t complain. They accept the hardship and move through it. Athletic coaches say, “Rub some dirt on it.” Army troops say, “Embrace the suck.” Translation: “So the situation is bad. Deal with it.” This is grit. It’s the ability to persist toward one’s goal despite resistance, adversity, negativity, and even failure. It’s a stubbornness of mind. A callous, determined refusal to quit. Grit doesn’t give up. Sadly, grit is out of fashion. It seems too insensitive toward those who underachieve or even fail. Ours is a culture where everyone is a winner and gets a trophy just for participating. It doesn’t matter if you work hard, try and try again, or give up and throw yourself a pity party. “You’re special just because you’re you!” is what we hear from an overly-sensitive, I’m-okay-you’re-okay, politically-correct, stylishly-mediocre American culture. And that’s fine if “okay” is enough for you. But if you want to go to the next level, just “okay” will never do. If you want to go the next level, you’re going to need some grit. Everyone fails—everyone. Failure is not the issue; the issue is what you do with your failure. Whether it’s a bankruptcy, divorce, infidelity, unemployment, or loss of an Olympic marathon; how you respond to your failure is what defines you for years to come. In fact, failure is not the opposite of success. The opposite of success is “quit.” Study any story of success and you will find failure at the roots. What truly matters is not how one falls, but how one gets back up. Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft and one of the world’s wealthiest entrepreneurs, began his career in failure. His first company called Traf-O-Data, which developed processes for analyzing data, was a massive disaster. But that failure served to educate and empower Gates in creating his first Microsoft product, and forged a new path to success. Oprah Winfrey was born in extreme poverty to a single mother and suffered the horrors of sexual abuse. Struggling to succeed in television, she was fired from one job being told she was “unfit for TV.” Undaunted by such painful criticism, she persevered. Eventually, “The Oprah Winfrey Show” rose to be one of the most successful daytime talk shows in history. The pain and failures of her early life gave her grit and propelled her to her next level. Not only did she rise to the top of an industry dominated by white men, she became the first African-American female billionaire in history. George Steinbrenner, prior to owning the New York Yankees, owned a small basketball team called the Cleveland Pipers. After two years under his supervision, the entire franchise went bankrupt. Even after taking over the Yankees, Steinbrenner faced numerous management blunders and successive failures. But failure gave him experience in “what not to do.” Eventually, he not only led the team to six World Series appearances, but he made them one of the most profitable franchises in Major League Baseball. Walt Disney was once fired from a newspaper being told he lacked creativity and imagination. Following this he founded Laugh-O-Gram Films which was a dismal failure. Broke and humiliated, but smarter from his experience, Disney went to Hollywood to pursue his vision. Despite criticism and successive rejection, his first full-length animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, skyrocketed to success and launched an empire. Steve Jobs is known for the Apple brand and his incredible success. What is less known is his comeback from devastating failures. Even after the success of Apple, Jobs was fired by his board of directors. Undaunted by such rejection, he launched a new brand called NeXT. Ironically it was acquired by Apple which enabled Jobs to leverage himself back into leadership. He then revitalized Apple into one of the most innovating and successful companies of the 21st century. In no way is this meant to present failure as some kind of a twisted blessing that presents you with new and wonderful opportunities to learn and grow. That’s like saying being hit by a truck presents you with a long-needed bed rest. The truth is, failure hurts. Failure sucks. I hate failure. Failure doesn’t make you stronger—failure can devastate and destroy you. What makes you stronger is the will to get up again and keep going. The grit to persist, to fight back and try again and remain convinced that you can overcome, that you can rise, that you can succeed. It’s the will to redeploy, to find a way, to fight harder, pray longer, and dig deeper. It’s mental toughness—unyielding persistence. For more practical advice on “Mental Toughness,” check out my newest book, Upward: Taking Your Life to the Next Level. At the 1968 Olympics held in Mexico City, the last event to be held was the men’s distance marathon. Contestants from nations around the world entered the race and stood at the starting line waiting for the signal. Suddenly, at the blast of the starting pistol, seventy-five of the world’s best long distance runners burst forth with an explosion of energy and the race was on. Two hours and twenty minutes later, eighteen runners had dropped out, either through injury or exhaustion, and a man from Ethiopia would take first place. The medal ceremony would occur immediately following to honor the first, second, and third place runners. But after the awards were given and the winners left the field, as the TV crews and reporters were packing up their gear, and most of the spectators had left the stadium, a sudden shout came from outside the stadium: “The race isn’t over. A man is still running!” It was true, fifty-six runners had completed the course. The winners had received their medals and most people had gone, but one man was still running the race. His name was John Stephen Akhwari, from Tanzania. Shortly after the starting pistol sounded and the runners took off, Akhwari had some problems. Right around the 19-kilometer point, there was jockeying for position between some runners and Akhwari was shoved and knocked down. He fell hard against the road. His thin skin tore as his bones slid against the pavement and he tumbled into the crowd. When he finally gained presence of mind, pain was shooting through his leg. He looked down and could see that his knee was bloodied and swollen—his knee cap was dislocated. To add to the agony, his shoulder was also severely bruised and bloodied and was also throbbing with pain. But despite the pain in his knee and the throbbing in his shoulder, Akhwari knew the race wasn’t over—at least not for him. He summoned all the resolve in his spirit, pushed through the pain and forced his body upward. He leaned forward, put his strong leg out and began his stride, he put his damaged leg out, and collapsed. Again, forcing himself up, he put his strong leg out, and then the wounded leg, he stumbled, but managed to balance himself and run a few more steps—until he collapsed again. This became his rhythm. He would run, stumble, fall, get up again, run, stumble, collapse, get up again. And for the next ninety minutes he would repeat this battle with pain, discouragement, agony, and a deep- seated inner resolve, but he kept running. Finally, while the sun was setting and pain had turned to a numbed throbbing, he could see the stadium ahead. Most of the crowd was gone. Most of the TV crews and reporters were gone. But it didn’t matter to Akhwari that he was in last place. He didn’t care about medals and accolades and applause. He was running for a different reason. He was running for honor, for dignity, for his country. As he crossed the finish line, a cheer came from the small crowd still there, but John Stephen Akhwari barely heard them. There was a cheer much more powerful in his own spirit, the cheer of having overcome insurmountable odds—of being more than a conqueror. When interviewed later and asked why he continued running, he said this: “My country did not send me 5,000 miles to start the race; they sent me 5,000 miles to finish the race.” In the report, “What Is This Thing Called Mental Toughness?,” researchers Jones, Hanton and Connaughton interviewed coaches, athletes and sports psychologists to develop an understanding on the subject. From their findings they offered the following: “Mental Toughness is having the natural or developed psychological edge that enables you to cope better than your opponents with the many competitive, lifestyle demands that sport places on a performer. Specifically, to be more consistent and better than your opponents in remaining determined, focused, confident, and in control under pressure.”5 There will always be a reason to quit. Mental toughness finds the reason not to. John Stephen Akhwari found his reason—his purpose. It was to finish the race, even when he knew he could never win. There was something more important than winning, and that is never giving up. There was more at stake than a trophy—his dignity was on trial. A sense of honor that could only come from his people, those whom he came to represent. Once you know your purpose and remain grounded in that, quitting is never an option. The essence of mental toughness is persistence. It’s the power of resolve, the inner fortitude to continue, even when faced with extreme difficulty or overwhelming resistance. It means pressing on rather than making excuses and finding a reason to quit. A term more familiar to an older generation, one more acquainted with persistence, is “grit.” We don’t hear that word anymore. The very sound of it suggests a toughness, a hardness that exists in a person’s character. It’s a type of endurance that Japanese poet Kenji Miyazawa describes as knowing how to “embrace the pain and burn it as fuel for the journey.” For more practical advice on “Mental Toughness,” check out my newest book, Upward: Taking Your Life to the Next Level. Don’t allow your life to be defined by your hardship. Instead, let your life be defined by how you overcame your hardship. The Psalmist said, “For You, O God, have tested us; You have refined us as silver is refined. You brought us into the net; You laid affliction on our backs. You have caused men to ride over our heads; We went through fire and through water; But You brought us out to rich fulfillment” (Psalm 66:10-12). Scripture makes it clear: The affliction added quality to the psalmist’s life. It brought a measure of increase, a rich fulfillment. It actually propelled him to a higher level. In its most basic definition, resilience is the ability to bounce back. When applying this term to the human condition, people think that resilience means you can “bounce back” from hardship without affect. They mistakenly think resilience is the ability to face loss, suffering, or pain without it altering your attitude, identity, or character. But the reality is that loss, suffering, and pain will change you. If you have ever lost a child, it changes you. If you’ve gone through a divorce, it changes you. If you’ve been fired from a job, experienced bankruptcy, or suffered a physically debilitating injury, it changes you. Indeed, loss, suffering, and pain will change you, but when character is resilient, it will change you for the better. The psalmist said his affliction brought him out to “rich fulfillment.” Mental toughness is resilience, but it means more than to simply “bounce back.” It means a person not only has the capacity to overcome a deeply stressful situation, but is also coming out of that circumstance with a deeper level of functioning and experience. What happens to us becomes a part of us. It doesn’t leave us, nor should it. It should teach us, inform us, deepen us. Resilient people may “bounce back,” but they bounce differently. They adapt; they change. They are wiser, stronger & more discerning. They find new meaning in life and healthy ways to integrate their hardship into their life. Paul never resented or complained about his trials. He met each affliction with a measure of faith that God was in control and was “working all things together for the good.” The stress, he said, caused his “outward man” to perish and his “inward man to be renewed.” He credited the affliction for equipping him with a greater capacity to complete his work for greater weight of eternal glory. For Paul, affliction had value. It provided him with a depth of preparation that would propel him into greater effectiveness. The same applies to us: A resilient attitude will propel you forward. I remember as a young boy, my father taught me how to make a slingshot. You need a “Y-shaped” tree branch that is strong enough to withstand pressure and attach two pieces of rubber (usually cut from an old bicycle tire) to the two intersecting prongs. A pouch would be fastened to the opposite ends of the rubber strands used to hold a small stone or marble. As a boy, I loved pulling the pouch with its stone in place until the tension of the rubber band could go no further. With the target in sight, I released the sling and shot the object forward with such momentum that it would pierce leaves and branches and anything in its way. The key to this operation is resilience. It’s the resilience in the rubber band that stores the energy to produce the tension that propels the small stone forward. It’s resilience; the nature of rubber to return to its original form, that produces the action. Tension in your life is not meant to destroy you. Like the stone in the slingshot, it’s meant to propel you forward. It may feel like you’re being pulled back, taking steps further away from what you believe God has called you to do, further back from your goals, further back from your destiny, further back from where you thought you should be. You may be under tension and stress, but don’t lose heart. It’s all part of the process. God has you in the slingshot. The very thing that is causing that tension, stress and worry, and is seeming to delay your life, could be the very thing that God uses to shoot you forward. Out of these seasons in our lives came our deepest, most profound growth. Not only did we learn vital lessons about authenticity, servant leadership, integrity, and humility, we developed core competencies that would stay with us for years to come. Things you cannot learn in a university or by taking a course. It was by enduring that we developed a credibility among our congregation, the community around us, and even our district leaders. Add to that, these were the experiences that gave birth to Global Leadership Training, numerous books, and our emphasis on training leaders in matters of character. Jeremiah said, the greatest thing that can happen to a man is for him to bear the yoke in his youth (Lamentations 3:27). It’s these times of pain and hardship that give us the capacity to stand firm in future seasons of pressure and adversity; when there is more at stake and the costs are greater. Theodore Roosevelt famously said, “If there is not the war, you don't get the great general; if there is not a great occasion, you don't get a great statesman; if Lincoln had lived in a time of peace, no one would have known his name.” It took a Goliath to qualify David and a lion’s den to distinguish Daniel. Joseph was made great by the betrayal of his brothers and Jesus because He overcame death. Adversity is the slingshot that propels us toward greatness. There is a necessity for adversity. No one becomes great without being resilient through it. Do you really want to go to the next level? Then resilience must be your friend. It’s the capacity to bounce back having been usefully transformed by the adversity you endured. For more practical advice on “Mental Toughness,” check out my newest book, Upward: Taking Your Life to the Next Level. James Stockdale was a Navy Pilot shot down over enemy territory during the Vietnam War. Imprisoned by the Vietcong for nearly eight years, he and his fellow prisoners were tortured on a regular basis and denied medical care and adequate food and water. After his release in 1973, he was awarded 26 personal combat decorations for his extraordinary bravery. In an interview with Jim Collins, Stockdale was asked about his heroic survival. During the exchange, the conversation turned toward the many POWs who never survived their imprisonment. He was asked, “Who didn't make it out of Vietnam?” Stockdale replied, “Oh, that's easy, the optimists. The ones who said, 'We're going to be out by Christmas.' And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they'd say, 'We're going to be out by Easter.' And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. They died of a broken heart.” Stockdale then added, “This is an important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”4 Mental toughness is not a shallow optimism that enables short-lived endurance by promising everything will be okay. It’s not the watered down pabulum that we often hear in modern-day, feel good sermons describing a make-believe-god who solves all your problems and heals all your pain. Be wary of those who tell you to “just believe and God will give you what you need.” That’s not faith. Faith is not holding onto a hope that you will eventually get what you want. Faith is not what happens when the bills are paid and all the sicknesses are healed. Thank God when that happens, but that’s not faith. True faith is mental toughness. True faith is perseverance. It’s a toughness that refuses to quit. True faith is not getting God to give you what you want, it’s trusting God and remaining steadfast in your devotion to Him when you don’t get what you want. It’s persevering in your conviction that God is good and will cause all the pain, all the loss, all the hardship that you’re facing to somehow work together for the good and you will prevail in the end as a better, more empowered, more effective human being. This is why the Apostle Paul wrote “…we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance, and perseverance, character; and character, hope” (Romans 5:3-4). Hope is the expectation of good. But hope is more than an intellectual notion. True hope comes from character—character forged through perseverance in tribulation. It’s the ability to push through the pain and maintain an attitude that what you’re facing is making you stronger, taking you deeper, and that you’re going to come back from this event, not weaker, but stronger, better, wiser, more capable, and positioned for the next level—even though you may not get the thing you want. Just like Stockdale and his fellow POWs, we will all find ourselves in seasons of despair, even agony. Life will throw disappointments at us. Crushing events will come for which there are no explanations or justification. It may be injury, disease, loss or death, but what separates those who become paralyzed from those who go to the next level is how they face the adversity. The key is not having some shallow hope that everything will be okay. The key is a biblical hope that says it may not be okay, but I know God is in control and has a greater purpose that will take me—or those around me—higher. This is exactly what we see in Paul’s example of perseverance. He had been imprisoned numerous times, scourged numerous times, three timees beaten with rods, stoned, left for dead, and three times ship-wrecked. He goes on to state: “…in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren, in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness” (2 Corinthians 11:26-27). And if that is not enough, God gave him a “thorn in the flesh…a messenger of Satan” to torment him and keep him humble (2 Corinthians 12:7). Without question, these conditions would have ruined the best of us, but Paul in a profound demonstration of mental toughness and hopeful perseverance declared, “…we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18). Paul’s hope came from the conviction that there was purpose in his pain. He knew that his tribulation was producing something deep within his character. He knew more perils would come, he knew the messenger of Satan would greet him again in the morning—his hope was not that the hardship would cease. His hope was that every time he suffered, it would make him stronger, better, deeper and more useful to God. And that hope gave him the ability to persevere—to be tough, mentally. For more practical advice on “Mental Toughness,” check out my newest book, Upward: Taking Your Life to the Next Level. Ernest Hemingway wrote, “The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places.” It’s what happens in suffering that equips us to survive the pressures that come at the next level. Promotion does not come through the laying on of hands. It isn’t found in a prophet’s prophecy or an apostle’s special anointing oil. Such claims are not only heretical, they undermine the transformative power of grace in our lives. True promotion, the kind designed by God, requires endurance. It does the deep work of sanctification, grinding down our ego, purging our pride, and making us into vessels of honor useful for the Master. It’s a process marked by pain but also with purpose. God is working to prepare us for promotion. For if we go to the next level before our character has been prepared, the next level could destroy us. Consider the prodigal son. He is a classic example of one who received too much blessing before being made ready. In his impatience, he said, “Father let me have my inheritance,” and then received it. The next level and all that came with it—the money, the popularity, the success, the prosperity—was his, and it ruined him. It’s the reality of life, especially in the kingdom of God: With promotion and enlargement often come greater temptations, harsher attacks and more ferocious enemies. The old adage is true: “With higher levels come higher devils.” Before we can go the next level, God needs to deepen our character to support the pressures of that promotion. By contrast, consider the Apostle Peter. He was next in line to lead the church after Jesus would ascend to heaven. We see this in Acts 2 and 3 after the Holy Spirit is given and Peter stands up to declare with authority the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In fact, in Matthew 16, Jesus identified him as a future leader among his colleagues. But before Peter could go to the “next level,” Jesus had to get him ready. Earlier, in Luke 22, Jesus told Peter, “Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren.” It’s a curious exchange, but gives us keen insight into the process Jesus had in mind when singling Peter out for leadership in the next level. Sifting wheat is not a practice we are used to today. It’s a process of separating the usable part of wheat, the grain, from the scaly, unusable part, the chaff. It’s basically a two-step process. The first part is called “threshing.” It involves spreading the wheat onto a flat hard surface, usually a stone, and beating it with a tool called a flail. The second step is “winnowing.” This involves throwing the beaten, crushed wheat into the air to allow the breeze to pass through it. The lighter chaff would be blown away while the grain would fall back down to the ground. It’s a fascinating exchange between Jesus and Peter on the verge of Peter going to the next level. Jesus basically implied that Satan had a meeting with God and asked, “Can I beat on Peter so viciously that he will be completely broken and crushed and see if he blows away in the wind?” And the shocking reply that came from the Lord was, “Sure, go ahead.” God gave the devil permission to subject Peter to a season of torment, pain, and suffering. Here’s the important part: Jesus told Peter, “I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren.” Jesus knew that Peter had a significant role to play in the future of the church. Essentially, Jesus was telling him that the season of sifting is going to be transformative in your life. It’s going to change you, to reduce you and diminish you, but when you return, you will have greater capacity and greater ability to strengthen your brethren. Sadly, many have been placed on the threshing floor, but became impatient and fled. They lacked the mental toughness to abide the threshing and ran from the instruments God was using to prepare them. They quit jobs, quit relationships, quit teams, and even quit church. A study conducted by LifeWay Research Institute revealed an alarming trend among modernized, American Christians: multitudes are abandoning their churches—and their duty to the Body of Christ. Why? Because they experienced some level of disappointment. The study reported that 37 percent of adults quit church due to some distress or offense resulting from the leaders or church members. Closer examination revealed 17 percent who said church members “seemed hypocritical” and “were judgmental,” and another 12 percent said “the church was run by a clique.” It’s an amazing contrast to what most believers in the rest of the world must endure. I’ve visited churches in India where 75 people squeeze into a room that 20 Americans would refuse to fit in. In Cuba, I’ve seen pastors convert their small private homes into Sunday morning worship services, filling every room, every space with people hungry for God’s Word. In Africa, believers gather under the shade of a tree, enduring blazing temperatures and hungry black flies to glorify God corporately. It’s a far cry from westernized Christians who get offended and leave the church because someone failed to greet them or denied them a place in the choir. Certainly, there will be conflicts and disappointments in any group where people are present, especially church. Leaders will disappoint, friends will offend, people will be hypocrites. But these are often the means that God calls forth as agents of our sanctification. It’s by being offended that we learn how to forgive. It’s by encountering the unlovable that we learn how to love. It’s by resolving disagreement that we learn to walk in unity. It’s by submitting to one another that we learn true humility. If you’ve been offended, betrayed, misunderstood or rejected, don’t run away. If you’re serious about going to the next level, this is how it happens. It’s by staying on the threshing floor, receiving the blows, earning our stripes, enduring with patience, and remaining mentally tough. For more practical advice on “Mental Toughness,” check out my newest book, Upward: Taking Your Life to the Next Level. Don’t allow your life to be defined by your hardship. Instead, let your life be defined by how you overcame your hardship. Do a cursory search on YouTube or Google for “mental toughness” and you’ll find any number of tattoo-laden weightlifters or slick-haired motivational speakers offering pithy sayings and shallow catch phrases about positive thinking and pushing past your limitations. Mental toughness for most Americans is about shedding a few pounds, getting a promotion, or bench-pressing more this week than you did last month. Yeah, first-world problems—it’s a shallow concept of mental toughness. However, for most people in the world, mental toughness is a harsh—but necessary—reality. According to UNICEF, nearly half the world's population, more than 3 billion people, live on less than $2.50 a day. More than 1.3 billion people live in extreme poverty, less than $1.25 a day. Even worse, 22,000 children die each day due to poverty. I have worked in the slums of Nairobi, the alleyways of New Delhi, among the impoverished villages of West Africa and South America, and even the crime infested streets of the South Bronx. Frankly, our Americanized versions of mental toughness wouldn’t survive one week in those conditions. For these people, mental toughness isn’t winning a trophy, or trying to fit into a new dress—it’s daily life. It’s getting up every day and walking 5 kilometers to get clean water at the only well serving 5 different villages. It’s deciding which child should get more food based on how sick or well each one is. It’s the 30 million people living in conditions of slavery, agonizing in the abuses of human trafficking, and the innumerable number of women and children suffering through domestic abuse but force themselves to face another day. Sure, YouTube speeches on mental toughness may inspire you to endure a difficult day at work but that’s not mental toughness—not really. The kind of mental toughness we need is the kind that empowers you to endure the extreme disappointments and severe, crushing events that life will, inevitably, throw at you. Mental Toughness Is the Mindset of an Overcomer Nicholas Vujicic was born in 1982 in Melbourne, Australia, without arms or legs. After repeated bouts with depression, attempts at suicide and emotional distress, Nick finally overcame. He learned that God had a purpose for his life—a destiny to impact the world like no other. His story has become a testimony of triumph, inspiring others to carry on regardless of the struggle they face. Today, this dynamic young evangelist has accomplished more than most people achieve in a lifetime. He’s an author, musician, and actor, and his hobbies include fishing, painting and swimming—all accomplished without arms or legs. In 2007, Nick made the long journey from Australia to southern California where he is now the president of the international non-profit ministry, Life Without Limbs, which was established in 2005. That is mental toughness. Sean Stephenson was born with a rare bone disorder, osteogenesis imperfecta. He stands three feet tall and is constrained to a wheelchair. But what is viewed by most people as a debilitating disability, for Sean, has become a doorway to destiny. He has used his story of tragedy to triumph to inspire millions around the world. This 36-inch-tall, wheelchair laden man has earned a Ph.D. and conducted live lectures in over 15 countries and 47 states over the past 16 years. His latest book, Get Off Your “But” has swept the United States and been released in over a half dozen languages. That is mental toughness. It’s the disabled veteran who returns to his family but learns to adapt, acquires new skills, and lives a fulfilling life. It’s the single mom with two kids, determined to make ends meet. It’s the widow, whose husband didn’t leave enough life insurance, is forced back into the job market, but refuses to give up. It’s the divorcee who faces the reality of a spouse who now loves and lives with another, but still has her smile—not because she’s happy, but because she’s strong. It’s the man who loses his job, and looks for another. It’s the young adult who battles addiction and forces himself to his support group, even if he’s the only one there. That is mental toughness. For more practical advice on “Mental Toughness,” check out my newest book, Upward: Taking Your Life to the Next Level. Tanzanian marathon runner Juma Ikangaa said, "The will to win means nothing without the will to prepare.” No one ever gets to the next level without preparation. The issue is competency: the ability a person has that enables him or her to do a job successfully. Core competencies are those basic, essential skills an individual must have that are vital to success. Without them, any ascent to the next level will be short-lived and failure is almost guaranteed. Abraham Lincoln said “If I had ten hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend the first nine sharpening my ax.” Competence is not merely swinging an ax hard and fast, it is preparing the ax so that each swing makes the greatest impact. Unfortunately, many people disqualify themselves from the next level because they fail to sharpen their edge—rather than maximizing their impact by upgrading their competencies, they become complacent in a comfort zone, retract their diligence and diminish their value. They allow themselves to become “dull.” Preparation is not a one-time-thing, limited to one’s graduate or post graduate studies. Preparation is perpetual. It must occur at every level. The danger is to become complacent and neglect to stay sharp. The following are several points to guard us from a dull edge. 1. Don’t get stuck in a comfort zone. It’s possible to become so comfortable in our accomplishments that we have forget the importance of upgrading ourselves. Skill sets have a shelf life. Technology is always improving, culture is always changing, fads and trends are constantly in flux. Those who fail to upgrade themselves become obsolete before their own eyes. 2. Don’t be a typewriter person in a laptop world. I once had a secretary who refused to learn computer skills and data base protocols. She was great on a typewriter and taking shorthand, but had no idea how to set up or use the new data base established for our office. She was content to remain a typewriter person in a laptop world. Unfortunately, her refusal to upgrade her skills, forced others to do work that she should have been able to do. That meant her value diminished and she became more of liability. In a very short time, I had to “restructure” our office, demote her to lower position, cut her hours and hire an office manager with the skills we needed. 3. Don’t make yourself obsolete by failing to upgrade. Read books, take classes, volunteer to gain experience, build your resume; do what is required to improve yourself mentally, professionally, physically and even spiritually. Competent people are prepared. They continually improve their competency through a personal determination to excel beyond the level presently they are currently at. Too many people are content to maintain status quo. They are happy to simply hold a title and go through “the motions.” What they don’t understand is that their complacency is diminishing their value. Their edge is getting dull. 4. Don’t depreciate your value. Be an appreciating asset; add value to yourself. In terms of profit and loss, you are an asset to the organization you serve. In finance, when assets appreciate, they gain value and are worth more. When they lose value, they depreciate; when that happens we relieve ourselves of them. In other words, we fire them. It’s amazing how many people get fired and never saw it coming. They thought everything was fine but didn’t realize they had failed to upgrade themselves, lost value, became obsolete and depreciated in value. 5. Don’t withdraw value from yourself. Too often, people withdraw value from themselves. They get disappointed and discouraged in their work and withdraw value from themselves. When they started out, they were excited. They worked hard, volunteered for projects, put in overtime. But in time, their expectations were not met, perhaps a boss offended them or the company disappointed them and they lost motivation. As a result, they developed a bad attitude, started complaining and became resentful. They stopped working hard, stopped coming in early, stopped volunteering and have become a depreciated asset. In fact, they become a performance problem and are now fighting to keep their job. 6. Don’t expect to be paid more than you are worth. Diligent people understand they don’t get paid by the hour, they get paid for the value they bring to the hour. When you stop bringing value to the hour, you depreciate. I had one employee who kept pressing me for more compensation. However, I knew he was already being compensated commensurate to the value he was bringing to the organization. I helped him to realize that if he wanted to be paid more, he should bring more value to the hours he was working and demonstrate his increased value. If you are negotiating for a raise, don’t whine about your pay; remind the decision maker of all you do, all you’ve done, all you plan to do, how much value you add to the business, and how you are an essential asset. 7. Don’t become low hanging fruit. “Low hanging fruit” is the fruit lowest on the tree that is the first to get plucked. When the time comes for cutbacks, restructuring, or layoffs, you should not to be the first person that management thinks of. Don’t be the one that everyone knows has a bad attitude, complains about conditions, spreads gossip and has a sloppy, poor work ethic. Managers, very quickly, get an idea of who adds value and who doesn’t; you don’t want opinions to be formed about you that present you as a dangling fruit. Instead, be diligent. Make yourself indispensable; make sure you’re not the first person they talk about when talk about cutting staff comes up. For more practical advice on increasing your competence, check out my newest book, Upward: Taking Your Life to the Next Level. There are two factors that are essential in the development of greater competency: God’s grace and our cooperation. On the one side is a gracious God who is working in us, both to will and to do for His good pleasure (Phil. 2:13). Scripture says His divine power has given to us all things that pertain unto life and godliness (2 Pet. 1:3), and He is faithful to complete that good work that He began in us (Phil. 1:6). God’s call upon us is an “upward call” in Christ Jesus (Phil. 3:14) and He desires to take us to the next level. On the other side is us. Although God wants to deepen our competency and qualify us for the next level, it requires our cooperation. Our participation with his working in us is the vital step in the process of our enlargement. Unfortunately, our attention is too often focused on our current level of comfort rather than the next level to which God is trying to bring us. This makes it difficult—if not impossible—to be confronted with low level attitudes that are holding us back. People who increase their competency and qualify for the next level are able to hear and accept the bad news—about themselves. They can hear the brutal facts about their own character deficiencies and faulty performance and own it. In other words, they do not make excuses, shift the blame to others or justify themselves. They acknowledge the need for changes to be made and set out to make them. This dispels the notion that going to the next level is a fun-filled, magical journey for the one who simply desires it. No. Going to the next level is hard work. It is uncomfortable and painful. It forces us to confront ourselves and answer many difficult questions, beginning with the following three. Do you have deficiencies that are holding you back? Can you see them? Do you know what needs to be corrected? In other words, do you know what you don’t know? Psychology identifies four stages in the process of increasing competency. These are also known as the four stages of learning: unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence, conscious competence and unconscious competence. At the bottom is unconscious incompetence. This poor guy doesn’t even realize his own deficiencies. He doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. He goes on and on in his inefficient, nonproductive manner, unaware that he is completely failing. It’s a blissful ignorance. Sadly, he will be offended that no one appreciates him and will often complain that his hard work is unrecognized. Before this person can ever go to the next level, he must become aware of his own incompetence and recognize the need for new skills. Next is conscious incompetence. This is the person who is failing, but fortunately, knows he is failing. He knows what he doesn’t know. He doesn’t blame others for his failure because he understands the reason is his own incompetence. As a result, he wants help, and is determined to improve himself. The Holy Spirit can work with this man because he is teachable, wants to go higher and is willing to humble himself to get there. This person is moving toward the next level. Then there is conscious competence. This is what happens when a person has learned a new competency; however, demonstrating those skills do not yet come naturally. They have been teachable, they have submitted to instruction and have implemented necessary changes in their performance. But the new skills are still forced behaviors. It is a level of competence that requires focus and concentration. It’s not natural. There is an understanding of what must be done to succeed, but it is only through strong conscious effort that the new skill is executed. Finally, there is unconscious competence. This is the kind of efficiency that seems to come naturally. This person has dedicated himself so diligently to learning, developing and honing a new competency, that it can be done almost unconsciously. He has had so much practice, that the new skill is “second nature.” God is trying to bring each of us to a level of unconscious competence. Where effective living, serving, leading and loving is second nature. It’s a place where our efficiency and impact is effortless. It comes without thinking. But this level of competence does not “just happen.” It happens because teachable people have come to recognize their own deficiencies. They “know what they don’t know.” They don’t pretend to have all the answers and reject voices of criticism and concern that God uses as surgical instruments of correction. They submit to God’s gracious attempts to repair their disabilities. Check back next week for further discussion competence and how it is essential to promotion. Or, check out my newest book, Upward: Taking Your Life to the Next Level. It has often been said that God promotes a person to the level of their own incompetence. In other words, God sometimes elevates people who are not sufficiently prepared to demonstrate His strength through their weakness. While this does happen, it’s the exception, not the rule. More typically, preparation is essential to promotion. Moses endured forty years of preparation in the backside of the desert, and Joshua was prepared for another 40 years as his protégé. Samuel had his school of the prophets and Jesus had a three-year school for His disciples. Paul spent an unknown number of years in the Arabian desert and told his apprentice Timothy that “the man of God (should) be competent, equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:17, ESV) In other words, anointing is not enough—the call of God is not enough; one must acquire a certain level of competency to qualify for the next level. Competence is having sufficient ability to do the job. It is a combination of spiritual gifts, personal values and practical skills that enable an individual to perform a given task to a successful standard. Competence is the key that unlocks opportunity; without it, opportunity will be lost. In other words, when the occasion for promotion is presented, those who have achieved certain abilities will enter in. Those who do not, will be left behind. Check back next week for further discussion on competence and how it is essential to promotion. Or, check out my newest book, Upward: Taking Your Life to the Next Level. |
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It was concerning King Saul that David said, “How the mighty have fallen, and the weapons of war perished.” His was a life that began with great promise and celebration, but ended in miserable failure and humiliation. His life is an example of how the mightiest of leaders fail.
Why do great men and women fall? How do leaders, quick to ascend with such promise of unparalleled success, find themselves awash in disastrous failure and disgrace? More importantly, can the path toward one’s downfall be discerned before it’s too late and be avoided? It is the premise of my newest book, How The Mighty Have Fallen that such a decline can be detected and reversed. The life and leadership career of King Saul, Israel's first king, provides us with a treasury of examples of "what not to do." The below blog post is the first in series of excerpts from the book to examine and avoid Saul's mistakes and find a successful path through leadership. READ AN EXCERPT |