442 | Navigating Life With Courage

SPEAKERS

 Chris LoCurto

 

Chris LoCurto  00:00

In the month of October, we have been focusing on clarity and purpose in your life, but what now? How to maintain your course with confidence, that is coming up next.

 

Chris LoCurto  00:20

Welcome to the Chris LoCurto show, where we discuss leadership and life, and discover that business is what you do, not who you are. I'm sure you've heard the phrase before, "Take courage", or maybe an older version of that would be like, "Take heart." Now these are common phrases in the Bible, and they're good encouragement for us today. When it comes to setbacks, when it comes to adversity, when it comes to challenges that are going to come our way, somebody once said-and and I say somebody because I don't know actually who it was; "You can choose to be discouraged when setbacks come, or you can choose the courage to move forward with confidence."

Folks, life is full of triggers to fear in feel out of control. This is something that we must come to grips with, we have to get to a place where we recognize that there's a whole ton of crap that can cause us to fear. But fear in itself is actually focusing on something that has yet to happen. Now, you've heard me say this a bajillion times on the show.

There are two types of fear. There's the type of fear that is a legitimate, "Hey, a lion is running after me. I should go ahead and be fearful right now and make some decisions based on a lion running after me." And then there's the fear that so many people live in, day in day out, which is the fear of the unknown, or the fear of something that hasn't happened, the fear of assumption, that fear is a colossal waste of life.

There are going to be things that are going to happen, right? There's going to be issues maybe right now you're going through a breakup, maybe you're in the middle of a divorce, maybe you've just been fired from your job, or you've lost your job. Here's what I want to encourage you. I want to encourage you to put on courage instead. I know that if you're out there going, "Sounds a heck of a lot easier Chris." Well, listen, it's actually not as difficult as you think it is. The truth is, you do not have to be a victim to your circumstance.

What is victim mentality? "This is happening to me. I don't have any control here. I don't have any abilities, any power, any decision making process that's going to change things, this situation is happening to me." The first thing that is wrong with that is you do have choices. You do have the ability to experience this crappy process in a different way. Especially if the first place you go to is God.

Why oh, why, do we have so many people who claim to be Christians who claim to be Christ followers, that do not have confidence that God is playing a part in their life? Instead what do we normally feel like when we see things like a breakup happening or getting fired from a job? "Where are you God? How come you're not here? Why aren't you helping me?" Right? That tends to be a way that a lot of people think, where is God now? The funny thing is, is that if we go through God's word, what we do discover is always God is using stress and strain and struggle to grow us.

 

Chris LoCurto  04:28

So to be a victim, is to say all of this is happening to you and you have no options. You can't do anything about it. And that God's not got a better plan with this situation, right? So here's what I want you to do. Don't take setbacks, personally. Setbacks are gonna come. How many of you out there are old enough to have had enough breakups to realize that none of those people would have been the right person for you?

Right? Even if you just look at one breakup, surely there's enough people old enough and have had enough breakups to look back and go, "Wow. Thank you, Lord." Alright? Think of the the Garth song. Man, there's an unanswered prayer right there. Right? That I'm not with that person, because we would not have made it we would, we would have just been a train wreck, right? Or, you know, they just weren't right for me and I wasn't right for them. I want you to start taking courage, and taking a look at the obstacle as a stepping stone.

This obstacle exists, the situation has happened, things are going on, what do you do with it? Do you just look at the situation and be a victim and wait till the storm passes over and just ride it out, or do you take courage and utilize this as a stepping stone? Now, I will tell you, God for many years, in my early years, was telling me that I was not spending enough time with Him in prayer. And I was not spending enough time in His Word.

And it was through an incredibly traumatic situation in my life, that I finally dropped to my knees and said, I can't do anything else without you. This hurts, this is so painful. This is so difficult for me. I don't want to go through this without you. And I know, and I know, and I know, that I've not focused enough on you. Folks, I will tell you, that was one of the most powerful situations in my life coming out of the most painful situation in my life I've ever experienced, was the most powerful walk with God Almighty, my father, the lover of my soul, the one who consistently pursues me, it created the best walk I've ever had in my life.

So I can look back at that traumatic situation and go man that was just painful and complain about it for the next 25 years, which so many people really do. You can see people holding on to their biggest pains and hurts for decades. Even blaming other people for them. Or I can look at that and praise God for what he brought me out of what he helped me through. That's what I choose to do, take courage. When you start to feel fear. When you start to feel fear-say that three times fast-take courage when fear arises, when you are feeling like a victim, when you feel like everything is just happening to you and you have no way out, take courage.

Tell yourself, I'm not going to be a victim. I know that God is completely aware of what I'm going through. And instead of being fearful, I should seek him. What in the world does he want to use this situation for? To grow me in my life. The second thing I want you to do is I want you to follow your instruments. Now remember, the instrument rated pilot relies on instruments to navigate. This is saying that that pilot can't see well, there's a reason why they're focusing on the instruments right? In biblical terms, we call this walking or living by faith and not by sight. The believer has different instruments available that help him or her to walk through life with courage.

Like what? Well, the Bible itself God's written Word, the Holy Spirit. If you are a true believer, if you have faith in God, if you are moving in the direction of the kingdom of forgiveness, then you've got God's presence inside of you. You also have prayer, the ability to talk to the King of the universe. When the Holy of Holies, the curtain that separated all of us from the Holy of Holies was written to that was saying you now have a direct relationship with God. You don't have to go through anybody else. There is nobody over you except our high priest, Jesus.

Or as we would say, by his Hebrew name, Yeshua. He's the only one that is between you and the Father. The other great instrument you have is the fellowship of other believers. If you have strong believers that are more moving in the direction of God and away from the direction of the world and the worldly things, those are people to stay tight with. Those are people to have as counsel in your life. Also what we teach here, battling the lies with the truths when the lies come up, and they're telling you how horrible things are, and how bad things are and how bad you are now, undeserving you are and how unworthy you are.

We find out why we're telling ourselves that. And we battle it with the truth, what is God's truth? Now, I will tell you. This takes a lot of practice. And I recently had a situation that came up that it could affect the vision that we have for the ridge. The very vision that we have for growing this business in a way that helps people get their lives and their businesses changed even deeper, even stronger.

The vision that we believe God has given us for the future and the situation came up, that could affect that. And in each situation, there's always two options, righteousness, and unrighteousness. Choosing to do what is right by God, and choosing to do what is right by man. Well, I will tell you, having used my instruments for a long time now, God continues to pound something home, over and over and over again.

Choose me or choose yourself. If you choose yourself, you may get your way in the world. But I can promise you, you're going to get what I have for you next, which may be pain and struggle and suffering, to get you to stop choosing the world and start choosing me. I have learned that when I choose the way the world, it hurts, I may be happy for a moment. But something is coming along because God does not want me focused on being a man of this world. But when I choose his ways, when I choose righteousness when I stand up for him, when I am not ashamed to be his son when I'm not ashamed of him.

When I'm not ashamed of my Lord and Savior, then an amazing thing happens that may screw up things here on Earth. But it draws me closer to my father in heaven. It draws me closer to the King of the universe. So think about your life. How many times are you concerned about your circumstances? How many times does your perspective get clouded by fear? Or how many times are you confused by conflicting information?

All of those things are coming because we are not using the instruments that God has given us. To be concerned about our circumstances, is lack of faith. I'm not saying that there's not things that you should really be thinking through and gaining quality perspective on, what I'm saying is if you're going to be fearful, then you're saying that you're not trusting God. If your perspective is cloudy, because you are fearful, then you're not trusting God. If you're confused by conflicting information, then you're not trusting God. God is not the author of confusion.

 

Chris LoCurto  13:47

He's the author of clarity. So if you're a believer out there, then this is your battle plan to get on course, first thing we need to do is go to God. We need to get in His Word. We need to gain greater perspective. We need to battle the fear and the lies with the truths. God's truths. In essence, we need to take courage. If you've already begun with the end in mind, that's great. But what now? How to Maintain your course with confidence, when we come back right after this.

 

Speaker 2  14:27

Freedom, it's so powerful.

 

Speaker 2  14:29

I felt rejuvenated, almost renewed.

 

Speaker 2  14:31

I just felt so welcomed and loved and accepted for who I am and not an ounce of judgment. So I was very comfortable there. That had a really big impact on me.

 

14:42

It's going to be worth it. It's going to be hard, but it's going to be even better on the other side.

 

Speaker 2  14:49

For me it was just, it was very refreshing. And I want to say life giving for me. It really was.

 

Speaker 2  14:55

you know, I would go to Next Level Life again, and probably again and probably again, because it's so powerful.

 

Chris LoCurto  15:03

I want you to ask yourself a question. Could you hear the sense of hope and freedom and their voices just then? I want you to know, that could be you. Look, it's easy to get trapped in old habits, negative thought patterns and unhealthy relationships, it's gonna take some work. But yes, there is hope for you. If you want to experience the same kind of life transformation, this same kind of self-awareness and freedom that they have, or maybe you're just curious what the process would look like for you, then head on over to chrislocurto.com/nextlevellife.

 

Chris LoCurto  15:41

The third thing I want you to do is to refuse to get off course, right? So first thing we need to do to make sure we're maintaining our course with confidence is to take courage. Second thing is to use the instruments that God has given us. And the third thing we need to do is to refuse to get off course now, after a setback, a failure or disaster for the person who has used those situations and not acquiesce to them, not focused on fear, and not been a victim, then that person is now better equipped to face what's ahead of them. Remember, this life is your training course.

It's, it's preparing you for the next one, for those of us that are believers, our hope is in the transition. Right? We are here, setting up the next life. So after a setback, you now have experience. You've experienced the situation, you've gone through it. What are you doing with that experience, you have a new perspective.

Now, as I say all the time here in Stratplan and other things perspective, really just means point of view. But for us quality perspective, is being able to look at the situation, from all aspects, from all different angles. If you have done a good job with this setback, not only have you looked at it through your perspective, but you've gained the perspective of wise people around you, not those who want to hurt you or knock you down or take you down a notch. But instead, wise people.

Hopefully you have gained perspective through prayer with God, you've gained perspective from his word. You also have knowledge. You now know something that you didn't maybe possibly know before. Right? If you've experienced a setback, you've got experience perspective. And now you have knowledge as well. These are all things you didn't have before that setback. Add to those things; persistence.

Persistence, is saying, no matter what I am not giving in. I'm not giving into the situation, I'm not giving into the setback, I'm not giving into to feeling like a victim. I'm not giving into fear. I'm not giving into, "I lost my job. And I can't do anything about this, oh, I'm so depressed, I'm so disappointed." I have a father who was the king of the universe. He made the universe in pico seconds, which is a pico second is the time that it takes something traveling at lightspeed to cross the shaft of a hare.

That's a fast he made the universe, everything in order. Everything perfect, everything the way he wanted it to be. He is the one who's in your court. Be persistent knowing that that's who your father is, that he loves you, that he's crazy about you, have determination that you're not going to let the setback pull you backwards.

But instead that you are going to grow from this, that you are going to use the situation and make life better, that you are going to use the situation to make better decisions, have determination that you are going to be in a better situation. If this is a broken relationship that is already done and over with, then have determination that you're going to find a better relationship than this one.

If you're in the midst of it, and you're struggling in your marriage, have determination that you're going to fix it, that you're going to do whatever it takes to solve this. Also take courage. Take courage that you can make this happen. If you take courage, if you use the instruments you've been given if you take this, this experience that you now have and the new perspective and the new knowledge and you add to it persistence and determination, then you're going to be unstoppable in getting to the next right or better destination. Does that make sense?

 

Chris LoCurto  20:05

Your options are soak up the fear, soak up the victim mentality, struggle, or make changes, utilize these tools, if you utilize the tools, then your next destination is going to be better than where you currently are. But you've got to refuse to get distracted from your goal and destination. Our knee jerk reactions that we can have sometimes the challenges is fear drawing us back. It's easy for us to slip into survival mode, "Oh my gosh, this thing is so painful. It's so difficult. I just need to survive through this." Well.

Here's what I'm going to tell you. I hate survival mode. Now, let me say what I really hate. I hate it when people call themselves survivers. And what they really mean is, is that they have a life full of crap. And they never get to thrive in. That make sense what I'm saying? I'm not saying I hate people who have survived something, we've all survived things, I've survived a ton of things. But to not get yourself into a position where those things don't happen, or they don't have the negative effect. They don't take you down, they don't impact you horribly.

To get to that place you must choose to thrive, you must choose to make the changes in your life that gets you out of the negative crap. If you've got bad influences in your life, now's the time. Now's the time. Seek out positive influences. Seek out people who are moving in the right directions and the direction you want to go in, seek out people who have experience. Listen, millennials. Let me speak to you.

Now every generation before you has had a level of this, but goodness gracious millennials. So many of you are looking to the people in your age group for wisdom. It is amazing to me to see a 19 year old person a 20 year old person shirk off phenomenal wisdom from somebody with great experience and talk to another 19 or 20 year old person and follow everything they say.

Now, once again, we've all experienced that, but my gosh, it's happening a lot lately. If you are going to survive, well then keep doing that. But if you want to thrive in life, start seeking out people who have the experience, start seeking out people who have been successful, start seeking out people who have done things to get ahead in life that have caused them to thrive. Don't stick around the person who keeps wanting to complain about their life and point you in the wrong directions and tell you that they have all the answers.

And yet, when you look at the fruit in their life, it's just not there. Instead, find people with great fruit in their lives. Find people who've been successful in the areas that you want to grow in. So question for you. What are some of the life goals that you're trying to achieve? Right now? Are you trying to have a healed family? Are you trying to get out of debt? Are you trying to increase your your education? Are you starting your own business?

Are you trying to get healthier, physically or mentally? For any of these or any other great moving forward thriving life goals that you're trying to achieve? Right now I've got some questions for you to reflect on. The first one is, who do you have in your life right now helping you to walk courageously and confidently towards the goal that's ahead of you? Ask yourself that question. If they're not healthy and helping you get to that destination, then why are these influences in your life? Right? Number two, where are you relying on God or not relying on him to lead you further down the path?

 

Chris LoCurto  24:30

Take a hard look. You're making big decisions. You're you've got big life goals that you're trying to attain? Where is God a part of that process? Or where is he not a part of it? Right? The more you can recognize the need for God in every one of these life goals, the easier it's going to be for you to accomplish them or decide that they're not the right goals in the first place. Right.

I've had that many times when I've looked at it from the God perspective and decided it wasn't the thing to go after. And number three, what information are you feeding on that's helping you to achieve these life goals, right? What's the stuff that you're putting in you? What's influencing you, that's helping you to achieve these life goals.

So, if you've got some life goals, and my gosh, I hope you do. If you don't, now's a great time to sit down and start working on that. I want you to be using all of these reflecting questions. I want you to be using all of these tools to make decisions. So sit down after listening to this or hopefully you've been doing it as you've been listening to this and start taking a hard look one of the life goals that I have, what am I doing about it?

What influences do I have in my life good or bad? Where is God in all of this? If you do those things, then I can promise you you will make considerably better decisions on these life goals. Well, folks, hope this has helped you today. As always take this information and really dig deep. Ask yourself the questions I've asked you. Take a hard look at your life. Make the decisions you need to make today. Take this information, change your leadership, change your business, change your life. And join us on the next episode.

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