ABUNDANT LIFE: Living with Passion and Purpose!

Lance: I’ve been looking forward to doing this broadcast with you because Level 10 is the best experience that I have all week in terms of recalibrating myself because it’s like going back into the gymnasium. I go back and work on the material that I believe has been the most beneficial to helping shape my life and the lives of other people. So, let’s for those of you that are listening my podcast, I’m up at the trusty flip chart right now. Those that are watching, don’t need an explanation. But I want to review what the Level 10 theory is. The Level 10 theory is this idea that David for instance what his whole ministry was summarized as with skillfulness of hand and integrity of heart. He led Israel. 

This is what the Psalmist, the Holy Spirit did a description of David in Psalms. It was skillfulness of hand and integrity heart and these two areas describe the access that God was looking at. If you don’t have skill, it doesn’t matter how much integrity you’ve got, you’re still not going to succeed if you have the reverse of that which is high skill but no integrity. Then there’s no lasting fruit that comes out of what you do. God‘s goal is that you would really have a skill that is operating the grace and ability that God gives you. That’s a Level 10 deliverance. Your gifts ought to be clearly defined and managed in the sense of the anointing and grace of God moving with excellence but you also have to look at the heart. The spirit of God is looking at your motives. The spirit of God is looking at how you do what you do.

So, Jesus watched not what people put into the treasury but he sat down opposite the treasury to see how they put things in. He was looking at the heart behind the giving and he pointed out that this woman who put in this little fragment of money actually gave more than the rich people because he was looking at the integrity of hearts. You see, both of these axes, the XY axis, skill and motivation. A heart and clarity. They go together. So, in the theory that we have, we just were reading last week in John seventeen for instance and Jesus said, Father, I glorified you on the earth because I finished the work you gave me to do. I’d like you to Think about what is the work that God called you to do. Certainly, becoming a believer is the most important thing you can do but that settles your salvation. It doesn’t settle your reward. Your reward is really based upon having been faithful to do the thing God called you to do. So, here we have this question now in our Level 10 teaching.

We want to have Level 10. Now, let me find another pen here. I want to make sure that I have Level 10 clarity on what it is that the father’s calling me to do and over here in terms of integrity of heart I want to have and maintain I like to put the word passion down here because I do think we should be 100% heart engaged we should be halfhearted we should be fully alive in serving God. People really don’t run into clarity. They run into your energy. They run into your spirit.They run into whether or not you’re full of life and joy and strength. So, I want to be 100% alive doing clearly what God called me to do and so do you. I believe that Level 10 Living which is if you go to John 10:10, “I’ve come that you might have life and have it more abundantly.” I think the most abundant life is a life lived doing what God called you to do filled with the spirit and approval of God while you’re doing it. Life can’t be any better. I don’t care what your circumstances. It’s the highest form of life. So, here we are down here.

Now, on the journey to what God has called us to do, I put a face up here. It says, your face in the future is your prophecy. Those of you that love the prophetic. Certainly, what is God calling you to do? The number one thing that people are always talking about. If I ever wanted to have a product that people want to buy, it’s how to hear God and how to know what God‘s calling you to do next or understanding their prophetic destiny. Everybody is, no matter how much studying we do; everyone still studies that subject. Why? Because you are on a journey.

Now, watch this. The hardest part of this. I don’t think is learning how to live 100% alive. I think there’s a way you can manage your state and find a way to fulfilled and happy and energetic and fully engaged when you’re with people. I don’t even think it’s hard to figure out what your gifts, talents, and callings are last broadcast. We talked about the “I am Statements”, your identity. What it is you’re called to do. Many of you could be clear about that. The challenge is always how the heck do you get there? That’s where the big rub is. It’s actually this axis right here. It’s the corridor of day by day. What do I do in order to accomplish what the father’s calling me to do and how or what, you can making choices every day.

This quarter right here of making choices and so is part that we sometimes don’t look at sufficiently. And there is a you could say there’s a strategy for how to move from here to here and part of that strangely enough is where that “I am Statement” comes in. because what we found is when you’re clear about your heavenly identity, your mission, your purpose, and who you are, then you can start to decree when you get to the tough crossroads of life and you say I have a choice to make. Well, how does that choice relate to my “I am Statement? I am an oracle,a prophet of God‘s prophetic purposes. I am an equipper a discerner of the times and a teacher to help the body of Christ do what the father’s calling it to do now to glorify Jesus. Well, that’s my statement. See, it’s my “I am statement” here.

So, then what if I have a choice? Should I be doing this or should I be doing that? I want to do the thing that is on alignment with my assignment. My assignment is to equip you to do the will of God effectively in your life. So, the “I am Statement” sometimes helps clarify. Should I do this or should I do that? For instance, I have I meet with people that are involved with marketing and sales not surprisingly because I work at 7-Mountains and sometimes I look at business opportunities or business situations. And I think if I wasn’t call to do what I’m doing, I do that but you see, at least I know I’m not called to do that. I’m called to do something else.

So, it helps me say no to things I shouldn’t do. That’s the benefit of an “I am Statement”. But we also have this other part of the journey is, it’s hard to get your “I am statement” practical. When you’re living in the tension of a story that may make sense to you in terms of where you’ve been and where you are, but it might not be the story God has for your life and that’s where I want to go right now. The material we’re looking at is called Unlocking Your Story. The reason why this is a value is because I find many people are stuck. They feel like they’re kind of like not doing what they’re called to do because they’re in a sense locked into a narrative and that narrative isn’t serving them. It isn’t helping them get where they want to go. It isn’t empowering them to do what they want to do.

So, I want to kind of swing into this everyone has a story part one and to you a little bit of this and see if on the journey to doing what God‘s calls to do. Getting clear on your identity. Getting clear in your gifts your callings. Getting clear in your prophetic word what God has called you to do. That’s your access over here. Being able to know I’m coming with sincerity of heart. I’m coming with the right spirit. I’m coming with the right attitude and I want to show up the right way. Well, okay let’s see why did we pick this as one of our key modules out of four subjects. I think we pick is because everyone has an unconscious tendency to be living consistent with who they think they are.

It’s almost like a self-sabotaging. If you really believe at an emotional level or at a fundamental deep level that I’m not enough though, then you’re going to constantly find yourself setting yourself up to live out a scenario where you’re not enough. So it’s really important that you get an idea as to how these narratives play out. Let me just read this to you and see where we go. Everyone has a story. Once you understand this, it’ll change your life. Every person on Earth has a story they tell in order to make sense of their life. In my profession, everyone who comes to me for help starts by sharing a story about who they are in their journey so far. It’s often a partially accurate story. I don’t mean that they purposely mislead me.

Most of the time, what people tell me is absolutely true. It’s just from their current point of view. Depending on what they emphasize or minimize or the parts they leave in or maybe they don’t tell me all the parts. We share what we see or what we want to be seen. People tell their stories in a particular way. The psychologist Jerome Bruner described this beautifully. To tell a story he says and is inescapably to take a moral stance. All of us walk around with stories about our lives. You see, why we the choices we made, why things went wrong, why we treated someone a certain way. Because obviously they deserved it. And why we think someone else treated us a certain way, and why we didn’t deserve that. Stories are the way we make sense out of our lives in almost always. They are calculated and structured to present us in the most defensible light.

The stories we hear command our minds, they guide our conversations, they fill our social media, and we collect them on bookshelves. Stories justify us. They teach us. They direct us. They entertain us. Every nation has a narrative as does every culture or corporation or family or ministry. Stories define us in the world around us. The Bible is a book of stories that together from one largest story create the overarching narrative of salvation. One of the reasons we know the stories true is because it tells us the faults and failings as well as the strength and explore of its characters.

Let me say that again. We know the Bible’s true because it’s unflattering. Peter writes about his journey, but then the other disciples wrote about Peter’s failure. It’s all out there. That’s how you know it’s an honest book. It’s not glorifying all the characters. Stories are the most basic way information is shared. Stories can be powerful vehicles that communicate truth and transform communities. This chapter in the book and this subject came alive because I realized our capacity for self-deception is massive.

We all have a way of seeing ourselves psychologically in a way that preserves us but it doesn’t necessarily serve us. Because the truth something outside of, you may have an accurate story or an inaccurate story, but the truth stands outside of that. This came home to me one day when I was sitting with a pastor telling him about my struggles in ministry and in every chapter I gave. It was kind of tragic in a way. I was talking about how I was being misused or set up or taken advantage of and it was around the third or fourth scenario when I in telling my own story realized this is pathetic. I was a young guy in ministry. This really is pathetic. This is it’s do you know what? As I rehearsed every single adversity that I had found myself in I found the characters changed.

At one point it was this guy. At this point it was this one. Then it was this woman over here. Then I looked back on it and I realized the only person that was at every scene of each crime was me. I was setting myself up in each of those stories. And because I was denying the lesson I was in day of repeating it and I caught myself and I said, no, no, no. This is weak. I heard Tony Robbins say something. I went to a secular seminar. ‘What can I learn from Tony Robbins? He’s not a Christian.’ That was what I said. My wife said, ‘You need to go.’ Annabelle’s often been right about these things and I went and he said something that it kind of rocked my world.

He said something about every time you explain, blame, justify, or defend. You are giving up your personal power. And I thought what? Every time you explain away, justify, blame, or defend. You’re actually weakening your personal power because your power to change is when you take responsibility for the outcomes of your life. Only when you take responsibility for what’s happening do you have the proactive ability to change what’s happening. Otherwise, for the rest of your life you’re the tale behind someone else who’s circumstances are controlling you and all you’re doing is explaining and justifying and defending why you are the way you are.Rather than winning, you’re trying to give a story about how come you’ve lost. I realize, well that’s got to change. And so, that’s the reason why this lesson is so powerful and I commend you for your courage to go into this subject, because most will breeze through this as it doesn’t apply to me.

Well, it does apply to you because everyone of us has a story. We just don’t know if that story is an empowering story and the empowerment doesn’t come by blaming life. It comes by owning your choices. Alright, I’ve cheated up, set it up, now we’ll bring it over to Carl and the Mercedes to work to the material. What are your thoughts on this subject of the story we tell and the story God wants us to have about our life?

Mercedes: Yeah, I think also it’s important to know like you may not even know that you have a negative story you’re even rehearsing. So, like you had that aha moment, right. When you were saying, hey, on the third story, I realized who’s at the center of all these crimes. It was me but people may not even know that they have a narrative like that. And it’s things like, and it’s based off that personal history map that we did in our last series Becoming Unstoppable. We really looked at those high points and that’s what generates your “I am Statement”. Well the low points start to determine what are these we’ll call them un–Godly beliefs. What are the things you’re saying to yourself that’s a narrative? It’s an unconscious narrative you carry around.

Could be things like men will always do this to me. Women will always do such and such. It’s like we have these experiences that happen to us that shape our worldview that shape our belief system and we carry them around and we don’t even know them. So, my point is what’s so great about this new material we’re going to go into is that it’s going to expose those things so that you begin to understand what they are and the coolest part is we show you how to scramble those all up and you can actually create a new confession that you save yourself. So, I just want to throw that in there because yeah, you realized it but a lot of people don’t even know and they go years living with stuff.

Lance: And Carl, your thoughts on the stories?

Carl: Yeah, I have a few thoughts. First and foremost, when I’m working with my clients, I’ll often tell them that all life is perspective and it’s true. We don’t see things as they are. We see them as we are. A great test is a glass half full or the glass half empty. A realist will tell you, well, you can’t tell because it’s actually right in the middle. An optimist will say it’s half full. A pessimist will say it’s half empty. So, all of life in my opinion is really rooted in perspective. Secondarily, there’s another saying, there are three sides to every story. There’s his side, her side, and what actually happened. And that’s a great saying in part because eyewitness testimonies are just as often wrong as they are right. In psychological studies, we find that actual eyewitness testimonies air on the side of error. They’re more likely to be wrong than they are to be right.

So, when we’re seeing things as we are, not as they are and our eyewitness bias is actually going to dissuade us from seeing the truth. More often than not, the stories that we tell ourselves about ourselves are false.

Lance: Yeah and with that thought in mind, think about it this way. You want to write your story with a pencil and not a pen, because you may very well discover things that enable you to erase certain assumptions you had about what was going on and you could fill it in later and create a more accurate journey. I’ll tell you something, it’s not easy. It’s not easy, because so many of us are trying so hard to do well and to cope and to succeed that it’s at first you feel like it’s disempowering to have to take the eraser and go back and say, well, I thought that these guys were against me when in fact they weren’t. They were responding to something I was doing.

So, I can remember when I was a kid. I was self-conscious about how I walked. Because I was pigeon toed. So pigeon toed is when your feet are facing in. And I was self-conscious about it. My parents took me toward an orthopedic whatever you call it. Say, he would design shoes that would force me to kind of correct my feet so that I wasn’t walking with my feet facing in. I was walking with my feet straight. But listen to this, I would go to the bus stop thinking that all the other kids thought I was pigeon toe. So, to compensate, I walk with my feet waddling out. I walkto the bus stop with my feet sticking out because I thought they were all, I was self-consciousabout being pigeon toa. So, rather than walking normal I compensated and walk weird and sure enough they’d all elbow each other and I think that darn pigeon toed walk so I’d even go further waddling like a duck. Oh, it was disastrous to finally they say pointed out say, why do you walk like that. I realized they were laughing at the fact that I was overcompensating for something I thought they were criticizing I’ll tell you people could do that all the time. Have you ever been Mercedes, have you ever seen women that do too much makeup?

Mercedes: Yes, I’ve been accused of that. Yeah. Well, some people don’t like all the eye makeup. I like eye makeup. I’m addicted to eye makeup palettes but I’m just saying I love makeup. I think it does wonders.

Carl: That brings us to our next sponsor. No, I’m just kidding.

Mercedes: And the new sponsor, Mercedes makeup. You can get yours at “Mercedeskakeup.com”. I’ll have a link up by the time... Well, I’m just joking.

Lance: So, my question.

Mercedes: Yeah. No, yes, I do know people who wear too much makeup. Even worse is tattooed makeup. Have you seen tattooed makeup before?

Carl: Yeah.

Mercedes: That’s wild.

Lance: I understand what you’re talking about.

Carl: It’s too much.

Mercedes: No, well whipping is not done right not to take this on random Mercedes tangent but people will have the new thing is tattooing lipstick on like tattoo on your lips. And then and so you can imagine that and then I’ve seen people do eye makeup and eyeliner actually.

Carl: I thought about doing eyeliner.

Mercedes: I used to work with a lady who ended up having really bad tattooed makeup. So, it’s worse than doing your makeup and it looks bad.

Lance: Well, the thought that I was groping for that I don’t know I succeeded in get making is.

Carl: Stop groping.

Lance: In the same way that someone can be trying to compensate for something. They may not have self-awareness and they overdo it. Kind of like me walking.

Mercedes: Yeah, suddenly.

Lance: When I see certain women that and I if a guy runs into it then it’s then it’s a challenge because it could be too much and then then you’re looking at something that’s like it’s theatric.

Mercedes: Yeah. Or like when people overdo the plastic surgery or the Botox. Like that’s really scary too. When they’re trying to look a certain way to your point they’re trying to overcompensate. They’re insecure and then they overdo it.

Lance: So, the theory that I’ve got on this is that one of the healthiest things you could do is to enter into a state of mind where you don’t have a lot of ego attached to these things where you almost develop a sense of humor. And you’re able to objectively look at what you do, how you show up, and how you look and instead of being fragile. Because there again it’s a story. And what does it mean if you’re wrong. Well if I’m wrong what well. It means that you’re learning. And so, when we were raising our children, we used to have a saying which I learned from Virginia Satir who was a genius in the area of child education and it was, is it okay to make mistakes? And Carl, the answer is?

Carl: Never.

Lance: Carl, the answer is.

Carl: Always.

Mercedes: What’s the truth, Carl?

Carl: Sometimes.

Lance: Is it okay to make mistakes? Yes, because that’s how we learn.

Carl: But that’s a saying. Yeah. I remember that now.

Lance: Carl was a particularly challenging child, right. But is it okay to make mistakes? Yeah and why is that? Because that’s how we learn.

Carl: Right.

Lance: So, you create a culture where instead of shame and embarrassment and you’re stupid being attached to learning. It’s okay and it’s kind of like really a secure people are quick learners because they don’t have a lot of ego attached to having to always be right.

Mercedes: Totally. You know who struggles with this the most? C Styles. As I’m a child of a C style and I didn’t realize it till I was an adult but definitely like fear of failure for C’s is traumatizing. Because they’re perfectionist so like everything exact and Larry’s a little bit of a C too. He’s a C but anyways I think there’s certain styles that like an I or a D will be like alright just move on. But there’s certain people that really it’s hard for them. It’s hard to move on from a failure like that.

Carl: Well, also a lot of Ds too right? Like if they have all their eggs in one basket that’s really significant for them and it doesn’t work out, that could break them. That could literally break their ego.

Mercedes: That is true. Yeah, I would agree with that.

Carl: And I think it just really depends on where the focus is for the individual because it could work for high eyes too. If they’re not getting that significance need met or if they do put themselves out there and they don’t receive that significance that they put out there.

Mercedes: Yeah or worse making a public mistake that then loses them.

Carl: All the credibility.

Mercedes: All the credibility that will be challenging.

Lance: Well, I’ve often wondered how did comedians handle? I mean comedians have to be some of the most ruggedly resilient people in the world. Kind of like an athlete. An athlete is obviously wanting to go up and hit the ball and then they get in a slump. They really get out of this the doldrums but a comedian man. They bomb on a stage. I would love to ask the great comedians. What do you say to yourself when you have a bad show? And so, Carl you study comedy and you’ve done a little stand up and you actually have had the temerity to go out and do stand up. So, what does a comedian say? What do you think they say when they have a tough show?

Carl: Dave Chappelle says this is just like baseball. I don’t get paid for the grand slam. I get paid for the attempt. So, that’s one note that I’ve taken for myself.

Mercedes: I just think this point Carl May, I’m reshaping what I just said. I’ve been thinking it that depending on the style, failure will be different. Your biggest fear of failure would be different. So, relationally with S’s. If you hurt somebody you really loved, I think that that is going to be your idea of failure. Like failing at your job probably like eh, but then probably failing with a relationship would be a bigger deal.

Carl: Yeah, for high S’s, that could hurt them more than the other person.

Mercedes: Yeah.

Lance: Well, that’s interesting is I a theory about high eyes in that, because they so thrive on significance and public claim that if they fail to win but they’re voted most popular that the strange compensation is. If people come up to them and say, you should have won you’re so much better than everyone else, in a weird way that maybe the bouquet they need. That the critics that they were looking for come to them and go, you’re brilliant man, I don’t care what they say that was the funniest show I ever saw. That you walk back to your room vindicate.Whereas a D does not measure success by crowd approval but by winning first place.

Mercedes: Yeah.

Lance: So they people might come up and go, I don’t care what they say. You once. It doesn’t matter to me. They stole it.

Carl: That’s it.

Mercedes: Yeah. Well makes me think of John Maxwell’s book Failing Forward because as we’re talking I’m rethinking things that that really is written primarily to probably entrepreneurs.Because it talks about like when your business fails or you fail in life right? Like Delanco’s point you learn from it you move forward. But he all these business references about people who failed, failed, failed. Like the guy who started Chick–fil–A. It was like 60 years of just like trial and error and then finally like he hits it big with the Chick–fil–A and the Chick–fil–A sandwich.

Carl: Thank God for Chick-fil-A.

Mercedes: And so, it’s like there’s just personal trials and overcoming those but just interesting. As we’re thinking here I think out loud I’m like, so my sessile relatives, it’s in work settings where it’s like no it’s got to be really exciting.

Lance: Oh, I got a big insight here. Check this out.

Mercedes: Okay.

Carl: Way to go, Mercedes.

Lance: So, I’m going to the flip chart.

Mercedes: Probably not me.

Carl: That’s fine.

Lance: Going to the flip chart here. I want to show you something. I’m going to put these four basic styles down. This could be if we broke it down it could be enneagrams. It could be anybody. But I’m going to go with the DISC for a second. D types, they like to be in charge. They like to lead. Therefore, watch this. What they go out of their way to avoid. I’m going to put a cross here. I’m going to put a pitchfork here. Okay now watch this. Satan use the thing you fear in order to manipulate you out of the will of God. God might use the thing you fear in order to test you into promotion for his purpose. Death to self or avoiding what you want, what you’re afraid of experience.

So, for instance, the D wants to be in charge. So, one of the great test for somebody out there might be having to submit to someone else.

Mercedes: Totally.

Carl: No, thank you.

Lance: Because the D wants to be in charge. That could be the fear of having to be under someone’s authority and have them control you, could move you. The devil could use it to make you miss God. God could be using it as a way of qualifying you for promotion. Are you willing to submit to the control and authority of another. Make sense?

Mercedes: I would agree. Yeah.

Lance: Alright let me go to the eyes. So because this all is about your story. Because it could be that you avoiding stuff in your life that God‘s been wanting you to step into and you keep on having negative experiences not because of others but because you’re not managing you. Alright, so the eye with that big, the issue of popularity. So, we’ll just put it this way. They’re going to experience some form of rejection. Make it a real simple one. The devil says, well, if you do that and it doesn’t work out, you’re going to look like an idiot. You’re going to look foolish. What are they going to say at that if you try to do the event and it fails or flop or nobody likes it? So, you don’t do it.

And God might be saying risk it. Go out there. Put your ego aside. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter whether trust me and be obedient. Test yourself and see what your aptitude is. That fear could cause you to avoid the thing or it could cause you to step into where rejection is there but you triumph in spite of it. Does that make sense?

Mercedes: Yep.

Lance: So far so good.

Mercedes: I’m agreeing.

Lance: And there’s something going on here. So with the S’s, the S’s big issue is going to be.

Mercedes: Well, it’s fear of losing relationships.

Lance: It’s going to be strife. And it’s going to be loss of relationship.

Carl: Yeah.

Lance: Okay, here we go again. The devil will come along and say well if you say what you’re supposed to say. If you take a stand and do what you’re supposed to do. You’re going to offend them. They’re going to misunderstand you. They’re going to be hurt and you’re going to lose the relationship. So, a lot of women could stand a bad relationship because they are afraid of losing the relationship using a female S for example. But a man could be the same way. Mm hmm. He’s afraid of the consequences so he goes woke for fear that he’s going to be getting in strife with his company or his employees or he’s going to end up losing his security, right.

And God could be saying, embrace the strife and take a stand for truth. Go in to the risk and have the courageous conversation even if it’s painful. Run the risk of losing the relationship. You may have a better relationship when it’s done.

Carl: Absolutely. Most of the relationship I have with friends who got a lot stronger after we had confrontation after we had a difference of opinion and then sat down and actually worked through it. We ended up being a lot stronger as a consequence of that.

Lance: I like this. We’re getting somewhere. People are going to go with the C’s because the Cswere where you started. The Cs are afraid of failure.

Carl: Good point.

Lance: They’re afraid. They also don’t want to look bad. Because of incompetence or lack of ability. So, there’s a lot of anxiety about whether this is why corporations, a lot of my clients that I work with. They’re so fastidious about structure and tax and groups and committees and there’s a lot of government. They’re afraid of looking bad and failure but it could be that the devil uses that fear of failure to keep you from risking what you got to do that God wants you to do and so you avoid the fear. I’m talking about the stories you tell yourself about your past where it’s always somebody else is the company. It could be you avoiding something that God wants you to step into and heaven’s inviting you to go ahead, risk looking bad. Risk the failure, risk theassociation with the scandal. It’s what’s necessary for you to do what I’m calling you to do. You can’t protect yourself from the opinions of people.

So, I’m saying your story, once you get an aha into this, for instance, I saw where I was in competition with other high eyes, I thought there was something wrong with them. I realized I was afraid that they were going to upstage me. So, my need for acceptance made me compete with them because I was afraid that they were going to get more like in me. But once I see that, you take the pencil out and courageously start to retell the story. You’d be surprised how liberating it is when you take responsibility for how you contribute to the problems you’ve had in life. It’s liberating because you suddenly realize, my God, I don’t have to do that anymore.

Carl: Yeah.

Lance: I could be free. I don’t have to have this pattern and I’m not locked in this bitterness and resentment and unforgiveness over what they did and it did and life did and God did. Now, it may it’s what I did.

Carl: Yeah. That reminds me of a segment that I watched yesterday 2 days ago of Douglas Murray talking about something that he had gleaned from Christopher Hitchens regarding regrets. And they both said that you’re going to have regret to guarantee, and you have to choose for yourself which regrets you can live with. I thought that was really powerful.

Lance: I watched that same interview yesterday is what’s the odds of you and me and YouTube seeing the same thing?

Carl: I think the algorithm has picking up what we’ve been putting down. So, I think it’s pretty high. Sorry, maybe it’s gone.

Mercedes: But what does it mean though like that you can live with. So, what does that mean?

Carl: Well, you’re going to have regrets. Okay, in this specific for instance, right. As far as submitting to someone else. For a high D to not actually reach their utmost, their highest for his, what is it? There you go. Thank you. In order for the D to be able to do.

Mercedes: That’s a book.

Carl: Yeah. That that’s a book. Whatever. But for them to do that, they have to submit to different authority figures along the way for them to move up. So, if their regret that they can live with is I won’t reach my utmost for his highest but I didn’t have to submit to this person then that for them is okay that’s acceptable then they’re going to live at a lower capacity they would had they submitted.

Lance: So, the premise with the interview was we think regrets are always because of bad decisions. Not always true.

Mercedes: No.

Lance: Sometimes the regret isn’t because of a bad decision or necessarily. It might be because in the moment we were avoiding something that we should have just had the courage to go ahead and do. And in a sense it’s either way you’re going to have regret. You’re going to have the regret that people rejected me. Because I took a stand and I lost some friends.

Mercedes: Yeah.

Lance: I regret that but I also would have regret it if I didn’t take the stand. Douglas Murray’s point is I got to say. It’s like his burden is he’s an intellectual. He has to tell the truth. And he can’t live without telling the truth and he says every now and then I get a phone call from a friend who’ll say well there’s another country you’ll never be able to miss. Because you don’t talk about old countries. He goes well, there’s an, he says I’m down to one. I mean North Korea will be my last country I can go to. But it goes to and I know the broadcast we’re running out of time. I want to go to page 4. Where it says to write a new chapter. This is our second paragraph.

In our Level 10 Living unlock your own story. I hope you appreciate this folks. This will change your life. This is the kind of coaching you don’t need, if you don’t mind me saying so another prophecy on what you’re called to do. You don’t need more anointing in order to do it. You need more awareness of how you’re sabotaging your own destiny, because of the story you’re telling yourself and keep on telling. To write a new chapter is to venture in the unknown, it’s staring at a blank page. Many writers will there’s nothing more terrifying than a blank page looking back at you. But here’s the secret.

Once we edit our story in line with what God shows us in the next chapter. That next new chapter becomes much easier to write. We take so much energy in our culture to get insight into our self and the best part of renewing your mind. But the best part of renewing your mind isn’t the part about knowing yourself is the part where you unknow yourself. Where you start to reevaluate who you are and whether the story you’re telling yourself is true. It’s very profound thing. That’s a great quote right there. That’s a meme.

It’s to unknow yourself. It’s about letting go of the one version of the story you’ve been telling yourself over and over and not the story that you’ve been telling yourself about your life so that you can actually live your life. Jesus promised life were abundant. It actually starts when you admit that your life is in some ways and you need God‘s help and redemption to make it right. The act starts the journey and that act is the secret to increasing the measure of life you experience going forward. This isn’t to say your narrative life is all wrong. It is to say that you don’t need to be right about your interpretation all the time. You can afford to discover you were wrong about how you’ve been telling the story. You can make a fresh interpretation.

The very humility required and the act of doing that gives you access to the grace to write new chapters. You want to look with fresh eyes at the disempowering patterns that show up in your personal history. How you avoid things consistently you should embrace or how you do certain things you should not be doing because it’s hurting you in the outcome. Think of a story you’re telling yourself right now. And it might not be serving you very well. It might be about a circumstance you’re experiencing. A job a financial scenario. It might be about a person in your life. It might even be about you.

I want you to look for a moment at the supporting characters in the situation. Who are the people who are helping you to agree with the version of the story that cast you in the light of a victim?I’ll give you an example. One beautiful thing about a great loyal spouse. One great thing about a friend is they’ll champion your version of the story. And that isn’t always a benefit. Because they end up believing 100% in your victimization or your story and they don’t challenge it. But that’s one of the reasons why we like being around People. They’re compatible.

Carl: Well, they’re also more likely to be fair weather friends. Instead of the people who are actually going through life with you.

Lance: Well, and so, it might be that the real measure of friendship is not when you’re in total 100% support of a person’s story but you’re in support of the person. And you challenge the story.

Carl: I agree with that.

Lance: Support of the person.

Carl: And their potential.

Lance: And their potential but you challenge the story. You call out like the BS. You call out the part of them that is kind of like not congruent and they don’t see it because that’s the only way you can grow.

Mercedes: It’s really good. Well, I want to jump in here because I know we’re almost at 40 minutes, but I wanted to say if you guys are really liking this material. This is our brand-new series we’re starting for the next couple of weeks. It’s called Unlocking Your Story. But I want to read to you for people who are wondering, hey, is this, I mean, is this for me? Should I get this? Where should I start, Mercedes? But if you have feelings of being stuck, if you feel like you’re not stepping into your destiny, if you’re not getting the results that you want and that you’re working towards. If you find yourself going over that same mountain every few years, are you not getting the promotion? Are you not getting recognition? Are you feeling weighed down by just reoccurring memories of the past and that you’ve dodged thoughts such as I’m not good enough, I’m not ready yet?

I mean, all these things we’re going to address in this whole series. I mean, you’ve heard a little bit. I mean, Lance just impromptu did this thing on the board here about failure and what might be holding you back. So, this whole series is designed to help you overcome these unconscious narratives that you might be having in the back of your mind. So, if you’re interested in going through this with us over the next couple of weeks. I mean, we’re going right through this little booklet. It’s in the Unlocking Your Story folder. You can get the whole kit or I mean, check this out. We talked a little bit about the timeline. This is what the timeline looks like. So, you’re going to map out your highs and your lows and we’re going to go through this whole process and talk about the lows. So, that you can scramble them.

If you’re interested in doing this with us, going on this journey, go to “Level10living.com” and you’re going to look for this unlocking your story. And make sure you use the promo code Podcast because you’ll actually get 20% off with that. So, I’m excited to do this whole new booklet. I love becoming unstoppable. I felt like that. I mean, the comments that came through on that were just awesome to see the type of testimonies coming through. So, I’m really excited to see what this one’s going to do because there’s so much power I think locked up in this and helping people scramble those unlock beliefs that are just holding people back. They don’t even know it.

Lance: Yes, and I just I know my people and I know there’s some of you that are going to want a clarification on something that I said so. Daniel Goldman made the point that 30% of the average person’s self-awareness falls into the area of the blind spot. The blind spot is the area where you lack self-awareness. The more you have feedback you’re open to, receptive to, and aren’t resisting. The more you increase light into the blind spot and the more that you release your hidden potential because you may have aptitude of potential you’re not tapping into because you’re too busy protecting yourself behind the narrative and a story you tell.

But if you can have that blind spot called out, you can grow. You want friends that will challenge you. And so the BS, we refer to in our program is the Blind Spot. That’s what we’re talking about. It’s the blind spot where you’re covering an area that needs to actually have someone else challenge you to see it from a different perspective. Does that make sense?

Carl: I respectfully disagree on the terminology but that’s just me.

Mercedes: Make sense.

Carl: Yeah, it makes sense. Yeah, it’s a good clean up.

Mercedes: Yes, Lance. That makes total sense.

Lance: Thanks very much. Alright. Well, just as long as I don’t have a blind spot on that subject. Alright. So, we’re going to be back again for our Level 10 next step and here’s what we’re going to talk about. We’re going to talk about biblical examples. Biblical examples of how the character reframe. This is the art of reframing, reframed their personal history so that they took the scars that they had and turned into the stars that directed them. We’re going to give you some specific stories with biblical literation on it to help you see how you might fit into the narrative of rewriting your own history, updating your own journey and in a sense creating a whole new chapter for you to show up in and that’ll be next week.

Closing: Did you enjoy this latest episode? Please remember to share it with your friends.Because the more knowledge you have, the better equipped you are to navigate the world. See you tomorrow.