Ah.
Yes, when you hear don't stop believing. That means it's time for our weekly get together with Pastor Chad Hoven from the Horizon Community Church right there in Newtown, Ohio, right along the bank, so the little Miami River, beautiful setting over there.
Lake right out the back of the church. All right.
We decided three weeks ago, and Chad came up with the title of our four part series. A lot of people like to make New Year's resolutions, and so maybe different than your say, physical health or whatever it might be. He calls this series the me I Want to Be Today is part three. But Chad, for those that may have missed parts one and two, let's start with number one. If you can just you know, sort of prioritize or summarize more accurately.
Number one, I'm not too busy. It's just not a priority.
Yeah, say, mass praise to yourself is really helpful because it helps you remember that when you choose not to do something, it's because you're choosing not to do something.
The kind of.
False belief that we're too busy. We're going to fill our life with things that are important to us, and so if you're not prioritizing something, it's because you're not prioritizing something. Sep phrase is really helpful in aligning what it is you're really choosing to do and choosing not to do. Okay, the first week and the second week we talked about to be list should be what drives your to do list, which is who do you want to be, who you're becoming, who you're forming yourself into.
Then how do you make sure that what you're choosing to prioritize or engage in, or when life kind of comes at you and you can't choose it, how do I use this to become a more generous person, to become a less worryful person, How do I become more courageous person? And that can really bring meaning and purpose even when you're under dress.
You know, I loved as part of that second part of our series about where you talked about making a list of character qualities that you saw in the oh that you have respect for. It could be a loved one in your case, it was a grandfather for some others, it could be somebody you work with.
It could be a friend. It could be one of your children.
Something you look at them and you're like, man, I wish I were more like that in that way.
Right without a doubt. Yeah, exactly, And I think it actually infused it with meaning because you're like, it's not just a theoretical idea. I've seen this lived out. I've seen this personalized in someone, and this is what a life well lived can look like. And obviously no one is perfect that you might say, Hey, that particular quality of that person, I like you. I want to leave the other things behind on that person, this other person,
I want to pick up what their strengths are. So it really gives you a vision for what living in a profoundly human way looks like. And you start seeing that there's almost intangible, immaterial, almost supernatural qualities behind that, and you're like, man, I want to partner with that.
We call it plain glass, stained glass. We do it every Wednesday with Pastor Chad Hooven from the Horizon Community Church. Okay, now we get to part three series of the me I want to be make a hierarchy of needs? What does that mean? Yeah, well you.
Mean remember from psychology class if not, there is a gun named aslov who create a hierarchy of needs and thinking it like the food pyramid. At the bottom, he said, our foundational need is a biological needs food and water. Then on top of that is the next most important thing safety. Then the third thing is love and belonging.
The way towards the top of the pyramid is esteem, and then lastly at the very top, if you really have time for self actualization, spiritual values, et cetera, I'd like to propose that you should actually turn those values upside down and inside out, which is what if you know a lot of people have their physical needs mets and their safety needs met, and yet they're discouraged, they're depressed, they're not happy. And it's not to say the food and water and safety is important, but what if the
focus is to turn that upside down. I'm always focusing on my externals, not focused on my internals. I need to turn inside out, which is what's really going on inside of me. There's an old French philosopher Pierre. I can't Heber's last name, but he says man is not primarily a human being having a spiritual experience. Mankind is primarily a spiritual being having a human experience. Do you think of it this way? Like every human being you
feel it. I feel it. Everyone you know humans are obsessed with finding meaning and purpose, Like, why would that be except that we are created from a meaningful process. I mean, if the whole world was created in a random, meaningless way, it would not create creatures that are obsessed with meaning. So in saying that, say, then okay, then what are my self actualization one of my core values? What are the things I really need to focus on?
That hierarchy of needs? And when you know that, you start realizing when you come to decisions, I know what to say yes to and what to say no to. For many of us, we focus on staying busy, being productive. And I love staying busy and I love being productive. But what if instead you said, while I'm doing that, the real hierarchy is I need to go deep. I need to pay attention to my body. My body is telling me right now, I'm discouraged. My body's telling me
right now, I am stressed. My mind is racing. What if I was focused on I need to prioritize that, Yes, I want to work hard, Yes, I want to be the best employee I can. Yes, I want to provide for my financial needs. For my goodness I've been ignoring my body. I've been ignoring my mind racing. I've been ignoring that, whether it's depression, or whether it's anxiety, or whether it's worry or maybe I saw on my parents, man, they were so fearful their whole life. I've now inherited
some of that. I need to go deep. I need to get to the bottom of this. I need to what I'm doing, why I'm doing it, how I do it, and why. I think that's going to force you to keep being good at what you do, but not ignore the symptoms all around you that you said, Ah, that's the top of the pyramid. What a luxury to think about that kind of stuff versus that might be your body and mind really crying out to you about what really matters.
You know, I'm kind of curious. It's sparked the question I've often wondered. And you talked to so many people on so many different levels of things they're going through. It could be a breakup of a marriage, it could be the loss of a loved one, grief, et cetera. All kinds of deal issues with a child who perhaps has gone astray. One thing that made me wonder when you were just talking about something there about for us
to go deep? Okay, do you think and based on your experience, do you think that a person, if they really want to go deep, that they have to resolve some issues of maybe some things in their past that they've never dealt with. And I'm not talking here now about serious trauma. I'm not talking about someone who is physically or sexually of you.
It's a whole different level. And there's no doubt about the answer to that question.
But I'm talking you know, maybe your parents had a terrible div uh, maybe you and your sister, how whatever it could be, is it important for you to go deep as you just made reference to, do you have to be able to put some of those other things to bed that may have happened five years ago, forty years ago before you can go deep?
Well? Yeah, I think it might even be the very definition of going to deep as a deal with those things. It's how did I become who I am? And what part of that is me reacting to the past, What part of that is me repeating the past? And how do I move to a place where I'm responding to the past. What's the difference? Responding is I know what happened, I know what part of it I'm choosing to leave behind. I know what part of it is I have healed from.
There's a there's a psychology called love attachment theory, and it says that the problems in your marriage didn't begin in your marriage. And you think, God, if only my spouseuld blah blah blah. But really, if you've picked up patterns from the past, you're still caring wounds or wounded miss And you know this, We all know this. How wonderful your life is. And here in America and living in twenty twenty six, you know we all are very,
very blessed. However, life is brutal, and it is hostile often and the things we endured, the difficulties, and sometimes that's expectations to for many of us. Yeah, often you can't enjoy the life you could have until you have to grieve the life you should have. And many of us had expectations. My life should be like this. I'm
now forty years old, I'm now sixty years old. I should be X, Y and Z. And because of some brutal part of your life, something that happened that was beyond your control, or you know, we all make bone heeaded decisions too. We go, then we beat ourselves up over if only I hadn't done that, said that been there across that line. So a lot of times it's grieving, and I don't think a lot of us know how to grieve. And grieving is saying, man, I know what happens,
I know what I wanted to happen. I did my darkness. I mean there's times like I remember my book came out. I did my darkness to.
Kind of.
Check every dot, every eye, cross every tee to make sure I had done my part to make it successful. And it was moderately successful, but not at the level I hoped for. And you know, I had to grieve that. You know, I thought that would be you know, A B and C. And it was, you know, maybe better
than others. Other times it's more deeper stuff. You're looking at past and saying, my goodness, I'm still carrying the wounds of you know, needing to be a mediator between my mom and my dad, you might think, or growing up, you might say, I had a very volatile childhood and because of that, it just bread a lot of worry or anxiety in me. And if I don't consciously deal with that, I probably already bread some of that to
my kids. You might say, Man, I want to show them, even as an adult, now that they're in the twenties or thirties, that dad is still growing. And there's a tendency I think in all of us to think chronological time is going to magically heal the stuff inside you. You know, we all know that. You know, you can be chronologically getting older, and you can be developmentally getting more and more immature, or more and more grumpy, or
more and more self focused. So if you're not intentional about it, the current of life, the current of your own trajectory, is to often take you towards more self centeredness,
more miism, and those festering wounds. And last week the church I talked about Mount Saint Helen's and what made Mount Saint Helens so devastating is when the when the explosion went off of that cryptodoom dome off the side of the mountain a thousand years earlier, all these sulphuric gases underneath the mountain had basically created a teflon plate. So about sort of the mountain's just ready to slide off.
So that explosion triggered a slide that went back to one thousand years older, and many geolgists called it a sick mountain. It looked beautiful on the outside, but inside there was just some sickness. There was some there was unresolved sulfuric acid that had basically created a slide plane that created devastation later. So it often it says, I need to drill down, figure out what smells the batter I'm here, I got the superic acid. The smell some area of my life. I need to stop ignoring that.
Thank yeah, give me an example before I let you go. We're talking about making a hierarchy of needs, and you made the comment, look, something is going to be quote unquote cheated right when your time, your energy, maybe your money is limited. And how important I've often said, the most powerful or one of the most powerful words in
the English language is two simple letters. No. You just said the ability sometimes to say no. Give us an example of something that if you're making a hierarchy of needs, that you might find yourself having to say no to where you weren't before.
Well, I think sometimes as hobbies during this particular season. I love this hobby, but it's not as important as whatever My health that's as important as my marriage, is not important as my time with my kids. It might be, Man, I've been really good at managing controlling things. Man, it has really caused all kinds of anxiety and pressure delude myself into thinking I can control people in circumstances, and I need to start prioritizing, surrender, letting go. Really, I
can't control things. It also could be as simple as do you know. I was talking to an executive about four months ago, and she was saying to me that I only take certain requests for speaking engagements and for priorities, things that are related to these topics. And she's very
well known, she's very sought after. What she says, of the hundred things I could do, I say not to things that are not This passion point related to specific coaching for companies and related to this specific thing related to marriages, because my husband and I went to a difficult thing. We wrote a book about it, and we want to help other marriages do what we did. So that person knew their mission. They were qualified to do
a thousand things. What they said, I only say yes, to speak, engagements relate to a or B. I talked to a church recently who they say yes to everything. The whole staff has overwhelmed, all the organizations overwhelmed because I say yes to everything, and I say, listen, you don't really have a mission statement for your company or for yourself if you don't know what you say no to, because when you know what you're good at, what you're focused on, and even as a person like for me,
I could do a lot of things. I'm a generalist very much so, and I enjoy that. But I'm trying to organize my business life around what are the things only I can do for the company, What are the things I uniquely can do to advances forward? Then how do I delegate the things that I could do but other people are better at. So do you know what you uniquely can do? And say I want to prioritize what I uniquely can do for my family, for my company,
for my kids. No one else can be my kid's dad but me, no one else can may be maybe the strategic thinker. You've got to be putting more and more time into the strategic thinking, and you get aust of the bureaucracy you're doing. I'm a creative teacher. I need to spend lots of time creating and focusing on that. So I got to say no to a lot of meetings I might want to be part of, might want to be important, but it's not going to help me do what I uniquely can do for the sake my company.
Great stuff, U, pastor, Chad Hoven, Thank you so much, as always for your time. We'll get to part four in our series The Me I Want to Be next week. Hope you have a great rest of your day and a great weekend, My friend you too, all right, Chad Hoven kind enough to join us plain Glass, Stained Glass each and every Wednesday right here on the Morning show. That's great stuff, I mean great stuff. You don't have to be some you know, Jesus believer, you don't have
to be some fuck. These are very very simple sorts of things that we can do to be the me I want to be.