Be All You Can Be: A Challenge to Stretch Your God-Given Potential (17 page)

The writer of Hebrews said of Jesus, “He learned obedience from the things which He suffered” (Heb. 5:8). Problems create situations in which we can grow. The very things we want to avoid in life are the things that nurture us and shape us into the persons we should be. The author of the book of Hebrews doesn’t say that Jesus learned obedience
in spite
of the things he suffered; He said that he learned obedience
from
the things he suffered. Effective leaders have learned this principle, and they almost
welcome
problems into their lives, knowing that it will drive them closer to God and closer to the people with whom they must relate. They have discovered that dealing with problems successfully develops a sense of security, not only in themselves but in Christ Jesus.

If you study the lives of those who have suffered greatly, such as Helen Keller and Joni Eareckson Tada, you seldom find skeptics among them. The skeptics are the people who have not suffered a great deal themselves, but who have been in the observation towers watching others suffer. They’re the ones who ask why. They’re the ones who become callused.

Seeking holiness rather than happiness is a hard thing to do in the culture in which we live, because so much is geared to happiness—whatever makes you feel good. In a secular society, happiness is the aim of life. In a spiritual society, holiness is the thing that we strive for. Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart” (Matt. 5:8). That word
blessed
means “happy.” Happiness is really found in holiness. But if we try to bypass holiness in our search for happiness, we’ll miss it altogether. Happiness is a by-product of holiness; it’s a benefit of living a pure life, rightly related to God, self, and others. So if you want to live a happy life, seek to live a holy life.

When we seek solutions instead of sympathy, we begin to see our problems in a different light. A woman had been confined to a wheelchair all her life, and a friend who was trying to encourage her said, “You know, afflictions really color life, don’t they?” The woman in the wheelchair replied, “Yeah, but I choose the color.” A lot of people would have their problems solved if they would just go for the solution, instead of sympathy. We need to realize that our problems are going to be there until we tackle them. Some people choose to hang on to their problems because they enjoy having other people feel sorry for them. I would challenge those people to dare to attack their problems. It’s far more gratifying to receive admiration than to receive pity.

I want to close by giving you some problem-solving principles. We handle our problems based on what we see and what we seek. If we see our problems correctly and if we have a goal that is bigger than our problems, there’s no problem that we can’t solve. The happiest people on earth are not people without problems. The happiest people on earth are people who have learned to appreciate the possibilities for growth that problems bring.

Never believe any problem is unsolvable
. These six words will give you the right attitude toward problem solving. Whenever I deal with somebody who has a problem, that’s the first thing I tell them. Now you may be thinking that there are some unsolvable problems. But I would reply that they’re only unsolvable to you. Don’t bring everybody else into your arena: Speak for yourself. I don’t know how to solve every problem, but that doesn’t mean every problem is unsolvable. It just means that I haven’t found the right person to help me; I haven’t worked hard enough on it; I haven’t worked long enough; I haven’t thought it through. I need to bring in some other resources. Every problem is solvable.

One day in an upper-level doctoral seminar in mathematics, a professor wrote an unsolved problem on the blackboard. Mathematicians had been trying for years to solve this problem. The professor was trying to emphasize to the students that there are no easy answers. He told them, “This problem is unsolvable, but I want you to spend the whole hour trying to solve it.” One student came in about five minutes after the professor had given the assignment. He sat down, saw the problem on the board, and began working on it—and he solved it—all because he had never heard anybody say it was unsolvable. I wonder how many problems you and I have not solved only because we’ve heard there’s no solution. The first key to handling problems is to get the right mind-set: Every problem is solvable.

Define your problem clearly on paper
. You need to see it before you. Don’t think your problem; write your problem. Until you can see it, there’s a danger of confusing the symptoms with the problem. By writing it down clearly you can separate the symptoms from the real problems. Once you begin to visualize the whole issue, your mind can begin to see solutions.

Organize to divide and conquer your problems
. Generals who understand effective military strategy do not attack all fronts simultaneously; they look for a weak area up at the front and they attack that spot until they break through. This particular tactic works in any kind of warfare. If you have a problem that needs attacking, divide it into parts. Suppose you look at it and see five areas of difficulty; ask yourself which area you could handle most quickly. Then take care of that need. Now the problem has been reduced a little. There are not five parts, just four. So take the next part—and keep going until the problem is gone.

List people and other idea sources that might help you solve your problem
. Begin to collect resources that can help you solve the problem—books, tapes, people. No man is an island, and no man solves problems by himself. This is an area that is too often overlooked in problem solving. People too often try to solve their problems by using their own limited resources instead of using the expertise of outside help.

List all the possible courses of action that you can think of
. Write down five or six possible solutions. Many people are not problem solvers because they only try one solution. If that doesn’t work, they decide the problem has no solution. I have found that if I take the time to write down all my options and then begin to attack the problem from different perspectives and from different viewpoints, at least one option will be a workable solution.

Visualize these different courses of action
. Think through the process before you actually try to attack the problem. You may be able to eliminate some of your options, because it will be obvious that they won’t work.

Choose the best course of action and get going
. Don’t stop at choosing—get going. Don’t play the philosopher, who sees the problem but doesn’t seek the remedy. Look at the problem, choose the best course of action, and go after it.

Never let problems stop you from making the right decision
. So many times we are tempted to live with problems because if we solve them, someone may get hurt. Don’t forfeit the right solution for an easy way out. This is especially crucial in spiritual leadership, because we tend to do that which is most palatable to those we are leading. We don’t want to hurt anybody; we don’t want to rock the boat. I learned a long time ago that true leaders will make the right decision regardless of it palatability to others.

I’ve also learned that a lot of people never solve their problems because they wait. Even after they know which option to take, they wait, hoping that the problem will eventually work itself out. Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman, in their book,
In Search of Excellence
(Harper and Row), make the point that a laboratory may produce solutions, but it doesn’t make those solutions work. You can stay in the lab with the mice all day, but your problems won’t dissolve. You have to take your solution out and introduce it to the problem.

What you see and what you seek determine your success or failure
. Success in problem solving is more related to the person than the problem. You may not choose your problem, but you do choose your response. It’s not what happens to you; it’s what happens in you. Your problem is not your problem—once you see it correctly and once you seek high goals in your life.

chapter 10

FAILURE IS NOT FINAL

T
HIS MAY BE HARD FOR YOU TO BELIEVE
,
BUT
successful people experience failure almost as often as unsuccessful people. In fact, on the average, successful people fail two out of every five times they attempt something and unsuccessful people fail three out of five times. That’s not a lot of difference, is it? Actually, there are several similarities between the person who fails three out of five times and the person who fails two out of five times, even though one would be classified as successful and the other one would be classified as unsuccessful.

The first similarity is that all fail. There’s not one person who does not experience failure. The second similarity is that we all fail often. We don’t just fail once and walk gingerly through life so that we’ll never fail again. Failure is something that we experience every day. And third, we will continue to fail until we die. Death itself is the only thing that’s going to keep us from failing. Sometimes I have a feeling that people are trying to tiptoe safely to the grave without goofing up somewhere along the way.

Why is it that failure destroys some and builds up others? How can I allow failure to make me a better person? Too many people concentrate on failure instead of on success. Too few concentrate on success instead of on failure. Herein lies the key.

Have you ever heard a person say, “I’m not going to make a mistake here; I’m going to avoid that pitfall”? Then they do exactly what they were trying so hard to avoid. What happened is that they concentrated on the fall, failure, the fault, the problem that was looming out in front of them. As the proverb goes, as a man “thinks within himself, so he is” (Prov. 23:7).

Ray Meyer, basketball coach for DePaul for forty-two years, had forty-two consecutive winning seasons before he retired. One season his team had a twenty-nine-game winning streak on their home court; then they lost a game. Reporters were anxious to get in the locker room to interview Meyer to ask him about that loss and to see how it affected him. He was all smiles; he said, “This is great. For the last ten, twelve days we’ve been thinking about the winning streak. We’ve been trying not to lose, every game. Now that we’ve lost a game, we can go back to concentrating on winning.” Those who concentrate on failure program themselves to fail.

One day when the Raiders were in Oakland, a reporter visited their locker room to talk to Ken Stabler. Stabler really wasn’t known as an intellectual, but he was a good quarterback. This newspaperman read him some English prose: “I would rather be ashes than dust. I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than that it should be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy, impermanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.” After reading this to the quarterback, the reporter asked, “What does this mean to you?” Stabler immediately replied, “Throw deep.” Go after it. Go out to win in life.

The second observation I want you to see is that too many people treat their failures as enemies. They look at a flop and see a foe. This kind of thinking, in itself, is a mistake; failure should be treated as a friend. Your reaction to failure determines what you do with it. If you treat your failure as a foe, for example, you’ll hide it. Whenever you fail in a certain area, you’ll want to get out of that area, whatever it is—a job, a marriage, a relationship, even a hobby. If you treat your failure as a foe, you will take your mistakes too seriously. You’ll be ridden with anxiety. Every mistake will be a life-or-death situation. On the other hand, if you can see failure as a friend, a helper, then you’ll react positively to it. Only when you’re honest and open about a mistake can you learn from it. When you stop and think how many times you’ve really blown it, it seems a shame to let those failed attempts go to waste. So learn from your mistakes—and then learn to laugh at your mistakes. No failure is significant enough to sink a person.