Brave Men S1E1: How to Get Focused!

I was walking through the mountains above Durango, a place my wife and family love and I stopped for a moment and listened. It was just birds, wind in the trees but mostly it sounded like silence. Have you noticed how much noise there is in the world? I was reading recently of a scientist that was attempting to find the quietest place in North America. He finally found it in a remote section of forest deep in the state of Washington. I doubt you and I can get there so how can we get focused? How do we stop the noise? There's constant news, barrage of announcement, urgent texts, always, critical emails, phone messages and something pulling at your mind every moment. In fact, most of us are subject to over 86,000 messages a day. Is your brain sorts this out? It can make it seem like a blur. How do we get focused? It's Brave Men with Paul Lewis Cole, wisdom and courage for the journey. Brave Men starts now. Anthony Trollup, a great writer from the 1800s, wrote 47 novels by the age of 67. Here was his routine. At 5 a.m. he had a cup of coffee. That makes sense. And then he would read the previous day's work. At 5 30 a.m. he would start writing by hand. He wrote a thousand words an hour, 40 pages per week. Remember by the time he was 67, he'd written 47 novels. And then at 8 a.m. he would leave for his regular job at the post office. So many of us wonder how can I get anything done? What Anthony Trollup realizes he could get it done if he would focus and there weren't distractions. This is episode number one of Brave Men, wisdom and courage for the journey. We will help you arrive at new places of fulfillment and effectiveness in your life. It comes from living on this planet for over 60 years. That's me. Listen, don't get advice on raising children from some guy who has three kids under five. He can give you advice on making babies, but not raising them into adults, changing diapers, but not changing hearts. So here's my promise to you on this podcast, Brave Men. I'll be honest, real, truthful, vulnerable and unrestrained. After over 40 years of marriage, and I'm talking about to the same beautiful girl, having launched a number of businesses, a few of them actually successful, helping start some of the largest media initiatives in North America, coached and mentored men for over 40 years and started and still involved in a ministry man called Christian men's network. I've learned a few things. In fact, what I've learned well is what not to do with planted a healthy church that my son now pastors brand and see three church and four worth. And I've learned some wisdom. And that's what this podcast is about. I want to share this wisdom with you. I want you to be filled with courage. And I want you to understand that failure is always the midpoint to success. I had a friend years ago in sales. He said, he said, man, today was a little brutal this morning. I said, why is that? He said, I had a number of people say no. I said, really, the discourage he goes, no, he said five knows is halfway to a yes. That man built a company that he then sold later for $350 million. He started as a penniless immigrant from Lebanon. So this is the start of brave men, putting something inside our hearts that stretches us and larges us, increases our capacity and helps us become the man we desire to be. This is the first of 1,000 podcasts that we will create over the next 20 years. So let's start the journey together. In fact, let me just announce that right now that our last podcast will be December of 2037. Just so you know, that's where we're headed. In the book that we wrote called just a bartender, we wrote a chapter about focusing our lives and what that means. Focusing our lives seems to be the issue for so many of us. Have you found that it's easy to get distracted? Distraction is the devil's hammer. It's so easy and so many of us get distracted constantly. Distraction is defeated by identity. Let me say it again. Distraction is defeated by identity. That's what the book just a bartender is about. It's about the life of Nehemiah and how man who recognized embraced his identity was able to do something to other people couldn't do. See, your definition holds inside it your destiny because all behavior follows belief. What you believe is what determines your behavior. So decisions come from your definition. So then identity defeats distraction because you say, wait a minute, I don't need that. That's not who I am. That's not where I'm headed. Listen, here write this down. In fact, on these podcasts, I listen to a number of podcasts. My go to one, first of all, is Phil Pringle, my pastor. Listen to that when I'm working out. What I do then is I'll go back. I'll take it and I'll listen to some of the parts that I really struck me and I'll write down the notes. I've got journal after journal of notes from different people podcasts, things I've been at, things I've heard. I write them down, go back through them, get them into my heart and spirit. So you'll want to do that at times with this. Here's why we wrote this in the book called Daring. What you allowed to capture and hold your attention will eventually control the direction of your life or is what you put in your heart. What you allowed to capture your heart and hold it will eventually control the direction of your life. Let me talk about what focus is. Focus is the discipline of extracting yourself from the unnecessary. Cutting away the things that don't belong in a spirit-filled life. We so easily are distracted by things around us. I am. It happens to me over and over. I'll look at something, I'll be writing something and then on my iPad that sits over on my desk, I'll see a note come up or a news flash or something like that and oh wait a minute, what's that? And you've got to shut those things off. Focus is the discipline of extracting yourself from the unnecessary. It's in the book called Just a Bar Tender. It's available on Amazon or if you go to our website, christianmensnetwork.com, you'll find just a bartender there. In fact, I think on christianmensnetwork.com or cmn.men, you'll find it at a discount. We had a number of passers who have, it's already in its second printing, it just came out. A number of passers who ordered boxes of them and gave them away for Father's Day and things like that. So if we need to cut things away, how do we do that? The word of God and prayer are the two most powerful tools that you and I have as a follower of Christ. The word of God helps put things in us and prayer helps keep things away from us. The word of God helps us navigate a path. It helps us see where we're going. If you will is the power of God Himself, highest manifestation of God Himself on the face of the earth, it's what fills our lives. And then prayer is what connects us with the power and anointing of the Holy Spirit to do these things. So here's a question. Why did Jesus pray? Think about this. Why did Jesus pray? This is the power of prayer right here. This is, I want us to get this. This is the power of prayer. Why did Jesus pray? Why would He have to pray? Couldn't He have, you know, so often He's with His disciples and He's He's saying to them, Hey, I'll pray a little bit about it and then we'll go eat whatever it may be. And couldn't He have just said, Hey, Father, are you thinking what I'm thinking? And Father looks at us as, Well, I think we're probably on the same page. We're all, we're both God, part of the Godhead. And Jesus go, Okay, we're good. And the guys go, All right, let's go eat. I think that that couldn't have been a real temptation on part of the disciples. Why couldn't we just do that? Instead the Bible says that He prayed often. It says He prayed all night at times. Judas was able to find Him because He knew where He would be when He was praying. Here's a key. Prayer strips away the inconsequential. Prayer helps us cut away the things that don't belong. Jesus prayed because in His humanity He's being pulled different directions. Come do this. Go do that. You know, you've got to speak to these people. You've got to go to this deal. You got to be on this thing. You got to be with these. He's being pulled, Hey, come see my mom. Come to heal this person. And in the midst of all that and mark the fifth chapter starting to mark the fourth chapter, He goes across a lake and heals a guy that's wandering through a cemetery. Spends a couple days goes over heals the man. Sets him free. The idiot's back and about goes back across the lake. He left thousands of people to do that for one man. The word of God says he always did what the Father directed him to do. It says he never missed it. There was not ever a moment in his life where he did something that was outside the will of God. The temptations that came to Christ were always about his identity if you are the Christ. And then the temptation was to do something that was outside of God's will. So the value of prayer, have you ever sat down? I've done this. And I've, have you ever sat down and just begin to pray and like this is the moment, the kids are in bed. You've got things quiet or you know, if you're, if you're not married, you're, you've gotten to a quiet place. You got away from the people you're ruining with and you've got to this quiet place. You're down at the lake and you're like, okay, I'm going to pray. You're sitting in a chair. I'm going to pray and then you get quiet. Get the Bible out and you get ready to pray. And all of a sudden you think, wait a minute, I didn't call John. He go, okay, Lord, I'll do that later. It's okay. Wait a minute. I didn't do this. Okay, okay, okay. And then pretty soon you're like, man, I can't do this. You see, I believe in those moments. I always have something to write with. In fact, here's a, a pad that I write on often right now. This one's about full. So I'll go to the next one. And I'll write on this pad. I'll write things down here. Call this guy. Do this. Now get those things out of my heart out of my spirit because I feel like the, the stirring up the, of the gifts of God right then, the Holy Spirit at that moment is allowing me to remember things or to think of things that I need to know, things I need to do. And so prayer strips away the inconsequential. Focus. Focus. We put it in the book, just a bartender. Focus is not about greater intensity. It's about greater intentionality. See, too often what happens is, especially as men, we want to push harder. And I'm going to hit this thing. I'm going to push harder. And what really needs to happen is we need to be more intentional. Intensity isn't always the answer. Intentionality is. Here's what focus does for our lives because when you have a clear vision and a purpose, the ability to, to maintain focus, what happens is you end up with five things. Love you give it to you. Number one, you get greater energy. A number two, you have greater boldness because now you sense like, this is what I'm about. Thirdly, there's a tenacity that happens. The willingness to persevere the difficult moments. Fourthly, it breeds creativity. When you're focused, when you cut away distractions, you can be more creative. And then fifth, the fifth thing is strategy. You're able to come up with think of, get dropped into your heart and spirit strategies. Remember wisdom, strategy always brings victory. Columbus sailed from August the 3rd to October 11th. His crew became mutinous. They wanted to give up. They were ready to go back. I mean, a couple months in, they're done. But he was focused. Here's what he said in his journal. I would have lost hope if I did not believe I was going the right direction. Hosea said this. He said about the men in his culture. They look everywhere except to heaven to the most high god. They are like a crooked bow that always misses targets. See a man with a vision, a man who's gotten rid of the extraneous distractions of life. That man can't be stopped because he's no longer listening to the negativity of people around him. He's infusing his life with the word of God, with strategies, with hope, with stories of great men and heroes. And he will not be dissuaded. He will not be distracted. He surrounds himself with men who have the same spirit. I had a friend who had an encounter with God at the age of 18. Joel was a brilliant man in his own right talented. But when he had this encounter with God, it changed everything in his life. Begin to date a young lady, let her to Christ. And then the two of them went to a Bible college. That's where I met them. Now watch their lives. He took a job as a van driver. And the van driver at this Bible institute in college was one that was responsible for picking up well-known speakers, bringing them to the college, bringing them to the television ministry that was connected to it and having them speak. And Joel would do that day in and day out. They're there for a couple of years. Pick them up, take them where they needed to go, drop them off, take care of them at the hotel, take them to the TV studio and back. For many men, they would look at it and say, hey, I'm supposed to be doing great things for God. He had dreamed about great things. He knew in his spirit, he was destined for something that was large. He said, God, I want to do that. But he also knew that if he would just do the small things that God would lead him out of that obedience and faithfulness into his destiny. So he got focused, cut away all the negative talk. And he began to cut away the talk that would say, hey, you're just a van driver. What could you ever do? In fact, self-talk, the things that we say to ourselves. In fact, one of the biggest issues that keeps us unfocused is us, not outside things, the things that we're thinking, our self-talk. That's why the Bible, the Word of God, is so important because we put the word in us, the self-talk becomes positive, full of hope. Joel began to do that. He began to, in himself, look at this driving the van as something that God had given to him as a gift. He began to ask the men and women that he drove questions about their ministry and how they did things and how they made it happen. He would ask them details about how they prayed for people, how they studied, how they prepared sermons. And for two years, every time he picks somebody up, he had questions and needing to take care of them. This is back in the day. I don't know if you remember they had these little pages. And you could put a type of phone number in and the little beeper would come up and it would tell you who called. And he would give people his pager number and say, hey, call me if you need anything. Many people did. Faithfully he did this weekend and week out, learning, listening to God, studying these people's lives. Out of that faithfulness, the Lord put him into a ministry that today touches the world. He and his wife are seen on every continent, every nation of the world. They have a major ministry, but it started with small acts of obedience and not being distracted or dissuaded by negativity. So he could have said, hey, I've got this great destiny in me. God, where is it? Could have sat back and waited. Most men who wait for opportunity will never find it because opportunity comes to every man. The problem is most men are not ready when the opportunity comes. So focusing is going after the things of God. Focusing is cutting away the things that don't belong. There's a program we're going to do coming up and first of the year, this next year, and it's about the top resolutions, how to make resolutions. And I just wanted to bring one of them to you right now when we're talking about focusing because this is part of focusing. Focusing is turning off the TV shows. You don't need to be watching. Focusing is cutting out stuff that doesn't need to be in your life. And one of the points that we put in this is point number four in the program we're doing about New Year's resolutions. And resolution number four is don't eat poison. Don't eat poison. Don't say yes to time wasteers. Don't do it. Cut it away. Let the resolve of God in a Holy Spirit and your identity and your destiny rise up and you say, no, this is not what I'm about. You know, pornography for those of us in particular who are men, of course, 24% of porn users now are women, pornography is a time waste or pornography is a distraction. It's not just the sin of the moment. It's what happens afterwards. You can't make right decisions. So focusing our lives is about cutting away the things that don't belong. Focus is the discipline to remove ourselves from the unnecessary. I believe you're going to do that. I believe in you. I believe God's going to put that in your heart. You're going to grab a hold of it. You're going to do it. I believe in you. I believe in us. I believe in Jesus. And I love my wife. God bless. You've just experienced brave men with Paul Lewis Cole. Paul is president of the Global Fatherhood Initiative. Connect with Paul like bravemen.men. That's bravemen.men.