April Tribe Giauque 0:00
Hello, thank you so much, Dr. Miller for inviting me here today.

Brad Miller 0:04
Awesome. April, it is awesome to have you here today. You have quite a fascinating story. We’re going to get into your book here just a little bit. But what we like to talk about here on the pathway to promise is people who have found a way to deal with adversity to deal with the circumstances that happen in life. I know you’ve had your share of challenges your share of adversity and I just if you don’t mind it, just like can you share your story a little bit, some of the things that you challenge you faced, and then we’ll use as a foundation what we can teach others.

April Tribe Giauque 0:34
All right, you bet. So let’s start at a place where probably a good mark in our lives, right? We have times through our lives that we’re always going to be learning. This is definitely our life is definitely a place to come and to learn. And it’s to learn who we’re going to follow how we’re going to return home to our Heavenly Father. Yeah. In my life, just like anyone else’s life. It’s never going to be free of trials, adversity, events that are possibly traumatic things like that. So in my life growing up, and had a loving family, I’m one of five children, going to church, believing in God, understanding how Christ can work in our lives. And at the same time, there is opposition in all things, right? So just as strong as your faith is going to be, well, it’s going to be tested as equally as strong, if that makes sense,

Brad Miller 1:31
of course.

April Tribe Giauque 1:32
So I came across these tests just as life presents them and started to hear what I call my shame, shadow. That’s that little voice of doubt and all of those things that really try to pull you down. Some people call the voice of the destroyer those kinds of things. Well, I call it my shame, shadow. And good old shame he back there. He would constantly say one phrase to me. Which is possibly slightly different than what he says to other people. He would say to me, you are too much. Too much energy. Too much smile, too much talent too much this. So he took he took a route that was completely different than I think what other people do some people say, I’m not enough, I’m not pretty not right. They go on that route, right? Of course, you are too much. And so Wow, I was like, I better back off, I better scale it down. I better try to hide myself and listen to other people. And that’s where this persuasion started to happen, right? Because he was pretty loud and in my face, and at the same time, I was a believer and strong in the Gospel and loving my Savior. And so I learned through that process is that he’s going to be equal and opposite on both things where we’re Have to make the choice. Am I going to face the light or am I going to keep turning towards the shame shadow that’s behind me. Because if you have light that’s casting in front of you, your shadow will always be back there. It’s your choice if you’re going to turn towards the shadow, or if you’re going to turn towards light and take the action and move forward. So there’s lots of things like that. So in my life, I had some ups and downs. There was a sexual abuse that happened with a neighbor and trying to heal and overcome a lot of those things like that on my own, with just the help of scriptures and with Christ, I didn’t say anything to anybody. And that led me into a place where I was doing pretty good, but not quite all the way at after high school and things like that. I decided to go out and preach the word and become a missionary. Following my missionary service. It was time to get married and I knew I was going to have a family. I wanted to Aaron and in that process, found someone who I felt had the same goals have the same plans had the same strength and testimony of God. And so I was like, these are great attributes. These are great characteristics, and I love him. And this looks like a great match. So I always knew that the concept of trials, it wasn’t going to be like happily ever after. But what I did think is that it was going to be together Ever After that, what happens, we would be on that same face track that same idea, like we can do things together. And I started to learn through the process of just how life goes and how stress is added on to a relationship, like marriage. And that old habits that he had had started to spring back up, which became addictions to drugs and alcohol and, and and to pornography. So right there, I was like, Oh, that’s a blame right there. I can blame what’s happening. Because of an addiction, I can blame all of these problems because he’s looking at pornography. I can delay right? I figured, well, that’s the problem. So,

counseling,

I know we could try to do this at the other. Because my mind was still stuck on we had the same goal. We had the same leafs and

now you’re over here and

I don’t understand. And I was missing the point that hey, this is the trial. I was like, wait a minute, we’re supposed to be together in this trial. Not that’s not wait a minute. So I had to do a lot of thinking and a lot of self awareness with with all that.

Brad Miller 5:41
This has to do with you in even regards to your husband. This decision you were talking about earlier about the shame, shadow and the go into the light you are having to make those those calculations as it were in regards to your husband and how you were relating to him decisions you were making. That way.

April Tribe Giauque 6:01
It did, but later, for the longest time for almost nine years of our marriage, okay, I’ll just keep pulling them along. We’ll just keep trying, ever because I thought that that was the real problem. Again, I blamed it on this, this concept, the idea of addiction that will if he could just solve that problem, then they’d be back we go,

Brad Miller 6:24
you were trying to change him.

April Tribe Giauque 6:27
tried to change him back to where he was, because that’s what he was. He was

Brad Miller 6:30
Yeah, that’s what I mean. Yeah.

April Tribe Giauque 6:32
Two and a half years. That’s where we thought we were going and then okay. Thought for a long time that that’s what he also want. It was like, help me I’m stuck in this addiction and I need help. And that was not the case. was with them. We had an added component that I didn’t know until an event happened and I share it in the book. I don’t want to do any spoilers. What will just say it has to do with deep sense of mental illness that I was unaware of until this event happened. And when that happened, I knew how deep we were in it. We had just had my fourth child who were in amount of debt. He would leave for days at a time. And it felt like everyone in the neighborhood everyone at church, they all knew the story. But not myself. No board, because I didn’t really want to see. And the other part is, I really couldn’t know because at this point, I have four children. My first three have autism.

Brad Miller 7:36
Oh my goodness.

April Tribe Giauque 7:37
This started to turn towards anything I could do to get them to communicate to stop hitting, biting, headbanging, we were in via crisis. And so looking at how we could pull them out of it, give them some skills, give them some communication something. So my focus went there and I just thought he’s going to have to do what he can on his own. And we did the cycles we had five cycles in our marriage where we would do rate he would repent he would come back to church addictions would stop and he would be clean and sober for four or five six months and things are going pretty good. And then the event the stress the something spiral down would happen again. And by the time we were at the bottom I would usually discover I was four or five months pregnant

Brad Miller 8:32
which is kind of you know you had a dolly the spiral into personally but my goodness you had to all the physical stuff of being pregnant and raising children and autism. you’re you’re you’re describing a situation which is Wow, that is just blows my mind it away really does. Yeah,

April Tribe Giauque 8:50
yeah, it people will ask how did you get through this? No, it was through the faith. Just supporting me. Get me to every single day that I need to go Through. Now laced in all of this was abuse in the most emotional, spiritual, financial as well as physical way possible. And these encounters and as I would spiral down, and then try to rebound again and try to pull him back up with me, just never would raise back to the top level, it was like one and then it would come up, it could never reach that top again, and then down and then come back up. But it would be a lower level than it was the first two times. And so it was before then I say five cycles because I have five children. So it kind of went in that cycle pattern. And by the fifth one, I was like, hang on.

Brad Miller 9:44
I finally started get it. Sorry.

April Tribe Giauque 9:49
Yeah, it was tough. It was tough for my family who were just the ultimate supporters stayed with me. And through this discovery of writing my book

and sharing this story.

I learned what the ultimate supporter is I learned what the true gift of having an unconditional love is. They did not yell at me they did not judge me out loud, at least to my ears. Now they might have gone to the neighbor can’t believe this, but said those things, they will be with me with me. And I can’t tell you if they have abandoned me, I don’t know if I would have been. I really don’t know. I know that at the crucial times and when I was ready, I knew I had sport. And so when I could finally leave, I needed to do with me they were probably high five and in the background and like cheering and whooping at her.

Brad Miller 10:45
Well, you describe what you’re describing there as low I know you talk about loving your your writing. So I’m being a victim, advocate or supporter and helping to kind of define and understand those, those roles. So what do you what kind of things did you learn April out of all this convoluted painful experience, not only with your husband and your kids and these folks in your life, what do you learn in there and now that you’re able to share with others to help them to deal with these similar circumstances?

April Tribe Giauque 11:19
No, I have an approach that goes into to two types of classes are two types of people. So I have a full supportive group that I and I help Where are victims to become Victor’s we, my my focuses for them to find what I believe that all of us are blessed with the light of God in us and that through our events, we slowly enter choices, we dim out that light. So I help them discover that light and then start to fuel it and amplify it. And that’s one piece that we work on. Another piece I work on. is all for the family members, the friends and the CO Those of the people who know friend or their family member is in abuse, and yet their hands are tied. They don’t know what to do. They don’t know what to say. They feel like if, what if I say the wrong things, some of them might feel this is really sticky. I don’t know what to do, but I can’t just leave them here. So what I teach that group, which I call my ultimate supporters, the supporters to narrow that gap, that supporters gap that they have where they have this person, but they don’t know they don’t have the tools to know what, because some of them a start to assume this superhero like okay, well, I’ll just go in and save the day. Okay.

There’s only one person you can say. And that is Christ. Sure.

Your job is to be with

them. And to not take on that emotion and the grief and the

because you might have a time. I know I did this. I do. Was ranting about everything, everything, everything. And I could see my sister listening and listening. And she thinks she can comment back and forth. And I said, but I still love him. Hmm. Yeah, yeah. And, and you should leave. And if she would have done all of that, and then I put this to the end.

Brad Miller 13:23
Yeah, you could have been impact your relationship with your sister as well. And so you felt like you’ve learned some profound things. And you’ve got some systems here that you’ve put together to be helpful to people in these various roles, which I think is a powerful tool. Really, I just think it’s a needed tool. And I just know that the, you know, as a pastor of a church, I’ve done certainly on my share of counseling and therapy and whatnot, you know, with folks and challenging marriages and other things as well. And so often, you know, we I guess I’ll just say it, you know, and some of my somewhat lame way I will share with people don’t be helpful, just be a good listener. Well, that’s a piece of it, of course, but what you’re helping us do is get some more, or tools here to to involve their with this. Where do the kids come into play and all this? Where does the family dynamic come into play? You mentioned this verse, this very particular situation of autistic children. And you know, a part of what you teach and lead is about parenting and leadership. So tell me unpack that a little bit for me, how you related to that, and then what you can teach other folks as well about parenting?

April Tribe Giauque 14:28
You bet. So what I focus in on parenting is I believe I’m a big believer in empowering somebody with skills. Because for the most part, we want to be able to help and we need to do something in order to be that help. So with parenting skills, especially with anyone with special needs, what I teach the parents is that they have that light within them that empowers them to truly be the expert on their own kid. So many times when parents are given You know, the label the diagnosis of whatever it is, there is definitely grief that happens through them. And all of that can be acknowledged. But at the same time, we kind of say, Well, I’m not the expert. And we hand off the kid back to the school, to therapies to whatever it all that has a place. But sometimes we don’t trust ourselves to be able ones to say, wait a minute, a part of this team to my voice. I know my kid the best. leading this team effort knew what to do with, you know, all the therapies, with school with accommodations, fees with all of that. So I teach them one way to do that. And I do almost everything for the power books. I love, love, love, love, love. This part about being a parent. All parents can read stories to the kids, right or the library. book read with your kid that does not add anything extra to your day, right? Sometimes when we start into this project of like, Okay, I’m going to take a parenting course and we’re going to learn all these skills and it’s going to add add to my day, right? I got nine kids, I don’t want anything added. No, I’m like, I’m going to be reading to my kids, at least lately. Yeah. We grab books and through the power of the book, whatever the story is, we can explain social skills we can explain where they might be missing. Some of the connections that happen now I use autism, the social skills and the language are the two biggest barriers when we think about anyone being on the autism spectrum. So I love to get books like anything written by Mark Brown, the author series, the bear seen bears, whatever, anything like that, and we sit down that because a lot of those books have those morals in them. any book, like for example, there’s a book called walking, and it’s very simple book, I am walking to the house, I am walking with the duck, I am walking with the dog. It’s not about the words, we’re looking at the pictures. And identifying is, look, look at what’s happening there. Are they? Are they sad? And we’re showing that through the parents asking a few questions. And I’m actually

Brad Miller 17:31
what I’m hearing you’re saying is it’s so important to remain engaged even when the temptation is to disengage or to abdicate some responsibility, those kind of throw up your hands, you know, what am I what’s going on here, and to sell that you’re teaching kind of strategies that hopefully don’t add too much more on the people in the course of what you’re doing, to make sure you are intentionally engaged. And I think that’s what I’m here, you say here. And I think it’s kind of the theme of everything you’re involved with, is don’t just say But to engage you know, you’re talking about really some denial and other things like that in your, in your marriage and about how you need to be engaged spiritually and emotionally in your loving relationships certainly in your things like your health and your vitality and also things like your personal disciplines and your cognitive powers. So that comes to me that that’s you’re talking like a teacher now I come from a family of teachers. I’m a teacher preacher, myself, I have have a sister who’s a special needs teacher and my mother and father were teachers. How does this go into this world of teaching your because you work in a school I understand and how could that’s kind of the other side of the equation. You know, this parody thing? You got the parenting thing, but we’re talking about human development now. So how what do you say to teachers, how do you speak to those folks?

April Tribe Giauque 18:46
Oh, my favorite. So when I go around the country and I speak about social emotional learning for all, it’s this whole entire entire concept that all are worthy of learning all So how do we get that child to engage with us? What do we do very, very first thing, like the best teacher in one of the best books I love to read all the time, right? He says, hold your little ones, he is saying bring them to me. For all of us, we need to be engaged and build a relationship with the kids, not dismiss them not put them over here, or put them on a task. That is, you know, something else can engage them in its you. The more you invest in your students, the more they will invest back, they will they will buy in 100% they’ll buy in and when they have bought in world is at your hands. So when we build the relationship so many times when I go into a classroom, or I’m you know, speaking at a large conference with a lot of people, usually prior to the conference, they will say or prior to speaking they will say I have a little Johnny and they give me the list of negativity and all of the struggles and troubles. At the end. They generally come back and say, I know what to do. I was not, I didn’t, I didn’t love them. Oh my gosh, it didn’t matter about all of these things I just listed. I don’t think I liked him to learn how to like him. And I’m like,

Unknown Speaker 20:25
Dr. foundation. There you go.

April Tribe Giauque 20:28
Love and how to like them. Suddenly, it every strategy in the world can suddenly work.

But if you are not going to build a relationship with someone,

and if you’re just going to tolerate and

my my least favorite word in the education setting is the word deal. I have to deal with these kids go Yeah.

Brad Miller 20:50
Gotta cope. We gotta deal gotta get through the day and that kind of stuff, right?

April Tribe Giauque 20:55
Ask and say what is their favorite color?

What’s your favorite thing to eat?

What’s the mom’s name?

What is their best friend’s name? Like what do they know about? Yes, ma’am not about the actions and the behavior they can lose. Weight comes down. They’ve got every data point on them. Sure.

Brad Miller 21:24
How What do you know about them as a person that building their relationship? Yeah.

April Tribe Giauque 21:30
And when they say they don’t communicate, they don’t do this. They don’t do that. I will break it down. We usually can see that they had been talking and communicating the entire

with my first three boys, my first one

it sounded like an encyclopedia. I think it was my third spoke every once in a while, but he was all about big action like climb the tree jump out onto the trampoline type of thing. I had could list all of those things. And finally, a good friend of mine said, What does he love, and I was

hard and saw my eyes out.

And it was a huge shift for me. And when I started to,

you know,

Brad Miller 22:24
some awesome, awesome stuff here, April and we’ve talked a lot about, you know, your kind of family dynamic thing. At first, we talked about parenting, we’ve talked about teachers, I want to talk about you for a second. I want you to talk about yourself in this regard. You couldn’t do all this stuff that you’re sharing all this incredible input to others, unless you’re being fed yourself. What are some of the habits what are the some of the processes the things that you do the the self disciplines, if you will, that help you to function you have between Did you say you have nine children all together? Right?

April Tribe Giauque 23:03
Show them five for my first marriage. And then when I got remarried, I remarried a bachelor who had never been married. No other children. I mean,

Brad Miller 23:12
so there you go.

April Tribe Giauque 23:14
We had former boom, boom.

Brad Miller 23:18
Okay. Well, I there’s a lot of folks who just want to know, what are some things that you do to make your life work?

April Tribe Giauque 23:24
To make my life work, I do three things. First of all, I pray and read. Second, music. Music is my absolute foundation. Understanding how I can process my own emotions. Now I can connect to someone else’s. And my range of music is probably narrow. And it’s that way on purpose because I have to feed my light. I can’t go into these other types of music for very long because I’ve been my life has been My soul saving. The third is I have to move. That means walking, sometimes running, sometimes yoga sometimes whatever, but I have to move my but when I move, I think when I stand, I can understand I can process. It’s really growing up the way I did cheerleading, tumbling, swimming, diving, all that stuff. Tons and tons and tons of action all the time. I have to read and pray. Music.

Brad Miller 24:28
That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Well, let’s just kind of bring it all back around to to come to a conclusion here at least cup bring it back around by helping people understand your book, pinpoints of life light, just one or two nuggets out of that how that’s going to help a reader to learn more about how to deal with this. Just let’s just bring it around to that because I want people to learn more about you and understand your book and get your book.

April Tribe Giauque 24:53
There you bet.

So the concept of having pinpoints of light came to me when I was reading one Writing chapter 23. I am titled The book yet. But what I discovered in all of that writing, I was like, hey, there’s a point there, there is a point there. That’s a point of truth. That’s a point of light. And it just fell into my pet my hands, these pinpoints of light back to that shadow, right? He’s always back. They’re always trying to whisper things and try to pull me down. So when you focus always in the darkness, you’re either and I don’t know if you’ve ever been to a cave, of course show dark your eyes, you can feel them searches or a pinpoint of like searching for something. I grew up in the mountains, and there are certain mountain peaks are these weather towers and so on and so forth. They are miles and miles away from you that light is probably only a foot in diameter. But as you are down in the valley, and you look towards that light, it’s a pinpoint, yet it gives you direction, you know exactly that Eastern You know where it is. Now you can’t read by that light, just like the stars you can’t read by the light of the stars. But with that light, there’s absolute hope that it’s the night and the morning dawn will come, please, like that piece of hope. And that’s the reason for writing the book is to give anyone who is in abuse, absolute hope that you can. And the next is the conversation about abuse, mental, physical, spiritual, financial abuse. One in four women are abused in the United States of America. It’s one in three women in the world. 87,000 women are killed every year and the most preventable deaths. Domestic Violence, most preventable deaths. We have $9.7 billion lost every year to company Nice, because they’re either in court, they’re recovering the hospital, they’ve missed because hey, childcare wasn’t available and they have to then stay home. Excuse excuse excuse maybe they’re, you know, partner hid the car key from that’s actually a statistic 37% someone else hide your heart you get fired. It’s a control thing, right? Many things that happen my bigger deeper thing with all of this having the conversation is how are we raising our children? The war is really on the children. Yes if they are raised in homes like this, or put into foster care who teaches them about light and love? Yes.

Brad Miller 27:47
Little girl comes around here and just you’ve got some great tools here April and just appreciate it a lot. And I love what you just shared their absolute hope, you know, absolute hope and that comes out of you know, kind of freaking calibrating our relationships and to get out of abusive relationships and abusive things do we don’t need that you don’t need that we gotta hit but we gotta have some tools and some strategies to deal with that. And that division of absolute hope those pencil light pinpoints with light. Appreciate you being with us today on the pathway to promise awesome stuff, or a guest today on pathway to promise the author of pinpoints of light escaping the abyss of obese April tribe juke

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Brad Miller 0:00
pathway to promise podcast, Episode Number 102. The pathway to greatness. Part Two, how to be great.

Unknown Speaker 0:14
Alexander pile and the author of the power 10, a guide to living the 10 commandments and the golden rule and Matter of fact, you’re on the pathway premise podcast with Dr. Greg Miller, who is helping you implement the 10 commandments and the golden rule to help you find your promise like

Brad Miller 0:32
you are on the pathway to promise with Dr. Brad Miller. Brad leads every person has a god given promised life of peace, prosperity and purpose, and that you must have a plan and a guide to get there. The pathway to promise podcast Not only is your guide through the wilderness of depression and disappointment that stand between you and your promise life, but also brings you insights and direction from inspiring successful thought leaders who have transformed their lives. Welcome to the pathway to promise. Now here’s Brad. Hello Good people Welcome to pathway to promise. It is great to have you here with me today. And allow me the privilege to speak into your earbuds wherever you’re at today, and the car or working around the house, or whatever riding your bicycle. Whatever you’re doing today. I just thank you for the privilege of letting me into your life to today to talk about something great. Today we’re in part two of talking about the pathway to greatness. Last episode and path one on one we talked about what does it mean to be great. And today and episode number one or two, we’re talking about how to live as a great person or how to be great. Here at the pathway to promise we’re here to be helpful to you help you be great help you to achieve your life of peace, prosperity, and purpose by overcoming adversity. Things like death and divorce and debt and depression or diagnosis of a disease. Any number of things that can happen to your life that can put you in the ditch keep you from achieving your greatness. I want you and I believe God wants you to have a god given life of greatness, of peacefulness and prosperity and purpose. Our website pathway promised calm is a great place to get a great free gift. also find out about our past episodes of the show the podcasts which can speak into your life. That’s what we want to do today. The pathway to greatness, part number two, how to be great how to live as a great person. You see, friends, I really believe that God means for you to be have a great life and to have a great life means that you have to intentionally live as a great person. One of the books that has really informed me a lot over the last several years as I read it about dozen years or so ago is good to great by Jim Collins. And he has a supplementary book called Good to Great for the social sectors which is really geared towards nonprofits. Churches, they really talks about how and that one about Good to Great for the social sector about how the manifestation of good stuff of greatness for a church or a nonprofit is basically the reputation or the goodwill which is generated by the organization by the accomplishment that they do. How does that happen? That happens when they became no one has doing great things, not just good, because good is the enemy of great but great things. And that happens when people in organizations are intentional about moving through the difficult challenges that they have to be great. Last week in episode one on one, we talked about what it means to be great. Today we’re not talking about the application, or how to be great. Let me talk about a little bit think one of the first stages You can do to be great is to stop lording over people. And stop being a good listening listener. Stop trying to tell other people what to do and be a good listener. Stephen Covey talks about in his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People in order to be understood under understood, you must take time to understand. And that’s what I want to share with you here today. The first thing you can do today, good, good listener. The Bible talks about this great writings talk about this. And the Bible talks about the good shepherd who listens to the needs of the sheep, and goes to them and listens to them. So let’s talk about the characteristics of someone who dominates or lording over other people, and someone who is a good leader or a listener. The characteristics of someone who Lords it over the people would they would be really concerned about their position or the power that they have. Whereas a person who’s a good listener is much more concerned about principles about having a principled relationship with people in their life. Their character characteristics of one who Lords it over other people as one who really takes great stocking command, as in domination.

A person who is a leader who is a listener is one who takes into consideration others. They are able to make decisions, but they consider the thoughts and the intellectual power and the feelings and the contribution of other people. One who Lords it over the other people is one who manipulates others that is someone who wants to see change for their benefit, not for the benefit of others or for the organization. Whereas a One who is a listener or a good leader is one who is motivating. A good motivating person is one who listens and learns and then encourages, not manipulates, but motivates and the focus that everyone who Lords it over other people’s personal needs for their own personal gratitude, their own personal benefit. It has nothing to do with others because that’s what the, for the benefit of others is really what one who’s a listener and a leader is all about. This is how you become great is by learning to listen. Something else you can do to learn to be great is stop role playing, and start risking.

Unknown Speaker 6:48
Let me unpack that a little bit.

Brad Miller 6:51
Role Playing is when we put on airs, we try to be somebody that we’re not when we try to to play the game. positioned on for other people. We play a role of a dominating austere person. We don’t have to be that way. Stop role playing. Instead, start risky. That is be yourself. Be yourself. And in the context of being yourself, allow yourself the vulnerability and allow yourself the opportunity to impact others based on who you are not who you think you ought to be. Risk things. I love this quote by Theodore Roosevelt, and I just committed to you for you to think about, you probably heard it before. But let’s hear it again. Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States said this. It’s not the critic who counts not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who’s actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust. sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who airs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows in the end, the triumph of high achievement, who and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails by Daring Greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls, who know neither victory nor defeat. Theodore Roosevelt, what a great thing to think about stop role playing, start risking Another thing we can do to be great is to stop counting and stop carrying. Counting is when we’re keeping score all the time. We keep score about who makes the most money or who does, who has the most. You know, good things going on in their life, supposedly. His about we start caring about other people and about the overall success of organization, then we be known as great. And guess what the counting will take care of itself. We cannot be scoreboard watchers, we have to be engaged in playing the game. I like to say that you’re good people because I love you as my listeners. And one of the reasons I call you the good people is because the influence of john Wesley on my life, a great leader of a Methodist movement, and a great church leader, but he said this, he likes to call people who are followers of Christ to good people. And so I like to call you the good people as well. And here’s what he said. He said, do all the good you can buy all the means you can and all the ways you can and all the places you can add all the times you can to all the people you can as long as you can. That’s good stuff, their friends from john Wesley. Just a couple of other things here friends for you to consider. That is to stop Seeking and stop start serving that has to do with stopped looking around for your gratification your greatness from some other place from some outside force, look at it from inwardly by how you serve others. It will be a good thing. Hidden it will be a good thing. If you serve other people, you will become known for your service you’ll become known for your greatness based on your servant hood. Not on how much you searched for greatness yourself. Albert Schweitzer once wrote, I don’t know what your destiny will be but one thing I know the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found out how to serve. And the Bible it says this about King David. Day it says for it says for for David after yet serve the purpose of God and His own generation fell asleep and was laid among his father’s He had served a purpose of God.

I just want you to know friends that you are have greatness in your life. It’s there for you. It’s waiting for you to unearth it. I like to call it the promise life. That is the ultimate gift that God gives you have peace in your life. That’s peace of mind. That is the peace of mind that you could have prosperity in your life. That is having good things in your life. That’s having good relationships, that’s having good health. That’s having enough, enough money and enough good shelter enough places to be all your needs cared for. And it means having a purpose in life. Purpose has to do with serving something greater than yourself goes back to this being greatness thing. You’re great, you’re great out of your servant hood. And you’re great when you have a purpose in your life and you follow that purpose and invite you to do just that. Know that God has given You a way to overcome whatever adversity is in your life, and you can do it. We’re here to help on the pathway to promise. Go to our website pathway of promise. com we’ve got a free gift for you there, and other great episodes of the pathway to promise that can speak into your life. I’m here to be helpful to let’s be in contact, you can always contact me also through the Facebook page facebook.com slash pathway. Friends, we’re here for each other on the pathway to profits podcast. Until next time, this is Dr. Brad Miller, encouraging you to keep your promises because there’s power and a promise kept. Thanks so much for taking the pathway to promise with Dr. Brad Miller as a subscriber, you’ll be a vital part of the pathway to promise community visit us on the web at pathway promise.com until next time, remember to stay on your pathway to promise

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Brad Miller 0:00
pathway to a promise podcast with Dr. Brad Miller. Episode 101. The path to greatness, part one, what does it mean to be great?

Unknown Speaker 0:15
Hi everybody. This is

Unknown Speaker 0:16
Carol Stanek from the crazy marketing ladies show and I’m all about helping people get found. Right now you’re fortunate to have found the pathway to promise podcast with Dr. Brad

Unknown Speaker 0:26
Miller.

Brad Miller 0:29
You’re on the pathway to promise with Dr. Brad Miller Bradley’s every person has a god given promised life of peace, prosperity and purpose, and that you must have a plan and a guide to get there. The pathway to promise podcast Not only is your guide through the wilderness of depression and disappointment that stand between you and your promise life, but also brings you insights and direction from inspiring successful thought leaders who have transformed their lives. Welcome to the pathway to promise now here’s Brad Hello Good people Welcome to pathway to promise with Dr. Brad Miller. I just can’t believe I can’t express to you enough how appreciative I am of you being a part of our podcast episode today. It’s great, great, great thing for you to do. And we’re going to talk today about greatness. This is part one of a series of two podcast episodes where we talk about the pathway to greatness. Today we’re going to be talking about what does it mean to be great. And then on our next episode, Episode Number 102. We’re going to talk about how to be great on the pathway to greatness. Here on the pathway to promise podcast we’re all about helping you to overcome adversity in your life and to be great to achieve what we like to call your promised life of peace and prosperity and purpose. And you do so by moving through and getting through adversity. You can go over to our our website pathway problems. dot com. We have some great teaching for some great authors and leaders who can speak into your life to help you overcome adversity. And we do some teaching here. I do some teaching based on my background and ministry, and an education as a doctor of transformational leadership, and to speak into your life. We want to be helpful to you to overcome adversity to achieve your promise life. When you do that, it’s a great thing. It’s a great thing when you achieve greatness in your life. Let’s talk about that for a minute. Let’s talk about the pathway to greatness. Because here’s the thing. All of us want to be great, don’t wait. Now sometimes we don’t feel great. Sometimes we feel like we let ourselves down to let other people down. But it is a natural thing to want to be great. Almost always when we start up a new job, we want to be great at it. We if we become a new parent, we say we want to be a great dad or a great mom, or a great grandparent or if we try out For a sport or music, for a band or to play a musical instrument, we start off by that with great aspirations to be great. We want to be great. But a lot of times we don’t really understand what it takes what it means to be great. There’s different understandings about what is greatness from whomever we talked to, for some people, its financial success, and some people it’s an emotional well being. What is, well, I like to come things from a faith perspective, you know that I’m a pastor of a church, I’m a Christian. And whether you’re a follower of Jesus Christ or not, I think we I think there are some principles here that come from Christianity that I think can apply to what it means to be great. And as a follower of Jesus Christ, I believe that greatness is servant hood. Jesus talked about to be great you must be a servant to all he talked about let the children humbly come to me and talk to the adults around it said you’ll be great be like these little like these little children and Jesus would model greatness. And in every great faith, tradition, and people have done great things, there are things that that can model that we can be modeled for us. We know oftentimes, based on our own values we know greatest when we see it, and we want to emulate that. But for my purposes here, I would just bring it down to this. I believe. Servant hood is the epitome of greatness, based on what I understand when Jesus talked about being a true servant. So let’s talk for a minute about then what it means to be great based on this criteria. I think a true servant then is one who puts others ahead of his or her agenda. We all have our personal agendas. That’s to be sure but we understand. A true leader then understands that our agenda is served when we serve us. Agenda, we put others first.

It also serves us. And there’s some understandings of this that I think when we put others first we begin from a place of awareness. We aware we become aware about the needs of other people. We see that need and within we want to do something about it and we make ourselves available. We put ourselves in position to take some action. So there is awareness of the problem, and there’s availability to the issue. Then there’s also acceptance. That is we accept others where they are at and we don’t try to condemn them for their situation in life. We accept other people, those of us who believe in greatness, and then move forward in serving them anyhow. And also another thing about being a great person who puts others ahead of themselves. you survive your heart. It’s out of a heart of love. It’s not out of obligation or guilt, or expecting compensation in return. It is about out of a heart of love. And that’s what I want to encourage you to be about to be a to serve it. Something else that I think is important about understanding what this matter of, of greatness is. Is it a great person to be great means that you have a very good self image for yourself. You serve out of the fullness of your own heart, you serve out of a good sensibility about who you are. If you notice people who often hurt other people, the ones who are hurting. And servant hood, I believe begins with a sense of your own self identity, your own security that you serve out of the fullness of your own heart. Jesus certainly was that he was most Fulfill person therefore was, and he served others based on the fullness of his heart. Because he knew ultimately his ultimate security was in going back to be with his heavenly Father with God. So here’s the thing, and serving other people. It’s about knowing who you are. Jesus knew who he was. So it’s having some confidence about your own self identity. It’s also about knowing where you come from. It’s knowing your foundation. As a Christian, you know, your foundation comes from God. Right, otherwise, what are your foundations? What are your foundations of your education or from your parents, or for teachers or coaches, people who smoke good stuff into you, not the bad stuff now, not the destructive things, but to sort out the good things that you want to impart in others. So we know who we are. Jesus knew who he was. He knew where he came from, and he knew where he was going. And so it is with us to be a good servant is to know where we’re going. It’s knowing that our Purpose is bigger than our present circumstances, to know where you’re going to know what this is about that we want to serve a greater good here on the pathway to promise we’d like to say we’re all about helping you to find your pathway to peace and prosperity and purpose. And the purpose piece of that has to do with serving something greater than yourself. That’s knowing where you’re going, knowing what it’s about. Not just flailing about just existing just kind of punching the time clock. But getting through things. A great. I’m a son was a sociology major in college and one of the people I studied was a writer by the name of Eric Hoffer. And he wrote this, and I think it’s apropos here. The number of the remarkable thing is that we really love our neighbor as ourselves. We do unto others as we do unto ourselves, we hate each other when we hate ourselves. We are tolerant towards others when we tolerate ourselves. We forgive others when we forgive ourselves. It is not Love itself, but hatred itself, which is the root of all troubles that afflict the world. Eric offer some good stuff there. So we serve out of going, who we are, where we’re going, and where we come from. One of the thing at least another thing to think about about what is the meaning of greatness is you serve servant hood. You take the initiative, you don’t wait for an invitation to serve other people. You see a need and then you do it. You take the initiative. How is it when someone offer themselves up free for you to help you out? That’s a good thing, isn’t it? I think about when you will offer to help other people out.

That’s what you know, Jesus did he taught so you know, the Good Samaritan is a great story about that from the Bible. Do something to help somebody out. What a great story recently as I record this, it’s the middle of the November, getting ready for Thanksgiving time had a great Thanksgiving story about how a woman arrived, a young man got a text from an older woman. And the text was inviting him to Thanksgiving dinner at her house saying grandson come to Thanksgiving dinner. The young man didn’t recognize the number and he texted the number back. And it turns out there was a wrong number that this was a young black man and his older white woman who sent him to text. And he said, No, ma’am, you’re not your grand son. But what you described sound good. Do you mind if I have a plate and the woman was very gracious and invited this young man to her home for Thanksgiving to share with more than a plate. They share Thanksgiving together and they shared other holidays together. It’s my understanding that this year’s Thanksgiving will be about the fifth year in a row that they’ve spent Thanksgiving together all because of a wrong number. All because someone was gracious enough to take the initiative to offer themselves to one another. That’s what I want you to understand here, friends. That’s what this is about. See the need, seize the opportunity to reach other people. And you don’t need to expect anything for every turn. Okay? Just a couple of other things here. We do not do this. In this, we don’t serve, serve others. We don’t serve others to be great. Just for the sake of being create ourselves. It’s not about our position. It’s about our personality about who we are. It’s about humility. greatness is embodied humility. And that’s the ability to not compare ourselves to others. We don’t serve others, because we expect some something to come back to us. Now the thing about servant hood is we serve even when others mistreat us This is a hard one, but it’s true. If you want to be if you want to be great you serve even when hurts when people hurt you. It’s a phrase that I hear from time to time, that it’s a painful phrase to be heard. But sometimes it’s true and it’s something to the effect of, in some situations, no good deed goes unpunished. That is there is bad things in the world, there is this treatment that does happen in a great person does good things anyway, does good things anyway. And I invite you to do that. So don’t determine your actions, your good things that you do good people, based on how others treat you base your good actions and your good deeds out of who you are. That will lead to greatness. Because what you do is you follow the example of great people who’ve gone before you. As a Christian, you might follow the example of Jesus, but whatever situation or you want to follow great people do what they did, that can help you be a great leader and a great person who was well respected. I know others will see that is an awesome person. That’s what you want to be. That to me is the meaningfulness of grateful of being great. Next time and episode number one or two, we’re going to talk about how to be great. If right now friends, thank you for listening to pathway to promise head to our website pathway, promise calm, we’ve got a free gift for you there, and other helpful things for you great interviews and other things that could be helpful to help you overcome adversity to achieve your life of peace, prosperity, and promise. Until next time, this is Dr. Brad Miller. I want to invite you to keep your promises because there is power and a promise kept. Thanks so much for taking the pathway to promise with Dr. Brad Miller as a subscriber, you’ll be a vital part of the pathway to promise community visit us on the web at pathway promise.com until next time, remember to stay on your pathway to promise

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Brad Miller 0:00
pathway to promise podcast with Dr. Brad Miller Episode Number 100. The fear of making mistakes.

Kevin Murphy 0:10
Hi, this is Kevin Murphy, author of the three rooms where I help people change your thoughts to change your life. You’re connected to the pathway to promise podcast with Dr. Brad Miller, helping you overcome adversity to find your promised life.

Brad Miller 0:25
You’re on the pathway to promise with Dr. Brad Miller. Brad leaves every person has a god given promised life of peace, prosperity and purpose, and that you must have a plan and a guide to get there. The pathway to promise podcast Not only is your guide through the wilderness of depression and disappointment that stand between you and your promise life, but also brings you insights and direction from inspiring successful thought leaders who have transformed their lives. Welcome to the pathway to promise now here’s Brad hello good people Welcome to pathway to promise podcast. With Dr. Brad Miller, just very thankful that you joined me today you’re on episode number 100 real milestone for me and for the pathway to promise podcast, as we talked today about the fear of making mistakes, or I might even say the power of making mistakes. Here the pathway to promise podcast we’re all about helping you power through mistakes in your life or adverse conditions that happened in your life and help you to come out to a better place, a place we like to call the promise life. That is we believe that God has given you a promised life of peace, prosperity and purpose. And then in order to get there, you have to have a pathway to follow to overcome adversity. And that includes things like taking bold action, by claiming the power from God or higher power by being fueled by loving relationships and by having self discipline in your life. So self judgment please piece we might talk about today as we talk about the power of making mistakes. You can always head on over to our website pathway promised calm, find out a little bit more about us and get some back episodes of the podcast 100 episodes now, a pathway to promise we have a free gift for you there as well. When I started this pot, this podcast A while back, I knew that I was going to make a lot of mistakes. And I did. Mine Association wasn’t as good as I would like for it to be. And it took me a long time to develop the content, and to make connections with podcast guests, and to edit the podcast. And so when I made a lot of mistakes, and I still do, but guess what, I’m getting better. And when you do things more and more, you get better, you get more comfortable, you get more in a groove. Now that we’ve gone through 100 episodes together. I expect to hopefully get better and be able to speak into your life in a more powerful way. Because that’s what this is all about. It’s my calling my drive and an order to help you to overcome adversity. The five days of adversity I believe for things like one D is depression. Another is divorce. Another one is debt as an financial debt, another one is disease. Another one is the death is death of a loved one. Well, we all are impacted by those things. And we all make mistakes when we deal with those circumstances. But it doesn’t have to always remain that way. We can power through our mistakes and come out to a better place, especially if we have some strategies and some encouragement. Here’s the thing. I bet you’re afraid of making mistakes I am too. But sometimes folks feel like they get frozen because of the fear of making mistakes. You know, we’ve all screwed up. We’ve all goofed up in some big way. Have you ever heard the story about wrong way Roy wriggles. Us nickname wrong way for what happened to him at a football game was 1929. He was the Rose Bowl, the biggest football game of the year. He was doing Georgia Tech and the University of California. A little bit before halftime, a man named Roy Eagles made a big, big mistake. He was a player for the California Golden Bears. And somehow he got the bear the ball and he got confused and he made a mistake and he started running in the wrong direction. Toward towards the opposing team’s goal line. One of his teammates was able to out distance him and run him down and tackled him, but not before he had run 65 yards and just short of scoring for the other team. And of course, Georgia Tech gained a distinct advantage through that error what should happen halftime came. The players went off the field and went to the dressing room all about all about Roy Regal’s. He sat down on the benches and on the floor and he wrapped himself in a blanket and around his shoulders. And he sat the corner and put his face his hands and he and he just wept. He just cried.

The coach called the players together coach, his name was coach price. And he struggled with what to do with Roy and he finally looked at the team and said men, the same team that played the first half will start the second and all the players have separate tried it out to the field. He stayed in the locker room, he didn’t budge. The coach looked at him and called to him again. He said coach price went him and said Roy, Didn’t you hear me? COACH? He said I can’t do it. I’ve ruined you. I’ve ruined the school. I’ve ruined myself. How can I face the crowd and that stadium is in there with the mistake I made. You know I can’t do it the saved my life but coach price put his hand on his shoulders and said royalty it up and going back. The game was only half over. And row row I went back into the game. And it said, but those who observed the game and by the opposing team no one will ever have seen a man play it better half of football than that second half that Roy Eagles played. So the next time you make a mistake friends to think about Roy wriggles wrong way, Roy was able to make amends because he was only half time and he’s able to get better. We handle mistakes. Friends, when we understand that this is not final mistake is not final. You don’t have to stay stuck there. Let me give you something called the ABC method of handling mistakes. The A is to acknowledge your air and accept responsibility for it. It’s gone, it’s of the past but you have to accept it. You have to acknowledge that you have responsibility for it. You can’t try to ascribe the blame on to somebody else. If you try to blame somebody else that will not fix the problem. The A is to acknowledge the problem and own it. To be is to be gentle, be kind yourself. Remember, just like wrong way Roy the go, the game is only half over. That mistake is not the only mistake you’ve ever made. It will not be the mistake you the last mistake that you make. You’re still a good person, you’re still a caring person. I like to call my listeners the good people. And later on, you might laugh about it. You might have a good time about it. You might be embarrassed about it, perhaps but you got to move on. Give yourself a break. Be kind to yourself, and to see is to correct it and move on. Learn from your mistake. correct your mistakes, make amends, make apologies if you have to, but get back in the game. Those who are wise, don’t consider it a blessing to make no mistakes, says the Chinese philosopher Wang Yang Ming, they believe instead the great virtue is the ability to correct mistakes and to continually reinvent oneself. So here’s my encouragement to you friends, as we begin our second 100 episodes of the pathway to promise podcast is know you’re going to make mistakes and make mistakes boldly. Go for it. That’s the power of making mistakes. You don’t have to do things. You know, you don’t have to be stopped by your mistakes. You just have to acknowledge it. Be kind yourself, correct your mistakes and move forward. Then good things are going to happen in your life. For the pathway to promise podcasts were here to be helpful to you to encourage you and when you have mistakes, we’re here to be helpful to get Through those, we’re all about helping people overcome adverse conditions, including mistakes, to come to a better place in life. A place where you can acknowledge that the ultimate gift, the ultimate place for you is a promise. I believe it’s a god given promise place for you to have peace, prosperity and purpose in your life, peace of mind, peace in your heart, peace in your relationships, to have to have prosperity in your life, that is have enough to eat to have enough resources, to have good love in your life, good relationships, the prosperity that comes from those good things and purpose which is having a reason to live. Having a contribution to make having something greater than yourself to get back to the world to serve the greater good. You can do it I know that you can and to get there you will make mistakes and you can overcome them and you will just the same way you can overcome any adversity that comes your way and come to your promise life at peace, prosperity and purpose. We’re here to here to help go to pathway promised calm for back episodes of the podcast and will resources for you there, including a free gift. Until next time this is Dr. Brad Miller. I want to encourage you to go on and keep your promises because there’s power in our promise care.

Thanks so much for taking the pathway to promise with Dr. Brad Miller as a subscriber, you’ll be a vital part of the pathway to promise community visit us on the web at pathway promise.com. Until next time, remember to stay on your pathway to promise

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Brad Miller 0:00
pathway to promise podcast episode number 99 with Dr. Brad Miller the power of encouraging words

Joel Comm 0:11
hey this is Joel comm author of the fun formula all about revolutionising your life with fun. Dr. Brad’s here for you to find your promise life peace, prosperity and purpose right here on the

Unknown Speaker 0:24
pathway to promise podcast.

Brad Miller 0:27
You are on the pathway to promise with Dr. Brad Miller Bradley’s every person has a god given promised life of peace, prosperity and purpose, and that you must have a plan and a guide to get there. The pathway to promise podcast Not only is your guide through the wilderness of depression and disappointment that stand between you and your promise life, but also brings you insights and direction from inspiring successful thought leaders who have transformed their lives. Welcome to the pathway to promise now here’s Brad Hello, good. Welcome to pathway to promise with Dr. Brad Miller, honor and a privilege to have you with me today, here on the pathway to promise where we seek to bring an encouraging word into your life as you seek to overcome adversity, to achieve your God given promise, life of peace, prosperity, and purpose, and encourage you word is what we’re all about here today on the pathway to promise. First of all, we did want you to know, you can go to pathway promise. com, find a lot of back episodes of the podcast, including some great teaching for us from some great authors and leaders, people who can speak into your life and encouraging word. We also have a free gift for you. They’re encouragement, kind words, good things. You remember those, don’t you? You remember that teacher that gave you a gold star or some good word, or maybe a parent or coach who gave you some praise? We remember good things, or maybe in the workplace, you remember when someone gave you a little Attaboy for some project that that you did. Think about words that you shared with others. Does that make you feel good and encouraged yourself when you encourage someone else? Unfortunately, these are things that are not done enough to be an encouragement to people. I want to encourage you today, to be at encourager, and to Ben, and then likewise to receive encouragement from people like me and from people who could speak into your life. Heard about a little boy who said to his dad, Hey, Dad, let’s go play darts. I’ll go through the darts. And you say, where’d he go, son, little boy who was not afraid to ask for encouragement that he needed. Maybe we all need it from time to time. The educator and author his father, Brian, Kevin, all tells a story about the devastating effects of discouragement. Dante Gabriel Rosetta, the famous 19th century poet and artist, was once approached by an elderly man who asked him to look at a few of his sketches and drawings. The gentleman wanted to note one to know if the artist thought they were of any value. as gently as possible. Rosetta told the man that the sketches were of no value and showed little talent. He apologized for the harsh, harsh assessment, but said that he believed that he should be honest. The visiting man was disappointed. But asked the artist if he could take a look at just a few more, which were all done by a young art student. Rosati looked over the second batch of sketches and immediately became enthusiastic over the talent that they revealed. These he said oh wow, these are good. He went on to say that the young student showed much promise. It should be given every help and encouragement is he may have a great future if he studies and works hard. The old man was deeply moved and Rosati asked him who is this fine young artist? Is this your son? No set of visitor. It is I but from 40 years ago, if only I had heard your praise then For you see, I became discouraged and gave up too soon. Mother Teresa is known to have said in her own wise words, kind words can be short and easy to speak. But their echoes are truly endless. Sometimes it may be enough just to say, wonderful. Here’s your assignment for today friends, find somebody in your life and encourage them with the word Wonderful. Maybe it’s sending a notice on Facebook to a friend or a neighbor or a co worker, or a child or grandchild and say you’re wonderful. Just yesterday was my own granddaughters birthday, and I had some encouraging words for her on the phone. And I said that she was wonderful in that she was great. And her smile and her giggle was all I needed to encourage me.

What do you need in your life? You know, we all have it. We all have adversity, we all have tough times. And all of us sometimes need the simple word of encouragement to say, hey, you’re wonderful. So you my good friend, my listener here to pathway to promise. You’re wonderful to be listening to the podcast today. I appreciate you so much. So we can be helpful to you at our website pathway promised calm, head on over there. We’ve got some encouraging words, from lots of great authors and leaders who can speak into your life. We’ve got a free gift for you there that is an encouragement to you as well. So until next time, friends, this is Dr. Brad Miller encouraging you stay wonderful to keep your promises because there’s power and a promise kept. Thanks so much for taking the pathway to promise but Dr. Brad Miller as a subscriber, you’ll be a vital part of the pathway to promise community visit us on the web at pathway promise.com. Until next time, remember to stay on your pathway to promise

Thanks so much for taking the pathway to promise with Dr. Brad Miller as a subscriber, you’ll be a vital part of the pathway to promise community visit us on the web at pathway promise.com. Until next time, remember to stay on your pathway to promise

Transcribed by https://otter.ai