Spiritual

I’m hoping from last week’s letter that you gathered a little insight that might encourage more personal resolve in your life. In life you will encounter difficulty and ‘right-mindedness’ is essential to growing through that experience. I want to expand on each takeaway so that it becomes a little more real and less a bumper sticker slogan.

Takeaway 1: Keep your eyes on the horizon. Life gets increasingly complex the older you get because you increasingly buy into things that matter and thereby take on more ownership of your life. Therefore the idea that something is difficult arises because you care – you care about your marriage, you care about your children, you care about your lifestyle, you care about your reputation, lots of things. Difficulties arise because the vision you have of your life and the reality end up being different. That tight-chested feeling of frustration occurs when reality is significantly different than your expectations. This is God’s normal process of maturing you, weaning you from naivete, toughening up your resolve, helping you gain a critically important understanding of His world-view of loving your neighbor as yourself. None of this happens without the blessing of trials. So staying focused on the long-term horizon and accepting difficulty as a natural consequence of caring about life keeps a balanced perspective which thereby provides important context to your current decision-making.

Takeaway 2: Keep moving forward. Once difficulties do arise – economic problems from a job loss, marital problems from alignment issues, parental problems regarding health, children problems from that endless bag of worries – you are confronted with a spiritual question of how to respond. The more spiritually aware and mature you are the more you “respond” than “react”. Your character, that mental/spiritual/emotional structure you’ve been developing since day 1, will come into play. Adherence to principles, integrity, perseverance, resolving to understand and see it through, patience, humility and grace are all qualities of character that will be revealed and tested during times of difficulty. The desire to escape, to quit, to have a drink, to have an affair, to flip the bird at God is not unheard of. Therefore, looking at the horizon past your difficulties acknowledges that they are short term. But the key is to keep moving forward until answers begin to materialize. Know that these challenges will end and you’ll be stronger as a result.

Takeaway 3: Be optimistic. When facing difficulty, there is a difference between suffering in stoic silence which can increase your isolation in a sort of masochistic selfishness versus being resolved and keeping your own counsel so as to not invite high school drama about superficial challenges. Take a moment to be clear on my meaning there. The difference is in the internal debate between optimism and pessimism as worn on your countenance, your face. For example, projecting your energy as a Debbie Downer intends to invite sympathy and pity. Coming home from work after a long difficult day and shifting your projected energy to one of ‘woe is me’ so that you can justify consuming your wife’s positive energy is a character issue. The internal debate is how much positive energy do you have in your tank? Do you have a little more? And a little more? The idea here is to create new and positive patterns in your life, so being aware of the internal debate between producing energy and consuming energy is vital. To respond is to remain in charge of your psycho/spiritual/mental/emotional self and not devolve into selfish reactions. This is a character issue. Keep your eye long term, keep moving forward, and control the positive internal monologue.

Takeaway 4: Produce goodness. Everyone faces takeaways 1-3. Not everyone is equipped with the understanding about life’s difficulties, the presence of mind to respond versus react, and the awareness of the incomprehensible blessing of God’s Providence. Life’s journey is largely a journey from self-care to other-care. For whatever reason, most people are hand-to-mouth in spiritual energy and consume as much goodwill as is available. Conflict and high school drama is their life. Fear, shame, helplessness, excessive ego and competition are hallmarks of this consumption. However, there is abundance available. You should fear not, worry not. Ego can be shelved because you are not in a fight or flight situation. There is a better way. In a zero sum game when there is a finite pie to split amongst the contestants, then quick competition gains more. But life is not a zero sum game. Expand the pie. Create abundance. Lift others. Zig’s “If you help enough people get what they want, you’ll get what you want” applies. Love your neighbor as you love yourself is the essence of spiritual maturity. Your capacity to grow through difficulty expands your ability to produce goodness because you see mankind for what it is – in need of your positive energy.

To your spiritual abundance,

Dave Marr

“Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense.” Winston Churchill, 1941.

On a plaque in my office I have the pith of that quote – “Never, Never, Never, Give In”.  It has served me well these 25 years of self employment. I didn’t understand that philosophy in my twenties back when the smell of my freshly minted undergraduate diploma still tingeing the air. I began my career with little experience and less idea of the road ahead, only the certainty of the blue sky of greatness. And for a dozen sun-kissed years, my life was filled with blessings.

But into every life rain must fall. My personal bias is to believe completely that the path to joy and happiness is, as James describes it, through difficulty. I’ve referenced that belief here in these letters many times. Because that belief is foundational to life. Dr. M. Scott Peck’s opening line in The Road Less Traveled is “Life is difficult.” It goes on,  “This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult – once we truly understand and accept it – then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.” 

My difficulties have been extremely small compared to many. They have been questions of business survival, nothing more. The marriage difficulties resulting from personal immaturity, role definition, languages of love, time balancing, and leadership were resolved in our late 30’s, so that extra energy could be more wisely used elsewhere. Raising children takes energy. Fortunately, we had only blessings there. In other words, a blessed life with only normal issues arising.

Because I have had my share of business difficulties, as a result I have a few takeaways that have served me well. Churchill captured perfectly in the same speech as above a mature principle that life teaches, “But we must learn to be equally good at what is short and sharp and what is long and tough”. There will be times when the Nazi’s are bombing London, Hurricane Irma winds are blowing, cancer is attacking a loved one, or the government machine is mindlessly grinding your way. But mostly life is a long pursuit of navigating circumstances, challenges interspersed with happiness and joy. Takeaway 1: Stay focused on the horizon.

That realization leads to the second takeaway, difficulty doesn’t define your character, it reveals it. A young man may not know what to do with his life. That is not uncommon. But it is to his character that he pursues movement rather than listless ennui. Direction and purpose will eventually come because the skill of navigation is easier to achieve than the engine of movement. Takeaway 2: Difficulty develops a God-blessed character of a man revealed in times that are long and tough – keep moving forward.

Takeaway 3 is about when life provides you the blessings of difficulty – smile. Not just on the outside, but on the inside. Be optimistic that in your custom-made difficulties you are blessed. Yes, this seems trite and like superficial advice, but it’s not. Everyone will be challenged. And real pain isn’t fun. Making the most of your time here on earth takes effort, so showing the world a smile keeps a positive perspective. And this leads to the last takeaway.

Mankind is divided into a spiritual spectrum of producers and consumers. The vast majority of people consume energy. They are filled with want, need, helplessness, conflict, fear, shame, negative competition, self satisfying ego, all varying degrees of consuming energy. Therefore, be a producer of well-being, maturity, grace, acceptance, help, positive cooperation/competition, and love. Difficulties are designed for you to distinguish in the pit of your resolve who you are in the act of becoming. Produce goodness, which starts in your maturing heart. This is part of the great commission in life.

If you are persevering now through some God-blessed difficulties – press on.

Dave Marr

I did not know what I wanted to do for a living when I was 24 or 25 or 26 or… when I was 35 when I started my company and only did so reluctantly. I couldn’t find another company that I agreed with in how they handled matters (compensation, integrity, my agenda*), so I was talked into starting my own company. The guy that talked me into it was going to be my 50/50 partner, but at the very end, he backed out. That scared me and I almost bagged on the whole thing. I had a wife, 3 children, a mortgage and all the responsibilities of life.  I wasn’t sure if I had it in me when it came to “go time”. I thought about it and decided that I could only fall so far.  But something else was manifesting in my life. For me, this is a subtle description and may sound strongly similar to a church message – I began to find faith.

My church experience with the use of the word “faith” has been in reference to one’s beliefs,  “I have my Faith” or the leap one takes when the outcome of an event is uncertain, “You gotta have faith” (i.e. believe it’s going to work out). Those two thoughts seem too passive to me. Those ideas have coincided with a slightly more victimizing idea “God will provide”. Maybe it’s my arrogance and ignorance (likely), but it seems to me that our purpose on this planet is neither to be independent of God’s influence nor solely dependent on it. Rather, I believe there is a dynamic element that requires our full and active participation, but also a realization that we can’t control (much of any) outcomes. Therefore, I began my company with the notion that I would put forth as much effort as I could to win the economic day, but I wouldn’t worry too much about the outcome. I would then assume that good or bad, the outcome was valuable for my development. Keep the end in mind.

So what has happened over the following 25 years to support or detract from that theory? In ‘98 the State of Colorado investigated a complaint that I was paying salespeople as independent contractors (1099). I was. They sued. I won. In ‘99, the IRS audited me due to a referral from the State of Colorado on the 1099 issue. I faced certain bankruptcy. My partners wanted to switch to W-2. This was an pressure-filled time. The outcome was seriously in doubt. The fork in the road to switch or not was fraught with painfully poor choices. But in the end, I decided that my wife loved me, my kids were healthy and loved me, I wasn’t facing a life or death choice just a future decision about car quality (in other words, it was a purely economic problem). And most importantly, I gave the outcome up to God (that sounds very churchy, but that’s all I had left in my bag). I was engaged, certainly, but focused more on my actions in the moment rather than worrying that reality was going to crush me. In other words, I remained light on worry.

Regarding the God prayer thing, I did engage every night in that quandary. Should my prayers be “Your Will be done” or “Hey Lord, please bless my desired outcome”?  In the end, I settled on “Um… God?  If you are taking into account my desires, I don’t want to be unclear here. I choose that my company succeed in this issue…Just so you know where I stand on this.  Amen.” Not super spiritual, but true nonetheless.

I told my partners (since I was majority shareholder) that we would live or die with the business model we had. Much to their immediate chagrin, we pressed on. They were much older than me, so they wouldn’t have time to recover if we lost. But, thank God, and I do, we won.  In fact, when we were sued on the same issue by the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) a couple years later, we had the IRS victory to bolster us in yet another win. So the IRS victory was huge – huh, no kidding.

Is there a difference between “having faith” when the outcome of a big event is uncertain and “acting in faith” as I’ve tried to describe? I don’t know. For me it’s been about ownership vs victimization. Every aspect of my messages in these Letters to you is about full engagement in one’s life, particularly your mental/spiritual life and learning about what God might be saying to you through circumstances. As you put forth your effort as a salaried employee, commissioned sales, or entrepreneur, you will always act to some degree in faith that your efforts will be rewarded. I believe that the more you engage God in the equation without foregoing your own responsibility in the input, you’ll see a positive result. Moreover, this belief is like a muscle, it gets stronger as you commit to it and exercise it.

To your actions in faith,

Dave Marr

* Agenda: When working for some other guy, it’s his prime objective to make money.  Maybe not solely make money, but it’s usually number one on the list.  However, it’s not uncommon for that employer to have an attitude that is not inclusive of my goals as an employee. It’s their agenda or nothing. All good as long as everyone is clear. However, I don’t think that employers should consume employees (time, passion, etc.) or abuse employees in the pursuit of their agenda as I have seen often.

Dave Marr