A Call to Action
Monday, August 11th, 2008To this day, I remember the very first seminar I ever went to for personal development.
It was a life-changing event for me, though I didn’t realize at the time to what extent. But now, being that I’m still here doing God’s work, I can only imagine where God will take me next.
On a pure gut hunch, I knew for some reason that I must attend that seminar. This is how it is for many of us. From the day I walked in to that event, I realized that I had just stepped into a different world - one that I had never been exposed to before. I can only relate it to what it must be like for a person from a third world country who comes to America for the first time. I had walked into a room that would introduce me to freedom. However, I was to eventually learn (as immigrants do) that freedom comes with a price …
The price for freedom is self-growth.
As with immigrants to this country, we must be willing to grow in a new environment in order to take full advantage of all it has to offer. We must be willing to stretch to break free of limits and constraints. As we well know, just because we are living in a place of ‘freedom’ it doesn’t necessarily mean we are safe and secure - how to be safe and secure is something else we must learn.
America truly is a great country, but it can be equally dangerous to the ignorant. Actually achieving personal freedom out of generations of self-limiting ideas and beliefs can be the same.
Just getting to the intellectual understanding or awareness that we may have those self-limiting barriers (or freedom, for that matter) is not enough. We must now DO something with that knowledge. Unfortunately, when ego rules the mind, we often find ourselves falling into the mindset that we don’t need to DO anything else … that we can simply hang out in this new freedom indefinitely and things will be different.
This mindset - this inaction - is so dangerous because personal freedom and responsibility go hand in hand.
When I first became introduced to personal development and my new freedom, I made many mistakes that took a long time to correct because I was too confident in my own ignorance. Thankfully, one day I heard a brilliant man tell his story about being broke, drunk and sleeping in a phone booth in Quebec - without a word of French in his vocabulary. He placed himself in a situation that seemed dire; a situation in which he needed the most help and yet couldn’t even ask for it because of a language barrier. He realized in that moment that he was afraid to ask for help. His fear gripped him and scared him so much that he couldn’t face it, so he shoved a false confidence in its place to protect him from the evils of the world. He didn’t realize until that night what he had done and how this false-confidence was leading him down a road of total disaster. He surrendered that false identity right there, that night there in the phone booth in Quebec, and today is a very successful individual who has change millions of lives on the planet.
He finally took responsibility, took action, asked for real help and then allowed someone to support him.
When I left that first seminar, I too had a false arrogant, scared identity leading the way. Though I didn’t end up drunk in a phone booth, I probably would have had I not later heard this man’s story and come to the realization that all my decisions were being made out of fear.
Here was a man placed right in front of me to guide me through my journey and bring out the best in me and yet, I had more excuses than I care to count as valid reasons not to let him. But I learned that every reason “why I shouldn’t” was also a reason “why I should”.
This first “why I shouldn’t” line of thinking keeps you where you are and leads you down a false road. But the second line of thinking, the “why I should”, leads to more life and the true abundance of the universe.
Consider this question…
“Who did God place in your life as a guide, mentor, coach or teacher?”
If you can get yourself out of the way, that person can lead you to places you may never have even dreamed about. But the responsibility - the action - for beginning the journey is solely yours.

