Let’s Get Engaged!

People never lose the ability to dream, we just quit doing it. If that’s you, it’s time to start dreaming again!

As children, dreaming about the future life we want to live is something that comes naturally. As we grow and mature, we experience life–hardships, disappointments and pain. Because of these things we stop dreaming.

Very often we get knocked down. We suffer loss and disappointment. We tend to give up on those dreams.  I know. If you have heard or read my story before, you know I have suffered many losses. I have been beaten up, beaten down, knocked over, and had the rug pulled out from under my feet. By the time I reached my early 40’s, I decided staying down was easier than getting up again. Because I had made so many mistakes, bad choices, and had things happen to me–some as a direct result of my choices, and some that were beyond my control–I had adopted a victim mentality.

Now I know failure is something that happens, but it is not who we are. It is not what defines us unless we choose to allow it to.

In November of 2005, my older brother came in town to run the Richmond Marathon. After the marathon, my brother said something to me that completely changed my life. He didn’t know the impact his words would have on me. All he said was, “Bruce, you should run a marathon.” I laughed at him! I thought that was the most ridiculous thing I had ever heard! I was overweight and out of shape. I worked from home. I didn’t even like to drive 26.2 miles unless I was going on vacation! Then he said, “The hardest thing about running a marathon is making the decision to try!”

That was the beginning of my story of personal transformation. I didn’t start marathon training the next day, but I reengaged my life in a way I hadn’t before. I thought to myself, if my older brother can run marathons, I can at least join a gym and get in better shape so I can play with my boys without getting tired.

In the process of exercising, I realized the only way I was going to make some physical changes in my life was actually to make mental changes. My brother’s words came crashing like a wave down on top of me. “The hardest thing about running a marathon is making the decision to try.” His words made me realize, though there would always be things in my life beyond my control, I was not a victim unless I chose to be a victim.

I learned there were many things I could actively control. I could always control the way I perceived what happened to me, the story that I told myself about my life.

The difficult things I had experienced–the hard relationships, financial difficulties, losses, death of a child–had convinced me I was being punished by God! But I wasn’t.

The things you think were sent to break you, may be the very things sent to make you who you are meant to be. Instead of things that have come to destroy you, they are things that have come into your life to refine the gold you are made of. They are a course correction to get you off a path that was not meant for you.

God is constantly guiding us in the direction we should go. Sometimes those paths are painful, but there is always a purpose. Sometimes we veer away and go down a path of our own choosing and God places people or situations in our path to move us back to the path He meant for us.

There is no such thing as rejection. There is only protection. There is no such thing as failure, there is only data.

You get what was meant for you. Times of rejection or failure were really protection. The failures have made you smarter, they have given you data you can use in the future. The things I used to think were mistakes, were not mistakes. They were part of me becoming who I needed to become. Without them I wouldn’t be saying the things I need to say to you today.

One of my favorite songs is Home by Rich Mullins. He describes being caught in a storm outside at night and is scared for his life. When the storm is over he sees what he survived.

“Everything that could be shaken was shaken, now all that remains is all I ever really had.”

How do you evaluate the aftermath of a storm in your life? When the storms of life come, you may lose many things–relationships, people, health, even the clothes on your back. But if you are still alive, you have what it takes to rebuild and create a life better than you ever imagined. The song goes on to say:

“What I’d have settled for, you’ve blown so far away. What you brought me to I thought I could not reach.”

That’s my life. I never dreamed I would be a life coach with hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter and Facebook. Thousands of people, every day, are listening to my podcast in 180 countries around the world. This is a life I never dreamed I would have. I thought life would just be the storms. The song goes on:

“Now the things you sent to shake me, become the wings you sent to take me to my home.”

Though he didn’t know it, what my brother was really saying to me almost 10 years ago in the darkest part of my life was “Bruce, it’s time to get up. It’s time to engage. It’s time to dance this dance of life. Make the most of it. Time to stop being the victim and live the life that you want, instead of accepting and dreading the life you get.”

Now I’m back in the game. I have reengaged with life and I realize I am on the journey I was meant to be on. The storms you are going through right now are stripping away the things you are not supposed to have, making room for the things you ARE meant to have.

I know you’re tired. I know you’re hurting and afraid to get back in the game. There is always a risk you might be hurt again.

Do it anyway.

I need you, your loved ones need you, and the world needs you to re-engage with life, with love and with the dance of living. Let’s do it! Let’s get engaged!

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You may also listen to me talk about this on my “Life Is A Marathon” podcast: LIAM 094 – Let’s Get Engaged!