How do WE Make the World a Better Place?

Every week I’m in mastermind call. I open in a word of prayer, you know I don’t want to ever force my faith on anyone else, but for me it reminds me that there’s something bigger than me involved in what I do every single day. I always pray something similar at the end of the prayer, “God, help us to make the world a better place.” There’s also a lot of, “Hey, help us challenge and encourage one another, then help us to go out there and make this world a better place.”

After opening, I say, “Man, so this thought of how do we make the world a better place now?” Here’s how it works for me… because in our world today, there are a lot of people. If you ask them How they are doing, they will answer with I’m good. But we don’t know what is behind the “I’m good.” My pastor has this thing he says all the time, “You don’t know what it costs to be someone else.” That is quotable. We really don’t know what’s behind those smiles, we don’t know what it costs to be someone else, because there are a lot of hurting, desperate, scared people.

In one of the mastermind calls, we had this conversation… There are people covering up life with smiles and they are hopeless, overwhelmed, stressed, in pain and in anguish. We are talking about a lot of people. And so what do we give to people who are desperate but they are not telling us that they’re hurting and scared on the inside? But that’s a little harder to cover and put into words. So let’s think about how we can make the world a better place.

HOW CAN WE MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE?

Because here’s what I would say, if you are reading this… YOU’RE FREAKING AWESOME! You’re not normal because you are committed to becoming the best version of yourself. And you’ve got some tools, you’ve got resources within your community that you’re a part of. You’ve been doing some work like other people haven’t been doing some work.

I’m not disregarding that some of you today might feel hurt on the inside and that you’ve been covering it up with smailes, but I’m going to go with the fact that you have more to give than you realize. And I want to remind you that the people out there, the people that you’re interacting with, whether it is friends, family, neighbors, strangers at the grocery store… They need what you have to give.

And today is not about getting you better, it is in some way but it is more about what you and I hav4 to give back to everyone else. So I am going to give you five things and I just want you to register in your mind and pick which one of these five things you need to give more of this week. Maybe even starting today!

FIVE Things We can Give More of to Make this World a Better Place

MORE GRACE

Grace is giving someone something they don’t deserve. Like mercy is not giving them what they do deserve. My son deserved to be grounded for life, but I didn’t give him what he deserved because I’m merciful. Grace is, even though he did something wrong and I’m going to give him something, not because he deserves it but because I love him. Because I can. Because I want to give a free gift that he didn’t earn, he didn’t deserve it, he didn’t merit it… that’s what grace is.

So in a world where there is division, strife, pain and judgement, what if you gave grace instead of jumping into these places of division. What if instead you gave grace? What if you gave forgiveness? What if every room you walked into instead of judging or separating, you said I am just going to give grace?

GIVE JOY

I love Brendon Burchard’s book High Performance Habits. And he talks about a “door trigger” where every time he walks through a door frame, he says his mantra and his mantra is: I BRING THE JOY. Listen, there is joy on the inside of you and you need to give it away. People need the joy that is on the inside of you. It could be as simple as playing more with your kids, telling more jokes, being funny, making people laugh a little bit more. It could be during a hard circumstance finding something to be grateful for. So bring more joy, give more joy.

GIVE ENCOURAGEMENT

Even better, give unsolicited encouragement. YOu know how to celebrate wins. Some people don’t know how to do that and they need you to help find it for them. Find them making progress. Say, “Remember where you were or when you were here… You’re not there anymore. Look at where you are today!”

Give encouragement: find your kids getting it right, find someone else getting it right. You could not imagine the difference your words make. You make the decision to say, I’m going to give more encouragement.

GIVE HOPE

There’s a whole love of hopelessness in the world. And people don’t know if it’s going to work out. Listen people, you don’t have to lie and say everything is going to be just fine. You don’t really know, but for me, my hope is in Jesus, because this whole world is going to shake and fall to nothing. But I’ve got a firm foundation, a rock in my life that is immovable, unshakeable.

So that’s why I try to give Jesus to people because that’s a hope that doesn’t disappoint now. Like if it is not your thing, you can still give hope by saying, you know what, I can’t tell you it is all going to work out but I can tell you but I can tell you I’ll be there to walk with you, I’m going to support you, love you. And you know what, somehow, good is going to come out of that. I firmly believe that. I have a very firm conviction that life is happening for me, not to me.

So I can give somebody that hope and say, “Hey, some good can come out of this. I know it sucks. I know it hurts. I know it is painful. But there is hope that some good can come out of it if you choose to see that.

GIVE SPACE

This is a good one. How many of you are extraverted? You probably feel uncomfortable with silence. And you get your tank filled by being around other people; talking and interacting. So this one is a little hard for the other extraverts, like myself in the room. This one is actually extra hard but giving space for people to be honest, real, and to tell them it’s okay to not be okay. You don’t have to talk all together, you don’t have to act like it is easy, you can give space and have space.

That’s why I say, sometimes we’ve got to hold our tongue when someone’s talking to us and we want to give them the answer that’s a;ready in our head. You know we have got a five step process, and sometimes they don’t need that. They just need space. They might just need to be heard. And other times, they just need the silence.

Sometimes you can give someone space. Like I know you are thinking, well, if they would just do this, don’t give it to them. Give them space by asking questions: Have you ever thought about this? Is there a different way maybe you could think about it? What’s the outcome you are going after? And depending on how close you are to them, you could ask, so how is that serving you? And then give them space to answer on their own.

Sometimes giving them space means giving them a shoulder to cry on, a hug, or just being there in that space.

HOW DO YOU WANT TO MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE?

You can give grace. You can give joy. You can give encouragement. You can give hope. You can give space. Everyone of you reading this has the capabilities of giving those things to the world. You just have to set the intention. And we have got to realize we have a responsibility to step up and to give more. I don’t think anyone would argue that the world couldn’t use more of these things.

Make a commitment to yourself right now by dropping a comment, writing in your journal, something about how you are going to make the world a better place! So which one of these are you going to give more of this week?

So go out there and give your greatness to the world because somebody needs what’s on the inside of you.