When your platform, your responsibility level or a significant moment of opportunity, or even a tough time is bigger than your mental conditioning and your personal character development, the truth about who you are is going to be exposed; that's just the way it works to be a human.
Your mental conditioning and personal character development must continue to grow along with your responsibilities and platform. When you’re not working on your character development while developing mindset tools, training your body, and growing spiritually, you will unwittingly find yourself in a moment that is too big for you because you're not balanced in your development as a person.
You’ve heard me say we should be living our lives with emotion and momentum, not because of emotion and momentum. “Because of emotion” is a reaction generated from overwhelming feelings. “With emotion” is a response based on doing the work to be prepared for that moment. “Because of” emotion happens in the big moment when there is more pressure and feeling than we know how to handle and we are exposed, or “the truth finds us out.”
Ok, so how do you get started doing this personal character development? The first question you have to answer is, “Am I enough?”. The big moments expose us when we don't feel like we are enough. As a human, we have this desire or need to be affirmed, to be liked, to be acknowledged. If you go into a big moment without a developed, solid sense and understanding of your personal identity, you're going to automatically end up over on the emotional side of things because of emotion and because of momentum.
The second issue is getting into a big moment and being a person who is easily offended. Being offended means, you are not good enough with your words. Many things can offend us, but no matter what somebody says or does, a developing and growing person can be in control of their response. That’s the key here, how you respond. In the big moments, if you react from the feeling of offense because of emotion, it means you have not developed the language for your personal identity and core values, your words aren't good enough, you haven’t done the mental conditioning to have the ability to respond with words, with thoughts that are more developed than the emotion of being offended in that big moment, and the truth about your personal character is revealed.
In the big moments when we don’t feel like we are enough or we react based on feeling offended, one of two things happen. We say or do something that later we regret, or we freeze and don’t say or do anything, and later, after reflecting on the moment, what we wished we would have said or done is clear to us.
What just happened to Will Smith is a perfect example of what I’m talking about. Denzel Washington said to Will, “The devil comes for you in your highest moments,” and that's analogous to what I’m talking about here when I say, “Be sure that the truth will find you.” Can you imagine if Will would’ve had the ability or been prepared for that big moment? If he would’ve accepted the Oscar and turned to Chris Rock and spoke power-filled, thoughtful words about the responsibility he believes he has as a husband and a father to protect his wife, family, and community instead of slapping Chris and with tear-filled eyes simply saying “Love makes you do crazy things.”
I can’t know what’s in Will’s heart, but based on his previous public track record and what I want to believe about him, I think he is a good man. He believes the things he was trying to say in his acceptance speech, but damn it, he missed a significant opportunity to challenge and encourage so many people that look up to him. Because his platform is so big, it’s worldwide; his responsibilities are considerable. We are all negatively affected as a society and a culture when we see our leaders and heroes fail in these big moments.
Each of us as individuals has and will face this same kind of test in our own lives; it’s a part of the human experience. Do the mental conditioning necessary to respond from a clear understanding of your personal identity and values. Do the work to define yourself, and be prepared for the opportunity or adversity headed your way! S&H!
Keep Coming Forward
Jimmy H.
