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Tomorrow can be different from today.
Our lives often leave us feeling hopeless—like nothing will ever change. But perspective is everything. When you know where to look, hope can be found in the spaces and places you least expect.
Join Jason Gore (Lead Pastor of Hope Community Church) for a fresh perspective, practical steps, and weekly encouragement that hope really is possible… even in real life.
The root of the problem is
that we are questioning our identity and God's authority.
And that informs so much about our life.
When we live in pride, we live in comparison.
We live in insecurity, we live in entitlement. Yep.
Um, because outside, you know, the,
the church world pride is a positive.
You should be proud of yourself.
You should be confident in those things.
And then in the upside down world of the Christian faith,
it is just a, it's a little bit different than that.
Yeah. It's, you should lead be as Jesus did. Yeah.
And who, you know, humbled
himself to the point of death on the cross.
Yeah.
Welcome to the Hope and Real Life podcast with Jason Gore.
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and committed to bringing you more hope in the everyday
real areas of your life.
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to share a little bit of hope as someone else.
Let's get the conversation started.
What's going on? Hope in real life family.
So glad to be here with you on this episode
where we are talking about pride.
Now look, before you turn this off,
let, let me say this really quickly.
If you think I don't need to hear a conversation about
Pride, you might wanna stick
around just a little bit longer.
That's good. Okay. I'm here with my good friend Matt Curtis,
co-host Bradford Mitchell.
I paused because I said in our last two episodes
that we filmed that we had David Goggins here
to talk about self-control. And you're
Trying to think of somebody else, Dr.
Dr. Phil, here to talk about love.
Uh, I don't really know who the person is.
I, I can't say Jesus. Jesus. I can't say it. Can't say it.
Big topic of conversation, man.
Pervasive in our culture, whether we know it or not.
Mm-hmm. Bradford.
Yeah. What do you got for us?
Pride's an interesting thing.
Uh, it's one of those things that like, we probably would
look at somebody else pretty easily
and be like, they're a little prideful.
Yeah. But it's at times that we don't, at least I,
I'll say it, you know, maybe don't leave me hanging out on
the ledge boys, but I, I, I think it's hard for me to
recognize when I'm being prideful.
Yep. Uh, and about the one person that you
Actually brought your wife into the studio.
I was, I was literally, she's literally
About to say, the one person that won't make me fme
with anger if something is said about
how I'm reacting is actually my wife.
Uh, if you want to know more about that,
you should check out the episode we did on love.
Okay. Alright. Alright. But, okay.
So we gotta start at the basis. What, what would pride be?
What do we identify that as?
And I don't think, I think everybody kind of knows,
but let's just start that as a baseline
before we get going. Yeah.
Matt, you wanna take a swing first?
Or you want me to jump outta the gate? Oh, sure.
Let's let, let It rip up. New guy. Let's go.
I am a new guy. Thanks for having me.
Glad to be here when, uh, this is
Matt Curtis, good friend of mine, uh,
campus pastor at our Fuqua campus of our church.
And actually, uh, not to make you prideful about this,
but in my mind, you carry yourself
as one of the more humble guys. Uh oh. I
Thought I was a subject matter expert
On Pride. Yeah, That's
what I came here in
Humility. So why don't you go unveil
Max. What do we got?
Curtis, new book, humility and how I
Achieved it. He asked if I could, uh,
come in and do this,
and she, you know, time and date, and I said, sure.
Uh, my schedule says yes. My insecurity says no.
And I said, what's, what are we talking about?
And she said, well, pride and insecurity. Oh, all right.
Here we are. Uh, no, I think,
I think pride is, it's a wicked thing.
And it is, it's, everybody has some element of pride.
I think whenever, um, I mean,
you could see back into the garden.
That's where pride happens.
I think anytime we act in pride, the root of the problem
is that we are questioning our identity and God's authority.
And that informs so much about our life.
When we live in pride, we live in comparison.
We live in insecurity, we live in entitlement. Yep.
Um, because outside, you know, the,
the church world pride is a positive.
You should be proud of yourself.
You should be confident in those things.
And then in the upside down world of the Christian faith,
it is just, uh, it's a little bit different than that.
Yeah. It's, you should lead be as Jesus did. Yeah.
And who, you know, humbled
himself to the point of death on the cross.
Yeah. You know, and just for our listeners that might not
spend a whole lot of time reading the Bible, uh, Matt,
what Matt said was, you see it in the garden.
So in the Bible, like in the very beginning,
when God creates the heavens and the earth, he puts Adam
and Eve as first two creative beings in a garden.
And, uh, says, Hey, you can eat from any tree. Mm-hmm.
Anything in the garden that you want except
for this one thing,
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
And then the serpent shows up the bad guy. Mm-hmm.
And basically says, listen, no, no, no,
you're not gonna die if you eat from this.
God just knows if you eat from it, you're gonna be like him.
Mm-hmm. And so then they start to believe this lie
that maybe they know better than God.
Right. And if you ever get to a place
where you think maybe you know better than God,
check yourself, that's probably the time
to think maybe I'm
struggling before you wreck yourself the pride.
Yeah. Uh, you know, for me, I think pride is just this, um,
the ugly rearing of its head of a conflated
or overinflated view of self.
Yeah. And we look at, um, that's good.
Well, you know, when you, when you, you live enough years
and I got put by God's grace, hopefully I'll have many more.
But you, you see it and you experience it,
and you look in the mirror long enough
and you're like, oh, I know what your problem is.
Uh, but you know, because you even said the word confidence.
I mean, the truth is we do need confidence. Mm-hmm.
I mean, using as a, as a coach for other people, um,
you know, you, you want people to have confidence,
but just having confidence in the right things.
Right. In the right places. In the right spaces.
And, and I would even say, uh,
having confidence in your ability to listen
and hear feedback from other people Yeah.
And be able to run it through a good filter is,
is, is important.
But yeah. When we have this overinflated,
this conflated view of self mm-hmm.
That's when things start breaking down.
That's when we start getting into places of, well,
I think I'm pretty good at this.
I deserve, and this person should, and this person should
and should meet my needs.
And man, you see things go south pretty quickly. Yeah.
I think there's a couple different definitions of pride.
Uh, and I particularly want to ask you, Jason,
'cause both of you are parents, your dad's, so there's
that aspect of this, but there's like
pride as a heart posture.
Like we're talking about like how maybe the world views it.
Uh, like, I'm amazing, I'm awesome. I know my stuff.
That's, that's kind of what we're getting at.
We'll get there. But what would you say, like,
how is it different when we tell the kids we coach?
Like, what, let's talk about that real quick.
Like how is that Okay.
What's the difference in like saying you have pride
for your children or the kids on your team?
Yeah. Like, 'cause that's a different thing.
That, that's a, that's a completely different thing.
So what would you say, like as a coach, how do you kind
of like draw like draw that line or balance that,
You know, I think, I think you,
you separate 'em out in terms of if pride
and confidence are different in
that you do have confidence in your abilities,
you do have confidence that I would say like, as followers
of Christ, that's our confidence should be in
what God can do through us.
Yeah. Mm-hmm. But you, you know,
the longer you follow Christ, you realize, hey,
that actually means that I'm not all that great.
The Bible tells us is when we're at our weakest,
that God is steps in
and brings his strength and we're the strongest.
And so, but with, you know, with an athlete
or when we're doing anything at work,
whether it's working on a presentation, going in front
of a boss, you know, you, you do need to know like, Hey,
I'm here because I have something to say.
Right. God did not create me, um, void
of any gifting purpose, um, responsibility to fulfill.
Like he created me for a reason.
And so realizing, no, no, I am here for a purpose.
Um, I can have confidence in that purpose.
I can have confidence in my giftings.
Um, you know, my dad used to say, A dog
that won't wag his own tail ain't worth having.
And to some degree you need to know,
like you do have some purpose.
But I would say the line gets drawn when it starts
negatively impacting other people around you
or forces you to take a negative view of other people.
Mm-hmm. And so there, it's when you start to believe, um,
yourself, so great that you don't, um, have to listen to,
um, take feedback from recognize your interdependence, um,
on the other people around you, I think
that's when, you know, like, wait a minute.
Okay. Maybe pride is, is starting to sneak into an, it, it,
that confidence has moved to a prideful place.
Mm-hmm. Uh, that's gonna lead to some negative results.
Yeah.
Yeah. So being, being, uh, being proud
of someone is a is more about confidence
and encouragement versus when you act proud yourself
and then you start, you start causing damage and, right.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
So what, what would, uh, what would y'all say is
like, why is it harmful?
Like, what, let's, let's like, unpack that part.
Like what, what can end up happening if we go down there?
Because I think, I know for me, I'm a, I'm a visual learner.
So explaining to me, don't press the red button
and just, that's all you say.
I'm like, yeah, but now I need to know what happens. Right.
So what would we kind of say is the reasons why?
I think it's maybe obvious, but again,
I think it's important to really like lay it
out so we know what's happening.
I'll go in and I'll let Matt, I mean, at the, at the end
of the day, I would say
what Pride does is it destroys lives.
Mm-hmm. I mean, period.
Now let's 'cause that, 'cause we've jumped
to the end of the conversation.
Let's, let's, that's true. You know, that's So go ahead.
You know, push the button, what happens. Yeah.
At the end of the day, it destroys lives
because we get to this place where we start
to really believe, um, our ways are always the best.
That we're more important than other people.
Other people need to bow down to us.
Um, our personal preferences are more important.
That takes away our ability to go through life
with this we over me attitude, which is necessary, um,
for any, when I say we over me,
I mean like the collective we is more important than my
own personal preferences.
But man, if you, you know, you, you, if you write
and read your own press clippings long enough Yeah.
Uh, that can take you to a place to where you, um,
you're standing there by yourself.
Right. And whether that's a broken marriage, a broken home,
an organization where people don't wanna follow you,
a family filled with a wife
and a kids that don't respect you, um,
because you haven't shown them the love
and care that you, that they actually deserve.
Um, man, that's, that's a dark place. Mm-hmm.
Yeah. I agree. I think it's, uh,
pride is such a insulated experience.
It's isolated. It's you against the world.
And even if you have things to be confident about, things
that you're proud of, I mean, I am extremely proud
to be married to my wife.
I'm proud of my kids.
At the same time, uh, pride, I think,
bleeds into this spiderweb of other problems to where,
you know, I've got two kids, nine and seven,
and, uh, I'm proud of to be their father.
I'm proud of them. And at the same time,
I will look at my kids and their academic struggles
and I'll compare them to other people.
Uh, and I think, what am I doing wrong?
That they're having a hard time with basic math.
I, I look at their, you know, socialization.
Um, like, man, we're having,
he has a few friends, why doesn't he have more friends?
Yeah. And we just start to expand out this comparison game
of like, why am I not doing something right.
Uh, which bleeds into like some
insecurities as me as a father.
Um, I don't know if you've experienced this as a parent,
but, um, you even compare your own parenting
to how you were parented.
Well, my dad wouldn't put up with this
Crap. Yeah.
Right. Is that all right? That
That's okay.
He now, now, um, but so how should I respond?
But I'm a unique individual.
I'm different than my father was. It's a different home.
It's a unique family.
Um, and pride can destroy those things if I just go, this is
how I'm supposed to react.
Yeah. Um, based on some kind of expectation.
That's probably not even true.
Matt, you mentioned your, uh, your home.
You mentioned your kids. Um,
I'd love if you'd be willing to share a story.
Like what's the most prideful thing Jillian's ever done?
I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, uh, man, lemme tell you this.
My wife, uh, was pulled over yesterday
Doing it. Oh, he's, ah, man.
Okay. It's not prideful.
This is the confidence my wife has in herself.
She's pulled over a bunch of different people.
It was like a, you know, what do they call it
whenever everybody's getting pulled over?
Uh, traffic, not traffic
Speed. Traffic stop speed. Trap
speed.
Speed trap. It was a speed trap. Speed trap.
She got busted. Uh, me, she was so fired up
because she was not wrong.
You know, my wife has a ton of confidence.
I can't, I mean, I, I don't know if you're trying to turn
that on me and share a story of my own pride or
No, no. I just thought it
would be funny to actually ask the
question and see if you'd be, Hey man,
silly enough to go down that road.
That's how we roll. Okay.
So Ja uh, Jason's done that
to me a couple times too, so I, he's good.
Alright. So what would, I think the obvious thing here
is the opposite of pride would be humility.
Mm-hmm. So let's, like how we, if we're feeling, I mean, we,
there's a lot of directions we can take this thing.
So opposite of pride, then humility.
What does that look like to you?
Uh, a guy by the name of Tim Keller wrote a book one time,
and I cannot remember the name of it.
Uh, we, we'll try to track
it down and put it in the show notes.
Great little read. But he talks about,
and this is really where I got the realization of
what I said earlier, pride, um,
confidence sneaks over into pride when it obviously starts
impacting how you view other people.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um, so this conflated view of yourself
and the constantly thinking
of yourself makes you think of others less.
Mm-hmm. Um, but he said, humility and what we should seek.
It's not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking
of yourself less. Yeah.
That's good. And, uh,
when we're focusing our attention on other people
and this, um, interdependence that we all have
with one another, it takes your eyes off of yourself.
And so now you're not asking the same questions anymore.
You're not approaching the, the game, so to speak,
with the same mentality of my personal preferences,
my desires, how does this benefit me?
And you're thinking about, Hey, how can I
confidently use the talents, abilities, giftings hard work
that I put in ultimately for all the people around me
to accomplish what it is that
we're trying to accomplish. Mm-hmm.
The freedom of self forgetfulness. Yeah. That's it.
The freedom of self forgetfulness by Tim Keller.
Man. There you go. Okay. Matt,
What was the question?
We're talking about pride, it's the opposite.
Opposite of pride would, most likely must
assuredly be humility,
Not the power of forgetfulness, the power self
Forgetfulness. Well done,
man, girl plate.
No, I mean, I think humility is, uh, it's hard.
I think it is extremely hard to live a life of humility
because we, I mean, just in our nature,
we think we deserve things
that we don't necessarily deserve.
We think we've earned things. I mean, we are
in our nature, I think entitled.
And a lot of times I feel like, especially culturally,
we'll just, we'll look at a younger generation, gen Z,
and then just broadly say, man, these kids can't do nothing.
Um, they, they're spoiled.
Think about the greatest generation,
which somebody told me this morning about that.
And you're like, man, we have, all of us have a sense
of privilege that we do not understand
to be breathing the air, to be serving our families
or leading different things.
And, uh, humility is such a key.
And you have to fight for it. You have to know who you are.
I mean, there's so much that wrapped up in identity.
Um, if my identity's in my job and my resources
and money in the bank, the house that I have, the cars
that I have influence, that I have, um, like all
of that will destroy you.
Hmm. Um, and it is hard to fight
for the right mentality about thinking of others more,
um, than yourself,
Man, that you, okay.
So let's just go down that track.
You're, you're talking about like culture
and what it looks like today.
Mm-hmm. I mean, there's Instagram, social media overall,
it's like, it's, it's like people,
we only show our highlights.
Right. And culture kind of just shows that like, winning is
what is important in life.
Mm-hmm. So culture, culture's, view of pride versus like
what we would say is more important is the,
the scriptural view of how we should hold ourselves.
Sure. Um, let's go down there.
'cause like you set that up perfectly with, you know,
I have these cars, I have these things,
this other generation.
I mean, that's kind of, that, that's just,
I've experienced it in some ways too.
Mm-hmm. Like, you know, seeing other
people talk like that to me.
All this stuff. Jason, you,
you look like you were either ready
To go. I think, I think
with, um, You know,
if we're talking about from a biblical,
biblical perspective, uh, at the end of the day, you,
you can't go through scripture
and then not look in the mirror
and realize, hey, all of us are broken.
Mm-hmm. All of us have our junk. Um, none of us are perfect.
And I've, I've heard it said many times, um, the,
the ground is very level at the foot of the cross.
Yeah. And so, when you go through life, if you can go
through life with this perspective of, listen, my,
my brokenness is ultimately what led to the son
of God hanging on a cross
and dying for the forgiveness of my sins.
Mm-hmm. It's hard for me to stand in the presence
of Matt Curtis and really believe
that I'm all that better than he is.
Mm-hmm. Um, because the reality is we're,
we're both jacked up, we're both broken, we're both beat up.
We've all, we've all got inadequacies.
And, um, and so I think that mentality is what's going
to ultimately lead us away from
a prideful I know better than God.
And so therefore everybody else that I interact with in life
and realize, no, no, no.
I actually had to be saved for myself. Hmm.
I don't even even have the ability to save myself. Yeah.
And so how do I really think that I have the ability
to know what's best, um,
or to be better than everybody else around me. Yeah.
Yeah. Wow. And to your question, I mean, social media,
I mean, you look at the story of Zuckerberg
and why they started this stuff, it was
to connect people to one another.
Mm-hmm. And I mean, it's poison. It just divides us.
We see what's going on. Yeah.
Somebody else's life on a different trip,
in a different place doing different things.
And it's literally, it's the highlight reel.
Um, and we compare ourselves to that.
And I mean, then we start thinking of ourselves differently
and making different efforts to accomplish things, trying
to impress people that we don't even know.
Yeah. You know, on a relational level. So that's all I,
I'm pretty sure our next episode is actually gonna be on
comparison and kind of the trap of comparison.
Yeah. And so we, we will dig deeper into that. Nice. Yeah.
You know, in the next episode. So if you're,
if you're intrigued by that perfect setup,
if you're intrigued by that, there you go.
Just finish this episode and then you can jump right over.
Uh, hang tight.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
So let's get, I think it's important when we do this too,
we're talking about what it is,
what we shouldn't do and all that.
Um, and we try to do this in every episode if we're
addressing some like, big topic mm-hmm.
Like practical things.
And it's real easy to say, like, follow Jesus.
But I think back to the red button thing, like, like I need,
I need practical ways myself.
Um, what would be anybody got some practical ways
to identify and or address pride?
Yeah. I, I do. I I I think so.
But can I, I wanna say something though,
and let's come back to that just
before we switch gears completely.
Yeah, absolutely. I was, and this is why this is important
because, and, and there is a tension, even
what you just said about social media a minute ago, Matt,
what ha what's happened in our culture is, as opposed
to people spending time in a dialogical format like this,
just sitting around talking and hearing different
and multiple perspectives mm-hmm.
We now spend more time.
I mean, we legitimately, look,
I'm not pointing fingers in anybody.
Most Americans, Bradford, most Americans
spend more time in their social media feeds than they do
in dialogue.
Yeah. Well, what our social media feeds do
with an algorithm is put us in echo chambers
that make us think that everybody that's saying
thinking the way that we do, um, is all in agreement.
Mm-hmm. And so therefore,
then when we go out into the real world,
well it's not really like that.
Okay. And so it's diminished our ability to do that.
So one, you just gotta recognize that like we live,
so we can talk about taking practical steps,
but it is going to be hard.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Uh, we're fighting against a lot.
That's one thing. The other thing I read,
so I don't remember who sent it to me,
but I was reading an article the other day that's like,
it was pointing out how the majority
of the top leaders in just about every industry
would show some pretty significant strengths or,
or traits in the areas of ego and even narcissism.
Mm-hmm. And so there is something to
being that confident and borderline prideful.
Like, to the point like narcissism is like this idea
of living in a false reality.
Right. Like, so much so when you speak things,
it's like an alternate universe,
but you speak about it with so much confidence,
you really believe it yourself to the point
of when other people don't believe you,
it's almost like well gaslight them.
'cause they're clearly not living in this reality when the
truth is that's not even the real world.
But we see those types of traits
push people to the top.
And then, I mean, then you can start
to develop like a true borderline personality disorder if
that's what I'm supposed to do,
if I'm supposed to be successful.
Right. We don't see the Jesus of Nazareth saying, well,
I'm gonna be willing to turn away from my throne
in heaven, come down to earth.
I'm gonna turn around, I'm gonna turn away from Yes.
I could establish a kingdom on earth right now. Yes.
I'm gonna call down angels to pull me off a cross
and willingly, um, lay down their life.
We don't see that that's not what's modeled right now
in standard leadership.
Yeah. And we don't even need
to get into the current political scene right now.
Right. To, to see that. Right.
So I just, let's get into some practicals,
but let's also realize you gotta be serious about this.
Yeah. Because you got a lot
of stuff coming at you saying that ain't the way to do it.
Oh yeah. We could, I don't think we could talk
for hours about this idea of pride.
And I mean, we, you see the example of Lucifer,
he was like a worship leader in like heaven
basically got full of himself.
There's parallels you could draw there.
And like he fell from heaven. It's pretty intense.
Like, I mean, the Bible is full of description
after description of people who, who showcased
how pride got the best of them.
Yeah. Um, so I mean, just if we're talking about anything
baby steps just to identify
and to kind of help combat even in the littlest way,
like what we could do. 'cause it's, it's hard.
You gotta have people around you that are willing
to speak the truth to you.
Mm-hmm. You gotta have people in your life that are willing
to say, Hey, I hear what you're saying,
but um, I'm gonna give you a different perspective.
Mm-hmm. Or I'm gonna remind you
that your stuff does stink every day.
And then Right. Um, um, some of us call
that person our wives.
Mm-hmm. Uh, and so, but I mean, I'm telling you,
I've met men before that, uh, that have wives
that act like their husbands are God's gift to this world.
Yeah. And on one hand, there's some places where
that's very important and problem,
her name is Jillian, but I
Mean, that's Matt's Wife in those, in those moments,
um, like I've also seen
that do some really dangerous things mm-hmm.
To guys as well. And so like really creating an environment
where people close to you in life, um, can speak into you.
Yeah. And that means oftentimes like to, to not only listen,
but to go against what you originally thought or said.
Um, that's a learned behavior that, that when you do, but,
and, and then, but when you start to do that
and then you see, oh, wait a minute, there was a payoff
of trust mm-hmm.
And that, and there was some benefit from it,
then it makes it all the more easy.
So I would say being willing to have some people around you
that will speak the truth to you
and that you actually listen to what they say, um, is,
is a great first step.
Yeah. It could be.
You're saying that the first thing I thought it's like,
I think part of why it's hard for us to listen
to other people speak into us is something against us.
And I, I know, like, for me, that's like my thought.
Like if I feel like somebody's trying to help me,
I'm thinking that they think that I'm a terrible person.
When in actuality, like if we were to just receive that,
like, that person's not worth listening to
for the reason they're trying to help
you is for their own benefit.
And that's a different thing. Sure.
But like, receiving help and checks
and balances in our life,
like if we're like in an echo chamber
that you're talking about, or we got blinders on mm-hmm.
We're missing out on growth and opportunities
and for deeper relationships.
Like, there's a lot of things
that can spring from just being okay
with letting people speak into our lives and that.
So, I mean, that's just, that's something I struggle with
directly, just to be real.
It's just letting other people speak into my life.
Yeah. I think, uh, I mean,
to intentionally pursue humility,
what it ends up doing is it removes the
transactional part of relationships.
I I trust you, you can speak into my life
and I don't need anything from you.
Hmm. Or I'm living a life where I'm, I'm here to help you.
I'm here to make my wife's life better, the people I lead,
uh, my community better, how can I serve you guys?
And that, uh, it's an identity stuff,
but it removes pride from you.
But it takes a sense of intentionality around humility.
Um, and that way you're not, as Keller said,
whatever he said about thinking of others more thinking.
Yes. That's Right.
You guys got anything else? I wanna, I just wanna, like,
we can't be here for like three hours,
but I mean, there's gotta be, there's,
there's lots of things we could attack.
I think another, uh, another thing that we can do is
actually spend some time recognizing our own weaknesses
and inadequacies.
Mm-hmm. Um, be honest with ourselves.
Like look in the mirror and really do business with,
and that might mean, you know, taking out a little pad
and say, look, these are my insecurities.
Mm-hmm. Like, what am I actually insecure about?
And that takes reflection. Mm.
Um, and, but when you get to a place
where you can actually see what your insecurities are, most
of our, our pride does come out of our insecurities.
Yeah. I mean, you know, not to go back to the Bible,
but at the end of the day, what Adam
and Eve were concerned about is
what if God really is holding out on me?
Yeah. Like that, that, that was an insecurity.
What if there really is something better?
And so we've gotta be true to ourselves first and foremost.
We've gotta recognize what our weaknesses are,
what our fears are, and, um, that's gonna help us.
When we see those things playing this day
and we look at them, that's gonna help us
realize, okay, wait a minute.
I might have some liabilities here
and some pride is gonna stem
out of these if we're not careful.
Mm-hmm.
I think that's good. I think you
gotta question your own motives.
Yeah. I mean, self-awareness does not come natural. Right.
You got, it's intentional. I think journaling is good. Yeah.
I think, uh, asking yourself questions about motives Yep.
Is a good practice, uh, to participate in.
And, and I meant, let me give you even a
further practical one.
Bradford, you said, because I said having some people
around you, you gotta take that a step further.
Um, I've, there's a, there's a lot
of power in looking at someone face to face and say,
and asking this question, what's it like on the other side
of the table as me? Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. And be ready because Right.
You might not like what you hear. Yeah.
You're probably gonna hear some good things, but guess what?
You are human. Mm-hmm. Like, you are not perfect.
And so if you're really asking the question,
just ask somebody and then tell them ahead of time.
I'm not gonna fight back. I'm not gonna argue with you.
Right. I'm not gonna explain anything scary,
but what's it like on the other
side of the table is me. Right.
You gotta set it up. I'm not gonna
be defensive here. That's
Right. Lay on me
though. And then you have
to not be defensive if you, if you want that person
to be honest with you the next time.
It's true. Yes. Dang, how's that?
So what's it like sitting on the other side
of the table for me?
Literally right here, right now.
It's great. You got such a soothing voice
and you're guiding the conversation, so, well,
I'm trying. Yeah.
Alright, so let's, let's,
let's hit this, this idea here.
Um, what can pride rob us of,
uh, I don't think we've hit that.
Like what are the consequences,
I guess is another thing too.
Like what, what can it, what can it do?
Um, we said it earlier, I mean, it'll destroy your life.
I think it'll take everything from you.
If you're functioning out of a place of a heightened level
of self-importance
and you're putting yourself in position of I am just trying
to serve myself in every aspect
and get as much influence or accomplishments or stuff
or whatever, uh, in my life.
You're just working against yourself entirely.
I think, uh, it'll still joy, happiness, and,
and then I mean, the consequences of that, you're looking
for fulfillment continually.
Yeah. And you're not gonna find it.
I think, um, what the consequences of it are
is that you're just left with you.
Mm-hmm. Because at the end of the day,
pride says I'm the most important.
Mm. I am always right.
And it's my way or the highway, and I know best
and I'm gonna pursue what's best for me at all costs.
And at the end of that road, if you write that story
and you turn enough pages at the end of,
this is all about me.
What you're left with is you. Mm-hmm.
And, uh, man, what you're robbing yourself of is the beauty
and the joy of experiencing life with other people.
Mm-hmm. Honestly, in the manner in which we were
created to experience life.
And so you actually might be able to be
that narcissistic leader that we talked about earlier Right.
And accomplish some great things,
but then at the expense was that thing that you accomplished
really worth being there all by yourself.
Yeah. And so, man, that's a, that's a lonely place to be.
Yeah. And sometimes we,
we tell ourselves this lie that like,
because I know people Okay.
Let's, I know, I know a guy that has a beard, name names
and a hat, and he wears flannel a lot in the winter.
Um, my tendency sometimes when things get hard is
to like, put on this cape of, well,
unless I get it done,
unless I do it, it's me against the world.
Mm-hmm. And to a degree that does give you some gas mm-hmm.
To get it done. But truthfully, we all only have
so much gas in the tank.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. And, and that's a lonely place to be. Yeah.
And, and I've been there
and, uh, thankfully you can sneak in
and out of those seasons and find some healing from it.
Right. But man, like, it's not the way we were created
to live and experience life.
That's not where true joy comes from. Right.
And so, and you live into that too much,
and you, you put on that, that pride hat
and you start thinking you're the
martyr and it's you against the world.
Right. You're gonna have some problems, man.
And we're just, we're not made to live life that way. Yeah.
The phrase that has come to mind, I wasn't gonna say it,
but you said like you've capitalized on it a few times,
if you wanna go fast, go alone,
you wanna go far, go together.
Yeah. And it's like, it's not directly related,
but I still like, it's this very important,
like everything we talk about on this show I think could be
brought back to spending time
with other people having accountability mm-hmm.
Spending time learning about who Jesus is.
Like, I think, like those are like the two big things, like
how you improve on all these things we're talking about.
Yeah. Um, and there's no like, like five steps
to eliminating pride in your life.
Yeah. Like, I don't, that's not it, it's a day-to-day thing.
But again, we look in the Bible
and Jesus says, to deny yourself daily
to pick up your cross daily.
Right. It's a, it's a daily thing that you have to recognize
that I can't and shouldn't do this by myself.
Like, I can't
and shouldn't be the most important person in this world.
I don't if we were to be real, I don't,
even though I like doing things on my own mm-hmm.
I don't want to be by my own myself.
And I sure as heck can't do everything on my own anyways.
Right. So it's, you start looking for
Validation from other people.
One, uh, anecdote that I actually read this week
by Mike Butcher the story,
but it's, uh, John Maxwell's 21, what's it called?
Irrefutable Laws Leadership.
I messed you up because I told you something else on
It. Um,
he tells this story of the, like the race to get
to the South Pole, and it's in the law of navigation.
Leaders navigate, they know where they're going. Right.
And there's two different groups that are trying to get
to the South Pole first.
And one guy, he's charted the course,
looked at all the threats, the risks,
everything he's prepared his team well.
Uh, and that team ends up finding success.
And then this other bunch, um,
they did not chart the course out that well.
They added a, a fifth member of their team
to get there on the way they lost their dogs.
And they keep pushing forward out of pride to get
to this accomplishment that's target on the wall.
By the time they get there,
they're collecting whatever they went down there
to collect and they're bringing it back.
And on the way back, every single one of 'em dies.
And like all that whole, the pushing forward of that Mm.
It led to the end of not just self, but the whole team. Wow.
And I think that it's just an anecdote about
what pride can get you.
Yeah. It's toxic. It's contagious. Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Wow. That's good.
Hey, Bradford, but before we,
before we sign off here, there's one thing there says,
we've got a bullet point here that says the cost of pride,
um, or overcoming pride
and conflict, like choosing reconciliation.
Choosing reconciliation over winning. Mm-hmm.
And I think that's important to realize, like pride,
we've talked about it in this abstract thing,
but, um, one other area where this really can come
to life is in our relationships.
Yeah. Mm-hmm. And, uh, we get in places where
probably someone made a statement, someone ran down a road,
maybe they left before.
I mean, I can even think of times in leadership,
let's go back to the, the law
of navigation, which you just talked about.
There's been times where I have probably ran
too forward too fast.
Mm-hmm. Okay. Or too far, too fast.
And, um, you know what, as a leader to hear like, Hey,
I think you're running too far too fast.
You don't wanna hear that. No,
you don't, you don't want to hear that.
But again, catch up. Yeah. Catch up. Yeah.
You're going too slow. Yeah. You're going too slow. Yeah.
Um, and,
and even the thought of like, so now you're saying
as a leader, I did something wrong for other people.
Well, guess what? Yeah. You did.
Uh, many everyone does, right?
Like it happens if you're a leader.
And so, um, actually taking the time
to slow down and say, okay, if we're really going
to go further faster, we have to have some reconciliation.
Mm-hmm. We have to address some of the stuff. Right.
Some of the slip ups along the way.
I mean, let's say that all five of those guys on that trip
that you just mentioned didn't die, three of 'em made it.
Mm-hmm. Well, if they don't come back
and do, do some business with what they did wrong
and reconcile themselves, evaluate to that truth
with one another, and they set out
to go on another adventure, well now maybe
next time only one of 'em comes back.
Right Now, their story obviously didn't work out that way.
They didn't have an opportunity to learn.
But just recognizing, you know, what, running and,
and I, I've known some leaders
who have had some error in judgment,
um, probably out of pride.
And look, pride is so sneaky.
It's so sneaky because it comes out of success, right.
You make some key decisions,
you do a few things, you experience success.
Mm-hmm. Well, certainly I need to do that again.
And certainly I need to do that again. Right.
You guys haven't done this, so how do you know what's best?
Right? Right. And so it's this insidious thing
that slowly sneaks in.
And so it's understandable how leaders get to this point.
Mm-hmm. I'm just telling you, it, it, it, we should,
it at least shows some sympathy if not some
empathy for how it happens.
But I've seen some leaders that get to them
and then they blow everything up.
Mm-hmm. But to not take the time to go back and reconcile
and really say, this is where I think things went wrong,
where do you think things went wrong?
And then, okay, now we can be unified in a path forward,
even if it's not together.
Right. You're just setting yourself up
to do the same thing over again.
Yeah. Right. I mean, if one person came back from that trip
and said, well, um, six of my folks died,
I'm just gonna get, um, 6, 5, 6 more, six, six more to go
with me, and we're gonna do things the same way.
Yeah. Well, we haven't reconciled with what, um, got us to
that place in the first place.
Yeah. And so, um, one thing
that can really help break this cycle of something that's
so sneaky and insidious is really taking the time
to actually reconcile with people
and with the steps that actually got you to
where you are in the first place.
Yeah. I think that's really good.
And the last thing I would say really quickly is, um,
just know again that this happens very easily
and it's a constant battle.
And so if you find yourself in a place of like, holy cow,
I have done this wrong.
Mm-hmm. Look, we've all been there.
And so this doesn't mean that you're disqualified.
This doesn't mean that like you're a failure,
but it's never too late to start taking the right steps.
Acknowledging it That's right. Is is more than most do.
That's right. So the fact that you acknowledge
that you messed up, that's you're in a way better spot. A
Hundred percent. So, so take
some time, right.
Reflect what are my insecurities that I'm leading out of.
Yeah. Um, ask some questions.
What's it like on the other side of the table with me?
And goodness gracious, heaven forbid, get to a place
where you actually have to own it enough
to apologize and ask for forgiveness.
Yeah. Being willing to ask for forgiveness. That's right.
First and, and yeah.
And now we've been freed of it
and can actually move forward in a new direction. Right.
I think people actually admire you more, which is ironic.
People who are prideful want people to admire them
and think that they're incredible people.
Mm-hmm. This is not blanket statement,
but admitting you need help and asking.
I think I know I admire people more for that than I do
for somebody who thinks they know everything.
Yeah. Yeah. So it's kind of ironic that like,
when you let down your guard,
you actually will probably get more people who trust you
and like allow you
to have influence over their life if you are
more real than if you are.
I'm the only one with the answers. Yeah.
So's a great irony. Yeah.
We gotta watch out for a conflated view of self.
We gotta be sure in seeking humility that it's not,
we're thinking less of ourselves,
but we are thinking of ourselves less, less.
I know we got some resources down, uh,
in the resources section
would encourage you to check those out.
Uh, family, if this has been valuable content for you,
I encourage you like, subscribe,
leave a comment if you'd like for us to follow up with you.
We would love to do just that. Matt Bradford, thank you.
Matt, thank you so much for your pleasure
to have my humble pleasure, the, the wisdom and the insight.
Um, love you guys.
We will see you on the next episode
as we spend some time talking about how
to escape the comparison trap.
We'll see you next time. Thanks for tuning into this episode
of The Hope in Real Life podcast.
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