Believe in yourself…

June 15, 2025

Jack’s Winning Words – Originally sent 5/16/19 – Reprints from pasts to his blog by the late Rev. Jack Freed.

“A bird sitting on a tree is never afraid of the branch breaking, because her trust is not on the branch, but on her own wings.  Always believe in yourself.”  (Unknown)  In the Bible Paul wrote to some friends of his…”I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.”  As I look back on my life, I see times when God has entered life events and given me a kind of power to persevere.  As the bird trusts in its wings, I trust in God’s omnipresence.   😉  Jack

Unspoken in the quote about the bird and its ability to fly is that the ability to fly is a God given ability. So, too, is the ability to believe in yourself when the going gets tough and to persevere through adversity. There are many places in the bible that talk about God helping people, but nowhere does it say that he did it himself; rather it always talks about God giving the believer the strength, the courage and the self-belief to do it themselves. Believe in yourself.

Fear is the root cause of self-doubt and the major thing that holds us back from doing the things that we want to do. It may be fear of failure or fear of looking foolish or some other fear, but the bedrock upon which all fear is based is the fear of death. That is why a strong belief in God and the acceptance of God in your life can help you overcome those other fears. Acceptance of God through Jesus means that you accept that you will have eternal life beyond your physical death. You need not fear death and after that not fearing other things becomes easier. Believe in yourself.

Believing in yourself does not mean displaying bravado. Indeed, many people who display bravado do so as much to try to convince themselves as to convince others of their bravery. The term foolhardy often follows closely behind such displays. Believing in yourself will give you a quiet sense of confidence with which to proceed, no matter what the outcome. That belief allows you to try and it also encompasses the ability to deal with the adversity of a failure (when the branch breaks out from under you) and learn from it. Believe in yourself.

If you watch much sports on TV you will often see elite athletes who have just accomplished something (winning a race, scoring a goal or making a touchdown) pointing to heaven and thanking God. They also mention God in interviews after the event, often saying that God gave them the ability to do what they did. They may also say that they believed they could do it and that was the key for them. Believe in yourself.

Believing in yourself my sound like it is self-centered and egotistical and it would be if it were not centered around your belief in God. Romans 8:31 says “If God is with us, who can stand against us?”  So, in reality when you say that you believe in yourself you are saying I believe in God. Just do it. Believe in yourself.

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Posted by Norm Werner

Are you stronger than your excuses?

May 7, 2025

I saw this little Zen saying on one of the word games that I play on my phone – “I am stronger than my excuses.”

That little saying resonated with me because I realized that often I am not stronger than the excuses that I come up with and that results in procrastination or paralysis. You can substitute “imagined negative outcomes” for excuses, if that makes more sense to you.

Humans are blessed with great intellectual abilities (as compared to other species) and imagination, out of which comes great ideas and inventions. But, with that ability to think and imagine also comes the liability of imagining all of the possible negative outcomes of any situation – those become the excuses for doing nothing.

One of the traits that often define some of the greatest thinkers and inventors in history is the willingness to try and fail at something and then try again and again. Thomas Edison once said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Imagine how many great inventions we would not have had if Edison had let the fear of failure stop him from trying. He was stronger than his excuses.

It is in substituting the word “fears” for the word “excuses” that the saying reaches its full potential. Excuses are just rationalizations for our inability to overcome our fears. Those fears cause us to stop and maybe never venture a step further. We may even have some understanding that as George Addair said, “Everything you’ve ever wanted is sitting on the other side of fear.” Yet, many just make excuses for not moving forward and trying to get to that “other side”.

Are you stronger than your fears (excuses)? What fears have you let stop you? Are you really happy with the excuses that you’ve created? What can you do about that?

Perhaps a start to overcoming the fear that paralyzes you is found in this quote – “Fear is only as powerful as the attention you give it.” ― Glody Kikonga

Think about the news stories that you see from time to time about someone rescuing an injured driver from a burning car. Often when they are interviewed later someone will ask the hero of the story, “Weren’t you afraid of getting burned or of the car exploding?” Often the answer will be something like, “I didn’t think about it, I just saw the need and acted.” The hero didn’t stop to give those fears any attention. Action overcomes fear by pushing it aside and focusing your mind upon the tasks at hand.

man jumping off cliff

So, maybe the key to being stronger than your excuses (fears) is to jump into action, rather than sitting there thinking about all of the ways that you could fail. Once you are in motion, taking actions, you will find that your amazing mind refocuses upon problem solving, rather than excuse creation. You may initially fail, but you will learn from that failure and setting out on another try will be that much easier.

Allow yourself to try and fail and try again. You are stronger than your excuses, so let yourself do whatever it is that you have been making excuses for not doing.

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Posted by Norm Werner

Where you are focused matters…

July 24, 2023

Looking up helps…

The graphic for today’s post is one of those dramatic inspirational shots of someone reaching for the stars. While reaching for the stars may be a metaphor for having high goals, it does cause oner to think about focusing upon bigger and bolder goals in life. 

Too often we are focused on short term, very prosaic goals that are just above the survival level. That might be represented by a graphic like this one…looking at our shoes. You can’t even se the higher goals, much less reach for them, if you spend your time looking down and being down all the time.

I have posted here many times about one big reason that keeps us focused upon the wrong things – our inability to let go of things that have already happened or which may happen in the future. It is our need to somehow control things which are out of our control that keeps us focused upon our shoes instead of looking towards the stars and higher goals. One must be able to put the past behind them and accept that they cannot change things that have already happened. They can only change how they react to those happenings. And one may spend some amount of time considering alternative courses of action for the future; but, worrying excessively about things that might happen is just a waste of time and energy. Those are bridges yet uncrossed in directions that likely will not be taken.

Rather than spend your time and mental energy trying to imagine and prepare for all of the worst things that could happen, instead spend that time breaking down the path to your goal into small, achievable steps and preparing for the first step. Once you get started you will find that the momentum that you build will keep you going.

So, go ahead and reach for that new height, that new goal; by focusing upon taking the first step, rather than staring at your shoes and thinking of all the reasons that you should stand still. Have a great day and a great week ahead. You are on your way to new heights.

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Posted by Norm Werner

Overcome today’s doubts to get to tomorrow…

July 18, 2023

The graphic for today’s post focuses upon doubts that hold us back from realizing our dreams and aspirations for tomorrow. I would add to that graphic the rest of the classic FUD elements (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubts) that are missing.

Fear of the unknown and uncertainty about whether we are even headed in the right direction combine with doubts about our own abilities to do what is needed to realize those dreams often hold us back from even trying. We convince ourselves that it is “better to be safe than sorry.” And then we are sorry that we didn’t even try.

There is a very real chance that the things that you are concerned about or afraid of are real. They are constraints that you are currently under that limit your ability to achieve your goals; however, they are seldom permanent roadblocks. In many cases they just require you to take a detour, like maybe going back to school, in order to obtain some skill or knowledge or certificate/degree that will allow you to advance towards your goals. This is where the attributes of patience and persistence pay off.

It is important during these “detour” times to remind yourself often of the overall goal, when it doesn’t feel like you are making progress towards that goal. It helps if you break down the things that you need to get done before you can resume the pursuit of your goal and reward yourself as you accomplish each step along the way.

Remember that impatience is your key enemy. Anything that is really worth something usually takes a lot of work and a lot of patience. Much of the work may be tedious and repetitive.  Just imagine getting up every morning and doing 2-3 hours of workouts or running, yet that is what Olympic athletes do and they do it for 4 years leading up to their event in the games. That is a real test of patience and persistence.

The doubts that you have today can help you define your plan to achieve your goals for tomorrow by helping you see the things that you need to do in preparation for achieving them. So, don’t let them stop you. Use them to motivate you to create a plan of attack to overcome those roadblocks. Just that act of understanding the issues that you must overcome and planning how you will do it puts you in a whole new frame of mind. You have mentally moved from, “I don’t think I can do this”, to, “Here’s how I’m going to do this.”

I have no doubt that you will achieve your goals for tomorrow.

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Posted by Norm Werner

Just get up and dance…

December 15, 2021

I got this quote in an email of inspirational quotes that I get each day –

“Nobody cares if you can’t dance well. Just get up and dance.”  – Martha Graham

People often use dance as a placeholder for life, especially in quotes. The advice in this quote holds quite well for life. Too many people get hung up on perfection or get too concerned about what other will think of their efforts, to even try things in life. They allow themselves to be paralyzed by fear of failure or ridicule from others, so they don’t even try. Just get up and dance.

Martha Graham believed that you should just let go of your inhibition and experience the joy of moving to the music. In life we must learn to let go of the fear of failure and experience the joy of doing and trying. There is often more pleasure to be found in striving towards a goal than in finally achieving it. World-class athletes often report after having set a record or achieved a significant win in competition that it is often a letdown compared to the pleasure that they found in the focused and intense training leading up to that moment. Just get up and dance.

So, rather than sit and watch life go bye out of your own doubts or fears, get in the game. Let go of your inhibitions and fears. Stick out your hand and meet new people. Try new things, find new adventures, savor new tastes. Don’t be worried about what others may think of you or your efforts. Just get up and dance.

Maybe this advice from the 1987 song “Come from the Heart” by Susanna Clark and Richard Leigh sums it up well –

You’ve got to sing like you don’t need the money

Love like you’ll never get hurt

You’ve got to dance like nobody’s watchin’

It’s gotta come from the heart if you want it to work.

The important message in all of this is that nothing happens until you – Just get up and dance.

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Posted by Norm Werner

Don’t overthink it…just do it.

August 30, 2021

How many times at the end of a day have you ended up with a bad case of the “coulda, woulda, shoulda’s” over things that you didn’t do during the day? It happens to us all. There are things that we hesitate doing out of some fear of the unknown. Perhaps we avoid meeting or greeting someone because they look different from us. Or maybe we don’t go someplace because of some totally unfounded fear. Maybe we do not even attempt to do something new because we fear that we will fail.

A couple of quotes that I’ve had laying around for a while seem appropriate –

“A small act is worth a million thoughts.” (Ai Weiwei)

“The willingness to show up changes us. It makes us a little braver each time.” – Brené Brown

In the weekly prayer for forgiveness that we use at my church we ask God for forgiveness for “the things that we have done and for those things left undone.” It is in those things left undone that most us need to seek forgiveness, especially those things eft undone when it come to helping others. We spend too much time thinking, or worrying, about reasons not to do something and the moment quickly passes. Maybe we spend too much time thinking about how we might do something and again the moment passes. That is where the words of Al Weiwei really apply. We can have a million thoughts of doing wonderful things, but if we do not act they are worthless. One of my Mom’s favorite sayings was,” the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” You can easily substitute “thoughts” for the word intentions.

Brown’s words, too, speak to overcoming our initial fears and actually trying (showing up) new things. Each time we get through that barrier of fears we become a bit braver for the next time. Even if we show up and one of our fears proves to be true, the fact that we survived it or overcame it makes us a little braver for the next time. Hopefully we learn from the experience.

So, you have to act; you have to show up. Ending the day with the thoughts that, “I wish it had gone differently, but here’s what I learned”, is so much more satisfying than ending it with a case of the “coulda, woulda, shoulda’s” because you didn’t even try.

Don’t overthink life…just live it.

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Posted by Norm Werner

Check your baggage…

July 12, 2021

For this Sunday’s sermon our Pastor used the Scripture reading from Mark 6:7-13 on which to base his remarks. That passage concerns the instructions that Jesus gave his Disciples when he sent them out to preach to the world. Basically, Jesus told the Disciples to take nothing with them, to leave everything behind, to take no baggage with them and to depend upon the kindness of strangers for their food and shelter.

Pastor Matlack opined that we all have baggage, not just physical baggage in the form of stuff, but mental baggage in the form of fears, regrets and prejudices. He suggested that we need to leave our baggage behind in order to be able to go out in the world and share the good news of Jesus. We need to check our baggage so that we are left with nothing weighing us down. Check your baggage.

Some of our baggage, especially prejudices, may be hard to let go of, almost like a favorite possession. Many may have been with us a very long time and we find comfort in just letting them dictate our actions and reactions, rather than having to stop and really think about things. They have become our “everybody knows” safe havens for our quick decisions and bad behavior. Check your baggage.

Pastor Matlack used the analogy of going through the TSA checkpoint at the airport. We are no longer allowed to get on the plane with anything dangerous on our person or in our carryon baggage– guns, knives (box cutters) explosives, or liquids.  When you think about it, airplanes before the TSA were a dangerous place to be since fellow passengers might have been carrying any or all of those items. Now, with modern TSA body scanners and luggage scanners it is impossible to hide those items and get on the plane with them., Check your baggage.

There is no TSA checkpoint or scanner for the mental baggage that you might be carrying around, especially the unfounded fears and prejudices about other people. Instead, we must use the scanning power of prayer to search deep within ourselves to expose those fears and preconceived notions. Once you have brought them out into the light of reason, you must make the decision on what to do with them. Pastor Matlack suggested that we check those fears and prejudices with God; that we not continue to carry them around. Check your baggage.

Checking your baggage with God is as Easy as curb-side baggage check at the airport. One only has to admit that they have that baggage and then hand them over to God. We are told in several places in the Bible that if we confess our sins (and prejudice is certainly a sin) we will be forgiven and the burden (the baggage) of those sins will be taken away from us. Take nothing with you when you leave home for the day today – no unfounded fears, no uncertainty about people and no doubts or regrets about your actions. Check in with God before your travels today and check your baggage.

Have a great week ahead unencumbered by all your baggage.

Check your baggage with God.

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Posted by Norm Werner

Live up to your potential…

June 17, 2021

In today’s post to his blog, Jack’s Winning Words, Pastor Freed used this quote – “Man’s main task in life is to give birth to himself to become what he potentially is.”  (Erich Fromm)

Ironically, in today’s paper the cartoon Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis the cartoon character Pig is shone having a discussion with the character Goat. In the cartoon, Pig tells Goat, “I’ve decided to no longer let fear rule my life”; to which Goat replies, ”Good for you”. Then Pig says, “Instead I’ll choose regret.” In the last frame Goat just says, “Never Mind”, to which Pig relies, “Still bad, but so much less scary.”

It is unfortunate that so many, when faced with the challenges of living up to their potential choose to let fear rule their lives or make the choice that Pig did and live a life of regrets.

Most children are asked the ageless question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”  For the very young the answer often entails doing what their heroes do – maybe being a fireman or policemen or perhaps whatever it is that their dads or moms do. At those young ages they do not understand enough about life to let fear rule their lives.

As they get older the child is exposed to the realities of life, the educational or abilities requirements to become what they had dreamed about. For many, the hard work that they come to understand is required is the scary thing that puts them off-track.

There are no free passes to success in any chosen endeavor in life. One must work at it and work hard in many instances. Successful athletes are not just born to success – they work at it harder than others. Look at successful people in any field and you will find someone who was willing to overcome their fears and work hard at being successful.  The most basic fear that they had to overcome was the fear of failure. Instead, they used failures as learning experiences and made the necessary changes to succeed the next time.

Living up to the potential of our lives is a full-time job and one with more than a few things that we could fear. Those who give up on that potential have chosen regret as a comfort zone. Get out of that comfort zone by recognizing it as the lie that it is. No matter what stage of life one is in there is still the potential to be your best and that potential should always serve as the guiding star for the direction in which you are headed.

While the profession or job that you have chosen provides a backdrop for being your best, the challenge is always to realize your potential as a human being – to be the best you that you can be. If you can look back on the things that you do at work or the decision that you made and are satisfied that you did th4e best that you could or made the best decisions that you could have, then you achieved your potential in that aspect of your life.

More importantly, look at your life in terms of your interactions with others. Are you the best husband/wife, father/mother, son or daughter or friend that you can be? Are there things that you can do differently in the future in those aspects of life to reach your potential? You need not let fear of failure dictate your interactions with others and you surely don’t want regrets to rule the day. Rather, work hard to overcome your fears of interpersonal relationships. Feed off the adrenalin that fear may release in you and use it to spur you on to success. Fear will turn to exhilaration, once it is overcome.

Pastor Freed wrote in his blog about being thankful for various people in his life who mentored him and helped him see and reach his potential. You may also have those types of people in your life or you may have to rely on yourself for the motivation to reach you potential. Remember that you also have God close at hand and you have but to call on him to receive that boost of confidence that you may need. If you believe that the path that you see as your potential is God’s will for you, how can you not succeed? Now, that is a formula for success.

Reaching your potential in life does not mean making the most money or having the most things. Reaching your potential in life means having people that you love and receiving their love back. It means having no regrets that you didn’t do the best that you could. It means ending up where God wanted you to be. Live up to your potential.

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Posted by Norm Werner

To get the reward, you must take the risk…

May 28, 2021

Pastor Freed used this Mario Andretti quote today in his blog, Jack’s Winning Words – “If everything seems under control, you’re not driving fast enough.”

Mario was a winning driver in Formula 1 and IndyCar racing because he always drove fast enough and managed to stay in control at the same time. Mario’s advice is really about overcoming fears and taking risks to get ahead in racing and in life. When your life is too much “under control” it is usually because you have let fears stop you from exploring what is right beyond your comfort zone.

Here are some great quotes by an impressive array of people about getting beyond our fears –

“Always do what you are afraid to do.” (1841) —Popularized by Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Not to do what you are afraid to do is to guide your life by fear. How much better not to be afraid to do what you believe in doing!” (circa 1881) —Jane Addams

“You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” (1960) —Eleanor Roosevelt

“Do one thing every day that scares you.” (1997) —Mary Schmich

You might ask why you should follow this advice. To extend the Andretti thought just a little, if you are allowing your fears (and prejudices) to control and constrict your life, you are not living life to the fullest. It’s as if you never moved from black and white TV to color TV (I know many of my readers don’t even know what black and white TV was). It is as if you went to the Baskins Robbins ice cream store and ordered plain Vanilla every time. Life has more to offer than your fears allow you to experience.

Life offers many rewards in terms of new friendships, new experiences and new knowledge to those who are unafraid to reach out for those things – to take the risk of meeting someone new or trying something new, something that you may be afraid of trying. Sometimes those fears hide under the cloud of prejudice, but the real base of all prejudices is unfounded fear.

I like Mary Schmich’s quote because it is a simple pro-active challenge to think about something that you are not doing because you are afraid. There are many things that really are too dangerous to try and, in those cases, your fears are serving you well. At the same time, there are many instances in life where holding back because of some unfounded fear really is a missed opportunity to make a new friend or have a great new experience, one that you may even learn from.

If you do not take the opportunity to talk to a person who looks different from you, you have missed an opportunity. If you do not go to that sporting event or that show, because its venue is in a neighborhood that you fear going into, you have missed an opportunity.  If you turned away from the person who was dressed differently or spoke differently or perhaps had piercings or tattoos because of fear or prejudice, you may have missed the opportunity to meet the most interesting person in the room.

So, let go of your fears and allow yourself to get right to the edge of control in life. Take the risk of not being afraid and you will be richly rewarded with a life that is much more interesting and fulfilling.

Do something that scares you today.

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Posted by Norm Werner

Enter with confidence…enter with God.

February 8, 2021

Just out of curiosity, I looked all the way back to the first post that I made to this blog, back in2012. Not surprisingly the quote that I used as inspiration for that first post was from the Jack’s Winning Words blog – “The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” (Joseph Campbell)

In that first post I wrote about letting the fear of failure prevent one from even trying to do things that are important for success in business, like prospecting or cold calling.

The same is true of many of life’s decision points. It could be the fear of rejection and humiliation that prevents you from asking out the person of your dreams. Maybe it’s a fear of not feeling prepared or worthy that prevents you from volunteering to take on a leadership position within an organization. For most it is the fear of a possible failure that prevents them from even trying.

Yet we can read story after story of people that we hold up as examples of success having gone through failure after failure on their way to that success. What is the difference? They decided to enter that cave of fear of failure and hunt for the treasure therein.

Yesterday I posted here about being fearless by accepting God into your life. That post focused upon overcoming other fears in your life once you had conquered the fear of death by accepting the love of God and the promise of eternal life – see post.

That advice applies here as well. Many people lose that fearlessness of their faith when faced with day-to-day issues, especially those that deal with their jobs or with other people. Those caves all share the common fear of the unknown. What might happen if I fail at work and lose my job? What if that other person reacts badly to the massage I am about to deliver? What if I am rejected by that other person? What if? What if? What if? But those same cave also hold the treasures of a new friendship or the reward for a job well done or even a promotion. You’ll never know if you are too afraid to enter.

The wonderful inventiveness of our imaginations take us through all sorts of horrible scenarios. It is easy to lose sight of the presence of God in your life as those possibilities play out in your mind. Yet it is imperative that you keep touching that base for the assurance that you need to face the unknown. Keep reminding your self of Romans 8:31 – “If God is for us, who can be against us?”

So, face your fears and enter the caves that hold the treasures that you seek. You’ve got God with you. Perhaps that will bring to mind the saying that Mr. “T” used in the old TV show The “A” Team – “I pity the fool”, who goes up against you, with God at your side. Now doesn’t that make you feel better about entering the caves of your fears?

Put God in your heart and a smile on your face and get in those caves…there are treasures awaiting you.

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Posted by Norm Werner

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