Confidence and Courage

I've been reading a book by the NBA's Orlando Magic Sr. Vice President, Pat Williams entitled, Extreme Focus.  A lot of great insight and especially on confidence and courage.  In one of his chapters, Williams gives us 7 ways to increase our confidence and courage and I just wanted to share those with you real quick. Here they are:

1. Give yourself permission to fail.

2. Don't listen to your doubts and fears.

3. Be prepared; preparation builds confidence.

4. Be boldly decisive.

5. When you crash, get right back into the cockpit.

6. Be boldly who you are.

7. Have the courage to do good.

I think these are great points and can be done in a way that glorifies God through coaching and living.

Confident Faith

“Confident faith” is a characteristic that we as coaches need to embrace every day of our lives.  Acts 6:1-7 is a great demonstration of “confident faith,” as the apostle Paul writes about discipleship.  The church was upset with numerous things within involving widows and therefore, the 12 disciples gave them a talk and told the congregation to pick seven men of good reputation to lead them.  The people liked what they had to say and decided to choose seven men to lead them.  The chosen seven were: Stephen, Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolaus.  You may have never heard of them before, but we read that the reason they were so special was because Paul tells us they were, “full of faith and of the Holy Spirit.”  We see at the end of the passage that the Word of God continued to be preached, the number of disciples multiplied, and even priests were being obedient to this faith!  How did this core group of seven chosen leaders accomplish this calling?  They were full of “confident faith,” and these are the characteristics that it displays.

1.    Confident faith sees every crisis as an opportunity to get better.  James chapter 1 tells us to, "count it all joy..."  Through failure and trials, we need to see that as an opportunity to become better.

    

2.  Confident faith spends its time doing what you are good at and called to do.  Don't get discouraged if you are not good at your calling right away.  You may not be good at it right away, but if it is your calling make sure to stick with it.

3.    Confident faith chooses the right people to tackle the problem.  The congregation chose 7 men who were full of the spirit and wisdom.  The right people that they chose were already in the church, but they just needed to be noticed.  Find somebody who is passionate about the fixing the problem even if they aren't experts.

4.    Confident faith trusts the team to come up with the solution.  Have faith in your team.  Don't try to do everything on you own.  The 12 disciples could have tried to fix everything on their own, but instead they allowed the church to pick their own leaders to find a solution.