September 17, 2025 • 20 mins
Episode Summary
Setbacks don’t just drain your bank account or momentum—they hit your identity. In this raw and practical episode, Jim unpacks the hidden weight of setbacks, the emotional and psychological toll they take, and how faith reframes the entire story.
From surviving trauma to navigating chronic illness and failed business attempts, Jim shares how resilience isn’t about pretending you’re unshakable—it’s about learning to wrestle with shame, cut loose the anchors of the past, and step into the identity God speaks over you.
If you’ve ever felt stuck, like you’re white-knuckling your way through life while people call you “strong,” this conversation will reframe resilience in a way that is both faith-driven and deeply practical.
In This Episode, You’ll Learn:
- Why setbacks often feel like a physical gut-punch—and the psychology behind it.
- How masking, perfectionism, and imposter syndrome keep us trapped in survival mode.
- Why resilience isn’t about being bulletproof but about grace, authenticity, and vulnerability.
- Biblical examples of leaders who failed, wrestled with God, and were transformed.
- Practical strategies to bounce back: naming the loss, finding lessons not labels, stacking micro-wins, leaning into community, and building faith practices.
- How to reframe setbacks as setups for what God is building in your life and business.
Key Scriptures & Insights
- “Though the righteous fall seven times, they rise again.” (Proverbs 24:16)
- Elijah’s cave, Jacob’s wrestling, Moses’ lack of confidence—all reminders that God uses failure as a pathway to transformation.
- Radical acceptance + lament as biblical resilience: acknowledging the pain while moving forward in faith.
Why This Matters for Christian Creators
Entrepreneurship and leadership come with constant risks, pivots, and challenges. Without resilience, setbacks can anchor you in shame and fear. With resilience, setbacks become data, feedback, and opportunities for God to reshape your future.
This episode will encourage you to stop chasing “the best version of yourself” and start pursuing the healthiest version of yourself—because health leads to wholeness, and wholeness leads to impact.
Resources Mentioned
- Join the Newsletter: www.leadwithjim.com/nl
- Full Episode Show Notes & Transcript: www.leadwithjim.com/podcast
- Using GPT for deeper Bible Study: https://youtu.be/VflG29Hx_Xw
Connect with Jim
- 🌐 Website: www.leadwithjim.com
- 🎙️ Ask a Question: leadwithjim.com/ask
- 📱 Instagram: @leadwithjim
- ▶️ YouTube: Lead with Jim
Support & Engage with the Show
- Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify |
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
If you've ever experienced asetback and you didn't know how you
were going to get through it,well, this is going to be the episode
for you because we're going totalk about bouncing back from setbacks.
Welcome to Online Business forChristian Creatives, the show that
helps you build a businessthat honors God, fuels your creativity
and actually pays the bills.
(00:22):
I'm your host, Jim Carregard,leadership coach, Faith first, entrepreneur,
and guy who's made just aboutevery mistake.
So you don't.
Let's get into it.
Hey, welcome back to the show.
I'm your host, Jim.
I'm grateful that you're herefor this conversation.
So I hope you've grabbed yourbeverage of choice.
(00:45):
Mine is a chai tea that I'msitting here with right now.
And let's have thisconversation around what it means
to be set back, because we allexperience this, and we've experienced
this in some of our finances,in our life, in our health, in our
wealth, in our relationships,to where we, instead of moving forward,
(01:07):
feel like we've stumbled andstepping back.
And I heard think you've heardthe adage, two steps forward, ten
steps back.
And in these places we have anemotional discharge.
So now we're disregulated,where we're struggling and we're
trying to figure out how toget up, dust ourselves off and move
(01:27):
forward.
And sometimes, and we're justgoing to acknowledge this, the moving
forward part is hard.
The getting up part is hard.
Because I don't know aboutyou, but there's been times in my
life where I just got knockeddown multiple times and I didn't
want to get up because it waseasier and more comfortable to just
stay down.
(01:47):
And I mean, especially whenyou get conversations around people
saying, hey, you look so strong.
You look, you're so resilient.
It doesn't look like lifeaffects you.
And then when people tell methat, which I hear often, I, I secretly
think, well, I tell them,thank you.
But I secretly think you callit resilience and strength.
I call it surviving.
(02:09):
And let's unpack that todaybecause I believe this is going to
be a conversation that reallyhelps you, really refrain some stuff
and allows you to see, okay, Ican get back up, because that's what
we're called to.
Now.
We may be knocked down ahundred times, but we're going to
get up a hundred times becauseGod calls us to do that.
God gives us the strength.
God puts us around people tohelp us get up.
(02:32):
You will fall down.
I'm going to tell you thatright now.
But the mandate on our livesis although we fall down, we will
not stay down.
So this sets up theconversation of the weight of a setback
and why other people don't seeour setbacks.
So let's start with the whydon't other people see it?
And I'm going to pull thisinto we're good with masking.
(02:55):
Matter of fact, we're so goodwith masking, we've convinced ourselves
of things that are true butare really not true.
That's why you feel it.
Perfectionism or impostersyndrome or anything that is like
fear of rejection, fear ofbeing seen.
It's because we get into theseplaces where we've lied to ourselves
or we've masked at such a highlevel to convince ourselves or gaslight
(03:20):
ourselves into saying thisdoesn't exist, when in the reality
of it is if we would just takethe mask off or at least shake it
a little bit and acknowledgethe challenges we face.
Acknowledge.
Maybe you're struggling withsome mental illness.
Maybe like you.
Like I am struggling withchronic illness.
Maybe somebody.
(03:41):
Maybe you're dealing withfinance issues or relational issues.
Whatever it is, maybe it'stime to take the mask off a little
bit and say, I am struggling.
And I know even saying that toyou probably puts in some tension,
because it puts in the tensionto me too, when I'm like, oh, wait,
shake the mask.
Because we crave authenticity,but we hide from vulnerability.
(04:06):
And the reality is you can'thave authenticity without vulnerability.
And we're in the places ofvulnerability because we've never
been taught to deal with big emotions.
We've never been taught todeal with trauma, challenges, or
even how to be healthy.
We're taught on how to survive.
Our parents teach us becausethey only knew survival.
(04:28):
They teach us survival, butGod wants us to move us into a place
of thriving.
And when we're trying to moveinto a place of thriving, inevitably
we're going to face setbacks.
So the setback doesn't justdrain you.
It doesn't drain your.
Just drain your bank account,drain your business, drain your relational,
(04:50):
you know, energy and all that stuff.
It literally hits your identity.
Especially if you've neverbeen able to deal with the big emotions,
if you've never dealt withwhat it means to be healthy.
Everybody's out therepontificating, hey, be the best version
of yourself.
But what if I was to tell youto stop being the best version of
yourself and be the healthiestversion of yourself?
(05:11):
Because I know based on My ownlife and my own.
And I've made a millionmistakes to bring to you so that
you don't have to.
That you don't have to be thebest version of yourself, because
we can't define that anyway.
You don't know what that is, Idon't know what that is.
But if we learn to be thehealthiest version of ourselves,
we will be the best version of ourselves.
(05:32):
But because we live insetback, because we live in the past,
we've anchored tense inprevious issues and we welded them
there and said, this is myidentity, this is my life.
But here's the deal.
You're not who you were,you're not who they told you you
were, and you're not your past mistakes.
(05:53):
You are the sum total of whoGod says you are.
And you are the total of who you.
What decision you make afterthe mistake is made.
And this is where we get intothe places of why it's attached to
your identity.
Because we've attached ouridentity to results.
We have now said when theresult isn't there and we have a
setback, I am falling apart.
(06:15):
And that's actually not the case.
But the.
But it comes back to, we'veworn so many masks and we've told
ourselves so many lies andwe're just surviving and not thriving.
We're really fearful, tryingto act courageous.
And the most courageous stepyou can take is to shake that mask,
(06:35):
is to acknowledge yoursetback, to acknowledge that you've
been through something hard,to acknowledge that there are harder
things you're going to bethrough, go through.
But that's okay because we'regoing to get through them together,
you and I.
One of those things inpsychology tells us that the like
failure, setbacks and thingsactually activates the same center,
(06:57):
the same pain center in yourbrain as physical injury.
And that's why it feels likeyou get gut punched when you, when
something flops, whensomething fails, you feel like you
got physical pain.
Now when we get into the Biblein the midst of this and we understand
that there are times when wesee all the people in there fail
(07:19):
and they had these physical oremotional responses.
And so we can, like, what was it?
Elijah, He's.
He's like depressed and he'sin this cave.
You have so many others inthere who are struggling on different
levels.
Abraham is lying and Moses hasthis fear and this lack of confidence.
(07:40):
And we see that when God showsup and God and we say yes to God.
Their lives got changed, their lot.
They overcame those challengesAnd I think the same thing should
be for us is that if we'regoing to move forward, that we have
to acknowledge the setback notas something that's going to rock
us and take us out, but as anatural part of what we're doing.
(08:03):
So that way when we moveforward, we can address it accordingly.
Because if it failureactivates the same thing as pain,
then I've got to tell myselfthat this is not physical pain and
failure is only part of success.
But this means.
And this is where it's goingto get hard, and this is part of
the steps to get into thrivingis you and I have got to wrestle.
(08:26):
I mean, wrestle like.
Like Jacob wrestled with God.
And at the end of it, which isso interesting, he.
The hip was destroyed, but hisname was changed from Jacob, which
means, you know, basically Supplanter.
But he got changed to Israel.
His whole identity shiftedthrough the wrestling.
So we understand that if weget into it and we say, okay, let's
(08:48):
not wrestle with failureitself, let's wrestle with the shame
of it.
Because that's really whatthis conversation gets in.
We get a setback, we feelshameful, we're guilty, or we feel
guilty, and then we allow thattoxic shame to attack us in such
a way that now we're spiralingfrom the failure, feeling the pain
(09:08):
of it.
And you know what our nervoussystem says?
Let's not do that again.
And that, my friend, is whyyou give up on your goals.
Because they equate tophysical pain the moment you hit
resistance.
And because we haven'twrestled with the shame and guilt
from not only this situation,but the situations we've grew up
with, the situations wherepeople told you you were this or
(09:30):
that and it was all negativeand you developed this negative mindset
or you develop this traumaresponses because we haven't dealt
with the guilt and shame.
That's why we quit.
And I'm going to tell you, wequit too soon.
And out there in.
In entrepreneur land andministry land, they're like, just
push through, just pray.
But it's not as simple as thatbecause your nervous system has said
(09:52):
success equals pain, and painis unsafe.
So therefore, I will not be successful.
Secretly, we say that.
But the reality of what weneed to come back to is failure and
is only a part of success, andsuccess is where God wants us to
live, however you define success.
So I'm not saying you're goingto have a million dollars or 16 cars,
(10:15):
although those things are niceand I pray you get those.
But whatever you Definesuccess at, you're going to have
to go through the wall of resistance.
And to do that, you got todeal with the shame, the guilt associated
with that, because these arethe anchor points that keep us from
moving forward.
And I've experienced this insuch a dynamic way.
When I was young, I wastraumatized in multiple ways by multiple
(10:40):
people all the way up intobullying and trying to take my life
in fifth, sixth, seventh grade.
And, you know, I have storyafter story of everything that came
against me and everything Ihad to do to survive.
So when I became anentrepreneur in 2017, I, I, I, I
joke about it, but there's adeep, hard truth to it is I failed
(11:01):
at 43 different businesses.
I, I say, you know, I don'tknow if that's the exact number,
but it was up there because Iwent in trying and I went in and
failing and I failed.
And I kept doing that.
And I'm like, but I have toget this, this is something that
I know that God has called me to.
But I kept failing.
Why did I keep failing?
And I, and I came back to thisconclusion, it's because I had to
(11:22):
be strong.
So strong for me meant I canpower through anything because that's
what I've had to do throughthe bullying, through the physical
abuse, the mental emotionalabuse, through the neglect, I had
to power through that.
And I developed a hyperindependence that said you cannot
(11:42):
fall.
And I white knuckled itthrough and I was surviving.
And the problem was when I hitmy anointing and God's like, here's
what you're made to do.
I kept failing and failing.
And there even still isresidue of that because it went back
to the trauma responsesinstead of the God responses.
And I was dealing with shameand I was dealing with guilt.
(12:04):
And I wasn't like any otherentrepreneur because every entrepreneur
is a successful one and I'm not.
That's what I felt, right,because I defined success based on
what I saw.
And I kept switching thingsbased on what people said to me.
I should have went into justspeaking on stages and writing is
what I felt the Lord say.
But I ended up in coachingbecause somebody said, that's going
(12:26):
to be where money is made.
And I'm a good coach.
I've done it for years.
And so I did it and I waslike, and I found out that was the
wrong place to go.
As a matter of fact, 18 monthsin when I was, I made good money
for when I was doing it, andthen suddenly all of that dried up.
And Holy Spirit and I had a conversation.
Holy Spirit was like, you feelempty because you've been building
(12:47):
the wrong business.
Had you listened to me 18months ago, you would have been building
the right business.
Talk about a gut punch and a setback.
But I had had a string of that.
So this was a pattern of mine.
Because I'm a constantstarter, never finisher, because
starting things was exciting,it offered variety, but it never.
I never committed becausecommitment for me felt literally
(13:12):
unsafe.
Because that's how it wasgrowing up.
And even as an entrepreneur,the people I committed to came back
and used my commitment asweapons and hurt me.
So commitment felt unsafe.
So why stay at being a coachor why staying at being a writer
or even a podcaster when allof that commitment being is unsafe?
(13:33):
That's how I felt.
And here we go.
Fast forward a year and a halfin I've 50.
This is episode 56.
I. I can't believe I made itto 56.
Like, I'm like, wow, I didn'tthink I was gonna make it past 10.
And here I am at 56.
And it just goes to show, whenyou contend in your faith, when you
contend with your shame andguilt, when you contend with those
(13:55):
lies that you believe and youstart acknowledging it by shaking
that mask, you can startaccomplishing things and committing
to things you never believed possible.
So if we want to reframe this,and we need to reframe a lot of our
story because a lot of timeswe get stuck.
If we want to reframe this, wethink, rethink this, your setback
(14:15):
could possibly be what Godneeded to set you up for success.
And I know that soundschallenging to say.
How can a setback be a setup?
Maybe the setback, the problemwas we were going in a direction
that where our business wasbecoming an idol, your relationship
was becoming more importantthan God.
Maybe there was a portion ofyou that said, I can do this all
(14:37):
in my own strength.
Boom.
Hit the wall, hit the tension.
Setback.
For God to say, okay, you havea setback.
Let's recaliber, let's recalibrate.
Let's sit there and look atthis and say, what do you need to
change?
Who do you need to become inorder to do what you're supposed
to do?
And then I'm going to add something.
What do you need to heal inorder for this to not happen the
(14:59):
same way?
And I think we miss that partbecause we're meant to heal.
We're meant to make sure.
Because, you know, God is aHealer God.
So therefore, what do I needto heal that is damaging my identity
and causing these rapidfailures or rapid setbacks?
What needs to be healed?
And I think if we push intothat question, we'll find greater
(15:21):
clarity, we'll find greater healing.
We will actually be the best version.
Because now you're dealingwith the things that makes you the
healthiest.
Version.
Version.
So to do that, we're going to do.
I'm going to give you a couplelittle thoughts.
And the first one is you'regoing to name the loss, like, stop
pretending it didn't hurt.
Call it what it is.
Lament before God.
There's a three dollar wordfor you.
Lament.
(15:41):
Right, Lament before God.
That's biblical resilience.
You know the book oflamentations, there was a great lament
Jesus himself lamented.
He stood on the hill and he'slooking down and he's like, look
at you people.
You're people without a shepherd.
There was a lamentation there.
Let's not call this ha, thisis just this, you know, this toxic
(16:04):
positivity.
Let's not call this like, thisis my road to success.
And just say that hurt.
Is it part of your road to success?
Yes, it's part of your story.
But you can sit there and say,that hurt that just didn't hurt my,
my, my ego.
That hurt a part of me thatI've been hiding my whole life.
That hurt the part of me thatI felt was the imposter.
(16:27):
That hurt the part of me thatfelt like I needed to be perfect.
Acknowledge that.
Call it, accept it.
Radical acceptance is abrilliant and beautiful thing.
And the greater acceptance welive in, the greater your resilience
becomes and the greater yourability to overcome the situation.
The next one is find thelesson, not the label.
(16:48):
Failure isn't an identity.
Failure is not something thatyou should take into yourself and
say, this is who I am.
Because we oftentimes will go.
If we fail, we go, I am a failure.
No, you're not.
You are someone who failed.
The moment you put I am, itbecomes an identity statement.
Failure is not your identity.
(17:08):
Shame is not your identity.
Guilt is not your identity.
It's data, it's feedback.
To say, where do I need to change?
This is where we step up as aleader, as a relational leader, because
we're relating to ourselvesand we say, okay, here's what the
data says.
It hurt.
And let's not make it anidentity, let's make it a lesson.
(17:28):
And then instead of trying togo after the major Wins.
Maybe you want to make sixfigures this year, but you haven't
made one.
Like you haven't made yourfirst dollar but you want to make
six figures.
Stop listening to the Internetpeople that tell you you can make
six figures in five days orwhatever this nonsense is or even
in the first couple months andget into the prayer closet with God
and say what should be thenumber I should go after?
(17:50):
And set it as micro wins.
Like maybe your first goal isto just make your first dollar.
After that maybe it's to makeyour first hundred dollars and then
after that it's your firstthousand dollar month.
Then it's your first twothousand dollar month and you just
keep incrementing up to your goal.
Your goal can be six figures,but make it micro wins because micro
wins build momentum and, andmomentum carries you to the next
(18:14):
win, no matter the setback.
And I, I can't emphasize thisenough, but you also need community
commute.
Isolation magnifies shame.
Community diffuses it because,and I don't mean just get into a
group of people that say yes,people that's going to make you feel
good about yourself.
You need to be around truthtellers, but compassionate truth
tellers.
But it'll help you diffuseyour shame because if you're stuck
(18:38):
in your life cycle, people canslap around and say that's not the
case, here's the truth.
And you can go, oh, okay.
And you can see the truthinstead of believe in the lie that
you're believing.
So we need a good communitybecause sometimes you just need people
to believe in you and you needpeople to tell you the truth.
And then we have to lean intoour faith practices.
And this I can't emphasizeenough if you're not studying the
(19:00):
Bible, if you're not prayer,praying, and I don't mean you have
to do this all day long everyday you do what you need to do to
start and build from there.
But if you're not doing thesethings and you're.
And how do you know what Godwants from you if you're not in the
place where you're speaking to God?
Let's get back to our prayer practices.
I do have a YouTube video thatI can share with you and I'll do
(19:22):
it in the show notes thatshows you how to leverage chat GBT
in order to do Bible study ona deeper level.
Start there, go check that out.
It's in the show notes.
So I don't want you to thinkyou're not going to be shaken.
You will be shaken.
But There's a differencebetween being shaken and being broken.
You won't be broken, but youwill be shaken.
Because resilience is aboutdeciding that setbacks don't define
(19:44):
you.
They don't break you, but theyare data to help you move forward.
Your past doesn't disqualifyyou from your future.
Your mistakes don't disqualifyyou from your present.
You may feel stuck, but stuckis actually a lie.
You just don't have enoughinformation or direction to make
the decision.
So instead of a setback, it'sa setup.
But instead of being in afailure, you're being reshaped by
(20:08):
them.
With everything you go throughgood, bad, ugly, all of that, you're
being reshaped into the imageof God.
And when we're reshaped intothe image of God, we view these things
that hold us back as thingsthat are really going to move us
forward.
And with that being all said,I would love for you to jump on my
on the newsletter where wehave over 4, 400 other Christian
(20:29):
entrepreneurs, leaders and creatives.
It is at www.leadwithjim.comnl for newsletter.
We'd love to have you there.
Go ahead and jump that on.
All of that will be in theshow notes and we're going to see
you on the next episode.
If you've ever experienced asetback and you didn't know how you
were going to get through it,well, this is going to be the episode
for you because we're going totalk about bouncing back from setbacks.
Welcome to Online Business forChristian Creatives, the show that
helps you build a businessthat honors God, fuels your creativity
and actually pays the bills.
(00:22):
I'm your host, Jim Carregard,leadership coach, Faith first, entrepreneur,
and guy who's made just aboutevery mistake.
So you don't.
Let's get into it.
Hey, welcome back to the show.
I'm your host, Jim.
I'm grateful that you're herefor this conversation.
So I hope you've grabbed yourbeverage of choice.
(00:45):
Mine is a chai tea that I'msitting here with right now.
And let's have thisconversation around what it means
to be set back, because we allexperience this, and we've experienced
this in some of our finances,in our life, in our health, in our
wealth, in our relationships,to where we, instead of moving forward,
(01:07):
feel like we've stumbled andstepping back.
And I heard think you've heardthe adage, two steps forward, ten
steps back.
And in these places we have anemotional discharge.
So now we're disregulated,where we're struggling and we're
trying to figure out how toget up, dust ourselves off and move
(01:27):
forward.
And sometimes, and we're justgoing to acknowledge this, the moving
forward part is hard.
The getting up part is hard.
Because I don't know aboutyou, but there's been times in my
life where I just got knockeddown multiple times and I didn't
want to get up because it waseasier and more comfortable to just
stay down.
(01:47):
And I mean, especially whenyou get conversations around people
saying, hey, you look so strong.
You look, you're so resilient.
It doesn't look like lifeaffects you.
And then when people tell methat, which I hear often, I, I secretly
think, well, I tell them,thank you.
But I secretly think you callit resilience and strength.
I call it surviving.
(02:09):
And let's unpack that todaybecause I believe this is going to
be a conversation that reallyhelps you, really refrain some stuff
and allows you to see, okay, Ican get back up, because that's what
we're called to.
Now.
We may be knocked down ahundred times, but we're going to
get up a hundred times becauseGod calls us to do that.
God gives us the strength.
God puts us around people tohelp us get up.
(02:32):
You will fall down.
I'm going to tell you thatright now.
But the mandate on our livesis although we fall down, we will
not stay down.
So this sets up theconversation of the weight of a setback
and why other people don't seeour setbacks.
So let's start with the whydon't other people see it?
And I'm going to pull thisinto we're good with masking.
(02:55):
Matter of fact, we're so goodwith masking, we've convinced ourselves
of things that are true butare really not true.
That's why you feel it.
Perfectionism or impostersyndrome or anything that is like
fear of rejection, fear ofbeing seen.
It's because we get into theseplaces where we've lied to ourselves
or we've masked at such a highlevel to convince ourselves or gaslight
(03:20):
ourselves into saying thisdoesn't exist, when in the reality
of it is if we would just takethe mask off or at least shake it
a little bit and acknowledgethe challenges we face.
Acknowledge.
Maybe you're struggling withsome mental illness.
Maybe like you.
Like I am struggling withchronic illness.
Maybe somebody.
(03:41):
Maybe you're dealing withfinance issues or relational issues.
Whatever it is, maybe it'stime to take the mask off a little
bit and say, I am struggling.
And I know even saying that toyou probably puts in some tension,
because it puts in the tensionto me too, when I'm like, oh, wait,
shake the mask.
Because we crave authenticity,but we hide from vulnerability.
(04:06):
And the reality is you can'thave authenticity without vulnerability.
And we're in the places ofvulnerability because we've never
been taught to deal with big emotions.
We've never been taught todeal with trauma, challenges, or
even how to be healthy.
We're taught on how to survive.
Our parents teach us becausethey only knew survival.
(04:28):
They teach us survival, butGod wants us to move us into a place
of thriving.
And when we're trying to moveinto a place of thriving, inevitably
we're going to face setbacks.
So the setback doesn't justdrain you.
It doesn't drain your.
Just drain your bank account,drain your business, drain your relational,
(04:50):
you know, energy and all that stuff.
It literally hits your identity.
Especially if you've neverbeen able to deal with the big emotions,
if you've never dealt withwhat it means to be healthy.
Everybody's out therepontificating, hey, be the best version
of yourself.
But what if I was to tell youto stop being the best version of
yourself and be the healthiestversion of yourself?
(05:11):
Because I know based on My ownlife and my own.
And I've made a millionmistakes to bring to you so that
you don't have to.
That you don't have to be thebest version of yourself, because
we can't define that anyway.
You don't know what that is, Idon't know what that is.
But if we learn to be thehealthiest version of ourselves,
we will be the best version of ourselves.
(05:32):
But because we live insetback, because we live in the past,
we've anchored tense inprevious issues and we welded them
there and said, this is myidentity, this is my life.
But here's the deal.
You're not who you were,you're not who they told you you
were, and you're not your past mistakes.
(05:53):
You are the sum total of whoGod says you are.
And you are the total of who you.
What decision you make afterthe mistake is made.
And this is where we get intothe places of why it's attached to
your identity.
Because we've attached ouridentity to results.
We have now said when theresult isn't there and we have a
setback, I am falling apart.
(06:15):
And that's actually not the case.
But the.
But it comes back to, we'veworn so many masks and we've told
ourselves so many lies andwe're just surviving and not thriving.
We're really fearful, tryingto act courageous.
And the most courageous stepyou can take is to shake that mask,
(06:35):
is to acknowledge yoursetback, to acknowledge that you've
been through something hard,to acknowledge that there are harder
things you're going to bethrough, go through.
But that's okay because we'regoing to get through them together,
you and I.
One of those things inpsychology tells us that the like
failure, setbacks and thingsactually activates the same center,
(06:57):
the same pain center in yourbrain as physical injury.
And that's why it feels likeyou get gut punched when you, when
something flops, whensomething fails, you feel like you
got physical pain.
Now when we get into the Biblein the midst of this and we understand
that there are times when wesee all the people in there fail
(07:19):
and they had these physical oremotional responses.
And so we can, like, what was it?
Elijah, He's.
He's like depressed and he'sin this cave.
You have so many others inthere who are struggling on different
levels.
Abraham is lying and Moses hasthis fear and this lack of confidence.
(07:40):
And we see that when God showsup and God and we say yes to God.
Their lives got changed, their lot.
They overcame those challengesAnd I think the same thing should
be for us is that if we'regoing to move forward, that we have
to acknowledge the setback notas something that's going to rock
us and take us out, but as anatural part of what we're doing.
(08:03):
So that way when we moveforward, we can address it accordingly.
Because if it failureactivates the same thing as pain,
then I've got to tell myselfthat this is not physical pain and
failure is only part of success.
But this means.
And this is where it's goingto get hard, and this is part of
the steps to get into thrivingis you and I have got to wrestle.
(08:26):
I mean, wrestle like.
Like Jacob wrestled with God.
And at the end of it, which isso interesting, he.
The hip was destroyed, but hisname was changed from Jacob, which
means, you know, basically Supplanter.
But he got changed to Israel.
His whole identity shiftedthrough the wrestling.
So we understand that if weget into it and we say, okay, let's
(08:48):
not wrestle with failureitself, let's wrestle with the shame
of it.
Because that's really whatthis conversation gets in.
We get a setback, we feelshameful, we're guilty, or we feel
guilty, and then we allow thattoxic shame to attack us in such
a way that now we're spiralingfrom the failure, feeling the pain
(09:08):
of it.
And you know what our nervoussystem says?
Let's not do that again.
And that, my friend, is whyyou give up on your goals.
Because they equate tophysical pain the moment you hit
resistance.
And because we haven'twrestled with the shame and guilt
from not only this situation,but the situations we've grew up
with, the situations wherepeople told you you were this or
(09:30):
that and it was all negativeand you developed this negative mindset
or you develop this traumaresponses because we haven't dealt
with the guilt and shame.
That's why we quit.
And I'm going to tell you, wequit too soon.
And out there in.
In entrepreneur land andministry land, they're like, just
push through, just pray.
But it's not as simple as thatbecause your nervous system has said
(09:52):
success equals pain, and painis unsafe.
So therefore, I will not be successful.
Secretly, we say that.
But the reality of what weneed to come back to is failure and
is only a part of success, andsuccess is where God wants us to
live, however you define success.
So I'm not saying you're goingto have a million dollars or 16 cars,
(10:15):
although those things are niceand I pray you get those.
But whatever you Definesuccess at, you're going to have
to go through the wall of resistance.
And to do that, you got todeal with the shame, the guilt associated
with that, because these arethe anchor points that keep us from
moving forward.
And I've experienced this insuch a dynamic way.
When I was young, I wastraumatized in multiple ways by multiple
(10:40):
people all the way up intobullying and trying to take my life
in fifth, sixth, seventh grade.
And, you know, I have storyafter story of everything that came
against me and everything Ihad to do to survive.
So when I became anentrepreneur in 2017, I, I, I, I
joke about it, but there's adeep, hard truth to it is I failed
(11:01):
at 43 different businesses.
I, I say, you know, I don'tknow if that's the exact number,
but it was up there because Iwent in trying and I went in and
failing and I failed.
And I kept doing that.
And I'm like, but I have toget this, this is something that
I know that God has called me to.
But I kept failing.
Why did I keep failing?
And I, and I came back to thisconclusion, it's because I had to
(11:22):
be strong.
So strong for me meant I canpower through anything because that's
what I've had to do throughthe bullying, through the physical
abuse, the mental emotionalabuse, through the neglect, I had
to power through that.
And I developed a hyperindependence that said you cannot
(11:42):
fall.
And I white knuckled itthrough and I was surviving.
And the problem was when I hitmy anointing and God's like, here's
what you're made to do.
I kept failing and failing.
And there even still isresidue of that because it went back
to the trauma responsesinstead of the God responses.
And I was dealing with shameand I was dealing with guilt.
(12:04):
And I wasn't like any otherentrepreneur because every entrepreneur
is a successful one and I'm not.
That's what I felt, right,because I defined success based on
what I saw.
And I kept switching thingsbased on what people said to me.
I should have went into justspeaking on stages and writing is
what I felt the Lord say.
But I ended up in coachingbecause somebody said, that's going
(12:26):
to be where money is made.
And I'm a good coach.
I've done it for years.
And so I did it and I waslike, and I found out that was the
wrong place to go.
As a matter of fact, 18 monthsin when I was, I made good money
for when I was doing it, andthen suddenly all of that dried up.
And Holy Spirit and I had a conversation.
Holy Spirit was like, you feelempty because you've been building
(12:47):
the wrong business.
Had you listened to me 18months ago, you would have been building
the right business.
Talk about a gut punch and a setback.
But I had had a string of that.
So this was a pattern of mine.
Because I'm a constantstarter, never finisher, because
starting things was exciting,it offered variety, but it never.
I never committed becausecommitment for me felt literally
(13:12):
unsafe.
Because that's how it wasgrowing up.
And even as an entrepreneur,the people I committed to came back
and used my commitment asweapons and hurt me.
So commitment felt unsafe.
So why stay at being a coachor why staying at being a writer
or even a podcaster when allof that commitment being is unsafe?
(13:33):
That's how I felt.
And here we go.
Fast forward a year and a halfin I've 50.
This is episode 56.
I. I can't believe I made itto 56.
Like, I'm like, wow, I didn'tthink I was gonna make it past 10.
And here I am at 56.
And it just goes to show, whenyou contend in your faith, when you
contend with your shame andguilt, when you contend with those
(13:55):
lies that you believe and youstart acknowledging it by shaking
that mask, you can startaccomplishing things and committing
to things you never believed possible.
So if we want to reframe this,and we need to reframe a lot of our
story because a lot of timeswe get stuck.
If we want to reframe this, wethink, rethink this, your setback
(14:15):
could possibly be what Godneeded to set you up for success.
And I know that soundschallenging to say.
How can a setback be a setup?
Maybe the setback, the problemwas we were going in a direction
that where our business wasbecoming an idol, your relationship
was becoming more importantthan God.
Maybe there was a portion ofyou that said, I can do this all
(14:37):
in my own strength.
Boom.
Hit the wall, hit the tension.
Setback.
For God to say, okay, you havea setback.
Let's recaliber, let's recalibrate.
Let's sit there and look atthis and say, what do you need to
change?
Who do you need to become inorder to do what you're supposed
to do?
And then I'm going to add something.
What do you need to heal inorder for this to not happen the
(14:59):
same way?
And I think we miss that partbecause we're meant to heal.
We're meant to make sure.
Because, you know, God is aHealer God.
So therefore, what do I needto heal that is damaging my identity
and causing these rapidfailures or rapid setbacks?
What needs to be healed?
And I think if we push intothat question, we'll find greater
(15:21):
clarity, we'll find greater healing.
We will actually be the best version.
Because now you're dealingwith the things that makes you the
healthiest.
Version.
Version.
So to do that, we're going to do.
I'm going to give you a couplelittle thoughts.
And the first one is you'regoing to name the loss, like, stop
pretending it didn't hurt.
Call it what it is.
Lament before God.
There's a three dollar wordfor you.
Lament.
(15:41):
Right, Lament before God.
That's biblical resilience.
You know the book oflamentations, there was a great lament
Jesus himself lamented.
He stood on the hill and he'slooking down and he's like, look
at you people.
You're people without a shepherd.
There was a lamentation there.
Let's not call this ha, thisis just this, you know, this toxic
(16:04):
positivity.
Let's not call this like, thisis my road to success.
And just say that hurt.
Is it part of your road to success?
Yes, it's part of your story.
But you can sit there and say,that hurt that just didn't hurt my,
my, my ego.
That hurt a part of me thatI've been hiding my whole life.
That hurt the part of me thatI felt was the imposter.
(16:27):
That hurt the part of me thatfelt like I needed to be perfect.
Acknowledge that.
Call it, accept it.
Radical acceptance is abrilliant and beautiful thing.
And the greater acceptance welive in, the greater your resilience
becomes and the greater yourability to overcome the situation.
The next one is find thelesson, not the label.
(16:48):
Failure isn't an identity.
Failure is not something thatyou should take into yourself and
say, this is who I am.
Because we oftentimes will go.
If we fail, we go, I am a failure.
No, you're not.
You are someone who failed.
The moment you put I am, itbecomes an identity statement.
Failure is not your identity.
(17:08):
Shame is not your identity.
Guilt is not your identity.
It's data, it's feedback.
To say, where do I need to change?
This is where we step up as aleader, as a relational leader, because
we're relating to ourselvesand we say, okay, here's what the
data says.
It hurt.
And let's not make it anidentity, let's make it a lesson.
(17:28):
And then instead of trying togo after the major Wins.
Maybe you want to make sixfigures this year, but you haven't
made one.
Like you haven't made yourfirst dollar but you want to make
six figures.
Stop listening to the Internetpeople that tell you you can make
six figures in five days orwhatever this nonsense is or even
in the first couple months andget into the prayer closet with God
and say what should be thenumber I should go after?
(17:50):
And set it as micro wins.
Like maybe your first goal isto just make your first dollar.
After that maybe it's to makeyour first hundred dollars and then
after that it's your firstthousand dollar month.
Then it's your first twothousand dollar month and you just
keep incrementing up to your goal.
Your goal can be six figures,but make it micro wins because micro
wins build momentum and, andmomentum carries you to the next
(18:14):
win, no matter the setback.
And I, I can't emphasize thisenough, but you also need community
commute.
Isolation magnifies shame.
Community diffuses it because,and I don't mean just get into a
group of people that say yes,people that's going to make you feel
good about yourself.
You need to be around truthtellers, but compassionate truth
tellers.
But it'll help you diffuseyour shame because if you're stuck
(18:38):
in your life cycle, people canslap around and say that's not the
case, here's the truth.
And you can go, oh, okay.
And you can see the truthinstead of believe in the lie that
you're believing.
So we need a good communitybecause sometimes you just need people
to believe in you and you needpeople to tell you the truth.
And then we have to lean intoour faith practices.
And this I can't emphasizeenough if you're not studying the
(19:00):
Bible, if you're not prayer,praying, and I don't mean you have
to do this all day long everyday you do what you need to do to
start and build from there.
But if you're not doing thesethings and you're.
And how do you know what Godwants from you if you're not in the
place where you're speaking to God?
Let's get back to our prayer practices.
I do have a YouTube video thatI can share with you and I'll do
(19:22):
it in the show notes thatshows you how to leverage chat GBT
in order to do Bible study ona deeper level.
Start there, go check that out.
It's in the show notes.
So I don't want you to thinkyou're not going to be shaken.
You will be shaken.
But There's a differencebetween being shaken and being broken.
You won't be broken, but youwill be shaken.
Because resilience is aboutdeciding that setbacks don't define
(19:44):
you.
They don't break you, but theyare data to help you move forward.
Your past doesn't disqualifyyou from your future.
Your mistakes don't disqualifyyou from your present.
You may feel stuck, but stuckis actually a lie.
You just don't have enoughinformation or direction to make
the decision.
So instead of a setback, it'sa setup.
But instead of being in afailure, you're being reshaped by
(20:08):
them.
With everything you go throughgood, bad, ugly, all of that, you're
being reshaped into the imageof God.
And when we're reshaped intothe image of God, we view these things
that hold us back as thingsthat are really going to move us
forward.
And with that being all said,I would love for you to jump on my
on the newsletter where wehave over 4, 400 other Christian
(20:29):
entrepreneurs, leaders and creatives.
It is at www.leadwithjim.comnl for newsletter.
We'd love to have you there.
Go ahead and jump that on.
All of that will be in theshow notes and we're going to see
you on the next episode.
Host
Jim Burgoon
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