The Entitlement Cure with Dr. John Townsend

hi everybody just love that music thanks for what you guys did and hope you guys are doing well today um I want to start off with a story my wife and I were having dinner on a weeknight and that's when you if you're married you do the how was your day how was your day that's a little psychological tip for you how was your day how was your day and she said you won't believe this Late Late a story I had said so what is she said I've got a jaw dropper for you said what is it she has a friend who is in human relations or human of human relations and all that human resources and a business HR and her friend was doing an interview with a person who just wanted to got an offer for a new job and good training and the resumes great and great interviews and great you know recommendations the interview from Barbies friend was about 40 minutes so to be 40 minutes long and 20 minutes through her friend says you know thank you very much I think we got all the information we need it's not going to work out probably not the right fit but thanks for coming by and the guy goes well I got good recommendations she's yes you do but we're done thank you very much for coming he says seriously says this is supposed to be a 40 minute interview and you stopped in at 20 what what goes on here she said sir can I be honest with you sure she says the whole time that I was interviewing you you were texting so my jaw is dropping you know like yeah I really have a passion for this job what are you guys doing tonight you won't go out and see the game so my jaw is dropping my wife says I got a second child drop arrested what's that she says guess who called my friend the HR director two hours after the interview her parents his parents just to let her know that she didn't understand how special jr. was well god bless her it points out to a problem these days and the problem that the small word for the problem is called entitlement entitlement and entitlement is what I call an attitudinal disease it's not a physical medical disease it's an attitudinal disease and it's affecting everything in our life and in our country in our world you see it on the media all the time and it affects our families and how people love and connect and are open with each other it affects our businesses with work ethics and ambition and responsibility it affects unfortunately affects our churches or you see not a service mentality but a entertain me mentality it's affecting everything and it's just not getting better and the thing about entitlement guys is it's not an age-related thing and it's not a generation related thing I've got so many friends in the 20-something area of life who are the greatest people they work hard they love their family they have great faith they're loving and healthy and just wonderful people and I've got friends in their 80-something area who are lunatics and hard to live with and drive their friends crazy and their family crazy so this has nothing to do with age or generation it's what we would call a human problem it's a problem manatee well fortunately God doesn't leave us alone because he sees the devastation this is causing to industry and to families and the churches in God's provided solutions for this attitudinal disease in the Bible my newest book is out where I talk about how to cure entitlement because I think we oughta cure entitlement so the books called the entitlement cure you see the connection there and what I've done is I've taken the principles of the book and I put them together for our time together so we got a few takeaways for our time the first is you'll understand the nature of entitlement what it's about the kind of the DNA of entitlement the second is you'll see God's answer because God didn't leave us alone in that state there's answers for this and the third you're going to learn for practical entitlement busting habits entitlement busting habits that will help you and others as you kind of go down the path of life so that's going to be what we're going to accomplish today so first if you have a handout what is entitlement well as I research the issue I found over and over again two basic attitudes you see them all over the place when you see the to it basic attitude you understand entitlement the first is I am exempt from responsibility exempt doesn't apply to me I am NOT responsible for my failures in life or from my problems in life or my challenges there's somebody else's problem not mine I'm exempt from responsibility and I'm not responsible for how I impact you I'm not responsible for how I affect you my words or my actions it doesn't matter I can say or do anything I want to and if you get your feelings hurt or if you could bother that's your problem not mine it's a total disregard of responsibility I am exempt from responsibility the second one is I am owed special treatment owed special treatment because I'm on the universe everybody needs to be happy so if I show up to work on time for once you're supposed to have a cupcake party you're at work on time rock on this is great and if I'm in the third grade I'm on the third string of the soccer team well I deserve a trophy twice as big as me because I deserve special treatment you put those two together and it's a little like kerosene and a match things blow up families get hurt marriages get hurt businesses and churches get hurt when you put I am exempt from responsibility and I'm owed special treatment the Bible says something very different in Romans 12:3 it says do not think of yourself more highly than you ought in other words God has a way for us to look at ourselves that we are responsible for our lives and we're not out anything special we are loved we are unique but we don't get special treatment you know when I was researching the book I was thinking about you know how many instances I see in business and in the church about entitlement and it's really easy to think man these entitled people in this world they really bother me so just turn the person next to you say you're so entitled don't do it it won't make for a good community and I started realizing that there's two kinds of entitlement there's global entitlement like that person is driving you crazy this person it's all over their DNA that's just who they are it's all about them when you see them at a party they say look let's don't talk about me anymore let's talk about what you think about me that's global entitlement but then there's pocket entitlement and pocket untighten was a little bit different pocket autonomous is kind of a nice normal person like we are I guess in this room and in this of this place and and but you got this one pocket that kind of belongs to you and that's your entitlement and and I believe in doing what I say and walking my talk and all that so let me confess my pocket entitlement to you are you are you a safe place don't judge me I travel a lot from my work I most of my works done with leadership and organizations and teams around around the country so I'm on the road a lot and if you live in California and you got an engagement on the East Coast Manhattan or Washington DC there's a place you got to go through if you fly at all and that place is called Chicago O'Hare anybody have a relationship with Chicago here I love Chicago I love Chicago but Chicago O'Hare in February is tough but I'm a professional right so here's what happens I get I'm in LA now I'm gonna go to Chicago now I want to get the East Coast and I get my my layover and so we get off the plane and I'm running to my next gate and of course it says and if you're in a hare flight delayed weather problems no problem which gate this one gate take mil stuff get to the second one okay ready to go flight delayed weather problems I'm a professional okay the third time this happened this really happened flight delayed weather problems third time the gate is 20 minutes away your flight leaves in ten do the math and I can remember as I'm running as fast as I can to make this flight I'm saying to myself I had this self-talk we all have this self-talk in our heads right and my self-talk is doesn't O'Hare understand I'm trying to help some people in Manhattan and I'm running I'm thinking you're an idiot of course they don't care they're an airport and I realized that was my pocket entitlement that because I'm trying to help these people this organization that O'Hare she just flexed for me a little bit so we've got on a pocket level we got on a global level but we got it so God's eased his people he loves his people so he has a solution and I call the solution the hard way God's solution is doing life the hard way doing life the hard way and let me define that because it's really a habit the hard way is the habit of doing what is best rather than what is comfortable to achieve a worthwhile outcome doing what's best not what's comfortable to achieve a worthwhile outcome they mighty realized yet that life is hard if you realize life that's hard to raise your hand okay if you don't think life is hard all these people are just whining too much and your life has no problems no challenges everything's great raise your hand really high I want to see what's kind of sad nobody raised their hand I always liked it when one person raises their hand to that question then the rest of us can see what denial looks like because it's hard life is hard but as the the old pastors say life is hard but life is good and the people that I know that are the most successful and the happiest are doing hard things to make for a good life hard things with their family that are worth it and they work hard and they they do difficult things and they run into the hard things they don't try to take shortcuts if life is an oven an oven of growth really successful people don't take their microwave route that's living life the hard way and I'm going to go into the particulars of what that means but it makes it it makes it all worthwhile one of my favorite passages is Isaiah 50 verse 7 where Jesus is talking before he was in the flesh he says through the voice of Isaiah because the sovereign Lord helps me I will not be disgraced therefore have I set my face like a flint and I know I will not be put to shame you know the Hebrew for that word the word the the in where it says set my face like a flint means to really clinch your jaw to clinch your jaw when you're getting ready for something tough like if you were ever in competitive athletics and you're getting ready to go up against somebody you clench your jaw to make the play or you're getting ready to have a difficult conversation you kind of hunker down and clench your jaw to do something hard it's so is your body's way of saying I got to get ready for something that's worthwhile but hard and that's what Jesus is telling us that that's the way that God constructed life because Jesus said his face like a flint and moved into something very very difficult enormous enormous suffering to death for a worthwhile outcome called us in our Redemption it was worth it not a second thought he moved ahead because we were worth it that's sort of how life works so what I want to do now is since the since the cure for entitlement is living life the hard way and by the way there's no easy way there's the hard way and there's the harder way and you don't want the harder way you don't want avoiding problems and short cutting and entitlement life because it ends up catching up with you and family and relationships in your physical health now they're finding out in your emotional health that you suffer more and also in your career I don't want the harder way I want the hard way there's no easy way option let's stick with the hard way so I've got these four habits I think are helpful and they work and and and these are something you can apply in your life pretty easily here's the first one change I deserve - I am responsible change the phrase I deserve - I am responsible one of the things I study in my line of work is I studied neuroscience because and because really as the research is coming out the cool thing about neuroscience is that every time a new study comes out about the wiring of the brain God gets the credit every time you see a new study about attachment or relationships or working or solving problems or stress or whatever it backs up everything the Bible's been saying for thousands of years God finally gets the credit through a neuroscience that he constructed everything right I love that stuff one of the things we find out about neuroscience is that our words matter the words we speak really really matter the things I say the things you say they affect our behavior are the things we do they affect our feelings how we how our emotions work and they affect our relationships how we engage with people words really matter and one thing I found is there a phrase that I hardly ever use anymore after I started studying this stuff and it's the phrase I deserve it's sort of a dangerous phrase I deserve I deserve a cellphone dad oh what'd you do to deserve it I don't know I just deserve it interesting I deserve a new video game dad Oh what do you deserve that I'm kind of special I deserve a new car no you don't you see the entitlement here I deserve and here's the problem the phrase I deserve is what we call in the psychological world disempowering it disempowers us it takes the power away from us because to say I deserve means I have to get what I want out there there's nothing I can do to get it I've got to sit around and wait for mom to give it to me dad to give it to me the church to give it to me the government to give it to me God to give it to me I deserve I just sit here I have no power I just scream and yell I deserve it and it's a powerless phrase it's not how God wants me to live I want God wants you to live I am responsible is an empowering phrase it puts me in the driver's seat I'm responsible gives me the choice let me give you the examples here I deserve a really good job okay feel that for a second try this I am responsible to do what it takes to get a really good job I got to get training I got to get interviews I've got to meet people I've got to go to the right training school or education or whatever here's another one I deserve a good marriage or I'm responsible to do the internal character work it takes to have a good marriage I've got to pick up my socks really hard stuff like that I've got to apologize more I've got to keep promises I've got to be vulnerable following a good marriage I deserve financial security I am responsible to do what it takes to not drink 14 Starbucks frappuccinos every day and put in a little cookie jar and save my money and be prudent and frugal I want to be empowered by saying I'm responsible to do what it takes to get the good things in life that God wants us to have I don't want to sit around and wait for I deserve the Bible says it this way you also you also when you have done everything you were told to do should say we are unworthy servants we have only done our duty in other words we're supposed to do things right not because we deserve anything good just because God says do much do your best I'll give you grace do what you can when I'm I'm Barbie my wife and I we're raising their kids we sort of remembered that mantra because we raised our kids in Southern California and there's a tad of teittleman some out there might be somebody you know I don't know we kind of saw this and we wanted to have healthy happy holy kids but not entitled so we had a mantra which was this guy's mom and dad are given you're our gift to us and we have a job to do with you and so our job is to meet your needs you've got lots of needs you have needs for love and security and fun spiritual growth and athletics and school and an education you have lots of needs and we're going to meet as many of those needs as we can but you don't deserve anything and we would say it just to kind of get it straight that no matter what you're hearing from your friends and your friends families in the media you have a lot of needs but none of us deserve anything not like that so it's been a while since then and now there are kids or young adults and I was speaking another part of the country at a parenting conference they asked me to speak on how to raise unentitled kids you know how to not to have that happen so one of my son's was um going to college in the same town that the event was in so I started thinking you know they'd probably like to hear from him don't you if you're hearing a parenting seminar don't you want to see what came out of the oven you know is this guy really making this up or is it you know the real thing so I caught us to kill you you know after class can you come over and speak for five minutes I'm speaking for an hour Casey for five minutes and talk about raising kids in a in a society that's sort of entitled as Christians he said sure happy to so I was talking and I'm also done almost done with my talk and Ricky comes up he's got his three to five minute slot and I said you know I'm taking a big risk here don't screw this up you know my whole career is on line here and he says I was asked to speak on you know raising kids better in untitled situation he says my mom and dad were okay I okay parents I guess I thought man thanks for that vote he says but I just remember over and over it mom and dad lecturing to us you guys need a lot of things but you don't deserve anything and I'm thinking that's kind of good news and bad news you know the good news is they heard that but I hope they heard like we love you and all those other things too I hope but that's the message the message is change the term I deserved I'm responsible get the power back all right second habit do the hard things first do the hard things first all right let me ask you a parent let them ask you a question about your own parenting as a little girl or a little boy how many of you when is your at the dinner table did your mom say to you all right now you can't have any broccoli until you eat that ice cream no broccoli for you you got a that bowl of ice cream now if you said yes that's what my mom did I would say your mom needs medication coz that's crazy talk that's not what moms do what is a good mom do your good mom says if you eat your broccoli you'll get the ice cream simple logic because God has a system where ice cream exists so we'll all eat broccoli that's his plan in psychology we call it a reinforcement schedule dessert is a reward for doing the good stuff and that's really what the Bible says in proverbs 6 it says go to the ant you sluggard consider its ways and be wise now what does an ant do why does God pick out the lowly ant as our model for a growth because it's doing some really good stuff the ant picks up its load of food that it needs in the spring and then it harvests and then it brings it to the harvest and it reaps it in the fall when there's no food and the Bible says the ant does this without a chief or a captain or anybody bugging her or micromanaging her just does it that she does hard things and she doesn't always feel passion for those things and she doesn't always feel like I'm not really in my zone she just does because it needs to be done she rolls up her sleeves and does it well I have a phrase that I've developed it has really helped me a lot and the people I work with is called nht letter in letter H letter T and it's do the next hard thing in next HRT thing because that really makes a difference let me give an example so you come to work on Monday and it's been a big weekend and so what we do well we get a go to the cake up and get a cake up and we kibbutz in the break room with their friends and then we get a second one cuz that really first we just kind of got us started you get your second one and then it's kind of time to get to the desk and that desk is not something I'm looking forward to there's a lot of awful stuff on that desk there's a report that I'm really bored with and it's just hard and complicated it's messy on and then there's a phone call I got to make to an unhappy customer and I got to make them happy and listen to all the bad stuff from them and then there's a meeting I got to go to there's going to be boring and I'm not looking forward to this so you know what I do here's what I do I do what we all do you go to your inbox in your email and start cleaning out your inbox you have to you just have to you got to spend at least a half an hour clean of that inbox out you know why because there's a prince from another country and he wants to give you 50 million dollars and all you got to do is send him your credit card and your social is easy and then you everything will be good so you got to kind of clean out the inbox well in psychology we call that obsessive avoidant behavior obsessive because it's kind of ritualistic avoid it because I don't want to do the other stuff and it's a behavior in in the work world a business world where I come from we call it kicking the can down the road I'm just gonna kick that bad conversation and that boring report and that often don't kick it down can down the road because I got to talk to the prince well here's the cool thing as I study very very successful people as I'm very interested in them because very successful people whether it's a corporation a CEO or the owner of a small business or a pastor in a great Church they live life sort of differently so I want to find out what ticks because I want to help people learn what the secret sauce is and one thing I found out about very successful people is they live their day very differently their mornings or the hard stuff and their afternoons are the easy stuff I'll say how was your morning they go the morning was tough what happened oh I had two customers that were just mad at me and disappoint and had to take him through that and then I had a meeting there's a lot of conflict then how rapport and I hate reports oh gosh that sounds like a tough morning how was your afternoon it's great what'd you do oh my gosh I had a brainstorming marketing meeting and a lot of great ideas really creative and then and then I met with some rock stars in my business and we have some new ideas and I got with couple my top customers and we talked about how it can make things better fantastic they did the hard stuff before the easy stuff they ate the broccoli before the ice cream it cures entitlement and it creates success so let me stop preaching now for a second and start meddling what's your nht there is something right now that you haven't done that you've been avoiding because it's painful and it's gonna be messy and it might be a conversation and it might be something your job but you don't have any passion for it and doesn't feel good this week consider doing that thing because on the other side of it is success people that do hard things first have a great life go to the next hard thing third habit keep inconvenient commitments keep inconvenient commitments have you ever had the experience of showing up for lunch and waiting for somebody and then you get that text at about 20 minutes after you got there oh sorry some things came up can't make it well you know you always want to give grace and so yet life is tough but then the second time they do it it's a little different and the third time you start wondering you know is there a bigger name on the other line here that's when you start wondering if you matter the person if you trust if the person trusts you if you trust the person and I began to study the function of commitment and I realized something commitments are what holds our world together the way that God constructed things commitments hold our world again let me take you through this did you realize that the Bible used to not be called the Old Testament in the New Testament there was something it was called before that it was called the Old Covenant and the New Covenant hundreds of years ago well what's a covenant it's a promise God says I promise I'll do these things for you because I want you to have a good life follow me God makes commitments and we are the better for his commitments because he keeps his commitments think about the government world countries live next to each other and when they want to live in peace and get along they have a thing called treaties you know we won't invade your borders will respect you will do trade and commerce with you and we'll get along and that's what a treaty does and look at the mess our worlds in because governments aren't respecting each other's treaties good treaties make for peace it's a commitment I'm committing these things look at business our company wants to provide a good as goods or a service and you're going to pay this much for it and we'll do that and if it doesn't work there these consequences for that if you fail on those things what do you call that in business it's called a contract and contracts keep things committed to each other look at marriage in marriage is for better or worse rich or poor sick or healthy it's called the marriage vow it's a commitment the world is really held together by commitments and that's where trust comes from entitlement says I'll keep this promise as long as it's convenient but if another better offer comes I won't do it so the solution here is to go to the Bible where it says in proverbs 15 Psalm 15 be a person who keeps an oath even when it hurts and does not change their mind you know what I found a lot of us do you know I'm guilty of this too is when we're doing what we're doing we can't stop doing what we're doing and psychologists call that a need for closure like I know I'm supposed to be at the meeting but I just got to finish this email just got to finish this project I mean we all want to get closure and finish something up because our brains are happier when we feel like okay got that done go to the other and so want to get halfway through the email or the project before I go to the meeting so I'm always late to everything just call a need for closure I found the cure to that I think at least for me in my clients and it's empathy empathy feeling the impact that I have on other people the way that I make people feel for example my kids there's a difference in the way I see my kids face when I go ahead and finish the project or finish the conversation or finish the whatever after I've told my kid I'll be at your football game at the beginning I'll get there the beginning and I get there halfway through because I had to have this fling closure there's a difference in my kid's face who looks at me when I got there after I promised I'd be there in the beginning to get there at halftime and the way my kids face looks when I forget the closure I'll get it some other way just I won't be able to finish and I get there and I look at my kids face when I get there the beginning the game and it's so happy and it's so fulfilled and it's so glad that's what empathy does I feel empathy for the people that I impact with my promises the more empathetic I am and more I think about how am i affecting these people over here the market my commitments in the fourth habit engage in service engage in service then a lot of studies there's been a lot of research studies on happiness and we found out that happy people aren't the people that got Santa Claus to give them their gifts every year that's not what creates happy people you know what creates happy people is people who have a healthy life you know spiritually emotionally physically they have a healthy life and also they're serving they're helping other people in life they're in a domestic violence shelter they're mentoring a young business person they're helping out in the church functions their own committees they're doing things to make life better and the key is they're doing something for people who have nothing to pay them or offer them but just to look in their face and say thank you I don't know where we'd be without you thank you and you might have had this experience you're driving home from that thing that you didn't get paid for to help out and you feel great inside and we found out why that's true again it's how our brains work it's big when we do something to help someone our brains secrete certain hormones into us that make us feel good and happy like I matter I made the world a better place these hormones make us feel better it's sort of like God's Prozac you just feel better and it gets secreted into our systems and God always has a purpose for things and the purpose for that Prozac so to speak is to reinforce that we will do that and more so that behavior that I just did by being in the soup kitchen or being in the domestic violence shelter or whatever or helping the child ministry I'm going to do that again because I like the feeling I got it's God's reinforcement system look at the Bible just the son of man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many in other words happy people aren't just like stimulated people who get what they need all the time happy people have a good life and then they want to make a good life for somebody else so if you want to inoculate your kids or your families or employees against entitlement get them involved a service one one company that I work with they pay their employees one day a month to go do something in the community they don't care what as long as it's a legitimate service go you know if you live in a metropolitan area maybe there's 200 services each person picks one that matters to them and they found out when they did this they gave him that day off a month they paid him for it the company got catalyzed and performance went sky-high and culture and great because people feel better when they really serve you know guys the best place that I personally know of where you can plug in to service it was an organization you may have heard of and it's called celebrate recovery celebrate recovery is a ministry started right here at Saddleback for people with Hertz hangups habits his coke co-created by Rick Warren and John Baker and whatever a person struggled they've got a place for he could be a child who got on drugs and went upside-down it could be a depression it could be a difficult marriage relationship it could be a habit but there's a place of acceptance and information and a process to take people through I've been involved in leadership training on the summit world level with celebrate recovery from the beginning every every year for I don't know 15 20 years because I believe in it and now they're in they've got 28,000 groups around the world in different churches over 3 million people involved and it's turnkey it's already set up you don't have to make it up and let me tell you the dynamic of why I love it because when you're somewhere like celebrate recovery you join to heal need something needs fixing you join to heal and you stay to help you joined to heal and then you stay to help because you go there's some pretty cool people and now I know a few things and I've got some stability in my life maybe I can help them maybe I can hand out bulletins or teach or play guitar or do marketing or whatever I joined to heal and I stay to help I don't know of a better way to experience the cure for entitlement because of one all these habits this is probably the most powerful is getting people to a place or they feel like I'm making a difference and there's only reinforcement is that I made a difference so that's the story it's a big problem God's got big solutions I believe in homework assignments and takeaways because our brains function better when there's something to do if I told you well this year plan to do this you'd be busy and you wouldn't get to if I said this month do this you'd be busy but if I say this week here's it just a little invitation challenge this week I will choose two of the habits I'll pick two of the habits and I'll start living the hard way because that's God's Way the hard way it's just much better than the harder way so that's challenge think about a couple things things you can do all these four habits and things begin to change in your mind well I hope that was helpful I just love everything Saddleback does I love being here in let me um let me close in prayer God um we thank you that you set your face like a flint and that you care about us and I pray that we will face things we need to face and ask for your grace knowing you will have enormous enormous fruit enormous outcomes enormous relationships and most of all a more full and rich relationship with you in Jesus name Amen god bless you guys sighs hi I'm Jake ran to the online pastor here at Saddleback Church we're so glad you joined us to watch this message today at Saddleback we believe that life is better together that's why we want you to get connected to our church family whether in person or online we have campuses all over Southern California and on four continents all around the world that would love to welcome you to their weekend services you can find a campus near you at Saddleback comm slash locations and if you're not able to attend a campus in person don't worry we have an online community designed just for you you'll have an opportunity to connect with the messages each week and find resources to help you grow your faith thanks again for watching and we look forward to welcoming you into our church family

Channel: Saddleback Church

Views: 133,380

Keywords: Entitlement Cure, Entitlement, Saddleback Church, Curing entitlement, Dr. John Townsend, God

Id: NWg-CyOpjos

Length: 40min 8sec (2408 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 29 2016