Dharius Daniels - You Gave Too Much

Hey, I’ve got a question for you. Did you give too much? Yeah, see, I’m asking you that because it’s a question I had to ask myself recently. So listen, let’s just, it’s just me and you, let’s be honest for a minute. Let me talk to you like I’m your cousin, your uncle, your brother. Yeah, that’s a question I asked myself recently. You know, I’ve been serving people in the spiritual and entrepreneurial space for some time now as a coach. One of the things I found myself doing recently was being really, really, really honest with myself about some frustration I was feeling. Now let me pause and unpack this for a minute because I think this is super important, right? One of the things I’m really passionate about is change and helping people experience transformation. When you experience a massive transformation in you, then you can facilitate massive transformations in the world. When you experience an incredible transformation, there can be a massive transformation facilitated in your family, a massive transformation facilitated in your ministry, a massive transformation in your finances, and a massive transformation in your business, right? Because I’m passionate about that, I’m equally passionate about the emotional realm and the emotional aspect of a person’s existence. This is why I trained as an emotional intelligence specialist, because I realized that people can’t change; there can’t be a massive transformation without this part. So, emotional intelligence consists of four quadrants: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. Self-awareness is the ability to recognize and own what you’re feeling, to pinpoint it. You don’t want to be feeling something and then be unaware of it. Your feelings aren’t always right; they’re real, but they’re telling you something. They’re either telling you something about your circumstances or about you, so you want to pay attention to them. From time to time, I do this, and actually, there’s a practice I engage in every single morning. It’s a practice I got from Emotional Healthy Spirituality, where I do something every morning called naming and taming. I do this right in the middle of my devotional time. I want to pause for a minute and name what I’m feeling because if I don’t name it, I can’t tame it. If I don’t identify it, I can’t improve it. Yeah, right? I can’t heal what I’m hiding. So I was just super honest, like, man, I’m feeling frustrated. And watch this: I’m feeling frustrated because I feel like I’m making, at least to the best of my ability, massive investments in people, and I don’t know. Now, watch this: I understood a long time ago that I can’t control outcomes. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gives the increase. So I understand, and I think it’s important for you to understand, you can’t control outcomes. You can’t. You can control your contribution, but you cannot control the outcome. You can control whether or not you sow the seed in the soil of somebody’s heart, but you cannot control whether or not it rains. You cannot control whether or not that soil is good ground, nor can you control how much sunlight it gets. You cannot control whether or not you actually see a return on the investment you made in that person. Now, I know some of you are thinking, «No, Darius, you’re wrong. It’s the law of sowing and reaping. If I sow, Darius, I’m going to reap.» Yep, you reap what you sow, but that doesn’t mean you reap where you sow. Now, I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Yeah, you reap what you sow, but that doesn’t mean you reap where you sow. Sometimes you sow in one field but reap in another. Sometimes you are good to people, but those you are good to are not the ones who are good back to you. Sometimes you are good to one person, and then you reap a harvest when someone else is good to you. So we can’t control outcomes. I wasn’t necessarily expecting outcomes, but I think what I was expecting was appreciation, not entitlement. As I sat with my honest feelings, naming and taming, I told myself, «Did I give too much?» And I wonder if you’ve asked yourself that. I wonder if I’m the only one who has ever felt that way. Like, wait a minute, wait, Darius, did you give too much? Because you can’t control outcomes, but there seems to be a pattern here. Darius, I said, «Just watch this for a quick second.» For maybe a millisecond, I don’t even know what’s less than a millisecond, but if there’s something less than that, this was less than that. For whatever is less than a millisecond, I said to myself, «I’m not doing that again.» Wait, wait, don’t you start—don’t start, because I know that I’m not the only one. I know I’m not the only one that…