Dharius Daniels - Hard Work DOESN'T Always Work

Sharpening the ax personally begins with acquiring and increasing the confidence and character traits necessary for the season you’re in and the results you want to achieve. Hard work doesn’t always work; hard work only works if you’re working hard at the right thing. He suggests in Ecclesiastes 10:10 that increasing our effort isn’t always the answer; he suggests improving our abilities instead. So, instead of swinging harder, sharpen more. This is what we want to help you do in the next two days. We want to help you sharpen the ax more, and in this opening session, I want to encourage you to do it in three areas. I’m not going to rush through, but I’m going to move swiftly through number one because number two might take the whole hour I have with you. So, here’s number one: sharpen the ax personally. I want you to see this from a different perspective; I want you to literally reframe it—working on me is working on my program. You must see it that way. Working on me is working on my program. Some of you are in starting seasons; others of you are in scaling seasons. Whether you’re starting or scaling, you have to start with yourself. What up? Real quick, I have a question for you: do you want more peace? Do you want to be more productive? Do you want more purpose in your life? Do you want to be more profitable? If so, I can help you. I have a mentoring and coaching group called Daniel’s Den. I want you to go to danielsden.com to find out more. I’ll see you there. So, working on me is working on my program. Sharpening the ax personally begins with acquiring and increasing confidence and the character traits necessary for the season you’re in and the results you want to achieve. I want to focus a little on confidence. I taught this in the challenge last week: confidence is contextual, and confidence is seasonal. There will be times when it needs to be cultivated and re-cultivated, especially if something hasn’t gone well. Did you hear what I just said? Sometimes confidence has to be cultivated; other times, it must be re-cultivated, especially when something hasn’t gone well or if you’ve had a series of false starts. Confidence can be shaken to the degree that I not only question my programs, but I can also start questioning myself. I can start losing confidence in my ability to actually begin. Does that make sense? It’s one thing to believe it can be done; it’s another thing to believe I can do it, even if I’ve had seasons where I haven’t. Even if I’ve made commitments and promises to myself and have had a series of false starts, I must recultivate the confidence that sometimes those false starts are not necessarily failures; sometimes those false starts are phases you actually had to go through, not only to cultivate your confidence but also to feel the frustration you need to feel because everyone is fueled by something different, and some of us are more fueled by frustration. If you’re feeling that, I’m glad. Did you hear what I just said? If you’re feeling a little frustration, I’m glad. If you’re feeling a bit of agitation with yourself, I’m glad. If you’re feeling a little disappointment—not despair, but disappointment—in yourself, I’m glad because that means you have a revelation and recognition of your potential and capability. The disappointment present is an indication that a willingness to settle does not exist. If you were willing to settle, you wouldn’t be as disappointed and frustrated. This frustration sends a signal that you will never be okay emotionally; you will never be at ease without doing your best work and being your best self. This feeling is not going to go away, and I’m glad. Am I making sense here? There are times when we must recultivate confidence; that’s why rooms like this are important. That’s why environments like this are important; they reignite, re-inspire, and remind us of what we can do and what we’re supposed to be doing. They reconnect us to the mandate that some of you felt when you said yes to this. It started as a mandate, but now life has you treating it like an option. You’re in a program like this because, for you, making not just a dollar but a difference matters. That matters to you; if it didn’t, you would be in another program. But you’re in this program because there is a sense of responsibility or call or burden you feel to steward your insights and experiences in a way that can add value to other people. Many of us are in a Gideon-like season where God is trying to convince you of your capability. Not only could Gideon do the job, but he did it with only 300 people—he was that capable, but he was unaware of his capability. So God literally had to cultivate confidence in him. Now here’s what’s interesting about Gideon’s story: we know what took his confidence. My question to you, respectfully, is do you know where you left yours? Because if you’re going to have success, I’m going to need you to go back and find it.