Searching for Hope with Dr. Rick Rigsby

Dr. Rick Rigsby is a former college professor, motivational speaker, minister, and President and CEO of Rick Rigsby Communications. He is also a USA Today, Amazon, and The Wall Street Journal best-selling author. He returns to the Higher Purpose Podcast to talk about hope: an invaluable asset to living a happy life.

The Benefits of Being Broken
Circumstances never leave you the same as you were before them. If a difficult season in your life breaks you, there's an unknown authenticity that can pour out of you as a result. Rick tells Kevin Monroe he feels at ease around broken people because they are authentic. He shares a definition of humility from his late friend: “Humility is the absolute God-given ability that eliminates the need to prove the worth of who you are and the rightness of what you do.” Broken people are humble, which is why Rick enjoys their company.

Losing Perspective
We are all leaders, Rick says. Leadership is influence; you are a leader if you are influencing anyone within your periphery. The first thing that's lost in a crisis is perspective, which it is incumbent upon a leader to lead with. Maintaining perspective is crucial to leadership during difficult times, as it can lead to hope for a better day. Feeling like you’ve lost hope is a result of losing perspective. As long as you are still breathing, you have hope.

Hope is...
Our casual use of the word hope has relegated it to the basement of human emotion and neutered its power. Rick defines hope as a quality contained within every human spirit that places a transformative demand upon the heart to believe for the absolute best outcome. Hope is more powerful than a strategy: a strategy is a plan, whereas hope is a belief; strategy is external, whereas hope is an internal virtue that can improve your quality of life. 

Hope energizes, it’s active, alive, passionate, and transformative. It requires courage. Fear is a reaction; courage is a choice. One must choose to be brave even through fear. Hope requires faith. Lastly, the characteristic that moves hope out of the realm of strategy is the requirement of an immediate decisive response. 

Renewing Your Mind
The thoughts we cultivate have a butterfly effect on other aspects of our lives, so we should pay careful attention to them. You have to renew your mind in order to not be negatively affected by external factors. Every day a choice must be made to replace thoughts of negativity with positive thoughts and affirmations, especially during the current crisis. 

Unfounded Hope
Kevin shares a saying his friend told him; misplaced hope is more dangerous than not having hope at all. Rick says that rather than misplaced, the more applicable description would be unfounded hope, which he defines as hope based on a set arbitrary condition. While it is critical to have hope, one must remain realistic with one’s expectations, else they will be reducing hope to wish fulfillment. However, not having any hope at all, Rick believes, is death to the soul. Hope is idiosyncratic, so even if your hope may seem unfounded to others, if it is what keeps you moving forward, there is no room for judgment. 

Resources
Rick Rigsby on LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook 
RickRigsby.com

Kevin Monroe on LinkedIn | Twitter 
Email: [email protected] 
Call or text Kevin: 678-744-5111
Join the community: KevinDMonroe.com/decade

Dr. Rick Rigsby is a former college professor, motivational speaker, minister, and President and CEO of Rick Rigsby Communications. He is also a USA Today, Amazon, and The Wall Street Journal best-selling author. He returns to the Higher Purpose Podcast to talk about hope: an invaluable asset to living a happy life.

The Benefits of Being Broken

Circumstances never leave you the same as you were before them. If a difficult season in your life breaks you, there's an unknown authenticity that can pour out of you as a result. Rick tells Kevin Monroe he feels at ease around broken people because they are authentic. He shares a definition of humility from his late friend: “Humility is the absolute God-given ability that eliminates the need to prove the worth of who you are and the rightness of what you do.” Broken people are humble, which is why Rick enjoys their company.

Losing Perspective

We are all leaders, Rick says. Leadership is influence; you are a leader if you are influencing anyone within your periphery. The first thing that's lost in a crisis is perspective, which it is incumbent upon a leader to lead with. Maintaining perspective is crucial to leadership during difficult times, as it can lead to hope for a better day. Feeling like you’ve lost hope is a result of losing perspective. As long as you are still breathing, you have hope.

Hope is...

Our casual use of the word hope has relegated it to the basement of human emotion and neutered its power. Rick defines hope as a quality contained within every human spirit that places a transformative demand upon the heart to believe for the absolute best outcome. Hope is more powerful than a strategy: a strategy is a plan, whereas hope is a belief; strategy is external, whereas hope is an internal virtue that can improve your quality of life. 

Hope energizes, it’s active, alive, passionate, and transformative. It requires courage. Fear is a reaction; courage is a choice. One must choose to be brave even through fear. Hope requires faith. Lastly, the characteristic that moves hope out of the realm of strategy is the requirement of an immediate decisive response. 

Renewing Your Mind

The thoughts we cultivate have a butterfly effect on other aspects of our lives, so we should pay careful attention to them. You have to renew your mind in order to not be negatively affected by external factors. Every day a choice must be made to replace thoughts of negativity with positive thoughts and affirmations, especially during the current crisis. 

Unfounded Hope

Kevin shares a saying his friend told him; misplaced hope is more dangerous than not having hope at all. Rick says that rather than misplaced, the more applicable description would be unfounded hope, which he defines as hope based on a set arbitrary condition. While it is critical to have hope, one must remain realistic with one’s expectations, else they will be reducing hope to wish fulfillment. However, not having any hope at all, Rick believes, is death to the soul. Hope is idiosyncratic, so even if your hope may seem unfounded to others, if it is what keeps you moving forward, there is no room for judgment. 

Resources

Rick Rigsby on LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook 

RickRigsby.com

Kevin Monroe on LinkedIn | Twitter 

Email: [email protected] 

Call or text Kevin: 678-744-5111

Join the community: KevinDMonroe.com/decade