The Spiritual Gift of Discouragement

What's going on my friends welcome back to the Ryan League podcast where we love to drop short and sweet nuggets of inspiration each year every week to add value to your life today's episode is no exception. Today we're going to be talking about the spiritual gift of discouragement. The spiritual gift of discouragement we've got this gal on our team. We love her but let me just tell you something she will find a hold in anything. You could show her a world class presentation with perfect transitions, custom graphics and Taylor Swift doing the soundtrack and she still finds something off about the font. Okay. Now we were in a meeting with her the other day and we were going through a bunch of our different book ideas for the future and she basically shot down every single one of them and at one point we were just we were just like okay this is just what we get with her and I'm not going to say her name because I don't want to put her on blast like that because this episode is is actually honoring her because she said something in this meeting that absolutely made me think she says you guys you know what someone once told me that I have the spiritual gift of discouragement and we all just lab so hard because it's like yes that's exactly why she's so valuable to us because her gift isn't really discouragement. It's discernment that is sometimes received as discouragement but she brings a perspective that we often are ignoring within ourselves and in fact I think if we're all on this most of us want to surround ourselves with height people folks who clap for anything people who say that's amazing before they've even heard what you even said I think there's something inside you in me that craves encouragement and I don't think that's a bad thing but the truth is without a little discouragement in your circle you could start believing your own press the Scowler team I think she's the reason that we catch things we'd otherwise miss. She's the reason I think that we fixed problems before they go public I think she's reason I didn't release a book one time with a cover that looked like a middle school PowerPoint slide I chat GPT to a couple of different covers ideas and say hey come over some ideas on this book and any did I said guys let's go with one of these and I'll never forget the day she calls and she said Ryan these book covers suck I said good night I mean could you say it a little nicer I mean but here's a deal she didn't say it with malice she said it with honesty and I'll admit it's strong for about 30 seconds but she was right and because of that feedback we ended up working with a world class designer who made something that we were very very proud of it's not for everybody but guess what it was something that made us proud to share with our family friends and co-workers and oh by the way this guy on our team who has the spiritual gift of discouragement she was the one who introduced us to this world class designer and so here's the deal if she hadn't done that I probably would have just shrugged my shoulders and said yeah it's good enough but good enough isn't what makes a difference good enough isn't what changes lives that's what I've learned is that we all need somebody in our life who doesn't let us settle for good enough we all need at least one person in our world with the spiritual gift of discouragement not to tear us down but to balance us out because let's just be real most of our environments today are designed to make us feel good yeah social media runs on likes our teams run on great job you're doing a great job parents are consistently telling their kids are good at stuff that they're not good job Johnny no Johnny's terrible but but we can't tell them no we get a boost their confidence except Johnny's 45 now and everyone's still trying to boost his confidence okay maybe if you even just think about artificial intelligence right now AI it's practically programmed to flatter you yeah every now and then I'll put in some bad ideas and chat gpt like oh my gosh that's amazing I'm like what's not like you could type in the worst idea into any AI chat box right now you could say something like hey write me a 600 page novel about a dinosaur that becomes a financial advisor and it'll respond that's such a fascinating premise no it's not it's terrible it's dumb like what are we doing right now okay AI will hype you up even when you clearly need to be humble it's built to be nice to make you feel heard to be empathetic which is all fine and dandy but I just got to tell you there's some danger in that there's some danger when everything in your world is designed to encourage you in that moment you start to lose the muscle for correction you start to lose the ability to hear hey that's not good hey you're not ready hey you could put a little bit more effort into that and sometimes that's the most loving thing someone can tell you the spiritual gift of discouragement person when they're healthy they help you see what's not working that's where they've got permission to tell you things like hey that's not very clear or that slides way too busy there's good content there but we're distracted by all of these other graphics that we can't even see what you're trying to tell us or that tagline doesn't mean what you think it means or you're trying to do too much in this one message and when we hear things like that if we're honest with ourselves we know they're right and I know it doesn't feel good in the moment but it does feel good long-term because they keep you from doing things that you regret in the future what's interesting is people who carry that spiritual gift of discouragement energy they're often the same ones who care the most they just have a hard time sugar coating anything they're the ones thinking about what could go wrong while everyone else is thinking about work you go right in innovation we call that risk management and leadership we call that wisdom you know who had that spiritual gift of discouragement energy Thomas Edison's assistant yeah there's a story that when Edison was working on the light bulb his assistant kept pointing out every single thing that went wrong he wasn't impressed by the hundreds of failed attempts he wasn't shouting you got this time he was saying uh yeah this this didn't work was he discouraging maybe but without him Edison might have kept earning down the lab or take a modern example think about movie studios before a blockbuster hits theaters it goes through test screenings they bring in people to watch the movie and tell them what's confusing boring or off-brand now I've seen a few movies where I'm like clearly that did not happen but it is a practice for most movies why because they want to know what doesn't work because fixing it before release because they have the millions of dollars in other words they intentionally invite discouragement early so they can avoid disappointment later that's what the discouragement person does for your team so what they do for your life they find the holes before the public does they make you sharper cleaner more credible you may not always love how they say it but you'll love what their honesty produces now let me be clear this doesn't mean we should all walk around discouraging each other on purpose okay this is not a license to be rude or cynical because there is certainly a difference between being constructive and being cruel but when someone speaks up with tough feedback we should pause before we take offense you want to ask yourself in that moment is there any truth in this because usually there's at least a silver lining in there somewhere sometimes we get so defensive that we miss the gold in someone's criticism we write people off as negative when really they're just seeing it from a different angle and in every organization you need that angle if everyone's an optimist you move fast and break things but you'll also miss blind spots if everyone's a pessimist you'll never move at all but if you've got one encourager one visionary one realist in one discourager I'd say you've got a complete team I'll be honest there are times I don't always love being around that energy it's easier to hear that was awesome then hey uh we got a few tweets for you but the older I get the more grateful I am for those voices that have the spiritual gift of discouragement because behind every win in my life there's been someone who wasn't impressed someone who said that's not quite it yet someone who raised the bar instead of patting me on the back you need that person on your team oh you need that person in your circle you need that person in your life you you might even need that person in your marriage or friendship someone who loves you enough to say hey you can do better it's not easy but it's necessary so maybe the next time you hear someone being negative instead of dismissing them why don't you lean in with curiosity why don't you ask what are they seeing that I'm not what's the truth inside their tone what's the lesson behind this thing because sometimes I think God hides wisdom and uncomfortable voices and if you only listen to people who make you feel good you'll never grow beyond what you already are so yeah maybe just maybe the spiritual gift of discouragement is a thing after all maybe it's God's way of protecting you from settling maybe it's God's way of protecting you from publishing something mediocre from sending that cringey email campaign from launching that half baked product from standing on a stage saying something that could have used another edit or two the person in your life that has a spiritual gift of discouragement is not your enemy they're your editor they're the person who make sure your excellence matches your enthusiasm and here's the secret they're usually harder on themselves than they are on anyone else that's why they notice details you don't they train their eyes to see what could be better not just what already is so thank God for the people who see the cracks before the world does thank God for the person who tells you your slides are too wordy thank God for the friend who says you're better than that caption thank God for the mentor who says that's not leadership yet because behind your next level it's probably someone but the spiritual gift of discouragement helping you get there and I just have to wonder if you're going to make space for that person my friends thank you so much for listening to the Ryan League podcast if today's episode inspired you and encouraged you slash discouraged you in some way shape reform but yet it's somehow added value to your life I'll encourage you to share it with a friend and hey with me in the world to me if you take a moment to rate review and subscribe and I send out an encouraging text each and every week if you'd like to subscribe to it you can text word podcast at the number 469 809 1201 and you will start getting encouraging text messages from me my friends thank you so much for being a part of the journey and we'll catch you next week