DEFENSE: SHUTTING DOWN THE OPPONENT

PLAY #1 DISCIPLINE-Doing the Right Thing

When it comes time to play defense, you need to learn a few basics. The first one to master is self-control, because everything else builds on it.

A good place to start developing self control is learning delayed gratification.

There was a great article in The New Yorker, about the positive, long term impact of delayed gratification, called “Don’t! The secret of self-control” The article is about a Stanford University research project that was started in the 1960’s. 653 children were put in a room with marshmallow and were told they could eat the marshmallow immediately or wait 15 minutes and get a second marshmallow as a reward.

The kids were observed and then placed into one of two categories. The one who ate the marshmallow immediately were labeled “low delayers” and kids who waited the full 15 minutes were labeled “high delayers”

What’s interesting is the research team has tracked these 653 kids over last 40 years and made some surprising discoveries.  The high delayers:

• Had higher SAT scores
• Experienced lower rates of drug abuse
• Had better body-mass indices
• Experienced great career success,
• Were better at managing stress
• Have developed greater abilities to maintain friendships

than the low delayers. A quote from the article “A child who could wait fifteen minutes had an S.A.T. score that was, on average, two hundred and ten points higher than that of the kid who could wait only thirty seconds.”

The psychologists doing the study assumed the children’s ability to wait had to do with how badly they wanted the marshmallow, but that turned out to not be the case. Instead, the researchers discovered the high delayers had the skill of “strategic allocation of attention”. The high-delayers didn’t focus on the marshmallow; instead these kids distracted themselves. In other words, they wanted the marshmallow just as much as the low delayers, they just forgot about it.

The doctor in charge wrote, “If you’re thinking about the marshmallow and how delicious it is, then you’re going to eat it. The key is to avoid thinking about it in the first place.” Later on he said, “Once you realize that will power is just a matter of learning how to control your attention and thoughts, you can really begin to increase it.”

Self-control seems like a restriction but it’s actually a protection. If you don’t have self-control you have no defenses and with no defenses, anything is possible.

• Self-control is how you keep your marriage vows.
• Self-control is how you stay ethical in your business dealings.
• Self-control keeps you out of the ditches.

SCRIMMAGE

Two tips to practice and develop self-control

1. Pay Cash. This will help you develop delayed gratification in finances.
2. Dance Your Eyes- Don’t allow your eyes to linger on a woman that’s not your wife. Move on to other input.

HUDDLE DISCUSSION STARTER

I struggle the most with self-control when I ______________________________

The most extreme thing I’ve ever done in the name of self-control is __________________________

The basic idea behind this website is that if you’re a Godly man then it’s automatic that you’ll be a great husband, dad, friend, employee, employer or any other part of your life. That’s good because trying to read all the books on each area of your life can get very complicated and confusing. That’s why the Playbook is all about simplicity. Figuring out the basics to being a Godly man. What are the characteristics, lifestyles and choices that will lead to success?

You probably won’t read any new material here because that’s not the goal. The goal is to put stuff you already know into a very simple system that provides an easy way for you to assess where you’re succeeding and where you’re failing and then give concrete steps for how to improve.

There’s also real world “how-to’s”. There’s nothing worse than hearing a great talk but not being told how to do it. Hopefully this is an area where you will learn something new and innovative. This is where I came up with organizational framework of “Offense”, “Defense” and “Special Teams”. Here’s what you’ll find in each category:

OFFENSE-This section all about not being passive but attacking the opponent.

DEFENSE- Shutting down the opponent. Some stuff is so destructive in the life of a man, that you can’t mess around with it, you must shut it down.

SPECIAL TEAMS- Sometimes is the small things that make the difference between victory and defeat.

But you don’t become a Godly man in isolation. You need a small group of buddies who are on the same journey. Men who will get in your junk because they want you to succeed. Men who will answer the phone when you call at 3am. Men who want you to win! That’s why the website will never be THE thing, it has to be done in community.

I want to lead groups of men who want to go on this journey. I want to train men who can then lead other men on this journey. In fact, if all you ever do is read this website, you’ll be very disappointed and will give up fairly quickly. But let’s be honest, finding a group of men or even one man for that matter, that you can trust is HARD, so we’re going to use the comment section here and the Facebook fan page to help get this started. Getting started means communicating with other men and that’s what you can do online.  I want you meeting with other men face to face but at least using the web gets you started.

So, you in?

SPECIAL TEAMS- SMALL THINGS THAT MAKE THE BIG DIFFERENCE

PLAY #3- GENEROSITY-The Habit of Giving Freely

Do you ever get the feeling that the entire world has their hand in your pocket? Everybody needs money:

• Schools need money for supplies
• Athletic teams need money for uniforms
• School bands need money to go march in the New Year’s day parade.

And you haven’t even gotten to church!

• Special offering for a new bus or to repair a broken air conditioner.
• The youth group is raising money to go to camp.

Everybody wants money, your money. But how do you give? How much, when and why? We need wisdom and discipline to know how to manage the money we’ve been entrusted with. Not only do we need to be wise about how we give away money, we need to have some sort of grid to evaluate giving opportunities against. Here are a few points to consider before making a contribution:

• What do I know about the group asking for a donation?
• Do this group have a good reputation for spending money well.
• Has there been any guilt or coercion involved with this request.

SCRIMMAGE

The fact is wealth presents substantial dangers for every man, even more so for today’s increasingly more affluent man. So how does a guy keep his heart and mind pure in the area of money? The following are three simple, but highly effective disciplines:

1) Be Careful – Money is powerful, it can cause men to do things they wouldn’t ordinarily do. That’s why a man needs to keep up his guard. Three questions to help you keep money in it’s proper perspective.

• Do you feel desperate to earn more?
• Are you constantly anxious that you don’t have enough money?
• Are you envious of others’ financial success?

2) Be Generous – One of the best antidotes to greed is giving. When you’re generous, something mysterious happens in a man’s heart. Suddenly, the things you couldn’t live without aren’t so important after all. Giving keeps us from clinging onto our possessions too strongly.

3) Be Thankful

Simple, yet profound.

There are times as men when it’s our job to provide resources to those who need them.

“Blessed are those who are generous, because they feed the poor.” Proverbs 22:9

HUDDLE DISCUSSION STARTER

Are you handling your money in such a way that you’re able to be generous?

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SPECIAL TEAMS:SMALL THINGS THAT MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE

PLAY #2 HONESTY-Complete Lack of Deception

There aren’t many words that can have as much of an effect on every part of a man’s life than “honesty”.

• Honesty is what every woman wants in a man.
• Your kids will develop honesty as a lifestyle by watching you.
• What employer wouldn’t choose an honest man over a dishonest one?
• The people who work for you will go the extra mile if they know you’re honest with them.

Honesty is just everything.

Men live in a world that sends them mixed messages- be honest, but at the same time do whatever it takes to get ahead. Because men are wired to succeed, lies become a tool they use to climb the ladder. The reason is they think they’ll be at a disadvantage if they don’t.

If that weren’t enough, men have been raised to distinguish between small lies- like when you answer “no” when your wife asks if her jeans make her butt look big- and real lies. Some people even call them “beneficial lies”, lies that protect another person’s feelings.

Why don’t men tell the truth? Why is it so tough? Here a few reasons people lie:

• Fear of punishment.
• Afraid of hurting someone’s feelings.
• Fear that someone will think badly of us.
• Don’t want somebody to have more success than us.
• To protect someone or ourselves
• Don’t want to be taken advantage of.
• And the big one, we lie to ourselves because we’re afraid of facing our stuff.

The weird thing is we think there’s safety in lies, when the reality is there is safety in the truth. My friend Brad Johnson has a great quote about honesty “The ugly truth is better than a pretty lie.” That pretty much sums it up.

SCRIMMAGE

Steps to Honesty:

• Tell the complete truth
• Be honest in your negotiations
• Avoid spin
• Learn to celebrate the success of others.
• Honesty starts with telling yourself the truth

Wondering what to do if you struggle with honesty? I got a verse for you

“First, help me never to tell a lie. Second, give me neither poverty nor riches! Give me just enough to satisfy my needs.” Proverbs 30:8

HUDDLE DISCUSSION STARTER

Think about how you felt the last time you found out somebody had lied to you.

SPECIAL TEAMS: SMALL THINGS THAT MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE

PLAY #1 STICKTOITIVENESS-Refuse to Quit
I’ve seen countless men start out with the best of intentions, only to fail because they lacked the virtue of sticktoitiveness. But I’ve also seen other guys succeed despite the odds being stacked against them, because they had developed sticktoitiveness. They simply refused to quit

Developing Sticktoitiveness
This will require you to dig deep and find the desire to overcome any obstacle that pops up in your path. Here are few suggestions to help you develop sticktoitiveness.

SCRIMMAGE

1. Decide how you will act when faced with a challenge, before you are faced with it.

There are certain moral and ethical questions that every guy will face at some point in his life. You need to be prepared because the worst mistake you can make is to wait until you’re in the heat of the moment. Why? Because chances are your human weakness will take over and you will choose the easier, and most of the time, wrong choice. That’s why you have to decide now what things you will and will not do. Not only does this protect you from your emotions, it also reduces the number of decisions you have to make.

2. Write down your goals everyday.

The big advantage of this is you’ll focus on the tasks you need to accomplish and avoid wasting time. This will also help motivate you to maintain your sticktoitiveness when times get hard.

3. Learn from your mistakes.

A lot of times the reason guys fail isn’t that sticktoitiveness is impossible, but because they were using the wrong strategy. Albert Einstein famously said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” If you see something in your life isn’t working, change it up.

HUDDLE DISCUSSION STARTERS

Name a man who you think models sticktoitiveness.

DEFENSE:SHUTTING DOWN THE OPPONENT

PLAY #3 ACCOUNTABILITY-Letting Another Man Know My Junk

Nothing short of a prostate exam causes a man to quake in his boots more than the word “accountability”. To most guys it conjures up images of calling in weekly or daily to check in with your parole officer. They think the conversation goes something like this:

BOB-“Hey John, it’s me, Bob”

JOHN-“Bob, you’re two minutes late calling me, were you looking at porn?”

BOB-“Uh,no I was on the phone with my biggest customer. Sorry.”

JOHN- “Oh, come on Bob, you don’t expect me to believe that do you? Admit it, you were looking at porn!”

BOB- “No John I really wasn’t, just talking with a customer”

JOHN-“Well, then how many times have you looked at porn this week? I KNOW you have, so tell me the truth”

BOB-“Actually John, it’s a been a really good week. No porn at all but I am having a little trouble sticking with my budget. Could we talk about that?”

JOHN-”Who cares about budgets, let’s talk about you and porn!”

Get the idea? That’s why most guys refuse to even talk about being close friends with another man, much less have an accountability partner. The sad truth is over 90% of men 30 and older do not have even one close friend. They have lots of buddies: golf, fishing, hunting, whatever, but no friends. No one they can call on in times of stress. No one to be totally transparent with. And that’s sad, because no one stands alone and no man is capable of doing life on his own.

SCRIMMAGE

It’s seems obvious but most guys miss this first step: to have a friend you have to be a friend. But how do you that?

Four keys to friendship.

1.  Loyalty

2.  Commitment to a common set of values.

3.  Be an encourager.

4.  Able to keep a secret

Aren’t those the qualities that you’re looking for in a friend? If you found a guy who had all four do you think it would be difficult to be open and honest with him?

HUDDLE DISCUSSION STARTER

Which of the four qualities do you need to develop in your own life?

DEFENSE: SHUTTING DOWN THE OPPONENT

PLAY #2-WISDOM-Knowing the Right Thing To D0

Teach

Train

Scrimmage

HUDDLE DISCUSSION STARTER

OFFENSE: ATTACKING THE OPPONENT

PLAY #3 Moderation-Nothing in Excess

A word you don’t hear very often these days is moderation, instead our world is filled with extremes. Think about it, there are extreme sports, extreme deodorant, extreme energy drinks, and even extreme TV channels. Everybody wants the extreme whatever because they erroneously believe the more intense an experience is the more pleasurable it will be.

But the truth is there’s a very important principle at work: as you increase stimulation your appetite rises to match it. Now you need even more stimulation to achieve the same amount of pleasure the previous level of stimulation gave you. Eventually you reach a point of diminishing returns. You just can’t get the same snap or buzz no matter how much you eat, drink, or do and that’s when trouble starts.

The push for the extreme will actually begin to damage the parts of your brain and body that receives and process pleasure. You basically overload your pleasure circuits.

SCRIMMAGE

How do you avoid extremes?

Reconnect with Your Senses- An example is to slow down and enjoy a meal, instead of eating while you’re driving down the road.

Retrain Your Attention Span. Men have notoriously short attention spans. That’s why sitcoms are filmed in 7-9 minute blocks. Men have a tough time staying engaged for much longer.

A few ways to do this are to read the newspaper or a book without pictures.

Stop Multitasking. It’s not uncommon for me to watch TV, surf the web on my laptop, and text somebody AT THE SAME TIME. That’s insanity.

The bible talks about fasting from food but what if you did a technology fast? Could you take a day or part of a day and disconnect from technology? I admit the idea makes my palms sweaty and I twitch a little but remember, too much stimulation overloads our sensory circuits. If a total technology fast seems like waaay too much too fast, why not start off slowly with an Internet fast. Take one evening a week at home when you don’t go online. No email, no Facebook, no Twitter, nothing. Try it once then see where it leads.

Delay your Gratification. The more you hold out for something, the greater the pleasure you’ll experience when you finally attain it.

Huddle Discussion Starter

List your hobbies?

Now figure out how often you’ve engaged in them in the last 90 days. Does the answer indicate excess or moderation?

OFFENSE: ATTACKING THE OPPONENT

PLAY #2-INITIATIVE-WORK WINS

A big difference between men and boys is that boys only talk about doing things while men actually get things done. Men develop a plan and get started on it while boys come up with all kinds of excuses.  3,000 years ago a guy named Solomon put this into words.

“Work brings profit, but mere talk leads to poverty!” Proverbs 14:23

There are way too many guys who want to talk about all the things they are going to do. There are way too many guys who are “idea” men. But the world doesn’t need another great idea what the world needs is men who actually accomplish something.

The world is full of great businesses, products, and inventions but unfortunately they are in the heads of guys who won’t or haven’t gotten started.

SCRIMMAGE

HOW TO START DOING INSTEAD OF JUST TALKING

Eat The Frog Every Day-Do the worst thing on your to-do list first! Your day will only improve after that.

Break Projects Into Tasks.

Take advantage of the four stages that men use in every task: Plan, Execute, Celebrate, Rest. When you do this, you’ll be inspired and ready to tackle the next task.

Develop SMART Goals:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Realistic
• Timely

Be Flexible- Don’t be afraid to change strategies

Celebrate EVERY Win

Tools To Help You Get Stuff Done:

1. Master Task List-sit down and write down everything you need to get done.

2. Daily Task List-Stuff from Master Task list moves to this list to give a list of stuff to accomplish that is doable.

3. Use a Calendar to Help You Organize Your Time and Not Forget Stuff.

4. Write It Down: Develop a method for writing down project ideas, assigned tasks, etc. then you can move to some sort of storage system or master task list. Here’s a few ideas for ways to do this.

Pen-and-paper: A notebook (I used to use Moleskines, but now I use a cheap, spiral bound from Staples, but whatever works) can be easily modified to make all your lists accessible.

Desktop software: If you’re using Outlook or Lotus Notes, you have a task list manager at hand that can easily hold other kinds of lists by assigning categories to them. Other options include using a note-taking program like Evernote or OneNote, with a separate note for each list.

Web Applications: Any task-list manager that allows categories (Todoist is a great one, since it literally allows you to create multiple lists), or most GTD apps.

Smart Phone- I use the Notes app on my iPhone

THE SECRET TO GETTING STUFF DONE:

JUST GET STARTED

HUDDLE DISCUSSION STARTER

What steps do you need to take to move from dreamer to do’er?

OFFENSE-ATTACKING THE OPPONENT

PLAY #1-ORGANIZATION-Knowing the Details of Your Stuff

Every man wants to improve. Be a better father, husband, student, employee, employer or whatever. The desire to be recognized as the best at something is built into guys. Who doesn’t want to be recognized by other men as “the man”?

But being “the man” takes work. It takes effort, desire, and focused attention. No matter how talented you are, it still takes work to be the best.  A great example is the late, great Chet Atkins, who is considered to be one to be one of the best guitar players that ever lived. One day he was asked about his practice schedule and his answer was he practiced every day. The interviewer was shocked, the great Chet Atkins practiced every day? Chet’s response was if he missed one day of practice he could tell it, if he missed two days, his band could tell it, and if he missed three days, the audience could tell it. It takes effort to improve.

What’s tough is when we try to juggle all of the areas where we want to be the best (the best softball player, best mechanic, best golfer, best dad.) How do you decide what comes first? What do you focus on and what gets pushed to the side?

Because we’re guys, most of the time we choose what gives us the most pleasure or glory and that’s not always what’s best in the long run. The result is we end up not accomplishing much of what we say we value or the things that we need to accomplish.

If you don’t know what you want to be good at and constantly run from one activity to another, the result is predictable: CHAOS. Nothing gets done. What we need is a clear set of priorities to serve as guardrails for our lives.

There was a guy in the bible that figured this out. His name was Solomon and he talked about it in Ecclesiastes 10:10 “If the ax is dull and its edge unsharpened, more strength is needed but skill will bring success.” I love this verse because it’s such a clear picture for guys. We’ve all used a tool that (drill bit, wood chisel, saw, or ax) had become dull and it takes way too much effort to get any results.

Have you ever noticed that the process of becoming dull is subtle? One day you’re whacking away with an ax wondering why it’s so hard when the light bulb goes off and you realize the thing is dull. Eventually even the densest of guys figures out that it’s not going to get any better until he sharpens the tool.

Let’s figure out where you’re swinging a dull ax and get to work sharpening it. To get started you need to know there are 3 man laws that will govern everything you do and can either work for you or against you, but WILL affect everything you do.

MAN LAW

LAW #1: Your life is a checkbook and you write a check every day

When you go to bed at night, you will never, ever get that day back. Spend every day with purpose so you never feel remorse at the end of a day. Even if you did “nothing”, the day was not wasted if it was part of the plan.

LAW #2: You must have a WRITTEN plan

A written plan will keep you from wasting time, money, and talent. It’s really the only way to keep yourself from drifting and that’s important because we are all drifters by nature.

Advantages of writing it down:

• you’ll remember it
• you’ll be able to use it to do regularly reviews and reorient if necessary

A written plan will also give you a blueprint to lead your family with. Single guys, this will help you get a woman. Women like to know a man has a plan (planning details for date).

LAW #3: Everything in life costs something and you must count that cost.

Most of us don’t consider what it costs in time, only in money. Take changing the oil in your car, the cost is far more than the 20 minutes it takes you to actually do it. There’s the time involved getting the oil and filter, then you’ve got to get rid of the old oil. So now you realize that that 20 minute job actually cost you an hour and a half. 90 minutes that you could have spent with your kids or having a date with your wife. You’ve got to decide what cost your more willing to pay, $39.95 or 90 minutes. Remember you can always make more money but you can never make more time.

The list here is endless but here are a few to get you started:

• If your wife works should you send your shirts to the laundry?
• How should you handle household repairs.
• Who cuts your grass?

Basically, you need to evaluate your life and determine what things would actually have a lower real cost if you farmed them out.

SCRIMMAGE

2 QUESTIONS TO REGAIN CONTROL OF YOUR LIFE

Question #1: Can I do it?

Do you have the abilities, time, and interest to do an activity?

Question #2: Should I do it?

Just because I can do something doesn’t mean I should. That’s why I need a written plan that will help me evaluate opportunities before they come up. It will also give you permission to say “no”.

HUDDLE DISCUSSION STARTERS

At this exact moment, is your life more chaos or order?

What is the balance in your life checkbook? Positive or Negative?