HOPE RISING

Here’s why I wrote the book: People thrive because they commit to the habits that build inner strength and hope. In other words, it’s an inside job. Nothing great happens through you until it happens in you. And unlike IQ or EQ, your level of hope (call it your HQ) can be developed.

I learned that the hard way in the spring of 2020. The whole world shut down, and both of our sold-out Thrive conferences were canceled. I had spent seven years writing a book on hope, and in one afternoon I lost all of mine. About ten days in, I grabbed my Bible, a pen, and a notebook, went out into the backyard, and said, “I’m going to read this Bible until something happens in me.”

And it did. God gave me a word that broke the grip discouragement had on me: If you will let go of discouragement and replace it with dreaming, the world just might be a better place. So I started dreaming on paper. What if we launched a completely free, online leadership conference? What if the best communicators in the country spoke for free? What if we raised a million dollars for kids being hurt by COVID? And what if we did it six weeks from now?

Every speaker we asked said yes. On the morning of the conference, I sat in a makeshift studio at Bayside, staring into a camera, secretly hoping for a few hundred people. Then someone slid a sheet of paper down the table: 243,000 devices were watching, in 43 countries, including Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Iraq. I sat there with tears streaming down my face.

Nothing about the world changed that afternoon in the backyard. The only thing that changed was what was happening inside me, and that changed everything that happened next.

Paul prayed that “the God of hope” would “fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope.” Notice the order. God fills you first. Then hope overflows from you to everyone around you.

Today, give God the inside job. Ask Him to fill you first, and watch what begins to overflow.