Jul 9, 2018
As you start this journey, the adversary will try to keep you from reading and praying. This episode will give you the #1 way to protect yourself from sin so you can get your prayers answered.
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Hey everyone, this is Russell Brunson. I want to welcome you back to the Book of Mormon Challenge podcast. I hope that so far you have been taking the challenge, you have been reading, you have been praying and you have been trying to get an answer. I actually want to apologize, it’s been a little while since I’ve done an episode and honestly, it’s interesting, whenever you try to do something amazing in your life, and hopefully this is kind of a metaphor for you guys as well. It feels like the adversary wants to try to stop you. And it’s crazy how the more I want to do this podcast and get in the right state and have the right spirit and all those kind of things, the more temptations and trials and things come up in my life that try to keep me from doing it.
And I’m sure for a lot of you guys it’s going to be similar as you try to go on this journey and try to read. The adversary is going to do everything in his power to keep you from actually doing it, to keep you from reading, to keep you from concentrating, to keep you from praying, to keep you from asking. And that’s just kind of his pattern.I felt it, I know that so far since I’ve launched this podcast a lot of amazing things have happened, some huge amazing conversations have been opened with people, it’s just been powerful and amazing. But as soon as anything amazing starts happening, the adversary tries to stop it.
So I am here to kind of re-commit and to re-push forward and to be more consistent for you, but also for me as well. Also, just kind of, I’m going to make a couple of changes to the format, so I want to kind of explain that to you here. So this is going to be kind of the last big foundational episode for a while. I’m going to keep doing the bigger ones that are like 30 minutes to an hour, when I get excited about a topic I want to deep dive and go there because there’s tons of stuff I want to share. But moving forward, I want to make sure that, sometimes the bigger episodes take me a lot longer to think through and get the notes and stories and get everything perfect, and then obviously praying to make sure I have the spirit, all those things to be able to deliver it to you and I don’t want to keep that from progression and momentum.
So what I’m going to be doing, I’ll keep doing some of the longer ones, like this, where we deep dive into things. But after this one I’m going to start jumping into shorter episodes. And the goal with the shorter episodes, honestly is, my goal with the whole podcast is just to get you to read and to pray. That’s it. I want you to read the Book of Mormon and I want you to pray. If I can get you to do that then I’ve succeeded, because that’s my only goal.
So as I shift from the episodes moving forward, you’ll notice I’m going to be picking, for example, it might be 1 Nephi: chapter 1. And I’m going to go and study deep into the commentary and figure out the coolest, most exciting things possible that I can do to get you excited to read chapter one. That’s my goal. Then chapter 2 I’m going to go and find the best, most amazing, most exciting things and preset the story and get you so excited that you have to go and read it. And I’m kind of good at this in my marketing background, at getting people hooked and excited, so my goal is to hook you, give you a story and then push you to go and actually read each of the chapters. So that’s kind of the game plan.
So I’m excited. Next episode will be coming out in a couple of days and we’ll keep moving forward a little bit faster on those. And again, my goal with this is to get you into the book, reading and praying. So that’s kind of the goal.
After the last episode we talked about how to get your prayers answered. I got so much good feedback from all of you guys and I appreciate it. But honestly, the biggest feedback I got from people and it’s also interestingly enough, the same thing that I struggle with the most and so I wanted to address it in this episode. The title of this episode is called “No more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually.”
So the biggest question, the biggest problem people were messaging me with were, “Russell, I want to read and I want to pray but I don’t feel worthy. I don’t feel like I can get an answer.” Or “I know that I’m not living right in my life, and I struggle to repent and I don’t know how to do it.” Or “I’ve tried to repent but I’ve fallen back in and the things that I try to do right, Is in and I make the mistake again.” Or all sorts of things like that. “I want to do good Russell, but I keep making mistakes and because I make mistakes I don’t feel worthy to actually pray and get the answers.”
And like I said, that’s the pattern, what the adversary wants to do. As soon as you try to take a step towards the light and towards truth, he will immediately bombard you with everything he can to distract you, to make you sin, to make you feel guilty, to make you not feel worthy because those are the feelings and the thoughts and things that will keep you from reading and praying.
So first off, I want to give some context and some things to kind of help you guys with, because it’s something I have struggled with my entire life. I think I’ve been on this planet for 38ish years now and I struggle with this on a daily basis. So I know I’m not alone, and if I am alone then this episode is for me. But if I’m not alone, then hopefully this will be for you as well.
Alright, some of the context to this and what, honestly it’s the thing that, not frustrating. That’s not the right word, but the thing that I struggle with the most is I want to do good. And there’s a scripture in Mosiah and I’m going to read it and it comes back to the title of today’s presentation. Again, the title is “No more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually.”
So in Mosiah 5:1,2 if you’ve read the Book of Mormon, there’s this amazing king, his name is King Benjamin. He’s about to die and before he dies he gets all his people together and he starts preaching to them, kind of his last message, “What can I do to help you guys to make sure you’re going to succeed in life, you’re going to be good people, you’re going to be able to return back to God?” And in this speech if you look at verse 1 and 2 of Mosiah Chapter 5 this is what he says,
“And now, it came to pass that when King Benjamin had thus spoken to his people, he sent among them, desiring to know of his people if they believed the words which he had spoken to them. And they all cried with one voice, saying: Yeah, we believe all the words which thou hast spoken unto us; and also, we know of their surety and truth, because of the spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, which has wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually. “
I remember reading that in seminary when I was a kid and thinking, “Oh my gosh. As I soon as I get the spirit, as soon as I know it’s true, the most amazing thing is going to happen to me. I’m never going to have the desire to sin ever again.” That’s what I interpreted this, King Benjamin’s people heard his word, they were excited. They were like, “I’m going to do this.” And it said they had no more disposition to do evil but to do good continually. So I always thought that as soon as I repented, as soon as I was right, that I would have no more desire to do evil, but I’d only want to do good.
And then suck us into the real world and guess what happened, I felt the spirit, I wanted to change, I did change. But what shocked me, what surprised me was that all the sudden my desire to do evil did not go away. Actually let me step back, my desire to do evil did go away, but my….how do I explain this right? I didn’t want to do sin, but I still sinned. I still got tempted, I had temptations, I had trials, all these things that pulled me back into sin. So while I had a disposition to do good continually, I didn’t want to do evil, I still sinned.
And I kept sinning and I kept sinning and it was so hard and so frustrating. In fact, to this day I still struggle with this. I know, I think all of us have our temptations, our sins that we struggle with. And while I have desire, I’m going to point my life, I feel similar to how King Benjamin’s people felt. I have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually. But I want to add dot, dot, dot, yet I’m still tempted like crazy and I fall way too often. That’s how, if it was me writing the scripture, that’s what I would have said. “Russell has no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually, yet for some reason he’s so weak he keeps screwing up, therefore he’s yet to be perfect.”
That’s how I felt and I remember being frustrated by that and if you read in Matthew, Matthew 26: 41, in this scripture he’s talking about this, he says,
“Watch and pray that y enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak.”
When I read that I was like, okay, that’s how I feel. I’m willing, my spirit is willing to do it, but my flesh is weak. And I was like, I’m frustrated, how do I….. I don’t want my flesh to be weak. Why am I so weak?
And it’s funny, if you look at our problems, our issues, it all comes down to our flesh, our body. It’s the temptations of the body we struggle with. So our flesh is weak, even though our spirit is willing. Our spirit wants to do what’s right, but then the problem is our flesh.
And as I started thinking about this a lot I realized that if you look at our lives here on Earth, what is the big test? We come to Earth, we have a chance to be here, we get these bodies, these amazing physical bodies and then our goal is to see what we’re going to do with them. So if you look at what is the big test? The big test is 100% to do with our bodies. What are we going to do with these bodies?
If you look at the commandments and everything, all of the commandments, everything leads to either how you’re treating your own body, or how you’re treating other people’s bodies. So if you look at the commandments or the rules or whatever you want to call them, it’s like what things we put into our bodies. There’s codes of health that the Lord’s given us, there’s things that we’re not supposed to do to our bodies. We’re not supposed to injure ourselves, we’re not supposed to do things like that.
Then how we treat other people’s bodies, thou shall not murder, thou shall not commit adultery. It’s the big great test, if you want to look at the big secret of what is this life about, it’s that. How are we going to treat our own bodies and other people’s bodies. So we’re given these bodies, this flesh that’s weak, that wants to do sin, wants to do these bad things and the spirit wants to do what’s right.
So the big conundrum, the big problem, the big struggle, the big thing that we’re fighting with is, what are we going to do? Are we going to give into the flesh or are we going to stay strong with the spirit? So I want you guys thinking about that, it all comes down to this. How we treat our bodies and how we treat other people’s bodies. All the commandments somehow tie into that. Either the sins I’m making against my own body, or the sins I’m making against other people’s bodies. There’s not sins against other things, it’s all tied to those, to our bodies.
When I realized that I’m like, oh my gosh. I have to figure out how to be able to control, how to be able to control my flesh, how to control my body. So for me, that created an obsession with personal development. If you know anything about me or my background you know that I’m mildly obsessed with this.
I built a big company that teaches entrepreneurs marketing and sales and things like that, but really in that journey over the last decade and a half of my life I’ve become obsessed with personal development. How do we develop ourselves? How do we control our habits, our problems, our mindset, our energy, all these kind of things?
So if you ever came to my office and you saw, I’ve got a bookshelf with hundreds of thousands of dollars of books and courses teaching personal development. It’s become an obsession with me. I think it stems back, the reason I have that obsession is because it comes back to this problem right here. I have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually, yet for some reason I keep messing up.
So I’m like, I need to keep personally developing myself so I don’t mess up. What is it going to be? So I could go on for days teaching personal development strategies and things like that, but there’s a couple of principles and processes that had the biggest effect on me. And I think that when I took repentance, how do I forsake my sins, how do I repent, how do I try to do what’s right? And I took these lessons I learned inside of personal development, the blend of those two things, is what’s helped me to be able to control my flesh and to be able to do what the spirit actually wants me to do.
And again, I’m not perfect. In fact, this episode is specifically for me to help remind me of these things. But it has been a huge help to me, and I hope it has helped you as well as you’re going down this journey. Because if we’re not careful, as soon as you start the path forward and start trying to do good, I promise you that temptations, the whirlwinds, the trials, all this stuff is going to beat on you because the adversary does not want you doing the right thing.
So if I can give you guys some information and some stuff that helped me, hopefully it will help you guys as well on this journey. So that way you can go and you can read and you can feel the spirit and you can pray because if you do that, your life will change forever. We have to break free of the sins of our body if we’re going to be able to do that.
Alright so the thing I want to share with you, and again there’s so much good stuff I could talk about but the thing I think is going to be the most impactful for you is something I learned from Tony Robbins. And if you know who Tony Robbins is, he’s a 6’7” giant, he was on infomercials all throughout the 80’s, if you’ve seen the movie Shallow Hal, he was in Shallow Hal, but I became a friend of his, me and him became friends about 10 years ago. I had consulted for his business and then I was in, I spoke at a couple of his events, he spoke at 2 of my events, I spoke at one of his events last month, so we’ve got a really good friendship and respect for each other.
But I remember, there’s so many good things that I learned from Tony, but one of the ones that had the biggest impact on me was at the very first event I went to of his. He started talking about this concept that he called the six human needs. And I’m going to kind of go through it with you guys, but for me, when I understood this, this had probably the most profound effect on me, my relationships, my spouse, my…more so than anything else, so I wanted to share with you because when you understand this process, it gives you guys the tools you need to not only have the disposition to not do evil, but to do good continually, but it gives the framework to be able to resist the temptations and be able to protect yourself and your family so you can actually do what’s right.
Okay, so six human needs, this is kind of the concept I want to teach about, and I wish I had a whiteboard I could show you and I could map this out and it’d make more sense. But maybe as I’m explaining it, if you have a piece of paper out, try to write these things down and it’ll make more sense.
So the six human needs, there are four needs of the body and there’s two needs of the spirit. I’m going to spend most of the time today talking about the needs of the body because that’s our goal right now, how do we overcome the body? I’ll touch upon the needs of the spirit because they’re important, but I’m not going to focus on that during this podcast.
So there’s four needs of the body, a couple of things to understand before I explain what these four needs are. First off, if you in any circumstance of your life, three of these four needs are met, it causes a physical addiction inside of your body. So if you get three of these four needs, you get a physical addiction. So that’s the number one thing to understand.
The number two thing to understand is that you’ll notice that two of these things are opposites and the other two are opposites. So it causes this weird conundrum where it’s like I need this and I need this but those two things are opposite, so because of that it causes all sorts of craziness that creates this amazing life that we live in right now.
So if you’re writing these things down, the first need of the body is called certainty. Every single one of us needs certainty. So write down the word certainty if you have a piece of paper out. Certainty. We want to feel certain. I want to feel certain that when I come home at night my wife’s going to be there. I want to feel certain that there’s food on my table. I want to feel certain that there’s a paycheck coming home every day. We crave and we need certainty. So that’s the first human need.
The second human need is the exact opposite of certainty. It’s variety. I need to be entertained, I need new stuff happening, I need to be… I get fired up and I have variety and excitement with things that are happening. So the second thing our body craves is we need variety. We need certainty, but we also need variety. So that’s need number one, and that’s need number two.
Now need number three, this one is significance. I want to feel significant, I want to feel good about myself. When I walk in a room I want to feel good about myself, I want to feel good about my accomplishments, I want to feel significance. So significance is the third human need.
Now if you look at the opposite of significance, significance is all about me, me, me, me, I want to feel great about myself. The opposite of that is love and connection. I want to show love and connection and affection towards somebody else. So that’s the fourth human need, love and connection.
So if you go write these down you’ve got, certainty and variety. Then you have significance and you have love and connection. And again, certainty and variety are opposites, significance and love and connection are opposites.
So hopefully you’ve written those down. I’m going to kind of take you guys through an exercise that when he explained this to me, it just made so much sense. Remember earlier I mentioned that if any situation any three of these four needs are met, it will create an addiction, a physical addiction inside your body, inside your flesh.
For example, think about, for those who are married think about your spouse. For those who aren’t married yet, think about the last time you went on a date with somebody. So you meet this new person and you go on a date with them, and what happens? You’re out on this date and there’s variety, the first time you’ve been with them, you don’t know them that well and you’re asking them all these questions and there’s this variety and excitement.
And that person, if they like you back, they start asking you questions and all the sudden, “oh my gosh, I feel significant.” You feel significant. “They care about me and they’re asking me questions about who I am.” And you feel that.
And then the third one is at the end of the date, you take them to the doorstep and they give you a hug and a kiss and boom, you feel love and connection. And boom, what just happened? Variety happened, significance happened, and love and connection happened and all the sudden boom, that fast it creates a physical addiction, we fall in love with that person, we start dating them and eventually get married and it’s amazing.
What happens with most people after they get married? What happens is all the sudden now they are married to that person because they’re craving certainty because they want the fourth human need, they want certainty. So they get that certainty, that person is married, they’re going to be home when I get home.
But then what happens? Certainty starts driving our lives, and now variety disappears. Now I no longer want to go on dates with my wife, I no longer do things. We’re certain, but the variety goes away. Year one maybe there’s still variety, year two and by year three and four and five or by year seven, which is when most people start having their marital issues, variety is gone. You have tons of certainty, no variety. So that’s gone.
And at first your spouse loves you and talks about you all the time so you have all this significance and you feel special and all this stuff, but eventually the more you’re around someone, the less significant they make you feel, you make them feel because you’re not as enamored with them because eventually you’ve heard all their stories a million times and you’re like, “Yep, it’s the same person I wake up to every single day.” Suddenly that significance goes away and a lot of times love and connection drifts as well.
What happens is all those things start falling apart and you lose that addiction to the body and that’s why a lot of times marriages fall apart. For some people, and I have friends who have gone through this and it’s a horrible thing, their marriages start falling apart because this physical addiction goes away. They lose variety, they lose significance, and now maybe they have certainty and love and connection, but they lost the other two. But that physical addiction goes away.
And then they go to the office and they start working, and some people become workaholics, this is something I struggle with. I go to work and what happens? I go to work every single day and I sit at my desk and I feel certainty, I know exactly what I’m going to do every single day. And then I’m creating cool things, I feel really excited, I get this variety, it’s amazing. And then people who listen to my podcast or read my emails or see my facebook comments or like my instagram things, I feel significance and I get love and connection from my customers. And all the sudden I’m getting four of my needs met and boom it creates this huge addiction and becomes a work addiction.
And sometimes because we’re not getting our needs met at home, we start shifting and get our needs met at work. Maybe we get our needs met at the gym. Some people start going and start working out and every single day they go and work out and they get this certainty working out, plus they get the variety, “I’m working out chest today, and triceps and new exercises, new things, new people.” People check them out, “Man, you’re getting strong, you’re looking good.” You’re getting love and connection and all the sudden all your needs are met at the gym and because you’re not getting them met at home you start shifting to the gym and get your needs met there.
It’s interesting. Or, and this is kind of the really negative side of it, is somebody goes to the office and their spouse is, they’ve got certainty with their spouse but variety, significance, love and connection are starting to wane, but they’ve got a secretary or they’ve got somebody they need at work and that person all the sudden thinks they’re interesting and starts asking them questions and they get this significance. And then they start flirting with that person and they get variety and love and connection and boom, that’s how divorces happen, that’s how affairs happen because these needs are met somewhere else.
So it’s interesting, and it’s not just in marriage though, it’s in all aspects of life. Some people go to school and they love it, because they go to school and they wake up every morning and get certainty. They get the variety of learning new things, they get significance of getting A’s on their test, they get love and connection of their study groups and school becomes an addiction. I’ve got family members who have got 800 doctorate degrees because they’ve got this physical addiction to school.
Drugs are the same way, right. Drugs, you take this drug and you know with certainty you’re going to feel a certain way, plus you get the variety of the amazing things that happen from the drugs, you get the love and connection of the people you’re hanging out with, you’re significant, and it causes a physical addiction.
Same thing with food, every time you eat food, you get certainty of I’m going to feel full. But then you get the variety, like last night my wife and I went to sushi, I got the variety of this roll and this roll and it was amazing. And then I’m sitting there talking with my spouse and I get love and connection with the people I’m at dinner with and boom, it creates a food addiction.
It doesn’t matter what you struggle with, all of us have different things, but if you understand it all comes down to this. Our body is creating addictions when three of these four needs are met. And then we fall out of addiction when some of these things are not being met.
And one thing that Tony said was amazing, when he said it, it was amazing. He said, “if you look at this, there was never a marriage that ever ended where all of the needs of somebody were being met. There’s never been a kid who strayed if all their needs were met.”
If you look at family life, and this is something I’m hyper aware of with my kids. If my kids are getting all these needs met at home, they’re getting significance and love and connection and variety, and certainty in the home, they’re not going to leave. It’s when they start losing that addiction that go and start going after drugs or other friend groups or things like that, because they’re craving these needs and they have to get them met somewhere.
So people will give up their values, they’ll give up their beliefs, they’ll give up everything in order to get these needs met somewhere. And that’s what’s fascinating as humans. We will give up everything to get these needs met. You will get these needs met one way or the other. So if you’re not getting them met in one aspect in your life, you’re going to get them met somewhere else. It happens, we can’t exist as humans without it. Our body is weak, we must have these.
So when Tony told me that, he said, “No marriage ever ended when all the needs of the spouse are being met.” So my wife and I sat down and said, “Okay, how do we protect our marriage.” I said to my wife, Collette, “Collette, do you have certainty?” and she’s like, “Yeah, I feel totally certain you’re going to be here.” I’m like, “Cool, do you feel variety?” She’s like, “Well, not like we used to.” I’m like, “Oh no, variety’s down. Do you feel significant?” And she’s like, “Yeah, yeah. You do a good job.” I’m like, “Do you feel love and connection?”
I’m looking at this like I need to create an addiction with my wife with me. How do I light her up? How do I give her variety so that she’s excited? How do I give her certainty so that she feels certain? How do I make her feel significant? How do I give her love and connection? Because there’s been no marriages ever ended where the needs of the spouse have all been met.
And the same thing comes back to my wife. She’s asking, “How do I make you feel certain Russell? How do I give you significance? How do I give you love and connection?” With my kids it’s the same thing. When I’m looking at my kids I’m like, “Okay, how do I make sure my kids feel all of these things so they get the physical body addiction here, inside of our home?”
For those of you guys who are trying to figure out, how do I get my kids to go to church, how do I get the people that I’m steward of at church, how do I get them connected? It’s the same thing. When people are bored out of their minds at church they’re not getting their needs met, they’re going to leave, they’re going to go do different things. But if you’re in church and you get this certainty of knowing something, you get the variety of learning new things, you get the significance of being able to share, if you get the love and connection of people in the congregation, people you’re around, that’s what gets people to stick, because it creates a physical addiction there.
So for you, I want you thinking about, think about the things that you’re addicted to in your life. What TV shows, what foods, what exercises, what people? And start looking at this, are my needs being met by these people? And then look at things that are good that for some reason aren’t the way that you want them to be, and think about are my needs being met there?
And it’s like, man if I struggle to go to church, if I struggle to read scriptures, if I struggle to whatever your issue is, my guess is because you’re needs aren’t being met somewhere else, so you’re going there to get those needs met.
So for me, this was the big secret, the big aha, understanding this. I started looking at my life and started realizing the reason why I keep going to my pet sin, the reason I keep having these issues is because my needs aren’t being met here, therefore I’m trying to get those needs met over here.
When I became aware of that, I started saying, okay I need to figure things out. I’m going to talk about, I’m going to come back to this in a second, but first I want to talk about one more thing because I know some of you guys I left you with a cliffhanger.
So those are the four needs of the body and then there are two needs of the spirit, and most people unfortunately never get to the needs of the spirit, because they’re so focused on trying to get the needs of their body met. But the needs of the spirit, number one is growth. So I need to grow, I need to learn, I need to expand. And then number two is contribution, I need to help other people. So those are the needs of the spirit, growth and contribution. So after the needs of the body are met, that’s when typically you start shifting from me, me, me, looking at your own internal desires, to shifting to external. I need to grow and contribute. So growth and contribution are the two needs of the spirit.
So those are the six human needs. So the next thing I want you to think about is looking at the things you’re struggling with, looking at yourself and saying, “I have no more disposition to evil but to do good continually, but I keep struggling, because this is where I keep going. I keep falling back into this thing.” And then start looking, “Why am I doing that? What’s the addiction? This thing that I’m looking for, what’s the addiction it’s causing?” It’s creating certainty….look at all the things, “Oh my gosh, it is creating addiction, I keep going back to it.” And then say, “Why am I going there? Where are my needs not being met? Is it with my spouse? With my family? With my church?” whatever the thing is.
If you’re struggling at work, I see people all the time they get burned out. I ask why they’re burned out and when I look at it, the reason why they’re burned out is because these needs aren’t being met. It’s not because they’re tired. Our bodies and our minds can handle more, but it’s because we’re not getting the addiction, we’re not getting the needs met in that spot, so we fall away. When our needs are met, we don’t fall away.
If you’re getting burned out at work, it’s like what’s happening? I’m losing my variety, I’m losing my certainty, I’m losing my significance, I’m losing my love and connection, which one of these is fading? Then it’s like, lets double down and create that.
Alright, some of my notes here. So again, no kids ever strayed if their needs were met. So look at your children, how can I make sure their needs are met? No marriages ever ended when all of their needs were met. So look at your spouse, look at your significant other, how can you light them up, how can you make sure that their needs are being met? And then the last one is for you. What needs are not being met?
If you are sinning, it needs your needs are not being met somewhere else, somewhere positive. What happens is we shift from here’s the positive…because it’s not necessarily bad to get our needs met, in fact we have to have it. Our bodies are built in this way where we have to have these four things. So it’s not a bad thing, it’s just that if we’re not getting them in wholesome, good spots, then we’re getting them from wicked, evil things. It transitions.
So it’s like, how do I break the addiction over here and how do I create the addiction with the positive things. So start looking for yourself. I’m looking for significance, that’s why I keep going to this issue. I’m looking for love and connection and I keep going to this issue. How do I get it with the positive things?
I’ve got a friend and he’s an LDS author, well, he’s not an LDS author. He’s LDS and he’s an author of an amazing book. His name is Ben Hardy and he wrote a book called Willpower Doesn’t Work. It’s interesting, as I’ve been on this journey in my life trying to figure out how in the world to break myself of these temptations because I want to do good continually, I’ve studied a ton about willpower and I’ve read a lot of books on here’s how to do willpower.
And what’s interesting is I read Ben Hardy’s book, he talked about when he was going in to get his doctorate, PHD or whatever his big degree was, his goal was to study willpower. And as he got into the study of it, he realized, oh my gosh, willpower actually doesn’t help. It’s not as white knuckle-ness and hoping we die before we break any sins. That’s not willpower, that’s not a way to live.
Instead what he found is the only thing that actually has a measurable effect on change is actually changing your environment. Changing the things around you is what makes it easier. An easy example of this is your house. If I’m trying to lose weight and I walk in the house everyday and my cupboards are filled with cookies and ice cream and donuts, you’re not going to lose weight, it’s impossible because the environment will not let you do that. But if you come and take all that stuff out and you throw it in the garbage and you replace with actually healthy stuff, you change the environment, it becomes really easy to lose weight.
Same thing in all aspects of life, in business and relationships, you change the environment, you change your life. So what I want to give you through that lens, if I want to break myself of these sins I keep struggling with, it’s not going to be by me white-knuckling trying to “Don’t look at bad pictures, don’t talk to bad people, don’t take that thing.” It’s going to be you changing the environment in a way where your needs are being met somewhere else in a positive way.
So become hyper, super conscious of this. The biggest thing I learned from Tony, when you become conscious of something and aware of it, then you can change it and affect it. So for you guys, now that you’re aware of it, now you can affect it. Now you can make that change for yourself. So change the environment and then make sure these needs are being met in a positive way and that your body is not going to desire and pull to this other thing, and it’s going to make it so you can focus on doing good continually because you’re getting your needs met by doing good.
So create an environment where your needs are already being met. Create an environment for your kids where your needs are being met. Create an environment for your spouse, for your marriage where your needs are being met. I’m talking about a physical environment. Look around you, look how things are set up, what’s your room look like? If you’re trying to figure out and read your scriptures, where are they at physically? Where are they at?
If you’re trying to break yourself of a TV addiction because you’re getting your needs met, you’re certain your show’s going to be on, your favorite show. Variety of what’s the story line today, the love and connection of sitting there watching with your spouse. Boom, it’s an addiction instantly, TV. If your TV is in your room and it’s keeping you from doing the right thing, you have to change the environment. You have to rip the TV out of the thing and throw it away. You need to create an environment where your needs are going to be met.
When you do that it takes this pressure and this strain off of you trying to go and, the pressure and strain gets taken off of the thing you keep falling back into. Does that make sense?
So all of us has these addictions, all of us have these temptations, all these things that we’re struggling with. So I’ve given you some tools to understand how to beat it, how to change your environment, how to change these things so the needs of your body are being met in positive ways as opposed to negative ways. So that’s the first thing.
The second thing, I want to share with you a story, kind of a metaphor that hopefully help you understand why it’s worth it. Now I taught an Elders Quorum class about a year ago and did this example for them and it was pretty impactful and I want to share with you guys. And I wish I could, again, if you were in front of me I could be even more impactful.
So I need you to imagine this for a minute. I want you to imagine right now that in your hand you’re holding a silver ounce. I’m kind of a nerd so I collect precious metals, gold and silver and things like that. But if you look at one ounce silver coin, I want you to hold that in your hand and kind of envision this is a one ounce silver coin. I’m going to tell you a story about silver because when you understand this it’s pretty powerful.
So if you look at a one ounce silver piece right now, and it fluctuates, everyday it’s going up and down, but as of today it was $18.49 when I was looking at it online. One silver ounce is worth $18.49. I can go to any pawn shop in America, I could take that silver piece in and they would give me $18.49 back for it. That’s the value of one piece of silver.
Now the interesting thing about silver, silver holds its value. So if you look back at the US monetary system, when we first started making coins, we actually put silver inside of the coins. It wasn’t 100% silver, but there was silver inside of them. So 1964 was the last year that quarters and stuff had silver in it. So 1964, if you find a quarter from 1964 or earlier, there’s actually silver inside of there, and it was worth what that silver was actually worth.
So 1964 if you went to buy a gallon of gas, guess how much it cost? It cost 25 cents. So that’s how much it cost to buy a tank of gas in 1964. Now fast forward to today….actually sorry, let me step back. If you were to take that same 1964 quarter and you were to go to a pawn shop right now and give it to them and say, “Hey, here’s a 1964 quarter, there’s silver in here.” The pawn shop owner would say, “yes, there is.” And what he would do is actually give you $3.34 for a 1964 quarter, because that’s how much silver is actually inside one of those quarters. So they will actually trade you that.
Now what’s interesting, if you look at today, if you were to actually drive by the gas station today, guess what? A tank of gas cost about that much, about $3.34, for that same quarter. So that means in 1964 a quarter bought a tank of gas, the silver equivalent of a quarter cost a tank of gas and today that same amount of silver still buys a tank of gas. So you look at inflation and how that stuff works, the value of silver is the same today as it was in 1964, as it was in 200 BC. Silver holds its value throughout time.
Now I want to take you to a dark night in Jerusalem where Judas went to betray our Savior. And if you know the story, he traded the savior for 30 pieces of silver. So if you look at that, what’s one piece of silver worth today? Now, obviously I don’t know what size his silver was, but if you look at a silver coin today, as of this morning it was worth $18.49. If you look at 30 pieces of silver, it was $554.70.
So Judas traded Christ for the equivalent, this is not $554 in Judas’ time, which is worth $18 million today. No, no. The value of the silver that Judas traded Christ for back in his time was $554.70. How many of you guys would have happily given Judas $554 to leave Christ alone and not take him to his crucifixion. It’s amazing. 30 pieces of silver.
Now, when I did this lesson the first time, I actually had 30 pieces of silver on the desk and I looked at those things and I said, “Look guys, 30 pieces of silver, that’s $554 in Judas’ time, that’s what he gave up for Christ. How many of you guys think that’s ridiculous?” And everyone’s like, “No, $500 to give up Christ, that wouldn’t be worth a million dollars, ten million dollars.” I said, “I know.” Then I stopped and said, “I want you to look at this.” And I picked up one piece of silver and I said, “Right now what’s the value of what you’re addicted to instead of following Christ? This one piece of silver is worth $18.49, for some of you guys this is an addiction to TV. Some of you guys this is an addiction to pornography. Some of you guys it’s an addiction to drugs or alcohol or whatever your sin is. Everyone’s got different things, we all struggle. And anyone who tells you otherwise is not telling you the truth.”
And I said, “What would you do to not trade this piece of silver for Christ?” So I wanted to give you that object lesson, and hopefully it makes sense explaining it this way. It’s just I want you to understand that each of those coins is these little pet sins, these little things we have to give up. And we’re giving up so little for so much. $18 worth of silver, $554 worth of silver is what Judas gave up Christ for. What’s the value of your sins? Would you give up those things for Christ? That’s the power I want you guys understanding behind here.
And that’s the whole vision of this podcast for me and for you. Reading the Book of Mormon is important. It’s going to change your life, it’s going to change your vision, but when it all comes back, it’s coming down to Christ. He died for us, he died for our sins. He paid the ultimate price, the ultimate penalty so that we could someday return to live back with him. And right now, the thing that’s keeping us from that, are these little pesky sins, these little things, these temptations, these trials, these things we have that are holding us back.
I don’t know about you, but as I listen to this podcast, my goal is similar to King Benjamin. I want to message you guys later and I want to find out. That’s what Kind Benjamin said, I’ll read it from Mosiah 5:1,2 again, he said,
“And now, it came to pass that when King Benjamin had thus spoken to his people, he sent among them, desiring to know of his people if they believed the words which he had spoken to them. And they all cried with one voice, saying: Yea, we believe all the words which thou hast spoken unto us; and also, we know of their surety and truth, because of the spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, which has wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually.”
I want to come out and ask you guys, you’ve been listening to this podcast, you’ve been reading the Book of Mormon, you’ve been praying, how do you feel? I want you to say, “Russell, I feel different. I feel no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually. All these things I’m doing right now, they’re keeping me from Christ, they’re keeping me from following him. I want to give them up. I don’t want to give up Christ for the equivalent of $554 that Judas gave him up for.”
That’s how dumb it is, think about how stupid and how petty most of our sins and temptations are. They’re ridiculous, yet they’re keeping us from Christ. Judas gave him up for money, $554 in today’s dollars, that’s it. What are you giving him up for? Think about that for yourself.
Now that you understand that, make this challenge real for you. Because it’s the difference from struggling and it’s the difference from actually having that impact on your life and your family’s life forever. So if you listen back to the last episode we talked about how to get your prayers answered, and I think one of the biggest concerns most of you guys had was, “I want to but I don’t feel worthy. I don’t feel in a place where I’m clean.” And I understand that.
So my challenge to you and my test to you is to go back and listen to this episode and figure out, okay I need to change my environment so my needs are getting met in positive ways, and when I do that, I’m not going to keep falling into sin and falling into these things that are pulling the spirit away. I’m going to feel worthy because I’m doing what’s right. When you mess up, that’s okay. We all are going to mess up, repent and then look at the environment. What do I need to change to make sure this doesn’t happen again? What are the things I need to do to make sure my needs are being met here in my relationship or my family or my church or whatever it is, the rock, the thing that you need to be able to be successful, how do I make sure my needs are being met there?
And if they’re not, how do I make them met? If I’m in church right now and I’m bored out of my mind and I’m like, “I’m not going to go church anymore, I’m bored.” You look at that and say, “How do I create more certainty in church? What is it that I need to do? How do I create more variety in church? Maybe it’s me, maybe it’s not them. Let me come to church and let me, what can I do to light this up? How can I get more love and connection at church? Maybe I’ve been waiting for people to come talk to me, but maybe I go and talk to them? Maybe I create love and connection that way. How do I create an addiction in the positive things in life, so I don’t create an addiction in the negative things?”
And that’s the goal, that’s the goal of this podcast, that’s the goal of everything I’m doing right now and I hope you guys take me up on the challenge. If not, I’m going to keep drilling this into your mind every single day until you do, because I promise you when you do, it’ll change your life.
I’m going to end with a quote from Ezra Taft Benson, the same one that we have at the intro of the podcast, he said,
“There is a power in the book…” he’s talking about the Book of Mormon, “There is a power in the book which will begin to flow into your lives the moment you begin a serious study of it. You will find greater power to resist temptation, you’ll find the power to avoid deception, and you will find the power to stay on the straight and narrow path. When you begin to hunger and thirst after these words, you will find life in greater and greater abundance.”
I promise you that if you do this challenge, if you follow me and you do it, you will change your life. With that said, what’s going to start the next podcast episode, I’m starting on 1 Nephi, chapter 1. And I want you guys to jump in and listen to it and I’m going to do my best to get you so excited that you’re going to go read the book.
Now if I get you to listen to the podcast and think it’s cool and not read the book, it means I failed. The podcast is not a replacement for the Book of Mormon. It never has been, it never will be. In fact, if you look at it that way, then everything I’ve done here not only is a failure, but it’s pulling you away from it. And if that’s the case I will stop this podcast and I will delete immediately, because that’s not my vision or my mission.
My vision and my mission with this is to get you enough belief and enough hope that you will open the book and you will read it, because like Ezra Taft Benson said here, the second you begin a serious study of the book there will be a power which will flow into your lives, the moment you begin a serious study of it. You will find greater power to resist temptation, which will bring you closer to Christ. You will find power to avoid deception, which will bring you closer to Christ. You’ll have the power to stay on the straight and narrow path, which will bring you closer to Christ.
Do not, you guys, give up the relationship with your savior for 30 pieces of silver. $554 in today’s dollars, that’s what he gave it up for. Don’t give it up for your sin. Don’t give it up for the thing that’s holding you back. Change your environment, get your needs met and then let’s go and let’s change your life, let’s change your world. I promise you guys that if you do that, life will become better for you in all aspects.
With that said, go to bookofmormonchallenge.com, take the challenge, we’re still working on the app, we’ve got a couple of other cool things coming out for you guys as well. I hope you enjoy it, I hope you take the challenge and I will see you next week when we start diving into 1 Nephi, Chapter 1.