Hello, welcome to the Excel Stillmore podcast.

I am your host, Chris Emerson, and we are here to talk about tips and strategies that you can employ to deepen your faith, improve your relationships, and just get the most out of your life.

Thank you for joining. Let's get started.

So today we're going to talk about do hard things. And it's not just a three-word title that fits our

theme, although Excel still more and do hard things are closely related,

this actually is a title of a tremendous book. One of the things I love about this program

is not just that we get to talk about principles, connect them to scripture, and apply them,

but I can also sometimes guide you towards literature or books that can deepen your understanding and just

give you a way to do more exploring if you're interested. So today, before we get into

Do Hard Things and five particular ideas that can help you accomplish difficult tasks,

I'll tell you more about the book. It was introduced to me back in 2011. I was preaching in Jackson, Mississippi

for the week, staying with the preacher there. He knew I had kids at home. He knew I worked with young

people at the church back in Texas, so he lays this book on me. He says, you've got to check this

thing out. You'll love it. So again, the title was Do Hard Things, and I noticed on the front that

it was written by two brothers, Alex and Brett Harris.

Alex and Brett wrote this book back in 2008 when they were both teenagers, and the theme of it is just awesome.

It was a message to their fellow teenagers that it's time to start a revolution.

That's with a B, revolution. And what they were telling

other young people is let's go out and let's start a rebellion. A rebellion against low

expectations. They talk about America in the mid-20th century and where the term teenager came

from and how that particular decade of humans

have been trained to be consumers instead of producers.

...