Please enjoy this transcript of this episode with Larry Bettencourt. It was transcribed and therefore might contain a few typos. For ways to connect with Larry, check out our shownotes.
Larry Bettencourt: 00:00 Allow God to guide your way. Like if you’re going to take your next leadership assignment, I mean, whether you wherever you are on your journey and your faith like listen, God’s involved, but allow God to guide you away. You need to recognize that God wants to help you fulfill your assignment and that assignment was placed in you by God. He placed that assignment inside of you, whether you realize it or not.
Doug Smith: 00:24 This is the L3 Leadership podcast, episode number 186
00:30 This is the L3 Leadership podcast and a now here is your host, Doug Smith.
Doug Smith: 00:42 What’s up everyone? Welcome to another episode of the L3 Leadership podcast. My name is Doug Smith and I’m the founder of L3 Leadership. If you’ve been listening to the podcast for a while, you will notice we have a new intro and I’ve been wanting to get a new intro to the podcast for a while and I finally had one done and I chose the guy’s voice and I wrote the script and I got it. And I thought, wow, this sounds, this sounds pretty cool. And then I threw it out to our Facebook group, to some of our L3 members and got feedback and they all said, why would you have someone with a British accent to your podcast? And more importantly, why would you choose someone with an angry British accent to do your podcast intro? It doesn’t really make sense. So I’d leave this to say, I’m probably not the best person to lead this process, so I’m going to have someone else lead it for me and we’ll get a new intro.
Doug Smith: 01:24 But because I had someone do it, I thought we at least have to use it once, maybe twice on the podcast and always be able to go back and listen to it and smile. So I, with that being said, you guys are in for real treat. In today’s episode, you’re going to get to hear a talk by my hero, my mentor and my friend Larry Bettencourt. I refer to him as pastor Larry, and I met pastor Larry when I was a teenager and he was a youth pastor. And this man changed my life forever. He changed my life through his friendship. He consistently and courageously told me what I need to hear, not what I wanted to hear. He consistently showed me unconditional love and he’s always invested in me as a leader and now as a husband and a father. And I’m just so grateful for his influence in my life.
Doug Smith: 02:02 In fact, I really can’t think of another individual who’s impacted my life the way Larry has. And if it weren’t for Larry Bettencourt, you would not be listening to this podcast today. In fact, I don’t know where I would be. L3 Leadership wouldn’t exist if one were for Larry Bettencourt. And I really do get scared when I think about where I’d be if this man hadn’t believed in me and invested in me. And so in Larry’s talk, you’re going to get to hear him talk about stepping into your next leadership assignment. It is full of fantastic content and so you’re going to absolutely love that. But first, before we jump into his talk, just a few announcements. I want to encourage you to become a member of L3 Leadership. Why? Because I believe that every leader needs a community of leaders around them, that own, encouraged them, challenge them, and hold them accountable.
Doug Smith: 02:45 And that’s exactly what we provide here at l three leadership. When you become a member, you’ll have the ability to join one of our mastermind groups. You’ll have access to our community of over 100 leaders and you have access to the tools and resources you need to take your life and leadership to the level. To learn more about membership, go to L3 leadership.org/membership. I also want to thank our sponsor, Alex Tulandin. Alex is a full-time realtor with Keller Williams Realty. And if you’re looking to buy or sell a house in the Pittsburgh market, Alex is your guy. He’s a member and a supporter of L3 Leadership and he would love the opportunity to connect with you. To learn more about Alex, go to Pittsburghpropertyshowcase.com. With that being said, let’s dive right into Larry’s talk and I’ll be back at the end with a few announced.
Larry Bettencourt: 03:26 So, it’s really awesome to be here. I’m glad I have some friends that are here and obviously, my daughter and Bubba is the son I didn’t have. And so, Geneva, this is a great place. I came to Beaver Falls who had ever heard of Beaver Falls or come to be a false from New Orleans back in 1986. A long time ago. I got this massive football scholarship now. You know, I just wanted to play for Christian school cause I gave my heart to the Lord when I was 13. And somebody said, hey, you need to go to a Christian school. And like, all right, I grew up Catholic. I was like, okay, I just wanna play football. Found a Presbyterian college and a little there, you know, met this woman and now we’ve been married 26 years ago, 26 years, got four daughters and, here before you knew it, you’ve been in this, been in this area for 31 years.
Larry Bettencourt: 04:20 So, it’s an honor for me to be here and are speaking. I just love this. I’ll just love leadership and, really, all I’ve ever wanted to do with my life is just, my motto is seek first the Kingdom of God, right in his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you. And I, that’s just the scripture in the Bible and just say, okay, God, what is that? And I love you. I want to love people. And, just always hadI have a heart for coach. I’m really just a coach. And so today, I’m going to just see, I’m just going to encourage you like, like, like a coach. Hopefully, you’re going to be able to take something away and I, all the notes in front of you. So there’s nothing profound here.
Larry Bettencourt: 05:01 I’m very simple, but, what I desired it to say is, is hopefully it encourage you to inspire you. It’s already in you and hopefully help you take your next step to reach your dream and, fulfill your potential. This title is called stepping into your next leadership assignment. Every one of us, in every role in every realm of our lives, have a next leadership assigned, having next assignment, as a husband, there’s a, there’s another assignment that, that God has for our marriage, right as a father does another assignment. There’s another season that I have to step into that, that God has prepared as, a friend, as a son, as a brother, there’s a, there’s another step. There’s another assignment that I need to step into. And I just want to, do, that with the best of my ability.
Larry Bettencourt: 05:49 I say this, that I don’t want to be better than you. I just want to be the best version of me. Right? And I think that if we can just be the best version of ourselves, that’s that, that’s what we need to do. We’ve heard this before, right? We have to please an audience of one and we have to compete against ourselves. And so I just want to be the best version of mean. And so today, if I can help you take that next step in your assignment personally, professionally, right, and publicly, right, all of those rounds. And so, it’s all connected and I said this, that your personal self, your private self, your public self and your professional self all intertwined and an assignment for you. And so, it is truly an honor to be here to serve, Doug’s vision, right?
Larry Bettencourt: 06:36 It’s, there’s nothing more exciting to me than getting behind him and encouraging him and to say, Hey, let’s go and then you do doing this out in Pittsburgh and let’s do something in beaver county. Cause that’s what God’s called me to, to, to, to, to, to plant my life. And I live in beaver county and we, we’ve worked in Beaver County and we’ve planted a church in Beaver County. And I love Geneva. I wouldn’t be here today if it was for Geneva. And so, I know with the partnership with Beaver County and Ellwood City is so close and what’s going to happen in the future, it’s exciting to me. So thank you for being at the, at the real kind of kickoff of L3 Beaver County here at Geneva College. And so what’s our next assignment, right? What’s our next assignment?
Larry Bettencourt: 07:18 What does God have for us in this county, right? That there’s something here and God needs all of us to be able to, to gel together, to do something. And it’s, it’s not just the churches, right? But it’s the partnerships. It’s the business. It’s the families. It’s the people coming together, this, the colleges, the community coming together to take an aside. But it starts with simply, I’m just got three P’s, right? Preparation, passion and purpose. Right? It’s, like I said, nothing profound, just really, really simple. But these elements are seen in great people, right? Preparation, passion, and an understanding of purpose. So there on the opening kind of story, it says Demo Diva, Simone Bruning. So, this Simone was a young lady in the, I went home after when I graduated in 1990 for 10 months to New Orleans and my degrees in elementary education.
Larry Bettencourt: 08:16 So, I want home to teach and coach football at my high school, the Catholic school that I went to. But I also was gone to a, a nondenominational church and they asked me to be their youth director. And so absolutely I’d started getting involved in young life when I was here. And so I had a passion for youth ministry and wanted his church and my mom was going to. They asked me to be at a director. I met this young lady named Simone Bruning, who was in my youth group for 10 months and that are already youth pastors, like coordinated at a Concord, that Methodist churches right across the river, the beaver river here. And so I kind of had a little bit of taste of the youth pastor bud, but I was coaching and teaching and I kind of had these three kind of, passions in my life, coach and teach and, youth pastor, which kind of really all the same.
Larry Bettencourt: 09:01 And so I met this young lady, Simone Bruney and off for 10 months. I got to have her in my youth group and, and she was just a young girl, just had a lot of passion. She was, she was a leader. You can see, it in her. And so obviously I left, came back, got married. That’s why I came back. I got married, my wife was from this area and you know, and then next thing you know, 26 years, Whoa, my God, I’ve been here 31 years, man. This is crazy. Beaver County. It’s cold, right? Be more that it’s bus, dust, snow off of my car. Like in New Orleans, we would just, Dave and I were just in New Orleans last weekend. We, both ran the half marathon and one of our friends ran a full, but because we ate too much, we couldn’t finish the full, I’m wearing shorts, man.
Larry Bettencourt: 09:47 When I come home like I have to wear a coat and I’m like, this, all right, but God, you called me here. But, so I go to, I go to lunch with my mom, taking her out to lunch at this little restaurant. We have our house and then there is Simone. She’s having lunch. Simone haven’t seen Simone in a while. Keep in contact with her because she lives close to a march. Actually, it looks after my mom. And so Simone is, would they call the queen of Demo in New Orleans? Right. This young girl who I just had a little bit of a privilege to, to be her youth pastor, when she was a teenager, after Katrina, she wants it to college there in New Orleans. Um, started off as just an organizer up. She said that had like a little party planner business.
Larry Bettencourt: 10:37 But can you imagine when Katrina wipes out everything? There are no more parties. Like people aren’t worried about parties. They worry about just survival, right? They just worry about their, this, their possessions and how are they going to do that. So Simone in the, in the kindness of her heart, I said like this, this girl started with a servant’s heart as a party planner to become a New Orleans dump queen of Demo. So she went there just helping people actually even called my mom up anything we can do. So she was an organizer. She was a leader and a little by little, she saw a need in the community that, homes need to be. There’s so much junk. And she just started renting, little, disposable, cases. What’d you call those? Yeah. Dumpsters. Yeah, just she started renting them on our own and just, and just hiring people that they needed jobs to clean, clean up.
Larry Bettencourt: 11:27 And then she, then she got into business and just, it just grew. So then she, she has a marketing degree, in from that, she, she marketed herself to be demo diva. And so she, she started putting up signs on all these lots that she was working next net. Now, you know, just seven, eight years later from, you know what it was, 10 years later, she’s a, it’s a multimillion dollar company. They’ve got to see one of her dumpsters. They all hot pink, her, construction guys wear hot pink hats, right? Her stores all you walk in her office is all hot pink. The matter of fact, Volvo has contracted with her. All of her, her equipment is hot pink. That they both, it’s, amazing. And, so I looked at her and I saw these three characteristics of preparation, of passion and of purpose. And that’s what I just want to share with you today. So, preparation, right, right. There you see it consistently build on a solid foundation within you. So if you’re going to prepare, it’s got to start within here, right? You gotta be, I wrote this down, the best version of you, right? We said that already.
Larry Bettencourt: 12:41 I’ve actually have had the privilege of writing one little book, right? And, it was a book when I was a youth pastor. And it’s in its second edition, right? And, because you know, I think we’ve sold, we’ve had 2000 copies printed. My mom has about 1,800. And so she, yeah, my, but just this little book, the great thing about this is that every time you can reprint, you can make a new addition. Like you can go back and edit and you can make that book better, right? And you’ve read book, hey, this is a second edition. And so preparation is like that, that God wants to work within you. Like he wants you to kind of tweak your life constantly, right? So, you need to be preparing and build upon which are already invested in you.
Larry Bettencourt: 13:29 There’s something that you’ve already invested. So take what’s invested in you and continue to build upon, to continue to prepare to work on you and your future. Like build you. And this is, this is it. Before you do something great and, and grandiose, it’s got it, you got to have character, right? You got to have a personal growth plan. You gotta be desiring to learn. And it’s the inside stuff that, that, that we got to really, truly work on to really fulfill, right? Your next assignment. Right? And it’s, and I say it’s faithfulness, right? Just sticking to something that, that you feel that, that you are called a purpose to do. So, preparation is, this is where you build in your vision, right? Right. We’re, which division inside of you? You, you got to continue to prepare, even if you have a vision, right?
Larry Bettencourt: 14:19 I know, I know. Listening to L3 and the vision that they want to go, he still prepared for that, that division. Now he’s got here. Bubba’s got here when you get to someplace because you’ve prepared, but there’s more. So you’ve got to continue to prepare to build the vision that’s in you and then for your assignment. And this takes faith and trust, right? And so, if you’re going to step out and prepare, I love what Martin Luther King said. “Faith is taking the first step. Even when you don’t see the whole staircase”, right? They say it’s as you, you’re prepared. It’s like, what am I preparing for? I don’t even know what’s going to look like. That’s all right. Take that first step. You can’t see the whole stairs, but I just know I’m going to, I’m going somewhere. And that’s what preparation is all about. That’s what your next assignment is all about.
Larry Bettencourt: 15:03 Preparation is taking steps, developing firm footing, right? If I’m gonna, I want to take from solid steps. I love this Bible verse in Psalm 37:23, which says the steps of a good man, good woman ordered by the Lord, and he takes the light in his ways. Preparation is taking steps. So God wants to lead a step by Tom. It’s the step preparation is taking steps, but you can’t take steps without taking this step. So being here this morning, right, is a part of preparation for your future, right? It’s, it’s taken another step. And then the Lord directs the steps. So God is in the motion, right? So in your vision, right? And your preparation is motion. So God said this is a youth pastor. Like God doesn’t drive parked cars, right? He can’t. He, we got to put it in drive right?
Larry Bettencourt: 16:00 And let him see it. And so, but we’ve got to take our life out of drive and just have some motion and then, and then trusted. We’re taking the right steps and getting the right advice, getting right wisdom, getting right insight in our life. So preparation is taking steps and the Lord wants to be a part of that. Preparation is foundational, right? It’s, it’s what you’re doing is you’re laying a foundation, but it’s below the surface. It’s the unseen, right? Development people don’t see you get up with your routine and what you read and you listen to, right? That’s so important. It’s unseen, but it’s a vital to your next assignment.
Larry Bettencourt: 16:40 Taking each step, even the ones that make you go backwards or make you go sideways. Right. Okay. Is building your foundation, your foundation for your future. Taking these steps is building. Sometimes we, if we take a wrong step a week seemed to go backwards or we go sideways. You know what? You better learn from it right. There’s something there. You got to now our inability are, our mishaps our wrong thinking are wrong direction. Sometimes we take some and we make some bad choices. But God, even in that, as you persist, God can help you make that better, right? And so there’s a statement, it says, preparation time is never wasted time. Think about that. So if you’re going to reach through your next assignment, whatever it is, again, as a dad, like am now my girls are, you know, from 24 to 17, like that next assignment is, I don’t want to think about it is, is husbands, I never been a dad with husbands both for, you know, with girls, but that’s, I need to prepare.
Larry Bettencourt: 17:55 So I’m actually preparing how to be a good father in law. Like how do I drew these young men, you know, and now with the NRA crisis, right? I don’t know if you can use the gun thing anymore right now. I know if you can say, hey, I mean, who knows, you know, might be in jail or some of you do that. So it plus, I don’t, I only know how to shoot a gun, but, so my one daughter is, I’m dating this young man, she’s 17, he’s, just turned 21 and, and it’s a good relationship and people are saying, hey, you got to go to the front door. And hold had gone up to him. I’m like, really? I said I’m from the New Orleans. And I was like, listen, I don’t even know how to use a gun.
Larry Bettencourt: 18:37 I said, plus this kid is a professional archer. Like he goes to competition and shoots the Arrow things. I don’t even know what you call. I said, he might be out in the lane in the field right now. And I’m, they’re like, I’m going to go to him, scare him with a gun, come on. No Way. But so, um, preparation time is never wasted time because I’m, gone to men because you know why I do that? Because family is so important to me like that. That’s the most important thing to me. How can we continue to be a better husband? How can we continue to be a better boss, be a better friend, a better son, a better spouse, like preparation time is never wasted. So this is important. So this is all about foundations, right? It’s how to have a solid foundation. So in Louisiana, because Louisiana is four feet below sea level, God knows why you’d build a city below the sea level, but there is there, there is a lake and it goes like that.
Larry Bettencourt: 19:31 Anyway, it’s a literal bowl. And so if you’re going to build you just no basements, so you have to dig, you know, layout, stake out your, plot. And they then take these telephone poles, which would they call pylons and they drill pylons every five feet, all into the Internet. And let’s just say this is, this is our foundation, our house, to begin, how house was going to be, and they would just, we’d just build, just, they just pile these things and that’s the foundation. And then they build a slab and then they pour concrete, and that’s the slab. And that’s the, then the foundation, right? And they have problems with the shifting of the earth. And sometimes foundations crack, right? But that’s how they build their, that’s the foundation. So, but here, when we built our house, man, you know, he comes trucks and they dig it out.
Larry Bettencourt: 20:20 Let’s just say this is our foundation. And they dig out all of this level. They making a basement, right? And then they, and then they pour these footers, these concrete footers, right? And then that’s how they go up, right? If we go down the city of Pittsburgh and we look at these high buildings, it’s amazing how they have to do, they have to go deep. And these steel, it’s a steel foundation. It’s all building. And they go on deep, deep, deep into the earth. Right? It’s foundations. And as I was thinking about that, it’s like we all are, we all aligned some type of foundation, but it’s, the foundation of what you’re called to do, right? So, uh, my calling is not the other guy’s calling. I have to say, hey, this is the foundation that I got allay and I have to work upon.
Larry Bettencourt: 21:01 And, and so, I asked yourself like, Hey, what’s, what’s the purpose? Zero life, right? What’s the foundation? So is there’s size involved too? What’s the size? What’s the time? What’s the cost? What’s the, you know, big vision, hard work, right? Those, are the things if you’re an extra assignment, right? You’ve got to keep building upon that. It’s important. You gotta lay a good foundation. So higher he building deeper the foundation, right? So the higher you want to go in your next assignment, right? This is all preparation. The deeper your foundation or bigger that your vision is stronger. So, so you get to go up, you’ve got to go deep, right? And again, this is underground. So we got to work on us, right? Because so many people lose it in a moment, right? So, how deep are you working on your inside?
Larry Bettencourt: 21:54 Because consistently build on the solid foundation within you. It’s all about personal character. Your vision will only take you as far as your character will lead you. And I truly believe that. I want to be the best version of me. I wanted to be the best pastor in the be the best church that we’re called to be. I’m not in a competition. We’re all actually in this together. And so, but the vision I had a division that we have is, is really important, that I would be ready on the inside to whatever God has on the outside, right? And so that’s important. So I believe this and all of us if I can get kinda just coach with you, like listen, wherever you are, when you’re ready, the doors will open up. Opportunities open up when you’re ready. It says it’s the character that’s going to keep you, it’s the faithfulness as a preparation, to do that.
Larry Bettencourt: 22:51 And, and it’s, it’s also God’s timing. So, I had this analogy here, cooking the trinity of Louisiana, right? The trinity is a onions, right? It’s celery and it’s green peppers. Now you might not, does anybody like all three of those? So yeah, some people don’t like them, right? And so my wife’s brother, he hates onions and he hated green peppers, but he loves my Jambalaya, right? And, he loves my wife’s red beans and rice. Right? So the trinity is a way of cooking. It’s the base. It’s the foundation of most of the great meals. And Dave, we just were there in New Orleans. You ate all that Louisiana food. Everything you ate basically had the trinity in it except the poo boy sandwich, the shrimp, you know? So it’s, it’s a foundation to build upon, right?
Larry Bettencourt: 23:54 This Gumbo, this Jumbalaya, this red beans and rice, and you might not even like something. And so there, there are times in the things that you’re preparing. It might not be fun, but they’re important, right? Because it’s the baseline of where you’re going, right, for your next assignment. So what, what you’re doing, like your routine is so important. The mentors that you’re in. Like I love being in a mastermind group. I’m in a couple of connect groups, right? I lead, I lead one, right? I tell my wife and I tend to a connect group, but I’m also in a mastermind group. Now, my schedule allows me to do that, but I, but it really doesn’t allow me to do that. It doesn’t, but you, but I know it’s important, right? Because it’s foundational to me being healthy, and doing that. And so I, I applaud you for being here and then, hey, maybe your next step, right to your next assignment might be more to be in a, in an accountability group like that.
Larry Bettencourt: 24:54 The next thing to stuff in your assignment, this passion, right? I love, love. I can talk to, you could talk so much about passion, but be fueled what motivates you. Right? Like passion is being fueled. What, what motivates you? Not, my dad is 77 years old and, I say 50 plus years. My Dad’s been throwing papers for over 60 years, like, gets up every morning and throws the Times picking and paper and the New Orleans advocate every morning like, I have to make him take a vacation to come to see us. I was like, Dad, you have to come and bought. I bought your ticket. You’re going to owe me $350 if you don’t come. And he’s paid me before because he’s done. And that wouldn’t take him. But, but honestly, the come, he, he just has been doing this. It’s been a part of his life.
Larry Bettencourt: 25:46 Like my dad’s passionate about newspapers. I don’t know. It’s, he likes getting up at three in the morning and he has that quiet time. I don’t know. I know he had a stressful, but he’s been doing it. It’s amazing. And he’s like, I told me the other day, you know, I was visiting, we went out to lunch and he’s like, yeah, I’m a die on a paper route. And I hate to say it. He probably will. He loves it. He’s like, I just said, dad, you’re going to say I’m not giving it up. Like sooner or later. Like he’s, his thumbs hurting because you can imagine you sit in the car, he’s probably moved, thrown over a million papers, done this from a car. Right. It’s not like little paperboy. I hated it. I said to get up every Saturday and Sunday morning, even my senior year he made me get up, which I’m glad he did.
Larry : 26:34 And I would get up and after the USA Today cause it was good money. And then I dropped that. I mean, matter of fact, I lied one time he wanted me to get up a paper. I had a, I just come home from a, like a Christmas dance and I had a trundle bed [inaudible] pull something out. And so I pulled out that trundle bed and last night I snuck underneath the shame and turn my light Larry, Larry woke my sister’s up like three 30 in a mall. Where’s Larry? I’m like, I didn’t want to go through the papers. I got in trouble. But, my dad, I don’t know why, but what I’m saying is this something, a passion, but in all of us,
Larry Bettencourt: 27:14 like Doug., I’m so proud of him because, he, you’ve heard him tell the story when, when he was just a teenager. Honestly, I love him just because of his heart. I wanted to strangle him sometimes because some of his choices he made, but, he always was willing to learn and serve. And so that, that, that was attracted to me because I, I saw that and he, and he was just willing, he’s always quick to repent. Even though when he was trying to finagle me and say he was doing this, and we knew the whole time what he was doing, because you know, you find things out, right? But what, you know was out of the graciousness of God that I have been so fortunate enough to work with some of the most, in my opinion, some of the best young leaders. I just thank God for that. I’ve never seen anyone’s hunger and quest to learn and to grow as a leader in and Doug on top of it.
Larry Bettencourt: 28:10 All, all, all, all, all.
Larry Bettencourt: 28:12 I mean, and that’s why God blessed him here because he’s passionate about this, right? He’s been preparing since he’s a teenager and he’s still grown. And, and that’s, that’s why I think it’s great that we’re part of this organization, right? And I’m glad that we can serve that. And so, uh, just be committed to what you seek in more of like. That’s what passion is. Be committed to more of that. Right? Because that will be difficult days. Passion fuels the why behind the what.
Larry Bettencourt: 28:39 What and why you do what you do. Passion fuels the why behind the what people burn out because they lose sight of why, of their life of their calling.
Larry Bettencourt: 28:50 Say this. Cause we set up and tear down when going on seven years. And, and we know our seasons. I can simply grace and common, you know, some of the things that we’re looking at some property, but we have to say all the time, listen, guys, we don’t get burned out because of what we do. We get burned out because we forget why we do it. So I have to remind our setup team, like you don’t remember why we’re doing this. We’re not just sitting here that now we’re here to change lives. So passion fuels, right? Your why behind your what? Like you will get burned out of making ice cream because it’s just making ice cream. But then you, you get behind. Why are we doing this? Right? It’s big. It’s to impact the community. So he’s not make an ice cream. Right. I’d Carolyn’s, what’s it called? Sweet Caroline’s yeah, it’s beautiful place right now. The city. It’s not just to serve I, it is a blessing to them, but it’s for the community. It’s right. They want to add back to the key. That’s the why, right? Passion fuels your commitment. So that commitment to say, Hey, I’m going to drop it. It’s related to
Larry Bettencourt: 29:46 to faithfulness. A preacher buddy of mine says this about, commitment is related to faithfulness. Faithfulness is the ability to carry out what we have committed to do. Long after the feelings in which we made the commitment of past. I’m faithful to that. I’m faithful to my passion, passion, fuels, commitment.
Larry Bettencourt: 30:07 So, I recently came across, uh, this article understanding, about this five-second rule book. I don’t know if anybody’s ever heard of the five-second rule. Listen, Google this lady on, on Youtube and you can watch some of her and they still, she wrote this book called the Five-Second Rule. And basically, it’s just that she was in a bad state in her life. She was unemployed. She was drinking a lot. She wasn’t being a good husband. I’m going to go to the husband. She wasn’t being a good, wife wasn’t being a good mom. She was just in a hard time. She saw a rockets. You know how you know how you’ve been off on top of the diving board. Okay, I’m going to jump. One, two, three, go. Or three, you know that, well, she saw a rocket happened and it was a countdown, 10, nine, eight and something inside of her.
Larry Bettencourt: 30:48 I said, you know what, tomorrow morning when the, when the alarm clock goes off, I want you to go five, four, three, two, one get up right. And it, BYD mechanic has jump-started, which has been a motto of her life. She’s written a book. She speaks, uh, all over and she’s, I mean, really, it’s very instance, her name is Mel Robbins. It’s, it’s right there. And so this five-second rule is to say, hey, listen, how do you jumpstart your passion? She’s had all this inner right. She was, I think she was a, and I’m an attorney.
Larry Bettencourt: 31:20 Okay.
Larry Bettencourt: 31:20 Right. At one point, something happened. So we have this, like you have your, you have this stuff in you. I’m just here to it and say, pull it out. So jumpstart it. Sometimes you got to, we all had the bad days. Sometimes we think, man, how am I doing? This is crazy. But the five-second rule and I’ve been doing it right in my mastermind group, one of our guys is like a freak man gets up like at four 30 in the morning, drink these shakes and he’s like, he takes a swig of apple cider vinegar, you know, and I’m like, straight on dude, you’re crazy. I’m like, dude, I’m not that guy. So but be you. But the fact is that we can all learn something from that. So that’s how you can jumpstart your passion and passion is, is living
Larry Bettencourt: 32:04 passion takes courage. Not everyone will understand what you’re passionate about. Why you doing that? Starting a company? You doing that, why? Not everyone will be happy or even think you can. Or you even have the self-battles.
Larry Bettencourt: 32:24 Passion is going to help you deal with personal problems. Like when you have passion, like hey, you have your struggling, like passion helps you overcome that. It passionate even helps you deal with your professional problems. Like in the workplace when people don’t, don’t believe. Like I got passionate, I’m not worried about them. I got to compete against, I myself an audience of one. And, in my world and being, being a passionate and minister and coach is that you know, so many people problems and you love and you hear this from people struggling their marriages and financially and can’t get ahead and but passion says, and I’m going to, we’re going to, we’re to keep on going because we love people. Takes courage. Love this quote by Van Gogh. Jonathan Wolfgang von Goethe. “Courage is the commitment to begin without any guarantee of success.”
Larry Bettencourt: 33:16 We’ve got to be committed. Have courage as a passion, his passion, his courage. And we can go into the Greek and all that, but we won’t. And my last thought is this purpose. We’re here to say, hey, listen, allow God to guide your way. Like if you’re going to take your next leadership assignment, I mean wherever you are on your journey and your faith, like listen, God’s involved, but allow God to guide your way. You need to recognize that God wants to help you fulfill your assignment. And that assignment was placed in you by God, he placed that assignment in you, whether you realize it or not. Right. I truly believe that purpose is the sun goddess coated you with purpose, what you’re passionate about, but that purpose it goes that why is the assignment that God has coded you with?
Larry Bettencourt: 34:09 It’s a part of your DNA and purposes. This now his timing, but your faith steps. God has a timing for everything, but it also takes your motion, your faith steps, the emperor moth. I don’t know if anybody’s ever heard about the emperor moth, but as I close with this, a man watch this little emperor moth, trying to break out of this cocoon and as he saw the march trying to break out of the cocoon, he sat and watched it for hours and the moth, the moth was struggling to force his body through a little bit of hole. It seemed like the moth is stopped kind of a halfway through and had gotten stuck in it appear that the gotten as far as he could get to break out of this cocoon. It had been stuck in the kindness of this man that watching this more for hours, he decided to get a pair of scissors and clipped the remaining part of the cocoon.
Larry Bettencourt: 35:07 The moth then emerged easily, but his body was swollen small and its wings were shriveled. The man continued to watch them off another hour. He expected at any moment the wings would enlarge and the morph would be able to fly and weight would support his body in a matter of time. And that did not happen. In fact, a little moth spent the rest of his life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It was never able to fly what the man thought in his kindness and his haste did not understand that he was restricting that, that the restricting cocoon and the struggle that was needed for the moth to get through the cocoon the get through the opening of the cocoon was God’s way of forcing body fluid right from the, from the moth into the wings, which would be able to achieve flight once there was freedom from the cocoon.
Larry Bettencourt: 36:01 And I say down here, freedom of flight would only come after the struggle. Sometimes our struggles are the things that we most need in our life. And so to achieve your next assignment, right as I’ve just come here to inspire you today and just love on you and have the privilege of, of being here, what you’re going through is maybe a part of the struggle so you can fly, right? And, God knows it because of his timing, right? He has a way, but he needs you to take face to. So at the end of the day, this is me, this is at the end of the day, it’s not my abilities because I don’t have a lot though. I did catch a few football’s here on the football field, but all those records are broken, right? At the end of the day, it’s not the achievements, right? The awards, the accolades, even the attendance or the numbers of our church or even the notable accent, you can do the acts of kindness.
Larry Bettencourt: 36:59 At the end of the day, it’s, it’s two things, right? It’s, for me, it’s relationships to love and be loved, right? And it’s to live a purpose bigger than myself and at the end of the day and all matters, you know, it’s not going to be one day get to heaven and say, man, you did this. Now he’s going to, he always going to say is, hey, good job. Well done, good and faithful servant. It’s not going to be about what we did. He is going to say, hey, did you fulfill the assignment that that that you were given? So God bless you. I hope that helps you a little bit today and thank you for your time.
Doug Smith: 37:37 Hey everyone thank you so much for listening to Larry’s talk. I hope it added value to your life. You can find ways to connect with Larry and a copy of his
Doug Smith: 37:43 notes in the show notes at L3leadership.org/186 I want to thank our sponsor, Henne Jewelers, a jeweler owned by my friend and mentor, John Henne. Laura and I got our engagement and wedding rings through any jewelers and they’re just an incredible company. Not only do they have great jewelry, but they also invest in people. In fact, they give every engaged couple of book to help them prepare for their marriage and we just love that. So if you’re in need of a good jeweler, who actually cares, go to Hennejewelers.com as always, if you enjoyed the podcast, it would mean the world to me if you’d subscribe and leave a rating and review and share this on social media really helps us get the word out. So thank you for that. And again, just thank you for being listened to or I never take one of you for granted and if you want to stay up to date with everything we’re doing here at l three leadership, you can simply sign up for our email list at L3leadership.org as always, I like to end with a quote and I’ll quote Tony Robbins today. He said this, he said, “We’re all telling ourselves stories. The question is, does your story empower you or hold you back?” Something great to reflect on. Thank you for listening and being a part of L3 Leadership. Laura and I appreciate you so much and we will talk to you next episode.
