Living the Awesome Life with Jon Acuff
Jon Acuff, author of "START" and the blogger behine StuffChristiansLike.net, met with TwoTen Magazine to offer his thoughts on acknowledging and overcoming fear. Read the following article to see how Jon's approach can make an average life awesome...
Fear. We all know it. We all face it. Fear is the common struggle of humanity. “Will I be successful?” “Will this job provide for my family?” “Will i have enough to pay my bills this month?” at one time or another, we have all asked these questions and more. Jon acuff, popular author, blogger, and motivational speaker, recently spoke to TwoTen about overcoming the giant: fear.
Jon Acuff is a Wall Street Journal and New York Times best-selling author, the popular blogmaster of StuffChristiansLike.net, and a motivational speaker on Dave Ramsey’s Speaker’s Group team. He is the father of two beautiful children. He is a regular contributor to CNN.com. He is a social media guru.
How in the world did he get so awesome?
In his book START, Jon Acuff has crafted a formula that depicts the average man’s journey to awesome through the conquering of fear. “Since the dawn of time, every awesome life has gone through the same five stages: learning, editing, mastering, harvesting, guiding,” says Jon in the first chapter of his book. Throughout the course of his narrative, Jon describes that these five stages may look different for every person, but in the end, the building blocks of an awesome life only appear when we are willing to confront the average.
The cover of START gives three distinct directives to the individual seeking awesomeness within their professional or personal life: Punch Fear in the Face; Escape Average; and, Do Work that Matters. By embracing these three ideals, anyone can effectively break away from the average life in favor of the awesome.
Punch Fear in the Face
“In the fear chapter [of START], I talk about two things that you should do with fear: write it down and share it,” said Jon. “A third thing I think you should do is refute it. By that I mean not to get entangled in it, not to argue with it—that’s just a waste of time—but refute it. Refute it with truth.” Truth, as defined in John 17:17, is the Word of God. We cannot be successful in business or life without the counsel and confrontation of Scripture.
Jon describes fear as the voices in our heads telling us we cannot accomplish anything, let alone awesomeness. When ready to confront the voices promising a destiny of failure, we must take the first step towards conquering fear: we have to write it down.
“Voices [in your head] are invisible bullies, and they hate when you make them visible,” said Jon on his website, www.jonacuff.com. “The best way to [make them visible] is to dress them up with words. To write them down in a simple notebook. They can’t stand to be documented, because the minute they are, you can see how stupid they are. Lies hate the light of day.”
Another proven way to conquer fear is to share that fear with others. Jon encourages individuals to not only confront fear, but to share it. “Don’t try to go it alone,” he says. “Write down all the fears you have, try and identify them, then share them with others. Fear is tricky because it is repetitive. You won’t have ten thousand fears in your lifetime, you’ll have a handful that disguise themselves in different ways, but that all come back to certain things. Identify [those fears] and find truth in them.”
Within the business world, it is easy to become isolated and to feel alone. Sharing both the keys to success and the fear of failure are monumental assets to punching fear in the face and achieving awesomeness.
To read more about Jon Acuff and his techniques for punching fear in the face, subscribe to TwoTen Magazine for free here.
