I am pleased to announce that our publishing company, Union Hill Publishing has just released Brave Hearts, Strong Arms by our good friend Jerry Leachman. Its subtitle says it all: Locker Room Talks for the Only Game That Matters.

Brave Hearts, Strong Arms is a powerful and timely book for men. Forty-six short, easy to read essays filled with wisdom, encouragement, and truth. You will love it! Today’s blog is one of the essays, taken directly from the book. I know it will open your eyes and touch your heart.

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I remember sitting in a restaurant in Washington, DC, with a well-known businessman. He said that he considered me his chaplain, spir­itual adviser and coach, and that he had a question to ask and a con­fession to make. He said, “I just hit fifty years old, and every dream I’ve had, I’ve achieved, and more, and yet I feel empty. I feel I don’t know what the next thing is for me to do. I feel anxious, insecure, a bit lonely and fearful of the future. Do you have a word for me?”

I knew immediately. I had a take on that. I had “tone.” That’s what I always say. Like fighter pilots who’ve got the other plane on radar lock. “I’ve gone tone. Permission to fire.”

I said, “I do have a word for you, but you probably won’t like it. You have never understood that you cannot validate yourself no matter what you do.”

He said, “Why do you say that?”

I said, “You know, your whole life, all these businesses, all these properties, all these trophies and ornaments, well done, but you have been striving to validate yourself, and the story you just told me means you feel that you have not yet been validated. Isn’t that true?”

Now this man who was talking to me was tremendously popular and a really great guy, the man everybody in town wanted to have lunch with, and yet he felt somewhat lonely . . . unvalidated.

This applies to all men, because whether we have wealth or not, we all have dreams. Do you know the irony in all our striving? Most men never achieve what they dream about, but even those who do achieve their dreams end up asking, “Is that all there is?” They are men frustrated with unfulfilled lives. They look terrific and present them­selves well. How is the business? “Great!” How is the family? “Doing just fine.” Henry David Thoreau summed it up when he said, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”

They live in suspended animation, never knowing where they re­ally stand, never knowing who they really are. They relish all of the things they did right. They have mournful embarrassment about things they did wrong. Many will spend their entire lives in denial, blaming others for the things they have done wrong, until death.

My three biggest issues in counseling men are: one, this validation problem; two, guilt and shame; and three, lack of knowledge about who they are. My friend Rocky Fleming calls this the spirit of an or­phan. It is epidemic with men.

You can’t really know who you are until you know whose you are.

I talk about the Bible a lot. It has a great deal of wisdom. Don’t you love the Bible? It sheds so much light on all the commentaries floating around out there. Many men have never read the Bible, much less studied it. It’s the single most important book in the world, yet many men go their whole lives and miss it.

I went on to tell this man that ONLY GOD CAN VALIDATE YOU. All of nature sings this song: “Our God loves us, and we know it!” When God created everything, He said it was good. If you live a life under the benediction of God as His adopted son, only then will you know who you are. If Christ was the Son of Almighty God, and He hung on the cross naked in front of His friends, His enemies and His family, and shed His blood for you . . . that’s complete, ultimate validation from the God who made you! You are no longer an orphan.

God the Father can place His hand on your head and say, “You are My boy now. Let’s get out there and do some great stuff!”

If God Almighty is for you, who can be against you?

I’m not really all that brave. It’s just that I know I’m validated by the creator of the universe. I don’t look to the world anymore for my validation. I don’t fear anyone. I’m free.

That wasn’t always the case. I had an old man prophesy over me once in Atlanta. I didn’t even know him. I was speaking there, and he was one of the business guys assigned to drive me around. He told me that God had given him a word about me. We were at a red light, and he looked at me and said, “You know your problem, Leachman?”

At that time, I had an attitude, so I shot back in a dismissive tone, “No, what’s my problem?”

And when he said this to me, my heart almost stopped. He said, “You look to people to give you what you think you need, and that’s your problem. You need to stop wanting what people have. Stop put­ting your faith into things that can be taken away from you. Stop look­ing to people to give you what you need: validation. Either you want their approval, or you want their stuff, or you want in. You need to look to God. Now, God will use people in your life, but look through them and look to God to give you what he knows you need.”

I want to tell you, that man nailed me and my insecurity. I realized I needed a course correction. I’ve now become a man of conviction. A conviction is not an opinion, because opinions come and go. When you have a conviction, you don’t change it on a whim or just because it’s inconvenient.

I’m a lucky man because I changed jerseys. I’ve met some men I respected, and they weren’t living lives of fear and anxiety. They weren’t faking it. They had no fear of being discovered as a fraud; they were for real. I could smell it on them. I wanted to be like them, and I discovered what they had that I didn’t. It was Christ. I bought in. I changed teams. I took my jersey off and put Christ’s jersey on.

Brave Hearts, Strong Arms is now available on our website and for pre-order on Amazon. If you are local, feel free to come by our office and pick up a copy. Richard E Simmons III is the founder and Executive Director of The Center for Executive Leadership and a best-selling author.