Relentless Pursuit

Fuel Your Passion and Fulfill Your Mission

Ben Cooley

• Publisher: David C Cook
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780830778508
• eBook ISBN: 9780830778577
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Church

From the CEO and co-founder of Hope for Justice, author of Impossible Is a Dare, and creator of the Dear 26 Year Old Me podcast comes an honest, compelling, and inspiring collection of wisdom and experience to empower those in business and ministry to see their world-changing vision become a reality. In Relentless Pursuit, Ben Cooley speaks with self-made billionaires, Grammy-award winning musicians, megachurch pastors, and network marketers, who give unprecedented access to the challenges, struggles, and doubts they have faced on their journey and share what helped them maintain momentum and achieve success.
 
Featuring members of the band Rend Collective, Natalie Grant, John Siebeling, Young Living Royal Crown Diamond members, Sir Brian Souter, and others, this book provides strikingly honest stories of how they built their careers and what they learned in the moments they felt like giving up.
 
This book is for anyone who wants to make a difference in the world. It will not only provide the tools you need to make your dream a reality but will allow you to apply the lessons these leaders have learned to your life.

“I’ve read many books about how to start a business, a ministry, or an idea. In Relentless Pursuit, Ben provides the tools, experiences, and wisdom to help break through the difficult times on your journey. As you learn from the stories of several incredible leaders, this book will give you the spark of inspiration you need to pursue your dream and never give up”
CRAIG GROESCHEL
Founding and Senior Pastor of Life.Church
Host of the Craig Groeschel Leadership Podcast
 

1

FRUSTRATION IS MY MOTIVATION

Someone came into my office last week and said, “Ben, I can tell you are frustrated.”

Most of the time, we use the word frustrated in a negative sense. Certainly the frustration I was feeling was negative at that moment. You might be frustrated with your business, your organization, your marriage, or your children. Frustration can dominate your thinking. Everything is aggravating when seen through the lens of frustration.

Nobody really wants a frustrating life. We all naturally want to have easy relationships. We all want to have ease in our businesses, homes, and careers.

But I want to introduce you to a new perspective on frustration because I believe it is one of the greatest gifts in your life.

Frustration is the precursor to innovation. Frustration can birth vision. Sometimes it is frustration—not necessity—that is the mother of invention. Frustration is a gift.

Here’s a word from entrepreneur Jordan Schrandt about the frustration that led to what became a hugely successful business: “When I started realizing the truth about natural living, most of which is covered up or marginalized in American culture, I was blown away by the lack of truth that existed. I was tired of the lack of a prevailing voice in our culture that proclaimed truth about health … and I decided to show up and be a part of that voice. Educating, inspiring, and empowering our generation with how to care for their bodies and their families is my passion.”

Frustration is the precursor to innovation.

But frustration needs to be asked certain questions. The people who learn the ability to linger when frustrations arise—to pause, to look frustration in the face and ask these questions—those people start something that matters.

Think about it. There are frustrations littered throughout humanity. Some are more recent, like the frustration we had that our car phone had a cable connected to the car, which meant you couldn’t take the phone with you when you got out. Also, the phone was way too big.

Someone sat with frustration and asked it some questions. Isn’t there a way to detach the car phone from the cable? Can’t we miniaturize these things so I can slip one into my pocket? What stands in the way of making this situation better, and what can we do about these challenges?

I admire the late Josephine Cochrane. In the late 1800s Josephine was frustrated every night when her servants washed her china dishes. It took such a long time, and inevitably breakages would happen.

She had to cope with the frustration, the irritation, the “pain,” of broken dishes. Josephine sat and listened to that frustration, sat opposite it at her well-worn table, and asked questions of her frustration. And thankfully frustration coughed up its secrets, and Josephine Cochrane came up with the concept of the dishwasher.1

Many of us never think about how someone had to encounter frustration in order for us to enjoy something we now thank the Lord Jesus for every day: our children loading and emptying the dishwasher for us. (Hey, I do it. I know you do too!) We take for granted the work, the pioneer, and even the frustration behind it all, but that frustration led to something amazing.

Thomas Edison also sat across the table from frustration. He, like everyone else around the world at that time, had to sit in the dark every night, dealing with open flames in his home. It frustrated him, but as he interrogated his frustration, what came back was an incredible idea. One might say he had a “light bulb moment.” His illumination came because he deliberately sought a response from frustration.2

Frustration is the precursor to innovation. So it was with my friend Erin Rodgers, who is one of the greatest communicators I have ever met. I’ve known Erin for many years. Her husband serves on the board of Hope for Justice, and Erin is a world-class team builder in a wellness company. Her use of social media in building a team is unprecedented. When I interviewed Erin, she had some wonderful insights into how frustration can lead to innovation. Here’s what Erin shared.

The start of my career journey was fairly ordinary. While my husband was in law school, I was working in the pharmaceutical industry. I kind of hated my job, but it allowed us to avoid taking on debt for his education. We determined early on that, except for our house, we would stay out of debt as a family. My job wasn’t a great fit for me, but it was a great fit for our lives at that time.

After I turned twenty-eight, I went through a season of intense Bible study. During that time I very clearly heard God call me out of pharmaceutical sales and into an inner-city high school to teach math. Suddenly I had to choose between a job I hated that was fantastic in terms of income and flexibility and a job I thought I would love that offered a fraction of the salary and no flexibility whatsoever.

My heart broke for those inner-city kids. The thought that I might be the only adult who spoke kindly to a child that entire week compelled me to take the plunge. My years in that school were a precious time in my life. It was before we had our own kids, so I had a lot of love to give in the classroom.

I went from visiting physicians’ offices to sell them on products to teaching in a classroom to sell students on algebra.

After four years we had our first child, and I began to transition out of teaching full time. Then we had another child. I ended up being able to stay home with our two children.

Now, that would be an ideal situation for some people. But I found out very quickly that I am not wired to be a stay-at-home mom. It was definitely not my sweet spot. I’m way more of an achiever, in that I need other things and other people to encourage me, and babies don’t do that at all.

I guess I was unknowingly searching for a new way to achieve while also taking care of our family’s needs. There came a time when our kids were not healthy, so I set my mind to solving small problems in my house and dove into the world of essential oils. I first got excited about what they could do for our family—solving “mom problems” for the small people in our home, supporting things like better sleep, stronger immune systems, and happier attitudes.

I quickly created a community around essential oils. It was mostly online, but I was so glad to connect people with common concerns. So many people had the same small problems I’d been able to overcome for my kids with these oils.

I started talking about the solutions and products I’d found, and it snowballed from there. Now it’s a huge network where we get to help solve some problems of tens of thousands of people every day.

FRUSTRATION IS MY MOTIVATION

You could say that my entire story involves frustration. Originally I was frustrated that my kids weren’t well. Then my frustration grew because of some people wanting answers to come to them instead of looking for solutions themselves.

The crazy thing is that frustration in one area of our lives has caused us to grow in ways that actually helped us get through difficult times in other areas of our lives. Funny how that has worked out.

The chief frustration in my life has been when people want me to solve their problems for them. Hey, I’m happy if something I’ve said solves someone’s health dilemma. But I don’t want to be everybody’s answer guru. I’d much rather equip people to go find the answers for themselves. I’d prefer to show people that they had the ability to solve their own problems all along.

When I’m talking with people who are considering joining my team, I like to say, “You don’t need me. Not really. I’m not going to be your problem solver. That’s not my job. But I will give you tools. I will show you how you can do it and point you in some directions. And then you can decide if you really want to solve your own problems or not.”

I’m interested in having self-solvers on my team. I get frustrated with people who just want to be handed everything. It turned out, years later, that a decision to look for self-solvers is what led our team to be more successful than I imagined.

I have found that leadership is not what people expect it to be. Some people think a leader is the one who goes around directing the way others do their work. I don’t agree with this. I’d much rather equip people to be independent thinkers and come up with their own creative solutions.

When someone asks me a question, I could answer them outright. But that’s not truly serving the other person. I prefer to say, “You have a question about this? Awesome. Let me talk that out with you. Let’s unpack it so you can see that you didn’t need me to give you the answer. You had the answer already.”

I think really good leaders equip other people to realize that they have it within themselves to figure it out. Practically speaking, it’s a whole lot easier and safer to say “I don’t know, but let’s see if we can find the answer” than it is to try to know all the answers. There’s a huge freedom in saying “I don’t know.” I don’t want to feel as if I have to be everything for everybody all the time. That’s just being bossy. And I don’t want to be bossy.

I want people to be frustrated that they don’t know the answer, and I want that frustration to be their motivation to go find out.

One question that has guided my leadership style is this: “Do you want to be an employee or an entrepreneur?” Whether I ask them outright or I observe the way they’re behaving, the contrast between these two dispositions will help me understand people’s true ability to reach their goals. What I’ve found is that a lot of people really do want to be an employee. They want the boss to say, “Go do this. Sign up for this. Take these notes. This is how you write this. This is what you say.” Employees are great, and the world needs lots of them.

But that’s not me, and that’s not whom I find achieving the most success on my team. The people I want to work with are those who will watch me do something and then say, “OK, I got it. I’m good. Let me run with it and do it my way.”

My strategy is to be like the Wizard of Oz. I like to peel back the curtain a little and show people what’s happening. Sometimes they run off and do something totally differently than how I would do it. That used to bother me a lot. But then I realized it was what I’d been wanting the whole time. I had to say, “Oh, wait. That’s actually good. No, you’re fine. Go do your thing.”

It’s possible that their own way will fail—but that’s fine too. They’ll learn from that failure if they’re really going to succeed. And maybe they’ll invent a new way that’s even better than how I’m doing it, and I’ll start doing it their way!

Let Leaders Arise on Their Own

No matter how many people you have on your team, only a fraction of them will ever rise up as leaders who really succeed. And you don’t know who it will be.

I am hopeful for everyone who joins our organization, and I desire success for each person—both in their health choices and in the industry. I firmly believe everyone can be successful. Over the years I’ve had many friends link arms with us. Some have caught the vision and run with it. Others didn’t have the same goals for themselves that I saw for them, and that is hard.

I concentrate now on loving my people well and keeping an eye out for those on my team who love the product. Those are the ones who will become leaders. I have learned to quit pushing people into a role of leadership or into business. I had to quit dreaming for them. If they’re not yet willing to dream and they’re not yet able to see an opportunity, I cannot open their eyes for them. There is far more success when I let leaders emerge on their own.

When Things Get Difficult

I talked earlier about how my frustration led to a practice of looking for team builders who didn’t sit around waiting on me to give them the answers and how that led to them increasing our team’s success. Here’s what I meant.

I’d have to say that 2018 was the hardest year for me. I was dealing with a number of personal issues that had me feeling up and down already, but then in July my husband and I found out I was pregnant. This was a shock, as we already had two active children, ages five and seven, and we had considered ourselves done having kids. However, the surprise finally wore off, and right as I was starting to feel like myself again, I miscarried.

It was a really hard time for our family. And while that year strengthened us in a lot of ways, I’m thrilled it is behind us.

During that time I was overwhelmed. I was neck deep in running a successful business with tens of thousands of people on my team. You should’ve seen my inbox, and don’t g...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword by Glyn Barrett
• Introduction: Our Words Frame Our Culture
• 1. Frustration Is My Motivation
• 2. Innovation Is an Invitation
• 3. Responsibility Is an Opportunity
• 4. Your Vibe Attracts Your Tribe
• 5. What You Tolerate You’ll Never Change
• 6. Celebrate What You Want to Replicate
• 7. It’s OK Not to Be OK, but It’s Not OK to Stay Not OK, OK?
• 8. Remember the Why behind the What
• 9. Dear Twenty-Six-Year-Old Me
• Conclusion: Think Differently
• Notes
• About the Contributors