Expectations

Hello, this is Matt Slick from the Matt Slick Live Podcast, where I defend the Christian faith and lay out our foundations of the truth of God's Word. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network.

This is the Truth Network. The heart of every man craves a great adventure, but life doesn't usually feel that way. Jesus speaks of narrow gates and wide roads, but the masculine journey is filled with many twists and turns.

So, how do we keep from losing heart while trying to find the good way when life feels more like a losing battle than something worth dying for? Grab your gear and come on a quest with your band of brothers who will serve as the guides in what we call the masculine journey. The masculine journey starts here now.

Welcome to the masculine journey. We're glad to have you with us this week, and I'm really kind of surprised you're back after David hosted last week, so thank you. I was kind of curious to what you were going to say when I came up.

I was sitting here, I was like, how's this going to go today? Yeah, I heard you actually did a really good job. I've yet to have the strength to listen to it, but yeah, I heard you did a great job.

It's okay, you'll get the strength one day. I will, I will. I'm working up to it. It'll be this week. I actually just haven't had the opportunity yet, but I heard you did a great job, so thank you for filling in, and it was, I missed you guys last week. It's great to be back, and we have another kind of special thing. Harold, is this your first topic, like your first official topic that you've done?

I think so. Yeah, I know you've done a clip here or there, right, but this is actually your first topic. Yeah, well, I had done a devo at church about expectations, and when it came up that we didn't have a topic for this week, I thought, well, let me suggest that, and you guys jumped on it, so here we are.

So it was recycling day. You're carrying out the recycling, you're like, oh, I could just use that topic again. Well, topic, yes, but details, no. Okay, there we go. All right, there's a significant difference in the details. All right, fair enough. He prefers re-gifted. Re-gifted, yeah. But to me, expectations is a fantastic thing to think about.

Now that you've just lowered everybody. I can see this is not going to meet my expectations. It's going to be a tough show for you, I think.

Been there, done that, and got some t-shirts. Yeah, but anyway, the topic's expectations. Expectations, yes, and the first clip, I think, is going to set up the rest of the show pretty well. I was just doing a search through YouTube, and I found an NPR program that I think really explains what expectations can do, either to us or for us.

So how about play the clip and let's go? This is a man named Bob Rosenthal, and early in his career as a research psychologist, he did something very devious. Late one night, Bob secretly crept into his lab and he hung signs on all of the rat cages. Some of the signs said that the rat in the cage was incredibly smart, and some of the signs said that the rat in the cage was incredibly dumb, even though neither of these things was true. So then Bob brings this group of experimenters into his lab and says, for the next week, some of you are going to get these very smart rats and some these very dumb rats, and your job is to run your rat through a maze and record how well it does. So what did they find?

It was not even close. The smart rats did almost twice as well as the dumb rats. Even though the smart rats were not smart and the stupid rats were not stupid, they were just all the same kind of average North Dakotan rat. That almost to me sounds like the stuff of science fiction, like telekinesis. Yeah, no one really believed him at first.

I was having trouble publishing any of this. But what Bob eventually figured out was that the expectations that the experimenters had in their head actually translated into a whole set of tiny behavior changes. Handling rats and handling them more gently can actually increase the performance of rats. This kind of dynamic happens in people too. You may be standing farther away from someone you have lower expectations for.

You may not be making as much eye contact, and it's not something you can put your finger on. That's Carol Dweck, a psychologist at Stanford. She was one of several researchers who explained all kinds of surprising things that expectations can influence. Like teacher expectations can raise or lower a student's IQ score.

A mother's expectations can affect the drinking behavior of her middle schooler. Military trainers expectations can literally make a soldier faster or slower. Think about that as you go through the world, the expectations of other people are constantly acting on you. Literally making you stronger or weaker, smarter or dumber, faster or slower.

Yeah. I think that that was demonstrated very well. My wife was a first and second grade school teacher for a while, and she was talking to me about this same subject. That with the children, especially in those first couple of grades, you do not want to set expectations that they cannot attain, but neither do you want to make them feel like they're too dumb to meet expectations. So it's a balancing act because what you expect of people is quite often what you're going to get, either good or bad. And I think it's a terrific thing to focus on, especially as we try to live the Christian life that's been described for us to follow Jesus.

Obviously, we cannot expect to do all that he did and the ways that he did them, but we should have high expectations of ourselves and of our fellow Christians that we're trying to help walk the walk in this world. So anyway, I just think it's a great, great topic for discussion. Yeah, the clip reminded me of a company I was with years ago. They rolled out this thing called a dialogue of distrust cards, right? And they were trying to change the culture of the company. There are a couple of other cards that they had, and it had to do with our interactions with clients.

So they had two cards. They had one called builder speak, and they had another one called dialogue of distrust. And the builder speak was when used language, it was common to the construction industry, but not common to everybody else. And so they'd remind you of, hey, you're being a builder here, you know, but the dialogue of distrust is one that really stuck with me because it was about not passing on expectations about clients because they come in and they visit sales first and they go to the showroom and then they go to this. And just because they have this type of experience at this location does not equal the experience you're going to have the rest of the time, right? And what we found was if you're not careful, you can set an expectation that you're going to have a difficult client. And then in your mind, you end up creating a difficult client that wouldn't have been a difficult client had you just treated them differently, right? Because you're expecting they're going to be difficult. You treat them in a different way. And they actually end up becoming difficult.

And it's really been it was a game changer for me and looking at things. And so I get information from the other people that, you know, are before me, but I just use it as data points. You know, I don't know what their experience was.

I don't know if finances are an issue. I don't know if they hate making selections or whatever that might be. I just know that I have an opportunity for it to be different when it's with me. Right. And so taking those data points, and it's all about making sure you don't have misaligned expectations in creating an environment. You know, it's like the parent that tells their kid that they're stupid, as they said a little bit on the video, you know, they tell their kid they're stupid, they grow up believing they're stupid when they may be a genius.

Yep. Another example in my case of expectations back when I was a college student, and I used to play tennis a lot. When I started playing, I didn't know really how to serve. So I'd whack the ball and then do a dinky serve that they would just cram down my throat.

My temper didn't react well to that. So I started not hitting any second serves. I hit all first serves. And there were many times that I would be down low 40, which means the opponent has to win one more point to win the game. And I would come back and hit some aces and win. But it was my expectation that even though I was only about five feet seven inches tall, that I could kill the ball with an old wood racket. None of the stuff you see on TV today, but at my time, it wasn't bad. And I expected to come back.

I didn't always make it, but I expected it. Well, just the angle alone would be tough. I mean, seriously. I mean, it's like playing against somebody at seven foot in basketball and you're 5'8", right? I mean, you're not going to have a lot of shots that get off without getting blocked. Right.

So yeah, that becomes challenging. So who else has anything they want to bring up about this particular topic at the moment? Anyone? Bueller?

Bueller? Okay then. I'm not sure that we have time for another clip. We don't. So we can continue talking about expectations. So when has been a time for you guys that you've let your expectations get the best of you? We'll just do a story share here before we go into our break.

Anyone feel like sharing? Well, let me share one then about expectations being exceeded. When I started to become a part of this group, I didn't really know what to expect. So I didn't have much in the way of expectations, but has it ever more exceeded whatever expectations I might have had?

Being a part of this group has been a wonderful experience for me, and it's something that I've never dreamed before. Yeah, it is. And God continues to grow that and to change the dynamic of it. You know, I think, let me ask you a different question here. What's it feel like to you when you have to live under somebody else's expectations, which you don't necessarily agree with?

Andy, you got a thought on that? Well, it can be definitely difficult. Unrealistic expectations are a killer for a lot of relationships.

I mean, you just see it all the time. And I don't know, I think there's this idea sometimes as kids, we grow up with an idea of this fairytale life of what life will be like. And then you get married and you have kids and you have responsibilities. And it just has a tendency to one person expects one thing out of the marriage and or the relationship, whatever it may be. But I think it really, there has to be some commonality on expectations. And I think, you know, communication is what can help a lot of that. But a lot of it is, is the way we were brought up and stuff. And that gets in the way a lot of times. And I don't really have the answer for that other than God, because you're going to have that in people. That is because we're bringing our own brokenness to relationships and life. And God's really the only one that can come in and give that clarity of what's really going on, particularly in relationships, but really in anything.

If I felt like I was, you know, I was in a relationship, in anything, if I felt like I was, you know, I've heard people set goals, and I believe I believe I'm supposed to be a VP in this organization by the time I'm 30, 35. Well, who told you that? A lot of times, unless God gave that to you. And I don't typically think God gives goals like that, to be honest with you. That is... You did with David, but that's... David... You're going to be king. Yeah, but... I'm just saying, I'm just giving you a heart attack.

I'm thinking modern day corporate America kind of stuff. And he could. I'm not saying he can't. I'm just saying a lot of times those self-imposed goals itself, it's an expectancy on self to, you know, to get something out of life, a particular stage in life, just to get some kind of validation. And it really ends up hurting you along the way. So... It's not a little myopic.

It's very myopic. I'm trying not to be very general and very specific. You got to be quiet.

We're going to break. Go to masculinejourney.org, register for the upcoming boot camp. Have you been to one before? What we have at our boot camp is something that makes you stronger, and it gives you the strength to go on your regular walk with God.

It's something that will make you be bigger than you were when you got there. I've been coming regularly, and it's just such a blessing. When you guys invited me, I was at the worst time of my Christian walk. I was going through some things. The first time I came, I don't know if you remember, I couldn't even walk.

I couldn't stand up straight. And I'm walking now. I ain't running around the lake yet, but you know. The greatest things is just being around a group of men that love the Lord and sharing His kindness and His love. All of you guys, I done sat and talked with all of you guys, different occasions, different conversations, and it's all been unique and refreshing. You guys gave me a whole different perspective in life, and you can't hide the true, genuine love of God. You can't hide it.

Register today at masculinejourney.org. Take me to the station and put me on a train. I've got no expectations to pass through here again. Before I say anything, Harold, go ahead.

Well, let me first say that I have heard very little of Rolling Stone's music, even though I'm of the age. But I picked that because it showed up with no expectations. And I don't think that it's realistic for us to go through life without expectations of either success or failure.

I think there's going to be one or the other. Yeah, it's constant expectations. I will say that that wasn't quite as brutal as Jim's Mump, but it was pretty close. Jim's Mump a couple of weeks ago. I know Jim's still bad at me forgetting a hard time about that Lionel Richie pump, but still, it's still not good.

And now I reminded... That was a great bump, by the way, but I reminded why I don't like the Stones that much. So, Danny, you are up next with the clip, I believe. Harold picked you next.

Yeah, he did. The clip is from the Andy Griffith Show. I know that's a shocker. He's going from those that don't have hair to those with hair.

That's how he picked. Yeah, we kind of had that expectation. Yeah, we expected there would be an Andy Griffith clip come back sooner or later.

Or Blue Bloods or Star Trek. Yeah, something along those lines. Anyway, I'm glad I met your expectations. You did. You'll exceed them.

Go ahead. The clip is from a show where Opie is going to enter this track and field event and he's training and he has one of the best trainers in the world, Barney. And they're building up expectations of him to win a medal. Well, the clip is coming from after it's all over with, Opie miserably loses. And he and his father, Andy, are having a conversation about what has transpired and Andy's expectations of Opie. And then you hear what Opie's expectations are.

And they are in two different worlds. So we can play the clip. I won't talk to you. I don't think it's very nice of you to walk off the way you did. I didn't win. I didn't win. I know you didn't win. But the important thing is you is in there trying. Now, that's what's important. They don't give you no medal for trying. I know that.

I know they don't. And it's nice to win something. It's real nice to win something. But it's more important to know how not to win something.

And I know how to do that real good. No, you don't. You mean there's more things I could have not won? I mean, you could have been a nice loser.

They call it sportsmanship. Now, you lost this time. You try again next time. You got to learn how to take disappointment.

There could be more of them coming up, you know. You come up smiling, you're a good loser. The other way is being a bad loser.

Now, what do you want to be? A good winner. Opie, we're not talking about winners. Winning ain't no problem. It don't take courage to be a winner.

It does take courage to be a good loser. Now, you want to be a good loser, you'll be proud of your friends that did win and you'll congratulate them for it. I won't. You won't? They ain't my friends.

They beat me and they got my medal. Is that the way you feel about it? Is that the way you feel about it? Answer me. All right, fine, fine. That's the way you want to be as long as we understand one another. But I want you to know one thing. I'm disappointed in you. You know, a while back we did the Masculine Journey shows and we talked about boyhood a lot and, you know, the things that you learn in that time frame.

And here's a classic scene of that. And one of the things I think boyhood has a tendency to do is you set expectations for yourself. I know I did lots of different times. I can remember wanting to be a boy. I can remember wanting to learn to play the fiddle because I was a big Charlie Daniels fan. And somebody said the easiest thing to do would be to learn to play the guitar. Well, in my mind, my expectations were in six weeks we were going to Nashville.

And needless to say, I did not meet my expectations because it took me six lessons learned to play a radio, I think. But, you know, it's those kind of things that, you know, I can remember my son wanting to play football, but his mom didn't want him to play football because he'd get hurt. So she wanted to play baseball and he had no interest in it.

But his expectation where we go out, throw the ball around a little bit, he'd be headed to the major leagues. And life doesn't work that way. And Andy's trying to teach Opie that.

And, you know, my dad was great about trying to teach us things like that with that. You know what? Son, life is going to hurt sometimes. And, you know, those are the kind of the things that when we brought up this topic, that's what I was thinking about was, you know, the expectations I set for myself, even now and that, you know, God hasn't set those expectations and even the people around me haven't set those expectations, but I am my worst critic. So. Yeah, I think it's tough because, you know, expectations are needed. Yes. To some degree. Right.

But they can any like anything that's good can be taken too far to where it's not good. You know, I think every day for a lot of us, we have expectations of what the day is going to bring. You know, for me, I have expectations what I'm going to get accomplished at work in a given day. Right. And I kind of have that running through my head all day of what I want to try to get to. Right. And so I feel like if I don't get to that, I maybe didn't do as much as I wanted.

Obviously, I don't feel like I was a loser or anything. But, you know, I do feel like I needed to try to get to those things. And so I think that expectations are healthy when you keep them healthy.

But it's very easy to get them way out of whack. You know, I think about the relationships you're talking about, Andy, before we went into break. And, you know, most of that is just lack of communication on expectations. Right. Because I can't meet what I don't know.

And I can't tell you I'm not going to meet it if I don't know it. You know, and so a lot of it is just understanding, you know, what that looks like. Yeah. You expect people to slow traffic, keep right.

Yeah. And when you get to the construction zone, zipper merge, zipper merge. That's the expectation. That's what the signs say. Or confuse the turn signal. I mean, that works too. Turn signals work. They do? Yeah.

Okay. Especially in roundabouts. They're overrated. After driving over in the UK and actually learning how to do it, oh, I get so ticked off that people go through roundabouts all the time with those signals. Yeah. I don't think people in North Carolina use signals.

There's a few, but not many. They're optional. They use the ones that are not built into the automobile. Yeah, they do. Yeah.

They, they use other alternate signals usually after the turn. Yeah. Expect you to know where we're going. I think that was said earlier. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, I know where I'm going, so it doesn't matter if you know. Yeah. Right. So Andy, you actually, Hey, if there, if you have a problem with that, you're following too close. That's my, how does he know where we're going?

Well, Andy, you actually have the next clip. I do. You want to talk a little bit about it? Yep. I will. Well, you can.

Well, not while you're dogging. So it's from the Miracle on Ice and it's Herb Brooks. He's leading the amateur hockey team, 1980. No, it's 1980.

It's 1980. Lake Placid was right though. And so this is before they play the Russians who are like a pro team and they're all amateurs and they're, they're thrown together as college players and they're good, but you know, they're playing against pros. And this is a classic David and Goliath story.

They really had no chance. Somebody said it may have been the best coaching job ever done. And I believe that's probably right. But this is Herb Brooks really setting the expectation to win an impossible situation and just, you know, I have to say our father does this to us in these situations. This is what he did to David. You know, David, you know, the one that, you know, the same David who's going to be, exactly. But again, though, he had that expectation from God.

And what I was talking about earlier was people who put their own expectations. So the key is God, obviously. But in this clip though, he really sets that vision, gives them the vision to believe in themselves that they actually can accomplish this.

Just a cool clip. Great moments are born from great opportunity. And that's what you have here tonight, boys. That's what you earned here tonight. One game. If we played them 10 times, they might win nine. But not this game. Not tonight. Tonight, we skate with them. Tonight, we stay with them.

And we shut them down because we can. Tonight, we are the greatest hockey team in the world. You were born to be hockey players, every one of you. You were meant to be here tonight. This is your time. Their time is done. It's over.

I'm sick and tired of hearing about what a great hockey team the Soviets have. This is your time. Now go out there and take it. So the expectation there to me is just a matter of perspective. You could take the negative perspective, obviously, of this is an impossible task.

We can't do this. And that happens a lot. And the team fulfills that destiny and loses. But it takes me back to as they approached the promised land, you got your Caleb and Joshua who saw the opportunity and had positive expectations. And then the 10 that didn't believe.

They took God out of the equation and didn't believe that they could take the land. And that's what a lot of life is, is are we going to factor God into the equation to where that factors into our expectation? I think the scripture out of Proverbs or Psalms, hope deferred makes a heart sick. That means if you really don't believe God's going to come through or things just keep waiting, you just finally give up, you go to despair.

So I just believe that God changes everything when it comes to expectations. Agreed. I think it's kind of amazing you didn't win an Oscar for that Minnesota accent that he used right there.

That was pretty good. Who, me? No, not you. Oh, okay. Yeah, no. You're not in Oscar contention this year. Darn it. You just didn't make the cut.

It was close. It was for the show. I don't know. I'm just making stuff up. Kevin Ham.

Yeah, Kevin Ham. Time to move on. It is. Hey, there's the music right there.

That's a perfect time to move on. I think you went into four corners there. I did.

I went into stalling at four corners. What I was saying before we went into break, as far as the upcoming boot camp, if you've been to a boot camp or to an entrenchment, you're welcome to come to this upcoming boot camp. Unfortunately, if you haven't been to one, you're gonna have to wait till the fall, right? Because we do have one coming up in the fall. We will also have another entrenchment coming up maybe at the end of April. So we'll talk more about that when we get the dates kind of finalized. But that'll be an opportunity.

But if you've been to a boot camp before or been to an entrenchment, it doesn't even have to be our boot camp. Go to masculinejourney.org. Register for the upcoming one coming up March 30th through April 2nd. We'll talk with you next week. This is the Truth Network.