Why Fear, Lust, Anger, and Pride Quiet Your Vision

SPEAKER_00 0:33

Welcome to the Dorsey Ross Show, where real faith meets real stories. Hosted by Dorsey Ross, here we share encouraging and inspiring stories. And today, we're diving into another incredible testimony of overcoming trials and experiencing the faithfulness of God. Whether you're facing your own battles or just need some encouragement, you're in the right place. So let's get started. Because your story matters, and God's grace is bigger than any obstacle.

SPEAKER_03 1:08

Hello everyone, thank you again for joining me on another episode of the Dorsey show. On today's episode, we have Dave, Dr. Dave Gong. Dave has a pretty incredible story. He's a former professional hockey player who competed in five countries. A US Air Force veteran and the founder of M is Good, a Christian marketing agency that serves more than a thousand ministries. He also holds a doctorate in sport and performance psychology and coaches elite athletes in the area of mental toughness. But today we're going to talk about something that I think that goes much deeper than business and leadership. Dave is the author of Plan the Wing, how to manage your fear, lust, anger, and pride while building your Christian organization. In the book, he introduces the idea of flap fear, lust, anger, and pride, and how these hidden motivators can influence the decision we make and as leaders and and as individuals. We're also going to talk about vision identity, hearing God and our decision making, and what happens when who we are becomes too closely connected to what we do. Dave, thank you so much for coming on the show today.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

Dorsey, it's such a pleasure to be here, man. I've been looking forward to this all week, brother. Let's get started, man. Let's talk about FLAP.

SPEAKER_03 2:52

Alright. You had a pretty unique journey from professional hockey to the Air Force to building a crypting marketing agency. Where did that journey really begin for you?

SPEAKER_01 3:07

I mean, it's such a great question, Dorsey. It began when I got a slap shot in the face, a shattered my nose in three different directions in Kalamazoo K-Wing Stadium in 1994. And that's when I really surrendered. I had received Jesus as my Lord and Savior when I was 16, but that's when I really surrendered to the Lord and his will for my life. And every day now I try to be as good steward of what he's given me as possible. And there's some days that are great, and some days are not so great. And uh and so man, I'm I'm living the dream, but I'm I'm also very thankful for what the Lord has done in my life. But I did start back when I got that slap shot in the face. I was I was I was pretty bull, pretty bullheaded, man, and and it took a it took a rubber puck in the head to get me to humble myself.

SPEAKER_03 3:58

What did playing professional hockey teach you about leadership and dealing with pressure?

SPEAKER_01 4:07

Yeah, so pressure's interesting. I I've since learned a lot about pressure, but hockey specifically taught me to stay committed to my teammates, to persevere. It taught me to forget, you know, with peak performance. You you've got to forget, you know, you've got to, you know, last moment doesn't help you in the next moment, whether it's good or bad. And so we got to stay in the moment, which is really, really super easy to say, but really hard to execute. When you're playing free, you're playing in the moment, Dorsey. And and so, you know, you have to be uh you have to have a mind like a goldfish, you know, like you just gotta let go and forget.

SPEAKER_02 4:51

And what what teams did you play for in when you were playing professional hockey?

SPEAKER_01 4:58

Yeah, so I I grew up in northwest Pennsylvania, played high school hockey there, and then I went up and played in Ottawa, played in in the PN and the junior system there, and then I went over to Cleveland and played in the North American Hockey League, and then from there I went over to Germany and uh and and played hockey in the Zweiter Liga, which is Second Liga, the second league in Germany.

SPEAKER_02 5:22

Yeah, you spent more than 20 years working with Christian organizations.

SPEAKER_03 5:31

Whatever you learned about the challenges Christian leaders face?

SPEAKER_01 5:36

I think there's it's it's very similar to what non-Christian leaders face. I think there's a vision that the company has, whether it's in this case Christians, it's coming from the Lord, obviously, of what that vision can be. But there's lots of uh struggle on on how to execute that vision, and there's no perfect system that says, here's how you're doing it, do it. I think it's it's like a parenting book. There is no parenting book, and so you got to kind of figure it out. And leaning on the Holy Spirit and trusting God and having faith and your decision making is is really hard. So, you know, having a good team of believers around you is important, and you know, I wrote this book, Plan the Wim, because I I've discovered these four toxic motivators that are potentially managing our decisions. And those motivators are fear, lust, anger, pride. There are other toxic motivators, Dorsey, but these are the top ones I think that the devil uses to get in the way of the vision that God is God has for our life.

SPEAKER_03 6:43

And why do you think that that is? Why do you think those are the four top ones that the devil uses, and how does that stop us from pursuing the vision and pursuing the leadership that God has for us?

SPEAKER_01 6:57

Yeah, it's that's a great question. I think these are the these are the ones that that I don't know really know why the devil uses this, but I would say that they're the they're the easiest to catch us. You know, you're talking about your fear, living in fear. We know that fear and faith can't coexist, but fear is a really good motivator to distract us from our God-given vision. Lust. Lust is one of those areas where I think that we all kind of treat it as a taboo topic, something we don't want to talk about. We know that pornography is very relevant, and lust can be pornography and can be chasing that. I never really struggle with that, me personally, Dorsey, but lust is also a little bit more of a broader topic. Lust is lusting for people, power, and possessions. We all want a nicer house, bigger house, newer house. We want a faster car. We look, we look, we see the political space and we see the power that people lust for. So lust is one of those areas where it's very easy to succumb to. And then anger, it's the same thing. It's just easy to get angry. When somebody's blocking us from our goal, it's easy to get angry. Get upset with them, you know? And then pride. Pride, you know, the Bible talks a lot about pride and you know how that comes before the fall. And pride is probably the most expensive of the toxic motivators because we we accept it and people mask it really easy. And so the antidote to fear is obviously faith, the antidote to lust is giving and love. The anger is forgiveness and patience, and then the antidote for pride is humility.

SPEAKER_03 8:38

What made you go from being a professional hockey player to doing what you do now with coaching elite athletes and everything?

SPEAKER_01 8:48

I wish I had a complicated answer for this, Dorsey, but it's really, it's it was really a prayer. I I asked the Lord to use me. And you know what came back was really interesting, Dorsey. What came back was, are you usable? And the answer was no. I'm not, I wasn't usable. So I I you know, I I I sent that to my mentor, you know, like, am I usable? And and he basically said, you know, if you're not usable, then, you know, at the time it was we had television, now we have our you know, mobile devices. But he said, turn off the TV and read these books. And so he gave me a list of 25 to 30 books to read. I turned off the TV and I read those books. And uh I feel like I'm a better position to be used now than I was in the past. I really didn't like myself, especially coming out of hockey. I had a very poor self-image. I didn't like who I was, self-esteem and have any confidence. And and so, you know, it was really just a prayer, honestly. The short answer is a prayer, a prayer to for God to use me.

SPEAKER_03 9:54

You mentioned um, you know, in your previous answer, there were a couple of answers there about your book, Plan to Wing, where you talk about leaders starting with a vision, eventually allowing that vision to get to get quieter. Why do you think that happens?

SPEAKER_01 10:12

The world is set up for us to buy a bunch of stuff, and there's a lot of noise out there. I I I I've told this story before, but back in 1980 when Ronald Reagan was president, the amount of impressions that were hitting the average American around 600 impressions a day. So there were organizations that want us to buy our buy their toilet paper, toothpaste, mouthwash, deodorant, catfu, cat litter, about 600 impressions a day. And if we fast forward to now, we're up to about the fourth quarter of this year, 2026, will be projected to be up to 21,000 impressions a day.

SPEAKER_02 10:49

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 10:50

And so you know, the the world is built to for us to buy stuff and distract us. You know, when we're distracted, the enemy wins. You know, if you look at the devil's logo, it's actually not the Starbucks logo, it's actually arrows in every direction. The the adversary, the devil wants you distracted, so you can't follow God's vision. And so it's really easy, I think, for the vision to get muddled or get dormant or go quiet, as you said. I like that answer, Dorsey, to for the vision to go quiet. It's easy for us to do that and look to our selfish ways to accomplish the vision.

SPEAKER_03 11:28

Use the term flap, and we talked about that, but where did that idea come from?

SPEAKER_01 11:36

I was in a uh meeting many, many years ago, and uh one of the pastors there had talked about fear lust anger pride as being a motivator. And you know, I I think I just came up with the acronym, you know, because I I like acronyms in terms of finding it easy to remember, flap, you know, it's kind of a weird word. And so so yeah, so that's where it came from.

SPEAKER_02 12:01

How many elite athlete and people that you work with?

SPEAKER_01 12:06

Yeah, so on the on the doctorate side, most of my hockey players that I I work in the hockey space, and so I've got players from the NHL down. I'm not really privy to say you know, on a privacy standpoint of who actually I'm working with, but you know, my answer there is from the NHL down, I've got players I talk to on a weekly basis.

SPEAKER_03 12:28

Can fear sometimes look like wisdom or responsibility, making it difficult for us to realize that fear is actually driving our decisions?

SPEAKER_01 12:41

Fear is masked in so many ways, not just in in responsibility. It's masked in a lot of different ways. And I think you know, the answer to this is that when we have faith, we really don't know what the end looks like. You know, Hebrews 11:1 talks about faith, the substance of evidence of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. And so it's something that we have to really step out and not understand what the end goal or end result is going to be and how we're gonna get there. And so faith has a very strong foundation to it, whereas fear is really centered around control and manipulation. And so it's it's easy sometimes to see fear when you're when you're communicating from an other's perspective, but I think sometimes it's it's really difficult to communicate or just difficult to see as a communicator, is this really coming out of a fear-based decision? We actually have on planthewintoday.com, we actually have a assessment that will show you your top toxic motivators. It's like a three to five minute assessment to see, okay, am I living in fearless anger pride, or which one of these toxic motivators are motivating me.

SPEAKER_03 14:06

And when we and when someone does take that test, yeah, does it does it give them how you can get out of that?

SPEAKER_01 14:16

Yeah, so there's actually this, and this is all free, there's actually a five-day devotional based on which toxic motivator that is motivating you. You can download that five-day devotional.

SPEAKER_03 14:29

You say who you are, if not what you do. Why is it so easy for for successful people to connect their identity with their accomplishments?

SPEAKER_01 14:41

Oh my gosh. This is like this is an epidemic here. Maybe a pandemic, honestly. You know, we we always, not always, but a lot, a lot of us live through what we possess or our titles, and that people power possessions I was talking about earlier. And so we identify ourselves with what we do and how much money we have. And so it's very easy to justify who you are by what you do. The truth is, the New Testament brings this out that God doesn't look at you as a performance. God looks, God wants to want you to love him and and you know, and glorify him with your talents and your abilities. And so it's really not about performance. It's about how we I kind of look at it like a spotlight, how when the spotlight comes on us, we just redirect it to others or redirect it to Jesus and how we're glorifying him. That's really hard to do, man. Because you know, we want credit for stuff. We want to look at me, look how awesome I am. The reality is you're not awesome. God created you in his image, right? Do you see that, Dorsey? That you're created in his image, isn't that powerful? God loves you. Yeah, I can tell, man, you got the spirit of joy on you.

SPEAKER_03 16:07

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 16:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:10

You all can make a connection between what happens in the back in the boardroom and what happens at home. How can the things driving up professionally affect our families?

SPEAKER_01 16:22

Yeah. There's a great book out there called Who You Are When No One's Looking. And it's a great testament to how you're acting at home and at the boardroom. And in fact, this kind of goes a little bit deep. If you look at all the different personality assessments out there, Myers, Briggs, Personality Plus, you know, we've all sort of taken those. Those are all personality assessments, which is really interesting because when we look at the persona, when Adam ate of the forbidden fruit, the first thing that they did is they hid that with themselves, right? They covered themselves. Covering in the Greek is persona. So when we have a personality, we're masking ourselves. And so this idea that who I am at home versus who I am and the golf course versus who I am at work and these different personas going out, that's ineffective behavior. You should be the same person all the time.

SPEAKER_03 17:29

And why do you think that is? Why do you think we're not the same pussing all the time or we want to be someone different?

SPEAKER_01 17:38

I think we try to mask. I think we try to chameleon ourselves, that's even a word, into different, you know, constructs so that we can be credible and believable and and show that we're, you know, we're something we're not. It's just easier than it is dealing with the struggle. You know, it's it's much easier to say I'm doing this and mask my true feelings than actually be open to your true feelings and say, you know what, I'm struggling with this. It's okay to say I'm struggling with this. When I look at uh how the world turns, it's like there are peaks and valleys, right, Dorsey? There's some days that are really awesome, there's some days that are not so awesome.

SPEAKER_02 18:22

Right.

SPEAKER_01 18:23

And so we have to be honest that today's just not an awesome day, man. And I'm I'm struggling through this. That's really hard to say. And I'm struggling with my lust. Who says that? Yeah, you know, it's better just to say, you know, it's just not better, it's just easier to mask your feelings. You know, we use this term in the in, you know, say, how are you doing, man? Like, what's up? How are you doing? People really don't want to hear your stuff, you know, and how you're struggling. And so it's hey man, I'm great. Okay, great. You good? I'm good, you know? And so it's just easier, I think. It's just easier to mask than it is to say, you know what, I'm struggling with this, man. Can we pray together? Can I come to your Bible study? It's it's hard for us to let go of that of that struggle and be open. Have you witnessed that? Have you witnessed that, Dorsey, at all in your life?

SPEAKER_03 19:17

Well, yeah, I think so. I think there's time in my life when I, you know, I'm afraid to tell people how I feel or what I'm what I'm dealing with or what what I'm going through. I mean, there's certain people's certain people that, you know, I tell things to, but not always, you know, I don't always tell people how I feel or what I'm what I'm dealing with.

SPEAKER_01 19:40

Yeah, and I think that's true of the rest of the world, right? We're just struggling with something and say, hey man, I'm not doing too good right now. Can we I don't really want to talk about it, but I just wanted you to pray for me. Can you pray for me? That's being more honest. And I think when you're honest about your feelings or honest about how you are, we can get somewhere. It's when you mask. I was uh I was telling one of my athletes the other day, I said, when when we describe mental toughness, mental toughness is playing at the upper ranges of your ability consistently under pressure in the biggest moments. What mental toughness is not is ignoring the issue. When you ignore the issue, that's called ignorance. Right? And so we have to be open to say, hey man, I want to play at the upper range of my ability consistently under pressure in the biggest moments. Hey coach, what do I need to go do that? What do I need? What do you see in me that I need to eliminate or I need to add? Right? That's a really awesome question that now we can collaborate and we can engage and we can work with each other on versus trying to pretend we're being something that we're not or doing something that we're not capable of doing. That's a struggle, man.

SPEAKER_03 20:51

Right.

unknown 20:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:53

You talk about you talk about leading some vision instead of pressure. What does that actually look like in everyday life?

SPEAKER_01 21:04

Yeah, so vision. So vision is is a short, portable, easy to understand, memorable, inspiring statement. One of my favorite vision statements in the world comes from Bill Gates. This is he had a vision to have a computer in every home. A computer in every home. You know, FedEx, they wanted it when they first started, they wanted to be in every city every day. You know? And uh to be in every city every day. Now they're in every city sometimes, twice a day now, three times a day, four times a day. And uh and so another one that I like is Freedom United to end slavery. When we have a clear vision of where we're going, it's really easy for us to rally around that vision. When it's not clear and it's more than 7 or 11 words, and it has conjunctions in it, conjunctures like and, but however, furthermore, moreover, we have we have these long vision statements. It's real easy for it to get lost in translation. And so what happens then when the vision isn't clear to answer your question, then we just start making some stuff up. We start panicking and saying, you know what, I need somebody to do this or that. And now I'm calling gonna, you know, manage my day day by day based upon my feelings. When their feelings are in front, Dorsey, you're in trouble.

unknown 22:31

Right?

SPEAKER_01 22:31

When your vision is leaked. Right, a computer in every home to end slavery. When our vision's in front of us and it's clear, we can rally around that, we can make sound decisions based on the vision. If the vision is muddied and we don't know where we're going, then that's fear. That's pride. That's here's how I want to do it, not here's what's good for the team, here's what's good for the culture, here's what's good for the end. Donald Miller once said from Story Brand, I I really love this. He said the the client, the organization, the organization isn't the hero. The client, the donor, the first-time guest, they are the hero. The organization is their guide. And so what I see a lot is traces of narcissistic behavior running the organization, not necessarily the vision. And that's where pride comes in and lust and fear, and it's all meshed up, and and so they're doing the best that they can.

SPEAKER_03 23:36

You've developed something called Holy Spirit Intelligence.

SPEAKER_01 23:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:40

What does that what does that mean, and how does it help someone make real-world decisions?

SPEAKER_01 23:48

So this came to me years ago, and uh I was thinking about the government's got some pretty cool stuff like the FBI and the CIA, right, Dorcy? How cool is the FBI, the CIA or Delta Force, special forces, and I thought, man, Christians need something really cool too. Why not HSI? So call that Holy Spirit intelligence. So HSI is really, you know, we hear this in a lot of different Christian communities of God told me, God said, I feel led by the Holy Spirit. You know, I'm gonna go do this because God told me. We hear this, you've heard this before, right, Dorsey? Absolutely. Yeah, and so I think that can be really, really fatal if we're not very careful with that. And so I don't know that there's the the perfect playbook for this, but I think, you know, having me say something like, hey Dorsey, God told me to tell you is is really uh it is it can it can be it can be detrimental more than it could be helpful. And so HSI was born out of that. And so Holy Spirit Intelligence says, okay, I got a word from the Lord, but I need to do some checks and balances before I go and tell somebody, before I go and do something. And so HSI is a series of steps, pretty easy, really. It's like, okay, I get a message from the Lord, I'm gonna sit on it for 24 hours. Right? I'm gonna talk to some other Christian mentors about what I feel like the Holy Spirit told me. I'm gonna pray about it. I'm gonna wait and see if it comes up again. Because what we know about lust, lust is revealed by desire itself that has to be done right now. Think about that. You know, like if I need something right now, Dorsey, or if I need to go buy something right now, the Lord doesn't work in right now. Usually things are, usually things, at least in my experience, have been like if I'm need it right now, it's it's not necessarily God. It's my it's my earthly desire.

SPEAKER_02 26:04

Right.

SPEAKER_01 26:05

And so the Holy Spirit intelligence puts some checks and balances in there before we go do something or act on something. We want to make sure it's sound and it's scripturally sound, and it's you know, it's it's approved by mentors, Christian mentors, that this is be good for the whole the community itself, not just my desire, my selfish desire.

SPEAKER_03 26:30

Did you have a bad experience where you know had something happened that may not have been from God or from the Holy Spirit where you decided, hey, there needs to be something, you know, like check some balances to figure out if this is from God?

SPEAKER_01 26:49

I've had so many, Dorsey, of these bad experiences. Oh my gosh. I you know, which one to choose from? You know, I I feel like, you know, there's a part where you know the Israelites were were in the desert for 40 years, right? And they were following the blue cloud. They're following a pillar of cloud by day and a blue flame by night. And so think about this. You're in a desert and it's really, really super hot. Hotter than August in North Carolina, right? And you know, you're following this cloud because it provides shade. If you go in front of this cloud, you know, it's gonna be really hot. If you go behind the cloud, it's not good either, left or right, same thing. And so if you're falling this pillar of cloud by day, it's it's actually providing protection. And so I look at this as like HSI. I get this word, I get this message, and I feel like I gotta go now. I have to rush it through. So there's lots of times where I've rushed things through. I've project managed them all the way through and like got it to the end zone where it wasn't godly. Like I can tell you specifically, I bought a lake home years ago, and I pushed this thing through, and it the whole thing just fell apart within a year, and it cost me so much mental anguish and so much time and so much money. I still five, six years later have residue from that. And so, you know, I think when we we force things that are not really godly, they have negative results years later. And this comes with decisions almost every single day where we're we think it's God and it's really not.

unknown 28:30

Right.

SPEAKER_01 28:30

It's our selfish desire.

SPEAKER_03 28:32

You worked with elite athlete on mental toughness. What can someone who isn't an athlete learn from the mindset of a professional athlete?

SPEAKER_01 28:44

I like that question. I think as an executive, we make decisions. One thing that I really love about sports is that it really highlights issues pretty fast. You can see it, you know, in players' performance. It's really harder to see as an executive who's you know running an organization. And so I think the lessons learned there from the executive and to the professional athlete are really quite the same. I just don't think that uh a lot of times it's shown as brightly as an athlete. And so when we're talking about your fear, lost, anger, pride, it looks like profitity's down, profit's up, it looks like retention is not very good. It looks like onboarding new clients is not very good, or it could be good based upon what kind of clientele we're bringing on. It could be managed by is this fear-based, lust-based, anger-based, or pride-based. We just got to dig a little bit deeper because executives aren't on TV, on Fox TV catching footballs or shooting hockey pucks. And so the issues are still the same. They're just masked a little bit differently.

SPEAKER_03 29:55

Right. I get ready to end here, I always like to ask my guest to give my winning a word of encouragement.

SPEAKER_01 30:04

Yeah, my word of encouragement is that if you are feeling led by the Holy Spirit and led by God, to chase it. We need more people communicating the gospel of Jesus. I've defined winning, Dorsey, as having a better relationship with Jesus today than you did yesterday. And so if you feel pulled to go do something, I want to encourage you to go do it. We need more people, more men and women of God chasing the vision that they have, that God has for their life. And I want to encourage you to do that and reach out, not to me or Dorsey, but to reach out to your community, your other believers in the community, and and get feedback from them and get involved. And last message here is that several weeks ago I was in a conference and the pastor said, You know, we're all around Christianity every day. He said, I want to challenge you. Are you in Christianity today? In other words, are you reading your Bible today? Are you praying today? You know, instead of being around it, be in it. Grow closer to him. That's my words of encouragement, Dorsey. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 31:22

Where can people buy your book and find out more information about you?

SPEAKER_01 31:27

Yeah, awesome. So if you go to Plan the Win Today, plantowintoday.com, there's that free assessment we talked about earlier, and uh there's a link there to purchase the book, the plan to win book on Amazon.

SPEAKER_03 31:40

Awesome. Dr. Day Song, thank you so much for coming on the show today. We greatly appreciate having you.

SPEAKER_01 31:48

Thank you, Darcy.

SPEAKER_03 31:50

Well, guys and girls, thank you so much for tuning in again. I hope you enjoyed this episode and get something out of this episode. Please go and check out Dr. Day's book and his website. And please subscribe and forward this episode to others and to even support the podcast as well. And until next time, God bless. Bye-bye.

SPEAKER_00 32:19

That's a wrap for today's episode of the Dorsey Ross Show. Thank you so much to our guests for sharing such a powerful story of faith, perseverance, and God's amazing grace. If this episode encouraged you, encourage someone else. Share it with a friend, leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or subscribe so you never miss an episode. You can find more episodes and ways to connect at www.dorseyrockshow.com. And if you'd like to support the podcast, check out the links on the show notes or on Dorsey's social media. Remember, no trial is too big for God's love, and your story can point others to him. Until next time, keep trusting, keep sharing, and keep shining for Jesus. God bless you.