Happy Thanksgiving Weekend!

Last night, my family went Black Friday crazy, for the very first time ever. . .and it was hilarious!

I’ve only seen Emily Balsamo that excited a few times in her life. She had a map of her stores and a brilliant strike plan. . .went in for certain items and came home with each of them! Mainly, she was thrilled about her $200 40 inch TV for the bedroom.

Coree Balsamo was even more insane than Emily. (He is so much like her). He pulled an all nighter with his friends, went to something like 20 stores with a written strategy like something you would see in a complicated multimillion dollar bank robbery film. Their night included a one hour midnight break at the Waffle House! (haha)

I was on the phone with Coree this morning, asking questions about his successes and he told me:

“Ok, well I can’t talk right now, this is worse than texting & driving.”

Sadly, I was not with them, because I injured my knee running in the annual Waynesboro YMCA Turkey Trot. My Daughter Heaven was the official turkey trot turkey!

Here is the Turkey Trot Video from NBC 29 – featuring Heaven, the turkey! (18 seconds into the video)

So… I decided to get in on the Black Friday fun with a creative Black Friday Sale! lol

Today Only!

Make Me A Legend – Black Friday Sale

$8 Paperback/$12 Hardcover – Until 8:12PM

You must order from this blog post. I am still signing every copy!

[Sale is over, link is removed, thank you for sharing the fun with us.]

From my family to you and yours, Happy Thanksgiving weekend. With much love…

Dream Big,

Chuck Balsamo

Happy Wednesday!

What are you currently doing to fill your mind with new information? Is your mind bored, sleepy, and negative… or challenged, awake, positive, and powerful?

What about your spiritual experience? Are you drifting backwards, or moving infinitely closer to God?

Are you losing your grip on life, or taking proposed steps towards greatness and promotion?

While you hope and pray for a breakthrough, is GOD waiting for YOU to significantly up your game… so that He can answer those prayers?

Sometimes, it seems that God moves despite our actions. He gives us many things we have not earned, and do not deserve.

But more often than we can imagine, God is paralyzed from giving us the bigger blessings because WE PREVENT HIM.

God gives every human certain natural talents. These talents will not benefit our lives until we recognize them and REFINE them!

What are you currently doing to turn you God given talents into refined SKILLS?

I’m not asking you about what you’ve done in the past. This blog is about NOW.

Where are you on the momentum scale?

Are you regressing, maintaining, or thrusting forward like a rocket?

Here is a powerful section from my new book…

Make Me A Legend, Chapter 7: Earn Your Keep

My Bizarre Passion for Learning

Recently I received my current academic transcripts from Life Christian University and found that after I finish this manuscript, I will have achieved a total of 204 college credit hours, and I will have finally earned my Doctor of Ministry degree. Here’s the breakdown:

• Undergraduate Studies—120 credit hours, GPA 3.73
• Graduate Studies—36 credit hours, GPA 4.0
• Post-graduate Studies—48 credit hours, GPA 4.0

Not too bad for the class clown who barely made it out of high school, and who never read a single book cover to cover until age 19! I lied on every book report and squeezed my way through English with a string of low Cs and Ds. When I was younger, I hated the classroom. I refused to read because I felt that I already knew so much; to me, school was a big waste of my work and social time. Then I hit the real world, and I struggled unbearably! Thank God it didn’t take me long to see how much I had to learn.

Here I am two decades later, and wow, how things have changed! My passion for learning is a work of God’s grace. Sometimes, when I think about where I came from, it’s as if I’m hearing about a man I’ve never met! Believe me, this radical degree of transformation can happen to anyone. Once the mind is awakened, it rarely goes back to sleep. All a person needs is one good book to get the learning started—the rest is history!

I know this is going to sound super-spiritual, but it’s true—the Bible is the very first book I ever completely read. By the time I was 21, I had devoured it—cover to cover—several times. I was reading ten to twenty chapters a day at times. On one quiet Saturday, I read the Book of Daniel three times and the entire Book of Jeremiah—all in one sitting! I began a routine that was popular back in those days—reading and meditating on one chapter of Proverbs each day. I swallowed down every morsel of insight I could pull from every chapter. By the grace of God, I’ve maintained this same commitment to reading the Bible for more than 19 years now; it has been life-changing!

I’m sorry if this sounds like a mountain of bragging, but I hope to rouse within you this same acquired love for learning. Think about it—you’re reading a full-sized book, written by a guy who never read a book in his life before the Bible at age 19—except maybe Clifford the Big Red Dog and a few dinosaur pop-up books that don’t really count. Maybe you didn’t do your best in high school either. There is still time to learn—it’s amazing what a mature adult can learn and add to classroom discussions. There are many colleges and universities that offer online learning opportunities in every area of interest.

In my early 20s, I began taking Bible college classes, and I haven’t stopped studying theology and ministry since then. At age 24, I caught something important from my world-renowned real estate coach, Mike Ferry—his rare appetite for new information. I’ll never forget how much it inspired me every time Mike spoke of the number of books he read each month and how committed he was to multiplying his effectiveness. During that time, I started reading at least four books a month—a habit that has stuck with me. Thank God for people like Mike Ferry! Attending his seminars was so much more to me than the profound information he presented; it was really about catching his passion. To this day, I’ve never met a man more inclined to learn.

After this book is published and I have received my Doctor of Ministry, I will continue to read a few books a month for the rest of my life. And I will complete another 45 post-graduate credit hours to earn my Doctor of Philosophy. Beyond this, I might study law or medicine, or something else that will help me better understand government, society, or certain intriguing aspects of our physical universe. Hopefully, I’ll form a writing team and we’ll publish a hundred books or more. I’d like to learn classical piano and study new languages and learn how to communicate in sign language for the deaf. I certainly plan to study and experience God for the rest of my life! I want to know everything a human can know about Him before I head for Heaven.

I will never, ever stop learning. Neither should you. No matter your age, I pray that you will make a radical move toward learning, just like I did. Today, I hope my thirst for education inspires you just as much my real estate coach, Mike Ferry, inspired me. Maybe you’ll enroll in night classes at a community college. Maybe you’ll register for classes at a trade school or enroll in Bible college or law school. Maybe you’ll commit to some other fascinating field of study online. I do hope you start to up your game, and keep upping your game from today forward.

Really, who are we to brag in this 21^st century compared to the legendary students of centuries past? Please consider John Welsey—the great evangelist from the First Great Awakening and founder of the Methodist church. In the course of his ministry, John Welsey “rose daily at 4 a.m., was preaching at 5 a.m. so working men could attend his services…traveled 225,000 miles, mostly on horseback, and preached over 50,000 sermons.” That’s 1,000 sermons per year for 50 years (or three per day)! Simultaneous with this preaching schedule, Welsey “wrote 233 books on all sorts of subjects, including some health remedies (Primitive Medicine, in use for almost 200 years) and one of the earliest texts on electricity!” He published “fifty volumes of theology called the Christian Library…a complete commentary on the whole Bible…composed hymns which live to this day.” John Welsey left behind him 750 preachers in England and 350 in America; 76,968 Methodists in England, and 57,621 in America.”² We should be shocked to new life with biographies like this one.

A Few Great Quotes About Learning

• I am learning all the time. The tombstone will be my diploma. —Eartha Kitt
• Man’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions. —Oliver Wendell Holmes
• I don’t think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday. —Abraham Lincoln
• Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. —Henry Ford

Wisdom has built her house; she has carved its seven columns. She has prepared a great banquet, mixed the wines, and set the table. She has sent her servants to invite everyone to come. She calls out from the heights overlooking the city. “Come in with me,” she urges the simple. To those who lack good judgment, she says, “Come, eat my food, and drink the wine I have mixed. Leave your simple [foolish] ways behind, and begin to live; learn how to use good judgment” [be wise]. —King Solomon (Proverbs 9:1-6)

Please meditate on this information throughout the day!

Your thoughts?

I just finished praying for you today. With much love…

Chuck Balsamo

Ps: Have you read the most recent Make Me A Legend book reviews on Amazon? WOW! Stop waiting, order your SIGNED copy on this website now!

Happy Monday!

Yesterday was yet another radical church service at Destiny Family Center. Something huge (and seemingly legendary) is happening in Stuarts Draft (and at other cities and churches throughout America)… here at DFC, more and more people are showing up (with hunger and high passion) each Sunday! Yesterday, the entire floor section was crowded elbow to elbow! Our worship sessions have been like attending a national worship conference! It’s becoming harder and harder for me to squeeze time for sermons. Seriously, it’s unbelievable!

In my sermons, I’ve been doing my best to describe the burning in my heart these days. Sometimes, it seems to be far too sloppy… far too raw and unrefined… I walk away thinking, “Chuck, why did you say some of those things?”

Most of the congregation (and many people throughout our community) are reading my book, Make Me A Legend. The book calls for another great spiritual awakening.

This is my ONE GREAT DESIRE: that my life, my family, my book, our church members and bible college students, and every person we touch will burn for Christ like the Christians of the Great Awakenings. When I get to heaven, I want to be identified by God as a firebrand snatched from the flames… and a catalytic spark in the greatest awakening of all time!

I pray that my messages will create an insatiable desire (insatiable defined: always wanting more) for personal, local, national and worldwide spiritual awakening… and the unconventional actions that lead to it. I pray that my messages will strike the perfect balance of extreme faith and Christian character.

The Biggest Long Shot (from Make Me A Legend, end of chapter 2)

“Is there a chance? Obviously there’s a chance. You never want to eliminate the chance. But it’s a long shot.” —Jim McCrossin, professional ice hockey coach

I know the spiritual fantasy I’m creating here must seem like the biggest long shot you’ve ever tried to wrap your mind around. If you’ve stimulated your imagination and freed yourself to fantasize with me about being part of this awakening, then you’ve felt energized for a minute or two! I’m hopeful that you are still wiping away a few tears and feeling a few lingering goose pimples. This is the kind of dream we wait all our lives to hear!

When you first saw Make Me a Legend, something about this intriguing title triggered your curiosity. Maybe you’ve felt that your world needed a legend, and maybe even recently you’ve been thinking, Hey, why not me? Maybe I can still do something to save the world! Am I right? Everywhere I go, people are seriously frustrated with the current state of their lives. Even some of the most successful people in today’s world feel like something big is missing—modern life is hollow! So many of us carry a great dream of saving our world, and yet here we are making it so much worse every day we fail to act! In the words attributed to Edmund Burke, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”

Some people never act on a God-sized dream, mostly because they lack the special tools and masterful techniques necessary to make it happen! This book is your very own Craftsman toolbox! It’s your comprehensive legend manual! I’ve loaded you up with all the tools and techniques you’ll need to achieve at the highest level! If your dream mechanism is shot, I’ll shock it back to life! Then, I’ll filter your fresh new dreams through a God paradigm, make all the necessary adjustments, and we’ll get on with building tomorrow’s better world—you and me, just like Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, or Orville and Wilbur Wright. With just a few new legends at a time, everything will start to change. Sounds like a whole lot of fun, doesn’t it?

Just as with most things, legends are not born—they are created! Legends are not accidents—they are accomplishments. Legends don’t usually enter this world with a silver spoon in their mouth or some other kind of “unfair” advantage. Legendary people are gradually forged in the fires of challenge and experience. They leverage everything and make the most of seasons and moments, extracting wisdom and a skill from every good and bad happenstance. You’ll never find legends burning up their days grumbling over how life is happening to them. No way! Legends harness greatness for the perfect causes in the perfect moments, to create large and lasting change for many.

There is a great need for legends! It is true that this world is very sleepy, but it is not even close to being outside of God’s reach. You and I can wake it up again! From the ranks of a growing dissent, more and more of us have seen too much to watch and wait any longer. Our dreams are substantial, our resolve is unrelenting—there is no doubt about it, we are the legends of a better tomorrow!

I hope this message fires up your week! Refuse to settle with mundane religion. Stir up the gift inside you! Just like the Apostle Paul told Timothy, “For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.” (2 Timothy 1:6-7 NIV)

Here is a great song for this blog: Holy, by the songs originator, Matt Gilman.

Today’s amazing photo comes from Bethany Grace @ Burnt Out Youth

I just finished praying for you. I prayed for your family and friends. I prayed for your hometown… for your Pastor’s and church leaders, and church friends.

Strike a spark!

Have a most triumphant Monday! With much love…

Dream Bigger!

Chuck

PS: Order your signed copy of Make Me A Legend here!

Happy Wednesday!

I woke up this morning thinking about how much I love and appreciate all of the beautiful people in my life right now. Please don’t get jealous, but I feel like I have the greatest and most loving friends in the world. Gideon had his legendary Army Of 300, David had his legendary 400 Mighty Men… and by the grace of God, I have at least the SAME! There are those from the local community, the 300 of Destiny Family Center… and then, those from throughout the world, Mighty People like Essly Harsanto (Indonesia), Ben & Sharon Hadden (Australia), Author Amanda Beth, … and more just like them in my social networks… plus my mentors and ministry peers!

We CAN change the world! We WILL change the world! We ARE changing the world already!

Here is a section from Make Me A Legend, Chapter 5: Exposed To The Bigger Cause

Expose The Masses – Assemble the Legends!

We should build a camp right here at the rally flag of our shared dream. Make Me a Legend is the perfect rally flag! Here we can unify through our comprehensive list of common principles and purposes and synergize to save our world together.

It has been my experience that wherever there is one legend, there will often be a hundred more. Aspiring legends huddle until they hatch, and then they multiply. Legends always beget legends! In his inspiring leadership book, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, John Maxwell teaches about The Law of Magnetism, which says, “Who you are is who you will attract.”⁴ Therefore, you and I have to become the kind of people we wish to attract so that we can attract the kinds of people we want to become!

If an eaglet hatches in a chicken coup instead of an eagle’s nest, he will never fly. This is because the eagle learns to fly from imprinting, not instinct. He becomes identical to the creature that raises him. Humans are similar. If you really want to become a legend, then you have to get yourself to a legend’s nest—quickly!

Together, everyone has boosted efficiency and range! This is the power of the V flight formation in ducks and geese. I’m painting a picture of what can happen in us and through us when we assemble the masses to this life and world-changing concept. The potential power of what I’m suggesting is huge! To illustrate the point, let’s talk about David again. As if his story isn’t already hard to believe, just wait until you’re left to process what I’m getting ready to tell you about David’s mighty men!

It happened sometime after David slew Goliath and before he became king. Things were not going well for David at that time. King Saul’s spiritual condition was rapidly deteriorating. Evil spirits inhabited King Saul’s body and tormented him with depression and fear. Despite King Saul’s failures, David loved and honored and served his king as faithfully as any person has ever served a king. David also joined the army and fortified his fellow Israelites with several impressive military wins. He was building up the kind of momentum one would expect from a rising world leader.

Sadly, the more successful David became and the more he blessed the king, the more the king hated him. What could have been a very discouraging time in David’s life actually turned out to be a very necessary part of David’s future dynasty. The time came when King Saul lost control of his anger for David, and he climbed down from his throne to hunt the man who served him best.

David refused to retaliate against the king. Trusting God with his future, David took the humble road out of town. Clearly, David hoped this move would calm the king’s jealous rage against his rising fame. In a tremendous act of humility, David set up a temporary safe haven in the lowly but legend-like cave of Adullam.

As the Bible story goes, there was a common, growing discontentment among the people because of the way things were going in Israel. It was this unrest, coupled with the hope of a better tomorrow, that sent 400 men searching for a new dream. It was there in Adullam, during a most discouraging season in David’s life, where the legends assembled! This group consisted of mostly family and a few friends and others who admired David’s courageous spirit. None of these rough-edged dissenters looked anything like a legend in the making when they first placed their swords at David’s feet. They were homeless and hopeless, all facing some kind of personal crisis. Many were struggling financially and had nothing of value to offer David except their loyal hearts.

Can you imagine being in David’s sandals at this point? There is a prophecy that he will sit on Saul’s throne as the second king of Israel, and yet in a homicidal outburst of jealousy, King Saul plunges into a violent hunt for David’s life. Then David, while wanting to respect King Saul and submit to him as the legal head of Israel, runs and runs until at last he collapses onto the cold, dark, damp floor of a lonely, secluded cave of Adullam.

There in Adullam, David was safe from King Saul and away from other people; there he could carefully and prayerfully navigate his life through this very confusing, difficult time. Then, out of nowhere, hundreds of men with enormous problems start showing up at his cavestep—asking for a place to stay and a man to lead them. There, in his cave of misfit people and during a time when David’s country yearned for a legend, he built his army of legend-people! Who could have possibly known that something that big was happening in that most unlikely place?

According to Second Samuel 23:8-39, David’s mighty men were almost like the gods of Greek mythology, each one having a story too sizeable for even the wildest of imaginations. First there was Jashobeam, who once used his spear to take down 800 enemy warriors in a single battle! Then there was Eleazar, who stood alone in battle with David, and without any other assistance wiped out enemy warriors until his sword stuck to his hand. The rest of the army didn’t even show up that day until it was time to gather the plunder!

After Eleazar, there was Shamma. One time, when the Philistines were gathered against Israel, this legend held back the entire army all by himself as every one of his fellow soldiers fled to safety. What about Abishai? He once used his spear to slay 300 enemy warriors in a single battle. And Benaiah. He’s the valiant warrior who did many heroic deeds, which included killing two Goliath-like warriors from Moab. Another time, on a snowy day, Benaiah chased a lion down into a pit and killed him with his bare hands! These guys were legends beyond belief!

And guess what? Every one of these legends came from the very same cave. Let me say this one more time: Wherever there is one legend, there will often be a hundred more! Aspiring legends huddle until they hatch, and then they multiply. Legends beget legends!

This brings me to the main purpose of this book: I want to assemble the biggest, towering mountain of mighty people the world has ever imagined! Then I want to expose them to the biggest cause they’ve ever known! Just like David rallied his mighty men, I want to rally the mighty people in my generation! Just as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream and shouted it loudly, I also have a legendary dream to shout about: Legends unite! Legends rise! It’s time to save this world!

Best-selling author Seth Godin details the surprisingly simple way this can happen in his book, Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us. According to this intuitive man, a person can bring change to the entire world from the remotest places. Thanks to the Internet, geography is no longer a limiting factor. This means for example: it’s possible to gather ten thousand legends out of one hundred nations and build a one million-member legend tribe—from Stuarts Draft, Virginia or anywhere else in the world!

I’ve been praying, with faith and determination, that my passionate invitation will echo to the remotest places of the earth—to people of every race, rich and poor, young and old, blue collar and white collar, men and women. Just like David, I want to form lasting and loyal true love relationships with my legend friends.

Sure, many of them will come into the tribe with an enormous degree of personal problems and not much more than an epic but unrefined divine potential. But I believe we will become mighty over time—and we will build tomorrow’s better world together, one incomprehensible victory after another! Can you picture this? I certainly can! I’ve seen this one million-member legend tribe in a hundred visions, and I’ve been preparing myself to lead it for the past twenty years. Oh, the difference we will make together!

Your thoughts??

I have run out of writing time this morning… just prayed for you all. With much love…

Dream Big,

Chuck Balsamo