June 12, 2026

Business by the Book

Psalm 56:5  Every day they wrest my words: all their thoughts are against me for evil.

Every successful person must learn how to deal with those who twist their words and devise evil against them. In consideration of dealing with those who would trouble you consider four things to do.

One: have confidence in yourself. One of the favorite strategies of an enemy is to shake your confidence. If you begin doubting yourself then the enemy is well on the way to winning.

Two: eliminate the word “quit” from your vocabulary.

Three:  be careful of becoming defensive. I once was a member of a large church that had a Family Life Center, which is just a fancy name for a gym. This church had a school and needed the gym for many of its school functions. On Tuesday night this church had a tremendous ministry of opening the gym for pick-up basketball games for adult men. Many men in the community came over to play for the exercise and to recall some of the glory days of youth. The facility was open for two hours from 7 to 9. Around 8:00 the play would cease and a devotion would be given by one of the church staff members, the gospel would be presented and topics about manhood were discussed. Many men attended and it became a tremendous outreach in the community.

This was many years ago and many pounds ago when I would play basketball with this group. I was ok, loved to dribble, pass, and defend, but was not a very good scorer. Sometimes we would have a group of young men come in that were very, very good. They made us look so bad, old, slow, and feeble. I remember one night a group of these young men came for the first time and they were extremely good. We found out later they all played college ball together. During the very early part of the game against these youngsters I had the chance to steal the ball, I grabbed it with both hands and before I knew what was happening, it was being slapped from my hands by a member of the other team. When he did this he shouted to his team “weak hands,” off he dribbled and made an easy layup. This really got under my skin.

I always thought that one of the strongest parts of my body was my hands but here was someone telling his entire team that I had weak hands. This bothered me so much that I thought of nothing else but how to prove to those players that I did not have weak hands, I had strong hands.

I grew overly defensive and my entire game suffered. I thought about a negative that was hurled at me so much that I became ineffective on the court, which is exactly what the opposition wanted. It is a common strategy in sports to make your opponent defensive to the point of failure. Likewise, it is also a common strategy in business and many other activities of life. Whenever there are people in opposition to you they will somehow try make you overly defensive. Recognize this ploy and ignore it by staying focused on your game, on your goals. Do not let the enemy win without giving them your best game.

Dr. William Howe