When you read the headline on today’s column you might have felt like we were going to dive into a religious or spiritual conversation.

And you might have been right. But if the headline of the column was changed just slightly to read, “Have hope, keep the hope, share the hope,” you might have had a different perspective or feel differently.

We can probably agree that most people have faith or hope in something or in someone, or at some point they did, and for reasons uncontrollable or not, they have lost that faith or hope. So, as we go through our lives, we have faith and hope, the hard part is keeping or maintaining our faith and hope. And it’s not just when we struggle, but also when we succeed.

What does that mean? When we struggle or lose, it can become easy to disengage from our beliefs and abandon hope. And even in our successes and victories, we can quickly forget how our faith and hope brought us to the realization of our goals and dreams.

Having faith, faith in anything whether it’s our religious convictions, belief systems, or people could be easier than keeping that faith going over sustained periods of time. However, for some who have lost their hope or faith along the way, we should not minimize the importance of finding that hope again and reestablishing our faith.

Have the faith, keep the faith, share the faith. Have hope, keep the hope, share the hope. Which one is the most important? Which one is the hardest to live in our everyday lives? The answer will be different for each of us and each season of life that we experience. The answer will be different based on our past experiences, challenges, losses, and victories.

We can’t lose something that we do not have. So, we must first start by having faith and hope. To keep the faith and hope alive, we need to trust in and stay true to our core beliefs in the good times and in the bad times. I think the harder part, is sharing the faith and the hope with others.

It seems more and more each day we live in such a way that we want to maintain a privacy around our faith and beliefs, protect them for ourselves. It seems like we would rather not share with others how our faith and hope helped us through some of the darkest days and times in our lives.

We would rather not acknowledge or give credit to our faith and hope when good things happen in our lives or as we meet with happiness and success.

My experience and belief tell me that when we do have the courage and conviction to share our faith and hope openly, it moves from being the hardest part to the easiest part of having the faith, keeping the faith, and sharing the faith philosophy.

The more we do it, the more comfortable we become, and the more comfortable we become the greater our chances become of truly being a difference maker in the lives of other people simply by having faith, keeping the faith, and sharing the faith. Simply by living with hope, maintaining our hope, and sharing our hope with others. It is life changing.

For those of you who communicate with me via email, you have seen my signature. There are two that I primarily use, but the one that you will see most often is this one;

Have faith, keep, the faith, share the faith,

Michael

So how about you? Do you see faith and hope as the same thing? Do you have it? Do you find it harder to keep the faith and hope alive or share the faith and hope with others? I would love to hear your story at gotonorton@gmail.com, and when we can find our faith, keep our faith, and share our faith, it really will be a better than good week.

Michael Norton is a resident of Highlands Ranch, the chief revenue officer at Eventus Solutions Group, a strategic consultant and a business and personal coach.