Andy Stanley - The Banana King

We are just days into a brand new year, you already know that, and most of us, I include myself in this, most of us want this year to be better than last year, and this year can be better than last year, but it's gonna require some things from us. I think you would agree with that. If we just do what we've always been doing, we're gonna get the same results year after year after year. But there is a way to have a brand new year, I mean a better year, but it's gonna require a bit of honest and, honestly, awkward evaluation. It's gonna require a bit of honest and awkward contemplation and even some honest and awkward transparency, perhaps with another person.

So if you want this year to be better than last year, maybe even the year before, I want to ask you a question, and I want you to consider this question, and I'm gonna ask you this question about four or five or six different ways so that it can kind of settle in over us as we think about having a better 2019 than we did perhaps a 2018. Here's the question I wanna ask you as you think about entering a brand new year. What are you holding onto that's holding you back? What are you holding onto that's holding you back? What are you holding onto that actually, if you're honest, has a hold on you? And what are you holding onto that has a hold on you that the people around you who love you secretly, or maybe not so secretly, wish that you would let go of? What's weighing, what is weighing you down because you refuse to let it go? What's weighing you down because you, it's really up to you, because you refuse to let it go?

And initially you thought this would make your life better, but actually it's just made your life more complicated. What is slowing you down? What is slowing you down because you just won't put it down? What are dragging around that's slowing you down because you just won't acknowledge it and let it go? What are you holding onto? What are you holding onto that you kind of feel compelled to keep hidden? You just don't want her to ever find out. You don't want him to find out. You don't want them to find out. If your kids knew, you would just be humiliated. If they found out at work, if your friends knew, if he knew, if she knew, if your roommate found out, if they found out, you would be so humiliated, but you keep dragging this thing around hoping nobody's gonna find out, and the truth is, come on, they know something's up, right?

In fact, they've even asked you, and you're like, "No, there's nothing. There's nothing going on". Unfortunately, you've had to essentially compensate for the fact that you're carrying something around that you don't need to be carrying around. You're compensating for holding onto something that you just simply need to let go of.

Let me ask if one final way. What are you holding onto that's making a monkey out of you? Because this is in fact how you trap a monkey. Let me explain that to you. You can look it up later. You tie a large coconut to a tree. You hollow out the coconut. You place a banana in the coconut. The money sticks his or her hand into the coconut, grabs the banana, and refuses to let it go. And you don't really trap the monkey this way, the monkey actually traps itself. But as you'll discover if you look this up, not all monkeys can be trapped this way. There's only a certain kind of monkey that can be trapped this way, the monkey that lacks the intelligence to let go of the banana.

So the bottom line for today's message, if you have to leave early or you fall asleep or your electricity goes off, here's the bottom line, okay? Here it is, ready? Let go of the banana and run away, okay? I would like for all of us at all of our churches to say this out loud together, ready? Let go of the banana and run away. It is that simple. Now, if you're not a Christian or not a Jesus follower is the way we describe it here, if you're not really following Jesus, you're not a religious person, however you describe yourself, that's pretty much all I have for you, okay? You can take it from here. You just got to identify what it is you're holding onto, realize that it's costing you at home, it's costing you financially, it's costing you in terms of what's happening to your body. You know better than I do. You know what's going on in your life.

So the bottom line is you just need to let it go, and you need to walk away. You take it from there, it's up to you, it's your life, and if you haven't heard me say this before, I just acknowledge what you already know, and that's I have no right in the world to tell you how to live your life. I don't have any authority over you, no matter how many verses I quote or if I blow up and say I'm the pastor and God says. Hey, I have no authority over you. Your life is your life, if you're not a Jesus follower. So you just kind of take this practical application and run with it, okay? But before you do that, I just do wanna add one thing, and then I'll talk to those of us who are Jesus followers for just a second. I would add one thing.

It's important to know, and I've kind of already said this, that it's possible whatever it is that you're holding onto that you're dragging around, you're not just hurting yourself. By holding on, you are actually holding off. By holding on, you are actually holding off the people who love you the most and the people that you love the most. And as I said, they kinda know something's up. And they may have tried to talk to you about it before, and you got so defensive and you got so defensive that they haven't brought it up, so you think they've forgotten it or you think they don't notice it. They haven't forgotten, they notice, they just don't wanna face your defensiveness.

So as you consider, again, this is just suggestions. I'm not saying you have to do anything. You're just here or you're just watching. I would just highly recommend that if you realize over the course of the next few minutes that, yeah, you're holding onto something that's holding you back, for the sake of the people you love and for the sake of the people that love you, would you just let it go? Ultimately, of course, I would love for you to consider following Jesus, because as we say all the time at our churches, following Jesus will actually make your life better and it will actually make you better at life.

Now, if you are a Christian or if you are a Jesus follower, there's more, okay, because for those of us who are Christians, the problem with being mastered by anything is that we already have a Master, and we don't like the word Master because it conjures up ideas and images of slavery. It kinds smacks of slavery, but let me just ask you a quick question. What do you call this, if this isn't slavery, right? What do you call this, if this isn't being enslaved? If you can't let go or if you refuse to let go, and whatever is in here is an influencing and controlling your life, and impacting your life, and degrading your life, and causing you to experience things you never intended to experience, and what started off as pastime has become a pathway, and now it's very difficult to let it go and walk away, I mean, if that's not slavery, what is that?

So the interesting thing is for those of us who are Christians, and if you're not a Christian, obviously, you can listen and play along and take whatever parts of this you like, the apostle Paul who was a first century Jewish man who again became a Jesus follower, he was a Pharisee, super bright guy, super smart, wrote much of the New Testament because we collected his letters or the first century and second century collected his letters and they became part of what we call the Bible, the apostle Paul wrote a long extended letter to Christians living in Rome.

Now, if you are living in the first century in Rome, that's not a safe place to live, okay? But there were Christians living in Rome, and as you know the story maybe from history, there were so many Christians in Rome by the early first century that Nero was able to blame the Christians for burning Rome. There were so many there, Christianity spread so quickly, so the apostle Paul writes a letter to Christians living in Rome, and in that letter, he addresses this dynamic. He starts it off the way that he starts, or he starts this part of the letter off the way he starts many of his phrases. He'll say something and then it will dawn on him as he's writing or as he's dictating, "Wait a minute, I'm assuming that they know some things they may not know," so he'll say, "You do know," and then he'll say some things, and then he'll go, "Oh, I'm assuming that they might know some things they don't know, so you do know".

So we're starting in one of these parts of his letter where he's saying, "Hey, by the way, before I go too far, I wanna make sure that we're all caught up". So it starts like this, he says, "Don't you know," because he assumed that maybe they did, but maybe they didn't, "Don't you know," and then he states something that's so obvious, it doesn't even need to be said, but it sets him up and sets us up for where he's going. He says, "Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone," or something, "when you offer yourselves to someone" or something, "when you offer yourselves to someone," or something, "when you offer yourselves to someone" or something, "as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey".

That is when you stuck your hand in there and get tied to, roped to, chained to something and you refuse to let go, you are obeying that thing. You are obeying that dynamic, that habit, that pastime, that pathway, whatever it might be, and when you obey it, you make yourself a slave to it. Whatever you say yes to, or whoever you say yes to, to the degree that they're controlling your behavior, that thing or that person has become your master. If you're thinking, "Wow, I never thought of it that way," that's why he started off with, don't you know, because we don't think this way. He's like, "You need to think this way, because in a minute I'm going to challenge you to let go, but I want you to understand what's at stake. This is a big deal". He goes on, he says, "Whether you are a slave to sin," and I'll explain that in just a minute, "which leads to death, or to obedience to God, which leads to righteousness".

Now let me define sin for you. Sin, in the New Testament, is so simple to understand. In fact, it is so easy to understand that we almost don't want to understand it on purpose, because sin in the New Testament is anything that hurts you, and anything that hurts the you beside you, and anything that hurts the yous that you live with and the yous that you're raising and the you that you married and the you that you're dating and the you that you hope to marry, and the you that you work with. Even the yous that you work with, you don't know her name, you don't know his name, because they really don't do anything for you, anything that you do that hurts the yous that you don't even know, is a sin, and here's why. Because it's the verse that all of us have heard at some point, for God so loved all the yous. For God so loved the world, and when you love someone and someone hurts someone you love, you consider that wrong. God says, "I'll just put the S word on it. I consider it a sin".

So when you hurt you, who God loves, and when you hurt the yous around you that God loves, that's a sin, you don't even have a list. It is so simple, it is so compelling, and it is so demanding. So the apostle Paul says that whether you're a slave to sin, which leads to death, or obedience to God, which leads to righteousness, he's talking about any behavior that undermines you or any behavior that undermines the yous around you. The easiest way to think of it is this. If it's not good for him, that's a sin. If it's not good for her, defer. If it's not good for you, it's just something you shouldn't do. And here's why, he says because sin leads to death.

Now, when you see this, I don't know what comes to mind, but here's what the apostle Paul means because he teases this out in other letters that he wrote, that sin actually kills things. James, the brother of Jesus would come around and say the same thing. Sin kills things, and now that we've defined what sin is, you know this to be the case because if you went through a painful, dreadful, long, expensive divorce, something sinned, didn't they? Now, you may not be a religious person, but something did something to you or perhaps you did something to them. You had a secret, you were unfaithful, you broke a wedding vow, you hurt them, that's a sin. Sin kills things. Sin kills relationships, sin kills careers, sin destroys what and who you see in the mirror, sin kills your confidence, sin can kill your health. Sin can actually kill your financial security, right?

If you have a bad habit or you're just irresponsible, or you just ignore what she said and what he said, and all the good advice and just did whatever you wanted to do, right? And you know what else sin kills? Sin kills your peace, and again, this isn't necessarily even a Christian thing. Sin kills your peace with the other people that you've sinned against, and sin kills your peace with God because your conscience bothers you, and sin actually kills your relationship with you because again of you who begin to see in the mirror. So, of course God, who has invited you to address him as Heavenly Father, of course God, who loves you so much he sent his Son into this world to pay for your sin so you could have a... Of course, God is against sin, not because he's against you, God is against sin because he's for you, and God is for the yous behind you, beside you, in front of you, and the yous that you live with and work with all the time.

Sin kills things, but, and here's the application part, obedience actually makes things right. Doing what's right, and we've all experienced enough of this to know how true this is, doing what's right when it's hard. I don't know the last time you've done anything right that it was hard, or you did something right and it cost you something, you did something right and people misunderstood, but you knew it was the right thing. Doing what's right when it's hard is what makes things and what keeps things right. It's what makes things and keeps things right between you and God, between you and people, and between you and you, because there's nothing better in the world than going to bed at night and laying up and look at the ceiling and saying, "You know what, I don't know what's gonna happen, but I did the right thing".

There are few things that will tear at your soul more than facing yourself in the morning in the mirror going, "You know what, I was a coward, I was a chicken, I lied, I deceived, I did the wrong thing to protect myself," and then you give yourself 25 reasons why you needed to do that, but at the end of the day, sin has taken its toll on your soul. So God, who loves you, through the words of the apostle Paul, is saying, "Come on, sin kills things, but obedience makes things right".

Obedience to God sets things right between you and God and between you and others, and maybe most importantly between you and you. So he says but, because there's a contrast here, "But thanks be to God that, though you," because he's talking to Christians living in Rome, he's never even met these people by the way, he's never even been to Rome that we know of at this point, these are just Christians that he knows lives in Rome, "But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin," although in the past you had your hand in the bucket and you wouldn't let it go, thanks be to God that although you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to, not just believe, because believing doesn't make much difference, "you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance".

And I love this phrase, because in this simple phrase, pattern of teaching, the apostle Paul is saying, "Come on, I'm introducing you to or I'm inviting you into a brand new way of thinking about everything". This is a pattern for living. This is a new way of seeing the world. This is a new way of seeing yourself. This is a new way of seeing your family. This is a new way of seeing every you, you are ever eyeball to eyeball with. This is a new way of seeing God. This is a new way of understanding forgiveness. This is a new way of viewing your stuff, your money, your time, your future, your career. This is a brand new pattern of thinking, and it centers on this very, very simple compelling, terrifying idea that we, because of what God has done for us are to do for others, we are to do for others, in essence, what God has done for us.

We are to treat others in accordance with the way that God through Christ has treated us. He says it's a brand new pattern of living, and if you will embrace it, and if it will become your heartbeat, and if you will move it from your head to your heart, it will change everything and it will compel you to finally and at last let go of the things that are keeping you back, to let go of the things that are weighting you down, because his overarching command is tied to his extraordinary gift. We are to love because we are loved, and when that becomes the driving force of our life, anything, anything, anything, anything that I realize is not good for you, that's not good for him, that's not good for her, that's not good for me, becomes off limits. Obedience, this is what he's saying, obedience frees you, obedience to God frees you. It doesn't enslave you. Obedience to God frees you from the complications and ultimately the consequences of sin.

Now, Paul knows that we're reading this, 'cause I'm kind of teasing it out and adding to it, but if you read it quickly, it's kinda like, okay, I think I understand, but I have some questions. Paul is like, "Okay, oh, I skipped a part, do you not know," now here we are again, "do you not know," once again, I don't know if you know this, but if you don't know, you need to know because if you know what I'm about to tell you, it'll help you understand what I've said so far. "Do you not know," ready for this, "that you bodies," not your belief system. This is all so practical. "Do you not know that your bodies are temples"? In other words, he's writing and he's never met these people, and he's like, "You know what, they may not know. They may not now that their bodies are temples".

Now, when you see this, you'll think one thing, but first century people when they heard this read or when they read it, here's what they thought. They thought, "My body's not a temple. A temple is a temple, a body is a body. And a body's not a temple, and a temple's not a body," because they'd all been to temples. If they were coming out of a pagan background, they'd been to temples many times. If they were Jewish, they had taken that long trek or that long journey, about 1,500 miles, to Jerusalem. They'd come to the city of Jerusalem and there's Jerusalem on the hill, and then on the hill, on top of the hill, is the temple. And they went to the temple, and I mean, it was holy, it was sacred. For Jews, it was the most sacred site in the world. For pagans, they had sacred sites that were extraordinarily sacred.

So when Paul says, "Don't you know," because they didn't know, "Don't you know that your bodies are temples," this was like, wait, wait, wait, wait, this doesn't even make any sense. A temple is a sacred site, a temple, this is how they thought in the first century, a temple is where heaven meets earth. If you wanna know where heaven meets earth, heaven meets earth at the temple. The apostle Paul says exactly. God has done something radically new, and from now on, because of what God has done, the person next to you is more sacred than any sacred site you've ever visited or have ever heard of, that the person sitting behind you is more sacred than the city of Jerusalem to Jews, that the person sitting next to you is more sacred than the most brilliant and beautiful and glorious pagan temple ever built or any temple that will ever be built, that suddenly God has done something so radical that people have become more sacred than sacred sites.

Do you not know that your bodies are temples, why? Because they're filled with the Holy Spirit, who is in you. This was breathtaking, they had to set it down and think a minute, like, "Wait a minute, if this is true, then you are sacred and you are sacred and you're sacred and you are sacred," and you go, "Yeah, yeah, I'm not sacred, you have no idea. I don't even have enough hands to tell you how many bottles I'm hanging onto and dragging stuff around". And Paul says, "Wait, you misunderstood me. I didn't say you were sacred because of your behavior. I said you're sacred because of who lives inside of you, that you are surrounded, you live with, you date, sacred". He says, "And here's the implication of that," this is huge, again it's that thing that if you got if from here to here would change everything, it would change our city.

Once upon a time, it almost changed the whole world. He says, "You are the temple of the Holy Spirit. God resides in you. Oh, and by the way, what is true of temples is also true of you, you are not your own," because temples belong to the gods. The temple belonged to God. And he says, "Because you're a temple, you are not your own". Now in the first century, here's what they thought, "Wait a minute, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is starting to sound like the whole slavery thing again". He says, "Yeah, that's where I'm going. You were bought at a price". This was so offensive in the first century. We colonialize this, but I'm tell you, first century, it was more graphic than what we think of when we think of slavery, because in the first century many of the people who read this had owned or possibly still owned slaves. People who read this had been slaves, were now freemen.

Some of the people who heard this were actually slaves. All of them had passed by the slave markets in Rome because Rome, the city of Rome, was constantly flooded with slaves from all over the world. Paul says, as offensive as it sounds and as terrible as it sounds, you need to understand that you don't belong to you if you've placed your faith in Christ. You belong to him, you have been purchased with a price. Now again, that sounds so offensive to us but it's because we don't know what our price was. This is important, a little economics 101. I was a journalism major, I took no economics class, so if it doesn't rhyme, I don't understand it.

So here's everything I know about econ, okay? Economics 101, the perceived value of a thing is what it will bring. If it doesn't rhyme, I don't understand it, so I had to make it thyme, okay? The perceived, not the actual value because there is no actual value. There's only perceived value. Water costs a lot more in some parts of the world than other parts of the world, why? Because of the perceived value of water. In fact, that's true of any product. The perceived value of a thing is what it will bring. That's how you determine what the price of something is, is what it actually brings. Perceived value determines the price that a person is willing to pay. So this isn't a trick question. What happens when things don't sell in a store, what do they do to the price? They drop the price, why? We're gonna keep dropping the price till we get to a price where people perceive that the price and the value line up.

Now here's something that's amazing. You were purchased, there was a price put on you. The price determines your value in the eyes of God. The price that God paid for you and paid for me, that's right, it was his Son. For these Romans reading this or hearing this read, first what was so horrifying and so demeaning and so undignified, suddenly they sit up straight and they think, "I didn't know that, I'd never thought of it like that, that by sending his Son to pay for my sin, he expressed a value and place a value on me that I can't even begin to imagine". You were purchased, you were purchased with the blood of God's Son. God's Son gave his life, don't miss this, you've heard it, but don't miss it, God's Son gave his life for you.

Question, what has the thing you're clinging to offered for you? What has the thing that you won't lot go of sacrificed for you? What price has this paid in order to benefit you? The truth is, it's costing you. This is Paul's point, why honor this? Why empower this? Why bow down to this? Why make something that's actually hurting me and the people I love, why allow it to be my master? You are not your own. You were bought at a price. Then he gives us the punch line, the application, the, hey, if you don't hear anything else, don't miss this. Therefore, therefore means, hey, in light of everything I've just said, whenever you see a therefore, you have to ask what's it there for? Yes, let's do that again. Whenever you see a therefore, you have to ask what's it there for, okay, good.

So he says, "Therefore," in other words, in light of everything I've said so far, therefore, in light of that, here's what I want you not to believe, here's what I want you to do. Therefore, in all your behavior, in all of your relationships, every decision you make, I want you to honor God with your behavior. I want you to honor God with your body. What does that look like? It's very simple, we honor God by honoring those that God honors. You honor God by honoring those that God honors. When you're hanging onto something, clinging to something that demeans you, that creates a lack of dignity in you, or expresses a lack of dignity or worth in other people, you have to let that go, because that's not honoring God with your body and it's overlooking and missing what the incredible, incredible price that God paid for you so that you could have a relationship with him. Anything that gets in the way of my love for you, anything that gets in the way of my love for you needs to be moved out of the way. And anything that gets in the way of your love for other people needs to be moved out of the way. It's in the way.

So back to our original question, and then we'll wrap this up. What are you holding onto that's holding you back? What are you holding to that's holding you back from being able to have a clear conscience with your Father in heaven? What are you holding onto that's holding you back from having the relationship you always dreamed of with your own children? What are you holding onto that's holding you back? Is it your anger? Come on, guys, "Well, my dad was angry and his dad was angry, and I think it goes back to Adam. We just can't help it, we're just angry men". Well, how long are you gonna drag this thing around because the people that love you most and the people who are trying to get close to you, they're ready for you to let go of this. Is it a habit? Habits don't start as habits. Habits start as, oh, that would be fun, oh, that would be nice, oh, everybody else is doing that. It's just a pastime, and then over time, you realize it's a pathway, and suddenly you're a slave. And you don't wanna spend another year being a slave to something that's weighing you down, right?

It may be, this is the hardest one, maybe this is a somebody, maybe this is a friend, maybe this is a group of friends. In fact, for some of you, it is a group of friends, and every time another friend or your mom or your dad or your uncle or your aunt or your grandmother sits you down and tries to talk to you about your friends, you are so defensive and you look at her and you say, "You are so judgmental", and she's not being judgmental. She is using good judgment. And by the way, the people in your pack of friends that are dragging you down, when their grandmother sit down with them, they say they need to drop you as well. Because, come on, come on, we're adults, you're just not good for each other.

So, come on, you owe it to yourself, you owe it to your Father in heaven, you owe it to your future you to just let it go. Maybe it's a form of entertainment, maybe it's gaming, maybe it's alcohol, maybe you're been ignoring your health, or maybe you're too into your health, maybe your family is competing with something you own, your family feels like they're competing with something that you do, and I know I'm out there on thin ice, this may be something that you need to let go of for now that you don't necessarily need to let go of forever. Every season of life requires different things from us, right? Many, many years ago, I used to run all the time. It was just really my only exercise. I ran a couple of half marathons, I know you're shocked, and after the second half marathon, I decided, well, I'm halfway there, I need to run a full marathon.

Well, those of you who run, that is not a casual endeavor. That's not 15 minutes at lunch. That's an hour and a half after work. This is a big deal to train for a marathon, especially if you don't wanna get hurt. So, I would get home, pat everybody on the head after being at work all day, change clothes, and run right out of my driveway, 'cause the neighborhood we lived in was a great place to run, and I'd run for an hour and a half. Then I'd come home, you know, so daddy's home, oh, daddy's gone, daddy's home, and it was, you know. So one day, our cul-de-sac was at the bottom of a long hill. So it was great, I could finish, ♪ Da, da, da, da, da ♪ I could really speed up, it was great.

One day, I'm running down the long street to the cul-de-sac and standing off right next to our brick mailbox is my son, Andrew. He's our oldest, but he was about this tall. He's holding something, I can't tell what it is. I get down there and he's got one of my tee-shirts. He says, "Dad, I brought you this 'cause I know when you come in, you change tee-shirts". Yeah, ah, exactly, in that moment, it was like, okay, come on, come on, Andy, how important is this really? Well, I gotta be able to say I did a marathon. Why? So I can say I did a marathon. I get a tee-shirt, hey, I get a tee-shirt. And there's my little son, "Dad, we're glad you're home again for the second time". He didn't say that.

Now I realize, this isn't for you, I know you're hating this illustration, some of you are like, "Oh, great, I'm glad he doesn't play golf," right? I bring that up all the time. I tell Sandra I don't hunt, I don't play golf, I don't fish, I mean, come on, anyway. Sometimes she's like, "Maybe you need a hobby". No, I'm just kidding. Or some friends. Anyway, my point is this, you know what? This may be something that's actually a good thing in a different season of life, but right now it's a hindrance and you kind of know it, and you've already had that discussion, and it's like, oh, no, I don't wanna keep talking about that. But, come on, you've been bought with a price. God loves you, and he's inviting you to a way of life where you set down every single encumbrance so you can be fully his because you already have a Master.

Now, if you really wanna get serious about this, which you probably don't, but as long as I'm talking about it, let's get it all the way to the, pardon the pun, the finish line, right? If you really wanna have an awkward but powerful start to this year, just ask someone. Am I holding onto something that's holding me back? Because the people closest to you and the people that love you most, they know the answer to this question. If you're married or if you're engaged, or if you're in a relationship where you feel like it's moving in that direction, am I holding onto something that's holding us back? And if so, just let it go, because you don't have any business being mastered by anything or anyone.

If you're a Christian, you already have a Master, a Master who demonstrated, who demonstrated, didn't just talk about it, didn't just believe it, a Master who demonstrated his love for you in this that while you were still hanging onto stuff that was holding you back, that while you were still a sinner, while you were still ignoring people and being unkind to people because it suited you and because it benefited you, while you were still a sinner, Christ died for your sin. He gave his life for you, and then he's invited you to follow him.

If you're not a Jesus follower, come on, you should be. Take a step, take a baby step, get some questions answered, read a book, just come back to church, just listen, sign on again and watch next week, just take a step. You should consider it. If you used to be a Christian or used to be a Jesus follower, you should reconsider it. You've lived long enough to know what I've said is true that sin kills things. In fact, let's just be super personal, if you had been following Jesus a year ago, three years ago, five years ago, whenever it was, you may have avoided your greatest regret.

If you had been following Jesus in that season of life, you may have never stuck your hand in the jar and taken hold of that shiny thing to begin with. So, in addition to letting go of what's holding you back, I hope that you will take hold of the One who brought you back and bought you back, and who will lead you to life that he describes as abundant, extraordinary, and as the apostle Paul would later write, life that is truly life. But that's down the road. For now, here's where we need to land. What are you holding onto that's holding you back?