Attitude, Effort, and a Second Chance

Dr. David Fraze: Hey, welcome back to chapel.
Welcome back to classes.
Welcome back to meeting the person you were too chicken to ask out for a date.
You're glad to have a second chance to be back at school to ask that person out on a date.
Got to work harder on that. Note to self. So I'm wearing my suit. Suits are just really a jacket
and a tie. It looks fancy because this is syllabus day. I honor syllabus day. And so today and
tomorrow I'll be wearing a tie. And after I set the expectations, if I wear a tie, I'm either going
do something really fancy or somebody died. So just be watching for the tie cue. Just hold on
just a second. Okay. All right. It's kind of embarrassing. So how many are looking forward
to doing something different this semester? Raise your hand. All right. So how many of you had,
and this is a hard question. This is like day one. You have regrets from last semester. You wish
maybe something would have been a little bit different. Raise your hand. That's awesome.
That's why we get a brand new semester. The greatest thing about college is it's kind of
seasonal. You show up and you kind of do some things and you leave and you're like, I need a
break. And you come back and you're ready to try something different. There is something fun about
syllabus day. There is something about knowing right now, if I were to die tomorrow, I'm a straight
A student. There's something exciting about that. You have hopes. Maybe you're finding that person,
maybe to deepen relationships, maybe to be able to go and to, I'm sorry, y'all are just not
receiving my best, right? Hold on. Okay. Hold on. That's good. Thanks. Okay.
That's all I can give you. So, um, and starting over for your grades, all the stuff you want to
do, it's a brand new beginning. And so I hope you are filled with hope. I know that's a bad sentence,
but I want you to remember it. Hope is a really good thing. Hope is a really good thing. And here's
what my students hear from me all the time and the athletes that I coach. You just got to know this.
There are two things that I cannot out-teach. There are two things I cannot out-coach.
Does anybody remember what they are? Attitude and effort. Say it again.
Attitude and effort.
Do you realize those are the two non-coachables?
And sometimes when I'm in the middle
of a general education class, it's fun.
You come in, you have your headphones on.
You're like all mad at the world.
Why do I gotta study the Bible?
And I'll walk up to you and go,
hi, my name's David.
And you're like, I hate this school.
I mean, that's what happens.
And then it starts to loosen up after a while
and you take your head, you take one ear off
and you go, I'll listen to you for a second.
You got five minutes.
and if you stay with it your attitude becomes better when your attitude is better you enjoy
school better when your effort is better you enjoy school better now let me let you in on a little
secret you will not always like all your professors you will not always like what happens in the dorm
you will not like things in life you got to get over yourself to think if everything's not perfect
i'm not going to go after my hope things your attitude is your responsibility you're like well
had something mean to me and I didn't like it. Then change your attitude and then come talk to me.
And I'll work on changing mine because our attitudes are our own responsibility.
And the effort you put in, I know I sound like a grandpa, go with me on this.
The effort you put in is what you're going to get out. I believe some of us are ruining an
experience of growth because you want an exchange for higher education. You want a transfer of
a grade to a career. But do you know what? You are unhirable if you don't have attitude and
effort. I want to say that again. You are unhirable if you leave this place with a great degree
and you've learned nothing about how to live in community and how to interact with each other
and your attitude still stinks and your effort is poor, you will get fired. You're like, but my mom
and dad will call. Guess what? This is the greatest part about teaching college. Please have your mom
and dad call me. It's called a syllabus. I'm like, I hurt their feelings. I didn't mean to. I didn't
do it on purpose. And they're going to go, well, I want you to talk to somebody. You got to change
my kid's grade. You can talk to the provost and he'll go, how old's your kid? Do you know they're
in college? When are they going to take responsibility for their attitude and effort?
So that's your kind of coach phrase undressing today, okay?
Attitude and effort.
If you want to do the things you're hopeful of, then you got it.
This is so obnoxious.
All right.
Now, do you feel like you're more a part of this chapel?
See, I'm kind of almost right there.
There's an elephant in the room.
I have a rope tied around my waist.
What?
I know.
You thought it was just moving.
You thought it was just moving.
so my granddaughter who's four if you call her name she will do this and fall to the floor
because if she doesn't see you you are not real therefore i don't have to face you
don't do that as a college student
my attitude and effort i don't like you i don't like people i'm not going to give a lot of effort
I'm going to have hope. I was going to be the great semester that I'm ever going to have.
And you're still holding on to some things is like holding your hands over your eyes and not wanting to improve.
There are hope killers. There are hope killers.
Some of you are going to get exhausted because you're like, Dave, you don't understand.
I don't need anybody. I can handle it. I've always been on my own. I'm a lone wolf.
Eventually that's going to get old.
Some of you were dragging some things into 2026.
And very quickly, I want to tell you what they are.
One of them is assumptions.
It is so easy in today's world to assume things about another party,
about another color, about another person in another country,
someone else who's from a different socioeconomic situation than you.
It is so easy to make an assumption without ever meeting the person.
It happens all the time.
Everyone in this room has made assumptions about me. I've probably made assumptions about you
Assumptions can kill because here is the dark side of assumptions. It's easy if I create an enemy then i'm better than you
But that's a horrible attitude and it affects your effort
But if I make an assumption, here's the darker side if I try people will laugh at me
If I try to do better in class, i'm still not going to do as good as I want to do
We make an assumption. If I ask that girl out, if I let that guy ask me out, if I try to be social
with someone around me, it's going to be so disappointing. Stop making assumptions because
you don't know they're true. Some of you are playing out tomorrow before today even concludes.
Stop making assumptions. It's going to kill your 2026. Engage with a great attitude and effort
without assuming something is going to be stupid. Stop assuming that a class that's not part of your
major is a waste of time. It's called liberal arts education. So you can leave this place with a broad
mind and a broad opportunity to strengthen your attitude and effort and impact the hope that you
have, and it'll change the world. The other one is this one. Some of us need to get comfortable with
failure. Oh my word, some of you lose yourselves. You have never been in a situation. Let me talk
to the younger students. There have been schools that you've been in that you were unallowed,
you were not allowed to fail. And you were given five or 6,000 bazillion opportunities to raise
that GPA up. And you haven't learned how to fail. Some of you should have been done playing sports
when you were a freshman, but your parents moved you around so much you were a star.
everybody has a point of failure in your gifts and abilities so you got to get comfortable with it
i'm very proud to say that one of the reasons i always show up on class on time and turn in my
assignments is because doc williams gave me a zero all i did was spend more time on a bible paper
it's about jesus we're at jesus college doc but i missed his test and he said son that's not an
excuse that since you get a zero. In this audience, I've had people chasing me outside. Well, you
understand all this stuff is going on. Here's what I got to let you know. The world is a rough place.
Get used to failure and learn from it. Do you hear me? Look to your neighbor and say,
learn from failure. Go ahead. Say it again. Get comfortable with it. And I apologize
on behalf of all the adults in your life
and your parents who never allowed you to fail
because they did you a disservice.
I'm sorry.
We will happily help you fail at Lubbock Christian University.
Not because faculty are clapping way too loud.
Because we understand the only way to achieve excellence
is to let you know that wasn't excellent.
It was good,
but you're not quite where you need to be yet.
Isn't that a gift?
That's a gift.
So learn how to fail.
Learn how to fail.
Learn how to fail.
Don't accept it.
With a great attitude and effort,
you get back up and say,
I'm going to do better the next time.
First time I went to graduate school.
Went to Abilene Christian
and I left a job here that was great.
I was living in an apartment.
it, turned a paper in and it was great. The great Dr. John Willis did not give me a grade. He
probably wasted two red markers on my paper. It's called the Red Sea. He was famous for it.
And he goes, I can't give you a grade on this. And I'm like, I'm going to say I was 30 years old.
I went back to the apartment where Lisa and I were staying and I cried. I said, Lisa, I am so sorry.
I brought our family out here. I thought I was smarter than I was. And that night we went to
there's Dr. Willis. Exactly what happens here at LCU. He's like, hey, come here. I want to introduce
you to my wife. All this stuff. He started talking to me. And then he said, come by my office.
And I got a B. I didn't get an A because I completed the work. That's cheating.
I failed. I needed to get better. And I listened. And I completed 44 hours of graduate school in
one year while teaching three because of that moment of failure. Is everybody with me on that?
you got to get comfortable
and you with failure
stop making assumptions
learn from your failure
and then here's the deal
drop the pride
again on behalf of all the adults
in the world that think that they have it all together
we don't
and some of the times our attitude and effort
changes and we teach harder
and we get on to you because we're afraid
that maybe
challenges. So we'll drop our pride and say, we just want to have conversations with you here at
LCU. Some of you believe you have it all figured out and you know, you don't, but instead of saying,
yeah, I'd like to talk to you. You're like going, you know what you're talking about?
Chad GPT is my master. I, whatever you do, right? There are some of the wisest people that will ever
be around here that I still walk with. And I still talk with, there's a reason we say we walk with
you, would you please drop your pride and actually try with the best of your attitude and effort
to be involved in classes where professors are trying to grab your attention? Would you stop and
talk to our staff at our university who choose to be here so that you can have the greatest of
experiences? Stop and ask them questions and let them be a part of your life. And you'll notice
that your assumptions change. You accept failure better. In the hope of 2026,
all of a sudden you start to realize all my failures, all my assumptions,
all of my pride, if I just leave it, I will go to places that you've never been before.
It's very simple, but it's very true. With the greatest of attitude and effort,
Drop the assumptions.
Learn about your failure and get better.
And drop the pride and let somebody into your life.
So let me end with this.
Do you know how to catch a monkey?
Go with me on this.
There's people who actually hunt monkeys.
Today it would be all over the media.
Oh my gosh, somebody ate monkeys.
But in countries where they eat monkeys, it's a pretty simple process.
and it's frightening how relevant it is to what you just saw with the tug-of-war rope.
They take a gourd, and they put a hole in it just big enough for a monkey to go through that hole.
But inside that gourd, they put fruit, nuts, things that rattle,
things that will grab the senses of that monkey.
So all they do is they hollow out that gourd.
They put stuff in there.
They hang it up.
They come back the next day.
And all they have to do is take a club and hit the monkey over the head because he's exhausted.
Because his hand has gone inside of that gourd and he's grabbed all the goodies.
But now his hand is bigger than the hole.
And he doesn't want to lose the goodies.
He's made an assumption that inside that is something very good.
he's not going to fail at getting what he wants
and his pride won't let him let go because it's right within his grasp
and he drives himself crazy all night long just swinging around
and then his head is clubbed and he's meat
let go
trust the process. Would you trust the process that your professors lay before you? Would you
trust the process that the staff is laying out before you? Would you trust the process
that the Lord wants you to know that there's a group of people who will walk with you
and make 26 your best year, but you got to change your assumptions.
You got to be the one that drops the pride and you got to get used to failure.
Don't be a monkey. Fair enough? You're dismissed.
.