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Life · Ministry · Faith

Tag: family

Getting Better Every Day

June 2, 2018 /

question marks on trees
Marshall Goldsmith, outside of the world of business executives, is a name you may not know. He has been called “the world’s top-ranked executive coach.” He has helped some of the world’s highest performing men and women in the worlds of business, sport, and government get even better at what they do. And as crazy as it may sound, he pays a woman call him every single day to listen to him read questions he wrote and provide answers he himself came up with to those same questions. Why would he do such a thing?

Take a moment and watch his video:

After watching the video, what top three questions would you ask of yourself, every day, about the practices of your spiritual life? Do you have the courage them write it down? In the video, Marshall says, “If you have the courage to write down the behavior that’s most important in your life and the discipline to do this every day you are going to get a lot better.” What’s the “this” he is talking about? Well, you will have to watch the video.

Take some time to ponder and process. It is not nearly as easy as it may sound.

And now that you have watched the video here are a few additional things I have learned about the process.

First, if you take on this challenge, you are going to fail and it will be epic. You will become discouraged. You will want to quit. Your ego and self-esteem will take a cataclysmic beating. But don’t give up.

Second, not just anyone can be the person who hears you give your answers. It must be a positive person. It must be a person you trust. It must be a person whose commitment to you remains unchanged no matter how legendary your stumbling might be.

Third, the only feedback the person can give you is positive and encouraging feedback. We are our own worse critics. There is nothing the other person can say to you that will be worse than what you will already be saying to yourself. What you will need is someone to help you battle the negative thoughts and remind you, you can do more than you think possible.

What’s left? To do it, and don’t give up.

Blessings,
Stephen

 

 

Credits:
Post Photo by Evan Dennis on Unsplash

Wikileaks has your files

October 11, 2016 /

microphones

Dear Friends,

I have been pondering something the last few days. What if, to your horror, you discovered someone had successfully recorded everything you said in the past week and, to make matters worse, those audio files were now in the hands of Wikileaks? Ten years from now would you be able to run for political office without fear of the recordings being played on the evening news? What if you were going through a divorce? Would you be terrified your spouse’s lawyer would find out about their existence? What if an employee was suing you, or a co-worker, or neighbor? Would you hope these files were deemed inadmissible to the court? What if you were dead and your children wanted to find something that would remind them of the person you were? Would you want them to listen to these files?

If the thought of anyone having a recording of the words said in the week strikes cataclysmic terror to your soul, why? What do you need to change this week about the things you think about and say so you never have to worry about anyone listening to the files?

Paul says in Ephesians 4:29, ” Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” Would our talk be consistent with the sage advice of Paul? Are we building people up or tearing them down? Decades from now will our words be a solid foundation on which we have built our life or will it be a foundation of clay that crumbles underneath us?

Blessings,
Pastor Stephen

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