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Taking Responsibility For Your Life

Politicians, entrepreneurs, parents and pastors – everyone you are leading is looking for you to take responsibility. When you lead others it’s your tribe that keeps you accountable. What about when you are leading your own life? How are you taking responsibility for your own personal and spiritual development? It was one of those very disruptive, pivotal, thought provoking, experiences of my life, when I considered my responsibility for my own spiritual growth. It made me think about responsibilities in a whole new way.

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Responsibilities. We all have them. However, we may not all take them as seriously as we should. Wouldn’t it be great if we all took responsibility for the things we are responsible for? Our finances, health and relationships.

 

Everyone loves the underdog. People who begin with limited opportunity and overcome great odds. These people often could complain ‘Life’s not fair’. But, instead they choose not to make excuses, but to leverage what they have for the benefit of others.

 

We’ve all said ‘Life’s not fair!’ We all say it when we feel we’re comparing ourselves to people with more opportunity. But some of us learn to do the best we can with what we have. How do we learn to understand life’s apparent inequality and begin to start taking responsibility for our own life?

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Creating A Vision For Your Life

Can you imagine what your life would be like if you didn’t imagine? Seriously, complicated or simple our lives can be influenced by what we imagine. Strategically we call this vision. Our vision, passion and purpose are of utmost importance. Most people’s biggest deathbed regrets could have been avoided if they’d thought about vision, passion and purpose.

But what if you are doing your best? Isn’t that good enough? NO! This isn’t about effort or intentions, it’s about your vision, purpose and passions coming together to guide your efforts.    

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Everyone ends up somewhere. Few people end up somewhere on purpose. Many people spend their days and even lead organizations with only a sense of plodding along and not working with vision, passion and purpose.   Are you ready for a change?

God through King Solomon, the wisest and richest man who ever lived provides us with truth.                              

Where there is no vision the people perish

Proverbs 29:18 KJV

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How To Make A Difference

It’s time to get personal and share with you some of my journey to redirecting my own story. Wondering about how to make a difference? Want to redirect your journey?

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In Finding Your Purpose, by Regi Campbell, an eBook on his blog Radical Mentoring there is a simple analogy; “if your life is a dollar bill, what are you spending it on?’ The average person meets over 10,000 people during their lifetime. That’s 10,000 opportunities! It’s often small things that are done that accumulate to a big difference. Don’t overlook the little things!

 

Young or old, we all wonder if our life is going to make a difference? We all want to find purpose in life and make our lives count for something. But how do we find out where to invest our time and our money? It’s not enough for us to do our best. We need to figure out God’s plan for our lives and THEN do our best. But where do you turn to for insight?

 

God through the apostle Paul provides illumination

 

We are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works.

Ephesians 2:10

 

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Six Ways to Sell Your Ideas

Some stereotypes are almost impossible to escape. Think of all the sales industries that try to come up with names for their employees that mask their true identity! Executive consultants, advisors, experience managers, development directors…..the list goes on. A tacky suit and a pushy approach are usually equated with sales and regardless of venue we all push back against the idea that we are being “sold” something.

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In reality one in four of us are in sales or service industries. But so are the other three.

 

Whether we send email, sell something on eBay, pitch ideas to coworkers, are entrepreneurs enticing investors, or parents and teachers encouraging children to study, we spend up to forty percent of our days persuading others. Almost everyone is engaged in “non-sales selling.” As a result, we wrestle with the tension between selfish “selling” versus selflessly serving others.

 

Being a Christian I think there’s a basis for understanding this problem. Peter, who hung out with Jesus, provides illumination.

Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.

1 Peter 4:10

 

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Two Questions To Help You Make A Difference – Part 2

We all want to know how to make a big difference but how do you decide who, where and how much to invest in?

 

“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”

Winston Churchill

 

Every day, 1 billion people wake up to another day without safe drinking water. Children are sick and weak. There’s a constant struggle to find the most basic of human needs. Poverty grips 80% of the worlds’ population and won’t let go. The lack of safe drinking water is a crisis worldwide.

 

Here’s how this applies you. Watch this 3 minute video.

 

 

This young girl wants to buy 1,000,000 chickens – doesn’t that video make you scream – “what can I do to apply this teaching to my life to make a difference?” Through this and other events in my life, I realized being generous meant drilling wells as the most cost effective way to help the most people. But not everyone’s called to do this. However, everyone can make a difference by asking “how many people will I try to help”?

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Two Questions To Help Make A Difference

Did you know as Canadians we spend 99.6% of our income on ourselves? The average donation in 2010 was $260 on the average family income of $69,860. Worse only 23% of Canadians claim a charitable donation. That means 77% claim zero. Until 11 years ago I was one of them. I’d give a $20 at church here or there. Even a $100 thinking I was generous. But until you look at your tax return you have no objective means of analyzing generosity. It’s like learning how to be rich. Learning how to be generous takes thought.

 

This is thin ice I’m stepping on; after all as Canadians we pride ourselves in helping around the world. But I really want you to wrestle with this for yourself. Don’t think about an image that we project and protect. Think about reality!

 

How are you going to make a difference.?

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The Bible speaks about training in this area of our lives as the apostle Paul wrote to his apprentice Timothy:

 

It is required of a steward (property and money manager) that he be found faithful.

1 Corinthians 4:2

 

“Faithful” – What does that mean?

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Learn How To Be Rich

What does it look like on the surface to be rich? Ever upgrade a perfectly good computer, cell phone, car, or want a larger home? If you answered yes to any of these, then you might be rich and not know it or feel it. We often have a mistaken understanding of wealth. The richer we become the more our priorities separate from our needs. Our needs become relative to our wealth. The more we have the more we spend.

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Are you somewhat uncomfortable making the statement that; you are rich? Maybe you don’t feel rich. That’s the other guy with more!

Go to www.globalrichlist.com and enter your salary to see where you rank. Then scroll down to gain perspective. How does it make you feel knowing that not only are you rich, but that you are one of the richest people in the history of the world?

Rich is having extra. Even enough to go to a movie! But you can be rich and not be aware of it. And that’s a problem. There’s a gap between being rich and being good at being rich. If we don’t figure this out we will go through life thinking money is all for us. Where do you turn to for insight and perspective?

 

Paul who had an encounter with the resurrected Jesus, acted as a mentor to a young guy named Timothy. He provides illumination.

Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.

1 Timothy 6:17

 

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How To Get Over The Fear Of Public Speaking

If you are making a presentation to 5 or 500 – you are speaking in public. You have an audience and a message. What if your fear is crippling and hinders your success? You will fail to make an emotional connection with your audience and the important message you want to share will be lost.

 

Studies show people fear public speaking more than death. World class presenters like Nancy Duarte used a resource before her TED talk Uncovering Common Structures Of Greatest Communicators. The book version of this resource helped me overcome my fear of public speaking. I needed some new skills for the task of building up people instead of homes.

 

Recently when I was asked to rewrite half my speech the night before, told I wouldn’t have the comfort of a podium to rest my notes on and hide behind – these strategies made a big difference. Understand and use this approach and you will make a big difference!

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Paul who used to hate Christians, until he had an encounter with the risen Jesus provides illumination about fear.

 

For God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power and love and of a sound mind.

2 Timothy 1:7 NKJV

 

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How to Experience Spiritual Growth

What is it in your life that has your attention? What is something that you crave and enjoy? Money? Fast cars? Sports? You can turn an inward focus, outward when you understand how God can use these for your spiritual growth. Do you crave achievement? What if you could learn to use these desires to serve others?

 

Desires are universal but we are individuals. Desires and God are linked in a unique way for each of us. What if we could learn to see them as having a God-designed foundation in our life?

 

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Ephesians 2:10

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Marriage Help Love and Respect

If you’re new to Resource Freak, this post may seem like an odd one – why talk about marriage when our focus is Leadership, Business and Personal Development. Where does marriage fit? Since 4 in 10 marriages end in divorce, this is big problem that has far reaching impact on our communities and businesses. If you’re not married – were married – thinking about being married – keep reading. This insight will give you understanding based on over three decades of counseling and scientific biblical research. Changed thinking – changes lives and this resource changes people. Remember, leaders help others by sharing resources like this one!

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Anxiety and conflict in relationships grows from unmet expectations. When we think of marriage we all have expectations. The problem is we unload them on our spouse. This robs our marriages of love and respect.  So what do you do with your unmet expectations? You can’t ignore them. God gave you these ideal desires for your marriage. Do you or someone you know argue a lot in their relationship?