tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-90582182484851454782024-03-13T15:09:23.572-07:00Lead like a sinnerLeadership secrets to have incredible success with any team!scottsboyd@gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12367875329055315045noreply@blogger.comBlogger97125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9058218248485145478.post-34448841122823129772015-05-27T12:18:00.001-07:002015-05-27T12:18:36.365-07:00Receive LoveIn order to receive, I have to trust. When I first heard this concept I thought what a strange combination of idea's. How are love and trust related and can't I receive love even if I struggle to trust. But then I remembered Brene Brown's Ted Talk on shame and vulnerability. She made statements that vulnerability is the gateway to freedom, love, creativity. I then think about believing. To believe by faith is to believe something that does not yet exist or cannot be seen, which is a risk. It may or may not be. Yet we must take the risk to believe by faith in order to receive God's salvation and His Holy Spirit. All of these things require us to become vulnerable. To take the risk to believe something puts us in the vulnerable position that it may or may not be true. To take the risk to tell someone a need puts us in the risk of being hurt by them if they choose to not step into our need. To take the risk to be vulnerable with another person, puts us in the risk of no longer being accepted by them when they know more about us.<br />
So to choose to not be vulnerable is to choose to hide, or conceal who we really are and keeps our true selves from being accepted.<br />
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Think geometry and proofs. I love proofs and as I have been writing, I discovered that I am trying to prove that in order to receive love we must trust and to trust is to become vulnerable with another. We have this at work with God and we have this at work with others.<br />
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Sorry about the rambled thoughts above, but this is often how I begin to think and learn.scottsboyd@gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12367875329055315045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9058218248485145478.post-81182380557052553692015-05-19T12:50:00.002-07:002015-05-19T12:50:50.161-07:00A Deep Significant PurposeI have been banging around the website called Kahn Academy. They have a mission to provide a world class education for free, for anyone, from anywhere. A purpose like that moves me. I recently heard a speech by Elon Musk, his purpose in Tesla was to promote electric cars by driving the price point lower so that people will drive more electric cars and less gasoline powered cars and this will cause less environmental impact to our world. His purpose moved me.<div>
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I think its possible to have a mission in any business that is moving. A mission that people can get excited about and want to contribute to.</div>
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I want my little mechanical contracting business to learn how to help people grow. And by grow, I mean grow as a human being, such that their workplace is better, their work is of higher quality, their family life is better, and grow in that they give back to humanity from their greatly developed capacity. That sounds fun to me.</div>
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I also think hidden in the gospel of Jesus Christ, are principles that work in businesses and teams and communities. They are strategies that come from grace, and we can be ambassadors of grace to those we work with. Since grace is not conditional, but free, we can give grace freely to those we work with.</div>
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Just thoughts from my day.</div>
scottsboyd@gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12367875329055315045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9058218248485145478.post-19688091963680431402014-01-29T06:57:00.000-08:002014-01-29T06:57:19.146-08:00The gospel leads us into eternitySo the thought is you can be in eternity, or you can be outside of eternity. No scriptures, just my heart searching for the place I long to live. When I am trusting God and His gospel, I can separate myself from worries that I have made mistakes, told lies, been less than righteous and these things will catch up to me and bring disaster with them. Also, when I am trusting God and His gospel, I can separate myself from anxieties in the future, knowing that God will be with me and loves me and is in control.<br />
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So I can be in the moment that exists right here right now, facing what is before me with faith. Living in the present where there is no time and the time that is measured, will never end. Interesting thoughts for me this day.scottsboyd@gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12367875329055315045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9058218248485145478.post-4080304548626401632013-10-09T06:57:00.000-07:002013-10-09T06:57:12.883-07:00So heretical I get worried about what you will think of me, knowing I think this way.There is a truth that I find in the bible. I find it in Galatians, Ephesians, in fact in almost all of Paul's writing.<br />
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The truth is this, it is no long I who live, but Christ who lives in me. Galatians 2:20<br />
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Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. Ephesians 5:31-32<br />
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So if Jesus lives in my heart and has become one with me and everyone else in the body of Christ, it should be a given that I love my heart with my whole heart. After all, wouldn't that be loving Christ?<br />
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If Christ lives in me, then I might ought consider to love my life and not hate it.<br />
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If I am to have a relationship with Jesus and I find him inside of me, then I should seek to have a great relationship with myself.<br />
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If I am wanting a relationship with Jesus and he is in other Christians hearts, then I might have success with that goal as I get to know the hearts of others.<br />
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How can it be true that "Christ lives in me" and "if I say I have no sin I deceive others and the truth is not in me"? Could it be that Christ can live in me even when I sin?<br />
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Am I a liberal Christian? Such a terrible label and yet I am not sure what it means.scottsboyd@gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12367875329055315045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9058218248485145478.post-65689198212989077542013-10-05T13:11:00.001-07:002013-10-05T13:11:18.874-07:00StoryThe power of a story is amazing. Somehow a story allows us to connect in a manner which facts do not allow. I was confronted with this a year ago in a meeting I was participating.<br />
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In the meeting, I was asked to tell the story of my success. I started off telling the facts about why I thought we had been successful. I talked about insight I held on the market I was working in, as well as the strategy I used to bid, the effort to maximize the work that the overhead I had working in the office could handle. Then our facilitator asked me if rather than share the facts, could I tell my story.<br />
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I had to struggle to determine where to start, what to tell, but in the next few minutes I began to gain some traction and I told my story, the emotion I felt, the struggles I encountered. When I was done we went one by one around the room and asked each member of the group which presentation they liked better.<br />
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It was overwhelming how much more power the story was described as having than the facts and strategic points of information.<br />
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I think often our stories allow people to see our humanity, our errors, and even our sins. These are the things that make us real, within a persons reach. They are inspirational, because we have found our stories have similar scenes, we can no longer disqualify ourselves for the errors that were in the success story we just heard. That is why we become inspired. I can do this too!scottsboyd@gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12367875329055315045noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9058218248485145478.post-64512096298256643622012-10-02T08:15:00.002-07:002012-10-02T08:15:42.916-07:00Self CompassionOne of the hardest things that we do as humans is offer to ourselves compassion. It is easy to offer others compassion, but when it comes to me, I rarely qualify.<br />
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I think that when Peter wanted to refuse to allow Jesus to wash his feet, this same principle was at work. He was not about to allow himself to receive something he did not deserve.<br />
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I think this tendency to not offer ourselves compassion also creates in us stress which then causes behavior that we would not intentionally set out to do. For instance, when my wife asks me a question like when am I planning to till the garden, I can answer out of my view of myself rather than from giving her the information she wants. If I have a frustration with myself for not getting more things done, then as she asks the question, I will begin to defend why that particular thing is not done yet. I am defending myself from my own shame, rather than simply trying to give her the information she is simply asking for. It is amazing how answering a different question than the one that was asked can lead to fight.<br />
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I think the Gospel gives us the freedom to have self-compassion. It has been interesting as I have practiced self compassion, one of the things I have noticed is that when I cut myself some slack, I can't help but cut others slack too and I end up liking them more, being less irritated by their imperfections.<br />
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The second commandment, you shall love your neighbor as you love your self, speaks to this need for loving ourselves. God loving us while we were yet sinners speaks to the same principle. Striving for faith in the gospel, is striving to let Jesus wash our feet, striving to believe we are who God says we are when we believe Him, striving to believe that God likes us and loves us.<br />
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So my suggestion is cut yourself some slack. Let God love you, with all your imperfections and notice how your interactions with others begin to change.<br />
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Go ahead, give it a try and take the risk!scottsboyd@gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12367875329055315045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9058218248485145478.post-27872239533431618202012-07-26T17:29:00.000-07:002012-07-26T17:29:57.810-07:00CallingI feel as if I have never been quite as excited and jazzed as I have this week. I have been reading a book titled Synchronicity by Joseph Jaworski and as I have been reading the book, I am seeing a convergence of themes that have been brewing in my life.<br />
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I am not so sure I can yet put words to the convergence, but for as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated by Einstein's quest for the unified theory. I feel that there is a unified theory in psychology, business, theology and now believe it or not physics.<br />
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In the book mentioned above, Joe talks about being in a flow where people come together and things happen out of relationship, out of connection to one's purpose, out of a group of people becoming one. And when in "the flow" it seems miracles and coincidences occur to make the result seem easy.<br />
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I have experienced this flow in my company. We have created a place where the recession did not hit. Our competitors are failing, and we are not. In fact, we have been growing. We have created what we dreamed of having. A place where people can grow and prosper.<br />
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One of Einstein's peers was a man named Bohm. Dr. Bohm a physicist, in his later years devoted his thinking towards all of creation being connected with all of creation. He made the statement that our language with nouns and verbs, lends itself to us looking at creation as independently separate pieces. If you go to the story of the tower of Babel you see how God used language to bring separation among people. A theory proven in 1964 actually shows that matter is connected to each other even when separated by far distances. This interconnection is an actual reality and humans have the capacity to effect reality as we connect deeply to one another. In Colossians, we find that Jesus is in everything and holds all things together. In a simple way, Jesus is the unified field theory.<br />
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These deep connections are through empathy and emotion. Einstein has a quote in which he says intuition is a gift and the rational mind a great servant, but our culture has viewed the rational mind the gift and forgotten intuition. We have decided if we can't measure it, then it does not exist. Yet reality may actually be something that cannot be measured. Do you think you can measure God?<br />
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So as I ramble here are the pieces that to me are converging in a manner where God will reveal great power to affect all of creation. <br />
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The words that I feel are connected are: Jesus, shame, sin, faith, love, create, relationship, communities, trust.<br />
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The concepts that I feel are connected are:<br />
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Faith that God, loves us and likes us and is for us.<br />
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Reality is only as it exists in each moment as God sustains it and it is created new in each and every moment. This actually lines up with physics that says that matter is always changing, from mass, to energy to waves, to nothing and then back to matter. So we might perceive the rock to be unchanging and fixed, but in fact it is new every moment. Believing that reality is changeable can lead us to a new place of hope and adventure where we can create a new reality in the new moment before us.<br />
As we trust in God and what Jesus came and did for us, and embrace our imperfectness, we find strength to believe that we can create our dreams, we find strength to believe we have not disqualified ourselves. We can learn new things. New ways to relate to one another. And in our embracing our imperfectness, we can actually stay in the flow of God's blessing, and stay in faith, trusting God.<br />
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It seems to me that leading like a sinner, allows a person to share with integrity our experience which brings forth great connection with others. From that connection, as God has made each one unique, a greater whole is created which brings newness to thinking, new ideas, new creations. It is difficult to lead with our sin, the things we feel shame about, but the gospel gives us strength, hope, and joy where the shame brought isolation.<br />
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I am excited about the adventures God has before me. The communities of businesses that will create new realities. The company I am a part of now has created a reality where there has not been a recession. I believe business can create communities where things work differently and better than ever before. I believe business leaders can make their own businesses places of health and love and provision for those they touch.scottsboyd@gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12367875329055315045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9058218248485145478.post-27147902036306806852012-02-15T06:50:00.000-08:002012-02-15T07:55:36.990-08:00Pressing through!I started training for a half-marathon two and a half months ago. While training I have often experienced running out of breath. It causes a panic in me where I start to gasp for air. I breath louder with moaning sounds emanating from my body. My son's who are younger than me will say things like, Dad, you really breath loud! The panic can grow to where I convince myself that I must stop running or I will die. I want to return to the well known activity called walking. I understand walking. I know what it will feel like, I know how my body will respond to it. Because I know this, I want it. I want to return to that known place where I will no longer have reason to panic.<br />
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<img height="491" id="il_fi" src="http://gothamist.com/attachments/bmuessig/marathon.jpg" style="padding-bottom: 8px; padding-right: 8px; padding-top: 8px;" width="625" /><br />
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The strange thing about this panic with my breathing and gasping and moaning for air is that if I relax, breath normally, continue to run, I find that I actually don't die. WOW! I thought I was going to die if I didn't stop and it was really just a mental game in my head. That can't be true. There must be an article I can find in google about how this will cause me to die a young death if I don't stop. That its bad for my health to press through. But I have found if I relax and simply continue to breath that I can continue to run. Now certainly others can run faster than me and there is a limit with what my physiology can support with pace and effort. But most of my panic was something that was just in my head. <br />
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My point is the anxiety of running out of air with its gasping and moaning has more to do with the unfamiliarity of running than with the actual running out of air. As I press through the anxiety and into the unknown, I find I actually don't run out of air, I just feel different when I run than when I walk.<br />
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I find the same thing is true with Grace. I can believe that Jesus is crazy about me and loves everything about me and that his love has nothing to do with my actions and everything to do with his actions and love. I hear that and get it and attempt to believe it. I venture off into life with this new information and new feelings and new relationship with God and it feels good. But then the inevitable happens. I fail. Something happens, I feel anxiety and my sin becomes what walking is to me when I am gasping for air. I lash out with anger, I justify myself, I ......... Then in this new place of anxiety, I want something more than Grace, something that I know. Grace was supposed to work, but here I am again. I guess I need some law too, an accountability partner, a few rules that I will put up on my mirror to remind me what I should do. I want what I know and I know the law.<br />
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But what if Grace is the answer? What if all I need to do is relax, and keep going. I messed up. So what? I thought this grace thing was based on God and not me. So I get back up, and keep going. That's what Grace does for us, it keeps us going. But we run the risk of running away from Grace when it doesn't feel right. What if it doesn't feel right, because we have never felt it before? What if we find we won't die if we keep going?<br />
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I hope I keep going and I hope you do to.scottsboyd@gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12367875329055315045noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9058218248485145478.post-3330036167083423052012-02-09T06:00:00.000-08:002012-02-09T06:12:44.107-08:00Introduction to Lead Like a SinnerI recently read a quote by Confucius. He said to become a leader you must first become a human.<br />
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As humans we seem to have a sense of right and wrong within us best described in my experience by C.S. Lewis in his book, Mere Christianity. With this sense of right and wrong we all have this idea of what's acceptable behavior for a person. With that assumption of what acceptable behavior is, we also have this universal feeling of shame, where we know we do not meet our own standard.<br />
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The Bible makes interesting claims on standards. It says that if we decide we must keep one of the standards, we are then required to keep them all. You can see this in Galatians where Paul says that if any man accepts circumcision, he is required to keep the whole law, and not only that but he will fall from God's grace and be severed from Christ.<br />
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So when we decide any particular rule is of such a priority that we judge others who do not keep it as bad and those who do keep it as better, that small act will lead each of us to a place where we will have to keep all of our standards and God will no longer gift us with His unconditional acceptance and grace because we are in a sense no longer relying on it, but now relying on our law keeping. This is the place that leads all of us to know we fail and fall short of our owns standards. And in that failing we all experience shame.<br />
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My book is about how a leader can create a place where shame does not disqualify members from being connected to the team. And with in the creation of this space, a team will be able to function at a higher level, giving results that will be hard to quantify the why or how, but none the less there will be better results that are visible and significant.<br />
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Welcome to the concept of leading like a sinner. A concept of creating a culture that will draw people together and draw them up to a higher place. I hope you will be able to grasp the power of this simple principle and put it to use in powerful ways in your life. I know I am going to enjoy telling you the stories that have led me to this concept.scottsboyd@gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12367875329055315045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9058218248485145478.post-9842966439640043072012-02-08T12:21:00.000-08:002012-02-08T12:21:17.800-08:00Empathy and atomic energy!I just watched a video by an artist who defined empathy as the collapsing of two perspectives into one. I was so excited by this concept, because as we give grace to another, part of the mechanics of giving grace is sharing how a person's experience is similar to an experience that you have had. You accept them and let them know that they are not alone in their experience.<br />
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For instance, a person might share about the shame they felt because of an act that they did. Recently, I had a person share with me about failing and the shame it caused them to feel. As I shared with them a similar experience that I had, we gained a connection with one another. I also think he went away with more energy because of that connection. Energy to change a behavior, knowing that this act, this failure did not define him, but was simply a blip, a momentary slip that he could get back up and keep moving towards dreams that he hoped for. The connection gave him more energy for his dreams, so that he could continue.<br />
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So in particle physics and quantum mechanics, when you have two hydrogen's combine to form one helium, you have atomic fusion and some of the energy that went into holding those two hydrogen's together, is no longer needed to hold the new helium together and its released. It is what powers a hydrogen atomic bomb. I was so excited when I made this connection. Two completely different systems that behave the same. One a system of atomic quantum mechanics and the other a system of human behavior.<br />
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Both where two collapse into one and both where energy is release. The similarity makes me smile when I think of my faith in God, who created everything.scottsboyd@gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12367875329055315045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9058218248485145478.post-54383926725871894922012-01-13T20:09:00.000-08:002012-01-13T20:09:56.139-08:00Drive and InitiativeDaniel Pink has written a book titled Drive. It is about a powerful motivation that comes from intrinsic energy that lies within a person. In the book he makes a compelling case for how this drive has been show to disappear when in the presence of extrinsic motivation. To offer incentives for a behavior, actually will give you less of the behavior than had you not offered the incentive.<br />
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This week I was in a pilot project, called transformational leading. With in this course, we want to help people experience leadership that transforms. One of our assignments will be to coach someone and in this assignment, we got to see coaching modeled for us where the coach was asking questions, but not ever giving advice. This was so that the course of action would be those formulated by the person being coached, he would own them, because they came from him and since he was the initiator of the action, he would also be the owner of the action. The coach talked about the battle for initiative and how important it was to not take the initiative from the person you are trying to help. To take their initiative would be like steeling power from them that they needed for the battle. Its very similar to if you have ever been nagged about something, how the nagging actually made you want to do the action even less than you did before the nagging.<br />
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Advice does this. It takes the initiative away from the person. So I am seeing the intersection of several large concepts and these always intrigue me.<br />
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The law vs. freedom<br />
Incentive vs. intrinsic motivation<br />
Advice vs. initiative<br />
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So to me, the law, incentive and advice all seem to be similar agents in human behavior. Freedom, intrinsic motivation and personal initiative all seem to be similar energies that come from within the divine part of a created being.scottsboyd@gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12367875329055315045noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9058218248485145478.post-60535300966589405262012-01-11T12:37:00.000-08:002012-01-11T12:37:41.563-08:00Where am I going?I have this interesting question, "where am I going"? Not like am I going to go to heaven, am I going to go home tonight, but more like, where will I be in ten years? Will the house I am in be the one I stay in until I go to a retirement home? Will I always work at QuesTec till I sell it? Will I ever be involved in something else? What might God put on my plate and call me to do? I knew 30 years ago that I wanted to own a business. It took me half of that time to have enough experience and courage to pursue it. Once I took the plunge, four years in, it seemed like a really bad idea. Now that its fifteen years later, I cringe at the thought of not having done it. The stresses that I have had to go through in growing my company have caused me to grow and change in their presence. To think of living life as I used to be vs. living life like I am today, causes me to shiver with fear that I might not get to be who I am had I not take those risks fifteen years ago.<br />
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So since life is so different for me today than it was fifteen years ago, I am now not so concerned with where I am going, only concerned that I continue to dream about new places and continue in this adventure of life ready to take new risks when the opportunities present themselves.scottsboyd@gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12367875329055315045noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9058218248485145478.post-1116223183741134982011-12-30T13:10:00.000-08:002011-12-30T13:13:14.962-08:00How to win in business?I have a simple idea. To be successful, at anything, you have to go in the same direction for a long time. So to win in business you have to be in business for a long time.<br />
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To stay in business for a long time, you need to keep a team together for a long time too!<br />
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That's where it gets dicey. In our culture, to stay married for a long time is only a 50/50 proposition. This has been true within my extended family, so how in the world do you accomplish this with people who aren't even tied to one another with a commitment.<br />
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How do you have an enduring team? How do they handle the rough spots. The friction that occurs when people are together for a long time. How do they deal with peoples imperfections? After all no one's perfect, and if no one is perfect, then everyone will offend each other sometime.<br />
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I think I know one answer. It's my answer, and its probably not the only one, but my answer has been by humility. I think other people's answers could be a great exciting idea. A new technology that is growing so much that opportunity abounds. But I started a business installing toilets! People had been installing toilets for over a hundred years when I showed up and thought, maybe I can do this better. What arrogance on my part to think I could improve on what others had been competing to do for a hundred years. But that is exactly what I did.<br />
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I found that a team of people is really hard to have. But everyone else I was competing with, also had this same hard problem. They had to use people too. And that is where I found the opportunity. The opportunity to have a team working together well starts with leading with humility!<br />
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So what is humility? That's a great question.scottsboyd@gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12367875329055315045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9058218248485145478.post-69460182648527263112011-12-20T13:30:00.000-08:002011-12-20T13:30:56.968-08:00DualityThere is a saying that I recently learned and like.<br />
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Consider the power of the AND verses the tyranny of the OR!<br />
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The word AND indicates two things. Not either or, but both. And if it is both, then it is two things at the same time, thus duality.<br />
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Duality exists all the time. People are wonderful, loved by God and sinners. God is sovereign and man has responsibility. We are no longer under the law, but if we break the law, with out fail, the law will break us. We cannot be sinless, but by faith we cannot disobey God because of freedom.<br />
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There all all of these things that are AND. In Galatians, it says I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me......AND the life I live in the FLESH, I live by faith in the son of God, who loved me and died for me.<br />
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So as I consider how to live, how to lead, how to love, I think the system that we build in our mind has to include the duality of life. God knows the end, yet it matters what we do, because if we don't do it, whatever it is, it won't happen. So God knows, AND we matter.<br />
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We are holy, righteous and blameless before God AND we are sinners. I other words, we are saints who sin.<br />
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I find in my work settings, that when someone talks about leadership, they often leave this little duality part out. The part that you can't lead perfectly. That you can do nothing without mixed motives. That our selfishness is always present. And yet, we can lead in powerful ways, trusting our creator to cause who we are to be sufficient for our purpose on earth. It is a spiritual life, and one with great adventure. But this understanding of duality is what will anchor our lives with the humility that we will need to be successful.<br />
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I have a saying, you cannot be humble without being humiliated. Leaders cannot be successful leading with competence and strength. They do not have enough of it and yet our culture and all of mankind for all of history continues to look for a man that does. It is why the USA has been so prosperous, we recognized that all people are corrupt and the only government that can survive must have checks and balances to offset this duality that exists in all people. Our founding fathers were not looking for a good king. They were wanting people to have to struggle to get along.scottsboyd@gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12367875329055315045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9058218248485145478.post-29567694248065188652011-12-20T13:14:00.000-08:002011-12-20T13:14:11.727-08:00The Holy Spirit and JesusThe gospel states that Jesus paid a price so that we could have the free gift of Salvation and become born again. This born again experience, is an experience with the Holy Spirit, who is Jesus, being formed in our heart. It is the mystery of the ages, where two become one. The two are Jesus, and all people who are saved, or the elect, or Christians as determined by God. To be a member of "all of Christianity" you simply need the faith of a mustard seed. A little bit of faith or hearing by faith is what is required. The cool thing is that when we believe that God loves us, and demonstrated that by becoming man and dying in our place on the cross, in that moment of faith we experience the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is said to be the seal of our salvation.<br />
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And here is the kicker, it is interesting to me that Jesus had to leave the earth in order for the Holy Spirit to come.<br />
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Kind of like Clark Kent has to leave the room so Superman can show up.<br />
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All this makes me wonder what the second coming will actually be like? I think it will not be as we might imagine, with Jesus coming down as a man. I wonder if it will have something to do with all believers being brought together so that the Glory of Christ might be seen in all of His elect as he marries the bride, which in scripture is the universal church. I have no theological training in what the scripture says to support this, but I have enough knowledge of scripture, different scriptures to cause me to think this might be possible.<br />
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This weekend our pastor talked about the scandal of Jesus. People were not expecting the Messiah to be these things. The scandals are as follows:<br />
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1. He was God. <br />
2. God came down to his people, people did not have to do anything to reach him, he found them.<br />
3. God came to us in time and place. This is God outside of time, the creator of time. He came to us as a baby.<br />
4. God suffered. We would never imagine a God we created in our minds to suffer.<br />
5. God died. Again, we would never think this to be God's plan.<br />
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All this to say, if there were all these scandals which caused the Jews to not recognize Jesus when he was here, who's to say we understand how he is coming back?scottsboyd@gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12367875329055315045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9058218248485145478.post-85418857204177388602011-12-09T11:23:00.000-08:002011-12-09T11:24:23.591-08:00Truth #2 I am enough! I have been an approval junkie all of my life. And some of the things that I say to myself are that I probably did not do that well enough, I could have done that better, I wonder if I should have done it this way, I wonder what they thought about that. People that know me well have told me these words, "relax, you do good!" The problem has been that I could never tell myself that. I own a multi million dollar company, have a loving wife, three great sons, I am a faithful member of my church, a member of the school board, a chairman of an association trust fund for training apprentices, in short a well respected, well loved man and yet I do not feel comfortable standing alone. <br />
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I think many people who are highly achievers have this problem, where they feel like underachievers. But I discovered a truth at a seminar called Roots and Wings. A truth that I can be enough. Now to be fair, I have been working on this one for a while. But the truth that I saw this weekend was how badly I wanted the approval of others and how much I discounted my own opinion of how I did.<br />
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I love to know the opinion of those whom I respect, but if don't respect myself my opinion does not matter. Now certainly if I go half hearted and I know it, then I don't need any help in forming the opinion that it was a half hearted effort. But if I did it with my whole heart, well, why do I need another opinion. I did all I could and could not have done any more. Can I trust him who created me, that my effort will be enough?<br />
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In the retreat that I went to, I had a task given to me to do. I went for it, you know, did it with abandon, with everything I had. I had a great time in doing it. Now it was not perfect and I had some critique's on things I could have done better, I knew some spots where I messed up, but even with the imperfections, I knew I nailed it. I experienced it in the room in the moment I was doing it and there was nothing left in me when I was done. Now my habits wanted me to ask people if they liked it. Part of that was I wanted the flattery. Part of it is I wanted feedback. But another part of me experienced that I knew I nailed it. I didn't need any other input, I could be satisfied with me, because I had chosen to give it my all.<br />
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All in, its an interesting approach to life.scottsboyd@gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12367875329055315045noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9058218248485145478.post-52470057530706841472011-11-06T18:59:00.000-08:002011-11-07T11:17:09.539-08:00Embrace the fact that you are a sinner......I am a sinnerI have a saying that I like. It is the title of this blog and people that know me will call it the horse that I ride on. The saying lead like a sinner, by my definition is, leading in a manner that people know that I know that I am a sinner.<br />
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I have another saying that goes along with this, which is Jesus makes me free to be guilty. Now many people who listen to what I say, will often push back when they hear my message for the first time. They will say things like, don't you think this message will just cause you to justify your sin and do it more. I need to have someone tell me things I need to do, otherwise I won't have the motivation to do it. My experience has been completely different from these protests. In fact, I have found as I embraced the fact that I was a sinner and embraced the truths of God's gospel, the opposite has happened for me. I have slowly overcome sins that had been troublesome to me all of my life. I have become more excited about my relationship with God that ever before, and I have found myself doing more stuff that I ever imagined. So in the next few paragraphs I will share some of what I shared at our men's breakfast.<br />
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The definition of imagination is the ability of forming mental images, sensations and concepts, in a moment when they are not perceived through sight. And in Hebrews 11 faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.<br />
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Now it is amazing to me how close these two definitions are for imagination from Wikipedia and faith from the bible. In fact, I believe that faith is accessible through our imagination.<br />
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More on that later.<br />
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Colossians 2:21 And you who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast not shifting from the hope of the gospel.<br />
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Romans 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus!!!<br />
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Two scriptures that are true by our faith alone. Or imagination?<br />
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Now my story includes two events separated by two years where my business almost went bankrupt and then my wife got cancer. In both events, some super spiritual person had a word from the Lord that these things were happening because of sin in the camp or some hidden sin.<br />
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Now in both events I knew I was a sinner and that I probably had not confessed all of my sins. But the scriptures that came to my mind, were 1John 1 where it says if you say you have no sin you deceive yourself and the truth is not in you. The other scripture I could not get away from was the parable of the pharisee and tax collector. The pharisee was grateful for God helping him to be better than others, and the tax collector just said Lord have mercy on me a sinner. Jesus then asks the question, who went away justified and of course it was the man who knew he was a sinner.<br />
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Which brought me in my story to a place where I began to not shy away from the fact that I was a sinner and simply pray to God asking for his forgiveness and blessing. As I embraced my sin, or at least exerted courage to admit I am a sinner, I found some benefits to the effort.<br />
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1. You no longer have to defend yourself. Being free from having to have a defense is amazing. I simply screwed up. That's it, no defense, just me.<br />
2. You no longer have to deceive yourself, rather than face the fear of actually being a sinner when you are trying not to sin.<br />
3. As you accept and embrace the fact that you are a sinner you will begin to see in yourself even more sin. Sin that you were blind to or that you were afraid to face. You will find that it is hard to do anything at all without mixed motives.<br />
4. When you accept responsibility for your sin is when God will begin to help you with it.<br />
5. You can only experience community with others to the extent that others know you. When you have walls up to hide the parts of yourself that you feel shame over, you also shut out love and acceptance from others. As they give it, a little voice inside of you says, if they really knew me they would not say that. This cuts us off from love that we need to be able to give grace and acceptance to others.<br />
6. The good news of the Gospel gets bigger and more grand as you accept that you are a sinner and so does the fruit in your life. He who is forgiven little, loves little. But he who is forgiven much, loves much.<br />
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I will conclude later.scottsboyd@gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12367875329055315045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9058218248485145478.post-71421005257376983512011-10-10T19:44:00.000-07:002011-10-10T19:44:36.851-07:00CommunityIn order to have community, you have to deal with shame. Shame is what a person feels that if someone knew certain information it would cause that someone to not accept them. It is a fear of rejection and a fear of judgement. Shame causes us to hide ourselves. It causes us to want to numb the fear and pain. But the problem is that as we numb our fear and pain and as we hide parts of ourselves something sinister happens.<br />
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When we are hiding, and we interact with others, even when others show love and kindness towards us, we do not accept it, because we know they are seeing the fake me, not the real me and we fear if they knew the real me they would run away, they would reject us, they would not love us. So when we cut ourselves off from receiving love, we no longer have a source of love to give to others. <br />
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Also as we numb and hide we not only bury the pain and shame but we also bury our own personalities. We cannot do one, numb the pain, and not do the other, bury ourselves. We become lost in this effort and fatigued by the constant charade and cut off from the grace and love that would help us.<br />
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The reason I state that leaders should lead like sinners is that for a person to experience life and joy and peace, they must become vulnerable with the things they feel shame about. To become vulnerable is to move into a place where the only thing you control is yourself. Like the first time you told someone you loved them, if you did it first, it was a very vulnerable place, there was no guarantee that "I love you too!" was coming back from the other side and where would that leave you? So if a leader can be courageous and begin to share the places that they themselves feel shame and lead by being vulnerable, you can make it safe for others to do the same. This place of being vulnerable is a place that is uncomfortable, and unknown. We don't know how its going to turn out. But it is also a place of humility.<br />
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I have a saying you, "you can't be humble without experiencing humiliation". I have a friend who says when you have to eat crow, it is best served warm and at your choosing. Better than have someone feed it to you cold.<br />
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So as we create a place that is safe to be vulnerable, we create the conditions for God to give power and freedom to choose differently. God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. And we can share in this giving of grace as we give acceptance and love to the one who is being vulnerable.<br />
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Grace to you!<br />
Scott scottsboyd@gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12367875329055315045noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9058218248485145478.post-74096721612677277132011-09-27T08:03:00.000-07:002011-09-27T08:06:08.893-07:00Transformation in the flesh! Truth that I experienced!I have met with a personal coach/counselor over the last few years in dealing with motivation for writing my book, as well as dealing with the issue's in my life coming from an alcoholic family and my own brokenness. This individual does a 4 1/2 day retreat called Roots and Wings. In the seminar you learn about yourself and about who you are and what you want in life. You learn about what things are most important to you and where personal power and strength come from. I learned that I am a strong man, worthy to have dreams. The words I used are specifically that I am a strong and worthy man.<br />
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I am pretty sure that won't mean much to someone not there in the moment with me. Its a hard thing to describe the transformations that took place in me. But at one particular time in the seminar, I discovered a source of power. My theology is this is the power that comes from faith, faith that I am worthy to have these good things I have desired for myself. Faith that understands it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in ME, faith that I have been born again! But in reality, I do not know where it came from, or why it came, only that I experienced it.<br />
Now, even though I have been born again, I still have these thoughts of hating parts of myself and thoughts of wanting to find approval from others to decide if I have done good and these thoughts fight this truth. They are used by the enemy to tell me that I am not good enough, I have not worked hard enough, I did not do it right enough, to expect that I can walk into dreams that I dream. Yet because of the gospel, I am worthy. God sent His son to become the sin that is in my flesh and fulfill the law on my behalf.<br />
He has done that completely, and in this moment that I experienced, I saw how much I love this new creation in me and to drop the theology speak, how much I cared and deserved to think well about myself. Now in my theology, I believe this new creation within me is Jesus and because it is Him, it is indeed wonderful, but it is also still me. In the moment, I experienced this feeling in a new way, as I thought about how things could be different for me in the future, all of the sudden I KNEW that it was because I deserved to be free from the doubt and pain and that I can decide to be free from it and give to myself the good actions that come from who I am because I am worth it. It was for me a new found delight in my heart that I have never felt so strongly before and I can't wait to see how this plays out in my life!<br />
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I have been on a journey from the bottom that I experienced in 2001 through 2003, when my business almost failed and then my wife got cancer and battled through it. In those days, it took all I had to simply hang on and keep going. I hated who I was and have been a journey to find respect for myself and rediscover my purpose and meaning. This last weekend was another step of that journey, a journey into the adventure of life! A life that I love more each day.<br />
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For those few of you who read this blog, thanks for being on that journey with me, being a part of it and if you have seen change in me over these last ten years, know that is the formation of Jesus within me that you are seeing. He is my savior and part of him is in me and I am in him. I am a strong and worthy man!scottsboyd@gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12367875329055315045noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9058218248485145478.post-23306590622488495002011-09-12T11:23:00.000-07:002011-09-12T11:23:41.755-07:00TransformationI have been captivated by Romans 12 for the last two months. "Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed"! Conforming is what water does to a glass. It takes on the shape of the inside of the container. Another way to look at it is the water takes a shape because of external forces put upon it by the container. <br />
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Websters defines conformity as an action in accordance with some specified standard or authority. Wow, could we get any closer to a definition of the law, or moral behavior? This definition even fits with the glass, if you define the roll of the glass as an authority. In the case with the glass of water, gravity causes the glass to be authority. If you were in space, a glass would not become an external force causing the water to take its shape, but simply a barrier the water could not travel through. But without gravity, the water would not take on the shape of the glass.<br />
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Now for the definition of transform. Webster's says that transform implies a major change in form, nature, or function. Another one of Webster's definitions is to change in composition or structure. So the transformtion that Romans 12 is calling for is a change in our nature. The question then becomes, does doing change our nature? If we do the law better does our nature change?<br />
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So the truth that I have been delighting is that Romans is calling for us to be radically changed, rather than radically conforming to some set of rules. And I know of only one way to be radically changed, which is to be born again. This born again thing, is something that does not happen by my doing, rather it happens by my faith. Now James points out that faith without works is nothing. Many go to this argument when wanting to continue to pursue the law. But all that James seems to be saying to me is this, if you really have faith, you will really have transformation and really will do those things that one with a new nature would naturally do.<br />
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Transformation happens when we agree with Paul in saying, oh wretched man that I am, but we don't stop there. We continue on to the statement in Romans 8, there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.<br />
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But the issue that I find with life, is this. We all are trying to be perfect. We all are working to find the path where we don't sin anymore. Where life always works. Where we no longer have conflict and troubles. We read books to find this answer. We change churches to find the type of preaching that will make us better. Cause our life to be better. But no matter how long I work on finding these answers, I continue to bump against this principle that is stated clearly in 1 John. Its this, if you say you have no sin you decieve yourself and the truth is not in you.<br />
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The truth that I cannot escape is that in this life we will have a duality of the new creation and the sinful flesh. We cannot become sinless. We cannot stop causing messes in our own lives, with our own mixed motives.<br />
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But the good news is that getting fixed does not have to be our goal. It is the great conundrum of life. As I trust God and His gospel, He transforms me. He redeems my sinfulness. He causes things to work for me, so that when I strip the bark this way, the goats are born so that they are mine. And when the rules change that way, it still turns out in my favor. This all happens with humility and faith.scottsboyd@gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12367875329055315045noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9058218248485145478.post-8239309053228515832011-07-08T04:33:00.000-07:002011-07-08T04:33:01.379-07:00Our highest self!<em><strong>“Self-censorship is not just self-betrayal and self-abandonment (which would be bad enough), but soul-betrayal and betrayal of our Muse, out inner voice, our highest self.” Ralph</strong></em><br />
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<em><strong>The law brings death to our highest self, where the grace of God, walking in the spirit brings life.</strong></em><br />
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<em><strong>When we stop going to delight in the good news that God is for us and loves us and when we stop believing that we are worthy of love because Jesus came and took our place on the cross, we look to others to deem us good. As we look to others to deem us good, we squash our inner voice. We know part of our self does not measure up to even our own standards, so we quiet all of it.</strong></em><br />
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<em><strong>Somehow, Ralph Waldo Emerson knew that this was at work. He at least observed this principle at work in himself, where he would self-censor. The interesting thing to me, is that the gospel is the rock upon which a person can begin to listen to this inner voice, this highest self, and when a person has first believed, they will find that highest self to be the creator Himself.</strong></em>scottsboyd@gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12367875329055315045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9058218248485145478.post-11804608177688282162011-07-07T05:09:00.000-07:002011-07-07T05:09:16.922-07:00You have done what you could!<h2 style="color: #be3321; display: block; font-family: Arial; font-size: 30px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 30px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-align: left;"> <span style="color: #be3321;"><span style="color: #be3321;">Worthwhile Day by Jessica Dang</span></span></h2><strong><em>“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could.”</em></strong><br />
What is one thing you can do that would make today worthwhile? What’s stopping you from getting started right now?<br />
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I am learning that God is within me, that he loves me and as I walk in faith in believing that he is and that he loves those who seek him, that who I am is enough for each day. This day, a day given to me, will be a day for me to be with me and with God and with those people that I cross paths with. The day is worthwhile on its own, I simply have to choose to watch what it brings and trust that who I am will be enough to meet the challenge of the day.<br />
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The author of the prompt is encouraging me to do something to make the day worthwhile. And that is a great goal for sure. But what if today brings a limited number of hours to study for a test. Then my choice would be to study for the test. What if the day brings a tsunami? What if the day brings overtime required at work? What if it brings taking care of your older parents because their house burned down. What if it were to bring the funeral of one of your children. Or maybe the birth of a grandchild? You see each day is its own, created by God just as we have been created by God. We redeem the day by delighting in who God has made us to be and as we are who we are, we finish the day doing what we can do and trusting that it is enough.<br />
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Enough for what? Enough for our purpose hear on earth, enough to teach us what we need to learn to face tomorrow. Enough to allow God's plan to unfold. <br />
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I find I have to be careful as I think about each day. I have to be careful because I can easily say we should delight in each day, but this would not match reality. My wife just returned from Guatemala where she saw situations of hopelessness in desperate poverty. I have been close to the death of a young woman, brought on by cancer. So some days are ushered in with suffering. Some days there is grieving. <br />
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We do what we can do.scottsboyd@gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12367875329055315045noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9058218248485145478.post-52558677089950082792011-07-07T04:35:00.000-07:002011-07-07T04:35:48.241-07:00In one sentance, who are you?I am a man who loves God and family and I bring growth and expansion to the things I touch. My wife would add, whether they like it or not.scottsboyd@gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12367875329055315045noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9058218248485145478.post-26474568606614699102011-07-05T11:41:00.000-07:002011-07-05T11:41:01.199-07:00The world belongs to the energetic!<em><strong>“The world belongs to the energetic.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson</strong></em><br />
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It’s easy to blame our failure to meet our goals or to live our dream lives on a lack of energy, and we don’t always stop to think about the quality of energy in our lives. Yet we can choose to create and manage our own energy flow.<br />
Think of an instance when you’ve been so involved in an activity that you’ve lost track of time, and then identity the passions and energies you were feeding. Who was there with you? What were you doing? What will you do to make time for moments like that one more often?<br />
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What a statement, the world belongs to the energetic. I love when I see passion. Passion is the same word for energy in my way of thinking. When we have passion for something, it makes it to the top of our priority list. We seem to have enough time for the things we are passionate about.<br />
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This concept of creating and managing our own energy flow is also very interesting. I recently was reading a book on quantum particle physics. I know that I am a total geek concerning my passion for this science. And to be honest I have just a little passion for it. Enough to buy a book on the topic, and certainly enough to read most of the book, but at some point in the middle of string theory, the math went over my head and I lost my passion and didn't finish the book. But what I learned in the book are a couple of things. One, which I already knew, is that matter is made from energy. What I did not know was that energy is made from nothing. Really, when energy is made, anti-energy is also made at the same time. These two things, energy and anti-energy, form and dissolve all the time. And we really don't know how this mechanism works, except that sometimes it does work, and in fact this is happening in the middle of space all the time. So you have this piece of space with nothing, and then matter(energy) and anti-matter(anti-energy) will form from the nothing, and then quickly combine again to make nothing again. It is really cool to think about. Now where it gets really cool is sometimes this matter and anti matter get swept into different dimensions, which physicists think is how our universe was created.<br />
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I don't know about all that, but what I do know is we can create energy. God put that ability within us. And that we create more energy when we are working within our purpose for which we were created.<br />
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So when I am talking to another person, helping them understand what God is like, and who they are in Christ, and how the mystery of the ages affects them, when I am doing that, time seems to pass by without my notice. I have seen myself grow, I am not sure I know how to describe this growth, but it includes seeing the world in a different fashion, seeing myself in a different light, seeing God in a different light. It involves me accepting more responsibility, and believing I am free. Free to be guilty and free to make decisions. It involves seeing that I am secure in who I am because of the actions of Jesus and not my own. With that security, I am free to be and accept responsibility for myself, for my experience. I am also free to bring out my whole self into the light. I am free to delight in God's creation of myself. Free to enjoy the things he has brought into my life. The gospel is a treasure that is seemingly too good to be true.<br />
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So as I ponder on what causes me to have energy, it is these things I have written about. They are involved in my purpose as a businessman, an engineer, a husband, a father, a grandpa and a Christian to help others grow and to have more energy and delight in the things God has called them to.scottsboyd@gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12367875329055315045noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9058218248485145478.post-61910548953460704802011-07-03T10:51:00.000-07:002011-07-03T10:52:14.451-07:00What would I be?<span style="color: blue;">What would you be by Ryan Allis</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;">If a year from now you weren’t in the profession you’re currently in, what would you be in your wildest dreams?</span> <br />
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<span style="color: black;">The funny thing about this post, is in my wildest dreams, I would be me, because me is not really me, but Jesus, the creator of the universe and me and how could any dream top that?</span> <br />
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I do think that as I walk on my journey there will be another direction that I will take in my career. It will be a necessary step, but the step will be to help those below me to grow. They will need me to step aside that they might take further steps. So even though my roll and career will change, my purpose will not. As I take the step, to leave my company, or leave the current roll I am in, the next phase that I move to will involve helping others grow, as well as to continue to coach those that I leave in place behind me. <br />
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Delighted to be me, a sinner and a new creation!scottsboyd@gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12367875329055315045noreply@blogger.com0