Archive for the heart

Knowing your value in Christ

October 7, 2007 / Luke / No comments

The other day my sister in law told us that she found a tree right down the end of her yard that she didn’t even know she had. When she investigated further she noticed something was growing on it … hello Macadamia nuts! When she told me that story I thought how often in life do we not know that we have something valuable and how much we overlook who we really are. Do you know that you may have something valuable that can be shared with others? What stops us from seeing that value we have?

I believe that the answer is not a simple one but a great percentage of people I have met cannot see their value because they believe lies about themselves. The last time you made a mistake did you slam your fist into the table and scream obscenities at yourself. If you did, did you know that you are making yourself believe that you are worth the abuse? You are saying to yourself, ‘Gee I am totally stupid and worthless aren’t I? I guess that I couldn’t run an automated pig farm?’ Think about what you say during a day and make a thought diary.

How do you do this? Well its simple really find a notebook and write down what you think you are every time you say it. There’s a key. We often don’t realise that we are telling ourselves what our real value is everyday of our life when we say it. A principle that most people overlook is this: whether you know it or don’t what you think you are comes from a deep well of underlying ideas that grow inside you. How do you they grow? They grow because we feed them by recognising the value they have by speaking to it.

Knowing your value starts with understanding where you draw your values from. The first thing you need to know is what am I worth? This is not a financial question that you answer by opening up your wallet and taking a look at how much cash you have. Your sense of self-worth does not come from the things you own because if it does you are much emptier than you know. True self-worth comes by recognising that you are not worthless that you have some value. Knowing your value means knowing that you are valuable. How can you really know this?

You know who you are not by what you do but by who you are. Some people attach their identity to what they do. Some people attach their identity to their social standing and the clubs they join. The bottom line is: those things are poor substitutes for the sad truth that people are missing something that they really need. A sense that they don’t need anything to prove their own worth. All they need is to know that they are accepted.

As a Christian you have this right. Service and the things you do make no difference and the influential friends that you hold dear to you are all there to make you feel better about something that you lack. Inside you there is a belief system that says: I need something to make me feel adequate. I need money to feel as if I am somebody… I need a lot of friends because if I need people around me to keep me up or whatever it might be.

For me, a key problem was always trying to prove myself to others to make myself feel like they liked me. I would do extraordinary things to try and get people to like me. I would buy them things, do extra work for them and whatever came to mind to try and make these people think that I had value. What I didn’t realise was that I was trying to buy friends by making them like me. I could make people like me and I could do things that would make me look superior but on the inside I was empty and hollow because I knew (as I imagine you do if you are reading this) that I was totally empty. Sure I had people around me to feel sorry for me or boost me up which helped but the real problem was I thought I didn’t have any value. I needed these people in my life to give me value. The truth is your value comes from something much deeper than that. As a Christian your value comes from God.

In the world’s way of doing things we con ourselves into believing that we are worth something by playing games. We play all kinds of games. At work we climb over people because we think we need to have that next level to feel successful or we talk down to people who are not as ‘affluent’ as us because we think they are inferior. Why would we do that? We do it because we have a deep down need to feel like we have value. The problem is: you already have value.

The bible tells us that Jesus Christ lives with us (2 Cor 6:16) and that he has accepted us (Eph 1:3). If we believe that this is true then what else really matters? Jesus also said that the cares of this world choke the fruitfulness of God’s word in our lives (Mark 4:17-19). It would be easy for me to say, ‘brush them aside and focus on Jesus.’ However, this is easier said than done.

 

Beginning to recognise your value

Knowing your value starts when you realise this: God loves me unconditionally. Allow the thought that he loves you without any reason to settle in you. Think about it by running the thought through your mind everyday. Whenever you are tempted to think or say something terrible do this: point to yourself and say I am totally accepted by God. So what if people don’t like you… a bunch of people don’t like me. But I am not able to be rejected. You can reject the way I look, what I might say but you cannot reject me because I am not able to be rejected. If at heart I am accepted in Jesus Christ this means I can never be unaccepted. If I am totally settled in that knowledge and people reject me for whatever reason all I need to know is that he loves and accepts me totally.

This kind of knowledge does not come overnight like so many false promises of modern teachings tell us. You grow into this kind of knowledge. But it begins with you making the right decision right now by saying, “I am worth something… God accepts me and loves me unconditionally.” Add your spiritual faculties to this: begin believing it in your heart. Find an imaginative way to attach pleasure to the thought.

After a while you will begin to notice three things:

  1. You are constantly devaluing yourself
  2. The thoughts of love coming from you are true real feelings coming from God
  3. There is nothing else that matters once you know that he accepts you

Now, I am not telling you that instantly you will feel better. Shy away from instant solutions. If they do work it’s only for a little while then you have to go back and put something else in its place. Find a scripture from the bible on what God thinks about you and say it every morning and every night when you go to bed. Think about it on a daily basis. Now I have not perfected this but from doing this I have stopped so many negative beliefs from arising up in my soul. I hope that you do practice what I have said here today by at least attempting to:

  1. Recognising how you value yourself
  2. Replacing that with a Godly way of seeing yourself

By doing this consistently and thinking about how God thinks about you, you will begin to see yourself as he does. You will see yourself as loved and accepted, totally forgiven and washed in the blood of Jesus Christ. If you don’t see yourself as God does, then you are probably seeing yourself as others do or worse as the enemy does. Grace teaches us that we are accepted, that we are not condemned that we are loved. Start today. Start right now: you are accepted, you are loved. Remember this: if you don’t attach value to you then nobody else will.

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Category: personal development, the heart / Tags: ,

Don’t quit putting your heart into what you do

September 30, 2007 / Luke / No comments

I recently had the pleasure of buying a can of Dr. Pepper from a local man in a shopping centre. Considering we don’t have Dr. Pepper here in Brisbane the price was considerably more expensive that you might think… but I didn’t mind paying it. Why? Every time I go into the store the man greets me with a smile and always has something great to say. You can just tell he absolutely loves what he does. How can I tell that he does? Because his heart is in what he is doing.

The opposite of what I am saying

Yesterday I bought my very first table at a local furniture store. The man who runs the store was sitting in a recliner with his eyes closed and didn’t even acknowledge us as we walked in the store. Probably didn’t help that I said, ‘Wow, they are dead on a Saturday,’ as we walked in. Whoops! The table we had picked out of the catalogue was ordered and the man hardly moved. Now I am not one to makejudgments on the spot but I would say he was not happy with his job and his heart was somewhere else.

Where is your heart?

My heart is in creative, idea generating things. I like to make new things out of old combinations and build things. Now, I don’t know which end of the hammer to pick up but in my heart this is how I am.  The point of this post to ask … is your heart in what you do?  Check yourself.  Ask yourself… do I want to do this for the right reasons or the wrong reasons?  Look at the mirror and ask yourself what’s the deal?

How do you know your heart is not in it

When you go to work do you feel the ‘ugh’ feeling?  What do I mean?  A while ago a colleague of mine walked up to the office he was in and he had recently quit.  I said to him, ‘Why?’.  He said to me, ‘Every time I walked up the stairs to come to my office I would get depressed.’  I instantly saw his point.

Now I have to caution you here.  Sometimes you have to build something else in order to move forward before you make the shift.  But, don’t lie to yourself.  Tell the truth.  If you know you aren’t putting your heart into it… find out what you should be and go for it.  That however is another story for another post.

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Why you should do things to help others… a note.

September 15, 2007 / Luke / 2 comments

I am moving house at the moment and we finally got to see the place we are moving into today in full detail.  I have NEVER in my life moved into a house that was so filthy.  Normally, I wouldn’t blog about this kind of thing but I mean MY GOD!  The windows were dirty, the walls had black scuff marks on them, the oven was unclean and so I could go on.  Have you ever had this problem?  Here are four reasons why shouldn’t do the same thing.

Remember the Golden Rule? 

Do unto others?  Why not think of the poor sucker who is going to move in after you.  How about them?  Now we have to clean the house just to make it habitable.  Why not buck current trends and scare somebody by doing something helpful.  I sure wish the person that came before me in my new house had done me this way… now that I have all this CLEANING to do!

A sense of personal respect

To me somebody who leaves a rental property in that kind of state (unless physically or mentally incapacitated) is saying, ‘you know what I couldn’t give a royal damn about whoever is coming after me.’  I see this kind of thinking on the road all the time.  Why do people compete for a space on the freeway?  Don’t you know that one day you will be DEAD and then where will you be rushing too?  Take you time and be courteous.   People who have no personal respect treat others the way they have been treated themselves.   Without recognising it we become the very thing we desire not to become by virtue of the fact that we are displaying the very behaviour we find so abhorrent in others.   So have some personal respect and do something you admire so others can likewise admire you.  Starting thinking about how you effect people’s lives and especially what you can do to make a positive difference… even if they never see you doing it!

All I have really said in this post is that you should display the behaviour that you yourself think you deserved to be treated with.  Now, this is a note to remind us in the world of business not to think that we must not have a different mindset when we rub shoulders with our colleagues.   Who you are on the field is who you are in life.  Don’t give me that, ‘yeah but this is business,’ poppycock … that means you choose to be an arrogant so and so who shelves his morals when convenient.  Don’t do this!  Be different by really being kind and caring about those you know.  Why not frighten the hell of them by doing something out of the blue for someone you hate?  I am telling you this a really liberating way to live.

Really the golden rule could be put this way, ‘Do unto others what you think you deserve (or would like) done to you.  I think Jesus got this right!  Now, if you will excuse me I have packing and cleaning to do.

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Encouraging the free flow of intuition

September 13, 2007 / Luke / 3 comments

Our western educational process generally discourages us from following in the footsteps of intuitive thinking. We are encouraged to follow the well worn path of reasoning but very rarely are we asked to intuitively think about things. Think for a moment about the things you know about yourself. Say for example, you are driving down the motorway and somebody cuts you off. What’s the first thing you would say? What kind of things do you find funny?

These kinds you just know about yourself are intuition. You don’t need to go to far to find the answers because these are things that you know. Ever gone to do something and you felt that you just shouldn’t do it? Or perhaps met an individual that you just didn’t like from the very first time you laid eyes on them? Why is that? I teach a lot of people at university who are very good at reasoning but not so good at intuition. It’s almost like we thing we have to switch off the role of intuition in our education process because it’s counter cultural. Today I want to make a case for encouraging the free flow of intuition.

When you know that you know

The Late Steve Irwin once said in an interview that he always had a deep passion for wildlife. You can tell he wasn’t lying when the man used to quite happily pick up a snake and not worry about it. I had the pleasure of seeing him perform literally weeks before he died. He put so much passion into his shows that it was really amazing to watch. He wasn’t pretending and he certainly wasn’t making it up in my opinion … it was 100% passion. How could he do that? I think because he just knew what he should be doing. He knew that he knew that he should be working with wildlife and with animals. You have instincts on the inside of you that are dying to get out. Can I tell you that you need to develop these instincts. That which you know about yourself will change as you learn more about it but the core ‘knowing‘ or intuition you have will never change. That which you know that you know about you is who you really are.

You never have to think about intuitive things

In a previous article I spoke about the art of conjecture. Often when we take guesses we are basing our decision making on our intuition. Harvard Academic Daniel Isenberg found that top managers often make most of their decisions when they talk out loud to themselves. Why is this? It’s because they are thinking through their decisions to see what feels right. Intuition is always there you never really have to think about it… but sometimes our subtle reasoning processes make us believe things we think are helpful but really are not. A conclusion after careful scrutiny is not intuitive thinking. We are using intuitive thinking when we are doing what our gut is telling is the right thing to do.

Intuition has built some great things

Go back and study some of the greatest entreprenuers. How many of them just knew that they would make it and this ‘faith’ drove them on to create impossible things. I am talking of people like Henry Ford, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Richard Branson and so on. If you carefully look at how these people make their decisions there is as much reasoning as there is intuition. Some of the biggest decisions I have made have been through intuition. It’s not a flawless guide… but it’s a lot better than me just reasoning.

I would encourage you today to stop reasoning so much and begin looking towards your intuition. Knowing stuff is good because it develops us and makes us better. However, than can be no replacement for genuine ‘gut instinct’ in times of crisis, testing and extremity. Don’t rely of your mathematics or basic processes of mental reasoning only… remember your gut! Start today.

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What’s the heart of your business?

September 1, 2007 / Luke / No comments

At the core of the human beings lie a heart. Now I am not talking about the blobby looking red thing that pumps blood round your veins… I am talking about you. The real you. Did you know that every business has a heart to it? If you are more inclined to the intuitive you will notice there are certain places you go to that have more heart than others. The people have a smile on their face and are just happy to be there.

In my local bank there is a lady who works on a teller who consistently gives the best service of anyone in the whole bank. When I go in their she always has something positive to say and in my mind she creates value beyond measurable bank dollars. Why is that? It’s because she lifts the spirit of the workplace through her positive approach. Ever been to McDonalds and the person serving you gave off a certain level of heart? After you got your burger you felt like you weren’t even valued as a person? They are conveying a heart that says ‘I don’t like you and I don’t want to be here’. That underlying heart is what this article is about. What’s the heart condition of your business?

Knowing the heart of your business

What is it that you do that makes you better than your competitors? What makes them keep coming back? Recently a course I was teaching got a new convenor who is dedicated. When she lectures she believes every word and consequently students have taken to this person like a duck to water. Why? They recognise the heart in what she is doing? Do you know the heart pulse of your business or workplace? If so what’s it like? Ask yourself… how do I feel when colleagues talk to me? Do I feel good? What is the core feeling you have after you have spent one hour at work?

Does your business have heart trouble?

Here is a check list of things I have noticed that mean your business has a heart problem.

1. You have a lot of complaints

Customers just don’t seem to like you do they? No matter what you do you just keep hearing negative feedback. This could due to a defective product or service but the chances are you simply are putting a heart that’s sick out there and that leads to me next point

2. What do your people think and how do they act?

One of the key things you can do to test the heart of a business is to see how people in the business treat each other. What are the words like? What is the body language like? Chances are there might be slumped shoulders… people taking longer lunch breaks and a genuine lack of heart. One of the best ‘strategies’ Virgin has used is to only hire people who want to work in a close knit team environment. They find people who want to work for them because they want a place with heart. Being a business Virgin uses this to their advantage by creating an atmosphere to work. Subsequently people who work them usually work longer hours, put in more effort and make the business what it is today. The heart is the underlying conditions that cause us to speak, think, and act the way to do. This does not stop happening in business because we are professionals. The heart is central to all human affairs and you cannot separate it from what you do.

3. Where are the artery cloggers?

A scoffer is someone who resorts to negative criticisms instead of constructive activities. Unfortunately, if your business is filled with people like this it’s because that’s the atmosphere you have allowed to foster. The only way to deal with this is to systemically change it by removing people who act this way. If you are serious about creating a business with heart find out where the artery cloggers are and remove them. The last thing a business needs is to be filled with negative people who choke up the flow of your life blood.

4. Is your workplace overly competitive?

I do not believe it’s fruitful for a business to allow it’s employees to be overly competitive towards each other. This kind of problem allows the growth of personal ambition which in turn creates people who are willing to step over their colleagues to get ahead. It’s a good thing to have people that work well but it’s quite another to have people who work well with each other. A business is like a body. Each part of the body serves and works with the other parts in order to make it function as a whole. If the body turns on itself what will happen? Organisational suicide that’s what!

As I write this I am listening to song by James Taylor called ‘Copperline’ from Eric Clapton’s guitar festival. I am struck by the man’s passion as he sings about something that clearly means something to him. The heart is coming out in the music. Today why not do a ‘heart test’ on your business by carefully looking at the words and actions that are flowing in your business. It will help to discern what the heart of your business really is like. When you know that you can carefully build the right kind of heart over time and create the platform for lasting success.

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Why is business so heartless?

August 25, 2007 / Luke / One comment

Sometimes I wonder why people forget that human beings are the ones that work in a business. As these people say: it’s easy to maintain your heart and keep your business growing. Recent trends in emotional intelligence point us towards the need to pay more attention to these things. Have you ever noticed that in each place you have worked there seems to be an essence to it? There is a spirit to the workplace. There is a heart. Modern business focuses a lot on making money and profiteering but very few businesses focus on the heart. Now, a wise man once said to me you cannot have a business and have a heart at the same time. Not true.

Some people put profits before people and in their mind separate business from being human. Phrases like, ‘well this is business’ is your way of saying, ‘I value money over human relationships.’ Another one I hear is, ‘I am in business to make money.’ Of course you are but exactly who are you going to make money from? Who is going to help you make money? People. Behind every employee is a heart. Each time you mistreat people you shifting your heart away from business and onto things that are less important.

Heartless people… heartless practice

I am amazed at how people think they can succeed by bullying and coercing people into making them do things. Recently, a person who was working for me was told that they might not have any work. Instead of talking to me directly they went straight to my supervisor and told them I had to hire them because of their qualifications. When that didn’t work they went even higher. My reaction was one of shock… all I said was there might be no work. When I was asked about it I had no idea how to respond and felt as if my role as supervisor had been marginalised. Due to this I was later forced to remove two other people who were less qualified but had more heart. Qualifications are important but not more important than the human spirit.

I have had close personal friends do me this way as well, people who favoured the business end and the money in preference to friendship or collegiality. I have heard it said that we should never go into business with our friends because the heart decisions we will have to make will obscure our judgement. On the other hand I have also heard that if I can’t trust the people I am in business with then my business is unlikely to succeed. I would say it this way, trust people you are in business with and treat them with the heart first. Never allow your desire for money overrule your heart in business. This is a great mistake and one that you will live to regret for years.

Keeping the balance

There is however a chance that you will look for heart issues where there are none. You can always put people first and make those kinds of choices but there comes a time when decisions need to be made for the sake of the business. What happens when you can’t pay someone? Wave goodbye and say ‘good luck’. No. There is still a way to deal with this in the heart way. Help the person find alternative employment. Exhaust all avenues, go the extra mile. People love to do the wrong thing and then make excuses for it. ‘Well I just had to let him go.’ Of course … but how did you set them on their way… what did you do to help them? After all, didn’t they work for you for years? How about showing some respect for the time they gave to you outside of regular hours? Sadly, we keep expecting more for less.

In closing this post I would like to remind you that you are a human being first and whatever comes next second. Your identity is born through the fact that you are a human. When you say things like: business is business. You are separating the heart from business. Business is heartless because we have placed the heart on the outside when we make decisions. Even in contemporary so-called spiritual practices we do this by focusing on what we can accumulate for ourself instead of focusing on what we can do for and with others. I would ask you to rethink how you handle your customers and your co-workers. Do you treat them with heart or as a resource to be exploited. People will always have heart no matter how tough their exterior may be. Why not bring the heart back to your business and do what’s right.

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