Episode 808 Time to Learn
[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: [00:00:00] Welcome to episode 808 of the inspired stewardship podcast.
[00:00:07] Winston Clements: [00:00:07] Winston, Clements, motivational speaker, and limitation breaker. I challenge you to invest yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world using your time, the talent and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to recognize your limitations are an illusion and develop.
[00:00:26] Resilience is key. And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this inspired stewardships called podcast with my friends Scott Maderer
[00:00:41] Scott Maderer: [00:00:41] because the truth is no matter where you go there you are, no matter what the job opportunity is, no matter what the business that you're growing is no matter what church you go to, no matter what group of people you hang out with, wherever you go, there you are. So if you're not growing yourself, [00:01:00] Then there's no way that you can grow in those environments instead, they'll grow an outside strip.
[00:01:06] You eventually welcome. And thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true color. In the inspired stewardship podcast, we'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world
[00:01:38] in today's episode about developing your influence by stewarding your time. I talk with you about making sure you have time on your schedule to actually learn. How you are actually the lid of your success, more than anything else. And I also talk about why, even if you are struggling, you have to find time for this.
[00:01:57] As we talk about stewarding your time. Wouldn't it [00:02:00] be great if you could support this podcast and do it without. Just taking too long. It turns out you can. All you have to do was use inspired stewardship.com/amazon. When you're ready to make a purchase via Amazon and a small commission, we'll come back to support the show.
[00:02:16] Just that quick. If you enjoy the show, when you are ready to buy from Amazon, just use inspired stewardship.com/amazon. No, as I'm recording this, Texas is battening down the hatches for a winter storm. And one of the things that it has me thinking about is the fact that I think a lot of times we forget about all of the tools and access and information that we have at our fingertips today.
[00:02:46] No, the truth is with your phone or by jumping on the internet real quick on a computer, you can access more information in mere moments than we could have in a public library a decade ago. [00:03:00] And it's all there for us to use and to learn and to put into place. But the truth is that most people, if they're on the internet, if they're doing things like that, other than just doing work, they're usually consuming.
[00:03:15] Entertainment, you're watching YouTube or other things for entertainment purposes, rather than for learning and growing. The truth is you have to actually put time on your schedule for learning. You have to make a commitment to it. You have to block time off that isn't for other purposes, but instead is for growing our learning in a particular area.
[00:03:40] What areas are you most interested in learning and growing in? Where are you struggling? The most? And if you have those areas, look at your calendar and see are you actually spending any time learning or growing or preparing in those areas? And if the answer is no commit to 30 [00:04:00] minutes a week, just block 30 minutes off on your calendar and use that 30 minutes to learn in that area.
[00:04:07] Because the truth is that in all things, whether it's business, whether it's development, whether it's your money, whether it's your time, you are the lid of your success, more than anything else, you are both the cure and the problem you are, the thing that determines how high you go. Now again, don't get me wrong.
[00:04:31] I'm not saying that we all start from the same place. I'm not saying that there isn't privilege or opportunities or things that are different for people of different backgrounds, for people of different sexes, for people of different races. That is true. But in all of those situations, you are still the biggest driver for your own success.
[00:04:53] You are the lid of where you go and you have to seize a hold of that and take that opportunity. [00:05:00] This is why, if you're not spending a little bit of time, whether it's reading books, whether it's listening to audio books, whether it's joining something that is a system for online learning. Whether it's actually preparing and practicing certain skills that you need to develop, whatever it is.
[00:05:15] If you are not scheduling that time and spending that time doing it, then the truth is your lid, which is you stays lower. But if you can raise your knowledge and raise your skills, then you automatically raise the lid and have more opportunities for success. And if you're really struggling right now, if you've got an area where you're not doing well, if you're working on your money and you've been doing it for three years and you haven't made progress, if you're working on your health and you've been working on it for a decade and you haven't merely made progress.
[00:05:52] If you're working on maybe a losing weight, or maybe there's some skill that you want to develop, like you've been trying to get better at [00:06:00] online design, whatever it is, photography, it doesn't matter. If you're struggling in an area or struggling with yourself, then you have to find some time. No, you have to make some time to spend learning and developing and practicing those skills and you have to do it deliberately.
[00:06:19] You have to do it intentionally. It's not enough to wish that you could grow in an area. You actually have to take action. This is one of the reasons that coaching or joining a Facebook group or forming a mastermind or getting accountability around you is so helpful because we do tend to respond well to having accountability partners.
[00:06:41] We tend to respond well to having people push us. And if you go to that group and you say, I'm committed to working on this, then they're going to ask you, what have you done this week to work on it? How much time have you spent? Where are you struggling? If you're committing to reading a [00:07:00] nonfiction book a month, they'll ask you, have you read your book this month?
[00:07:03] Where are you at? How far along are you? What's your book for next month? Whatever it is having that external accountability is useful. That's part of the benefit, not the only one, but one of the benefits of coaching in those areas. So if you're struggling with your productivity, Then you've got to spend time learning about productivity.
[00:07:23] That's one of the reasons I have the productivity course that I sell. If you're struggling with your money, that's why I do one-on-one coaching with money. If you're struggling with your mindset and your beliefs. That's why I offer coaching in those areas as well, because the truth is we are the lid of our growth.
[00:07:45] We are the lid of our success. If we don't grow ourselves because the truth is no matter where you go, there you are, no matter what the job opportunity is, no matter what the business that you're growing is no matter what church you go [00:08:00] to, no matter what group of people you hang out with, wherever you go.
[00:08:05] There you are. So if you're not growing yourself, then there's no way that you can grow in those environments instead they'll grow and outstrip you eventually. And you'll be left behind. So I challenge you to do this, audit your calendar, take a look at what you've been doing the last two or three weeks.
[00:08:25] See how much time is actually dedicated to learning and growing and see how much of that is learning and growing in an area where you really want to work. And if you haven't gotten any time in those areas, commit to and block off for this next week, 30 minutes. To actually work on learning and figure out what is the number one skill that I want to grow in.
[00:08:48] What's the number one area that I want to learn and spend that 30 minutes working on that area. Just start with that baby step and see how far it can get you. Thanks for [00:09:00] listening.
[00:09:05] thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling like this episode on the stewardship of time. Be sure to sign up for our stewardship of time tips series by going to inspired stewardship.
[00:09:32] Dot com slash time or texting four, four, two, two, two time tips. And that'll get you our best tips on stewarding your time until next time, invest your time, your talent and your treasures. Develop your influence and impact the world. [00:10:00]

Episode 793 Are You Worshiping at the Altar of the Busy Brag
[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: [00:00:00] Thanks for joining me on episode 793 of the inspired stewardship podcast. Hi, I'm Dan Miller from 48 days.com. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to find the work you love is key.
[00:00:24] And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Mader.
[00:00:38] That's a tough transition to make, because the truth is you have to identify, you have to do the hard work of identifying what is actually the most important. What is it that I should be doing today to make my day more efficient in the future, you have to actually put in extra time building systems and processes and [00:01:00] designing those things so that over the longterm, it gets easier.
[00:01:06] Welcome and thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast. We'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence.
[00:01:29] So
[00:01:29] Scott Maderer: [00:01:29] that impact the world.
[00:01:35] In today's episode about impacting the world by stewarding your time. I talk with you about why so-called busy bragging, or sometimes you're here at called hustle. Porn is a false goal. I talk about why I focus less on getting more done and more on getting the right things done. And I also share why this can be a really tough transition to make.
[00:01:59] As we [00:02:00] talk about stewarding your time. Wouldn't it be great. If you could support this podcast and do it without just taking too long, it turns out you can't. All you have to do is use inspired stewardship.com/amazon. When you're ready to make a purchase via Amazon and a small commission will come back to support the show.
[00:02:18] Just that quick. If you enjoy the show, when you are ready to buy from Amazon, just use inspired stewardship.com/amazon. There's this movement out in the world and it's been around for a long time. But one of the things I've noticed is I think the internet and social media in a way has made this even more prominent and more common.
[00:02:42] And I call it busy bragging, but you'll also hear it sometimes called hustle porn. And it's this putting forward, this idea that the only way to get ahead, the only way to succeed in life is to work 24 seven. You've got to hustle all the time. You've got to constantly [00:03:00] be grinding and working all of the time.
[00:03:04] And that's the secret to success. That's the way forward. And you'll see people who put forward this idea all the time. They put forward almost a brag or a pride or a badge of honor about how little they sleep and how much they work. They'll identify as I'm one of the hardest working people out there.
[00:03:26] And I'll tell you, I used to subscribe to this mindset. I used to subscribe to this philosophy. I've worked in jobs where my average work week was 52, 58, 60 plus hours a week. And don't get me wrong. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with hard work, and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with working like that for some period of time when there's a need, when there's something that has to get done.
[00:03:52] When there's a project or something else, and you're pulling in extra time and extra effort and extra people to crunch through and get it [00:04:00] done. That is normal. That happens. This is something that happens in all businesses. The difference is when that's what you do all of the time, when that's the normal, when it becomes almost a brag or a badge of honor.
[00:04:19] That you work like this all of the time, it's one thing. If you have. Normal workweeks that occasionally spike up to many hours. It's something else. If the normal is working all the time and you just occasionally have weeks where you don't work like that, where you're fitting your life in around the edges, where it's all about the work and not about other things or other priorities that you have in your life.
[00:04:49] And again, we go through phases, we go through periods. This does happen from time to time, but it shouldn't be the normal instead, [00:05:00] what I'm working with people. And now when I'm thinking about my own life and I'm setting things up in my own systems and my own processes to get things done. The question I'm constantly asking is not, how can I get more done, but how can I focus on getting the most important things done?
[00:05:20] If my son's band performances are important. And I say that out loud, then do I actually block time off on my calendar to go to those performances? Or do I just say I'll make it if I can. If spending time with my family is important. Do I put that time onto my calendar and block it off and not allow work to spill over into it?
[00:05:44] And if I do go. And spend time with my family. Am I actually there and present and focusing on them or am I distracted and checking email on my phone and doing all of these other things that pull me out of the [00:06:00] time that I said was important to spend with them. If it's about work, even within work. Am I trying to get the things done that really need to be done that move the needle forward on my business that get more done in the longterm.
[00:06:18] Am I spending extra time today so that I can build systems and processes and maybe train people? Identify things that I can eliminate, identify things that I can delegate and then build systems and processes to optimize those things that I can't delegate or can't automate, or can't eliminate. When you do that, you begin over time to spend less time.
[00:06:46] So it's about working more, not forever, but work more now and develop the things that allow you. To work less later. It's about balancing those. [00:07:00] It's about constantly asking the question. What is really the most important thing? What is the single thing that I can do today that begins to eliminate work down the road?
[00:07:12] What can I do now to build into place those things that allow me. To rest and use time for my other priorities later. But the truth is if you've been working a lot for years, if you've been constantly doing everything that you can do and filling up your time, 24 seven, and now you're up to working 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 hours a week.
[00:07:41] To think about, wait, I actually have to work more and I actually have to spend some time planning and thinking and putting time on my calendar. And prioritizing my values. I, it's going to take me more time to do that. This is sort of that mindset of I can just do it myself and it, I can [00:08:00] get it done quicker than training someone else to do it.
[00:08:02] When in fact, if you would spend the extra time today, training that person, it would save you dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of ours over the next several months, weeks, years, whatever it is. That's a tough transition to make, because the truth is you have to identify, you have to do the hard work of identifying what is actually the most important.
[00:08:28] What is it that I should be doing today to make my day more efficient in the future? You have to actually put in extra time building systems and processes and designing those things. So that. Over the long-term, it gets easier instead of harder. And then instead of hustling around work 24 seven, you can actually begin to spend your days much more the way you want to.
[00:08:57] You can do the things that actually [00:09:00] get the most important things done. You can spend the time. Well, instead of. Just being busy. You can find yourself towards productivity. You can be productive, not busy. And there is a huge difference between those two. And again, this isn't shirking hard work. This isn't about sitting down and saying, Hey, I'm not going to work my buns off to get things up and running.
[00:09:26] It's not about putting no time in it's about putting the time in those things that you really value. Thanks for listening.
[00:09:42] Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast as a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you liked this [00:10:00] episode on the stewardship of time, be sure to sign up for our stewardship of time tips series by going to inspired stewardship.com/time or texting four four, two, two, two time tips, and that'll get you our best tips on stewarding your time.
[00:10:25] Until next time, invest your time, your talent and your treasures. Develop your influence and impact the world.