Episode 1139: Pushing Back Against Our Box

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 1,139 of the inspired stewardship podcast.

[00:00:07] I'm Catherine Cantey. I challenge

[00:00:10] Catherine Cantey: 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 lead yourself and others is key.

[00:00:25] And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott.

[00:00:34] Scott Maderer: because the truth is it's out of pushing out of our comfort zone that we begin to grow. It's when we step out from that and discover there's things about this, that, yeah. Maybe it's never going to be my favorite. It turns out there's some qualities around it that I like. And the interesting thing is that also feeds back at our ability to look at other people and not put them in a.

[00:00:58] Welcome and thank you for [00:01:00] 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 so that.

[00:01:22] Can impact the work

[00:01:24] in today's episode about investigating yourself through stewarding your talent. I talk with you about how we often try to fit ourselves in a box. I share how we need to push back against our box to really grow. And I also talk about why it's so hard to push back against the box. We put ourselves in.

[00:01:43] You've heard me talk about developing your team. And what are the best ways to do that is through books. But if you're like most people today, it's hard to find the time to read. And that's why today's podcast is brought to you by audible. Go to inspired [00:02:00] stewardship.com/audible to sign up and you can get a 30 day free trial.

[00:02:05] There's over 180,000 titles to choose from. And you can pick one and listen your way to developing your talents via. That's inspired stewardship.com/audible to get your free trial and listen to great books the same way you're listening to this podcast. No, we think all the time about other people and talk about not putting people into a box, recognizing the fact that people are infinitely variable and often surprise us that we would look at people and maybe think based on a few characteristics or traits that we know everything there is to know about them.

[00:02:46] And that yet when we get to know them better, we discover that there are layers and there are things about them that we never would have predicted. And that's one of those things that when you're dealing with other people, if you've been around people for any length [00:03:00] of time, you begin to recognize and learn that.

[00:03:03] But the truth is. Not putting other people in boxes is important, but so is not putting yourself in a box. We often do the exact same sort of judgment to ourselves. We define ourselves and who we are and what we think and what we'll do based on a few characteristics or a few traits that have maybe happened in our lives.

[00:03:27] Maybe based on characteristics that we like about ourselves, or sometimes characteristics that we don't like about ourselves. We make these blanket absolute as statements and say, this is who I am. This is how I will always be. And the truth is that we do change over time, but we don't usually recognize that.

[00:03:50] In ourselves, it takes someone else, someone from outside, maybe someone who hasn't seen you for a long time, but knew you really well, that runs into you. And I'm not just talking about [00:04:00] them recognizing physical changes. My you've gotten taller. You've gotten skinnier, you've gained weight, you've lost weight.

[00:04:06] Your hair has gone gray, whatever it is. I'm also talking about those things and those characteristics and personality traits and behaviors as well. We'll say things like there's no way I'll ever fill in the blank kind of music or fill in the blank kind of entertainment. And then you find the right piece of that.

[00:04:27] And all of a sudden you discover that there is some of it, maybe that you like, or you'll say I'm not a people person. I don't enjoy being around people. But then you develop some skills and some abilities around networking, and maybe it's never going to be your big thing. The thing that you love to do, but at the same time, you begin to enjoy it.

[00:04:48] Somewhat. We say I won't, our all never are. I can't all too often about ourselves and end up putting ourself in a box. And the truth [00:05:00] is we've. There are things that are deeply ingrained. There are things that are really true about our character and our personality, things that maybe won't change or don't change often without some sort of trauma or major life event causing a change in it.

[00:05:15] But even within those characteristics, there's a lot of variability in what we can choose to do or say, or experience or decide. Yeah, even though that's not my thing, I'm still going to experience it. We have to push back against that box. We put ourselves in to really be able to grow, to really be able to find ways to expand what we're doing and get better at it to find ways to experience new things in our life.

[00:05:52] Because the truth is it's out of pushing out of our comfort zone that we begin to grow. It's when we step [00:06:00] out from that and discover there's things about this, that, yeah, maybe it's never going to be my favorite, but it turns out there some qualities around it that I like. And the interesting thing is that also feeds back at our ability to look at other people and not put them in a box.

[00:06:15] Because as we learn more about ourselves, we end up being more understanding about other people. And yet the truth is that's really hard to do. We all have a tendency to settle down to the status quo, to settle in to the base of what we do to let ourselves just by default. Do and think and feel the same things day in and day out, instead of challenging that, instead of saying, I'm not a people person or I'm shy or there's things that I don't like to do, what can I do to get better at that?

[00:06:57] We tend to let it go. We tend to just [00:07:00] say, this is who I am and you're going to have to deal with it instead of challenging. We have intentionality and the ability to determine what we allow our personality to dictate to us, as opposed to just letting it be to accepting it as it is. And again, I'm not saying you spend all your time working on just your weaknesses or working on things that perhaps are never going to be your favorite.

[00:07:28] But I am saying you want to challenge yourself to experience some of those things from time to time, because as you do that, you often will discover that the box that you put yourself in is way too small, because the truth is your experience, your life, your personality, your beliefs. All of those things are bigger than you ever believed they were.

[00:07:52] And that means that you've opened up new possibilities. You've opened up new things that you can experience and do and [00:08:00] understand that maybe you never would have experienced without getting out of your box. Thanks for listening.

[00:08:08] 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 call. If you liked this episode on the stewardship of talent, you can go over to inspired stewardship.com/talent and sign up for our five week series on the stewardship of talent.

[00:08:39] Or if you're in the U S you can text 4, 4, 2, 2, 2 talent tips. That's talent tips to 4 4, 2, 2, 2, and get those tips until next time. Invest your time. Your talent and your treasures develop your influence and impact [00:09:00] the world. .