00:00:00 Thanks for joining me on episode 614 of the inspired stewardship podcast. I'm Darryl Lyons, author of 18 to 80 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 right behavior with your money is key to doing that, and one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend Scott Mader. It's why it's important to reflect on your past,
00:00:43 your present, and your future when you're thinking about who you are and what you want to put out into the world as your message, because it's about all of those things. We are made up of our past, we act in the present and we direct ourselves to a point in the future that's called being intentional about finding your authentic self. 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,
00:01:19 your talent, and your treasures for your true calling and the inspired stewardship podcast. We'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others, and develop your influence so that you can in today's episode about impacting the world through stewarding your talent, I talk with you about why becoming your authentic self is so important. I give you a few exercises to help you find your authentic self, and I talk about why this is always a journey, not actually a destination. You've heard me talk about developing your talent and one of the best ways to do that is through books,
00:02:01 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 stewardship.com/audible to sign up and you can get a 30 day free trial. There's over 180,000 titles to choose from, and you can pick one and listen your way to developing your talents via audible. 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, you'll hear people talk all the time about learning to be yourself,
00:02:43 being you, being your authentic self, a be you, everybody else has taken you. You hear these sorts of pithy sayings and it's interesting because it is very important to learn to become your authentic self.
00:02:59 It's important to learn your own voice, your own tone, how you speak, how you put your message out into the world and how people receive.
00:03:08 You see, one of the interesting challenges with becoming your authentic self is oftentimes it's easy to suddenly become this person and say,
00:03:17 well, other people can just take it or leave it. You know, this is who I am.
00:03:21 They can learn to accept me for who I am and there's some truth to that. We do need to learn to accept others for who they are,
00:03:29 but also you have to take some ownership of making sure that who you are, who your authentic self is,
00:03:37 speaks to other people in a language that they can understand. This is why it's so important to learn about yourself and to learn about communication and to learn about how others receive different communication.
00:03:51 All of those things are important, but right now I want to focus first on learning to be your authentic self,
00:04:00 learning to become your authentic self, focusing on who you are and how you're wired. How do you see the world?
00:04:10 This is one of the reasons that I love things like StrengthsFinder and disc. I am certified to teach and train people in disc and recognize how people adapt to using disc and understanding it so that they can use that filter to communicate with others.
00:04:28 And I love that tool. Then there's tools like the grit test by by Angela Ducksworth and there's others,
00:04:36 the happiness quiz and all sorts of different ways out there that you can get different viewpoints of yourself. And I believe that taking these sorts of assessments and understanding what they say about you,
00:04:51 you know, take the big five inventory, take the disc, take the NBTI, take all of these different assessments and don't take any one of them as the one be all end all of who you are.
00:05:04 But use those to interpret and understand how you're wired. Because as you begin to understand how you're wired,
00:05:13 you begin to understand more about how you see the world. And as you understand more about how you see the world,
00:05:23 you begin to uncover some of your blind spots. You begin to uncover things that perhaps you aren't able to see.
00:05:30 Well this allows you to reach out and find other people that shore up your weaknesses. And it also allows you to identify your strengths and work within those strengths to put out your best self into the world.
00:05:44 So one of the exercises you can do to help you find your authentic self beyond just taking these different assessments.
00:05:50 And again, if you want to take something in disc and understand more about it, please just reach out to me.
00:05:56 I'll set you with an assessment. But other than that, one of the best exercises I love is actually a thought exercise.
00:06:06 So here's how it goes. You know, the first step is to reflect on where you've been. Think about your past.
00:06:13 Think about the past jobs you've had, the past relationships you've had, and identify the top three or four things about each of them that you really loved.
00:06:27 You can also identify the top three or four things that you really disliked and look for trends. Look for patterns,
00:06:35 look for things that are in common. So look to your past and think about what you've done, what you loved about it,
00:06:43 and what you hated about it. And do that for everything that you've done. And then secondly, look to the present.
00:06:52 What are you doing today? What kind of relationships do you have? What kind of of job do you have?
00:07:00 What kind of different areas of your life do you have and how balanced are they? You'll look at the seven main core areas of life and think about how am I doing in my finances?
00:07:11 How am I doing in my health? How am I doing in my social connections, my relationships? How am I doing with my career?
00:07:21 And, and think about how good those different areas are for you. They don't all have to be perfect,
00:07:27 but, but do a reflection on kind of where you stand today. And then this last one, this is my favorite one.
00:07:34 Look to the future. Imagine that five years from now you walked into a, an airport or a bus station someplace where there were a bunch of people around and you ran into somebody who's a dear friend today,
00:07:49 somebody who you really like, but you haven't actually seen them for the last five years. And they say,
00:07:56 Oh, it's so great to see you. Do you mind if we grab a cup of coffee real quick?
00:08:02 You say, yeah, I've got time. I'm waiting for the plane or the train or the automobile.
00:08:06 Whatever's coming. I've got time. Let's sit down and catch up for an hour. And you sat down at a table getting a warm cup of coffee together.
00:08:15 And the first thing your friend says is, how have things been? How has it been these last five years since I last talked to you and you answer your friend with the last five years have been the best years of my life because what would you put after that?
00:08:35 Because what would you say you were doing? What would you say about your relationships? What would you say about your finances?
00:08:42 What would you say about your career? What would you say about everything in your life, your health,
00:08:50 your physical wellbeing, your reputation in the world? Because see, the truth is finding your authentic self is a journey,
00:09:00 not a destination. It's not about where you end up. It's about where you're going. It's about all of the steps that you take in between it.
00:09:10 It's why it's important to reflect on your past, your present and your future. When you're thinking about who you are and what you want to put out into the world as your message because it's about all of those things.
00:09:24 We are made up of our past, we act in the present and we direct ourselves to a point in the future.
00:09:31 That's called being intentional about finding your authentic self. Thanks for listening. Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast.
00:09:48 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.
00:10:00 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.
00:10:14 Or if you're in the U S you can text four, four two, two two talent tips. That's talent tips to four,
00:10:24 four, two, two, two and get those tips. Until next time, invest your time, your talent,
00:10:30 and your treasures. Develop your influence and impact the world.