00:00:00 Thanks for joining me on episode 649 of the inspired stewardship podcast. I'm Patrick Anson, Nucci from dad hackers, and I challenge you to become the man that you are called and created to be one way to be inspired to do this is to listen to this show. The inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Mader, But you're not putting any of that into practice.
00:00:36 You're not using any of that. You're not applying any of that. You're not being deliberate about being selective about what you focus on and what you don't. It's just about getting everything that you can. Then you've got the trap of being in a posture of learning everything instead of learning with intentionality. Welcome, and thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcasts.
00:01:02 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 and the inspired stewardship podcast. We'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact. And today's episode about developing your influence through stewarding your talent.
00:01:33 I talk with you about having a mindset of learning, why this can be a trap, but it's also a key to growth and how to recognize if you're being trapped are growing. When you do this, you've heard me talk about developing your talent. And one of the best ways to do that is through books. But if you're like most people today,
00:01:54 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.
00:02:29 One of the things that Aaron and I talked about on Monday was this idea of having a, what he called a posture of learning. What you'll send us here. People talk about having this attitude of life long learning. And I will tell you, depending on your personality, some personality types do have this natural attraction to knowledge and learning. If you've taken StrengthsFinder,
00:02:55 if you've taken disk, if you've taken Myers-Briggs, if you've taken any of the sorts of communication courses that are out there, you'll find that one common characteristic that they say a certain percentage of the population has is this attraction to being someone who knows things who knows a lot, who studies, who is constantly learning new things, that's a value that they have.
00:03:21 And I think most of us would recognize that. And they would recognize the fact that sometimes you may not have that value as a core value. It may not be something that comes naturally to you. But the funny thing is one of the things that I've observed is regardless of whether that's a natural attraction for you, it's something that you have to work to have a mindset about.
00:03:45 You have to identify what are the areas in your life that you want to focus on and grow and learn about and be deliberate and intentional in that action, because the truth is no knowledge comes whether you want to or not. You're going to learn things. You'll make mistakes, you'll have new experiences, and you'll have certain things that just enter your knowledge base.
00:04:09 But really having a posture of learning is about taking some intentional time and energy to not just let knowledge randomly come, but to examine what comes to you, to reflect on it, to use it, to apply to other things, to be intentional and focused and about how you learn and what you learn. You know, the truth is if you always know whatever's going on on the latest TV show,
00:04:39 there's nothing inherently wrong with that. But if you know that and you know nothing about an area that you're trying to grow in, whether that's your finances, your spiritual life, whether that's how you deal with time, whether that's something about your job or your family or communication or your relationship, whatever it is that you've identified as an area where you need to grow.
00:05:02 If you spend more time just learning about the TV show than learning about that thing. Well, then you're really not going to grow in that area. You're not really serious about growth. So interestingly, having a posture of learning is both a good thing and it can sometimes be a trap. And here's what I mean by that. When we take a posture of learning,
00:05:24 we're focused on learning, but like I just said, where we need to identify and reflect and be intentional about what we want to learn. See the trap part, especially for those people where learning is a natural value. It's something that they naturally gravitate to is that you can get so focused on learning and just learning things that knowledge itself becomes kind of the ends.
00:05:50 It becomes the goal. I just want to know everything and I'll tell you, I am wired that way. I have natural bend towards learning. And so over the last few years, what I've learned is I need to step back and be more intentional and figure out what are the things I need to know next? What are the areas that I need to focus the most energy and effort on?
00:06:13 So I don't get sucked down into a rabbit hole of just constantly learning everything. Because like all things, our time, our energy, our money, those are all finite resources. And so even though there's maybe infinite knowledge out there, you do not have the time and the energy and the money to avail yourself of it. So you need to apply some intentional filtering to what it is that you're going to learn.
00:06:41 You need to be intentional about focusing on the key areas for you. I'm also a firm believer in just in time learning. So if down the road, you need to know something that doesn't necessarily mean you should spend a huge amount of time learning about it today. Instead when you come across something relevant, you should file it away and then pull it back out when it's time,
00:07:04 when it's ready, that's the next thing you need to do. So the trap there is that sometimes you spend so much time learning that you don't spend any time doing. And sometimes instead of being intentional in what you learn, you just spend time learning too many things or learning nothing at all. And both of those are equally a trap. Both of those can equally rate waste your time,
00:07:31 your energy and your resources. So how do you know if you're learning with intentionality or not? You need to look back on the last year, the last month, the last six months, the last week, even, and think about it. Have you spent time in intentional learning? Have you identified the zones in your life where you need to know something new and you need to grow and you need to expand your knowledge base.
00:08:00 If you do, have you sought out resources in that, are you listening to podcasts? Are you watching videos? Are you reading books? Are you getting mentorship or coaching or training? Have you sought out courses when you identify a gap, what are you doing to begin to learn, to grow and fill that gap? And if the answer is, I'm not even sure where my gaps are,
00:08:27 or if the answer is I haven't read a book, taking a course or watching an educational video for years, while then you're trapped in the not growing, not having a posture of learning phase and it's time to change that. And if on the other hand you reflect and it's like, yeah, I've learned about this. I've learned about this. I've learned about this.
00:08:45 I've learned about this. I've learned about this. I read this book. I read this book. I took this course I read. And all you've been doing the last year is learning, but you're not putting any of that practice. You're not using any of that. You're not applying any of that. You're not being deliberate about being selective about what you focus on and what you don't.
00:09:06 It's just about getting everything that you can. Then you've got the trap of being in a posture of learning everything instead of learning with intentionality. On the other hand, if you identify that, yes, I've taken some very focused attention and I've identified these two or three areas that I really need to grow in. And so I specifically sought out resources in those specific areas.
00:09:34 I've got a coach working with me on this one. I've been reading books on this one and I'm taking an online course for that one. That's the sweet spot where you have a posture of learning, but you're also being intentional and deliberate with your time with your energy and with your money so that you learn what you need to grow. And over time,
00:09:57 you'll continue to grow little bit by little bit until one day you look up and you're at the top of that mountain instead of just climbing it. Thanks for listening. 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.
00:10:32 If you like 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. Or if you're in the U S you can text four, four, two, two, two talent tips, that's talent tips to four four, two, two, two, and get those tips until next time,
00:11:00 invest your time, your talent and your treasures, develop your influence and impact the world.