00:00:00 Thanks for joining me on episode 734 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. share your story. And when you share it,
00:00:35 don't just share the picture. Perfect Facebook, Instagram kind of image, but share the reality. Be vulnerable enough to say that you don't know it all, but that you're just moving along this journey one step at a time, and you would be surprised at the impact that you have. Welcome. Thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be,
00:01:05 then you must learn to use your time, 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 impact. And today's episode about impacting the world through stewarding your talent. I talk with you about why we often forget that impacting others comes from our own story and journey.
00:01:39 Why we think we have to be perfect if we're going to have an impact on others and why growth is more about the journey than it is about perfection. You've heard me talk about developing your talent 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.
00:02:04 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. I'm going to talk about one of the biggest problems that I actually have.
00:02:38 You know, one of the reasons that I launched this podcast and that I've been doing this now for a long time, I started it in January of 2018. So this January of 2021 will be three years that I've been doing this podcast consistently. I've missed one week of the podcast in three. And one of the things that I often forget is as I'm producing all this content,
00:03:04 and as I'm producing all of these things and talking about various life lessons, I try to include occasionally stories about my own life stories about how I've dealt with things and stories about how my clients have dealt with things and how I've worked with my clients. But I don't do that nearly enough. I don't talk enough about my own personal journey and story. And a friend of mine,
00:03:28 a dear friend of mine who was part of a mastermind group that I'm part of reminded me of that the other day. And the truth is that I've forgotten sometimes that our impact often comes from our own story. You know, I'm a person that tends to judge things by Results. I like process, I like steps and rules and these sorts of things.
00:03:51 And I forget sometimes how powerful it is to talk about our own story. And so that's actually something that I wanted to remind you of as well, that often we forget that the real impact that we have on the world, the impact that we have on others, the way we change others lives comes from the power of our own story. It comes from the narrative of the life that we've lived,
00:04:18 and it comes not from showing everyone this artificial perfect picture, but instead from being vulnerable and showing people the reality, you know, I've been studying productivity for 35 years. I actually pulled out some journals and I, I have journals from the very first annual review that I did over 35 years ago. I've been studying finance and personal finance specifically since the early two thousands.
00:04:49 So almost 20 years. And I've been studying leadership and self-development and communication since I started teaching back in the nineties. So again, over 30 years, and yet the knowledge that I've gained is often not what makes an impact on my clients and others. Instead. It's when I talk about the story and the way I've lived life, and what's happened to me,
00:05:19 it's more truthful to talk about the fact that one of the reasons I studied productivity and personal finances, because these are areas of weakness of mine. These are places where I struggle. I'm a huge spender. I'm the person that can drop two or three or $400 on something very frivolous without thinking. So I've had to develop systems and processes so that I am slow down and there's friction around how I spend money,
00:05:47 so that I actually think about it and make sure that I'm spending my money in alignment with my values. And I'm working with my wife. And we're a team when it comes to our money, when it comes to productivity, I've been studying that because I'm easily distracted. I'm somebody who can get really bogged down in the details and get frozen by analysis where I just want to learn and gather all this information.
00:06:14 And now I never actually put it into practice. And because of that, I've been studying this, see the truth is I am not perfect in any of these areas. And to be honest, in some days I'm not even good in some of these areas. I struggle with having days that ended up being completely wasted. I struggle with continuing to occasionally be tempted to do things with my money,
00:06:39 that aren't in alignment with the values that my wife and I set forward. But the truth is the reason that that story still impacts people is because growth is about the journey. It's not about perfection. It's not about the destination. It's not about getting everything perfectly right. It's about living and going forward. It's about moving forward powerfully. It's taking one step after the other,
00:07:10 the, the phrase that we use in, in the coaching group that I'm part of is it's about progress, not perfection. And it's a process, not an event because we over and over again, want to refocus on the idea that the truth is it's not about getting it, right? It's just about moving forward. If you take one tiny step today and make one step forward,
00:07:35 that's all it takes to keep moving forward. And the truth is if you do that day after day after day, if you just make a tiny little improvement each and every day, and how you deal with your time, your talent or your treasures at the end of a year, you're a ton better off than you were at the beginning. But all too often,
00:07:55 what happens instead is we get bogged down by the overwhelming nature of the task. You know, people come to me and they're, they have $250,000 in debt. They have no earthly idea how they would ever pay it off. And the truth is, all we have to do is get started. And before long, they look up and realize it is possible to pay it back.
00:08:18 It is possible to live life and achieve what they want. Same thing happens with productivity. People come to me and they're overwhelmed. They've got so much on their to-do list, but we, then we begin to break it down one step at a time. And over time, it gets easier and easier until again, they achieve their goals. So the truth is whatever area of life you're struggling with first off,
00:08:46 be vulnerable, share your story. And when you share it, don't just share the picture. Perfect Facebook, Instagram, kind of, but share the reality. Be vulnerable enough to say that you don't know it all, but that you're just moving along this journey one step at a time, and you would be surprised at the impact that you have. Thanks for listening. Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast,
00:09:20 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 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 us,
00:09:48 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, invest your time, your talent and your treasures develop your influence and impact.