00:00:00 Thanks for joining me on episode 739 of the inspired stewardship pod. Hey friends. My name is dr. Gary Johnson and I serve as the executive director of effect of elders. I challenge you to invest in yourself in others and develop your influence while impacting the world by using your time, your talent, your treasures, to live out your calling, having the ability to grow yourself through self-leadership is key.
00:00:36 And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Mader. I used to believe that I was one of those people. You know, I work better under deadlines. I should procrastinate. Let things go to the last minute. That gives me the ability to do my best work.
00:01:04 And I've learned that none of that was true. That's why I coach in these areas. Not because I'm perfect at it, but because I've learned a lot of tips and tricks and techniques 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,
00:01:29 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 the world. And today's episode about investing in yourself through stewarding your talent. I talk with you about what integrity means, how this is so important in today's constantly changing and constantly on world.
00:02:02 And I also share why it's often easy to think we have it when indeed we may not. 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. Go to inspired stewardship.com/audible
00:02:27 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. Let's talk a little bit about integrity. You know, integrity is one of those words that we hear all the time.
00:02:58 We about people having integrity. We talk about ourselves having integrity. We talk about others and how they haven't or they don't. We even recognize it. When we see it. It's, it's that feeling you get when you're talking to someone and you just recognize that something's not right, something's out of alignment, something doesn't fit you. The word integrity really is about wholeness.
00:03:23 If you think about it, the word integrity and the word integer sound a lot alike, and they actually come from the same root. They come from the same base, meaning, and it's about wholeness or completeness. That's why we call integers whole numbers and integrity for a person is about a person being complete and whole it's about all of the different parts that you have fitting together in a way that makes sense.
00:03:55 You know, we were talking Monday as I was talking with Braden and about this idea of all of the different components, your professional, your personal, your spiritual coming into alignment. And that alignment is really a question of integrity. It's a, it's a question of do the pieces fit together? Are you the same in your public life, as you are in your private life,
00:04:19 do you ascribe to something out in public, but then in private, you do and say, and act in ways that are out of alignment with that. And I think we all know those people that do that. You, you can run into them. You can recognize them. You can get to know them a little better and you begin to see through the facade that they put out.
00:04:42 We see it sometimes in public figures, we see it in our friends. We see it in our family. The interesting thing is though, we often don't see it in ourselves. Even if others are seeing it in us. See the truth is this is becoming more and more important. This idea of being a whole being, being put together in a way where no matter what you do,
00:05:10 no matter what you say, it's in alignment, it fits together where even if someone disagrees with you, they look at you and they go, I don't like you. I don't agree with you. I don't agree with you on a political issue. I don't agree with you on a personal issue, whatever it is, but you know what you are,
00:05:29 who you say you are, you walk in alignment, you do and say consistent things. You act in a consistent way. I don't see any of that stuff that doesn't fit together. So I may not like you, but I recognize that you have integrity that you fit together. And the truth is in this constantly on world that we live in today,
00:05:52 we see more and more where we can see things out of alignment. People will post on Facebook and everything is light and everything is fluffy. They'll, they'll frame the picture in such a way that the one place in their house that is clean and organized is showing behind them. You know, we've seen these images and these videos of people posing as if they've gone on a long walk or a long hike,
00:06:17 and then someone else captures them off to the side. And actually they're in their own backyard. They, they haven't gone far at all. They sprayed water on themselves to make themselves look sweaty. It's one thing when that's done in a, in a movie or something else that we know is meant to be fake. It's something else whenever we're representing that as reality,
00:06:39 and it's not true, you know, I talk to people all the time about one of the reasons that I coach on money and on productivity is not because I'm perfect at it. I'm far from perfect at it. I screw it up all the time. I screw up money. I screw up time. I screw up my budget. I don't do things perfectly,
00:06:59 but I am consistent the exact same techniques that I teach others. I use for myself. I've been working on these areas for years in the case of money, I've been working on it for about 25, 30 years that I've been teaching myself about personal finance and I screwed it up badly. That's why I had to begin learning it. The same thing happens with productivity.
00:07:25 I've always been somebody that deals with procrastination. I've always been somebody that finds it very easy to put off till tomorrow and work under deadlines. I used to believe that I was one of those people, you know, I work better under deadlines. I should procrastinate. Let things go to the last minute. That gives me the ability to do my best work.
00:07:46 And I've learned that none of that was true. That's why I coach in these areas. Not because I'm perfect at it, but because I've learned a lot of tips and tricks and techniques, and it helps me when I hold other people accountable, it helps me be more accountable to myself. It's about having integrity and that's why it makes it so easy to fool yourself.
00:08:12 See, we've been talking about cognitive dissonance this week, and the truth is this is kind of on that same topic, because what happens all too often is we begin to view ourselves a certain way. We see ourselves as not racist. So we don't recognize when we do behavior that may be harmful or discriminatory. We see ourselves as very outgoing. So we don't see the ways we act that aren't outgoing.
00:08:43 We see ourselves as somebody who works better under pressure. So we don't recognize how we're harming ourselves by procrastinating all the time and why we need to get help and overcome that a lot of how we see ourselves, because we can't feel that feeling of being out of alignment. We view it as in alignment, when others look at it and say that it's not in alignment,
00:09:08 the truth is, if you want to know, if you have integrity, you need to ask other people what they see, because that's the best indicator. It's less about how you feel. And it's more about how others feel that tells us if we're really walking the walk, as well as talking the talk. Thanks for listening. Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast.
00:09:40 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 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,
00:10:09 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 the world..