00:00:00 Thanks for joining me on episode 759 of the inspired stewardship podcast. I'm Mark Idaho, author of building wealth and living in faith. 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 a right relationship between faith and money is key to doing that.
00:00:34 And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Mader. Go look at your, your last listen to podcast. Go look at other things that you've watched on YouTube and other things. And I'm not talking about things that you watch for pleasure, but what have you studied or learned?
00:01:07 And by the way, if it's nothing, Hmm, that might be an indicator of one of the reasons you're having a struggle, finding your passions. Look at the last thing that you were talking to friends about without prompting. Welcome. And thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcasts. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be,
00:01:29 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 you can impact. Okay. Today's episode about investing in yourself through stewarding your talent. I talk with you about why often our passion comes from mastering things,
00:01:58 which of course can take time. I share why all too often, we assume our passion should just come easy. And I also talk about why focusing on your talents and strengths can become an indicator of your passions. At least over time. 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,
00:02:22 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.
00:02:57 One of the interesting things about our passion, finding our strengths, finding our talents, finding the things that we really love. I think oftentimes we think to ourselves that this should just come easily. We should wake up one morning and full-blown our passion, our interest, everything should be there. We should know from birth. This is what we always wanted to do.
00:03:20 This is always been our passion and a couple of things happen about this, or a couple of things come to mind about this first off, I want to use a personal example. So I was always somebody who growing up whenever I took English classes, they always came really, really easy to me. I don't think I've ever made less than an a on an English paper or in an English class now handwriting that I struggled with,
00:03:48 but as far as the actual writing and the content and literature and reading and all of these things, it was always an area where I was very, very gifted. And on the other hand, science and math was something that I always had to work at a little bit. It wasn't something that came intuitively to me. I still was pretty good at it,
00:04:08 but it, it, wasn't the easy thing. And what's interesting is I've always had more of a passion for science and math than for English. And I would argue that part of the reason for that part of the reason that my interest and my passion kind of developed in that area is because it was challenging because it was hard because science and math was an area where I had to work to master it.
00:04:37 I think I developed more interest in it. I spent more time with it now notice, however, it wasn't an area that was a pure weakness. I'll go back to that handwriting example. My handwriting has always been terrible. So I worked to get it to a point where it was legible. And so people can actually read my handwriting. I can write a note to someone and they can tell what I asked them to do,
00:05:03 but I'm never going to work to make my handwriting into calligraphy. Not because it's not important, not because that's not valuable, not because I don't at some level envy. Those people that have beautiful handwriting, but because that's an area where I struggle, that's an area of weakness. I should not spend all of my time trying to master my area of weakness,
00:05:26 but there is truth that an area where you're pretty good, you're solid, but you actually have to work at it often as an area, which gets more of our energy, gets more of our passion, gets our juices flowing more. I think sometimes both the areas that come too hard and the areas that come too easy are not areas that are as fruitful for finding our passion.
00:05:53 This is why I think this idea that it's always going to come easy, that it always just falls into place. Magically is so misguided. It's also true that we generally can connect the dots in reverse. It's easier to look back and after the fact begin to see the pattern begin to see the passion, begin to see how things fit together. It's very hard for us to do that and look forward into the future because we don't know what the future is.
00:06:23 This is why I encourage people to do reviews both as part of their daily practice, their weekly practice, their monthly practice, their quarterly practice and their annual practice. But it's also why I encourage people when they come to me and they're struggling, trying to figure out their calling, trying to figure out their passion, trying to figure out what it is that they really love to do.
00:06:46 I encourage them to spend a good chunk of time looking backwards, not so that you can dissect everything that came before. But because often out of looking backwards, you begin to connect the dots. You begin to see the indicators of where your passion lies. You begin to see the indicators of where your strengths are. You begin to see the indicators of where there's areas,
00:07:08 where routinely, you already are doing something or being something that gives you energy and provides value into the world. And those two things together is a sweet spot that allows you to begin to really focus in on doing something that you will gain energy from, that you will be passionate about. And that people will give you certificates of appreciation about they'll give you money for it.
00:07:37 These things become a passion over time. So if you're curious about your passion, some of the quick tricks that you can do go to your bookshelf, go look at your, your last, listen to podcast. Go look at other things that you've watched on YouTube and other things. Now I'm not talking about things that you watch for pleasure, but what have you studied are learned?
00:08:01 And by the way, if it's nothing, Hmm, that might be an indicator of one of the reasons you're having a struggle, finding your passions. Look at the last thing that you were talking to friends about without prompting look at the last activities that you were doing without prompting or with no one paying you look at where people ask you questions or give you feedback about how this is an area that seems to come easy to you,
00:08:27 even when you discount it and think, well, surely this comes easy to everyone. Let me guarantee you it doesn't. And as you begin to focus on your talents and your strengths out of that, you often can begin to identify your passions. And again, it's not necessarily those areas that come super easy to you, and it's not necessarily the ones that come super hard to you that are fruitful.
00:08:52 It's kind of the sweet spot in the middle, but closer to that, end of mastery, where with just a little bit of an effort, a little bit of growth, a little bit of time, you truly can become an expert. Those are often the places that are the most fruitful to find your calling, to find your passion and to create the life that you most want to live.
00:09:14 Thanks for listening. 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. 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.
00:09:51 Or if you're in the us, 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 the world..