00:00:00 Thanks for joining me on episode 659 of the inspired stewardship podcast. I'm Shannon miles from ballet. I challenged you to discover your calling and find your third option, so you can be empowered to live every day to the fullest. One way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend and Scott Mader. And at the end of the day,
00:00:31 I hope all of us can begin to be a little bit better at listening to be a little less strident in our own views and able to hear how other people though, they may disagree with. You have a legitimate place that they're coming from, and at least respect them for their own views as well. Welcome. And thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast.
00:00:59 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 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 the world. And today's episode about investing in yourself through stewarding your talent.
00:01:29 I talk with you about the difference between preparation and fear. I share a post that I loved and why it was so good at telling how I feel about this. And I share why I tend to prepare, but this isn't about fear. 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,
00:01:54 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 preparation and fear. I talked a little bit about this on Tuesday and the fact that I've seen a lot of posts and comments right now about how people are doing things out of fear. When oftentimes at least they themselves think they're doing it out of preparation. And the truth is, you know, sometimes it's really hard to know the difference both for ourselves because it's hard sometimes to be self aware enough to really judge our own feelings and emotions and what we're doing.
00:02:58 And it's for sure hard to tell when you were observing someone else, because you can't really see inside someone else's heart and see their motivation and see what's going on. You know, one of my friends posted a rather long post the other day on Facebook that I have to admit, I, I wanted to steal because I was so impressed with the way he put together thoughts that I'd been feeling that maybe I hadn't been able to put into words very well.
00:03:27 And so I'm going to read at least part of it right now. He said, I don't wear a seatbelt because I hope that I'm going to get in a crash. I do it because I'd rather not get thrown through the windshield in the unlikely event that I do end up in an accident. I don't wear a life jacket when I'm on the water because I can't swim.
00:03:44 I do it for my own safety in the unlikely event. There's an incident and I'm knocked unconscious. I don't wear a bike helmet because I hope I'm going to fall off my bike and hit my head. I do it to keep my brains from splattering on the road. In the unlikely event, I get clipped by a car. I don't wear a face covering because I'm paralyzed by fear and think I'm going to die immediately.
00:04:05 If I don't, I do it to protect my mucus membranes. From the unlikely event, I come in contact with someone who is contagious and also in the unlikely event that I am an asymptomatic carrier. I don't have a living will and a medical power of attorney because I want to have something traumatic happened to me. I have them in the unlikely event that something tragic does happen to me.
00:04:27 I don't have life insurance because I hope to die an untimely death. I haven't. So my wife and kids are protected financially. In the unlikely event, I meet my maker sooner, rather than later, I don't have weapons because I hope someone is going to attack me. I have them in the unlikely event that I have to defend myself or others.
00:04:44 In all these cases, an incident is unlikely and I could forego the simple safety and financial precautions and probably even still survive, but not without significant unnecessary pain and suffering and cost to the healthcare system and unnecessary, emotional strain on my family. I don't confuse any of these simple precautions for oppression. I simply see them as a minor inconvenience to mitigate risk as unlikely as those risks are.
00:05:12 And I honestly don't do it for me. I do it. So I don't have to put my wife and children in the painful position of having to watch their husband and dad clinging to life on a bunch of machines. When instead I just needed to do something so simple to prevent it. Is this living in fear? I don't see it that way.
00:05:28 I'm an entrepreneur. And I jump out of planes. Now I'll tell you I don't jump out of planes, but I would, if I had the opportunity, both pretty scary things that most people would never do. The only reason I felt compared to shell share this is because people are asking me about my views. You know, here's, what's interesting.
00:05:45 Again, I don't really care if you view this as oppression and something, that's setting it up for the government to take control of us. I, it's not the point. You can have your view. You can have your belief minus different, and I would hope that you would respect that. However, the truth is it's still about this mindset of preparation,
00:06:09 this mindset of looking at things that might happen and setting up your life in such a way that if they do happen, the people you care about are okay. See, I actually am in a situation where, because of past lung damage, if I got this virus, it could be devastating for me. So I have every reason to be afraid of the virus,
00:06:34 but even still, I don't act out of fear. I'm acting out of healthy thoughts about this as something little I can do that helps protect me and others, even if it does it protect me perfectly. Even if mask aren't the great solution, it's still doesn't matter. It's something that I can do. It gives me a little bit of control and a little bit better chance.
00:07:00 But if that doesn't happen well, if that doesn't happen and what if I do get the virus? It's okay too, because I know how to handle it. I know what I need to do. I know where I'm going and I know how I've been prepared, but I'm very tired of watching everyone. See, I'm one of these people that I have a lot of people with a lot of different views,
00:07:26 like for instance, on my Facebook feed, there's people from the left there's people from the right. I have friends that are very, very conservative and I have friends that are very, very liberal. So I literally get to see posts from both sides. And what I'm tired of is people on both sides, not having the care for each other, not looking and being respectful of other people's positions,
00:07:52 standing on a soap box on the corner and yelling your own view and how your right in everyone else's wrong is not the way to have conversation that brings people together. And so, again, regardless of your political views, recognize that I love you regardless about your views on face mask, recognize that I love you regardless of whether or not you think I'm being controlled by fear.
00:08:18 If I wear a mask out in public or not. And even if I ask you to, if you're going to come around me, recognize that's not fear, it's a healthy preparation. And at the end of the day, I hope all of us can begin to be a little bit better at listening to be a little less strident in our own views and able to hear how other people though,
00:08:44 they may disagree with. You have a legitimate place that they're coming from, and at least respect them for their own views as well. 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.
00:09:17 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,
00:09:45 invest your time, your talent and your treasures, develop your influence and impact the world.