SNS 121: Saturday Night Special – Interview with Marnie Swedberg about Biblical Success Principles

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Welcome to tonight's Saturday night, special episode 121.

[00:00:06] Marnie Swedberg: Hi, this is Marnie Swedberg and I'm here to challenge you to invest in yourself. Invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, talents and treasures to live out your God-given goals. Understanding biblical success principles is a great starting point and for ongoing inspiration and encouragement.

[00:00:23] Listen to the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott, Maderer.

[00:00:28] There is time to do everything God wants us to do. And the explanation is this. There's not time to do everything. There's not time to do everything. Good. There's not time to do everything everybody else wants you to do. There's not even time to do everything you want to do, but because God has God, there must be time to do everything.

[00:00:50] He, I see

[00:00:51] Scott Maderer: the deal welcome. And thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. If you truly desire to become the [00:01:00] 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. Go learn to invest in yourself.

[00:01:11] Invest in. And develop your influence so that you can impact the world

[00:01:18] and tonight's Saturday night special. I asked Marty about what she shares as transforming biblical success principles. I also talked to her about her books and her speaking, and I asked Marnie to share with you the four kinds of love and the three kinds of fear and why we need to understand. Now, one area that a lot of folks need some help with is around the area of productivity.

[00:01:46] Getting not just more things done, but actually getting the right things done can be really. I've got a course called productivity for your passion. That's designed to help [00:02:00] you do this and then to hold you accountable and walk with you so that you can tailor productivity, not just to be getting more done, but actually getting the right things done.

[00:02:12] What's more, we take the approach of looking at your personality and how you actually look at things in the world and tailor the productivity system to your personnel. Because the truth is a lot of the systems that are out there are written really well for somebody with a particular personality type.

[00:02:30] But if you have a different approach to things, they just don't work, but there's tools and techniques and approaches that you can take that will work for anyone. And we help you do that in productivity for your passion. Check it out over@inspiredstewardship.com slash law. Marnie Swedberg is an international leadership mentor, the author of 13 books, the host of her own talk radio show, a media expert, and a keynote speaker for [00:03:00] organizations around the world.

[00:03:01] Fun and fast paced yet peaceful and approach. Her history includes fires, floods, or tornado car wrecks, business setbacks, a burglary lightning strikes, ambulance rides, and more. She models, comeback behavior, possibility thinking and profound faith. Welcome to the show. Marnie

[00:03:21] Marnie Swedberg: I Scott. Great to be here.

[00:03:23] Scott Maderer: So Marnie, one of the things that you like to share, and we talked a little bit about it in the intro is this idea of transforming biblical success principles.

[00:03:34] Can you talk a little bit about what you mean by that? And what's your perspective on the.

[00:03:40] Marnie Swedberg: All right. So if it's a new time to you think about a pair of corrective lenses. So if you have blurry vision, you go to the eye doctor and he gives you a prescription. You put on these corrective lenses and everything looks awesome.

[00:03:56] You just now nothing about the world [00:04:00] changed, not one thing about the world changed. However, how you see. Has changed how you experience it has changed. And so that's what I'm talking about. When I share perspective, transforming biblical success principles, they've always been there. They are there like gravity, but if you don't know about them, understanding them can change everything about how you experience life and God.

[00:04:25] Scott Maderer: So what does that mean to somebody? How would they go. Discovering principles, so to speak.

[00:04:33] Marnie Swedberg: Obviously spending time in the word, asking the holy spirit to teach you. He, you don't really need a teacher. The holy spirit can teach you, but he all, God also loves body life. He loves it.

[00:04:45] When we sit under a teacher, when we go to church, when we listen to music that has messages in it. When we listened to a show like your Scott, And so what my ministry is, what God has shown me is that I have a unique way of [00:05:00] using analogy, stories, and life experiences to teach success principles that are frequently generating aha insights in my audiences, just because I've had a unique perspective and I'm able to share them in a way that's different from how people have heard them before.

[00:05:18] And it's like putting on either, sometimes I like to use Analogy like a pair of sunglasses. So God is big and he's bright. He's brighter than the sun. And he sometimes feels hard to approach, but the way that I teach people, how to approach God is like putting on a pair of sunglasses where all of a sudden you can handle the light.

[00:05:38] You can go closer, you can feel. Like it's okay. It's doable. It's not giving you a headache. And I think that's there are so many ways to do it, but the key is to just keep believing that there is more there for you to discover an or an earth in the Bible of God.

[00:05:54] Scott Maderer: So you have 13 books out and you obviously have [00:06:00] been a speaker and you've gone around and talked about these books as you're sharing these principles.

[00:06:06] Can you tell me a little bit more about what are the books that are out there? What are their impact? What's their message.

[00:06:13] Marnie Swedberg: Yeah. So I love to share these aha insights with leaders in individuals, with teams with ministry teams, as well as with just one-on-ones. And I do that through speaking, through writing through my own radio show that I have.

[00:06:29] And what happens is that when we go into a specific category, so let's say. The book trilogy that came out last year, called heaven, it's called the heaven trilogy. It talks about heaven. It talks about hell and it talks about earth as the choosing place. So right here, right now, we have the opportunity to decide where we're going to spend eternity and the books go through and they explore this scripturally as well as with analogies.

[00:06:54] And so that's the heaven trilogy. One that came out not too long before that is called [00:07:00] flow through vessel. This is where we discover that we are like a straw and that it is not our responsibility as believers to actually produce what's in the cup. So when someone comes along, they will sip on our lives.

[00:07:17] And we are like a straw, whatever the straw is into is what they're going to get when they suck on you. That's what they're going to get. If you're into Jesus, when they come and are around you and are experiencing your presence, they're going to get Jesus. But when you're just into your own. Then that's what they're going to get.

[00:07:39] If you're into bitterness, into rage, into whatever, that's what they're going to get. And so our responsibility as a flow through vessel is to stay submerged into Christ. And that book actually teaches us exactly how to do that. It spends a lot of time on habits and why it's so hard for us to stay submerged in Christ.

[00:07:57] We always just want to do it.

[00:07:58] Scott Maderer: No [00:08:00] people want to do it themselves. And I think we're all, especially when you're talking to entrepreneurs and leaders and hard driving people, we all have that tendency to depend on ourselves. What, why don't you see that? Let's just, I'm gonna do analogy that I came up with that diagram.

[00:08:21] Marnie Swedberg: Really, if you think about a parent, so a parent brings a baby home from the hospital and at that moment begins the 18 year journey of moving that child from completely dependent. Can't even roll over all the way to completely indigent. Able to pay their own bills have their own family like that. So that's our goal as a human parent.

[00:08:46] If we think of that, then God has the exact opposite goal. We come into our relationship and dependence on God as our savior and our father, we come into it fully independent. We are independent [00:09:00] operators. And then God's goal for us is to bring us into total dependence where the straw is always submerged in him.

[00:09:09] All that's coming out of us is him. And what we tend to do though, is we tend to fall back on our habits that we developed all the way from before we turn to, and the famous two-year-old words are no mine and me do it my way. So ever since we were little, we were developing these habits and they were being trained into us to actually do it.

[00:09:32] And so when we come to Christ, then we have this whole new worldview that says, oh, I'm not supposed to be doing it for God. I'm supposed to be letting God do it through me. And that's a way different place to live than performing.

[00:09:47] Scott Maderer: So what are the things you talk about is four kinds of love and three kinds of feeds.

[00:09:53] Now fear, I think and law a lot of, I think people sometimes heard that there's other different kinds of [00:10:00] love but fear three kinds of fear. I think most people think of fear as one thing. Can you unpack a little bit about what you mean by four kinds of love and three kinds of.

[00:10:08] Marnie Swedberg: Yeah. So let's start with fear. So one of the frequent definitions of fear that we hear is false evidence appearing real, and that is one kind of fear. And when we have that kind of fear, that's what I call a debilitating. This is the fear that comes basically to stop you from doing something you're supposed to do.

[00:10:30] So you've got all kinds of reasons. You can think of why you're not going to do what God's putting in your heart to do. That is false evidence appearing real. That is debilitating. And that is the kind of fear that we just we recognize. We confess, we repent. If we just keep going, I'm just going to go forward.

[00:10:46] Now. Then the next kind of fear is a cautionary. This is a really great fear. And this is a fear that God actually instilled in us as humans, so that when we hear the whistle of the train and we're on the track, we think, I think I'd better [00:11:00] get off the track or I'm going to get hit by that train. And this is a good kind of fear.

[00:11:04] It's the kind of fear that when it says don't go beyond this point because there's alligators out there. You think maybe I shouldn't go past this. That's a good kind of fear. That's healthy. That's wonderful. That's from God. And then there's the kind of fear that the Bible talks about. Fearing God is neither of those kinds of fears that isn't awesome honoring.

[00:11:26] Wow. Kind of fear that you just recognize that he is so big compared to you that there is no possible way that you're going to get into his good graces just by performance. It'd be like me thinking that I could get a conference with the president of the United States, just because I'm awesome. And then take that times 10 million and then we'd be talking something near to getting an audience of God, just because we're so cool.

[00:11:54] And so this. Fear of God is a reverence and it's a holiness. And so those are the [00:12:00] three kinds of fears. So you've got debilitating fear that we just confess away and move forward. You've got cautionary fear where you take action or you've got this awesome ongoing, honoring Reverend fear of. Yeah. So then should we move to the alumnus?

[00:12:13] Let's move to love. Oh, okay. So the ones that we're all familiar with, the human kinds of love is first of all store gay love, which is I call it the mother's mother love. This is wow, you just love your kids and you love this or that. And you just. Smother them with your love, because you're just so love them.

[00:12:33] And we can come up with a whole bunch of smother mother store gay love in our lives. And then we've got the Flay all love. This is the brotherly love. This is I would die for you, man. I, you are my friend I do anything for you and we can come up with a lot of that. And then we've got the arrow love.

[00:12:50] This is the sexual love that is married. Love. Kind of love that is reserved for the opposite sex and just to invest into one another that way. [00:13:00] Again, that can be a human love. And then we have the Gabi love with, which is the picture of God's love. Now, this kind of love we can only get at.

[00:13:09] Through God, we actually can't manufacture. God's love. We actually have to let that flow through our lives to other people and talks Scott, the Bible talks about there will be a fire that we'll go through as believers. So we're saved by faith in Jesus Christ. And then we get to the end of our lives.

[00:13:28] We go through this fire and anything that is gold and precious gems like that is going to make it through in anything that's wood, hay, and stubble. Isn't. So bottom line, if I am loving through God, if I am using God's love to love others, that's gold, that's silver, that's precious gems, but if I'm just manufacturing my own love to share with others, it is as good as it is.

[00:13:54] And that's all it is. It won't go with me and to Trinity. And I think that first Corinthians 13 is really clear [00:14:00] about that. If I give all my goods, sell all my goods to feed the poor, but I do not have God's. It's nothing. If I give my body to be burned, but I don't have gods, I got my lab. It's nothing. So is it nothing?

[00:14:12] No. You fed the poor. You did it so good for you. Great. That's awesome. But if you want it to go with you into eternity, make sure you're flowing in. God's love. Okay.

[00:14:22] Scott Maderer: So when you think about these all of these different kinds of fear and love how does this. Interface with what you were talking about earlier in terms of perspective and transforming biblical principles.

[00:14:42] What's the connection between understanding there's different kinds of love. There's different kinds of fear and helping us transform our worldview.

[00:14:53] Marnie Swedberg: I think every time that we become. Of God's love at a deeper level, [00:15:00] in a different way. It transforms us. It literally takes us from one level to another.

[00:15:05] If you think about a caterpillar turning into a butterfly that, that transformation process how does it work? The caterpillar actually intentionally goes into a small, quiet space. And sits in there as the transformation takes place. And that's what God's calling us to do. Come away with. Study this look at this from a different perspective, see who I am and how I am from a different perspective.

[00:15:32] And let me change you from the inside out. So all of this information, if you want to call it that all of this information is just to bring you to a better understanding of God's love for you. And how he isn't really expecting you to do awesome stuff, to perform your way into his graces at all, either before or after salvation, it is all about relationship and he just wants to know you better and love you more [00:16:00] and have you know him better and love him more.

[00:16:02] Scott Maderer: So with that in mind you also talk about five levels of personal power. At first glance, that's going to sound a little disconnected, but can you unpack a little bit about what you mean by that and why that's connected to what you just said?

[00:16:15] Marnie Swedberg: Yeah. So which part of it sounds disconnected

[00:16:17] Scott Maderer: to the personal, yes exactly.

[00:16:20] Marnie Swedberg: Exactly. So let me just go through this and the first four levels of personal power, you don't have to be a Christian. You don't even have to believe there is a God. You can have these first four levels of personal power even without ever acknowledging God. But the fifth level that's, what's reserved for Christians, but a lot of Christians never even lived there.

[00:16:41] So it's just really quickly unpack them. And I do a big unpack of this in the success principles, intensive coach certification program@marnie.com, but just really quickly here. The first level is personal and that's me. Equals me basically, a baby has [00:17:00] power because the baby exists. I have a new little grandson when he screams, we jump.

[00:17:07] He doesn't even have to think about it or know what he's doing. Just existing. You have power, you're taking up space, you're breathing air. So then the second level is productive. That's me. Plus actually, Equals my productive self. And when you start taking action, moving around, moving things around, you affect other people and you have power, even if you even as very little.

[00:17:34] And then the third level is creative. Meaning. Plus action plus ideas. Now this is where we, aren't just moving like a robot around doing what we have to do. This is where we start getting creative. And we have this idea about doing something that could change the world. You're doing something that could help my neighbor or doing something that would be fun, whatever we put this together with action and that is level number three, and actually [00:18:00] most people make it to level number three.

[00:18:02] At some point in their life level, number four then is the universal. And this is where you take me. I exist, plus I have action. Plus I have ideas. Plus I put passion in there. Now this is where things start really getting exciting Scott, because we're taking our ideas and our action. We're combining it with excitement.

[00:18:25] So I do a whole program called body electric. Because we are vibrating. So Scott, if I were to take a brick and put it up against the Livewire, nothing would happen. But if I take you and put you up against a live wire, we're going to have all kinds of bad stuff going on because you are electric and you interact with the other electricity that's there.

[00:18:47] And so as we're going through life, God has made the world to interact with electric. The vibes you are sending out affect your results. So when you add [00:19:00] passion and if, as a Christian, I would maybe say praise and delight and excitement the verse in Malik has God dances over you. That kind of delight all of a sudden, not only are you working toward whatever it is that your ideal.

[00:19:16] But now you're vibrating in such a way that actually everything around you is bringing what you need to take you to the next level. And all you have to do to understand this is, think about a corn kernel. It just lays in the ground, but it's vibrating like a car curdle and it draws to it. Every nutrient, everything.

[00:19:35] To grow into a corn stock and into corn Cubs so that we can eat them. If it vibrated like a pumpkin, it would be a pumpkin seed and it would grow pumpkin's you are so unique. There's nobody like you. And as you vibrate in the way that God created you to do with the ideas that he's giving you with the action that you're applying to it, while you can go places, you could never go without that.

[00:19:59] Then level [00:20:00] number five, that's eternal. And this one doesn't start with the word me, if you noticed all the other levels started with the word me, but this level starts with the word God, plus me. Plus my ideas and action plus passion. Equals and eternal results. So now not only do we get the result for what we're doing right here right now, that's good for now, but we get the result.

[00:20:24] That's going to go with us into eternity and that's where I want to live. That's what I call this program is called inspired stewardship. That's what I call inspired. Stewardship is not just doing the best I can do, but having God flow his love and life through me to everyone. Okay.

[00:20:42] Scott Maderer: And let's move to that.

[00:20:44] You just mentioned my brand is inspired stewardship. Perfect segue. So one of the questions I always ask everybody is exactly that what is stewardship to you, but then beyond that, what does that impact of that understanding, but on your life,

[00:20:57] Marnie Swedberg: Yeah. So I think stewardship is rec [00:21:00] I'm going to use an example, actually, first of all, I'm going to give you my fun fund job description, and then I'm going to use an example.

[00:21:06] So here's my fun job description. Hi, my name is Marnie Swedberg. I am the personal assistant to the king of the universe every morning. I sit with him in private consultation and get my instructions for the day. And then I go around all day running his errands and doing whatever he asks me to do while he provides all the resources I need.

[00:21:25] The pay is great, but. Retirement plan is out of this world. So that's my job description. That's how I view stewardship. It's not me coming up with a plan and asking God for his stamp of approval. It's me getting on board with what God would have me to do with his stuff today, trusting that he is going to provide what he wants me to have for whatever he's calling me to do.

[00:21:50] That stewardship. So we have owned some businesses and at our restaurant, it was our first business that we owned as a married couple. And at our restaurant, we had [00:22:00] some employees who actually literally behaved more like owners. So usually an employee will come they'll punch the clock. Ville. Our employees did a great job, served our customers were gracious and courteous to us and did what we asked them to do.

[00:22:16] And they got a paycheck for it and all that. And that's normal. But then we had some employees who went above and beyond that, in fact, if they treated our business, as if it was their business still, they knew it was our business. And if they wanted to make a change, they would ask us first, but they actually put their brains to work.

[00:22:34] And they looked for ways where they could be helpful. Sometimes they would come in after hours and even we had one gal I drove by on a Sunday. We were closed on Sundays. I drove by on a Sunday and I noticed her car there. And so I stopped in and I said, why don't you do it? And she said, I thought I'd strip and wax the floor.

[00:22:51] This is an employee. Who's acting like an owner. Another time we were out of town and we had a break-in burglars [00:23:00] broke in through the side window of the building and we were out of town. So one of our other employees, in fact, that employee didn't even work for the restaurant. She worked for us over at the retail store that we had.

[00:23:11] Since the purchase of the restaurant, we had purchased a store as well. She was an employee at the store. She saw what was going on. She had driven by, there were police cars. She saw what was going on. Her and her husband went in, they called us, they told us what was happening. They said, we'll repair the window with some boards until you get back.

[00:23:29] This is what I believe. For us to do as his stewards to not just try to get by with the bare minimum and just get the well done at the end of the day. But I think to just go over the top and to say is there anything else that I could do for you? Oh, I see that person who needs some help and I'm available.

[00:23:47] I'm going to go do that right now. Okay. Okay. Here we go. So I think that stewardship to me is very much the delighted engagement with honoring God and bringing him [00:24:00] glory.

[00:24:00] Scott Maderer: So if I embedded a machine where I could grab you from today and magically pull you into the far future a hundred to 150 years, and you were able to look back at your life and the impact that you've left behind on the world, what impact do you hope you've left behind? I'm going to just say dolphins.

[00:24:20] Marnie Swedberg: How about that?

[00:24:21] Scott Maderer: The Marine animal or the. No the animal.

[00:24:26] Marnie Swedberg: Yeah. So my heart is to encourage women, to provide them with practical help and to turn their thoughts toward Jesus. And one of the ways I do this is to make a God living life practical. So before I wrote my book feeling loved experiencing God in the minutes you have, I found a statistics that said only 3% of Americans say that they enjoy their relationship with God.

[00:24:53] Wow. That's devastating. Actually, to me, that would be like if I had a hundred children and [00:25:00] only three of them said they liked me. Wow. That's sad and God does not deserve that. God himself does not deserve that. And so I've gone about I've bought my life and my ministry, encouraging people to experience God's love in a way that allows them to enjoy him.

[00:25:18] And so the reason I said dolphins is because I use the analogy about praying without ceasing, because that one used to drive me crazy. That verse pray without ceasing. It's like how. I can't do it. I keep getting distracted all the time with life, but God gave me the analogy of the dolphin. So the dolphin is a water dweller.

[00:25:37] But an air breather lives underwater spends all of its time. Underwater does all of its work underwater, but has to come up for air every three to five minutes, or it begins to suffocate. So we are created to be earth dwellers, but prayer breathing. We're created to spend our time down here on the earth to do our work down here, but to go up for air through [00:26:00] prayer every three to five minutes or whenever we feel any kind of stress.

[00:26:04] And so as we think of the dolphin, when does the dolphin go out for prayer? Is there a timer? No, there's no timer just goes up for air when it feels like it needs air. And as we're going through life, we can enjoy this amazing relationship with God where we can go up and tap into. Anytime we need it.

[00:26:22] Ephesians two six says that we are currently seated in the heavenlies with Christ. All we have to do to experience that consciously is choose to go up for air through prayer. So that's the impact I hope to leave on the world.

[00:26:38] Scott Maderer: Awesome. Awesome. And yeah, it makes a lot more sense when you. Just, if you just randomly say dolphins to that question, that makes a lot of

[00:26:44] explanation. So I liked that answer though. I it is, yeah. It's that's comparable to allowing being in the world, but not of the world or different ways of saying it's the same thing, which is [00:27:00] one of my favorite verses. Yeah. Hard to do as well. Yeah.

[00:27:05] So what's coming next for you as, can you continue on this journey to living out your call and impacting the world? What's on the roadmap. I'm

[00:27:13] Marnie Swedberg: just so excited. I've been called a Scott to be a mentor to millions and specifically to women and the lead here's who lead them. And so I get to travel all over the world.

[00:27:24] Before COVID and hopefully after COVID in person, but in the meantime, online and do training programs and conferences and help help women in impoverished nations to learn how to start a kiosk or small business even helped. We've helped to fund dozens of. Around the world. And so I did, that's my hardest just to keep going with this mission that I have to mentor millions and what I'm mentoring people in is a perspective transforming biblical success principles.

[00:27:55] And I do that through aha insights that people come to just [00:28:00] by spending time with me, I think God has really equipped me in a unique way to express these things through now. The stories and life experiences that people can really relate to. And then they take a biblical principle that seems bigger, hard to understand it brings it down into I've been defined as a very simple, and the first time somebody said I was simple, I thought, wow.

[00:28:20] That was harsh, but I thought it was, and I realized after a while I realized, no, this is my strength is that I'd make things simple. And so now I'm no longer offended. If you call me Simple, they didn't say simple tongue. That's what they're that's a different, if they had the ton at the end then maybe you need.

[00:28:38] Scott Maderer: Awesome. Thanks so much. And you can find out more about, about Marnie over on our website@marnie.com and you can also follow her on Facebook. His mentor, Marnie on LinkedIn is Marnie Swedberg or an Instagram is mentor Marnie as well. And of course I'll have links to all of that over in the show notes.

[00:28:58] Marnie, is there anything else you'd like to [00:29:00] share with.

[00:29:00] Marnie Swedberg: Here's a line that I've become famous for. So I want to share it with you in a little explanation. So the line is there is time to do everything God wants us to do. And the explanation is this. There's not time to do everything. There's not time to do everything good.

[00:29:19] There's not time to do everything everybody else wants you to do. There's not even time to do everything you want to do, but because God has God, there must be time to do everything he wants you to do. So I just encourage you to rest into the reality that God is good. He created you uniquely. He has wonderful plans to use your life for now and for eternity.

[00:29:41] And that if you just will allow him to be your God, you will experience inspired stewardship of your life as you go forward, living for him and with him living through.

[00:29:53] Scott Maderer: Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast, as a subscriber and listener, we [00:30:00] 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 enjoy this episode. Please do us a favor. Go over to inspired stewardship.com/itunes rate.

[00:30:21] All one word iTunes rate. It'll take you through how to leave a rating and review and how to make sure you're subscribed to the podcast so that you can get every episode as it comes out. Until next time, invest your time, your talent and your treasures. Develop your influence and impact the world.