The Way You've Been Taught To Plan is Likely WRONG

I quick research (Google) on “business planning” overall says the same-old-thing…..1 year plans, 3 year plans, even 5 year plans.
 

That worked for Columbus and the Pilgrims. They’d need something, send a courier across the sea to England and 6-8 months later, get it. No big deal if it was another few months, ok. Everything moved slowly.

It worked for Ford and Carnegie. It even worked for Jobs and Gates, but they and others changed the scope of planning.

Today’s planning has to be short-term, with shorter-term checks and balances.

Today’s business moves FAST. Planning and goals must be short-term, vision long-term. 
 

Moran and Lennington have nailed it in their book “The 12 Week Year.” They propose a 12 week plan that’s carried out through weekly plans carried out with daily execution.

And it works!

To the point behind the 12 Week Year, there might be a place for long-term planning but I’m not wasting my time imagining where.

 

I get planning. I get putting together some good what-if scenarios. I get having big hairy audacious goals. But that’s not planning. Planning is what we do to prepare to carry out those goals, intentions and aspirations.

 

And planning more than a few weeks is lazy. Pure laziness because the planners know they need to plan, but they know the 1 year plan is useless after a few weeks, even a few days. Yet, they don’t want to take the time to continuously re-engage in he planning process.

So, why waste time making a plan you know can’t be carried out?

Who can put together a plan, divide it up into quarters and expect to follow it to any extent?
 

Definitely not an engaging salesperson. It’ve been using the periodization technique describe in The 12 Week Year for over a year. Actually, I’m in my 5th 12th Week Year.It’s a game changer and I’m not sure that 12 weeks isn’t too long. Business moves fast. Competitors most fast. New opportunities come at the engaging salesperson and they come FAST.

To that end, be great-in-the-moment.

My Method of Navigation Planning and Structure - adapted from The Law of Navigation by John C. Maxwell

1. I plan to plan.

2. I determine my primary purpose in each role

3. I assess the situation.

4. I prioritize the needs.

5. I ask questions.

6. I set specific goals.

7. I clarify and communicate.

8. I identify possible obstacles.

9. I plan no more than twelve weeks.

10. I schedule everything I can.

11. I budget everything I can.

12. I measure lead and lag indicators.

13. I study the results and make corrections where necessary.

14. I do less and obsess.

Remember, anyone can steer the ship, but it takes a leader to chart the course - John C. Maxwell

The Transforming Power of Mental Renewal

http://www.geistchapel.org/content.cfm?id=213&download_id=307

Jordan Raynor: Passion - Competence ≠ Calling

Discerning Your Calling Devotional 3 of 4 "We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith." Romans 12:6 (NIV) Last week, we saw that identifying our passions are key in the process of discerning our calling. But passion without competence is worthless. In Romans 12:6, Paul said, "Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly." We have largely ignored this verse in the Church today, choosing to define calling as simply what we are really passionate about, rather than the intersection of both our passions and giftings. Our work won't feel like a calling until we reimagine it as service to our Caller and the world. It's impossible to serve someone well if you aren't gifted at your craft. You may be really passionate about wanting to fly an airplane, but if you've never been to flight school, you won't be serving others by taking the controls in the cockpit. You may really want to be an entrepreneur, but if you've started multiple companies and have consistently lost investors' money and laid off employees, are you really serving others through your chosen work? In order to best glorify our Creator and serve others, we should do the work we are best at, work that God has equipped us to do exceptionally well. In her classic essay, Why Work? renowned British novelist Dorothy Sayers said, "The Church's approach to an intelligent carpenter is usually confined to exhorting him not to be drunk and disorderly in his leisure hours, and to come to church on Sundays. What the Church should be telling him is this: that the very first demand that his religion makes upon him is that he should make good tables." Nobody starts their career knowing what they will be exceptionally good at. We learn what giftings God has given us through continual trial and error. Individual failures don't necessarily mean that we aren't gifted and called to a particular line of work. But if we are to glorify God and serve others through our vocations, we should be in a continual process of analyzing where our passions and giftings align. It is that intersection that brings us one step closer to discerning our calling. -- Jordan Raynor Author, Called to Create Share Tweet Share Forward

Is Interest on Home Equity Loans Tax Deductible?

The Internal Revenue Service recently advised taxpayers that interest on a home equity loan used to build an addition to an existing home is typically deductible, while interest on the same loan used to pay personal living expenses, such as credit card debts, is not. Click here to view the announcement.  Here are three examples from the announcement:

• Example 1: In January 2018, a taxpayer takes out a $500,000 mortgage to purchase a main home with a fair market value of $800,000.  In February 2018, the taxpayer takes out a $250,000 home equity loan to put an addition on the main home. Both loans are secured by the main home and the total does not exceed the cost of the home. Because the total amount of both loans does not exceed $750,000, all of the interest paid on the loans is deductible. However, if the taxpayer used the home equity loan proceeds for personal expenses, such as paying off student loans and credit cards, then the interest on the home equity loan would not be deductible.

On a quote: Dallas Willard

I've squinted this morning on this quote from Dallas Willard..

"The main thing God gets out of my life is the person I become. The main thing I get out of my life is the person I become."

I need an emoji for astonishment!

At first hearing this, I was taken back. I'd never thought of it/life/things that way and wanted to object.

But I had to consider the sources. First, it's a quote from Dallas Willard. Second, the quote was quoted by Max Anders in his sermon on Life's Purpose.

What if it is true? What if I did agree?

"The main thing God gets out of my life is the person I become. The main thing I get out of my life is the person I become."

Then, my friend John Becker sent a text with....

"Today, instead of 'What am I getting out of this worship?', maybe we should ask 'What is God getting out of my worship?" '
- Rick Atchley

Piling it on! I love it when I see God's plan coming together.

#OnwardAndUpward

The 7Ps of Picking the Right Employer

What do sales people look for in an employer?

Purpose
People
Pricing
Pay
Platforms
Products
Processes

 

Dualism in the Christian Era, by John D. Beckett

From "Loving Monday," by John D. Beckett 

The Greeks couldn't get away from the concept of "dualism"—the idea of higher and lower planes of ideas and activities. 

Plato was the clearest on this. He sought to identify unchanging universal truths, placing them in the higher of two distinct realms. 

This upper level he called "form," consisting of eternal ideas. The lower level he called "matter." This lower realm was temporal and physical. Plato's primary interest lay in the higher form. He deemed it superior to the temporary and imperfect world of matter. 

The rub comes when we see where Plato placed work and occupations. Where, indeed? In the lower realm.

Nearly a thousand years later, in the fifth century A.D., Augustine sought to merge Platonic thought into a Christian framework. This approach resulted in a distinction between "contemplative life" and "active life"—the same distinction between higher and lower, but with different names. 

The higher of these realms came to be equated with church-related concerns that were considered sacred, such as Bible study, preaching and evangelism. 

Other things were secular, common, lacking in nobility. 

Where did Augustine place work and occupations? As with Plato before him, in the lower realm. 

Thomas Aquinas, in the thirteenth century, furthered this derogatory notion of work as he perpetuated the dualism of Greek thinking. He also categorized life into two realms, which he called Grace and Nature. Revelation, which gave understanding to theology and church matters, operated in the upper realm of Grace. 

In the lower realm of Nature, man's "natural" intellect stood squarely on its own. Business and occupations, operating in the lower realm, didn't require revelation. 

According to Aquinas, they survived quite well on a diet of human intellect and reasoned judgment. 

Now we bring this dichotomy up to the present. Francis Schaeffer, one of the modern era's greatest thinkers, wrote on the more recent impact of dualistic thinking. In A Christian Manifesto, he speaks of the flawed view of Christianity advanced through the Pietist movement in the seventeenth century. 

Pietism began as a healthy protest against formalism and a too abstract Christianity. But it had a deficient, 'platonic' spirituality. It was platonic in the sense that Pietism made a sharp division between the 'spiritual' and the 'material' world—giving little, or no, importance to the 'material' world. 

The totality of human existence was not afforded a proper place. Christianity and spirituality were shut up to a small, isolated part of life. 

The result of such a view is that the activity of work is removed from the sacred realm and placed squarely in the secular—making it "impossible" to serve God by being a man or woman in business. 

To me, this is a startling revelation! 

Now here's a question for you. Has this view affected you, as it has me? Second-Class? 

I can now see that the perspective of the Greeks, established so many years ago, continues alive and well to the present day, influencing and distorting our perception of work. 

For years, I thought my involvement in business was a second-class endeavor—necessary to put bread on the table, but somehow less noble than more sacred pursuits like being a minister or a missionary. 

The clear impression was that to truly serve God, one must leave business and go into "full-time Christian service." Over the years, I have met countless other business people who feel the same way. 

The reason is clear: Our culture is thoroughly saturated with dualism. In this view, business and most occupations are relegated to the lower, the worldly, the material realm. As such they are perceived to lack dignity, spirituality, intrinsic worth, and the nobility of purpose they deserve. 

Schaeffer, looking back over the legacy of nearly three millennia of Greek thought, proposes this radically different view of true spirituality: It is not only that true spirituality covers all of life, but it covers all parts of the spectrum of life equally. In this sense there is nothing concerning reality that is not spiritual. 

Indeed, there is a dramatically different way to view the world and our work—a view that liberated me to see business as a high calling. But to find this view, I had to look through a different window. 

This text is from "Loving Monday," by John D. Beckett, pages 67-69

Why it's Important to Avoid New Credit and New Inquiries When You're Getting a Home Loan

  

Inquiries on made by creditors on your credit report affect your credit score for up to one year from the time the inquiries are made. This has a 10% impact on your credit score.

Your score isn't impacted when you check your own report. It's only affected if a potential creditor checks your credit. These include department stores, as well as credit card, auto finance and mortgage companies. Here are three steps you can take to improve your credit score in this area:

• Multiple auto and mortgage inquiries are treated as only one inquiry if made within a short time of each other. So, it's better to shop for a car or a mortgage over a two-week time-frame, rather than to prolong it over a longer timeframe;
• Don't apply for a lot of credit or open multiple credit cards at the same time; and,
• If you're thinking of applying for a mortgage within the next 90 days, it would be good to wait until after your loan closes before you apply for any new credit.

Also, keep in mind that any new credit or new credit inquiries can raise a red flag when you’re in the middle of a loan application.  That’s because mortgage lenders are required to look into this, and the possibility of new debt could endanger your ability to get qualified for a home loan.

Let me know if you have any questions or if I can be a resource to you in any way!

Source: CMPS Institute

Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, by Donald S. Whitney

"Commenting on the difference between the disciplined and the undisciplined way, he wrote, Nothing was ever achieved without discipline; and many an athlete and many a man has been ruined because he abandoned discipline and let himself grow slack. 

Coleridge is the supreme tragedy of indiscipline. Never did so great a mind produce so little. He left Cambridge University to join the army; but he left the army; he returned to Oxford and left without a degree. 

He began a paper called The Watchman which lived for ten numbers and then died. It has been said of him: "He lost himself in visions of work to be done, that always remained to be done. Coleridge had every poetic gift but one—the gift of sustained and concentrated effort." 

In his head and in his mind he had all kinds of books. But the books were never composed outside Coleridge's mind, because he would not face the discipline of sitting down to write them out. 

No one ever reached any eminence, and no one having reached it ever maintained it, without discipline." 

from "Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life" by Donald S. Whitney

Segment from ‘Pursue Value Not Goals,’ by Morten Hansen

from "Great at Work: How Top Performers Do Less, Work Better, and Achieve More" by Morten Hansen

The value equation hinges on three components. The first of these has to do with how much your work benefits other people or your organization. The phrase "benefits to others" can mean contributing to your department, your office, a colleague, your company, your customers, your clients, or your suppliers (or even to the community or environment). The benefits themselves can take various forms, including enabling others to do their jobs better, helping create new products, or devising better methods for getting work done. 

The second component of value is the quality of your work—the degree of accuracy, insight, novelty, and reliability of your work output. 

The final component of value is how efficiently you work. 

To produce great value at work is to create output that benefits others tremendously and that is done efficiently and with high quality.

The Myth of Learning Styles, by Adam Grant

Your learning style is about how you like to learn, not how you learn best.

Although you might enjoy listening, reading, or doing, there's no compelling evidence that you learn better that way—and sometimes we actually learn more when we're out of our comfort zone.

Plus, many tasks aren't suited to every mode of learning: "You can't visualize a perfect French accent."

What is the lowest credit score for USDA?

The lowest credit score a person can have on a USDA loan is 640.

 

To clarify, that’s the lowest of the three scores normally used pulled in a Mortgage Credit Report (MCR).

 

If there are only two scores available, then it’s the lowest of the two scores used for underwriting.

 

****Remember, guidelines change. Check with your lender for current information or contact Danny.

Productivity and Purpose, according to Tim Challies

Challies, Tim. Do More Better: A Practical Guide to Productivity. Challies, 2015. Kindle file

Productivity is effectively stewarding your gifts, talents, time, energy, and enthusiasm for the good of others and the glory of God. Productivity calls you to direct your whole life at this great goal of bringing glory to God by doing good for others.- page 16

Your purpose: to glorify God by doing good to others. There is no better plan and no higher ideal. - page 18

 

A Productivity Catechism, by Tim Challies

From: Challies, T. (2015). Do More Better: A Practical Guide to Productivity

Know Your Purpose

A Productivity Catechism An understanding of productivity needs to begin with an understanding of the reason you exist. Productivity is not what will bring purpose to your life, but what will enable you to excel in living out your existing purpose.

I am going to lead you through a brief Productivity Catechism, a series of questions and answers. Only when you understand these foundational matters about your God-given purpose and mission will you be ready to get to work. 

Q1. Ultimately, why did God create you? 

A. God created me to bring glory to him.

Q2. How can you glorify God in your day-to-day life? 

A. I can glorify God in my day-to-day life by doing good works.

Q3. What are good works?

 A. Good works are deeds done for the glory of God and the benefit of other people.Good works, then, are any and all of those deeds you do for the benefit of others.

Q4. But you are a sinful person. Can you actually do good works? 

A. Yes. Christians are able to do good works because of the finished work of Christ.

Q5. In what areas of life should you emphasize good works? 

A. I ought to emphasize good works at all times and in all areas of life.

Q6. What is productivity? 

A. Productivity is effectively stewarding my gifts, talents, time, energy, and enthusiasm for the good of others and the glory of God

Are only two credit scores acceptable on a USDA loan?

Yes, only two credit scores are acceptable on a USDA loan.

Remember, guidelines change. Check with your lender for current information or contact Danny.

What does it mean to glorify God? - Matt Perman

....To glorify God means to give him weight. To give him ultimate significance and centrality in your life and actions.

In other words, to glorify God means to act in ways that show he matters most in each decision you make. It is to have ultimate regard for him in all that you do, coming from love for him.


https://www.whatsbestnext.com/2018/03/mean-glorify-god/

Get Tougher, by Jock Willink

When people think of the words "mind control," they think of people controlling the minds of other people.

Not me. I think about controlling my own mind.

I control it.

How do I do something? DO IT!

How do I get up earlier? GET UP EARLIER!

How do I stop eating sugar? STOP EATING SUGAR!!

How do I work out every day? WORK OUT EVERYDAY!!

It's all about controlling my mind.

It's all about being tougher.

How do I get tougher? BE TOUGHER!!!

I have to have control over my mind. I have to assert it.

I have to decide that I am going to be in control, that I am gone Ng to do what I want to do.

Weakness doesn't get a vote. Laziness doesn't get a vote. Sadness doesn't get a vote. Frustration doesn't get a vote.

Negativity-doesn't-get-a-vote."

- Jock Willink

“Whining and bitching about traffic, weather and slow computer? STOP WHINING AND BITCHING

Traffic a problem? LEAVE EARLIER 

Don’t like the cold weather? MOVE FARTHER SOUTH. 

Weather too hot? MOVE NORTH 

Computer or internet slow? BUY A MORE POWERFUL COMPUTER or GET MORE BAND-WIDTH.

Take ownership of your life.

Someone didn't do something they were supposed to do for you? TAKE OWNERSHIP, LOOK INSIDE YOU. WHAT WORDS WERE YOU SAYING TO YOURSELF AND OTHERS?

STOP LOOKING FOR WAYS TO BE OFFENDED"

- Danny L. Smith