Jolt!, Phil Cooke [reading women txt] 📗

way, you lose. You must realize that your perceived enemy can be your greatest friend. Learn from your competitors—both the good and the bad. The key is keeping an open mind. Leave your prejudices about their business at the door and objectively study how they work. It will expand your thinking and enlarge your perspective.

Study the legends in your business.

Why waste your life hitting walls, making mistakes, and tripping over obstacles, when you could easily learn from others who have gone before? Isaac Newton, considered by many to be the father of modern science, said, “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Study the lives and accomplishments of those in business, sports, politics, the arts, and other areas that could benefit you. Head to the biography section of your favorite bookstore and start reading. Learn from their mistakes, so you can move ahead faster and with much less frustration.

Become active in organizations related to your business or passion.

Becoming active in trade organizations, business seminars, and workshop events gives you the unique opportunity to network and discover new methods, new perspectives, and new techniques. Find out what others are doing and use that for your benefit. It will enlarge your vision and widen your perspective.

Nothing will jolt your thinking faster than seeing how others do your job. And nothing will help you appreciate your situation better than seeing other failures!

Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.

—JOHN LOCKE, PHILOSOPHER

Jolt your thinking today. Make good thinking intentional and deliberate, and make it a priority.

Your thoughts impact your life in very physical, tangible ways, and nothing you can do will contribute to changing your life more than transforming your thinking.

» JOLT #20

DISCOVER THE POWER OF FAITH

The Awesome Power in Looking Beyond Yourself

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.

—ALBERT EINSTEIN

He has put eternity in their hearts.

—ECCLESIASTES 3:11 NKJV

The search for eternal answers is so embedded in our DNA that without addressing spirituality we would miss a significant part of understanding the power of change. There are many books that address emotional, physical, and intellectual needs, but our spiritual longings are just as critical to a fulfilled life. When it comes to the faith that’s played such an integral part in the making of America, however, we’re suddenly getting a case of amnesia.

As I write this chapter, it is Christmas, and a great controversy is brewing across America. It has been reported that our culture has become so uncomfortable with Christianity that shopkeepers, clerks, executives, and salespeople are being advised to say “Happy holidays” rather than “Merry Christmas.” Some school systems—mostly unaware of the law—are forbidding their students to sing Christmas carols in their concerts, and some are even referring to the season as “winter holidays” instead of “Christmas holidays.”

At least we’re not quite as far down that road as France. Major newspapers reported recently that even chocolate candy featuring religious themes was now banned from schools.

I comment on these developments not because I want to push religion down anyone’s throat. I’m always ready to share my own personal journey of faith, but only when people are ready to listen. I write this because I grow more and more amazed at America’s awkwardness with religious faith.

Yes, we need to be sensitive to people of all faiths. There was a place in ancient Greece called Mars Hill. It was where philosophers, thinkers, religious leaders, and writers of the time went to discuss new ideas. In many ways, it was a “marketplace” of beliefs, attitudes, religious ideas, and thought. When the apostle Paul visited Mars Hill to share the news about Jesus Christ, he not only recognized their gods but also was able to knowledgeably discuss their traditions and beliefs. Then, when he began sharing his own spiritual experience, it was in a direct but sensitive way, and not only did the audience listen, but many asked him to come back again.

But today, while our culture preaches tolerance, there is almost a hostility toward spiritual concepts and ideas—particularly those expressed through what is generally considered “organized” religion. As a result, we now have a generation that has grown up without any knowledge of spiritual principles whatsoever.

I was shopping for a gift for my wife in a jewelry market in downtown Los Angeles, when I noticed a young couple looking at necklaces. As they viewed the glass case, I overheard them discussing the various designs—particularly of the cross necklaces. At one end were simple, modern cross designs, while at the other end of the cabinet, the designs became more complex and ended with a section of traditional crosses with the figure of Jesus hanging on the crosses.

As the couple looked down the row of necklaces, I noticed that the woman suddenly stopped and remarked to her boyfriend, “Wow, those are really beautiful cross necklaces!” Then she stopped in her tracks. “But wait a second. Who’s that little guy on those crosses over there?”

The young couple apparently had absolutely no idea who the figure of Jesus was hanging on the cross necklace.

Until relatively recently, that scene would never have happened.

From the time William Tyndale translated the Bible into English in 1526, its impact on the West has been overwhelming—even to the point of the development of the English language as we know it today. Phrases like “the skin of my teeth,” “the handwriting on the wall,” “still small voice,” “a thorn in the flesh,” “the fat of the land,” “a law unto himself,” and “root of all evil” are all common phrases taken directly from Tyndale’s translation of the Bible.

The Bible transformed literacy and learning even in the