Jolt!, Phil Cooke [reading women txt] 📗

and I love a nice house and car. But ultimately it means nothing if we haven’t answered the most important questions of our lives.

To start your spiritual journey, here are some important directions on the map:

1. Spend time with others who are honestly searching. Perhaps it’s a local church, prayer group, or like-minded friends. Make the effort to find people who can help you get the answers you need and encourage your spiritual growth. I’m a Christian, so naturally I recommend a good local church. You’ll discover new friends—friends who don’t care about your money, your status, or your career. Friends who will love you for who you are, not what you are.

2. Look outward, not inward. Help other people. Serve others. Albert Schweitzer said, “I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.” Those who help others are the happiest people on the earth. It’s not about you; it’s about your ability to help other people. Discover that principle and your life will immediately change.

3. Start to pray. Praying isn’t hard; it’s simply talking to God. You don’t have to use big words, fancy religious terms, or religious lingo. Simply talk to him as you would a friend. Share your challenges, your frustrations, and your dreams. You can pray while you drive a car, sit at your desk, or mow the lawn. Prayer is something that shouldn’t be saved for “official” religious events—it’s something that can happen anytime and anyplace. Prayer is your opportunity to connect to a power far greater than us. Make the connection, and then learn to listen.

4. Take your faith seriously. Real faith is not about candles, pretty jewelry, and stained glass windows. People of faith created the university system, built orphanages, started great libraries, encouraged learning, birthed hospitals, and every day help millions devastated by hurricanes, famines, and disasters of all kinds. When you realize that your life has meaning, you suddenly have a reason to live a life of purpose. One of our greatest desires is to live a life of significance, and we want to make a genuine difference in the world.

Jolt your preconceived notions about God. Faith affects us at the core of our being, and that’s why it is so instrumental to our personal change. A hundred years from now it won’t matter so much that you increased quarterly profits, doubled sales, lost weight, or bought a lake house. What will matter is what you left behind in the lives of people. If we want to change the world, we have to start by changing our spiritual outlook.

We don’t have all the answers, but we are connected to a God who does.

REVIEW

Jolt Your Heart

Consider the importance of personal cheerleaders, accountability partners, changing perspective, and your relationship with God.

1. Find your own personal cheerleaders. Who could motivate you to greater levels of excellence?

2. If you’re struggling with a particular personal challenge, list potential accountability partners. Begin interviewing people you believe would be good partners in sharing dreams and in holding each other accountable. Or find someone who will agree to hold you accountable.

3. What can I do to change my perception? How can I increase my personal value to others through the use of positive perception?

4. How can I . . .

• increase my potential through better thinking?

• maximize my gifts and skills through strategic thinking?

• multiply my options through creative thinking?

• overcome defeat and obstacles through real positive thinking?

• experience success through long-range thinking?

Make a commitment today to deepening your relationship with God. Find areas where you can immediately grow, such as attending church, meeting with a study group, taking a class, reading books on the subject, and so on.

JOLT

YOUR

FUTURE

» JOLT #21

ELIMINATE DESTRUCTIVE

DISTRACTIONS

Releasing Negative Baggage

Keep your mind off the things you don’t want by keeping it on the things you do want.

—W. CLEMENT STONE, MOTIVATIONAL EXPERT

Sometimes you have to let go to see if there was anything worth holding on to.

—ANONYMOUS

We live in a culture of distraction. Everywhere we turn, we are bombarded by the noise of radio and television, mobile phones, computers, social networking, and music and video players—not to mention video screens in gas pumps and elevators and more.

It occurred to me some time ago that there are few places in the United States where you can’t receive a wireless signal of some type—either a satellite signal, a radio or TV station, a cell phone transmission, or a wireless computer connection. We are bathed in frequencies, signals, and transmissions.

It’s not much better with our personal schedules. Remember when children used to actually play? Now kids are scheduled from dawn to dusk—school, soccer practice, music practice, church youth groups, and more. The term “soccer mom” has become almost synonymous with suburban living.

At the office we have seminars, workshops, meetings, focus groups, team gatherings—there is rarely a time when we have a moment to ourselves.

And can we talk about social networking for a minute? Yes, in many cases it’s very convenient, but people popping up on your computer screen all day wanting to talk may be the single biggest distraction in offices today. It’s become the number one messaging source for younger people—far more than e-mail. But there’s no question that if you don’t turn that thing off occasionally, it can drain hours at a time.

In his remarkable book The Answer to How Is Yes: Acting on What Matters, Peter Block said:

It is entirely possible to spend our days engaged in activities that work well for us and achieve our objectives, and still wonder whether we are really making a difference in the world. My premise is that this culture, and we as members of it, have yielded too easily to what is doable and practical and popular.