Life advice

What are you doing with your Life?

Posted on by Jon DeLange

What are you going to do?

Where are you going to college?

What kind of job are you going to have?

What are you going to do with your life?

If you’ve ever gotten sick of listening to people ask you these questions. You’re totally normal. Don’t worry, everyone ends up with these type of questions at some point in their life.

The good news is that there is a good way to answer. The answer isn’t in full, you won’t have a complete answer until you are done with your life. And that is good.

There is a very simple Three step Process that answers a lot of these questions. That process is simple, but it is not necessarily easy.

The simple process is this:

Define —> Learn —> Do 

In a short summary, the way it works goes like this. Define what you want, whether that is lifestyle, income, legacy, relationships, contributions, etc. Learn how to get that from someone who has that type of result in life. And Finally, go and do what they tell you to do.

Like I said, this process is simple but not easy. There are hundreds of ways to mess this process up. Only three steps! And yet it is contrary to what so many people tell you or ask you. Go check out those four questions that we started out with and notice that not one of them start with the first step in the process! If you don’t start with Defining what or where you are headed, how will you know who to learn from or what to do?

I think it is ridiculous how much pressure is put on young people to make decisions about the third step in the process with little to no thought put to the first two steps!

So what now? How can we remedy this? Why would I tell you about the Define —> Learn —> Do process and leave you hanging?

One tool that I have recently come across is a great book called PAiLS by Chris Brady. I read this book about a week ago, it was so chock full of truth that I read through it in only a couple days.

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PAiLS is an acronym for P.otential & A.ctualization i.nto L.egacy & S.pillage. I won’t spoil the book for you, but each of us has potential to be great in our own way that we implement through actualization into our enduring legacy (with some missed opportunities becoming spillage). This can be easily visualized as a Potential pail pouring out into a Legacy Pail.

“Becoming all you can be will require all that you are.” -Chris Brady

So as we consider Defining our life, a concept from PAiLS is valuable. The idea from Brady that life is lived out in layers! This youtube video by Chris Brady (Click Here) goes into Layer idea for about 10 minutes and is a good overview of the concept.

This can be a great introduction for one to understand that simply answering the question of “Are you going to _____ college?” isn’t enough planning for their future. There needs to be two previous steps, first to understand if College is going to provide a pathway to the life you wants and second to see if those that you’ll learn from have the results that they are teaching about. And that is only one of the questions…. to find out what you’ll do, you have some other things to think about first.

“Our greatest fear should not be that we won’t succeed, but rather that we will succeed at something that doesn’t matter.”   – D.L. Moody.

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WordPress on Words

Posted on by Jon DeLange

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Your Words set you apart.

You have a power that goes beyond muscles, or intellect, or even your skills. The words that we say can build up, tear apart, enable others or hold someone back.

Words come at us in all different styles. Writing, speaking, movies, music, school, all these things are based in different ways on words. Those of us that have committed to being excellent dare not overlook the pathway we have to another’s mind.

Think for just a second about how clearly you can remember that stinging insult from years ago as a child, from another kid who perhaps was just messing around. Or the words of praise from a teacher or parent that came out of nowhere on a bad day that instantly made you stand straighter and look brighter. Your words are a portal to someone else’s soul.

“The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.” Proverbs 18:21

Here’s a question to think about, how likely are others to uplift you if you’re complaining and being bummed out? If your fruit is “death” so to speak- do you think that other people will paste a smile on their face and compliment you on what a good influence you are? No.

Zig Ziglar, american author, motivational speaker, and widely considered the greatest salesman of all time came up with the gem,

“You can have everything in life that you want if you just give enough other people what they want.”

Just think about your last week, and I’ll bet you that you can remember every single genuine compliment or bit of sincere praise that you received. Think you can figure out what other people want??

Now don’t go around telling bald guys that they’re having a great hair day. You have to be sincere! And if the other person can tell that you’re trying to get something out of them, your compliment loses a lot of its value.

So try it out, next time you see a friend, a coworker, your sister… find something that you can compliment!

If you’re still thinking too much about this, check out this chart.

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I would recommend NOT using the “sexy” ending, your sincere compliment may get you smacked.

Remember, Your words are a portal directly to another’s soul and you have the power to give others what they’re truly looking for. So what are you waiting for? Give honest, sincere appreciation.

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