Widsom: Chip Gaines

Good Tuesday morning friends.

I finished Chip's book this morning during my morning basement bike ride.  I really encourage each of you to purchase this book and read it.

It is a great motivator to get outside of yourself, set goals, and act on them.  A great book on how to live a good life and from a good standpoint.

I'm sure I don't need to tell you Chip's resume.  Most of us are already familiar with Chip and his wife Joanna and their cultural phenomenon Magnolia - a small idea they dreamed up together early in their relationship.

What I do want to share with you is one of the last things Chip said in his book.  Last page, last chapter:

"I believe each one of you still has important things to do, or you wouldn't still be here on this earth.  Hear me now:  if you are able to read this book, you are able to change the world.  It might be through small, every day choices but those initial sparks can set the whole world on fire.

As for me, all I've ever wanted, when you get right down to it, is to change the world.  I don't literally mean the whole world.  That would be nice, I guess, but what I really care about is changing the world around me.  This means pouring into the lives of my wife and my kids, my employees, my friends, and my acquaintances.  That's the ripple effect I've always hoped to put into motion.

Rather than taking the easy way out, I learned to trust myself.

That voice we hear when we're thinking about going out on a limb - tune into it.

There's the one thing I want to leave with you:  trusting your gut is the first step.  Although that first step won't be enough to get you across the finish line, it's definitely the hardest - and the most important - of every single one that follows."

So, here's what I leave you with to ponder this morning and throughout your day.  As you drive to work, as you (maybe) sit in your cubile.  As you drive to Target.  As you drive to the grocery store.  As you drive home.

What motivates you?  What lights a fire in you?  Don't let fear win.  Be passionate about the gifts and talents you've been given.  Gifts are meant to be shared.  Go out and make a difference today!

Ecclesiastes 3: What do workers gain from their toll?  I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race.  He has made everything beautiful in its time.  He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God had done from beginning to end.  I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live.  That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil - this is the gift of God."

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Team of Rivals

 

Happy Saturday.  I hope you are enjoying this (for us anyway) dark, windy, and rainy morning.

I love the rain; it's my favorite weather (barring a hurricane or flood of course).  I love a good daily rain when I'm home.  I don't know.  It just refreshes my soul.  I feel like my soul relaxes and INHALES.  A stark contrast to the heat.  I hate summer, and most especially the dreaded month of August.

I feel that by August, we are already hot and tired and then along comes AUGUST, full of MORE heat and higher temps.  It's so draining!  Our yards look tired; the plants are wilting; and it's just not a good month at all.  (I think that's one reason Sept. and Fall are so welcoming!)

Rainy days in August just refresh and refuel my soul.

So, it was with a welcome breath of fresh air that I picked up Chip Gaines' book, "Capital Gaines" to continue reading while I road my stationary bike this morning.  Particularly, chapter 14.  If you haven't read this book (or anything in a while) - I suggest finding the book and just going straight to chapter 14.

This book is a few years old now, and yes, I am late to the Magnolia party.  However, what Chip wrote in chapter 14 is still relevant today - ESPECIALLY today.

Most of you that follow me know that I have a hard time being positive and leaning to the happier side.  I just gravitate to the negative side immediately.  It's something Jesus and I are constantly battling and working on.  In fact, Jesus must think He's winning the battle because when he sent my boyfriend into my life two years ago, he sent (by far) one of the most happy and positive people ever created straight into my path.  But that is a who other story for a whole other blog post!

Back to Chip Gaines and chapter 14...

In light of keeping this blog post short, I will only quote a few things from the book - but the chapter impacted me so much this morning, that I felt I should share with you some important things Chip wrote for all of us to read.  In light of today's culture and politics, these words are SO ENDEARING and should be committed to heart.

I can't say I agree with the entire chapter at 100%, but I do agree with it at least 90%.  Chip is a much better person than me, and I can't help but think that Jesus is putting another mark in His "W" column by putting this book in my path (a friend showed up at work with it in his hands, stood in front of my desk, and said, "Here, read these.").

So without further adieu, here are some words of wisdom from Chip Gaines, and I hope they impact and touch your heart like they did mine this morning!

Happy weekending y'all!

• It's easy to judge other people's characters and snub or stiff-arm them before even getting to know what makes them tick or where they're coming from.  But when you spend hours working hard toward a common goal with someone, your differences and preferences tend to fall by the wayside.  Being down in that ditch makes a way for us to gain a new respect for one another.  It makes space to really listen.
  
  
• If I populate my life with people just like me, then my world is going to be mighty small, indeed - maybe only one person deep in all directions.  If there are no opposing views, no fresh vantage points, then there is no stretching beyond myself.  No growth.  No change.
  
  
• Some people show enormous resistance to modifying even a fraction of themselves.  They're not about to shift the way they think or what they think they know.  They simply expect others to get with the program - to adjust their mindset and fall into their way of thinking.  How ignorant for any one of us to assume that we have a monopoly on right perspective and no one else holds even a piece of the puzzle.  How arrogant to just demand that people change for us without ever making the effort to know them as human beings or understand where they're coming from.
  
  
• I wonder if being angrily shouted at or arrogantly debated with has ever swayed a single person?  Are human hearts moved by being ridiculed and mocked?  When people fling accusations with the presumption of knowing another person's intentions, what possible outcome could they be hoping for?  Who would ever move to their enemy's camp under such treatment?  We won't get ANYWHERE, that no healing or breakthrough can occur apart from developing actual relationships with one another.
  
  
• ...it's a matter of rolling up your sleeves and learning to work with people who don't think the way you do.  ...it's a lot of gathering around tables to eat good food and talk.  ...if you come to SHARE, you also have come PREPARED TO HEAR what is being said.  It's not enough to just hear; you must also LISTEN.
  
  
• There is no chance for any of us to see eye to eye if we are unwilling to even look in each other's direction.  Hate masquerading as righteousness can sit in church every Sunday and no one bats an eye.  Contempt and judgment clothed in concern says more about "the concerned" than "the concerning."
  
  
• I believe we are all children of God, the whole lot of us.  This means that we are all inherently beautiful, flawed as we are.  We all have truth and goodness within us, and our lives were created with intentionality; we were born for a purpose.  Every person that you happen upon in your lifetime has a story to tell.  Every person on the planet has the ability to teach us, if we'll only be willing to listen.
  
  
• If we could get  handle on what this "team of rivals" thing is all about, we just might become formidable in a way the world has never seen.

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