Daily Inspiration 4-2-20

"Once you find your why, 

you will be able to find your way." 

-- John C. Maxwell 

New: Audio version

[Classic post from 11-29-15]

Continuing reading in John C. Maxwell's newest book, Intentional Living, I love the chapter titled, Search Until You Find Your Why. Here's what John says about why our why is important:

"If you know your why and focus on going there with fierce determination, you can make sense of everything on your journey because you see it through the lens of why. This makes the way so much more meaningful and complete because you have the context to understand the reason you're on the journey in the first place."

I would rather use the word focus than fierce determination; nonetheless, understanding why we want a thing, why we do things can be very enlightening.

At the end of the chapter, John shares an idea about starting with one word: "Another way to help you discover your why is to focus on the core of who you are and see what grows from that."

He shares that in his book, Aspire, Kevin Hall writes, "The first thing I do when I'm coaching someone who aspires to stretch, grow and go higher in life is to have that person select the one word that best describes him or her. Once a person does that, it's as if he or she has turned to a page in a book and highlighted one word. Instead of seeing three hundred different words on the page, the person's attention, and intention, is focused immediately on that single word, that single gift. What the individual focuses on expands."

I thought that was fascinating. If someone asked me, "how would I describe myself," I might have come up with several paragraphs and touched on many key attributes, but to distill it to one word? Wow. That seemed hard at first thought. Then all of a sudden I got excited and the first word that popped into my head to answer that question is Love.

Then this morning, I took that one step further. Why not describe all the major things that we do each in only one word. So, I thought about our business, Upward Trend Management Services, and the first word that came to me was, Relief. Our customers are or can be relieved to know that we are taking care of posting information about them consistently week in and week out for as long as they choose to be a client. That spells relief to me. We relieve them of that burden. We relieve them of that seeming necessity, and we relieve them of worrying about it. We've got their back so to speak, and we do it with or without any help from them regarding needed content. That's relief!

Then I thought about Commercial Truck Success, our consulting company. I thought, Teaching. Yes! That's what CTS is all about. We help expand knowledge about the beginning, building, and operating commercial truck departments from top to bottom, and especially the management of them. The book, Commercial Truck Success is helping change the game for many dealers all around the country--or at least, plant that seed in their mind in the reading of it. And, of course, this CTS Daily Inspiration is also a teaching. Or, I could use the word sharing.

In my overall work-related life, I would use this word: Student. Constantly learning and wanting to know more. In my personal life, I would use this word: Appreciation. I am always finding things and people and events to appreciate and now that is pretty much all I see. It is certainly what I pay attention to. In my spiritual life, I would use the word Awe. The more I learn, the more I am in awe of all of life.

So, before this gets too long, what one word describes you in your career, in your personal life, in your business, in your spiritual life, and so on. We have all these life-compartments that we are in and out of, all of which make up our whole life. For my overall life, as I stated, the word is Love. And if I could use two, it would be Unconditional Love. It's an inspiring process to consider these one-word descriptions and I hope that inspires you today, tomorrow and beyond.


I Have One Word For You Today: Enjoy! Or, As I Prefer To Say And Spell It These Days: Injoy!

Spread Some Joy Today--by realizing that when you are connected with joy, you are connected with God, Source, All-That-Is.