Category Archives: Connection

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Need A Career Change?

We all knew something was not quite right but were unsure of where to direct our focus and emotions. Our global pandemic has forced what was already present in people’s lives to the surface – “I am not happy in my work-life experience!” The Mental Health America group reports a 370% increase in depression and anxiety since January 2020. Life feels like a pressure cooker!

The combination of many factors has pushed forward the notion for many people, “Should I consider a new career? Writer and Director for International Business Development at People Keys Dr. Brad Smith, has put together 10 warning signs when you should consider a new career. Here are the 10 signs you are ready for a career change now:

  1. You are furloughed, either temporarily or permanently. It doesn’t get any more clear or real than this. You need a new way of making income.
  2. You have serious doubts about your current position, company, or long-term financial outlook. Start something on the side now you enjoy that you can eventually move into full time.
  3. You feel physically or mentally drained most of the time.
  4. You wake up in the night or in the morning with anxiety or worries over your job.
  5. You are losing self-esteem and think less of yourself. Chances are, it really isn’t you, but being in a bad place or working for someone who is not supportive leads you to feel less confident in yourself. It’s time for a change.
  6. You have said things to yourself, such as, “If it wasn’t for the money I would already be gone.” You are ready for a change.
  7. You are self-medicating or finding other ways to cover your unhappiness.
  8. You feel like a split personality, one at home and one at work, or while you are performing your job duties. You don’t feel the two align, ever!
  9. You have lost all excitement about your work or profession.
  10. You have read this article up to this point. Unless you are doing it for educational purposes, you probably wouldn’t be reading this unless you knew it was time.

Shepherds Advantage provides Servant Leadership that helps people close the gap between where they are and where they want to be. Shepherds Advantage closes that gap by providing Leadership Development, Keynote Speaking, and Executive Coaching. Shepherdsadvantage@gmail.com

Note: Dr. Brad Smith was the genesis of this article

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Learn F.A.S.T.E.R.

Here are some great quotes on learning.

“Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why, so few people engage in it.” ~ Henry Ford

“I not only use all of the brains that I have, but all I can borrow” ~ Woodrow Wilson

The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read” ~ Mark Twain

We all would like to have more time to learn and to learn at a faster pace. The “someday/maybe’s” holds more people from their fullest potential than anything I know. Author Jim Kwik suffered a severe brain injury as a child. This affected his ability to learn so much so that an elementary teacher stated that his brain is broke. The kid with the “broke brain” stigma stayed with Kwik for years. Obviously he became an overcomer in developing habits and life hacks that aided in his amazing recovery. He shares many of those insights in his book Limitless. He wrote about an acronym F.A.S.T.E.R. that is a great tool worth sharing if you desire to grow and learn faster against all odds.

F is for Forget – The key to laser focus is to remove or forget that which distracts you. …

A is for Act – Traditional education has trained many people that learning is a passive experience. You sit quietly in a class, you don’t talk to your neighbor, and you consume the information. But learning is not a spectator sport. The human brain does not learn as much by consumption as it does creation. …

S is for State – All learning is state dependent. Your state is a current snapshot of your emotions. It is highly influenced by your thoughts (psychology) and the physical condition of your body (physiology). …

T is for Teach – If you want to cut your learning curve dramatically, learn with the intention of teaching the information to someone else. Think about it: If you know you have to give a presentation on what you learn, you will approach how you learn the topic with the intention of mastering it well enough to explain it to someone else. …

E is for Enter – What is the simplest and most powerful personal performance tool? Your calendar. We enter important things on our schedule. … Do you know what a lot of people don’t schedule? Their personal growth and development. If it’s not on your calendar, there’s a good chance it’s not getting done. …

R is for Review – One of the best ways to reduce the effects of the forgetting curve is to activelyrecall what you learned with spaced repetition.”

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Superhero Meet Supervillains

Yes, I have Nemeses!

“I’m a firm believer that we all have incredible superpowers that are waiting to be awakened.

I’m not talking about the ability to fly, create iron-clad armor, or shoot lasers from your

eyes, but real-life practical abilities like flying through books, iron-clad memory, laser focus,

boundless creativity, clear thinking, mindfulness, superior mental attitude, and more. We are all

superheroes in one way or another.

Just as every superhero has powers, so do they have arch nemeses. Enter the supervillain.

Think the Joker to Batman, Lex Luthor to Superman. The villains we face may not look the

same as they do in the movies, but they’re still the bad guys—the ones you, as a superhero, need to vanquish and hold at bay. Modern-day supervillains get in our way and make life harder, keeping us from our potential. They hold us back and rob us of our productivity, prosperity, positivity, and peace of mind. And it’s up to us to recognize and defeat them.” Jim Kwik

We are all faced with various distraction that keep us from reaching our fullest potential in life. Many of them ae spiritual but others are our on doing. There are 4 key Supervillains that get in the way of our potential and giftings. These have been referred to as the 4 Modern Horseman of our age.

First, we’re DELUGED with an overload of information. Get this: “Compared to the 15th century, we now consume as much data in a single day as an average person from the 1400s would have absorbed in an entire lifetime.”

Second, we’re DISTRACTED by all this digital stimulus. “Instead of relaxing into the downtime that we might experience when waiting in line, waiting for a bus or an appointment, etc., we pull out our phones and train our distraction muscles.”

Third, we’re experiencing DEMENTIA or a “breakdown of cognitive abilities” as a result of our overreliance on technology. “There’s research that says our brains are more like a muscle, rather than a hard drive that fills up. That the more you use it, the stronger it gets, and the more it can store. The question is: Are we making those choices consciously, or are we acting out of unconscious habit?”

Fourth, we’re losing our power of DEDUCTION when we can so quickly turn to digital sources ofinformation to let us know how we should be thinking about something in our lives. “The upshot is that deduction—an amalgam of critical thinking, problem solving, and creativity that is an essential skill for being limitless—is becoming automated.” Jim Kwik

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The Courage To Create

Author Rollo May states in his book, The Courage To Create: “The acorn becomes an oak by means of automatic growth; no commitment is necessary. The kitten similarly becomes a cat on the basis of instinct. Nature and being are identical in creatures like them. But a man or woman becomes fully human only by his or her choices and his or her commitment to them. People attain worth and dignity by the multitude of decisions they make from day by day. These decisions require courage.”

Now that we are 15 weeks into our COVID journey what decisions have you made to grow yourself and expand your ability. Courage is required no matter what version of yourself you choose to display. It is never too late to stop, reflect, and make a decision to realign your life in the direction of true values – Faith, Family, Service to others.

“For as he thinks within himself, so he is…” Proverbs 23:7a NASB

Shepherds Advantage provides Servant Leadership that helps people close the gap between where they are and where they want to be. Shepherds Advantage closes that gap by providing Leadership Development, Key Note Speaking, and Executive Coaching. 

Shepherdsadvantage@gmail.com

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Limitless Model

Upgrade Your Brain

You can learn to be, do, have and share with no constraints. I wrote this book to prove this to

you. If you are not learning or living at your true potential, if there is a gap between your current reality and your desired reality, here’s the reason: There is a limit that must be released and replaced in one of three areas:

• A limit in your Mindset—you entertain a low belief in yourself, your capabilities, what you deserve, or what is possible.

• A limit in your Motivation—you lack the drive, purpose, or energy to take action.

• A limit in your Methods—you were taught and are acting on a process that is not effective to create the results you desire. This applies to an individual, a family, an organization. We all have our own unique story ofstruggles and strengths. Whatever your situation happens to be, here’s the best part: You’re not alone. I’m going to help you become limitless in your own way, within the three-part framework you’re about to learn: Limitless Mindset, Limitless Motivation, and Limitless Methods. Kwik.

The author states that his model will help you “un-limit” your capability and potential. He states it this way:

  • Mindset (the WHAT): deeply held beliefs, attitudes, and assumptions we create about who we are, how the world works, what we are capable of and deserve, and what is possible.
  • Motivation (the WHY): the purpose one has for taking action. The energy required for someone to behave in a particular way.
  • Method (the HOW): a specific process for accomplishing something, especially in an orderly, logical, or systematic way of instruction.

Author Kwik’s definition for un-limiting is “The act or process of casting aside inaccurate and restrictive perceptions of one’s potential and embracing the reality that, with the right mindset, motivation, and methods, there are no limitations.”

Shepherds Advantage provides Servant Leadership that helps people close the gap between where they are and where they want to be. Shepherds Advantage closes that gap by providing Leadership Development, Key Note Speaking, and Executive Coaching. 

Shepherdsadvantage@gmail.com

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Limitless

Upgrade Your Brain

While he was a prisoner, the Apostle Paul was the first to suggest the limitless possibility (through Christ) long before author Jim Kwik. Think about Paul’s words as a prisoner being physically limited dares to suggest limitlessness in Christ. Note a comparison by author Kwik from his book Limitless.

“The Hero’s Journey is the perfect structure to lend power and purpose to your personal story. In Limitless, you are the superhero. One of my core beliefs is that human potential is one of the only infinite resources we have in this world. Most everything else is finite, but the human mind

is the ultimate superpower—there is no limit to our creativity, imagination, determination, or ability to think, reason, or learn. Yet this resource is also among the least tapped. All of us can be the heroes of our own story, dipping into the well of our potential every single day and never having that well run dry. But so few of us approach our lives this way. That’s why I wrote this book—to help you realize that no matter where you are, or where you’ve been, you absolutely can free yourself and go from limits to liberation. That might be the only ‘extra’ you need to transition from ordinary to the extraordinary world.”

~ Jim Kwik from Limitless

I failed to mention that author Jim Kwik suffered a brain injury while in Kindergarten. During his elementary school years, he became known as the “kid with the broke brain.”

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Sugar Adds Up Quickly

First, let’s note the fact that 1 pound of sugar is 454 grams of sugar. If the average person consumes 150 pounds a year, that’s roughly .41 pounds per day or 185 grams of sugar per day.

Note1: 500 years ago, when we were consumed only 5 pounds of sugar per day, that was, if my math is correct, .14 pounds per day or 6.35 grams per day.

Note2: 1,000 years ago, when we consumed roughly ZERO pounds of sugar per day, that was, if my math is correct, 0.0 pounds per day or 0.0 grams per day. 🤓

So…

Let’s see how fast it all adds up.

Can of coke = 44 grams

Oh, wait. You’re going for the healthy juice alternative, right? Let’s say you grab an Odwalla Lemonade Pure Squeezed All Natural.

According to CalorieKing you just got: 41 grams of sugar.

Or, maybe you’re giving your kids “healthy” fruit juice.

Oops.

That apple juice has 37 grams of sugar.

And, very importantly, as this site points out: “So, if a child has apple juice with breakfast, low-fat chocolate milk with lunch, a sports drink after school and lemon-lime soda with dinner, they could consume 130 grams of sugar in drinks alone. That’s more than five times what pediatricians recommend for a child’s total daily sugar intake.”

EEK!

130 grams that fast?

OMNotGoodness.

We’d only need 55 more grams of sugar in all the rest of our food to hit the 185 gram daily threshold that’ll lead to the 150 POUNDS of sugar that leads to chronic not-awesomeness?

Yep.

It adds up.

FAST.

Obviously donuts and candy bars and cookies have a ton of sugar. But so does yogurt and salad dressing, and ketchup and pasta sauce and, well, pretty much everything that was made in a factory that you’re eating out of a jar or a box.

Which is yet another reason why Michael Pollan tells us “If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don’t.”

NOTE: This is a reprint article from Brian Johnson – Philosopher/Optimist Coach.

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EAT, MOVE, SLEEP

“Sugar is a toxin. It fuels diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and cancer. At the current dose we consume, more than 150 pounds per person every year, sugar and its derivatives kill more people than cocaine, heroin, or any other controlled substance around. One report aptly describes sugar as ‘candy for cancer cells.’ It accelerates aging and inflammation in the body and subsequently fuels tumor growth. It is now clear that if you lower your sugar intake, you reduce your odds of developing cancer.”

Did you know that 500 years ago we did not consume sugar. By 1700 we consumed 52 lbs. of sugar per year. 2020, we are consuming 150 lbs. of sugar on average per year. YOWSERS!

According to UCSF’s Sugar Science site 74% of our processed food contains sugar. In fact there are 61 names for sugar. Food processors are attempting to hide this fact in plain site of the consumer. Here is a list of all 61 names for sugar:

1. Agave nectar
2. Barbados sugar
3. Barley malt
4. Barley malt syrup
5. Beet sugar
6. Brown sugar
7. Buttered syrup
8. Cane juice
9. Cane juice crystals
10. Cane sugar
11. Caramel
12. Carob syrup
13. Castor sugar
14. Coconut palm sugar
15. Coconut sugar
16. Confectioner’s sugar
17. Corn sweetener
18. Corn syrup
19. Corn syrup solids
20. Date sugar
21. Dehydrated cane juice
22. Demerara sugar
23. Dextrin
24. Dextrose
25. Evaporated cane juice
26. Free-flowing brown sugars
27. Fructose
28. Fruit juice
29. Fruit juice concentrate
30. Glucose
31. Glucose solids
32. Golden sugar
33. Golden syrup
34. Grape sugar
35. HFCS (high-fructose corn syrup)
36. Honey
37. Icing sugar
38. Invert sugar
39. Malt syrup
40. Maltodextrin
41. Maltol
42. Maltose
43. Mannose
44. Maple syrup
45. Molasses
46. Muscovado
47. Palm sugar
48. Panocha
49. Powdered sugar
50. Raw sugar
51. Refiner’s syrup
52. Rice syrup
53. Saccharose
54. Sorghum syrup
55. Sucrose
56. Sugar (granulated)
57. Sweet sorghum
58. Syrup
59. Treacle
60. Turbinado sugar
61. Yellow sugar

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Which Racial Lens Are You Looking Through?

Heaven Is Populated With Ethnic Groups

 9 After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. 10 And they cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.” Revelation 7:9-10 NIV (Emphasis Added).

Heaven is going to be a multi-ethnic space – period! It has been stated that we are more eager to stand around the Throne of worship than sit at the table of dialogue! If heaven is going to be a multi-ethnic space then why is it so hard to engage meaningful conversation that leads to real solutions? Consider the current data trends during our COVID journey together.

  • 18% of Pastors state they are “fully capable” of leading during this racial/biological season of American history.
  • 28% of churches are actually involved in meaningful “social injustices” – attempting to work toward solutions.

These two data points reveal a deeper theological reality. First of all, why are there not 100% of Pastors that are fully capable of leading in such socially threatening times? Second of all, because Christ died for all of mankind, why is there not a higher participation of involvement in the arena of social injustices? To respond; “I don’t know how!” or “I don’t understand!” falls woefully short. So that I am not misunderstood I am not propagating a “social justice works faith.” However, the gospel of Christ, when fully lived out impacts social justice as result of the cross first not as an addendum. 

Could it be that North American Christianity has been viewed through the lens of “Whiteness?” Allow me to illustrate this fact with my own educational journey. My journey was 14 years in length of formal education without ever sitting under a multi-ethnic professor and only required to read a very small handful of multi-ethnic authors. Sadly, my story is the same for multi-ethnic students attending the same Universities and Seminaries with me. A core study of Christian Higher Education is Systematic Theology. This genre of study fails if only one ethnic group is doing all of the talking. Back to Revelation chapter 7:9-10 – Heaven will be populated as a multi-ethnic space that no man can number the size of it. Perhaps we need to start looking through a different lens to allow the full message of scripture to emerge for such a time as this. Which lens are you looking through?

Shepherds Advantage provides Servant Leadership that helps people close the gap between where they are and where they want to be. Shepherds Advantage closes that gap by providing Leadership Development, Key Note Speaking, and Executive Coaching. 

Shepherdsadvantage@gmail.com

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To Change or Not To Change – That Is The Question

If You Don’t Change Your Method You Risk No One Hearing Your Message

I am writing this Blog Article as a 45-year veteran of Gospel speaking and teaching. I have experienced a number of “CRISIS” moments in this life journey. The most impactful crisis moments have all centered on gospel mandates and my actions or lack thereof. I made significant changes in my leadership behavior at these crisis moments to align my ministry more with Scripture versus popular thought. Step-by-step these crisis moments of scriptural mandate have caused my spiritual awareness and behavior to be more sensitive to the voice of God through scripture. Do not misunderstand my words – I am not claiming “super-saint” status. I am claiming that a life lived with God’s Word as a driving centerpiece of behavior and learning, your spiritual senses will increase.

That said I came to a conclusion years ago (over 25yrs.) the Church’s operational functioning in society will look and operate very differently at the sounding of the Trumpet of Christ’s second return. As a student of ministerial leadership during this pandemic shut down to the restart of church, for the first time in over 25-years of leading in the faith community, I believe the church in now facing a very critical moment of transition and change. The paradigm of doing church in a box on Sunday’s has been stood on its head – the church has been forced to go to the people on Sunday, not the other way around. What is at risk if we fail in this moment?  If methodology does not change we are risking no one listening to our message.

The choice in front of people today is “Analog” Vs. “Digital” church. Digital is not primarily a platform for cool graphics and announcement bumper videos with movie clip illustrations to support a presentation. Pause for just a moment and allow the Millennials and Gen-Zers to speak to all of us. Digital is about relationships first and foremost, radical retail transition is second. It is all about relationships, it is about the human touch accelerated because of digitral technology. It is about “being church” versus “doing church.” Churches going digital is not solely about content distribution. Think for just a minute – going to church was the only option to connect with faith during the week. In fact it was once the highlight of the week! What if the church started going to people? What would happen if we made our church sticky? What would change in our leadership model because of a desire to be sticky? Is the front-door of the church over-rated? My heart tells me that people would desire to be part of that church because it touched them at the point of human need and suffering. To change or not to change is a very real question that demands an answer.

Shepherds Advantage provides Servant Leadership that helps people close the gap between where they are and where they want to be. Shepherds Advantage closes that gap by providing Leadership Development, Key Note Speaking, and Executive Coaching. 

Shepherdsadvantage@gmail.com