August 18, 2023 • 18 mins
Podcast Host Ray Sanders challenges listeners to live on purpose by finding someone to help, love and encourage each and everyday.
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Episode Transcript
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Ray (00:08):
Hello, everyone. I'm Ray Sanders, and you're listening to
the Ray Sanders LeadershipPodcast. You know, today, I want
to unpack something that I callthe pesky pillow problem. This
is the opening slide, theopening line in a speech that
I've given at the AmericanBankers Association. It's kind
(00:28):
of one of my common, well knownstump speeches that I give.
But I don't know about if you'relike me, but there are times
when I I I go to bed at night, Ilay my head on my pillow, and I
think, is my life really makinga difference? Is there meaning
in my life? Do I have purpose?What in the world am I doing
(00:52):
what I'm doing for? Is it justto make money?
Is it just to get throughanother day? So I think we have
this pillow problem. We lay ourhead on our pillow every night
and we ask ourselves, why am Ihere? Why am I doing this? And I
love the quote from Mark Twain.
Do you know it? It says, the 2most important days of your life
(01:15):
are the day that you were bornand the day that you find out
why. Wow. Isn't that amazing?Now, I wanna I wanna set the
stage for this.
I think that as little kids,early on, you know, our parents
are constantly cheering us oncheering us on to climb the
(01:36):
ladder. Right? It starts by, oh,we rolled over in bed. Oh, look.
He rolled over in bed.
And they cheer us and theyapplaud us. The next thing, we
raise up on on the side of thecrib and they cheer us for for
raising up there. And then we'recrawling around and eventually
we crawl up on the side of thecouch. And from the very
beginning, we're climbing thisladder in life. And in the
(01:57):
corporate world, we would callit climbing the corporate
ladder.
And a lot of people when theyget to be my age and older,
they're kinda looking back overtheir life and they begin to
want they begin to wonder, did Ihave that ladder actually leaned
against the wrong wall? And thensome of them have been climbing
up this ladder and they steppedon and over people along the
way. And what they they realizeis that is that they've climbed
(02:20):
up this corporate ladder andit's cost them. And a lot of
times as they they get to thisthis top of this ladder and they
look back over their career,they realize that what was that
all about? It cost them a lot oftimes, it cost them their
health, a lot of times it costthem friendships, and a lot of
(02:40):
times, unfortunately, it costthem their family.
Oh, they may have a big bag ofmoney and they may have gotten
to the top of the ladder, but,you know, if you look at a
ladder, what are the steps on aladder called? The steps on a
ladder are called rungs. And thetruth is we all have rungs and
we all have wrongs in theladders that we're climbing
(03:00):
trying to get to where we wannabe. Now there's something I
often say when I'm talking toexecutives and that's if you
ever see a turtle, you know,here in Oklahoma, we live out in
the prairie and we, it doesn'ttake us too long to get outside
of Oklahoma City and we're outwe're out in on red dirt roads,
believe it or not. And if you'reever out in the country and you
(03:22):
you see a turtle sitting on apost, Yes, it's possible.
And yes, I've seen it. If youever see a turtle setting on a
post, what's the first thing youthink? Well, if you're like me,
how in the world did he getthere? Well, I've got news for
you. He didn't get there on hisown.
(03:43):
And what we have to realize iswe're climbing this corporate
ladder. As we're trying to climbthe ladder to be successful, we
need to realize and we need torealize that we didn't get there
all on our own. And sometimeswe've wronged people and there's
been people who've wronged us.And then there's been other
people who have who have stoodin and have been rungs that we
(04:04):
have utilized to get to where weare. They've helped us climb
that ladder to get to where weare.
Now have you ever noticedsomething about a ladder? If if
you have a a, a step ladder andyou set it up, if you look on
the side of that step ladder,there's something on the side of
that step ladder that I hopeyou've noticed. What does it
say? It says, danger. Don't gothere.
(04:27):
But what do we do? We rush anddo our best to get to the top.
And what guys and gals thatcould that have been to the top
can tell you, once you getthere, there's only one place to
go and there's and it's downfrom there. But the the truth
is, it says danger. Don't gothere.
And what do we wanna do? Wewanna go there. And what we
(04:47):
learn is at the top of theladder, the success ladder, this
leader ladder that we're tryingto climb, we end up finding and
we and we look back and it andwe realize that it's lonely.
Some would even tell you it'slonely at the top. Who do you
talk to?
Who do you go to? And, you know,if if we've been wrong to people
(05:08):
all the way up, then it's gonnabe really lonely. But as we grow
as leaders, one of the things webegin to realize is we wanna be
the rungs in other people'slife, and we wanna bring them up
the ladder with us. And we mayhave to even actually step down
and help them and raise them upas we go through life. Now I
wanna tie in something else withthis cheering that our parents
(05:29):
and everyone else has done, aswe're trying to get through
life.
One of the things that I havefound is that whether your high
school counselor asks you this,your mom and dad ask you this,
one of the things that they askyou as you're going through the
life is they say, what do youwanna be when you grow up? What
do you wanna be in when you growup? Now Simon Sinek wrote a
(05:52):
great book. It's called Startswith Why, and I'm gonna share a
little bit about what he sharesas the golden circle. And the
truth is if you and I were outat a an engagement, we were at a
social gathering, and we werewalking around, and we were
getting to to know each other,this idea is further supported
by the fact that within a matterof 2 or 3 minutes, what's one of
(06:13):
the first few things that we'llsay to each other?
We'll say, hey, my name's Ray oryou'll say your name's Bob or
your name is Betty. And and thenext thing we'll say is, what do
you do? And I often challenge Ioften challenge professors and I
challenge counselors and others.I say, why do we ask and why do
we put so much emphasis on whatwe do? And the question is, has
(06:38):
anybody ever stopped to ask whywe do it?
Why do you do it? If you askmost students why they do what
they do or why they want to bein the major that the end that
that they're in. What they willtell you, the reason why they're
doing it is because they wannado what? They wanna make a lot
(06:59):
of money, but nobody's askingthem why. If you wanna be a
dentist, why do you wanna be adentist?
Well, maybe you love people'steeth and maybe you really do
wanna help and that's genuine.My applause. Or an engineer or a
doctor or a fireman, whatever.But the truth of the matter is
if we were walking around andwe're interacting, all too often
we focus on the what and not thewhy. And I wanna propose to you
(07:24):
that what we do what we do isthe platform that we've been
given.
How we do it is based in ourvalues. And we're gonna talk
about this on another program,but how we do it is based on our
values. You know, for example,do I do it with excellence? Do I
do it with passion? Do I do itwith perfection?
(07:46):
What values do I have? What aremy top five values? When I'm
talking to people and I have anopportunity to talk to them
about values, I'll ask them,what are your values? What are
your spouse's values? What areyour company's values?
And it's interesting. Mostpeople, they can't tell you. Now
they'll they'll kinda give yousome answer that they'll say
face and they'll kinda give youa gut feeling. But for me, when
(08:10):
I was asked this questioninitially, I kinda stumbled
around too. And I I went throughan exercise that I'll share with
you eventually and makeavailable to you.
And it's it's really simple. NowI know what my values are. It's
faith, family, fun, impact, andintegrity. Those are my five
values. They drive everythingthat I do.
If you know me and and you'rearound me, you'll begin to see
(08:32):
those manifest in my life. Andmuch of my upbringing, much of
the way that I was nurtured, theway that I've I've grown up are
found in my values, the thingsthat I value. I like to tell
people if the house was on fireand you could only take 5 values
with you, what are the 5 valuesthat you would you would grab?
And I've shared with you mine.What are yours?
(08:53):
So what is your platform? Howyou do what you do is your
values, and then why you do itis your purpose. So what is your
purpose? Now we're getting intothe nitty gritty. What is your
purpose?
How do you find your purpose?There's a lot of things that you
(09:15):
can do to try to unpack whatyour unpack what your purpose
is, but Rick Warren wrote afantastic book. You haven't read
it, you need to check it out.It's called A Purpose Driven
Life. And one of the firstthings that Rick Warren points
out in this book, and I totallyagree with him is, and when he
says when he says, your purposeis not about you.
(09:37):
Well, I thought we were justtalking about my purpose. Well,
your purpose is related to abigger purpose and I like to
think of it this way. My purposeis in direct line with with with
what god's purpose is. And nowyou're probably thinking, now
what is that? I don't even knowmy purpose.
(09:57):
Now you're asking me what god'spurpose is? Well, I'd like to
suggest to you this this thisthis this thought. One day, the
one the the greatest leader toever live, and I think that was
Jesus. Say what you want toabout his divinity, but I think
he was the son of God. And I andI and I think that he was the
greatest leader that that everlived as well.
And I I tend to live my lifeaccording to the principles and
(10:20):
teaching of him, and the way heled people is the way I wanna
lead people, and the way helived his life is how I wanna
live his life. And so there wasa a a young man that came up to
him one day and he said, hey,rabbi. I I think he was
intrigued by Jesus just like I'mintrigued by Jesus, and he said,
hey, I got a question for you.What is the greatest
(10:42):
commandment? Now, if you're likeme, you probably thought, 10
commandments.
Got about a 10% chance ofgetting that right or, you know,
what what does he think? Well,you know, the truth of the
matter is this young man wasasking this question because
according to the Torah and,Jewish tradition and law, there
(11:04):
aren't just 10 commandments. Areyou ready for this? There's 6
113, 613 commandments. How inthe world are we to keep those?
And this young man comes toJesus and he says, hey, I just I
need to ask you. What are orwhat is the greatest
commandment? I'd love Jesus'answer. And I think his answer
(11:27):
gives us an indication of whereour purpose is found. And here
it is.
He said, I'll sum it up likethis. Love God, love others as
you love yourself. Can we juststop right there? Can I just
tell you, if if I would juststart living my life according
(11:50):
to that simple thought? LoveGod, love others as you love
yourself.
It would change my life and thelife of those around me. You
want to solve the world'sproblems today? Love god. Love
others as you love yourself. Youwanna get things right in
congress, you wanna get thingsright in the Middle East, You
wanna get things right with yourneighbor or with your spouse or
(12:12):
a sibling or a coworker?
Start by focusing on love. Yousee, Jesus understood it was
really simple. We try toovercomplicate it. So this pesky
pill problem that we're talkingabout, I'm gonna sum it up like
this. What if you laid your headon your pillows at night and you
(12:33):
said tomorrow morning when Iwake up, what I'm going to do is
I'm just gonna find someone tolove.
You know, I have been a part ofsome major projects around the
world. I used to work for anorganization where we got
watered over a 1000000 people.What a cool thing. And
oftentimes, I would speak aboutthe impact that we're having and
(12:55):
and it was huge. But then Ibegin to thinking, you know,
what does it mean for me to goout and try to do all of that if
I walk past my kids on my way towork every morning?
Or what if I walk right past mywife? 1 of my best friends and
someone that was the greatestleader that I ever served under
once told me, he said, I neverwant this career, this job, this
(13:19):
organization to be the reasonthat you end up splitting up
with your wife. He said ifyou're ever late for work, I'm
just gonna assume that youneeded another 10 or 15 minutes
over a bowl of cereal with oneof your kids. Or maybe you
needed to wrap things up withyour wife or maybe you and your
wife needed to work through anissue. And he realized that I
(13:39):
had the potential to not onlylove the world, but love those
right under my own roof.
And if I had peace at home, thenI would probably be a better
employee by having peace atwork. And that 10 to 15 minutes
that I had at home that thatmade me late for work made me a
better employee. Now do youthink I ever took advantage of
(14:00):
him because of that? No way. Noway.
What a privilege to know thatsomebody would give me that that
opportunity. But, you know, wewe think about changing the
world. We try to do all thesegrand grandiose things, but we
sometimes forget that theopportunity for our purpose, our
why, to make a difference, mightbe under our own roof, might be
right in front of us. And I liketo call this the find the one
(14:25):
challenge. So this is kind ofhow I wanna wrap up this
episode.
The find the one on our firstepisode, how about that? Find
the one. Tomorrow morning whenyou wake up, what I want you to
do is as you go about your day,I want you to be asking
yourself, who can I help? Whocan I love? And who can I
(14:45):
encourage?
You see, I think this wraps upthe essence of what Jesus was
saying when he said, love God,love others as you love
yourself. Now, there's somethingabout that that challenge, that
principle that we oftenoverlook. And it's as you love
yourself. Don't forget in thisprocess to take care of you.
It's important for you to takecare of you and to love yourself
(15:07):
and to recognize that god lovesyou, others love you, and you
and that you have value.
And once you realize that youare loved and you have value,
you know, the problem is youcan't give what you don't have.
If you don't love yourself andrecognize how much you are
loved, then it's gonna be hardfor you to love others. The old
saying, hurt people hurt people.Well, a lot of times we're so
(15:28):
hurt we just don't have thecapacity to love and we just
hurt other people. But let'sjust- let's just assume and
let's begin to realize that ifwe love ourselves, we're in a
position to love others.
And there's another passage thatsays if if you go about your
platform, no matter what you'redoing and no matter what you do,
if you're a doctor, you're afireman, you're a nurse, you're
a stay at home mom, you're anexecutive, you're a business
(15:49):
owner, an entrepreneur, you're apastor, you're a minister, you
know, you're a rabbi, you know,whatever you are. If you do what
you do, but you don't love, thenyou've you've missed the point.
And here's the thing that'samazing. There's a lot of
organizations that have figuredout when they take care of their
customers, when they take careof their employees, when they
(16:11):
take care of their people, greatthings start to happen. It's not
a soft strategy.
It's a hard strategy. When youbegin to love on people, great
things begin to work. Joel Mandywrote a great book called you
gotta check it out as well. I'm,giving you a couple of great
resources here today, and thatis a book called Love Works by
Joel Mandy. If you've ever heardof a place called Branson,
(16:33):
you'll you'll know who he is.
He's done a lot of great things.So 2 great books so far, one by
Rick Warren, A Purpose DrivenLife, and another one by Joel
Mambi called Love Works. So nowback to you. One of the things I
want you to do is I want you towake up tomorrow morning, I want
you to get out of bed, I wantyou to ask yourself who's the
one. I'm gonna go find the one.
(16:55):
Ray gave me this find the onechallenge and I'm gonna go see
if I can find the one today, theone to help, to love, or
encourage. Now don't miss theguy at the convenience store.
Don't miss the the person at atthe, the door at the office.
Don't miss the receptionist.Don't miss your wife or your
kids.
And what you're gonna find isyou won't just find 1. But
(17:19):
here's the cool thing. Can youimagine that if all of us would
wake up every day just askingourselves, who's the one? How do
I find the one? And when we layour head on our pillow, at the
end of the day, no matter whatwe've done, if it's been a hard
day at work or we're reallytired of the type of job we had
or have, if we know that therewas somebody, somebody, maybe it
(17:43):
was a smile, maybe it was a paton the back, maybe it was a, a
cup of coffee, It was so easy todo.
As we began to do that, youknow, if we would do that every
day, that would be 365 points ofimpact in just 1 year. Wow. I
don't think we'd have a peskypro a pillow problem anymore if
(18:05):
we would just simply find theone. Well, I hope that
challenges you. I call that thefind the one challenge and I
hope that you will, give it somethought and consider whether or
not it's something that youwanna do.
It's a lifestyle thing. Find theone. Learn to love God, love
others as you love yourself.
Hello, everyone. I'm Ray Sanders, and you're listening to
the Ray Sanders LeadershipPodcast. You know, today, I want
to unpack something that I callthe pesky pillow problem. This
is the opening slide, theopening line in a speech that
I've given at the AmericanBankers Association. It's kind
(00:28):
of one of my common, well knownstump speeches that I give.
But I don't know about if you'relike me, but there are times
when I I I go to bed at night, Ilay my head on my pillow, and I
think, is my life really makinga difference? Is there meaning
in my life? Do I have purpose?What in the world am I doing
(00:52):
what I'm doing for? Is it justto make money?
Is it just to get throughanother day? So I think we have
this pillow problem. We lay ourhead on our pillow every night
and we ask ourselves, why am Ihere? Why am I doing this? And I
love the quote from Mark Twain.
Do you know it? It says, the 2most important days of your life
(01:15):
are the day that you were bornand the day that you find out
why. Wow. Isn't that amazing?Now, I wanna I wanna set the
stage for this.
I think that as little kids,early on, you know, our parents
are constantly cheering us oncheering us on to climb the
(01:36):
ladder. Right? It starts by, oh,we rolled over in bed. Oh, look.
He rolled over in bed.
And they cheer us and theyapplaud us. The next thing, we
raise up on on the side of thecrib and they cheer us for for
raising up there. And then we'recrawling around and eventually
we crawl up on the side of thecouch. And from the very
beginning, we're climbing thisladder in life. And in the
(01:57):
corporate world, we would callit climbing the corporate
ladder.
And a lot of people when theyget to be my age and older,
they're kinda looking back overtheir life and they begin to
want they begin to wonder, did Ihave that ladder actually leaned
against the wrong wall? And thensome of them have been climbing
up this ladder and they steppedon and over people along the
way. And what they they realizeis that is that they've climbed
(02:20):
up this corporate ladder andit's cost them. And a lot of
times as they they get to thisthis top of this ladder and they
look back over their career,they realize that what was that
all about? It cost them a lot oftimes, it cost them their
health, a lot of times it costthem friendships, and a lot of
(02:40):
times, unfortunately, it costthem their family.
Oh, they may have a big bag ofmoney and they may have gotten
to the top of the ladder, but,you know, if you look at a
ladder, what are the steps on aladder called? The steps on a
ladder are called rungs. And thetruth is we all have rungs and
we all have wrongs in theladders that we're climbing
(03:00):
trying to get to where we wannabe. Now there's something I
often say when I'm talking toexecutives and that's if you
ever see a turtle, you know,here in Oklahoma, we live out in
the prairie and we, it doesn'ttake us too long to get outside
of Oklahoma City and we're outwe're out in on red dirt roads,
believe it or not. And if you'reever out in the country and you
(03:22):
you see a turtle sitting on apost, Yes, it's possible.
And yes, I've seen it. If youever see a turtle setting on a
post, what's the first thing youthink? Well, if you're like me,
how in the world did he getthere? Well, I've got news for
you. He didn't get there on hisown.
(03:43):
And what we have to realize iswe're climbing this corporate
ladder. As we're trying to climbthe ladder to be successful, we
need to realize and we need torealize that we didn't get there
all on our own. And sometimeswe've wronged people and there's
been people who've wronged us.And then there's been other
people who have who have stoodin and have been rungs that we
(04:04):
have utilized to get to where weare. They've helped us climb
that ladder to get to where weare.
Now have you ever noticedsomething about a ladder? If if
you have a a, a step ladder andyou set it up, if you look on
the side of that step ladder,there's something on the side of
that step ladder that I hopeyou've noticed. What does it
say? It says, danger. Don't gothere.
(04:27):
But what do we do? We rush anddo our best to get to the top.
And what guys and gals thatcould that have been to the top
can tell you, once you getthere, there's only one place to
go and there's and it's downfrom there. But the the truth
is, it says danger. Don't gothere.
And what do we wanna do? Wewanna go there. And what we
(04:47):
learn is at the top of theladder, the success ladder, this
leader ladder that we're tryingto climb, we end up finding and
we and we look back and it andwe realize that it's lonely.
Some would even tell you it'slonely at the top. Who do you
talk to?
Who do you go to? And, you know,if if we've been wrong to people
(05:08):
all the way up, then it's gonnabe really lonely. But as we grow
as leaders, one of the things webegin to realize is we wanna be
the rungs in other people'slife, and we wanna bring them up
the ladder with us. And we mayhave to even actually step down
and help them and raise them upas we go through life. Now I
wanna tie in something else withthis cheering that our parents
(05:29):
and everyone else has done, aswe're trying to get through
life.
One of the things that I havefound is that whether your high
school counselor asks you this,your mom and dad ask you this,
one of the things that they askyou as you're going through the
life is they say, what do youwanna be when you grow up? What
do you wanna be in when you growup? Now Simon Sinek wrote a
(05:52):
great book. It's called Startswith Why, and I'm gonna share a
little bit about what he sharesas the golden circle. And the
truth is if you and I were outat a an engagement, we were at a
social gathering, and we werewalking around, and we were
getting to to know each other,this idea is further supported
by the fact that within a matterof 2 or 3 minutes, what's one of
(06:13):
the first few things that we'llsay to each other?
We'll say, hey, my name's Ray oryou'll say your name's Bob or
your name is Betty. And and thenext thing we'll say is, what do
you do? And I often challenge Ioften challenge professors and I
challenge counselors and others.I say, why do we ask and why do
we put so much emphasis on whatwe do? And the question is, has
(06:38):
anybody ever stopped to ask whywe do it?
Why do you do it? If you askmost students why they do what
they do or why they want to bein the major that the end that
that they're in. What they willtell you, the reason why they're
doing it is because they wannado what? They wanna make a lot
(06:59):
of money, but nobody's askingthem why. If you wanna be a
dentist, why do you wanna be adentist?
Well, maybe you love people'steeth and maybe you really do
wanna help and that's genuine.My applause. Or an engineer or a
doctor or a fireman, whatever.But the truth of the matter is
if we were walking around andwe're interacting, all too often
we focus on the what and not thewhy. And I wanna propose to you
(07:24):
that what we do what we do isthe platform that we've been
given.
How we do it is based in ourvalues. And we're gonna talk
about this on another program,but how we do it is based on our
values. You know, for example,do I do it with excellence? Do I
do it with passion? Do I do itwith perfection?
(07:46):
What values do I have? What aremy top five values? When I'm
talking to people and I have anopportunity to talk to them
about values, I'll ask them,what are your values? What are
your spouse's values? What areyour company's values?
And it's interesting. Mostpeople, they can't tell you. Now
they'll they'll kinda give yousome answer that they'll say
face and they'll kinda give youa gut feeling. But for me, when
(08:10):
I was asked this questioninitially, I kinda stumbled
around too. And I I went throughan exercise that I'll share with
you eventually and makeavailable to you.
And it's it's really simple. NowI know what my values are. It's
faith, family, fun, impact, andintegrity. Those are my five
values. They drive everythingthat I do.
If you know me and and you'rearound me, you'll begin to see
(08:32):
those manifest in my life. Andmuch of my upbringing, much of
the way that I was nurtured, theway that I've I've grown up are
found in my values, the thingsthat I value. I like to tell
people if the house was on fireand you could only take 5 values
with you, what are the 5 valuesthat you would you would grab?
And I've shared with you mine.What are yours?
(08:53):
So what is your platform? Howyou do what you do is your
values, and then why you do itis your purpose. So what is your
purpose? Now we're getting intothe nitty gritty. What is your
purpose?
How do you find your purpose?There's a lot of things that you
(09:15):
can do to try to unpack whatyour unpack what your purpose
is, but Rick Warren wrote afantastic book. You haven't read
it, you need to check it out.It's called A Purpose Driven
Life. And one of the firstthings that Rick Warren points
out in this book, and I totallyagree with him is, and when he
says when he says, your purposeis not about you.
(09:37):
Well, I thought we were justtalking about my purpose. Well,
your purpose is related to abigger purpose and I like to
think of it this way. My purposeis in direct line with with with
what god's purpose is. And nowyou're probably thinking, now
what is that? I don't even knowmy purpose.
(09:57):
Now you're asking me what god'spurpose is? Well, I'd like to
suggest to you this this thisthis this thought. One day, the
one the the greatest leader toever live, and I think that was
Jesus. Say what you want toabout his divinity, but I think
he was the son of God. And I andI and I think that he was the
greatest leader that that everlived as well.
And I I tend to live my lifeaccording to the principles and
(10:20):
teaching of him, and the way heled people is the way I wanna
lead people, and the way helived his life is how I wanna
live his life. And so there wasa a a young man that came up to
him one day and he said, hey,rabbi. I I think he was
intrigued by Jesus just like I'mintrigued by Jesus, and he said,
hey, I got a question for you.What is the greatest
(10:42):
commandment? Now, if you're likeme, you probably thought, 10
commandments.
Got about a 10% chance ofgetting that right or, you know,
what what does he think? Well,you know, the truth of the
matter is this young man wasasking this question because
according to the Torah and,Jewish tradition and law, there
(11:04):
aren't just 10 commandments. Areyou ready for this? There's 6
113, 613 commandments. How inthe world are we to keep those?
And this young man comes toJesus and he says, hey, I just I
need to ask you. What are orwhat is the greatest
commandment? I'd love Jesus'answer. And I think his answer
(11:27):
gives us an indication of whereour purpose is found. And here
it is.
He said, I'll sum it up likethis. Love God, love others as
you love yourself. Can we juststop right there? Can I just
tell you, if if I would juststart living my life according
(11:50):
to that simple thought? LoveGod, love others as you love
yourself.
It would change my life and thelife of those around me. You
want to solve the world'sproblems today? Love god. Love
others as you love yourself. Youwanna get things right in
congress, you wanna get thingsright in the Middle East, You
wanna get things right with yourneighbor or with your spouse or
(12:12):
a sibling or a coworker?
Start by focusing on love. Yousee, Jesus understood it was
really simple. We try toovercomplicate it. So this pesky
pill problem that we're talkingabout, I'm gonna sum it up like
this. What if you laid your headon your pillows at night and you
(12:33):
said tomorrow morning when Iwake up, what I'm going to do is
I'm just gonna find someone tolove.
You know, I have been a part ofsome major projects around the
world. I used to work for anorganization where we got
watered over a 1000000 people.What a cool thing. And
oftentimes, I would speak aboutthe impact that we're having and
(12:55):
and it was huge. But then Ibegin to thinking, you know,
what does it mean for me to goout and try to do all of that if
I walk past my kids on my way towork every morning?
Or what if I walk right past mywife? 1 of my best friends and
someone that was the greatestleader that I ever served under
once told me, he said, I neverwant this career, this job, this
(13:19):
organization to be the reasonthat you end up splitting up
with your wife. He said ifyou're ever late for work, I'm
just gonna assume that youneeded another 10 or 15 minutes
over a bowl of cereal with oneof your kids. Or maybe you
needed to wrap things up withyour wife or maybe you and your
wife needed to work through anissue. And he realized that I
(13:39):
had the potential to not onlylove the world, but love those
right under my own roof.
And if I had peace at home, thenI would probably be a better
employee by having peace atwork. And that 10 to 15 minutes
that I had at home that thatmade me late for work made me a
better employee. Now do youthink I ever took advantage of
(14:00):
him because of that? No way. Noway.
What a privilege to know thatsomebody would give me that that
opportunity. But, you know, wewe think about changing the
world. We try to do all thesegrand grandiose things, but we
sometimes forget that theopportunity for our purpose, our
why, to make a difference, mightbe under our own roof, might be
right in front of us. And I liketo call this the find the one
(14:25):
challenge. So this is kind ofhow I wanna wrap up this
episode.
The find the one on our firstepisode, how about that? Find
the one. Tomorrow morning whenyou wake up, what I want you to
do is as you go about your day,I want you to be asking
yourself, who can I help? Whocan I love? And who can I
(14:45):
encourage?
You see, I think this wraps upthe essence of what Jesus was
saying when he said, love God,love others as you love
yourself. Now, there's somethingabout that that challenge, that
principle that we oftenoverlook. And it's as you love
yourself. Don't forget in thisprocess to take care of you.
It's important for you to takecare of you and to love yourself
(15:07):
and to recognize that god lovesyou, others love you, and you
and that you have value.
And once you realize that youare loved and you have value,
you know, the problem is youcan't give what you don't have.
If you don't love yourself andrecognize how much you are
loved, then it's gonna be hardfor you to love others. The old
saying, hurt people hurt people.Well, a lot of times we're so
(15:28):
hurt we just don't have thecapacity to love and we just
hurt other people. But let'sjust- let's just assume and
let's begin to realize that ifwe love ourselves, we're in a
position to love others.
And there's another passage thatsays if if you go about your
platform, no matter what you'redoing and no matter what you do,
if you're a doctor, you're afireman, you're a nurse, you're
a stay at home mom, you're anexecutive, you're a business
(15:49):
owner, an entrepreneur, you're apastor, you're a minister, you
know, you're a rabbi, you know,whatever you are. If you do what
you do, but you don't love, thenyou've you've missed the point.
And here's the thing that'samazing. There's a lot of
organizations that have figuredout when they take care of their
customers, when they take careof their employees, when they
(16:11):
take care of their people, greatthings start to happen. It's not
a soft strategy.
It's a hard strategy. When youbegin to love on people, great
things begin to work. Joel Mandywrote a great book called you
gotta check it out as well. I'm,giving you a couple of great
resources here today, and thatis a book called Love Works by
Joel Mandy. If you've ever heardof a place called Branson,
(16:33):
you'll you'll know who he is.
He's done a lot of great things.So 2 great books so far, one by
Rick Warren, A Purpose DrivenLife, and another one by Joel
Mambi called Love Works. So nowback to you. One of the things I
want you to do is I want you towake up tomorrow morning, I want
you to get out of bed, I wantyou to ask yourself who's the
one. I'm gonna go find the one.
(16:55):
Ray gave me this find the onechallenge and I'm gonna go see
if I can find the one today, theone to help, to love, or
encourage. Now don't miss theguy at the convenience store.
Don't miss the the person at atthe, the door at the office.
Don't miss the receptionist.Don't miss your wife or your
kids.
And what you're gonna find isyou won't just find 1. But
(17:19):
here's the cool thing. Can youimagine that if all of us would
wake up every day just askingourselves, who's the one? How do
I find the one? And when we layour head on our pillow, at the
end of the day, no matter whatwe've done, if it's been a hard
day at work or we're reallytired of the type of job we had
or have, if we know that therewas somebody, somebody, maybe it
(17:43):
was a smile, maybe it was a paton the back, maybe it was a, a
cup of coffee, It was so easy todo.
As we began to do that, youknow, if we would do that every
day, that would be 365 points ofimpact in just 1 year. Wow. I
don't think we'd have a peskypro a pillow problem anymore if
(18:05):
we would just simply find theone. Well, I hope that
challenges you. I call that thefind the one challenge and I
hope that you will, give it somethought and consider whether or
not it's something that youwanna do.
It's a lifestyle thing. Find theone. Learn to love God, love
others as you love yourself.
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