Question: "What does it mean to mount up with wings like eagles?"

Question: "What does it mean to mount up with wings like eagles?"

Answer: The phrase mount up with wings like
eagles can be found at the end of Isaiah 40 , in
verse 31, “But they who wait for the Lord shall
renew their strength; they shall mount up with
wings like eagles; they shall run and not be
weary; they shall walk and not faint” (ESV).
During Isaiah’s lifetime, the dispirited nation of
Israel suffered a period of great distress
politically as oppressive Assyrian powers
invaded and conquered their lands. Isaiah
chapters 40–48 contain promises of redemption
and deliverance from the suffering. That section
of the book starts with the words “Comfort,
comfort my people, says your God” ( Isaiah
40:1 ). Israel had nearly given up hope, thinking
God had abandoned them, yet Isaiah drives his
point home in Isaiah 40:27–31 , “Why do you
say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, ‘My way is
hidden from the Lord, and my right is
disregarded by my God’? Have you not known?
Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting
God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He
does not faint or grow weary; his understanding
is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint,
and to him who has no might he increases
strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary,
and young men shall fall exhausted; but they
who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they
shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and
not faint” (ESV).
Ancient Hebrew culture revered eagles as
mighty warriors that also cared fiercely for their
young. Eagles carry their eaglets to safety,
away from the threat of predators. Eagles are
also known for their strength and courage in
dangerous, turbulent weather, soaring above
storm clouds and to safety. Eagles’ wings was a
figure of speech commonly used to attribute
these fine characteristics to a person. The Lord
references eagles’ wings in Exodus 19:1–6 ,
which is a recollection of how God delivered
Israel from the Egyptians. In this passage, the
Lord gives Moses a message for His people:
“You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt,
and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and
brought you to myself. Now if you obey me fully
and keep my covenant, then out of all nations
you will be my treasured possession” (verses 4–
5).
The prophet Isaiah uses wings like eagles in the
same way, attributing the great characteristics
of eagles to those who remain faithful to God
and look forward to their heavenly reward. The
phrase mount up is a translation of the Hebrew
word ˈalah , which means “to go up, ascend, to
go up over a boundary.” Isaiah is communicating
the promise that God will provide renewed
strength and courage to overcome obstacles, if
Israel would only have patience and trust in the
Lord’s sovereign timing.
Upon reading Isaiah’s words, perhaps Israel
recalled what God had said to them long ago as
they fled Egypt, about how the Lord had
delivered them “on eagles’ wings” with His great
strength and power. Isaiah tells them that they,
too, could have access to such deliverance. If
they remained faithful to God, they would soar.
Christians today can apply the principle of
Isaiah 40:31 by trusting in God’s sovereignty
and waiting faithfully for Him. “We do not lose
heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away,
yet inwardly we are being renewed day by
day” ( 2 Corinthians 4:16 ). God in His grace will
provide power, strength, and courage to the
weary, weak, and downtrodden when they are
willing to be patient and wait on Him. God will
cause us to mount up on eagles’ wings.

8 Startup Mistakes to Avoid When Launching a New Business

Although starting a business will undoubtedly
be hard work, it can be one of the most exciting
and rewarding adventures of your life—if you can
avoid these crippling startup mistakes. You get to
bring your ideas to life. Build your team and
structure your business any way you wish.
However, since building a business is new to you,
learning from the business mistakes other
entrepreneurs have made in the past can help save
you a lot of time and frustration for the weeks,
months and years to come.
You're not alone either. Some of the world's most
successful entrepreneurs—ranging from Richard
Branson to Mark Cuban, Arianna Huffington, Tony
Robbins and more, have made massive missteps
along their path to eventual success. It's only
through learning from their mistakes and heeding
the advice of other more experienced mentors that
they were able to eventually achieve their biggest
goals.
From my own experience and that of others, here
are the 8 biggest, most avoidable startup mistakes
that many entrepreneurs continue to make when
building a new business.
1. Trying to Do Everything Yourself
There are only 24 hours in a day. If you want to
get a good night’s sleep, which is absolutely
necessary to performing at peak levels, the reality
is that you can’t do everything yourself. Although
being a one-person-show may be a functional
necessity in the beginning, you may want to
consider delegating simple tasks to a small team of
contract workers who can help lighten your load—
and free up more of your time for focusing on the
activities only you can do within your business.
Delegating can be a challenge, though. Others may
not perform tasks the same way you would, but
sometimes that’s okay. For example, you may like
to move the furniture in the office when you
vacuum, but your employees don’t. You need to ask
yourself if delegating the task of vacuuming and
allowing a little more dust to accumulate behind
the printer is worth freeing up some of your time
so you can focus on more important things.
2. Not Enforcing Accountability or Punctuality
If you’ve ever had a team member or contract
employee consistently show up late to meetings
and you’ve never held them accountable, you’re
telling the rest of your team that it’s acceptable to
always be late. That's a dangerous precedent to set.
Many business owners don’t want to be the “bad
guy” and enforce punctuality or accountability, but
those are the cornerstones for a growing successful
business with people who feel responsible to
deliver results across the company. Consistently
being late shows people that you are unreliable
and have no respect for yourself or other people’s
time. If you’re an entrepreneur trying to grow a
team that's invested in the future of your company,
be sure to set the standard for your employees so
they have an example to model from.
3. Starting a Business You Have No Genuine Interest
In
No matter how much time and energy you put into
your business, if you’re not truly interested in
what you do—the problem you're solving, the
people you're helping—you won’t get very far.
You have to care deeply about what you' re creating
and who you're building it for, in order to push
past the inevitable obstacles that'll come your way
as an entrepreneur.
If you’ve ever wondered why entrepreneurs like
Richard Branson and Perry Marshall are extremely
successful, it’s not because they found a winning
formula and they certainly didn't just get lucky one
day. They've accomplished incredible feats and
changed industries because they fundamentally
care about what their businesses are helping their
customers do on a daily basis. If you want to be
successful, you have to be deeply involved with
your customers.
4. Becoming Too Absorbed in the Details
Details can be important, but there is a point when
you need to accept the fact that perfect isn ' t worth
it, in order to move forward and continue making
progress with your business. In the beginning,
your business is not going to be perfect, and you’ll
be working out the kinks even with fundamentals
for a while as you get comfortable with the niche
you're operating in and the customers you're
working with.
If you get stuck trying to perfect something before
you can further develop your business and make
sure you're solving real problems your customers
actually have, you’ll never get anywhere. There are
of course some details that can't be skipped when it
comes to your finances, sales funnels, lead
capturing and customer relations. But if you’re a
startup and you’re postponing designing your
website because you can’t decide between two
shades of blue for your typography, it would serve
you well to make any choice for the short-term,
move forward with designing your website and
revisit your colors later when it's the right time to
care about a decision like that (hint: that probably
won't be for many years).
5. Building an Expensive Website on Day One
Speaking of building websites, the last thing you
want to do as a startup is spend a lot of time and
money building a fancy, flashy website before you
even know exactly how to best serve your
customers. One of the best early decisions you can
make as an entrepreneur is to launch a basic
website in the beginning so people have a way to
learn about your product or service and contact
you. That's it.
Here's why: If your business is still being
developed and you invest a ton of your time and
financial resources into building your ultimate
website before your business is even out into the
marketplace, you’ll just end up having to redo the
majority of your work anyway. The reality of
starting a business is that some of your
assumptions will be incorrect—you'll have to grow,
adapt and change in order to best meet the needs
of your customers.
6. Consistently Rebranding a Product That Isn’t
Selling
This is the biggest startup mistake you can make as
an entrepreneur. You may have seen this happen
with other people’s products. Something isn’t
selling, so they change the name and put it in a
new package. It still doesn’t sell.
If you have a product that isn’t selling very well
regardless of how you package it, it may not be
your product that is the problem. You’re either
marketing a perfectly good product to the wrong
people, or you’re marketing to the right people in
the wrong way—there could be something wrong
with your pricing, the value propositions you're
pitching or otherwise.
No matter how much you like the clever name you
came up with, if your product or service doesn’t
appeal to your target market, they won’t buy it. It
takes time to have conversations with real
customers, gather a significant amount of customer
data, interpret that data, and do a great job
of defining your target audience, but it is worth the
effort. You don't immediately launch perfect
solutions—you have to work with your target
customers to create the best version of what they
need.
7. Taking on Unnecessary Expenses
It’s a luxury to have an office, a new computer, a
fax machine, and a double monitor setup. But that
doesn’t mean you need these things in the
beginning. If you're starting up by yourself or you
only have a few employees and they are happy to
work remotely from home, then it doesn’t make
sense to incur the additional costs of renting an
office space.
If your current computer setup is perfectly
functional, you don’t need to replace it just yet. All
of the goodies you want to purchase will come in
time, but in the beginning it’s smart to be frugal
and only spend money on activities that have a
direct positive return in terms of new revenue
coming into the company.
8. Allowing Employees to Use Personal Laptops for
Work
It’s easy to let employees perform their work on
personal laptops because that means you don’t
have to buy them one, but in the long run this is a
big startup mistake.
While many businesses do this, there are quite a
few cons to this practice. Allowing your employees
to primarily use their own personal laptops for
work means that they'll accumulate passwords,
save sensitive documents and other materials
belonging to the business that they'll have access to
when they eventually leave the company.
Turning the Mistakes of Others Into Wisdom
While making mistakes can be beneficial at times
(if you truly retain the important lessons), you
don’t have to experience them all yourself.
If you’re willing to put in the time and effort to
build a solid foundation for your business, work
directly with your customers to create meaningful
solutions for them and heed the wisdom from
others who've forged their own path of
entrepreneurship, you’ll be successful with your
startup.

8 Startup Mistakes to Avoid When Launching a New Business

Although starting a business will undoubtedly
be hard work, it can be one of the most exciting
and rewarding adventures of your life—if you can
avoid these crippling startup mistakes. You get to
bring your ideas to life. Build your team and
structure your business any way you wish.
However, since building a business is new to you,
learning from the business mistakes other
entrepreneurs have made in the past can help save
you a lot of time and frustration for the weeks,
months and years to come.
You're not alone either. Some of the world's most
successful entrepreneurs—ranging from Richard
Branson to Mark Cuban, Arianna Huffington, Tony
Robbins and more, have made massive missteps
along their path to eventual success. It's only
through learning from their mistakes and heeding
the advice of other more experienced mentors that
they were able to eventually achieve their biggest
goals.
From my own experience and that of others, here
are the 8 biggest, most avoidable startup mistakes
that many entrepreneurs continue to make when
building a new business.
1. Trying to Do Everything Yourself
There are only 24 hours in a day. If you want to
get a good night’s sleep, which is absolutely
necessary to performing at peak levels, the reality
is that you can’t do everything yourself. Although
being a one-person-show may be a functional
necessity in the beginning, you may want to
consider delegating simple tasks to a small team of
contract workers who can help lighten your load—
and free up more of your time for focusing on the
activities only you can do within your business.
Delegating can be a challenge, though. Others may
not perform tasks the same way you would, but
sometimes that’s okay. For example, you may like
to move the furniture in the office when you
vacuum, but your employees don’t. You need to ask
yourself if delegating the task of vacuuming and
allowing a little more dust to accumulate behind
the printer is worth freeing up some of your time
so you can focus on more important things.
2. Not Enforcing Accountability or Punctuality
If you’ve ever had a team member or contract
employee consistently show up late to meetings
and you’ve never held them accountable, you’re
telling the rest of your team that it’s acceptable to
always be late. That's a dangerous precedent to set.
Many business owners don’t want to be the “bad
guy” and enforce punctuality or accountability, but
those are the cornerstones for a growing successful
business with people who feel responsible to
deliver results across the company. Consistently
being late shows people that you are unreliable
and have no respect for yourself or other people’s
time. If you’re an entrepreneur trying to grow a
team that's invested in the future of your company,
be sure to set the standard for your employees so
they have an example to model from.
3. Starting a Business You Have No Genuine Interest
In
No matter how much time and energy you put into
your business, if you’re not truly interested in
what you do—the problem you're solving, the
people you're helping—you won’t get very far.
You have to care deeply about what you' re creating
and who you're building it for, in order to push
past the inevitable obstacles that'll come your way
as an entrepreneur.
If you’ve ever wondered why entrepreneurs like
Richard Branson and Perry Marshall are extremely
successful, it’s not because they found a winning
formula and they certainly didn't just get lucky one
day. They've accomplished incredible feats and
changed industries because they fundamentally
care about what their businesses are helping their
customers do on a daily basis. If you want to be
successful, you have to be deeply involved with
your customers.
4. Becoming Too Absorbed in the Details
Details can be important, but there is a point when
you need to accept the fact that perfect isn ' t worth
it, in order to move forward and continue making
progress with your business. In the beginning,
your business is not going to be perfect, and you’ll
be working out the kinks even with fundamentals
for a while as you get comfortable with the niche
you're operating in and the customers you're
working with.
If you get stuck trying to perfect something before
you can further develop your business and make
sure you're solving real problems your customers
actually have, you’ll never get anywhere. There are
of course some details that can't be skipped when it
comes to your finances, sales funnels, lead
capturing and customer relations. But if you’re a
startup and you’re postponing designing your
website because you can’t decide between two
shades of blue for your typography, it would serve
you well to make any choice for the short-term,
move forward with designing your website and
revisit your colors later when it's the right time to
care about a decision like that (hint: that probably
won't be for many years).
5. Building an Expensive Website on Day One
Speaking of building websites, the last thing you
want to do as a startup is spend a lot of time and
money building a fancy, flashy website before you
even know exactly how to best serve your
customers. One of the best early decisions you can
make as an entrepreneur is to launch a basic
website in the beginning so people have a way to
learn about your product or service and contact
you. That's it.
Here's why: If your business is still being
developed and you invest a ton of your time and
financial resources into building your ultimate
website before your business is even out into the
marketplace, you’ll just end up having to redo the
majority of your work anyway. The reality of
starting a business is that some of your
assumptions will be incorrect—you'll have to grow,
adapt and change in order to best meet the needs
of your customers.
6. Consistently Rebranding a Product That Isn’t
Selling
This is the biggest startup mistake you can make as
an entrepreneur. You may have seen this happen
with other people’s products. Something isn’t
selling, so they change the name and put it in a
new package. It still doesn’t sell.
If you have a product that isn’t selling very well
regardless of how you package it, it may not be
your product that is the problem. You’re either
marketing a perfectly good product to the wrong
people, or you’re marketing to the right people in
the wrong way—there could be something wrong
with your pricing, the value propositions you're
pitching or otherwise.
No matter how much you like the clever name you
came up with, if your product or service doesn’t
appeal to your target market, they won’t buy it. It
takes time to have conversations with real
customers, gather a significant amount of customer
data, interpret that data, and do a great job
of defining your target audience, but it is worth the
effort. You don't immediately launch perfect
solutions—you have to work with your target
customers to create the best version of what they
need.
7. Taking on Unnecessary Expenses
It’s a luxury to have an office, a new computer, a
fax machine, and a double monitor setup. But that
doesn’t mean you need these things in the
beginning. If you're starting up by yourself or you
only have a few employees and they are happy to
work remotely from home, then it doesn’t make
sense to incur the additional costs of renting an
office space.
If your current computer setup is perfectly
functional, you don’t need to replace it just yet. All
of the goodies you want to purchase will come in
time, but in the beginning it’s smart to be frugal
and only spend money on activities that have a
direct positive return in terms of new revenue
coming into the company.
8. Allowing Employees to Use Personal Laptops for
Work
It’s easy to let employees perform their work on
personal laptops because that means you don’t
have to buy them one, but in the long run this is a
big startup mistake.
While many businesses do this, there are quite a
few cons to this practice. Allowing your employees
to primarily use their own personal laptops for
work means that they'll accumulate passwords,
save sensitive documents and other materials
belonging to the business that they'll have access to
when they eventually leave the company.
Turning the Mistakes of Others Into Wisdom
While making mistakes can be beneficial at times
(if you truly retain the important lessons), you
don’t have to experience them all yourself.
If you’re willing to put in the time and effort to
build a solid foundation for your business, work
directly with your customers to create meaningful
solutions for them and heed the wisdom from
others who've forged their own path of
entrepreneurship, you’ll be successful with your
startup.

5 Ways to Use Your Skills to Start a Side Business

One of the best ways to increase your income and
give yourself a solid foundation by which to grow
into self-employment in the future is to start a side
business of your own.
If you choose the right business opportunity,
there's room for you to keep growing your
customer base on the side, while keeping your day
job. From there, if you take the right steps, you'll
be able to grow your side income beyond that of
your day job—and launch into the world of self-
employment.
However, before you get started, you'll need to first
understand the different ways you'll be going
about discovering and validating your ideal side
business idea.
From my conversations with aspiring
entrepreneurs, one of the most common mistakes I
see being made over and over again when people
are looking for the right side business opportunity,
is that they completely overlook their single best
resource: their existing skill sets.
As a writer and marketer by trade, I know that
with any business I get into, I'll need to engage my
core strengths of crafting compelling content and
getting it in front of a large online audience, in
order to have a chance of being successful and
competing with others in my space.
If you want to become a successful entrepreneur
within your field, you'll need to engage your
strengths. If you're still unsure about which skills
you'll be able to monetize with a side business,
take the Entrepreneur ' s Skill Assessment today.
Once you've determined which strengths you'll
plan on leveraging, here are five ways to turn
those skills into a side business.
1. Freelancing
If you've built up a set of marketable skills
throughout your career and at your day job, you
should consider the idea of starting a freelance
business on the side.
There's a rapidly expanding demand for talented
freelance help, especially in the US with over 54
million freelancers in 2015.
If your skills include writing, designing,
developing, marketing, social media management,
or another high-demand digital skill, then you're in
a great position to start bringing on freelance
clients. Start with building a high quality portfolio
website to list your skills, showcase examples of
your best work, and display reviews from past co-
workers or bosses as you get up and running.
Create a very clear picture of who your target
freelance client is going to be, and make sure
you're tailoring your website and reach out
experience to what that person is going to expect.
2. Blogging
One of my favorite side businesses, albeit a very
long term investment in my future, has been
starting a blog and building up a loyal audience of
regular readers. If you're comfortable with the
potential that it may very well take you years to
start earning a decent income from one of the
various ways to monetize a blog, and you have a
knack for building connections with people
through your writing, then this may be for you.
Be sure to start with a niche topic that'll give you
the opportunity to become well-respected within a
close-knit community, before you set your sights on
expanding into a very large market. Your
credibility platform will be of great importance
moving forward.
3. Online Coaching
If you have a marketable skill that others want to
possess or get better at, then there's a market for
being paid to coach people, one-on-one, into an
accelerated learning experience. The emergence of
easy-to-use online coaching websites like
Savvy and Clarity .fm already provide you with a
built-in community of people looking to work on
various different types of skills. The most exciting
thing about starting an online coaching business
on the side is that once you've perfected your
teaching experience, you'll be able to easily
package it into a more scalable version—an online
course.
4. Online Courses
As with online coaching, when there's a growing
demand for a skill that you possess, one of the best
ways to monetize that ability of yours, is by
creating a genuinely helpful online course for
others to go through at their own leisure. While the
setup time and upfront investments are huge (in
terms of your time) with this business model, it's
one of the most scalable online businesses out there
today. Teachable has become one of the best
resources on learning how to launch an online
course business, as well as being the premier
online course platform to power your course
content once you have it built.
5. Physical Products
Whether you have an idea for a new-to-the-world
invention, a new spin on an existing product, or
nothing more than selling a product in a new way
or to a new market, there are countless ways to
make money selling physical products on the side.
For example, take Neil Patel, an online marketer
who last year launched a challenge for himself to
create an online business from scratch, in an
industry he knows nothing about (a nutrition
blog). Just last month, he cleared over $22,000 in
sales of a product that he white labels and sells on
Amazon.
If you're willing to get creative, there are a nearly
unlimited number of ways to use your skills and
start a side business that'll have the potential to
launch you into a career of self-employment. Check
out the Launch While Working Formula for more
on how to start and grow a side business while
keeping your day job.

The 4 Most Difficult Stages of Becoming an Entrepreneur

As you go through the process of starting your own
business and training yourself to adapt to the new
(often intimidating) commitments you've signed
yourself up for, it's important to be aware of the
mental journey you're going to be traveling along,
in addition to the physical one of making your
company come to life.
There will be ups and there will most certainly be
downs along the way. If you're careful to learn
from your mistakes and minimize the negative
outcomes as much as possible, you'll stand a very
real chance for succeeding in business.
Making the definitive decision to start your own
business and create the lifestyle you want to live, is
worth any amount of hard work; mental and
physical.
In my experience starting businesses, these are the
4 most difficult mental stages of the arduous
journey to becoming a successful entrepreneur.
The Sacrifice.
This is by far the most mentally trying stage of the
journey. At first, everything you do (and achieve)
will feel like an immense sacrifice. When your
friends are all hanging out together on a Friday
night, you're at home working on your app, doing
freelance work, or putting the finishing touches on
your prototypes.
You're likely to frequently question yourself, doubt
the work you' re doing, and seek outside approval
to help you justify all of the time and hard work
you're putting into your fledgling business.
However, the reality is, you only have a limited
amount of time outside of the hours you already
commit to your day job, so if you want to become
successful with your new business, there's no other
choice than to utilize the time you do have.
The Grind.
Now that you've become comfortable with the
discomfort that is starting a business, learning new
skills, and sharing your ideas with the world, you
start to get into a rhythm. You'll move into a
routine that helps you maximize your productivity,
so that you're spending as much time as possible
on your new business.
During this stage, you'll start picking up
momentum and experiencing bigger wins with
more frequency than when you were just getting
started. You've eliminated the regular feelings of
self-doubt, and can focus on growing your business
idea into a valuable solution for your customers.
The Life.
Your new business is generating revenue. You
know who your customers are and how to reach
them. You've attained a good amount of traction
and you're extremely confident in your ability to
serve those customers better than your competitors
can.
If you've been launching this business while
keeping your day job, this is likely the phase in
which you'll finally meet your minimum income
criteria for quitting your day job to focus on
growing the business full-time. It's exhilarating to
be working on your passion project with all of your
time & energy.
The Freedom.
After all of your hard work, you have a lot to be
proud of.
Your business has achieved product/market fit and
you're able to scale your operations much more
quickly now that you have the time, energy, and
mental clarity to focus on your longterm vision.
You're able to step away from the business at times
and trust the systems and people you've put in
place to help keep things on track, while you enjoy
the lifestyle benefits of running your own business.
True entrepreneurs never stop challenging
themselves, pushing the boundaries, and operating
with discomfort. It's how we grow.

7 Words You Need to Eliminate If You Want to Be Successful

Becoming a successful entrepreneur is as much of a mental game, as it is one of finesse and expertise.
You can be the most intelligent, talented, and
respected person within your industry, but if you
don't believe in yourself and continue to be
brutally honest as you move through the extremely
difficult stages of growing a business, your failure
is all but inevitable.
Everything from the way you feel about getting up
to head into the office each morning, to the quality
of relationships with your business partners, and
the words you use on a daily basis, will have a long
term effect on whether or not you'll become
successful.
Whether you intend to or not, if you allow yourself
to use words and phrases that convey doubt,
insecurity, and a lack of true belief in what you're
saying, you'll eventually lose faith.
Not only does this effect your own mental well-
being, but the people you're communicating with
will read into your word choice and pick up on
your sentiment & body language.
Here are the seven words you'll need to eliminate
from your vocabulary if you want to be successful.

1. "Might"
This one is my all-time least favorite word.
Anytime I catch myself using it in conversation, I force myself to first think about why I would be unsure about what I'm promising or expounding
about—especially in a business situation. "Might"
is most commonly used to highlight something that
may be a possibility. In business, you need to be very sure of yourself and the decisions you're making. If you're not, others will pick up on your insecurity and have a difficult time believing in
you.
Not to mention how often this word is misused and out of context.

2. "Usually"
In a business context, "usually" is another word that expresses doubt about a situation or set of circumstances. Its lack of definitive nature tells the
person you're conversing with, that they shouldn't
confidently believe in an outcome that happens
only most of the time.

3. "Should"
Similar to "might" and "usually," the word, "should" also conveys a general lack of confidence and
certainty in the result you're really just hoping for, rather than taking the necessary time and
preparations to make sure you execute flawlessly.

4. "Won't"
Using this word is one of the quickest ways to put someone on the defensive. Instead of using a less personal word to decline participation in an
activity, the word, "won't" has an air of stubborn
rejection to it.

5. "Likely"
If you're using the word, "likely" in a business
setting, you're really doing nothing more than
making a prediction. Not only are you clearly not confident in the results or outcome you're talking
about, but you're making clear your lack of
personal knowledge on the matter.

6. "If Only"
Nothing says that you're living in a dream world
more than talking about business situations with the ever-hopeful, "if only." Here, you're actively
stating that you don ' t have control over what ' s happening, and it gives the impression that you're
just grasping at the hope of some sort of divine
intervention.
Quit dreaming of the things you could do with all
the resources in the world, and instead, focus on
making your dream come true with the tools you do have.

7. "Really"
In a business sense, the word "really" is a very
casual expression that attempts to place extra
emphasis and importance on a particular outcome,
without really quantifying what exactly that extra
emphasis is. The word rarely adds any real value to
your conversations.
Which words are you using today, that may be
holding you back from achieving your goals?

PATH OF DESTRUCTION

PATH OF DESTRUCTION

(A FRIEND STORY)

Caught in the heart of citywide riots that had been sparked by anti-government student demonstrations, God was our only defense—but He was strong enough! What could have turned into trauma and tragedy for us became instead a thrilling testimony to the power of God.

Our third-story apartment doubled as housing and base of operations for our volunteer work. In the previous few days we had left only for emergencies. “Have you heard the latest?” someone whispered. We kept our voices low, as we didn’t want to upset the children. “Crowds are rioting all across the city!”

Lydia peered out the window, being careful to stay out of sight behind the curtain. “It’s all quiet around here,” she said. “Almost too quiet.”

“We’re safe here for the time being,” John replied, putting his arm around Lydia. “We’ve prayed for our situation, so we know we’re in the Lord’s hands.” We had been praying about trying to leave the city, but kept feeling that the Lord wanted us to stay put.

“Now seems like a good time to try to talk to some of our neighbors,” John said.

Lydia looked out the window again, this time at the men who stood guard at the outer gate of our housing complex. Their show of force might be enough to deter a few would-be looters, but what could they possibly do if they were set upon by an angry mob?

John and Lydia prayed for the Lord’s protection, and then set off down the stairs and out of the building. They hurried past the evacuated shops on the ground floor, then over to the front gate of our complex where a few neighbors mingled and talked with the guards. As John and Lydia got closer a loud crash shook the neighborhood. At the same instant two frightened teenagers came hurtling around the corner.
“Quick!” one of them shouted. “Get out of here! A mob is headed this way!”

There were more people behind the two teenagers—dozens of them on foot and motorbikes or in cars—all racing as fast as they could to keep ahead of the rioters.

The first young man stopped and bent over. Resting his hands on his knees, he tried to catch his breath. “They’re breaking shop windows and setting buildings on fire—buildings just like this one!” he said. “They’re right around the corner!” Fear flashed in his eyes and he sprinted off again. Panic overcame our neighbors, and they took off too.

John and Lydia prayed to stay calm. Without saying another word to each other, they turned, rushed back to our apartment building, and bounded up the stairs. Joanna had seen them coming and flung the door open for them.

It was clear that something terrible was happening in the streets below, and there was only one thing that we could do: pray desperately for the Lord to keep us from harm!

A couple of us kept our children occupied with reading in another room, while the rest of us prayed as we never had before! Time passed. We prayed on. When the shouting and screaming below got louder, we stopped our ears and claimed God’s protection over and over.

Psalm 91 was a tremendous comfort. “A thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand; but it shall not come near you. … I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress; my God, in Him I will trust. … You shall not be afraid of the terror by night, nor of the arrow that flies by day. … No evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near your dwelling.” It seemed like that had been written specifically for us. The peace of God covered our spirits like a cozy blanket.

After what seemed like forever, someone got up and went to the window. Everything was quiet and still. Not a soul was in sight. We were safe!

Phil and Esther ran up to the roof to get a better look. There they could see just how wonderfully we had been saved. The mob had left a path of destruction down the street that led to our neighborhood—a cindered, litter-strewn mess of mangled steel and shattered glass. The mob had come straight up our street, and then just before it got to our apartment, the mob had made a U-turn and headed for a nearby supermarket.

For some time after that, we could still hear the shouts of looters as they emptied the supermarket of anything they could carry. Later, 200-foot columns of fire illuminated the night sky as two nearby department stores were looted and burned.

Destruction and terror were all around, but through it all, we were kept safe in the hands of our loving Savior.

—

James 4:7 ESV / Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Philippians 3:19 ESV / Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things.

Philippians 3:18 ESV / For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ.

Onyedikachi Kingsley Ogbonna (Surv.)

BE A MAXIMIZER

BE A MAXIMIZER

Most people, it seems, fall into one of three broad groups when it comes to their level of dedication and initiative, their work ethic, and how much they’re able to accomplish.

These three groups are the minimizers, the maintainers, and the maximizers. Minimizers do as little as they can get away with, and maintainers do only what is needed to maintain the status quo, but maximizers are ready and willing to go the distance; they are focused on moving closer to their goal, even though they know it will cost them in time and energy.

Maximizers are the cream of the crop. They take initiative, are proactive, are the first to respond to a need or adapt to changing circumstances, and give their best at whatever they do. It comes as no surprise, then, that maximizers are generally more successful than their less committed counterparts.

There is no simple formula for becoming a maximizer, but there are some basic principles that apply almost universally.

Put in the hours. Maximizers don’t watch the clock. To be maximizers, we must be willing to work long and hard, within reasonable limits, and sometimes do so in less-than-ideal conditions. Ancient Israel’s King Solomon, who was himself a maximizer when it came to things as varied as his building projects, pursuing wisdom, and (perhaps less wisely) acquiring wives and concubines, put it this way: “Lazy people want much but get little, while the diligent are prospering,” and, “The lazy man will not plow because of winter; [therefore] he will beg during harvest and have nothing.” Finding a balance is essential. The goal is not to become a work-aholic, but if we want the maximum results from any venture, it stands to reason that we need to put in more than a minimum of work.

Have a good work ethic and self-discipline. Cultivating a good work ethic, good work habits, and self-discipline are all crucial to becoming a maximizer. We should look for opportunities to renew our commitment to excellence through constantly challenging ourselves to stretch and grow. Good work habits include such things as planning ahead, prioritizing, wisely delegating, learning from mistakes, and remaining flexible. Maximizers have a purpose. They are driven to accomplish something beyond the norm, and they realize that to be successful at it they need to make sacrifices.

Share the load. Maximizers work hard, but they are wise enough to know that their own efforts alone will never achieve the maximum results possible, and they are humble enough to solicit the help of others. They see the potential in others, delegate what they can, and inspire their coworkers to strive to be maximizers too. And if they are really smart, they also share the load with God by involving Him at every step in the endeavor, knowing that the inspiration, insight, and strength He can add will get them much farther than they could ever get on their own. They believe in the power of prayer and understand that God can help them reach their objective, even—and especially—when circumstances are beyond their control. They ask for His blessing at every turn, follow His lead, and depend on Him to do what they can’t do.

Abandon the comfort zones. Being a maximizer involves some discomfort. If we continue to do only the things we’ve always done, the way we’ve always done them, we can’t expect greater results. To accomplish more, we need to reach farther or in new directions; we need to pursue new ideas and develop new strengths and abilities. It’s easy to settle into a routine or to rest on one’s accomplishments, but the maximizer is always on the lookout for a new challenge, a new opportunity, and new ways to break out of the mold. When he finds one, he goes for it.

Be a team player. The maximizer looks for ways to serve the common good, to not only accomplish his own work, but also to help others on his team accomplish theirs. He knows that by giving in this way he is building team spirit, which will maximize his own efforts in the long run and cause others to be more willing to help him when he needs it.

Stay strong. Good health and being free from stress make you more productive, so taking time to take care of yourself is a good investment. Eat well, sleep well, exercise, and take time to relax and reflect.

Thank God for the good. Even if you do your best to follow the maximizer’s creed of giving your best, you can’t necessarily expect huge results right from the start—but you can expect to make progress. Focus on and be thankful for the gains, rather than dwelling on what there is left to do.

—

Colossians 3:23 NIV – Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men.

2 Timothy 2:15 ESV – Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

1 Corinthians 9:24-25 ESV – Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.

Onyedikachi Kingsley Ogbonna (Surv.)