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Life Lessons

66 posts

Persistence FTW!

There are literally thousands of lessons from trying to start and run a company. I’ve learned more in the past 5 months than I have at many other points in my entire life. One of the lessons that has been a theme for me over the past year and a half is persistence. I used to […]

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The Dip

Seth Godin talks about The Dip. The Dip is the point in any venture where it gets hard. The Dip is when effort doesn’t seem to be getting results. It’s the point where most people quit. And The Dip is real. I know because I’ve spent time there. In some areas of my life I’m […]

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I’m Grateful for Books

I love reading. Not just a little bit. I love it immensely. It might be a borderline addiction. Knowing that I will never get a chance to sit down with all the great theologians, physicists, marketers, evangelists, investors, and (insert a profession here) is troubling. There’s so much knowledge that they’ve gained over the year […]

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Belief and Action

There’s a tendency in our church culture to focus far more on belief than action. Belief is certainly important, but so often we excuse ourselves from action because we “believe” the right things. Or we waste time and energy arguing over what we should and shouldn’t believe. After all, check out this parable: Matthew 7:24-26 […]

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The Hero, the Villain, and Complex Issues

There’s a huge temptation to see people as heroes or villains. We look at politicians, business people, artists, and we make snap judgements. There’s no room in our minds for someone to be anything else. But issues are complex. Example: I love the humanitarian work the Gates Foundation is doing. I also completely disagree with […]

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What Do You Deserve?

One of my least favorite words in the entire English language is the word deserve. When people use it around me, they use it fundamentally differently than other similar words like earned. To deserve something often seems to imply a moral obligation that you get it. Earning something implies that you did something and are now […]

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The Lord Directs His Steps

Proverbs 16:9 says a man plans his course, but the Lord directs his steps. For us, this means two things: We should be planning (knowing of course that God is going to change things anyway) We should be moving. (When we say God directs steps, it assumes that we are stepping.) So by all means, plan […]

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Guilty Until Proven Innocent

Whenever we hear a news story that touches our hearts or makes us angry at injustice, it’s tempting to take a side. Often we take the side that we identify most with, whether it’s because of race, creed, gender, or any number of other factors. And then we often decide which party is guilty without […]

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You’re only at 40%

One video I’ve been thinking a lot about is this video over at BigThink. It’s a simple premise: When your body tells you to quit, you’re only at about 40% of your total capacity. That means when you’re ready to give up, you still have 60% left in the tank. So next time you’re working on a […]

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