Wisdom-Trek ©

Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy

Welcome to Day 104 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom.

Life is Like Brewing Coffee

Thank you for joining us for our 7 day a week, 7 minutes of wisdom podcast. This is Day 104 of our Trek. Yesterday we discovered 10 truths about how life is like hiking through the world. Today we will stay at camp and discuss how life is like a good cup of coffee.

In celebration of our 100th day of our Wisdom-Trek, please check out Wisdom-Trek.com and sign up for our drawing for a free Wisdom-Trek t-shirt that will take place on October 5th.

We are recording our podcast from our studio at The Big House in Marietta, Ohio. The refinishing of the woodwork in our dining room continues, and we are making progress. Today a couple of our friends from Charlotte are coming in for the weekend as Marietta celebrates the 40th annual Sternwheel Festival.

The Sternwheel Festival is the single largest event for Marietta each year, usually drawing in about 100,000 people. This is large for a city whose population is about 15,000 within the city limits. The fireworks display over the Ohio River is one of the most spectacular fireworks displays that we have seen anywhere. This year they will also have some of the firework displays set up on the bridge that crosses between Ohio and West Virginia. The last time they had that it was awe inspiring. We will round out the weekend with me speaking again at Putnam Congregational Church before heading back to Charlotte.

 

We are sitting around the camp fire today sipping on a large mug of coffee, listening to the crackling of the firewood, and watching the smoke wisp into the air until it is no longer visible. As we are chatting about the day and enjoying our coffee, it brings to my mind the 9 rules on how life is like a brewing a good pot of coffee.

Each day of your life is part of your story.  Just like the coffee we are drinking, life is fluid with people and events moving around us, much like the coffee swirls around in our mugs.  You don’t know with certainty how your story will end, but the choices that you make each day and your attitude will certainly impact the outcome of your story.  Today let us learn how to both create a great pot of coffee and how to create a great life story.

1. Buy Fresh Beans

Always fill your life with fresh, pertinent learning and information. Don’t allow your knowledge and significance to become stale and outdated. You need to invest in yourself by improving your body, mind, and soul.

2. Keep Coffee Beans Fresh

Keep yourself relevant. Once you invest in self-improvement in any or all areas of life, continue using this information. Don’t stop improving. If it is knowledge, continue to stay fresh by updating yourself as it changes. If it is eating wholesome foods, don’t fall back into unhealthy habits. If it is exercise, continue to exercise regularly. If it is spiritual study and mediation, continue to learn. Stay fresh.

3. Choose Good Coffee

Invest in good books and audio study programs, wholesome foods, good exercise equipment, and sound meditation and Bible study materials from wise individuals that live by what they teach. Choose quality over quantity.

4. Grind Your Own Coffee

Think and do for yourself. Don’t take short cuts just for the sake of convenience. Don’t just take someone else’s conclusion as always right and true. Always compare it to what you know to be right and wise.  Especially compare what you are learning with what the Bible says is correct. Using mentors is wise, but make sure you are using wise mentors. In eating and exercising, take the time to prepare properly for the maximum benefit.

Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy

Welcome to Day 103 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom.

Life is Like Hiking

Thank you for joining us for our 7 day a week, 7 minutes of wisdom podcast. This is Day 103 of our Trek. Yesterday we used the simile of how life is like a river. As rivers start with a single drop of water and eventually help to fill the oceans so our lives go through similar cycles. I hope that it was a helpful comparison that allowed you to gain wisdom. Today we are exploring the 10 lessons of How Life is Like Hiking Through the World.

In celebration of our 100th day of our Wisdom-Trek, please check out Wisdom-Trek.com, and sign up for our drawing for a free Wisdom-Trek t-shirt that will take place on October 5th.

We are recording our podcast from our studio at The Big House in Marietta, Ohio. I am continuing to work on finishing the woodwork in our dining room and made additional progress this morning. It certainly will look nice once it is finished, but I probably will not reach my goal of completing the room before we leave for Charlotte on Sunday. If not, I will continue when we come back to The Big House at the end of this month.

As we start out on our Trek, let us think about some of the small blessings that we experience when hiking and allow them to remind us to be thankful for the small blessings that we experience each day on our trek of life. As we hike through the woods today, visualize and enjoy feeling the soft earth on the path, the crackling of dry twigs under your feet, having your mind blown by the perfect sunset, and feeling the humbling exhaustion of a day’s hike as you finally approach a long-awaited viewpoint.

Hiking on a trail is a powerful, active force that teaches important life lessons. The trails, like life, have an undeniable ability to drive home simple but often overlooked truths as you trek into wild forests, persevere through mountains and rocky coastal paths, and venture out of your comfort zone.

Here are 10 truths I have come across for how life is like hiking through the world.

1. Slowing Down Is Important

As you travel through life, you need to experience what it means to follow a path for the love of the journey and not in a mad rush to get to the end, or you will miss out on life’s simple pleasures. Hiking teaches you to slow down, observe the world around you and to listen to your body. When your feet can no longer trudge the path ahead, you learn the power of slowing down and gain a new appreciation by realizing that not every path will take you where you intended.

2. Perseverance Pays

Life is like a long hiking trail in various ways. Far too often, we give up on our hopes and dreams, overcome by dejection or disappointment. On the trail, you learn that as long as you put one foot in front of the other, you’re getting somewhere. “Keep moving forward” is a simple lesson, and when it’s applied to other aspects of life, it can produce major results. That crazy dream of yours that no one else believes in can come true if you just persevere and keep walking toward it.

3. Nature Is Powerful and Teaches You Humility

If you’re suffering from an inflated ego or far too much vanity in your life, take a long hike. God’s creation is a raw force, unfettered and unforgiving, that can take your breath away with the magnificence of a landscape or bring you to your knees with the ruthlessness of a freak storm. In the mountains, where the weather changes without warning and the vistas of river valleys get more rewarding the higher you get, a hike is a thorough lesson in humility and respect for those things that our outside of your control.

4. Solitude Can Be Inspiring

Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy

Welcome to Day 102 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom.

Life is Like a River

Thank you for joining us for our 7 day a week, 7 minutes of wisdom podcast. This is Day 102 of our Trek.Yesterday we studied a couple of analogies of how life is like a clock.  I trust that you will allow these wisdom morsels to permeate you and help you to gain insight and understanding. As you do gain this wisdom, insight, and understanding as water flows in a river, let it flow through you to impact others in your world.  This brings us to our focus for today as we compare how life is like a river.

As I will mention each day this month, in celebration of passing the milestone of our 100th Day on our Wisdom-Trek, we have a special gift that we will be giving out to 7 of our fellow trekkers to show our appreciation to our faithful team members. On October 5th, we will have a drawing in which we will be giving away 7 Wisdom-Trek t-shirts. There is an entry form on the main Base Camp page of Wisdom-Trek.com, where you can enter once per day throughout the month of September. Thank you so much for coming along with us each day on our Wisdom-Trek.

We are recording our podcast from our studio at The Big House in Marietta, Ohio. I was able to start coating the woodwork in our dining room this morning. Although I did not make a lot of progress in the short time I was able to spend on it, I did make progress, and for that, I am thankful.

It was a busy day of work today with several projects competing for the limited time that seems to rush by so quickly. I personally can’t imagine having a day of work that drags on just waiting for it to be over.  Although I know accomplish much, my daily to-do list remains about the same length each day. I have always joked that I will live to 125, and I am not sure that is even enough time to get everything done I would like to do in life. While I do have many hectic and stressful days, I am grateful to be busy.

That is enough about my work. It is time to break camp and head out on our Trek. We travel a considerable distance, and as we continue on, we head down into a deep gorge on a long and very steep trail. As we near the bottom of the trail, we start to hear a rushing river. As we descend further, we come around a bend in the trail and see a beautiful river flowing swiftly before us.   Since we have been hiking now for several hours, we find a clearing to stop for a meal. As we are resting and gaining nourishment, we explore how life is like a river.

All rivers start as a few drops of rain. In comparison, our birth is like the formation of a spring on a hillside, which has gathered its water from the rain or snowmelt trickling off the mountain slopes.

As a child grows from an infant to toddler and begins to jabber, so is the babbling of a brook as it gains both volume and intensity. Before long, the child is growing and gaining traits that he will carry throughout his life. The brook expands into a creek with more of a defined course that it follows, leaving its mark everywhere it flows.

As our children grow into their teen years they begin to show their independence from their youth, and they seem to be always on the go. In the same way, the creeks come together to form the rivers that cascade over rocks and trees, forming rushing waters and rapids that are difficult to navigate. Like these streams and rivers, they encounter obstacles and challenges but learn to overcome these obstacles by wearing them down or finding a path around or through them.

Even as we grow into adults, at times there are massive floods, huge waterfalls, and raging rapids. We also learn that there are the periods of smooth and peaceful flo...

Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy

Welcome to Day 101 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom.

Life is Like a Clock

Thank you for joining us for our 7 day a week, 7 minutes of wisdom podcast. This is Day 101 of our Trek. Yesterday we came to understand that life is like working in a farm field. We need to take time to look up in gratitude, look around to help others, and then to refocus on the work at hand. Today we want to understand how life is like a clock.

In celebration of passing the milestone of our 100th Day on our Wisdom-Trek, we have a special gift that we will be giving out to 7 of our fellow trekkers to show our appreciation to our faithful team members. On October 5th, we will have a drawing in which we will be giving away 7 Wisdom-Trek t-shirts. There is an entry form on the main Base Camp page of Wisdom-Trek.com, where you can enter once per day throughout the month of September. Thank you so much for coming along with us each day on our Wisdom-Trek.

We are recording our podcast from our studio at The Big House in Marietta, Ohio. I was able to finish cleaning the woodwork and floors in our dining room this morning, and tomorrow morning, I should be able to start applying polyurethane to the woodwork. There is a significant amount of woodwork in the dining room, so time will determine how much I am able to accomplish.

Outside the house, our newest twin fawns and their mother spent a few moments outside of our office window this morning.  Our office is on the 2nd floor with large windows. It was nice to observe them unnoticed. The fawns must be very young based on their size and the spots that are still clearly visible. The pair of hawks also graced us with some acrobatics today, which was interesting. It has been a pleasant day of work with focus both on our client work and podcasting today. We are making progress with both.

It is time, though, to break camp and head out on our Trek, and as we do, you check your clock on your phone to determine the departure time this morning. You do some quick calculations to estimate how far we will be able to travel today if everything goes according to our planned hike. It then dawns on you that life is like a clock in so many ways.

While there is a certain reality to time, the measure of time, a clock, is a man-made creation. As Albert Einstein put it, "Time is an illusion,” yet nearly every moment of our lives is controlled by the clock. The clock tells us when to get up, when to go to work, when to eat, when to go home, when to sleep, and then the cycle repeats itself each day.

As such, we need to be careful on how much we allow the clock to control us. As H. G. Wells put it, "We must not allow the clock and the calendar to blind us to the fact that each moment of life is a miracle and mystery." We need to live a life that is rich and satisfying.

As we continue on our trail today, let us examine the different ways that life is like a clock. In our first analogy within the created limitations of time, man sets his own boundaries, defining his life in quarters just as a clock has its time measured in fourths. The first quarter of life is childhood, the second is young adulthood, the third mature adulthood, and the fourth is old age.

Paula and I wonder where the years have gone. We still feel like we are in the second quarter of life but realize that we are firmly entrenched in the 3rd quarter of a normal lifespan, even if God grants us the opportunity to live to 100 or longer.

Time, like life, does not stop for anyone. For this reason, each hour of your life is valuable. Other than to learn from it, you must not live in the past. You cannot change yesterday.

Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy

Welcome to Day 100 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom.

Life is Like Working in a Farm Field

Thank you for joining us for our 7 day a week, 7 minutes of wisdom podcast. This is Day 100 of our Trek, and yesterday we explored the 10 life lessons that we can learn while hiking.  Today we want to determine why life is like working in a farm field.

During the remainder of September, we will be celebrating achieving the milestone of our 100th Day on our Wisdom-Trek. Very few podcasts last more than a few episodes, but we realize that as with anything worthwhile in life’s trek, podcasting takes consistent persistence. On October 5th, we will be having a drawing in which we will be giving away 7 free Wisdom-Trek T-Shirts. There is an entry form on the main Base Camp page of Wisdom-Trek.com, where you can enter once per day throughout the month of September.

We are recording our podcast from our studio at The Big House in Marietta, Ohio. I am creating this podcast on Labor Day in the US, so most of our client work was non-existent today, which gave me an extra day to work on our formal dining room. I finished removing the old varnish from the woodwork and was able to sand the floor. Tomorrow morning, I will finish vacuuming the dust and begin preparing to apply polyurethane to both the woodwork and floors this week. My goal is to have it finished no later than Saturday, prior to heading back to Charlotte on Sunday.

While it does require a lot of effort to renovate the various rooms in The Big House, it does bring a great sense of satisfaction realizing that we are fixing up the house that was built by my great-grandparents to its original condition. In some rooms, we are making it even better. Paula and I feel strongly that this is part of the family legacy that God has entrusted to us.  It is our hope that we will be able to set up a fund to help future family members to maintain the house. It is both time consuming and expensive to maintain but a heritage that we feel is worth the investment. Paula was also able to plant some crocus and Hyacinth flower bulbs down the front walk this morning so we can enjoy them in early spring next year.

It is time, though, to break camp and head out on our Trek for today. As we move slowly up the trail, we come to a clearing overlooking a valley. In the valley are acres of fields containing crops, and we notice the workers stooped over, busily harvesting the crops by hand.

Growing up on a small farm and apple orchard, I am reminded of how life is like working in the field harvesting the crops. We worked many hours harvesting both vegetable crops and picking apples by hand one at a time. Apple harvest was an intense season, requiring a lot of work climbing both the trees and ladders to reach all of the apples. In addition to the physical labor of climbing, we had a picking bag strapped to our front, which when full would hold between 40 and 50 pounds of apples.

As I remember the many years of growing up, I do reflect on how blessed I was to learn the value of hard work and many other lessons and wisdom that I can now apply to each day. This reminds me of a lesson taught by one of my virtual mentors Jim Rohn. His lesson was titled Look Up, Look Around, and then Back to Work. Let’s look at each of these points.

1. Look Up

Whether we are working in a field, like we see the workers in the valley that we overlook on our Trek today, working in an office, digging a ditch, or completing any other task during the day, let us take time to pause and look up. We are to look up to give thanks to God and ask Him to help us through each day. As King David proclaimed in Psalm 121:1-3,

"I look up to the mountains—

Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy

Welcome to Day 99 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom.

10 Life Lessons Learned from Hiking

Thank you for joining us for our 7 day a week, 7 minutes of wisdom podcast. This is Day 99 of our Trek, and yesterday we discovered that life is a lot like hiking at night – filled with uncertainties and fears. Since none of us can know with certainty the future, life is like hiking at night with a headlamp on.  We can only see a short distance in front of us, but if we continue on, we will see far enough to hike the entire distance.

Since we started Wisdom-Trek with Day 0, today we reach a podcasting milestone as we reach our 100th episode of Wisdom-Trek. We have used hiking as our analogy for Wisdom-Trek, since life is a trek during which we explore our world each day.

I thought it would be a fitting topic today to explore the 10 life lessons that we can learn while hiking, but before we proceed any further, I have a special message. In celebration of our 100th episode, I will be announcing a drawing later this week where we will be giving away 7 free Wisdom-Trek T-Shirts. We don’t have all of the information set up yet, so keep listening each day for the details.

 We are recording our podcast from our studio at The Big House in Marietta, Ohio. This morning I spoke at Putnam Congregational Church as we began a 2 part series of the Fruit of the Spirit from Galatians 5:22-23. I feel that the lesson went well, and the congregation seemed to enjoy and learn from it.  Next Sunday I will present the 2nd part of the lesson. If you would also like to hear a similar teaching, please listen to Days 2-10 of our Trek.

At The Big House this past week, we have been able to enjoy our twin fawns and their mother that I discussed in previous episodes, as they come out to graze in our lawn each evening. We also have another mother deer with her set of twin fawns that are much younger and were probably born within the past month. This is a little late in the year for them, and their mother also looks younger. We enjoy watching them as they meander around in the evening.  Our pair of hawks has been around this week again after some time of absence, so they may be checking on their nest. It is our hope that they will return again for next spring.

On this beautiful and sunny late summer day, let us break camp and head out on our trail to explore more lessons that we can learn from life’s trek. Life is filled with both wonderful and challenging expeditions. The key is to choose to enjoy your journey and to learn as much as possible from each experience.

Here is a list of 10 life lessons you’ll learn that make your journey worthwhile.

You can’t just give up in the middle. Once you set out on life’s trek, you can’t turn back halfway to your destination. Some days our trails will be easy. Others will be very challenging. Always keep your eye on the destination. Only God determines when our Trek is over. Until then, we need to keep moving forward.

Take one step at a time. All we know for sure is that we can take one more step, and we must take them one at a time. Focus on the next step while keeping your eternal destination in mind. The trail you’re climbing may be steep and slick, but millions of others have climbed through life successfully, and so will you. Ignore the magnitude of the overall trek of life. Take it one step at a time, and keep moving forward

There will always be a voice in your head that says “can’t.” Accept the fact that you will have fears and doubts. You are human. Stuff all of your "can’ts" into "cans," and banish them to a corner of your brain. Tell the "can’ts" to shut up, and keep moving forward.

You are stuck with your own baggage,

Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy

Welcome to Day 98 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom.

Life is Like Hiking at Night

Thank you for joining us for our 7 day a week, 7 minutes of wisdom podcast.This is Day 98 of our Trek. The past two days we explored the four zones of life, or as we referred to them as trails, where we can choose to spend most of our time. As much as is feasible we need to hike on the Trail of Genius where we can reach our full potential.

One interesting point, though, is that on the Trail of Genius, the trail ahead of us is less predictable. Sometimes we are not be able to know more than a short distance where the trail will take us. This is how life is. None of us know with certainty the future, so our trek of life is like hiking at night with a headlamp on. We can see a short distance in front of us, but if we continue on, we will see far enough to hike the entire distance. So today, we are taking a nighttime hike to prepare us for the various seasons that we will encounter in life.

We are recording our podcast from our studio at The Big House in Marietta, Ohio. Today we were able to invest time with four of our grandkids watching the Washington County Fair Parade. After that, we went and looked at a modular home that Nat and Elizabeth are considering purchasing as they are looking to build out in the country. Then we headed back to The Big House for the afternoon for some fish sticks and ice cream. It was a great time together with our grandchildren. We always enjoy the time we have together. I also spent some additional time preparing for the lessons that I will be teaching at church the next couple of Sundays.

It is time to break camp now and since we are going for a night hike, we need to prepare all the necessary gear for tonight’s trek. Hiking at night brings with it dangers and hazards that we may not encounter during a day hike. We cannot see nearly as far up the trail. The darkness hides familiar landmarks and renders those you can see in totally alien terms. On a dark night, depth perception becomes a guessing game, and a whole new set of animals comes out to play along with other perils, both real and imagined that can make the hike much scarier. We have our map, a GPS Unit, a very strong headlamp and the other necessary provisions, so let’s begin.

When we think about life’s trek, it is a lot like hiking at night. You must keep your eyes on the trail and focus on the direction that you are going but not forget the importance of checking your map or GPS. If you are leading the expedition, you must be aware that those who follow you need your guidance and assurance that you know where you are heading, and that you will safely lead them on the trail you are on for this hike.

I like to plan and set goals for both our personal lives and business, and in reality they are one because all of life is integrated into my personal life. It is important to have your plans so that you can make choices that are prudent and wise. Your plans and goals are the GPS that you are following. As we move through each day of life, it is like hiking at night. We need to prepare, but as we are hiking we can only see a few feet in front of us. None of us have the guarantee of tomorrow. We need to live as if we are to die tomorrow, but plan as if we are going to live forever.

While hiking at night can seem scarier than hiking the same trail during the day, you cannot let that perception cloud your judgment. If you worry about "night sounds" or the things that go bump in the night just because you can’t see as far as you would like, you will never make progress and be stranded on your trail.

We all have occasions when we allow our doubts and fears to overwhelm us,

Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy

Welcome to Day 97 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom.

Hiking the Trail of Genius (2)

Thank you for joining us for our 7 day a week, 7 minutes of wisdom podcast. This is Day 97 of our Trek. Yesterday we started our exploration of the four zones of life, or as we referred to them as trails, where we can choose to spend most of our time. So far we have hiked the Trail of Incompetence and the Trail of Competence. Today we will explore the Trail of Excellence and the Trail of Genius. When we finish this two day hike, we will have a clearly marked map showing how we can navigate toward and spend most of our time on our personal Trail of Genius.

We are recording our podcast from our studio at The Big House in Marietta, Ohio. We are making slow but steady progress on the woodwork in the dining room. My hope is to be ready to complete a couple of coats of polyurethane on the woodwork and floors before we head back to Charlotte at the end of next week.

In addition to my client work and preparing for this daily podcast, I am also preparing to speak at Putnam Congregational Church the next two Sundays. I will be using a few of the notes from Wisdom-Trek.com as the lesson material. Life sometimes is quite busy, and we yearn for a less hectic pace. But in the same way, it is rich and satisfying. We do deal with the emotional rollercoaster each day, just like you, and it is with the preparation of this Wisdom-Trek journal that we are able to maintain a reasonable balance in life.

I trust that listening to the podcast or reading the journal helps you to find balance as well. Thank you for allowing me to share each day. Let us know in the comments on the daily journals how it is helping and what we can do to serve you better.

 

It is time now to break camp and set out to explore the final two trails. If you missed our hike on the first two trails of Incompetence and Competence, please listen to Day 96 of our Trek.

 As I mentioned yesterday, the zones or trails that we are exploring were originally mapped out in a book called The Big Leap written by Gay Hendricks. In this book Gay plots the zones or trails that will help us to conquer fear and take life’s trek to the next level. This is possible, but only if we are willing to make the changes needed.

Trail #3 – Excellence

The Trail of Excellence is where most proficient and successful people hike. This is a trail that you can excel on. You are more successful than most other hikers, and you are rewarded for it. This reward can be monetary, like in a job or business situation, or it can be recognition by others for your particular giftedness.

While you may have a sense of satisfaction on this trail, it is also easy to become too comfortable on this trail. Although you may be compensated and recognized for your achievements, there is a gnawing sense that you're not making the kind of impact you want, and you live on a plateau of tolerance. You are on the brink of breaking through into genius, but you have to take that leap of faith and venture out of comfort.

A personal example for me would be the remote technical support work that I do for one of our clients. I have excelled in this field and enjoy the work most days but feel that I am on a plateau and desire to break through to the Trail of Genius. While I feel that God still wants me to use my gifts on this current trail, this podcast and some of the other business changes that I have briefly mentioned will help us to move upward to the final trail.

Trail #4 – Genius

The Trail of Genius often requires a bold decision. Your friends and family will question you because you are leaving behind what, to them, seems like success to pursue something speculative.

Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy

Welcome to Day 96 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom.

Hiking the Trail of Genius (1)

Thank you for joining us for our 7 day a week, 7 minutes of wisdom podcast. This is Day 96 of our Trek. Yesterday we finished the four habits that form habits. On our Trek today and tomorrow, we will explore the four zones, or as we will refer to them as trails, where we can choose to spend most of our time. When we finish this two day hike, we will have a clearly marked map on how we can navigate toward and spend most of our time on our personal trail of genius.

We are recording our podcast from our studio at The Big House in Marietta, Ohio. We continue to have full days of client work mixed with planning for changes in our business as we look toward next year.

Today Paula and I were interviewed for another podcast called Together 24/7, which is hosted and produced by Barry and Catherine Cohen.  Their podcast focuses on couples that live and work together. It will not be aired until mid to late October, so I will let you know when the interview is available. I am also scheduled for three additional interviews on other podcasts during this next week. It is enjoyable to share our stories on these different shows.

It is time now to break camp and set out to explore the four trails where we spend our time hiking each day. Our Trek today and tomorrow will help you move toward the trail that will best utilize your God-given talents.  We are all unique and have a place in the various areas of life that are best suited for us. As King David wrote in Psalms 139:14, "Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous — how well I know it."

 

The trails that we will explore are mapped out in a book called The Big Leap written by Gay Hendricks. In this book Gay plots the zones or trails that will help us to conquer fear and take life’s trek to the next level. This is possible but only if we are willing to make the changes needed.

I realize that there are circumstances and situations in our lives that we have little control over that may limit how high we can hike in this life, but more often than not, our limitations are ones that we place on ourselves. Those choices become weights that we have strapped to our own feet. We all have limiting circumstances that grow out of poor choices or a wrong attitude, but we have the ability to unstrap those weights and to rise above these limitations.

Think about his analogy. In the early days of the steam-powered train, respected scientists urged the engineers to limit the speed to thirty miles per hour because they believed that the human body exploded at speeds faster than that. Finally some brave people risked going beyond that limiting belief and found that they did not explode. The crew of NASA's Apollo 10 moon mission reached a top speed of 24,791 mph relative to Earth as they rocketed back to our planet on May 26, 1969. Someday we will reach speeds much greater.

Are you limiting your potential of what you can become? Do you have a negative and fearful attitude that restricts your ability to live the rich and satisfying life that Jesus spoke about in John 10:10?

Think about it this way. As we pass by a tiny acorn on our trail, we realize that under the right conditions this tiny acorn will grow into a mighty oak tree similar to the one it fell from, which can live for hundreds of years and withstand the fieriest of storms. If that is the case, don’t you think that God will provide you what is necessary to reach your full potential since you are made in His image?

You can reach your full potential, but that is tied to the choices you make and your commitment to tho...

Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy

Welcome to Day 95 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom.

The Habit of Forming Habits (2)

Thank you for joining us for our 7 day a week, 7 minutes of wisdom podcast. This is Day 95 of our Trek. Yesterday we looked at the first of four habits that form habits. If you missed yesterday’s Trek, please check it out on iTunes or Wisdom-Trek.com so that you will be caught up with us.

We are recording our podcast from our studio at The Big House in Marietta, Ohio. I am making slow progress on the woodwork in the dining room, and it is a bit overwhelming with the amount of woodwork in that room. Since I am just using mineral spirits instead of paint and varnish stripper to take off the old varnish, it is somewhat difficult to tell where I have worked, but the towels I am using are evidence that we are making progress. As with our trek of life, we will continue to take it one day at a time, as that is all any of us has promise of.

We will continue to traverse the trails of habit formation, and it is now time to break camp and move out for the day. On the first trail that we explored yesterday, we learned that the best way to establish lasting positive habits in our lives is to start exceedingly small, even if it seems ridiculous. I personally struggle with this as I want to jump headlong into everything that I am doing, but experience and science prove that if we want to create habits that we need to “Make it so easy you can’t say no and realize actually doing the habit is much more important than how much you do.”

As a reminder, we need to understand that it is very important to realize that if we desire to rid ourselves of bad habits in any area of our lives, that we must, at the same time form new, positive habits, or we will just fall back into the same routine and never be free of the shackles that hold us back. A key law of life is that when we say "no" to one choice, we are automatically saying "yes" to another. As we begin to say "no" to our bad habits let us say "yes" to positive habits that replace them.

When it comes to habit formation, we would do well to read and understand the Apostle Paul’s letter to the church in Galatia 6:6-8, "Don’t be misled — you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant. Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature. But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit."

On our trails yesterday and today, we are exploring the research from habit creation specialist Leo Barbauta  as we hike “The Four Habits that Form Habits” trails.

Habit Trail #2: Be Mindful of Negative Thoughts

Most people will skip this habit, because they don’t think it’s necessary. Then they wonder why the habit failed.

Habit formation starts in the mind. You must learn to watch your thoughts. We all have a lot of self-talk that we may not be aware of. If you are trying to lose weight your mind will start rationalizing the idea of just one cookie, thinking “One won’t hurt! Why are you torturing yourself? Is this really worth it? Just give in. It’s much easier. You can’t do this. It’s too hard.”

Think about those thoughts for a second. How many do you have that you are not aware of? How powerful are they? Did you realize they were there? How many times did they cause you to eat something that you shouldn’t? And how often do these kinds of thoughts act on you?

The same thoughts happened when you start running or exercise. Your mind will say, “You should stop now. It’s too hard. You’ll feel much better when you stop.” And of course, thoughts like these are very tempting, very powerful. I find for myself,