"Thomas J. Watson, the first president of IBM, is remembered as one of the outstanding and innovative business leaders of the 20th century. Under his leadership and the leadership of his son who followed him as CEO, the company became one of the giants of technology.
What advice do you suppose Watson gave for those who wanted to know his secret of success? Simply this, “The way to succeed is to double your failure rate.” Much of IBM’s growth during Watson’s tenure came through leadership in research. And research, by its very nature, produces many more failures than successes. But those failures are a necessary part of the success process.
Perhaps you’ve been tempted to give up on overcoming a character weakness or a bad habit because of repeated failure. Remember, God’s will for you is not failure. It is to be an overcomer.
God has a special purpose for your life. Keep trying. Keep failing. And you will eventually succeed as long as you keep redeeming the time.
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"Someone said to Thomas Edison 'You are a very knowledgeable man.' He replied, 'What I know is like a grain of sand while the knowledge available is like the ocean.” If the world’s greatest inventor realized how little he knew, compared to much there was to learn, how much more should you and I apply ourselves to learning everything we can to advance in what God calls us to do.
Since I teach time management for a living, I have a unique vantage point to observe how some people think about learning after they graduate from formal education. Do you know the most common reason people will not schedule a time management seminar? That’s right- they don’t have time. I offer workshops on overcoming procrastination, but I’m commonly told, “Sounds good. Call us back on that next year and we’ll do something.”
Proverbs tells us to cry out for knowledge and seek after it like hidden treasure. Remember, taking time to gain the right knowledge redeems the time.
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"One of my favorite quotes about success is from E.M. Gray, who said, “The successful person has the habit of doing the things failures don't like to do. They don't like doing them either necessarily. But their disliking is subordinated to the strength of their purpose.""
I like that quote because it gets at the essence of why so many people never experience God’s best for their lives. They are flimsy and short sighted. They simply live for the moment, driven by appetites and following the path of least resistance. They will not force themselves to do the right thing when they don’t feel like it. But in the long run, failing to subordinate those impulses and bring them under the control of God’s Spirit leads to ruin.
Remember the quote, ""The successful person has the habit of doing the things failures don't like to do. They don't like doing them either necessarily. But their disliking is subordinated to the strength of their purpose."" That will help you redeem the time.
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"There are a few phrases we pick up in elementary school that stick with us for life. Remember “I before E except after C?” or “In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue.” When they were teaching you to cross the street you probably learned, “Stop, look, and listen.” Good advice.
But its also good advice for adults to drop the last two letters of that phrase and practice “Stop, look, and list.” Is there something God has spoken to you about, and He really wants you to do, but you haven’t begun because you just don’t know where to begin?
That overwhelmed feeling is common. And there’s only one way to overcome it. Stop, look, and list. Stop. Step back from the project a minute and think about what you’re trying to accomplish. Next look to the Lord for guidance and ask for His insight to accomplishing it. Finally, list the steps you need to take to make it happen.
Stop, look, and list. A good formula for redeeming the time.
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