Kindle Notes & Highlights
If we worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true really is true, then there would be little hope for advance.
Undertaking such ventures requires overcoming the inherent fear of leaving the safety of solid ground behind, defying gravity, and embarking on a journey of unexpected variables within predictable patterns toward a deliberate destination.
What do you need to build in order to get up there into the sky of economic viability? How can you take what you have and escape the gravitational pull of a salary that limits your ability to escape from living paycheck to paycheck?
It is the power of one transformative belief held
firmly in place, the daring idea that says just because I haven’t seen it modeled in my past doesn’t mean that I cannot create something that changes the trajectory of my future. Simply put, it is the power to make the seemingly impossible become your new reality.
I knew
if you have the desire for advancement in your life and you’re willing to risk the familiar comfort of where you are for the adrenaline-fueled thrill of where you want to be, then you can fly.
their ascendancy on the outside must begin with the transcendence of a personal vision for what they can be on the inside.
But its effect could have immediate as well as generational consequences on your ability to reach new heights beyond your present wingspan.
Your business plan—whether conceptual or concrete—will serve as your flight manual for getting your vision off the ground and sustaining a successful flight toward a divine destination beyond your imagination.
CATCH A VISION OF YOUR DESTINATION
BUILD YOUR WINGS
CLEAR THE CLOUDS
SOAR TO NEW HEIGHTS
Sadly, my father died when he was forty-eight years old and I was only sixteen. The doctors said that his cause of death was renal failure brought on by hypertension, but I disagree. That may be the medical explanation, but I believe my father died due to his inability to transition from struggling to soaring.
If you want to soar, then you must hone your hustle into the engine of an entrepreneur.
They all have a reason for doing what they’re doing—and that’s where you, too, must begin. If you want to shift from expending energy trying to get off the ground to actually flying as an entrepreneur, then you must identify your motivations.
For the entrepreneur, making money only creates more opportunities for enhancement, advancement, and expansion.
Financial motivation must be tempered by a clear vision of what you want to accomplish and the sheer passion for whatever field, industry, cause, or product you hope to bring to the rest of the world. You must also have a passion for adventure, for discovery, for new people and places if you want your vision to keep a balanced perspective and to reach new heights.
The turbulence we’re suffering at our present altitude may be the result of someone else’s past piloting or temporary hijacking.
A
whopping 76 percent of Americans live from paycheck to paycheck, according to a recent CNN report.
And even if they’ve flown before, their past crashes have left them with broken wings and busted dreams, wondering if they have missed their only opportunity to reach the height of their God-given potential.
most are merely fighting every day for dreams deferred.
We are reaping the harvest from no vision, poor choices, bad marriages, bankruptcies, poor investments, living beyond our means, the downsizing of a company, and other human maladies.
Success doesn’t trickle down. It springs up from inside a heart that beats to the drum of creativity until its gushing reverberation brings change to the entire community. Are you willing to fight to ignite your flight?
Could it be possible that you’ve gone as far as you can go with your present wings? Changing times may require a paradigm shift in your vision and a major adjustment to your life’s flight plan.
We were created in the likeness of a creative God so that we can draw on that creativity for the innovation required to reimagine ourselves, reinvent our circumstances, and reinvest our gifts.
Building your vision ever higher is about assessing the time, talents, and treasures we’ve been given in this lifetime and taking ownership of the choices, the relationships, and the opportunities we have been given. I want to challenge you to see tables in trees, boxes in bushes, and provision in problems!
Simply because you have the talent to get somewhere doesn’t mean that you have the wisdom to run! You need both the talent and the wisdom, the drive and the directions to reach your destination, and that’s why you must make an honest assessment of what drives your desire to be an entrepreneur.
The Wright brothers knew if you want to soar, you must study winds and trends.
The reality is you can’t be committed to the dream and attain it. You have to be committed to the process of putting your dream into practice.
success without process will leave you unqualified to reign over what you’ve built.
The things we are passionate about are fueled by mundane tasks.
If you let it, your hesitation will only become a limitation. But starting too big and aiming too high can be just as confining and ultimately destructive.
Success is a process that takes time.
Delayed doesn’t equate to denied! You must have a long-term financial strategy that can sustain your business’s steady growth without eating up profits and funds needed for maintenance and expansion.
But no matter how great your product, how helpful your service, or how impactful your nonprofit, without promotional awareness targeted at your core constituents, you will founder and ultimately fail. The Bible says, “Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house” (Matt. 5:15
You must enjoy being a problem-solver, not just a moneymaker.
It’s easy to think of inspiration as simply taking the match of something you love and striking it against your present opportunity. But without a candle to light, your flame will quickly burn out, scorching your fingers instead of illuminating your path.
If you can’t diversify what you offer, you limit its reception and ability to endure.
And the big lesson for me was about patience, perseverance, and practice.
letting go of their own expectations about what the performance should be and saying yes to whatever opportunity their collaborators present to them.
“Staying engaged and actually listening—instead of being in my head and anticipating what I should say next—is the hardest part.”
I’m convinced preparation facilitates liberation.
