More Book REVIEWS!

I got two more books complete, which is getting me very excited with the list I am accumulating of books read this year. These two worked on different pieces of my life, but both equally effective.

Jeff and I completed this book together and all I can say is WOW! You wanna read about a culture that draws thousands of people in and every day they are seeing tons of lives radically changed, then here’s the book for you. Culture of Honor tells you how this culture has been created and how it has been sustainable for so long. Bethel Church, has already blown me away with the wisdom that comes from their church; How they are able to bring people to an understanding of God’s heart and express that, brought me to tears quite a few times. Then the kicker of it all…… the last chapter. It made Jeff and I laugh because what they spoke about we are creating in our community right now. Talk about confirmation on what you are doing! Another great thing this book does, is helps you see where you fit with the gifts the bible talks about, but how they might not be getting used properly in modern day churches. Overall, we are recommending it to many friends of ours.

The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader was a great book. It humored me in the beginning though. I initially grabbed this book because it was small and I thought I could get through it quick and be another book I could put on my list of read books this year. As you read the introduction, however, John Maxwell makes it very clear that he does not want you to sprint through the book. Instead he said read a quality a day. As easy as it could have been to breeze through it still, I decided to take John Maxwell’s advice and read one at a time.
I really enjoy the fact that John Maxwell highlights leaders in history to show you a quality that they had that made them so memorable. In the quality, responsibility, there was a self-made millionaire that he quotes, “It took me fifteen years, working for a large organization, to realize that in our society you work eight hours a day for survival, and if you work only eight hours in a day, all you do is survive… Everything over eight hours is an investment in your future. No one can do the minimum and reach his maximum potential.”

When audio books become your new thing

I am blown away at how quickly I am getting through books now that I have an audible account. Seriously, if you are a reader or are wanting to read more often but don’t have the time, do yourself a favor; go to this link”
http://www.ebates.com/rf.do?referrerid=kLwAncJrqePecb8RNKIWxw%3D%3D&eeid=26471
Sign up and search Audible, because they have two different coupons to choose from on this site. You can either choose to get a book free, or the first 3 months of your subscription can be 7.49 a month, which is like nothing at all!

Midas Touch is the only book that I didn’t finish via audio. My husband and I have been working on this book since the beginning of the year. I knew within the first chapter that this was going to be a good book. Immediately it wrecked my perspective that I have been battling ever since I began my journey with Advocare. And I didn’t even realize I was battling it.

“You can’t be an entrepreneur with a employee mindset.” -Donald Trump

What does that mean? Well here is what it meant for me. I use to (in my mind) complain about how random our checks were. “They are just so unpredictable! I wish sometimes I could just get paid hourly, that way no matter what I’m doing I’m still getting a check.” Not knowing what I was doing until I saw this post, I was battling the perspective of how an employee views income. I was wanting to trade hours for dollars sometimes because, well, that’s just flat out easier on days when I wasn’t “feeling” like I wanted to work. If you struggle with a similar mindset than I would advise taking a look at this book.

This book was mind blowing! I am so thankful that I got this book on audio. It’s only a 2 and a half hour long audio but worth listening too. The biggest perspective shift that landed for me, was his thoughts on looking at network marketing as a profession and how to treat it as such. He also explains why other traditional business set ups are slowly losing its reliability. I love it for that fact, because I know, personally, that I have been a fan of network marketing, but now I know why. He helps lay it out for me in a way that reaffirms what we are doing and how to keep pressing forward. He gives great tips and even goes through script ideas. Not so that you can repeat it back word-for-word but so you get the idea down.

I am so thankful I saw a post of another leader talking about this book. It was a great one to pick up. Leaders Eat Last, stands out to me, because I have never read another book like it. He goes through history in business and human nature, to help explain the necessary needs we need in our society today and why it truly matters. Normally, when I read a leadership book it works more like “here are the principles you need to implement” or “5 steps to becoming a great leader”. For Simon, he tells facts, and talks about our history in businesses, military and politics, and pretty much leaves it with that. Almost to say “as a leader, you should get the picture of what they were missing in this decade of their business.” He talks about team work and how Post-In notes were created on pure accident, but how that company had a certain trait in place that allowed for that accident to produce millions. Really, I just loved the way he wrote this book. Its a longer book, but worth the read for sure.

Two book reviews

20,000 Days and Counting by Robert D. Smith and You Can If You Think You Can by Norman Vincent Peale.

20,000 Day and Counting
This is the second time I have read this book and I absolutely love it. It not only is a quick read, but it’s easy to go back and revisit sections because they are direct and to the point. Its a book you can literally read in a day and then go back for the next week and break down the parts to begin implementing what he practices on a daily basis. It is worth going back and making that effort to implement. The big picture that stood out to me was his intense focus on other people, and his love of laughter and enjoyment in life. Those two pieces alone make me want to revisit this book more than once a year so I can continually remind myself to practice these two pieces in my life.

There’s a chapter in this book that brings the whole book together and its by a simple statement; “If we learn how to die, we’ll know how to live; if we learn how to live, we’ll know how to die. Why not pledge to live better right now?”
It’s simple, its to the point, and once you read this chapter through those lenses, you begin to understand the importance of making people feel valued every single day, as well as understand your life purpose so you can live it every day of your life. Each day, is a day to be treasured, so treat it as such and never let a day go back without laughter and love being given to others.

You Can If You Think You Can
This was an audio book I listened to, and I had to stop it many times to write down the quotes that were said. Here are some quotes from the book:
“You can’t be logical about something you have wanted your whole life.”
“It’s always too soon to quit. Quitting begins a habit of defeat.”
“Never despair, but if you do, work on in-despair.”
“If you start thinking your circumstance is hopeless, your state of mind will actually attract further trouble to defeat you.”
Need I say more? This audio was incredible, and clearly points out ones state of mind. I’m glad we have this as a audio book, because if our mindset needs a shift and we need to focus on something else, this will be a good book to listen to and in essence, turn that frown upside down.

Crash the Chatter

To start, I have to give credit where credit is due. Thanks to Steven Furticks new book “Crash the Chatterbox” I have a whole new way of looking at my every day life.

Throughout the last year I have been studying different aspects of the mind and the things we speak. I have read things like “Commanding your morning”, “The power of visions, The power of purpose,” all entailing how powerful it is to speak things into existences. Then I have study other facets that explain how powerful our mind is and that we must renew our minds and be disciplined with it daily, because what you think creates your existences. One of my favorite quotes that I have found to describe this is:
“Your thoughts become your words
Your words becomes your actions
Your actions becomes your habits
Your habits becomes your character
Your character becomes your destiny”
So if our future is to look any different then our present circumstances, then clearly things need to change. But I’m sure I have talked about that enough lately.

Now we have Steven, who brought a whole new understanding to the chatter that goes on in my head. Did you know that an average amount of thoughts that go through your head in a day is 60,000? And did you know that 80% of those thoughts will be negative thoughts? I have a friend who has always said “Our thoughts are like being at a sushi bar. If you see something you don’t like, just don’t pick it up and let it pass on by. We need to treat our thoughts the same way.” However, this task is easier said than done at times. So Steven has a different approach to the chatter (not saying any of these ways are wrong or right. Simply what works for you to crash the chatter works for you). His approach takes it head on; embrace the chatter. And just so we are all on the same page, this chatter can represent your fears, anything you stress about, all of the what-ifs that can pop into your head, so on and so forth.

He also said a lot of the times the chatterbox isn’t all lies, in fact some of it is true. But that’s the key; the chatterbox speaks only half of the truth and gets you going off all of the what-ifs into a downward spiral. That’s his hope. This morning while, I was getting ready for work, I experienced the chatterbox running his mouth which almost caused an argument between my husband and I (this is where I’m going to be vulnerable and transparent kay?).

My husband had to run into town to take care of a bill, and it turned out to “potentially” be a little more than we were anticipating. My husband felt the “right thing” to do is pay the whole thing. However, all the money we had left over was our tithe money. Yes yes I know, we should have paid that right away. I get that and I had every intention of doing that. Then I forgot to do it online before we left for a leadership training and then we got stuck in Portland for a day so more and more of that money that was put off to the side for tithe was depleting. So while my husband is saying “The right thing to do is pay it all off”, my chatterbox starts running his mouth.
“How do you even call yourself a giver if you can’t even get your tithe straight?”
“This is why you guys haven’t had breakthrough yet in your finances.”
“How can God expect you to be a good steward of more, if you aren’t even taking care of what you have.”

I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. I knew what my husband was saying was true, but I immediately felt guilty for us not being better stewards of what we have. I began beating myself up in a world of woulda, coulda, shouldas. Then because of that, I started getting on my husbands case. Unfortunately, when he got home he got the brunt of it, because he wanted to keep talking about it and my emotions were running high. “Well, if you expect to pay what we are supposed to then you need to get to work!” I said as I stood up and walked off.

Oops…..

Now I’m writing about this today, not to show what I jerk I can be (I hope that’s not what you get from this). My intentions are to bring awareness. How many of you reading this can say you went through a time when you reacted outwardly to the inner thoughts you were having. Thankfully I have been reading “Crash the chatterbox” because this time the chatter didn’t get too out of hand. I realized how I felt and I began praying that the feeling would go away. Immediately following, I had a piece of the book pop into my head that I highlighted like crazy!

“The devil wasn’t telling me outright lies-he was just giving me half of the truth. And the best thing I could do was not to ignore the reality or justify my sin. I just needed to finish the sermons the devil had started to preach to me. In other words, I needed to acknowledge the substance of my sin. But then I needed to allow the Holy Spirit to take my guilt to a redemptive place…..In the yard my actions didn’t reflect God’s love. But they didn’t weaken it or make it go away either. Because it’s not a love based on what I do. It’s a love based on what Jesus has done.” (Chapter 8 in Crash the Chatterbox)

In that moment, after walking away and getting ready for work I knew I had just disrespected my husband, and I knew it wasn’t his fault. He did not hear the chatter that was going on in my head. But in that moment of feeling guilty and like I really messed up this time, I was assured with that thought that I didn’t just completely revoke my daughter-ship with my heavenly father. That I didn’t just get one check off mark and if I got two more strikes I was out. I had an immediate assure that yea I messed up, I had to admit that, but God wanted to work with me through that mess up to make it right.

You see the enemy is an accuser, but God is the advocate. When you fall short, lose your temper, or get silent but murder the person inside your head, all of those things, God doesn’t want you to wait till you clean it up yourself and go back to him. He wants you to bring the dirt to him and work through it with you.

Its so easy to think when you messed up that you don’t desire to read the bible, or you don’t deserve to pray to God, but listen up-
Do not let your circumstances change your identity.
Just because you fell short does not mean you permanently are this way. Embrace what you did, make it right and move forward. Don’t let it become apart of you.

Later that day when my husband picked me up from work and we had a moment of silence, I did apologize that I had disrespected him. I began to explain my feelings and the reason I reacted, not to make that the excuse, but for him to understand it better. I never want my husband to feel like I don’t care about all the work he does and I always want to lift him up, never push him down as a man. He is going to impact so many families, couples, children and leaders and I know that he needs me to be by his side cheering him on. Therefore, I knew this simple little incident, I needed to address now. We aren’t perfect, ladies and gentleman, but we have the coach inside of us that is and is strong in our weakness.

If you have not read this book yet, I would say get it now, because it will completely alter your way of thinking. If you want more on this topic watch this message.
http://elevationchurch.org/sermons/crash-the-chatterbox
Go to Part 4- Peter and the packing peanuts.
I promise you it is both hilarious and incredible. After watching this yesterday I told my husband that was probably one of the best messages I have ever heard on this topic.

I hope this blesses you as it has me.

Finishing what I started

How many of you have ever created a new years resolution before?
I just looked it up and the top 10 resolutions most people make, fall into these four categories: Self Improvement/ Education related resolutions, Weight related resolutions, Money related resolutions and Relationship related resolutions. Granted only 45% of Americans actually create a new year resolution on a yearly basis, while 17% do it periodically.

The piece of information that got me the most was this; While only 45% of Americans CREATE a new years resolutions (hey its a start! Getting something on paper is a HUGE success for most) watch this,
Only 75% of those resolutions make it past the first week.
Only 71% make it past the second week.
64% make it past the first month
46% make it past six months……

Why are we not being as successful? Could it be lack of discipline? Lack of the desire to change? Lack of keeping the change in front of us? Did we forget what we are striving for? Did we just give up? Was it too hard on our own?
See this is why the business I am apart of is a challenge. You’re desire to change must be greater than your desire to stay the same. But familiar is EASY! It’s comfortable!

Exactly

My name is Ashley Wheeler, and I refuse to stay the same. Because of this attitude, at the beginning of this year I was watching a video webinar from a friend and a mentor of mine that lives clear across the country that was talking about the “white board training”. While I didn’t ever keep up my own white board consistent, the one thing I got from the video was this; one of the personal goals she put up on the board for herself was “I want to read 30 leadership/personal and spiritual growing books this year.” This woman is at a place in her life that I see myself being in 10-12 years down the road, therefore, if Crystal was going to make that a goal for herself this year than by golie I was going to as well.

My first month I was pretty successful at it and was proud of myself as the second month approach. By the end of February my son was born and what an amazing experience it was to introduce motherhood into my life. Sure I was already a step mother of 5 but a new born is an entirely different situation. I kept the resolution going for a while but for about a month or two a lot of things were put on hold due to learning how to reschedule life, little hardships here and there, financial crunches that caused stress, whatever it was, I believe for 2 months I didn’t read at all. By this summer I revisited my new years list and was frowning on how things were turning out. I must point out right here, that reading 30 books was not the only new years resolution I put down. I also wanted to be back to the toniest I have ever been and I am not there yet, my husband and I wanted to be leading a lot more people at this point but life and God had a few other lessons of growth in mind first. There were many things, however the reading was the only one I kept constant. I decided to put a little more effort into my goal and get a few more books up on the list.

A couple more months went by and, again, success was coming. Then things topped off and I was look at about 10 more books to read in about 2 1/2 months. Defeat overwhelmed me and I felt like I should give up. While at the time of feeling like I should throw in the towel and maybe convince myself that I really put a lower number on that piece of paper at the beginning of the year (even though Crystals words ring in my ear just like I had heard them the day before), I was reading a book called “The Dream Giver for Parents”. Its a shorter read in comparison to “The Dream Giver”. This one is intended for parents to learn how to pull dreams out of their children and not say harmful things that could completely take them off path to their purpose in life. I had the intentions of reading this book for those reasons, but by the end of the book I was stunned at my revelation. I saw things my mom did and my dad did and why I may act the way I do towards things now. I’ll give you my example so you can keep up with where I’m going with this.

While growing up, if I wasn’t feeling good in the morning when I woke up to go to school, I would pretend that I didn’t feel good, and I didn’t have to say much to have my mom let me stay home. If I was at school and was bored and didn’t want to be there, I would text my mom with some excuse and she would call the school to get me out. I think I fake 75, maybe 85% of my illnesses growing up. While I did have a lot of stress which caused physical illnesses once my parents divorced and I did have a lot of pressure growing up on who I would live permanently with, I still faked a lot of my illnesses. By my senior year of high school, I quit on a lot of situations because I hit a lot of adversity and it was hard. I didn’t want to persevere through, so I quit and then pouted off to the sidelines that people were mean to me. I’m not kidding about this! Looking back now I understand why my senior year hurt so bad. My dad taught me to complain so I always said that I worked so hard from my 9-11th year in High School. By my senior year I was editor of the year book, captain of the cheerleading squad, in Honors and AP classes, I mean there were a lot of things that made me feel like I had major success. And then someone tried to take my editor position, even though the teacher the year before crowned me with that position (we had a new teacher the following year and there was a lot of miscommunication), then I got sick, and had a bad grade the spring before my senior year and got put on a probation for cheerleading. All of this adversity hit, and what did my mom teach me? If I didn’t want to do it or if its going to be too hard then she’ll take care of it. Or she’ll encourage that its okay to give up. And then my dad? Complain about how mean people are and how hard life is.

There ya go. That’s my story. Sad isn’t it?

Well, years have gone by, revelations have come to me, I use to think I was lazy looking back, but then I realized I wasn’t taught any different. After reading that book I saw what my parents taught me and why I wasn’t progressing quicker with our business or other areas that I thought I would be further along in right now. My parents taught me that its okay not to finish what you start. They didn’t teach me to persevere. Now, to back up my parents a little. Chances are they learned the same thing, because after all, most people teach what they were brought up in (unless they have a desire for a change). And I will say that above all these were all my decisions and I don’t blame my parents, but in reading this book it helped me understand why I may lean more towards stopping when the going gets tough. In reflection of this year too, I can see where God was teaching me to push through the hard times. To have the end goal always in mind, even when it may not be in sight. After reading this book, I had a new fire for finishing my new years resolution this year. “I have to finish what I started. It may seem like a small thing, but this is BIG to me.”  

Now here we are. December 9th, with only a little over 3 weeks left before 2014, and I have only 4 more books to go. Not to mention I have a new idea for next years resolutions. My one and only one goal for the whole year and probably my whole life is this, to finish what I start. That could be a personal goal, business goal, relationship goal, financial goal, I don’t care what it is, I want to be a student of learning to finish anything I start.

 

 

 

Live Unoffended

When I first read that title in a section of the book I’m reading, “Praying Circles Around Your Children” By Mark Batterson, my first thought was “what does he mean by that?” Of course this book is going to have some scripture references, but by the time I was done reading that section, it was both convicting and an a-ha moment. And in a completely different area of my life!

“Have you ever felt that God was doing miracles for everyone and their brother, but you seem to be the odd one out? That God seems to be keeping His promises to everyone but you and your family? I wonder if that’s how John the Baptist felt. And don’t forget, he was family. So what do you do when you feel like God is answering everyone’s prayers but yours? In the words of my friends, who have experienced their fair share of unanswered prayers, “We try to live our lives unoffended by God. Jesus promises blessing if we are not offended when He does things for others. And if He does it for them, He might do it for us. We don’t know why God does what He does. We do know that 100 percent of the prayers we don’t pray won’t get answered.”

The scripture reference they were talking about “Blessed is the one who is not offended by me.” but even when I read that I wasn’t fully sure what that meant. However, after reading that little passage I GOT IT! Immediately when I had read that, I realized an area in my life that I have been getting offended. Sure its not about prayer, but in a way it can.

Here’s my life experience to this; business. So you start the same business as friends of yours, or you become friends with people along your journey and you watch success hitting everyone else…… but you. That hurts, that sucks, thats frustrating. You begin to wonder what you are doing wrong. You start criticizing everything you are doing, or you become offended by their success.

Once upon a time, I was really bad at that. Now, with a few years under my belt, its not as bad. But, I still haven’t addressed it to fully take care of that mindset. Therefore, in reading that today, it was convicting. I know I am still frustrating with why we haven’t progressed as much as we have desired too. If this passion is in our heart, why aren’t we further? Right? 

Just recently we listened to a call, and now I can plainly see why we aren’t as far as we would like. Here’s the kicker though, I know we will get there someday. Just like that section said, “If He can do it for them, then He can do it for me.” Believing, taking action, and exhausting all options is key. I see what’s on the horizon, and God has already begun to literally bring opportunities to us. Now we just need to do the work. 

Hope that blessed someone!