Solomons Principals Part 3

“As iron sharpens iron; so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend.”

Proverbs 27: 17

Today we are going to jump right into more of the principles of Solomon’s wisdom and what I like to call business and personal life principals

I really liked last week where we started with a quick prayer so let’s do that again..

Lord, God today we come to you to ask that you open our eyes, hearts, minds, and whole body to help us really absorb what you need us to. God, we pray that you help us to open our entire body and soul to you and your wisdom. Help us to hear exactly what you need us to hear. We ask these things in your precious son’s name.

Amen

Alrighty then..

Let’s jump back in.

His sixth principle was to USE DEBT SPARINGLY.

In business cash is king, or as Solomon would say it: But money answers everything (Ecclesiastes 7: 12).

By maintaining a cash reserve or savings it will relieve massive amounts of stress.

Use debt for needed capital items but avoid debt to pay operating expenses like salaries and typical operating expenses. Otherwise, you will end up working for the bank (or your private lender) and on their terms, not yours.

The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender (Proverbs 22: 7).

One thing in our personal life that we do is overextend ourselves with credit cards. Well maybe not everyone does this.

But.

We definitely have in the past. And we work diligently not to let that happen again.

If you are in credit card debt there are ways that you can get out of it, but it takes diligence, hard work, and prayer. Yes, it does take ALL 3 of those.

His seventh principle is to WORK COOPERATIVELY.

As iron sharpens iron; so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend (Proverbs 27: 17).

Build strategic partnerships with others in business, where you can quickly call on reliable source providers to meet the needs of your clients.

Solomon built such a partnership with King Hiram of Lebanon, and it greatly benefited both nations, making Israel the economic superpower of the day and Jerusalem the showpiece of the world.

We can do this in our personal life as well. I like to call it our network.

In the past, you might have heard it’s not what you know it’s who you know.

Well, I have a different impression of this. It’s NOT who YOU know. It’s WHO KNOWS YOU!

Let me give you a great example.

Say I was applying for funding and I went in and said that I know Ellon Musk (founder of Tesla, Space X, PayPal, etc.) It is not a lie I do know him. Just like I know Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Tony Robbins, I think you get the point. I know them and even give you some details about their history.

The thing is, that they don’t know me!

So when the people I apply for funding go to Ellon and say, What do you think about this Dan Greer guy, is he any good?

Ellon is going to respond back with, Who? Never heard of that clown!

My point is that when we work with others and always deliver more than we promise we grow our network and relationships.

 

Which leads us directly into his eighth principle,

ESTABLISH RELATIONSHIPS WITH VALUED PROFESSIONALS.

Without counsel, plans go awry; but in the multitude of counselors they are established (Proverbs 15: 22).

Be smart enough to know that you don’t know it all.

This is especially dangerous when you don’t know what you don’t know.

Establish trusted relationships with legal, financial, IT, and other professionals. Then utilize those relationships efficiently to get out ahead of problems.

The other thing here to remember is to always be a servant.

All too often we forget to serve others before they will help us. We go out and expect others to do everything in their power to make our lives easier when we haven’t even lifted a finger to help make their lives easier.

The key here is to start your relationships by serving others. 

The other key is to ALWAYS OVER DELIVER. If you tell someone that you will do something, DO IT!

In fact, if you tell them that you will pray for them, don’t stop there and get your whole family to pray for them. 

In today’s world, we need MORE people who under promise and OVER deliver. 

Be that person in every single one of your relationships.

Take Action

Today we want to encourage you to take action on every principle you have heard so far in your personal life.

  1. BE DILIGENT AND WORK HARD.
  2. WORK WISELY. Work smarter not harder.
  3. PURSUE EXCELLENCE. Always try your best to be the best at what you do in everything you do.
  4. WORK PROACTIVELY. Don’t wait on the sidelines, jump in and get to it. Stop procrastinating.
  5. BE HONEST ALWAYS. The good Lord LOVES honesty, just like all of us do as well. So be honest in everything you do.
  6. USE DEBT SPARINGLY. Try your best to work off of your own finances without borrowing too much $$.
  7. WORK COOPERATIVELY. Working with others is your KEY to success. Without them you do not stand a chance of surviving, let alone thriving.

The last action item I have is to ALWAYS OVER DELIVER! If you tell someone that you will find them 10 new contacts, make sure you find them 15 or 20 new contacts.

Prayer

 

Lord, God, Father in Heaven, today we come to you with a full heart. We are so grateful that you give us a playbook to live our lives by. We are so grateful that you recorded so much wisdom and knowledge with the pages of the bible.

I guess that’s why it bothers me when someone calls a book that is not the bible, the bible of _____ like this is the bible of relationships. Or this is the bible of sales. I guess God instead of getting upset I should be looking at the other side and saying that it is amazing that they look up to the bible so much. (Not theirs, but yours) God, you gave us such great words and stories to learn from.

Today I pray that you help us to hear your words in every chapter that is read. I pray that you help us to learn from your wisdom. I pray that you help us to grow closer to you in everything that we do. God thank you for such a generous gift. Talk about overdelivering.  Every time I open the Bible I learn something new.  You definitely over-delivered, just like Jesus over-delivered when he died on the cross for our sins.

God, we thank you for the sacrifices that you have made for us.  Help us to honor you in every aspect of our lives.

Thank you

In your precious son’s name, we pray.

Amen

A Little More

 

Trusting in God

Recently we were on a family trip to Tucson, AZ. On our way home, we had just passed this little town (about 10 miles back) and we were starting up this hill when we heard this thud under the engine compartment.

My heart jumped as I thought of all the possible issues and things that could have just happened to our family vehicle.

Then it started slowing down and going into limp mode. For those who don’t know, that is when the vehicle’s engine continues to run, but loses all power.

We were able to get it pulled over to the side of the road in a nice open space.

I JUMPED out of and opened the hood because I could hear the engine running rough. To be exact it was varying RPM between 1000-1500 rpm at an idle. (way out of the norm)

I did a few things that I knew how to do on the side of the road and couldn’t find anything that would cause any major damage if we turned around and headed back towards that town. About 10 miles back.

As I started turning around the vehicle died. I tried to restart it but nothing would happen.

So I grabbed my cell and looked at it, there was NO SERVICE.

Next, I sent up a quick prayer for help to remain calm and just figure out the right answers.

Jenna and I decided that she would stay with the kids near the car while I started walking back towards the town (praying I would get cell service before I got there).

Billy, our oldest, said that he would walk with me because he didn’t want me to be alone, just in case.

As we walked, Billy and I talked about the blessings that we were receiving in the middle of this HUGE inconvenience.

  1. We were in the middle of the desert, and it was a warm 70°.
  2. The walk back to the town was all downhill
  3. We were still together, and we had a support system that could help us get home if we really needed it.
  4. We had funds to get us all home
  5. We didn’t crash and were able to get the car off the side of the road with no damage.

While my mind was racing, we had walked about 2 miles when Billy looked at his phone and said, hey dad I got a bar of service!

I immediately called the local emergency dispatch and told them about what happened. They told us not to leave the vehicle.

After I finished laughing, I told her that we had no option because there was literally no service where the car broke down.

She said to hang tight and call her back if our insurance wouldn’t be able to get a town truck out. In the meantime, she was going to send an officer our way just in case we needed help getting to the nearest town.

We called the insurance, and they dispatched a tow truck.

I looked online at the local rental car company (there was only one and it was 45 miles away) to see if they had any vehicles. It said no vehicles were available.

I said a quick prayer and then decided to call them.

They had one car left and it was a 5-seater. Prayer answered, kind of. We have 6 people in our family.

So, they checked around and found one about an hour away that we could drive their car to pick up.

God is good.

The officer gave Billy and me a ride back up to our car.  The tow truck showed up shortly after that, it only took about 45 min.

He agreed to haul all 6 of us in his truck with our SUV to the town where the rental car was waiting.

We had a great conversation even though there were 5 of us in the back seat. And let me tell you it was cozy. Lol (especially when you have 2 teenagers that are both over 6″ tall.)

He dropped us off at the rental car place and I asked where the bigger vehicle was so we could go pick it up.  They said it was in Mesa, AZ. No problem!  Then I got the wild hare to ask, by any chance is there one in Show Low, AZ? That was on our route home.

She called the guy and he said, yes I have one. I will hold it for you!

SCORE! GOD IS GREAT!

So the 6 of us loaded up in a Toyota Camry and drove 1.5 hours to Show Low to switch vehicles.

The whole moral of this story is that God gives us exactly what we need.

No, it’s not always going to be easy! No, it’s not always going to go exactly as planned. No, We don’t always have GREAT outcomes. Yes, we do have to bend the rules sometimes to get to our final destination.

But the key is that we ALWAYS have exactly what we need.

I will say this, we were all thankful to get home that evening and enjoy sleeping in our own beds. And to be honest, I was probably the most stressed out of everyone in our family, but in the back of my mind, I knew that God had got this.

Quick update on our SUV. Jenna and I hooked up the trailer and cruised back to Globe 3 days later loaded up our car and hauled it home. After that my GREAT brother came over and we did a quick diagnosis on it, got it to start (God gave me this win so I wasn’t worried about the motor being seized up), and decided that it was an electronic issue. So, we hauled it to the local dealer and dropped it off for them to pinpoint the computer that us having issues with.

At this point, we are still waiting to hear back from the dealer on exactly what the issue is and how long it will take to fix it.

But we are good. We are able to borrow a vehicle for Jenna to drive thanks to her AWESOME parents and are able to make a smart decision on what to do instead of a rushed decision.

Update. We got the car back from the dealership and it turned out to be a major malfunction with the computer. A fairly inexpensive fix. We now have our SUV back and are happy to have been able to get it fixed so easily.

Will you pray with us?

Mankind throughout the world throughout our current situation

All Law enforcement and emergency response personnel

For all military personal serving our country and their families

Those in Leadership positions throughout the world