Today, I spent what felt like 18 hours in the car.  I have the list of listened-to podcasts to prove it.

The first podcast was from College Wesleyan Church. The sermon was called “Better Lucky than Good.”  Rev. Steven Neff’s premise is that regardless of how faithful and how hard we work, sometimes it takes an act of God’s favor to catalyze that work to create success (he uses Naseem Taleb’s books Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan to back it up).

When we receive that favor, the proper response isn’t gratitude only. It’s generosity. When we receive favor or even the fruits of our hard work and labor, we should be moved toward generosity.

It was a convicting idea. What will I do with any success I achieve? Will I be a giver? Will I be a person full of grace and humility and generosity?

Should We Give Everything Away?

I don’t believe that is what we should do.

But I do believe that favor and outright, hard-fought success demands increased responsibility.

Therefore, while I continue on this Dan Miller 6-Month Content Consumption Challenge, I pray that I also develop a better eye for opportunities for generosity.

This generosity doesn’t mean that I give all my cash money away. It does mean that I seek opportunities to serve, give where I can, and speak encouragement and life into situations and individuals when I can.

It also means that much of the good that happens to me isn’t because I’m any better than anybody else. I might have done better at putting myself in a position to have better chances. It might mean that I’ve had plans and executed them. It might mean that my mom and dad did a decent job.

But even some of those things represent opportunities I’ve had that others don’t. I must steward those opportunities well.

When favor comes – when those ‘Black Swan moments’ come – I pray I’m ready to receive and ready to give.

Until tomorrow…

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Reading and Listening Today

I’m embarrassed to say that I didn’t read too much today. l listened to 6 podcasts, but I didn’t read so much. I’m starting to wonder if I need to commit more time to reading vs. simply listening to content.

In addition to the sermon referenced above, I listened to episodes 101-105 of the Social Media Marketing Podcast with Michael Stelzner. I plan to write about these podcasts (in general) tomorrow, so I won’t go into detail.

Those podcasts are crammed full of incredible social media marketing strategies (I did a couple today). That’s what I want to talk about: the difference between strategy, tactics, and goals.