Emotionally Bulletproof - Scott's Story (Book 2)

By David G Allen and Brian Shaul

Are Your Relationships Helping You Or Holding You Back?

As his own family turns on him, Scott Calloway has trouble answering this question. After saving his aunt from her abusive husband, Scott finds himself managing her construction company. With the danger of becoming a target of his abusive uncle, and those still loyal to him, Scott must learn to:

- Create healthy social circles
- Choose wisely who to lean on for support

Just like Scott, you may find yourself in need of healthy relationships. By joining Scott in this story, you will have the opportunity to learn a rare, often unexplored lesson from the Bible. After experiencing this story, and the worksheets at the book's end, you will be that much closer to becoming Emotionally Bulletproof.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David G Allen
• Release date: Oct 5, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310806254

David G Allen

David is a language teacher, author, and speaker who has written fiction and nonfiction. His most public works include the Emotionally Bulletproof - Scott's Story book series and the standalone psychological novel Pool of Echoes, both of which are Christian Fiction.His works contain the following paradigm shifts:- Trust is the foundation of all relationships.- You don’t have to be ruled by your past.- We were made to create, to love, to embrace the future and honor the past.He has an MBA in Business Management and currently teaches and speaks about language learning in South Korea.

Book preview

Emotionally Bulletproof - Scott’s Story (Book 2)

The Three, Twelve, and Seventy

By Brian Shaul and David Allen

Copyright

Emotionally Bulletproof Scott’s Story - Book 2

The Three, Twelve, and Seventy

By Brian Shaul and David Allen

Copyright 2014 David Allen and Brian Shaul

Smashwords Edition

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the authors.

Acknowledgements

We want to thank certain individuals who have embraced the Emotionally Bulletproof principles.

Thank you to Joel and Ashlee Starn, for the word-smithing they did for this book series.

Eric and Angela Carlson for the months of helping refine these ideas.

Thank you John and Marlys Hall, for their assistance in editing the original manuscripts and openly sharing these ideas with so many people.

Thank you Janette Riehle for your advice and editing expertise.

Thank you Tim Carrick for being Pastor Tim.

Table of Contents

Seek First to Understand

Discussion Questions

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Epilogue

More From The Authors

Worksheet One

Worksheet Two

Worksheet Three

Worksheet Four

Seek First to Understand

Hello, my name is Scott. Before the authors tell my story, I would like to share with you what has happened so far.

I spent about a year in the Marshall Islands, teaching children at a mission school. I loved it there, but I was forced to leave by the board of directors after an infection in my foot almost cost me my life. My best friend, Janet, had died just weeks earlier in a shipwreck. Both experiences caused me a lot of emotional pain.

I spent a couple weeks in Guam with Chaplain John, who gave me a journal. In it, I learned the first of three lessons that made me the successful life coach I am today: the three legs of trust. People cannot be fully trusted unless they have integrity, can get the job done, and have your best interests in mind. With any of the legs missing, a person's ability to be trusted is compromised. It is a deep lesson that deserves its own separate study, which is why the first book in this series is dedicated to this concept.

After I returned to Alaska, I felt lost, not having anyone with whom to discuss the important issues. Years before, my uncle Matthew connected me with Tim, a pastor. If it were not for him, I would have been really stuck. In this story, I intentionally start developing an inner circle with whom I can discuss my hopes and fears in a safe way, and avoid making the same mistake that may have cost my uncle his life.

What You Need to Know About Your Inner Circle

A person is a person through other persons - Archbishop Desmond Tutu

My story took place in the early nineties. Back then, most people had somebody with whom they could talk about most anything. The authors told me there was a study published in 2006 by the American Sociological Review, about social isolation. Did you know that most people in 1985 had three people who they could talk to about life plans, major decisions, and receive fair, honest criticism?

For many of you today, over seventeen years after my story, that might sound like a luxury. We may know hundreds of people by face and name, and many more through social networks on the Internet, but how many people can you trust to get the job done, have integrity, and have your best interests in mind? Can you talk to anyone comfortably about what matters most to you?

According to that same study, most people in 2006 only had two people, and nearly one out of every four people had nobody. Not one.

I believe that everyone has a great work in them that they cannot do by themselves. It doesn't matter who you are, where you come from, or what you believe. You have that great work inside of you. How can you move forward and do the things that feed your soul and add value to the world around you if there is no one to guide and support you along the way?

There are two problems with the networks we have in our lives. The first is: Too few people to rely on.

The second problem is that some of us are blessed with many people we could turn to: How do we prioritize who we rely on, and how do we spend our time with the many people in our lives who want our attention?

As different as these problems are, both problems lead to the same solution. They were solved by a man who lived in Roman-occupied Israel two thousand years ago.

Few people stirred up so much interest from such humble beginnings as Jesus of Nazareth. He created a legacy that, two thousand years later, has over a billion believers, including myself.

First, He knew His mission: To offer the choice of eternal life to every human being.

Jesus had twelve people He could rely on for most things.

This, however, was not the only group of people He had. There were two more. The first was in Luke 10, where Jesus sent out seventy people into the towns He was about to visit. These people were willing to go out and travel, talking to people and donating their time to support Jesus.

There were several times when Jesus would travel with only three people, leaving everyone else behind. These three were Jesus' closest friends: Peter, James, and John.

What I see happening today is most people having a 70, yet now technology allows us to make that number much larger, sometimes even into the thousands. The problem is with the three and twelve. Most of our three and twelve are circumstantial, and we have those people around us as a result of convenience, lack of preparation, or even blind chance. This doesn't mean everyone in our three or twelve are bad, but it does mean that we have a choice in who stays in our three and who stays in our twelve.

If you could take anything from this book and just run with it, I would pick for you these five lessons:

Put high trust people in areas of high responsibility, and low trust people in lower areas of responsibility. - People who don't have all three legs of trust should not be in your three. If you have access to many people, fill your twelve and seventy with high trust individuals. To avoid conflict, slowly move low trust people from your three down to your twelve, then your seventy, and if possible, out of your life. Doing this in a step by step process will make it more natural, which is how most people get their current three and twelve anyway.

Find mentors who are of a higher trust than you, and study with them. -You may often find that higher trust people do not naturally gravitate towards you. That is normal. Everyone has blind spots in the three legs of trust that require the insight of someone else to bring awareness to them. Find a mentor. You may be surprised how much time high trust people spend looking for other people who want to improve their lives. If this makes you uncomfortable, you can get a life coach. Life coaches are basically lifeline relationships for rent. They can temporarily step into your three and give you the insight that you may be missing, in exchange for payment for their time.

Know where to find high trust relationships - Study concepts like these in groups of people who also want strong networks of trustworthy people. Volunteer organizations are also great places to build relationships like this.

Become somebody people can rely on - One of the best ways to learn is to teach. Start a group of people who want to learn about trust. Giving a helping hand to someone else is a very fulfilling thing to do.

Constantly re-evaluate your three, twelve, and seventy - Choosing who you spend time with and who you focus your energy on is an ongoing process that continues throughout your life. Evaluate using the three legs of trust as a guideline, remember what you want to do in life, and adjust at least every three months.

Here are key points in your life when you will need to look at your three, twelve, and seventy:

Changing jobs

Moving to a new location

Going to another church

Changing positions within an organization

When tragedy strikes

Before I let the authors tell my story, I wanted to leave a gift with you, which you'll find at the end of the book. The authors worked with me to develop some worksheets, which I am proud to present to you. After you read, you can fill out the papers or make copies so that you can use what I learned to improve the quality of your own life.

By learning about trust, then using the three, twelve, and seventy as a context for your social life, you will gain a strong group of supporters who will be there to pick you up when you fall and celebrate when you have your victories. That's why this book was written.

Enjoy the story, and God bless you!

- Scott Calloway

Discussion Questions

These questions can be used to start discussions after reading each chapter in a weekly book study.

In your life, has your inner circle of friends been a positive or negative influence?

As you have learned more about the three, twelve, and 70, what will you do differently in the future?

In this chapter, which characters benefited because of knowledge of the three, twelve, and 70?

In this chapter, which characters suffered because of a lack of knowledge of the three, twelve, and 70?

How often should we review our Three, Twelve, and 70?

Chapter One

Scott beat his fist on the steering wheel of his red pickup truck. The sun was setting as he drove away from his parents' house. He knew where he was going, but the realization of how messed up home had become was hitting him hard.

It seems all my dad cares about is that jerk, Owen. All I did was ask about Matthew's old boat. We were just talking about going fishing. If anything, I was doing exactly what I was told; trying to be social. After several miles, he reached into his glove compartment and pulled out a mix-tape of some of his favorite songs from years ago. As the voice-boxed guitar intro of Bon Jovi's Living on a Prayer kicked in, he let the loud blaring of music overlap the chaos in his head.

He had just returned from a whole year teaching at a mission school in the Marshall Islands. After his girlfriend's death, and after a minor infection grew into a life-threatening situation, the board of directors for the mission school forced him to leave.

When he thought about it, getting kicked out of his parents' house gave him what he wanted. I guess it's not so bad, Scott said, attempting to reassure himself.

He rolled down the driver's-side window and allowed the cold breeze to brush past his face. He still had not adjusted to the change in temperature, as he had only left the islands for Alaska two days earlier. The wind dove in through the window and blew his red afro.

It has been so long since I've been surrounded by spruce trees, he thought. The only trees that he saw the last year were tropical island trees, and he had many good memories of both the Marshalls and Guam. His mind replayed the past week's events that occurred before coming home: his near-death swim with sharks, meeting Laura, the lessons he learned reading Uncle Matthew's diary, and his conversations with John. Scott remembered that John had invited him to return for more snorkeling.

Right now, that sounds great.

Just a few days ago, John was convincing him that going home was part of God's plan. Something about learning to embrace your pain instead of running away, Scott said to himself. Getting kicked out was painful. Living at home was painful. Is there a painless option, God? he asked, glancing at the sky so anyone up above could see the serious look on his face.

The mix tape changed to Def Leppard's Armageddon It. Take it, take it, take it from me, I got an itchy finger following me. Scott stopped mouthing the words mid-song. A lot had changed since he put that mix-tape together. He turned it off. It sounded like a sad reality. He had just gotten over the feeling that God had taken everything away, and that problems just continued to follow him wherever he went: his girlfriend Janet died, he almost died, and he got kicked out of his parent's house. It all kept piling up.

As he thought about what his Uncle John had said, that God had a plan for him, he realized something. Every time something bad happens, it points the way to a tool to help me next time.

If he hadn't been forced to leave the Marshalls early, he never would have read Matthew's journal, and he never would have learned the truth about Owen -- the truth about Matthew's murder. Scott was sure his Uncle Matthew didn't just fall off a roof. There must have been foul play involved. If the journal was right, that foul play came from Owen.

Just that day at his parent's home, Scott had seen Owen screaming at Tiffany, who left the dinner table in tears. Owen stormed out after her, continuing to harass his wife until they drove away. His whole family blamed Scott, ignoring Owen's role in the fight. All Scott could do was watch in amazement. Scott's father, Robert, made a choice between his best friend and his son, by asking Scott to leave. How on earth can Dad still be friends with that guy? asked Scott. Owen can't be trusted.

Speaking of trust, he thought. If I hadn't met John in Guam, I never would have met Laura or learned about trust. In the diary, he relearned about the three legs of trust: getting the job done, having integrity, and having other people's best interests in mind. Scott now understood the life lessons Matthew had tried to teach him before he died.

Scott felt very weak. Still, How can I 'embrace my pain' or 'be a better man' when the source of my pain won't give me a chance to fix it?! He couldn't learn to deal with his parents if they kicked him out.

Scott slowed as he came to a four-way stop. Across the street to his