Jesus, Life Coach: Learn from the Best

By Laurie Beth Jones

In the game of life, only one Coach will do.

Best-selling author, Laurie Beth Jones takes her uniquely passionate brand of motivational writing to a new level and lays out a faith-based program to get your whole life in shape?with Jesus as your personal trainer.

This is your playbook for success?a wealth of information and inspiration that will motivate you to excel in and enjoy all walks of life. Jones, a coach for some of today's leading CEOs, uses her skills and experience to get you thinking, working, and achieving all your goals and dreams.

The secret to success can be found, she says, in the most successful man who ever lived?a man who changed the world like no other. And by using Scripture and thought-provoking questions, Jones will show you with practical instructions how to get your life in high gear?at home as well as at work. So don't be left in the stands just watching the game of life when you can become the star pitcher, the starting quarterback, your team's most valuable player.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Feb 19, 2006
• ISBN: 9781418513665

Book preview

FOCUS

2

My friend Joe Mathews shared a poignant story with me recently. His best friend’s wife was diagnosed with terminal cancer and given a short time to live. Joe said he watched in awe as Dan and his wife, Christine, began to live each day with tremendous clarity and love. When it was nearly the end Joe finally got up the courage to ask Christine the question: What does it feel like to live each day knowing you are dying? She raised herself up on one arm, and then asked him, Joe, what does it feel like to live each day pretending that you are not?

One of the most powerful questions for focusing is asking yourself: What would I be doing with my time if I knew I had only six healthy months to live? It can immediately cause you to reorganize your priorities.

Focus is the beginning of power.

Last year I spoke on the phone with a client that I have been coaching. A highly successful entrepreneur, he had a vague idea of what he wanted and needed to do next in his life to take him to a higher level. He said he had read The Path but had not written down his answers to the questions. For his first assignment I had him go back and write down the answers to the questions. In writing his vision specifically, he got very clear about what he wanted to create and experience in his life.

I ran into him recently, and he was laughing exultantly. Everything he had written in his vision since our first discussion had come true—not in three years, but in ninety days. He said, "As soon as I got clear about the ‘vision thing’—wham! Everything started coming to me so quickly. Now you need to write the next book to tell me what to do when all of my vision starts coming true all at once." We laughed about the dilemma of the fishermen who followed Jesus’ instructions to throw the net on the other side of the boat and hauled in such a catch of fish that it threatened to overwhelm their vessel.

Such a catch of fish is waiting for you, too. Are you ready?

When Jesus, your personal Coach, looks at you, he will ask you one question: What do you want me to do for you? That was the question he asked again and again in his ministry—whether it was a Roman soldier, anxious about the failing health of his favorite assistant, or a woman who had been suffering a hemorrhage for twelve years. What do you want me to do for you?

Jesus is asking you to focus now. All the power is here. All the goodwill is here. All the intent is here right now.

It is up to you to decide on who you want to be and what you want to be about in this world.

The following chapters are designed to help you focus—to help you go from being a lightbulb, illuminating a small space, to a laser beam, powerful enough to cut through steel.

WITH JESUS AS YOUR LIFE COACH, YOU WILL . . .

HAVE YOUR

TENT STOLEN

3

NOW WE SEE ONLY REFLECTIONS IN

A MIRROR . . . BUT THEN WE SHALL

BE SEEING FACE TO FACE.

—1 CORINTHIANS 13:12 (NJB)

Recently I had the pleasure of hearing Ray Anderson, founder of a textile mill in Georgia named Interface, speak to a group of business leaders in Santa Fe. He told the following story.

It seems that one day Sherlock Holmes and his assistant, Watson, went camping. As the night wore on, Sherlock woke up, leaned over, and asked Watson, What do you see? Watson responded, Sherlock, I see the North Star, which has helped guide us to this spot. Beyond that I see the Big Dipper and the tail of Orion. I also can make out the edges of the Milky Way and know that there are universes expanding beyond that.

Watson was about to continue his rapturous explanation when suddenly Sherlock elbowed him and hissed, Watson, you idiot, someone has stolen our tent!

Laughter rippled through the audience as the multiple real-life applications of this story became apparent. Watson was rhapsodizing about the beauty of the universe, and Sherlock the detective was concerned with the crime that made their new view possible.

Jesus once described himself as coming like a thief in the night. I love the idea of his coming to steal our tent—the tent of our limited perspective—the tent of our fragile and segmented understandings—the tent that we think is keeping us safe, but is really just keeping us from seeing the universe.

Like children huddled in a tent, we talk to each other in the light of our little flashlights, considering ourselves bold adventurers—but we haven’t even left our own backyard.

I wrote a chapter in Jesus in Blue Jeans regarding God’s impatience with stiff necked people. Stubbornness is first cousin to arrogance, and pride always precedes a fall. When we think that we know it all . . . when we refuse to try another way of doing things . . . when we are determined to remain inflexible and ignorant, we are doomed to failure.

Some time ago I hosted a birthday party for a friend. When one of the invited guests arrived, she admitted that she was a little late because she couldn’t find her glasses. She laughed and said, I finally just grabbed the closest pair I could find. I think these are my mother’s. We all chuckled as she described how difficult it had been to drive over to the house, looking through lenses that belonged to somebody else.

How often do we just grab our parent’s glasses when we head out on a journey, and not use new eyes to view the world? I am continuously amazed and chagrined at how often we repeat our parents’ negative patterns. It is how a culture is created, I suppose, and how one declines.

If only we would open our eyes to new ways of relating, seeing, and doing. If only we would focus not on the tent that has been stolen, but on our suddenly expanding view of the universe. Watch out, oh you who desire growth.

Jesus will steal your tent.

QUESTIONS

1. Where in life are you using your mother’s or father’s glasses?

2. How big is your tent?

3. How limiting is it?

4. What is the value of the kind of thievery we are talking about in this chapter?

Dear Lord,

Thank you for stealing the tent of my small-mindedness and limited thinking. Help me realize that nothing is lost, but much more is gained, when you steal away my oh so comfortable limitations. Amen.

PRACTICE

PLANNED

ABANDONMENT

3

MARY HAS CHOSEN THE BETTER PART.

—LUKE 10:42 (NRSV)

Frances Hesselbein is chairman and founding president of the Drucker Foundation, as well as the former CEO of the Girl Scouts of the USA. She began her work as a volunteer troop leader and vowed to defend the core values of the Girl Scouts while recommitting the organization to its mission of helping girls reach their highest potential.

She determined that any girl in America should be able to see herself in a Girl Scout uniform—whether she was Navajo or Vietnamese or a young girl in rural America. She also determined that the organization had to become more relevant. Girls were not so in need of preparing for marriage as for math, and had to be prepared not only to work in the kitchen but also to avoid teen pregnancies.

Hesselbein began a relentless crusade to narrow the focus while broadening the reach. During her tenure the Girl Scouts went from a membership of one million girls to more than two million, with 780,000 adult volunteers. Her accomplishments were noticed by none other than Peter Drucker himself, the man many credit as being the father of the modern organization. Drucker recruited Hesselbein to start and run his Drucker Foundation, which is dedicated to helping nonprofit organizations run more efficiently.

Hesselbein calls herself the chief cheerleader of Drucker’s principles. One principle that she quotes most frequently in her book Hesselbein on Leadership is that of planned abandonment. She writes, If we are to remain mission focused, as we must be if we are to be relevant in an uncertain age, then abandoning those things that do not further the mission is a leadership imperative.

Hesselbein is in good company. Jim Collins, author of Built to Last and Good to Great, writes about Hesselbein. He states that Frances follows three basic tests of mission, understanding that to do good does not mean to do all good. According to Collins, the three basic tests of mission relevance are these: First, the opportunity must fit squarely in the midst of the organization’s mission. Second, the enterprise must have the ability to execute on the opportunity better than any other organization. And third, the opportunity must make sense in the context of the economic engine and resources of the organization.

Planned abandonment means learning how and when to say no, as well as cultivating the discipline of saying no. Because we live in a day and age when opportunities are endless, and acres of diamonds lay everywhere at our feet, we need to be able to understand what to pick up and what to put down.

Jesus understood this and demonstrated it when he put down the hammer in the carpenter shop and picked up his walking stick. Being a carpenter was something he did very well, but there was something higher and more unique that he could do better than anyone else. He went toward that occupation, and the world was forever changed.

Because a theme of my work is finding your divine calling and living it, I counsel people from many walks of life, all endeavoring to reach out and grasp the high calling of God in Christ Jesus (Phil. 3:14). Invariably the challenges they face are due not to lack of opportunity but to the multiplicity of choices.

Having too many choices can be just as paralyzing as having few or no choices at all. I have watched a woman surrender her chairmanship of a church board, only to go on to become a congregational coach throughout her region. I have watched a CEO relinquish his opportunity to become president of his national trade association, so he could drill down deeper into the roots of his organization and solidify its growing success. I have watched a speech pathologist turn over her practice to friends and associates, so she could get on with the work of church planting and growth. I have watched a man struggle with the decision about whether to become a lifetime deacon of his church or devote more time to his family. Every decision was an agonizing one because it meant leaving others . . . disappointing others . . . leaving a gap in services. But the decisions were made, and somehow the gaps were filled.

As someone whose mission involves the words divine connection, I have had to struggle with decisions that meant loosening ties with others. Whenever I have to make a decision that means leaving someone behind, I am reminded of something. What would I be doing if I had only six healthy months to live? That question always eases and triggers some planned abandonment of projects and tasks that could be done by others. Abandonment to God means abandonment to bliss. And that is worth planning for.

Now, I want to say a word here about false abandonment. Perhaps you are as dubious as I am when I hear of a politician, who has been caught in a scandal or who is losing popularity in the polls, deciding that he wants to return home to spend more time with his family. That is not a planned choice—that is a default choice because his chosen route isn’t open to him anymore. There is a difference.

Planned abandonment doesn’t mean walking away from something that is difficult or isn’t working anymore. Planned abandonment means choosing between good and great, between better and best. Planned abandonment means that you are able to say no to all that glitters and discern what truly shines. Once you understand the difference, you are on your way to fulfillment.

I love this story:

As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!

Martha, Martha, the Lord answered, you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her. (Luke 10:38–42 NIV)

When Mary chose to leave her kitchen duties in favor of listening to Jesus, she was praised for her planned abandonment. She decided to let lesser things go in order to choose the higher part.

Jesus practiced planned abandonment.

QUESTIONS

1. What opportunities are confusing you right now? Name specific choices you are facing.

2. Which one of those can you do better than almost anyone

Reviews for Jesus, Life Coach

[shdawson · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Short chapters, relevant reading, positive mindset to approach the day-to-day problems all business personnel face. Cordiality is well addressed in how to deal with non-cordial co-workers.