The Wisdom Chronicle is designed to bring nuggets of wisdom from the dozens of books I read every year. I endeavor to share the best of what I have gleaned. The determination of relevance lies with you. Blessings, J. Whiddon
- LISTEN “As his career at CNN was winding down, Larry King – the king of interviews – told Esquire magazine, “I never learned anything while I was talking.” “Let the wise listen,” King Solomon said, “and add to their learning” (Proverbs 1:5 NIV).
Excerpt From: DeMoss, Mark. “The Little Red Book of Wisdom.”
- FREEDOM/REALITY INSEPARABLE “Horace Greeley, one of America’s leading nineteenth-century newspaper editors, reminded his fellow citizens of what many of the Founding Fathers of the previous generation had emphasized: “Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.”
Similarly, as Joshua prepared the children of Israel to begin their conquest of Canaan, he reminded them that their success depended upon keeping God’s Word in their hearts and
minds and on their lips. He went on to challenge the people of Israel—and the challenge applies to us today, to us as individuals, as families, as a nation—to make an important choice: “Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve. . . . But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD” (Joshua 24:15). This choice is foundational to the moral and spiritual resolve that will give us success in all we set out to accomplish as individuals and as a
nation.”
Excerpt From: Lee, Richard. “In God We Still Trust: A 365-Day Devotional.”
- TIME TO LIVE “I’ve often told people to check their birth certificate and to imagine the number 700,000 is in the corner of your birth certificate. That’s your net worth — the amount of hours the average person has to live, and how you invest those hours is completely up to you.
One of the most rewarding things in life is getting rid of what you don’t need. Most people
think they need more — but the truth is they really need less. They need to be simpler. They need to get back to what makes them tick. They need to point toward what they really need and really want so they have focus and direction.”
Excerpt From: Reiman, Joey. “Thinking for a Living.”
- TAKE ACTION “Musicians say that the hardest part of practicing is taking the instrument out of the case. To begin is to be half done! This is what we need to do with our ideas. And how do you create great ideas? How do you make them really happen? By taking action on them. Action is the great separator. It separates the rich from the poor, the winners from the whiners, and the ideas from the “I did its.” Action gets things done.
Equally important as the passion to take action is the persistence to see it through. The world is full of people with good ideas, but often the difference between those who achieve great success and those who don’t is the persistence to overcome obstacles, resistance, and rejections.”
Excerpt From: Reiman, Joey. “Thinking for a Living.”
- BEST ACHIEVEMENT “My most brilliant achievement was the ability to be able to
persuade my wife to marry me.” — SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL
- “ENTHUSIASM” In Greek, “entheos” meaning, “God in.”
- GRAVITY OF THINGS “Everyone knows about gravity. It’s the force that keeps us on planet earth. Otherwise, we’d float away into space. Now, what you may not realize is that the mass of the earth is what creates gravity.
Simple physics. The more mass, the more pull. The more pull and attraction, the harder it is to break free. Our culture encourages us to accumulate things, to have options, to focus on ourselves. The problem is that the more things we accumulate, the more mass we create. And the more mass, the more pull. Soon we cannot pull ourselves away from the things we’ve accumulated because they have such a hold on us. They control us; we do not control them. We attempt to break free, but the pull is too strong.
I have found that the life of limited options is a life of freedom. Free from the gravitational pull of things…free to see more clearly the life that God has given to us and free to produce more joy
because we focus less on ourselves and more on others. We have less to divert our attention away from the things that matter.”
Excerpt From: Battaglia, Joe. “The Politically Incorrect Jesus.”
- NO CREDIT “The man who discovered America was poorly rewarded for his efforts. Christopher Columbus made the mistake of looking for gold and keeping his mouth
shut. Amerigo Vespucci didn’t. Amerigo was 5 years behind Christopher. But he
did two things right. First, he positioned the New World as a separate continent, totally distinct from Asia. This caused a revolution in the geography of his day.
Second, he wrote extensively of his discoveries and theories. Especially significant are the five letters of his third voyage. One (Mundus Novus) was translated into 40 different languages over a 25-year period. Before he died, Spain granted him Castilian citizenship and gave him a major state post.
As a result, the Europeans credited Amerigo Vespucci with the discovery of America and named the place after him. Christopher Columbus died in jail.”
Excerpt From: Al Ries & Jack Trout. “Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind.”
- CROWD “Never take your cues from the crowd.” — Unknown
- DETERMINATION “We need to keep in mind the difference between natural sight and supernatural vision. When we look at life with vision, we perceive events and circumstances
with God’s thoughts. And because His thoughts are higher and more profound than mere horizontal thinking, they have a way of softening the blows of calamity and giving us hope through tragedy and loss. It also enables us to handle times of prosperity and popularity with wisdom.
I often remind myself of those familiar words in 2 Timothy 4:2, “Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season.” That’s a nice way of saying, “Hang tough! Do it when it comes naturally and when it is hard to come by. Do it when you’re up, do it when you’re down. Do it when you feel like it, do it when you don’t feel like it. Do it when it’s hot, do it when it’s cold. Keep on doing it. Don’t give up.”
That is persistence and determination. Staying at it. Hanging tough with dogged discipline. When you get whipped or when you win, the secret is staying at it.”
Excerpt From: Charles R. Swindoll. “Dear Graduate.”
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