06/02/2024
Top 10 Lessons from the book: An Enemy Called Average by John Mason
1. Choose to be a person who is on the offensive and watch the atmosphere of your life begin to change.
If you don’t like the tone of your life, choose to take the offensive position; take the initiative and watch what happens.
People who live defensively are never secure regardless of their wealth, education, or position.
Taking the offensive starts by making an inward decision that inspires an outward action.
When you choose to act on the offensive, keep all your conflicts impersonal. Fight the issue, not the person.
Pulling back and thinking defensively usually enhances a problem. Intimidation always precedes defeat.
2. Gifts and talents are really God’s deposits in our personal accounts, but we determine the interest on them. The greater the amount of interest and attention we give to them, the greater their value becomes.
There are people whose lives are waiting to be affected by what God has placed within you. So evaluate yourself.
3. It’s not what you have, it’s what you do with what you have that makes all the difference. Never worry about how much money, ability, or equipment you start with; just begin with a 'million-dollars’ worth of determination.
4. Every one of us is privileged with twenty-four hours a day. What we do with each day matters. Give your best time to your most challenging situation. It’s not how much you do that matters; it’s how much you finish.
Make sure to take care of the two most vulnerable times in your day—the first thing in the morning and the last thing at night. It’s amazing how much these two times influence the whole day. Be sure to fill them with productive
words and actions.
Don’t spend a dollar’s worth of time for ten-cents’ worth of results.
5. Hope built on a lie is always the beginning of loss. Never attempt to build anything on a foundation of lies and half-truths. It will not stand. Never expect God to bless a lie. Lying will always distort your ability to see God’s guidance in your life. It will cause you to take steps that are not right for you. Lying will cost you more in the long term than it will save you in the short term.
No one has a good-enough memory to be a successful liar. T.L. Osborn said, “Always tell the truth, and you never have to remember what
you said.”
6. The middle of the road is a dangerous place to be. Indecision is deadly. Some of the most miserable people are those who can never make a decision. An indecisive person allows instability to creep into every area of life. If we don’t decide what is important to us, we will do only what is important to others. A greater degree of wishful thinking leads to a greater degree of mediocrity. Being decisive, being focused, and committing ourselves to the fulfillment of a dream greatly increases our probability of success while closing the door to wrong options.
7. The more we look backward, the less we are able to see forward. The past does not determine what God can do for us today or tomorrow. Failure is waiting around the corner for those who live off of yesterday’s successes and failures. Choose to be forward focused, not past possessed. Learn to profit from the past while investing in the future.
Don't consume your tomorrows by feeding on your yesterdays!
8. Overcome procrastination by eliminating all excuses for not taking immediate action.
The longer we take to act on God’s direction, the more unclear it becomes.
Procrastinators are good at talking, not doing. Mark Twain said, “Noise produces nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as though she has laid an asteroid.”
Occasionally you may notice someone who doesn’t do anything, yet seems to have some success in life. Don’t be deceived; things are never as they appear. Remember the old saying, “Even a broken clock is right twice a day.”
9. Worry gives a small thing a big shadow. Worry is simply the misuse of the creative imagination.
As we dwell on matters beyond our control, a negative effect sets in. Too much analysis always leads to paralysis.
Worry is a route that leads from somewhere to nowhere. Never let it direct your life.
Fear and worry are interests paid in advance on something you may never own.
10. Talk is not cheap. Talk is powerful! What we say affects what we get from others and what others get from us. When
we speak wrongly, we diminish our ability to see the good side of a thing.
Don’t be known as a person whose only words are negative.
