Priorities, Values, & Calling
Savvy Saturdays - 11/7/20
Hello friends,
Greetings from Austin!👋
Every season in life, I find myself needing to refocus on the priorities I have.
When I was in my “gap year” after college, my goal was to build up skills for entrepreneurship & leadership during my free time.
When I lost the job I never started, I had to prioritize practicing coding challenges and interview for many positions as a “late techie”.
When I entered the workforce, I had to focus on growing in my technical understanding of the business & learn all the systems we ran.
Each season brings a new set of priorities.
Recently, I started to shift my attention from my priorities to understanding my faith calling (a.k.a. values).
I listened to a podcast about Career vs Calling, and it pointed out two different types of callings we have - faith calling & vocational calling.
Faith calling is essentially who you are outside of what you do.
Things that don’t change even if the season changes. ex. character, values, etc…
Vocational calling is the vehicle to live out your faith calling.
Things that change season to season. ex. Job Title, Family status, Role, etc…
In order to understand my faith calling, ironically, I had to analyze my priorities from season to season in order to extract patterns of the things I valued:
My faith in Jesus.
My passion for creative ventures and passion projects.
My value of time & energy (since it’s not a renewable resource), and learning how to manage it effectively.
My love for leadership and belief that everyone has tremendous influence.
These values gave me clarity towards a bit of my faith calling:
I feel called to live out the Gospel & Great Commission. To nurture my relationship with Jesus and share it with others.
I feel called to create amazing ventures and support anyone who chooses that path.
I feel called to value other’s time and equip people to be effective with their energy.
I feel called to lead in every moment and empower others to lead where they’re at.
Though this is a rough draft of my faith calling and there’s still a lot to process going forward, I believe this first step will bring about greater clarity of how I choose to live my life - with awareness, purpose, & direction.
Questions to ponder:
What do you consistently prioritize? What gives you passion and joy?
Why do you do what you do? Who are you outside of what you do?
Weekly Update
Thanks for checking in!
Crazy update, but Savvy Saturdays has finally reached over 100 subscribers!
I initially started this newsletter with one conviction, hoping to do two things. No matter if I was writing for one person, or a hundred thousand people, I wanted to:
create a platform to share stuff I love,
and use my platform to inspire & support others.
So knowing that I get to share and bless over 100 people is a huge blessing 😭
If you’re subscribed, thank you for being a part of the journey. Let’s continue to fight this fight and run this race together in faith & life!
And if you aren’t subscribed, feel free to join the journey! It only takes an email sign up, and if you don’t enjoy it, you can always unsubscribe in the future.
On another note, I went to my first dentist appointment in 1.5+ years, and man, I developed a lot of plaque. Fortunately, my teeth had no cavities thanks to my entrepreneurship professor in college who inspired me to floss twice a day to build up habits - small steps of investment that compound into long-term returns.
Anyways, here are several photos from the past week:
With that, stay safe, keep it savvy, and I’ll see y’all in the next update 😊
Eric
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With that, enjoy the rest of the newsletter!
Weekly Collections
A collection of articles I enjoyed…
Faith
“We do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.
For [because] this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen.
For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
“Not only is all your affliction momentary, not only is all your affliction light in comparison to eternity and the glory there, but all of it is totally meaningful.
Now, that is a very controversial statement because of how much insane suffering there is in the world.
l venture this: every millisecond of your pain from fallen nature or fallen man — every millisecond of your misery in the path of obedience — is producing a peculiar glory you will get because of that. That’s a very controversial statement — and I believe it.”
—My Suffering Feels Meaningless - What Can I Do? | Ask Pastor John
Leadership
There are two types of callings people have:
Faith calling - Who am I outside of what I do - core values.
Vocational calling - The vehicle for faith calling - occupation, titles, responsibilities.
People who burnout doesn't mean they don't love what they do.
If choices clashes with values, there needs to be some soul searching.
The difference of the values you claim vs the life you live is equivalent to the pain you experience.
Need a small group of people (3-4 people) who will call you out when you need to be called out - listen to the right voices.
It's okay to love what you do, but don't let it define you
Practical questions to act on:
Who are you outside of what you do? Why are you doing it, and who you are doing it for?
How would your 70-year old self make decisions in this moment?
Would your 70-year old self be satisfied and proud of the decisions that you're making, and the path that you're on?
—Notes from Calling Vs. Career | Craig Groeschel Leadership Podcast
Productivity
Weekly Tidbits
Learnings, verses, & quotes to chew on…
"A great meeting has three key elements:
the desired outcome of the meeting is clear ahead of time
the various options are clear, ideally ahead of time
and the roles of the participants are clear at the time.
I think that's the single largest source of optimization for a company: the makeup of their meetings. To be clear, it's not about fewer meetings because meetings serve a purpose. Rather, it’s key to improve the meetings, themselves. A lot of my efforts focus on teaching people this framework. Ironically, I find that most people are just challenged by that stuff."
—Spotify Founder and CEO Daniel Ek
Verse of the Week
"Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
—Matthew 11:28-30
Challenging Quote
"What would life be like if we had no courage to attempt anything"
—Vincent Van Gogh