Are You Looking for Answers or Freedom?

It's time for a quote - a long one. So bear with me, though I am positive you will enjoy this one. Well, maybe not "enjoy" until you realize the impact it will have, but certainly "appreciate" it. Be forewarned, though, it may upset your applecart to a point of no return.

This comes from a book of writings by John Eldredge called "the Ransomed Heart, a Collection of Devotional Readings." In this book there is an excerpt for each day of the year. This one comes from day/page 319 which is itself taken from John's book The Journey of Desire, pp. 38-40. Hold on, here goes:

You have your heads in your Bibles constantly because you think you'll find eternal life there. But you miss the forest for the trees. These Scriptures are all about me! And here I am, standing right before you, and you aren't willing to receive from me the life you say you want. (John 5:39-40 The Message)

The promise of life and the invitation to desire has again been lost beneath a pile of religious teachings that put the focus on knowledge and performance.

History has brought us to the point where the Christian message is thought to be essentially concerned only with how to deal with sin: with wrongdoing or wrong-being and its effects. Life, our actual existence, is not included in what is now presented as the heart of the Christian message, or it is included only marginally. (The Divine Conspiracy)

Thus Willard describes the gospels we have today as "gospels of sin management." Sin is the bottom line, and we have the cure. Typically, it is a system of knowledge or performance, or a mixture of both. Those in the knowledge camp put the emphasis on getting our doctrine in line. Right belief is seen as the means to life. Desire is irrelevant; content is what matters. But notice this -- the Pharisees knew more about the Bible than most of us ever will, and it hardened their hearts. Knowledge just isn't all it's cracked up to be. If you are familiar with the biblical narrative, you will remember that there were two special trees in Eden --the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life. We got the wrong tree. We got knowledge, and it hasn't done us much good.

(You can find John and his writings and ministry at http://www.ransomedheart.com)

So, what do you think? Puts a different perspective on things, no? A bit heretical, even. We'll talk more of this in days to come, but this gives a good foundation for why I am the (Medical) Heretic!

Won't you come be a heretic with me? We will go find our hearts, and life, together!?

Blessings,

Dr Jon
http://www.goodheartgroupinc.com

5 Requirements to Accomplish any Goal

To DO anything in life (assume the goal is already in place) there are certain things that must be in place. This is true whether you are "doing" (or attempting to do):

• network (MLM) marketing
• internet marketing
• a trade
• a job
• a "regular" business of your own
• climbing mountains
• athletics
• marriage
• parenting
• ANYTHING at all

First and foremost you must give yourself permission to do this thing. At the deepest level of your existence, in your personal belief system, it must be OK to do. Spiritually, morally, ethically, culturally, politically, financially, emotionally, physically, at EVERY level and in every aspect of who you are and what YOU believe, it must be an acceptable endeavor.
Unfortunately, most of us don't know clearly what we believe at most of these levels. Most of our beliefs came to us early and by default and we have never articulated them to ourselves. We start a project or business and soon run into some unknown block in one or more of these areas. Not realizing there is a deep-seated betrayal of our belief system, we wonder why the project gets derailed and sabotaged.

Second, having given yourself permission to do something, your must be absolutely convinced that you have the energy and the power within yourself to accomplish it. This must come from within, not from someone or somewhere outside yourself. It is fine and right to ask for and accept encouragement, but the basic driving force must be yours.

Third, you must receive proper and adequate training. It will take a minimum to get started and an ongoing learning process to keep the project on track.

Fourth, you must have a coach, a mentor, a teacher, a friend. While the energy comes from within, this person (or persons - more than one is usually even better) will provide encouragement, direction, critique, perspective, brainstorming. This person forces you to get outside of your own limitations.

Fifth, you must be open to change. At each and every step along the process of your chosen project, evaluate, test, "check in" to see how you are doing with each of these four requirements. Is it still OK to do? Do you have the energy, the drive? Are you getting more and adequate training? Do yo have a special (or enough) teacher/mentor/friend? Make the adjustments to properly answer the questions in the affirmative and you continue on your way.

What if there is a negative at any point or what if you look at your life as it is right now and see a negative at one or more of these points? Then, as you know and can feel, your train is at risk of derailing. Get it back on track or find another train and track. Just be sure that whatever choice you make these requirements are in place.

Wishing you a Blessed Christmas and Holiday Season,

Dr Jon

What is a USP?

Been doing some training in the area of Marketing lately. If you would like to do the same, drop me a line; couple of guys out there really worth your time, energy and dollars. Anyway, the idea of a "USP" always comes up. First thing. Right off the bat. Before anything else.

USP stands for Unique Selling Proposition.

It is what makes you different. Answers the question: If someone were to ask me why they should purchase my product or service over my competition, what would I tell them? The marketers say that if we can not give a good answer we have no business being in business. Ouch.

But let's move out of the business realm for a minute and broaden it out. "Unique" means "one-of-a-kind", special, owned by no other.

That sounds like each one of us. We are all unique, special. No two of us has the same DNA. Maybe the occasional twin, but even they have a unique experience and perspective. NO ONE can look at life from inside your head! You are unique!

Do you believe that? Have you found out what makes you unique yet? Will you dare? Will you live in that? Flesh it out? Stand up and be somebody that lives outside the crowd?

Until next time, this is the Unique Heretic.

Blessings,

Dr Jon

Recovering One's Identity

In this day and age the term "Identity Theft" is all too common and avoidance of it takes up a lot of our time and attention. But many of our identities have been stolen long ago, many times before they really had a chance to become ours.

Have been reading a new book the last few days, the latest in the series of books from John Eldredge (Journey of Desire, Wild at Heart, Waking the Dead). This latest is called The Way of the Wild at Heart and it is a treatise on what John calls the "Masculine Journey." As he says, it is about fatherlessness, unfinished men, stolen identities, often before they were even formed. I can honestly say he is talking about me. Just turned 56 and finally beginning to get a handle on my own identity. Been hiding behind a lot of other people's wishes and thoughts for me, failures to step up and get real for myself, fear of success even.

Kind of scary, but feels really good to finally become some body.

John, of course, will tell us that God the Loving Father is the One to whom we need to go to get the fathering we so desperately need; and he is right. I've been doing that recently, apart from church or doctrine or other people's wishes for me. Reading through the Scripture, seeing it as other men's stories, like me and my story. Just God and myself; talking; listening to each other.

Neat.

Highly recommended.

Great Fun!

You have got to love the Internet, Computers, and "all that jazz!"

In the ongoing, never-ending search for streams of income, I recently downloaded a document that points one to the wonders of blogging, and generating some money from it. Now that is a marvelous combination. For blogging, as you well know, is perhaps the ultimate personal stage before the world. Where else can you bare your soul, share your thoughts, and let people know you are here, you have something to say, and here it is! It's safe; no one is sitting on your shoulder telling you how bad you write, how wrong your ideas are, how awful it is to be using those dangling participles. On the other hand, there is opportunity to get into major discussions with the comment feature and go back and forth to one's delight. Amazing stuff.

Now, imagine that you could actually earn an income from just being! That goes against the grain, is thought way outside the box! Earning money for doing nothing? Heresy. Talk about medical heretic, that is economic heretic as well! But here we are. Exactly there.

So this afternoon I spent the time (not really for nothing, but pretty minimal) redoing the blog. New colors, new template, added the picture, changed the profile, put on the ads top and along the side (the revenue generators). Really cool stuff. If you haven't already, you got to try it. Is very simple. Give me a buzz if you don't know how; the blog site has helps that walk you through it as well.

Blessings,

Dr Jon