Mike Taylor

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Tag: Simple Living

  • Why Your Potential Will Keep You From Your Purpose

    The impact of your life is less dependent on what you’re willing to do and more dependent on what you’re willing to not do.

    To achieve something, it’s natural for us to first think of what we can do to make it happen.

    But when Jesus talked about the kingdom of God, he didn’t talk about what we needed to be willing to do.

    Instead, he talked about what we needed to be willing to not do.

    He challenged the disciples to leave everything they had to follow him. 

    When Jesus asked Peter, Andrew, James, and John to follow him, it was immediately after they had just caught so many fish it was sinking their boat. (Luke 5:7)

    Imagine having the best day of sales you’ve ever had at your business, and deciding to walk away from it altogether on the same day.

    If you consider the immediate requirements of discipleship, there wasn’t much for them to do.

    But being willing to stop pursuing their business was a much bigger deal.

    What Jesus was asking them to give up made no logical sense at the time. 

    Why would they give up the thing they had built – the thing he just blessed? Why give up their steady income?

    We like to think that maybe Jesus would’ve played it safer. 

    Our version of Jesus would’ve asked them to give their extra time to him when they weren’t fishing.

    He would’ve asked them to be part-time fishermen, maybe. 

    But he didn’t do that. He showed them what was possible, then he invited them to go all in.

    In Luke 14, Jesus is talking about the value of counting the cost before you do something.

    This parable has been used to justify playing it safe – to be as certain as you can before doing something. But that’s not exactly what Jesus was saying.

    He basically says, wouldn’t it be dumb to endeavor to build a house or go to war without first thinking about what you’re going to have to give up in order to be successful? 

    If you think you can go into either of those things without giving up a great deal, you’re not going to be prepared to see it through. 

    Jesus ended that conversation by saying, “those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.” (Luke 14:33)

    That’s not a paraphrase. Go read it.

    When a king decides to go to war, he’s also deciding to not focus on farming, harvesting, building towns, and improving infrastructure. 

    By deciding to go to war, he’s giving up everything else. 

    It’s a reckless endeavor, but one that must be committed to wholeheartedly. Anything short of that will end in failure.

    We all have things that God has given us to do that require our full commitment. 

    And it’s easy to say that you’re willing to do whatever it takes to make it happen. 

    But the more difficult question is:

    What are you willing to not do? 

    What are you willing to give up?

    Your number one barrier is not your ability or inability. Your number one barrier is distraction. 

    What’s so important in your life that it’s going to require the elimination of all distractions?

    Because in order to fulfill your purpose, you’ll find that you have to be willing to give up your potential.

  • How to Impact 4.7 Billion People by Influencing 3 People Per Year

    Let’s do a little thought experiment.

    Let’s say in any given decade of your life, you have a close relationship with approximately 25 people.

    This includes friends, classmates, coworkers, or anyone else you spend a substantial amount of time around.

    Now, for the sake of this exercise, let’s say that the majority of those 25 people are exchanged for another 25 people every 10 years.

    Now, let’s say you live for 80 years, and 60 of those years are productive, impactful years.

    With just some simple back of napkin math, we can see that the average person will have a significant influence on 150 people.

    It’s no stretch to say that for every person you have influence with, you also have at least some influence on the people they interact with. In that way, your influence on them then has an exponential effect.

    Let’s assume, then, that those 150 people will also have a significant impact on 150 people throughout their lifetime as well. 

    Conservatively speaking, of the 150 people you will influence throughout your life, you will also likely influence about half of their network indirectly.

    So, throughout your life, let’s say you’ll have direct influence on 150 people and indirect influence on 11,250 people (150 people in your network times 75, which is half of each person’s 150-person network).

    This is where it gets interesting. 

    If every one of your 150 people that you influence turn around and then have an influence on 75 people, and those 75 people turn around and have an influence on 75 more people, then the number of lives you have had a substantial influence on would be 843,750.

    That’s in just three generations beyond yours.

    Carry that out to the fourth generation and you’ve impacted 63,281,250 people. Carry that out to the fifth generation, and you’ve impacted 4.7 billion people.

    Apple is easily one of the most influential brands in history. Apple’s CEO Tim Cook is listed as one of Time Magazine’s most influential people in the world. And even at the apex of influence in the world, there are still only around 2 billion Apple customers in the world.

    Within just a few generations, you can have a much more substantial and long-lasting impact on the world than even the most influential people and brands, and you can do it without slaving away at work.

    If you are intentional about the relationships you build and the seeds you sow into other people, and you’re willing to wait for a return over time, then the impact you can have on the world is truly limitless.

    What’s even more amazing is that influencing billions of people over the course of a few generations doesn’t take a substantial amount of effort. It’s actually a conservative goal.

    To have a substantial influence on 150 people over the course of 60 years of your adult life, you would only need to impact 2 to 3 people each year.

    Said another way, if you spent every few years cultivating meaningful relationships with 5 to 10 people, you would be well on your way to having an exponential impact on countless lives.

    I get that the numbers aren’t sexy. It doesn’t scratch the itch of significance that we all have.

    For some reason, telling you that you could impact millions of lives in a positive way if you diligently cultivated 20 to 30 relationships every decade doesn’t make you feel as important or as valuable as the idea of building something big and flashy that captures the attention of 1 million people in a single generation.

    What’s truly sad is if you spend your time trying to impact 1 million people in one generation, the longevity of that impact is inevitably low.

    Having a short term impact on 1 million people in one generation pales in comparison to the long-term positive influence you can have on the world by having a deep impact on only a handful of people in your lifetime.

    We’ve gotten this twisted in the age of social media, and it’s evident by the rise of the term “influencer”.

    By definition, an influencer in the digital world is someone who has the ability to influence the purchase behavior of consumers online, primarily through social media.

    We’ve effectively turned influence into a commercialized product.

    As such, influence is seen as something to be maximized to produce the most return in the shortest amount of time. 

    What we fail to realize, though, is that by reducing influence to an asset to be profited from, we end up gaining influence that is cheap, shallow, and valueless.

    You probably won’t change the lives of a million people in your lifetime. And that’s okay. In fact, it’s preferable that you don’t. 

    It’s much more beneficial to everyone if you spend your life focusing on having a positive influence on a handful of people in a long-term, profound way.

    Those people will not only be the ones telling stories at your funeral about the moments you created that mattered deeply to them, but the actions, values, and stories you left imprinted on their hearts will also tell countless generations to come about the legacy you left behind.

    And that is the only kind of influence worth living for.

  • Why Resting Is the Hidden Productivity Hack

    Somewhere along the way, we started wearing burnout like it’s a badge of honor.

    Letting someone know that we’re busy feels validating.

    Busyness feels like progress.

    Take parenting for example. It’s very easy to sign yourself up for everything you think you’re “supposed” to be doing, because saying no to the cultural norms feels like rejection.

    Maybe that’s why a survey found that 60% of parents feel overwhelmed by the mental load of parenting.

    I think most of that is self-inflicted…being unwilling to sit in the emptiness of boredom.

    Busy has become our baseline. And without it, we feel unproductive and unimportant.

    Doing things you deem productive can cause your brain to release dopamine. Which is potentially part of the reason busyness feels like a drug.

    It can be addicting, but overwhelm isn’t a sign of importance. It’s a sign that something needs to change.

    A burned-out person is an ineffective person.

    You can’t pour out if you’re empty. And you can’t fake being present for long.

    Rest isn’t indulgent. Rest is essential.

    One study found that regular leisure activities like quiet time, time in nature, hobbies, even just unwinding are linked to lower stress, lower blood pressure, better health, and better mood.

    This isn’t just about having a hobby or taking a vacation. It’s about fostering a lifestyle that includes being comfortable with boredom.

    But most of us ignore the invitation. We call it lazy or selfish or just plain impossible.

    But what if your health and peace was part of the job?

    What if letting go is what helps you show up better?