Check out the part I highlighted in bold. The temple of the Holy Spirit (your body) is defiled by false doctrine.

How many times have you heard it preached that your body is defiled by your sin? By drinking, or swearing or whatever.

God is more concerned about what you believe than what you do. Sure He doesn’t want you sinning because there are consequences to sin, and every action we take. For instance, if I continually forget to clean up after my dogs, eventually nobody will want to enter my home from the smell!

In Corinthians the writer hammers home “Jesus Christ and Him crucified”. And he also speaks about what I just mentioned about consequences. He’s saying, what you’re doing is bad, there are consequences, but the only way to change that is by what you believe. You’ll never overcome addiction or habitual sin through effort, you need a belief change – Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

Jesus may be a narrow entrance to Life, but on the other side of Jesus is the city of cities, full of freedom and peace.

That’s what you get if you use information and your intelligence… Money… Lots of it.

I watched Moneyball last night and saw how a man’s bravery and desperation caused him to take a chance on science in baseball, which led him to an offer of $12,5million from a major league baseball team.

This fits in with what I’ve been thinking lately. Our “information” age is not a new thing, it’s just more obvious with all the technology we have at our disposal to exploit the information we have. In the end it’s an old and simple principle. Take the information, exploit what you have available to you with that applied information, and gain power because of it. And that power can be converted to money, or anything you need.

I also heard a great thing this morning: FOCUS ON ONE THING. With focus on a specific thing, your information on that topic will grow, and so will your ability to apply that information, and so will your “power” grow in that field. And little by little you will be successful.

Just look at Alexander Graham Bell – he was known for his dogged persistence. He focussed on one thing, gleaned all the information he could and success was inevitable, it was just a matter of time.

Focus, learn, apply, succeed… Go for it.

So I’m writing this wondering, what makes a business idea, or any idea successful? Because up until now I thought all you needed was to be very, very unique.

Well on my walk here a story from a book I’m reading comes to mind (Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography by Walter Isaacson). He tells the story about Steve’s best friend Woz, who was a prodigy in electronics. He built a little device that interfered with TV signals. So in high school he would find a group of people who were watching TV and start fiddling with their signal. When they got up to tap the TV or fiddle with the aerial he would turn off the device as soon as they did what he wanted them to do, which in turn produced the desired results of a clear signal. In effect he began to manipulate their movement until they were standing with one foot in the air, another hand on the aerial and another tapping the screen. (p26-27)

With his knowledge (information) about technology he could almost literally control people like puppets.

And with these two stories it dawned on me, a good unique idea is not enough. You need information, and you need to know how to leverage that information to your advantage.

For example, that store that closed down needed to know where their customers are and whether there were enough of them. It’s useless hiring a mall unit only to find out that a group of ten people like your high end merchandise, you will fail.

And so, although it really is boring, whatever you’re endeavouring, it would be useful not to stop at your clever idea and applying it immediately. You should do some research, find out who’s interested, find out who’s doing something similar and how they’re doing, learn from those things and find a way to leverage that information to your benefit.

And as a side note: we are beyond the age of technology, and squarely within the age of information. Property is good, technology is good, but those with the information are king. Just look at Google and Facebook. Two of the biggest influences in our world today.

I just read a couple of Apple headlines. One saying they would sell over 5 million units in three months and that the iPad has changed education.

I just got a book voucher for Amazon for my birthday. I went onto Amazon, entered my voucher number, clicked add to Kindle (for “Adin’s iPad) and in ten minutes my book had loaded onto my iPad. No paper, no drive to the shop.

I am excited about this…

Source: richdad.com

Five Lessons on Passion fromCaine’s Arcade

Rich dad said, “Employees dread the work week and live for the weekend. Their world is made up of two spheres, work and play. The rich don’t know the difference. Their work is their play because they’re passionate about what they do.”

For me, rich dad’s advice has been a valuable lesson. Since a young age, I’ve followed my passions and found ways to make them profitable. To me, my business is like a game. Some people study golf. I study investing and business.

A couple weeks ago, I wrote about the importance of integrity. Today, I want to show you the importance of passion.

I could write a long post on this, but you’d be better served watching Caine’s story below.

Little, 9-year old Caine is passionate about arcades. He followed his passions and made his own arcade. Like many passions, people didn’t get his at first. He even faced ridicule from people who didn’t understand his dreams. Yet, he persisted — and good things came.

But here’s the truth: even if the flash mob never showed, Caine would have stuck with his arcade dream. And that is the secret to his success.

There are lots of ways to make money in this world. But as the old proverb goes, what’s the point of gaining the whole world if you lose your soul. The key is to have both, and that is achieved only when we pursue our passions.

Passion gives you the drive to go on.

Caine could easily have quit. Everyone around him would have understood. But instead, he continued to pursue his arcade because he was first doing it for himself, which then became a benefit for others. Like Caine, when we’re passionate about something, we innovate, create, and continue on with our dreams.

Passion pushes you to learn more.

Caine wasn’t content with building his first version of his arcade and leaving it as is. Instead, he continued to learn more and create more. He developed better systems and games. He honed his skills and created better products.

Though only 9 years old, Caine put more thought into his dream than most adults do in a lifetime. Caine’s passion is evident in his craft. Like Caine, those who are successful as adults are those people who instead of becoming calloused and losing their sense of wonder and possibility, instead retain a childlike quality and see the world full of opportunity. They work hard to learn more, honing their craft and increasing their financial education.

Passion is infectious for others.

There’s a reason why Caine’s video has been viewed over 2.5 million times. People love his passion, and they love seeing that one person recognized Caine’s passion and rewarded it. When you’re passionate about your work, whether building a company or investing in real estate, others see that passion and are drawn to it. Good things come from that attraction.

Passion makes work fun.

What could be more fun than building a cardboard arcade? Lots of things actually. For me, I love financial education and learning. I took that passion and created the Rich Dad Company, which provides financial education and resources for people worldwide. It started on my kitchen table as a dream and now is a global company. Each day, I get to do what I love. My work is fun and it never gets old. What do you love to do, and how can you make your work fun?

Passion is the beginning of success.

Every successful person in life began by pursuing a passion, usually against all odds. That is the beauty of entrepreneurship. Generally, you have only a passion, a good idea, and a dream. Though ideas and dreams come and go, if passion is never lost, eventually good things will come your way.

What is your passion? What lessons can you learn from little Caine in following them? How will you achieve your dreams?

This is the gist of it:

The more you try to be like someone else the more you fade into anonymity and a meaningless existence. However, the more you focus on being who you were created to be, the more you will find others trying to be like you.

It’s not that we should focus on ourselves the whole time or look to make people copy us, but these are the byproducts of living out our destiny and dreams. We all have a unique combination of gifts and a personality to wrap it all up into. This makes us unique. The more we give into this, accept who we are and how we were created, the more we will become someone other people would like to be like. We become role models.

So my thought for the day is this: give into who you are. The gifts and talent you have, give into them. Don’t worry that they’re not what others want or they’re not “cool” right now. One of my regrets is quitting the violin because school kids were ripping me off. I needed someone to tell me that in the end, when I do an incredible recital one day at a school function, everyone would wish they could play the violin too.

Don’t end up wishing you had done the things you could have done today later on in life. Live your dreams, you can do anything!

In our culture there is immense value placed on becoming independently successful or achieving alone.  The Bible however revokes this concept all together by inviting us into a life of ultimate dependance on Christ and his sacrifice.

Eph 2:8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.

Regardless how much you and me try or hope to… we cannot earn our way back into rightness with God.

“The first thing we need is God’s initiating love. Notice how the father comes out to each son and expresses love to him, in order to bring him in. He does not wait for his younger  son on the porch of his home, impatiently tapping his foot, murmuring, ‘Here comes that son of mine. After all he’s done, there has better be some real groveling!’ There’s not a hint of such an attitude, No he runs and kisses him before his son can confess.” (Tim Keller – Prodigal God p.82-83)

What do you do when you have walked away from God or fallen short of His glory? Often my urge is to try clean myself up and make it “right” before I can face Him again. That’s like trying to wash yourself with mud to become more presentable to someone who has a shower, fresh set of clothes and a welcome home feast waiting for you already.

As much as we would like to earn our salvation day in and day out to become an independent success, we will fall short and our actions distract from the intent of the cross.

God sent his Son so we could be dependently redeemed.

The basis for our approach to God is “by the way of the blood every time” (Watchman Nee).

May we embrace dependance.

I had an interesting thought the other morning as I was packing my car for church. The older generation struggle with the concept of God’s unearned favour, because they built society with their own hard work and tenacity.

I was thinking of the comments I always got from my dad and other “older generation” folks. You know, the generation who got draughted into the army, worked 3000 hours a week and built orphanages while they were sleeping. Comments like, “You don’t need a power tool, just do it by hand”, or, “its not as easy as it looks you know”. Jokes aside though, the baby boomer generation pretty much built the fabric of our society and world. They were hard workers. And they never got a lot of credit for it.

Our generation on the other hand, GenX, are less physical and more cognitive in our approach to life. And we’re used to getting things easily and quickly. Some may say we’re lazy, and I guess we are. But our approach to the world has a lot of power in it. I mean, a whole generation who believe they can do anything is pretty amazing.

When I first got saved there were many people speaking out against our “instant generation” expecting everything for free, when we really need to work for what God wants for us. Which, of course, is absolute nonsense. The brilliant thing about our generation is that we openly accept a God who takes all the responsibility for our fulfilment in life and says, “Just believe in me, just trust in me.” A God who forgives without reason or common sense. The older generation struggle with this. Their army, builder, worker mindset says, “That can’t be right, there must be some work involved in this God thing”. Don’t get me wrong, they are still the ones building churches, teaching us to pull our weight and to work hard in life. They teach us about work ethic and making a difference in the world. But where we have one-up on them is that we easily accept the free gifts that come from a God who freely gives. This makes us a very special generation I think. A generation that is able to grasp the openness and freedom in God and display that in the world.

My pastor says we are a super-generation. I think he’s right.

The minimum cost for a decent recording by a reputable studio nowadays is around R50k (South Africa) for a full album. And that leaves you with an album. Whereas investing that into recording products that are becoming increasingly more cost effective and competitively spec’ed, you’ll have an incredible studio for that price.

2. Everyone’s doing it:

Artists like Deadmau5 are home studio success stories. Will Smith’s album “Switch” a few years back was done in hotel rooms, with a laptop. And David Gray’s big success lies heavily on his cheaply recorded “White ladder” album.

3. It’s killer fun, and dead easy:

The home recording industry is so competitive that software is getting so easy to use and so attractive in design, that it’s impossible not to have fun while doing it. Garageband’s interface is great with it’s colourful images of the synth you’re playing and the amp models you’re using, Toontracks have stunning interfaces for their drum and piano software. Also, your iPad is quickly becoming a home recording stalwart with easy-to-use interfaces and amazing sounds.

4. Everything is in your favour:

Home recording has become so popular that there are now international magazines thriving off this emerging market. Magazines like “Future Music” and “Computer Music” deal directly with the home recording market and provide so much valuable information that it’s becoming harder and harder to warrant doing a short course on studio “engineering”. Also, with this thriving industry, gear has become cheaper and better equipped. For instance, I just bought a really good sound card. So good, in fact, that ten years ago it would have been considered professional. Now it’s a top of the line home studio unit, as opposed to an entry level professional unit. In other words, the best possible gear to produce the best possible sound, is becoming easier to obtain. Really, the key to a great sound now, is your studio setup – the rooms, the acoustics and your ability as an engineer. And even the “engineer” part is getting easier as software like Logic Pro provide plugins, samples and presets that pretty much guide you to producing a professional sound.

5. It’s the way of the future:

Why spend R50k once off, when you can spend less and get the same sound? This is the question that has fueled a global industry. The way people are speaking about recording on forums and magazines gives the impression that more and more top musicians and songwriters are building their own little studios, which means the quality is only going to get better and the prices are only going to go down. The reality is that we have already reached the age where top recording studios are feeling the pinch as home based recording artists are producing the same results.

Conclusion:

Do it now! Start saving. Borrow from your dad. Borrow from your friends. But start recording your own songs. The more you do it, the better you’ll become and the better it will be for this exciting emerging market, which produces some of the coolest gadgets around  

(And BTW: You really can get started on a budget. Use whatever computer you have, buy the cheapest M-audio sound interface and one of their awesome mics and you’ll be set. And for software you can look at Reaper, or if you’re a Mac user, GarageBand is awesome.)