Discussion on Pressure To Succeed

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The Correlation Between Privilege and Pressure

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According to a December 2014 article in The Economist, there is a “distinct correlation between privilege and pressure.” We may earn more money, but we can never earn more time. And because we’re work...

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Why Strike the Rock?

Author

Steven C. Roy

Keywords

Scripture

Numbers 20:, Exodus 17:1-7

Why did Moses strike the rock? He was a man of faith, whose life had been characterized by trust in God (see, for example, the description of Moses in (Heb 11:24-29). So why did he fall into unbelief ...

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The Two Runners

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

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Scripture

Matthew 6:33, Colossians 3:23, Psalm 39:6, Luke 12:15, Acts 15:29, Matthew 5:14-16, Ephesians 2:10, 1 Corinthians 10:31, Jeremiah 9:23-24, Matthew 16:24, Luke 9:62, 2 Corinthians 4:8-9, James 1:12, Romans 8:16-17, Galatians 2:20

The true story of Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams, two British sprinters who qualified for the 1924 Olympic Games, illustrates two contrasting approaches to life and identity. Abrahams was driven by ...

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Going to Congress

Author

Jon Meacham

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When [Abraham] Lincoln was running for the House of Representatives from Illinois, he was charged with being “a scoffer at religion,” wrote the historian William J. Wolf, because he belonged to no chu...

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Stuck in Deadline Mode

Author

Carl Honoré

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Of course, speed has a role in the workplace. A deadline can focus the mind and spur us on to perform remarkable feats. The trouble is that many of us are permanently stuck in deadline mode, leaving l...

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The Worship of the god "Success"

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

1 Samuel 15:10-23 , 2 Chronicles 26:16-21 , Ecclesiastes 2:4-11, Mark 10:35-45 , Luke 18:9-14 , Psalm 49:16-20

William James, in a famous letter to H. G. Wells in 1906, credited what he called American “moral flabbiness” to “the exclusive worship of the bitch-goddess Success. That—with the squalid cash interpr...

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Overextending Ourselves & The Tyranny of the Urgent

Author

Stephen W. Smith

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 55:22, Isaiah 26:3, Jeremiah 17:5-8, Philippians 4:6-7

In his highly book, Inside Job , Stephen W. Smith shares the importance of finding balance, even as life seems to pull us in different directions: Overextending yourself is stretching your physic...

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How Much Stress Would You Like?

Author

Richard A Swenson

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Would you like a no-stress life? A wise person would not accept that option, no matter how tempting it might sound. A stress-free life would be fatal. If we do not have change, challenge, and novelty ...

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Success vs. Excellence (Part II)

Author

Jon Johnston

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 16:26, Proverbs 16:3, Matthew 6:19-21

Success offers a hoped-for future goal. Excellence provides a striven-for present standard. Success bases our worth on a comparison with others. Excellence gauges our value by measuring us against ...

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Read any study on human satisfaction

Author

Bryan C. Loritts

Keywords

Scripture

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 , Genesis 2:18, 1 Samuel 18:1-4, Mark 8:36, Philippians 2:3-4, Psalm 133:1

Read any study on human satisfaction and you will see the paramount role of relationships with others. And yet, so many of us readily exchange friendship and community for success and achievement, onl...

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Stronger on the Inside

Author

Alisha Illian

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I was listening to a show on the National Geographic channel. Two deep-sea diving experts were discussing the physics of a submarine. I found it fascinating that every square inch of a submarine’s hul...

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What Drives Success?

Author

Donald Miller

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 6:25-34, Galatians 1:10, Philippians 2:3-4, Matthew 23:1-12, Romans 12:2

In his book, Scary Close , Donald Miller acknowledges that over time he developed a mask, or a persona that kept even those closest to him from experiencing with him. As he began to peel back layers ...

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Success vs. Excellence, A Poem

Author

David Neff

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Success is the key they hand you when they like you. It doesn’t matter why. They just give you the key that unlocks an upscale condo, triggers the powerful purr of your new Mercedes, and accesses ...

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How A Search for Meaning Can Lead to A Rushed Existence

Author

Jennifer Dukes Lee

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We all crave a meaningful life. This is good and holy. But in the quest for meaning, we get mixed up, turned around, and accidentally end up constantly in a hurry. We rush to grow successful businesse...

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What We Get Wrong About Happiness

Author

Shawn Achor

Keywords

Scripture

Proverbs 16:20, Nehemiah 8:10, Philippians 4:4, John 15:11, Psalm 37:4, Matthew 6:33

If you observe the people around you, you’ll find most individuals follow a formula that has been subtly or not so subtly taught to them by their schools, their company, their parents, or society. Tha...

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Running The (Wrong) Race

Author

Heather Thompson Day

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We want everyone around us to believe we have it all together—and we don’t. We fear everyone else is living the lives they post and we are the only imposters. And so, the race is on. The race to perfe...

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Getting the Right Goals May be the Key to Success

Author

Arthur C. Brooks

Keywords

Worthy goals are generally motivated by something deeper than success. In her conversations with Nobel laureates, [researcher Xiaodong D.] Lin said she has found that “they all have insatiable passion...

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The Cost of Success

Author

Stephen W. Smith

Keywords

J.B. Phillips was a successful pastor and prolific author in the mid-twentieth century. He was a colleague and friend of C. S. Lewis’s, and it was Lewis who personally endorsed Phillips’s translation ...

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The Shining City

Author

Anthony Campolo

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 16:26, Matthew 16:19-21, Proverbs 3:5-6

Success is a shining city, a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. We dream of it as children, we strive for it through our adult lives, and we suffer melancholy in old age if we have not reached it....

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The #1 Disciple

Author

John Ortberg

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 6:25-34, Galatians 1:10, Philippians 2:3-4, Matthew 23:1-12, 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12, James 4:1-10, 1 Peter 5:1-11

Harold Kushner wrote about a very bright, driven pre-med student at a very competitive college. While traveling in the East the summer before his junior year, he met a guru who said, “Don’t you see yo...

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Keeping Score

Author

John Ortberg

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All games involve score keeping. The rules of scoring in any game tell the players which achievements count; what to do in order to be a winner. Monopoly players keep score with money; football player...

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The Dart-Board

Author

Joan Chittister

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The Benedictine nun Joan Chittister recounts a story she once heard by a communications professor, which she said fundamentally changed the way she thought about success and failure: A young boy was...

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Progress, the Secret of Success

Author

Harvard Business Review

Keywords

Scripture

1 Corinthians 15:58, Philippians 3:12-16, Isaiah 43:19, James 1:2-4, Proverbs 16:3

The Double Helix, James Watson’s 1968 memoir about discovering the structure of DNA, describes the roller coaster of emotions he and Francis Crick experienced through the progress and setbacks of the ...

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Restlessnes Keeps the Pedal to the Metal

Author

Ryan P. Tinetti

Keywords

Scripture

Habakkuk 2:5, James 3:16, Mark 8:36, Luke 12:15, Isaiah 57:20, 1 Timothy 6:9, 1 John 2:16

Restlessness keeps the pedal to the metal. To offer a suggestive analogy in this vein: several years ago there was a recall on some Toyota vehicles. Evidently the cars would be given to sudden and unc...

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Two Strong Voices

Author

Henri J. M. Nouwen

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Since I was very young my life has been dominated by two strong voices. The first said, “Make it in the world and be sure you can do it on your own.” And the other voice said, “Whatever you do for the...

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The Self-Destruction of Executives

Author

Stephen W. Smith

Keywords

Scripture

Titus 1:7, Psalm 131:1, Galatians 6:3, Matthew 23:12, Philippians 2:3, James 4:6

In his highly insightful work, Inside Job , Stephen W. Smith shares the sobering truth of what happens to many leaders when they climb the “ladder of success”: The ground at the foot of the ladde...

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If Life is a Competition

Author

William Barclay

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If a man is forever concerned first and foremost with his own interests then he is bound to collide with others. If for any man life is a competition…then he will always think of other human beings as...

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In an essay on friendship, the renowned poet

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 50:20, Exodus 4:10-12, Jonah 1:4 , Luke 22:31-34, 61-62, 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, Psalm 73:26

In an essay on friendship, the renowned poet Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “My entire success, such as it is, is composed of particular failures.” There’s a deep truth in that line—one many of us need to...

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The Marshmallow Test

Author

Mark Batterson

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Delayed gratification may be an important key to success in life, points out Mark Batterson. In a variety of experiments, the most famous from 1972, Walter Mischel studied how young children delayed g...

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You ought to.” “You need to.” “You’ve got to.”

Author

Gregory A. Boyd

Keywords

Scripture

Ezekiel 36:26-27 , Zechariah 4:6 , 1 Samuel 16:7, John 15:4-5 , Galatians 5:22-23, Psalm 127:1-2

You ought to.” “You need to.” “You’ve got to.” “You’re supposed to.” “You better.” Do these sorts of exhortations sound familiar? Perhaps you have heard admonitions such as these from the pulpit, from...

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