Here are some soundbite lessons from the last 365. What are yours?

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So we made it here to our final day of adventure adventurers. And what I want to share today, briefly is twelve short lessons learned in the last 365 days. These are just some sound bite lessons from my own walk over this pasture. I’d love to know what yours are. You can share them in the comments on my blog or you can get in touch with me.

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I’d love to know what you have learned and how you’ve grown over this past year. And I would also love to ask. I’ll put an ask out there. If you’re listening to this podcast on whatever platform of your choosing, it would be awesome if you can leave a full on positive review if you are enjoying it, and if you’re getting a lot from it, I would really appreciate that. But as I close out the year, I’m actually going to close out season two of the podcast as well.

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So this is going to be a wrap and I’m going to just take a break, move into the New Year and kind of just allow my heart to be refreshed with my family here as we enjoy Christmas and New Year together. I also turned 50 on the 29th. So it’s like a whole sandwich package of celebration believing for a Jubilee in Jesus name. Here we are. These are twelve lessons that I think are worth sharing.

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Number one, consistency is key to creative production now. Consistency, I believe, is one of the fruits of patients that work in our spirit. The Bible talks about how faith and patience work in tandem, that they work together to fulfil the promise. And I think that consistency actually grows out of patience. And so consistent pressure and action in one direction over time is very, very, very powerful.

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Sometimes it’s easy for our attention to be scattered and our direction to be shooting in all sorts of different ways, but really to remain consistent with one heart and mind in one direction is really how we make forward movement. Number two, persistence, not perspiration, is the route to prolific creation. A small amount that you do each day patiently and persistently leads to a remarkable body of work over time. It’s amazing what you can produce over the course of a year, even if you’re just doing a small amount of applied work each day on whatever your creative project may be, it actually produces far more than just spurts of sweaty production crammed into short windows of what we call inspiration, which leads me to number three.

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I believe that inspiration lives in you ready to tap into at any time.

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Jesus said that Rivers of living water spring up from our inner man and tapping that flow, I believe, is a skill that we can learn. We can learn how to let down our bucket into our heart and pull up those living waters on a daily basis. And I believe that the water that you carry within you is a water that brings healing and refreshment and strengthening to other people, and that your creative work and your creative call is all part of that. And it is all rooted in who you are in your inner man.

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Number Four Sometimes the greatest blessings come when you don’t get what you think you wanted.

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The God’s divine hand is leading us into experience with Him experiences with Him that are driven by the hunger of our heart. And as much as we do not necessarily enjoy these moments, it’s sometimes the disappointments that remind us not to attach our joy and our sense of worth and our identity to external outcomes. Very easy to get caught up in the vanity and the fanfare of the world outside of ourselves and forget that actually, those accolades are very transitory. Number five. Don’t be moved by metrics.

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Just make stuff anyways. It’s again easy in our creative work, and particularly if we’re online and we’re looking to Garner an audience of some kind to get involved in just the number counting. But honestly, number counting can discourage you from continuing at times, especially if you’re just starting out or if you’re venturing into kind of new fields of creative work. Your work hear me now is worthy of the world, even if right now the world doesn’t realise it. Keep creating because you just don’t know when that key is going to turn in the lock and the tipping point will come and your work will actually begin to see the kind of results that you dream of and desire.

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And imagine in your heart, a lot of people give up too soon. A lot of people don’t give enough time to actually find that place of resonance with that wider audience. And that brings me to lesson Six that I’ve learned that you find your voice by using it. Don’t wait for perfection. Lay your value on the table in all its imperfections.

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You’ll begin in the midst of that, you’ll begin to hear your own voice singing through the noise, and your communication will grow in clarity as you keep singing the song that the Lord has placed in your heart. By singing the song, it might be that you sing on a canvas. It may be that you sing on a page with poetry. It can be any number of different ways in which you can communicate to the outer world what you carry on the inside. But you’re not going to find your voice.

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You’re not going to discover your worth and your genius by staying silent. You’re going to find it by actually exercising that inner muscle and being bold and courageous enough to put your work out there to the world. Number Seven prayer is the greatest service we can ever offer. Humanity secret prayer, seen only by the Father, is the greatest service we can offer and the most richly rewarded. If we can just find ourselves and find our place and find our peace and contentment in the secret place of prayer.

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A lot of other things fall into place. Number Eight comparison and competition are an absolute diversion from your destiny, God’s plans and pathway for your prosperity. And by that I mean far more than money are perfectly and personally designed for your feet alone. There’s no comparison possible to the joy you’ll discover when you step into God’s loving purposes. You cannot be compared with anyone else, and ultimately you cannot compete with anyone else because their pathway is unique to them just as much as yours is unique to you.

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Number Nine, shut out the noise if you want to be present and walk in step with the presence of God. Now listen here the feeds you devour online, and I’m talking about all of those Instagram and Facebook and wherever else you turn up. All of those feeds they’re designed to hook your jaw and reel you in to take actions conceived by someone else, whether it’s to accept a thought, take a position or press a Buy Now button, there is always certainly almost always an agenda behind that, and you’re going to find a great freedom to choose when you close out the plethora of choices that the world wants to present you with and decide instead to focus on just one or but a few things that are important to you, sometimes in our consumption and sometimes in all of the different choices and directions we could take.

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We get caught in the headlines and don’t make any forward progress. And so shutting out the noise, I think, is very, very important.

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Coming into the Council of God, I was told by the Holy Ghost a number of years ago, quit hustling and start hearing, and that’s still great advice that I need to come back to and listen to again and again. Number Ten, there is power and safety in community. The Bible puts it like this in the multitude of counsellors. There is safety. Now that’s how the Bible describes a chosen community of trusted friends and advisors to walk the journey with you being part of something bigger than yourself empowers you to engage at a higher level.

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The people you engage with will offer you opportunities to see yourself in a mirror, in the mirror of their genius and insight and to do the same for them in return. It’s only when we come into fellowship with other people. It’s only when we’re exposed and exposing ourselves to others and allowing our thoughts to come into a forum of some kind that we can find the affirmation that we’re looking for and sometimes the courage to step out. Choosing your communities well makes a huge difference to the progress that you’re going to make in this coming year.

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And this is not intended to be some kind of sales pitch this whole thing.

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But if you want to join a great community, I would love to encourage you to join the Christiancreative Academy. You can cheque it out at Christiancreative Academy. Okay. And yeah, jump in. It’s a whole year, very carefully curated course of learning and action and engagement and community over the course of a whole year that I promise you will be life changing.

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Number eleven, creating and consumption in balance weighted toward creation is the pathway again to the progress that you want to make. It’s easy. Sometimes to think that reading, watching or listening to someone teach a subject constitutes taking action. But in reality the act of consumption is not an action until it’s actually applied. When the rubber meets the road, traction happens and forward motion becomes not just possible, but inevitable.

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So it’s what you do with what you know that makes the difference, not just what you know. And then number twelve, the best business to be in is the business of being yourself. Now it’s not as simple as honestly, not as simple. Maybe it is for some people, but I can’t say that my experience has been there, but it’s definitely worth it. It’s not as simple as the sales pages spout, but it’s absolutely possible to press through and discover what it looks like for you to turn up fully as yourself in the marketplace.

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You are not called to impress anyone, and your secret power is alive within you. Right now, in partnership with your maker, you’ll discover layer by layer just how magnificent his workmanship really is. And as you do that, and it is a journey and sometimes not an easy one. But you will begin to shine more brightly. Your voice will begin to resonate more fully with others.

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And out of that kind of synergy, you’ll begin to potentially see a business form around your unique personality and skill set. I encourage you to do that even if it’s a side hustle, even if you’re in a job. But don’t neglect the creative nature that dwells within you. Look for ways to consistently exercise that toward the end that you would begin to benefit and bless and share your value with other people. And honestly, who knows what will grow out of that?

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I’ve built a very good business and lifestyle. Nothing grandiose, but we do very well. We live a peaceful, content, blessed life as a result of pressing through some of those things on the inside that can sometimes try and shut us down. Like I said, it’s not easy to push through your own kind of issues. Sometimes it’s not easy to keep putting yourself out there despite the criticisms, despite kind of stumbling and falling or whatever, all of those things that might cause us to back off.

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I just want to encourage you as we go into this coming year. Don’t back off. You can do this. You’ve got this. And then finally, and this one goes without really saying or any explanation.

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Jesus first, everything else follows. Jesus is Lord, he is your partner. He is your friend. He is your Lord. He is your God.

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He is the one who sanctifies you for your purpose. And he is the one who will prosper those things that you put your hand too. Hey, God bless you. I want to really do honestly say thank you to you, all of you who have listened to this podcast. And with this particular episode, I’m going to wrap up season to take a break.

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Allow my heart and my mind just to kind of kick back. Enjoy my family. Celebrate this year. Just gone. Look forward to the year to come and just give Jesus all of the glory.

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God bless you. I look forward to being with you again in the new year. Well, thanks for listening. Hopefully, it’s been an encouragement to you today. If you want to connect any further, you can do so through my website at Davidleemartin.com

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Have a great day.