Dreaming and Execution

Hey, this is Tim Pratt Jr. and I want to welcome you to the Student of Life podcast. Listen, we're going to get into so many transferable truths throughout the content of these episodes that I believe God is going to use to help you apply, because he's going to reveal what's already been there the entire time. Enjoy. What's up everybody, so this is episode 6 of season 4 and we're going to call this one Dreaming to Execution. Dreaming to Execution. This is episode 6 of season 4 and I hope you enjoyed the last one. Like I said, it was one of the first interviews that we're going I do have another one lined out. I apologize for the technical difficulties. Like I said, I was switching over to a new platform, should have spent a little bit more time learning it. I had bought a new mic and just so on and so on and so on. So, but I didn't, I didn't want to stop the content from going out, but that is not going to be the norm. So I totally apologize for that. And you know, I just want to move forward because like you see, I mean, it's about this whole title, Dream Execution. And so before we jump into the content of this one, um, you know, I just want to say something just off my heart. Of course, like most of the time, always, we won't have a foundational scripture today, but, uh, I just want you to know that personally I believe that the best engine to drive our ambitions, you know, no matter who you are in life, is a strong sense of purpose. And I believe that you don't have successful execution without the proper dream. And I don't think that you have the proper dream without the proper dream turning into results without the proper execution, if that makes sense. And just kind of give you some context there, you know, I, in my day-to-day life, I work as a primary, as a senior technical project manager, uh, and on, in addition to that, I work as an associate pastor, you know, serving my local church, primarily focusing on the operations and the ministries, keeping things moving, just the gears moving and things. And in the ministry aspect of it, you know, I'm growing, I'm trying to learn new things. And, uh, it's a lot of parallels that I see from both worlds that, you know, I just believe principles transcend, uh, no matter what sector we in, you know. So it's a lot of things I learned in ministry that I, that I can apply in my secular job, and then it's a lot of things in my secular job that I can apply to ministry. And so I try to look for the parallels of things, you know, just to help me do better. And that's when I'm just continually learning that purpose is discovered, you know, the different seasons. Saying yes to God in this season opens up and prepares us for what he has first in the next season. And if you're real big on evaluated experience and just truly taking the time to just soak in, you know, what God desires you to truly learn, because in his tests or whatever it may be as you discover purpose. All of these things are for him— I mean, not for him, it's for us. Not him, he knows all, but he does it in order for us to have kind of that self-discovery moment. Um, so I just wanted to say that, you know, and we'll kind of get to unpack in this episode. But just remember that, man, it's discovered. It's nothing that you really— I believe that you go searching for. As I have just evolved and, you know, on this life journey and things like that, that's why we call it the Student Life Podcast, you know, because I'm gonna forever be a student life, and most important, a student of God, just a disciple or child of God. And so, um, with that being said, when you're dreaming, when God gives you a dream and you're in a current state, I want you to know that it's okay to be somewhere in life. It's okay to be in this very place that you are in life and wish that you were in a different spot. That is not being ungrateful and inconsiderate and so on and so on, because that's what helps us propel. And we just said that the best engine to drive our ambitions is a strong sense of purpose. So when we're going through these things and we are somewhere in life, and what— whatever that looks like for you, and you wish that you were in a different place, or I wish I was here, I wish I was there, it's nothing wrong with that as long as you have contentment. And, you know, we can go to Philippians when Paul wrote that I can do all things as Christ has strengthened me. In the context, he was writing about contentment. Now, that we can hold to that scripture, you know, things according to his will, he, he, the Holy Spirit strengthens us to do these things to bring glory to God. And if you're not a person of faith, you know, you don't believe in God, I still believe, like I always say, that you can extract principles from this. Because whether you believe in him or not, I believe that you have purpose on this earth. I believe that you are here for a reason. You know, John Gray is real big on saying you can't sneak into the universe. You have to be spoken to it. And so as we start to unpack and get into things, is that just make sure that you have contentment. So when God gives you a dream and you start to like map out these things and, you know, plan them, like I said, you know, um, I don't know if I said on a previous one or kind of hinted at a little bit in this intro, but, um, I work being, like I said, a project senior technical project manager My job is to take those dreams, those visions, and help push them— put— push them by pushing the right buttons, working with the right people, you know, internal and external vendors or whoever, teams and dynamics, and help execute it. Just drive the execution of it. Same thing in the context of ministry, same thing I have to do in my personal life. But the dream is very important because— or the vision. And so you have to have both and, not either or. And like I say, I know people spend a lot of time just in the dream, and where it turns into daydreaming, there's no execution. But then you have a lot of people out here just executing with nothing to point to, nothing to propel them, nothing to drive them, because it's no vision, it's no dream. No one has declared anything. And so we don't want to find ourselves, you know, all the time when we have a dream and then we have the necessary things that we need to execute We don't want to wait on the perfect conditions because all that type of stuff, man, you know, the work before the work, it never ends. And I was reading a book where a poor craftsman, he blames his tools. Oh no, I didn't have the right tool. Oh no. But no, you're a craftsman. You know, eventually, if you've been doing it and you've been really doing the work and putting in the time, we should see some results. We should see some evidence. And so condition and timing will never be perfect, but that's why we have to have progress over perfection. So kind of going back to like, even though I was dealing with all of these things in the last episode and these technical difficulties and switching over, I'm not saying it's going to be the norm. If you look at my first two seasons, and probably some might say even in the third season, like my voice control, talking fast and all these type of things, uh, if I would have just sat up there and tried to just live and harp on perfection, I don't believe I ever would have had progress. The only reason I'm able now to really kind of talk with the command that I have— and, and I still feel like I have a lot of room to grow— but the only reason that I'm better on the microphone is because I had to start. Like I said, I read a lot of— I've read a lot of personal development leadership books, and yes, some of them do get into a lot of redundancy. I personally think you only need a good maybe 10, 15, maybe, you know, with one here every now and then, just kind of get the new stories and fresh lens and kind of new ways saying things. But for the most part, a lot of these principles are the same, it's just different stories. So you don't want to wait on a perfect condition because you want to think progress over perfection. Progress over perfection. Because as, uh, what was it, matter of fact, I think let me go search it real quick. Um, in the book Creative Calling, he said that what it really boils down to is if we actually make something, we will have to face the true state of our skills and accept how much improvement we actually have ahead of us. It's normal. You will find your style as you keep doing it. It's a lot in that. It's really a lot in there. It's simple, but it's a lot in it. So in other words, repetition, repetition is the mother of skill. Repetition is the mother skill. Why? It's because you're doing something over and over and over. As we try to teach my older son, like, form and techniques and things with basketball, it's like, son, listen, you're not going to just sit up here and play Fortnite and be on your phone, stuff like that, and, uh, go to expect to go into the game and start learning things at real speed. You have to sharpen those skills before you get in the game. And so even though you might say, well, I don't really know the right play to do, what I'm saying is that it becomes second nature because you have a foundation. We can give you, say, well, this is how it's going to go, you know, you're going to do this, this, this, and that. But long as you know how to do those things, when you in game speed, it's going to come to you. So you'll know how to split defenders and when to shift and when to, uh, drive the ball, when to pull out, when to call a play, when, you know, when to screen, when not screen, when to roll out. Just all these type of things, you know, when you're doing them over and over and over, like, and you get in it, it's like, okay, now I, I like— I know how to do it. I might not necessarily know what to do right now, but as I'm watching, I'm letting the game, you know, uh, speak to me. And then it's now— now I can— the game might come out dictating to me, but I can turn around and dictate to the game. And so I just think that those principles that we can look at from sports or whatever in life, you know, do you have a solid foundation for what you're trying to do in life? Because like I said, like, you're not going to be perfect at it. The dream is just to show you, okay, like, this is what I believe God put in my heart, this is the dream that I have, but now I need to like study all these different type of things. Like, I need to look up other people that have similar dreams to me because truth be told, you know, we're not as original as we think we are. So it's people out there— I mean, I guarantee you, if the Lord gave you a word right now to speak or whatever, and you go look it up, somebody somehow— I mean, you got pastors and preachers that have taught the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation. So somewhere out there, they might not— can't tell it just like you. But also, you got to keep in mind, they're not reaching the people that you called to reach. So just because it's a similarity out there, you might have took the time to research it or whatever but God still wants you to execute it. He gave you the dream because now you have to reach your sphere of influence. And so, you know, one of the things I learned in The Execution Factor, uh, I can't remember her last name, but it was by Kim. It's called The Execution Factor: The One Skill That Drives Success. She gave 6 things that kind of help us, you know, find the balance between breaking out, uh, breaking out that dream and turning it to, um, execution. And part one, uh, so the first one is she said that identify additional action steps. In other words, we want to be open to pivot when needed to. That's one thing that I have to do, you know, working in software development. Uh, we have a plan, we kind of have the concrete plan of what we're trying to accomplish, but I always have to keep in my mindset that remain agile, meaning that at any given moment I have to be willing to pivot. I have to be willing to maybe change gears. And, you know, I just kind of think of the speedboat out there, you know, send the speedboat out there. Because yes, it's smaller, you know, but what's the point of building a huge yacht, mega yacht, or a cruise ship? And, you know, you had this dream, so you spend all this time, you know, this is my dream, I'm gonna build this huge cruise ship, this mega ship. And then it's like you find out you have to keep changing all these different directions. Well, go out there and test the waters first in your speedboat. Then come back and then build a bigger boat and just on and on and on. If that example makes sense. And so then the next thing you want to do is you want to create a timeframe. You want to give yourself a fair amount of time. And when I say fair, that means not too much, but not too little, because a lot of times, you know, like we'll do is we'll set a goal and be like, okay, December 31st. No, give yourself a more like challenging goal, but at the same time fair. It should be challenging. Not super easy, but not extremely hard where you just gonna crash under it. And you want to build in accountability. A lot of times, you know, we say, well, I got this dream from God. Okay, that's true. And I'm not saying you got to go put it on social media or anything like that, but talk to people because it ensures that you take the necessary steps. And when you take the necessary steps, that you also are completing them. You're complete— you're completing what you committed to. And when you commit to someone else and tell them, hey, you know, this is what I plan on being, I need you to help keep me accountable for it. This is the dream I had and this is what I plan on doing. So now you see like dreaming and execution is working in tandem. And then you want to anticipate possible obstacles because I'm telling you, when you set your mind to do something, no matter I don't care how anointed you are, especially for my people of faith, you're going to experience obstacles because they are just— it's just a way of life, you know. Unless you just got this huge, you know, checkbook out there, then, you know, maybe not. You might not experience as many, you know. You might say, well, I don't really have the budget, but you still got to go find people, people that want to do it. So it's going to be something all— it's going to always be something there. And so you want to think about what you— what might get in the way, but you don't want to dwell there, because if you dwell in it, then you're probably not going to do anything. So you just want to try to anticipate, you know, these possible obstacles, but you— like I say, you don't want to stay in them. You don't want to become stagnant. And then the last two is you want to create a list of resources, is what she says. She reads it. Be specific on what you will need to execute. Uh, what else is it? Yeah, and a hard loan cost. Don't lowball. Yeah, okay. So she's saying it's like, uh, so let me read this. I'm reading in my notes. So be specific on what you will need to execute times 2. So she wants you to basically write that list out and then do times 2. And because a lot of times what happens is we end up as people lowballing ourselves. So in other words, and I know I kind of ramble right there in this section, I'm not even gonna edit this out, but what she's basically saying is that a lot of times when we create a list of things that we need, sometimes we overly optimistic. And so she would rather for us, and now I remember as I read the book, she would rather for us to kind of even go a little bit more. And like I say, just say, okay, if you say I need $500, say you need $1,000. If I say I need 2 people, I need 4. So just to kind of already help set the expectations. And then, like I say, you know, as you're working through these resources list. And then the last step, she wants you to create a review process. Every action is a potential lesson to inform you. So remember what we said about it— it's experience alone is not the best teacher, but it's evaluated experience. And I believe that's from John C. Maxwell. If you're not evaluating You know, one thing that like when I was given to take over like some of the security initiatives at my company, uh, you know, the company I work for, uh, with my leader, you know, I would find him kind of like asking the same question but in different ways. So I started to keep a log of things, same thing I do everywhere else, just kind of like a lessons learned thing or, you know, just frequently asked questions that I go through. And I can't really think of the right project management term right now off the top of the head, but it's just a log, basically, just a log of issues. And as I just study those log of issues and these things come back up, uh, I'm evaluating that experience that I had with this thing. So now what does that do? It frees up, um, my leader time. He doesn't have to keep sitting with me going through these things. Now it's not saying that I still don't need him sometimes when things are kind of outside of my scope but I'm not having to spend an hour of his day asking him the same questions over and over and over. And I think that's what we have to do with us. A lot of times we keep reliving the same thing over and over. It's because that we don't evaluate experience. We just keep making the same mistakes over and over and over. And that's why we can't do— have the proper execution to our dreams. And so when you get the dream, when you— when God gives you the dream, or like I said, whatever you subscribe to— when you get the dream and you start to break this dream out, you have to move into execution. But at the same time, my people, that's very pro-execution— execute— make sure that you have took time to test the dream, validate the dream, because the worst thing you can do is go out there just be so quick to readily execute, to prove, you know, so I'm a doer, I'm a doer, I don't have time. No, because I've seen it in the context of ministry, I've seen in the context of personal achievement, and just so on and so on. People get real big on executing, but they don't know what they're executing because nothing was declared. Hey, what's up? I want to thank you for taking the time to listen to this Student Life podcast today. If this content has impacted you in any kind of way, please take some time to share it on your social media feeds. And also, if you wanna connect with me or just learn more about me, go over to www.timothypratt.org. Once again, thanks.