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FAITH AND WORK: Connecting Sunday to Monday

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FAITH AND WORK BOOK REVIEW:

The Bottom of the Pool: Thinking Beyond Your Boundaries to Achieve Extraordinary Results by Andy Andrews. Thomas Nelson. 184 pages. 2019
** ½

Using the metaphor of “going to the bottom of the pool” from a story about how his friend Kevin discovered a way to win their childhood made-up game “Dolphin” by changing his understanding and belief about what was possible, Andy Andrews aims to tell us how to achieve the very best results in life, far beyond those most people ever imagine. We are told that Kevin employed a strategy that had never been tried before, and the results he achieved not only proved his instincts correct, but they changed the game forever.
This book is filled with interesting stories about Walk Disney, Michael Jordan, Bob Beamon, etc., and contains Andrews witty and humorous writing, but I struggled to put it all together, not unlike how I felt after reading Malcolm Gladwell’s book Talking to Strangers. There is no doubt that Andrews was passionate in trying to communicate this information about our thinking. Unfortunately, I found that I took few practical and helpful takeaways from the book.
The book addresses such items as:

Below are 15 of my favorite quotes from the book:

  1. Great is the precise target for which the vast majority of us aim. But why settle for great when best is waiting for you in slightly deeper water?
  2. When one has momentum, the results of any action are greater than reality says they should be. Conversely, when one lacks momentum, the results of any action are less than reality says they should be.
  3. Most people never even bother to imagine what event or circumstance might need to occur in order to shift their life’s results from acceptable to incredible.
  4. Most people who are doing the best they can do (especially if they are among the best at what they do) are not often remotely aware that a significant amount of territory still exists beyond that which they have already achieved!
  5. Is it possible to be satisfied you have done your best and never even come close to accomplishing THE BEST? Of course.
  6. The degree to which you will ever be financially compensated is inexorably linked to the obvious greater value (OGV) that you create for someone else.
  7. When any part of the leadership of an organization is satisfied to compete on the surface—no matter what they might otherwise proclaim publicly—I have never seen the organization achieve more than an average, industry-standard increase in results.
  8. Left to our own devices, most of us choose the greater value only about 50 percent of the time. Why? For the simple reason that most of us never recognize the greater value. We don’t discern the difference. And that is why the greater value must be obvious.
  9. If you want folks to choose you—each and every time—then the greater value you have created had better be obvious.
  10. Know this: “Customer satisfaction” is the lowest bar you can possibly hit and still stay in business. Anything less and you are in trouble.
  11. To have a shot at results that seem impossible to most, you must learn to compete in a way that your competitors do not even know there is a game going on.
  12. The obvious greater value provided by you and those on your team become a distinct and unequaled brand when every part of your business is delivered in a package of genuine care, personal concern, and honest connection.
  13. The quality of your answers will usually be determined by the quality of your questions.
  14. Obviously, there are results on the surface, but the greatest results to be gained are accomplished by thinking to the deepest level of an issue.
  15. The most important leadership role you will ever undertake is the one of leading yourself. And as you lead yourself, do so with a controlled imagination.

Faith and Work Book Club – Won’t you read along with us?

Work and Worship: Reconnecting Our Labor and Liturgy by Matthew Kaemingk and Cory B. Willson

Drawing on years of research, ministry, and leadership experience, in this new book Matthew Kaemingk and Cory B. Willson explain why Sunday morning worship and Monday morning work desperately need to inform and impact one another. Together they engage in a rich biblical, theological, and historical exploration of the deep and life-giving connections between labor and liturgy. In so doing, Kaemingk and Willson offer new ways in which Christian communities can live seamless lives of work and worship.

This week we look at the book’s Introduction. Here are a few takeaways:

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