If you have noticed that I have not been posting as much lately, it’s because I have been pursuing certification as a professional coach. That took a lot of my time and energy.
It’s all worth it!
Grateful to God and the amazing instructors at the Coach Masters Academy (CMA) for this certification. It also comes with a badge along with this description:
This badge is awarded to those who have acquired the transformative coaching skill to create a perspective shift at the Professional Level. The earner has demonstrated knowledge and proficient application of the transformative principles to enable people to draw out their insights and learning and move them forward into action. Earner shows a commitment to ethical standards and has demonstrated a good degree of competence to inspire positive change.
But wait! There’s more!
I’m moving forward to take CMA’s Advanced Training. I always believe in investing in myself so I can give the maximum value to the people I work with.
I would appreciate your prayers. And if there’s anything I can do to help you, please drop me a line nelsontdy.com@gmail.com.
For now, woo hoo!
In less than two hours, I would be turning 60.
Wow. I never thought I would reach this far. I have tasted what 40 and 50 felt like, and I can tell you each milestone has its own flavor.
As I write this, I am sitting in our dining room, in solitude, feeling the weight of my years. Time continues to march on inexorably. Ever the pensive introvert, I like to tease “Öh, I’m old! I’m ancient!” I would have added “I’m decrepit” but that would be laying it a bit thick.
Besides, I thank God for my relatively good health. By His grace, my worst enemy is allergic rhinitis. I still have my mental faculties. And I thank God for giving me a loving, faithful co-pilgrim in Lucy as we saunter into the sunset.
I tend to gravitate to what Jacob said to Pharaoh, “My years have been few and difficult, and they do not equal the years of the pilgrimage of my fathers” (Genesis 47:9).
In my six decades feeling the dust of this earth, I had my share of ups and downs… mostly downs. I remember the things I have said and wish I have not, the things I didn’t do and wish I did. I remember the valley of tears which seem to be more than the mountaintops of ecstasy.
But I am still here. Another thing Jacob said, this time on his deathbed, came to mind. Genesis 48:15 says in part, “the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day.”
I draw great comfort that Jacob lamented that with longevity comes burden and there were times it seemed that God abandoned him to his own devices. But as the curtain closed for the last time, he was filled with serene gratitude that God – his shepherd – was with him all along.
Every. Single. Day.
Tomorrow, as they say, is the first day of the rest of my life. I continue to fill my mind with learning. I continue to dedicate my writing and speaking gifts to the Lord. I continue to share hard-knock wisdom to whoever wishes to listen.
Will I see my own curtain close two years from now? Ten? Twenty? Thirty? Mortality tends to freeze you and reassess everything. But what counts is that each day is travelled with the Shepherd. That, alone, is worth the journey I call life.
Such is the hope we have when we put ourselves at the loving hand of Jesus, the Good Shepherd. I do hope you will taste the same blessing.
Is the adage “knowledge is power” still true? Well, it depends on the knowledge.
Certainly there are proprietary content and intelligence reports that, by nature, will give one person an advantage over the other. If, for example, I am haggling prices with you and I somehow know your rock-bottom level, I would go for the kill.
But generally, knowledge has become democratic. Thanks to the internet, everyone and anyone has access to the same publicly posted knowledge.
It used to be that, in my engineering days, I have to memorize numerical constants (e.g., the speed of light) and formulae (e.g. how to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit, or vice versa).
Not anymore. I just ask the near-omniscient Google. And don’t forget those DIY tutorials like the ones you see in Youtube.
So if you and a horde of others tend to know the same stuff, what would be your competitive advantage?
In a word: wisdom.
It’s one thing to have a lot of information in our heads. It’s way different to have a lot of wisdom. For example:
· Discerning who are the real stakeholders of a project
· Looking for root causes versus band-aid solutions
· Defusing interpersonal conflict in a tactful, win-win way
· Making good decisions even with incomplete data
· Knowing what is truly valuable in an argument
· Losing a battle to win a war
· Asking great questions to unlock great answers
Wisdom pays a lot more because anyone can gobble up knowledge from books, but it’s a rare breed that has accumulated wisdom from years of experience. We seek such people so we don’t have to make costly mistakes and/or we can turbo-charge our success.
Perhaps we should talk about the death of the knowledge-worker age and champion the rise of the wisdom-worker age.
While knowledge has its share of power, wisdom is more powerful. So seek wisdom.
“Wisdom is supreme; therefore get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding.” Proverbs 4:7
No, it’s not resignation. It’s not retrenchment, either.
It’s retirement.
I never thought I would see the day. Just four hours ago, an HR officer discussed the “R” word with me. This coming September, I will be entering ehem a new phase of my life. Hello, 20% discounts and special lanes!
Yet, had you known me five years earlier, I was riddled with anxiety.
Where will I go? What will I be doing?
Will my retirement funds sustain my wife and me?
Or will we have to subsist on rainwater and moldy bread?
Today I am filled with peace and gratitude.
I am in relatively good health. I’m not battling prostate cancer or runaway diabetes or something.
I have a wife who supports me. “Honey, as long as we are in the center of God’s will, that’s good enough for me.”
I am thankful to my employer who is extending my stay as a consultant, subject to yearly reviews of the contract.
I am taking a certification course that should lead to alternative income as I ehem mosey towards the sunset.
Lessons:
1. Don’t dig a well before you get thirsty. Dig SEVERAL wells. You will never know which one will run dry.
2. Have an abundance rather than a scarcity mentality. I used to worry, “What if I were to go on my own business and I don’t have clients?” A life coach (sort of) rebuked me, “Clients are everywhere.”
At first, I was “yeah right” but now as I go around talking to and observing people, he’s right. It’s the invisible hand of God feeding His children.
3. Tap into what gives you flow, that indescribable joy of doing what you love doing such that you lose track of time.
4. While you are still earning from your day job, invest in yourself so you will have finely honed skills and be marketable when you leave that day job. In other words, your employer is paying your tuition.
5. Above all, trust God. Faith is that sneaking suspicion that just when your resources have run dry, God is opening up a new provision for you.
How do you feel about the “R” word? It will come anyway!
Have you noticed that sometimes an oppressive regime is overthrown by a popular revolt, only to be replaced by an even more brutal government?
Someone astutely remarked that we can be fighting the evil outside us but there is a darker evil within us. Then, when we defeat that external evil, we unleash the evil that was lurking inside us all along.
Let us fight the evil whenever we can. But let us also cultivate goodness lest the evil consumes us. Too many tormented people stoop to the level of their tormentors. Someone hits them, they hit back. They scheme how to exact revenge or fantasize about the just deserts of their foes. Still others give in to the pressure and compromise their values.
When treated unfairly at work, the best response is to keep doing an excellent job. Sometimes that is all the defense we will ever need or what will prove our detractors wrong.
I used to have a terrible boss in that he always scolded me for whatever I did wrong but never mentored me to do what is correct. There was even a time when I gave him a printed report and he threw it to the floor.
Did I give him a piece of my mind? Did I go passive-aggressive in retaliation? Did I puncture the tires of his car?
No. To be honest, I wanted to resign but I needed that job. So I sucked it up and continued to do my job as best as I can. I was trusting God to vindicate me one day.
Then, before I knew it, my boss was made to retire. And I got an even better boss! That changing of the guards was instrumental in bringing me to where I am now: handling two factories for a well-known beverage conglomerate.
If we are convinced that God will someday vindicate us, this frees us from the need to retaliate. So resist the temptation to lash back or lose heart. Repay evil with good. Extend grace. Do kindness to your opponents. As another saying goes, “the best way to destroy your enemy is to make him your friend.”
When we take the high road — and then some — we will no longer be part of the problem. We will not even be part of the solution. We ARE the solution.
People have been asking me things like: How do I find the right career? Can I map out the next five, ten, twenty years of my career? What if my career won’t go as I thought it should?
While I’m all for career planning, the case can also be made that sometimes your career evolves on its own. Call it fate, destiny, serendipity, God’s guidance, and so on, but the reality is that we are not in total control of our lives. Pandemic, anyone?
For me, I am particularly grateful that my career has brought me full circle. I graduated with a degree in chemical engineering and my first job was at a factory in Pasig (it’s still there).
But I got bored with plant work and became enamored with marketing, so I took a detour through MBA school and made a career shift to industrial sales and marketing. This was a sweet deal because I got to use both my technical and business training.
Fast forward about thirty years. In my current employer, my boss took me out of a sales job and offered me a factory to run. At first, I was hesitant, but after much consideration (and my boss was very persuasive!), I accepted the challenge.
I never had so much fun in my 30 years of corporate work. Two years later, I was given a second plant to run.
I am also grateful that I have found the company where I can retire from. For Gen Y and Gen Z, this may sound too far off, but it’s true. Find an employer you really love and work hard for. By definition, you wouldn’t want to go anywhere else and stick it out with them through the tough times.
I will be reaching retirement age in a few months and I am already laying out my strategies (more of that in future posts). But for now, I am filled with gratitude.
Lessons:
1. By all means, plan your career. But be flexible. You’ll never know a Bigger Better Deal will come your way.
2. Don’t think “I won’t be going back to…” You may wind up coming full circle as I did, but the last will be sweeter than the first.
3. When career opportunities come, think how you can flourish in it, not how things can go wrong.
4. Above all, be grateful. Your workload will feel lighter, you will be a pleasure to work with, and you will have a lot less stress.
Full circle.
#careeradvice #careercoach #jobsatisfaction
I can’t think of a more painful statement from a father than what Johnny Cash got from his dad.
It went like this. While growing up, Johnny had an older brother named Jack. Jack was so religious and interested in the Bible that, understandably, the father favored Jack. He thought he would be proud to have a preacher in the family.
Jack took a job that involved cutting wood to augment the family income. In a gruesome accident, an unguarded electric saw cut through his stomach and all the way to his groin. He died one week later.
Devastated, the father told Johnny, “I wish it were you instead of Jack.”
I don’t know about you, but I would rather be sliced in half by that electric saw. Johnny Cash was haunted by those words ever since.
Many people suffer from stingy dads: stingy with his presence, his love, his affirmation. And it hurts. It really hurts.
So what can I offer? It is to view God as a generous Father.
Unfortunately, people with stingy dads tend to project this stinginess to God Himself. They think God is either stingy in mercy (just one teeny weeny infraction will land you in hellfire and brimstone) or in blessings (Why am I not rich? Why did this other guy get the promotion and not me? Why aren’t my prayers answered?).
This is the false narrative which we have to call out and replace with the Biblical narrative: God is generous beyond imagination. Jesus painted such a generous God in the well-known parable of the prodigal son.
Consider:
The younger son demanded from his father his due inheritance. In effect, it was a colossal insult meaning “Dad, I wish you were dead.” The dad could have cursed or banished the son but amazingly, he divided his estate between this son and the elder brother, and gave the son what he wanted.
As we know, the son went off to a faraway country and squandered his inheritance. Then when his money ran out and a famine fell on the land, he got a job in a pigsty (he’s Jewish, in case you missed it). The swine were eating better than he, so he came to his senses and headed back home.
Along the way, he had planned to tell his dad, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me as one of your hired servants.” Theologian Kenneth Bailey said there is the subtext of “and I will pay you back what I have squandered.”
While the son was a long way off, the father saw the son, ran to him, embraced him (pigsty perfume and all), and showered him with kisses. The son started his spiel, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son…”
Some Biblical texts paint the father as cutting his son off in mid-sentence. If the son were to ask to be demoted as a houseboy, the father would have none of it.
Now get this: the father could have exacted justice and “what is fair.” He could have demanded the son to somehow return the squandered family fortune. But instead, the father told his servants to put a robe, a ring, and sandals on the son. Then he ordered the fatted calf to be butchered and they had a party!
Where was the elder son? Outside, sulking! When the father went out of his way and pleaded with him to join the celebration, the elder son spat, “Look! All these years I have been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. But you never gave me even a little goat so I could celebrate with my friends.”
Do you see that? The elder son thought he had a stingy dad! And that made him a bitter, miserable, resentful fellow.
The parable ended with another clue how generous the dad was. He told the elder son, “You are always with me and everything I have is yours.” The elder son harbored a grudge against his dad for holding out on him, yet it seemed that’s because he never even asked his dad for that goat!
Are you still hurting from something your dad did or didn’t do to you? Was it something your dad had said that, metaphorically like that electric saw, cut you to the bone? Perhaps it happened ages ago, but it still hurts as if it happened only yesterday.
The salve for the broken heart is to reflect on God’s goodness. That despite what you think or what you see, He really is loving, kind, and generous. The Apostle John gushed, “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” (1 John 3:1).
But there is a condition. We are children of God only by faith in Jesus, the One who gave this parable. Even this is Exhibit A of God’s generosity. We didn’t deserve to be His children, but He loved us so much that He sent His Son to die on the cross for our sins. Being God’s beloved is not some position we have to earn, but an identity received by faith (John 1:12).
I do pray that the person reading this blog will find solace in this good and beautiful God. I do not deny the heartache, I am not telling you to “move on”. But I do want to share the Good News that the Father you desperately long for exists. Even if you are still a long way off, just head towards Him, and He will cover the rest of the distance.
Yes, He’s that generous!
Principle 5. Use the body as Jesus did
The best model for using the body for spiritual discipline is the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, another concept for soul training is to live as Jesus lived. Thus, we do not pray for the sake of prayer. Rather, we pray because Jesus prayed. It is not enough to know the right doctrines or do the right routines. We must order our lives as Jesus did, in unbroken communion with the Father and in selfless ministry to others.
This leads to startling implications. For example, I am not saying we wear sashes, tunics and sandals as Jesus did. But after we are baptized as adults, do we go fasting in the wilderness for 40 days? I do not have the answer. But there is an issue here, somewhere.
Principle 6. Therefore, keep your body in tiptop condition.
If our body is God’s gift to bring us closer to Him, then it follows we must take good care of that gift. Time and again, I quip, “Can you imagine Jesus being overweight, ailing with hypertension and diabetes?” Of course not. To be fair, people in His day weren’t as sedentary as we are today. They didn’t have processed food. They didn’t have Grab or Uber. And of course they didn’t have Netflix.
Intimacy with God is therefore the best reason why we keep our bodies in excellent health. In so doing, we keep our minds sharp, our spirits up, and our emotions even. In practical terms, this means getting enough sleep, watching what you eat, and keep on moving. If the Christian is likened to a soldier or athlete, you can expect either one to be constantly alert and healthy. The soldier, so he can win the battle. The athlete, so he can get the gold medal.
Therefore, be sanctified to the Lord, in body as well as in spirit.
November 23, 2022
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