Putting Down Roots

Sommer and I had an amazing two nights in Florida last week!  We saw beaches on both coasts. But the highlight was speaking at the Florida College Spring Banquet. I had the honor of addressing 300+ college students. 

I spoke to them about envisioning a better version of themself. In today's episode I'll walk you through those suggestions and ask you to do the same.  "If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?" Stuff like that!

But knowing what you want to be become is not enough. Wanting to becoming a certain type of fruitful tree will not make it so. We must develop roots. The things happening under the ground must happen first, and then visible growth can flourish.

Let's talk about how that works and let me challenge you to do some things behind closed doors that aligns with your goals.

- What happened to our series on Marriage?

- Why is envisioning growth important to results?

- What is the value of seeing growth without a good root system?

- Why do we do the work in private before seeing public results?

- Bonus Q - What quality is to be in the root system and the first fruits produced?

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to the Excel Still More podcast. I am your host, Chris Emerson. I'm here to encourage you in your walk with God. Thank you for joining in. Today's podcast is sponsored by Cunningham Financial Group. John Cunningham is a friend of mine and a brother in Christ, and he can help you with financial decisions and future planning. He's been a big help to me and my family, and I commend him to you. You can reach him at 205-913-1720. I am so thankful you're here, so let's get started. Today's episode title is supposed to be Strategy and Secret. If you tuned in last week, you know that we began a three-part series, three episodes, where we would lay out six principles that every marriage needs. Guaranteed methods to improving your home life. And we rolled out the points in pairs. So last week, if you heard that, we talked about the mirror and the triangle, which were very heavily slanted towards personal, individual self-evaluation. And then today, the second week, we were to move on to evaluating the relationship itself, the strategy that the two of you must have to be successful, and my favorite thing to talk about, the great secret that makes it all work. But alas, if you noticed, that is not the title today. Instead, I've randomly gone to some agricultural suggestion, putting down roots. But I hope you will see there is a good reason for that. Let me say this about the marriage study. It will continue. It is by no means abandoned. Lord willing, a week from today, next Monday, the episode will be titled Strategy and Secret, and I'm committed to the next week finishing up with the myth and the passage. If you tuned in today to hear about the next step in your marriage, I genuinely do apologize. And what I would suggest is please go back just one more time and listen to last week's episode and make sure you have vetted yourself honestly and thoroughly so that next week, when we get into how you and your spouse relate and stand together, you will be ready to start thinking in terms of us instead of just you. Okay, so why the change in episode? All I can tell you is I always promise to only share things with you that I'm excited about and that mean something to me in the moment. And a week ago, Summer and I, my wife and I, had the opportunity to fly to Orlando and spend a couple of nights in Florida because the Florida College Spring Banquet was going on, and I had been invited to be the keynote speaker. The festivities there were quite simple. There were three or four hundred students in a large ballroom. We had an excellent dinner. I was invited to speak on the topic of their choosing, which happened to be putting down your roots. That was related to the band who performed after the keynote address, the Arcadian Wild bluegrass band, super talented, did a great job. And they have a song called Roots, which they performed for us, and that became the theme of the night. So I was asked to present some things. I had about 15 minutes that related to growth and roots, which is terrific. It fit perfectly with the Excel Still More mantra. In fact, very cool. That's the reason I was invited. A good number of the students there tune in to the podcast. It was a super great evening. And before I get into what I shared with them, and that's what I'd like to do today, I want you to know what I shared with a room filled with 18 to 22 year olds because it was unique to anything we've done in the podcast series, and I'm really prayerful that it will help you. But first, I want to give some shout outs to the people who were involved in that. There are four students there who put the entire thing together. Bridget Huber was my contact person. She was fantastic. For FC students, let's call this week High Five Bridget Week, anytime and everywhere you see her. She worked with us so perfectly, and it was easy for Summer and me to get there. Alyssa Gallagher, Matt Vaughn, and Jansen Craig also worked to get the band there, the food, everything. Just excellent job. Extra shout out before we move forward to the MC of the night's event, a young man and a teacher at the school, Zach McCrae. He did great. In fact, I really liked something he did to break the ice. You know, not everybody there knew about the Arcadian Wild Band. Not everybody there knew me or the podcast. So he did this cool little thing where he invited three students up on stage and he said, I have nine titles for you. Three of them are Excel Still More episodes, three of them are Arcadian Wild songs, and three of them are Netflix series. So that was a really cool way to tell everybody about some of their songs and some of our episodes. Of course, he did Eat That Frog, and he also did, I think, The Social Dilemma, which was an interesting one because it was both a podcast episode and a Netflix documentary. But ultimately, I ended up with just a few minutes to share some things with these great students about how they should look toward their future and how the concept of root development would tell the story. So I've got about 10 or 15 minutes left in today's episode. Let me share some of these things with you. I asked each one of those students to imagine themselves as a small tree, maybe only three to four feet tall, green, well established, the nice beginnings of a root system, but clearly not yet developed into the tree that they would become. Just a bit of imagery to get started, and I'll be asking you to do the same thing. Then I said, Okay, now I want you to imagine that small tree grown up into a larger one. I asked the old psychological question, if you were a tree, what tree would you be? Some student in the back yelled out, a banana tree. Great. Whatever you want, just imagine yourself now a fully developed or more developed fruit tree, oak tree, or whatever it might be. And as I ask you just momentarily to do that as well, I want you to understand the value behind a simple exercise like that. As you've heard me say so many times, everybody wants to get better, but so few people even know what better looks like. And it makes me wonder, how can someone know if they are growing? How can they know if they're getting better if they don't even know what form they're supposed to be taking? What evidence there would be that they're actually beginning to look like a banana tree? And before we get into specifics today, you need to be able to do that as well. No matter your age, maybe you're 18, maybe you're 81, when I ask you to visualize yourself as a sapling three-foot tree, you might say, Well, that's not me. You're talking to kids. I'm 40, I'm 60, I'm 80. I'm by no means a young tree with growth in its future. I respect you, I love you, and I totally disagree with you. As long as there is life and strength in us, we can grow from where we are into something more. In fact, it is God's will for us to excel still more, striving as we go forward. So I do want you to see yourself as something that is not yet developed and then visualize a better version of you, something fully formed, some form of tree. Now, of course, this isn't about being a tree or bearing literal fruit, but it segueed into something else that I shared with them. Let's drop the imagery for a moment. I want you to imagine a better version of yourself. If you got better from where you are, if you grew, if you changed, if you matured, what would that look like? How would you be different than you are today? So I ran them through a few options they might choose. It can be longer term or shorter term. I said maybe there's someone here who imagines themselves as a straight A student in college next year. That's not where you are, but it's where you want to be. Maybe you are a young lady who sees yourself as an electrical engineer changing the world one computer chip at a time. Or maybe you're a young lady who simply sees yourself as a godly wife and mother. Maybe you're a young man who looks into your future and sees yourself as a preacher of the gospel, working with a local church, helping families. Or I suggested maybe you see yourself as a video game developer and part-time competitive slim gym eater. You know, you've got to work in a little humor in a room filled with college students. But I wanted them to see that better version a year out, three years or five years. Can I just ask, are you able to do that today? I'm not saying you're no good where you are. You may be fantastic where you are. You may be the greenest, best, developed, healthiest sapling in the orchard. But don't see yourself as a mature, finished, over-the-hill tree. See yourself young and vibrant and able to grow, to learn, to change. So, what is a fully grown or at least more mature version of yourself? How do you look? What kind of things do you say? What are you doing for a living? How is the gospel living through you? Now I told them at that point something you've heard me say to you. If you can visualize who you want to be, really see it and commit to it, then you are ahead of 90% of the people in the world who have this pie in the sky idea of self-improvement. At the very least, you can begin to measure your choices, the things that you do, the people you surround yourself with, are they helping you transform into where you want to go, in which case that's great, or are they detracting from that or taking you in a different direction? At least you will know where you are supposed to be going and you can assess that. However, it's just not enough. There is something else that must be added to this equation of transformation. Remember, I told you the theme for the night and the episode title, it's not about the tree, it's about the roots. A tree cannot develop unless the roots develop first. A healthy, productive, strong tree is the result of a healthy, vibrant, well-developed root system that supports it. There are people who can see themselves as this great apple tree or red oak standing tall, but without the proper root system, it either will never happen or it will happen quickly and be knocked over by the first storm. So here is how I connected all of this for those students. The roots are the unseen things. They are the decisions that you make, the thoughts that you possess that no one ever sees. These things happen in your head, these things happen behind closed doors, these happen in private. No one can judge you or chastise you or compliment you. They are all under the surface. The work that gets done there, where no one sees it, is the absolute number one contributor to becoming the thing that you want to be, the thing that people will see, the person you visualize yourself to be. I mentioned to them that as college students, when we start talking about things that they do in private, things that no one sees, things behind closed doors, we instantly have some negative connotation like fornication or pornography or obsessive video game playing or something. And of course, if those are the kind of underdeveloped, wasteful things they're doing in private, they should not expect good results in the future, in the real world, out in the view of others. It is a sad disconnect when we begin to think that we don't have to put in the hard work in private, we don't have to be disciplined behind closed doors, and yet somehow we become this beautiful tree and we change everything. That doesn't work. Not for them and not for us. However, as I told them that night, I don't want to talk about all that sin stuff. I want to be positive. I just want you to understand that the things that you're doing that no one sees will determine if you become the person you have imagined yourself to be. If you want to be an engineer, you're going to need to do your math homework and work on developing and remembering concepts. I know it's laborious and boring, but the results come from the development of strong roots. If you just want to be a godly wife and mother, there's going to be a lot of prayer on your part, a lot of contemplation about who you spend your time with, and a lot of time in the Word. The same is true for a man who wants to grow up and be a preacher. I went off task a little bit in the speech and talked about lazy preachers and plagiarizers, people who want to be seen and maybe they genuinely want to make a difference, but behind closed doors, when it's time to develop what no one can see, they're not putting in the study. They're not doing the work of connecting themselves to Christ in a personal, private way so that the world can enjoy what comes out of that. Even if you want to be a competitive slim gym eater, behind closed doors, you've got to learn how to rip those packages open quickly and get that stuff down the hatch. In other words, results come from hard work, but I wanted them to know that a lot of that hard work is just you and God, or it's just you by yourself choosing to read a book instead of watching television, choosing to go on a walk instead of sitting on the couch. Putting down our roots is about the development of strength and discipline and habits that no one ever applauds. You rarely ever see a tree and say, look at that beautiful root system. That's incredible. You never even get to see it. But I'll tell you this you know it's there when that tree is producing incredible fruit, or if it's still standing after an atrocious storm. So look, today's episode is not three questions to answer or three things to try. It's really pretty simple. You've heard me speak many times about visualizing better and believing that you can get there. Now I'm just asking you to assess what happens in private. Assess what you do behind closed doors, assess the things you think about and the choices you make that are seen by no one but affect directly what everyone sees. And I finished with one thought to them that it's my pleasure to share with you in this last couple of minutes. Did you know that in the New Testament there is one quality that is linked both with the roots that hold up the tree and the first fruit that tree produces. Do you know what that quality is? The book of Ephesians talks about being rooted and grounded in love. And then in the book of Galatians, when it spoke of the fruit of the Spirit, the first fruit mentioned was love. If you're looking for motivation, if you're looking for direction, if you want to analyze what's been happening or where you're going, look no further than love. Do things behind closed doors. Do things no one sees, but do them out of love. Do the things that show your love for God. Do the things that show your love for others. Do the things that reflect confidence and love of yourself. And then as you see yourself changing and the world begins to experience who you are becoming, give them love. This world has plenty of people who have developed themselves into professional haters, attackers, and dividers. Look, whether you're an engineer, a housewife, a preacher, a video game developer, or whatever you choose to be, do so in the name of love. Sharing the love of God with the world. Doing things as you grow that feed the need of the people in your life. What they need is love. And that's what we are growing to give them. I'm excited about the future, and I hope you are as well. The fruit will come, but it starts with putting down roots. Thank you so much for tuning in today. If you enjoyed the program, please remember to share with your family and your friends. Also, you can go to excelstillmore.life to sign up for emails, order the three month journals, or just catch up on old episodes. So until next time, let me leave you with this. Whatever you choose to do today, in the name of the Lord Jesus, excel still