Episode #197 Plant Your Feet

Seven Problems

• We reduce our impact in life when we are constantly looking for the next big thing.
• Moving neighborhoods, workplaces, and churches often leaves us feeling disconnected.
• Each promotion comes with a price, and that price is often our relationships with others.
• We often exit friendships just as they are beginning to grow closer.
• It is rare to find people who have remained with a single organization for over 20 years.
• The places where we live, work, and play are desperate for someone to stick around.
• More money may make us more comfortable, but it doesn’t make us more fully alive.

Seven Principles

• We are more likely to live an effective and fulfilling life if we choose to plant our feet.
• The grass is always greener wherever we water it.
• The place we make our own doesn’t need to be exotic in order to be meaningful.
• Longevity builds trust, and deep roots breed impact.
• Influence is more powerful than position, and connection is more important than title.
• We don’t need to seek out opportunities somewhere else, but we can often create those opportunities right where we are.
• If we so boldly choose, we can live all of life’s four seasons in the very same place.

Five Practices

• Identify the geographic area where you want to spend most of your life, and make decisions about career and calling with this in mind.
• Honor the commitments that you make to others even when life doesn’t go as intended.
• Verbally express to the people you love, “I want to be your friend for the rest of my life.”
• When a relationship feels stale or stagnant, move closer rather than further away.
• Be very thoughtful when faced with the option to uproot something you have planted.