He came up with the name of this four week series. We talked a lot about last week New Year's resolutions. A lot of us make them, and often times it's about our health, especially our physical health, getting in better shape. But the series is called the Me I want to be, the me I want to be, so Chad to recap in case people missed part one, I'm not too busy. It's just not a priority. Recap that for us before we move on to topic number two, if you would please.
Sure, Yeah, thanks showing me again. When you say to yourself, I'm too busy, it kind of gives you the illusion that you're a victim of your own life. If you say I'm not too busy, it's just not a priority. It's both convicting. Oh my goodness, I'm not doing this because I'm not prioritizing it. On the other hand, it's rry freeing. That's right, I'm not doing that right now
because it's a lesser priority. I reference the idea is a guy named Nea Maya who helped rebuild the walls in the city in Jerusalem, and when he did that, there's a whole bunch of old trying to distract him. He sends a message to them and says, hey, guys, I'm doing a great work. I don't have time. Don't have time to come down and talk to you. In other words, you're not a priority. It's okay that there's certain distractions in life, certain things in certain seasons of
life you can't do. But when you say it's not that I'm too busy, it's not a priority, it really helps crystallize you and keep you from making the excuses we all make to ourselves. Okay, the second thing we talked about last week is just learning how to just love your life the way it is and not wait for some arbitrary future deadline to begin trying to enjoy what you have around you.
Absolutely, and that could come in just a roof over your head. It could come in your spouse, it could come in your children, the things are doing well as opposed to focusing on what they're not doing well. Today we're going to talk about make a to be list rather than a to do list.
Yes, and I think this is something, and I think it's the classic question you know, to be or not to be is the question I think.
That really is.
The question is have you really thought about yourself, Who am I becoming? Am I to do list should flow out of my to be lists, and I can look at good circumstances and bad circumstances and say, are these helps shaping me and who I want to be? When I was in my twenties, I've been married a couple of years and I just had we had my first child on the way, and I really was challenged to do this. I sat down and began to think about who are the people in my life that I want
to be like? And I don't know who you'd come to mind, but like one of mine was my grandfather, and I thought about certain character qualities he had and I wrote those down, and I thought many things about my father that were really aspiring to me. Ways he parented, the way he connected, the way he controlled his temper. And I just took a page and I began to write down all the character qualities I wanted to be and I wanted God, I wanted a life I wanted
to intentionally partner with to become. And so I wrote all those pieces down. And so I'd encourage anyone who wants to create a tab list find a hero. Of course, we're all flawed. I'm plenty flawed. All the people I mentioned are flawed. But find those character qualities and all the different heroes in your life begin to say, what would it look like if I could become that version of myself. It's almost like finding a hero or finding
a model for yourself. I had a buddy of mine became one of my heroes in my industry, and he said he is in his sixties and the time he said Chad his last name Sutter. He said, the world has yet to see a Sutter who's actually happy. In the seventies. He talked about all his relatives get grumpier and grumpier, the chronologically aged, and he really wanted to be a person filled with joy and other centeredness. And I remember the old commercial about the tombstone pizza. You
know what do you want on you all tombstone? It's more than though on my tombstone. I accomplished these things. When you're sitting at your deathbed and people are around you who know you, what do you want them to see about who you became over your seventy eighty ninety years. I became a person of love. I became a person of peace. I became a person of real character. I was kind. I was And that's what you hear at funerals.
I do lots of funerals. You get to hear about people's character qualities, soar more than you actually hear about the things they accomplished and what really lasts that people really remember about you.
So you know, it's interesting you say that.
Girl, It's really interesting you say that because about funerals, and you know you do so many of them. And I've been to a couple where you've handled at Horizon Church and it really is amazing. I mean, you don't sit up there and when your kids get up there, or your grandparents or your grandkids get up there, they're not talking about the building that somebody named after you.
Not that there's anything wrong with having a building named after you, if you were committed to something, or you gave money to something, a university of high school, whatever, animal shelter, anything wrong with any of those things.
But it really is what people want to hear.
It is finding a hero when you're sitting at a funeral of boy. My granddad used to do this, and I'm thinking to myself, Gosh, when I'm a granddad, I want them saying the same thing about me.
Yeah.
Yeah, And even if you did get a building named after it's because you were generous, it's because you were other centered. It's because you're trying to impact other people. Later, it's still that to do or that accomplishment still trace back it to it to be. There's a on the stained glass side. There's a verse in the Bible, this is the will of God. It was like, what's God's will for my life? This is God's will for your life, that you would be conformed into the image of his son.
It's whether you're a Jesus person or not. If you've ever read the biography of Jesus, Matthew Mark Luker John, the guy is just a stunny example of a life best lived. I mean, I think he's got himself, but even if you don't, he gets angry at the right times, he gets angry at the right people. Well, he is so in control under duress, he has peace. So find a hero. And it's almost like have you ever been
on like a carnival cruise line. There's always that day that they bring out the ice sculptor and they've got this big block of eyes that start chiseling.
Away at it.
To be conformed in the image of something is to say, hey, life's chiseling away at me right now, or I feel like God's chiseling await with me right now. But it's not meaningless pain. I'm being chiseled into something. And you're watching that ice sculpture and you're like, what in the world is going to become? Chop chop chop, chop, chop chop chop. After about thirty minutes, you're like, oh, my goodness, it's a beautiful swan, it's an angel, it's whatever it is.
You realize all that pain, all that challenge was purposeful in the same way you look at your own life and say, God, I'm going through some times I don't like right now. There's some hard time to some chiseling times, but I want to partner with life, partner with you, so that I'll be chiseled into somebody who is other centered. And what I did to make mine more memorable for me is I took my one in my twenties, I did my last name that got two long, so I
didn't my first name. Take those character qualities and try and shorten to something you can remember like my name Chad. I kind of took that and said, I want that to represent number one connections. The main thing I'm trying to be about is connecting to my wife, connecting my kids, connecting the people who are important to me as people I work with and work for, age humble, humility is a huge critical juncture. I just see pride destroys marriages,
that destroys people's ability to learn and grow. So humility was one of my character qualities. A for Chad is authentic. I want to be the real mean matter what you see me on stage or see me off stage, and my kids get to know that. I admit when I do stuff wrong because I want to be authentic and then indeed dependable. I just see so many people who say things that don't follow through. So those were like
my four character qualities reduced into four words. And then I had a longer one for hope, and which includes things like initiate for other, centeredness for oh, the needs of others, and I begin to write down the needs of my spouse specifically, as it just became a really helpful way to check in and verify this is what I'm trying to accomplish. And this is what I'm hoping the life and God's going to do in my life.
And it really has become a memorable way for me to partner with the challenges and then assign my to do list from that to be list.
When you make up this list, a to be list rather than a to do list oftentimes. And I was reading about this just recently in the last day or two, and the quote was from this big, huge hedge fun guy who opened all these charter schools in New York City, eighty of them I think he opened. And he was asked, you know the meaning of life? And he says, to sacrifice for the betterment of others. Now, I mean, that's a beautiful way of looking at life, right, to make
your personal sacrifices for the betterment of others. But that took action on his part, and he talked a lot about that and how yeah, it's it's one thing to write it down, it's another thing to go do it. Give everybody out there, give me something that Okay, here's a word, you know, you just used them off the letters in your name. Give me an example of something where Okay, I'm going to make this to be listed and Now, what's something I could go do to put
that in practice? And I'm talking of maybe outside of okay, being nicer or more connected to my wife.
Right, yeah, Well, I'll give you one. Reject passivity. There's a tendency in all of us, except for work, maybe to reject passivity and the things that really matter and to delay it. And so how can I be intentional in initiating the things I want to be true? So it's like two years went by and I have not initiated in accomplishing my goal. I've not initiated in really taking seriously that I want to lose weight I want
to really have I've accepted passivity. When it comes to I get home, I completely check my brand at the door and don't think that I need to engage with the people around me. So that would be one. I want to reject passivity. So what's the opposite? I want to initiate and then really right down, what does a person who initiates in your current.
Life look like?
What does it look like? You want to have a better connection with your mom and dad, for example, So I know of like for years my mom and dad and I had a very close relationship, but we just weren't in a family that says I love you very often. My grandpa never said it. So I decided in my thirties.
I'm going to stop that.
I know I love my mom and dad. I know they love me, we just don't say it. It's kind of weird, really, So I just decided. And it was strangely awkward at first. Sure, it was thirty years ago where I decided I'm going to end the phone call by saying, Mom, I love you. And it was so weird that that so was even at the time, was awkward because it changed and Mom starts saying it, Dad starts saying Now. I always knew it. It wasn't lacking, sure, but I had to take the initiative, and I thought,
that's what I'm going to do. We mentioned my brother. In the ten years we didn't talk Western law. Just recently I re engaged with it'd be easy to say, you know, it's kind of better off. Let by gods be bygones. I can't control how they're gonna react, but I'm gonna initiate. Another thing I'd say, is that date
the women in your life. Yeah, when your mom's in town, if she's out town, they say, mom, while we go out to dinner to go she and I. Your mom will probably be amazed by that if you got a daughter. I started dating my daughter when she was two, maybe even one. You know, we're gonna go on our little Chick fil A data where you go get chicken minis and Sunday morning, or we go get an ice cream calling evening. But the women in your life initiates, and
we all do that when we're first dating. You know we're gonna woo them all and then we kind of get into passivity. What does it look like to date your daughter, date your wife, date your mom? What does it look like to really be intentional? So that'd be one. Another one for me is fun. I know it's not as high for other people, but I have lots of fun all the time, and I initiate fun. When's the next trip we're gonna take, when's the next family night
we're gonna go out on? What's the next movie night? So for me, I wanted to be someone who initiated environments where friends laugh together, where a family can talk. Sometimes we're initiating at a family gathering. We don't want to just say hey, it's your birthday, we might go around the room and have everyone say something about the person's birthday we care about. It's just ways of being
intentional and turning. Like I talked last week about Kronos, your regular time at the Krinos, this was an opportunity to really say something and do something and bless somebody. So there's a couple examples.
That's great stuff. A tease for next week. Make a hierarchy of needs.
Yes, hierarchy of needs is understanding that there's always going to be a way in which ten things want your attention. So what are the things going to prioritize over the other ones? And what's the most important thing I'm going to do versus what's the most urgent thing I'm going to do? And how do I make sure the tyranny of the urgent doesn't step on top of the character qualities and the priorities that I want to shape me?
And really, even in the job, this is the most important, even though these are the ten phone calls that just came in. How do I prioritize not the tyranny of the urgent, but the hierarchy that's really true?
Love it the me I want to be with Pastor Chad Hogan. Thank you for your time, sir, love this stuff and everybody's looking forward to the next couple of weeks as we continue this series.
So hope you have a great rest of your day.
You too appreciate it.
Alrighty let's check the traffic. It's been absolute. I don't know if chaos. Would you use that word, chuck chaos?
I think we're just shy of it. Okay, okay, yeah, unfortunately yep. From the UC Health Tramphing Center. The UC Health Women's Sports Medicine Program provides specialized care for female athletes at all levels. Schedule and appointment online at UCHealth dot com. Northbound seventy five earlier accidents are clear, still running close to an extra twenty five minutes between turf Way and Town southbound seventy five. They cleared the accident
below Monroe above one twenty nine. Traffic's still heavy through Lachland. Still working with an accident on the eastbound two seventy five that's near forty two in Shearonville. And there's a wreck on Montana above Westwood. More than southbound traffic blocked off at Anaconda. Chuck Ingram News Radio seven hundred WLW WCPO.
Nine first Warning forecasts not too bad out there right now. Maybe it's raining where you are, a light rain and the temperature is not bad. We're still on the plus side of forty, but that will change as a cold front and cold air settles in as a day goes on. By the time you drive home from work, going to be around thirty two degrees tonight, extremely cold. For the
next number of days. We will be in the teens tonight in the wind chill is a high Tomorrow in the teens and then in the single digits wind chill tomorrow night, Friday and Saturday. We might get some snow, Jennifer saying probably not an inch or right at an inch.
The two days combined are high.
On Friday will be twenty seven, but again with the wind chill, is going to feel a lot colder than that, and then on Saturday a little warmer. It'll be thirty five, but will feel like it's in the twenties. So bundle up, take care of your animals and look if you need to get one, they could use a second chance. Get to your local animal shelter, bring home a dog or a cat, you'll be healthier, you'll be happier, you'll have more love in your house. Saloni around the corner. This
is the Nation. Station seven hundred WLW, Cincinnati,