The power of valuing others

Find value in others just as you value yourself. Esteem others as you esteem yourself.

The effectiveness of a family, team, class, church, friends, and other groups correlates to how much the individual people esteem others.

David Lilienthal was commissioned after World War II to head up the Atomic Energy Commission. He brought together many brilliant people who were stars in their own rights and had many differences in perspective.

There was a tremendous amount of pressure to get going on all their objectives. Instead of diving right in David took several weeks for them to get to know each other, to value others as themselves.

The result was a highly effective group that was extremely creative, productive, and were able to resolve differences quickly.

That is the power of valuing others.

- DC 38:24-25

Might, mind, and strength

Watch this if you want to see what serving and loving God with all your might, mind, and strength looks like:

Part 1 of 2

Part 2 of 2

- DC 33:7

See yourself as God sees you

People judge us so quickly based on appearances. Clothes, hair, looks.

God looks at our character, what’s on the inside. People look at our personality, what’s on the outside.

Therefore it’s better to be judged by God than by man.

Look at yourself in the way God sees you rather than the way people perceive you to be. Live your life so that God is pleased with you. Don’t worry if other people are pleased with you.

A related thought: when someone comes along and says they will save you from all your problems don’t count on them. People are fickle. They are unreliable. They are imperfect.

The only person that can save us from all our problems is God so put your trust in Him, not in other people.

- DC 30:1-3

Lying to myself

Our brains are rationalizing machines.

And the “lie” in the word rationalieze is the particularly dangerous part.

It’s so easy to justify terrible behavior that we sometimes do it without even realizing it. We lie to our self and in the process justify all kinds of crazy stuff.

Some people want to believe there is no God and so they look to science for all the answers. If there is no God then we don’t have responsibility and can do whatever we want. In spite of the fact that all evidence points to a Creator many people rationalize it away.

I used to wonder how people could commit atrocities. From the last century think Nazis and Communists for example. They were people just like us.

How could they have gone so far astray? Rationalizing.

Perhaps they believed the end justifies the means. If you start believing a lie it can lead to some pretty extreme and dangerous behaviors.

If you recognize even in small part that you are rationalizing, let that be a big red flag of warning. Consciously go back to correct principles and stick to them, don’t let the lies inside your head persist.

- DC 28:11-13

Common consent is brilliant

Gaining common consent in an organization is brilliant. It breeds unity, reduces politics, and increases the strength of the organization.

Where common consent is applied members of an organization are asked to either support or oppose the decisions made by the leaders. It puts responsibility on the members so there is more engagement.

When there is total support there is strength. When there is opposition there is opportunity to make things better. Interestingly, organizations that apply common consent have very little internal opposition or politics and are exponentially more effective in accomplishing their mission.

It’s a brilliant way to govern.

- DC 26:2

Learning is best when we seek and apply knowledge

We learn best when we are seeking for knowledge. However knowledge alone is not enough to really learn. Apply the knowledge and real learning happens.

Too many teachers are steeped in the industrial model of education where a teacher is the authority figure in the class, controls the class, and spoon feeds information to the students. This is about the least effective way for people to learn and really should be changed.

A more effective way of learning is where the teacher leads and the students teach. For example a teacher asks a thought provoking question and several students share their thoughts about it and a discussion follows where insights and experience are added – now everyone participates and everyone benefits. All are edified together when learning is done this way.

I hope we can change our mind set about effective learning, away from what is entrenched in our education systems for the last hundred years and back to a classical way of learning. We’d all be better for it.

- DC 88:118, 122-123