Now in this particular session as we talk about affirming ourselves, I want you to understand the importance of your specialness that deals with significance that deals with your strengths that deals with the way your wound, but I want you to understand your specialist. I'm a firm believer that we were created, again, to unleash our masterpiece to for our life to become a work of art, to become a beautiful piece of music, a wonderful Symphony. And as one author said, most of us go to the grave with the music still in us. I don't want the music to stay in you, I want it, I want it to come out. So I want you to understand your specialist and in this session, I want to give you a tool especially to focus in on that and then I'll give you some other resources to work on. The tool is called pegs.

This is built on the concept of putting a round peg in a round hole, not a round peg in a square hole, it just doesn't work. And I want you to understand your pegs because your pegs deal with your bent. There's there's a concept that we're, we've been developed in such a way that we all have a bent. Now our bent is our personality, I believe, even pre birth. We're born with this kind of personality bent. You know, people a lot of times say, Get over it.

That's just the way I am. There's good news and bad news about that. The good news is we do have a bent, I would say my bent is I'm really more introverted than extroverted though I have extraversion skills. I'm really the kind of person who, who is more of a loner, even though I'm in public a lot. I'm the kind of person who needs time alone to be empowered and the person who lives working independently versus management wise, it's just the style that I have. I'm more of a creative entrepreneurial person.

I'm passionate about life and doing the kinds of things we're doing here helping people make a life not just a living helping people in their personal development, mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, so they can unleash their masterpiece. So I have my own unique bent. Now, the bad news about that is sometimes what the way we were bent, we all have a tendency of personality style. Well, my wife and I are very different. My two children are very different ones, a professional singer, songwriter, our daughter, Molly, our son, Matzoh, a professor at the University, they're both world class at what they do, but they're extremely different. And you know, that's the beauty of life.

That's what makes a great orchestra By the way, different gifts and abilities that come together and live in harmony with one another and that's the goal here. So when you think of straights, The downside is you can't just say that's the way I am. So get over it, because it may have been that you took your bent and you drove it the wrong way. For instance, though, I'm an introvert, I could just stay away from people and not engage. And that wouldn't be the best use of my giftedness and my calling and my purpose of my mission, my passions. Now I need time alone, I need to understand myself.

So I deal with that. But I needed to cultivate out of a sense of responsibility, not only my own preferences, but responsibility and a sense of why I'm here on this earth. I need to cultivate being engaged with people and developing certain social skills, which I've done over the years, and you need to do the same thing. So let's talk about how we hone in on that. That's what that's what this session is all about. I want you to develop your pigs now.

Your pig stands for your passions, your expertise, your gifts and your styles. Now, let me try to go deeper on that and and explain that even in a more personal way. passions are more What are those things that make you pound the table? What are those things have not done during your life would make you weep. One of those things that you make make you angry? What are those things that hurt your heart?

What are those things you just love? What are your passions? We're providing a sheet for you a little bit later for you to fill out. So you can actually make a list of those areas that you consider your passions and then by the way, in all of these asks someone close around you maybe a spouse or a friend or or someone at work or someone close to you, who knows you to articulate what they think your passions are. So P is for passion is for expertise. expertise is what you're skilled at what you've been trained in.

I was a communication major in college, and I studied debate and extemporaneous speaking and, and, and, and so I'm a speaker by trade. That's one of the things I do. I also learned how to reason and think and communicate. I have certain skills and the ability to motivate people or create an environment where people are motivated. I've understood over time as I did further education, I studied theology in my early days, and my my master's degree was in education, but with a theological bent, so I have a certain expertise around the Bible and biblical truth. Beyond that, I've went on and did a doctorate in the area of personal leadership and personal development and coaching and I have certain expertise there.

So and then over the years, I've developed other areas of expertise, and I've learned what I'm good at what I'm not good at. And by the way, under your expertise, I want you to list all those things you're good at. I mean that you've been trained and you have skill and it can be technical. It can be relational, it can be professional, it can be personal, but what do you just good at? I'm really I have reasonable expertise in the area of music and I've used that over the years by creating music, particularly praises Worship audios that sold many hundreds of thousands have been distributed to millions around the world over the years because that certain expertise there as well as a passion and a heart for them, but know what your areas of expertise are. That's important.

What are you good at? What are you not good at? In my case, I'm not good at particularly management. I don't like managing people. I love encouraging people I love developing people but I don't like managing people a great deal. I don't like building the organization.

I'm the visionary. I'm the communication the voice space but that's what I'm good at. I'm pretty good. relationally but I try to stick in the areas of my sweet spot and and you should do the same. So what are your areas of expertise? And then what are your gifts?

Your gifts are just what you naturally have, they might not even be for Tisha for me. I think I have certain gifts and us in connecting with people I have certain giftedness of creativity. I have certain giftedness in encouraging people motivated People encouraging them moving them to action. Hopefully you're being a product of this right now. I have certain gifts and music. For instance, I have certain gifts and relating to small children and dogs and I mean, we all have areas of gifts but identify your gifts.

What are you uniquely good at? But just you're born with a gift. They say, Oh, he's just he or she's great at that. They're just gifted at that. It may not may or may not be an expertise right now, but it's a gift and that's important because you want to use your gifts. And then finally, your styles.

What are your styles? How do you like to work? There's a work style like I prefer work I work out of my home. Right now I'm doing this video while you're on a staycation with my wife down in the beach in San Diego. I love doing this. It's my style.

It's the love the way I love to work I I don't like using a transcript or a teleprompter. I don't like being inside when I record so I have a style. That's more Informal is more relational and you're experiencing that right now there's some flubs and misses. But I think it's more authentic and of great value. Hopefully, you're finding out to be the case. That's part of my style.

I have a work style, you might have a different work style. You we all have a personality style. I'm more of the energetic, a positive, visionary motivator kind of guy. And that has strengths and weaknesses connected to it. But we have personality style issues, that are all different. We tend to have communication styles, some of us are more formal, some are more informal.

I tend to be more informal, more relational, in my approach to communication and you may be a little bit different, but it's important to understand what that style is. And then then we have leadership styles, and they're all sorts of tools to help us understand what those are. If you look at some of the leadership styles, some people are better at directing some are better at comedy. indicating some are better at motivating, some are better at sustaining. You have entrepreneurs, you have intrapreneurs, who are entrepreneurial. But inside a structure, you have people who like the more management role or the administrative role.

One is not better than the other. By the way. We all have gifts and abilities. And again, being a lover of the Bible, I believe the effective organization and family and nonprofit or whatever you're part of is knit together by that which every joint and ligament supplies. So the skill set of every individual, the style of every individual and the more we can identify these and working together, the better Well, here's what I want you to do. This is your action step.

Take the sheet that you have here in your notes and the resource center that deals with pegs and identify your passions, your expertise, your gifts and your styles. that's step number one. And then step number two, if you want to go deeper, I want to encourage you to To begin to look at your personality styles, and we're suggesting some tools and resources that might help you particularly with one of the tests that I found to be the most helpful that I'll allude to a little bit later, but that's enough to get going, get going. So again, identify these yourself but also ask others to help you identify those as well.