Are you a proactive communicator? Do you find yourself responding to problems? Do you organize your thoughts and execute your plan—thereby heading off negative situations before they come?

This is an important planning technique. Many Christians wait for God to speak to them. They wait for revelation to come operating on the principle "all good things come to those who wait." (Though quoted often, you will not find that adage in the Bible.)

As a young man, I would arrive at the office around 7 a.m. to find the president of the insurance brokerage already at his desk. He once told me that he arrived at 5:30 in the morning.

He would read all of his correspondence, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Then he would map out his priorities. He purposed to call five people each day and to respond to all of his pressing inquiries.

He would list them in order of importance and purpose to work his way through that list by the end of the week. Those five calls that he was going to make were not responses to other people calling him, they were pro-active gestures of staying in touch with people that helped him to reach the goals of the company.

He would also instruct his secretary to hold all of his incoming calls until 10:30 a.m. Since headquarters for this firm were on the East Coast, he could accomplish his calling and then take calls and return calls with the latter part of the day.

As I meditated on this system and discussed it with other leaders, they would point out that staying true to your mission and your plan is essential. You cannot allow information or communication to come at you uncontrolled.

You have to filter that information according to your stamina and personality. In short, you have to pay attention to information and to people. You cannot allow people and information to just bounce at you and off of you.

If you don't purpose to receive information, you will experience miscommunication. The information you get may be valuable, but it will be useless to you.

How many times did you hear something, but did not understand its importance at the time?

I am not saying that this is the only method. I am saying that you need a plan. You need to use the method that works for you.

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