Hope for your financial life and beyond

What Contributes More to Financial Change – Knowledge or Behavior?

Several weeks ago I finished leading my most recent Financial Peace University class. I love leading Dave Ramsey’s FPU classes because the people there are eager for change. They know something is not right and are looking for a financial change.

financial changeTwo things are needed though for them to head in that new direction. One, they have to understand why financial change is needed. I call this gaining knowledge. Our mind has to become aware of something we didn’t know before. That awareness eventually leads to the change.

However, knowledge isn’t enough. We also must look at behavior. More often than not it’s our behavior that gets us into financial trouble. If we don’t alter our patterns of behavior financial change is not possible.

I think we can all agree that both are needed. My question today is, “Which one is most important? Which one contributes more to financial change?” You can make an easy case for either, but in the end I believe one is the clear winner.

The Case For Knowledge

[Read more…]

The Do’s and Don’ts of Taking Selfies In Our Narcissistic World

Hidden Nuggets Series #57 – “Who would form a god or mold an image that profits him nothing?” – Isaiah 44:10

taking selfiesEarlier this year I stumbled across this news report that blew my mind. A student broke the leg off a valuable early 19th century replica sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera in Milan, Italy. He didn’t accidentally bump into the Drunken Satyr sculpture (like my kids might do), which depicts a follower of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine, passed out in a drunken state. It wasn’t quite that simple.

The reason the leg broke off was because the student was sitting on it…to taking selfies.

What is the world coming to?

We Live in a Selfie World

There is no denying it. We live in a taking selfies world. The preponderance of people flipping the image-capturing system of their camera 180 degrees to take a picture of themselves by themselves is growing with epic proportions.

[Read more…]