0:13 so the first question uh is the following. I'm an HR person in an organization. How do I keep the employees engaged during religious festivals like Christmas, Diwali, etc. as part of my job without being defiled? Yeah, this is a tough question. Um, and 0:33 logic because in the HR organization, your job is to um keep u you know people engaged. People have invited me to holiday events or events you know those kinds even if I don't agree with a particular uh festival um you know I 0:51 might say God bless you. Um I have not my own conviction has not been um you know one to not go to a holiday party of some kind but I don't participate in things that might be things that might compromise a conviction of mine 1:09 obviously each of you I don't want to describe each of those uh events but um you know I've sought not to I usually don't speak I just talk to people I might eat some of the food Um and um I understand maybe in HR it's a little 1:26 harder because you have to organize. And if your conviction is to not even be there, okay? Um and uh not even be visible, God will honor that. I don't know that there's a fixed answer there. For some of those, like I said, I don't 1:40 want to describe each of those cuz there's a lot of different events in HR person to lead. Um if you don't have conviction to go to some of them, the Lord will honor that. I hope you're not in a place where you will lose your job. 1:51 if your your your boss is supportive. But I've not found it to be a something that compromises my conviction to not go to be present at event where they're serving food or you know I may not participate in all of the activities or 2:07 agree with activities but if there's food that I can say hello to my team often those are good occasions for me to thank my people who work there. Um you know so I'll give you an example. I mean just one example there Halloween parties 2:22 okay that happen Halloween is this festival where and it's a occasion where people get together they bring their kids to work now I may not agree with Halloween and so on so forth but I still felt it's okay for me to go there and 2:35 wish the families and their children well they're all often in costumes and I appreciate the kids and their thing I didn't feel like well just because I don't believe I'm not going to go and see my team and so but if you feel like 2:47 you shouldn't be there during that that's also okay. I have not felt the conviction I shouldn't go to that. Now I don't myself dress up like a witch or anything of those kinds but uh I have felt you know to go and thank my team 3:00 and it's mostly because I want if I'm participating you know it's to say thank you to people appreciate them say hello to them because often when you get to people I don't get to see them except in zoom so that's been my own personal 3:13 conviction on it but I realized in the role of this person who wrote this question that might be harder >> okay let's see the next question is I work hard with discipline in my studies but then I don't get the results at all 3:27 because of which I get discouraged and feel very sad about it. >> Yeah, that's a this is a tough I also have a great amount of empathy that's clearly here the person who's writing this question is working hard. I say Lord you know leave it in your hands I'm 3:42 going to do my part which is to work hard give me wisdom and clarity of thought. It looks like this is a college student or a high school student uh studying um and maybe but also could be in work where you're working in place. 3:57 Again, remind yourself my citizenship is not in heaven. Sorry, it's not on earth. My citizenship is in heaven. Um and sometimes, you know, um we have to be like that widow who kept praying, kept praying, kept praying and praying. 4:14 And sometimes there's a breakthrough not just for um you know our personal life but certainly for our godly character but also for things that puzzles we have to solve. They don't get solved overnight. Uh sometimes some of the 4:28 things we have to pursue may take months years but don't give up and asking the Lord to give you wisdom. There are many things that uh I've had to solve in my life that that's haven't gone solved and I even failed um in an effort. But I've 4:46 always told myself, what's the worst thing that happened? Okay, I get fired. I hope you know we're not doing illegal things. Like the worst thing could happen, you go to jail for something. That's not if you're righteous, you're 4:56 not going to jail for that. Um there were people who were treated worse. They were burnt at the stake. So be encouraged brother and sister whoever wrote that don't give up and remember um if you don't accomplish what you after 5:10 you didn't get an A you got a minus or a B plus that's okay if you worked hard you could also find ways by which you could sometimes um studying or working with somebody else initially in my early part of life everything I did was alone 5:26 studying alone but it was very encouraging me as I got older I could do projects and of Of course, I wasn't cheating because the professor allowed it to learn with somebody else. And even in my last few years in high school, I 5:38 found it to be incredibly encouraging to learn with somebody else. I would ask them question. And this is the picture of iron sharpening iron. So, one of the uh piece of advice I'd give you is find somebody else you could learn with. I 5:50 mean, of course, in many cases, you could if this person who was writing the question was studying um you may have a tutor, that's okay. But God may find somebody else. And sometimes I found in my studying um iron was sharpening iron 6:03 because we would test each other and in same place it work you might find a colleague that person might be smarter than you that's great I actually want to surround myself with people who are smarter than me because we can help each 6:14 other and I have no problem giving the other person all the glory when that happens but we both accomplish the goal so that might be of course in this case of studying you have to do the final exam yourself you can't share it but in 6:26 college many of the projects you do are shared projects with teams and um um not all of them are just individual projects. Maybe the Lord will give you people you can either study with um or work with that help you sharpen the saw 6:41 so to speak. >> Excellent. Okay, here's the third question. How should I network as a Christian? Should I spend time on learning it as a skill? I'm an introvert and I find it easier to spend time in God's word than talking to strangers. 6:56 >> Really good question. This one's an easier one to do cuz I talked about this person I love, Thomas Kuran. But Thomas Kuran is the best networker I know. He's incredible at it. >> He's not the CEO of a company. I don't 7:09 know. He's retired now. I don't know what he was doing, but he's an incredible networker. And I don't know if he started off as a introvert or extrovert, but he's an incredible networker. So, you know, the best place you can develop little bit of charisma 7:21 in the church. Okay. Learn. I often find people who say, you know, I'm really grateful I come to the fellowship, Wednesday night fellowships and I share five minutes because the the um discipline of crispening my thoughts to 7:37 share in 2 minutes or 3 minutes at the church allows me to be more crisp when I go to work and I've described work. Praise God for that. Do you think your colleagues have a Bible study on Wednesday night where they can practice 7:48 speaking? No. So if you have 2 minutes where you're asked to give a testimony and you prepared and you wrote down the points so you could be crisp, that's a place where you're learning to be a little bit more of an extrovert. Now you 8:00 don't have to be someone who's giving a keynote speech in front of a million people or that's okay. Some are gifted to speak, but you can all develop a little bit more of that that ability to speak and write. The ability to speak 8:14 and write is something you can all develop and you must develop uh uh in a skill because in many cases you have to articulate your thoughts okay to your boss to your colleagues in written and spoken form. And thank God now for chat 8:29 GPT and AI tools that help you write better. That's great. That's fantastic. I'll take all the tools I can get whether it's spellch check or chat GPT. But you can develop those extrovertedness at the church. It's amazing to me. I see these some brothers 8:45 and sisters tell me I was I the skills are now at work. The Lord's used me in it made me better at that because I was bold to share a little bit on Wednesday nights. Now don't you know come to the Wednesday nights just to build just to 8:59 build that skill. You're coming there to build up the body. But I think a um a tangential element of your practicing writing and speaking it's very important in the workplace. So much of what I have to describe to my team 9:16 um and to my board my boss is the board of a company or in earlier cases it might manager or director or vice president. you have to do in spoken or written form. And the the shorter you have to speak, the more you have to 9:31 prepare. I've heard the story about Abraham Lincoln. He was asked by a reporter, how long do you take to prepare for uh a 5-minut speech? And he said, "It takes me 5 days to prepare for a 5-minute speech." And the reporter was 9:46 really stunned. Why does it take you that long? So then he asked him, "How long does it take you to prepare for a 15-minute speech?" He said, "2 days. And now the reporter was very confused. How long does it take you to prepare for a 45minut speech? I'm 10:01 ready right now. He said, "So the the the less time you have to speak, think of your boss asks you, can you give me a two-minute update on what's going on, the more you have to be prepared because you don't want to ramble on." It's the 10:15 same way when brother Jeremy or the elders church say, I'd like you to all take 2 minutes during sharing time. We have sharing time in our church. The people who prepared and thought about it, maybe written this down are probably 10:26 the ones you're going to get some impact in. Not because they're articulate. They thought, they prepared. So, if you're an introvert, you probably need to prepare a little bit more. That's okay. You can develop that skill, but you don't have 10:37 to become this person who's getting ready to give a keynote to a million people. You can develop that to the level you are. You may still be a shy person. Many shy people are better at writing than they are at speaking. 10:48 That's okay. But you can develop that then. And then networking, the piece of it, which is how many people you meet at work. That's okay. Don't feel, you know, discouraged, but there's somebody else who is networking with everybody else. 10:59 But there's probably a circle of influential people in your company that might be able to help you. >> I tell people often inside my 6,000 person company in our 6,000 person company at Kuisi or the 30,000 person company we had a BM 100,000 person. 11:15 These are three most recent companies I've been involved in. There's usually about 1% of the company that are really making things happen. Okay. So maybe it's 50 people inside this 60 people inside the 6,000 or maybe 300 people 11:30 inside VM or 1,000 people at SAP. You want to know those people, right? And you just need to know and as you find out and one of the best ways in which you can um network with people may not be able to do it with senior people but 11:44 with colleagues of yours is take them out to lunch or have a coffee with them and ask them a lot of questions. be inquisitive to learn and everybody who's you know um you know even if they are peer of yours and everyone likes to teach somebody else 12:02 and when you tell somebody I'd like to learn from you it makes them feel special I want to learn from everybody even though I'm the CEO of my company I want to learn from a lot of people in my company because they know more than me 12:12 on about a tick topic >> so if you are anywhere in that hierarchy of a company ask yourself who are the most influential people in my company that I can learn from and go and get a coffee with them >> and uh or you know or tea or maybe if 12:28 you can have a lunch with them and spend quality time listening to them asking them questions thinks about the questions you could ask them and the Lord will build that relationship and any of the people I've known in the 12:39 industry um you know that's how it always started and then sew the seed to continue that relationship maybe send them a happy new year message, right? Um um or remember their birthday, happy birthday. These are all ways in which 12:56 you can build connective tissue with somebody else um that that allows you to keep that connection going and the Lord will give you. Now, for some people, I call them serial networkers. They're able to do this in mass amount of 13:09 numbers. That's okay. God's given you that gift. Praise God for that. But if you're an introvert, don't be discouraged. you can build uh and then when we finally get to the end of our life, you know, it's amazing when you 13:19 get to 70 80s and 90s, your circle will that network circle will shrink, okay? Because many of them will pass away and so on so forth. And the most important people you know who will matter to you in your end of your life are your family 13:32 and uh the fellowship you have. That's it. Cuz we all shrink and at that death bed, there'll be a few people sitting around you. So just think about it at that time when you're at that peak of your life. And yes, the network does 13:44 matter. You can build that to what you think will help you. Uh but don't be discouraged if you're an introvert. God will open. Then sometimes I've also prayed final thing on this one is Lord help me open a door so I can get an 13:57 opportunity to meet this person and give me favor with that person. Right? In the Old Testament, there are many places where it says God granted this person favor. It's a great verse. Lord, grant me favor in this person. God gave Daniel 14:12 favor. God gave Joseph favor in the eyes of someone else. Right? There's a great work verse in the Old Testament where it talks about the heart of the king is in the palm of the Lord palm of God. Okay? So your boss might feel like a 14:27 king in your life or your CEO or somebody else in the industry. You're approaching them about something. Who do you think is more important? That person or the Lord? It's saying the heart of the king is in the palm of the 14:41 of the man. Here's my palm. Okay. >> Amen. >> In the middle of that is your boss. Pray the Lord will give me favor. Pray Lord give me favor in this conversation cuz that person is small in the context of your of your palm. I prayed that 14:54 prayer many many times. Give me the articulation of thought. um give me the speech and give me favor in the eyes of that person for this conversation or for this presentation and the Lord will be faithful. Here's the fourth one. I am disciplined 15:12 in my Bible reading but I lack discipline in my work. I procrastinate a lot but I sail through life with good grades. How do I become hardworking and be ready to be used by God? >> Okay, so this person here is very good 15:27 academically. looks like but has a problem at work. um you say, "Okay, maybe you're in the wrong job. That's possible. You're not motivated. Maybe there's another job. Maybe the Lord can open that for you. Sometimes, you know, 15:44 even though you might be very smart, uh it looks like this person is very good academically." Okay, say Lord, I'm not motivated by this job. Maybe I need to change my career. That happens. Um that's happened to me in my 20s uh where 15:58 the company I was working in um it felt like it was going nowhere and the Lord allowed me I went to graduate school and came back and took another job in a different a different part of I mean I've been in the tech industry all my 16:09 life but I took a different function I moved from engineering to product management um and I found that to be a little bit more fulfilling so that's okay so the Lord may open that door if he does for something that make you more 16:22 may more motivated and one of the things that uh there are a lot of these personality tests um that I find to be helpful to take. There's one called the MyersBriggs test. It just tells you a little bit of who you are, you know. Um 16:34 and HR teams can help you with those tests. Um they often then map I think you would be good at this or that. And typically in a tech company, you have engineers, you have sales reps, you have uh HR, finance, legal. Um, and a good 16:49 company will seek to move people around within this. Um, maybe there's an opportunity to move into a different function. But if you're still called to that function and you're that's the best skill you have, sometimes you just have 17:03 to persist and say, "Lord, I need your help to get out of this boredom I'm feeling or lack of motivation. Help me be motivated. Find ways by which I can be motivated or bring me someone." Like I said, I've always when I've gone 17:17 through periods of lull, I've looked for someone else who can bring me motivation. And it's a little bit like the Christian walk, right? If you remember the story of Pilgrims of Progress, it's a very lonely walk when you have to walk alone. Um, I love the 17:31 fact that there's brothers and sisters in the church and walk with and same way at work. Lord, give me one colleague that I can bounce ideas off. And I I really believe hardworking can also be driven by teamwork. We collectively 17:46 could do better than we can on our own. Okay, here's question number five. I love my job in the organization. What do I do when my new boss is taking too much time to approve things on time and not disclosing certain information that I 18:00 have to get even after letting him know? Yeah, this, you know, if I extrapolate here, it's probably a boss who's political or u maybe undermining. Sometimes, you know, it's sad. I've talked about um, you know, bosses who 18:17 are servant leaders and sometimes they're bosses who are threatened by good people on their team. Like often we work with people who when we're doing well, the boss is actually undermining us. Um, and you have to view this a 18:30 little bit like the hostility Daniel faced or Joseph faced. We're not always going to have I' I've had bosses of mine who are, you know, threatened or insecure. Um, and there may be a little bit of that politics going on, but again, I 18:45 come back to that verse I talked about, right? The the the heart of your boss is in the palm of God. If you really believe that, you say, "Lord, I want a breakthrough today. It's Monday morning. I'm going in. You know, he or she my boss is not 19:04 because they're politically uh like now this boss is just it's not malicious." Then you can have a conversation with them. And that's where I want to go to next, which is many, you know, there's there there are crucial conversations we need to have. 19:18 There are even books, psychology books written about crucial conversation. How do you have a crucial conversation with your boss? And that takes a lot of preparation because you want to have it in a way that does not threaten your 19:29 boss but can help them. And the Lord can give you wisdom to have a constructive conversation saying, "Dear boss, let me just role play here." Uh, I really am grateful for all the opportunities you've given me. Um, and I'm very 19:44 committed to this team. Um, and I'm really grateful for the leadership you're providing to this team. You're kissing up a little bit to the boss, but you're saying things that you're authentically mean. Hey, I'd love your 19:55 help on this particular topic. I don't seem to be getting the information fast enough on this. I'm sure it's not because of anything other than you're busy, so forth. How can I have a breakthrough here so I can get some of 20:08 this information more? If you say it in a nice way, unless your boss really hates you, okay? Um, God can give you wisdom to in some senses you're kissing up a little bit to your boss, but you're doing it in a way that solves the 20:20 problem you want and that is the wisdom we all need, which is how do I say things to my boss in a way that gets what I want. Okay? And the Lord can give you wisdom and every one of those are uh opportunities for constructive crucial 20:36 conversations. Many of the conversations I've had to have, they're crucial conversations that need to happen. And they're all like mini negotiations, okay? And every negotiation, whether it's with your family at home or 20:49 your boss, you need wisdom on how to speak and how to write. God will give you that. >> Amen. Let's see the next question. Sometimes at work, people don't pass on the information to me, which affects my work, and tempts me to get irritated or 21:02 even makes me distance myself from them. How should I handle such situations? Same. It's almost the repeat of the same thing except for the boss is now your colleagues. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> It's the same thing. You could, you 21:14 know, cut, copy, paste what I said. The heart of your colleague is in the palm of the Lord. >> How much more? >> Yeah. It's easy to get irritated. This one though, pure relationships often are political. Why? Because they are trying 21:29 to um undermine you so they can get ahead. Your toughest relationship of work are going to be with your peers because they're jealous of you and they want to get ahead of you for that promotion. Okay? Build bridges, build coalitions, the 21:45 best relationships you can build with your colleagues where you're looking to help them be successful. Hey, I I'm happy to get successful. Now, however, you don't want your colleagues to stomp over you and take credit for the work 21:56 you're doing and so on so forth. and that there's an opportunity with your boss one-on-one when you're with them to clarify what you worked on. And and if you're faithful, I am sure Daniel had friends, but Daniel's work stood out for 22:10 itself. Okay? And the Lord gave him favor in the eyes of Nebuchadnezzar or Belichazer or Darius or whoever was the king there. So don't be discouraged by colleagues who are trying to undermine you. They are the crabs that are trying 22:26 to pull you down. I describe the story of crabs in a bucket. They're all trying to pull each other down. Politics exists. Every organization with even 10 people has politics. Sadly, even in a church there's politics. People are 22:40 trying to grab on top of each other and become the boss and so on so forth. So, you have to be you can either be a victim of politics, okay? Or you can say, "Lord, you're going to give me strength and a tough nature to deal with 22:53 politics and and work through it." And in my 30 plus years careers, I've had story after story. Probably I'll write a book on how to handle politics. It happens all the time. All the time. But so far, the Lord has not made me a 23:10 victim of politics so much that I've been burned at the stake like the first century Christians. Okay? I still am alive. I'm here. I've not gotten everything I wanted every single time. >> Many times I've been passed over, 23:23 promotion, this that the other. People make fun of me. I'll give you a small insight. Okay? There is a website called Blind. Okay? Blind is a website where people can anonymously post whatever they don't like about the company. Okay? 23:39 And you have to log in from your company email. So you can't obviously see it all of you, but all of the Cohesi people can go and see it. And it's anonymous. If you're a cohesi person, you log into blind, you should see the things they 23:52 say about me. is very humbling. I stop reading it because it's like I mean I'm hated on that for something or the other. Okay, I say Lord that's if I want to read it I can use it humbling but that's I'm going to work every day to 24:08 honor you but then when I'm at work I my audience are my employees and my customers every day I want to make my employees and my customers successful. Okay, there's going to be some my employees aren't happy. try to do the 24:21 best we can and maybe the reasons that they're happy are legitimate, some they're not. So I think the same way here your relationship with your colleagues um you know seek to build bridges, build coalitions, but then um 24:34 you know don't allow um you know what they think of you ultimately to affect your work uh quality. >> Amen. >> Thank you. >> All right, question seven. I've been thinking of leaving my job due to lack of ways of working, losing interest in 24:48 mental stress. I'm open to a smaller role seeking God's will on whether to stay or leave. Any guidance for how to think through such decisions? >> Yeah, I think that's a good one. And career changes happen on average. I 25:00 think now the Gen Z Gen Z is the people in their 20s, they change jobs every two years. I've not changed jobs that often. I've typically in the last two jobs worked eight years each of them. I've been three and a half years now at 25:12 Kesley. I could imagine ending my career retired at Kesley. I love the company that much. Um but if the Lord's you know pray first off for guidance maybe seek the godly counsel of those around you as to whether thing and make sure you land 25:28 another job. Don't it's it's um it's tough in this environment to be jobless for a long period of time. So, it doesn't mean that you're at work and you're constantly interviewing, but I think it's it's wise to, you know, 25:43 unless you really have a certainty that you can take some time off and and do it and you have enough savings. Um, you know, the change of a career, you want to think carefully. It's like you're not sometimes and especially as you get 25:55 older, it's harder to switch jobs because, um, you know, people often think, okay, you know what, are you as hungry in your 50s and 60s as you are in your 30s and 40s? you probably if you're young, you could probably do this more 26:08 often, right? Where you switch one to the other or go to a smaller company and certainly if you are, you know, the first part of this is you are you're losing interest uh and there's a lot of stress in some of the situations where 26:23 I've had to change. I don't tend to be a person that gets stressed very much. Um like the Lord has allowed me to handle that in a different way. So I don't deal with the blood pressure of stress as much but I could I could I I was 26:36 starting to sense there was a lot of politics in the company and over course of several months the Lord opened a new door for me and u without going into detail in the two changes I made moving from SAP to VMware and then of course 26:52 VMware um it was because of a situation where the door ultimately was clear to me that it was closed. So the Lord will give you that. And um you know my encouragement to you is there should be no place for discouragement. You know 27:07 we've seen that we've heard that right? Make discouragement and condemnation a oneway. Don't be condemned. Don't don't make discouragement um a make it a one-way street. I'm not going to enter down that street. Lord, give me the encouragement I need for 27:21 today so that um even though I have to go to work from 8 to 5 or 8 to 6 or whatever have you um I am going to use that opportunity to honor you and you are going to give me the joy. You're going to give me that spark in my life. 27:36 No human being, you know, there's a great verse that it's a great saying that some famous person said that there's a hole in everybody that can only be filled by God. There's a hole in everybody's heart that can only be 27:52 filled by God. So all of these things are holes. Uh I'm discouraged. I'm losing interest. I'm mental stress. These are holes in our and we all naturally go through them because we're human or they were victim of the the 28:03 world we live in that can only be filled by God. No uh work satisfaction cuz and even a work satisfaction u of a project or success or whatever is temporal because my own experience is often a few successes are followed by a failure. So 28:23 um the Lord give you a brother sister who's written this wisdom on how to handle it. Okay. >> Yeah. >> Sanjay if I may say one verse here um Romans 15:13 has come to my mind often in regards to issues like this. It says 28:38 may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. And that that word abound hope has really resonated with me. And I what the Lord has spoken to me 28:52 is dread. That dread that I feel is the opposite of hope. >> And as you said, Sanjay, that's a hole. I love that picture. That dread is a hole. And what will fill the hole isn't a better role. It what will fill the hole is the hope that comes in Jesus 29:10 Christ. >> And so for me, I've taken that very seriously. And I I just wanted to add that verse for the encouragement of whoever asked that question. Okay, let's see. Uh question eight. It says, "Is it okay to remove staff when they disobey 29:22 my command? Because I think if I become lenient, they will take advantage and fail in their roles. As a Christian in a responsible role, what should I do?" >> Yeah, this sounds like it's a manager of a team as opposed to just an individual 29:35 contributor. I think just because someone disobys your command I think that's not not just a reason to there are many people who often don't listen to me there people the I think that where we've where I've had to make those 29:51 changes in the team it's not because people I actually want people to disagree with me okay but we call this disagree and commit like we all if we're all going to get together and many times I'm wrong about should we do this, 30:06 should we do that? And let's assume you're the manager and so I think the thing that I would want to ask in this question is, is the person in your staff doing this because it's the right thing to do? Are they doing it just to be 30:18 rebellious? And the way to find out is to have a team meeting and say, "Hey, listen. Is this the thing we should do or not?" And if the person is doing this just to be rebellious, it be very obvious. And there'll be other people on 30:29 the team who are saying, "Yeah, this person is doing this just to undermine you." and someone who's repeatedly rebellious and political. Okay, they're going to forget them being rebellious towards you. They're going to destroy 30:40 the team. But you can do this if you're the manager, you can have again a crucial conversation. You can have a conversation with them saying, um, I think this is the right thing to do. Why are you repeatedly doing this? Um, and 30:55 maybe they explain themselves and maybe they can change. I believe before you have had when you finally take the decision to move someone out of the company, you should have had many conversations. The crulest thing you can 31:08 do to somebody is fire them before you've given them feedback. As again, you know, do unto others you want done to you. Imagine that someone fired you and you never had feedback on what you could do better. That's the crulest 31:20 thing you can do as a manager is fire someone you never gave them feedback along the way. And they worse than that sometimes you uh they you've given them good feedback all along in their reviews and suddenly you decided because they're not 31:34 listening to you and they bring back all their reviews and say listen I was a a good employee for many many years and then suddenly so if you're a manager the most important thing you have to learn is how to give feedback 31:47 constructive feedback 360 feedback 360 feedback I call this often 360 means you're the middle and there's a circle around There's a 360 circle around you. Who's above you? Your boss. Who's to the side of you? Your peers. Who's below 32:00 you? People who report to you. You want to have a regular way by which you're receiving and giving 360 feedback. Often as a manager, I um I ask of my people, my team, and I often ask of me three questions that I ask people to respond 32:17 to. It only takes 15 minutes to respond about this. So this is the feedback I then use to give of that person and I use that same template for people to give feedback of me. Here are the three questions. Number one, okay, please pay attention. What 32:34 three to five things does this person do well? Okay, question number two. What one to three things can this person improve? Did you notice the difference? I want to start with what they do well and I want more of what they do well 32:49 than what they can improve at. What three to five things that they do well. What second question, what one to three things can they improve? Third question, on a scale of 1 to five. Okay. Um five being they walk walk on water. They use 33:05 this expression walk on water meaning they do nothing wrong and one means they they're utter failure. How do you rate the person? Okay. And we have a rating scheme in our company. Five is exceptional and one should be I forget 33:16 that. So we use those numbers one through five. Answering those questions often takes only 15 minutes. Now once a year when I'm collecting feedback either on my team people report to me or I ask people to do it to me. I give these 33:30 three questions. Okay. So imagine if you've never given people feedback and then suddenly you decide, oh this person's not a fit. How do you think they feel? So we all need to get comfortable in a very structured way giving and receiving feedback. And I'll 33:44 tell you what, feedback is a gift. Do not be defensive when you receive feedback that's constructive where you can improve. And the best place to learn that, you know, brothers and sisters, is the church. >> I am so grateful for critique that a 33:59 brother or sister may give me even if it's public at the pulpit about me. We should be humbled to receive it. Feedback is a gift. receive it and the Lord will make you better and the best place to learn it is the humility at the 34:14 church. Uh and if you do that it becomes easy to to give and receive that and then when you give it if I talk about receiving it give it I mean I think a Christian giving feedback can do it in a very gracious way because often we're 34:27 trying to do it in love and we're trying to do it in a way that's help we're like trying to do it like a coach. we're trying to make them better as opposed to I'm trying to show why I'm better than you. Right? So I think feedback when 34:39 given by a Christian to someone on their team could be done in a very way that makes them wow I really appreciate it. And then the final thing I would say if you're going to remove someone from your staff ask yourself how can you help 34:52 them? Okay, I have unfortunately had to make decisions with people who had to leave the company and you know what I've done? I've helped them find their next job. Really important you help them. Okay. Um and unless they've done something 35:10 illegal or they're unethical or hardworking, there's probably a few things they do well and that person needs another job. And the person who can be a reference for them in that next job is you as the manager. And sometimes 35:25 it doesn't work out in one company, but it could work out for them well in the next company. Thank you. >> Okay, let's see. Question number nine. Due to some health issues, I'm unable to work at a regular job and I do some work 35:37 for my family which my family supports me. I am also supported by the church for some tasks. Am I doing the right thing? Yeah, I think this is one where um I have a lot of empathy for this uh because um this is a person who 35:56 is is it's tough because of health and I think the most important thing I tell our team members I work to your health comes first always comes first your health and your family comes first I hope you have an understanding job 36:10 manager um who will support you in this stage of life. I hope it's not permanent, but um um you know, but the most important thing you can pray for is a supporting manager um that can help you through that. Sometimes you may have to take um 36:29 disability or time off. Uh you should not feel um bad about the fact that during those moments of of health, you have to step back a little bit. I think if it happened to me, I would have a a conversation with my manager and say, "I 36:43 need to work less." And that may be for a season, but if it is permanently, the Lord will give you grace um to hopefully support yourself. It sounds like this one person may be also being supported by the church. That's good. Um and then 36:57 say, "Okay, Lord, for this season, I'm not able to be a Daniel, the number two person in Egypt." That's okay. That's totally okay. there's plenty of other people who could to serve as hopefully you're able to support your family 37:10 that's more important and um um I pray that your health will be important but my attitude as a manager often uh is to support people like this and the most important thing if you're a manager is to support people in your team and to 37:24 give them all the space they need to be able to deal with their health. That's much more important. And when you do that, you build a culture in your company that actually allows people, let's say it's a season that they're 37:35 going through a health issue, they come back um that they're very supported. But I pray the brother, sister who's going through this, that um your your health is restored and you have enough to be able to support your family. 37:49 >> Uh I'm the sole bread winner in my family. Need to support my parents financially, which I'm happy to do. However, I sometimes feel pressure taking various responsibilities and managing work. >> Yeah, I think again my short answer here 38:02 is uh honor your father and mother. Uh it is really important that you do that. I've always considered when you honor your father and mother, the Lord takes care of you. And again, you know, pray through that pressure of the Lord. 38:15 Pressure of taking various responsibilities and managing work. Give me grace. uh my grace is sufficient to you because my power is manifest through weakness. So when we go through those I really believe the grace of the Lord can 38:29 be sufficient to you to help you. Nowadays it feels like only the Holy Spirit can help other Christians rather than sharing my experience to people. Is this normal? >> I didn't fully understand this question but I think the person is trying to 38:43 figure out how can you share your experience about your godly experiences. Yes, the Holy Spirit is the only thing that we can depend on. Um um so I seek the Holy Spirit if I understand this question right. It's for sharing your experiences with other 39:00 people. Uh but I'm also sensitive not to like I said earlier to my my job is not to make everyone a cohesively Christian. I want to be a godly witness. But the Lord opens up opportunities for me to fellowship with other believers in 39:15 amazing ways for another time. Uh and I've shared this publicly. It's amazing how the Lord has connected me with people um and in the workplace. We're able to pray together um and so on so forth. And um I don't I don't want those 39:29 people. You should not have the Christians in your workplace be some sort of favorite people or people who get special to you. But praise God if you meet some others that you can fellowship with. You have to work with the most competent people who accomplish 39:42 the results that your company needs. But you can certainly fellowship with other Christians and the Holy Spirit will guide you to them in the workplace. >> When I get closer to God, I feel different from the world forgiving them 39:56 but minimal time with them and a bit isolated like a fish out of water. Is this normal for a Christian? Have you felt this way? Yes, you should feel because the road is narrow, right? There's a there's a gate and a path and 40:11 it's narrow the way and the path of the gate. Yes, it's narrow. So, uh but that doesn't mean you know we have to be in the world but not of the world. So, I described there's like 6,000 people almost 6,000 people coast and there's 40:26 been, you know, much bigger the other companies we worked at. um we we that's not I mean ultimately that may not be the people I'm spending eternity with. So the Lord reminds me uh of that but the Lord can give you the courage to work um um and accomplish 40:44 what needs to be accomplished for the workplace but also realize that is not your kingdom. Okay? Your treasure, your citizenship uh is in heaven. And often that comes from me because I get motivated by the intellectual um desire 41:02 to learn. I have been like the mind is a muscle, right? And I've been a forever learner. I want to learn and right now there's so much I mean Jeremy's one of the experts in this area. There's so much learn about AI. So every year I 41:15 find something new that I can learn about. I mean it's obviously for me something in the tech industry and I love learning. So I want to hear from others. I want to learn from others. So even if you're feeling a little bit 41:27 isolated, find a topic that you can learn about that can motivate you um um you know that is related to your industry you're in. And for me right now I've been tremendously motivated by what's happening with artificial intelligence and AI because it's amazing 41:44 uh how this technology is changing a lot of our lives and and could make my company more productive. So I want to learn. Uh Jeremy's one of the people I learned from. He sometimes gets some of his people that are on this topic in a 41:56 group that we learn from. I seek other people. So use ways by which you can motivate yourself um um by learning. >> Yeah, it's well said the way yeah, you know, as I think I've thought about this, bro, um if everyone is do, you 42:14 know, there's there's a sense in which we should feel like aliens, you know, and the way is broad that leads to destruction. And if and just because everybody's doing it is not a good reason to do something. You know, the 42:24 way is narrow that leads to life and few there be that find it. Um however, it's I think that Sanjay gave a really wonderful counterbalance there, which is you should still find ways to be engaged and be invigorated. You shouldn't be so 42:38 alien that you are you're uncaring about, you know, things at work, for example. And so that's that's a really good balance. All right, let's see. This one is from a student. I'm in the 12th standard. I need God's guidance about my 42:50 life and career ahead, but my ears are not tuned to understand that God may be speaking to me. What should I do? >> Yeah, it's fully as an 18-year-old, I I don't know that I had full clarity. I think the most important advice I'd give 43:03 you is uh study hard, go to college. I do think it's a wise choice to go to college. Of course, if you feel like your discipline is not to go to college, but to do another, that's okay. But I do think going to college is a wise thing 43:15 because it opens up the opportunity for you to get a job. Um it's very normal at 18 to not know clear it's about guidance career. What I thought I might be doing at 18 is not what I'm doing in my 50s. So God will give you that. Don't feel 43:29 discouraged about it. And certainly don't feel pressure from the world or even your parents to have clarity of that at age 18. Um say Lord I'm going to embark on the next step which is college. Maybe I'm interested in uh 43:40 computer science or math or engineering or biology or history whatever it is. and then bring people to my life um that that who who were working a job I I could see myself growing right and certainly you should in in your church 43:57 you might find others um I was in growing up we had a number of folks who um in the 1980s okay was studying in one of the institutes in Bangalore who was starting to do this thing called computer science and I was very enamored 44:13 by what because they were talking about these were the early days of PCs and computing and things of those kinds. They were and I was very intrigued by that and that developed my interest in software. There was no we didn't grow up 44:23 with a PC at our home. There was no laptops, there was no phones, things of those kinds. So, um that sparked that interest. But I watched a few of these folks and then as I got into college, I developed an interest in software, but I 44:35 did not have clarity on that when I was 18 at all. I had an interest in math um mathematics and I pursued that. But so if you don't feel that and what God's speaking to you that will get clearer hopefully by the time you get into 44:49 college but seek advice and I'm very grateful for many of these young brothers who were in colleges in Bangalore than later on when I was in college here in the United States uh that I could learn from and watch and then everything in my that age teenage 45:05 20s was asking other people questions. I've benefited tremendously in my life from asking other people qu what should I do? How should you do it? And I have no problem being the stupidest person in the room. How what should I do? What 45:16 should I do? What do you think? What do you think? Uh and there were very blessed that at various stages of my life there were people who could answer those questions. And I I like that verse right in the council of many there's 45:27 wisdom. And the council of the godly hopefully there's many there's wisdom. So um we don't get the chance to talk to millions of people. But the Lord could put a few dozen in your life that can give you guidance uh on on this. But at 45:40 your stage, age 18, I would say the most important advice I can give you is go to college and study hard. >> And if you really want to know what God's voice sounds like, read your Bible and listen to the messages that anointed 45:55 servants of God are speaking. >> Amen. And so that's the that's the other thing is if you want to know what God's voice sounds like, go where you know he's speaking and listen and that will tune when I like that word that you used 46:08 here brother or sister tuned >> the way you tune your ear just like if I want to tune my ears to know the sound of cold play or so I have to listen to them right listen to God read his word listen to his word being preached and 46:21 then you'll start to be able to discern his voice in other areas as well. Okay, let's see. How should I use AI? Sanjay, everybody is using it in assignments and I use it too, but I feel guilty for not learning the topic 46:35 enough. It's better at coding and I don't see the reason to learn coding anymore. >> Yeah. Um, this is a wonderful question. Maybe Jeremy can be the expert on this because he knows more about AI than me. But I think it's a it's a little bit 46:47 like how do you use a typewriter, how do you use a word processor, how do you use spellch check? Certainly in college uh if your professor says you're not allowed to use cursor or github copilot or whatever have you to generate your 46:59 code okay you do but I think today that's a very superficial way of doing it so every professor in college even studying computer science um is adapting to how to use this appropriately because they it's just it's too hard it's like 47:11 telling people don't use a computer anymore um I do think it's important that we learn basic principles right um think about a calculator I want to teach our kids how to add 3 + 3 or 33 + 33, but when they get to age u 16, do I 47:29 really need to have them go and write down a paper 33.333 * 3? Use a calculator. There's a reason for that because you learned the principles. So once you've learned the principles of coding and software, um using an AI generator is incredible. I 47:44 mean, I was telling my one of my teams when I was in college in the in the 1990s, uh, I wrote this algorithm called the night store of how a knight could cover every board of a chess board. Um, you're only allowed to visit each square 47:59 once. Um, and at the time I did not know there's actually a reasonably good algorithm to do it. Me and a kid wrote this and we won a prize and we were very proud of it. So I was typing in a cursor or GitHub copilot and it generates the 48:12 code now in seconds. It's been easy. It's easy to solve that it's done now in seconds. What took me months and we felt very accomplished. So that's great. So the kid learning now the night store if you're writing the code for that 48:26 hopefully understands the concept but then can use this code generation to help them write faster the same way you have spellch check. So I view it today as a tremendous productivity tool. So in my daily I'm not coding anymore but if 48:39 I'm talking to customers I will ask Gemini or chat GPT to give me suggestions of what I should talk to that customer about um or I want to to summarize a particular topic that I'm about to talk about or maybe even you know if your do if your company lets you 48:55 do this you might write a document and it's not very professional uh usually they'll have an internal lash line language model an LLM that you can feed the document to you're not allowed to often take your internal documents and 49:07 send it to an external LLM, but you can do that. So, there's a number of techniques to do it. Uh Jeremy, maybe you can spend a few minutes as to what your thoughts is because you know more about this topic than me. >> Well, I I don't uh I'm not a coder 49:20 developer for sure, but I think simply I would reframe it. It's irresponsible not to use it as much as possible. Um, I think uh that you should think about it as a way when you think about mastering your craft. Anyone who's not thinking about 49:39 incorporating AI into the mastery of their craft, I think is going to be at a disadvantage. And so it's not I wouldn't I wouldn't pit it against it's either I'm learning the topic or I'm using AI. I don't I don't I wouldn't I think 49:53 that's an unnecessary and false kind of opposition. I think learning to work with AI in the midst of the topic is actually now the definition of learning the topic and there may be area I mean certainly as as bro Sanjay said if your 50:09 professor disallows something I think it's important to or your boss for that matter or your company or whatever you absolutely you should obey the rules um and I would say you probably need to feel a sense of responsibility yourself 50:23 if if your professor doesn't feel the burden to make sure you know how to use AI and whatever they're assigning you. I think that you have a double assignment as a student because you can you could fool yourself and say, "Oh, it does if 50:37 my professor says it doesn't matter, then it doesn't matter." But I think that's kind of delusional. I think you should actually do the assignment once by hand or by, you know, manually and then do it a second time with AI so that 50:49 you have the experience whether your professor is requiring that or not. Same with a job. Double deliver. Do it by hand. to do the assignment as given and then for your own benefit and for your own learning do it the way that by the 51:00 way it will be done in the future and so I think it's um I wouldn't see that as at odds with learning I would see it as another pathway for learning um and I would say actually it's an abdication of responsibility if you're not doing it so 51:16 just uh again within the proper you know proper rules constructs data governance policies all that stuff but to me I think it's wrong to frame it as not learning. I I would just I would I would encourage you to think about it as it's 51:31 now a way to learn. >> Okay. >> Just wait. Let me make a plug for Jeremy. He knows a lot about this topic. He writes about the topic. He speaks a lot of the topic. So if you read his writings or his lectures um or things he does on YouTube or 51:46 blogs, please read it because uh he is tracking a lot of what's happening among the best in AI in the industry. not interested to do job because unfair in salary. I think we have to extrapolate a little bit here. >> Yeah. 52:00 Um I I think only thing I'd caution I don't want to read the intent behind this person. So I don't want to we should not do a job just for money. Okay. Um uh I hope it's not because you know I feel but if it's you feel like you're being 52:17 underpaid for what you are doing and there's no appreciation for your job. Um, and there's somebody else who's willing to pay you more for the same job, that's okay. But I don't think we should be mercenary. Mercenary people 52:30 are constantly looking, oh, who's going to pay me more for the same job, right? Um, and you know, the the culture of the world is to be a mercenary. I often call about there's a missionary and a mercenary, right? I like hiring people who are 52:45 missionaries who really are focused on the mission. They really want to help the company be. Yes, money is important, but it's very hard even as a leader to constantly if someone's always immersed in the company telling you they're being 52:57 underpaid. However, if you feel it's absolutely unfair, somebody else in the company is getting more and you're being a victim of politics, it's totally okay. My only caution here is don't develop the mindset of the world, which is to be 53:10 a mercenary, which is constantly looking for that. If you're a victim of it, it's totally okay to bring it up. But even in your company, if you feel it's unfair, you can talk to your boss. You can talk to HR and say, "Listen, I think this is 53:22 unfair. What do you think? Should I be paid more appropriately?" And the the money conversation, you know, there's some people I have in my team where the money conversation comes a lot. However, it doesn't. It's totally appropriate for 53:35 you to bring that up, but if you're bringing that up with your boss all the time, okay, I think you're not going to build it. Your boss is going to think this person's like greedy. So, but at the right points in time and it's at 53:45 least once a year, it's appropriate to say, "Hey, listen. You know, is is there an opportunity to adjust my compensation and do it again?" That's an example of a crucial conversation. And we all need wisdom on crucial conversations. How do I have that 54:00 crucial conversation? You want to you don't want to go and just wing it. You want to prepare for that conversation with data, with fact, and then, you know, ask for the Lord. Lord, give me favor in the eyes of my manager when I 54:12 have this conversation. Why? Because the heart of my boss is in the palm of the lord and maybe you can have and then of course if the choice is to leave the company so be it. >> Is it wrong to speak strongly which is just and correct on uh to the manager in 54:26 the office? I spoke sometimes strongly to them regardingly regarding what is just like if they told me to do anything not correct. >> I tend to like people on my team who debate me. Now I when you say strongly I hope you're not cussing out your manager and 54:43 things like but I want people who have a conviction. I want people who are passionate. I don't want someone who's just very docel. So I encourage people and I want people actually who give me the counterpoint to my point. So I 54:56 encourage that in my staff meetings. You know it often if you were sitting in a staff meeting it sounds often like cacophony. Cacophony means everyone's talking. It's like they're talking over each other. Now, it's a little hard to 55:08 do that in Zoom, but in in-person meetings, I love that. And sometimes people accuse my staff meetings of being a little bit disorganized, but it's because I've encouraged debate. So, I hope your manager will support you 55:22 speaking your mind. But I don't think it's appropriate for a Christian to like cuss out people. You know, I'm there are times I'm upset, but this is how again whether you know, even I could say this to my boss. Um but I would say I think 55:37 this is unacceptable. We should not be tolerating this uh and this feels like either negligence or you know but I don't have to say this is a stupid person. I can't believe this person is such an idiot. That's not how I want to 55:50 describe them. But I can call out incompetence or we can call out and I'm not saying I don't I it's not my job to to I feel appropriate to call out incompetence my boss. But I would say listen I think we we it's good to say we 56:06 I think we can do things better here. Okay. And we is you and your boss the Lord will give you ways by which you could do it even in a place where you need to correct your manager the wrong. Now insecure managers don't like to be 56:18 corrected. Okay that's okay and that's unfortunate but you know I think it's a sign of a great leader when someone comes to them. Now don't make every conversation with your manager let me tell you how you could be wrong or you 56:32 can be corrected u remember what I shared when I was asking for feedback right what three to five things does this person do well what one to three things can this person improve so occasionally you may have to have that correction conversation with 56:47 your manager but many other times it's complimenting them for they're doing well nobody wants to hear correction all the time critique critique critique critique you're encouraging and know maybe nine times you're you're 56:59 encouraging one time you're critiquing right and this is by the way most important when you are a manager of employees it's a little bit like when you're a manager they're your children imagine you have children and your 57:09 entire conversation with your children is you're always critiquing them nine times out of 10 you're critiquing them no maybe nine times out of 10 you're encouraging them and one time out of 10 you're you're critiquing them make sure 57:20 that you you work that balance certainly if you're a manager with your employees but also up the chain and by the way the same thing applies to your colleagues, right? You want to develop a a very good relationship with your colleagues, your 57:33 peers, right? Where you can give and receive. Often people find it hard to praise their colleagues. Why? Because they're jealous of them. I think one of the best things you can do is find ways which you can compliment your colleagues 57:45 and build them up. Thank you. >> Well said. Yeah, that the word we is a very powerful word. I I wholeheartedly agree with that. Uh I'm in college and I see many options to special in. How do I see God's will in choosing a field? 58:02 >> Praise God that you have many. Some people don't have many. They have few or one. So thank God that you have many. Pray the Lord will give you wisdom. Uh pray the Lord will give you I've often prayed Lord okay there are many doors 58:15 here open or doors open. Close several doors and open one or maybe open one or two. And often the Lord's answer that prayer. So don't be discouraged if some of those options close. >> Okay? And that's often a prayer that 58:28 will give you God's divine guidance to saying, "Okay, this is the door you should choose." And sometimes all the doors close. Okay? Maybe a season for you to take some time and wait. Uh but I pray the Lord will open the right door 58:41 for it. It's it's a healthy um to say, "Lord, you know, I'm asking you for bread. You're not going to give me a stone." What is that? I'm looking for a job. Lord, open a job for me because I need to provide for my family or I need 58:54 to start my career. I'm asking you for bread. Seek ye first the kingdom of the Lord and all that you need. Okay? Not all that you want. It's not ask Lord I'm not asking for ice cream and dessert. I'm asking for the basic food. The Lord 59:09 will open that door for you. I work hard and smart in my department but the head of the department is repeatedly allocating more tasks to the people who are working hard while others are enjoying no motivation what can be done. 59:24 So yeah this I I think we've answered this variant of this is politics at work and don't be discouraged by it and also don't be a victim of it. The heart of the king is the palm of the Lord. Lord, I'm going to go to the head of the 59:36 department, the vice president maybe, and ask help or maybe my boss. I don't know if the head of department is your boss or several layers above you, but don't be a victim of this process. Say, Lord, I'm going to ask for help to solve 59:48 it. I am sure that Daniel and Joseph had a lot of politics in their life. You can either be a victim of politics or you can say, "Lord, I'm going to work through it." Okay? And I have chosen, Lord, I'm not going to be a victim of 1:00:00 this. At some point time I may become a victim of it but I'm not going to start with that assumption. I'm going to find your way by which you help me solve through this cuz it's a little bit like a psychology problem. How do I do it? 1:00:11 And sometimes it gets solved, sometimes it doesn't. So the Lord give you wisdom. Thank you. >> Okay. Question 19. I am having a good enough free time during my work. As an experienced person, I am able to work less than the time they have expected, 1:00:25 but I'm not sure whether I should use the free time in reading God's word. How should I use the extra bandwidth I have as an experienced individual? >> If I unless your boss and your saying you shouldn't be you know there's things 1:00:41 to be done. I I don't personally micromanage my people if they have to you know. So I just say the Lord if you don't feel you are um you know being misusing the time or the resources of your company it's totally appropriate um 1:00:59 to to use time to read God's word but just make sure that you're getting your your job done. Now the philosophy in which I um have worked and companies I've worked with, we don't monitor people as they come in. We don't badge 1:01:13 them. Do you come at 8 five? How many hours you worked? We we want a outcomes. We want something done an accomplishment. So the Lord gave the ability for Daniel to get something done in one hour that everyone took 10 n 10 1:01:28 hours and the other 3 4 hours in the evenings. Uh, but I do think it's appropriate during the work day for people to visibly see us as working and not goofing off or doing things. But, you know, um, I give you a kic every 1:01:45 Monday morning a group of people have a Bible study. Um, and I join try to join it as often as I can. Of course, if I have a customer meeting or other meetings I can, that's totally okay. But if my people at work said, "This guy is 1:01:58 like all the time in Bible studies." Um um I don't think that's a good testimony for me certainly as the lead of the company. But so you got to find a balance here in terms of what people how people view the free time that you have. 1:02:11 But if you're getting your job done um and you're experienced and you're able to do it and you're able to do it in a way where the time you have to read God's word is not an impact on your job, even if people see you doing that, 1:02:22 that's okay. Actually, it's a could be a witness. um um uh saying, but but make sure that you are certainly getting your job done and that your witness isn't that you're you're you're goofing off at work or you're not doing the work that's 1:02:37 needed. That would be the only thing I would say. Other than that, it's praise God that you are experienced, you're able to get things done um faster. Give the the Lord glory for that. And certainly giving back to the Lord. I do 1:02:49 think as as Jeremy said earlier, it's really important that we begin every day or have points in time where we read God's word. It really is important. Um, and sometimes it could be just you're going, you know, many of us have to 1:03:04 drive to work. That's one of the best times going to work, coming back from work to listen or read the Lord's word. If you're driving, you can listen. If you are if you're in a bus or something else, you can um you can read. But the 1:03:20 Lord will use those times. I find those times to because it takes me half an hour to get to work, half an hour to come back. Those are incredible times to open the daily devotional or just put the Bible app on on audio mode and 1:03:35 listen and the Lord will give you ways to do it. So if you have that time at the in the beginning of every day that you have to do and um you can keep that away from work um that would be a blessing.