50 DAYS OF WISDOM - DAY 40 "HOW GOOD MANNERS GET YOU PLACES" PROVERBS 18:16

SALT WATER

Building a Palapa with my friends to cover the half pipe we built in the foreground. Our surf spot is in the background which is usually good with the morning and evening trade winds.

CLEAN WATER

Reverse Osmosis bucket distribution to over 100 homes

LIVING WATER

The night I did a chapter reading from my book at OB Beans - what a fun night

Hi, Dr. Ryan here. Today I want to talk to you about Proverbs 18 verse 16. Thank you for joining us for this 245th episode. We just passed 28,000 downloads. If you'd do me a favor and share this with a friend, it helps us get God's Word, that living water, out to as many people as possible. It's all free. We just want people to be blessed and to be able to learn.

This scripture says, a gift opens the way and ushers the giver into the presence of the great. Now, I told you I'd be spending the next few episodes dealing with one scripture at a time because there's so much to dig into here in the book of Proverbs. This scripture is interesting.

It says a gift. Now, there's two ways to interpret a gift opening a way for someone.

One, it could be a bribe. This is the way that big contracts are obtained or large business transactions are perpetrated and executed. A lot of times there's bribes involved or discounts, etc. The other way to look at this is a simple courtesy. A different way of reading it is a bribe opens the way and ushers the giver. I think of it as a courtesy. What does a courtesy mean?

Well, it's just being polite. It's astonishing to me how much customer service has changed from the present day to when I was in university. When I was in university, a tip was something that you assumed you had to work for. It wasn't something that you took for granted. Boy, that's changed. In fact, my experience with just overall people's pleasantness, their disposition of being friendly, being open with no strings attached has really gone down.

There's a real opportunity there just by practicing basic courtesy, basic emotional intelligence, basic good manners will help get you places. That's what this is teaching.

Another way of reading this, good manners opens the way for you.

What's the way?

It opens up the door of opportunity in your life when you understand that you treat people with respect and with joy and with kindness. Your people intelligence, your ability to interact with people in a positive manner will determine a lot of the potential and opportunity that you're going to have in your life. It says, and it ushers the giver into the presence of the great.

What is... It says a gift opens, so good manners opens. This indicates authenticity, so when you're operating from a place of not needing anything from anyone and not wanting anything from anyone, this is the lane of authenticity you want to find yourself in.

Now, if you're courteous and you have good manners and you're in the lane of authenticity, opportunity will open up for you. It says that you'll be the giver into the presence of the great.

What does the great mean here? There's lots of different things. I want to dive into this. It says that you're going to have large opportunity, both in the magnitude and the extent. You're going to have a great number of opportunity when you learn how to practice this. The amount of intensity around that opportunity is going to grow. The opportunity is going to grow in importance. Great things and greatness all hinge upon this manners idea, this courtesy idea. Really want you to lean in and be thinking about, how can I show better manners?

How can I show more kindness? How can I show more courtesy in my life? As you do that, you'll get a lane of authenticity and opportunity will open up for you in a way that you never imagined.

Thanks so much for joining me for today's episode. Until next time, please share this with someone and I hope that you have a beautiful day.