Life blood

I just blogged on this in my personal daily blog today (stevefredlund.blogspot.com), but I felt it was appropriate for this weekly blog as well. Normally I wouldn't duplicate, but I thought it was an insight that could be beneficial to the two different audiences.

I spent the weekend in Brainerd for my MBA program - about 19 hours of lecture and work studying managerial finance & decision-making. One of the key elements from the discussion was how important cash flow is to any organization. Even if turning a significant profit, if an organization is not realizing positive operating cash flow, it could be in trouble.

What about our personal lives? Sometimes we do so many good things which creates a net profit for us in terms of our current good deeds and our future (volunteering, working, studying, etc). The question is,: do we have positive cash flow, which is the life blood of any organization. I think positive cash flow for our lives are those things the give us energy (relationships or fishing or retreating or soccer or whatever) and negative cash flow for our lives are those things that drain us of energy (lack of sleep or relationships or fishing or retreating or soccer or whatever). I think we need to make sure we are experiencing not just profit (good things > bad things) but also positive cash flow (energy givers > energy drainers).

I could get into a discussion on the parallels between this and "working capital" versus "shareholder equity" but then I might annoy all of you (negative cash flow for ya).

May we be Colossians 3:23 people that in whatever we do, we do it as if we are working for God and not for man. But may we also be wise in knowing what it is we are to put our hands to based on our current personal "cash flow" and an understanding of the sources of cash flow.