In this of "Blank Pages, host Tim Pecoraro delves into the importance of serving others selflessly, especially in challenging times. With recent events like Hurricane Helene in mind, Tim highlights the significance of generosity and a proactive mindset. He explores five key qualities that form a servant's heart, discusses overcoming negative perceptions of serving, and shares personal stories that underscore adaptability and selflessness. Tune in to discover how to cultivate a servant's heart and the profound impact it can have on your life and those around you.

Main Topic 1: Importance of Generosity and Proactive Service (02:15)

• Tim opens the episode discussing the recent Hurricane Helene and how such events call for proactive service and generosity.
• Emphasizes the importance of being willing to risk hard-earned possessions to help others.
• Stresses the mindset shift required to prioritize others' needs over personal comfort and convenience.

Main Topic 2: Five Key Qualities of a Servant’s Heart (10:30)

• Selflessness: Focus on others' needs.
• Empathy: Be sensitive to others' feelings and needs.
• Humility: Serve without seeking recognition.
• Eagerness to Help: Actively find ways to assist.
• Vision for Others’ Growth: Empower others to better themselves and contribute positively.

Main Topic 3: Challenges and Misconceptions About Service (22:05)

• Addresses potential negative perceptions, such as being seen as weak or lacking ambition.
• Discusses the risk of being taken advantage of or having motives questioned.
• Highlights that service is often unappreciated, leading to frustration and resentment.

Main Topic 4: Practical Steps to Cultivate a Servant’s Heart (34:45)

• Importance of everyday actions: Seek opportunities to help, listen attentively, and anticipate others' needs.
• Promotes spiritual growth through prayer, reflection, and studying examples of servant leadership (e.g., Mother Teresa, Abraham Lincoln, Gandhi).
• Advises addressing personal obstacles such as resentment and unrealistic expectations.
• Focus on the purpose behind acts of service, valuing faithfulness over success.
• Encourages intentional practice and persistence, starting with small daily acts of service.
• Emotional management: Recognize and manage frustration to maintain a positive perspective.

Additional Resources

• Podcast Subscription: Subscribe to "Blank Pages" on your preferred platform.
• Membership Community: Learn more about the member-invited, supportive community.
• Upcoming Courses: Stay updated on new courses and resources.
• Signature Work: Look out for Tim's upcoming content aimed at helping you gain clarity and improve personal standards.
• Servant Leadership Examples: Research figures like Mother Teresa, Abraham Lincoln, and Gandhi.
• Spiritual Guidance: Reflect on spiritual growth and selfless service.

Remember to follow, rate, and review "Blank Pages" on all your favorite podcast platforms. Your support helps spread the message of developing a servant's heart and embracing new beginnings.

Welcome to Blank Pages, the podcast. A podcast for people who appreciate the new beginnings of a clean slate, but strive for the courage, willingness, curiosity, and creativity available only on the blank pages of new possibilities. It's the potential to move beyond and move forward, where people are willing to make new decisions from fresh perspectives and are ready to write in a much better way. The world is waiting, and nothing listens better than a blank piece of paper. So, hey, friends, welcome to the show. I'm so excited that you're joining me today. I'm going to continue on talking about service, and we have so much going on in the world right now that, I mean, there's a lot going on. I mean, last week's episode, I talked about serving people because of the experience of Hurricane Helene.

And there's a lot of people suffering right now. There's a lot of people going through a lot of hard stuff right now. So I just wanna stir people up to be active and proactive and that they would get involved. I've been having a lot of conversations with folks just around, just things that have happened, things are experiencing, things that they've seen, things that they've heard. And I'm not going to jump on and pile on with those. I'm just going to let you know there's a lot of need out there, and you don't have to look far. I'm convinced you can find what you're looking for. If you want to help somebody, you can find places to help.

You can find places to serve. The question is, do you want to? That's the question. Do you want to find needs to help to fill voids and gaps? And also, I want to challenge you with generosity and being authentic with your giving. We can be stingy as people. Very stingy. Like, I worked hard for this. Yeah. Okay, well, I mean, what the thing I found out is, no matter what, you've worked hard for a lot of things, but you also can lose a lot of the things that you worked hard for.

And it can happen overnight, it can happen by a storm, it can happen by any other act. It can happen by just making dumb decisions. Sometimes that's what happens to us. Sometimes we find our lives are, um, you know, whether our lives are sum total of all of our decisions. So a lot of times our decisions that we're making can take all the things that we have acquired, built up, saved up for, and it could be gone and gone because of bad decisions. So that's not what we're gonna talk about, though. So if you're listening to the show right now. If you're on Apple Podcasts, if you're on Spotify podcast, if you're on audible or Odyssey, if you're on substack, if you're on Amazon Music, please go ahead and like the show.

Subscribe and follow. And I've had a lot of people adding joining in, and I'm working on some topics that I'm really excited about that are coming. And you don't wanna miss these topics because I just feel I am moving more into that real deep heart stuff. Just, I feel like that's where I'm supposed to spend a lot of time, especially around the three areas that I feel called to work in. That is helping people to get clarity in their lives, help them to, if they're living forward and they have a plan to live forward, it's like, what are the things that they need to do? What are the standards they have to have in their life in order to make the future that they want to become true? In other words, what are those standards? What are the things that you need to become true in order for you to embrace your call to and for more? Sometimes I have to help you, or I would like to help you define what that is and look for that and help you get clarity for that, obviously. So my community is going great. Just launched the first group, the first wave. It is a membership community that will be launched out for.

And what's nice is it's the members invite the members. That's how it works. So if you're out there and you're looking for it, you may see things about it, but it's not a can I join? Its members will bring in members. And that's the beauty of what I'm building, because I want to keep the noise out of the community. I don't want to have people in there trying to sell their stuff and trying to hustle people. I don't want people in there, you know, getting that are argumentative and trying to bring in their nonsense. I want it to be people that are coming in and who really want to work together to take their lives to the next level. They want to collaborate with other people who recognize their life is in a transition, some sort of change, and they want it to be a change for the better.

They may be coming out of trying to recover or to make adjustments. They may have lost everything. They may have gained everything and trying to figure out what to do with it. There's so many places that people are, but I just want a community of people from all different walks of life who are not going to guilt and shame anyone, who aren't going to make people feel less than, who are going to celebrate people, not just tolerate them. So I'm really pumped up about it and I can't wait to share more of things that are coming out of the community. That's where the benefits it is. There's going to be a lot of courses and things that I am putting together for the community, but then I'm going to offer them out into the world for other people to experience and to do what they want, because I want to share with the world. I want to be a person who blesses and gives to the broader community or world at large.

So thank you so much. If you have been listening to the show and following and giving feedback, I appreciate it. If not, you can do so. And also, if you would follow me, you can follow me, or you'd like to follow me, go to Instagram Tim Pecoron, go to my bio section, click on the link, and you can choose to follow me also on the newsletter that we put out monthly. So the newsletter is just a simple update on what is going on. What am I doing with the podcast? Just to kind of a recap, but also new things that will be coming up and we will be kicking off strong. I'm going to be starting to talk about what the new year looks like. I am putting out my signature piece of work that will help people literally get clarity, raise standards, and embrace their call to inform more in their life.

And I can't wait to put that out. So, yeah, get ready for it. And so I'm not going to do anything with my show and tell today because my show and tell is going to be this talk. So this talk is around developing a servant's heart. So I had the opportunity. My wife, she had a women's conference that she was speaking at. And so in her role, what she was doing, she's working with a whole team, all these folks, and they're doing some really cool stuff. And then the conference got bumped because of the storm, but then they pushed it out a week, and then they condensed everything down to a shorter period of time.

And so anyways, our oldest son was involved. My daughter in law, our daughter in law's involved. And so I got to watch my grandson. And so I love that little Israel was hanging out with me, and I got to spend the whole day, spent the night the night before. And so he was there with me all day, woke up at the early part of the morning, I get up, I do my quiet, and then he was up out of bed around 7715, and we were walking around and we're talking and I'm making breakfast. He had some eggs. I got to scramble up the eggs. That was so fun.

But then I realized no one left a car seat for me. Then I realized that no one left a stroller for me. Then I realized that there were other things that were missing. Then I realized because of the storm that we went through, in the hurricane, we had a house full. All of our kids were in the house, and their significant others were in the house, and my grandson was in the house, our grandchildren or grandson was in the house. And yeah, a house full. And we had gas, so we were able to cook and shower and stuff where there was some time without power, but it was a house full. So then because of something else that took place with our other sons fiance, she had to do a bunch of laundry and all this stuff.

I mean, so we literally went through all of the gain, all of the tablets. Once we were able to get our power back on, everything was gone. So I couldn't do some laundry. I wanted to do some chores. I couldn't. There were also the batteries that were charging for all the vacuum and the leaf blower. Our middle son, who's getting married, borrowed all of those, and I didn't know those were gone. So I had no stroller to take my grandson for a walk with.

So I just carried him and walked. That was okay. I didn't have a car seat to take him on little errands and have some fun with him. We played a little bit in the backyard, but eventually just gets word I wanted to have some activity. We'd been cooped up in the house, but then it hit me. I wanted to serve. I remember thinking, and this may be like, you know, no big deal, because there are bigger problems out there, but here's what I would have to remind myself of. I wanted to serve.

I wanted to help. I wanted to make it to where my wife could go, do what she was doing. I wanted to make it to where my son could do what he was doing. Helping out at this women's ministry event. I wanted to help my daughter in law, who was over at the ministry. I wanted to make sure that I could give the space for them to be able to do it. So I had to shift my thinking back to, you're doing this to serve. Get back to that place of authenticity.

Let go of the frustration that you don't have a car seat. Yes. He's got little teeny, itty bitty legs. He's 19 months, 18 months, and he can't walk that far. So when he gets tired, put him on your shoulders and carry him. But he also was running a little. He had a little cold. He didn't have a fever.

He's a little cold. So he wasn't his normal self where he wants to run everything. But I still. I still was reminding myself of the service that I wanted to do. And so that's just there. But that service applies to everything. When you commit to doing something, are you complaining because the way you want to serve, you will serve because it's convenient? You'll have the right attitude because it's convenient, that you'll do it because it's convenient and it fits what you have. So as long as everything is the way you want it to be, you can serve with joy.

Well, that's not the attitude of a servant's heart. That's not a key quality. That when things go your way, that things look the way you want them. When you have the car seat, you have the stroller. When you know where everything is, you can do the laundry if you want, you can. When you take. When your grandson takes a nap, you can have the batteries for your vacuums and that you do for some finer cleaning and leaf blowing and whatever else you want to do when all those things are for you. But no, but you have to sit still.

And you could do some things, but you can't do the things that were ideal, that move the needle. And do you sit there for that nap time, which my grandson napped for 3 hours. He was tired. And so for 3 hours, I had a choice to either stew over that stuff and be ready to tell everybody what they didn't leave me with, what they didn't leave poppy with to do his stuff. Or I. I could do something else. And that's what I did. And what I did was I worked on my servant mindset.

So I'm going to explore the concept of a servant's heart and how we can cultivate that in our daily lives. And so this is simple, and I want to challenge you to do it. Now, there's other opportunities to serve, but if it's the simple things that you develop this mindset in, it's in the little stuff, not the hard stuff. I mean, of course, there's tragedy and things that we need to serve, and there are people cutting trees and running around. I know my kids were running around with chainsaws and working with other people, crews cutting down trees, trying to help and work and, you know, helping neighbors. And these are the things that we can do. And when, when the challenge is called and we're called upon, hopefully we'll rise to that occasion. But it's in simple things also that we can serve.

Isn't the simple things of life little things? So I'm going to give you five key qualities. First, of a person with a servant's heart. So the first one is selflessness. That's where you put others needs before your own. So the first quality is put other needs in front of yourself. That is a servant's heart selflessness. So what your need is now, I'm not talking about food, shelter, clothing, need. I'm not talking about you need mental health.

I'm not talking about you need to rest because you're cranky and you would not have good mental health. Or you're hungry, you need to feed. No, listen, no, I'm not talking about that. I'm not talking about, well, you gotta pay your bills and someone has a need, you know, and you, you don't have extra to give. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about when it's available and it's in your hand and in your power to do that. You put others needs before your own. Second is empathy, being sensitive to others feelings and their needs, not just passing by and go, wish you luck.

I hope it works. Not changing the channel. When you hear another story about something else that's broken, maybe you're fed up with it. Maybe you're tired of hearing about all the destruction, but maybe. Maybe you'd be less tired if you were involved. What if you got more involved? What if you got more active? The third is humility. Not seeking recognition or praise for your service. I heard someone that.

It shocked me when I heard this and it was very disappointing that, I'm not going to say who it was, but it's a figure that has a lot of attention by people right now. And they literally made the comment that, you know, well, there's a whole lot of people out there who don't want to be humble. That's a scary thought, that there are people who would not like. And I'm going to do a whole thing on humility one day, but I'm going to tell you what I understand, and this is pretty much in any proverb, if you're a Christian or you're not, from, whether Buddhists or you're Muslim, I mean, there's so many. Listen. Humility. If you lack humility, you are a person that if you build yourself up in pride, be careful. There's a difference between having self esteem.

You can have self esteem and still be humble. You can be a mover and a shaker and do it with humility. A statement like that should never, ever be in the forefront or presented as an ideal option. So, humility. Not seeking recognition or praise for their service. The fourth is eagerness to help. Actively looking for ways to assist other people. That eagerness to help.

Look for ways to assist. Look for ways. I'm eager to help. I'm eager to serve. Now, remember, these are, these are qualities of a person with a servant's heart. And then the fifth is a vision for others growth. Not just that you can help them with their need, but you're committed to empowering them that serve. Now, empowering means I am going to put things in their hands, put things in their world, give them access to stuff that is life changing, things that can move the needle in their life that will help them self actualize.

Not just individuate, but self actualize and see that they make a difference and they add value to the world. So, however, it's important, though, to acknowledge that people who serve others, they can sometimes face negative, you know, negative impressions. And it's unfortunate you serve and you can get negative impressions. I mean, it's. Yeah. Again, it's, it's. It's unfortunate that you are serving, and it, and then because you serve and because you do what you do, it seems like you're weak or you lack ambition of your own. That's one thing.

You're weak. Here's an, that's a negative impression of people who serve others, that you're weak and you lack ambition. Another one is that your motives are questioned or they're viewed as suspicious because you want to serve. Why are you helping? Why are you doing that? It's like you can't have the heart to give. It's like you can't have the heart to, you know, to do things and do it quietly and privately and not have to tell the world about your serving. You don't have to post it online and say, look what I did. Yay me. Something.

It's like something is wrong with a person who doesn't say anything but wants to help versus the one who tells everybody about what they're doing and they help, but their help is at a minimum, and it's limited. And they're seasonal helpers. They help only when they can get get the recognition. Oh, wait a second, back to that humility thing. Here's another thing, it's a negative impression. They may be taken advantage of by those with selfish intentions. Oh, there's some greedy people out there. They go, oh, I know that person likes to serve, so let me round them up and get some things done for me because I don't have time for this.

I'll take advantage of the servant heart. I mean, I hope that's not anyone listening to this podcast. And if it is, there's hope for you because you can change. Or here's a negative impression, their service may be taken for granted or unappreciated. Unappreciated. So you run into people who will literally be like, I'll just take it. They take it for granted. They do not appreciate the fact that you go out of your way.

Now once again, if you have a humble heart and you're doing it because your motives are pure, that's not going to bother you. But it doesn't change the fact that it doesn't hurt. It's disappointing when people lack that type of empathy and care, when they don't recognize that you are robbing someone of their greatest gift who has a servant heart. Some people, that is their superpower is to serve. Now one of the things I like to do is I like to give. I like to, there are people all the time that if I have extra, I give, and sometimes when I don't have extra, I give. I will give things away. I will show people things, how to do stuff.

Listen, I'm always the one that is, I'm creating my own competition. I do it all the time. There are so many people that have come close that I've led into my world and I've shown them inside of everything that I've got who literally have pickpocketed those things and walked away. And they take that stuff and then they twist it and doctor it all up to make it their own. And you know what? Here's what I had to learn. It's okay that they do that because there's the laws of reciprocity. Those things will come around. I don't even need to approach them.

I don't need to say anything, let them go. But it's kind of like this. There's always the pseudo of something and work on being the original. And so that's what I do, is I work on creating more original things. And then you can also be viewed as naive and unrealistic because of how you serve. When you think of mother Teresa, she was considered naive and unrealistic because she served the poor and sick in India. India. Abraham Lincoln.

Abraham Lincoln focused on all Americans, preserving the nation during the civil war, and he showed that as a visionary leader. And then there was Gandhi, right? Think about Gandhi. He led India's independence movement throughout nonviolent civil disobedience, sacrificing himself for the cause of justice and freedom. See, we love to point to that and go, yeah, Gandhi. So many people want to be excited about Gandhi, about Lincoln, about mother Teresa, and talk about it. Yay. Right? We need to be more of that. Let me see that in your life.

Show me that in your world. I need to show it to you in my world. If we're going to say we love that and we like that, then you go, you do it. It's your turn. What's your name? Fill in the blank. Show us yours. So, moving past those negatives, despite those potential negative perceptions, the benefits of cultivating a servant's heart far outweighd weighs all those drawbacks. So I'm going to give you, uh.

I'm going to explore how we can develop this quality. I want to help you and I become better servers, better servants to others. So it's going to start with cultivating the right attitude. So it begins with the right mindset. You've got to get that in your mind. You've got to get the trash out of your head and start with something brand new. And so here's what you do here. I'm going to give you four things here.

Number one is you focus on the than others needs before your own. Okay? Remember we talked about a servant's heart in a minute, a minute ago, that you're selflessness, right? So we're gonna focus on the needs of others before your own. The second one is approach tasks with humility, not looking for recognition. So be humble with the things that you do. Don't do it. And hope people see it. Don't do it. And then post it on Instagram and then TikTok and everywhere else and go, yay, look at me.

Do it in private. There's greater reward when you do things without anybody knowing. You can give, and no one has to know about your gift. Just give. Just do it. The other. The third one is view service as an opportunity to love, not a chore. You know, when I was thinking about the stroller with my grandson and the no car seat, and I wanted to take him, I was going to buy him some new shoes.

I was going to just do different things and, you know, we'd been cooped up in the house like all these things, right? But it was instead I needed to focus on the love and not as a chore, you know? And that's what I have to remember and that has to be done outside my immediate family, where hopefully with your immediate family, that's easy. But even stepping outside when you work and you're working with others, and even with your clients, if you're a business owner or you work for a company, don't do it just because it's your job. Do it from a place of love that you care, not a chore and not just because you're paid. See, people lack being extraordinary in their daily work because it's only in exchange. It's a transition transaction. I work, you pay me instead. If you come in with love and that attitude of service, you elevate yourself to go above and beyond just the work and you make yourself extraordinary. You get paid beyond a chore.

In an activity, there's a greater reward. The fourth is be willing to sacrifice your comfort and agenda for other people. What is your comfort? What is your agenda? Would you give it up for others? Would you take a break? Would you put it on pause? Would you put it on hold? Those are some thoughts. So how can you implement this? How can you implement actions like this to foster a servant's heart in your daily life? Well, it's simple. I mean, this is simple stuff. Look for small ways to help others each day. Wake up and go, I'm going to purposely look, who can I help today? What can I do to help someone? What can I do to serve today? Also listen attentively to understand people's needs. Don't just hear that something is broken.

Get the details about it, find out more about it. Listen to other people. Stop listening to the noise in your own head and all around your own world, and take your time and listen to someone else. And then anticipate some needs and take initiative to meet them. So anticipate some things. Look at it. You can go, hey, I know, let's just say the garbage is coming and you know it's garbage, right? This is garbage day and you can help someone. Maybe they live down the road from you and you always see them struggling with the can.

Maybe that surgery. What if you went and knocked on their door and say, hey, excuse me, mister and miss, or whoever they are. Do you mind? Can I pull your can to the curb for you? Tomorrow's trash day. Like anticipate things. If a storm is coming and you know that people have a hard time getting around, why don't you go knock on their door? Can I make a grocery list for you? Can I run to the store? And of course, once again, there's that negative thought. People are going to think I'm weird. This is weird. Well, it wouldn't be weird if we practice more of these things on a regular basis.

No one, eventually, you're no longer a stranger once you knock on a door. Try to remember that you cease from being a stranger. When you now go knock on a door and introduce yourself. That's the beginning. That is day one of moving from stranger to an acquaintance. And from acquaintance, you can become friend. Here's another practical step. Be flexible and willing to adjust your plans to serve.

Hey, once again, back to my grandson. I had some plans when he took a nap. What I was going to do, didn't get to do any of those. Zero of those things, zero progress. And I have a very full week this week, so. And I. And I was like, I'm going to knock these things out so I can get into my week. It didn't work that way.

And guess what? It does really matter. It's okay. I'll just adjust and plan to do things differently. And the benefit to all those people that what I freed up for four other people to do because of what I did, that made a big difference. And then here's another thing, and this is just me, and I'm going to do an episode one day just on spirituality. But spiritual growth is crucial in developing a servant's heart. So one of the things I do is I pray to God to develop a servant's heart in myself. So I don't know what you need to do.

I don't know how you view it. And for me, you could talk to the universe if you want, because God made the universe, and the universe will communicate to you. Communicates when the star twinkles, when the birds chirp, when the. When you hear an animal, when you hear the leaves in the trees. I mean, when you hear the water rushing. That's all talking to me. That is God talking to us. So pray to ask for a servant.

Sorry. Study examples of servant leadership. You can look in scripture, you can look in other historical things. Just look at how people served in stories and different in books that talk about people who did extraordinary things and have done people that are alive, still doing them. They're out there. And then reflect on other people's examples of selfless service. For me, I look at Jesus selfless acts. I look at characters in the Bible and things that they did to learn from that and to grow in that area.

And that helps me. And then for me, that I ask, for me, I ask the Holy Spirit, I'll say, hey, help me to make. To be more sensitive to serving opportunities and for serving opportunities. Now, for you, that's. I don't know how you do it. You can ask, help me, whatever. Sit still and say, let me be aware. However you feel you need to communicate, you need to be open to being moved in another direction.

That's what I'm asking you to do. Open yourself up just to the idea that your spirit inside you can hear, to be motivated and moved. And then I want you to address some of the obstacles that hinder a servant's heart. So I want you to realize that, recognize and address tendencies toward resentment, you know, getting resentful people that resent it. And then let go of expectations that lead to frustration. Like when you're trying to serve, just let go of certain expectations from the service act that can make you frustrated. And then remember the greater purpose behind the act or your acts of service. And then focus on being faithful rather than being successful.

That's a big one. Be faithful with that act of service and those acts of service rather than trying to just be successful. I've been, for the last five years, going through a lot of change inside a lot of stuff, a lot of humbling, breaking of things. And inside, which is great, a lot of learning about how I've been making decisions in my life based on things that were unreconciled from being a kid. And it's an awesome journey. But with all that learning, I'm trying to be faithful. I'm not trying to be successful. I'm trying to be faithful in everything I do.

I'm trying to be faithful. And then from being faithful, we'll find out what success is. So, developing a servant's heart, it's a process that requires intentionality and persistence. And what I want you to do is I want you to start small. I want you to. I want you to look for one way to serve someone every day. And as you practice putting other people first, you'll find your heart and attitude will gradually transform. And remember, serving others can sometimes lead to feelings of resentment or frustration, but it's important to address those emotions and maintain a positive perspective on your service.

And you do that by focusing on the greater purpose and letting go of unrealistic expectations. And you can overcome these obstacles and continue to grow in your capacity to serve others selflessly. So I want to encourage you to take that first step. And if you've been doing it, take another and another, and another, and encourage others to come with you. But you can. If you haven't do it today, look for one opportunity to serve someone, no matter how small. And as you cultivate this servant's heart, you'll not only impact others positively, but you'll also experience personal growth and fulfillment that will blow your mind and man. You want to talk about a good feeling? When you lay your head on a pillow at night, you will sleep peacefully and you will wake up with a happy and joyful heart.

So until next time, we'll talk soon.