Welcome to the Excel Stillmore podcast. I am your host, Chris Emerson. I'm here to encourage you in your walk with God. Thank you for joining in.

Today's podcast is sponsored by Cunningham Financial Group. John Cunningham is a friend of mine and a brother in Christ, and he can help you with financial

decisions and future planning.

He's been a big help to me and my family, and I commend him to you.

You can reach him at 205-913-1720.

I am so thankful you're here, so let's get started.

Hey, welcome back. Let's jump right in today with a famous axiom, a saying known by pretty much everyone, it's not how you start, it's how you finish.

Countless people in pretty much every walk of life have used this phrase to represent either

optimism in turning things around or maybe a warning against taking your success for granted.

I've always been a massive Major League Baseball fan,

so I've heard players and coaches say this dozens of times.

And it is equally valuable no matter how the season started.

Maybe there's a player that's underperformed for the first month of the season,

or his team has started 10 and 20. And reporters will

ask dumb questions like, are you panicking? Is this season already over? And he'll say,

listen, I wish we had gotten off to a better start, but it's not how you start, it's how you

finish. We're going to make a few changes. Trust the process, get better every day, and see how it turns out in the end.

And in baseball, just like in life, a great many times, teams with excellent potential turn things around.

But the statement also applies when things start really well.

Maybe a team is 20 and 10, or a particular player is tearing the cover off the ball.

And so the reporters ask other dumb questions like, do you think this is going to be an MVP season?

Will the team set a franchise record for wins? To which you can also say, look, I'm thankful it's going well. We're having a

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