Thinking long term causes us to step back and take more of an overview of our lives, careers and families. For example a church leader might want the church to grow and be a blessing to the people who get involved. This is a good and godly thing to desire. However the church leader should not think in terms of trying to invite one new person to the church. He should be thinking bigger toward creating a spiritually enriching environment that will draw many new people to the church.

Think for example of the advertisements for soft drinks. They never come out and say, “Go to the store and buy a coke.” No, they portray all the fun things of life and portray the soft drink as a part of that. The key is they do not want you to buy one soft drink, they want you to buy their soft drink for a lifetime. This is thinking long term in their marketing.

Great restaurants don’t sell individual meals, they create an atmosphere. An effective insurance salesman doesn’t look to sell you a single insurance policy, but wants to develop a relationship with you because he wants your business for a lifetime. One way of thinking long term we will discuss in upcoming posts is developing a financial plan. However…I want to give some more practical examples first. Learn next week how “thinking long term” changed the way I buy tires for my car. Maybe you can imagine where I am going with this.